Investor Jim Rogers: Obama is "delusional"

Jim Rogers is one of the most successful investors in American history, and now, thanks to America's not so "business friendly" policies, runs his operation in Singapore. This morning on radio, Jim joined to radio program to give Glenn his reactions to the plan for the economy Obama laid out in last night's SOTU address. Did Obama convince Rogers to relocate back to the U.S.?

Transcript of the interview is below:

GLENN: Well, welcome to Hour Number 3. You're about to hear some truth. If you ‑‑ if you don't want to hear the truth, you know, I don't know. Watch, you know, watch ‑‑ go turn on CNN. If you want the truth here on what you're about to enter and the truth about our economy, you're about to hear it from one of the smartest guys. Been around and successful for a very long time, Jim Rogers. He's the author of a new book called Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets. Paul Krugman says Jim Rogers makes my head hurt. So please, Jim, keep it up. The ‑‑

ROGERS: You know, one reason I did the book was so I could put that on the cover, I make Paul Krugman's head hurt. I wanted the world to know.

GLENN: I just love that. I love that. Okay.

ROGERS: Glenn, is this television? There I am.

GLENN: Yeah, that's television.

ROGERS: Let me put on my tie for God sakes.

GLENN: You don't need to wear a tie, Jim. No need to wear it.

ROGERS: I thought it was radio.

GLENN: It is radio. It is radio and television.

ROGERS: Okay. Go ahead. Carry on. I'm sorry.

GLENN: You don't need to wear a tie.

ROGERS: I know I don't. I'm trying to bring a little class to this group.

GLENN: It's impossible. So Jim, you're going to be on television with me tonight at 5:00 and we're going to kind of go over, you know, the ideas that really quite honestly the president and many in the GOP are just going right along with. And we just had Rand Paul on who, you know, he's ‑‑ he's got I think a plan that would actually, might work at this point. Are we past the point of no return?

ROGERS: Yes, because the debt is physically impossible to pay off. We are the largest debtor nation in the history of the world, in the history of the world. Not just the largest debtor nation in the world, but in world history. And if you take in the off‑balance sheet, Glenn, it's physically impossible to pay it off. If everybody paid 100% of their earnings as taxes, we still couldn't pay it off.

GLENN: I actually, I talked to some banker friends of mine who are, you know, strangely, you know, like, "You know, hey, what we can do," and they don't notice the slide that they are in, you know. I talked to them for ten years and they ‑‑ and it's always, "Well, that's not going to happen." "Yes, it is." "No, it's not going to happen. They would never do that. And they just keep sliding down. The last conversation I had with one of them is they said, "Glenn, it's not so bad. And listen to this. It's not so bad." How do you believe it's not so bad? We still have the national parks.

ROGERS: So we're going to sell the ‑‑

GLENN: Sell the national parks.

ROGERS: You know what we could do? Second sell Santa ‑‑ we could sell the North Pole, too. We could occupy the North Pole, sell the North Pole.

GLENN: It's crazy talk. It's crazy talk.

ROGERS: I know. It's insane.

GLENN: Okay. So wait a minute. So how does this, how does this go from here? What are the road signs that we should look at? And, you know, people like you, you know, you can get on your plane and you can go to Singapore. I can't go to Singapore. And most people can't go to Singapore. And quite honestly if America goes away, I don't know how lucky you are in Singapore. You know, who's policing anything in the world or providing stability except dictators?

ROGERS: Well, there are people in the world who don't think that America's doing a good job of policing the world right now.

GLENN: No. We suck at it. We suck at it.

ROGERS: If that's your idea, you've got problems.

GLENN: Right, right. But at least there is some stability. You know, there's still some question on who wins, who fails here, at least in the minds of the average person, the average bad guy. There's still some ‑‑ you know, I think they know we're at the edge and just a little push will push us over and then the world changes.

ROGERS: Of course the world changes. The world changed when the U.K. ‑‑ you know, after the first world war, the U.K. was the richest, most powerful country in the world. There was no Number 2. They were bankrupt three generations later. One generation there was economic chaos because it was corroded from within. We're on the same path. There's no way we can pay ‑‑ you know, Glenn, right now interest rates are 0%. In America, the Central Bank is destroying the people who save and invest. You know all the people you know who save their money, who didn't get six houses, who didn't have ‑‑ make no down payments on their property, et cetera, they are being destroyed now. That whole class of people who saved and invested and did things right.

GLENN: So Jim, what do they do? I mean, because you're talking to ‑‑ I mean, you're right now eight million people and they're listening, and out of that eight million people 1%, 2%, we probably have 5% of this audience is in a class where they can actually, you know, they can maneuver and they've got a lot of money. Most people are living right at the edge. What does the person do who has saved their whole life? You know, I just read something that said if you are a saver, you lose. So really the best thing to do is just pile up debt. I'm like, okay, that doesn't sound good either.

ROGERS: That's not good for a society. They are save ‑‑ what they are doing, they are bailing out the people who did it the wrong way. The people who did save, you're right, they are being destroyed. All of those people are getting zero on their earnings to bail away, Glenn, to bail out the people who did it wrong.

GLENN: So let's take my parents. My in‑laws just retired. He still has his small business. He's an insurance agent. They have saved their whole life. She's got pension, they have got 401(k). What are they supposed to do with it? What do they do?

ROGERS: Well, Mr. Obama last night said everything is great.

GLENN: They don't believe him and neither do I, neither do you.

ROGERS: Don't your in‑laws know what Mr. Obama said?

GLENN: I know.

ROGERS: He said that everything is great and the middle class is on the way back and everything is fine now. I mean, the man is delusional. I was really afraid when I saw that. The only reason I watched it, I wouldn't watch that stuff except I was coming here to be with you.

GLENN: Oh, I didn't watch it. So you ‑‑ thanks for watching it for me.

ROGERS: I don't watch it either. I don't waste my time.

GLENN: I know what he's going to say and I know what the response is going to be.

ROGERS: But it's delusional. It's frightening. I don't live in the U.S. anymore. It was fright ‑‑ I'm still a taxpayer. So I have to know something about what's going on. But he was totally ‑‑ I don't know if he believed it or if he was just lying.

GLENN: I don't really care at this point. I mean, he's either ‑‑ he's either the best liar or he is completely delusional. I don't know which it is, but it doesn't matter.

ROGERS: There's a whole crowd of good liars.

GLENN: Right.

ROGERS: Up there in Washington. So ‑‑

GLENN: Right. But again, let me go back to the question: What does the average person do to be able to survive, Jim?

ROGERS: Well, that's an extremely good question and everybody in America right now is, at least the people who saved for the future, are facing that question right now. The only thing I can urge them to do is, like your in‑law, in‑laws, put their money back into their own business. That's at least what they know. Don't go putting your money into some hot tips you hear from a guy on radio or TV. Certainly don't listen to the government telling you what to do. Just stay with what you know. These are very perilous times. The government is not on your side if you're saving and investing.

GLENN: Okay. So the idea, when you say invest in your business, I've tried to explain, and you'll probably be able to explain this better than I can. I've tried to explain that I think the stock market is going to continue to go up because it's meaningless, and it's paper. And the cheaper the money is, et cetera, et cetera, that paper will go up and up and up. And so you'll read this and say two things: One, we're getting better because look at the stock market. We have this delusion of that that means something. But as that money is going up in your 401(k) and you're seeing, well, I'm making more, the value of when you turn that paper in is going down. So yes, it might be worth $1,000, but your buying power, once you turn that money in, your buying power is maybe $800.

ROGERS: Glenn, everybody listening to this knows that prices are going up. Go to the grocery store. Education, entertainment, anything, price ‑‑ healthcare, oh, my gosh. Prices are going up. The government says they're not going up. But you make a very good point. You could say you have $20,000, but the $20,000 is worth less and less and less because they're debasing the currency. It's an active policy in Washington. The head of the Central Bank, head of the Federal Reserve in America is dedicated policy to debase the currency. This is not good for you, me, or anybody in America except for some ‑‑ a few people in Washington and a few people on Wall Street.

GLENN: I've been urging people to become as self‑reliant as they possibly can, to take care of their ‑‑ make sure that they understand how fragile the food, the supply lines are, to understand that farming is going to become extraordinarily important again, to know that any way you can get off the grid and not be dependent on power from somebody else is very important. Anything you can do to make yourself free, independent as possible.

ROGERS: Well, you are doing a good deed for many people if they listen to you because there are going to be many breakdowns like that. We're going to have serious food shortages, not just in America but in the world coming up. And by the way, as an aside, farming's going to be one of the great professions of the next 10, 20, 30 years. You should become a farmer.

GLENN: I am. I am.

ROGERS: You have?

GLENN: Oh, I am. I have a ‑‑ I have cattle and a farm out West and I have cattle here as well.

ROGERS: I will tell you I ‑‑ when I speak to universities and students, I tell them all they should be studying agriculture. They don't want to do it. They all want to get MBAs. But it's a terrible mistake. They should be studying agriculture.

GLENN: Nobody ‑‑ and you said this to me a couple of years ago and it really sat with me. I've thought about it. In fact, I quoted you just the other day in a group of friends, that farming, nobody is studying it. And nobody wants to do that job. And it's not just here. It's around the entire world. And so farming has become a lost art.

ROGERS: The average age of farmers in America is 58. In Japan it's 66. In Canada it's the oldest in recorded history. In Australia it's 58. In ten years those guys will be 68 if they're still alive. Somebody's got to go into the fields. More people in America study public relations than study agriculture. We don't have any farmers coming up.

GLENN: Even if you do study, you know, farming or whatever, I don't even know what they would call it now, but it becomes about environmental studies. It's not even about how to grow things. It's how to get man out of touching the Earth.

ROGERS: That's true too, but some of the courses, if you go down to Texas A&M, I'm sure they show you how to ‑‑

GLENN: No, no, Texas ‑‑ no, Texas A&M, they will ‑‑ you know, here in Texas they'll, you know, they'll teach you something.

ROGERS: I suspect at Auburn they teach you to plow. You know, and to plant and to fertilize. There are some schools left that teach you the proper thing but not many because there are only 10,000 students, 10,000 study agriculture, 200,000 get MBAs. That's the graduate degrees.

GLENN: So if you want ‑‑ if you were ‑‑ if you had a 15‑year‑old and they were planning their future, you would say to them what?

ROGERS: I would tell her to go into the fields and if she likes the fields or he likes the fields to become a farmer. Because that's going ‑‑ the farmers are going to be driving the Lamborghinis. The farmers are going to be rich. We don't have any farmers. What more do you need to know? There's no competition. You know, and stockbroking and finance, there are lots of competition. 200,000 MBAs every year, Glenn, every year. Nobody ‑‑

GLENN: What makes you believe that farmers would be able to keep their land? I mean, if things break down, this government ‑‑ I mean, you watched him last night. He's already saying, you know, you don't do the environmental study, I'm going to do it for you. I'll just, executive order. I mean, he's going around the Constitution. He's going around everything. So makes you think that farmers would be able to keep their land?

ROGERS: Well, it's certainly not the land of the free that it used to be, you know. There's no more habeas corpus. They don't have to have a search warrant anymore to go into your house or to your bank account or ‑‑

GLENN: It's crazy.

ROGERS: ‑‑ anything. I know, it's just startling.

GLENN: When did you see this coming, Jim?

ROGERS: Well, I've seen it coming. You've seen it coming for a while, I've seen it coming, but I'm stunned at how rapidly it's happened. I guess ‑‑

GLENN: Were you stunned by ‑‑ because you're watching it from (loss of audio) you know, maybe I'll get away because I'll be driving the Lamborghini along with the farmers.

There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

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Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.

TOP 5 issues that have gotten WORSE since the last State of the Union

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If you saw Biden's State of the Union last week, or Glenn's firey reaction to it, you know that Biden hardly spoke a word that wasn't a flat-out lie.

If you spent the last 12 months in a fallout shelter and Biden's speech was the only media interaction you had since the last State of the Union, you might be tempted to believe that the country has improved in some way over the past year. But the rest of us, who have been living above ground, going to the grocery store, and paying some attention to current events, had only to look around to see that Biden's speech was nothing but hot air.

Here are the TOP 5 issues that have gotten worse since the last State of the Union.

Economy

Biden spent a significant amount of time during the State of the Union boasting about the strength of his economy, but anyone who has checked their bank account lately was left wondering if he was holding his speech upside down. It's not just the cobwebs in your wallet; the numbers show the devastation wrought by "Bidenomics" too. In 2022, American grocery bills increased by 11.4 percent and restaurant bills by 7.7 percent. In 2023 prices only continued to rise, with an additional 1.2 percent increase in food-at-home prices and a 5.1 percent increase in away-from-home prices.

Debt crisis and inflation

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The national debt continues to grow, and Biden managed to add almost 3 trillion dollars in just one year. As of December 2022, the national debt was $31.42 trillion. As of January 2024, the national debt has risen to $34.19 trillion.

Inflation didn't fare much better. While the 2023 annual inflation rate did drop from the horror of 2022, from 6.5 to 3.4 percent, that is still significantly higher than anything we saw before 2021. You also have to remember that it CARRIES year to year, as Glenn explained in his response to Biden's State of the Union: "Yes, it's not as bad as it was, but it's still what it was PLUS what it is now."

Border

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Biden's mismanagement of the southern border has inflamed the border crisis to all-time highs. In 2022 there were a staggering 2.2 million illegal border crossings, but that wasn't enough for Biden apparently, as an additional 2.5 million illegally crossed in 2023. An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Biden took office, and the effects are being felt. There has been a surge in crime across the country that is impacting millions of Americans, including the tragic murder of Laken Riley.

Fentanyl

The fentanyl crisis has only continued to worsen as more and more synthetic opioids flood our streets. Between the fiscal year 2021 and 2022, there was a shocking 54 percent increase in fentanyl trafficking offenses as more and more of the narcotic is smuggled across the southern border. We also saw an increase in fentanyl overdose deaths. In 2022 there were approximately 73,654 deaths, which is a significant increase from 70,601 in 2021.

Education and mental health

While the pandemic is long over, the lingering effects of the lockdowns are still being felt. Unsurprisingly, missing years of school has a major impact on the educational development of children. Kids across America are STILL struggling from pandemic-related setbacks, reading scores are still falling, and parents are reporting that their kids are struggling in their studies. The mental health crisis, another symptom of the COVID lockdowns, has also continued to worsen. Tragically, suicides increased by 2.6 percent between 2021 and 2022, marking the continued decline of mental health in America.

TOP FIVE takeaways from Super Tuesday

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The 2024 Presidential Election is taking shape.

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, the single biggest day in the presidential primary season. More than one-third of all delegates needed for a candidate to become the Presidential nominee of their party was up for grabs along with a plethora of state and local elections. In short, yesterday's results will shape the rest of the election season. It was a big deal.

Here are the top 5 takeaways from yesterday's elections:

Haley drops out

Nikki Haley drops out of the 2024 Presidential election.

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After the mass exodus of Republican candidates in January, most commentators agreed that it was only a matter of time before Haley stepped out as well. Haley put up a valiant effort and held out almost two months longer than the other Republican candidates, but after a disappointing turnout on Super Tuesday, she made the call to step back from the race. There was a small victory for Haley fans, however, in that she won Vermont, her first state primary victory following her win in Washington, D.C.

Trump sweeps the board

Trump wins over 1,000 delegates during Super Tuesday.

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While Haley had a disappointing day yesterday, Trump and his team celebrated a huge win. Aside from Vermont, Trump won every state that had a primary. At the time this was written, Trump had picked up a whopping 731 delegates, bringing his total to 1,004, out of the required 1,215 to win the presidential nomination.

Democrats are not committed to Biden

Biden wins big on Super Tuesday, but he is struggling to maintain his Democrat base.

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On paper, Biden had an excellent Super Tuesday, winning every state primary except American Samoa. However, a closer look reveals cracks in his supporter base. Yesterday, a shocking 19 percent of Minnesota Democrats voted for "uncommitted" instead of Biden. While that wasn't enough to change the outcome of the primary, it shows that Biden is walking on shaky ground, even among Democrats.

This phenomenon wasn't limited to Minnesota either. Eight percent of Colorado and Tennessee Democrats voted "uncommitted," and 10 percent of Massachusetts Democrats and 10 percent of North Carolina Democrats voted "no preference." Is this more evidence of a third-quarter bait-and-switch that Glenn has hypothesized?

The search to replace Feinstein continues

Adam Schiff and Steve Harvey compete for Diane Feinstein's Senate seat.

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California is having two Senate elections to replace the late Senator Dianne Feinstein. There is a special election to fill out the remainder of her term and a regular election to fill her seat for the next six years. The results of the Tuesday primaries put Republican and former Los Angeles Dodgers player Steve Garvey and Democrat Adam Schiff as the front runners, and the two of them will be going head-to-head in November. Surprisingly, even in deep blue California, Garvey won more votes than Schiff in the special primary. Does Garvey have a chance?

Ted Cruz is back up for election in Texas

Ted Cruz is up for re-election in 2024

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The Texas senate primaries were also on Tuesday, and Ted Cruz is back up for election in November. Cruz comfortably won the Republican Primaries with 88 percent of Texas Republicans backing him. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas-area congressman won the Democratic primary with a narrower margin of 58 percent. While it's easy for Texans to take their state's red status for granted, it is vital Texans stay vigilant and cast their vote this November.