One of Ten

Ohio Representative Anthony Gonzalez was one of only 10 GOP House members who voted for ...

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Ohio Representative Anthony Gonzalez was one of only 10 GOP House members who voted for President Trump’s second impeachment, and he’s faced quite a bit of backlash from his constituents for doing so. “In the long arc of history, I believe it was the right vote, and I believe it sends the right message,” Congressman Gonzalez tells Sarah and Steve on today’s show. But Gonzalez still fears for the future of his party, especially considering most Republican voters still believe the election was stolen: “I don’t know how to govern in a world where we believe things that aren’t real.” Tune in to hear Gonzalez talk about social media censorship, our country’s crisis of leadership, and his former NFL career playing for the Indianapolis Colts.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    This was really a great podcast, and I wish we would get more people like Anthony Gonzalez elected to Congress. I’m in Wisconsin, and Ron Johnson has been a big disappointment. We need a Gonzalez or Crenshaw here, or anyone else who is willing to stand up for true conservatism. Thank you for something encouraging because there’s very little of it right now.

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  2. Joe Curtis

    Sarah, I think you're on to something - call them on the carpet, one at a time, and read them the riot act. Seriously, what you said is exactly what's on everyone's mind.

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  3. Joe Curtis

    Sarah, I think you're on to something - call them on the carpet, one at a time, and read them the riot act. Seriously, what you said is exactly what's on everyone's mind.

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  4. J&M Satre

    After this, I would be really interested in hearing non-congressional leaders like Tony Dungy talk about what they would do with a team of people who can't really be fired by them but won't work together... Basically if you had to coach Congress into being functional again, what would you do?

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    Angie

    Ok, I had to give up....first it stopped about the ten minute mark and never came back so, I re set it...then it did it again on about the 20 minute mark...so, I gave up

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    Justin Perry-Naw Dawg Doctrine

    I really like the Anthony Gonzalez interview. But I strongly disagree with his views that we need to regulate online platforms, AT ALL. Very not conservative view point.

    Having said that, I think we need more principled Cuban and Venezuelan Americans in politics. Not just because he voted to impeach, but because he's consistent and honest.

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    Aylene Wright

    Just occured to me that Steve's ambivalence about Trump being kicked off social media, is quite opposite to David's near-celebratory "score one for the good guys" take. Really would like to hear them hash this out on a future TD Podcast.

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  8. Stephen Nielson

    Work this weekend has been crazy, but I have loved these podcasts. I would love to dive into this one more. I found this interview from Gonzalez way more clear headed and interesting and even more courageous than the interview with Portman (granted they each have their own strengths).

    The conversations on the tech industry I think were interesting. I work in the software industry and I know of several instances where silicon valley companies have actively colluded with each other. The one that comes most to my mind was the no-poaching lists they kept in order to depress silicon valley working wages. So while I would like to think they aren't actively colluding in terms of censorship, there is evidence they've taken collective action before and should at least be looked at.

    I do think there needs to be some kind of regulation due to the inherit monopoly these companies have. Google controls I believe more than 70% of the search engine advertising market in the US. That's a big deal. Not even during the heyday's of yahoo and Altavista did a company control the market like that. The very difficult challenge is that the nature of machine learning algorithms is that over time as they learn about you, you will only see things that you naturally want and confirm your information biases. This is the way that the software is built in order to get you to take the expected advertising action (such as purchase or sign up). This very thing actually makes it difficult for people to ever see any news or media that runs counter to their beliefs. Our facebook algorithms are all designed to watch what posts we hover over, where we've scrolled our screen, what things we move our mouse on or inadvertently click on, and then deliver MORE of that. Unless you are an individual who is actively seeking out viewpoints from both sides like a lot of members here at the dispatch, you just over time won't even see things outside of your conservative or liberal bubble.

    I don't know what the answer is. If we cripple the algorithms to stop this ongoing segmentation and present alternative viewpoints, it will in my opinion also impact a whole lot of internet e-commerce and advertisement. At this point I wonder if in the interest of democracy that's what we have to do. Like congressman Gonzalez said, he'd normally not like the federal government regulating election standards on a national level as that violates state rights. Much like voting rights we may have to sacrifice a bit of capitalism in order to get some saneness in just hearing and being exposed to facts that challenge our viewpoints.

    If I wasn't working I'd comment on so much more. I really enjoyed this podcast, again thank you to the Dispatch team.

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    Adicesa14

    Congressman Anthony Gonzalez’s logic for his ‘yea’ impeachment vote is compelling. He should be commended for his courage, and that he shared his reasoning, unusual in Washington. Congressman Gonzalez should be a standard for public servants.

    The normalization of flawed Presidential attributes, over many years, climaxed with Trump, who seems to possess most of them on steroids.

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  10. Jemcmichael

    Out of the two GOP Representatives you have interviewed the past couple weeks, I definitely think Meijer is the sharper member and hopefully has a bright future leading the party. That said, we need more Representatives like Gonzalez who are willing to make the politically disadvantageous stand when it is the right thing to do.

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