Interview Transcript with Scott Hamilton
This is War of the Words podcast with me, your host, Wayne Besen. Coming up in a moment, I’ll speak with Scott Hamilton, the executive director of the Oklahoma Democratic Party. He’s going to discuss his role fighting to elect Democrats in the reddest of red states. We’ll touch on Oklahoma’s anti LGBTQ bills, the propaganda fed Republicans and their threat to democracy, as well as draconian anti-abortion bills that will lead women to have forced births in Oklahoma. Scott and I will also discuss how Republican extremism threatens to tank economies in red states like Oklahoma, as corporations flee their radicalism.
Scott Hamilton
Wayne, I am well, and I’m so happy to be a, a part of your new podcast.
Wayne Besen
Now, Oklahoma must be a very difficult environment for a Democrat. What is it like trying to organize in one of the most conservative states in the country?
Scott Hamilton
Well, it’s tough. I’ll be honest with you, because Oklahomans pride themselves on being the reddest state in the country. Not for any reason, not that that’s ever helped the people here but for some reason they idealize that to a point where it becomes an ongoing goal. So, it’s difficult to break through the noise of the Republican Party. This legislative session has been an absolute nightmare when it comes to women’s rights, LGBTQ rights. It’s been a very frustrating year, Wayne. So right now, our effort is focused on primaries at the end of June. And then of course, the general election in November, where I believe we actually will be making some positive changes for the state, but we still have a super majority here. And that makes anything good and lasting problematic to try to get through the legislature.
Wayne Besen
You know, I started in the LGBTQ movement, and I thought Oklahoma couldn’t get any more conservative. We had JC Watts and Steve Largent, and so forth. And now it seems like it’s actually going further to the right with Trumpism and MAGA. Talk about the change in people’s mindset with this new movement and what it means to both Oklahoma and the country.
Scott Hamilton
Well, I, I think it’s very frightening because as you pointed out, things were already challenging here, but we were making some progress. Even under strong Republican rule, we were able to do some things that really did help the LGBTQ-plus community. But this year, as so often is the case, Republicans go and search for a solution to a problem that does not exist. And that sucks up lots of airtime. And if we look at the bathroom bill that was resoundingly passed and signed by the governor, and I love the fact that they try to pass laws that exempt us from federal laws, which of course is unconstitutional. But now they’re doing the same thing to counties, to cities, to municipalities saying, “If you don’t follow along with this bathroom bill, then your school district is going to lose state funding.”
So, it’s lots of scary boogeyman things that are not materializing, but it has made it harder. We have our own version of the, “Don’t Say Gay” bill. I talked to a teacher last week who was forced to remove her safe space stickers from her school door. And so, what we’re seeing now is not unlike something that existed probably 40 years ago in Oklahoma, where people were afraid to talk. Teachers cannot talk about their spouses unless they’re in heteronormative relationships. And if a child has two parents that cannot be discussed in the classroom, two parents of the same gender. So, it has really thrown equal rights back many decades. And, it seems like there is just this voracious appetite to take away freedoms and to take away choices
Wayne Besen
In the name of Liberty and freedom, of course.
Scott Hamilton
Absolutely, absolutely. The temporary governor, at least I hope he’s moving out at the end of this year, posted something with a scripture, as so often he does. This was Memorial Day, and he said “we honor those who, like Jesus said, the one that lays down his life for his friends,” blah blah. And that he, he summed it up by saying there is nothing more precious than our freedoms. And I thought the irony of that, I mean, a screenwriter could just have a field day with that because he’s taking away freedoms, taking away liberty. He’s taking away rights all in the name of his church.
Wayne Besen
The Democratic Party is having trouble breaking through in these red states like Oklahoma, you know, Wyoming and so forth. What is it about the message that’s being rejected? Is there a way to break through? It’s clearly not easy. It hasn’t really been done yet, to a major degree, anywhere in the country. As the executive director of a Democratic Party in a ruby red state, what can you do? What can we do to win some of these voters? Or is it just a dead end at this point in time?
Scott Hamilton
Years ago, when you and I first met, one of the things that I firmly believed in was that all of us could change one heart, one mind at a time, as we came out to family and friends as we lived our lives. And it became much less scary for people. Unfortunately, , we’re back to a time where it’s fear mongering. That seems to sell really well among red state voters. It’s interesting because as your audience knows, the Democratic Party doesn’t have a lock on LGBTQ folks. We are every part of the spectrum in terms of age and political affiliation and gender. But that they’re hanging on to these evils of the past and eliminating books from libraries, the one place that a kid could always turn was to the librarian to learn something about what he or she was going through in those very challenging adolescent years.
Those resources are becoming less and less available in some districts or not available at all. So, to your question, what can we do? I’m not being a punk on this, but I think we just continue to do what we have been doing. We have to believe that somehow, some way, we will start to make major breakthroughs. But, as long as we have so many closeted people in Congress who will vote against us every day, the same is true in legislatures around the country. That’s one of the biggest problems and I have never been one for outing people, but I will tell you that has changed for me. If you are passing laws that restrict my freedoms, then as far as I’m concerned, your’re fair game.
Wayne Besen
I would agree with that.
So, we’re looking at a situation where it’s more difficult to educate people. In my opinion, when I first started out, there was ignorance. And you can overcome that. What I’m finding now is that ignorance is a badge of honor. It’s an identity. And once it becomes an identity, once it means that if you become enlightened in way, you must leave your tribe, it becomes impossible to educate because people aren’t willing, they’re not listening and they’re afraid to lose their social status within a group. I think it’s made it more difficult. What’s your opinion?
Scott Hamilton
Oh, it absolutely has made it more difficult because as long as people thrive on their ignorance, it’s very hard to break through that because they continue, well, look at the Big Lie. I mean, that has been bolstered to the point where so many Americans have been lost to Fox News and its ilk because it has just continued to build a paper tiger, something that is not there. But as long as people can see it and talk about it, somewhat, they think intellectually, then, then how do you break through that? I don’t have the answer. I wish I did. I wish I did.
Wayne Besen
Abortion is a big topic in Oklahoma right now. Your state just passed a bill that is draconian. Talk about this bill. And, with Roe v. Wade about to be overturned in the Supreme Court, what’s it going to be like for women in Oklahoma?
Scott Hamilton
It’s going to be hell for women in Oklahoma because we have all these trigger bills that if Roe falls, then boom, they all go into effect. Well, actually some of these already have. It has been a battle of abortion bills in Oklahoma this year because the governor [Kevin Stitt] has signed so many of them. Many of them overlap. Many of them are not congruent with one another, but he vowed to support every piece of what he calls “pro-birth”. I’m sorry, he doesn’t call it that, but that’s exactly what it is. It’s only pro-birth because we’re 49th in education. 40% of children in Oklahoma go to bed insecure at night as to when they might have their next meal. Healthcare disparities are rampant here, but instead of focusing on those issues, they have put such a strong focus on eliminating a woman’s right to choose and creating forced birth situations.
It’s going to have long term devastating impacts on not just women, of course, but their children, their families. When Texas laws went into effect, many people from Texas were coming to Oklahoma to seek reproductive healthcare. Now where do they go? They’re going to have to go to Kansas. That may not seem like much to a lot of folks, just traveling from one state through another state to get to a third state. But if one of your biggest considerations on whether to have a child is an economic one, chances are very good that you don’t have money to travel like that to take care of yourself. And it’s going to create a whole new sub-tier of women whose rights have been trampled to the point where they’re already working three jobs to care for their kids to support their family. The minimum wage here is depressingly low. So, all of these things combined together to create a situation where women have absolutely no say in Oklahoma.
Wayne Besen
To quote comedian George Carlin, “If you’re pre-born, everything’s great. If you’re preschool, you’re fucked.” That seems to be the situation. They’re pro-life until you’re born and then you’re on your own.
Scott Hamilton
Yes, that’s life here. It’s heartbreaking when you look at the poverty that exists in this state and all the while the governor [Kevin Stitt] just keeps talking about how he wants to make this a “Top 10 State”. Well, it’s the opposite. We are not Top 10 in anything positive. We are 51st, including DC, the 51st worst place for women to live in the United States. And you would think that those factors would come into thinking in the legislature, but they absolutely do not. It’s whatever the church says.
Wayne Besen
One of these abortion bills is citizen enforcement. It’s vigilantes hunting down women to find out if they’re pregnant.
Scott Hamilton
This goes further than Texas, because now with the Oklahoma bill, it basically deputizes everyone in the United States to serve as a bounty hunter. That means not just the woman who is seeking the healthcare, but it means the Uber driver, the receptionist, it means a night clerk at a hotel that rents you a room and they know what you’re there for. You could conceivably be turning in a dozen people and at $10,000 a pop, you know, that’s a pretty damn good living.
Wayne Besen
Yeah. It’s a good business.
Scott Hamilton
It really is.
Wayne Besen:
It’s sick and twisted, but I could definitely see the appeal to some fanatics out there who could use their ideology to cash in and persecute women.
Scott Hamilton
How many times have we seen reproductive healthcare clinics bombed or shot up or people severely injured or killed? What this does is it incentivizes the ultra-right to park outside of a doctor’s office to, you know, camp outside of a hospital. There is nothing healthy about this. It’s just another reason why businesses are not interested in coming to Oklahoma. If I had a business and I looked at Oklahoma’s laws, I would not subject my employees to some of the horrific things that exist here. That’s just the bottom line. I would not do it.
Wayne Besen
I think that’s going to be a big dividing line. I think a lot of businesses are going to have important decisions to make when Roe V Wade is overturned. I think it’s going to hurt a lot of big cities in red states, Atlanta Miami and Austin, where big tech might shy away. I also think in Oklahoma, if the governor wants to create new jobs and new industry, well, who’s going to relocate there? The state won’t get top graduates from universities and women are going to be like, “Uh, that’s not where I’m going”.
Scott Hamilton
It looks like this is probably not going to go through now, but one company that he [the Oklahoma governor] engaged to come here with hundreds of millions of dollars of incentives said, “yeah, we’re going to build this factory in your state”. And you start to look at the average pay on those jobs and it’s like $13 an hour. But what they do is put their headquarters in another state where you have engineers, where you have corporate offices, where you have all of your communications efforts, anything that requires a different level of experience or education. They’re not coming here.
Wayne Besen
That’s going to be a bigger issue than people think. I think it’s going to do incredible damage to these red states. I think there’s going to be a big dividing line. As a result, they’re going to go after blue states. I look at, for example, abortion pills that are going to be sent to places where women can’t have abortion. I think some of the red states are going to try to, as we’ve seen, to crack down and ban that. Good luck on that. If you can’t stop tons of marijuana and cocaine from entering the country, how the hell are they going to stop an abortion pill inside a little unmarked envelope?
Scott Hamilton
I absolutely agree. You made a very valid point. I’m concerned about the negative impact this kind of thinking is going to start having in blue states. Particularly in danger, I think, are the blue outposts within red states. Because like here in Oklahoma, for example, we’ve got a chunk of Oklahoma City and a chunk of Tulsa that’s very progressive and has been for years. Those areas have seen some growth. If these are the choices you’re faced with, how long do you stay here after you graduate? Or how long do you stay away after you leave? Maybe forever.
Wayne Besen
We’ll switch gears. The Democratic Party always had a tug of war. And that is, you know, Howard Dean came up with a 50-state strategy to fund all states, including red states. There were others who said, nah they’re hopeless. Let’s put the money elsewhere. What is that like in an election year, right now? Is a state like Oklahoma getting the [financial] resources it needs from the Democratic Party?
Scott Hamilton
Our money comes from individual contributions. The way that that Oklahoma’s elections laws are written, we cannot accept money from corporations from nonprofit organizations. So, it’s literally donations and that’s $10 at a time, $5 at a time, a hundred dollars at a time. But it takes a lot of effort to raise that kind of money to mount solid campaigns for candidates. This year, we have a better shot at the state level. I’m going to step out there and say, even with at least one Senator and one congressional seat, I think that we have a very good shot of turning those blue again, but it’s very, very hard because, as you point out, there is the conventional wisdom that says, “why am I going to throw money in a red state when that money can be much better spent in a blue state where Democrats actually have a shot?” The thing that we constantly say is, “if you don’t help us now, it’s never going to change here. If we don’t get help and support, then you’re basically writing this state off forever.” We have to keep showing up. We have to keep running good, quality candidates. We have to keep talking about the issues. All that takes money.
Wayne Besen
I think Republicans are good at looking long term, while Democrats look at the next election. Republicans say, “well, we might not have a majority on this issue now, or this particular state, but we’re going to turn it long term”. I think the Democrats need to start thinking more like that.
Scott Hamilton
Oh, I do too. If we look at what’s happened with the Supreme Court, that’s a perfect example. They bided their time until they made wholesale changes to the court. I think you’re right, that they do have a longer-term strategic look at things than Democrats. We also not forceful enough. I know what Michelle Obama said. I love her. And I respect what she said for the time “when they go low, we go high”. But this is a different time. It’s a different environment, everything about it. It’s a different nation today after four years of the last guy. So, we’ve got to start hitting back and hitting harder.
Wayne Besen
Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, we are looking at a party that does not believe in democracy anymore. The Republican Party has left America and joined a cult in my opinion, and to sit there and pretend it’s business as usual. And we are where we were five, 10, you know, 15 years ago is a recipe for disaster. It’s a way to lose to the Republican Party. These right-wing conservatives only understand force. And they only understand winning an issue by fighting. If we don’t do that, they will define us. They will defeat us. We will be in deep trouble.
Speaking of that, let’s discuss the democracy issue. How are you handling the fact that the party you’re up against has left America and wants authoritarianism? Some would even go as far as fascism. That must be difficult for you facing a party that is so extreme and doesn’t even believe in the basics, like everybody should get to vote.
Scott Hamilton
Yes, it is. I’m one of those people that would go so far as to say it is fascism. What we’re dealing with is a wholesale brainwashing of people, because how else can we explain that people just keep voting the way they do? I know that there’s this ideation [among Republican voters] that if I rub elbows with a billionaire, then I’m only one slot away from being a billionaire myself. But the reality of that is it doesn’t happen. That’s not going to happen.
Wayne Besen
Yeah. You might get to wash his car or shine his shoes, but he’s not going to open up a business for you.
Scott Hamilton
Nope. So why would you continue to send these people in your stead to make decisions for you and your family, If you know, they’re lying? Part of that, I have to say, is a media issue. I hear from people regularly, Wayne, and this is terrifying to me, that they’ve had to cut off relationships with their parents over FOX News. You know, the parents are retired. They sit home and FOX News is on TV ten hours a day. You get that steady stream of lies. Misinformation eventually becomes your reality. So, those are the people that we don’t have any shot whatsoever of talking to.
Wayne Besen
You see that with a gun issue too. We have these school shootings, these mass shootings, and we’re the only country where this happens. It’s clearly is tied to the fact that crazy people have access to any firearm they want. It’s easy to get. And all we get are thoughts and prayers. It’s this brainwashing where people can’t even recognize reality. We are just are in this sick twisted loop where these things keep happening again and again, because people cannot look for real solutions
Scott Hamilton
In Oklahoma, in the legislative session this year, there were over sixty gun bills. None of those were meant to restrict access to guns. They wanted guns in gun free school zones. They wanted college kids to be able to carry on campus. Every church should have guns. I mean, it just, the list goes on and on and on. Not all of those made it into law, but it’s just the fact that so much time and energy was spent on that instead of exploring new ways to educate our children, instead of exploring food insecurity and the food deserts that exist throughout this state. Every day, I have people calling screaming because Biden pushed the gas prices. And, you know, you can’t have a rational conversation with someone. You can’t explain that it’s the oil companies who had record breaking profits the first quarter of this year.
Wayne Besen
Well, the gas prices are double in Europe. Is Biden responsible for that too? I mean, there’s no logic here. I guess Biden is responsible for the price of gas in London? Prices are up everywhere. Inflation is largely due to supply chain issues, but it’s Biden. It’s this ignorance. That’s very frustrating and maddening.
With the elections coming up, abortion might be a big issue. How do you think that’s going to play out if Roe V. Wade is overturned? Is this going to get a lot of Democrats to the polls? Are we going to see a surprise in the suburbs, with a lot of women voting Democratic for the first time? Or am I being optimistic in terms of the impact electorally? How do you think this is going to play out in Oklahoma?
Scott Hamilton
I don’t think you’re being overly optimistic at all. I think you’ve got a valid point. If we look at the national polls, Republicans overwhelmingly favor the right to have an abortion. So, if you live in an affluent suburb and you’ve always voted Republican, but you realize that if your daughter should get pregnant, anything you do to help her would make you a felon. I think that it’s going to push some people, particularly Republican women to reevaluate the way that they’ve been voting and say, “wait a minute, I can’t, I cannot do this anymore.” It will galvanize, I think, apathetic, Democratic voters because sometimes it takes an additional push. But I really think that the biggest change we’re going to see is among Republican women this fall.
Wayne Besen
I think we’ll see some movement with men in the future when they realize that they’re going to have to pay for these kids. And the college tuition is very expensive.
What are the main messages of this election cycle that you think will help Democrats win?
Scott Hamilton
We’re focused on three things: Equality in public education, affordable healthcare for everyone and economic opportunity.
Wayne Besen
Why focus on that when you can focus on trans people, guns and outlawing abortion? I mean, Republican priorities are so backwards, and Republicans vote against their own interests. It’s infuriating how they can’t see that their lives aren’t improving. Instead, the Republican Party and FOX News create these boogeymen. And they [GOP voters] fall for it every damn time. It’s incredible that they can’t figure it out.
Scott Hamilton
If we look at what happened last week, one Google search pulled up a trans person with a name similar to the murderer in Texas. Without any additional thought at all, a sitting Congressperson proclaimed that that was the shooter. So now it became a trans issue, which of course it wasn’t. But it was made to feel that way. And that narrative carried on for several days.
Wayne Besen
They lie like other people breathe or drink water. In fact, it’s an identity marker to be part of the Republican party today. It seems you must be able to shrug off the truth and spout misinformation. You must lie and do it with a straight face. That seems to be the the password, the secret handshake to get in the Republican Party.
Scott Hamilton
After all the lies that one sitting Congressman [Madison Cawthorne] has told. All the lies about his background and his education. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered to his colleagues was when he started talking about cocaine, orgies, that’s when they got mad, that’s when they pulled their support.
Wayne Besen
It’s probably the only truthful thing he’s ever said.
Scott Hamilton
I agree with you.
Wayne Besen
I think he was telling the truth. I’ve lived in Washington for many years. These conservatives don’t exactly live up to the family values that they preach.
Scott Hamilton
Exactly the, the proof is in their grinders.
Wayne Besen
Yes. [makes Grindr alert sound] not that I know what it sounds like. Final question. Do you have anything you want to say going into the election right now? Any message you want to get out for Democrats as we head to the polls for the midterms?
Scott Hamilton
The one thing I would ask is please do not take this midterm the way that so often we do. There’s less attention paid to midterms. The turnout is always less. I am encouraging everyone in the Democratic Party to vote like this may be your last time to vote, because honestly, we don’t know. If we continue down the path that we’re heading right now making it harder to vote, making it harder to access services, making it illegal to live the ways that we have been freely living, then truly our freedom is at stake. I’m not going to say this is the most important election in our lifetime. We often do that, but I will say this is a very important one. And, if we don’t take it seriously, we are handcrafting our own eulogy,
Wayne Besen
Scott Hamilton, executive director of the Oklahoma Democratic Party. Thank you so much for joining the show.
Scott Hamilton
Always a pleasure, Wayne. Thank you, sir.
Wayne Besen
This is War of the Words with Wayne Besen. Thank you for joining me today. Until we meet again, see you next time.