Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the home Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very excited for today's conversation with our resident
Speaker 1: in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Mepzil. Jonathan's new book, What
Speaker 1: We've Become launch this week and him and I are
Speaker 1: going to be having a conversation in person in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: on February fifth at seven pm at green Light Bookstore.
Speaker 1: And you know, in today's conversation, we delve into the
Speaker 1: ways in which we have vast differences not only in
Speaker 1: this country between parties, but also in terms of our
Speaker 1: experiences as it pertains to freedom, liberty, and justice for all.
Speaker 1: And what surprised me about today's conversation is how Jonathan's
Speaker 1: book really lays bare how white supremacy, privilege, and freedoms
Speaker 1: are wrapped around the barrel of a gun and have been.
Speaker 1: And if that is the position of the right, then
Speaker 1: how do we reposition ourselves and the conversation about gun
Speaker 1: control in this country, gun control, gun reform, whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you want to call it. But what Jonathan's
Speaker 1: new book lays out is that painting the issue as
Speaker 1: a public health crisis doesn't provide us with the depth
Speaker 1: and breath that we need to approach this issue. And sometimes, look,
Speaker 1: you can go at things right over and over again
Speaker 1: and wonder why you aren't making any progress, or because
Speaker 1: you've been going at something the same way over and
Speaker 1: over again, be afraid to pivot because you've already expended
Speaker 1: all of this energy, time, research. And what Jonathan's book offers,
Speaker 1: and I just think that the entire conversation offers, is
Speaker 1: that we should always be open to the pivot, to
Speaker 1: the thinking about something new, because if what you are
Speaker 1: doing is not working, then you have got to change course.
Speaker 1: And his book, What We've Become, is exactly that, a
Speaker 1: change in course, a shift in narrative, and an opportunity
Speaker 1: for us to see the gun reform movement through a
Speaker 1: different lens and through a different perspective. So coming up next,
Speaker 1: my conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you
Speaker 1: know that whenever we have the opportunity to chat with
Speaker 1: our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel on his launch
Speaker 1: day for his new book, What We've Become, I'm so excited, folks.
Speaker 1: If you are in the New York area, on February
Speaker 1: fifth at green Light Bookstore in Brooklyn. Jonathan and I
Speaker 1: will be sitting down in person for conversation about his
Speaker 1: new book and about you know, the state of the
Speaker 1: world and mass shootings and guns and all of those things.
Speaker 1: So do go to Jonathan meetzil dot com. You'll get
Speaker 1: all of the details I am sharing on social all
Speaker 1: of the platforms. Jonathan, Hello, my friend, how are you.
Speaker 1: Happy launch day?
Speaker 2: To you? Thank you, thank you. It's it's been a thrilling, great,
Speaker 2: and you know, confusing day. I did PBS last night,
Speaker 2: I did a couple of pieces this morning. I'm just
Speaker 2: laying low here kind of waiting for all the other
Speaker 2: action to start. But this goes in all these ways.
Speaker 2: You know, you get a lot of you know, feedback
Speaker 2: because your ideas are out in the world, which I
Speaker 2: think is really nice. I think, as I've talked about
Speaker 2: a lot here, this book has been really hard and
Speaker 2: challenging to write because I started in one place, and
Speaker 2: five years later it took me to a place I
Speaker 2: was not expecting. I started off as a complete advocate
Speaker 2: for public health based gun reform, and I still feel
Speaker 2: that way. I'm still a strong proponent of gun laws.
Speaker 2: But it made me think that we're missing the point
Speaker 2: a little bit. I mean, that's kind of in part.
Speaker 2: The point of the book is that we're understandably, I mean,
Speaker 2: the book is about trauma and what it does to
Speaker 2: families and communities. We're shouting about injuries and deaths, but
Speaker 2: the other side is just playing by a totally different
Speaker 2: playbook that we are not responding to whatsoever, which is
Speaker 2: a playbook about power and authority and judges. And over
Speaker 2: the course of my book, people on my side kept saying,
Speaker 2: you know, now, by now eighty five percent of people
Speaker 2: want background checks. The support is great. But while we
Speaker 2: were doing that, the other side was overturning public carry
Speaker 2: gun laws in thirty nine states, and we surpassed five
Speaker 2: hundred million civilian owned guns in this country, and the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court overturned even New York's public carry gun laws.
Speaker 2: And so there's a real disconnect between one side, which
Speaker 2: is arguing for health and morality, and I think this
Speaker 2: is on the side of right. I mean, I'm very
Speaker 2: clear about that, but the other side is playing by
Speaker 2: a power game. And I just didn't feel like the
Speaker 2: public health response was enough really to what we're facing.
Speaker 2: I really think we need to change really the terms
Speaker 2: of the debate and the structure and what we're advocating.
Speaker 1: So is it then too, because I guess, to your point,
Speaker 1: the public and I remember when there was like the
Speaker 1: shift to the public health debate, and I was sitting
Speaker 1: with other doctors several years ago talking about gun violence
Speaker 1: and you know, and how they wanted to reframe it
Speaker 1: and come from a place of heart in the same
Speaker 1: way that we would look at you know, heart disease
Speaker 1: and cancer rates, and you know, and and how they
Speaker 1: affect different communities. To your point, though, when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a group with the Republican Party, with maga supremis
Speaker 1: who feel that their guns are their power right and
Speaker 1: they are absolute about it, and because of their absolutism,
Speaker 1: we have an epidemic in this country. To you, is
Speaker 1: it then that democrats and progressives shift to a place
Speaker 1: of power? You know? Is it is it to be
Speaker 1: like the Republicans but for the greater good? What what
Speaker 1: is that without? You know, obviously we want people to
Speaker 1: pick up your book, but what does that mean in
Speaker 1: terms of moving from a place of heart to power?
Speaker 1: In your in your mind.
Speaker 2: Well, there are two levels of that, and I admit
Speaker 2: in the book, and I'll admit right now that they
Speaker 2: are in tension with each other. They're not the same.
Speaker 2: But I think there are two ways we have to
Speaker 2: think about that. One is that the problem that democrats
Speaker 2: are facing is much bigger. Like cigarettes were a public
Speaker 2: health problem. People were smoking a cigarette in restaurants, people
Speaker 2: were getting secondhand smoke, and that led to a public
Speaker 2: health intervention, which is, let's hold the cigarette makers accountable.
Speaker 2: Let's show research that will convince people the second hand
Speaker 2: smoke is a danger. Everybody has an aunt or an
Speaker 2: uncle or a neighbor who has lung cancer, they're going
Speaker 2: to understand that same thing. With seat belts, seat belts.
Speaker 2: Faulty seat belts were killing people. Faulty cars were killing people.
Speaker 2: Everybody drives. At one point, everybody knew someone who'd gotten
Speaker 2: in a terrible car wreck, and we could hold the
Speaker 2: car makers responsible. We applied that model to guns, really,
Speaker 2: as I tell in the book, starting in the nineteen
Speaker 2: nineties when that model mates, because at that time we thought, hey,
Speaker 2: it's worked for all these other things, and it was
Speaker 2: totally reasonable to think it was going to work against guns.
Speaker 2: But the problem is what happened over the subsequent decades
Speaker 2: was that first of all, the gun industry was shielded
Speaker 2: from the kind of product liability lawsuits that would have
Speaker 2: made a public health argument really have teeth, which so
Speaker 2: it never really did that. But the other thing is
Speaker 2: guns are just a really fundamentally different entity than our
Speaker 2: cigarettes and cars. They tie into the racial history of
Speaker 2: the United States, They tie into really deeply North South politics.
Speaker 2: Somebody in the North can yell gun control now, and
Speaker 2: somebody in the sALS will say you're oppressing my freedom
Speaker 2: and liberty and all this kind of it just means
Speaker 2: something really different. And so a public health model that
Speaker 2: was coming from blue state America just didn't make any
Speaker 2: conceptual sense. And I think over time those fissures get
Speaker 2: to be much greater. So that's the bigger part of
Speaker 2: the story, which is that that argument really was something
Speaker 2: that the Nray understood and liberal America didn't, which is
Speaker 2: that you know, they could use the public health argument
Speaker 2: to sew resentment in the South like these people are
Speaker 2: coming after in ways that played out, for example in
Speaker 2: the pandemic, and it left us without adequate strategies for
Speaker 2: the bigger issues that were happening. The bigger issues were
Speaker 2: that basically the right and the South were using the
Speaker 2: gun issue to overturn state legislatures, kick out centrists, take
Speaker 2: over the judiciary, which it was huge, And so part
Speaker 2: of the story is a health argument really was glossing
Speaker 2: over what was happening, which was that Red State America
Speaker 2: was sowing the seeds of authoritarianism using the gun issue.
Speaker 2: And to me, that's kind of the main argument of
Speaker 2: the book is that a health argument made it hard
Speaker 2: for us to see what was really happening down here
Speaker 2: in Red state America because health seemed like common sense
Speaker 2: to us. But health was a really useful foil for
Speaker 2: Red state America to do something that the health argument
Speaker 2: was never going to give you an answer to, which
Speaker 2: was take over the judiciary, takeover politics, and then use
Speaker 2: that as a missile basically to then take over Blue
Speaker 2: state America if you look at, for example, what happened
Speaker 2: with the Supreme Court last year. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: the meta argument of the book is that a health
Speaker 2: argument we didn't see that, we didn't see what was
Speaker 2: really happening, how that was being used in Red state America.
Speaker 2: But then the second layer of the book is that
Speaker 2: I do think there's an opportunity. Now the NRA is
Speaker 2: kind of imploding on itself. People are really starting to wonder.
Speaker 2: I mean, here in Tennessee, we've had so many horrible
Speaker 2: mass shootings and people are wondering, like, where do I
Speaker 2: go from here? And I think in red state in America,
Speaker 2: there's a hunger to say, give me something that I
Speaker 2: can use here and coming in and saying background checks
Speaker 2: and red flag laws that shite don't fly down here.
Speaker 2: I mean that is government intervention and government databases. And
Speaker 2: so the other part of the book is I think
Speaker 2: we need a new agenda that actually speaks to voters
Speaker 2: who are going to be really important in the election,
Speaker 2: coming up with a who are like kind of blue
Speaker 2: and I mean, I'm sorry Red and purple state people
Speaker 2: who want an agenda that speaks to their concerns. And
Speaker 2: so ultimately, I also do offer a lot of practical
Speaker 2: solutions in the book for how we can strategize ways
Speaker 2: to change guns safety reform in ways that meets the
Speaker 2: interests of gun owners. Basically, in other words, we're not
Speaker 2: against gun owners. That was a mistake that The New
Speaker 2: York Times made in the review of my book this morning.
Speaker 2: We're not against gun owners, but gun reform doesn't speak
Speaker 2: to their interests. If we're rushing in and saying we
Speaker 2: need government regulation, you need to actually answer their concerns
Speaker 2: in a much more structural way so that they can
Speaker 2: materially see how that might be beneficial to them. So
Speaker 2: those are the two threads. But yeah, those are the
Speaker 2: two threads. But they're complicated.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, And it's helpful, and I appreciate the
Speaker 1: way that you've laid it out. I have a couple
Speaker 1: of follow up questions that I think may help people
Speaker 1: get a little bit more granular in terms of what
Speaker 1: it is that you're offering. So first, you know, when
Speaker 1: you say that what Republicans were doing in Red States
Speaker 1: was seating the ground of authoritarianism, right, and I'll you know,
Speaker 1: echo that, and add, you know absolutism, that there is
Speaker 1: no room right when when we're talking about authoritarian regimes,
Speaker 1: where we're talking about absolutism, there is no room for compromise,
Speaker 1: for conversation for anything other than what is being dictated to.
Speaker 1: I wonder, however, because Jonathan, you and I have had conversations,
Speaker 1: you know, over the years where we lament the way
Speaker 1: that democrats message and I wonder if even us saying
Speaker 1: authoritarianism is that too big of a concept and a
Speaker 1: word for people to understand what it is that the
Speaker 1: right had been doing while we were focused on changing
Speaker 1: hearts and minds.
Speaker 2: Well, here's a useful metaphor. COVID hit. Half the country assumed,
Speaker 2: here's a virus that's going to kill us as humans.
Speaker 2: We all are on the same side here. But Red
Speaker 2: State America and Trump saw it as an opportunity to
Speaker 2: play on the fears that have been fomenting really for
Speaker 2: decades under the gun lobby, which is these blue state
Speaker 2: people are telling you what to do. It's the government
Speaker 2: kind of telling you what to do. And so we
Speaker 2: assumed that a health message was universal. Everybody was going
Speaker 2: to be on the same side about COVID. But the
Speaker 2: other side said, look, they're rushing in with the government,
Speaker 2: and the government is going to control your health. They're
Speaker 2: going to take away your freedom and liberty, your kids
Speaker 2: can't go to school, you're going to lose your job.
Speaker 2: And that place to red state resentment and anxiety, which
Speaker 2: is massively, massively mobilizing. It gets people to vote, It
Speaker 2: gets people to push out centrists. Then when people get elected,
Speaker 2: it gets them to put in judges who are going
Speaker 2: to overturn, you know, like in Florida they put in
Speaker 2: an attorney general who is now banning vaccines and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So it leads people, pushes people that anxiety
Speaker 2: about liberals coming in to take away your freedom and liberty.
Speaker 2: Now that sounds like a stereotype, but it sure is
Speaker 2: a prevalent one. And what I show is that's been building.
Speaker 2: It didn't just happen in the vaccines. It's been building
Speaker 2: over thirty thirty years, really as part of the gun debate,
Speaker 2: and so again and again and again, the red state
Speaker 2: America would say, look, they're coming to take away your guns,
Speaker 2: and that would red state people would go out and
Speaker 2: droves to support people. And what the NRA and GOP
Speaker 2: did with that power is that they then put in
Speaker 2: place judges like one judge I write about was like
Speaker 2: thirty five years old, he'd never tried a case in
Speaker 2: his life in Mississippi. His only criteria was he was
Speaker 2: a lifelong member of the NRA and he would vote
Speaker 2: for gun rights anytime. And that this all the way
Speaker 2: up to the Supreme Court and so they had a
Speaker 2: model of using what felt for them like liberal overreach
Speaker 2: to really sow the seeds of power. And that power
Speaker 2: was something that a health model was never going to refute, right,
Speaker 2: because they all of a sudden, there are all these lifetime
Speaker 2: judges who are supporting even the most seemingly ridiculous you know,
Speaker 2: guns on campus, guns on park in parks. And so
Speaker 2: the gun debate really created a kind of foundation of
Speaker 2: power that really pushed out any reasonable people. And again,
Speaker 2: and the health argument, I believe in health, I believe
Speaker 2: in gun laws, but I don't think it's a counter
Speaker 2: to what we were seeing in the South, which is
Speaker 2: guns became a vehicle for really structural institutional power, and
Speaker 2: every time we would rush in and say we need
Speaker 2: more government databases and stuff like that, they would just
Speaker 2: use it to gain more power. And that was something
Speaker 2: that was never part of our calculus and still isn't
Speaker 2: in a way.
Speaker 1: Jonathan talk to us about you know, the story that
Speaker 1: you lift up in the book is one that is
Speaker 1: based largely in race, right and racism. And I think
Speaker 1: that oftentimes when we're having conversations, not you and I,
Speaker 1: I mean, like the bigger we are having conversations we
Speaker 1: discount how race and racism plays into and is baked
Speaker 1: into the policies that are being offered. So can you
Speaker 1: talk to us about how in your meta you know,
Speaker 1: layered plan, how you how you understand racism and race
Speaker 1: being at play.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's at the core a story about race.
Speaker 2: A naked white man travels from Illinois where he really
Speaker 2: shouldn't have had guns. You know, this guy had been
Speaker 2: stopped by the cops a bunch of times. He'd gone
Speaker 2: to the White House and tried to jump the fence
Speaker 2: at the White House. He gets arrested, given over to
Speaker 2: the FBI. Is the FBFL. The FBI says he shouldn't
Speaker 2: have guns, and so part of the story is that
Speaker 2: if anybody else about a white man yanked this wankie,
Speaker 2: you know, they would have been dead or in jail.
Speaker 2: And so part of the story is about the privilege
Speaker 2: of the white male gun owner. This guy kept getting
Speaker 2: his guns back. I mean, it's just unbelievable, Like he
Speaker 2: kept getting his guns back. The cops gave him his
Speaker 2: guns back, his dad gave him his guns back. Even
Speaker 2: after the Yeah, he got his guns back. So part
Speaker 2: of it was about the stereotype of the white male
Speaker 2: gun owner walking around in the world being seen as
Speaker 2: a trope of freedom and protector and all this stuff
Speaker 2: in ways that other people just do not get that, right.
Speaker 2: I said, like, this would be a two page book
Speaker 2: if it was a book about a black man. A
Speaker 2: black man pulled this for five seconds and he's dead,
Speaker 2: and that you know, that's the end of the story.
Speaker 2: And so I write about that a lot. So part
Speaker 2: of the story is about the body of the pre
Speaker 2: shooting white male gun owner. But then you know, something
Speaker 2: really important happens, which is he gets his guns confiscated,
Speaker 2: they give the guns to his dad, his dad gives
Speaker 2: him the guns back, and then he drives to Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Why does he drive to Tennessee. It's because in Illinois
Speaker 2: he can't have his guns legally, but in Tennessee he's
Speaker 2: a legal white man with a gun. There's no gun
Speaker 2: laws in Tennessee in a way, And so part of
Speaker 2: the story was the allure of his freedom, his privilege,
Speaker 2: his esteem, like Tennessee mirrored his version of himself as
Speaker 2: like being a proud white male gun owner. So part
Speaker 2: of it was about how when he's in Tennessee, Tennessee
Speaker 2: mirrors his values because it reinforces his privilege as is,
Speaker 2: you know, embedded in his body and his guns. And
Speaker 2: then he becomes a killer. And after the shooting, the
Speaker 2: state apparatus mobilizes to in a way support the rights
Speaker 2: of men like him the whole There's a gubernatorial election
Speaker 2: I write about in the book a few months after
Speaker 2: the shooting, and overwhelmingly they vote in a governor, Governor Lee,
Speaker 2: whose platform was we're going to have no gun laws.
Speaker 2: And so in a way, the apparatus saw the shooter
Speaker 2: as a reflection of their values in ways that made
Speaker 2: it just much easier for this shooting to happen again.
Speaker 2: And so the third part of how race functions is
Speaker 2: at this structural level where it's really just the institutions
Speaker 2: reward even the most extreme, pornographic, pathological instances of when
Speaker 2: it's so clear that these white bodies and white guns
Speaker 2: are killing black bodies, which is really the story, we
Speaker 2: build these institutions that assure that this is going to
Speaker 2: happen again. It's an institutional story.
Speaker 1: And I just you know, and I will say and
Speaker 1: thank you because the way that you laid that out
Speaker 1: was just you know, breathtaking, because I have to tell
Speaker 1: you that there for me when I listen, when I read,
Speaker 1: you know, and hear these stories, this is America fundamentally,
Speaker 1: through and through right, Like this is that the story
Speaker 1: that you reference? You know what you're writing. This is
Speaker 1: the story of America. It is about murtyring, subjugating, oppressing
Speaker 1: black bodies, like that is it? That is the birth
Speaker 1: of this nation. It will be the death of this nation.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, I and I honestly I have
Speaker 1: to say that I have in this moment just like
Speaker 1: such clarity around the fact that, like, I don't think
Speaker 1: that anything will ever change. I really don't. Like I
Speaker 1: think that there will always be I think that white
Speaker 1: men will always win in terms of this debate, because
Speaker 1: fundamentally it goes back to the founding of this country,
Speaker 1: about their toxic masculinity, about domination, about their exceptionalism, and
Speaker 1: that in that entire fantasy, psychotic fantasy, is tied up
Speaker 1: into gun ownership. And so you know, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how many white kindergarten children are murdered, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how many. You know, they're just the cost of freedom.
Speaker 1: And if that is your and now assists, then I
Speaker 1: never see you being able to be moved.
Speaker 2: You know, as I was saying before, The New York
Speaker 2: Times this morning called the book mild, and I'm really
Speaker 2: perplexed by this because to call it mild, you'd have
Speaker 2: to totally miss the race critique. Or maybe this is
Speaker 2: mild for some people. But what I write is that
Speaker 2: black Americans are also sold the false promise that if
Speaker 2: they two buy guns, they're going to have equality with
Speaker 2: white people under the Second Amendment. And I really, really
Speaker 2: really take that down in the book to show that
Speaker 2: black Americans with guns is used as an anxiety to
Speaker 2: trope to sell more guns to white people. And it's
Speaker 2: really clear even when even when the shooting makes so
Speaker 2: clear where this is all taking us. And so we
Speaker 2: do see a lot of Black Americans buying guns, and
Speaker 2: that's part of why I argue that the health paradigm
Speaker 2: is losing. The biggest, most expansive body of gun owners
Speaker 2: now are black women actually, and also liberals, progressives, and
Speaker 2: Black Americans, who for so long stood as like the
Speaker 2: hallmark not just of Democrats but of gun reform. They
Speaker 2: were like the people who always voted for gun reform
Speaker 2: because in the nineties. They had seen what guns did
Speaker 2: to their communities, but when so many white people started
Speaker 2: getting guns, they started saying, well, we better get guns
Speaker 2: as well. But this was I mean, the NRA is
Speaker 2: an arms dealer. They're trying to arm both sides. And
Speaker 2: so what I show is the false promise is what
Speaker 2: we're selling to Black Americans is not the promise of
Speaker 2: equality if you get guns. Also, it's a way of
Speaker 2: stimulating more and better gun sales among white Americans. And
Speaker 2: to me, it's just such a vicious cycle because the
Speaker 2: outcomes are exactly what this shooting shows and reveals and
Speaker 2: reflects and portends, which is hierarchy and death. And so
Speaker 2: in a way, I'll just say that ultimately, what I
Speaker 2: say is that the naked white body of the shooter,
Speaker 2: as you say, is a reflection of American choices and
Speaker 2: values in addition to a pathology of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I just you know, I would just add that, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that black Americans believe that gun ownership
Speaker 1: is akin to equity. I think that black Americans are
Speaker 1: very aware that we will never fully ever be seen
Speaker 1: as equal in this country, and that you're going to
Speaker 1: kill us if we're unarmed, you're going to kill us.
Speaker 1: If we're armed. It doesn't really fucking matter. So at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, if I can do anything,
Speaker 1: any small thing, to be able to protect my family.
Speaker 1: Was the thoughts of the Black Panthers and the reason
Speaker 1: why the Black Panthers were armed and talked about the
Speaker 1: Second Amendment and their right to be full citizens of
Speaker 1: this country. And it's just like, it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: or not you are peaceful or you are violent. The
Speaker 1: system of white supremacy that this country is built on
Speaker 1: is going to kill you, right, And that to me,
Speaker 1: it's like it's not it's not the oh, well, if
Speaker 1: I get this, then they will see me as a citizen.
Speaker 1: It's just like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to fall back on a public health
Speaker 2: throw faith and after all this and I'll say that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's also forty years of research that shows
Speaker 2: that sixty five percent of gun death is gun suicide
Speaker 2: and partner violence and accidental shooting. So when you accept
Speaker 2: that logic, you're also inviting all these other risk factors.
Speaker 2: It really becomes like secondhand smoke. You're inviting all this
Speaker 2: risk into your house. So there's no good outcome about
Speaker 2: more armament. I really don't think for anybody in a way.
Speaker 2: And but I of course I agree with you. I mean,
Speaker 2: the whole book is about my agreeing with that point,
Speaker 2: which is just that there's this false promise that's always changed.
Speaker 2: But think about that cycle, right, the false promise of
Speaker 2: I might as well arm myself because the societies against
Speaker 2: me or the cops aren't going to protect me. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of very direct marketing to black people
Speaker 2: after the floor murder, But then the cycle becomes then
Speaker 2: to white people, hey, you better arm yourself because look
Speaker 2: who else is getting guns? And here's our latest gun
Speaker 2: which shoots even more bullets, even more faster, and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. And so in a way, it just becomes
Speaker 2: this cycle, which which I have to say, just historical
Speaker 2: precedent for countries that go down that path. It just
Speaker 2: that does not end well. And so in a way,
Speaker 2: you know, I have a piece in the Huffington Post
Speaker 2: this morning that I'm not being a total fatalist. I
Speaker 2: do think there's a moment now where we can change this.
Speaker 2: I think the implications of the twenty four election are huge, huge.
Speaker 2: If if we put more nra Supreme Court judges, we're done.
Speaker 2: And so you know, voting for Biden here with this,
Speaker 2: if you're voting on this issue, that the choice is
Speaker 2: really clear. So I'm not saying everybody's the same, but
Speaker 2: i will say I want people to recognize how we
Speaker 2: got here, so that it just, you know, it just
Speaker 2: feels like there's so much confusion now about how we
Speaker 2: got here, and I want to kind of open people's
Speaker 2: eyes a little bit.
Speaker 1: Jonathan, I tell you you are a gift. You're a
Speaker 1: gift to our weekly woke af commentary and conversation, and
Speaker 1: your writing and your thoughtfulness and your hopefulness is a
Speaker 1: gift to this movement. So we as always really appreciate
Speaker 1: you and your time. Folks. The book is what we've
Speaker 1: become and it is out now, so you should get it.
Speaker 1: And if you are in the New York area, come
Speaker 1: and see us at green Light Bookstore in Brooklyn on
Speaker 1: February fifth, where Jonathan will be signing books, reading from
Speaker 1: his books, and him and I will be in conversation.
Speaker 1: Super excited about that. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: dear friends on woke AF as always power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people. Power get woke and
Speaker 1: stay woke as fuck.