Crime: "It’s relevant to our lives. I had my [shop] windows broken four times last year. So yeah, I’m pissed off. I’m going to talk about it, you know? It’s a grind, and it gets expensive and demoralizing. I think that for a lot of people that sort of live in these silos, they are not as cognizant of it. And I think maybe that’s why it was not more of a campaign issue for more people."
Congress needs more normal people: "Sometimes I look around the room, and I wonder: How many people here file their own taxes? How many people are on a waitlist for daycare or pump their own gas? Or know what it is to be an average American?"
Culture Wars: "If I'm talking about culture wars stuff, I'm not doing my job. ... If I’m talking about what Marjorie Taylor Greene [R-Ga.] wore, or the crazy thing that she just said, people in my district don't really care. That's not what keeps them up at night.
"I should be thinking about the things that are keeping them up at night, or the things that they're afraid to tell their friends about — their credit card debt, or that they're afraid that their kids are going to relapse. Those are the things that should be what we're talking about.
"But I think that, often, the media can get more entertainment focused. It's not fun to think about how we're going to balance the budget — it's complex. Thinking hurts; it's painful to sit down and hash out those issues and understand them.”
Environmentalism: "We’ve turned environmentalism into another brand of consumerism. Go buy a Tesla, you’re an environmentalist. I think being an environmentalist is being able to fix your own shit, like stopping an oil leak from going in the river, getting 500,000 miles out of your Honda Civic. The middle class has kind of been made to feel like [environmentalism is] a luxury good. That if you’re wealthy, you can have good air quality, and you can afford to breastfeed your baby instead of using formula."
American Workforce: "We have to start rebuilding the American workforce. We’re all part of the generation where the best trade schools got turned into computer programming schools. Now we’re all on waitlists to see an electrician, plumber or carpenter. Those are the jobs that can’t get offshored — that’s the long-term economic health of our country. So, support for career and technical education programs is key. Ensuring that you can use Pell Grants not just for two- and four-year colleges, but also for apprenticeship programs."
