Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woke F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody right here live from my
Speaker 1: bunker on Long Island. As a reminder, folks, we are
Speaker 1: running a two for one special. When you download PM mood,
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Speaker 1: Join our stay Safe as Fuck Quarantine special and subscribe
Speaker 1: to PM mood and get woke f Daily for the
Speaker 1: next two weeks. You know this whole. I'm gonna strap
Speaker 1: myself up with a bunch of guns of best a
Speaker 1: maga hat and go and protest of virus on the
Speaker 1: steps of the Capitol Building while police looks safely down
Speaker 1: at you from a balcony. Is on some America, And
Speaker 1: that's what the KKK in their spelling of like bullshit.
Speaker 1: I'm watching this unfold and I'm watching now reports of
Speaker 1: a one named Attorney General William Barr, who is saying
Speaker 1: that he is going to use the power of the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice to require governors to sentence their residence
Speaker 1: to death. How that work? So? On one hand, when
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter protesters were protesting against police brutality, right
Speaker 1: wanting the law and the justice system to work for
Speaker 1: everyone in the same way. William Barr came out and said, well,
Speaker 1: if you don't like the police, then maybe they won't
Speaker 1: be in your neighborhoods anymore. You remember that this is
Speaker 1: the same now, the same motherfucker who thinks that it's
Speaker 1: totally totally okay for armed white people to storm capital buildings.
Speaker 1: These people are not protesters, That's what I want to
Speaker 1: get clear. They're fucking terrorists and they should be treated
Speaker 1: like that. Everyone's idea of liberty is clearly not the
Speaker 1: same because racist white folks idea of liberty is being
Speaker 1: able to oppress and force their will on other people.
Speaker 1: So because they don't give a fuck about their lives
Speaker 1: and their health, then no one else can, right Because
Speaker 1: they don't give a fuck about following science and data
Speaker 1: and facts and actual doctors, They're gonna go with their
Speaker 1: gut right like on a hunch, like this fucking president, Well,
Speaker 1: you know what I say, why not give them them
Speaker 1: the state of Alaska go fucking there, right, Like, round
Speaker 1: up these forty percent of people who don't give a
Speaker 1: shit about this country or anything that it has to
Speaker 1: stand for. All they care about is white supremacy and dominance,
Speaker 1: Give them their own fucking state, and make sure that
Speaker 1: it's separate off, floating in the ocean, away from the
Speaker 1: rest of us. That's what I recommend. I'm done. I'm
Speaker 1: done trying to convince these people of sane ideas and facts.
Speaker 1: I'm done with Democrats trying to open up their arms
Speaker 1: and welcoming these people back to the party because guess what,
Speaker 1: news flash, I don't fucking want them, and neither should you.
Speaker 1: What do they have to offer us, what their wayward votes?
Speaker 1: The fuck out of here. Keep it with Trump, go
Speaker 1: all in the bag for him. Do that, and then
Speaker 1: when you turn up sick and coughing and need a ventilator,
Speaker 1: go elsewhere. Go elsewhere. Because I don't see why our
Speaker 1: health infrastructure, which is already fucked to begin with, needs
Speaker 1: to be crumbling on added weight by stupid, fucking people.
Speaker 1: I really don't. And frankly, there were several countries and
Speaker 1: places right around this country that we're instituting fines for
Speaker 1: people who were not practiced in social distancing laws. So
Speaker 1: I just want to sit back and wait for the
Speaker 1: explosions to take place in Texas, in Tennessee, in Ohio,
Speaker 1: in Michigan because you're not legislating in a way that
Speaker 1: is clearly effective, because these folks don't fear you, right,
Speaker 1: they don't fear any type of repercussions. What should be
Speaker 1: the fine, and I don't even mean monetarily throw them
Speaker 1: in fucking jail? Right, you're talking about a virus that
Speaker 1: has a one two sixty or plus ratio, meaning that
Speaker 1: one person can effectively, in fact, sixty some odd people,
Speaker 1: and you're having two hundred plus people at a rally,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? And nothing is happening to them.
Speaker 1: They are armed with R fifteen. What kind of fucking
Speaker 1: country is this? Where gun shops are labeled essential but
Speaker 1: abortion is not. You know what this virus has done
Speaker 1: is it has opened up the Pandora's box that apparently
Speaker 1: our idealism has been sitting on for all of this time,
Speaker 1: making us believe that this country and the people that
Speaker 1: inhabit it are better than they actually are. You know
Speaker 1: what I see in those screaming, white angry faces, just
Speaker 1: pure ignorance, pure rage. Right, they want to rage against
Speaker 1: the machine. They don't care about civil liberties. As long
Speaker 1: as white folks have it, they're fine, right, because Oh
Speaker 1: my god, being forced to stay inside and watch Netflix
Speaker 1: in order to make sure that tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: Americans don't die. Oh that's fascism. Are you fucking nuts?
Speaker 1: You know? And it's starting to occur to me as well,
Speaker 1: that all of this right. And we're going to get
Speaker 1: into this conversation with our regular Woke f Wednesday contributors
Speaker 1: Jonathan Metzel and Kurt Bardella, and we will unpack the
Speaker 1: rise in white supremacist organizations that are trying to weaponize
Speaker 1: the coronavirus right, that they are calling for a second
Speaker 1: civil war, that they are stocking up there our ammunition.
Speaker 1: And it isn't just as a trophy they are preparing.
Speaker 1: They are preparing to take down police, communities of color,
Speaker 1: Jewish folks, Muslims, anyone who is not white, Anglo and Christian.
Speaker 1: This is the same powder keg situation that brought about
Speaker 1: the Nazi regime. You have the President of the United
Speaker 1: States of America getting on Twitter and telling these states
Speaker 1: to quote unquote liberate and that your Second Amendment is
Speaker 1: under siege. Said, fucking who, You're the goddamn president. So
Speaker 1: are you saying that you're stealing their weapons or are
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, now it's the federal government that
Speaker 1: is now at war with the States. What the fuck
Speaker 1: kind of country is this? That's the question that you
Speaker 1: all need to be asking yourselves as we make the
Speaker 1: slow fucking march to November, if in fact we get there.
Speaker 1: And you know that I have been saying this for
Speaker 1: what feels like years at this point, that I said
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump would do anything, effectively anything in order
Speaker 1: to hold onto power. We know that he has the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice in his pocket, We know that he
Speaker 1: has the Supreme Court of the United States in his pocket,
Speaker 1: and now we know through his tweets that he is
Speaker 1: building his own MAGA militia. Wake the fuck up and
Speaker 1: recognize what is going on before it is too late.
Speaker 1: They are not just crazy. They are crazy and armed,
Speaker 1: which is what makes them dangerous, which is what makes
Speaker 1: them terrorists. And we should be discussing it as such.
Speaker 1: We will be doing that and much much more with
Speaker 1: our guests today on wike F Daily, because I'm telling
Speaker 1: you that the mainstream media is missing this. They are
Speaker 1: missing this convers station and they are not opening your
Speaker 1: eyes to what is happening. It is not enough to
Speaker 1: just laugh at the memes and say, oh hah, they're dumb. No,
Speaker 1: these people are armed and they're coming to our doorsteps
Speaker 1: and the federal government isn't going to do a fucking
Speaker 1: thing to stop them, and that is terrifying on top
Speaker 1: of everything else. Excited to welcome back to Woke a
Speaker 1: F Daily, our Woke a F contributor Kurt Bardella, who
Speaker 1: is also an NBC News Think and USA Today and
Speaker 1: Morning Joe MSNBC contributor as well. Good morning, Kurt, A
Speaker 1: man of many titles, A man of many titles. I
Speaker 1: like it because you are a man with many insights
Speaker 1: into Republican hypocrisy. And you know what I'm really enjoying
Speaker 1: about the pieces that you were writing for both NBC
Speaker 1: and for USA Today are the conversations that you're having
Speaker 1: that we're not talking about. And it is how hell
Speaker 1: bent the Republican Party was during the Obama years to
Speaker 1: try and label Barack Obama as an emperor, to try
Speaker 1: and have him looked at as a person that was
Speaker 1: promoting propaganda, calling in governmental agencies to look into every
Speaker 1: single thing, including the Reinvestment Act, which again helped this
Speaker 1: country stave off a depression, A depression in the early aughts,
Speaker 1: and here we are where there is an actual emperor,
Speaker 1: an authoritarian in the White House who is tweeting about
Speaker 1: the liberation of states and telling people that their Second
Speaker 1: Amendment rights are under siege, which they are not, telling
Speaker 1: people that he alone is the end all, be all
Speaker 1: and the authority in the United States, essentially eliminating the
Speaker 1: role of Congress. And they say nothing, Kurt, they say nothing.
Speaker 1: None of these people that you have written about in
Speaker 1: your latest piece. Trump's liberate tweets were reckless and arrogant.
Speaker 1: Now imagine if Obama had sent them. They're saying nothing.
Speaker 1: Tell me how and why are Democrats not making a
Speaker 1: bigger deal about the Republican silence. You know, it's been
Speaker 1: both an observation and a frustration for me, again having
Speaker 1: had a front row seat to how Republicans conducted themselves
Speaker 1: during the Obama years, and I spent five years working
Speaker 1: at the House Oversight Committee, and I remember people like
Speaker 1: the then Judiciary Committee chairman's, you know, talking about the
Speaker 1: need to prevent the executive branch from overstepping the boundaries
Speaker 1: of its constitutional authority and separation of powers and checks
Speaker 1: and balances, and even going to the extreme of They
Speaker 1: formed a special task force to examine the executive overreach
Speaker 1: of Barack Obama, labeling him a lawless, emperor like figure.
Speaker 1: He had people like Ted Cruz raising alarm bell saying
Speaker 1: that you know, there's troubling aspects of the Obama presidency
Speaker 1: and direct quote, none is more dangerous than the president's
Speaker 1: persistent pattern of lawlessness. Mark Meadows, the same Mark Meadows,
Speaker 1: who was now Donald Trump's chief of staff, opine that
Speaker 1: President Obama had declared war not just on Congress, beyond
Speaker 1: the American people, on and on people from Paul Ryan
Speaker 1: to Sief King to Jim Jordan, all of these characters
Speaker 1: that we have seen take a front row seat and
Speaker 1: being the public defender of Donald Trump, were the first
Speaker 1: ones railing against President Obama's use of executive authority. And
Speaker 1: let's just be clear, what President Obama did did not
Speaker 1: in any way come close to the lawlessness we're seeing
Speaker 1: from Donald Trump. They're not on the same playing field.
Speaker 1: Yet Republicans were so quick to yell and hold hearings
Speaker 1: and issue subpoenas and launch investigations. And I constantly think
Speaker 1: that for Democrats it is a missed opportuntunity to point
Speaker 1: out the intolerable hypocrisy that we've seen from Republicans during
Speaker 1: this time of Trump, and I wish that they would
Speaker 1: be more blatant and more direct just repeat the words
Speaker 1: of Republicans at the next time Donald Trump has a
Speaker 1: temper tantrum or a Twitter tantrum. I don't know why
Speaker 1: every single House Democrat doesn't put out a statement quoting
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz when he wrote a presidential temper tantrum is
Speaker 1: not an acceptable means of discourse. The words are right there,
Speaker 1: and they came from Republicans. And think that Democrats need
Speaker 1: to be vigilant at reminding people of the context here,
Speaker 1: because as we've seen, Donald Trump loves to rewrite history
Speaker 1: in real time, and Republicans seem to like to pretend
Speaker 1: that the better part of this decade didn't exist. And
Speaker 1: I think Democrats are letting them off the hook by
Speaker 1: pointing it out every single day, every single day. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it is democrats desire or they're
Speaker 1: feeling that by not pointing out the obvious that they're
Speaker 1: taking the high road. But at this point in time,
Speaker 1: don't you think that it is critical that it's critical
Speaker 1: that Democrats highlight where we are and where Republicans have
Speaker 1: taken us and how far they have how far they
Speaker 1: have strayed from their own philosophies and ideologies about government.
Speaker 1: I think it is because in reality, the Republicans effectively
Speaker 1: closed themselves in constitutional righteousness the Obama years, and they
Speaker 1: use that as a means to advance their brand, their
Speaker 1: politics obstruction, and now more than ever, they need to
Speaker 1: be held accountable for that by the Democrats, by the press,
Speaker 1: so that the American people understand what's happening and how
Speaker 1: far away Republicans frankly have strayed from their own orthodox scene.
Speaker 1: And again, the lack of oversight, the lack of check
Speaker 1: and balance, the lack of a watchdog over our democracy
Speaker 1: is having some real, real life impacts. People are wondering
Speaker 1: right now why they haven't gotten their stimulus checks, why
Speaker 1: they their small businesses didn't get loans, Why large corporate
Speaker 1: conglomerates are getting bailouts while mom and pop shops are
Speaker 1: going under and people are having to fire their employees.
Speaker 1: And part of that is because Republicans have abandoned their oversight.
Speaker 1: Post Trump is empowered to feel like he can do
Speaker 1: whatever he wants, that he can give money away to
Speaker 1: whoever he wants. The fact that this past week, somehow
Speaker 1: in the state to Florida, the WWE was designated essential
Speaker 1: and given special status just tells you how broken things
Speaker 1: are right now. And I think Democrats, who again, I
Speaker 1: feel like, oftentimes operate from a position of fear. They're
Speaker 1: worried about things on their faces, They're worried about looking
Speaker 1: to politically opportunistic, and yet the Republicans certainly don't hesitate
Speaker 1: to do those things. Republicans aren't thinking twice about politicizing
Speaker 1: this as they are encouraging lunatics to go out there
Speaker 1: and protest the social distancing guidelines that we have in
Speaker 1: place to trying to keep hold of this pandemic. Republicans
Speaker 1: are doubling down on extreme and Democrats don't seem to
Speaker 1: be saying or doing much of anything. And that's and
Speaker 1: that's always my problem is that you're right, there is
Speaker 1: this fear that is there, that is, you know, lingering
Speaker 1: underneath the surface with Democrats, which is being painted in
Speaker 1: a bad light, being seen as opportunistic, being seen as
Speaker 1: a party that does not care about the people. Right So,
Speaker 1: any time there is any spin that is done from
Speaker 1: Fox News that is done by the right, They cower,
Speaker 1: they apologize, and they let the situation go. We watch
Speaker 1: it happen with gun rights, right. We watch it after
Speaker 1: every mass shooting, right, we haven't had just so people know,
Speaker 1: we haven't had a school shooting. Do you know why
Speaker 1: we haven't had a school shooting because school is not
Speaker 1: in session. That's the only reason. So the way to
Speaker 1: stop mass shootings in schools apparently is to shut down schools,
Speaker 1: not do anything about actual gun control legislation. But every
Speaker 1: time there is a mass shooting, we're told now is
Speaker 1: not the time to politicize. Well, when is it right?
Speaker 1: If now is not the time to politicize the fact
Speaker 1: that you have a president and a party that is
Speaker 1: held bent on creating some type of second Civil war,
Speaker 1: right where the President of the United States is urging
Speaker 1: folks to buy up guns right and to protest their
Speaker 1: rights to be liberated, when in fact that rhetoric is
Speaker 1: putting them in harm's way and is creating an incredible
Speaker 1: powder cag of an environment right where we have heightened emotions.
Speaker 1: Twenty two million people are out of work, We have
Speaker 1: racial and ethnic animus, that this administration has been spreading
Speaker 1: and then we're literally adding guns to that mix. Right,
Speaker 1: what do we think is going to happen? And so,
Speaker 1: what is it that you think that Democrats need to
Speaker 1: do to reclaim this narrative. I think they need to
Speaker 1: toughen up and really start being more aggressive in their rhetoric.
Speaker 1: I think that they need to hold this president accountable.
Speaker 1: I think after debating and discussing right now more legislation
Speaker 1: to put more money into different programs to try to
Speaker 1: keep the economy afloat, I think that they really need
Speaker 1: to tie in that legislation with some real tough oversight mechanisms.
Speaker 1: I think that they need to not allow this president
Speaker 1: to have a blank check to do whatever he wants,
Speaker 1: because I feel like giving Donald Trump trillions of taxpayer dollars,
Speaker 1: it's basically it's a bank heist and broad daylight. And
Speaker 1: what we do know is to this point, the people
Speaker 1: who need help aren't getting it. And what the president
Speaker 1: is really spending his time doing is focusing on using
Speaker 1: these resources to produce propaganda. I mean, before his ridiculous
Speaker 1: campaign style of briefings, he's making the press corps watch
Speaker 1: these ridiculous videos that he's studies that he's his team
Speaker 1: is putting together on a tax payer time to try
Speaker 1: to do everything he can to deflect away from them
Speaker 1: stakes he has made and promote himself as some sort
Speaker 1: of savior. And you know, the idea that he even
Speaker 1: would delay for one second the sending of some of
Speaker 1: these checks out because he wants his signature on the
Speaker 1: checks is unthinkable propaganda. And it's something that Republicants, by
Speaker 1: the way, we're obsessed about the idea of propaganda. During
Speaker 1: the Obama years, they called for investigations about the legality
Speaker 1: of the public relations efforts of the Obama administration. And
Speaker 1: I can tell you firsthand that nothing that Barack Obama
Speaker 1: did came remotely close to the blatan display of propaganda
Speaker 1: that we've seen from Donald Trump in the last week alone.
Speaker 1: And yet tom and again, as we've seen throughout this presidency,
Speaker 1: Republicans who are quick to investigate Obama there are nowhere
Speaker 1: to be seen or heard there instead encouraging people to
Speaker 1: go out there and violate social distancing guidelines. They're encouraging
Speaker 1: people to put their health at risk and put all
Speaker 1: of us at risk. They're encouraging people to arm up
Speaker 1: and weaponize because we all know that the thing that
Speaker 1: we need now is everyone having a gun is that
Speaker 1: usually ends well in this country. And I just don't,
Speaker 1: for the left of me know what the Democrats are
Speaker 1: really doing. I don't see any of them really out
Speaker 1: there talking about any of this in a strong and
Speaker 1: profound and meaningful way. And again, I just I feel
Speaker 1: like they're letting fear and they're letting the right control
Speaker 1: their reactions to things. I mean, the reality is Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and the bright parts of the world and the
Speaker 1: Fox News is of the world, in the Russell La
Speaker 1: Muzzle world, they're going to accuse the Democrats are playing politics.
Speaker 1: No matter what, they're going to attack the Democrats, they're
Speaker 1: gonna say they're taking lea our rights and our freedoms.
Speaker 1: They've been doing that for a decade now. That's not
Speaker 1: going to change. So Democrats might as well go out
Speaker 1: there and be forceful. I think the American people will
Speaker 1: respond if Democrats are out there being forceful. But if
Speaker 1: they're just gonna let Donald Trump bloviate for hours and
Speaker 1: hours a day without any forceful, organized response, Trump's gonna
Speaker 1: win in November. I just you know, everything that you're
Speaker 1: saying is right and absolutely dead on, and it's it's
Speaker 1: like we're in the midst of a perfect story. Right,
Speaker 1: Democrats have been cowtowing to Republicans for decades, right and
Speaker 1: with this and leading by fear and instead of and
Speaker 1: taking the high road and believing that the American people
Speaker 1: are actually better than they are, because I really don't
Speaker 1: think so. I gotta be honest, right when you have
Speaker 1: forty percent of the population that can be swayed by
Speaker 1: a used car salesman that is literally putting you in
Speaker 1: harm's way, and you're saying, yes, I want to send
Speaker 1: my kids back to work. Who cares of two point
Speaker 1: three million of them die like doctor Oz did last
Speaker 1: week and then had to apologize right like again, you're right,
Speaker 1: Where the hell are the Democrats? Where is anybody that
Speaker 1: is punching back in any significant way? And they can't
Speaker 1: tell me, right, because it is the governors right now
Speaker 1: who have the responsibilities of trying to get their their
Speaker 1: residents safe and tested and create a hospital structure that
Speaker 1: doesn't explode. But where are the members of Congress? Right
Speaker 1: In all the while, I want to point out that
Speaker 1: as Republicans and lunatics like like Oz, and Phil I
Speaker 1: won't even call them doctors anymore. In my opinion, they're
Speaker 1: not now. But as they're saying, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: let these people die, how in the world are we
Speaker 1: going to ever let the Republican Party get away with
Speaker 1: calling themselves the pro life party, they're not. They are
Speaker 1: literally willing to let people die who as they cause
Speaker 1: to say, well, they might die anyway, they're old, They
Speaker 1: would they would be glad to sacrifice their lives for
Speaker 1: the economy. This is, you know, all the talk of
Speaker 1: death panels during Obamacare, repuls that are willing to administer
Speaker 1: death because they want their corporate cronies to continue making
Speaker 1: millions and billions of dollars. I mean more than anything too.
Speaker 1: What we're seeing is effectively class warfare, because guess what,
Speaker 1: it's not the billionaires going to be out there on
Speaker 1: the supply chains, working in warehouses, working in restaurants. It's
Speaker 1: not going to be the the the people who benefited
Speaker 1: from Trump's tax cuts that are going to be on
Speaker 1: the front lines of this thing. If if certain states reopen,
Speaker 1: it's going to be the working class, it's going to
Speaker 1: be the lower class. It's going to be people who
Speaker 1: don't have a choice and are having to make the
Speaker 1: impossible decision to choose between their own health and welfare
Speaker 1: and being able to put food on the table and
Speaker 1: keep their families afloat. It's going to be deleased among
Speaker 1: us who suffer the consequences of this reactionary effort by
Speaker 1: Republicans to get people out there again. And and you
Speaker 1: know what I'll say is this is that you know,
Speaker 1: I oftentimes believe that Democrats waste a lot of time
Speaker 1: trying to convince the forty percent that Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: bad for them, right, instead instead of focusing on the
Speaker 1: sixty percent that need to be riled up and need
Speaker 1: to be educated on what he's doing, so that this
Speaker 1: time around in twenty twenty, another hundred and five million
Speaker 1: people don't decide to sit on their assets, right like
Speaker 1: this is this is about This isn't about trying to
Speaker 1: get I could give a shit about folks across the aisle.
Speaker 1: I really don't care. Right, you want to go out
Speaker 1: and you want to have rallies with guns and do
Speaker 1: all of these things and infect yourselves and your neighbors,
Speaker 1: and one stay in your own goddamn state. That's that's
Speaker 1: essentially where I am. I don't care. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to save people's lives out here who are
Speaker 1: willingly putting themselves in harm's way. But I am talking
Speaker 1: about the sixty percent of people who have some type
Speaker 1: of practical understanding of how viruses work and spread and
Speaker 1: health and wellness right, and those hundred and five million
Speaker 1: people who were not moved into action, Why don't they
Speaker 1: try and talk to those sixty percent instead of continuing
Speaker 1: to concentrate on the forty that we're never getting back.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you haven't come around to the idea yet,
Speaker 1: then Donald Trump is back for your health. There's no
Speaker 1: there's no change in your mind. Now you're gone. You're
Speaker 1: you're so far gone, there's no get you back. And
Speaker 1: it's not even worth at this point trying to save
Speaker 1: those people from themselves. And I think that you're right.
Speaker 1: The attention and our focus is got to be on
Speaker 1: getting people to turn out to vote and getting people
Speaker 1: and to build the coalition that And I believe that
Speaker 1: that coalition, the bedrock of that, the foundation of that
Speaker 1: are people of color, our minorities, are the working class,
Speaker 1: are the people who are being subjected to this economic
Speaker 1: form of tyranny. They're the ones we need to reach.
Speaker 1: They're the ones that we need to get engaged and
Speaker 1: keep informed. Uh. And you know, it's been interesting watching
Speaker 1: the conversation unfold. Ever since Senator Standers got out of
Speaker 1: the race and mister Vice President Biden has been the
Speaker 1: presumptive Democrat nominee, all the talk has been what does
Speaker 1: Biden need to do the window or the burning crowd?
Speaker 1: And in my sense, it's you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: more about what we need to do to ensure that
Speaker 1: that people of color continue to support the Democrats and
Speaker 1: come up the vote because books, to be honest, Biding
Speaker 1: campaign was on life support until African American voters in
Speaker 1: South Carolina one single handily save the Biding campaign. And
Speaker 1: if Biden becomes president, it's going to be because of
Speaker 1: the African American vote and as well as the Hispanic votes.
Speaker 1: Looking at the general election, and so not enough conversations
Speaker 1: being had about people of color, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: in this pandemic, people of color are the ones who
Speaker 1: are disproportionately being impacted by this crisis, who are dying
Speaker 1: in alarmingly high rates. And it's something let me ask
Speaker 1: you something though, Kurt, because you know, I am a
Speaker 1: people like to say that I'm cynical, but I like
Speaker 1: to consider myself a realist. And is it the fact
Speaker 1: that over the past couple of weeks we have learned
Speaker 1: exactly what you just said that African Americans people of color,
Speaker 1: right are generally the ones that are on the front
Speaker 1: lines of this coronavirus because they, in many ways work
Speaker 1: in a lot of the what has been deemed essential work.
Speaker 1: They are working in hospitals and nursing homes and grocery stores,
Speaker 1: and they are doing the work. And it is folks
Speaker 1: that are living in densely populated areas, right. This is
Speaker 1: not Trump's base. So it is part also of the
Speaker 1: callousness here is that it's not his base that's dying off.
Speaker 1: And so what different what does he care what's happening
Speaker 1: in New York City or in San Francisco or in Miami.
Speaker 1: What difference does it make to him because his base
Speaker 1: is out in the in the rural areas. Is that
Speaker 1: they're thinking, I think that you're absolutely on to one
Speaker 1: of the really despicable realities of this president. And they're
Speaker 1: call them party and that is I gearing you if
Speaker 1: the majority of people who are suffering and dying in
Speaker 1: large clusterers were white, and this was in Alabama or
Speaker 1: Oklahoma or Arkansas, you'd be seeing a very different conversation
Speaker 1: from Donald Trump and from the Republicans. If the majority
Speaker 1: of people that were dying were in or white people
Speaker 1: in Florida and Tennessee and Georgia, those governors would not
Speaker 1: be entertaining opening things back up right now. They would
Speaker 1: not be putting all of us at risk. And it's
Speaker 1: because the reality of Trump and Home Party is they
Speaker 1: value minority lives differently they value white people's lives. That's
Speaker 1: just the fact if you look at the rhetoric and
Speaker 1: the policy is that they have championed during the last
Speaker 1: four years. And I think Democrats again, I think Democrats
Speaker 1: need to be aggressive and pointing that out. You know,
Speaker 1: there is a a number of pictures we saw over
Speaker 1: the last couple of days of uh, particularly white men
Speaker 1: with their automatic weapons, uh, you know, in state capitals
Speaker 1: and protesting. And I made the comment on Twitter that
Speaker 1: a few things scare me as much as the side
Speaker 1: of you know, white people with guns and the back
Speaker 1: last that that received from white people. Republican Trump supporters
Speaker 1: was a norm. I've never been called racist so many
Speaker 1: times by white people, uh, which is quite something I
Speaker 1: have to say, But but it just showed me that, Wow,
Speaker 1: that the a that that kind of hit a nerve there.
Speaker 1: And and B I don't think Democrats need should be
Speaker 1: afraid to call these things out that way, because it's
Speaker 1: the truth. And and I think the only way that
Speaker 1: we we're going to have a chance to kind of
Speaker 1: cut through the noise and cut through the noise of
Speaker 1: Trump and Russell and Lunch on Hannity is if we
Speaker 1: speak loudly too, And that's not happening right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just you know, every day I'm asking myself, like,
Speaker 1: where are the voices, where are the people that are
Speaker 1: going to just call bullshit right, like just say what
Speaker 1: it is? And you know today, you know, like every
Speaker 1: day I sit around and I watch MSNBC, and I
Speaker 1: switch between that and CNN and my local news here
Speaker 1: in New York, and I listen to journalists continue to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there are good intentions on both sides, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: they're not. There are not good intentions on both sides.
Speaker 1: And what is the compulsion to say so in light
Speaker 1: of all of the evidence to the contrary. Yeah, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but when you start again, I go back to the
Speaker 1: very beginning of this whole saga. When you refer to
Speaker 1: Charlottesville as good people on both sides, that tells your
Speaker 1: thing you need to know about intentions, and we're the
Speaker 1: party's mind is at when you look the other way,
Speaker 1: As you know, Steve King calls immigrants dirt, when when
Speaker 1: you look at the draconian immigration measures that this administration
Speaker 1: has imposed on Hispanics. Despite all this, we've almost forgotten
Speaker 1: that there's a lot thousands of immigrants in you know,
Speaker 1: modern day concentration camps at the border right now. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know that are effectively enslaved by the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: When this president refers to African nations and ship whole
Speaker 1: countries on and on and on and on. There's no
Speaker 1: good intentions there. There's there's nothing redeemable there. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the people who are cheering that on there's nothing redeemable
Speaker 1: about them either, And there's no changing their mind or
Speaker 1: winning them over or getting them to see the light.
Speaker 1: That's not going to happen. And so trying to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with them is a waste of time. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, it's not something that Democrats should even bother
Speaker 1: doing because every minute and talking to one of them
Speaker 1: as a minute, you're not spending talking to someone that
Speaker 1: can be persuadable, that can turn out the book for you,
Speaker 1: that can actually make a difference in the selection. And
Speaker 1: that's where all of our attention needs to be. It
Speaker 1: is You're absolutely right, it is where all of our
Speaker 1: attention needs to be. Kurt Bardella, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for this very keen insight into Republican ideology and philosophy
Speaker 1: in this moment right now, because it is truly terrifying,
Speaker 1: and I'm not quite sure where Democrats are, but I
Speaker 1: know that you have thrown up the bat signal for
Speaker 1: them in both of your recent writings at the USA
Speaker 1: Today and NBC News. Think my hope is that they
Speaker 1: will see it, or somebody will and do something about it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, friend, good talking to you. I
Speaker 1: am so happy to welcome back for our regular Wednesday
Speaker 1: conversation with woke f contributor and author of Dying of
Speaker 1: White How the politics of racial resentment is killing America's heartland,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Metzel. Jonathan, thanks so much, for making this a
Speaker 1: consistent conversation that we get to have weekly while we're
Speaker 1: all working our way through quarantine. It's the highlight of
Speaker 1: my weight. It's great to be here. So you know
Speaker 1: what I love about this is that you and I
Speaker 1: are sharing articles and tweets and conversations that we feel
Speaker 1: like people need to be paying attention to, one of
Speaker 1: which is starting to become really terrifying to me, which
Speaker 1: is this uprising, this white supremacy uprising that is happening
Speaker 1: online where there are some groups and movements that are
Speaker 1: gaining momentum and speed and have been triggered attention by
Speaker 1: the FBI in twenty nineteen, and this Southern Poverty Law
Speaker 1: Center has been following the spread of white domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: And now there is a push for a second Civil war,
Speaker 1: and in some way, these folks are using the coronavirus
Speaker 1: as a cart that they're going to hitch their ideology too.
Speaker 1: Make it make sense, Jonathan, Well, I think the first
Speaker 1: thing to you know, to keep in mind about what's
Speaker 1: happening now is that it's important to note that what
Speaker 1: we're hearing now with all this language about second Civil
Speaker 1: War and Bogaloo and all that stuff. It's it's been
Speaker 1: kind of rattling around out there since the eighties, really,
Speaker 1: I mean, and this has been a very very fringe
Speaker 1: position from some extreme libertarian gun groups basically threatening a
Speaker 1: civil war, and it kind of pops up again, you
Speaker 1: know when you know, around times where people feel like
Speaker 1: the government's going to intervene or the guns are going
Speaker 1: to get taken away, things like that. And I think
Speaker 1: it's important to first of all, note that this is still,
Speaker 1: you know, a pretty fringe position, right in a way.
Speaker 1: There are many many libertarians and gun owners who would
Speaker 1: never support this kind of position. But I do think
Speaker 1: that in this moment where we're all kind of you know,
Speaker 1: this is just a moment where extreme positions are being manipulated, right,
Speaker 1: And I think what's happening is that a lot of
Speaker 1: these arguments, particularly in relation to a lot of these
Speaker 1: protests that are popping up among fringe groups to kind
Speaker 1: of get out in the public, bring your air fifteen protests,
Speaker 1: to stay at home order, all these kind of things
Speaker 1: that it's really given an avenue for I think, really,
Speaker 1: at least online a resurgence of very extreme extreme positions
Speaker 1: and the possibility at least in social media that they're
Speaker 1: entering the mainstream. And so the other part of this
Speaker 1: is that even though this is a French position, anytime
Speaker 1: you have lots of people talking about planning sedition or
Speaker 1: violence against minorities or the police or politicians, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to take that very very seriously, especially when
Speaker 1: it's tied to a lot of weapons. And so in
Speaker 1: a way, even if it's a French position in this moment,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a threat, especially if people are heavily armed,
Speaker 1: and so you know, it's it's it's something that our
Speaker 1: country dealt with very directly, you know, in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of that Kim and Dave McVeigh Oklahoma City stuff and
Speaker 1: all that. You know, we really had a very concerted
Speaker 1: effort to deal with white, white supremacist groups and and
Speaker 1: militant groups like this. And I think really it's pretty
Speaker 1: vital right now that we that we take this threat
Speaker 1: seriously as well, again, because the you know, there's so
Speaker 1: much uncertainty, there's so much anxiety, there's you know, economic downturn,
Speaker 1: all these factors. So this is a time where the
Speaker 1: rise of an armed fringe group I think would be
Speaker 1: particularly risky and and hopefully this is something that we
Speaker 1: would be taking very seriously. So it's NBC News that
Speaker 1: is reporting on the Network Contagion Research Institute n CRII
Speaker 1: an independent nonprofit of scientists and engineers that tracks and
Speaker 1: reports on misinformation and hate speech across social media. They've
Speaker 1: released a report yesterday yesterday evening, and in their report
Speaker 1: they are talking about this anti government movement right where
Speaker 1: there is this desire of a violent uprising that is
Speaker 1: going to like you're saying, target law enforcement, target different
Speaker 1: minority groups. And what I find really scary about this, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: is that we are seeing these people, right, We are
Speaker 1: seeing these heavily armed folks at these rallies that are
Speaker 1: when I look at them, I think to myself, how
Speaker 1: dumb are people? Right? Like I can't I can't wrap
Speaker 1: my mind around protesting a virus and protesting against people
Speaker 1: that are trying to keep you safe because you without
Speaker 1: your MD, without any you know, education in science or
Speaker 1: data or research or any of these things. That these
Speaker 1: people are taking to television and saying that their rights
Speaker 1: are being trampled upon. And what I have started to
Speaker 1: understand and believe, and I want to know this through
Speaker 1: your research in your writing. There's a fundamental difference in
Speaker 1: understanding between white conservative, white ringer right wingers who use
Speaker 1: the term liberty and everyone else who uses the term
Speaker 1: liberty and freedom. They're liberty and free them to me right,
Speaker 1: these white supremacist groups is about their ability to spread
Speaker 1: their hate and to oppress others. And if they don't
Speaker 1: have the ability to do that, they believe that their
Speaker 1: freedoms are taking away being taken away from them. When
Speaker 1: the rest of us talk about freedom and liberty, it's
Speaker 1: free to exist, right, and for the laws to actually
Speaker 1: work for all people in the same way. We have
Speaker 1: a fundamental difference here, and so how do you how
Speaker 1: do you how do you even how do we even
Speaker 1: go about trying to deal with this group when we
Speaker 1: don't have the same foundational understanding of basic things. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, again, I think that it's it's such a
Speaker 1: it's such a vital and in many ways terrifying moments. Again,
Speaker 1: because the conditions for extremism m a are. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a kind of atmospe sphere historically where extremism rises.
Speaker 1: If you think about the rise of you know, Nazi
Speaker 1: Germany for example, you know, catastrophic economic downturn, people looking
Speaker 1: for some answer, people looking for somebody else to blame,
Speaker 1: and weapons and military all those kind of things, And
Speaker 1: so I think now now is the time that we
Speaker 1: really have to be particularly vigilant and particularly about ideologies
Speaker 1: like this UM that's spread among people who are feeling
Speaker 1: disaffected and dis empowered UM and are also very armed.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a you know, a pretty um.
Speaker 1: You know, the message about weapons is pretty inconsistent because
Speaker 1: it's always about the government's going to come take away
Speaker 1: your weapons. But the government's basically handing you weapons right now,
Speaker 1: so so that that's not that's an issue. But you know,
Speaker 1: but but this ideology is, you know, it's against Congress,
Speaker 1: basically saying Congress has no power, it's against minorities, it's
Speaker 1: threatening all these kind of things. And whether or not
Speaker 1: that happens, UM, you know, I think the important point
Speaker 1: is that fringe ideologies have been present for some time.
Speaker 1: We're different now. Number one. Number one is just the climate,
Speaker 1: right and the despair. But number two is, you know,
Speaker 1: you need responsible leadership to say this is not what
Speaker 1: America stands for. This is not something that we're going
Speaker 1: to tolerate. You know, this is where we need, like
Speaker 1: the Justice Department and the Office of the President to
Speaker 1: basically be saying this is not who we are, and
Speaker 1: we're going to come together national unity and messages in
Speaker 1: the face of this. And that's even what happens after
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City episode, is that people came together. But
Speaker 1: instead right now we're seeing the opposite, right, We're seeing
Speaker 1: the Trump administration really foment divisiveness by playing to a
Speaker 1: lot of radical groups. And not to say that they
Speaker 1: themselves are actively threatening violence, but all these things about
Speaker 1: like liberate states and your Second Amendment to ender attack,
Speaker 1: those are those are code words, right, This idea that
Speaker 1: people are going to come take away your guns. That
Speaker 1: that's part of what this whole. But it isn't a
Speaker 1: code word, right like it like the president is no
Speaker 1: longer the president and this administration the Trump administration, they
Speaker 1: aren't speaking in code anymore. They are actually being incredibly bold, right,
Speaker 1: and transparent about what it is that they want. When
Speaker 1: the President tweets liberate Ohio, Liberate Michigan, he knows what
Speaker 1: he's doing, So why aren't we calling out what he
Speaker 1: is doing? Right? You know, in in front of the
Speaker 1: Texas State Capital tweet from Natalie Allison. Right, there was
Speaker 1: the American flag, Trump flags, Betsy Ross flags, and troopers
Speaker 1: that are there that are not doing anything. And I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that if there was a oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: a Black Lives Matter rally that was being held, right,
Speaker 1: that troops would not be arresting people and telling you
Speaker 1: that you're endangering the public's help and throwing these people
Speaker 1: in jail and charging them with like a federal crime.
Speaker 1: What is happening here? Well, there's certainly a long history.
Speaker 1: I mean, I write about this and dying of whiteness
Speaker 1: and other stuff I've written that. You know, there is
Speaker 1: a long history in this country of kind of the
Speaker 1: stereotype of the armed white patriot versus the armed black
Speaker 1: criminal or gang bangler or foodlum. You know. So there
Speaker 1: are all these ways in which those stereotypes play out
Speaker 1: in terms of really who gets to carry a gun
Speaker 1: and stuff like, much more broadly, who gets protests. When
Speaker 1: I saw those troopers in Texas and the same thing
Speaker 1: in Nashville, I did also kind of think that the
Speaker 1: troopers were worried about catching the coronavirus from the protesters,
Speaker 1: so they probably also didn't want to get close to
Speaker 1: them because they didn't want to get sick. There's an
Speaker 1: out of layer, right, what's happening. But I certainly would
Speaker 1: agree with what you're saying, and other people like Abraham
Speaker 1: Kendy have been writing about this that basically, you know,
Speaker 1: who has the rights of protests. But again I also
Speaker 1: think that in a way, this is the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you honestly, and when when the pandemic started,
Speaker 1: I was actually rooting for Trump, right, I said, this,
Speaker 1: here's the time where you can actually show that you're
Speaker 1: the leader of everybody. Here's where we come together. Here's
Speaker 1: a time where we re establish what this country stands for.
Speaker 1: Um And this was an opportunity to like bring people together.
Speaker 1: And I think really all this divisiveness is masking just
Speaker 1: the catastrophic failure of the administration to predict this, to
Speaker 1: implement testing, to save our economy, and so all of
Speaker 1: the stuff is a bunch of noise. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: effective noise, but it's effective noise that's distracting people when really,
Speaker 1: I mean this was a gold This is a golden
Speaker 1: opportunity for Trump to honestly be a great president and
Speaker 1: a crisis. You know, people were saying it's it's his
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, but really he is the nine eleven
Speaker 1: right now. I mean he's he's really, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean he's really, he's he's he's implementing this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And I tell you that those liberate tweets, and I
Speaker 1: think the important thing about those tweets again, even though
Speaker 1: people saw what he was doing, is that if you
Speaker 1: if you studied the white extremist literature, he was using
Speaker 1: that exact same language. I mean, this idea of all
Speaker 1: you know, the Second Civil War. The last time it
Speaker 1: came up was in response to what are called red
Speaker 1: flag laws, which are centrist. You know, it empowers family
Speaker 1: members to have to potentially have weapons are removed from
Speaker 1: a family member who was threatening domestic violence or suicide.
Speaker 1: And it's only a thirty day restriction on your gun rights.
Speaker 1: But when when this started happening, all these groups started
Speaker 1: basically saying, the government's coming for your guns and protect
Speaker 1: your Second Amendments, all this kind of stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: where this Googlealoo stuff started to write us again. And
Speaker 1: so the fact that Trump was using that language in
Speaker 1: some of these suits and playing to this and alstering
Speaker 1: this divisiveness, of course, is an attempt to move the
Speaker 1: lens away from his own failure here, his administration's failure,
Speaker 1: but it's also playing right into the hands of I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really in a way, playing right into the hands
Speaker 1: of this this armed extremism. You know, I'm watching these
Speaker 1: clips and I'm seeing brave nurses, doctors get out into
Speaker 1: the streets and have their own um protests right standing
Speaker 1: in in contrast to these rabid fools, which is that's
Speaker 1: that's my term, that's my language, not yours, but that's
Speaker 1: what they are. And these doctors and nurses I can
Speaker 1: only imagine but by the looks on their faces that
Speaker 1: underneath their mass is the extreme disappointment and disgust. Right
Speaker 1: they aren't seeing their families. They are working some close
Speaker 1: to twenty four hours a day to save lives, and
Speaker 1: these ignorant, horrific people are berating them for keeping the
Speaker 1: country closed, Like how did we get here? You know,
Speaker 1: I know that I asked that in a part of
Speaker 1: me wants an answer, but a part of me knows
Speaker 1: that there is no answer because it's so layered and complex.
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump didn't just he didn't create this division,
Speaker 1: but he sure is hell capitalized on it. But from
Speaker 1: the tea party until now, how did we get to
Speaker 1: a place where we don't believe science, where we don't
Speaker 1: believe leadership, where we don't believe the media, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to keep us safe, right? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's as as a person who in healthcare myself, with
Speaker 1: family members and healthcare and obviously friends and colleagues and students,
Speaker 1: I can say that the remarkable thing about the healthcare
Speaker 1: stories is that when people come to the hospital, healthcare
Speaker 1: workers aren't asking what your political ideology is. They risk
Speaker 1: alize for everybody. And so the selflessness and the heroes
Speaker 1: of first responders healthcare workers right now is really such
Speaker 1: a juxtaposition to some of these images we're seeing. Again,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to remember that there are
Speaker 1: many people across the board who don't agree with what's happening,
Speaker 1: and so I continue to say, as we were talking
Speaker 1: about last week, that I still believe that this is
Speaker 1: a moment of a possible alliance. It's hard because we're
Speaker 1: all locked in our own, you know, social distances right now,
Speaker 1: but I do think that if you just look at
Speaker 1: opinion polls, there's still a lot of people that think
Speaker 1: social distancing is what we should be doing, the trust
Speaker 1: healthcare workers that have lost loved ones or suffered financial consequences.
Speaker 1: And so again, I think the possibility of joining together
Speaker 1: right now is more powerful than these than these horrific
Speaker 1: images or these protests. But I also think that the
Speaker 1: more Trump kind of bans these flames, the more the
Speaker 1: more you know, just the more serious this issue becomes.
Speaker 1: And especially because it's not just these these these protests.
Speaker 1: Clearly these protests are being used as cover to push
Speaker 1: to reopen economies far in advance of when that should
Speaker 1: be happening, which I think is going to be a
Speaker 1: much bigger problem ultimately. And so again I think that
Speaker 1: I think that you know, I'm sure that there's an
Speaker 1: ideology which if people readying a rightness I talk about
Speaker 1: the idol, is quite a bit about this kind of
Speaker 1: kind of particular formulation of whiteness. But I also think
Speaker 1: that these protests are being used to promote agenda as
Speaker 1: they're much more dangerous, which are reopening the country before
Speaker 1: it's sake to do so, which is going to lead
Speaker 1: to coronavirus too, which is going to be worse than
Speaker 1: coronavirus one. And so you know, it's both the protests themselves,
Speaker 1: but it's also what the protests are being used for,
Speaker 1: what cover it's giving, what coverage given to president, and
Speaker 1: what agenda is coming in underneath that. I just you know, Um,
Speaker 1: we have Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, who has
Speaker 1: announced that Georgia will be reopening. Even though Georgia was
Speaker 1: one of the last states to even authorize any type
Speaker 1: of closing, their numbers are on the rise, and he
Speaker 1: has vowed by the end of the week that Georgia
Speaker 1: will be reopened, including barbershops, nail salons, bowling alleys, all
Speaker 1: of these places. Right, we have no vaccine, they have
Speaker 1: no guidelines that are in place. Florida, another Republican governor,
Speaker 1: has reopened beaches. I mean, your book is called Dying
Speaker 1: of Whiteness, but white people are are genuinely going to
Speaker 1: kill everyone else because if they're ignorance, And I just
Speaker 1: I don't know, Jonathan, I don't know how where we
Speaker 1: go from here. I don't know how you have create
Speaker 1: sense here, how you keep people safe when they only
Speaker 1: believe one set of people and those are people who
Speaker 1: have built careers on line to them. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting because there's no mystery here. We have models
Speaker 1: for how to emerge safely from the phase one of
Speaker 1: the coronavirus crisis, which we've just passed through. There's now
Speaker 1: an entire planet, an entire globe of models, and we
Speaker 1: know that the countries could have done this safely have
Speaker 1: done very very slow, strategic, stepwise re entries, you know,
Speaker 1: first the essential businesses and other kinds of businesses. But
Speaker 1: they do so with testing, with strict guidelines for everybody
Speaker 1: to keep everybody else safe, and then slowly but surely
Speaker 1: they kind of slowly reopen, but not exactly like it
Speaker 1: was before, because we don't have a vaccine and we
Speaker 1: don't have immunity as a species. And so if you
Speaker 1: look at even places that we're getting hammered by the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: places like Spain for example, and all those places that
Speaker 1: are just doing this really well, like New Zealand or
Speaker 1: South Korea, their death their deaths are very very low,
Speaker 1: and their infection rates are below there's an infection number one.
Speaker 1: They're below one, which means a person with a virus
Speaker 1: isn't automatically infecting one other person. So there are great
Speaker 1: models out there. We don't even have to reinvent the
Speaker 1: wheel at all. And then on the flip side, there
Speaker 1: are ongoing infection pandemic out of control models, which we've seen,
Speaker 1: for example, in small doses even in this country, in
Speaker 1: meat plants in South Dakota, and in nursing homes and
Speaker 1: in places where people just don't just open up without
Speaker 1: any of that framework, and what happens is dramatic rises
Speaker 1: in infection and death rates. And so what Georgia is doing,
Speaker 1: for example, I mean, it's just there's no doubt that
Speaker 1: what's going to happen is is just much more infection.
Speaker 1: And it's not like some of the people are going
Speaker 1: to be sick and everybody's going to be healthy. Um,
Speaker 1: the people that are healthy are going to become carriers
Speaker 1: and then come back and infect people they know. And so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was reading about Georgia and they're opening theaters,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, it's it's it's it's like the codebook.
Speaker 1: It's like the casebook for what not to do and
Speaker 1: and and so this idea of you know, the economy,
Speaker 1: I just I don't know how the economy works when
Speaker 1: you're you know, potentially threatening the lives of twenty percent
Speaker 1: of your workers and thirty percent of your customers and
Speaker 1: and things like that. You know. So it's just that
Speaker 1: the modeling for this is horrible, and I and I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I can all I can say is that
Speaker 1: I hope common sense prevails or that there's some real
Speaker 1: plan beneath this big, big public plan, because it would
Speaker 1: just do it the way that places like Georgia are saying.
Speaker 1: It's going to be catastrophic. And not only that, as
Speaker 1: it was seen from the first round of the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: You know, the people who get hit the worst or
Speaker 1: the people who are the most vulnerable, and so even
Speaker 1: though people suffer across the board, it's just gonna it's
Speaker 1: just gonna have really really bad effects for for vulnerable populations.
Speaker 1: And so in that regard, you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: almost like disbelieve that that this is happening, but it's
Speaker 1: it's not a very rational moment for for some of
Speaker 1: our leaders, not enough for others. Well, we're going to
Speaker 1: have to keep our eye on all that is unfolding,
Speaker 1: because my fear is that there isn't enough attention that
Speaker 1: is being paid to the fact that these groups are
Speaker 1: growing like wildfire on social media, on Facebook, on Reddit,
Speaker 1: on Instagram, that they are using memes and inside jokes
Speaker 1: in terms like boogaloo um to perpetuate their desire, which
Speaker 1: is essentially, uh, mass murder, right, Like, that's what they're
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing, that's what they're angling for. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they have a friend in the White House, and
Speaker 1: they have a friends, they have friends in law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Because when I see these pictures of angry white faces,
Speaker 1: you know, banging at doors and wanting to open up
Speaker 1: businesses and having complete and total disregard for public safety,
Speaker 1: for public health, only their desires matter. And this is
Speaker 1: not just this incident. This one happens to be the
Speaker 1: most dangerous, right because one person can infect you know,
Speaker 1: sixty one hundred people with the coronavirus, two to three
Speaker 1: percent of the population will perish. Right. Two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people have been infected in New York alone.
Speaker 1: We've lost tens of thousands of people across this country.
Speaker 1: And they are weaponizing this virus, right, that's exactly right there,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, and again it's it's the idea that
Speaker 1: basically it's a coloring of the herd, that the people
Speaker 1: who are read are going to die and the strong
Speaker 1: will survive. That is actually not that's a that's great,
Speaker 1: but that's actually not this virus or this pandemic, and
Speaker 1: this pandemic, the virus just keeps going and it affects
Speaker 1: people very long term, and even people who have mild
Speaker 1: cases were now seeing how kidney problems and chronic learning
Speaker 1: problems and neurologic problems. So the idea that it's just
Speaker 1: going to be a calling of the herd is just
Speaker 1: completely at odds with what's happening here. And so even
Speaker 1: even the understanding of the virus is incorrect and and
Speaker 1: and so in a way, it's just, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just creating the conditions for, you know,
Speaker 1: for even greater spread of the kind of anarchy that
Speaker 1: these groups for ten and and it's happening really um
Speaker 1: you know, as you say, kind of quite publicly on
Speaker 1: social media. So I think I think this is really
Speaker 1: an issue to keep to keep track of. And and
Speaker 1: again there has to be some way for us to
Speaker 1: reclaim the center here, because again it's just always important
Speaker 1: to remember that most people don't agree with this. It's
Speaker 1: just how can we you know, without effective central leadership,
Speaker 1: how can we pull people together? Well, Jonathan, we will
Speaker 1: continue this conversation as we do each Wednesday, to kind
Speaker 1: of dig into the headlines or the conversations that are
Speaker 1: just not picking up traction that we need people to
Speaker 1: know about. So thank you so much for joining Woke
Speaker 1: app Daily and giving us some insight into the rise
Speaker 1: of white domestic terrorism in the United States. Appreciate. Let's
Speaker 1: please keep talking. Thanks so much. Chat All right, folks,
Speaker 1: that is it for me today on Woke a f Daily.
Speaker 1: As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power.
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