Kelly Tshibaka: 0:07
Welcome to Stand, your weekly audio adrenaline supplement. We believe that oftentimes, the victory is just in the standing Standing for what you believe, standing for others and standing for what’s right. I’m Kelly Tshibaka, a former government watchdog, candidate for US Senate, and, as always, I’m joined by my favorite Niki, Tshibaka, a former federal civil rights attorney. Remember to subscribe to our show on your favorite platform. You can find us online at standshow. org and on YouTube at the Stand Show. You can also follow us on social media. We’re at Kelly for Alaska and let’s keep growing our community of standouts. Invite friends to subscribe to our show and follow us on social media. This week, we will send a free sticker of stand to one lucky person who leaves a review for the show. So make sure to leave a review for stand on your favorite platform or at the Stand Show on YouTube. We’re so amped today to have Alex Bruesewitz with us, an epic social media influencer. You’ve probably already heard of him. Alex is the founder and CEO of X Strategies, a political consulting firm that helps promote and elect America’s first leaders. This rated one of the fastest growing companies in the Southeast by Ink Magazine. And get this. Alex founded the firm when he was just 19 years old In 2022, Alex wrote the book Winning the Social Media War. In this book, he outlines principles and practices for how to effectively use social media to positively influence our culture, and now he’s regularly considered as a candidate for national political office. Welcome to Stand, Alex. You’re happy to have you with us today.

Alex Bruesewitz: 1:53
Hey, thanks for having me, Kelly. It’s great to be with you.

Kelly Tshibaka: 1:55
It’s great to be with you. We’re so glad.

Niki Tshibaka: 1:58
Yeah, I’d love to kick this off, Alex, with a question for you. I’m really excited to talk to you. I was fascinated by your starting X Strategies. As I understand it, it’s a firm that’s focused and known for identifying potential conservative political candidates and then making them household names. What inspired you to start?

Kelly Tshibaka: 2:22
X.

Niki Tshibaka: 2:22
Strategies when you were just 19 years old, I mean when.

Kelly Tshibaka: 2:27
I was 19,.

Niki Tshibaka: 2:27
I was thinking about things like spring break. What was my major going to be? And here you are founding X Strategies, this amazing company that’s doing incredible work. So tell us about what led you to start that.

Alex Bruesewitz: 2:40
Well, thank you for the kind words and it’s certainly been a fun ride and kind of it was just luck. I was just a dumb 16-year-old 17-year-old that was shitposting part of my French on Twitter about my support of Governor Scott Walker at the time, about President Trump. I think I was retweeted by Donald Trump for the first time when I was 17 years old, sitting in study hall, and I dedicated the next nine years of my life to becoming a Twitter troll and defensive President Trump. And another thing changed and President Trump brought politics online and it’s something that I grew up with. I grew up with social media. I grew up with this technology. Where a lot of the other consultants in Washington DC are in their late 30s to early 40s. They were a little bit behind the trend when it came to social media and so I was like, hey, look, I can do this. And I met my business partner, derek, who was also proficient in growing social media accounts. He’s a little bit older than I am and he took a chance at investing in a 19-year-old. Let’s just say I was not the sharp guy I am today when I was 19. But Derek took a big chance on me and thankfully, it worked out.

Niki Tshibaka: 3:51
That’s amazing. I mean, it takes a lot of courage and a lot of vision to do that at 19. And it continues to take a lot of courage because of the things that you stand for. Where do you develop and how did you find that kind of courage, Alex?

Alex Bruesewitz: 4:10
Well, I was raised by my mom a single parent household and my mom was very tough on me and she was the most courageous. She is the most courageous person I know, and so she instilled that in me. She had still confidence in me. She works in real estate, so she’s very sociable and social, and so I just followed her around and learned a lot of those I guess, people skills, you could say. And I just have never been any other way. I’ve always been myself and some people like me, some people don’t, but I don’t lose sleep over those who don’t per se, and so we just have some fun out there. And President Trump again he totally changed the game. When you look at politics the way politics has been for I guess my entire life up until about seven years ago, it was a certain type of person that got involved with Republican politics. A lot of them were the country club conservatives, the folks who grew up in the perfectly beautiful nuclear family which I’m a big fan of and I absolutely encourage that, but a lot of Republicans that grew up. I grew up on BadgerCare, for example, state-run health care, and that was a popular position among the Republican party, and so a lot of people that kind of grew up in my upbringing. They felt left behind by the Republican party. But then President Trump came along and he said hey, I am for you guys, I am for the forgotten men and women of America. I am for the working class. I have your back, and so it attracted a lot of different people in the politics, and the Republican party in particular, and so a lot of outsiders like me were able to find the lane and get in. And I’m really inspired and encouraged by all of the fresh faces of the Republican party and I think that we have a beautiful future.

Kelly Tshibaka: 5:51
Alex, you’ve got a really great story. I mean even just in a couple of questions so far. You grew up in a situation that we hear that story from other people and it’s victim lane and poor me and I can’t really get above my station and I take a lot of handouts and that’s not the story that your mom gave you. She built you up and taught you to live with a lot of courage and taught you to fight, showed you some ropes and you know, at 19 you’re an entrepreneur and you’re a little bit indifferent to the people who slam doors in your faces, which is obviously something you learned from your mom, who was a business woman as a single parent. And I mean, the other story I like is, if you take out the strong feelings people have about President Trump, somebody with a lot of power paid attention to you and gave you some wind beneath your wings at a young age, and I think that that’s a lesson for all of us that sometimes people go around and feel like, well, what can I do? I can’t make a difference. Just paying attention to and believing in one person who’s maybe a teenager, that changed the whole trajectory of your life. And I mean you’re in study hall, right, I have kids in study hall, teenagers in study hall this week.

Alex Bruesewitz: 7:12
Well, I hope they’re not tweeting.

Kelly Tshibaka: 7:15
Right, and if one of them were to unfortunately be on social media? I mean just the idea that somebody who has a little bit of influence or that they would esteem or respect in our community would pay attention to them and something that they were doing could have that kind of influence on you. It’s a really big deal. I like that kind of story. I want to talk about your book because you do more than just put things out on social media that actually have navigated the nation. You’re a bit of a rudder on the boat that is our country for those who aren’t on Alex’s feeds and social media pages, but you also did something in passing that knowledge on to others. I think it’s really significant. This book you wrote Winning the Social Media War. I want to just ask you, how can conservatives because this is what you wrote about in your book win back influence over culture using social media? I’d like to just hear kind of a high-level overview of what you would say to all the people who think that there’s not really much hope left.

Alex Bruesewitz: 8:16
Yeah, well, I think I definitely understand where the folks who feel discouraged are coming from. We watched how the major social media companies in Silicon Valley worked in tandem to undermine our country’s election in 2020. They worked in tandem to suppress the greatest political stance scandal in American history in the Hunter Biden laptop and the Joe Biden corruption, and that had a massive impact on the election, and let’s not even get into the different voting mechanisms that were used. That major instance alone swung the election by 17% of Democrats, so that they would not have voted for Joe Biden had they known about the Hunter Biden laptop. And they would have known about it if the social media companies didn’t suppress free speech. Correct, and so I definitely understand the discouragement. However, with Elon Musk taking over Twitter and unleashing free speech back on Twitter, which I do believe is the most impactful platform in politics, I think that a lot of the younger people they like TikTok and they like Instagram, but where the true influencers, who can influence the politics where they play, is on Twitter, and so Elon has brought that back and we’re actually seeing a major difference, I think, and so we’re seeing fewer and fewer hoaxes spread like wildfire on Twitter, because what happens is. The story starts on Twitter, it spreads through the media, because that’s where all the journalists cover, and then it trickles into the other social media platforms and the other influencers on a different platform share it, and so stopping where the hoax starts. That’s what Elon did, and so that’s a major win for us, but I think that Republicans need to stop being so corny. I think there’s a lot of corny Republicans out there that push people away, and so I like people like Byron Donalds, for example, or Annapolna Luna or Wesley Haunter, president Trump. They have a sense of swagger to them, they’re fun, they’re a little bit more aligned with the current population, and so we just need to continue to platform more voices like theirs and make sure that the people online don’t think of Mitch McConnell per se as a Republican Party.

Kelly Tshibaka: 10:37
Thank you for sharing all of that. I think that one of the things I hear in there that you said that I think is really important is don’t be afraid of social media and use it to your advantage and to leverage it. A lot of people in our position, people who share conservative values they won’t even touch Twitter, and what I just heard you say is that’s actually where kind of the root of ideas and free speech start, and then they spread to these other platforms.

Alex Bruesewitz: 11:11
I’ll give you an example, if you don’t mind. I didn’t mean to cut you off. I’ll give you an example on that. One of the first moments that we actually realized the importance and the power of Twitter was during the Parkland School shooting. Right after the Parkland School shooting, what was happening if you created a new Twitter account and your first people suggested follows where David Hogg, emma Gonzalez and another gun grabbing student that was politicizing the tragic occurrence in Parkland. And so there’s this narrative being spread to try to take away our Second Amendment rights, to infringe upon the God-given right to self-defense. And what we were able to do in a very short time is a lot of conservative players. We were able to identify a few conservative voices to platform to counter the narrative. And so this is when folks like Kyle Cashew, who was also a student at Parkland, was able to get on the Pierce Morgan, because of a viral tweet, got it. It combats that narrative. You had Andrew Pollock, whose daughter, beautiful daughter, meadow was killed in that shooting, who was able to get a massive voice and invited to the White House to share his story and push back against the leftist lies. So we were able to counteract the forced leftist agenda and platforming of these students by platforming our own voices. So there’s these constant battles that were happening in Twitter 1.0 that aren’t as much happening anymore because the left doesn’t have the advantage of having all of the internal. It’s more of an equal field it is when it’s an equal field. And there’s significantly more of us, because I do believe we are the silent majority, and we’re not silent because it’s much on Twitter anymore, so we’re winning these wars now online and the left doesn’t know what to do about it. That’s where they have to arrest our top political opponent.

Kelly Tshibaka: 13:06
More on this after our break. Get into the battle and get into the game. You can get Alex’s book to figure out how winning the social media war. It’s available online. It’s everywhere, from Amazon to Kindle to Walmart. Make sure to get it. Get the game plan. We’ll be back after the break. We’re on YouTube at thestandshoworg. Follow us on social media. Kelly for Alaska Stand by. Leave a review. Be entered to win free sticker from the show. Stand by. We’re back on stand with social media expert and political strategist Alex Bruesewitz. Make sure to leave a review this week. The episode is on stand on your favorite podcast platform. We’ll select one lucky audience member who left a review to receive a free sticker from the show. Alex, when we first met, we were in a very small meeting with one of the most senior members of the GOP and I watched as you very respectfully yet very artfully challenged this party’s leaders decisions to finance and support candidates who would actually vote Democrat, even though they were elected Republican, instead of the leaders supporting conservative candidates who were running in the districts. I believe a house divided cannot stand, so I wanted to ask you, as a strong political strategist, what is the path forward for maximum effectiveness of the Republican party at the national level.

Alex Bruesewitz: 14:43
Well, that was a fun conversation we had. I don’t think it was fun for that person.

Kelly Tshibaka: 14:48
I’ll leave that person gender neutral.

Alex Bruesewitz: 14:50
So that guy flies to Palm Beach and he wants a big check from a donor. Just want to share this story with your audience, but he wants a big check from a donor and the donor calls me up. I’m in the gym. I’m like she’s like Alex, I need you to come over to my house. He’s about to be here. I want you to ask him some questions. I’m like you know what? Fine, I’ll come over and he sits down and he’s doing what they do and they kiss ass and talk about how wonderful he is and the great plans that they have. And I just politely say, sir, why are you raising money for people that voted to impeach Trump? And the donor wasn’t aware of that and I don’t think he left with the big check that he flew all the way down there for himself. I see his team or I see him out and I see those folks out. They don’t like me too much, but that’s all right. But look.

Kelly Tshibaka: 15:40
I think that To be fair, Alex, you didn’t just ask one question.

Alex Bruesewitz: 15:44
Okay, maybe I asked a couple, but look, I don’t think that the Republican party is the answer to all the problems. I think for many of the problems that we face in the nation, the traditional Republican party has left so many people behind. They have failed us, and I think Donald Trump and the MAGA movement has saved the Republican party. I like to say that grew up in Ripon, wisconsin, which is the birthplace of the Republican party. Abraham Lincoln was there in 1854. We have a little white schoolhouse there. But that Republican party that Abraham Lincoln found it. It was great, let’s say, under Ronald Reagan, but post Reagan we were losers. I really do think we were losers. I think George W Bush was one of the worst presidents in the history of our country. I think he was incredibly damaging and because of him we had to be before Trump. We didn’t win the White House with the traditional Republicans since 2004. And so that’s why I think it’s so hysterical that the Republicans think that we can win without Trump and we just can’t do it. The MAGA movement is the only reason the Republican party is still alive, and so I think that the Washington Republicans a lot of them. They have tremendous contempt for people like us, for people who align themselves with more of the MAGA policies, and because of that, they try to undermine us, and so we need a Republican party that respects its base. We need leaders who recognize that they are in Washington to serve the people, not serve themselves, and so I think a lot of people get to Washington and they forgot who sent them there. A lot of people go up with good intentions. You saw what happened with a lot of people came into the Tea Party movement. A favorite of mine is booster seat Adam Kinzinger Very short man, turned out to be a crying man in Congress, tried to subpoena me, had total loser now, but what happened is he came through the Tea Party movement, but then he got in bed with the big donors and the Raytheons and the big war and everybody that hates our country, and he totally turned his back and sold out, and so that’s what happens too many times, and so the people need to hold them accountable, and we can’t have unity with people that don’t respect us, and so the base needs to hold people’s feet to the fire. I think we did a really good job of that in 2022. We took out nine of the 10 impeachment rhinos. I think that it’s disappointing how your race turned out, but I do think your voting system is kind of corrupt. I don’t like the right choice and I think that’s very dangerous for our country, and I think other states were leading that way and we can’t let that happen. But we did a really good job of taking out those who didn’t align with us, and now we’re doing a good job of making sure that the Republicans in the House they do what we sent them to do, and so we’re not at 100% yet, but I think we’re better than where we were in 2016. And I think we’re at 75%.

Kelly Tshibaka: 18:49
And this is what Extrategies is totally dedicated to. So congratulations, thank you. Many people talk about unity. I want to pick up on this unity theme unity among Republicans. You’re a bold critic of what we would call rhinos Republican and name only. But we’re a party that supports diversity, views and opinions. We love that, but not a party that doesn’t like hypocrisy and people only say one thing like you just mentioned, adam and then do another. We don’t like that. We respect compromise, but not cowardly capitulation. There’s a difference. Right, you’ve got to in DC. You have to compromise to get things done, but you can’t compromise on principles because that’s capitulation. So what are your thoughts on how we can continue to promote diversity within the party without promoting compromise of the platform, compromise of integrity? What does that look like to be unity within the party while also promoting diversity?

Alex Bruesewitz: 20:01
Well, I think, the compromise angle. I’m not a big fan of compromise at the moment because I don’t know how you compromise with the modern-day Democrat Party, the Democrats in Washington. They are pro-birth up into the moment they’re supposed to, or abortion up until the moment of birth, even, in some cases, the post-birth abortion. The Democrats are in favor of mutilating the genitalia of young children and the sick and satanic child sex changes. The Democratic Party of 2023 is not the Democrat Party of the 1990s, and that’s where a lot of Republicans need to get in their minds. And so you can’t compromise with evil people. You have to defeat them, and we have too many people in Washington that want to go or get elected and go to Washington, that want to be invited to the cool parties, they want to be accepted by the mainstream press and they forget the meaning of their job, and a lot of the folks you can tell if they refer to themselves as congressmen instead of representative, I think that’s a good tell, and so they’re supposed to represent the people, but too many of them represent themselves, and so but right now we are at a tipping point in our country. We are facing a threat of communism that I don’t think we’ve seen yet in this country. We have 19 co-conspirators allegedly down in Georgia that just got arrested. We have President Trump, who’s been arrested four times. Now we have a fifth indictment, likely coming with the superseding indictment, and so we need a Republican party that is willing to fight back, and if you’re not up for the fight, then you shouldn’t be there. I don’t care if you want to play patty cake with Nancy Pelosi and do some insider stock trading Get the hell out. We need people who are prepared for this moment. We need people who have courage, we need people who have convictions, and we have people who won’t compromise, and we are just too far gone and we need to turn the tables on the left and then, maybe 10 years down the road, we can look at compromising and having some civil discourse, but we are really up against it, and I mean that we need to defeat, and if we don’t, we won’t have a country anymore.

Kelly Tshibaka: 22:11
These are all good points.

Niki Tshibaka: 22:14
You know you’ve already covered a little bit of this, Alex, but just want to see if you have anything you want to add. Talk about the 2024 upcoming election. My question is how do Republicans win this cycle, not just the presidency, but the down ballot races too? And you’ve talked about holding people’s feet to the fire. You’ve talked about social media. Is there anything else, any more teeth that you want to add to that in terms of what you think we need to do strategically?

Alex Bruesewitz: 22:45
Well, I think it’s important. I think the map is shrinking. The map is totally shrunk. There’s this idea that we’re going to have this major supermajority in the House. I think, with the way the demographics are now, that’s just impossible. But I think it’s important that we hold this House, maybe pick up a couple more seats. But I think something that can be done is the Republicans in Washington. They need to deliver on the promises that they campaigned on in 2022. Because if they don’t do what they said they were going to do, why would voters turn out for them? And I think one of the big things that the voters want is they want to see Joe Biden impeached. I think they want to see Mayorkas drag before Congress and have to answer questions about why the hell he left our border wide open. I think they want to see Ukraine funding come to a pause. Like there’s so many things the Republican Party campaigned on during the midterms that gave them the House majority that they’re just failing to act on right now, and I think part of it’s because there’s a few folks in Washington that don’t want things to change. I think in the Senate in particular. I think Senate leadership wants to lose because they hate Trump, whether they love our country, and so after the midterms, you had a lot of situations in the 2022 midterms where our candidates were underfunded. There’s a situation where Mitch McConnell and his staff were literally calling donors in Arizona and saying do not support Blake Masters, screw that guy. And like when you have the Senate leadership undermining our Senate candidates and supporting people like Lisa Murkowski instead of true patriots in important states and important districts. That is not a recipe for success and people weren’t held accountable for that. But the thing is they wanted to lose in 2022 because they wanted to try to take out Trump. They wanted to blame Trump for the midterms and for a little bit that was successful. At narrative it was successful. Rob DeSantis was kind of rising in the polls, but then people were like wait a second, I didn’t know that Mitch McConnell was calling donors and suggesting that they don’t donate to our candidates. That’s kind of bizarre. And so when they took a pause and they actually learned the truth, then they’re like yeah, trump’s still our guy. But the success, I guess, is do not go against the base, and I think the Republicans in Washington if they’re playing with fire, if they try to go against Trump and then make sure our candidates are funded, and so there’s a few things that you can do, so stand with Trump, fund your candidates and deliver on your promises if you’re elected in Washington.

Niki Tshibaka: 25:21
Good stuff. We will be right back. Don’t go away. We are back with political strategist and social media influencer Alex Bruesewitz. Make sure to leave a review for this episode and we’ll select one person who’s going to receive a free gift. So don’t forget to leave a review. Alex, you promote and help elect conservative fighters, and your company, X Strategies, prides itself on being activists. First, your focus isn’t making money, it’s doing what’s right. Tell us about a client you’ve worked with who really inspired you to stand out among the fighters that you’ve helped.

Alex Bruesewitz: 26:14
Well, we’ve been blessed to be able to work with so many over the years and there’s a lot that come to mind, but one of my best friends turned, became a congresswoman. Her name’s Anna Paulina Luna, and I’ve been working with Anna for six years, first as trying to help her identify her voice as an influencer. She ran for Congress for the first time back in the 2020 cycle against former Florida governor Charlie Christ, who was the runaway favorite. He was supposed to win by like 20%. We got that race within six points in 2020. She never got discouraged. She never gave up the fight. She threw her hat back in the ring and just a few months after that, she won by 13% in 2022. She’s an Air Force veteran. She’s in her early 30s and she was pregnant. And then she’s pregnant. She just had her baby, god bless. And but while pregnant, young Anna Paulina Luna’s on the House floor delivering a censure of Adam Schiff. And See she, a freshman congresswoman, did more to hold Adam Schiff accountable than any of the rhinos that have been there for for decades. So our new class, our new generation of fighters and I mentioned a couple earlier, but Byron Donalds in Florida 19. I think he’s got a brilliant and bright future. You know JD van senator from Ohio. You know Lauren Boeber, marjorie Taylor, green Anna Paulina Luna, Wesley Hunt, Lance Gooden. I think this young generation of Republicans who learn politics in the Trump era are really gonna be forces be reckoned with for Many years to come. It’s a different type of politics. It’s a more relatable politics and the backstories of these people are Much more interesting than the traditional backstories of oh, I became a lawyer and then I became a politician, and this and this and this and that. Like Anna Paulina Luna was an air. She was supposed to go to medical school. She was brilliant. She was an Air Force veteran. She became the Hispanic outreach director for turning point USA overall badass. And you know she’s inspiring a lot more people to get involved. And when you put something on the Paulina Luna out there as a face of Republican Party, Mitch McConnell as a face of Republican Party, I think that’s a winning formula.

Kelly Tshibaka: 28:35
Yeah, like you said, it creates lanes for other people to enter into how I can see me in this. Yeah, I think it’s great If you want to learn more about her, about Alex’s friend, who went from ordinary American to Extraordinary leader for the country she’s at vote, Anna Paulina calm.

Niki Tshibaka: 28:55
Well, you’re talking about this next generation of Leaders, so let’s, let’s. Let’s stay on that theme for a moment. I’m thinking about this the, the, the next level down, the the younger folks were upcoming high school, college, you know, university. How do we help them detoxify from a lot of the junk and the falsehoods that they’re reading on social media, that they’re hearing in the mainstream media and that they’re being indoctrinated with in in academia?

Alex Bruesewitz: 29:26
Yeah, I think Parents need to step up. That’s number one. My mom had you know I’d sit there and watch back when Fox News was a good network. I’d sit there in the living room with my mom and watch Fox News every night and she’d like this is there. This is the way, Alex, this is the truth I got. I got you mom, and so you know it’s important to to raise your kids and be there for your kids. I think a lot of parents they kind of check out and they allow the school system or they allow social media to raise their children for them, and I think that’s led to tremendous damage to our country and to the minds of our youth. You know, and and I but I understand, like parents they have to work most parents now to Feed your family, if that too incomes in the household, both parents have to work and your kid is stuck with the teacher for ten hours out of the day and then they come home and they’re tired and this and that, and so you know we have a Major problem in our country. I think we need to get back to promoting and supporting the nuclear family. Ideally, we could figure out a solution for families to be raised up of one household income, like they used to, and I think there’s ways you can go about that. But it’s important for families to be together. I think church and community is also important. But you know, we, there’s certainly a psychological warfare happening on our young people and, I think, my generation, I, I’m getting old, I just turned 26 and so you know, I Think there’s, I think there’s hope for the 20, then younger’s, but not so much help for the 26 to 35 year olds.

Kelly Tshibaka: 31:03
Yeah, Alex, I think I love your value on the role of the parents. We talk a lot about parental rights when it comes to schools. I don’t think parents surrender their rights when they send kids to schools, but they also don’t surrender their responsibilities. It’s not the schools responsibilities to raise our kids and, like you said, there’s been a lot of outsourcing Happening in our, in our culture and there’s such a strong role for parents to Shape the hearts and the minds of their children. I really like how you said that. So there’s been some talk and, I would say, some enthusiastic support for you to run for Congress to be our next on a Paulina Luna, if you will, and I would like to hear what would you say are kind of top of your mind for the pressing challenges facing our country that you would like to address. We would see you on the floor of Congress introducing some bills or some resolutions. You say, okay, if this Representative, Alex, making lanes for people, what would you want to take care of if you were in the, in Congress or in the Senate for us?

Alex Bruesewitz: 32:08
Yeah, absolutely Well there’s. There was certainly some speculation, but I want to put those rumors to rest. I’m not running anytime soon, but I think it would be fun. I think we would do well if we did run eventually. But Look, I think our. I think supporting the family is one of the major things for me. A lot of folks feel left behind by the current way of our country and the current politician structure, and Making sure that our families feel Supported is key to me. I think child tax credits are a major. I never want abortion to happen because of economic reasons. I think a lot of women they say that they can’t afford to have a child and so they won’t have a child, and so I think JD Vance and Josh Hawley are onto something with the child tax credits and the family tax credits and making it a little bit more affordable to have children. I think that’s a big priority of mine. Another priority of mine would be ending the weaponization of the justice system. I think that is the greatest threat that we face to date. We’re seeing not only them persecuting President Trump, but many of Trump’s most loyal supporters. Today or yesterday, Peter Navarro, a top advisor of his face, that contempt of Congress case because he refused to comply with the BS, the Pinafra, the January 6th committee, but not just going after President Trump, but they’re going after pro-life centers and Catholic churches and they’re going after people that they just deem enemies of their agenda. And that is dangerous and we can’t stand for that. And so if I was in Congress on day one, I’d be looking at dragging Christopher Ray and some of the top officials before Congress demanding answers. If the answers aren’t acceptable, then we’d look at slashing the budget and possibly defunding it. But we have to go to bat against these folks because they are truly undermining our country and, if they succeed, our country will cease to exist.

Kelly Tshibaka: 34:10
Yeah, congress returning to its rightful role of holding the executive branch accountable Sounds what a concept. Yeah, what a concept. Let’s jump into this. After the 2020 election, you were speaking out pretty boldly on election integrity and your advocacy got coverage by millions of people. It also got you targeted you mentioned this before by the J6 committee. You are the object of a lot of hate on social media and you must have gone through a pretty intense and difficult time, but I wanted to ask what was the experience like for you? You chose to stand firm and demand election integrity. You were viciously targeted by Congress itself and by the media, but you really stood firm. You demanded that your constitutional rights are respected and I wanted to ask how did you press through that? What motivated you? When it kind of looked by all accounts, you were standing alone.

Alex Bruesewitz: 35:04
Well, you know, it’s actually kind of funny how that happened. So you know, about a year it was about a year between January 6th and me being contacted by the committee, and during that year I was in a lot of reflecting. I was seeing a lot of the stories about these families being ripped apart, but the FBI busting down these folk stores and arresting them for simply waving a flag at the Capitol that day, and they’re being thrown in these awful conditions and I felt bad that I wasn’t speaking out more in defense of these people. I wasn’t doing enough to support these people, and so I donated $50,000 to support some of the families of the J6 defendants, support some of the people who were being persecuted by either the FBI or the J6 committee. I felt just horrible. But and so I publicized my donation and two days after I make this donation, I get a letter from the January 6th committee. Alex, we believe you have information related to January 6th which I don’t, but they sent. They saw me support these people. They didn’t want me to support these people, so they went to financially hurt me and then they made up all these you know BS questions to ask me, which obviously they knew I knew nothing about. Hence why my name is mentioned exactly zero times in the 950 page January 6th report. And so the process is the punishment. They want to put us through hell, they want to try to torture us, and I just found fun in it. I honestly got through it because I thought these people were jokes but bad jokes. I think they’re dangerous jokes, but I’m not going to let Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney or Benny Thompson intimidate me, and so we had some fun with it. So when I showed up to the J6 testimony, I was wearing a hat that said subpoenaed on it. And you know we did what we had to do, but you can’t let these people feel like they would, and so you have to stand strong and you can’t break. And President Trump I think he shows that each and every day. I don’t know what other 77-year-old man could withstand for arrest to indictments. You know the Mueller probe seven years of disgusting and disgraceful lies. But he also finds peace in the chaos and I guess I’ve been watching that guy too closely for the last seven years and I don’t really mind the social media hate or what people do to me. I actually find it kind of entertaining.

Kelly Tshibaka: 37:35
Thanks, Alex. It’s a great response. Thank you so much for being with us today. Your stories are definitely an inspiration. We appreciate it and we’ll be back right after this break. Alex, you’re welcome back on the show anytime and you can get Alex’s book Winning the Social Media War online. Thanks so much.

Alex Bruesewitz: 37:51
Stand by, thank you guys, thank you, Thank you.

Kelly Tshibaka: 38:03
Welcome back to Stand. You’re with Kelly and Niki Tshibaka and we just finished our interview with Alex Bruesewitz, an amazing social media influencer who wrote the book Winning the Social Media War, talking about how conservatives can win back influence just by using social media. He talked about how Twitter is the new platform. It’s kind of where everything originates, and if you’re a little bit hesitant about how to go about influencing your friends and family and neighbors or a broader audience, we totally recommend getting his book. It’s available online on Amazon, on Kindle, etc. Or you can just pick it up at your local Walmart or bookstore. So I wanted to chat with you my favorite chat buddy about what we just heard from Alex. So I found this theme super interesting. Alex talked about how he was raised by a single mom and he learned from her how to kind of stand for these principles and values of work hard and you can make it. You can do it. You’re not a victim, gets noticed by somebody who was someone he looked up to, and then he admittedly makes some squirrely mistakes along the way, but kind of then grows into we’re now seven years down the road one of the fastest growing political strategy companies in the country and has had some really significant wins. He didn’t go into bragging a lot on himself, however, he’s a really large social media influencer, meaning he has a really big effect on doing things like shaping politics in the country. He mentions that really big donor. It is a really big donor, so much so that the heads of the Republican Party are coming to her house because she has that much effect on the money distribution in the Republican Party. She calls him and says I need you to come over here to help me figure out how to navigate whether or not to give donations to this part of the party or that part of the party. That conversation was really interesting to witness. By the way, he knows the ins and outs of all the candidates running in all of the 535 races across the country and which ones to get into and not get into. But what I thought is really interesting in the theme that he developed is just as he was mentored to become this person on the front lines of standing for what he believes, he’s now lifting up and mentoring people that they would become national leaders. Ana Paulina Luna was not much of anything 5 to 10 years ago. Now she’s one of the movers and shakers of our country. Why? Because one of her friends, Alex, helped her, and how did he help her in the same way that people helped him? In this case we would just say just a mom. And what I think is really important in that is there is a lot of just a people who are probably listening and watching right now who think, well, there’s not much I can do when you listen to the stories of great, significant, influential people. He didn’t stand up or show up before the J6 committee and have the victory that he had and persevere through all of that kind of thinking. This is humorous. I imagine it was stressful, but humorous and something that he was going to just get through because that was the first conflict he came up across. Alex had been getting in, enduring through hate and pushback and resistance and challenging huge leaders of the party and all these things for days and weeks and months and years before then, and probably had seen a lot of doors slammed in his mom’s face and a lot of resistance that she got, and this had been modeled along the way. He was just a person who was coached by just a people, and you take on these small battles, trained by mentors and people ahead of you before you take on medium battles, before you take on big battles, and I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts, because I know this is something that you’re really passionate about. I’ve seen you do this our entire relationship. Just ordinary people can have extraordinary influence, and sometimes you don’t get to witness it yourself. You just end up being the shoulders that other great people stand on, which can often be more rewarding, and you might not realize that you’re that person standing on someone else’s shoulders. But the little battles you’re fighting now are actually paving the way, even if they’re little losses, paving the way for great victories later.

Niki Tshibaka: 42:55
Yeah, no, absolutely. I really appreciated that illustration of the power of mentorship.

Kelly Tshibaka: 43:03
Right.
Niki Tshibaka: 43:03

And I think particularly for our young people. Today, coming out of the COVID pandemic and the hit on the economy, a lot of them are feeling like they don’t have the same kind of opportunities. Is the same kind of future ahead of them that say we we might have, or parents might have, and to have people who are a little farther ahead of you in life say, hey, you know what, you do have a future, I believe in you and I’m going to invest in you, whether it’s time resource, just advice, wisdom, encouragement open a network, introduce you to people. Absolutely. Those small things can make huge changes in somebody’s life. I think back to you know, when I was in sixth grade, my grammar school teacher. At the end of the year they both, both are grammar school teachers I gave all the kids a small little wooden figurine that they felt like represented the kids personality or was illustrative of something they did that year that everybody remembered. And they they couldn’t find a lawyer figurine, but they found a figurine of a kid with a graduate student, you know the hat and the black robes. And they said we’re giving this to you because we believe you’re going to be a lawyer someday. And my English teacher told my mom you know, your son just exhausts me because I was always asking questions, always arguing respectfully, but I kept that wooden figurine and I still have it. It’s like 35 years later. I remember in college looking at my by figurine on the desk trying to figure out what am I going to do with my life when I graduate. And looking at that figurine and saying somebody saw something in me, they saw this potential in me. I see that. I think I can do that.

Kelly Tshibaka: 45:15
Yeah.

Niki Tshibaka: 45:16
So so that that I think Alex’s illustration there. That story is so powerful. I even think back to my father who, when he was in a rural, rural area in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there was one kid in his school who was selected to take an exam and that kids who got the top seven scores would get scholarships through USCID to come to America to study. And his principal of all the kids in the school picked my father and said would you like this opportunity? That was one small thing that made a huge difference. But then my dad couldn’t afford to get to the testing center. Well, the principal was a Bush pilot. People here in Alaska understand how important that can be for rural areas. He flew my dad to the testing site so that he could take his exam. So it’s those small things. And that principal never knew, I think, what became of my father and how he became a very successful businessperson and changed so many lives and made such a difference for the poor and through his work throughout Africa.

Kelly Tshibaka: 46:24
One principle.

Niki Tshibaka: 46:25
One principle and that changed the course and direction of my life and my sister’s life and her children’s lives. And so there is so much power in the belief in somebody and investing in them, and I think Alex is a great example of that.

Kelly Tshibaka: 46:42
When Alex is talking about the impact that you can have on social media, the impact of words or the impact of pictures and memes right, how you can convince someone. I think about even the start of our nation was really shaped by, if you will, meme culture, the political cartoon. We didn’t have social media, but they did something similar. They would gather in the bars and the taverns and pass around these political cartoons. That really got people thinking about what are we doing under the rule of thumb of Britain and what’s happening here and early social media memes shaped our nation. I recently heard the story directly from a young leader about Alex’s age, who’s got a leadership capacity and organization nationally in political movement, who told the story that the reason he became a conservative political leader so active is he was in college and he was not that engaged politically at all and they were out in a kind of student common area and there was a girl with a backpack on that had a Trump button and she asked him. She just kind of turned around and asked him well, who are you voting for in this election? He said, well, I knew who she was voting for, but I didn’t even know who was running and he said I don’t know. And she said, well, you need to vote for Trump and here’s why. And she was just really kind of he didn’t know her, she’s kind of passionate and her advocacy and so he thought, well, I probably should look into this. And he looked into it and he decided that was his journey in becoming a Republican and so his exhortation to the audience in this talk he was giving was your words have power. And even talking to people you don’t know and just saying one thing who are you voting for? And here’s why I’m voting for whoever. You have no idea the life altering difference you could be making and just changing the way somebody thinks and, I think, developing the kind of courage where, yes, you might not be liked, but is that really your top value? Or is your top value making a difference, changing your community, serving people, pushing towards policy objectives? I thought it was interesting in that diversity question and the compromise question. A compromise used to mean something different under President Reagan. You and I have had this talk because of all of the Democrat friends that we have. I think Democrat is distinct from some of the far left policies that are being pushed, even though they’re housed in the Democrat Party. We have a lot of friends who are Democrat, who don’t share their far left values, and you and I have talked about how there used to be a difference, how you could kind of dialogue and disagree and debate and even reach compromise, but, just like Alex said, you can’t compromise with things that are evil. There’s just no reaching an agreement there. So fascinating discussion with Alex Brusewitz. I hope we can get him back on. Thank you so much for joining us on this week’s episode of Stand. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform. See our clips and shows on YouTube at the Stand Show. Follow us on Kelly for Alaska on social media. Our website is standshoworg. If you leave a review this week, you’ll be entered to win a free sticker from the podcast Stand and we will see you next week. Make sure to share this episode with a friend or family member to continue to grow our awesome community of standouts. Thanks so much for joining us. We’ll see you next time.