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Doug Truax: Welcome to the First Right podcast, a weekly conservative news show brought to you by Restoration PAC. I'm Doug Truax, founder, and president of Restoration PAC. They were blessed to have with us, one of the founders of the Tea Party movement in America, Jenny Beth Martin, her organization, Tea Party Patriots is still going strong as our citizens. Again, grow more restless with the way government and our liberal institutions are robbing our freedoms and stifling our lives. Well, welcome to the show, Jenny Beth,


Jenny Beth Martin: Thank you so much for having me


Doug Truax: Great to have you. You've got this great storied career and I just want to go back, you know, put these two timeframes together. So it's 2009, your form and your organization, the tea party has taken off. Everything's going. And now we have today where there's a lot of angst out there amongst conservatives in particular. So what are the comparisons that you're seeing right now to 2009 to today?

Jenny Beth Martin: Well, I think that there is a lot of anger and frustration, so that emotion, that conservatives feel is very similar to what they felt in 2009 and 2010. I think that there is a little bit of a difference. Now, back in 2009, we were so frustrated and we didn't know what we could do. So we took to the streets and, and had signs and we're protesting. But I think that in the last 12 years or so, we've learned a lot more about how we can put pressure on government, how we have a lot of people who are running for office. Now we have parents and other citizens who are engaged at the school board level at their local county commissioner city council level. And then I've been working with thousands of people from around the country who are working on election integrity.

Doug Truax: Yeah. There's a lot going on and speak to that for a minute in terms of how you feel about the overall trajectory of the conservative movement, because, you know, you've made that comment about, well, back in the day, everybody got really upset and a lot of people didn't even know what to do, right. And so we're in a different place now. So talk to your perspective on, you know, overall organization and not just the energy, cause we all know that's there, but how, how, how we're kind of operationalizing this to,

Jenny Beth Martin: Well, I think the big thing now is that there's been a lot of training over the years on how to get out the vote, how to run for office, how to contact your local elected official and people are doing that kind of work. And the, and the new people who are coming in, of course, they're learning how to do those types of activities. And then I think one of the biggest things that's different this election cycle than what we've seen previously is an effort among the grassroots to do everything they can to ensure the integrity of elections. And it's, there's a lot of learning and educating that is going into that because it's something that conservatives up until now really have not been engaged in. And in fact, really the Republican party has not been engaged in it because of a consent decree, the entered back in 1981 and they didn't get out of that until the year 2018. And so there's a lot of institutional knowledge over the decades about election integrity that does not exist. And we're trying to build that infrastructure now.

Doug Truax: Yeah, you really are. And you're doing a great job. And I think that that's a great point as far as where we've been historically, I know living outside of Chicago and you know, you go through an election and you're like, well, it seems like maybe there was some fraud and some cheating there, but you know, we'll get them next time or something like that. There wasn't ever this concerted effort to look back at it and say, okay, well, was there anything wrong at all? Because the goal here is zero fraud. Not just the little, you know, not whatever it's zero. And so you're right. We just, over the years we have just not been that engaged. And so now we're at a place I know you've seen the numbers that, you know, the conservatives out there, they're still furious about the last election and they don't want to, but they don't want to bring it up necessarily in play company because you know, you might get, you might, so somebody might try to cancel you. So, so talk to that right now in terms of where we are in that space with, you know, you're having these events. And so many people are showing up. I know we are doing things and voter reference foundation and you know, we don't have enough seats for the people, want to hear everything here, all this stuff and how to get involved. So just talk to that, that contrast between the energy and people want to do stuff, but there's also that fear of what people might say about you or try to cancel you.

Jenny Beth Martin: Yeah, there is a lot of fear that you might be canceled or even worse. The department of Homeland security issued a bulletin saying that if American citizens talked about certain topics, including election integrity, they might wind up being labeled domestic terrorists. Of course I'm, I'm, I'm summarizing that bulletin, but that's kind of the impression that people people have. So there's a fear about can't the cancel culture and a fear truly just about the Biden administration and government overreach. What we really try to do is address known problems that have been very, very well-documented when we're doing training with people. And that way, if they want to go and talk about it in polite company, they're, they're sticking to very hard provable facts about what happened in the past. And then we're talking about ways that we can can correct correct problems or maybe correct is not even the right word, but prevent problems from even happening largely by being engaged and showing up at election board meetings and, and becoming pull workers in some states it's called election officials are judges of elections, inspectors of elections, the people who actually work the polls and the precincts.

So we try to focus not just on the past, but also what can be done in the future. And we, we try from our organization's perspective, a lot of our social media may not even be talking about the problems from the past, but just letting people know if they want to come learn how they can help ensure fair, free and secure election. So we have training for them available and we don't, don't wind up getting involved in a lot of those details online for exactly what you're talking about, that, that concern that we will be canceled. And we won't be able to reach the audience that we've built on our social media platforms.

Doug Truax: Yeah, that's a good idea is make it very factual going forward. It's like, Hey look, some people say this about the last election. Some people say that, but I just know going forward in my precinct individually, I'm going to be a poll watcher. I'm gonna make sure everything goes exactly as it's supposed to go and who can argue with that. Right. We all just want the thing to go well. And just the, and if everybody would be a hundred percent confident on the other side, because we're not in a very confident place nowadays. And I think what you're doing is going to get everybody to that more confident space.

Jenny Beth Martin: Yeah. I think that that's right. And in my state of Georgia, I'm doing training all over the country, but I think that Georgia is especially has, is uniquely messed up because in 2018, the Democrats did not believe the outcome of the governor's race and the elections from 2018 and 2020. We have that, that problem where Republicans don't believe the outcome of the election. And now we're about to have elections again this year. And I've talked to people all around the state of Georgia, regardless of political party. We just want to know that we can trust the outcome of the election. Once we vote. None of us, no matter what party you are, no one wants to lose an election. That is no fun at all, but we can deal with that loss. If we know that the law was adhered to, and that legal votes were counted. So all legal votes were counted, but only illegal votes were counted.

Doug Truax: Yeah, that's right. I think there's the operational side of this right around the election and how it's actually run and who's showing up. And then the other side of it too, and I know you're, you're, you've seen what we're working on to vote rev.com, where we're basically putting the voter file online and let everybody take a look and crowdsource who's on there and who shouldn't be on there. And things like that. Because the other side of this, I think is if people are intent on committing some kind of fraud, if there's a higher degree of possibility that they're going to get caught, whether it's, you know, a poll judge or whatever, whoever's looking at that, or later from what we're doing online, that somebody might see, Hey, wait a minute, you wrote in two different places or there's not, you know, there's not 30 people living at this place or all that stuff. Then they'll, there'll be a, there'll be a less likely to go commit the fraud. And that's what we're really after here.

Jenny Beth Martin: Yeah. I think that that is exactly right. And I think also it may not even be that people are thinking that they maybe they don't even intend to commit fraud. But I think that having this kind of information, like what vote ref has online, it winds up ensuring that people go and make sure that their, their voter registration records are up to date. And if they move from one state to another, I think we're going to see that people are much, much more likely to wind up following through and making sure their voter registration record was canceled in their previous state. And maybe they would not have done that in the past, but with so much transparency online, you don't want to be the person who, who did not take care of that. And then people think that, that you were doing something wrong. Even if it, if it wasn't deliberate, it just was an oversight in the middle of a move.

Doug Truax: Yeah. Right. And so back to the confidence theme. So we want everybody to be confident in the election and do all these things. And everybody, I think as citizens, we all need to be much more engaged in our election process just in general to make sure it's right. But then you have political confidence. And so to kind of segue here, you know, the polls are looking good in terms of, for our side and, and bad because of the direction of the country. Obviously everywhere you look, everything's falling apart. So, you know, in your, in your conversations with, with your folks and when you're making the rounds out there on the country, are you getting any kind of semblance of a fear of overconfidence on our side that we might not, might not pull this out? Like we, you know, we think we should at this point.

Jenny Beth Martin: Yeah. I have seen some of that. I hear people who, who remember how things looked in February of 2020, and president Trump was coming out of impeachment. He was not removed from office. The economy was booming. So from economic indicators in February, it looked really good. And then we had the pandemic and, and everything just turned completely upside down. And so I think that, and then we've got the situation right now with Russia and Ukraine, in addition to the econ, the economic issues and inflation that we have going on. But I think that those kinds of situations like Russia and Ukraine, they create a known set that you can't really account for. So I know that there are people around the country who are concerned that perhaps we might be a little overconfident and others who understand, even if it looks excellent right now. And even if it looks really good in September, we as conservatives still have a lot of work to do to make sure that we get the vote out and that we are swaying hearts and minds. So people understand that what we want for the country benefits all Americans.

Doug Truax: Yeah, absolutely. So talking about going forward, benefiting all Americans. So there's two types of people watching this broadcast, the folks that are already involved, you know, some of you may have met and they're out there doing the thing and there's other folks that aren't involved yet, but they know something's wrong and they need to work to, you know, fix the what's ailing our country here. So, you know, obviously this is an opportunity for you to give a blatant plug for your organization as well. But so what do you, what would you say to them, Hey, what's the first step? How do you go out there and get involved and, and, and what's that path going forward when you really want to do something for the country?

Jenny Beth Martin: Well, I think that if, when I talk to people, if they want to know how to get involved right away at tea party, Patriots action, we have different action items for people to take every single week. And so I encourage people to go to our website, click on the take action button and they can find this week's most current call to action. But then beyond that, we encourage people to sign up for our email list, get involved on our social media. And then look for when we're going to be doing training is especially in, in the key states that had so many issues in 2020 with elections, we're doing a lot of training in those states right now for election integrity. And then if we're not hitting any of, if we're not hitting your state, then we urge people to still sign up because we are going to be doing training that will apply everywhere. Even if it isn't tailored specifically to, to the states, we were targeting, which are Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Doug Truax: Well, for such a time as this Jenny Beth, I mean, you guys have done a lot of work over the years and here we are, we need that. We need those boots on the ground, making sure that everything is done appropriately and properly and so that we can give back to confidence in our system and get our country back through. So thanks for all you've done over the years. And thanks for coming on the show today.

Jenny Beth Martin: Thank you so much for having me, dad.

Doug Truax: All right. That's our show for today. Thank you so much for tuning in and for supporting conservative media. Don't ever forget that by working together and staying diligent, we can serve as can bring our country back to true greatness until next week. Let's all keep praying that God will continue to bless America

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