⛏️ Digging Deep: How Conservative Radio in Tucson Manufactures Division Through Mining, Immigration, and Even Restaurant Reviews | Wake Up Live
Wake Up Live hosts' culinary preferences mirror their politics in unexpectedly revealing segment
This is based on Wake Up Live with Chris DeSimone, a MAGA-conservative podcast in Southern Arizona, which was broadcast by Live The Dream Media on 4/23/25.
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
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A Tucson podcaster named Chris DeSimone 🎙️ talked about mining ⛏️, immigration 🌐, and restaurants 🍽️ in ways that divided people instead of bringing them together. He made it sound like we have to choose between destroying nature here 🌳 or hurting workers in other countries 🌍, which isn't true. He also made immigrants sound scary by focusing on one bad person 😨 instead of the many good people 👍. Even when talking about restaurants, he separated places into "conservative" and "liberal" instead of just enjoying good food 😋. This kind of talk makes it harder for people in Tucson to work together to solve problems 🤝.
🗝️ Takeaways
🏭 DeSimone promotes mining projects like Resolution Mine without acknowledging their impact on sacred Indigenous sites, creating a false choice between local environmental damage and overseas exploitation
🧱 Immigration rhetoric on the show deliberately conflates individual criminal cases with broader immigration policy to manufacture consent for mass deportations
🍛 Even restaurant reviews become politically charged as the hosts dismiss diverse culinary offerings and establishments frequented by "lefties"
🎭 The entire show demonstrates how conservative media creates binary divisions (us vs. them, profit vs. environment) that flatten complex community issues
🌵 Tucson's history of cultural synthesis and resilience points toward collaborative solutions rather than the divisive rhetoric promoted on the show
Mining the Truth: What Lies Beneath Conservative Talk Radio in Tucson
In the scorching political landscape of the Southwest, few voices echo as persistently through Tucson as Chris DeSimone's "Wake Up Live" podcast. This week's offering—a veritable smorgasbord of mining industry cheerleading, immigrant demonization, and restaurant reviews—peeled back the mask of "common sense conservatism" to reveal the raw face of MAGA ideology that continues to divide our desert community.
The Miner Jim Mining Monologue: Capitalism's Toxic Excavation
The show began with a caller identified as "Miner Jim," a mining industry worker whose conversation with DeSimone excavated more than just tales from the tunnels—it unearthed the twisted logic used to justify environmental exploitation in our backyard.
"The problem is, I think, that you have an integrator that's putting these automated systems on the Caterpillar truck, and then you have the company, the mining company. And if anything goes wrong, they're all going to point their fingers at the other guy," Miner Jim explained, inadvertently highlighting how corporate interests fragment responsibility when disaster strikes.
DeSimone, ever the eager capitalist cheerleader, pivoted to discussing the Resolution Mine outside Florence with disturbing nonchalance. This proposed project—which would effectively destroy Oak Flat, a site sacred to Apache tribes for generations—was framed as merely another business opportunity facing unfair resistance.
"Well, that's the thing, right? It's like, it's the environment, it's basically NIMBY's using environmentalism as the cover. Yep. Yep. Yep. Right. So we'd rather have it done in a less responsible way and have 11-year-olds in Indonesia mine it," DeSimone proclaimed.
Wait, what? Did he just create a false choice between destroying Indigenous sacred sites and exploiting child labor? As if reducing consumption or developing truly sustainable practices doesn't exist as an option?
This breathtaking false dichotomy perfectly encapsulates the colonizer's rationalization that has plagued the Southwest since territorial days. The possibility that we might need to fundamentally rethink our relationship with extraction never enters the conversation. Instead, the capitalist paradigm demands sacrifice zones—whether they're in someone else's backyard or someone else's country.
Miner Jim chimed in with the industry-approved response: "Some place or China, China, you know, they've got plenty, but they need more of the world demand, you know, it's through the roof."
The subtext is clear: Mining must happen somewhere, so why not here? This logic—that destructive practices are inevitable, so we might as well profit from them—is precisely how industries continue to ravage landscapes while portraying themselves as reluctant participants in necessary evil.
The Immigration Inflammation: Manufacturing Monsters from Human Beings
If DeSimone's mining commentary revealed an environmental callousness, his immigration segment stripped away any pretense of human compassion. In a particularly venomous tirade, he launched into a defense of deportation policies while painting immigrant communities with the broadest, darkest brush imaginable.
"Forcing people to take an experimental vaccine. That's fascism. That's a dictator," DeSimone ranted, before immediately pivoting to, "You had the Biden administration working with social media companies to squash free speech. That's a dictator."
The cognitive dissonance is staggering. In one breath, government health measures are "fascism," but mass deportations defying the Supreme Court that tear apart families? That's just law and order, folks!
DeSimone's rhetoric reached its most disturbing nadir when he contrasted two local incidents: "They had a vigil for the MS-13 guy who beat the living crap out of his wife. Is that what we're doing? Cause you look foolish... Two miles from your beautiful little house in Sam Hughes place, which you have a border crossing the border is not a crime. Don't put up a wall, but you've already put up a big wall around your house at Sam Hughes place to keep the criminals out with your roof rats."
The tactical dehumanization on display here is chilling. By reducing a complex immigration case to "the MS-13 guy" and contrasting it with "Jacob [who] gets hatcheted to death," DeSimone employs the classic conservative playbook: use isolated incidents of violence to villainize entire communities. The implication that progressive Tucsonans care more about immigrants than local crime victims is not just false—it's a deliberate attempt to pit vulnerable communities against each other.
The exploitation of isolated violent incidents to justify systemic cruelty through mass deportations demonstrates how conservative media manufactures consent for policies that destroy lives. DeSimone's dismissal of those who oppose such policies as "beyond the pale" shows just how normalized dehumanizing rhetoric has become in MAGA circles.
Food for Thought: Restaurant Reviews as Conservative Cultural Compass
Perhaps the most unexpectedly revealing segment came during DeSimone's extended discussion with guest CJ Hamm about Tucson's restaurant scene. What began as a seemingly apolitical review of TripAdvisor's top 20 local restaurants quickly exposed cultural biases that perfectly mirrored their political leanings.
When discussing Saffron Indian Bistro (ranked #19), DeSimone offered this peculiar advice: "The reason I say, I do not want... if you order off the menu and you say, look, I want the butter chicken, I want the tiki masala, whatever you're getting, right? Is, um, there's a lot of sauce, and then you, but the sauce to protein ratio is too high."
His solution? "Eat the buffet. Their buffet's good and outstanding. Right. And then you drain the sauce yourself on the side of the shaving dish and reduce the sauce to protein."
Could there be a more perfect metaphor for the conservative approach to culture? Strip away the complex flavors, drain the rich context, and isolate the "protein" of whitewashed experience. Heaven forbid we embrace the full, messy, saucy authenticity of cultures different from our own.
Their assessment of Blue Willow was even more explicitly political: "All the, all the, all the lefties love to hang out there," DeSimone declared dismissively. Hamm agreed: "That's their, that's their hood."
This casual othering of "lefties" reveals how thoroughly politicized every aspect of daily life has become in the conservative worldview. Even something as universal as enjoying a meal must be sorted into the binary us-versus-them paradigm that defines MAGA thinking.
When discussing El Charro downtown, DeSimone suggested it was primarily for tourists, revealing the conservative tendency to dismiss spaces that welcome outsiders or newcomers. The pattern becomes clear: restaurants that cater to diverse clientele or offer authentic international flavors are suspect, while those that maintain "traditional" approaches are celebrated.
Mining the Truth Between the Lines
What makes DeSimone's podcast worth examining isn't just what he says explicitly, but the empty spaces between his words—the voices and perspectives systematically excluded from his narrative.
There's no mention of the San Carlos Apache Tribe fighting to protect Oak Flat from the Resolution Mine project. There's no acknowledgment of the families torn apart by deportation policies. There's no recognition that different culinary preferences might reflect the rich diversity of human experience rather than political battle lines.
Instead, the world DeSimone constructs is one of stark binaries—us versus them, profit versus environment, "real Americans" versus immigrants—that flatten the rich complexity of our community into simplistic divisions. It's a worldview that positions straight white male property owners as the default "normal" while everyone else must justify their existence.
The relentless reduction of complex issues to cartoonish good-versus-evil narratives does more than misinform—it actively corrodes our capacity for nuanced thinking and collective problem-solving. In a border community like Tucson, where cultures have blended for centuries and environmental challenges demand collaborative solutions, this binary thinking is hazardous.
A Different Path Forward
But there's reason for hope, even amidst the divisive rhetoric. Tucson's history is one of resilience and cultural synthesis—a place where different traditions have found ways to coexist and cross-pollinate for generations.
When DeSimone and his guests attempt to divide our community with their rhetoric, they run counter to the deep currents of connection that have always defined the Sonoran Desert. Our future depends not on wall-building—whether at borders or between neighborhoods—but on recognizing our fundamental interdependence with each other and with the land itself.
True progress for Tucson means rejecting false dichotomies between jobs and the environment, between security and compassion. It means recognizing that we can protect sacred Indigenous sites AND create sustainable economies, maintain public safety AND treat immigrants with dignity, and enjoy different cuisines without turning restaurants into political battlegrounds.
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Join the Conversation
What false dichotomies have you noticed in conservative media's coverage of Tucson issues? How do you think our community can move beyond the divisive rhetoric to find collaborative solutions?
Share your thoughts in the comments below, and let's mine this conversation for the precious metals of mutual understanding and collective action.
Quotes:
"It's the environment, it's basically NIMBYs using environmentalism as the cover. Yep. Yep. Yep. Right. So we'd rather have it done in a less responsible way and have 11-year-olds in Indonesia mine it." - Chris DeSimone, while discussing the controversial Resolution Mine project
"Forcing people to take an experimental vaccine. That's fascism. That's a dictator." - Chris DeSimone, creating a false equivalence between public health measures and actual authoritarian actions
"They had a vigil for the MS-13 guy who beat the living crap out of his wife. Is that what we're doing? Cause you look foolish." - Chris DeSimone, deliberately reducing a complex immigration case to inflammatory stereotypes
"All the, all the, all the lefties love to hang out there [Blue Willow]." - Chris DeSimone, revealing how even restaurant preferences are viewed through a divisive political lens
"You had the Biden administration working with social media companies to squash free speech. That's a dictator." - Chris DeSimone, mischaracterizing content moderation policies as government censorship
"What do you do with that, Chris? What do you do with that?" - Frankie (mentioned in a restaurant anecdote), discussing a customer who stole a decorative candle, showing the casual conversational style of the show
People Mentioned and Memorable Quotes
Minor Jim - Mining industry worker and caller: "The problem is, I think, that you have an integrator that's putting these automated systems on the Caterpillar truck, and then you have the company, the mining company. And if anything goes wrong, they're all going to point their fingers at the other guy."
CJ Hamm - Guest co-host, former restaurant owner: "I'm done with Quadahara grill. It's gross for one... It's on the border, bro. It's nasty. Yes. They make salsa tableside. Cool. Love that. Right. Beyond, beyond that in a couple of margaritas, I'm out."
Malta Joe - Producer or staff member mentioned throughout: Not directly quoted with substantial content in the excerpts provided.
Jacob Couch - Mentioned as a victim of violence: "Jacob couch got hatcheted to death on the streets of downtown Tucson and you guys don't even freaking acknowledge it."
Frankie - Restaurant owner mentioned in an anecdote: Described as going to "wipe tables down" as an excuse to talk to customers.
Kimberly Yee - State Treasurer: Mentioned as an upcoming guest on a related show, described as "the number one vote getter in the state of Arizona in twenty twenty two, obliterating Mark Finchem, Abe Hamadeh, and the vivacious, strong, conservative Kari Lake all in one election."
Doug (at Feast restaurant): "Doug's a great chef. I like Doug, but he caters to his, his [clientele]"
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