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Podcast number 1230 Expressing Disapproval of Elected Officials.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1230.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Donald and Hillary Levin about not liking the people who are elected to government positions.
Let's get started.
Which candidate are you going to vote for in the upcoming elections?
Neither one.
I'm not voting.
What?
You have to vote.
Don't you want to make your voice heard?
Neither candidate represents my views.
They each have their own political agendas that reflect the concerns of the elite, not people like you and me.
To me...
Voter apathy is the real problem.
Things won't change if we don't vote.
You're not listening.
Both candidates are in the pockets of special interest groups and only care about pork barrel politics.
They're not really concerned about the everyday challenges that you and I face.
That's not true.
Look at the platforms of each candidate.
They each stand for different things.
That's just lip service.
They'll say whatever matches public opinion to get elected.
No matter who gets into office, things will stay the same for regular folks like you and me.
So you're really not going to vote?
Nope.
What do you hope to achieve?
Consider it a silent protest by the disaffected.
Hillary begins by asking Donald Which candidate are you going to vote for in the upcoming election?
A candidate c a n d i d a t, e is a person who is trying to get elected to a certain position, often a position in government, such as president or governor or senator.
Hillary is asking Donald which candidate he's going to vote V-O-T-E for.
To vote means to indicate which person you want to win an election or which position you are taking on some matter that you are being asked to vote on.
We normally vote for people, but in some states, such as California, There are laws that you also vote on directly.
Most of our laws are voted on or voted for by our representatives.
We vote for people who then vote for laws.
But in some cases, we vote directly on certain laws.
Hillary is talking about candidates for whom Donald might vote.
In the upcoming or soon to take place election.
An election E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N is a period when people vote.
Elections typically take place on one day, although that isn't always true.
Sometimes you will have voting taking place over a couple of different days.
More commonly now, people can vote by mail.
So you can start voting even before the day of the election, when people actually go to a place in their neighborhood and vote.
Just by coincidence, just by chance, I'm recording this today, which is an election day in California.
But I'm not going to vote today because I voted by mail last week.
I sent in my ballot, B-A-L-L-O-T.
Your ballot is the piece of paper you use to vote.
Donald says, neither one.
I'm not voting meaning he's not going to vote for either of the two candidates who are, we would say, running for office, trying to get elected.
In the U.S., there are two large, important political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans.
In most elections, there are two candidates, a Democrat and a Republican.
That isn't always true, but it's often true.
Hillary says, what?
You have to vote.
Donald says he's not going to vote.
And Hillary says he has to vote.
She says, don't you want to make your voice heard?
The expression to make your voice V-O-I-C-E heard means to give your opinion in a way that makes other people know what you think.
Donald says, however, neither candidate represents my views.
To represent here means to have the same opinions that you have.
Donald continues.
These two candidates each have their own political agendas that reflect the concerns of the elite, not people like you and me.
A political agenda.
A G E N D A is a list or a set of ideas that you believe in, especially if you are someone in government.
It's a list of things or a set of beliefs that you want to put into place or put into action.
To reflect here means the same as to represent.
To reflect, R-E-F-L-E-C-T, means to be very similar to, in this case, your ideas.
But Donald says that these candidates don't represent his ideas or his concerns, but rather the concerns or the things that are important to the elite E-L-I-T-E.
The elite refers to the people in a society who have the most money and the most power.
Hillary says, to me, voter apathy is the real problem.
Things won't change if we don't vote.
Apathy, A-P-A-T-H-Y means a lack of interest or lack not being very enthusiastic or interested in doing something or participating in something.
Voter apathy refers to the fact that some people don't want to vote or are simply not interested in voting.
Some people think this is bad.
Hillary, for example.
I'm not so sure.
You may not be interested in voting because you think everything is going fine in the world, or you may not be interested in voting because you don't think voting will make a difference.
Sometimes that's true.
Sometimes it isn't.
I don't know of any evidence that shows that the more people vote, the better government we get.
Maybe if you aren't interested in voting, it's because you haven't been educating yourself and therefore don't feel you should vote which, in my opinion, is a good reason not to vote.
But many people disagree with me, including Hillary.
Hillary says things won't change if we don't vote.
Donald says you're not listening.
Both candidates are in the pockets of special interest groups and only care about pork barrel politics.
The expression to be in the pockets P-O-C-K-E-T-S of someone means you are being influenced or controlled by another person or group, probably because that person is giving you money.
Special interest groups are are organizations that try to influence government groups that try to get their ideas adopted or put into action by the government.
The term pork P-O-R-K hyphen barrel B-A-R-R-E-L.
Politics, sometimes spelled without the hyphen between pork and barrel, refers to using money to make a certain group of voters happy in order to get those voters to vote for a certain party or a certain person.
So, for example, if I'm a politician who has been elected to a government position, I might give money to certain groups or to certain people so that those people will vote for me in the future.
Yes, this really happens all over the world and probably in all periods of history.
Donald is complaining that these candidates...
Only care about pork barrel politics, meaning they don't care about everyone, just about certain voters whom they're trying to influence by giving them money.
Of course, you can't give voters money directly in exchange for them voting for you.
You do it in other ways.
Donald says the candidates are not really concerned about the everyday challenges, the day-to-day problems that people like Donald and Hillary face.
Hillary says that's not true.
Look at the platforms of each candidate.
A platform.
P-L-A-T-F-O-R-M in the world of politics refers to a list of positions or ideas that a certain candidate or political party believes in or stands for.
In the US, every four years, the two major political parties sit down and write their platform the ideas that they believe in or the laws that they want to pass or get rid of.
Hillary says that each candidate stands for different things.
To stand for means to believe in. to take a position for or against a certain policy or idea.
Donald, however, disagrees.
He says that's just lip service.
Lip service is a phrase we use to describe support or Belief in something that isn't really sincere or that doesn't represent any sort of action.
Someone can say they're for the environment or they're for doing something about the economy, but they don't actually do anything.
To say something, that you believe in something, but not to do anything about it, is an example of lip service or giving lip service.
We might also say
Donald says these candidates say whatever matches public opinion to get elected.
Public opinion refers to what people believe, what the majority of people believe.
Donald says no matter who gets into office, meaning it doesn't matter who gets elected.
Things will stay the same for regular folks like you and me.
Regular folks.
F-O-L-K-S means normal people, ordinary people, people like you and I, No matter who gets into office.
Donald says things will stay the same, meaning things won't change for regular folks.
Hillary then asks, so you're really not going to vote?
Donald responds, nope.
N-O-P-E.
Nope means no.
It's an informal way of saying no.
Hillary says, what do you hope to achieve?
Meaning, what are you trying to accomplish by not voting?
Donald says, consider it a silent protest by the disaffected.
A protest.
P-R-O-T-E-S-T is some action that shows your disapproval or disappointment in someone or something.
A silent protest would be not speaking or not doing something as a way of showing you are disappointed.
Disaffected D-I-S-A-F-F-E-C-T-E-D is an adjective used to describe people who are not happy about the people who are in power, such as politicians, and don't want to support them in any way.
People who are disaffected may be people who don't vote, for example, because they are angry at everyone who is part of the political process.
Please note that the names used in this dialogue do not represent any real people, especially not candidates for the presidency of the United States.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Which candidate are you going to vote for in the upcoming election?
Neither one.
I'm not voting.
What?
You have to vote.
Don't you want to make your voice heard?
Neither candidate represents my views.
They each have their own political agendas that reflect the concerns of the elite, not people like you and me.
To me, voter apathy is the real problem.
Things won't change if we don't vote.
You're not listening.
Both candidates are in the pockets of special interest groups and only care about pork barrel politics.
They're not really concerned about the everyday challenges that you and I face.
That's not true.
Look at the platforms of each candidate.
They each stand for different things.
That's just lip service.
They'll say whatever matches public opinion to get elected.
No matter who gets into office, things will stay the same for regular folks like you and me.
So you're really not gonna vote?
Nope.
What do you hope to achieve?
Consider it a silent protest by the disaffected.
If there were an election for the best scriptwriter on the internet, I'm quite sure the winner would be the one the only Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
