Keeping on

A podcast conversation and a statement of purpose.

Dear readers, 

For the past seven years, I have been hosting a podcast called The Political Notebook. Most of the episodes are conversations with my dad, Robert Robb, a conservative who has been involved in Arizona politics for decades. He used to write a column for the Arizona Republic. He is now retired but still writes about politics on Substack. 

The first episode of the podcast was titled “Flake, Trump, and the Future of the Republican Party.” We recorded it shortly after Arizona Senator Jeff Flake announced he would not seek re-election as a conservative Republican. Flake was out of step with the ascendent pro-Trump energy within the party. This energy has grown increasingly manic over the years.

My own interest in starting a podcast was journalistic in nature. The podcast allowed me to generate conservations that I felt were important. One of the goals was to promote rational discourse and analysis in a time of hyperventilation.

Periodically I invite a guest on the podcast.

One of my favorite podcast quotes was from Richard de Uriarte when he said, “I am not a great partisan.” 

Richard was a journalist and community leader who had a heart of gold. He was a family friend. He passed away in late September. 

I will always remember Richard as my first ever basketball coach. But as I took an interest in politics in my early thirties, I got a chance to know him as a journalist. We talked about journalism when he was on the podcast in 2018.

His quote stays with me because I feel the same way. I am not a great partisan.

I lean center-right on a lot of issues, but I understand different ideological arguments. I have never been motivated into political activism, except for once: I organized for the #RedForEd teacher movement before I discovered that its decision-making was being directed top-down by leftist partisans.

One of the reasons why I have paid close attention to the Republican Party over the years is because it is an important topic. One of our major political parties has fallen under the spell of a narcissistic populist and the movement he spawned.

To help tell this story, this past week I talked to a podcast guest who is a long-time Republican activist in Arizona. 

Kathy Petsas is an old-school Republican — a traditional conservative who believes in small government, low taxes, and personal responsibility. 

Kathy has been out of step with her party for the past ten years, but she remains committed to her traditional conservative beliefs, and she remains active within the party. 

She was recently featured in a book about the Republican Party written by Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsdorf. The book is titled Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy. From the book’s description: 

Inspired by Donald Trump’s election lies, a growing movement of grassroots activists mobilized around the country to pick up where the insurrection left off, laying the groundwork to succeed next time where Trump had failed to keep himself in power. But their own success in taking over and purging the Republican Party became their undoing as it drove away moderates and supplied the Democrats with a winning message in the 2022 midterms. Still, the MAGA Republicans proved uninterested in learning from that defeat, only becoming more extreme, divisive, and dead set on returning Trump to power.

In my conversation with Kathy, she talked about her first-hand experience dealing with the flood of “true believers” who showed up to her district during this time period.

It is unclear whether rational conservatives can successfully reclaim their party, but Kathy is determined to keep working toward that goal, and she hopes others will join the cause.

One of her current projects is working with a group called RightCount, aiming to restore public confidence in our elections. 

Click on the link below to listen to the conversation here. The podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other podcasting app if you search “The Political Notebook.”

The next podcast episode will be a post-election analysis, so subscribe on your podcast app if you want to see it when it drops. Feel free to write to me if you have any feedback or suggestions for guests: billyrobb@protonmail.com.

Moving forward, my outlook depends slightly on the outcome of the election. 

Cholla Express was originally created to be an escape from the news cycle. If America decides to renew the Trump Show for another four years, I will likely seek to return this newsletter to its roots and write more non-political posts. I have also considered starting a Cholla Express podcast. We’ll see what happens. 

Either way, in both my writing and my podcasting, I will try to plant my feet on the ground and see things for what they are. Toward that end, your comments and emails are most welcome. 

Thanks for reading. Thanks for listening. 

Cheers, 

Billy 

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