Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vandal,

gulag.

I love the government, hug the government, hug the government, hug the government, love, the government, hug the government.

Welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.

I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael

Baranowski. My guest today is former Democratic activist and author Lisa Ekman, whose recently

released book is titled Deprogramming Democrats and Uneducating the Elites, How I Escape

the Progressive Cult. Lisa Echman, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Mike.

It's my pleasure to be here.

So I'll start by mentioning the listeners that you and I actually have something in

common.

We've both made significant ideological transitions.

Now, listeners will know that I went from kind of right of Ronald Reagan to center left now, and you've

done the opposite transition.

You've gone from left to right.

And so, you may be, before you talk about that transition that you make, can you talk a little

bit about what your political views were before your, I'll call it, I don't know, awakening, realization, whatever

you want, whatever term you want to use, and kind of how involved you were in democratic politics

at that point? Sure. So, you know, I'll start with my parents. My parents, I would say they were

classical liberals, JFK liberals from, you know, the 1960s.

They were hippies who didn't do drugs, even though some people might say that's an

oxymoronic statement, but that was them, you know, they were, they believed in freedom.

...