Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ook F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: by now you have seen the headlines with regard to
Speaker 1: the vice presidential debate that took place on October first,
Speaker 1: and hopefully you were able to catch me on Mary
Speaker 1: Trump's Live on Debate night as well as my immediate
Speaker 1: thoughts that went up yesterday with the new abnormal. You know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing, and I got a lot of pushback
Speaker 1: on social media, and I was actually kind of surprised
Speaker 1: by it. Not surprised to get pushedback, because everybody doesn't
Speaker 1: always agree with me, and that's totally fine. I think
Speaker 1: that the reality here to me how I saw that
Speaker 1: debate is one I've said this before. Debits are nothing
Speaker 1: more than political theater. Therefore, certain class of folks like
Speaker 1: myself who really are into the nitty gritty of politics, right,
Speaker 1: I do not think that the average voter turns into
Speaker 1: a debate and says to themselves, well, I'm going into
Speaker 1: this undecided. Even though we know that CNN and MSNBC
Speaker 1: and others love to put up these voter panels after
Speaker 1: the fact that say, oh, have you been swayed because
Speaker 1: they say that they're undecided. I believe that that also
Speaker 1: is part of the political theater. I think that most
Speaker 1: people tune in because you know, they want to see
Speaker 1: a good head to head, They want to see a matchup.
Speaker 1: But most people go in with like you would go
Speaker 1: into a sporting match, right, like you have your team
Speaker 1: that is in mind, and you you know who you're supporting,
Speaker 1: and you just want to see if they do well.
Speaker 1: So last night, for me, I mean, what I will
Speaker 1: say is that Tim Walls has said before that he
Speaker 1: was not a good debater. Do I think that he
Speaker 1: was not good? Do I think that there were any
Speaker 1: disastrous moments? No, but I do think that he absolutely
Speaker 1: left things unsaid. He treated Advance as if he is
Speaker 1: normal and normalized and sinewashed, helped to sainwash his extremism.
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by that? We all have
Speaker 1: heard the tapes of JD. Vance going on these right wing, misogynistic,
Speaker 1: toxic white male podcasts where he has said the infamous
Speaker 1: lines of about childless cat ladies and postmentalpausal women and
Speaker 1: the need to be ruthless in your pursuit of power
Speaker 1: and banning abortion and IVF and all of these things
Speaker 1: that we know. So when you're going head to head
Speaker 1: with JD. Vance and you're asked questions about reproductive care
Speaker 1: and what your administration is going to do about that,
Speaker 1: like this is an opportunity for you to remind regular
Speaker 1: voters who are not necessarily like watching cable news twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day or following what is going on
Speaker 1: by every moment, that this man is not to be trusted.
Speaker 1: He may speak in complete sentences right and have an
Speaker 1: even tone, but he is the polished up version of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Project twenty twenty five. What he did
Speaker 1: successfully was give a normalized face to extremist ideology.
Speaker 2: JD.
Speaker 1: Vance didn't answer any direct question. So when he's asked
Speaker 1: about abortion, and it's Tim Walls's turn, right, and he
Speaker 1: was asked Tim Walls was asked a fucking stupid question
Speaker 1: with regard to what about babies being aborted at nine months?
Speaker 1: It's just like, on that face, I would have said,
Speaker 1: that question is preposterous. You know that that does not
Speaker 1: ever happen, and that is a Republican talking point that
Speaker 1: we know is a lie, So why is it being
Speaker 1: repeated here tonight? Would have been my response. That being said,
Speaker 1: you lay out what your plans on and just say,
Speaker 1: let me remind the viewers at home the jd Vance
Speaker 1: absolutely did call for an abortion ban. Jd Vance has
Speaker 1: absolutely spoken demeaning ways about women, about childless women, that
Speaker 1: the only value that you can have as a woman
Speaker 1: in this society is to procreate. Right, ask him right
Speaker 1: now what he has said that we have all heard
Speaker 1: on various podcasts. That is the kind of energy. And
Speaker 1: those are the responses that I wanted because I wanted
Speaker 1: to make it very clear that although he is younger
Speaker 1: and more coherent than Donald Trump, that he is actually
Speaker 1: a lot more dangerous. And so when I see articles
Speaker 1: from New York Magazine like he is smart and slick
Speaker 1: with regard to jd Vance and the and I know
Speaker 1: that Republicans have won. And why do I say that?
Speaker 1: Because how would you applaud somebody for being smart and
Speaker 1: slick when nothing that came out of their mouth was
Speaker 1: the truth. Anyone can sound smart and slick if in fact,
Speaker 1: you don't fact check, and you don't dig deeper, and
Speaker 1: you don't ask any follow up questions, and you allow
Speaker 1: what they say to just stand and leave it up
Speaker 1: to the American people to be the sleuths, to be
Speaker 1: the detectives, to unpack the things that the media should
Speaker 1: be doing for them. He had the audacity in the
Speaker 1: middle of that debate to say, after he's once again
Speaker 1: smeared legal immigrants that are living in Springfield, Ohio and
Speaker 1: was told that, yeah, they're actually here on temporary protective passes,
Speaker 1: so they are here legally, and that his response was,
Speaker 1: I thought you weren't going to fact check, so you
Speaker 1: just got up here expecting to be able to lie
Speaker 1: because nobody is going to check you. And therein lies
Speaker 1: the strategy of the Republican Party. So when given an
Speaker 1: opportunity to show the American people who JD. Vance is,
Speaker 1: I think that Tim Walls did not do that job.
Speaker 1: By agreeing with JD. Vance, by trying to seem reasonable, right,
Speaker 1: you made it seem as if the Republican Party is reasonable,
Speaker 1: and we know that they are not. They are an extremist,
Speaker 1: white nationalist cult that is weaponized religion and fear in
Speaker 1: order to build and spread their agenda. They have taken
Speaker 1: hold of the Supreme Court, of Federal judgeships, of classrooms
Speaker 1: of governorships, and have in many cases in states like Tennessee, Florida,
Speaker 1: Alabama and others have operationalized Project twenty twenty five. What
Speaker 1: they're trying to do with this election is nationalize it.
Speaker 1: So any opportunity where you are given to showcase to
Speaker 1: the American people just how dangerous this group is, but
Speaker 1: instead you're offering like some nice guy sentiments, I think
Speaker 1: is problematic. And that's what I said, and I stand
Speaker 1: by that. Do I think that it was a disaster. No.
Speaker 1: Do I think that it swung the election, you know,
Speaker 1: one way or the other. Absolutely not. But I think
Speaker 1: that any time that any Democrat, particularly during this heightened
Speaker 1: election season, has an opportunity to be in front of
Speaker 1: a microphone, you need to remind the American people how
Speaker 1: fucking dangerous this Republican Party is and not sit there
Speaker 1: and normalize it as if this is just oh well,
Speaker 1: if we lose, you know, we'll just get them again
Speaker 1: in four years. That is not what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And so if you were watching last night and you
Speaker 1: knew nothing about Project twenty twenty five, and you knew
Speaker 1: nothing about any of JD Vance's stances, then you think that, ah,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just an election between I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the Romney type of Republicans and like Obama Democrats.
Speaker 1: That's not what the fuck this is. So I think
Speaker 1: that it was a missed opportunity on the part of
Speaker 1: Tim Walls to showcase just how dangerous, deceptive, and disgusting
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is. Coming up next, dear friends, my
Speaker 1: conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know that whenever we have the opportunity to speak
Speaker 1: with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, who apparently
Speaker 1: has needed his own doctor because has had an unfortunate
Speaker 1: accident recently with softball. Jonathan, welcome back. What has happened?
Speaker 1: Did you break it your wrist? I broke it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I play in a men's league and a night league,
Speaker 2: and I'm out there to burn off some calories so
Speaker 2: i can eat more mcgrib But other people think they're
Speaker 2: in the major leagues. And so I was playing catcher
Speaker 2: and I had the ball. The guy was running in
Speaker 2: and I'm just like, I'm like, I don't care if
Speaker 2: you score, good for you. But he ran into me.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm not trying to knock the ball out
Speaker 2: of my glove. But it turned out he knocked my
Speaker 2: bone out of my hand, not out of it, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so I cracked a metacarpal one of the bones in
Speaker 2: your hand. As you know, I love sports like more
Speaker 2: than anything, and now you're I can't do sports for
Speaker 2: two months. And so I'm open to any listener's suggestions
Speaker 2: about like, should I do dual lingo? Should I?
Speaker 1: Yes? Do a lingo is actually a really good addictive
Speaker 1: thing to do. I will say that. Well, I am
Speaker 1: sorry to hear that, and I hope that you have
Speaker 1: a speedy recovery.
Speaker 2: It happened so quickly, so anyway, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: So here we are talking today at the time of
Speaker 1: this recording, we're thirty four days until the election, and
Speaker 1: I have a overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread that
Speaker 1: is building, that is rebuilding that had been deterred for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, a couple of months, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to get a sense from you how you are feeling,
Speaker 1: what you were thinking about with regard to the handful
Speaker 1: of people in a handful of states that are going
Speaker 1: to decide whether or not democracy as a project continues
Speaker 1: as imperfect as it is.
Speaker 2: I think in general, for what it's worth. The Harris
Speaker 2: campaign has been doing a fantastic job and so I
Speaker 2: feel very assured of the competence of the campaign. But
Speaker 2: the variables are just massive right now. So part of
Speaker 2: the anxiety, if that's the right word, is just that
Speaker 2: there are uncontrollable things. I mean, as we're speaking today,
Speaker 2: that dock workers are going on strike, it's going to
Speaker 2: be potentially a four point five billion dollar a day
Speaker 2: blow to the economy, and all this stuff happening with
Speaker 2: the teamsters and where they stand, and are they trying
Speaker 2: to hurt Harris with some of their actions and things
Speaker 2: like that, and so you know, of course support the
Speaker 2: rights of labor to better wages and conditions and security,
Speaker 2: but just doing this right now to me is just
Speaker 2: like such a variable that undercuts the economic message, which
Speaker 2: is such a core message for Harris. And so I
Speaker 2: hope that that resolved because that's a variable. And then
Speaker 2: it feels like there's a very real chance that that
Speaker 2: Iron Israel situation is going to escalate considerably as we
Speaker 2: speak today, and that is another variable that is just
Speaker 2: you know, massive, and so all of these things are
Speaker 2: there are just so many things that can happen honestly
Speaker 2: in the next two hours, let alone the next thirty days.
Speaker 2: And so again, part of the anxiety is like the
Speaker 2: things you can't control, and so I just want to
Speaker 2: roofy myself and wake up in two months, you know.
Speaker 2: But I know that right now everybody needs to be
Speaker 2: focused and present.
Speaker 1: I think that that's the difficulty that I'm having right now,
Speaker 1: is the focus and be present, because I think to
Speaker 1: your point, like we've had so many conversations over the
Speaker 1: years where you and I both were giving it to Democrats, right.
Speaker 1: Their messaging sucks, their strategies suck, all of these things,
Speaker 1: and the fact is is that we've gotten everything that
Speaker 1: we've wanted to a large extent fixed with the Vice
Speaker 1: president and Tim Walls's team, right. They are not reactive.
Speaker 1: They are combative. They are thoughtful and strategic and funny,
Speaker 1: and they're using all different modes. She's on podcasts, they're
Speaker 1: on social media, they're doing an HBCU tour, They're doing
Speaker 1: all of the right things. And I think that where
Speaker 1: my anxiety and my frustration lies right now is that
Speaker 1: the concerted effort by both corporate mainstream media, different entities.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk on Twitter, like there are so many powerful
Speaker 1: forces that do not want demandocracy to continue. And I
Speaker 1: think that for me, it's like the people. It isn't
Speaker 1: just about Oh, people need to get out and turn
Speaker 1: out the vote. Yes they do, but the forces that
Speaker 1: are at play it's like nothing I've ever seen. I
Speaker 1: think that both people are energized to do the work,
Speaker 1: and you're seeing that, but there's also the reality that
Speaker 1: the Peter Tiels and the Elon Muss and the Heritage
Speaker 1: Foundation are all on the side of ending democracy.
Speaker 2: For me, even more scary than that is the everyday
Speaker 2: logics that kind of support this. I have a couple
Speaker 2: of colleagues who come from places like Hungary for example,
Speaker 2: that turned away from democracy, and I always ask them like,
Speaker 2: was it just like you woke up one day in
Speaker 2: democracy was gone? And they're like, no, actually it's just
Speaker 2: chip by chip by chip. People start to think in
Speaker 2: a way that is more a therapy than they're daily logic.
Speaker 2: And so for me, the scary part, I mean, beyond
Speaker 2: like all these huge forces, is like, what's happening in
Speaker 2: a place like Italy, for example, where like people slowly,
Speaker 2: Oh of course we imprison protesters. Oh of course we
Speaker 2: don't give birth certificates to kids of gay parents. Like,
Speaker 2: just every little thing that's happening in Italy right now
Speaker 2: is leading to more power for authoritarians. They're changing the
Speaker 2: judicial system, they're changing the way that prime ministers are elected.
Speaker 2: It's very similar to what Nittanyahu has been trying to
Speaker 2: do over the past year in Israel, which is changing
Speaker 2: the judicial system, cement power for extremists in Russia, which
Speaker 2: is a totally different example, but there's a rise of
Speaker 2: kind of nationalism among youth, and so it's kind of
Speaker 2: like the everyday ness of this that I also find
Speaker 2: like we're a moment now where the US can either
Speaker 2: lead to turn back against these bigger trends, which I
Speaker 2: sure hope we do, or we're going to succumb to
Speaker 2: all these larger currents, which is people understanding the world
Speaker 2: in a way that they haven't understood it in a
Speaker 2: way that hasn't been the case since the thirties, right,
Speaker 2: that hasn't really been the case in our lifetimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm fucking terrified, and I think that I would
Speaker 1: feel less so if we didn't have the electoral college,
Speaker 1: if it were up to the people, one vote, one voice,
Speaker 1: and it was about majority wins. Whoever gets the most
Speaker 1: votes wins. I would be overconfident right now, probably, and
Speaker 1: I would say, of course she's going to win. They're
Speaker 1: going to win, We're going to win. But given the
Speaker 1: fact that we're just talking about six or seven states
Speaker 1: where Republicans are governors, do you even think that it
Speaker 1: matters right now? Jonathan, Like, one of the things that
Speaker 1: is striking me is the fact that we just had
Speaker 1: Hurricane Helene that devastated Asville, North Carolina. That is a
Speaker 1: mountain city that is elevated well above sea level and
Speaker 1: has now succumbed to the forces of climate change. And
Speaker 1: yet there are people inside of that state that readily
Speaker 1: vote for representation from people who don't believe in climate change.
Speaker 1: And so I keep coming back as we get closer
Speaker 1: to the election to your book Dying of Whiteness, because
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I don't think that there is a
Speaker 1: way to convince white women in the Midwest that the
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tail doesn't have to be their future, like that
Speaker 1: they can choose to actualize their own power. If I'm
Speaker 1: relying on democracy to survive by convincing racist white people
Speaker 1: and white women with internalized misogyny to choose their own power.
Speaker 1: I think we're fucked. I don't know your thoughts.
Speaker 2: I always think about the dying of vice. An example
Speaker 2: of when I interviewed the people who lost kids to
Speaker 2: gun suicide and accidental shooting, and I would ask them,
Speaker 2: did this change your view about guns? And they would
Speaker 2: always say, no, we're actually more progun than we were before.
Speaker 2: Like it becomes people's framework, it's their religion, and so
Speaker 2: I think the idea that a horrible climate thing is
Speaker 2: going to happen and then they're going to change their
Speaker 2: identity to somebody who then believes in climate change. I
Speaker 2: came to understand, like how how that was my expectation
Speaker 2: because I already believe in climate change. But people would
Speaker 2: ask me when I was doing the research for the
Speaker 2: gun stuff, if something happened to you, would you start
Speaker 2: carrying an AAR fifteen every day? And I'd be like, no,
Speaker 2: there's nothing. There's nothing that would make me carry an
Speaker 2: air fifteen every day. And so these issues are so deep.
Speaker 2: There's such identity issues for a lot of people that
Speaker 2: I think part of the issue. And I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to sound like overly simplistic or whatever. But it's almost
Speaker 2: like you think about it, like somebody gets cancer or
Speaker 2: gets hit by lightning or something like that, they become
Speaker 2: more religious. They don't become atheists or something like that.
Speaker 2: Like people fall back on their belief systems in moments
Speaker 2: like this, and so I don't know, it's hard to say,
Speaker 2: like what does it take to get people to change
Speaker 2: their mind at a time like this. So I guess
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that my research makes me realize, like
Speaker 2: the more desperate people become, the more ideological they become
Speaker 2: a lot of times, and so I'm not surprised that
Speaker 2: something like a massive catastrophic flood like this doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that people are going to change their view. They're probably
Speaker 2: going to double down on what their view was before.
Speaker 2: But it is just sad because I mean not just sad,
Speaker 2: it's horrible and it's catastrophic. I don't know. I guess
Speaker 2: I idealize other points in time, But it's just that
Speaker 2: all of our political issues are such deep identity issues,
Speaker 2: Like it's just so predictable that the whole country is
Speaker 2: deadlocked on their identity issues. And then there's like forty
Speaker 2: five people in the metal who are kind of decide
Speaker 2: the entire damn thing. So I know we're all feeling
Speaker 2: like beat down, but man, the next month is a
Speaker 2: really important month. So everybody, like, you know, drink a
Speaker 2: protein drink and keep fighting because it's really there's so
Speaker 2: much at stake, and so I just think picking ourselves
Speaker 2: up off the floor right now and continuing the fight.
Speaker 2: It's really a tug of war right now, and we
Speaker 2: got to all show up for it.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about what happens if he wins.
Speaker 2: If Trump wins?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, I've done a lot of
Speaker 2: work and other places where something comparable happens, not nothing
Speaker 2: at this scale or something, But I just I've done
Speaker 2: so many interviews in Israel where people thought that their
Speaker 2: liberal centrist world was going to go on forever. And
Speaker 2: the day after Nisan Yahu won, well before October seventh,
Speaker 2: a couple months before, people realized their life was changing forever.
Speaker 2: So it's that kind of day after where all of
Speaker 2: a sudden it hit people how different their life was
Speaker 2: about to be in a orse sense. And what I
Speaker 2: learned from that Israel research before was that centrists showed
Speaker 2: up and liberals at the rate that they always had,
Speaker 2: but the right was really energized and all these hidden
Speaker 2: ways because they smelled power and owning the libs and
Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. And so it's just that
Speaker 2: feeling of just a chemical feeling that your life is
Speaker 2: never going to be the same, that the paradigm and
Speaker 2: the framework that has governed the way you see the
Speaker 2: world and the way you understand it is never going
Speaker 2: to be the same. And I imagine that beyond any
Speaker 2: day to day thing, it would just be something like that,
Speaker 2: we're living in a totally different paradigm right now.
Speaker 1: But we've been, you know, Like That's the other point too,
Speaker 1: is that I just realized, I don't know, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: very existential this morning, But it was this idea that
Speaker 1: everything has already shifted. People proselytize about the end end
Speaker 1: of days, But when you're in the end of days,
Speaker 1: would you actually know that you're in the end of days?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. And so I just think to
Speaker 1: the degree at which ideologies and identities have already shifted
Speaker 1: over the last eight years, it's already churning. That's where
Speaker 1: I feel right now, which is there's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: stop it, but I don't think even I have recognized
Speaker 1: how many billions of dollars and forces there are to
Speaker 1: push against the will of the people.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I think those are all real things. They
Speaker 2: are certainly real. But we need your voice right now.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm not going anywhere. Why God, I'm
Speaker 1: not leaving, but I'm just like, that's the place that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, which is, Yeah, we have thirty four
Speaker 1: days and then the election is over, and so thirty
Speaker 1: four days from the time that we're recording this, we
Speaker 1: need to do as I'll use a sports analogy as
Speaker 1: we close out, leave it all on the field.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's sure.
Speaker 1: As they say, Jonathan, my friend, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Heal get better and do Dualinka.
Speaker 2: It'll be good for you all right, bye everybody.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, friend, I am live every Monday through
Speaker 1: Thursday on my YouTube channel at five pm Eastern, So
Speaker 1: do make sure that you head over to YouTube, type
Speaker 1: in the Daniel Moody channel and subscribe so that you
Speaker 1: never miss an episode and never miss the an opportunity
Speaker 1: to build community over there in our live chat. That
Speaker 1: is it for me today, dear friends on wokf as always,
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.