Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woke ef Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from my Brooklyn Silarium. Folks,
Speaker 1: I want to talk today about the fact that Democrats
Speaker 1: don't really know what the fuck they're doing, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's evident, And in my conversation today with our in
Speaker 1: house doctor, our friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel, we unpack pretty
Speaker 1: much the ways in which Democrats have essentially gone as
Speaker 1: far as to snatch success right and throw it in
Speaker 1: the toilet. Success meaning that a year ago, right, a
Speaker 1: year ago this week, Americans, particularly black Americans, gave President
Speaker 1: Biden a huge, historic, fucking win by electing him President
Speaker 1: of the United States. Right. We did so because the
Speaker 1: four years previous we had been led by a criminal,
Speaker 1: an idiot, a misogynist, a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe,
Speaker 1: and every other phobe that you could think of. And
Speaker 1: we said no to fascism in America, no to authoritarianism,
Speaker 1: no to the resurgence of white supremacy. And we thought
Speaker 1: that by electing Joe Biden and by cleaning out our
Speaker 1: government agencies, that we would be able to re establish
Speaker 1: and reimagine how our democracy should work and how it
Speaker 1: can work for all people. Well, over that year, right
Speaker 1: Republicans have decided to do the complete and total opposite.
Speaker 1: They have decided to construct an entire ideology that is
Speaker 1: steeped and centered around white supremacy. And guess what they
Speaker 1: are fucking winning. We thought that they were going to
Speaker 1: end up doing another autopsy like they did back in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands one Obama one, that they were
Speaker 1: going to have to reassess what they were doing, that
Speaker 1: their allegiance to Trump and America's rejection of him would
Speaker 1: somehow force Republicans into recognizing their wrongful ways. But no,
Speaker 1: it did the opposite. They went back into their tool
Speaker 1: shed and they just retooled their messaging. But understand this
Speaker 1: that their messaging has been the fucking same for fifty
Speaker 1: goddamn years. It has been the ability to tap into
Speaker 1: white rage and white racism as a way to win elections.
Speaker 1: They don't need to offer these people anything. And that's
Speaker 1: what Jonathan and I will talk about later. That's why
Speaker 1: he wrote his book Dying of Whiteness, because it wasn't
Speaker 1: about what Democrats can offer you. It was about for
Speaker 1: Republicans and for white racists. Who are one and the same.
Speaker 1: It is about playing the long game. It's about the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. For them, it's about ridding this country of
Speaker 1: be weighed. It is about putting black and brown people
Speaker 1: in their place. It is about kicking women out of
Speaker 1: the workforce. And how do you do that. Well, you
Speaker 1: don't do that by saying it's illegal for women to work. No,
Speaker 1: you make it illegal for them to be able to
Speaker 1: have the power to decide when and how and if
Speaker 1: they want to start a family, right. You make it
Speaker 1: damn near impossible, so that there is no planning that
Speaker 1: they can have. There's a reason why planned parenthood is
Speaker 1: called planned parenthood, because you have the ability to plan
Speaker 1: whether or not you actually want to become a parent.
Speaker 1: But see, what Republicans have always wanted to take away
Speaker 1: is people's power. That is that their m because the
Speaker 1: only people that they believe that should have power in
Speaker 1: this country are white, cisgender Christian men. That's it. And
Speaker 1: if you object to that right, then you are thrown
Speaker 1: out right of the country of the apple cart of
Speaker 1: their unders standing in their desire right as an American
Speaker 1: right like you don't exist, You're just they throw the
Speaker 1: baby out with the bathwater. So if you don't understand, then,
Speaker 1: as Democrats, how to appeal to and again I don't
Speaker 1: mean to win, but how to create an appealing message
Speaker 1: that not only showcases how fucking wrong Republicans are, but
Speaker 1: at the end of the day that you're still trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to juggle life, You're still trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to make ends meet, because again,
Speaker 1: they're not creating policies and or programs that are allowing
Speaker 1: for your life to have any ease. No, because also
Speaker 1: tied to the fact that they believe in white supremacy
Speaker 1: is also the fact that they believe in big corporations.
Speaker 1: They believe in privatization. They believe that government should not
Speaker 1: do anything for you while they take in your tax dollars.
Speaker 1: They rake in that money. Right, the form at which
Speaker 1: you were then paid back for that money is in
Speaker 1: social services, is in public education. But the war that
Speaker 1: they have now, folks, is to not only take your
Speaker 1: money and give it to big corporations, right, it's also
Speaker 1: to take your money while they dissolve those agencies and
Speaker 1: those safety nets to begin with. Take critical race theory
Speaker 1: as an example. Now, critical race theory is a theory
Speaker 1: that looks at the founding of this country right through
Speaker 1: a lens that is outside of the scope of whiteness,
Speaker 1: that does not only take history through the lens of
Speaker 1: the oppressor, but those that were oppressed. Right. It is
Speaker 1: an idea. It is a theory that is taught in
Speaker 1: higher education and isn't even taught in our fucking public schools,
Speaker 1: let alone in Virginia where Glenn Yuncan made it the
Speaker 1: cornerstone of his campaign. Now, just imagine for a moment
Speaker 1: that Republicans instead of making the cornerstone of their campaigns,
Speaker 1: you know, how to keep Americans healthy, particularly as we
Speaker 1: are continuing our way through a global health pandemic. How
Speaker 1: to better educate Americans so that they can get better
Speaker 1: paying jobs and compete right globally with their peers. Instead
Speaker 1: of creating infrastructure plans that look at how we are
Speaker 1: going to fight against and create buildings, bridges, and roads
Speaker 1: that are going to be able to deal with these
Speaker 1: one thousand and one hundred year storms that now are
Speaker 1: just becoming the norm, instead of doing any of that,
Speaker 1: Instead of dealing with the problems that are barreling down
Speaker 1: on us as a nation and as a Globe. Their
Speaker 1: decide instead to spend hours and hours of time on
Speaker 1: Fox News on Newsmax talking about their new boogeyman, which
Speaker 1: is critical race theory, their idea that we are going
Speaker 1: to teach white kids how to feel bad about themselves.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I have listened
Speaker 1: to white parents that the media loves to fucking give
Speaker 1: their fifteen seconds of fame too, to talk to them
Speaker 1: about how they don't want their children to feel bad
Speaker 1: and whatever happen to reading, writing, and arithmetic, Because one,
Speaker 1: you're not educating a child in the twentieth century anymore,
Speaker 1: and there is more to learning than those three things.
Speaker 1: And also that in order to create a thoughtful, educated, responsible,
Speaker 1: accountable citizenjury, that one would need to expand our idea
Speaker 1: of history and understand who has been adversely affected and
Speaker 1: how we've gotten to the place that we are in
Speaker 1: right now, right why we have certain policies that only
Speaker 1: benefit certain groups of people. Glen youngcan made that the
Speaker 1: cornerstone of his campaign, and by the time that you
Speaker 1: hear this, he could very well be the new governor
Speaker 1: of Virginia. Not because he has offered the Virginia people
Speaker 1: anything other than taking away abortion and criminalizing public education,
Speaker 1: and you know, taking away your right to vote, and
Speaker 1: not believing in climate change and all of these other
Speaker 1: elements that make up the neo Republican fascist sentiments. But
Speaker 1: it's working because in Virginia, the number one thing that
Speaker 1: voters care about is education. And like I said yesterday,
Speaker 1: not about making our public schools better, creating better infrastructure
Speaker 1: in our public schools, hiring more qualified teachers, creating robust
Speaker 1: curriculum that would have your children be able to compete
Speaker 1: right globally, right to be able to get those good
Speaker 1: paying jobs and health benefits and be able to buy
Speaker 1: a home, all of those points of what it means
Speaker 1: to be successful in America. No, No, it is about
Speaker 1: making sure that we continue to teach white supremacy, that
Speaker 1: we continue to teach denialism, that we continue to teach
Speaker 1: about white exceptionalism and white exceptionalism only. And it's working.
Speaker 1: So why don't Democrats, Why don't they ever have a bottle?
Speaker 1: Why don't they ever after fifty years of the same
Speaker 1: fucking dog whistles just repackaged, right, Why don't they ever
Speaker 1: have anything to counter? And Jonathan will say the minute
Speaker 1: that you are on television debating the merits of critical
Speaker 1: race theory. You are losing because we never create messaging
Speaker 1: or ask questions that put Republicans on their heels. We
Speaker 1: never ask Republicans to explain, while in the midst of
Speaker 1: a global health pandemic, why they don't want robust healthcare
Speaker 1: for Americans. We don't talk to Republicans and ask them
Speaker 1: why they are creating policies that would force women and
Speaker 1: people with uteruses out of the workforce, right at a
Speaker 1: time when we are losing standing on the world stage,
Speaker 1: largely because of their last president, their last deity who
Speaker 1: decided to turn his back on the world America first,
Speaker 1: but didn't offer anything to Americans. We don't ask those people,
Speaker 1: what has the Republican Party done for you? How have
Speaker 1: they put more money in your pocket? How have they
Speaker 1: given you better paying jobs? How have they given you
Speaker 1: a voice in your democracy? They want to turn around
Speaker 1: and say parents should have the right to say what
Speaker 1: it is that their kids are taught and what they
Speaker 1: aren't taught. Really, because you don't have a fucking degree
Speaker 1: in education. Really, because the belief should be that your
Speaker 1: children end up better off than you are. But we
Speaker 1: are living in a time when each new generation is
Speaker 1: actually going to be worse off than their parents and
Speaker 1: their grandparents. You know why, because the government isn't coming
Speaker 1: out to help them in the way that they helped
Speaker 1: their parents and their grandparents. Right there is no loan
Speaker 1: for homes, There is no loan to help you get
Speaker 1: out of your student debt or student debt forgiveness. There
Speaker 1: is nothing. And that's because Republicans have wanted it that way,
Speaker 1: because so long as you are left trying barely to survive,
Speaker 1: they are able to run their authoritarian agenda. So long
Speaker 1: as you look at both parties as ineffectual, right, then
Speaker 1: they are able to then say, well, they've suppressed the
Speaker 1: vote with voter suppression laws, and then they've suppressed the
Speaker 1: desire to vote because people look around and they're just like, well,
Speaker 1: what the fuck do democrats do when we give them power?
Speaker 1: They argue amongst themselves, we have no wins right now
Speaker 1: to be able to offer to the American people and
Speaker 1: say this is what we've done with the power that
Speaker 1: you've given us over the last eleven months. What are
Speaker 1: we pointing to? So instead, where Republicans always win are
Speaker 1: the culture wars, where they always win is through racism.
Speaker 1: Right There is a war on wokeism right now. There
Speaker 1: is a war on even allowing and wanting children in
Speaker 1: this country to be conscious of the truth. But there
Speaker 1: was a war on facts that began folks a decade ago.
Speaker 1: But instead of us dealing with this head on, what
Speaker 1: did Democrats do? They laughed, and they joked, and they
Speaker 1: shrugged them. They said, oh, people that are smart won't
Speaker 1: believe them. But you see, when you do not provide
Speaker 1: counter messaging that is strong and robust, then you give
Speaker 1: people no other choice than to consume the lies. This
Speaker 1: is why I say that Democrats continually believe that Americans
Speaker 1: are better than they are. That does not mean that
Speaker 1: I believe that Americans are bad people know, but I
Speaker 1: believe that they need to be led right, and the
Speaker 1: absence of real leadership, they will follow anyone like sheep
Speaker 1: over a cliff. And that is exactly where we are headed.
Speaker 1: When you can turn an election in the midst of
Speaker 1: a global health pandemic that is killed over seven hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people in this country, where people millions of people
Speaker 1: have lost their job or are leaving the workforce, and
Speaker 1: you have industry across industry on fucking strike right now
Speaker 1: because they are tired of working for indentured servitude wages.
Speaker 1: When you have that perfect storm and the only thing
Speaker 1: that fucking Republicans are offering is more fuel to the
Speaker 1: fire of white rage, and they literally aren't offering any
Speaker 1: other policy. What the fuck are Democrats doing? Why can
Speaker 1: they not paint that picture? Why aren't they asking the
Speaker 1: right questions? This is the frustration that I have. And
Speaker 1: these elections right that are happening this week are going
Speaker 1: to dictate what twenty twenty two looks like. And it
Speaker 1: is not going to be the blue tsunami wave. It
Speaker 1: just isn't because from the moment that Biden one, he
Speaker 1: should have had clear messaging on who Democrats are not
Speaker 1: and what they are bringing to the table, and then
Speaker 1: win after win after win of the things that they need,
Speaker 1: so that then you can look to the opposition and say,
Speaker 1: what have they done for you lately and clearly state nothing.
Speaker 1: But that is not where we are. We are right
Speaker 1: now up Ship's Creek without a fucking paddle and just
Speaker 1: doing the dance with fascism and authoritarianism because we have
Speaker 1: no counter narrative. So what this week will prove is
Speaker 1: the work ahead, and the work ahead, dear friends, is
Speaker 1: a really fucking deep and I don't know if we
Speaker 1: have the backbone and have the desire to get the
Speaker 1: job done. And that is what keeps me up at night.
Speaker 1: This is what makes me worried on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. Coming up next is my conversation with our
Speaker 1: in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of Dying of Whiteness. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know that I am always so happy each and
Speaker 1: every week when we get to sit down with our
Speaker 1: in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of Dying of Whiteness,
Speaker 1: which I believe he is a prophet and an oracle,
Speaker 1: because that's exactly how I believe America will go. It
Speaker 1: won't be aliens, dear Jonathan, it won't be an invasion
Speaker 1: by foreign quote unquote terrorists. It will be of whiteness.
Speaker 1: Right now, we have critical races. By the time that
Speaker 1: this airs, we may or may not know who has
Speaker 1: won the governor's race in Virginia, who has run the
Speaker 1: governor's race in New Jersey and in other places. But
Speaker 1: what is troubling to me is that Republicans offer nothing right.
Speaker 1: What they offer is a rollback of rights, and they
Speaker 1: offer a place for the white aggrieved to lay their head. Democrats, however,
Speaker 1: offer policy change that is supposed to make your daily
Speaker 1: life better. And yet all we see are polls that
Speaker 1: are tied. All we see is the idea that as
Speaker 1: we move into twenty twenty two, into midterms, that we
Speaker 1: will most likely lose. What do you think, like, what
Speaker 1: do you see as as the problem right now? Just
Speaker 1: with Democrats in general, whether we're talking about this election,
Speaker 1: that election day, or we're talking about the midterms that
Speaker 1: we are walking into. It's a supremely frustrating moment. Certainly,
Speaker 1: the Republicans, there are no surprises, right, Grievance politics, critical
Speaker 1: race theory, inventing it as blah blah blah. This is
Speaker 1: the same playbook they've been using for quite a long
Speaker 1: time now. For me, the frustrating part is the Democrats
Speaker 1: don't really have an answer for it yet. And it's
Speaker 1: only been like twenty years of this playbook or fifty
Speaker 1: years of this yeah, and so part of the frustrating
Speaker 1: part for me is I just feel like we're doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. So certainly there are of course, I mean,
Speaker 1: the Republicans recognize that there are that white grievance politics
Speaker 1: is a winning strategy, and we're of course seeing that
Speaker 1: right now, but we know that right and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to be a little critical of the Democrats today
Speaker 1: at least to begin the conversation, because I also think
Speaker 1: there were a couple of self inflicted wounds that we've
Speaker 1: done over the past year that also led us to
Speaker 1: this moment That don't have to do with something abstract.
Speaker 1: It's actually like the concrete world of politics. And number
Speaker 1: one is I feel like the minute we won the election,
Speaker 1: we stopped messaging right in a certain kind of way
Speaker 1: that in a way, the Republicans twenty four to seven,
Speaker 1: they're messaging, telling people what to think, getting people on board,
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. I don't agree with any
Speaker 1: of it, but they're basically the Lincoln Project twenty four
Speaker 1: seven times a million. And for us, it was kind
Speaker 1: of like we won the election with a reasonably good
Speaker 1: sense of messaging, which was taking it to the other side,
Speaker 1: put the other side on the defensive for progressive audiences,
Speaker 1: make them feel like they're part of the process, help
Speaker 1: them crop their like it was a really effective messaging strategy,
Speaker 1: and then we won and we stopped doing all that stuff, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really feels like the narrative shaping has
Speaker 1: totally gone away. So part of it is I feel
Speaker 1: like our side has lost ability to craft the narrative
Speaker 1: using the methods that got us here in the first place.
Speaker 1: And the second don't even get me started, is I'm
Speaker 1: sorry everybody. We should have just passed the infrastructure bill
Speaker 1: when we had the chance. Right. The whole idea here
Speaker 1: is the Democrats won the election because it's their argument was,
Speaker 1: we can make your life better and we can get
Speaker 1: stuff done, unlike the crazy circus of four years of Trump,
Speaker 1: and they had handed to them on a golden platter
Speaker 1: a bill, right. It was. It was crafted by centrists.
Speaker 1: Not everybody got what they wanted, but it would have
Speaker 1: at least got the ball rolling. And I think it
Speaker 1: was a mistake to say, well, we're going to hold
Speaker 1: back on that because it'll give us leverage. That doesn't work,
Speaker 1: you know. Basically, it gave time for the other side
Speaker 1: to undermine everything. And so in a way, I do
Speaker 1: think when the autopsy or whatever checkup of this moment
Speaker 1: is told, not passing the infrastructure bill right away, even
Speaker 1: though a lot of people. I mean I tweeted that
Speaker 1: at the time and everybody yelled at me, But I
Speaker 1: just think we needed an accomplishment. It would have actually
Speaker 1: increased the leverage of all the parties involved now as
Speaker 1: opposed to opening them up for what's happening now, which
Speaker 1: is that everybody's the whim of everybody else. So not
Speaker 1: passing the Infrastructure Bill is the second, I think massive
Speaker 1: mistake that we're seeing play out in a lot in
Speaker 1: a lot of races now because the Republicans can basically
Speaker 1: just say, well, what have those guys done for you? Nothing,
Speaker 1: which is their aim is to make it look like
Speaker 1: they're not doing anything for you. And you know, the
Speaker 1: funny thing is with regard to the Infrastructure Bill is
Speaker 1: that it wasn't even Republicans that were the obstructionists here, right,
Speaker 1: you have two Republicans that are in the Senate who decide,
Speaker 1: I mean two Democrats I always say Republicans because in
Speaker 1: my mind that's what they are, Mansion and Cinema, who
Speaker 1: decided that progress was not what they wanted, right, that
Speaker 1: decided that, you know, fighting climate change and providing families
Speaker 1: with much needed paid to family leave where one of
Speaker 1: the only industrialized countries in the world that don't have that,
Speaker 1: that don't offer not narrative fucking day and deciding that
Speaker 1: those are things that they don't want. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: when I look around, and I've been saying this, this
Speaker 1: is you know when you say, you know, Republicans don't
Speaker 1: offer anything new. They just find different ways to talk
Speaker 1: about their same white grievances. Right so this election cycle,
Speaker 1: it is critical race theory, and it is vaccines. Right
Speaker 1: before that it was something else. They're not ever offering
Speaker 1: to give the American people anything. Everything about the Republican
Speaker 1: ideology is about what you can take back and about
Speaker 1: what you can roll back. And the fact that Democrats
Speaker 1: never never get their messaging together in a way over
Speaker 1: the last five decades to be able to combat this
Speaker 1: makes me believe that they don't actually want to win,
Speaker 1: because nothing that they're doing shows us that they want
Speaker 1: to win. We needed an infrastructure bill, we needed a
Speaker 1: voting rights bill, We needed something to offer up to
Speaker 1: the American people that said, after eleven months, right a
Speaker 1: year after you would have voted, that this is what
Speaker 1: you voted for. And right now we're turning around and
Speaker 1: in these particular races that we're talking about, and again
Speaker 1: time this airs, we may or may not know who
Speaker 1: won these very critical races. But what everything should point
Speaker 1: to right now is that democratic messaging is failing. It
Speaker 1: does not work, and frankly, I'm not sure what we
Speaker 1: are messaging. So, Jonathan, if you had an opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to chop in a time machine right and go
Speaker 1: back to you a year ago, what do you think
Speaker 1: that Democrats should have been doing from November third of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty until this moment we're in right now. Democrats
Speaker 1: won the election on the promise of governance, right, and
Speaker 1: so I think that what Democrats always do is they
Speaker 1: fail to take the low hanging fruit of things. You
Speaker 1: can do that you because you know when the cameras
Speaker 1: are off. I bet you ninety percent of politicians agree
Speaker 1: about many things. And we had an easy win on infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and so we should have absolutely the minute. And I
Speaker 1: understand the infrastructure bill was negotiated by centrists, but just
Speaker 1: think about think about human nature. Forget about I mean,
Speaker 1: I agree with you about all the critiques absolutely, but
Speaker 1: think about human nature. If you if you have something
Speaker 1: in front of you and somebody says, well, even if
Speaker 1: you want this thing, I'm not going to give it
Speaker 1: to you until you do something else that I want
Speaker 1: you to do. People feel like they're held hostage in
Speaker 1: a way. So I just think the resentment now is
Speaker 1: it just was so predictable, right in a way. I
Speaker 1: think in a way, the Democrats would have been so
Speaker 1: much better off with just taking the easy win, and
Speaker 1: actually the progressive negotiating position would have been much stronger
Speaker 1: than it is now where they're having to make all
Speaker 1: of these bend or backwards things. And so I just think,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you why I'm so sensitive about this
Speaker 1: particular issue is because it reminds me of what happened
Speaker 1: when Obama won his first term, right, which is Obama
Speaker 1: had a massive mandate, Like two thousand and eight was
Speaker 1: an incredible year, and there was completely low hanging fruit
Speaker 1: at that moment, which was a jobs bill. Right at
Speaker 1: that moment, Unions were behind him, workers were behind him,
Speaker 1: everybody was behind him, and everybody would he would have shown, hey,
Speaker 1: look I can get some stuff done here. But instead,
Speaker 1: for different reasons, they said, oh, look we have this
Speaker 1: one mandate, we might not always have it forever. Let's
Speaker 1: start with the Affordable Charact. Let's start with healthcare, because
Speaker 1: that's something that we are never going to get this
Speaker 1: opportunity for again. But what they did is they jumped
Speaker 1: into this hugely contentious arena. It opened the door, the
Speaker 1: space for delay. The delay actually worked against them because
Speaker 1: then the other side got to shape the narrative and
Speaker 1: in the end, the affordable character. Even though, of course
Speaker 1: you know, I'm the biggest fan of the world of
Speaker 1: the ACA, but just that two year debate helped crystallize
Speaker 1: opinions against it when they could have passed a jobs
Speaker 1: bill within five seconds, really honestly, and it would have
Speaker 1: shown like, hey, look we know how to govern. And
Speaker 1: it's the same thing here with infrastructure business. Again not perfect,
Speaker 1: but again your position is stronger if you actually, especially
Speaker 1: in this moment with the pandemic, show that you know
Speaker 1: how to govern. And conversely, it's it's actually not passing
Speaker 1: the infrastructure bill, ironically, for me, has empowered the mansions
Speaker 1: and cinemas of the world more because all of a
Speaker 1: sudden we need them more in a certain kind of way.
Speaker 1: So if I had to do one thing, it's when
Speaker 1: you're handed this victory, you take it right and you
Speaker 1: don't see it as like, oh, we're just going to
Speaker 1: get this one chance. You know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: get this one chance to do our thing, and therefore
Speaker 1: we got to do this thing. So I don't know that.
Speaker 1: To me, that's number one. And number two, I would
Speaker 1: just have hired whoever worked for the Lincoln Project, I
Speaker 1: would have hired them, you know, to do Biden's messaging
Speaker 1: because you can't stop going on the attack in this moment.
Speaker 1: So those were my two things. How about you. You
Speaker 1: must think about it a lot, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think about it every day, and all of the things
Speaker 1: that you are laying out are correct, and it's just
Speaker 1: you know, there were so many missed opportunities in the
Speaker 1: first two years of the Obama administration. And again, I
Speaker 1: think it's the belief that Democrats want to believe that
Speaker 1: Americans are better than they are right, that oh, I
Speaker 1: don't need to message to them because oh, they got it.
Speaker 1: In the twenty twenty election, That's why there was historic
Speaker 1: turnout because people got that we are in danger. But
Speaker 1: the fact is is that when your day to day
Speaker 1: life starts to flood in, you're not paying as much attention,
Speaker 1: right because you are in a place of trying to
Speaker 1: thrive or in some cases trying to survive. And what
Speaker 1: I believe that the Obama administration did wrong again, to
Speaker 1: your point, would spend two years two You wasted years
Speaker 1: where they could have dealt with jobs, with immigration, and
Speaker 1: spent two years of a debate with people that were
Speaker 1: never going to come to the table with them. Right,
Speaker 1: they had a supermajority. You ram through and you get
Speaker 1: things done as much as you can so that you
Speaker 1: can turn around and point to your achievements. You don't
Speaker 1: waste time in bad faith negotiations with people who literally
Speaker 1: told you from the jump that they wanted you to
Speaker 1: be a one term president. So what does that tell you?
Speaker 1: It tells you that they're not interested in working with you.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that the people gave you the
Speaker 1: gavel and the office means that you have to go
Speaker 1: full steam ahead and worry about what the dissenters are
Speaker 1: going to say later on. Right, but you will have
Speaker 1: all of these wins that will have piled up that
Speaker 1: the American people can point to and that you can
Speaker 1: point to, and they can feel comforted in the fact
Speaker 1: that this is the team that I want to get behind.
Speaker 1: Because they know how to govern. And the important thing,
Speaker 1: just given the way American electoral politics works, is is
Speaker 1: you really need to win undecided voters. You need unfortunately
Speaker 1: to win purple states. You need to win win swin states.
Speaker 1: That's where all that's where all them, that's for all
Speaker 1: the power is in this country is who wins those things.
Speaker 1: And so the way you do that is you govern
Speaker 1: true to your ideals. You governed true to your base,
Speaker 1: but you also rack up wins that will help. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're Democrats are are losing undecided voters right now. They're
Speaker 1: losing them. You know the poll that came out of
Speaker 1: Georgia yesterday showing herschel Walker, who's never done anything politically
Speaker 1: in his life except support Trump, way ahead of Warnock.
Speaker 1: Is you know, it's got to be a real wake
Speaker 1: up call, um. And the and the answer is, I mean,
Speaker 1: then it's natural human because of course, like we all
Speaker 1: support social safety net, we all support climate we all
Speaker 1: support like all these things are super important. But but
Speaker 1: it's like seven steps to get there, it's not one
Speaker 1: step to get there. And for the Democrats, they just
Speaker 1: have so much more to gain by racking up wins
Speaker 1: and not every win is going to be one that
Speaker 1: the other side's going to pose. You can also lure
Speaker 1: your opponent into supporting something like they did with infrastructure
Speaker 1: in a way that would have made it very costly.
Speaker 1: I mean, if they would have. If I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of Republicans would go would have
Speaker 1: gone in two thousand and eight against a jobs bill.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have. It would have been political suicide. So
Speaker 1: you make it costly for the other side. But what
Speaker 1: we've done is the opposite, right, we can't govern like Republicans,
Speaker 1: so we can't just say, oh, we've got a mandate.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a debated question if the Biden
Speaker 1: election was even a mandate for any one group. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a mandate for progressives or for centrists or anything.
Speaker 1: It was like showing the power of people working together.
Speaker 1: So I just think, again, you're absolutely right, you take
Speaker 1: the wins where you get them. But it's also the
Speaker 1: more you start winning, the more it puts pressure on
Speaker 1: the other side to have to answer to its own
Speaker 1: base for why aren't you delivering to us? And you know,
Speaker 1: to me, that's the that's the frustration, and you know
Speaker 1: the reality too, is that every win isn't going to
Speaker 1: be historic. And I think that, you know, one part
Speaker 1: of the problem that Democrats have is that everything needs
Speaker 1: to be this all encompassing, you know, historic piece of legislation,
Speaker 1: and not everything is going to be that. Some things
Speaker 1: are just going to be a fixed some things are
Speaker 1: just going to be as solved. And that should be
Speaker 1: okay because as long as you continue to provide for
Speaker 1: the American people, then they will be on your side.
Speaker 1: But the moment that you want to waste time and
Speaker 1: you know, this is the conversation. I got into a
Speaker 1: back and forth on social media and on a radio
Speaker 1: show that I did the other day out of Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: where there where, you know. One of the people that
Speaker 1: I was on with was saying, you know, Biden has
Speaker 1: only been in office for ten months, like, how are
Speaker 1: you expecting him to have done all of these things?
Speaker 1: And I said, because we are don't have the time.
Speaker 1: Are you operating on a different time clock than I am?
Speaker 1: Where you have mid term elections that are breathing down
Speaker 1: our neck and we have the understanding of what happened
Speaker 1: during the Obama years that can happen again now. Is
Speaker 1: the past not prologue to you, I don't understand. And
Speaker 1: so for us to keep saying like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: give them more time, we don't have time to waste.
Speaker 1: Our democracy is hanging in the balance, and nobody seems
Speaker 1: to be acting with a sense of urgency, and to me,
Speaker 1: that is one of the problems. I want to talk
Speaker 1: Jonathan two about this fact, particularly around this Virginia race
Speaker 1: which young Ken Glennie Younkin the Republican has essentially made
Speaker 1: a referendum on critical race theory, which by the way,
Speaker 1: isn't even taught in Virginia, right, which has made the
Speaker 1: referendum on critical race theory and essentially on race in general,
Speaker 1: and is using it, using it much better and much
Speaker 1: more thoughtfully than Donald Trump has. Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us about what you think of how they are having
Speaker 1: this conversation around critical race theory and ultimately races and
Speaker 1: white aggrievance, right, that is happening in Virginia, and why
Speaker 1: it could possibly take effect and take hold around the
Speaker 1: country as we go into midterms. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: what's happening is horrific, right, It is shameful, There's no
Speaker 1: doubt about that. But I would also say just in
Speaker 1: line with our conversation already. It's very predictable, right, Um,
Speaker 1: And so the question for me, I'm not surprised Republicans
Speaker 1: are winning basically on a racist message. That is, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and and like every one of these things,
Speaker 1: there's a bigger agenda, right for somebody in a back
Speaker 1: room somewhere, or this isn't really about critical waste theory.
Speaker 1: It's about defunding public education. It's about money, right, and
Speaker 1: so this is this is this is serving a larger purpose.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with guns. Um, you know guns,
Speaker 1: it's not about Second Amendment. It's really about opening LA
Speaker 1: and New York, which are a hugely lucrative gun markets.
Speaker 1: So there's money is behind every one of these things.
Speaker 1: Like none of the people were actually like, show me
Speaker 1: one Republican who just took ibermecton without also sneaking in
Speaker 1: a booster and uh and monoclonal antibodies and and and
Speaker 1: I'll I'll unfortunately show you a dead Republican and so um,
Speaker 1: all these things have a money trail where they're whipping
Speaker 1: up this populist, racist fervor for a bigger financial purpose.
Speaker 1: So number one is these aren't just crazy things. These
Speaker 1: are all these are and these are these are serving
Speaker 1: particular financial and political aims, which are power and money.
Speaker 1: And so given that we know that that's the playbook. Um,
Speaker 1: the minute we're debating the merits of critical race theory,
Speaker 1: we've lost, right, I really do believe that because this
Speaker 1: is the provocation. It's the same provocation as we saw.
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen this so many times, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, two much from now, nobody it will be
Speaker 1: something else, right, I mean, how many people are talking
Speaker 1: about ibermecton right now? Do a search on Twitter. It's
Speaker 1: like six people. And two three weeks ago it was
Speaker 1: like the most important, you know thing of calamity ever.
Speaker 1: It was on the number one segment on every news station.
Speaker 1: Was that. Yeah, And so you have to find a
Speaker 1: way to like change the channel, put the other side
Speaker 1: on the defensive, don't take the bait and we take
Speaker 1: the beat. Everything. This is some very very I understand,
Speaker 1: very very provocative debate. This is very challenging. This is
Speaker 1: very racist and hurtful. But you have to find a
Speaker 1: way to fight back, which isn't just defending the merits
Speaker 1: of critical base theory and the flip side for us
Speaker 1: is we are pushed in a position where we are
Speaker 1: now having to defend the merits. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: scholar of critical race theory, but I never had to
Speaker 1: like go on TV and argue about its merits before.
Speaker 1: And so the minute we're defending the merits of CRT
Speaker 1: and that becomes the flash point. That minute that's the debate,
Speaker 1: we've lost a lot. So we have to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to change the channel. We had figured out
Speaker 1: a way to change the channel, and unfortunately that's where
Speaker 1: messaging comes in. That's where counter moves come in. You know,
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they're amplifying extreme radical positions and
Speaker 1: making them mainstream positions. And that's a playbook that's open
Speaker 1: to us too. We can fight back with a million
Speaker 1: different ways. But when again, I'm a practitioner of critical
Speaker 1: race theory, actually believe in it quite strongly. I've devoted
Speaker 1: my career to it. But I would also say, the
Speaker 1: minute we are having this debate where we're going on
Speaker 1: TV and defending the mirrors of critical race theory, we're
Speaker 1: fighting on the wrong terrain as opposed to putting the
Speaker 1: other side on the defensive and having them answer to
Speaker 1: their base, which is what we should have been doing
Speaker 1: in the beginning. You know, I just I feel like
Speaker 1: every time I'm in these conversations with you and with
Speaker 1: other academics and you know, and scholars, is just like,
Speaker 1: if we know what they're doing, if we have the playbook,
Speaker 1: then why is it that every time that these conversations,
Speaker 1: these arguments, these false wars come around, why are we shocked?
Speaker 1: Why are Democrats continually taken off guard as if and
Speaker 1: I continue to say, it's because they think that the
Speaker 1: American people are better than they are, meaning that we
Speaker 1: don't need to explain right why these things matter or
Speaker 1: why you should be asking better questions because to your point,
Speaker 1: we don't force Republicans to answer any questions. Why do
Speaker 1: you only want history taught through the perspective and the
Speaker 1: eyes of whiteness. Why are you afraid of immigrants coming
Speaker 1: into this country, like make them answer for their racism
Speaker 1: and say it out loud and put it on the record.
Speaker 1: And yet we never do that And I don't understand why. Well,
Speaker 1: but the other thing is, I mean, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: but it's also like we don't need them to answer
Speaker 1: for the racism, the racism is you know, you just
Speaker 1: turn on your computer like or you know whatever. The
Speaker 1: racism is not a mystery right now. The question is like,
Speaker 1: how do you respond to their racism, this particularly racism,
Speaker 1: this critical race theory racism, right, and so like calling
Speaker 1: them out on it, it's not going to work. Shaming them,
Speaker 1: it's not going to work because they're just doing it, right.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there's a way where you
Speaker 1: can turn the tables. I mean, again, it would have
Speaker 1: taken a different but again, I just we lost the
Speaker 1: CRT debate the way the same way we lost the
Speaker 1: mask debate and the vaccine debate and the healthcare debate,
Speaker 1: which is the other side rallies this narrative and we
Speaker 1: don't have an answer for changing the narrative. But the
Speaker 1: changing the narrative is on one hand, rallying our base,
Speaker 1: but it's also turning the tables and making the other
Speaker 1: side have to answer for it, which we don't do.
Speaker 1: So shaming them about their racism, like, I think your
Speaker 1: point is actually a much better point, which is like
Speaker 1: what the f have you done for me? Or something
Speaker 1: like that, like that kind of thing, you know, So
Speaker 1: I would just say, you know, we're just I don't know.
Speaker 1: We we took the bait here and people were kind
Speaker 1: of like everybody was laughing about Remember like six months
Speaker 1: ago was laughing about the whole CRT thing. And it
Speaker 1: turns out like does tremendous potency because it plays into
Speaker 1: all these stereotypes and if you don't actively take the
Speaker 1: narrative to the other side, you're going to lose it.
Speaker 1: You're gonna lose, which is what what's unfortunately happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just you know, every day I look for mustard
Speaker 1: seeds of hope. Every day I look for I do
Speaker 1: every every day. I'm out there looking for something that
Speaker 1: is going to provide me with a sense of of
Speaker 1: of ease in the fact that Democrats know what they're
Speaker 1: doing and know the enemy that they're dealing with and
Speaker 1: how to deal with that enemy. And every day I
Speaker 1: come up empty, right, because the people that have the
Speaker 1: power to you know, to have a bullet a bullhorn,
Speaker 1: right to message to the masses in the way that
Speaker 1: they need to hear, they lose every time. And I'm
Speaker 1: just like, Democrats are so brilliant at being able to
Speaker 1: like snatch success and like throw it in the toilet,
Speaker 1: right like and that to me is just like And
Speaker 1: then I'm sitting around as an educated person with a
Speaker 1: degree in political science, and I'm thinking to myself, why
Speaker 1: am I a Democrat? Like other than the fact that
Speaker 1: I believe I have the same ideology, but like we
Speaker 1: don't have the same spirit. And at some point in time,
Speaker 1: if you begin to turn off people like my mother
Speaker 1: who has decided to stop watching the news on a
Speaker 1: regular basis and ask me every day what is wrong
Speaker 1: with Democrats, then like you're losing the very people that
Speaker 1: are supposed to be the foundation of your party. I
Speaker 1: would say two points about that I think important. Number one,
Speaker 1: which we don't seem to see. The way to circumvent
Speaker 1: that is by actually having achievements that you can tell.
Speaker 1: So we should have passed the infrastructure Bill and then
Speaker 1: had something that we could all rally around, because it
Speaker 1: would have shown, hey, we can all work together in
Speaker 1: a certain kind of way. Now I understand, believe me,
Speaker 1: I understand the importance of strengthening the social safety net.
Speaker 1: I understand climate is ruining our country. But as a
Speaker 1: strategic move, passing the infrastructure Bill would have allowed. In
Speaker 1: other words, the whole other side is geared to show
Speaker 1: that you're not doing anything because you're wasting time on
Speaker 1: all these theories. So the way you circumvent that is
Speaker 1: by passing the infrastructure fill. You know, it gives you
Speaker 1: something concrete that then you can answer with it's not
Speaker 1: just about messaging, right, And so I feel like we
Speaker 1: play right into their hands by not having something concrete
Speaker 1: to counter by saying, yeah, look, dude, we're building infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and have your little debit or something like that.
Speaker 1: But without that, and their whole thing is they don't
Speaker 1: want us to get anything done. And so I just
Speaker 1: for me, this is really going to go down as
Speaker 1: a very very bad error. So I just think it's
Speaker 1: it's not just about messaging. But the other part, of course,
Speaker 1: just to say it again is you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just keep thinking of the research I did with
Speaker 1: Dying of Whiteness, right. You know, it was twenty twelve
Speaker 1: when when I interviewed people who were rejecting their own
Speaker 1: healthcare and they said, like, we're playing the long game,
Speaker 1: Like if I accept Obamacare, then we're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to control the Supreme Court, which then will
Speaker 1: let us overturn abortion. All these kind of things like people.
Speaker 1: Even on the ground, they were all kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: white supremacy is a great organizing principle for a political party,
Speaker 1: but in a way, people top to bottom bought into it, right.
Speaker 1: They all thought, well, you know, hey, I'll reject my
Speaker 1: own healthcare because what's more important for me is expanding
Speaker 1: the Second Ammendment and overturning abortion. What's happening this week
Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court the Democrat The Democrats don't have
Speaker 1: a coherent narrative, and I really feel like it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's harder to fight when you don't have
Speaker 1: that kind of coherent narrative. Yeah, and you know, and
Speaker 1: it's harder to fight when you just have no warrior
Speaker 1: spirit in you whatsoever. Well, but let me just say
Speaker 1: one thing about that, though, because I think it's important
Speaker 1: to note that after the after the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: in the sixties, you know, society was really afraid that
Speaker 1: there would be you know, garbage workers were striking and
Speaker 1: teachers were striking, and everybody was striking. And the way
Speaker 1: society address that was by making people feel this isn't
Speaker 1: a party thing, that the system wasn't going to work
Speaker 1: for them, and so all of a sudden the seventies
Speaker 1: the eighties, people check out, and that's when you get
Speaker 1: Reagan and all this kind of stuff. And so in
Speaker 1: a way, there's a there's a message. Somebody is making
Speaker 1: a lot of money to make you and me, and
Speaker 1: people in college now and people in high school now
Speaker 1: feel like the system isn't working for them and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter Democrats Republicans. But that's a crafted message. And
Speaker 1: I also think, you know, we have to be very
Speaker 1: wary of that, because somebody is being paid to make
Speaker 1: us feel like the system isn't going to work for us,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter who we vote for. And that
Speaker 1: isn't you know, it's an evil message. We have to
Speaker 1: be careful of that. No, it is an evil message.
Speaker 1: And you're totally right. And the fact is is that
Speaker 1: if we're aware of it, why aren't the Democrats in power?
Speaker 1: If we understand that, part and parcel is not only
Speaker 1: to pass three hundred voter suppression laws across the country,
Speaker 1: but then also to craft a message that makes you
Speaker 1: feel like your vote doesn't matter. So for those that
Speaker 1: want to show up, we're going to make it difficult
Speaker 1: for you to show up. And for those that are
Speaker 1: on the fence about whether or not they want to
Speaker 1: show up. We're going to send a message that says
Speaker 1: that your vote and voice doesn't matter because regardless of
Speaker 1: who's in power, it's never going to change your day
Speaker 1: to day life. Right, And so that those two things
Speaker 1: colliding is the perfect storm of where we are. Everybody
Speaker 1: is on strike, right. We have shipments of things that
Speaker 1: are sitting in water. We have we have you know,
Speaker 1: CEOs and shareholders that are making bookoo, bookoo amounts of
Speaker 1: money while the poor are getting poorer by literally the minute.
Speaker 1: And we're talking about a labor shortage when there isn't
Speaker 1: a shortage of labor, there's a shortage of like good
Speaker 1: paying jobs with benefits. Right where people are deciding that
Speaker 1: I don't want to work for you know, indentured servitude wages,
Speaker 1: that I actually want to be able to work forty
Speaker 1: hours a we can put food on the table and
Speaker 1: get my medicine and get groceries all at the same time,
Speaker 1: and recognizing that neither party is actually working for that
Speaker 1: to be simpler and easier. Right, Instead, they're turning the
Speaker 1: American people into these lazy victims that they don't want
Speaker 1: to provide you back your own resources, your own tax
Speaker 1: dollars in order to help your life be better. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think that it is a dangerous narrative.
Speaker 1: We'd know it, we see it. And the fact is
Speaker 1: is that why isn't it being delivered to the people
Speaker 1: who need to hear it the most? No, absolutely right,
Speaker 1: absolutely right, doctor Jonathan Metzel. As always, we appreciate your insight,
Speaker 1: your analysis, and your oracle sense of the fact that
Speaker 1: we were all in fact going to die of whiteness.
Speaker 1: But at least we have our weekly therapy sessions, so
Speaker 1: I feel better about it to appreciate you. That is
Speaker 1: it for me today, dear friends on woke f as always,
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.