Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Oh, welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a show
Speaker 2: where it's now happening here, A thing that we've said
Speaker 2: in a joking way a number of times, but now
Speaker 2: it just is this is, you know, a podcast. We're
Speaker 2: having a good time. I'm Robert Garrison Davis, my co
Speaker 2: host colleague, and today we're talking about Trump's inauguration with
Speaker 2: a good friend of ours who was present at the
Speaker 2: thing itself, Bridget Todd. Bridget, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: It's actually my first time on It Could Happen Here.
Speaker 3: I'm like a little like nervous. I hope it goes well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're an og guest over on Bastard, so it's
Speaker 2: about time we had you on here. How are you feeling, Bridget,
Speaker 2: Just in general before we get into the specifics, how
Speaker 2: are you doing in the first full day of this
Speaker 2: new era?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Not great, Bob, not great, not great, not great?
Speaker 3: Yeah, bad.
Speaker 4: Like we were talking off Mike, like I need to
Speaker 4: figure out a self care plan. And part of this
Speaker 4: is on me that I feel like I am one
Speaker 4: of those people that has kind of checked out a
Speaker 4: little bit, and I'm like ough hoo, I'm I gotta
Speaker 4: take a step back from this, and now that I'm
Speaker 4: taking a step back in, I'm like, I need a
Speaker 4: plan for how I'm going to pace myself and not
Speaker 4: lose my fucking shit every fucking day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably not for the best that. Like, right
Speaker 2: at the same time as this has all happened, the
Speaker 2: people who make gas station drugs have figured out how
Speaker 2: to take the chemicals and kretom, which you know in
Speaker 2: leaf forms is generally safe drug, and hyper concentrate them
Speaker 2: into basically fucking heroin. So I'm just working on staying
Speaker 2: away from that shit too much of the news, you know,
Speaker 2: that's the way you gotta do it.
Speaker 4: I'm also doing dry January and trying to eat healthy.
Speaker 4: I'm not doing that so I have no outlets. I
Speaker 4: can't drink, I'm not I don't do drugs. I'm fucking
Speaker 4: eating lentil soup every night. I got nothing. There's nothing
Speaker 4: I can.
Speaker 3: Do to cope.
Speaker 2: I'm keeping myself, okay, I by just eating venison every
Speaker 2: single day.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm carrying on our Vegas tradition and I've
Speaker 1: moved into gambling.
Speaker 3: Hie.
Speaker 2: Oh you're gambling now, huh.
Speaker 1: Not actually, but instead of doing something stupid for inauguration day,
Speaker 1: me and my friends got together and all played anarchist poker,
Speaker 1: so that was that was fun. I lost about ten
Speaker 1: dollars to my friends, so that's it.
Speaker 5: That's fair.
Speaker 2: How often did you say I hardly know it?
Speaker 5: Like about about four times?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the right amount of fat.
Speaker 1: But we also got quite drunk by the time we
Speaker 1: started our second game. I was also dressed like Data
Speaker 1: from the next generation, complete with silver face paint the
Speaker 1: entire time and a poker visor. So that was that
Speaker 1: was how I spent yesterday.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you got to experience the hell that that
Speaker 2: actor experience. Bridget Let's talk about the inauguration. Let's do
Speaker 2: it all right, So I kind of coming in firsthand.
Speaker 2: When did you sort of lock down your plans to
Speaker 2: actually be there?
Speaker 4: So initially my plan was to get at a town
Speaker 4: total I'm gonna go out to Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna hide on the mountains with a rifle like that.
Speaker 3: You're joking, but like almost no, no, no, I'm not joking,
Speaker 3: And I mean I was in So I live in
Speaker 3: d C. Lived in DC most of my life.
Speaker 4: I was in DC in my apartment when January sixth happened,
Speaker 4: and I remember being so scared there was a curfew
Speaker 4: in DC, like.
Speaker 3: It just shit got really real really quickly.
Speaker 4: I remember I was on a all staff like the
Speaker 4: beginning of the year, planning work call, and somebody just
Speaker 4: on the zoom was like, hey, something's happening, and everybody
Speaker 4: who lives in DC should maybe check the TV, and
Speaker 4: then the line went dead.
Speaker 3: That's what I remember the most.
Speaker 4: So I was planning on getting out of town, and
Speaker 4: then I thought, fuck it, why should these people drive
Speaker 4: me out of my own city. I want to be
Speaker 4: out on the streets. I want to be out in
Speaker 4: my community. I want to be connected. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: I went out to the People's March protest. I went
Speaker 4: out as far as I could to Inauguration downtown just
Speaker 4: to get a sense of what the vibes were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well let's let's get into the vibes.
Speaker 2: How were they?
Speaker 3: Weird as hell?
Speaker 4: This is something that I think people might not really
Speaker 4: think about a lot. So like being from DC living
Speaker 4: here most of my life, people really obviously think of
Speaker 4: it as like a seat of national power, and they
Speaker 4: sometimes forget that there are over six hundred thousand DC
Speaker 4: residents who just like live here, work here, have their
Speaker 4: lives here, and so this stuff all plays out like
Speaker 4: practically in our backyards. While arguably we have less electoral
Speaker 4: political power and less agency in some ways because DC
Speaker 4: is not a state. Yeah yeah, yeah, our congressional representative
Speaker 4: Eleanor Holmes Norton, she can like vote in committees and
Speaker 4: introduce legislation and stuff like that, but she can't vote,
Speaker 4: and so all of this matters for It's dude, don't
Speaker 4: even get me started.
Speaker 3: Like I could talk about statehood all day long.
Speaker 2: That's like such a funny shit the compromise, like you
Speaker 2: can you could be there and like talk, but you
Speaker 2: can't do anything like you I'm sorry, that's just so
Speaker 2: fucked up it is.
Speaker 4: And it's like a I mean, like, there are so
Speaker 4: many reasons why it sucks that DC's not a state,
Speaker 4: but ultimately it's like we deserve to have political power.
Speaker 3: We deserve to have a say.
Speaker 2: Why Yoming Estate? Have you ever fucking been to y good? God?
Speaker 4: Like, And I mean I could talk all day when
Speaker 4: Republican lawmakers get on TV, and I remember they would
Speaker 4: shit on DC by saying things like there's not even
Speaker 4: laggers who live there. It's not even a real place,
Speaker 4: like as if the only way to actually meaningfully exist
Speaker 4: in the United States, it's like you have to have
Speaker 4: laggers who live there, Like it's so infuriating.
Speaker 2: And none of those motherfuckers know a lagger I know.
Speaker 4: So all of this background really matters to Trump's kind
Speaker 4: of tense relationship with DC, like the district. Trump, as
Speaker 4: y'all might remember, spent quite a lot of time just
Speaker 4: talking straight shit about the district and announcing these like
Speaker 4: big plans to take over DC. The background is a
Speaker 4: little bit complicated, but the quick and dirty version is
Speaker 4: that DC has what's called home rule. So that's like
Speaker 4: the ability for DC to govern, like for our local
Speaker 4: government and leaders to like make decisions about what happens
Speaker 4: to the district. And on the campaign trail, Trump was
Speaker 4: saying he wants to change this, that DC's home rule
Speaker 4: would be revoked and that the federal government basically him
Speaker 4: would dictate how DC is run as a city. Because
Speaker 4: DC is not a state, technically, any president could have
Speaker 4: that authority to interfere with how DC is run, so right, yeah,
Speaker 4: any president could like take over the police Department and
Speaker 4: take over the powers are Mayor Muriel Bowser currently has
Speaker 4: over the city.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess, first off, like of your friends,
Speaker 2: how many folks kind of made the same call, Like
Speaker 2: what was the general decision? Because I'm looking at like
Speaker 2: footage of Proud Boys marching through fucking DC again for
Speaker 2: the first time in almost half a decade, and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: where are the people you know on this kind of stuff?
Speaker 3: I mean this in the most literal sense, nobody zero.
Speaker 4: I was out there flying solo and I had multiple
Speaker 4: friends and be like, you're crazy to go down there,
Speaker 4: like like everybody. Yeah, And I guess that's something else
Speaker 4: that I wanted to talk a bit about, which is that,
Speaker 4: you know, the first time around, during Trump's inauguration, I
Speaker 4: was like out on the streets, I was like, it
Speaker 4: sounds so silly now.
Speaker 3: But like, ugh, I almost only want to get into it.
Speaker 4: But the idea of like resist that had not yet
Speaker 4: become a cliche to me, and in the you know,
Speaker 4: aftermath of Trump's first election, I was really clinging to
Speaker 4: that for like whatever hope or power. I didn't know
Speaker 4: it was going to turn out to be like a
Speaker 4: bunch of grifters. And like people saying like hashtag resist
Speaker 4: and like meeting nothing yea. At the time, I really
Speaker 4: clung to that this time around total night and day difference,
Speaker 4: like yeah, and I think the mood on the street
Speaker 4: I think reflected that I think that DC is exhausted.
Speaker 4: The people that generally I know who are like radicals
Speaker 4: who would be out on the street, A lot of
Speaker 4: those people were like, we're sitting this one out. Yep. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that was like a refrain I hear from a lot
Speaker 4: of black and brown organizing folks here in DC, like
Speaker 4: this is not our fight. We are sitting this one out.
Speaker 4: And I don't blame anybody, right, Like it's a lot.
Speaker 4: We've all been through a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's I guess if I could get across
Speaker 2: something and people listen, it would be like, don't just
Speaker 2: show up because they are right now. They have the cops,
Speaker 2: they have the courts. If they want you to show
Speaker 2: up in the street, the best thing to do. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say this is going to be
Speaker 2: consistently the case, but is like, don't give them what
Speaker 2: they want, don't be where they want you to be,
Speaker 2: don't make it simple for them, you know, Again, I
Speaker 2: keep trying to say, and I'm not saying this, and
Speaker 2: like I'm so smart, I know what everyone needs to
Speaker 2: be doing. I don't. But it's like, not what we
Speaker 2: did last time, because that that just didn't didn't do
Speaker 2: it exactly, didn't do it all, didn't not get out
Speaker 2: of the park won the home run.
Speaker 4: The last time Trump was in office, y'all remember like
Speaker 4: the Women's March and pussy hats and all of that.
Speaker 4: I actually staffed the Women's March that time around. I
Speaker 4: was one of the digital street team folks. So I
Speaker 4: was like very invested. This time around, they changed the name,
Speaker 4: they rebranded to the People's March, and they only had
Speaker 4: a couple of thousand people out there, And so, you know,
Speaker 4: I think it really goes back to what you were saying, Robert.
Speaker 3: Personally, I have a hard time.
Speaker 4: With the idea that what we did then is what
Speaker 4: we should be doing now that that that that playbook
Speaker 4: is still.
Speaker 3: Going to work.
Speaker 4: And frankly, like sixty nine percent of white women voted
Speaker 4: for Trump, right, and so like the idea that I
Speaker 4: would feel safe and feel solidarity with a bunch of
Speaker 4: women out on the streets, like being like Boo Trump,
Speaker 4: it just like it's I understand why the turnout was
Speaker 4: so low. I feel like folid ality march on the
Speaker 4: street is clearly not where we're at, So that is
Speaker 4: not how we should be meeting this moment.
Speaker 1: Well, and even last Jay twenty there was like a large,
Speaker 1: large radical contingent, and those people are similarly sitting out.
Speaker 1: And when you're looking towards the next few months, looking
Speaker 1: at like what kind of ice rates are going to happen,
Speaker 1: looking at what's going to happen for like reproductive healthcare,
Speaker 1: transgender healthcare, people are making the calculation that it does
Speaker 1: not make sense to like needlessly throw yourself against the
Speaker 1: walls of the state when we can stick together and
Speaker 1: see and see what happens and prepare for all of
Speaker 1: those other things that are going to actually impact you
Speaker 1: and people that you know, like seriously. And it sucks
Speaker 1: to be stuck in that reactive position, and there's things
Speaker 1: you can do proactively, but going outside and yelling in
Speaker 1: front of a fence probably isn't going to do any
Speaker 1: of those things. It's probably not going to help the
Speaker 1: people who are going to need help in the next
Speaker 1: few weeks. Yeah, and people are understanding that and it's
Speaker 1: leading to people reacting quite differently than than what they did,
Speaker 1: you know eight years ago.
Speaker 4: I agree, Yeah, I mean Garrison, you really said it.
Speaker 4: And in this moment personally, I am really wondering, like
Speaker 4: what my role is, Like where could I fit in.
Speaker 4: There was a time where you know, just being out
Speaker 4: on the street yelling, like being so frustrated I have
Speaker 4: to take to the streets and scream in impotent rage.
Speaker 4: That would feel like something. And I just think in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, I have to figure out like what
Speaker 4: it is I can contribute and contribute that. And I
Speaker 4: don't know that it's protest as it used to be,
Speaker 4: Like I used to be somebody who like protest was
Speaker 4: my thing, Like you know, I really got my start
Speaker 4: in the anti war movement when I was in college,
Speaker 4: and like that felt like something. I don't think that
Speaker 4: that's what it is for me anymore. Maybe it's just
Speaker 4: age too, you age out of it or something.
Speaker 2: Sure, I think some of it is that, like the
Speaker 2: only meaningful definition of intelligence really is the ability to
Speaker 2: adapt to changing circumstances. And when the circum stances change
Speaker 2: in the way that they have and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: time to do exactly what we tried in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: That is not intelligent, right, Like I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: be mean. And again I'm not saying I know what
Speaker 2: the smart thing is, but it is we gotta be pivoting.
Speaker 2: We gotta pivot in a lot of different directions right now.
Speaker 4: So yes, and I don't know that I see some
Speaker 4: of the institutional powers that be, even people who are
Speaker 4: like ostensibly like on our side, doing that pivot. Right,
Speaker 4: Like I'm now very much in this sort of like
Speaker 4: nonprofit industrial complex. All the organizations who were like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: where should we be put in our money and this
Speaker 4: and that the first time around, I just see them
Speaker 4: doing the same old thing.
Speaker 3: And it's like, I don't know that that is what's
Speaker 3: gonna save us.
Speaker 4: And like, don't get me started on how useless the
Speaker 4: Democrats are, because they'll go all day. But like when
Speaker 4: Trump announced that he was moving the inauguration inside, they
Speaker 4: printed little joky shirts that said snowflake.
Speaker 3: I'm just so sick of that, Like that sort of like.
Speaker 4: Sneering, dunking, useless that doesn't translate to meaningful action.
Speaker 3: I'm just so sick of it. I wanted to gouge
Speaker 3: my eyes out.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean that's what's in part what lost
Speaker 1: of the election is that is that general attitude and
Speaker 1: that conception of them throughout the country. And yeah, getting
Speaker 1: your little like snide remarks during Haig's EST's confirmation hearing
Speaker 1: might make you feel good and might generate a good
Speaker 1: clip for social media, but is that actually going to
Speaker 1: stop him from getting into the cabinet position.
Speaker 2: I've had so many arguments about this with people over
Speaker 2: the last few days who still insist that, like what
Speaker 2: the fascists can't stand you making fun of them. That's
Speaker 2: what they hate is you laughing at them. And like,
Speaker 2: I think there was a stage at which that was
Speaker 2: a valid tactic, and you know, there may be elements
Speaker 2: of that in the future, but like, no, they don't care.
Speaker 2: They're winning. I'm not saying, like, don't fucking make jokes
Speaker 2: with your friends to like keep your sell self sane.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, don't mistake dunking on them on social media
Speaker 2: for doing anything that matters, because it doesn't Well.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm not even sure, Like I have so much
Speaker 4: to say about this, so I have been saying this
Speaker 4: for a.
Speaker 3: Very long time.
Speaker 4: And you know, we were all at the Democratic National Convention.
Speaker 4: I have did admit that I was there as an influencer.
Speaker 4: But the thing that annoyed me so much was like
Speaker 4: that exact sentiment, and that exact sentiment fucking lost. The
Speaker 4: thing that the thing that pisses me off now is
Speaker 4: the complete unwillingness to be like, where did we go wrong?
Speaker 4: Maybe the memes and the jokes and the calling them
Speaker 4: weird and then this and that that. Maybe it felt
Speaker 4: good in the moment, but it actually didn't translate what happened.
Speaker 4: Unwilling to do that, completely unwilling you know.
Speaker 2: You see, I would almost argue that, like the weird stuff,
Speaker 2: I think if they'd stuck with it, there was something there.
Speaker 2: I think the I think the the emphasizing how outside
Speaker 2: of like the American norm these guys were and like
Speaker 2: what we want to accept in our communities, Like there
Speaker 2: was something there, but they didn't stick to it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The next big time we saw Tim Walls, he was
Speaker 2: talking about how how he wanted to be friends with JD.
Speaker 2: Vance on the fucking debates. Yes, yeah, you know, but
Speaker 2: also I think that's a little different than just like
Speaker 2: calling him fucking Orange, Mussolini or whatever the fuck. Like,
Speaker 2: I think there's a point in a messaging tactic. It's
Speaker 2: like Trump gets mileage out of the names he uses
Speaker 2: and the way in which that's part of how he
Speaker 2: got where he is. So I'm not saying that aspects
Speaker 2: of these tactics can't be used. Well, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the way in which people liberals and folks on the
Speaker 2: left are continuing to do the fucking like drump shit
Speaker 2: that's not getting us anywhere.
Speaker 4: I could not agree more. And yeah, I mean I agree.
Speaker 4: I think the weird stuff could have like had legs.
Speaker 4: I think that they were kind of like scattershot at
Speaker 4: that point, and they were like, let's tell people seem
Speaker 4: to like this, let's lean into this, oh, this new thing,
Speaker 4: let's lean into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The thing that I remember very clearly was when Tim
Speaker 4: Walls was talking about how, oh, we have a saying
Speaker 4: in Minnesota it's mind your own damn business. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: so like my partner is from Minnesota, and he was like, oh,
Speaker 4: that is like absolutely a Minnesotan thing, your own damn business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can sell that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I agree, But yeah, the like calling Elon
Speaker 4: Elmo like all these little cutesy things might feel good
Speaker 4: and like get to a hit of dopamine and get
Speaker 4: you a few you know, likes on whatever, but it
Speaker 4: just it's not gonna save us.
Speaker 3: And I'm so sick of it.
Speaker 4: I feel like, in some ways it's all anyone has
Speaker 4: to offer right now, and I'm sick of it.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things when like looking back at
Speaker 1: the last version of Trump's Jay twenties, you did have
Speaker 1: you know, these large, large militant groups, you know what
Speaker 1: would later probably be dubbed antifa by the media, but
Speaker 1: there was there was a presence in the street. And
Speaker 1: this time around, really the only sizeable militant presence in
Speaker 1: the street was like the first return of the Proud Voice.
Speaker 1: Did you stumble across a gaggle of of black and
Speaker 1: yellow clad militants in the street.
Speaker 3: Not a gaggle, I saw one, lone one. I'm sure.
Speaker 3: It was like I've lost my group, like.
Speaker 2: A little duck. I had to help a baby duck
Speaker 2: get back to its mom. Last year, it was just
Speaker 2: like that, right down to the IQ.
Speaker 1: I have some friends right now who are in the
Speaker 1: DC airport and it is chud Central over there.
Speaker 5: It sounds quite bad.
Speaker 1: I I saw a friend posted about like all of
Speaker 1: the Trump merchant they were sitting next to two individuals
Speaker 1: debating race science in the airport terminal. So that is
Speaker 1: the vibes of the DC airport as of as of Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the day after the inauguration. But yeah, like the return
Speaker 1: of the Proud Boys is like one one of the
Speaker 1: big things that I think we're gonna we're gonna see
Speaker 1: these next few weeks is the amount of all right
Speaker 1: militias or these you know, more like street gang type
Speaker 1: groups who've been so emboldened by by Trump essentially giving
Speaker 1: them permission to do whatever they want to now now
Speaker 1: that they know that they're not going to face any
Speaker 1: kind of like real legal repercussions for you know, carrying
Speaker 1: out whatever actions they want to against the people of color,
Speaker 1: queer people, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And that's going to be interesting to see. Like this
Speaker 2: is certainly a sign that suggests some embrace, But I'm
Speaker 2: kind of wondering if we're looking back to the Nazis
Speaker 2: the ogs. What the Nazis did was marginalize and actually
Speaker 2: purge a lot of these guys fairly quickly. Because the
Speaker 2: folks that were the best at like rabble rousing and
Speaker 2: fighting in the streets, were also kind of like the
Speaker 2: least reliable at helping to keep a stable system in
Speaker 2: the city. Right Like after the Nazis took power, one
Speaker 2: of the big issues they had is like, we still
Speaker 2: have a lot of people who are kind of like
Speaker 2: in the middle, including most of the military, and one
Speaker 2: of the things that keeps scaring them is all these
Speaker 2: fucking goons running about. And we still want what the
Speaker 2: goons are doing, which is like certain people beaten and
Speaker 2: thrown in camps, but we don't want the goons doing it.
Speaker 2: We want the cops doing it. And I guess kind
Speaker 2: of we're all waiting to see how different or similar
Speaker 2: what comes next looks to that.
Speaker 4: And I mean, what do you make of Like, I
Speaker 4: guess I knew it was coming, but when all those
Speaker 4: J six booms got pardoned, and so like you have
Speaker 4: like the leader of the Oath Keepers, the leader of
Speaker 4: the Proud Boys getting released from DC jail, Like, what
Speaker 4: do you make of that?
Speaker 2: There's two things. Number One, this is something that he
Speaker 2: had campaigned on. It's something that there was a lot
Speaker 2: of support from his base for, you know, like the
Speaker 2: fact that in order to kind of protect himself, he
Speaker 2: had to really heavily embrace the idea that nothing bad
Speaker 2: happened on January sixth. Then if it did, it was
Speaker 2: the fault of you know, the mean old Biden cops,
Speaker 2: and so he kind of had to do it. The
Speaker 2: degree to which he shows up and is close or
Speaker 2: actually directly embraces proud boys and guys like Tario is
Speaker 2: going to tell us a lot. And I think we'll
Speaker 2: be seeing that very soon. If they are kept at
Speaker 2: arm's length and kind of letting them out is all
Speaker 2: they do, then I don't know how much we're going
Speaker 2: to see of these guys. If there's a real embrace
Speaker 2: and an attempt to use them as a way to
Speaker 2: kind of extra legally deal with his enemies, then I
Speaker 2: think we start seeing them really make inroads and pushes
Speaker 2: in places like Portland, trying to get people out so
Speaker 2: that they can do violence to them and then you know,
Speaker 2: get pardoned or just have the violence ignored and the
Speaker 2: other people get thrown into prison. And I don't really
Speaker 2: know which way I think that the state is landing
Speaker 2: right now, which is not to say, like I think
Speaker 2: one is clearly less violent than the other because his
Speaker 2: other option is he's going to be having his FEDS
Speaker 2: do that kind of shit.
Speaker 4: I think that's where a lot of my anxiety comes from,
Speaker 4: the not knowing of like it could go this way
Speaker 4: or that way. Both are bad, but what flavor are
Speaker 4: we going to get? Like That's the thing that is
Speaker 4: really getting to me right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to talk about what the probaboys
Speaker 1: were actually like up to on Monday?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, as you said, this was the first time
Speaker 4: that they in mass came to DC since January said,
Speaker 4: and they marched through the streets of DC holding a
Speaker 4: banner that said congratulations President Trump, and they chanted who
Speaker 4: streets our streets? Which, by the way, that is such
Speaker 4: like again as someone who kind of like came up
Speaker 4: on like street protest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, y'all are doing the chant all late. Like I
Speaker 3: hate that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the situation is continued to be proven correct.
Speaker 1: The levels of recuperation for even like you're like diametrically
Speaker 1: opposed like militant enemy side is just fucking crazy.
Speaker 4: Yes, And I saw this, I mean, speaking of J
Speaker 4: six rioters who were all, you know, pardoned, I saw
Speaker 4: this video that really kind of broke my heart. It
Speaker 4: was a video that some maga dipshit took outside of
Speaker 4: the jail where all those people were being held. And
Speaker 4: so there's a black DC elder who clearly is just
Speaker 4: like mining her business, walking down the street in her
Speaker 4: city and she gets baited into an on video screaming
Speaker 4: match outside of the DC jail where this maga guy
Speaker 4: yells like like like, oh, we didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 4: no crime was committed, and she's like, you all killed
Speaker 4: a cop.
Speaker 3: No cops got killed, which is not true. Like the
Speaker 3: it goes back to what you were saying.
Speaker 4: Robert about how there is this need to quickly have
Speaker 4: it be like something that wasn't that big of a deal.
Speaker 4: And one, to see that in person in this video
Speaker 4: was was wild to me. But two, seeing like a
Speaker 4: DC elder like take the bait broke my heart because
Speaker 4: I wish I could have could have been in that
Speaker 4: moment to be like, honey, you don't need to be screaming.
Speaker 4: This guy wants you to be screaming at him. He
Speaker 4: wants this video of you screaming at him on the street.
Speaker 3: This is like exactly what he wants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I entirely agree.
Speaker 4: You know, The biggest takeaway from being out was just
Speaker 4: how sparse it was. Like, you know, the first time around,
Speaker 4: I probably had four different people staying with me, two
Speaker 4: of whom got arrested during the big anti Trump protests.
Speaker 3: This time around, I didn't have anybody. I didn't know
Speaker 3: anybody who was there.
Speaker 4: And I do think that reflects kind of where people
Speaker 4: are at. I think people are exhausted, people have been
Speaker 4: through a lot. People are maybe pacing themselves and sort
Speaker 4: of like don't want to blow their rage wad on
Speaker 4: the first week, which I totally understand, but I think
Speaker 4: it really remains to be seen, like whether or not
Speaker 4: this vibe is going to take us through the next
Speaker 4: four years.
Speaker 3: Are people just tuning out? Are we checked out?
Speaker 4: Are we so exhausted and overstimulated already that we're not
Speaker 4: going to really be paying attention? And in some ways,
Speaker 4: like I feel like that's exactly what authoritarians want.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's where it's difficult, or that's one of the
Speaker 2: many things that is difficult, is that like checking out
Speaker 2: is not the answer, but you simply can't react to
Speaker 2: everything that happens showing up and burning yourself out in
Speaker 2: the street. It's like the cops continue to do bad things.
Speaker 2: If every time a cop is a bad thing, you
Speaker 2: and your friends throw yourselves at a police station until
Speaker 2: you all get arrested, then you won't be able to
Speaker 2: do anything else because you'll be in jail. You know,
Speaker 2: like and like, these are hard realities, which is why
Speaker 2: it necessitates new kinds of thinking, creativity, you know, to
Speaker 2: some extent unsatisfying. And I guess part of what I
Speaker 2: would say is if people are giving you answers to
Speaker 2: what we need to do that sound very clear and satisfying,
Speaker 2: you should maybe not trust that totally. Yeah, because the
Speaker 2: responsible answer, in my opinion, is that, like, it's very
Speaker 2: unclear how to get out of this or what the
Speaker 2: right things to do here are. We just know that
Speaker 2: what we've been doing hasn't been working, and the first
Speaker 2: step to wisdom is accepting that.
Speaker 5: Oof.
Speaker 4: I love that something I know that isn't working. Is
Speaker 4: I'm glad that we're not doing.
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to pivot to ads. Actually,
Speaker 2: let's pivot to ads.
Speaker 4: You're so good at ads, like you could teach a
Speaker 4: class on it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well I waited twenty eight minutes this time
Speaker 2: to do it. But at least we have the second
Speaker 2: one out there. We're back, Bridget Sorry, where were you going.
Speaker 4: Something that I'm glad we are not doing this time
Speaker 4: around is remember during the first Trump administration, how the
Speaker 4: Washington Post changed their tagline to democracy dies in Darkness
Speaker 4: and everybody gave them a shit ton of money because
Speaker 4: it was like, yeah, we need like good investigative journalism,
Speaker 4: traditional media, that's gonna save us. I'm glad that this
Speaker 4: time around we've all cut the shit and it's like, no,
Speaker 4: they're part of it.
Speaker 3: They're not going to do a goddamn thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. Yes, they don't give a fuck. Fucking Jake
Speaker 2: Tapper couldn't roll over fast enough and.
Speaker 4: Like so even I mean, I'm sure y'all have talked
Speaker 4: about this to death and I have been thinking about
Speaker 4: it nonstuff. But Elon's seeing how the traditional press reported
Speaker 4: on his salute.
Speaker 3: It's like, like, oh, what did he do?
Speaker 4: Like, like, the way they will contort themselves to not
Speaker 4: just come out and say it is astonishing to me.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, that's I mean, that's one of like the
Speaker 2: scariest things is the degree to which they're trying to
Speaker 2: memory all stuff happening as it happened, and at the
Speaker 2: same time, Okay, yeah, he did a Nazi salute. He's
Speaker 2: a Nazi. This is not the first thing that's made
Speaker 2: that clear. We need to move on knowing he's a Nazi,
Speaker 2: but we need to move on, you know, like that
Speaker 2: that's right. I don't know. I don't know what to
Speaker 2: do other than you know, maybe there's some utility and
Speaker 2: spreading clips of him next to the fucking guy from
Speaker 2: American History X, but I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 2: how that's gonna help.
Speaker 1: The fact that he is in this position where he
Speaker 1: can do something like that on stage and it actually
Speaker 1: doesn't matter is like so much more frightening to me
Speaker 1: than like than like Elon Musk like doing like a
Speaker 1: very like low mortar control like version of the salute
Speaker 1: when he's like wrapped up in some like excitement that
Speaker 1: he's trying to like meme to like his like fans
Speaker 1: on fourtune. The fact that like he's even just allowed
Speaker 1: to do that it doesn't actually matter, like this will
Speaker 1: not affect him in any way is more what's interesting
Speaker 1: to me, because yes, we've all known that he's been
Speaker 1: a Nazi for quite a while. He's like shared things
Speaker 1: that are like essentially like Nazi race science on Twitter
Speaker 1: before he is he has engaged with like extremely anti
Speaker 1: Semitic conspiracy theories before and you know, the largest anti
Speaker 1: semitism org in the country has completely capitulated to these people,
Speaker 1: so like they've hollowed out everything that's like supposed to be,
Speaker 1: like you know, the institutional blockages, whether that's you know,
Speaker 1: places like the Washington Post where that's literally all of
Speaker 1: the tech companies, the degree to which like everyone has
Speaker 1: cozied up to Trump, which is also like very different
Speaker 1: from twenty sixteen. Exactly everyone was like fairly like united
Speaker 1: institutionally was united against Trump, and you know the same
Speaker 1: way we like we don't see you know, people out
Speaker 1: in the streets, you know, writing or even doing like
Speaker 1: large protests. The actual you know, institutional powers have have
Speaker 1: decided to instead of actually trying to fight this guy,
Speaker 1: they're gonna trying to like how friendly they can be,
Speaker 1: Like how much can they get out of this. There's
Speaker 1: this like resignation, and I don't know how long that'll last,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not sure if like, you know, once Trump
Speaker 1: becomes the establishment figure that he's been like deriding for
Speaker 1: the past few years, Like once he falls back into
Speaker 1: that zone, if we're going to see more resistance to
Speaker 1: him from like institutional levels, but you can't like count
Speaker 1: on it. And the degree to which it's it is
Speaker 1: like different from twenty sixteen is like worth remembering. Like
Speaker 1: a phrase me and Robert talk about sometimes is like
Speaker 1: the forever twenty sixteen, Like the fact that it feels
Speaker 1: like we've never really left twenty sixteen. Everyone kind of
Speaker 1: acts like we're still in twenty sixteen, like this such
Speaker 1: load bearing year on our entire cultural consciousness. But the
Speaker 1: fact is we aren't in twenty sixteen anymore, and you
Speaker 1: can't act like we are. You actually have to move
Speaker 1: on from that, and we're starting to see more of
Speaker 1: that in certain corners. You see some of that among
Speaker 1: some of the radicals, some of the anarchists as well
Speaker 1: as you know, the tech companies and the CEOs and
Speaker 1: the media company they're just you know, changing the degree
Speaker 1: to which they're moving away from their twenty sixteen mode.
Speaker 3: You actually just gave me.
Speaker 4: A little bit of a silver lining that I had
Speaker 4: not realized, which is like it kind of is useful
Speaker 4: to see so clearly where these institutions and power holders stand.
Speaker 4: And it's like when like I remember watching tech companies
Speaker 4: like change their logos to Black Lives Matter or post
Speaker 4: the Black Square, it's kind of freeing to be like,
Speaker 4: we don't have to do that shit anymore, y'all will
Speaker 4: have to pretend, And we don't have to pretend either.
Speaker 4: We know where you stand. You've made it very clear.
Speaker 4: You could not make it. You could not have made
Speaker 4: it clear where your alliance is. And let's go from there.
Speaker 3: Like it almost it almost is sort of like trimming
Speaker 3: the fat a little bit.
Speaker 4: We no longer have to take these these institutions as
Speaker 4: serious as allies or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's going to be a degree to which, like
Speaker 1: people's masks come off more than usual. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think certainly this next Pride month will be interesting to
Speaker 1: see how people change Pride months twenty twenty two or
Speaker 1: even you know, Pride was twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was at Pride in San Francisco in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and it was very big, very happy, but there
Speaker 2: was like a rind to it, you know, there was
Speaker 2: like an edge to it of are we going to
Speaker 2: be able to keep doing this? You know, there's a dispensary.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't smoke, but a friend of mine
Speaker 2: who I stay with when I'm at San Francisco does,
Speaker 2: And so I was with them at this dispensary and
Speaker 2: it had like a sign talking about its history, which
Speaker 2: is that the person who found it it's a very
Speaker 2: nice one. It's like an apple store inside, and the
Speaker 2: person who like started it and ran it did so
Speaker 2: because when they were younger, their partner had AIDS HIV
Speaker 2: in the AIDS and marijuana reduced some of their symptoms,
Speaker 2: and they had to go buy it in the nearby park,
Speaker 2: which was a lot uglier of a place and a
Speaker 2: lot like it was. It was sketchy, like they got
Speaker 2: robbed a couple of times. There's a lot more violent
Speaker 2: crime and just kind of there are even in a
Speaker 2: place like San Francisco, which is so like gentrified in
Speaker 2: such a way. Like when you're when you're talking with like,
Speaker 2: especially the older members of the queer community, they're not
Speaker 2: just like rich, out of touch tech people. They are old,
Speaker 2: battle scarred queers who went through some of the ugliest
Speaker 2: moments of this nation's history and we're kind of bracing
Speaker 2: themselves forward again. So yeah, I'm very interested to see
Speaker 2: what it's what it's like this year.
Speaker 4: You know, But even that, I feel like there's a
Speaker 4: I mean, it's grim shit, but there's a kind of
Speaker 4: hope in it that like we've been people have been
Speaker 4: here before, right, Like, yeah, you know, there have always
Speaker 4: been queer people, trans people, black and brown people, immigrants,
Speaker 4: like we are America, and like we've always been here, baby,
Speaker 4: We're always gonna be here and like making our way
Speaker 4: and like holding on and bracing ourselves and doing what
Speaker 4: we got to do and enduring like that is what
Speaker 4: we fucking do. And so in some ways, as grim
Speaker 4: as that is, it's kind of hopeful question mark.
Speaker 5: Also, Yep, I'm just on the edge of my seat.
Speaker 1: H Yeah, I mean certainly, you know, lots of people
Speaker 1: who I surround myself with are you know, looking towards
Speaker 1: ways to take control of like their own bodies and
Speaker 1: stop relying like wholly on any kind of government government
Speaker 1: like agency or model for that, as well as doing
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of reading on the old
Speaker 1: like anti deportation, anti ice resistance from like years and
Speaker 1: years ago, not just from like the Trump era, but
Speaker 1: from from the stuff like like way before if we're
Speaker 1: not going to be out in the streets doing you know,
Speaker 1: slightly mindless protest where your marching in circles. You can
Speaker 1: use that time to instead, like educate yourself and build
Speaker 1: connections with people, and you know, read about these things
Speaker 1: that may become more and more important to know at
Speaker 1: least so you have an understanding of history as the
Speaker 1: next four years to start happening quite quickly.
Speaker 3: That's so insightful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think when things feel hopeless, reading about how folks,
Speaker 4: you know, our elders, the folks that came before our ancestors,
Speaker 4: how they dealt with stuff like this, has been really hopeful,
Speaker 4: and it's like, yeah, I guess I just try to
Speaker 4: tell myself, you've been here before and people found a
Speaker 4: way to make it through, and you know, it feels
Speaker 4: uniquely tragic, but in some ways it is not. And
Speaker 4: as scary as that is, it can also be sort
Speaker 4: of like grounding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like the same things won't work, but you
Speaker 1: also need to understand the things that didn't work last time,
Speaker 1: and it's good to know, and it's good to know
Speaker 1: the things that did. Like it's it's it's important to
Speaker 1: have the understanding so you don't feel like you're having
Speaker 1: to reinvent the wheel every single time. And like that
Speaker 1: type of like generational knowledge sometimes is really tricky to
Speaker 1: pass down in these sorts of spaces and it you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't and it sometimes it requires a degree of
Speaker 1: initiative to like actually like seek out the information on
Speaker 1: your own.
Speaker 5: The internet's great, h and.
Speaker 1: Terrible, but it has it has a it has a
Speaker 1: it has a vast catalog of history.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I want to talk a bit about the speech that
Speaker 2: that bishop gave at the Trump's first church service as
Speaker 2: president the second time around, because that is of all
Speaker 2: of like the fucking media people getting clapped at for
Speaker 2: making fun of you know whichever, you know, heg Seth
Speaker 2: or whoever. Yep, that I think actually did matter a
Speaker 2: little at least it was the there was the courage
Speaker 2: of saying it to their faces in a way where
Speaker 2: their reactions were had to be filmed.
Speaker 1: It's also not trying to dunk, it's not trying to
Speaker 1: create like a viral moment. It's like genuinely upsetting to
Speaker 1: them to get like reminded of like what it means
Speaker 1: to be human. Yeah, and like maybe that's more important
Speaker 1: than trying to get your like Katie Porter top ten
Speaker 1: funniest moments in Congress, like a compilation exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to be very clear, if you didn't catch this,
Speaker 2: the right Reverend Maryanne bud b DD was the Episcopal
Speaker 2: Bishop of Washington. During a church service where Trump and
Speaker 2: Vance and basically everybody in the new government was sitting,
Speaker 2: made a direct plea quote from this from an NBC
Speaker 2: Washington article, referencing Trump's belief that he was saying by
Speaker 2: God from assassination, but said, you have felt the providential
Speaker 2: hand of a loving God, and the name of our God.
Speaker 2: I asked you to have mercy upon the people in
Speaker 2: our country who are scared now. And then she referenced
Speaker 2: specifically transgender people, queer people, people in democratic families, independent
Speaker 2: families who were frightened right now about what the new
Speaker 2: administration means, as well as migrants, and she made a
Speaker 2: point of saying, like the vast majority of whom are
Speaker 2: not in any way criminals, and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like regardless of whether or not they have the
Speaker 5: right paperwork.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There was rage on Vance's face, which is part
Speaker 2: of why I'm like, that's an act of actual courage.
Speaker 2: There's been one Republican representative who said that she needed
Speaker 2: to be deported, but she's born in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: So deported back to New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Representative Mike Collins of Georgia. So one of your guys, gare.
Speaker 1: Oh, thanks, then there are you from Georgia? Well, no,
Speaker 1: but I live in Georgia. I'd live there now, And
Speaker 1: as someone who lives in Georgia, the only people that
Speaker 1: I think should be deported back to New Jersey are
Speaker 1: the costco guy and his kid.
Speaker 5: Get them out, send them back now.
Speaker 2: I do think I do think we should be deporting
Speaker 2: large numbers of people to New Jersey just because my
Speaker 2: old boss and friend Daniel O'Brien lives there and I
Speaker 2: want to fuck with them a little bit, make the
Speaker 2: traffic worse, Like see how you deal with that, Danny boy.
Speaker 1: No, it was like, I think the most useful thing
Speaker 1: i've like I've seen yet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's still like largely symbolic, but like.
Speaker 2: At least someone took a big public risk, you know, yeah, yeah, courage. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it's the writer Sarah Candozer who has this
Speaker 4: line that I always think of, if you can't be brave,
Speaker 4: be kind. I think that like people who you see
Speaker 4: doing acts of big acts of bravery right now, Like
Speaker 4: that's I mean, it's just there are so few of them.
Speaker 4: And I think, especially when I look at like the
Speaker 4: tech leaders, they.
Speaker 3: Have so much fucking money.
Speaker 4: Somebody said on tlue Sky, what is the point of
Speaker 4: having fuck you money if you never say fuck you
Speaker 4: to anybody?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Like the way that these people turned out to be
Speaker 4: such yellow bellied cowards is wild to me. And so
Speaker 4: people actually having conviction and actually speaking power, I think
Speaker 4: we should be lifting that up wherever it happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can think of like one tech guy with
Speaker 2: a lot of money who's turned out to have any
Speaker 2: kind of a backbone, And it's the guy who made
Speaker 2: that fire watching app that everyone in California's using right now,
Speaker 2: watch Duty, who's basically had said stuff along the lines
Speaker 2: of like, I don't know, I see all these other
Speaker 2: guys who got rich in tech talking about going to Mars,
Speaker 2: and I think it's much more useful to try to
Speaker 2: help people survive on Earth something along those lines. And
Speaker 2: his like novel made a critical like it is a
Speaker 2: critical life saving piece of technology that actually is what
Speaker 2: we should hope for from tech. You know, anyway, bridget
Speaker 2: what else did you want to kind of make sure
Speaker 2: we got into today.
Speaker 4: Well this is going to sound a bit random, but
Speaker 4: I have to just make sure that this gets in there,
Speaker 4: because you know, I'm talking about the impact of Trump's
Speaker 4: inauguration and what the next four years will look like
Speaker 4: for you know, not just for people nationally, but folks
Speaker 4: right here in DC where this is happening in our backyard.
Speaker 4: And I have to give it up for the service
Speaker 4: industry folks of DC the last couple of days because they, oh,
Speaker 4: I like have heard horror stories and I just I
Speaker 4: guess that's what I mean is that don't forget that
Speaker 4: there are real people who have to like put up
Speaker 4: with these people's bullshit and do it with a smile
Speaker 4: or they might get fired. And you know, in Adam's Morgan,
Speaker 4: which is like pretty close to where I live, a
Speaker 4: woman at an Irish bar had to be removed by
Speaker 4: a staffer because she was screaming white power at the bar. Like,
Speaker 4: these people do not get paid enough to deal with this,
Speaker 4: and they are like the backbone of our city. So
Speaker 4: I just wanted to shout them out, especially since you know,
Speaker 4: Trump switched up the inaugurations because of the cold question mark,
Speaker 4: and so a lot more of these people were just
Speaker 4: sort of wandering around the district on inauguration who otherwise
Speaker 4: would have been confined to like a very specific neighborhood downtown,
Speaker 4: And so they were going into our bars, going into
Speaker 4: our restaurants, and yeah, I just really feel for my
Speaker 4: industry folks who had to deal with this. You know,
Speaker 4: they're not paid enough, but they really are the backbone
Speaker 4: of our city. Hell yeah, you know, I started this
Speaker 4: conversation talking about all the horrible things that Trump has
Speaker 4: said about DC and how he's going to take it
Speaker 4: over federally, and like, you know, he has said, like
Speaker 4: we will take over the horribly run capital of our
Speaker 4: nation and Washington clean up and rebuild the capitol, so
Speaker 4: there's it's no longer a nightmare of murder and crime,
Speaker 4: but rather, hell, I know, this like hell hole where
Speaker 4: like people live and raise their families and go to
Speaker 4: parks and ride bikes and have great times. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: I had a chance to talk to the mayor about this,
Speaker 4: and I will say our mayor Muriel Bowser is not
Speaker 4: convinced that any of this will happen. She is saying, like,
Speaker 4: you know, I think that Trump says a lot of things.
Speaker 4: I think at the end of the day, he is
Speaker 4: probably not going to mess with DC's home rule. And
Speaker 4: so I just wanted to say that if you're in
Speaker 4: DC and you're listening, and you're thinking, like, what does
Speaker 4: Trump you know mean for DC? Are all these big
Speaker 4: threats that he has made going to come true? All
Speaker 4: I can tell you is that our mayor does not
Speaker 4: think it is likely. So if that is useful to you,
Speaker 4: I hope it brings you some comfort.
Speaker 2: Oddly enough, one thing that's given me comfort is like
Speaker 2: Trump has twice in the last day, both when talking
Speaker 2: about Gaza and when talking about North Korea, weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: gone onto diggressions about how good that it is a
Speaker 2: place to build condos, and the degree to which he's
Speaker 2: still focused on like real estate feels as opposed to
Speaker 2: the broader fascist project is hopeful, just because like he
Speaker 2: is a bottleneck through which a lot of this has
Speaker 2: to cover, and he is clearly not as personally obsessed
Speaker 2: with every aspect of this as guys like Stephen Miller, right,
Speaker 2: Like he even makes fun of Miller a little bit
Speaker 2: for that kind of stuff. So there's a degree to which,
Speaker 2: like well, his own personal eccentricities, there's aspects of this.
Speaker 2: It might slow down.
Speaker 4: This motherfucker is not out here trying to genuinely govern,
Speaker 4: like come on, I know.
Speaker 3: So in some ways that is heartening of like, oh, well, he's.
Speaker 4: Gonna like do his scams, the whatever, whatever, Like if
Speaker 4: he weren't to actually take over DC, that's an incredible
Speaker 4: amount of work and labor, and I don't think he's
Speaker 4: got it in them. So maybe in some way some
Speaker 4: of these threats will like fly under the radar.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, guess we'll see.
Speaker 3: Guess we'll see.
Speaker 2: Bridget, Where could people find you?
Speaker 4: Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no
Speaker 4: girls on the internet about the intersection of identity and tech,
Speaker 4: And you can follow me on Instagram at Bridget Marie
Speaker 4: and DC.
Speaker 2: All right, find Bridget, follow Bridget and uh follow somebody smart.
Speaker 2: I don't know who they are. Figure that out, Good luck, godspeed,
Speaker 2: fuck them. If they can't take a joke.
Speaker 3: It could happen.
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Speaker 1: You can now find sources for it could happen here,
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.