Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builders Show where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And today you get to pick the topics of the day because it's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So be sure and send your questions in to radio@ wallbuilders.com. That's radio@ wallbuilders.com. We'll get to as many of the listener questions as we possibly can. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David and Tim Barton. Tim Barton's a national speaker and pastor and president of Wall Builders. David, of course, America's premier historian All three of us. You can learn more at wallbuilders.com and also get some great materials there as well. And if you missed some shows over the last few weeks, go to wallbuilders..show and you can catch up very quickly there. That's wallbuilders.show. And, by the way, while you're at wallbuilderscom, great time We've been talking about restoring the Declaration, restoring the foundations of the country.
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All right, david or Tim, y'all ready? We've got quite a few questions that people have sent in. Obviously, I'm not going to get to all of them, but we'll hit some of them. Let's go for it. All right. First one's coming from James. He said I'm trying to understand our election process. I live in Walla Walla Washington. I've actually been there, guys, walla Walla Washington, where we have a top two primary election. Yeah, I can already tell you, guys, where this is going. This is one of those crazy ones. I don't understand why states do this. I don't like these systems.
Anyway he said, this year we had our presidential primary on March 12, 2024. And to my understanding, we, the people, choose who we want to be president and the top two will head into the general election. But then we have the national conventions where delegates endorse the candidate of their party. So, in part, who decides who is going to be on the ticket? The people democratically, by individual election or by delegates selected by the people. Same question, different scenario.
We have our Washington State Convention, april 18th through the 20th, where delegates endorse the candidates they want. But then we have our Washington State Convention April 18th through the 20th, where delegates endorse the candidates they want. But then we have the Washington State Primary, august 6th, where we, the people, decide who heads to the general election. So what's the point of having a convention if people decide by election and vice versa? One of the frustrations with this process is that at the state convention, one candidate will be endorsed for an office, but then six candidates of the same party will still run for that same office in a top two primary, reducing chances of making it to the general election. All right, guys, I pretty much do this full time and I'm confused. I mean this has to confuse average voter, right? That's just you know, last minute going. Oh I got to go vote. Let's figure out how this thing works.
David Barton
It is messy, let's be honest, it is, but it's designed that way by the Constitution, and that is. The Constitution puts elections in the hands of the states. Even federal elections are in the hands of the states and what you have is not one size fits all. So among the states there's a whole bunch of different ways of doing this. For example, michigan, when they have primary, it's whoever gets the top number of votes, the top percentage person wins. But if you're in Oklahoma or primary, it's whoever gets the top number of votes, the top percentage person wins. But if you're in Oklahoma or Texas, it's got to be a majority. So if you've got six candidates in the state, as James mentioned, and if you're in Michigan, whoever gets the most votes is going to win, even if that just means 21% of the people support them. Could be 79% don't support, but that 21% is going to win. But if you're in Texas or Oklahoma and you get that 21 percent and you're the top vote getter, it's you and the second person going to a runoff until somebody gets over 50 percent and at that point we know that we have a majority of the people behind that person the voters and they go on into the final election. So it varies from state to state.
In some states you're going to have the party pick the nominees for their party in the state. That won't stop other people from getting on the ballot, but they didn't go through the party process. So, like in your state, it sounds to me like what happens is when your party chooses that candidate, that's like the party endorses this particular Republican. If five other Republicans get in that didn't come through the party system, it's going to be the activists that look at what the party said and said, oh, the party endorsed this. When I'm going there, or they may say, I don't care what the party says, I like this other guy better. So the party endorsed system and, for example, in Utah they have a mixed system where the party endorses, but you also have a convention and the convention can have its own delegates and so there are so many ways of getting there state by state.
You really can't make a comparison of how the states do it. I do like I'm a huge fan of having a majority vote, not having the top vote getter, but the majority having over that, because of what both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson said. They said the fundamental principle of the Constitution requires that the will of the majority shall prevail, and I don't like it when somebody gets in office, as we saw with the congressional race maybe 15, 20 years ago in Michigan, where six people ran for Congress and there were five pro-life people, one pro-abortion person, and the pro-abortion person won with 20-something percent of the vote. They became the congressman. And you go, wait a minute, nearly 80% oppose that. They're pro-life. Well, that's the problem with not having a majority vote. So it all depends on the states and how they set it up, but I do prefer those that go for majority and have to have a clear majority, not the top vote getter, but someone gets over 50%. But it does vary from state to state.
It's very confusing at the national level. What you're doing to your state is saying our state prefers this presidential candidate and that's why you have your voting there in the state. So when it gets to the national convention, the national convention is going to look at what all 50 states did and choose the national, the person nationally, who won the most of the state. So this is the electoral college system, where that it is like a representative form of government. So when you vote for either Biden or Trump, as it was in the case of Washington, you choose that.
That goes to the national convention. At the national convention they're going to tally all the votes of all 50 states and see who the winner is from all 50 states. So it could be that, you know, maybe Washington state picked somebody other than Biden, but at the convention they're going to choose Biden, even though he's now said he's not going to run for reelection, and the first ballot they have to choose Biden because that's where all the votes went. So when you get to the state versus federal process, it becomes like the electoral college, which is very different in the state process for state candidates versus state process for federal candidates. It's really confusing, but you have to know it state by state.
Tim Barton
Well, that's clear as mud. So I think we're all tracking Exactly Just to add one more layer in this mud. What happens if all the states choose Joe Biden and then he's not?
in the race anymore.
But there's no primaries to choose anybody else.
Rick Green
I can't imagine that happening. Are you saying that scenario could actually?
Tim Barton
I mean no, and there's no way that a president would ever make their resignation announcement on a social media platform. I mean they would go before a microphone right or have a pre-recorded video. They'd make a public announcement.
Rick Green
And not even on presidential letterhead right, Just a piece of paper. It's a napkin. It's a napkin resignation.
Tim Barton
Don't think that we're living in these unprecedented times. This is normal. This is the way every president before has never done it, so it's no problem.
Rick Green
Wait, wait, wait, say that again. This is the way every president before has never done it.
Tim Barton
Yeah, so it's done it. Yeah, so you know it's super easy yeah.
David Barton
So, what's going to happen at the Democrat convention, august 19th through 21st, is all of these delegates there's. There's roughly about 4,700 delegates voting delegates at the national Democrat convention. Of that, about 3,900 are committed by the votes of the states they've already had in their primary where they selected Joe Biden as their nominee. Now Biden has pulled himself out, but those delegates are committed to Biden. So the first round of voting at the Democrat National Convention all of those states will vote for Biden and then Biden is not there and then they'll have to go to a second round.
Tim Barton
Well, but they're also talking about to add, potentially first week of August. They're still talking about doing that roll call vote where they're getting on, you know whatever platform it is zoom, google, meet, you know some kind of robo system where they might do it there and therefore, when they get to the convention, they're like hey, we've already solved this problem, we already have a nominee, it's fine. So, even right now, the Democrats are actively engaging in trying to figure out the best way going forward. So even what we're saying are the rules Well, this is the rules as of right now. But they could be rewriting those rules right now and this is where there's ironies that the party that's been saying, hey, America's a democracy, and been using this word democracy over and over and over again, is usurping any idea of allowing the people to be part of the process as far as, like the American people, those that are Democrat registered voters, they don't get to have any say in this. You have the elites that the oligarchs, if you will who are going to choose for everybody else and tell them what to do, as they're rewriting the rules right now to accommodate what their will and desires are.
So it is a really unusual scenario, and the further you get away from having an absolute moral standard of truth, the more this kind of stuff is going to happen, where it's going to be very Machiavellian. It's the end justifies the means and whatever helps our agenda advance. We are going to use the people that help us accomplish our agenda and once we're done with them, we're going to discard them, as we have largely seen with even the Biden presidency. For years they were using him and now that he no longer serves the same value for them, they're discarding him. And again, the fact that they don't even let him make this public appearance and it's a lot of people have thought maybe they're like this, it's because of health or these other issues there's a lot of now conspiracies around it because after making the announcement, joe Biden hadn't been seen for multiple days after making the resignation announcement. All that again to say is that a lot of this is very convoluted because it seems as if somebody is making this up as they go, because they kind of are.
David Barton
And this goes back to the point that federal law defers to the rules of the party on what they do for recognizing candidates. And so if the Democrats change their rules this week to allow them to do something different from what their rules have required and what all the primaries were done under those rules, that they come up with new rules, the federal government is going to say, ok, this is the nominee of the Democrats, this is how they chose our nominee, and they're going to respect the rules of the party. And so those parties are allowed to choose their candidates. And that's why, if you don't like the parties, you can do what Robert Kennedy is doing and you can jump in and say I'm running independently, and you can do that and there are laws that allow you to do that.
But if you go through the partisan process where there are two primary parties, there used to be more candidates. There were six or seven, just even a couple of years ago. There was a reform party and the Green Party and there was a constitutional party and all these other parties. The federal government would respect those candidates the way the party chose them. So the party gets to have its own rules on how to do that, and if that means the Democrats change them five times between now and next week, the federal government's going to respect what they come out with, because the federal government's not going to be the one that tells the Democrats or the Republicans how to choose their candidate. That's left to the parties. And so that is the part of the process where, at the federal level, they still defer to the states or to the parties for how they choose their candidates.
And so you're right, tim, they will most likely choose, change the rules between now and the convention. It would have been at the convention. It would have been at the convention, they would have gone to the second ballot and then six, eight, 10, however many nominees would fight it out to see which one gets the majority of those delegates. But they think they need to be ahead of that. They think they need the issue settled. They think they need the next four weeks to be able to campaign for a single candidate rather than having the nation remain in suspense and not know who the candidate is, because that gives you a super short presidential campaign season roughly three months for the Democrats to get in. Although that shouldn't be an issue, everybody with social media knows what's going on. They'll raise tons of money, et cetera. So it's a tough question. Rick, you said you know this is a real economy, and Tim, you said it's clear as mud and, as you pointed out, it's going to get muddier as we go through this.
Rick Green
I just wonder, before we move on, is there a state that you guys feel like does it best? Because it is different across the country and I've actually been shocked. I didn't realize how different some of these states do it. I was just familiar with how we do it here in Texas, but as I'm learning some of these other systems out there and it does seem like the muddier it is, that's worse, not better, because people just don't understand it. So would you guys recommend a particular state? Or when you're working with?
David Barton
party leaders in other states. Do you recommend a particular system? Well, I know that they're familiar with what they do and so we try to work within their system, but I do like the stand. That I think is Texas and I think Missouri and Oklahoma. A number of states do primaries and have a runoff for the majority, and I think that's a simple way to do it. It doesn't put the party in the middle of choosing their candidate and the people choosing their candidate on the same party. It lets the people make those choices all along. I like the idea of having more people choose rather than having, you know, 100 people for Republicans choose. Here's our Republican candidates Now we'll let the people choose their Republican candidates, I just like. I like it simpler and I think Texas and other majority states do that.
Tim Barton
Well, and also having closed primaries. So that I mean because you see in some states where that Democrats will come and they will vote in a Republican primary to remove the more conservative candidate from going into the general election, because they will write vote against them. And there's actually been a couple of conservatives over the last couple of cycles that have been beaten in open primaries, where Democrats can vote in Republican primaries. And so it also makes sense that if you're going to say, hey, each team pick who you want to represent, you going into this final competition, so to me it does make sense to allow the parties, or for the primaries for them to be closed so that each party can choose the best candidate for their team to face off against the other candidate in the general election. So that would be at least one thing I would say. I would encourage other states to accept, so we don't see some of the chicanery of different candidates being beaten because democrats are voting in Republican primaries, because the primaries are open.
David Barton
So that's a great point and I think anything you can do to make primaries easier, all the steps you can take out of it, you know the take, all, all the some of the states that have the conventions and the caucuses and the generals and all that make it easier for the people, because right now we're not even teaching civics in America anymore, we're not teaching government. We don't want to confuse voters and keep them from coming out. We want to make it as simple as possible, as clear as possible, while still preserving the integrity of the candidates and the parties. And if you want to be an independent in another party, that's great. Everybody plays the same rules. That's a great point, tim, having a closed primary for parties to go with that simple majority system.
Rick Green
And Tim, that's not just hypothetical right. I mean we've seen that happen where we've seen, you know, good candidates get beat in a primary because the Democrats come over. They don't want that good candidate, that Republican good candidate, to get elected, so they come over and help the moderate or even liberal Republican win and basically manipulate and control the other team's selection for who's going to be on the field when that general comes up. All right, guys, we're going to take a quick break. We'll come back We've got more questions from the audience when we return. You're listening to the WallBuilder Show.
Break
Rick Green
Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It is Foundations of Freedom Thursday, which means we're tackling your questions. If you'd like to send more of those in, you can to radio at wallbuilders.com. Radio at wallbuilders.com. Next question is from Gordon. He said what was the historic purpose of congressional committee hearings? Those I've watched seem to be a place where you orchestrate your soundbite rather than gain knowledge to make better legislation. Are there any committees who actually conduct the business of government? Also, why don't they provide their questions ahead of time so we don't have to hear? I don't recall over and over.
David Barton
So, rick, that question. It really is something that has changed across recent generations. It used to be that the reason you had a congressional hearing was kind of twofold, and let me go to two Bible verses on this. One says that one side sounds good until you hear the other side. So what you always want to do is hear both sides. You want to hear the prosecution defense. If it were a trial, and then the jury hears the evidence.
So congressmen would get in a committee and have all the people testify on the different perspectives that were out there. Here's why this bill is good, here's why this bill is bad. And they would say you know, we hadn't thought about that. That's really great, let's add this part in to take care of that negative. And so you were looking for information to make it the most comprehensive possible in the sense of anticipating things that have unintended consequences. So the more testimony you had, the more likely you were to eliminate unintended consequences or having that law conflict with another law, which is what hearings would often do is say, hey, you guys have already covered this in this section over here in the code and you need to. Oh, I didn't realize that, and so that kind of input was good.
The second thing the Bible says is if you want to, if you want to make war, if you want to go to war, you get counselors. But if you want to win the war, you get a bunch of counselors. And so what you would also do in these hearings is you would have a bunch of testimony coming in, and the more testimony you came in from experts that really knew what they're talking about not just people popping off their coffee shop ideas, but people who actually were skilled in this and spent time in it the more testimony you get, the less likely you are to have unintended consequences, and so that's the other thing is you want a bunch of testimony. That's the way it used to be. What's happened now is it becomes a quick reaction to why did you make that stupid decision? Let's have a hearing right now, explain yourself.
So in many ways today and I think some of this is good it becomes an accountability thing. For example, after the attempted assassination of Trump, you call in the head of the Secret Service and say what was going on? What were you guys thinking? Why did you not provide more? You get instant answers, and so it's an accountability thing, but in other ways. It's also witch trials, as you look at the January 6th proceedings, where you only let one part of the evidence come out. You even cut the video evidence to show what you want. So sometimes in the modern era they're becoming more like show trials, witch trials. Sometimes they're for holding accountability. But it used to be. The purpose was to gather as much information as you can, to help you have as much informed decisions you can, to help make that law as effective as possible, avoiding unintended consequences.
Tim Barton
Well, it's because and I mean guys, you know this but these are political tools and you can use the tool in a beneficial way or you can use it in a detrimental, damaging way, and we have seen both of those, where we have seen information be given to the public, where things were exposed, where incompetence was revealed. But we've also seen many times where somebody was subpoenaed and brought before committee only to try to shame or embarrass or to politically advance another side in the scenario. So I would say, just even keeping in mind that this is just a political tool and it's not good or bad in and of itself, it's more about the way it's used. That provides benefits or its misuse can ultimately be more damaging.
Rick Green
And Tim, it goes back to what you were saying earlier in the program about the further we move away from any kind of moral compass, people are willing to, as you were saying, David, manipulate the process or only show part of the story or, you know, try to create a, build a false narrative out there that benefits them politically or holds onto power because it's law of the tiger and the shark, instead of doing what's best for the country and for whatever that actual issue was that they were talking about. All right, guys. Final question for the day is John sending in a question? I think he says it, Greg, John, Greg, he said hi, David, Tim and Rick. Thank you for taking my question.
My question is regarding national unity. It seems to me that our country has historically enjoyed a great sense of unity and has had resurgence of unity at different times or under certain presidents who revived our sense of patriotism. I'm thinking Eisenhower and Reagan. Or am I viewing history from rose-colored glasses? How important is national unity to the survival of a nation and what will it take to achieve that?
Tim Barton
Well, I would say, studying history, I see probably more times that our nation is divided than it is united. And some of the most uniting times for a nation would have been certainly under World War I and World War II. There were people that opposed the war. For a nation would have been certainly under World War I and World War II there were people that opposed the war. But I mean especially after when World War II starts, that's probably one of the more uniting times in America. But if you go back to political parties and different presidential candidates, whether it be a John Adams or Thomas Jefferson, I mean certainly under George Washington, the nation is incredibly united in many respects. Washington still had some issues. You had, you know, shays' Rebellion. There were some definitely things going on. But the longer we were a nation, the more you see the divide. And even if you look back we talk about this often in the first and second great awakening.
The first and second great awakening were not unifying times in America. So even the times that you would look back and think just naturally and intuitively that well, in a revival people are coming together and God's moving and there's these kind of kumbaya moments, but the reality was the first and second great awakening were some of the most divided times in American history. And the second great awakening, virtually every single major denomination in America split over the issue of slavery. And this is in the middle of the second great awakening. It's not necessarily uniting time in America, and I'm saying that to even add context as we look at the nation today and see the division.
It can be very sad, certainly, but it's not unprecedented for there to be major problems. In fact we would also contend that we think we're in another Great Awakening. Right now we are seeing so many parallels and signs from the first and second great awakening being repeated, replicated in the last couple of decades and even right now around us. That gives us reason to think that we're probably in the midst of another great awakening, and especially when you consider that the great awakenings were not unifying times but they were morally clarifying times where truth and morality were debated. Ultimately, truth and morality won in the end. But certainly in this notion of being united, this seems pretty par for the course on some levels to me.
David Barton
One of the things I think is key is you'll find presidents that were able to articulate key principles that the nation said, oh yeah, that's right. And so there are times of unity, as you point out, Tim. I think most of it is times of division and contention, but presidents I would point to that, I think had a fairly unified populace behind them, even though I don't like some of them.
Tim Barton
Hang on a second. I feel like this should be a trivia question. Okay, I'm ready. So which presidents were they? I'm ready. Okay, how many presidents do you have on your list?
David Barton
I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven presidents. Okay, george Washington Washington is the unifying president. Okay, rick, it's your turn.
Rick Green
Oh.
I got mine right. I got a weird one I'm going to.
it ended up being unifying.
He actually kept us together when it was all said and done,
David Barton
I would say he was not unifying and it was not unifying after him. All the way through Reconstruction was a period of violence. So from 1861 through 1876 was great violence in the nation.
Tim Barton
See, rick, I was thinking you were going to go with your son's name, With Reagan, because Ronald Reagan, right, Certainly his second term landslide, like the caller said.
you know, definitely thought of Reagan. What about even some of the early guys that we don't typically think of? Eisenhower Like?
David Barton
what you say, eisenhower. I think Eisenhower had a very, really kind of smooth presidency because he called for the best of people. You got two guys. No, we have three. We got three. Wait a minute.
Eisenhower, washington, reagan okay, that's three, right, I mean Donald Trump, right. There's no divisiveness over it. I'm kidding.
Right Exactly Abraham Lincoln Donald.
Tim Barton
Trump yes. As already identified, under FDR, america was unified. Fdr was a very popular president and we were fairly unified because we did the League of Nations.
I don't like him, I don't like FDR, but they were both unifying presidents.
David Barton
Okay, now I'd have to be digging and scrapping, so I'm going to let you give us the next two.
I don't know for sure, truman. Truman was unified and I did yeah.
Tim Barton
I definitely thought Truman, because you have FDR Truman Eisenhower kind of in that same era, sure, and then Monroe, because you have FDR Truman Eisenhower kind of in that same era.
David Barton
Sure and then Monroe, because all political parties.
Tim Barton
Era of good feelings. That's right, absolutely. Era of good feelings.
David Barton
And it all depended on the president and what they could articulate and if the nation bought into that vision. With Lincoln, I mean, the slavery was so divisive that that was the prime issue of his presidency and therefore you have a divided nation. But I think it's possible. Tim, as you pointed out, there's a lot more division than there is unity over the history of the nation.
Rick Green
Yeah, I wish we had more time for this one. Guys, we might have to pick this one up on another program. Be sure and join us tomorrow for Good News Friday. Folks, you've been listening to the WallBuilders Show, thank you.
