The Ripon Rabbit
About this show
Tonight, AJ is putting politics through one simple test: Do your actions actually match your principles?
We hear the word hypocrisy thrown around constantly in politics—but what happens when the contradiction is coming from our own side? Tonight, we’re digging into some uncomfortable examples:
- Campaigning for one candidate… then deliberately voting for another because they’re supposedly “more beatable.”
- Conservatives warn voters about Francesca Hong while supporting a strategy designed to help her advance through the Democratic primary.
- Candidates attacking technology, and massive data centers while relying heavily on social media, algorithms, voter data, cloud infrastructure, and digital campaigning.
- Candidates calling themselves “grassroots” while enormous PAC, party, RACC, and outside-donor money surrounds their campaigns.
- Politicians condemning dark money when it helps the opposition; but suddenly finding far fewer objections when the spending benefits their own team.
- Candidates tearing each other apart during a primary and then, almost overnight, demanding that everyone “unite behind the nominee.”
And that raises the bigger question:
Do we actually have political principles anymore—or do we simply have rules we expect the other side to follow?
Tonight isn’t about pretending hypocrisy belongs exclusively to Republicans or Democrats. It’s about looking in the mirror. Because if you would be furious watching the other side do something, but you’re willing to defend it when your side does exactly the same thing… That might be the problem!
Then, when the show ends, the microphones open inside the VIP Backstage Lounge and we want to hear what YOU think. Tonight’s question:
What is the biggest political hypocrisy you’re willing to condemn—even when YOUR side is doing it?
Because principles that only apply to your opponent aren’t really principles. They’re weapons.
