The Constitution Doesn’t Take Sides — Neither Should You.

Chapters

• 0:00 Mission And Oath
• 2:07 Beyond Party Lines
• 4:00 Reagan Roots And Constitutional Limits
• 6:45 Losing For Telling The Truth
• 9:15 Founders’ Rivalries And Shared Virtue
• 12:20 Structure Of The Constitution
• 16:35 Rule Of Law Vs Rule Of Power

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is the Walt Blackman Show where truth doesn't whisper. It lands like thunder. Your host isn't just another voice in the crowd. He's a decorated combat veteran who led troops on the battlefield. A trail-blazing lawmaker who broke barriers in the Arizona State Capitol, and a relentless defender of the Constitution who refuses to bow the political correctness or party lines. Here, you won't get watered-down talking points. You'll get unfiltered truth, unapologetic courage, and the grit of a warrior who knows freedom is never free. So buckle up, because this isn't just commentary. It's a mission. And the fight for America's future starts right now. You're listening to the Walt Blackman Show.

SPEAKER_01: 0:54

I'm Walt Blackman. I don't speak from theory. I speak from the front lines. I'm a combat veteran who led soldiers through war, a current state legislator who fought for Arizonans in the trenches of policy, and a voice that refuses to bow to the winds of political correctness or party allegiance. I stand for the Constitution. I stand for America. My experiences, my values, my voice. AI is a tool, not a substitute. And unlike many in this space, I won't hide behind a filter or a machine. You deserve transparency, and I owe it to you. Let's speak plainly, fight boldly, and stand firm in truth. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. I ask you, did you hear anything in the preamble about Republican, Democrat, Independent, Far Right, Liberals, Radical Left, MAGA, or Rhino number? What you heard was this we, the people of the United States. This podcast is not about red or blue. It's not about independence, the far right or the far left. It's about something much bigger than party lines. It's about our responsibility to protect the Constitution of the United States, not as we wish it were, not as we bend or interpret it for political gain, but as it is written. Look, I got it. We live in strained times, but I still believe in clarity, courage, and conviction. I am a Reagan Republican, and that label means something different to different people today. Some hear Reagan Republican and think Cold War hawk. Others think limited government, strong defense, personal responsibility. For me, it means a deep respect for the Constitution and the courage to say no, even to your own side. President Ronald Reagan once said, the Constitution was never meant to prevent people from doing things for themselves and their families. It's a document to protect the people from the government doing too much to them. That's the heart of this conversation. I share this message with you not as a Republican, not as someone who disagrees with democratic ideology, but as an American who once put on the uniform, who once swore to defend the Constitution of the United States and who still carries that oath today. Because at the end of the day, my loyalty isn't to a party, it isn't to a candidate, it isn't even to a seat in office, it is to the Constitution and to the Republic it protects. The night I lost my 2022 congressional primary bid, I sat in my truck for over an hour. I didn't cry, I didn't yell, I just stared at the steering wheel. I had told the truth, and it had cost me everything. Look, I got it. Politics is a tough game. You don't enter it expecting hugs and high fives, but when you lose everything for telling the truth, it teaches you something real about loyalty. Not the kind they sell on TV, the kind you have to live when no one's watching. The call stopped, the donors vanished, the party I thought I belonged to turned its back, and that's when it hit me. Politics without morality is mere ambition disguised as ideology. This isn't new. From the very beginning, ambition has tested the limits of virtue. George Washington knew it, Jefferson and Hamilton knew it. Two patriots, two rivals, both brilliant, Jefferson envisioned liberty rooted in states and farms, whereas Hamilton advocated for banking, commerce, and a strong central government. Their fights were fierce, so fierce that Washington warned their rivalry was harrowing and tearing our vitals. He begged them, lay our shoulders to the machine together. Now imagine them today, Jefferson firing off Twitter threads, Hamilton pounding the table on cable news, loud, messy, ugly. But despite their rivalry, both men still believed in something bigger than themselves. They believed in service. They believed virtue mattered, do we? Look around today. Council members expelled for bribery are re-elected anyway. Mayors caught in scandal walk right back into power. Luxury perks, hidden contracts, campaign violations, shrugged off as business as usual. Fundraising platforms are weaponized, social media algorithms are designed to divide, and citizens are treated as pawns on a chessboard of ambition. Look, I got it. People are frustrated. They tune out because they think it's all rigged, and I don't blame them, but giving up on virtue means surrendering to the worst parts of ourselves, and that's how republics fall. Not by force, but by fatigue. And I'll be transparent with you, I was not immune. I once rehearsed the safe version of a floor speech, the one that would have kept me in my party's good graces, the one that would have let me keep my seat, but then I remembered something greater. My oath, not to a man, not to a party, but to the Constitution. At that moment I turned the pages of this document and saw the design our founders built. Look, I got it. The Constitution isn't a magic wand. It doesn't fix corruption, it doesn't guarantee virtue, but it gives us the tools, the structure to check power when we choose to use it. The problem isn't the paper, the problem is the people ignoring it. They wrote it not for convenience, but for constraint. They anticipated ambition, faction, corruption. They understood human nature. They knew that power unchecked corrupts. That's why they built in structure. Article one. Section one says all legislative powers are vested in a Congress of the United States composed of Senate and House. In section two, they insisted that the House be chosen every two years by the people, that representatives meet strict age, citizenship, and residency requirements. In section three, they built staggered Senate terms so not everything turns at once, that design forces deliberation and guards against rash swings. They anticipated factions, regional rivals, ambition unchecked, and so they built checks and balances. They understood that no single person, no party could be trusted to rule unfettered. They wrote because they believed that only through law, structure, and principle, through a constitution, could the republic survive. But they didn't stop there. In Article VI, they made the Constitution itself the supreme law of the land and bound judges and officers to it, above every state law, above every political whim. In other words, no man is above this document. Not the president, not the legislature, not a party leader. Only God is higher than it. And even that notion belongs in the conscience of the citizen, not in the rule book of politics. When we bend or ignore the Constitution for short-term gain, we tear at the foundation, we invite tyranny. So here's the test. Do we believe in the rule of law or the rule of power massed as law? Do we believe that the Constitution is a sacred contract among we the people, not a tool for ambition? I admit I once believed the vice president could de-certify the 2020 election. I shouted it, I wanted it to be true. But belief doesn't rewrite the Constitution. On January 6th, the vice president's role is ministerial. Open the certificates, count the votes, announce the result, states certify, Congress receives. The vice president does not overturn. To claim otherwise wasn't just wrong, it was dangerous. It invited crowning one man king over the republic, and that is not who we are. That's when I turned to John F. Kennedy's profiles in courage. In discussing those senators, Kennedy reminded us that these stories of past courage can teach, they can offer hope, but they cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man must look into his own soul. He wrote that, in whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. He observed that to be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. And he warned that a nation which has forgotten the quality of courage is not as likely to insist upon or reward that quality in its chosen leaders today. Let me ask you now, have we allowed this to be broken? When a president freezes, funding Congress has lawfully allocated, when he bypasses the appropriations process to serve political ends, have we not weakened Article I? When Federal Inspectors General, our internal watchdogs, are fired, silenced, stripped of protections, have we not violated oversight? When the executive tries to deny birthright citizenship, which the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees, are we still respecting the Constitution? When the press is punished for reporting independently, when entire outlets are cut off because they refuse to parrot the narrative, have we forgotten the First Amendment? When guard units are deployed across states without consent and governors are overruled by federal force, have we crossed the line of federal overreach? And when the courts do not act decisively to stop it, when judges delay, defer, or dodge, is the judiciary still fulfilling its role as a check on executive power? Have we allowed this to be broken? History warns us. In 1933, after the Reichstag fire, Germany's democracy didn't die with a bang. It died legally. Emergency decrees, an enabling act, a constitution bent just far enough to break. Soon free speech was gone, the press was state-run, opponents vanished, and law became a tool of tyranny. The founders anticipated such peril. Madison in Federalist No. 51 told us that if men were angels, no government would be necessary. You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. Benjamin Franklin cautioned that they who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Washington, in his farewell address, warned us to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism and the insidious wiles of foreign influence. These are not dusty relics. They are warnings written for our time. Again, as I've said before on this podcast, and let me be candid, I once believed the vice president could decertify the 2020 election. I said it, I believed it, I was wrong, dead wrong. And I'm not afraid to say that anymore because the truth doesn't bend for popularity and belief doesn't rewrite the Constitution. In my book, From Iraq to the Statehouse, I wrote, courage isn't proven in the moments when you're right. It's revealed in the moments when you admit you were wrong and keep walking forward anyway. That's something I had to live out because courage doesn't always look like standing tall in a firefight. Sometimes it looks like standing alone when the crowd turns against you. It looks like saying, I got this wrong, even when it costs you politically, publicly, or personally. We live in a time when admitting you were wrong is treated as weakness, but it's not. It's strength, it's integrity, its leadership, and leadership grounded in truth is the only kind that lasts because the Constitution doesn't belong to a party or a personality. It belongs to the people, all of us. And if we're going to defend it, we have to start by being honest with ourselves. But here's what keeps me up at night in 2025: the rise of political terrorists. Not the kind who plant bombs, but the kind who plant lies, the ones who weaponize fear, silence dissent, and destroy anyone who dares to think for themselves. They don't wear uniforms or carry flags. They carry hashtags, smear campaigns, and fake narratives designed to divide Americans against each other. We're living in a time when people are punished not for breaking laws, but for breaking ranks. When free speech, the very foundation of this republic, is treated like a threat instead of a right. Let me be clear. I believe in the First Amendment. I believe in the freedom of speech, even when I disagree with what's being said, because without that freedom, there is no debate. Without debate, there is no democracy. And without democracy, there is no America. We're facing a new kind of warfare, digital, psychological, political. It doesn't aim to conquer land, it aims to conquer loyalty. And when citizens stop questioning and start worshiping politicians like gods, freedom doesn't just fade. It's executed in broad daylight. The Constitution is not a suggestion. Article 2, the 12th and 14th Amendments, the Electoral Count Act. They still mean what they meant then. Let me be crystal clear. The First Amendment is not a suggestion. It's not a privilege handed down by politicians or protected only for the popular. It is the beating heart of freedom. You may not agree with what someone says. You may even despise their words, but they still have the right to say it. That's the beauty and the burden of liberty. The First Amendment doesn't just protect speech we like, it protects the speech that tests us, that pushes us, that makes us wrestle with who we are as a nation. In his retirement address, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reminded this nation of something sacred. He said, We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America and we're willing to die to protect it. That's not politics. That's principle. That's the oath every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine takes when they raise their right hand. And that oath doesn't expire when the uniform comes off. The vice president opens the certificates. Congress receives them. The vice president does not overturn elections. No one, not a president, not a court, not a crowd, stands above this document. Only God stands higher. In my book From Iraq to the State House, courage isn't just about charging a hill under fire. It's about facing yourself when the easy thing to do is hide behind pride. Real courage is admitting when you're wrong, standing back up, and choosing truth over ego. In my own journey as an elected official, I've had to stand in the fire, not from enemies overseas, but from my own people right here at home. People I once called friends, now turned critics. Some I call political terrorists because they don't just disagree, they seek to destroy the lies, the slander, the untruths. They've come at me from every angle, and yet I fought in a war to defend their right to speak those words. I don't agree with their rhetoric, I reject their hate, but I'll defend with my life if I have to their right to say it because that's what makes America different. That's what makes it sacred. I fought for that right in uniform. I fight for it now in the State House, and I'll keep fighting because freedom doesn't flinch, freedom doesn't bow, freedom stands, only God stands higher. And so I think back to Profiles and Courage, Kennedy wrote of Senator Edmund, Ross, who cast the deciding vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson, knowing it would destroy his career. He praised John Quincy Adams, who defied his own party because truth mattered more than tribal loyalty. These men stood when it cost them everything, and in doing so, they proved that moral courage is the highest form of public service. That's what America needs again. Not louder voices, but braver ones, not political terrorists spreading chaos, but patriots defending conscience, because in the end, courage, real courage, is the only firewall that protects a republic from its own fear. So I leave you this. Read the Constitution, teach it, debate it, demand it, and when power whispers that sacrifice is optional, say no, because we are not just inheritors of a republic, we are its guardians. This is Walt Blackman, born in battle, forged in truth, bound by oath. Until next time, speak truth, stand firm, and never forget who we are.

SPEAKER_02: 18:21

Disclaimer. This program was produced with the support of AI technology, used as a communication aid under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Walt Blackman lives with a surface connected traumatic brain injury that he sustained during combat operations in Iraq. AI helps Walt share his message with clarity, consistency, and purpose, ensuring his voice stays strong and his mission stays focused.