Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to will Gate f Daily
Speaker 1: with Meet your Girl Daniel Moody, recording from the Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I got to say that as I continue to watch,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that you all are as well, all
Speaker 1: of the reports coming out not only from this country
Speaker 1: but around the globe as it pertains to global warming
Speaker 1: and climate, the climate crisis that we are seeing in
Speaker 1: real time, all of the things that scientists. You know,
Speaker 1: remember when we used to actually listen to scientists and
Speaker 1: believe them as a whole entire country until Republicans decided
Speaker 1: that they would have their own scientists and their own
Speaker 1: alternative facts and then distort reality. Well, now their warnings
Speaker 1: have come to pass. And the thing that I wonder
Speaker 1: as I listened to President Biden talk to the American
Speaker 1: people about the crisis that we're in and false short
Speaker 1: of issuing a public health emergency around climate change, is
Speaker 1: are we just too late? You know? I've been watching
Speaker 1: videos all over social media of the tarmac at Heathrow
Speaker 1: Airport that fucking melted, of a sinkhole that swallowed up
Speaker 1: nearly half of a goddamn street in the Bronx in
Speaker 1: New York after the rain that we just got in.
Speaker 1: There was entire once again subway stations that turned into
Speaker 1: geyser's You're talking about the state of Texas issuing like
Speaker 1: a series of alerts because they are experiencing one hundred
Speaker 1: and fourteen degree temperatures for a number of days in
Speaker 1: a row. Where we're talking about drought, where we're talking
Speaker 1: about a food shortage, We're talking about all of these
Speaker 1: things that have now just blown out of control. We
Speaker 1: had twenty thirty year lead time to avoid this, to
Speaker 1: actually create policies and initiatives that supposedly where people were
Speaker 1: supposed to come together in the Paris Climate Agreement to do,
Speaker 1: and then come to find out this week that not
Speaker 1: one country, not one of them that signed onto the
Speaker 1: Paris Climate Agreement, is on track to deliver what it
Speaker 1: was that they said that they would deliver to the world.
Speaker 1: So the world is on fucking fire. No one has
Speaker 1: infrastructure built to sustain the rising temperatures that are now
Speaker 1: going to be the norm, and what we are going
Speaker 1: to see is the chain reaction of events that are
Speaker 1: going to come to pass. I talked about this yesterday
Speaker 1: with regard to the price of food, the price of water, right,
Speaker 1: Because what's going to happen is that as folks are
Speaker 1: just trying to water their lawns or keep their plants alive,
Speaker 1: you have farmers that are trying to water their produce
Speaker 1: in order to keep us alive. You have the entire
Speaker 1: country of Italy declare a climate emergency because they're in
Speaker 1: a major fucking drought. So you talk about the fact
Speaker 1: that we are all interconnected, we have not been acculturated
Speaker 1: to be noble citizens, and surely not under Trumpism, because
Speaker 1: that was all America first. Well, you know there is
Speaker 1: no America first, Italy first, this, that and the other thing.
Speaker 1: We're all fucked right. That's what it means to be interconnected,
Speaker 1: and that's what it means when you don't have a
Speaker 1: community mindset and instead are continuing to function in silos
Speaker 1: as if one country's actions doesn't affect the other. We
Speaker 1: can no longer pretend that we are not in a crisis.
Speaker 1: And you know what's funny is that when you are
Speaker 1: looking to voters right now on where climate change falls
Speaker 1: in their list of issues that they're concerned about, Well,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at people sixty five and up, who
Speaker 1: are generally the ones to vote in mid term elections
Speaker 1: and off presidential year elections. They don't really care about
Speaker 1: climate change, right because more than half of their lives
Speaker 1: are fucking over And many people have actually articulated that
Speaker 1: in the public sphere because I guess they're shame around
Speaker 1: being so fucking selfish. Does not matter because the world,
Speaker 1: right is just so selfish. But when you talk to
Speaker 1: young people, particularly Generation Z, climate change is kind of
Speaker 1: the number one thing because they're wondering how they're going to,
Speaker 1: I don't know, be able to sustain on a planet
Speaker 1: that we are killing every single day. So you know,
Speaker 1: you have Joe Mansion, who has once again said that
Speaker 1: he is not going to vote for any climate legislation.
Speaker 1: Why should he give a fuck? His family are multi millionaires,
Speaker 1: right that are making money off the backs of the poor,
Speaker 1: stupid people in West Virginia. And yeah, I said stupid
Speaker 1: because today I'm fucking pissed. I'm pissed that this motherfucker
Speaker 1: stays in power. I'm pissed that nobody calls him out.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and his fucking press event to the world
Speaker 1: around climate change is calling out Republicans but not calling
Speaker 1: out fucking Joe Mansion and Kursen Cinema. Oh, because what
Speaker 1: what are we afraid of? That he's going to continue
Speaker 1: doing nothing, That he's going to continue rolling with then
Speaker 1: acting like a Republican and being a Democrat and fucking
Speaker 1: name only. Like, at this point in time, I just
Speaker 1: wish that we would stop operating from a place of
Speaker 1: fucking fear and start operating from a place of reality
Speaker 1: and strength. That motherfucker needs to go, right along with
Speaker 1: Merritt Garland needs to go. And it's just like these
Speaker 1: fucking quote unquote moderate white men are going to be
Speaker 1: the fucking death of us. And I'm just wondering when
Speaker 1: everybody else is going to start to realize that. Coming
Speaker 1: up next, my conversation with voting rights advocate and political
Speaker 1: narrative strategist Maya Contreras, Folks, I am very excited to
Speaker 1: welcome to wok F Daily for the first time, Maya
Speaker 1: contrerez who is a voting rights advocate and political narrative strategist,
Speaker 1: which I like that name and I may steal it
Speaker 1: at some point. Maya, thank you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time to join woke F. I want to start
Speaker 1: off our conversation today. You know we are a month
Speaker 1: plus a little bit out from the reversal of Rob
Speaker 1: Wade from the Supreme Court to dramatic decision to take
Speaker 1: away for the first time, I think in modern history,
Speaker 1: to take away a right that Americans have had over
Speaker 1: the last close to fifty years, and we are still
Speaker 1: dealing with the repercussions of that. Many states, as you know,
Speaker 1: had trigger laws that were already in place, so women
Speaker 1: and people with uterus is in roughly I believe it's
Speaker 1: thirteen plus states have lost the ability to have bodily autonomy.
Speaker 1: The White House with their with their outgoing White House
Speaker 1: Communications Director push back against activists in a way that
Speaker 1: was really shocking, kind of pinning activists in a way
Speaker 1: against establishment Democrats and saying that those that are fighting
Speaker 1: on the ground and are the first line of defense
Speaker 1: are apparently out of step quote unquote with establishment amocrats.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get your initial reaction from that statement
Speaker 1: and then you know the subsequent actions and things that
Speaker 1: we have been hearing, reading and observing on social media
Speaker 1: in the news as it pertains to this administration emergency
Speaker 1: action against this reversal. So when I first heard with
Speaker 1: the outgoing Secretary set I I put like twelve hands
Speaker 1: over my face. I was, I just was. I was fatterned,
Speaker 1: but not surprised. And the reason why I say that
Speaker 1: is my grandfather taught an American university. My mom was
Speaker 1: born in Washington, d C. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in DC grang up and one of the number
Speaker 1: one things that I learned about DC when I was
Speaker 1: eight years old was that DC is allergic to creativity.
Speaker 1: And yes, and I will say that because of that,
Speaker 1: you have people that are moving into a bubble there
Speaker 1: who are still thinking in ways that are very antiquated.
Speaker 1: And one of my issues with and first of all,
Speaker 1: let me say this too, I live in definitions. One
Speaker 1: of the things that doctor ebra Max Kindy said and
Speaker 1: I love, is that we need to live in the definition.
Speaker 1: So when I say, when I use the word establishment,
Speaker 1: anyone that steps into Congress becomes establishment, I want you
Speaker 1: all to understand that that is an establishment. And you're
Speaker 1: moving into establishment, and you're choosing to work in an
Speaker 1: establishment environment. It is very difficult to work in something
Speaker 1: that was not created for the vast majority of us.
Speaker 1: It is very difficult. The bones of DC inside that
Speaker 1: is racism, misogyny, misogynoir. That is what you're walking into.
Speaker 1: That's why that's the se as difficult. Now on top
Speaker 1: of that, when you have messengers and are vast the
Speaker 1: vast majority of them are white and who have never
Speaker 1: worked in activist spaces or advocacy spaces, this is the
Speaker 1: kind of messaging that comes through where the fault Laes
Speaker 1: is in not recognizing that they need to have more
Speaker 1: people that work in those spaces inside of the White House.
Speaker 1: That was the biggest mistake. I will say she fundamentally
Speaker 1: in that moment. I think I'm not going to assume
Speaker 1: what she thought, but I'm assuming she did later regret
Speaker 1: to say it. I think that she was trying to
Speaker 1: hit hit back off of people who have been maybe
Speaker 1: performative and their activism. But what it did is hurt
Speaker 1: people that are waking up in their daily lives fighting
Speaker 1: against this tide of racist codified policies that are coming
Speaker 1: out through throughout the country. So that I will say
Speaker 1: that was my initial reaction and a little bit of
Speaker 1: where I saw the mistake coming from. You know, I
Speaker 1: find that you know as somebody not not quite like you,
Speaker 1: not as embedded, but I spent over fifteen years in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. I went you know, undergrad political science, grad
Speaker 1: school education policy, and then worked on the hill, ran
Speaker 1: the gamut until I fled DC in twenty sixteen to
Speaker 1: move to New York. And what I can say about
Speaker 1: inside the Beltway is that you are absolutely right. Creativity
Speaker 1: is an oasis there right that many and maybe not
Speaker 1: even an oasis, I'll say, a mirage that you you
Speaker 1: kind of think with new administrations that you will come
Speaker 1: to this place of consensus and biparticism, and you know,
Speaker 1: and this this imagined place of yesteryear, and what we
Speaker 1: are seeing, I think more and more is that the
Speaker 1: behind the curtain scotch drinking, handshaking, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: politics that Joe Biden cut his teeth in are no
Speaker 1: longer apparent. Yet the people that he employs and that
Speaker 1: still find themselves employed in Washington, DC and in politics,
Speaker 1: are still of that mindset. And so where they're viewing
Speaker 1: activism right, even the acknowledgement that this administration is not
Speaker 1: going to its full capacity of power to push back
Speaker 1: against the compounded crises that we're dealing with, that we
Speaker 1: are the problem somehow. And so you know, for many
Speaker 1: activists who I've talked to, particularly around abortion. They were pissed.
Speaker 1: They've been pissed at this administration. You know, they were
Speaker 1: pissed at this administration because we have yet to have
Speaker 1: a president under the word abortion, let alone fight for
Speaker 1: it in a way that would say that we are
Speaker 1: going to go to the very lengths that our executive
Speaker 1: power allows us to go. We go in there, right.
Speaker 1: And So what is it that you see or think
Speaker 1: about this administration what it's been faced with, Because I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that they walked into a warm, welcome setting
Speaker 1: where they could kind of take on task one at
Speaker 1: a time. They kind of walked into a five alarm
Speaker 1: fire and now it really is one across the planet.
Speaker 1: What do you think that this administration isn't getting and
Speaker 1: do they have an opportunity to make a pivot? So
Speaker 1: I have said this and I just said it in
Speaker 1: an article I wrote for Dame this week that the
Speaker 1: message is policy. So we have to look at what
Speaker 1: our legislators are doing in Congress, and by that this
Speaker 1: administration and by that I mean the one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeenth Congress is actually doing quite well. They've introduced a
Speaker 1: host of amazing legislation to codify abortion, to expand protections,
Speaker 1: to protect our data from being released, and things like that. However,
Speaker 1: we have a Senate that is gridlocked, and no matter
Speaker 1: what anyone says, Joe Biden has no sway or control
Speaker 1: overmansion and cinema because these are separations of power. He's
Speaker 1: not a dictator. He cannot tell them what to do.
Speaker 1: These stories of LBJ saying that he leaned people in
Speaker 1: the corner and intimidated him, those are overblown and if
Speaker 1: you read the history the history of LBJ there, they're
Speaker 1: much blown and exaggerated. Second, I will say this, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is somebody that is a moderate president. It's like
Speaker 1: when a lot of people thought when Obama got elected
Speaker 1: that he was going to do all these things and
Speaker 1: really swing to the left, but he was moderate too.
Speaker 1: We have to recognize that when we're electing moderates, we're
Speaker 1: going to get moderate responses. So I don't so all
Speaker 1: the things that Joe Biden is doing. I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: That's why he wasn't my first pick for president either. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's why to me, we have to recognize when
Speaker 1: they're showing us, I'm telling us who they are. That
Speaker 1: is who we're getting now regarding backdoor deals. I want
Speaker 1: to go back to that for a second. Unfortunately that
Speaker 1: still exists the local level and the state level, and
Speaker 1: at the federal level. I mean in New York, we're
Speaker 1: both New Yorkers. We are haunted by the ghosts of
Speaker 1: Tammany Hall and Robert Moses. We have so many people
Speaker 1: that once they move into spaces of power, want to
Speaker 1: stay there. This is the problem with the entrenchment of power.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you have people that are willing
Speaker 1: to not be transparent and the deals that they are making,
Speaker 1: including city council members that I had in the past
Speaker 1: really supported and liked, and then solve them change the
Speaker 1: moment they moved behind that power door. So what we
Speaker 1: have right now in DC is a more of a
Speaker 1: rarity of people that are willing to speak their mind
Speaker 1: and speak freely about it. And unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 1: people who've been entrenched in power are so risk averse
Speaker 1: that they're the ones that are really the problem. So
Speaker 1: to me, what the problem is that's going on the local, state,
Speaker 1: and federal level is an aversion to risk. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: and of traditional moderate Democrats have long looked at polls
Speaker 1: to decide what people want, well Biden. If we can
Speaker 1: fault Biden specifically, it will be that one, people want
Speaker 1: to have access to abortion. Seventy seven percent of this
Speaker 1: country supports that people support SSI, which would help the
Speaker 1: disabled community. They support so many pieces of policy that
Speaker 1: Biden should understand that they're popular and he can make
Speaker 1: these decisions to do more. However, I will say this
Speaker 1: regarding EO's executive ordered, they can only do so much.
Speaker 1: They can be thrown out by our scotus, our right
Speaker 1: wing scotus. They can be overturned by the next president.
Speaker 1: So this is why they're very difficult. The main thing
Speaker 1: that we want to do, and what I will also
Speaker 1: say that Ruth Bader Ginsburg wanted to do was actually
Speaker 1: Alya slowly put these pieces together so it's harder to
Speaker 1: blow it down. That's why she never ever wanted row
Speaker 1: Vue way to go in the way that it did. However,
Speaker 1: when was the opportunity to codify it. I went through.
Speaker 1: You should know that I'm an award winning researcher, So
Speaker 1: I went through and would love every single Congress since
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three to see when there was a supermajority
Speaker 1: and when they could have codified, and it only happened
Speaker 1: two times, Jimmy Carter's administration for two years, an Obama
Speaker 1: for seventeen working days, and for a Jimmy Carter. People
Speaker 1: need to understand, Jimmy Carter was not pro abortion. He
Speaker 1: didn't want federal funds available for it, so that was
Speaker 1: never gonna happen. Not only that, but he had one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five men, men that were like, hell, no,
Speaker 1: it's not happening, so that that was not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: The same with the Obama administration. Obama came in and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's do this, naively thinking I've got the votes. He
Speaker 1: didn't have the votes. Obama needed to look before he spoke,
Speaker 1: and when saying that, you go back through and you
Speaker 1: see the votes, he didn't have him. He didn't have him.
Speaker 1: He didn't have him. It would have been filibustered, and
Speaker 1: he didn't have him. If it wasn't filibustered. So this
Speaker 1: is why I'm saying, we have never had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to codify it. We've got the ACA through with the
Speaker 1: skin of our teeth. So That's why people have to
Speaker 1: understand that one of the ways if we want to
Speaker 1: codify wrote and we're trying to do that, it's past
Speaker 1: in the House is not going to pass thissent as
Speaker 1: we have to elact more senators. That unfortunately sounds like
Speaker 1: such an annoying and boring thing, right, But that is
Speaker 1: the reality of our situation if we're talking about strategy. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm David Plots of Slates Political Gapfest. As another election
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Speaker 1: down the races, and tell you what issues really matter.
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Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't It's not even to me, Maya
Speaker 1: that it sounds boring. It's just that when I even
Speaker 1: hear the word moderation right now, as we are seeing
Speaker 1: pictures of literally the globe that is on fire, when
Speaker 1: we are citing that, I I just watched a story
Speaker 1: right before we were talking today. More women, I think
Speaker 1: it's up one hundred, one hundred and fifty percent of
Speaker 1: women looking into sterilization in places like Texas and Ohio.
Speaker 1: That those Google searches and those um those research meetings
Speaker 1: with doctors are becoming increasingly the norm because they would
Speaker 1: rather sterilize then end up in a predicament where they
Speaker 1: are not don't have access to contraception or changes you know,
Speaker 1: in in a month um or that they in fact
Speaker 1: do become pregnant and then of course are not able
Speaker 1: to abort that pregnancy, and so when you hear all
Speaker 1: of these stories and and I mean I could go
Speaker 1: on and on and on. As people know on woke
Speaker 1: a f you think to yourself, where the hell does
Speaker 1: moderation make sense? Where does like you know what I'm
Speaker 1: saying that, And that's it's just like I didn't. Biden
Speaker 1: was not my first choice. He wasn't even my fifth.
Speaker 1: And so when I am talking about yes, I understand that,
Speaker 1: America said, you know what, here's an old white evil man,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. We're gonna get a good white old man
Speaker 1: to battle against him, and then all is going to
Speaker 1: be well. Well, eighteen months after an insurrection, an attempt
Speaker 1: to overthrow the government, and a series of laws that
Speaker 1: have been passed in red states, nowhere in sight do
Speaker 1: you see Republicans working at a pace called moderation. So
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what you believe is a pivot or pivots
Speaker 1: that need to happen, not just from this administration, but
Speaker 1: at the state and local level with Democrats in order
Speaker 1: to one hold on to the majority in the House
Speaker 1: and in the Senate, even if it's by the skin
Speaker 1: of their goddamn teeth, to avert fascism, but in general,
Speaker 1: to recognize that this incremental change in progress that we've
Speaker 1: been kind of feeding people for decades plus, it ain't
Speaker 1: it anymore. Sure. I would also say a couple of things. One, No,
Speaker 1: I'm not someone who believes in moderation when there is
Speaker 1: multiple crisis. There's a mental health crisis, there's an environmental crisis,
Speaker 1: there's a public health crisis. There's multiple crisises, right, and
Speaker 1: crisiss means they're that their need quick emergency response. But
Speaker 1: let me say this first. A lot of the white
Speaker 1: people that ended up voting for Joe Biden, that moved
Speaker 1: over to him, this is fine for a lot of them.
Speaker 1: You have to understand this was fine for them. They're like, okay,
Speaker 1: so that we're good. Now we're going to go back
Speaker 1: to brunch. This was fine, okay, So they don't care. Now.
Speaker 1: I will say this within Congress. The reason why moderation
Speaker 1: has been a word used to describe Congress for so long,
Speaker 1: why because seventy seven percent of our Congress now is
Speaker 1: still white. The vast majority of it. I think it's
Speaker 1: seventy eight, seventy six percent, no, sorry, seventy three percent
Speaker 1: is male. So you've understand that black women, women in
Speaker 1: color and Congress LGBTQ members, disabled members, they're still make
Speaker 1: up twenty seven percent a fraction of Congress. So when
Speaker 1: we say, well, why are things working at such a
Speaker 1: moderate pace, you have to understand that the vast majority
Speaker 1: of Congress doesn't see that necessarily as an emergency. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying there aren't some Donald Trump, some very fine
Speaker 1: white people on the Democratic sun. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: because obviously by Chris Murphy wants gun safety. You know,
Speaker 1: you have white women in there that are fighting for
Speaker 1: abortion access. But you have to understand, for the vast
Speaker 1: majority of time, these are people that don't necessarily understand
Speaker 1: what daily discrimination looks like. They don't know what that
Speaker 1: Black women go through a medical term called weathering due
Speaker 1: to daily discrimination, and it weathers on body. They don't.
Speaker 1: They kind of started recognizing that during COVID, when black
Speaker 1: and brown people were dying at a disproportionate rate, that
Speaker 1: maybe that correlated with health brand and the way that
Speaker 1: we either use I don't know, maybe cigarettes or drinking
Speaker 1: to cope with daily discrimination or lack of opportunities and
Speaker 1: all those other stuff. So hye poppies, Sorry, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: they're just in the building and exactly they're they're just
Speaker 1: they're just like co signing that exactly mine. Ye right.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is that the reason why the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party had long held moderation as a standard is
Speaker 1: because you mostly like white people. Now that we have
Speaker 1: more black people, more queer people in it, that isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily the narrative anymore. All the great policies, by the way,
Speaker 1: that I've talked about, to codify marriage equality, to quotify
Speaker 1: abortion rights and all that stuff, most of it came
Speaker 1: from black and brown people in Congress. If you look
Speaker 1: at these battis. So that's what I'm saying. So the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party couldn't have a long term strategy because it
Speaker 1: did not include it for a very long time, centering
Speaker 1: people that were the closest to the harm. So this
Speaker 1: is why things are starting to change. But this is
Speaker 1: also why we need to elect more inclusive It's not
Speaker 1: just about representation, it's also about inclusivity. We want to
Speaker 1: lack people that do understand the public health crisis. We
Speaker 1: want people to understand that this is a as a
Speaker 1: now situation, and and that's how it's going to change.
Speaker 1: So I'll say that, you know, I wonder though, my
Speaker 1: you know, haven't we run out of time? Because here,
Speaker 1: like this is this is kind of this is the
Speaker 1: place that I am into where I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 1: I hear from people who are young, who are younger
Speaker 1: right generation Z and I guess you know early still
Speaker 1: late and millennials who are just like I've been told
Speaker 1: that every election since the first one that I was
Speaker 1: able to vote in is the most consequential election of
Speaker 1: my time. I've been told for you know, every every
Speaker 1: single time that like now, we're never right, this one
Speaker 1: is actually the most consequential election of all time. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you know, if we're just pressing pause
Speaker 1: on the catastrophe that our democracy is in, or if
Speaker 1: we really do believe that if we hold on by
Speaker 1: the skin of our teeth come November and then we
Speaker 1: continue to hold on in twenty twenty four, which is
Speaker 1: a real long shot, that somehow we can write this ship.
Speaker 1: Because to your point, we know who the problem is.
Speaker 1: It has been six white men, hetero Christian and I
Speaker 1: use quotations in power that have been the problem because
Speaker 1: any of the things that we are seeing be thrown
Speaker 1: out of the window in regard to our rights don't
Speaker 1: affect them, right. So I'm just wondering, like, have we
Speaker 1: run at a time as we were preparing for and
Speaker 1: hoping for a demographic shift that was going to allow
Speaker 1: us to have more representation in the way that we
Speaker 1: needed it to have the kind of real, sustainable change
Speaker 1: that is necessary to write this imbalance. So I will
Speaker 1: say fabulous framing fabulous Russian. I will say this first,
Speaker 1: I believe that every election is consequential. Every single election
Speaker 1: is consequential, every single one. I also want to make
Speaker 1: a distinction really quickly. The Republican Party has such an
Speaker 1: easy time. If you're only guarding white supremacy. Wow, you
Speaker 1: got one goal, pretty easy. They're protecting whiteness and the
Speaker 1: alliance of whiteness. It doesn't matter if you're black or brown,
Speaker 1: and in the Republican Party, you're still signing up for
Speaker 1: the alliance of whiteness. That is what's happening in the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. Okay, So they have one goal, protect white
Speaker 1: supremacy and protect profits. That is it. The Democratic Party
Speaker 1: became the Civil Rights Party in nineteen sixty four, officially
Speaker 1: at that point with the signing of the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act and then with the signing of the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 1: But that wasn't a purposeful mission of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: It was like LBJ felt he wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: honor JFK's legacy. JFK kind of was like, I guess
Speaker 1: we should sign in civil rights, you know, he kind
Speaker 1: of reluctantly did it was killed. LBJ signed it in,
Speaker 1: and then black people began to make the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: what it is moving towards at that moment. So there
Speaker 1: wasn't a long term plan because our party is only
Speaker 1: fifty seven years old. And really, as more groups begin
Speaker 1: to get civil rights, for example, when the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: Disability Act was signed in Americans with disability acquisigned, and
Speaker 1: then you're moving more disabled people into it and more
Speaker 1: disabled people, there's flit. They they're in the Republican Party
Speaker 1: than the Democratic Party. But then also imbued our party
Speaker 1: more with protections. So the Democratic Party has a little
Speaker 1: bit of a harder time on messaging and long term
Speaker 1: strategy and planning because we are the only game in town. Okay,
Speaker 1: if we're the only ones that are saying we do
Speaker 1: want gun safety, we're the only ones in town. That
Speaker 1: we're saying we do want trans rights. We're all the
Speaker 1: lgbtwo Q members in Congress right now, there's eleven of them.
Speaker 1: They're all in the Democratic Party. Okay, so we have
Speaker 1: to recognize that that is what that's what the difference
Speaker 1: is between the two parties. Now, I will also say
Speaker 1: this as we try to make these parties more inclusive
Speaker 1: at the local, state, and federal level. The problem is
Speaker 1: gate keeping starts at the local level. At the local level,
Speaker 1: the demographics mirror Congress. It's overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly wealthy. Because
Speaker 1: people tend to think of Congress and a hierarchy, it's
Speaker 1: not power brokers. Start right at the local level. We
Speaker 1: should be looking at it in this kind of way.
Speaker 1: They're the ones making decisions at the local level. That
Speaker 1: also is funding, it's all of these things, neighborhoods, and
Speaker 1: then obviously at the state level, that's jerrymandering, that's determining
Speaker 1: all of these other laws, right, state laws. So all
Speaker 1: of these are are mostly white men moving in. So
Speaker 1: to me, if I want the Democratic Party to have
Speaker 1: a plan, and they do, which is one we know
Speaker 1: that the Republicans have decided to continue to openly behave
Speaker 1: in an extreme way that that is never are going
Speaker 1: to change and less the power dynamic changes. And so
Speaker 1: for example, let me move into this that's every where
Speaker 1: you changeing the lost. The Democrats can move the filibuster
Speaker 1: out of the way, and then we can flood the
Speaker 1: flood the zone with policy. But then the Democrats have
Speaker 1: to recognize that they have to start investing more at
Speaker 1: the local and state level too. Right now that infrastructure
Speaker 1: is not there. I'm glad that Jamie Harrison kind of
Speaker 1: sees that at the DNC. At the same time, it's
Speaker 1: still really frustrating because we also need a public to
Speaker 1: understand that if we want to change local, state, and
Speaker 1: federal policy, we really have to be involved. And let
Speaker 1: me tell you, like my husband and I are constantly
Speaker 1: walking around and meeting and talking to people about politics
Speaker 1: and policy. And the vast majority of people in this
Speaker 1: country don't even know who their governor is, I know
Speaker 1: who their local representative is. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are politically involved. So unfortunately activists are doing
Speaker 1: a lot of the heavy lifting and trying to show
Speaker 1: up vote. So we need to get the general public
Speaker 1: more involved. We still have a terrible vote record in
Speaker 1: this country. This last election in twenty twenty is one
Speaker 1: of the highest thresholds we've ever had in it was
Speaker 1: still only sixty percent. Forty percent of people decided to
Speaker 1: still set it out. So if we want things to change, yes,
Speaker 1: we can totally yell up by my criticized by it
Speaker 1: on the line all the time. I tried to be
Speaker 1: very specific in my criticisms and very specifically in my
Speaker 1: criticism with Congress. But we also need to criticize aspects
Speaker 1: of the public that are sitting it out, that are brunching,
Speaker 1: that are taking their vacations. They're allowed to do that,
Speaker 1: but they also need to show up to vote. They
Speaker 1: also need to show up and show that there are
Speaker 1: people that are lives in the line. And so I
Speaker 1: think that's where we also, I think so that's why
Speaker 1: the conversation to me, I wanted to be more holistic
Speaker 1: for the national conversation that I think we should be having. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I will I will say this that you know,
Speaker 1: with regard to civic engagement in this country, it has
Speaker 1: never been a value or a tenant right because if
Speaker 1: it was, then our public education in our K through
Speaker 1: twelfth schooling would look a hell of a lot different.
Speaker 1: You would be graduating with your with your voter registration
Speaker 1: as well as receiving your cap and gown in your diploma.
Speaker 1: We would have a rigorous civic engagement program that would
Speaker 1: be about understanding all the different facets of government so
Speaker 1: that it is not a surprise on your eighteenth birthday
Speaker 1: when you're able to go and pull a level in
Speaker 1: a polling place, what that actually means, and what your
Speaker 1: affect and what your power is at your state and
Speaker 1: local level. There's a purpose to keeping people ignorant so
Speaker 1: that you're able to control them, but then blame them
Speaker 1: at the end of the day to say, well, why
Speaker 1: didn't you get involved? Well, I don't know enough to
Speaker 1: get involved. And the way in which this country has
Speaker 1: decided to miseducate me has left us with forty percent
Speaker 1: of the population unable to unwilling to vote because a
Speaker 1: they don't know anything, or me what they do know
Speaker 1: is enough to make them want to sit out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really quickly to that there are there's a reason for
Speaker 1: that one. New Gangridge and to the Telecommunications Act in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four. New Gangridge want an experts and civics
Speaker 1: to be done and over, and when he won control
Speaker 1: of the House in the nineties, he made that his
Speaker 1: mission to pull experts out of Congress and to slow
Speaker 1: the role on civic education programs. I'm somebody that was
Speaker 1: civically educated when I was a young child in New Mexico,
Speaker 1: but that has stopped. So I want you to know
Speaker 1: that Republicans are responsible for helping getting now and then
Speaker 1: two with the Telecommunications Act, when you stopped having two
Speaker 1: different pundits from two different you know, I would say
Speaker 1: on the different ends of the polar spectrum being in
Speaker 1: the same room and having, you know, having to speak
Speaker 1: to each other. That also ruined engagement and being able
Speaker 1: to kind of confront the bullshit that was coming out
Speaker 1: of like Fox News as his mouth. It's the reason
Speaker 1: why Fox News can exist, that Sinclair can take over
Speaker 1: local stations and miseducate people on purpose and also call
Speaker 1: themselves entertainment so they don't have to be called news.
Speaker 1: So this is why, and I agree with you completely.
Speaker 1: So yes, anyways, I know we're wrapping this up. I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I could talk to you about this all day long,
Speaker 1: but again, thank you so much. Thank you, Maya. This
Speaker 1: has been a really great conversation. I know folks are
Speaker 1: going to enjoy it, and I really do hope that
Speaker 1: you come back, because we only touched the edge of
Speaker 1: the glacier that is rapidly melting, and I would love
Speaker 1: the opportunity to talk to you again. So appreciate you.
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