Local Involvement = National Impact - with Dan Schultz, Esq. - [Ep. 114]

Linda J. Hansen: Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Prosperity 101® Breakroom Economics podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host, and the author of Prosperity 101® Job Security Through Business Prosperity-The Essential Guide To Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck and the creator of the Breakroom Economics online course. The book, the course and the entire podcast library can be found on prosperity101.com. I seek to connect boardroom to breakroom and policy to paycheck by empowering and encouraging and employers to educate employees about the public policy issues that affect their jobs. My goal is to help people understand the foundations of prosperity, the policies of prosperity, and how to protect their prosperity by becoming informed, involved, and impactful. I believe this will lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement and retention and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. Listen each week to hear from exciting guests and be sure to visit prosperity101.com.

Thank you for tuning in today. You've heard it said that all politics is local. While mainstream media tends to focus on national or state politics, the real drivers of policy are everyday citizens who become leaders at local levels. We, the people are still in charge of our government, and I believe many people have forgotten how important their own engagement is to the political process. As citizens, it is our responsibility to protect our freedom and we can and should do so with more than just our vote. Many people are unaware of the incredible impact individuals can have when they step up to get involved at their local levels. I'm not just talking about running for office as a county commissioner, mayor or city council member. While that is important, running for office is not something everyone can do. However, there are things you can do right in your local community that will help to advance our constitutional principles and protect our liberties for future generations.

If you are an employer, employee, parent, or student, you can learn how to impact policy through your involvement in local politics. While I generally remain nonpartisan in my interviews, the fact remains that we basically still have a two party system in the United States, and we must learn to adapt our efforts within that structure in a way that most closely aligns with our values. Our government was designed for citizen involvement. So no matter what side of the political fence you are on, you have an opportunity to express your views and engage politically thanks to the wisdom of our founding documents. If you are a regular listener, you know I do not mention political parties often, but it is no secret that I am an America first conservative and I fully support and promote the principles brought forth in our United States constitution.

In politics, it is unlikely that you will find a group or political party with which you agree on all points. However, in our current system, we must choose to align with or vote for a party or person that most closely represents values. Economic and social conservatives tend to more closely align with the Republican Party due to the principal outlined in the party platform. But you may ask, who decides the party platform? The answer may surprise you. To discuss this and more my guest today is Dan Schultz. Dan is a lawyer and has been a leading force for change in the Republican Party for many years. As an elected Arizona Republican Party Precinct Committeeman and state committeeman, Dan has over 10 years of in the trenches experience in all aspects of political party governance and campaigns for both political party and political office candidates.

Dan also served as an army counterintelligence and human intelligence officer, and has also been a trial lawyer. He is well known for his work with the Precinct Strategy Project and for his goal of an engaging conservatives in the political process, by helping them understand how local involvement can bring national impact. Dan, thank you for joining with us today. I welcome you and appreciate you making time for this interview.

Dan Schultz: Thanks Linda. Thanks for having me.

Linda J. Hansen: Oh, it's my pleasure. I've followed your work for many, many years and I know we first met, probably what? 10, 12, 13 years ago, I think.

Dan Schultz: Yes.

Linda J. Hansen: Yes. Many years ago, and for our listeners, Dan, while he is a resident of Arizona now, he is a native of Wisconsin and I actually acquainted with the little river town where he grew up, Alma, Wisconsin and we shared our love for the Mississippi river and Wisconsin. But we also share a great love for our country. And I have followed your work with the Precinct Strategy Project and I wanted to make sure our listeners were aware of this because everyone can be involved at the local level in some way or another and this is one way that we can make sure our voice can be heard as we look to impact policy now and for future generations. So I'd love for you to share what led you to be involved in this and your passion for the Precinct Strategy Project.

Dan Schultz: Well, thanks again, Linda. I got started in this growing up in seventh grade in Alma, Wisconsin. We had a course in seventh grade called social studies and part of it was basic American civics. So my recollection is the first semester we talked generally about government and how government operated at the state level, the federal level, the local level, et cetera. And then the second semester we learned about the two party system and how the parties worked. And I remember at the end of the course, our teacher, his name was Sam [Elver 00:06:47]. He told us, listen, I've equipped you now, when you guys turn 21, I think back then the voting age was still 21, and this is 1968, 1969. And he said, I've equipped you now so that if our country ever gets into a political crisis, you'll know what to do.

And the to do part is this, you know now that you've got to become a member of one of the two major political parties or some other political party that might emerge, and you got to become a voting member of it so that you can actually change the party to if need be to your liking through group effort, because it's the parties that get behind the candidates and the parties have platforms that are written by the members of the party and you now know how to do that. And all you have to do is show up and volunteer, because it's a volunteer position. So he taught us all of that. I pretty much knew most of this already because my dad was on the city council and the county board. And I had an uncle who was a small town mayor of Mondovi, Wisconsin, Gaylord Schultz, his nickname was Stub Schultz. He was a World War II vet.

Another uncle was a town clerk in the town of Harold, just east of Alma in Buffalo County. So I kind of knew much of this, but our teacher really taught us the nuts and bolts and that's now come to fruition. We have been in a political crisis it seems for the last 15 years in one shape or form or another, and we don't have enough people involved. Everybody's asking, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? Well, what you can do is what Sam Elver taught us, get involved in the political party of your choice. It's free. Doesn't cost anything. It just takes a little bit of time and you are needed desperately.

You know, I'm a Republican, so I can speak about the Republican Party better than I can about the Democratic Party. But much of what I'm going to say is the same in the Democratic Party. The parties are like at half of their operating strengths or less in most places. Which means that there's vacancies for volunteers to come in. And if you want to shape the future, politically, you have an opportunity now where you can get involved in the party of your choice, where you live just by seeking it out and going to the meeting. They usually meet monthly these local committees and say, I want to get involved, tell me what I need to do to become a voting member of this party. Now, the entrenched people might not want you, but the good news is we have the internet. And so most of what you need to know, you can usually find on the internet. For example, here in Arizona, on our website, the Arizona GOP website, the Maricopa County Republican Party website, the bylaws are there. You can read and download the bylaws, which are the rules of the party.

There's a precinct committeeman handbook. You can download and read. You can get online and get my book, which explains most of this stuff. I've got something on my website, precinctstrategy.com for every state in the union. I don't have all the territories yet. You know, there's five territories that have representation in the Republican Party and the District of Columbia does as well. It has a Republican Party. But I don't have DC and the territories on my site. But for all 50 states, I've got something about how the party works, whether it's just the bylaws, or if there's a precinct committeeman handbook, I've got a link to that. There's all sorts of how-to-guides. There's videos that explain all this stuff, and we've got to invade the party now and both sides. Good Democrats, become Democrats, good Republicans, become Republican Party voting members.

It's called precinct committeeman in most states. Some states it's called... I think in Wisconsin, it used to be called ward captain and in Washington state it's precinct committee officer. I think in Oregon it's precinct committee person. In some states, it's just member. In some states precincts, aren't called precincts. They're just called voting districts. So the terminology varies. All of that's explained at my website. I try to explain all of that at my website. And that's what we need to do. We've got to get involved in the nuts and bolts of the political parties, because it's the political parties that have the power to shape the future politically with the candidates that they feel. And for example, if you've got three or four Republicans running in a primary, that's the most important election because only about 25% of the Republicans will turn out in a primary generally.

Well, if you can boost the turnout for your candidate, by getting to the people who don't normally vote, because they don't like politics, they just hate politics and they don't pay attention to all the noise about politics. They don't like it. But if you can get to them and show them, Hey, in this primary there's a really good candidate who's way better than the rest of them. If you'll go vote, you can really make a difference. That's what I do in my precinct. That's what I teach candidates to do. That's what I teach other precinct committeemen to do.

Boost the turnout of these, I call them lower information, lower propensity voters. They don't like politics, but they're good people. Give them a reason to go vote and they will go vote. If they know that they're not going to be wasting their time this time, because there's a great candidate, they'll go vote. And that's what I try to do. I try to get to the good candidates, teach them this and help boost turnout for them so that they win that all important primary and then go on to the general. So that's what we can do.

Linda J. Hansen: And those are really great points. Like you said, a lot of people don't like politics because they don't like the noise. They don't like all of the bickering back and forth, which is largely amplified by the media, of course, because it draws viewers, but we can make such an impact at the local level. I know when I was a local Republican Party chairman for a local party, I really encouraged everyone to come to the caucus to decide on the platform. We went through every single point, point by point by point. And we offered resolutions to our state party platform. These were things that we as a local party and people involved in our community really believed were important to be brought forth, to be considered as adoption in the state party platform, then many people go on to be involved at the state level and that can help to impact the national party platform.

And when you talk about people who don't want to be involved in politics, or they might be unaware of how all this works, I used to give the two party platforms. I'd give the Democrat Party platform and the Republican Party platform to people who I knew held conservative values, but they said they always voted Democrat because it was like how their family always voted. Right. And I would try to gently explain to them that maybe those values weren't the same as when their grandfather was voting Democrat. But without pressuring them, I would just give them the two platforms. And that's where it's so important for us to be involved at that level and be able to impact the platforms, but also to be able to be aware of it, to share that information with our friends and neighbors who may be unaware.

Dan Schultz: Yeah. One of the things that I have on my site is a short article showing the differences between the two parties platforms. And over the years... My site's, I think, been on the internet now since around, I'm going to guess, 2013, 2015, something like that. The biggest driver of traffic over the years to my site was somebody searching on the internet for what is the difference between the two major parties and then their search result would find the page on my site, where I had this description and explanation of the two major parties.

And what I essentially say in a nutshell about the two parties is this, one of them is for socialism and one of them is for capitalism. And that's what it boils down to. The Republican Party is about individual liberty and freedom and for the individual and the Democratic Party is for the collective. And it's right there in stark terms. And if you read through the platform, they're both way too long, but I try to boil it all down and that's the difference. And it's a totally different set of values. One's for the individual, as I said. One is for the group. And it's just two different ways of looking at life. I think our founders and framers would've preferred our Republican Party, not the Democratic Party.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that's true. I really believe that as well because they believed in individual freedom and capitalism and the opportunity to flourish. Our founding documents provide for human flourishing and that is not something that is promoted or encouraged in many other forms of government. And so for employers listening, who may want to explain all this to your employees, maybe an idea is just posting the party platforms, finding a way to let people know whether it's on a company intranet or a breakroom bulletin board or something. Just letting people read for themselves, but helping them to see what the differences are. And there's nothing wrong with saying that these principles are what help our business to grow or these principles hurt our business. And it's not telling anyone who to vote for, which would be frowned upon, but it's giving them information so that they can come to a conclusion on their own. And they may not always agree with the employer's choice, but at least they will have been given information to make a more informed decision.

Dan Schultz: Yeah, that would be a great idea. Post that kind of the employees can get it readily. Absolutely.

Linda J. Hansen: Right. Yeah. I think that could really be an opportunity for any employers listening. If you have questions about that, you can also contact me at prosperity101.com or of course, reach out to Dan at precinctstrategy.com. So there's so much information on your site, what else would you recommend for employers who would like to help their employees understand the importance of what your social studies teacher taught you back in seventh grade regarding citizen involvement?

Dan Schultz: Well, one thing would be first of all, to encourage the employees to vote and to vote intelligently and obviously make that something that is encouraged by the employer. And then there's lots of other things that they could do. For example, let's say that they had a company meeting, all hands on deck type meeting, wherever that might be in the organization, they could invite in candidates if they wanted to of all persuasions, Independents, Democrats, Republicans just come in and just, Hey, feel questions of the employees. That would be helpful. Encourage the employees to talk to their kids about what they're learning in school, in terms of basic American civics. Talk about you have a civic duty to engage in politics in the political sphere and be up on the issue so that if and when you do vote, you're voting intelligently. Just things like that. All can be done in a nonpartisan way.

And then also maybe have a company meeting where you explain to the employees the reason we do some of the things that we do around here is because of the laws that regulate this industry that we're in, whatever it happens to be. And show them like, why do we have a company bulletin board and why is all this information posted on a bulletin board? Because we have to do it. Because the government says we have to do this stuff and it takes away from getting the work done, but we still have all this overhead cost and expense to comply with all these government mandates. Explain that to the employees once in a while so that they appreciate the fact that, Hey, in order to operate a business in the United States of America, unfortunately there's kind of out of control government that constricts the businesses to too great of an extent.

So people have encouraged me to run for office. I'm never going to run for office, but you know, there's an old saying, never say never and never say always. If I were to run for office, what I would tell the audience would be this, you're not going to hear Dan Schultz say, my plan does this, my plan on healthcare. I won't have any plans. The only plan I will have is to repeal laws. The only thing I would do in introducing legislation would be to repeal existing legislation that's no longer needed. That's what I would try to do because that frees up the economy and makes us more prosperous.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, we saw that in the Trump administration, as he pulled back many of the regulations for everyone. I think he removed three or four or more and it really created an economic boom. I've talked to so many, especially in the manufacturing sector that found so much opportunity for growth. And when a company grows, it helps to share the profits with the individuals and the community. And so many times people who don't really understand how all this works say, well, these big companies should pay more taxes. They should pay their quote unquote "fair share". But people forget that companies don't pay taxes. People taxes. People are the ones who pay taxes either through higher prices or increased costs of production. Whatever it is, it's the people who literally pay the taxes for any company and it's the people who fund the government. So the government has no money until the people give it to them through their taxes.

So it is not something that is rocket science, but it's something that people don't stop to think about. It is basic economics. And you talked about basic civics, people talking to their children about what types of civics education they're learning in the schools. And it's been my understanding lately talking to a lot of parents that the civic education that, say, you and I received back when we were going to school is not the same type of education that young people are getting now. And so it really is upon us as citizens, as parents, as employers to make sure we can educate and maybe we will be able to inspire someone to be tomorrow's leader like your seventh grade social studies teacher inspired you to be a leader for today.

And the last episode that I released was one that... I had a new intro for it, but I basically re-released a conversation I had with John Fund regarding the education of Ronald Reagan. And Ronald Reagan's worldview was transformed through workplace education at General Electric when he was doing General Electric Theater. And during the time he was involved with General Electric, they had a book club and it totally transformed Ronald Reagan's worldview and his view on capitalism versus socialism. And he began to read like Economics in One Lesson and The Road to Serfdom and all these basic economics books that really impacted him. And as we know from history really impacted the world for freedom. So we never know who we may be educating, whether it's in the classroom, the family or in the workplace.

And so for employers listening, I really hope that you will be encouraged to, one, get involved at your local level. If you're not involved at your local level, please do so. Please visit Dan's website, precinctstrategy.com and find out how to get involved at the local level, but also set that example and then share with your employees why this is important. And no matter what side of the fence people are on, no matter what political party they choose to align with, we the people, are still in charge of this government. And so we need to step up and take on that mantle. Really, for too long, we have let the elites lead and it's really citizens who are the ones who should drive policy for our government. Before we close, Dan, I would like you to give the title of your books and tell people how to get the books that you have written.

Dan Schultz: Okay. Sure. The most recent book has a real catchy title, How To Get Involved In The Real Ball Game Of Politics Where You Live To Help President Donald J. Trump Make America Great Again, which kind of almost gives away the whole book, but not really. The bottom line in the book is what we've talked about today. If you really, really want to do something to help yourself and your kids and your future, it's to become a Republican Party precinct committeeman. But if you're a Democrat, get involved in the Democratic Party, the more the merrier. And you can get that at my website, precinctstrategy.com. What I've got at precinctstrategy.com is something for every state. And there's also a new button that you can click on that says connect with other conservatives in your state. If you click on that button, it takes you to a signup page for a precinct strategy communications and collaboration platform where you can join it and then start chatting with other people where you live or all across the country.

We have almost 11,000 people nationwide on this site now. Hundreds in just about every state. I know there's, I think, a couple of 100, maybe 300 in Wisconsin already on the site. And you can share documents. What I do there is I... So for Arizona, I've uploaded to the site, things that I've mentioned during this interview, like the precinct committeeman handbook for Arizona. I've uploaded it there. So it's easily downloadable. Other tutorial materials that teach you how to get organized in your local committee, how to seek out other conservatives. Documents like that. You can set up a chat room for anything. So I have a chat room for my precinct, which has 10 precinct committeemen in it, just conservatives though. This is just for conservatives.

We'll vet you coming in. We ask who you are, what county you're in. Whether or not you're a precinct committeeman and then we let you onto the site. And it's a great place to start communicating, which the Republican Party has not given the precinct committeemen a communications and collaboration platform by design. Because they don't want us communicating locally. So we created this ourselves.

Linda J. Hansen: You mentioned that sometimes the Republican Party doesn't necessarily want people to be involved. And I would say there are people who do, and there are people who don't. True constitutional conservatives want citizen engagement, but people who are drawn more to power or to maybe a globalistic mindset that... Of course, we live in a global community. We're not saying that. So for people who may misunderstand what I'm saying, of course we live in a global community. We need to be the beacon light of freedom for the world, but we do that by being a strong America. So we have to be America first. It's like we say in self care, you can't pour from an empty cup. So America needs to be strong and vibrant so that then we can share that strength with others and we can inspire others to have that freedom loving mindset and governing policies. So your other book, your first book was called Taking Back Your Government: The Neighborhood Precinct Committeeman Strategy. So I imagine that would be a great book for people to read as well. Is that available on your website too?

Dan Schultz: It is on Amazon. So I may have a link to it on my website. It's very short, I published it as an ebook. It was basically everything that was on my website at that time that you could just download. I think it's 99 cents. You can't give things away on Amazon, so you have to price it. So I priced it at 99 cents, I think. And then I think if you were an Amazon prime member, it was free. So it was all the original information that was at my website. And then this is what we have to do, conservatives. We've got to get involved in the party. It's there for the taking. Volunteer, become one of the conservatives that will help reinvigorate our party with conservative values, which are sorely lacking[crosstalk 00:30:27]but we can change it.

Linda J. Hansen: We can change it. And every person makes a difference. We, the people are still in charge of our government and you've brought forth some great strategies with your precinct committeeman strategy. Listeners, be sure to go to precinctstrategy.com, you can find more information there. You can contact Dan directly through that website. You can learn more, but if you care about your family's freedom, you care about your ability to conduct business, grow your business. You're tired of mandates, lockdowns, overregulation, big government into every area of your life, you need to get involved and make a difference because we got into this mess because too many freedom loving citizens took their freedom for granted. It's not too late. We need to step up and get involved and encourage your friends, neighbors, and family members to get involved as well.

So thank you so much, Dan, whether it's this election cycle or the next election cycle or an election cycle 10 years from now, we have an opportunity to impact our government in a way that truly upholds the constitution and provides freedom for not only American citizens, but promotes freedom and liberty for people all around the world.

So thank you Dan, for your work. Again, listeners, please go to precinctstrategy.com and I'll put in a plug for my resources as well at prosperity101.com. But bottom line, do what you can, whether you use our resources or your own, do what you can to educate your family members, your employees, your neighbors, and help everyone be involved because we, the people are in charge of our government. So thank you, Dan, for reminding us of that and thank you for your tireless efforts to promote our constitution and to get people involved in politics. Thank you.

Dan Schultz: Thanks Linda. Appreciate it.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity 101® podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library, to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity-The Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics online course. You can also receive the free e-book, 10 Tips For Helping Employees Understand How Public Policy Affects Their Paychecks. Freedom is never free. Understanding the foundations of prosperity and the policies of prosperity will help you to protect prosperity. As you become informed, involved, and impactful. I give special thanks to our sponsors, Matthews Archery, Incorporated, and Wisconsin Stamping and Manufacturing. Please contact us today at prosperity101.com to let us know how we can you. Thank you.