(upbeat music) - We're now joined by Dr. Matt Hale, who is associate professor Department of Political Science at Seton Hall University, one of our longtime higher ed partners.

Good to see you, Matt.

- Hey, good to see you too.

- You got it.

Hey, Matt, bunch of things I wanna talk to you about.

First, anti-Semitism.

You understand it, not just from a scholarly point of view.

You're a council member in Highland Park who happens to be Jewish.

Do you see a rise in anti-Semitism?

And how is it manifesting itself?

- You know, one of the things that I think may be under the radar that we're seeing a lot is I feel like I have a lot of friends and a lot of students and a lot of folks who are feeling abandoned, and that's how anti-Semitism is showing, so you're seeing people who you thought were in your corner, who you were in the corner for them, and then, all of a sudden, they disappear.

All of a sudden, they're gone, and, you know, I've heard stories, repeated stories about people who are canceling play dates for kids because, you know, they don't want their kids to play with Zionists and things like that, so this is different than it's been before.

We're, you know, obviously you see incredible rise.

ADL is talking about a 360% increase in anti-Semitic incidents, but it really is sort of, I think, different this time in many respects 'cause it is this core sort of canceling of people who have a belief in Israel, or canceling of people who are, you know, support the state of Israel or Zionism is enough to get you kicked out of your sorority, get you kicked out of your fraternity, or kicked outta your kids' play dates, and that's the sad part, right?

- Shift gears dramatically, Matt.

Why the heck did you write an op-ed piece?

And you know where I'm going with this.

There's no easy segue here, so Matt Hale wrote a piece, "EVs Tear Up N.J.

Roads.

"They Should Pay Their Fair Share to Fix Them."

What's the issue with EVs?

And what does it have to do with the Transportation Trust Fund, which funds transportation infrastructure projects in New Jersey?

What's this about?

- So, you know, up until the latest reauthorization, which just happened, electric vehicles didn't pay anything- - Reauthorization of the Transportation Trust Fund.

- Yeah, into the reauthorization of the Transportation Trust Fund, EVs and vehicle owners didn't pay anything into it, so there was no fee for them.

They didn't pay at the pump, and so there was...

I just felt that there was a need to sort of recognize that, yes, EVs are fantastic.

We should encourage them, but at the same time, how those bills fall on folks I think is important, so if you have a, you're a plumber, and you need a big truck to make that happen, you're not gonna get an EV, and you're gonna pay higher taxes in Transportation Trust Fund, higher gas taxes, and the person who has a Tesla is not gonna pay them, so it's not that EVs are a bad idea.

It's not that they don't, you know, help the environment, climate crisis.

It's just the fact that they should start paying their fair share for the roads that they use.

- Put this in perspective.

Professor Hale's talking about the Transportation Trust Fund, EVs, and what they should pay or not.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but in 1985, as a very, very young member of the state legislature, I voted for the original authorization of the Transportation Trust Fund, and trust me, EVs were not in the legislation and were not considered.

I don't think anyone thought...

It did have to evolve and adapt.

- And that's the most important thing is we have to evolve and adapt.

As these new technologies come on, I think it's important that everybody pays their fair share for the things everybody uses: roads and bridges.

- You also wrote a piece.

You call it "New Jersey's Toy Story Moment," so here's the deal.

You have said, "New Jersey politics is special, "and not just because of how our ballots are constructed."

We've done a lot of programming on the party line, and it's not gonna... (clears throat) Judge made a decision about that, so there'll no longer be a party line, on the Democratic side, at least.

What makes New Jersey politics so special, Professor Hale?

- So the part that I think is special and has been special about New Jersey politics is that we still have strong parties, both on the Republican and the Democratic side.

Compared to nationally, New Jersey parties actually have a much greater and more significant role in how things get done.

Parties breed moderation.

The people who get the nod in the party, either Democrat or Republican, they're not far left or far right.

They're people who are generally in the middle, and I think that's where most of New Jersey folks are.

The line is a very powerful tool for parties to help enforce that.

They help parties enforce that moderation.

My worry is that as this develops, you know, over the next four or five years, we're gonna see much more of candidates running without the party, and they're gonna be farther to the left and farther to the right and the sort of same kind of gridlock that we see in Washington D.C. where literally nothing can get done because partisan differences may come to New Jersey.

That may or may not happen, but that's something that I think we oughta consider.

- Hold on, Matt.

You're saying that getting rid of the party line, which many folks, including a lot of political reformers have said, "There's just a few folks, "who disproportionately are men, white men, "who make decisions about things.

"That's anti-democratic, and we need more people involved.

"We need to make it easier for people to run."

You're saying, "Wait a minute.

"That may be true, "but it's dangerous to do away "with the party line because..." 'cause, Matt, I mean, here's the argument I would have in response to that or the question.

If someone's a candidate too far to the left, too far to the right, if they didn't get enough votes, they wouldn't win.

- So my point of the article is that one of the things that we can expect to happen is that independent money, whether it's self-funded or whether it's money that is, you know, raised nationally, right?

You're gonna be able to raise... Those types of candidates are gonna be a lot more likely to win, to be able to win outside the infrastructure, so you could have candidates with a lot of money who can self-fund that are gonna just ignore all of the party apparatus or try and ignore it, and they could win that way.

You're gonna have people in low turnout elections, right?

Who might strike a nerve at a local level that will be able to upset, you know, someone who has been on the line.

I'm not saying that it's the worst thing in the world.

I'm saying that there are some downsides, sort of just like the Transportation Trust Fund.

As we're thinking about moving forward, as we're thinking about making things better, we have to recognize that it's not a light switch.

We're also, we're not gonna save democracy by getting rid of the line or keeping it.

We're not gonna save the planet by getting rid of EVs or making them pay more.

We have to make sure that as we're making policy decisions, we're confronting both the costs and benefits in these issues, and there are costs and benefits in every issue.

- We're taping this program on the 29th of May.

It's a significant day because a jury in New York is making a decision, so ironically, we're taping today in the Trump, former President Trump hush money case, so that being said, it's either guilty, not guilty, or hung jury.

We don't know, and we're not gonna try to report the news.

That's not what it's about.

What, in any way, do you believe this verdict, whatever it is, will potentially have an impact on, not just the presidential race, but, frankly, the future of our small-d democratic society?

This is a former president being charged, regardless of how it plays out, with 34 felonies.

That's significant regardless of what the verdict is.

- Absolutely, and, you know, there will be a certain percentage of people who, no matter what the guilty verdict is, still are gonna vote for Trump.

There'll be people who would never vote for Trump no matter what.

I think one of the things that this case brings up, though, is we're struggling with our institutions right now, the institutions of media, the institution of university, the institution of government, the institution of parties.

All of the institutions that we have trusted and relied on, people are seemingly more and more willing to throw them out the window, to say, "We need to scrap the existing system "and go to something new," and I think that's a danger.

If you're willing- - Is democracy in danger?

Sorry, Matt.

Is democracy in danger?

- I absolutely think...

I think you can't have a strong democracy without strong institutions, and our institutions are getting weaker and weaker every day.

You need trust in institutions in order for democracy to work, and we are, again and again, losing trust in those institutions and wanting to throw them out the window, and that's the danger that democracy faces.

- But what about all those people who believe the system doesn't work and that we should need to, we should, quote, "Throw the whole thing out "and blow it up and start over."

People believe that.

Many people believe that.

- Absolutely.

There are a lot of people who believe that.

You know, we have a system that allows you to change the system from within, to go and to work with people who agree with you, who you wanna fight with, no matter what your point of view is, no matter where you're coming from, we have the ability for people to get involved in a system, to work in a system, and to make changes in that system, and it doesn't happen overnight.

It doesn't happen like TikTok.

It happens over decades, over time, and it feels to me that we often don't wanna spend that amount of time in order to make things better.

Clearly, today is better than it used to be, in so many different ways, except for the fact that our institutions are no longer seen as a place where we can come together, collaborate, and solve problems.

- I may also say, and it's not editorializing, and people who disagree with this, I'm not sure why.

It also cannot happen through political violence.

- Absolutely not.

There is no- - Or overthrowing the government, or an insurrection, whatever.

There is no place for that, and there also, there's no place for political hatred of those who disagree with you.

I can't even believe that's a controversial point of view with some, Matt.

- So, you know, here's- - Few seconds left.

Go ahead.

- Here might be a story is I was at a graduation the other day, and the Secretary of the Navy was commissioning new ROTC officers, and there were protesters who were protesting the war in Gaza, and they came towards the stage.

They stopped in the middle, about the 50-yard line of this.

The Secretary of the Navy said, "The people that I am about to give the the oath to, "the people in this ROTC are taking this oath "to protect and defend whatever you wanna say "in the back of the room.

"Whatever you wanna say, "they're there to protect and defend.

"People who are in the front lines are protecting the people "to say what they want in the back lines."

That's what democracy is about.

That is what democracy stands for is that you have institutions that protect your right and your freedom, and if we don't have those, we don't have a democracy.

- Thank you, Matt.

It's been too long since we've had you.

Will not be this long again because what you share is significant, and people can decide for themselves, but your voice is important.

Thank you, Professor Hale.

- Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

That's Professor Matt Hale.

We'll see you next time.

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