One Country Project's Hot Dish

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:04]:
Welcome to the Hot Dish Comfort food for middle America. I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:09]:
And I'm Joel Heitkamp. Today is November 6th, the day after the 2024 elections, but we recorded this last week. We'll have a post election bonus episode out soon.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:21]:
Want to thank all our listeners for your continued support. We really love hearing from you. So please keep those questions and suggestions coming.

Joel Heitkamp [00:00:30]:
Reach out to us via email at podcast@onecountryproject.org and be sure to check out onecountryproject.org for more updates on what we're doing to lift up rural voices in Washington.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:00:45]:
For this episode, Joel spoke with Dee Davis, founder of the center for Rural Strategies, where they had an enlightening conversation on how to amplify the voices of rural communities through media. But first, Joel, you also spoke with a couple of people.

Joel Heitkamp [00:01:00]:
That's right, Hyde. I spoke with two of the founders of the Pro Gun Democrats. I didn't know that it was going to be with Joe Mason, and I didn't know it was going to be with T.D. Hill. But I'm, I'm thankful, like you wouldn't believe that the organization that they've built is the type of organization that I think is so desperately needed out there.

Joel Heitkamp [00:01:20]:
Now.

Joel Heitkamp [00:01:20]:
These individuals are co founders of Pro Gun Democrats and I welcome you to the Hot Dish. T.D., good to have you with us.

T.D. Hill [00:01:28]:
Thank you. Good to be here.

Joel Heitkamp [00:01:29]:
You bet. And Joe, same to you. Good to be with you.

Joe Mason [00:01:31]:
Thank you.

Joe Mason [00:01:31]:
Thanks for the invitation.

Joel Heitkamp [00:01:33]:
All right, one of you two started Pro Gun Democrats. One of you two was sitting with the other one and said, you know what we should do? I don't know which one of you it is, but whoever it is, go ahead and kick in. Why'd you do it?

Joe Mason [00:01:44]:
Well, T.D. and I met at work, Alex Fortner, our other co founder, we met at a gun show. And we all have had an interest in politics for quite a while. And one of the things that we've been concerned about even pre Trump was that there's a lot of misinformation that too many Americans have come to believe and that's influencing their politics. We attend a lot of gun shows. We attend a lot of military collectors collector shows. And we run into this repeatedly. People talking about the fact that they think Trump won the 2020 election. They think that the Affordable Care act is socialized medicine.

Joe Mason [00:02:30]:
Most recently, of course, you've heard that people are thinking that Haitian immigrants are eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio. So we were very concerned about that. And in sort of the little niche environment that we operate in, we decided to start our website mostly for our own informational purposes, to store stories and data that we wanted to quickly reference. Over time, we decided we want to share this with some of the people that we're talking with. And so we formalized the site a little more and we're making it available to those people that we talk with. That's kind of a brief background in how we got started.

Joel Heitkamp [00:03:17]:
So T.D., is this something that you were looking at like I was and saying, man, I've got to get to work on this. This is something we in the rural area desperately need?

T.D. Hill [00:03:28]:
Yeah, I felt very, very strong about it because as you know, in rural America there's a strong Christian base and it seems that right has reached out through that channel for churches and pastors and so forth, conferences and impacted people seems to have the narrative that they have a monopoly, patriotism and the Constitution. That's just not true. I mean a lot of the things that affect people's day to day lives really are being better represented by the Democrats, but that doesn't seem to be the message. You know, I just felt like it was kind of urgent like Joe said, you know, kind of dispel some of the rumors and the myths and get back to reality.

Joel Heitkamp [00:04:11]:
So I'm going to, I'm going to go to you T.D. on this one first, which is I could easily ask, you know, why the public believes that Democrats don't use guns, that Democrats don't see gun ownership as a right that we have as well, and that the public has a narrative that Democrats all want to take your guns. Where did that start from?

T.D. Hill [00:04:35]:
That's a good question. I mean, you know, there's a lot of us, you know, I come from a very blue area, to be honest with you, and I come from a union family and most of my dad's family were hunters. And so I've had guns in my hand ever since I can remember. And the idea that only conservatives are gun owners passionate about the second Amendment, it just falls.

Joel Heitkamp [00:05:00]:
Well and Joe, I'm going to phrase it a little bit different, which is do we let the media get by with it? Is that why what you're doing with the pro gun Democrats so important? Because media just continues at that one in a box narrative and they never talk to individuals like us 3 definitely.

Joe Mason [00:05:20]:
On the right wing media side, that's all you hear, is that Democrats want to take your guns away. And in the, I guess as Tom Hartman might say, the corporate Media, they don't seem to offer the other side either.

Joel Heitkamp [00:05:36]:
Well, let me throw another one under that same kind of direction because I think it goes to something that we have that people in general don't have, and that's a knowledge of guns, a knowledge of weapons. You know, we hear them use certain terms, certain terms that instantly put everything into a box. For example, oftentimes they believe any gun with a synthetic stock is an ar. They believe and don't understand what certain guns do mechanically. And they believe it works completely different than what you and I know. And Joe, I want to throw this one at you. How can we have common sense gun laws until the people that write them on the left understand how a weapon works?

Joe Mason [00:06:29]:
One of the problems that, and just getting back to your previous question too, is that there are a lot of people on the left who do advocate taking at least some guns away from gun owners. If you remember back in 2020 when Beto O'Rourke was running for president, I believe he was, he was, he actually said, hell yeah, we're going to take your guns. That just plays right into the right wing narrative. And you know, that that's, that that gets back to, you know, why we started our site and why we've been now trying to promote it more is to, particularly in rural America where, you know, I think citizens are getting misled by the right wing media that has done an effective job in misleading them on this issue.

Joel Heitkamp [00:07:23]:
I couldn't agree more, T.D. when it comes to that, when it comes to being able to change the narrative in light of everything that's going on in the world out there, when you, when you've got a guy leaving his gun at a fence line at a golf course, when you have another one crawling up on a roof trying to shoot a former president of the United States, you've got all of these school shootings. I guess what I'm building to here is do you think people are ever going to change their minds on guns, period? I mean, do you think that your work can get out there strong enough to say, listen, we just want to tell you what guns are and what we do with guns?

T.D. Hill [00:08:10]:
Yeah, that's a tough one. Like you said, the 24 hour media of the corporate media, they tend to play these things on loop over and over again, show the tragedies and the horror and the bad things. They're not showing people going to the range and just enjoying barbecue and going hunting and father son's moments, family moments. I think that we can reach people and I think that we have reached people in the sense that first we have to start off by finding our commonalities and we can better communicate our differences.

Joel Heitkamp [00:08:43]:
Joe, I'm going to throw this one at you because as with anything, there is some middle ground in there that it seems to me that we as gun owners should be willing to talk about and yield to. And then there are things that kind of on the left that they should understand a little better. In other words, this having served in the state senate, doing a talk show, oftentimes I've pointed out that I, you know, if I looked at anything when it comes to control, when it comes to guns, I think there should be a three day waiting period. I don't think there should be binary triggers. I don't think there should be bump stocks. I think we should be able to limit the size of clips. You see where I'm going with this, Joe? I mean, you can, you can do all of those things without taking someone's guns and yet making them work in a way that they should work. Joel and you know, when we talk.

Joe Mason [00:09:35]:
To gun owners, we try to bring things up exactly what you're talking about. One of the things that we face though is organizations like the NRA and others are digging their heels in and they maybe for political reasons, they aren't looking to compromise. And I'm more optimistic that we can some middle ground with the left that I am, that we can reach some middle ground with the right. You know, one on one, you know, I think we have some success when we talk with people. Our feeling is that when I talk to somebody at a gun show site and we get into this subject, I say to them, what can we do to keep guns out of hands of people who should not have them? And a lot of times that sets these people aback. They have not really thought that through yet. And the more we talk about it, the more some of the things that you brought up start making more sense to them. But too often they're in this world where they just are talking to people just like them.

Joe Mason [00:10:38]:
They're talking to people on Facebook who they're not really discussing an issue. They're just giving brief little sound bite answers. You know, you can't really reach people when you're talking in sound bites. And that's why we like talking to people one on one, just in person. And as Tim Waltz said at the convention, you know, we're going to move the ball down the field one yard at a time, one inch at a time, one voter at a time. And hopefully we're making some impact there.

Joel Heitkamp [00:11:08]:
I've had the pleasure of having Tim Walz on my show a number of times, and the one thing that I know is the fact he knows what it's like to put on camo and go out and get after the pheasants a little bit, which I think all three of us, whether it's deer hunting or pheasant hunting or duck and goose, but it doesn't change the fact that the right is defining us, that we're not engaging in the conversation. That's why I'm so happy to hear your group, the pro gun Democrats. And let me throw it to you this way, T.D. so you're sitting in a room, as many of us have, with the number of people that do exactly what we do. Maybe we're shooting trap, maybe we're out hunting, whatever, and they start this. They start this. We as Democrats want to take away your guns. How hard is it when you're in that room? And obviously you guys want to engage in that conversation, so I know you do. How hard is it to get heads nodding up and down agreeing with what you're saying?

T.D. Hill [00:12:11]:
It really depends on the audience. You know what?

T.D. Hill [00:12:13]:
I think that going back to what.

T.D. Hill [00:12:14]:
Joe had said earlier, speaking in sound bites and you're talking to people on social media, people are accustomed to that type of dialogue and discourse. Now, people often just listen to respond.

T.D. Hill [00:12:24]:
Don'T listen to understand.

T.D. Hill [00:12:26]:
So first you have to kind of.

T.D. Hill [00:12:27]:
Make sure you have a rapport with.

T.D. Hill [00:12:29]:
People and that you're actually having a conversation, not talking at one another. Once that's established, honestly, because we do have that commonality of enjoying, you know, the outdoors, using guns in a responsible manner. Some people will take a hard line and just, you know, regurgitate talking points, but a lot of times it's like, yeah, you know, a lot of this stuff does make sense. It's a lot of fear, you know, of being guns being taken away. But if I'm talking to people one on one, that we can find some common ground. Now, does it always mean they're going to flip the script and vote a different way? That's a little bit. Sometimes a little bit harder. Send them.

T.D. Hill [00:13:04]:
Don.

Joel Heitkamp [00:13:05]:
I had a gentleman call into my radio show the other day and. And his message to my audience was. And it was interesting, the first way he said it, he said, they're coming. And then there was a long pregnant pause and then he goes, they're coming. And the point wasn't, they're coming for my guns as somebody who owned guns. The individual did. His point was that next generation, if not my children but my grandchildren, are going to say to heck with you. We're, we're not going to sit here under this whole old thought that second Amendment reads the way we want it to read.

Joel Heitkamp [00:13:44]:
We're going to, we're going to sit here and have some common sense gun laws or they are going to go to a further place than what any of us should because they're in the generation that's getting shot up in schools. And Joe, I'm curious what you think of that, what you thought of that.

Joe Mason [00:14:00]:
Caller, you know, when we talk with people and one of the things that I bring up with them is, okay, how do we stop all these senseless shootings? And I think we can agree, well, I hope we can agree, everybody, that there are people who should not own guns, that they are a danger to themselves, they're a danger to a spouse, they're a danger to others. And that's where, you know, we need to, we need to, we need to challenge the right and say, listen, if we don't come up with a solution to keep the guns, to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, then that is going to happen. Guns will get taken away because people are going to reach a point where they think that's the only solution. And so I challenge those on the right to join us and engage in trying to come up with some common sense solutions to the senseless shootings that we're seeing on just a far too often basis.

Joel Heitkamp [00:15:07]:
Well, and here's my frustration, guys. We had some of that. I mean, we had a ban on automatic weapons, right? So here we are down to semiautomatic weapons, and then they find ways to get around it. They put bump stocks on it so they shoot quicker. They put binary triggers on it.

Joe Mason [00:15:26]:
You know, the recent shooting we had in the Georgia schools, I believe I read that Governor Kemp immediately thereafter came out and said, now's not the time to talk about gun legislation. Well, there never does seem to be a time to talk about it with those folks on the far right. It can be very frustrating. All I can say is we just keep plugging along, you know, one yard at a time, one inch at a time. And let's challenge these myths that are out there. Let's bust these myths that are out there that too many people are believing these days.

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:03]:
Well, guys, I think a lot of us as Democrats that understand exactly what you're talking about are pretty glad there's a group like Pro Gun Democrats to take this on. Joe, what's your website? How do they get in touch with you guys?

Joe Mason [00:16:16]:
Www.theprogundemocrat.com

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:24]:
Guys, thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. I really appreciate it.

T.D. Hill [00:16:26]:
Thank you, Joel.

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:27]:
Great.

Joe Mason [00:16:28]:
Thanks for having us on, Joel.

Joel Heitkamp [00:16:35]:
You know, this is a real treat for me. I've been looking forward to this. I get to visit with Dee Davis now. Dee is the founder for the Center for Rural Strategies and a Carsey Senior Fellow. Now, here's the thing. We here at One country are trying to find any possible ways to communicate that real message to the world. Well, I'm about to talk to a master of that, and that is Dee Davis. Dee, good to have you on with us here at One Country.

Dee Davis [00:17:03]:
Thanks, Joel. I'm glad to be here.

Joel Heitkamp [00:17:04]:
I mean, you're built for The Hot Dish. I mean, you are, you're just built for this conversation, man. I mean, you've spent decades amplifying the voices of rural communities, media, public information campaigns. I mean, this has been a passion of yours, Dee.

Dee Davis [00:17:20]:
Well, I have to do something to keep out of the streets. I think that, you know, we've had some adventures. We've got to make some movies and tell some stories and that's all fun. And this work is fun, too. You know, I think that helping get rural stories out is worth the effort. And, you know, you make new friends all the time.

Joel Heitkamp [00:17:43]:
Well, the Hot Dish is meant to bring rural to urban and meant to tie rural together. But I'm going to ask you the obvious question. Do we in the rural area matter? Yeah.

Dee Davis [00:17:57]:
It's interesting because this has been the election cycle that we've been kind of hoping for him in the last Clinton Gore won rural America. And then there was a kind of a decision by the Democrats to just ignore it and hope it goes away. And so you go from 50% or more of the world votes being Democrat to just becoming a one party Republican stronghold where nobody has to promise anything or change anything because only one party shows up. So this has been interesting because with Walz on the ticket, the narrative started to shift. There's been a lot of discussion. Rural, I wouldn't say it's always informed. I mean, I don't know how many news stories I've heard about Harrison Walz and rural Savannah, Georgia. You know, it could be 400,000 people there, but it's like that's rural because it's not Atlanta.

Dee Davis [00:19:04]:
And I think that in some ways that it's an attempt to go back and reclaim the discourse. Right. To be part of the debate, which I think for rural communities is pretty important. Right. I think just felt left out, not maybe you could say ignored, but in some way. Is this like the point that you said, do we matter? It's like, are we noticed?

Joel Heitkamp [00:19:34]:
Yeah, well, and I'll give you an example of my life here as a talk show host in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, you know, Minnesota, big areas there, huge red area. But if instead of losing three out of four votes or three out of five votes, you know, you lose, you know, two or three, that that's a good day. I mean if you just gain one here or there. And so it always leaves questions. And the question I would have for you, Dee, is this redistricting and the Democrats are just as guilty of this as anyone of carving out these safe congressional districts. Has that hurt us in the rural area?

Dee Davis [00:20:16]:
When you have non competitive races, then the whole idea of a democratic way to address your issues, solve your problems goes away. You don't need to have a good honest argument. You don't have to put all the cards on the table because the political solution has already been determined before you go to the polls. So that doesn't help. And I mean I think in this, we've done some polling in the last year or so and I was interested in what it found because it had found that the Democrats supported narrative. About a third in the rural battleground states that we looked at in Montana I think was among those. But what it showed that I wasn't expecting was I think probably 30, 35% of the votes were gettable, they could go either way. And then more interestingly I think was what messages people were hurting.

Dee Davis [00:21:26]:
They, they definitely were not happy about the cost of gas or eggs. But what I was not expecting was there was a kind of just a rancorous anti corporate feeling that the people were mad at the businesses, the big businesses. They were ready for somebody to step up and speak up for them. The whole insulin price thing was an important issue. So it wasn't so easy to pigeonhole rural responses in kind of Republican MAGA talking points. They were, people were still interested. And if you could go one step farther, what I would say if I were to characterize the way that rural voters felt was back to your point about mattering, is that they want to be part of the solution. I mean they've spent a lot of time feeding and fueling and providing resources and providing labor for this country to prosper.

Dee Davis [00:22:33]:
And I don't want to be left out of the story. They don't want to be left out of the American narrative. They feel like they've got a way to contribute and it's not just taking care of themselves. They're like taking care of others. And I think in some ways, when political decisions are made for efficiency, well, these are where our voters are. There are more people here. We're just going to work on delivering these votes. That it's kind of like understanding the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Dee Davis [00:23:03]:
It's kind of understanding one side of the picture but not understanding the other. And I think that politics is cultural, it's emotional. It's not just cold, hard policy facts.

Joel Heitkamp [00:23:21]:
And the reason I took you down that trail to start this conversation was really because of what you do, which is, you know, to tell that real story, to get out there and use media, use public information. How do we get to where we're paid attention to?

Dee Davis [00:23:41]:
Yeah, I think first of all, it helps when the politicians show up. I mean, that's if they show up, then you can tell them a story. And it's not just about sending messages. It's about being in a conversation. It's about listening as much as it is talking. And I think in some ways that when people show up in your neighborhood, have an honest conversation about what the community needs, what the community hopes for, what the communities tore up about, then I think you have a kind of an honest place to begin, a constructive relationship.

Joel Heitkamp [00:24:24]:
Yeah. You say when they show up, though, and you take the state I live in that I choose to live in, right here in North Dakota, you know, we had the farmers union go to a fly in in D.C. and this is the third or fourth year in a row they've been there as many as, you know, 70 people at times. And they can't get one of our United States senators to meet with him because he just feels like he doesn't have to meet with them. And so it's awful tough to make him come to your small town cafe when he doesn't even come back to the state.

Dee Davis [00:24:59]:
Well, I think in some ways that's part of how you had to push back on the stories. That's how you have to tell the story so that you can't be ignored. In this electronic communications system that we're observing now, it's harder and harder to get people face to face. But get your neighbors face to face, you can get your pals, you can towns can talk to other towns. You can begin to change a conversation. It just takes Some effort, little plot.

Joel Heitkamp [00:25:36]:
So if you could explain to people how you build that story. If you have this story that's happening in this area, this rural area, and it's, you know, somebody with the talents that you have says, this story deserves to be told. It needs to be out there. How do you make that happen?

Dee Davis [00:25:58]:
D. Well, I think in a way, you got to. You gotta be an honest broker, right? You can't just tell the stories that benefit you. You gotta be in an honest conversation. And, you know, it's like real life's not always cake and sauce. People aren't always doing their best. But a lot of people have hopes. A lot of people have a desire to do good.

Dee Davis [00:26:24]:
And I think in some ways that you've got to tell a story that people understand. You know, we all feel the sun on our back. We get wet in the rain. We fear death. We worry about our kids. Are they going to be all right? We look after people in our community who are down on their luck. I think in some ways, you got to start the story in a place that's real for everybody. Not just.

Dee Davis [00:26:54]:
Not just for people in your community, not just for rural people, but for people everywhere. You got to build those bridges, and the stories will change people. They'll change their outlook. If you tell a good story, then people can respond. They can be part of it. So I think part of it is, it's just. It's just what you say down at the cafe. You just tell a story, and people who are practiced at call and response, people are practicing telling the tale, getting response in.

Dee Davis [00:27:28]:
I think, in a way, you just have to figure out how to get that story scaled up a little bit. And, you know, and now with. With all the technology, you can get that story out a little bit better here and there. You know, there's some ways to do it, and so it doesn't work every time, but. But, you know, you just keep pushing. You just kind of keep trying your best to make contact.

Joel Heitkamp [00:27:53]:
Dee Davis is our guest here on the Hot Dish, and we're talking about how to connect with more of urban area from a rural area. Dee, I'm sitting here looking at my granddaughter, and she's a better communicator, I think, than what I ever will be. And she is because of this, not because she brings more passion to the argument. In fact, I think she's just learning how to do that. But the tools that she uses, you know, the methods that she goes about, it's a changing world. She has the ability to convey a message electronically and have it go to places that one would have hoped to if he was going to accomplish the goals that we're talking about. I don't know if you're seeing that in your life as well.

Dee Davis [00:28:48]:
I was at a T ball game the other day with my 5 year old grandson and his twin sister came and got on my lap and said, pop, I want to go to the concession stand. I would have probably bought the concession stand for her, you know, at that point, it's like if her mother hadn't stopped me, you know, I think in some ways it's like we are touched by human responses to problems. We're touched by people who feel joy. We're touched by people who give a little extra effort to help out. And I think in some ways those are the tools that you use in communication. Those are the tools you use in your community. And even when things are looking bleak, those are the foundational ways we move forward is to understand what we have in common.

Joel Heitkamp [00:29:52]:
Do you tell people where to find your work? Because I'll tell you what I want to know as well.

Dee Davis [00:29:58]:
Well, the Center for Rural Strategies is based here in Weisburg, Kentucky, but we kind of work everywhere. The Daily Yonder is our publication. You can go to dailyyonder.com and that's, that's our newspaper. But it's also a way to link into our multimedia work. It's a way to link into the Rural assembly, which is a organization of rural organizations, as a way to define us so well.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:30]:
Thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking time with us here on the Hot Dish.

Dee Davis [00:30:35]:
I really enjoyed getting to visit you bet.

Joel Heitkamp [00:30:37]:
Such a pleasure.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:30:44]:
I think it's been a spirited episode and a special episode with these two unique guests sharing important perspectives and information. Joel, I'm telling you, that is a question I get all the time from people who live on the coast who don't have, you know, kind of our experience with the second Amendment and how people feel about their guns.

Joel Heitkamp [00:31:04]:
Well, and the thing I would add to that, Heidi, is, you know, a lot of people don't understand guns maybe the way you and I do. You know, we grew up with them.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:31:13]:
Well, I sure enjoyed hearing from them. Let us know what you think, ask us questions, give us your suggestions.

Joel Heitkamp [00:31:22]:
Thank you for joining us today on the Hot Dish, which is brought to you by One Country Project. Make sure the voice of the rest of us are heard in Washington. Learn more at onecountryproject.org we'll be back in two weeks with more Hot Dish comfort food for middle America. Stay tuned for a post election bonus episode.

Heidi Heitkamp [00:31:42]:
And remember, you could email us at podcast@onecountryproject.org.