A Political Asshole No More

On this episode of How To Really Run A City, innovation in cities takes a backseat to a more pressing question: How do we find our way back to recognizing the humanity in one another?

Our guest: Joe Walsh, a former Representative from Illinois. He was a self-described Tea Party arsonist, right-wing radio provocateur and mentor to Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. All of that changed when Donald Trump rode down an escalator and completely captured the Republican Party. 

“It was never this way with Reagan, with Bush, with old-man Bush, this is something completely different,” Walsh told our hosts, former Philly Mayor Michael Nutter and Citizen Co-founder Larry Platt. (Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was unable to attend.)

Walsh’s public split from his party made him a target of MAGA loyalists, who to this day threaten him and his family. Still, he’s not backing down. “I helped to divide this country,” Walsh said. “People like me helped put us on this road. I have to live with that.”

As a newly-minted Democrat, Walsh tours the country connecting with people from across the political spectrum. “Do you leave these conversations hopeful or less hopeful?” Platt asked.

“I’m right down the middle,” Walsh said. “Half the folk out there are ready for a national divorce. They tell me, 'Joe, I want it to be peaceful, but we just can’t coexist anymore.’”

Listen to this episode now for a passionate conversation about a return to civility and the true stakes of our national debate with a public figure who describes himself as a former “political asshole” trying to make amends. And for more from Walsh, join us at The Citizen’s 8th annual Ideas We Should Steal Festival, presented by Comcast NBCUniversal, where he will talk with former foe-turned-friend Fred Guttenberg, a gun rights activist who lost his daughter in the Parkland school shooting. 

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As cities go, so goes the nation!