Mal Hyman's Congressional Bid: Beacon of Hope for South Carolina

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Mal Hyman for Congress

[00:00:00] South Carolina's seventh congressional district is solid Republican, but Mel Hyman intends to change that.. With the campaign theme, Common Sense for the Common Good, Hyman, a Democrat, has his sights set on defeating one term incumbent Russell Frye, a MAGA Republican. Hyman wants to go to Congress to fight for progress on issues that matter most to working people and families, including jobs and a living wage, health care, making child care and education better and affordable, restoring reproductive rights and protecting our environment. 

[00:00:38] For 50 years, Hyman's been a teacher working in public schools and prisons, and for the last 37 years at Coker University. He worked his way through UCLA doing factory work, farm work, and even as a commercial fisherman.

[00:00:56] Mel Hyman does not shy away from hard work and he fully understands the challenges facing working people today. Hyman says America needs to be a place where Democrats and Republicans respect each other, the Constitution, and the Golden Rule. He's a fighter and he's determined to help make things better for all of us.

[00:01:20] Hey, Mel, thanks for joining us on the Lean to the Left podcast, my friend. 

[00:01:25] Great to join you. 

[00:01:27] Hey, tell me this, what are your thoughts about Donald Trump and the criminal charges against him, including his conviction in the hush money trial? 

[00:01:36] Oh my goodness. He's willing to throw the entire legal system under the bus to save himself and the sycophants in the Republican Party are willing to do the same.

[00:01:48] I think he's the poster boy for the seven deadly sins and is remarkable communicator to create a cult following, but he has no respect for the law. He's shameless and we have no idea what he's going to say next to defend himself or further his ambitions. , it is hard to know where to start because he uses rhetoric right out of Germany in the 1930s to the big lie He lies faster than we can fact check him.

[00:02:19] Demonize your adversary as Goebbels would have said the enemy of the people. So Democrats and CNN are the enemy of the people constantly attacked. You talk to MAGA people, a lot of them don't even know that we passed an infrastructure bill. They're living in an alternative world and it's dangerous for our democracy.

[00:02:42] And it is hard to know where to start when it comes to Trump. I think reality surpasses satire. The Greeks needed a term for that. 

[00:02:54] You know what? The guy's been convicted, what, of 34 counts in this hush money trial. And we're waiting to see what the judge does in terms of imposing a sentence.

[00:03:04] Got any thoughts about what ought to happen to Trump? 

[00:03:08] We'll leave that to the justice system and the appeals because we're in uncharted territory. Clearly Trump is great at playing the victim. So I'm not gonna predict or suggest what the remedy should be. I think it would be great if the judicial process would move as quickly on other cases like January 6th or the Mar a Lago taking of national security documents. 

[00:03:36] I think those are larger cases and none of us really expected this case to move forward the fastest. But I think it underscores what his former secretary of state said or his vice president or his former chief of staff.

[00:03:52] This guy's erratic, unreliable, shameless. It's why they don't support him. It's hard to know because he's so adept at raising money after he's guilty or playing the victim and claiming that he's being persecuted politically that we are in uncharted territory. And I do believe it's proper to clinically term his followers as cult followers and more than a sprinkling of ambitious people who know what's going on, but are riding that wave the best they can.

[00:04:27] Yeah, I don't want to spend this whole conversation on Trump. I did feel like I needed to ask you that question and then I have one other one, and that is, do you see a danger to this country if he should be returned to the White House as president? 

[00:04:43] I sure do, and I've been saying that at all the gatherings and giving speeches.

[00:04:48] Everything sacred is on the ballot this time. Democracy, dignity, diversity, women's rights, the environment, education. All of it we have, God only knows what the country will look like after four years of another Trump administration. He clearly will weaponize the justice department and goodness knows what he's going to say in order to further his own ambitions or to solidify power.

[00:05:17] So I think it is a grave and unprecedented threat to our democracy. And I think a lot of folks, because of the freedoms that we do have at this point. are amusing themselves to death, not taking it with the seriousness that they need to. And we're either going to fight with ballots or God knows how we're going to fight in four years.

[00:05:42] I think it's a grave threat to democracy. He plays by whatever pops into his mind, he plays by no rules or precedents and I think his instincts are as vile as the convictions have confirmed. 

[00:05:58] The Republicans have been trying to use the economy as a weapon against Democrats.

[00:06:05] Don't you think that That'll backfire because the economy's dramatically improved under the Biden presidency, has it not? 

[00:06:13] I agree with you, and it's a challenge for Democrats and the Biden administration to make it clear to a public the, because of social media, cell phones and the internet, it's quite distracted and they haven't recognized 15 million new jobs under the Biden administration, the lowest unemployment rate in the Western world, the lowest inflation rates are stock market going through the roof.

[00:06:44] But as, as we know, about half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, they're hurt by the modest inflation that we have here and they seek remedies and, I'm reminded of an observation by president John Adams that more problems are caused by economic ignorance than by venality. A lot of folks don't understand the president can't control inflation and is one modest player in the economy.

[00:07:19] Can't control oil prices. And we're facing a 4 trillion a year industry with the medical insurance industry. It's always been hard to control. And the president has made some progress there with some of the pharmaceutical prices, but it's a tough industry for us to fight. And the public's going to have to engage in a different way on that.

[00:07:42] So I see Biden as having a particularly successful first term and then all of the other ideas that would have helped turn around the economy and give security and dignity to people, whether it's raising wages or having more affordable health care or affordable child care or paid family leave, all of which Democrats have proposed.

[00:08:07] Republicans in the House of Representatives have blocked. Yeah. So the public isn't feeling the successes the way they might and Typically, Republicans are weaponizing issues after blowing up the national debt with tax breaks. They then use the national debt as a justification for not passing legislation.

[00:08:32] And to that crowd, it's listening to very intense propaganda on the economy as well as other issues. We're gonna have to find different ways of Of making the successes economically of the Biden administration more clear to the public., 

[00:08:49] I agree with you. I don't think the Democrats have done a great job in terms of messaging, but the fact of the matter is that things are getting better that much of the problem occurred under the Trump administration that Biden was left with.

[00:09:03] And then, of course, we had the pandemic, which didn't help at all. Now turning to abortion Which is a huge issue. Trump brags that he's responsible for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and the subsequent rash of state laws, like one here in South Carolina, restricting and even criminalizing abortion.

[00:09:26] What are your thoughts about all that? 

[00:09:29] I believe we need to find a way to legislatively restore Roe v. Wade. I have two daughters. Decisions on reproductive rights I think are part of freedom. They have the right to determine what happens with their own reproductive health and their body not the government.

[00:09:49] It's a sacred conversation between my daughters and their minister, my daughters and their doctor. And that's best left in the private place. For those decisions to be made. Those are personal freedoms that we've had for 50 years. And Trump has been part of turning the clock back on those rights and they'll turn them back on voting rights, they've already started to and other rights as well. Yeah, I think it's also remarkable hypocrisy for Republicans to claim there's a sacredness of life. It apparently ends at birth and children are on their own because they don't worry about feeding kids or making sure they have medical care or decent housing.

[00:10:35] Or protecting them from the air or water or food. It's the height of hypocrisy. It's a radical right movement. And it's hurting women, hurting families at this point. And it's not where the American public wants to be. If I might go further for just a moment, sure. Republicans have been playing chess and we've been playing checkers.

[00:11:00] They've had a 50 year plan to stack the courts with Federalist judges that have these opinions. And we've been relying on sweet reason and kindness to win at election time. And we do fairly well at election time. But a long term strategy has been able to get a lot of Federalist approved judges to the courts.

[00:11:20] And they are a radical right. They did not make themselves clear in the judicial hearings for them to be cleared to be judges. And we're reaping what that radical right has been sowing for 50 years. And it's bracing to see its impact. I think women have reproductive rights that need to be protected.

[00:11:42] Yeah, you might have, when you mentioned About Republicans wanting their, the sacredness of life to end at birth reminds me of the school shootings. The fact that the Republicans refused to do anything at all to restrict the availability of Rapid fire weapons of war that these people are taking into schools and shooting up kids.

[00:12:09] Even the municipal police chiefs have gone to Congress the last two decades to call for a ban on assault weapons. Yeah. This is a disgrace. We're having a mass shooting a day. Children are understandably concerned, worried, and afraid. They have to do, we had to do duck and cover drills for a nuclear attack that wouldn't have done anything to defend us.

[00:12:38] But they are concerned about problems of weapons in school and attacks and common sense gun control has been proposed for 40 years and Republicans that have been enthralled of the NRA and the gun lobby have moved to stop even common sense gun control. Now, We know that once we pass common sense gun control and eliminate assault weapons, we still have a long ways to go.

[00:13:08] Other countries make it much more difficult to get a weapon. You have to go through training first and know how to use and store the weapon because weapons on the home front are often used for suicides or domestic violence. So we've got a ways to go beyond common sense gun control, but that'd be a starting place.

[00:13:30] Yeah, that would be doable. We have to chip away at this problem. Yeah. As we've talked in the past. I'm very concerned because I've taught in prisons and I know that some of the violence can be stopped if we start to give children rights and dignity and opportunity and security. And when I asked inmates, when did they fall into despair and hopelessness?

[00:13:52] They'd say at the age of 10, 11 and 12, 

[00:13:55] they gave up on everything. Their family wasn't reaching them, the community, the schools and the country. And we've made a lot of bad choices there. And they would drift into gangs and they'd tell me their whole story. Should have written about it. I saw this from 77 to 82 and then I did a stint teaching maximum security.

[00:14:15] That was my ticket to grad school. And I heard all sorts of stories and you realize half of it's BS. But when you hear the same story over and over again, you realize there's a lot of truth to it. So we've failed in creating secure streets, secure environments for our children. And some of the violence comes from us reaping what we've sown.

[00:14:37] But we just haven't concerned ourselves with kids while we've pounded our chest talking about family values. 

[00:14:43] Yeah, how about that? Now, another hot button issue now is immigration, with Republicans constantly charging Biden with having an open door policy that permits a flood of all these terrible, undocumented immigrants who he says are rapists and criminals into this country.

[00:15:03] Now Biden just issued an executive order to tighten security along the border with Mexico. What are your thoughts about all of this? 

[00:15:13] I think Democrats have long wanted a reasonable immigration policy, but blocked by Republicans for decades. Now, it's always been a difficult task to fashion legislation that's fair, and it's always been a compromise.

[00:15:29] And the last one was under Ronald Reagan. And we believed that we could come up with a fair compromise. And Reagan with the compromise said that reasonable immigration policies are a foundational freedom for America. Democrats tried the best they could this past session to work with conservative Republicans to come up with new immigration policy.

[00:15:57] And just to refresh the recollection of your listeners, Trump called Mitch McConnell and said, I'd rather use it as a campaign issue than to resolve the problem. So that legislation died. This is a party that's not interested in solving problems. They'd rather use them at election time. First, the American public and demagogue on the issue.

[00:16:24] I became more aware of this as a young man doing farm work in Northern California, where I met a number of undocumented immigrants that were working and they paid them half as much as me, and it was clear they worked hard, they had family values. That's born now. All over the country with people that come in they commit crimes at a far lower rate because they want to stay in the United States.

[00:16:51] And this is strictly demagoguing. If you look at congressional districts along the border, this issue doesn't resonate the same way it does deep in the heartland of America or further away from the border where people don't know as many undocumented immigrants. Or people that are here on green cards, or new immigrants from Mexico or Central America.

[00:17:15] This is essential that we get this right. It's going to be a compromise, and Republicans, led by Trump, are standing in the way of that compromise. Yeah, you could see I got carried away on that one. 

[00:17:29] It's okay. I understand totally it, it's a really tough issue and the Republicans, to me, they just keep demagoguing the whole thing.

[00:17:37] And if the proof is in the pudding, if they really wanted to solve the problem, there was a bill, as you just said, that that was negotiated and the Democrats. backed off and accepted some of the conservative provisions that the Republicans insisted upon. And yet Trump said no, don't do that.

[00:17:57] That just demonstrates to me the irresponsibleness of this man. 

[00:18:04] Absolutely. And I think that's indicative of how he has operated and how he will operate. And since he has major control over the Republican Party, we see basically no voice, no, no profiles in courage taking him on. So it is, as you suggest, where we're headed.

[00:18:28] If we don't stand up and fight it this election. 

[00:18:31] Yeah. Okay. Speaking of the election you're refusing to take corporate money to fund your campaign. The fact is that the wealthiest 1 percent put 90 percent of the money into elections. What should be done about that now?

[00:18:47] We need significant campaign finance reform. And we've needed it for a long time. McCain Feingold in the Senate was a solid bill, but the courts have chipped away at it and the current beneficiaries of large donations don't want to make the change. But it's mainly Republicans that are blocking campaign finance reform.

[00:19:12] Democrats have proposed this a number of the past sessions. And I'd be very flexible on it. I think we're going to have to chip away at it. I won't make the perfect the enemy of the good. But I do want to share an aspect of Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission with the listeners. And that that decision, which President Obama called out, State of the Union 2010, with the nine robed justices there saying it would be a threat to democracy.

[00:19:41] It is, our elections become auctions when this happens. Super PACs now to get unlimited money, according to the Supreme Court. And they don't have to disclose the donors. What this means is money is flooding in from other countries, Russian oligarchs, Mexican cartels, that money is part of our election process.

[00:20:08] And I want to submit that this Supreme Court is a radical Supreme Court. And that they themselves had been taking gifts from all sorts of admirers. 

[00:20:20] And they don't disclose the origins of their gifts. And they've been doing that for years, that the ethics of this Supreme Court that overturned the legislation in Congress is lower than any court in the country.

[00:20:36] And it's lower than any city council. If you take money from somebody who might have a case coming up before you, you have to disclose it. That just seems like common sense to me. And again, I give a longer answer because I think it threatens democracy. And I've been saying this for 50 years in the classroom.

[00:21:00] And I think the only way to go at them is you don't take their money. That way you bear witness the way necessary. You can't serve two masters. And I think this is an essential part of getting our democracy back. 

[00:21:11] Okay, now the 7th district is packed full of senior citizens. Retired people have come to South Carolina and most of them, many of them rely upon Social Security for their a bulk of their retirement income, if not all of their retirement income.

[00:21:35] Now, the Republicans and Trump. Once again, they're targeting seniors and those less fortunate on Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. If you're elected, what would you do to preserve Social Security and Medicare for future generations?

[00:21:53] Social Security needs to be strengthened. A lot of proposals are out there, again, from Democrats that haven't moved with. Republicans blocking them. I'd move to eliminate the tax cap at $168, 000 because beyond that, people don't pay any taxes, all of us are paying a 6. 2 percent and it's matched by employers.

[00:22:18] And that goes into social security. But if we eliminate the cap, we make social security solvent and there are more resources there. Further. We've got to find a way to inch up the amount coming in and distribute it differently because some people who worked at minimum wage for 40 years don't have very much in social security.

[00:22:41] So the proposals from the Biden administration and from the Democratic caucus is to raise The lowest threshold on social security, up to about 15, 1, 800, depending on what we can afford. And down the road, we're probably going to have to inch up very slowly and incrementally. The amount paid in taxes, maybe it goes to 6. 5 percent and then there's a match by employers. Now. I hasten to say it's going to be again a grand compromise. I don't see this as being more secure in the private marketplace because we've seen what happened with the crash of 2008. But also I think it's fair to mention that seniors who get a bump in social security typically will spend that money right away.

[00:23:29] It increases aggregate demand. So there's greater demand for goods and services and people providing those goods and services. So it would strengthen our economy in South Carolina and strengthen families and give more dignity to seniors. Regarding medical care, I'm a believer we have to do whatever we can to expand access to medical care, make it more affordable.

[00:23:56] And I really think If we give the Canadian plan an honest hearing, we will conclude as Canadian conservative businessmen do, that. It can be run successfully. They've done this since 1971. And really it's money that comes back from the federal government to the provinces and people pick their doctor.

[00:24:20] They pick their hospital. Everybody's covered. They live three years longer than we do cost two thirds as much money. It's better for business. Better for health, better for dignity. There are some Canadian businesses that won't locate in the United States because the cost of doing business and some American businesses locating Canada, because it's better for business.

[00:24:43] This is because of the 4 trillion a year health insurance industry. This is a tax on all Americans. And it really is simply organized crime. No other country puts up with this. We can have health care for all. I believe it's a human right. And I think the public will have to get more involved in this to help stiffen the spines of elected officials so they take on this big industry.

[00:25:11] What do you think about the effort in South Carolina, where the Republicans have refused to accept additional Medicaid funding provided by Congress? We've got tons and tons of people who are on Medicaid here in this state. People who would benefit if that additional funding was utilized.

[00:25:32] And Nikki Haley refused to accept it. And ever since then, the South Carolina legislature's done nothing to to provide that funding.

[00:25:43] It's a disgrace. And I agree with Martin Luther King, who said the worst form of cruelty is to deny someone health care. We have a radical right that's in control in our state house. We saw it with the open carry bill, with the decisions outlawing abortion after six weeks. These are radical positions, and they'll only be changed when Democrats get out, register people to vote, get them out to vote.

[00:26:13] And take over these seats and we take back this state on the grounds of sanity and dignity for people because it's led by a radical right that doesn't believe that people have a right to health care or the children have a right to food over the summer.

[00:26:32] Now moving to the environment, President Biden has made a great many efforts in his first term to protect the environment from the threat of climate change. And Donald Trump is pledging to reverse those efforts. What are your thoughts about all that? 

[00:26:50] Climate change is real. Our civilization is a force of nature that threatens our security.

[00:26:57] And we're reaping what we've sown. Six major studies from the UN, including over a thousand scientists from over a hundred countries, have concluded this for the last 35 years. We need to listen to the science on it. And the Pentagon, back in 2003, said climate change is a greater threat to national security than terrorism.

[00:27:25] And they understood that the droughts, famines, Mass fires, floods will cause political instability and as they termed it, it's a catalyst for war and mass migrations. We've seen the mass migrations on our southern border because of the droughts in Central and South America. We've seen wars in Syria after the worst drought in 900 years, where people moved from the countryside to Aleppo in northern Syria, protested because they weren't listened to, they were shot at, and that civil war continues. It was lack of water that was a contributing factor to the war between Sudan, southern Sudan, the infighting in southern Sudan, we've seen floods in Pakistan that led to the So the Taliban stepping in with doctors, nurses, water and food, Pentagon understands this clearly.

[00:28:24] It's just the beginning of climate change. It's hard for us to imagine it. I think we have to slow down to imagine it. But America can take the lead. And as we create more efficient solar panels and windmills, the world will buy them from us instead of us buying them from Europe and China. For One more point.

[00:28:49] Our electrical grid hasn't been updated for decades. At this point, it's vulnerable to cyber attacks. But it also can't move solar and wind power from rural areas to the cities. When we do that, we'll be able to rapidly expand what we're able to create with sustainable energy. This is doable. Most people get it.

[00:29:13] I had the blessing to read for my livelihood. That's why I'm out here. I'm going through my 401k. I think we have a blinking red light. This is a crisis on climate change and the sooner we're able to confront this in a massive way the better for the United States, the better for the future, the better for the world.

[00:29:37] And I think it's a vital issue. And Trump, funded by coal and oil companies, a climate change denier is just breathtaking in his ignorance. 

[00:29:50] Okay. Now I want to turn to, finally two, two questions that deal with education. You've been advocating for a children's bill of rights. Tell us about it and why it's needed.

[00:30:02] I've seen in years of teaching, both in the public schools and in the prisons, problems the kids face if they don't have food or health care, or the family's not secure, or the housing isn't decent, or they can't keep on the lights at night, or they don't have regular water because the water gets cut off.

[00:30:23] The kids don't learn. And it's further than that. And that's where Martin Luther King was. That was the economic justice portion of the civil rights movement. And Marian Wright Edelman from Bennettsville, South Carolina, who inspired Martin Luther King's poor people's march on Washington.

[00:30:41] That's what they were working for. We just haven't finished the civil rights movement. This is economic justice for all kids. And we're a wealthy country. We can afford it. We can invest in our kids. And I intend to remind our Republican friends and independent friends that all the studies show that a dollar invested in early childhood education yields about seven dollars in return.

[00:31:06] And maybe it's five and a half, maybe it's eight. If you're in business and don't invest a dollar to get seven, you shouldn't be in business and you shouldn't be in government. 

[00:31:15] Okay now, as a college professor, you're fully familiar with the high cost of education and the burden of student loans.

[00:31:24] President Biden has been working to reduce that burden. Of course, the Republicans have done everything they can to block them. And in the courts have gone along with that. So what are your thoughts about all of that? 

[00:31:39] I think we ought to make college affordable.

[00:31:42] Technical and community college free. We want to get as many people as possible through technical college because in a global economy, that's the minimum for being able to have secure jobs and thus stabilize your family. Public college used to be very affordable. You'd have some skin in the game.

[00:32:03] When I went to UCLA started in 1968, it was $300 a year. Now I'm not saying we can get back to that. We'd make it plenty affordable. And we can have loans that students could take out from a national bank and pay two tenths of a percent interest on it so that the banks wouldn't be making money off of students that were borrowing to go to college.

[00:32:28] I think a lot of scholarship money ought to be made available. We ought to recognize that as students are invested in That all of us reap the benefits and they're able to create more secure families. We're into global competition, need more education, a better education than ever before. We're facing other countries that invest in colleges.

[00:32:51] When I visited South Korea on a Fulbright Fellowship and I talked to teachers in the public schools. They had 60 in their public school high school classes, could have heard a pin drop. Everyone knew how serious it was to get into college, to get a good job in a global economy. And those kids were going to school on Saturdays.

[00:33:13] They go to cram schools. So they're going to school year round and on Saturdays. Education is vital. That's the path for economic development, economic security, and opportunity. And it's a way of restoring the American Dream. America has to tax the wealthy their fair share, so that we can invest in creating opportunity and security and restoring the American Dream.

[00:33:39] Okay. Do you have any other comments you'd like to make? 

[00:33:43] Oh, this is a terrific interview. It's great to have a chance to talk about these issues and that's why I wanted to run and if elected I'll hold town hall meetings so we can talk about these issues. I think we want to develop as much as possible in a divided nation a civil discourse, like we need to return to civility. We've lost that. And I fear this is going to be the roughest election in our history. And I do believe everything sacred is on the ballot. It's gut check time for those who want to continue the progress you've made the last couple of generations.

[00:34:22] Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it. 

[00:34:23] Okay. Thank you, Mal.