Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, I have had a fucking enough right. I
Speaker 1: just listened to Joe Biden, President of the United States,
Speaker 1: essentially tell the American people that he doesn't have any
Speaker 1: power to take any fucking action. I just listened to
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and before that, Nancy Pelosi tell black women
Speaker 1: that they need to organize and get to the fucking pulse.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing that I want to say about the
Speaker 1: Democratic establishment and the moment that we are living through,
Speaker 1: right the fuck now, fuck you, The reason why we
Speaker 1: are here at this moment isn't just because Republicans have
Speaker 1: been showing us who the fuck they are for the
Speaker 1: last fifty goddamn years. That's not the reason why we
Speaker 1: are here, right, Republicans have always shown us who they are.
Speaker 1: It is Democrats who are set down or fucking better
Speaker 1: yet laying the fuck down like a bunch of goddamn doormats,
Speaker 1: believing that these people who build a fucking gallows are
Speaker 1: their friends who believe right that somehow you can negotiate
Speaker 1: with fucking terrorists. Let me paint the picture for you
Speaker 1: right now of what the Supreme Court has fucking done
Speaker 1: so yesterday they decide that oh, in New York City,
Speaker 1: in New York State, you can no longer create your
Speaker 1: own laws for your own constituents. Right that states rights
Speaker 1: apparently only matter if you are a red fucking state.
Speaker 1: If you are a blue state, or a person that
Speaker 1: actually right wants to live free, free of fear, free
Speaker 1: of violence, you're just fucked because the Supreme Court just
Speaker 1: turned America into the wild, wild fucking West, where we
Speaker 1: don't know who got a gun? Right, there are three
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety million of them floating around these United
Speaker 1: States that only has about three hundred and thirty million
Speaker 1: fucking humans. But here we are because, according to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, the more guns we have, this say that
Speaker 1: we are. I don't know where were they during Uvaldi?
Speaker 1: Where were they during Buffalo? Where where are they during Parkland?
Speaker 1: Where were they during Newtown? Right? And the list fucking
Speaker 1: goes on and on and on and on the reality
Speaker 1: is that we are here because Democrats believe that, oh
Speaker 1: my god, if we force the hand of Republicans too much,
Speaker 1: that when they get empowered, they're gonna slap us back.
Speaker 1: Guess what, bitch, we have arrived. Okay, we are in
Speaker 1: the moment that you all have been too tepid to
Speaker 1: fucking deal with from jump. Republicans have all the power.
Speaker 1: We have the fucking White House, we have Congress, and
Speaker 1: we don't have Dick because we have nobody that has
Speaker 1: been fighting for the American people to see. Obama left
Speaker 1: office not a fucking person. And you know, frankly, what
Speaker 1: Obama was in office. He fucking sat around and allowed
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell to dictate the terms of whether or not
Speaker 1: he could actually fully function as the President of the
Speaker 1: United States. And instead of taking that motherfucker the court,
Speaker 1: what he should have to say, you don't get you,
Speaker 1: as majority already leader in the Senate, decide who gets
Speaker 1: to sit on the Supreme Court, because the American people
Speaker 1: the nation didn't fucking vote for you. But no, he
Speaker 1: get it because he was too afraid about his fucking
Speaker 1: legacy and he was too concerned with what Republicans would
Speaker 1: do well. Republicans are doing right the fuck now, So now,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Right? Joe Biden is sitting up
Speaker 1: in front of the American people telling us that we
Speaker 1: have to vote. Where the fuck were you in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty We turned up in mass in the midst of
Speaker 1: a pandemic before a fucking fucking right vaccine, people were
Speaker 1: out in the goddamn streets turning up to fucking vote.
Speaker 1: You're telling us now that they are continuing to crime
Speaker 1: out in the open, that they have displaced electors that
Speaker 1: they have voted in for secretaries of States, that they
Speaker 1: have at the ag level, they are at the school
Speaker 1: board level. You've been voting. Is gonna fix this, you've
Speaker 1: been voting. The loan is gonna fix where the fuck
Speaker 1: we are right now? These motherfuckers have created no recourse.
Speaker 1: Do know, but Else's Supreme Court overturned this week your
Speaker 1: ability to have your Miranda rights read by police officers
Speaker 1: and then your ability to sue them. Right if in
Speaker 1: fact they don't read you your Miranda rights, that's gone
Speaker 1: as well. So you want to tell me about this
Speaker 1: strategy that has been put in place by Republicans out
Speaker 1: in the fucking open that Democrats weren't expecting, and everybody
Speaker 1: felt them walking around with their hands up in the
Speaker 1: air talking about, oh my god, I can't believe that
Speaker 1: this is happening. You can't believe that this is happening.
Speaker 1: It's your job. If I am at work and fucking
Speaker 1: shit gets fucked up while I'm there. Who's responsible for that, right,
Speaker 1: Not the customer that is walking in, not the listener
Speaker 1: that is listening to my podcast. No, it's a person
Speaker 1: that you voted into office that is supposed to be
Speaker 1: responsible for keeping Americans safe, telling us that, oh, this
Speaker 1: is all on us, we gotta go and vote. What
Speaker 1: is it that when Democrats are president? Right, when Democrats
Speaker 1: hold the presidency, why does it seem feckless? What does
Speaker 1: it seem that they have absolutely no power, that all
Speaker 1: power lies with the people. But when Republicans are in office,
Speaker 1: somehow the presidency is akin to a king. How the
Speaker 1: fuck dies that work? You're telling me that they got
Speaker 1: all the smart people around them. I mean, we fucking
Speaker 1: know that from the one six commissioned fucking here and said,
Speaker 1: ain't nobody smart was around Donald Chump, but he was
Speaker 1: able to fucking undo democracy and four fucking years. Give
Speaker 1: me a break, right now, I am so tired of
Speaker 1: the democratic establishment believing that they can solve every fucking
Speaker 1: problem with a finger wag and a fucking bottle of
Speaker 1: scotch in a back broom somewhere. You are living in
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. These motherfuckers are violent. It isn't
Speaker 1: just Marjorie Taylor Green. There is a whole fucking militia
Speaker 1: of Marjory Taylor Greens and Lauren Boubert's. If they were
Speaker 1: willing to hang Mike Pence, do you think that they're
Speaker 1: not willing to shoot you? Do you think that they're
Speaker 1: not willing to show up at your house with the
Speaker 1: fucking lynching mob like they did in Mississippi, like they
Speaker 1: didn't Alabama, like they did it all across this country
Speaker 1: to lynch black people, you'll think that you're safe these politicians,
Speaker 1: My god, wake the fuck up. That was not a
Speaker 1: speech that provided any fucking sense of urgency whatsoever. All
Speaker 1: they did was once again put put a band aid
Speaker 1: on a fucking gaping, goddamn wound where the heart of
Speaker 1: this country used to be is now fucking hollow down
Speaker 1: by six fucking people. Five excuse me, because it was
Speaker 1: a five to four decision, five fucking people that the
Speaker 1: American people didn't elect. And right now Clarence Thomas is
Speaker 1: sitting around figuring out how to get rid of them,
Speaker 1: how to get rid of contraception, how to get rid
Speaker 1: of same sex marriage, how to get rid of your
Speaker 1: ability to fuck who you want, how you want, where
Speaker 1: you want. That is what is at stake. I said,
Speaker 1: fucking money ago, I said years ago, the Martiniamola Perr.
Speaker 1: So first they come for First, they come for the socialist,
Speaker 1: but I didn't do anything because I wasn't a socialist.
Speaker 1: Then they came for the laborer, but I didn't do
Speaker 1: anything because I wasn't a laborer. What do you think
Speaker 1: that they've been doing? Now, First they came for the
Speaker 1: trans kids, but nobody gave a fuck because, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't understand trans kids. Then they came for marriage equality. Oh,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gay, so that doesn't matter either. Oh.
Speaker 1: Then they came for abortion, but you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna have kids. I don't mind, so that doesn't
Speaker 1: matter either. Oh. Then they came for voting rights. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really vote because only fucking sixty
Speaker 1: percent of America votes in any election. Anyway, they are
Speaker 1: coming for you. This is what they are saying. This
Speaker 1: was not target practice, This was not a shot up
Speaker 1: in the air. This was not a fucking flare, folks.
Speaker 1: They just dropped a bomb on our democracy. They dropped
Speaker 1: a bomb on our civil rights. They are thinking considering
Speaker 1: overturning love in v. Virginia. Do you think that Brown
Speaker 1: versus the Board of Education ain't on their chopping block
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court just told religious fucking zealots, Oh,
Speaker 1: you don't want to send your kids a public education.
Speaker 1: You don't want them to go to public school? Oh,
Speaker 1: we got you bet, because now the states and our
Speaker 1: tax dollars are going to go to educating your Christian fundamentalism,
Speaker 1: because there's no separation between church and state. Their plan
Speaker 1: has been activated. It was activated when people decided that
Speaker 1: they were more concerned with Hillary Clinton's emails and fucking
Speaker 1: voting for Jill Stein than they were recognizing that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was the fucking threat that he was and still is.
Speaker 1: We want to talk right now about how, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was just a handful of people that you know, enacting,
Speaker 1: jumped into action and staved off a coup, staved it
Speaker 1: off from where we have a radicalized, compromise and corrupt
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Why do I say that, not just because
Speaker 1: I don't like their decisions, but because of this. So
Speaker 1: let me give you point one. Clarence fucking Thomas is
Speaker 1: a compromised corrupt piece of shit. We know that him
Speaker 1: and his wife Ginny right, are all up in cahoots
Speaker 1: with John Eastman, who was Clarence Thomas's clerk, and Mark Meadows,
Speaker 1: who Genny Thomas just so happened to have on speed
Speaker 1: dial on January sixth, Right, and then he just happens
Speaker 1: to sit on a couple of cases that he gets
Speaker 1: to be the deciding factor on and doesn't refuse himself,
Speaker 1: and nobody opens up an investigation into that motherfucker. That's
Speaker 1: number one, because that's the latest shit. Brett Kavanaugh had
Speaker 1: over four thousand tips that came into the FBI for
Speaker 1: his predator sexual predator, rapist ass. Do you know what
Speaker 1: the FBI did with those four thousand fucking tips. They
Speaker 1: stuffed them in a fucking drawer. Oh and then they
Speaker 1: dropped them off at the Trump administration's White House. Then
Speaker 1: he became a justice. So you want to tell me
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court isn't compromise. You had Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: jam through Amy Covid Barrett in thirty fucking days, and
Speaker 1: once again Democrats didn't push back. These motherfuckers are sitting
Speaker 1: in lifetime appointment positions. Folks, give me a break. Don't
Speaker 1: tell me shit can't be done, because Republicans always find
Speaker 1: a way to get some shit done. Democrats sitting around
Speaker 1: going maybe we'll get them next time. There is no
Speaker 1: next time. Let me say that again. There is no
Speaker 1: next time. We are not getting another election following mid terms.
Speaker 1: You want to think that I'm chicken little telling you
Speaker 1: that the sky is fucking falling. Remember this, right when
Speaker 1: you are being carted off, there is no next time.
Speaker 1: Republicans take control of the House and of the Senate.
Speaker 1: Biden will be impeached. You will say to me, Danielle,
Speaker 1: how will they do that? They will own all fucking
Speaker 1: mechanisms of government. That's how it doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: based in fact, it doesn't even need to be based
Speaker 1: in fucking reality. They become the leaders again in Congress.
Speaker 1: You're gune, you got Wrongda Scantists. That is climbing up
Speaker 1: right now in the Republican polls for president. Do you
Speaker 1: see what he has done to the state of Florida
Speaker 1: with his white discomfort bills, with his don't say gay bills.
Speaker 1: Let that ship be nationalized. People want to tell me, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm safe, I live in California, or I live in
Speaker 1: New York. Well, guess what, We're no longer safe to
Speaker 1: walk around the fucking streets here because we don't know
Speaker 1: which motherfucker got a gun or who doesn't. Right, So
Speaker 1: you think that, oh, because you live in a blue
Speaker 1: state or inside of a blue city, that somehow you
Speaker 1: are going to be safe from the violence, right that
Speaker 1: they are getting ready to inflict or already inflicting. You
Speaker 1: have thirty one white Supremacs that we're arrested in Idaho
Speaker 1: for getting ready to riot out a pride of vent
Speaker 1: Do you know what the Republican response was to that? Oh,
Speaker 1: for Governor Abbott to make it illegal for drag queens
Speaker 1: to be able to read to children. Oh that's right,
Speaker 1: because I guess a drag queen is an equivalent of
Speaker 1: an AAR fifteen with a hundred magazine cap with capability
Speaker 1: the ability to kill at least thirty people. We're in
Speaker 1: a blink of an eye, because that's the biggest threat
Speaker 1: to our children, not AAR fifteens, but drag queens. Bitch,
Speaker 1: miss me with it. Then you also have Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: today wanted to get up to self congratulate on gun legislation.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, bipartisan gun legislation pass the Senate, going
Speaker 1: to be voted on in the House, and then they
Speaker 1: can all throw a party at the White House to
Speaker 1: congratulate themselves on what exactly, Because let me tell you
Speaker 1: what this legislation doesn't do. It doesn't ban assault rifles,
Speaker 1: it doesn't van bump stocks, it doesn't raise the minimum
Speaker 1: age of being able to buy a weapon of war.
Speaker 1: So tell me again why we are celebrating bipartisan bullshit
Speaker 1: gun legislation that the only thing that it has in
Speaker 1: the title that deals with guns is the name. Because
Speaker 1: other than that, what they are offering is mental health
Speaker 1: services for the kids that we continue to traumatize while
Speaker 1: sending them to school to learn active shooter drills and
Speaker 1: hide underneath their desks. What we are doing is providing
Speaker 1: mental health care for teachers who will already underpay. But here,
Speaker 1: strap up, because you need to be able to teach
Speaker 1: that ABC's with an AAR fifteen strap to your back. Oh,
Speaker 1: because we believe that teachers are going to be more
Speaker 1: brave than the police officers that sat outside of you,
Speaker 1: Vald the elementary school for sixty goddamn minutes while they
Speaker 1: listen to children die. You're telling me that a teacher
Speaker 1: it's gonna stop the crimes that police officers stood outside
Speaker 1: and didn't fucking stop, and all of them were strapped
Speaker 1: up with bulletproof. Fucking vess, miss me with it. This
Speaker 1: country just became incredibly unsafe because of a corrupt Rock
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and because we have an opposition party, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Democrats that don't oppose a fucking thing.
Speaker 1: I don't need your fucking thoughts and prayers. I don't
Speaker 1: need your finger waving. I don't need your strongly worded,
Speaker 1: fucking speeches that don't mean shape, because right now they
Speaker 1: are falling on non listening ears. Because the only thing
Speaker 1: that I am hearing right is the fear and the
Speaker 1: threat of people who look like me and love like me,
Speaker 1: wondering where the fuck they are going to be safe.
Speaker 1: Because I'd love to say that I'll just become a
Speaker 1: recluse and I'll just stay inside my home. We'll bring
Speaker 1: out a tailor thought that she could do that too,
Speaker 1: and she died in her fucking sleep. Right, Oh, I
Speaker 1: thought that I had the freedom. I thought it was America,
Speaker 1: the home of the brave, Oh right, the police. We
Speaker 1: congratulate them, we celebrate them, We give them, guess what,
Speaker 1: immunity right from prosecution? Oh my god, because they should
Speaker 1: be applauded for doing what exactly. They don't stop crying.
Speaker 1: They aren't organized crime? Right. May Or Adams here in
Speaker 1: New York just gave them what. Oh I think maybe
Speaker 1: billions of more dollars than they asked for, because he
Speaker 1: believes that more of a police president is evils to safety.
Speaker 1: Show me what wealthy white community has. Streams of police
Speaker 1: officers that are in there, and that's why the neighborhood
Speaker 1: is safe. Folks, if you today have had it right,
Speaker 1: if you are like me and you were like at
Speaker 1: ten o'clock this morning, I need a fucking drink. I
Speaker 1: understand that you are not alone or an alcoholic, because
Speaker 1: this goddamn country has tested us for the last time.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you this in closing, because I
Speaker 1: need to catch my breath. Right, let me tell you
Speaker 1: this in closing. Voting ain't fixing this. Let me say
Speaker 1: that again. Voting is not fixing this. Not when you
Speaker 1: have a two party democratic system with only one party
Speaker 1: that believes in the constitution and that believes in the
Speaker 1: people's ability to vote. What the one six hearings are
Speaker 1: showing you are the lengths that the Republican Party are
Speaker 1: willing to go to in order to make sure that
Speaker 1: you are unable to vote. So every time that I
Speaker 1: hear somebody from Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden to fucking
Speaker 1: Schumer right to fucking Kamala Harris tell me that, oh,
Speaker 1: we need to vote and we need to march bitch,
Speaker 1: miss me with it, okay, because while we are doing that,
Speaker 1: they are arming up right, their militias are ready to go.
Speaker 1: You got proud boys storming in unaffected into LGBTQ spaces
Speaker 1: and ain't nobody doing dick. You got march ar Taylor
Speaker 1: Green and Lauren Bobert telling us that the LGBTQ community
Speaker 1: is the biggest threat to their kids. No, bitch, you are,
Speaker 1: and Democrats are too chicken shit to say so. Want
Speaker 1: to still be talking about their colleagues from across the aisle, Nigga,
Speaker 1: they try to kill you. Do you understand that these
Speaker 1: people want you? Bet? Do you get that? Do you
Speaker 1: understand that your colleagues gave insurrection as a map to
Speaker 1: your office? There was no way for people to be
Speaker 1: able to find Nancy Pelosi's office in the capital. How
Speaker 1: do I know that because I used to work on
Speaker 1: the hill. So how is it that people, literally we're
Speaker 1: mapping out your death and you still think you can compromise.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I think that bipartisanship in this day
Speaker 1: and age should be the dirtiest fucking word, because it
Speaker 1: is the biggest fucking lie you want to talk about,
Speaker 1: the big lie. It isn't just what Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: been fucking spitting around for the last fucking two years. No,
Speaker 1: the biggest lie right is the belief that somehow these
Speaker 1: politicians that you vote in care more about you than
Speaker 1: they do filling their own pockets. We did not have
Speaker 1: to be here, We don't have to be here right
Speaker 1: now if we're not Joe Manchin and Kursten Cinema. They
Speaker 1: tell you that they believe more in the filibuster than
Speaker 1: they do in our constitutional right to be able to
Speaker 1: have an abortion, then our constitutional right to be able
Speaker 1: to vote. They want to tell you that, oh, we
Speaker 1: need to preserve this. They know what they want to say,
Speaker 1: but they won't is that they are a part of
Speaker 1: the white supremacy structure that they want to be preserved
Speaker 1: because you see in that structure, they are at the
Speaker 1: top and they get to play every fucking body. They
Speaker 1: get to play Republicans who are like, oh, come over
Speaker 1: the here, They get to play Democrats because they're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if you don't have our vote, then you don't have anything.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to vote for a fucking king cole
Speaker 1: in West Virginia. I didn't get to vote for that
Speaker 1: denim that's wearing bitch in Arizona. Okay, So I don't
Speaker 1: know why they are the ones that get to dictate
Speaker 1: the terms of how this Senate should operate. And once again,
Speaker 1: if we had a president that was on our side,
Speaker 1: that people were actually fucking afraid of, that, maybe they
Speaker 1: wouldn't be calling press conferences. When the president rolled up
Speaker 1: to capital, it's talking about I'm not going to back
Speaker 1: this voting rights legislation. I'm not gonna back infrastructure. It's
Speaker 1: just not what I want to do. What you know,
Speaker 1: why they act the way they do because there are
Speaker 1: no fucking consequences for their actions And I'm telling you
Speaker 1: here right in this moment, they will face consequences for
Speaker 1: these actions one way or the fucking other. Right, this
Speaker 1: ain't ending well, I say if every fucking day on
Speaker 1: wik I've been saying it since Donald Trump went down
Speaker 1: those fucking golden fucking escalators. I said that white supremacy
Speaker 1: was not going down without a fight, right, that people
Speaker 1: wanted to believe, Oh no, he could never become president.
Speaker 1: And then O becomes president. Just give him a chance.
Speaker 1: It won't be that bad. I don't need to see
Speaker 1: a burning cross on my front lawn to recognize what
Speaker 1: racism looks like. Right. I don't need to see somebody
Speaker 1: grab a woman by the pussy to recognize that you
Speaker 1: don't have any care whatsoever for women and people with
Speaker 1: uterus is. You don't need to call me the F word.
Speaker 1: You don't need right to gay bash me for me
Speaker 1: to recognize that you don't give a fuck right about
Speaker 1: me as a whole human being. So understand that there
Speaker 1: will be consequences to the actions that have unfolded this week, right,
Speaker 1: Because what I know to be true is that the people,
Speaker 1: the real people of this nation, are not as weak
Speaker 1: as a democratic establishment is. The real people, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that actually are affected by inflation, the people
Speaker 1: who are affected by gas prices, the people that were
Speaker 1: affected by COVID. These people are real people, and they're
Speaker 1: not just going to sit around casually while one right
Speaker 1: after the other is stripped away. I know that I
Speaker 1: am not going out like that, and nobody that I
Speaker 1: know is going out like that. So don't sit around
Speaker 1: here right and think for a minute that all is
Speaker 1: said and done. No, this is just the beginning. They
Speaker 1: have declared war, and the question is what is our
Speaker 1: response going to be. It's no secret that the news
Speaker 1: is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully, there's The Bituation Room
Speaker 1: podcast hosted by comedian and commentator Francesca Freer and Tini
Speaker 1: for a lighter take on the heavy stuff. Each week,
Speaker 1: The Bituation Room brings you progressive comedians, experts, and activists
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Speaker 1: just leave you crying under a weighted blanket. Get The
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Speaker 1: YouTube and Twitch. Hey there, I want to tell you
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Speaker 1: Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Gohler, the president
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Speaker 1: welcome to WIKA a daily for the very first time. Mayor,
Speaker 1: former mayor and niece Parker, who is the CEO of
Speaker 1: Victory Fund and Victory Institute. They are the electoral candidate
Speaker 1: arm of the LGBTQ movement, the organization that is responsible
Speaker 1: for getting as many LGBTQ plus people elected to office
Speaker 1: from the local, state and national level. Mayor Parker, you
Speaker 1: took over the reins at Victory Fund at a very
Speaker 1: interesting time in our politics, where we were headed into
Speaker 1: I believe headed into the twenty sixteen election between Donald
Speaker 1: Trump and Hillary Clinton. We all obviously know how that
Speaker 1: turned out, and we are dealing with the residual effects
Speaker 1: of that disastrous election today and every day over the
Speaker 1: last five years. Can you tell us what you see
Speaker 1: as the climate right now for your candidates and the
Speaker 1: movement in general. I actually took over victory right at
Speaker 1: the beginning of twenty eighteen, so we'd had time to
Speaker 1: process the impact of Donald Trump, and we were heading
Speaker 1: into the twenty eighteen elections. And at that time I
Speaker 1: was very optimistic because twenty eighteen saw more women, more
Speaker 1: candidates of color or more LGBT candidates, non traditional candidates
Speaker 1: of every stripe running for office, people who were appalled
Speaker 1: at the election of Donald Trump, at the rhetoric he
Speaker 1: was spouting, at what he was inspiring in people, and
Speaker 1: they were standing up to run for office. Now. The
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of a good news bad
Speaker 1: news situation. A lot of these were first time candidates.
Speaker 1: A lot of them lost, but it meant that people
Speaker 1: were paying attention and they wanted to get engaged. There
Speaker 1: was there was a surge of new people elected. There
Speaker 1: were some of the very few congressional seats that are
Speaker 1: in play were flipped red the blue. There was a
Speaker 1: little bit of optimism. I mean, today is a hard
Speaker 1: day because of the Supreme Court decision on Rob Wade.
Speaker 1: As we're as we're recording this, and you know, all
Speaker 1: of the horrible things Donald Trump is and was The
Speaker 1: one thing he did spectacularly was reshaped the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and that is something that's going to take probably the
Speaker 1: rest of my lifetime to undo. You know, it's really
Speaker 1: disheartening because I came into politics at a time when
Speaker 1: we were about progression. It we were experiencing a kind
Speaker 1: of surge of progressive ideas, progressive candidates we had. You know,
Speaker 1: we're coming off of the bush years into yes you
Speaker 1: can and yes we can and hope and change and
Speaker 1: eight years of believing that it was possible to actually
Speaker 1: bend the arc towards justice. How do you stay inspired? Right?
Speaker 1: Because you have been in politics, Mayor Parker for a
Speaker 1: long time in a you know, in a in a
Speaker 1: tough in a tough in a tough state, right in Texas, right, um,
Speaker 1: and and and so you are no, you are no
Speaker 1: stranger to the roller coaster. But but this time feels different.
Speaker 1: So how are you staying inspired? Engaged? And if you're not,
Speaker 1: that's fine too. But I just I want to understand
Speaker 1: how people are keeping their wits about them. I've actually
Speaker 1: been asked by a number of younger people recently. I'm
Speaker 1: sixty six years old. I attended my first LGBT organizing
Speaker 1: event in nineteen seventy five. Yes, I was in office
Speaker 1: for eighteen years in Houston, but I started out as
Speaker 1: an activist in the seventies as a college student. And
Speaker 1: the thing that sustains me is that we have made
Speaker 1: so much more progress than I ever imagined would be
Speaker 1: possible in my lifetime. And even though we are stepping
Speaker 1: backwards in a lot of ways, I have every faith
Speaker 1: that we're not going to go back that far because
Speaker 1: the world has changed, the world has shifted, and young people,
Speaker 1: if they would engage, and that's the frustrating part, if
Speaker 1: they would engage, have a completely different attitude on a
Speaker 1: range of social issues and see the world differently than
Speaker 1: I did and my parents did, and then a couple
Speaker 1: of generations in between us. That I have faith in
Speaker 1: what is possible. I think on a range of issues
Speaker 1: that I care deeply about, on social issues that I
Speaker 1: care deeply about, that we're going to eventually get there.
Speaker 1: That you know, the the quote that you gave the
Speaker 1: ark of the moral universe is long, but admin storage justice.
Speaker 1: People use that as if it's somehow magical, If we're
Speaker 1: just if we pray or have hope and or patient,
Speaker 1: we'll get there. That's not how it works. The arch
Speaker 1: of the moral universe binds because we put our hands
Speaker 1: on it and move it into place. And if we
Speaker 1: take our hands off, if we take our eyes off
Speaker 1: the prize, we can go backwards. But we're not going
Speaker 1: to go back to the nineteen fifties. We're not going
Speaker 1: to go back to the nineteen forties. And that's what
Speaker 1: sustains me. Incremental progress. We're gonna hold whatever we can
Speaker 1: and then gird up and move forward again. I am
Speaker 1: tired of doing this. So today it feels a lot.
Speaker 1: Today feels a lot like you know, four times in
Speaker 1: my adult life in Houston, my neighbors have voted to
Speaker 1: tell me that as a lesbian, I have fewer civil
Speaker 1: rights than they do. We had a statewide marriage amendment,
Speaker 1: and then we've had three votes on LGBT rights in
Speaker 1: the city of Houston, the last one coming in my
Speaker 1: last year as mayor. Voters you'd already elected me to
Speaker 1: office nine times consecutively citywide voted that I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: non discrimination protection. So you know, I guess I think
Speaker 1: the long view in this that and I'll take hope
Speaker 1: in the in the things that I know have changed
Speaker 1: and won't go back, but it is it is hard.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I am most concerned about,
Speaker 1: and and you know, my timeline is different, but one
Speaker 1: of the things I'm most concerned about is that the opposition,
Speaker 1: the Republican opposition, seems actually to be violent. And you know,
Speaker 1: when I got into politics again, you're talking about, oh,
Speaker 1: it was ideological differences, right, And I use quotations because
Speaker 1: I still believe that they use ideology to mask racism, misogyny,
Speaker 1: and all versions of hatred LGBT, you know, Q phobias
Speaker 1: and all of these things. And they say that it's
Speaker 1: their conservativism that has them believed this way, right, that
Speaker 1: people are less than However, what we are seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: as we're watching these insurrection hearings, the J six committees hearings,
Speaker 1: we are and the listening to the rhetoric of people
Speaker 1: like a Marjorie Taylor Green and a Laura Boubert who
Speaker 1: have become the voices and the faces of the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives and the Republican Party just in general. These
Speaker 1: are not people that see their colleagues as just their
Speaker 1: ideological opponents. They see them as their actual opponents, meaning
Speaker 1: they see them as the enemy, right, and they and
Speaker 1: they and they rallied a crowd of people to go
Speaker 1: in and attack who they perceive to be the enemy. So,
Speaker 1: for people who believe and are invested in our democracy
Speaker 1: by way of running for office, how do you tell, like,
Speaker 1: how do you convince folks to run for office and
Speaker 1: that it's safe to do so? And then what do
Speaker 1: you what are your feelings about the democratic establishments, understanding
Speaker 1: of who their opponents really are and the lengths that
Speaker 1: they're willing to go to to win. So, first, I'm
Speaker 1: going to say that in a lot of ways, it
Speaker 1: is not safe to run for office, and it is
Speaker 1: always less safe for women. Always the rhetoric directed at women,
Speaker 1: the threats directed at women are more personal and more
Speaker 1: visceral than those directed at men. However, there've always men
Speaker 1: folks who are willing to stand up. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons that I'm not a big believer in in recruiting
Speaker 1: people to run for office. I much believe that people
Speaker 1: need to be willing to raise their hand and say
Speaker 1: pick me, I'm ready to do this because we have to.
Speaker 1: And even though it is and when I say it's unsafe,
Speaker 1: it's unsafe. It can be unsafe emotionally, it can be
Speaker 1: you know, psychologically and sometimes physically. But there are struggling
Speaker 1: democracies around the globe where and even in our neighbor
Speaker 1: in Mexico, our neighbor in Mexico, in certain parts of
Speaker 1: Mexico where anyone who is a public official is a
Speaker 1: target for assassination. We're not there, but it is a
Speaker 1: fraught time. And you know, Donald Trump didn't create this problem.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump enabled it. He helped exposed it, expose it
Speaker 1: because he normalized it in a lot of ways. But
Speaker 1: and then, as ugly as it is in some ways,
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that we now see that they're you know,
Speaker 1: thirty percent of America is this roiling mass of anger
Speaker 1: and fear and disdain for the rest of the country,
Speaker 1: and we have to We're gonna have to come to
Speaker 1: groups with that and address it. Now the work I
Speaker 1: do with Victory, I've chosen to do this because I
Speaker 1: believe that ye a march is a moment in time,
Speaker 1: a protest is important and it can make things happen.
Speaker 1: But somebody has to be in the room to sign
Speaker 1: that piece of legislation, to direct the final action, and
Speaker 1: I want to be able to put people in the room.
Speaker 1: And it's going to end on people saying I'm going
Speaker 1: to conquer my fears. I'm gonna do whatever it needs,
Speaker 1: whatever I need to do to win this race so
Speaker 1: that the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Lauren Boberts aren't
Speaker 1: the face of democracy in America because they are so
Speaker 1: anti democratic and it's they come from a place of
Speaker 1: of Hey, now again, I have been doing this for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I would not have survived nearly
Speaker 1: fifty years of activism by doing it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get frustrated and I get angry, but I don't come
Speaker 1: from a place of anger. I you know, I guess
Speaker 1: it sounds a little a little trite, but you know,
Speaker 1: I have faith. I know what is possible in human beings,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to keep trying to to with with
Speaker 1: people of good faith, trying to make a difference, and
Speaker 1: even and even if I don't succeed, I'm I can't
Speaker 1: accept that doing nothing is an option. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do I talk to a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: who are frustrated and oh I'm just gonna give up
Speaker 1: and voting doesn't matter and maybe not every time, right,
Speaker 1: who we get an abomination like Donald Trump? But right,
Speaker 1: we can't not try, we can't not strive, and the
Speaker 1: world and the world has changed, just not as much
Speaker 1: as we want and not as permanently as we had thought.
Speaker 1: You know, I so apologies because I too have I
Speaker 1: do have an animal in at this time. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that is really troubling me right
Speaker 1: at this time is that we have you know, we're
Speaker 1: speaking today as folks, you're listening to this. The decision
Speaker 1: to overturn Ruby Wade has come down, and that followed
Speaker 1: the decision for or the Supreme Court also to UH
Speaker 1: to gut uh New York City, New York State's ability
Speaker 1: to hold onto one hundred and eleven year old law
Speaker 1: that would disallow concealing carry in this state, UM, which
Speaker 1: signals a lot, right. And I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, as a former mayor of a city, what
Speaker 1: what implications that decision, the New York decision UM has
Speaker 1: on our safety in cities, right, um, which are inherently
Speaker 1: uh in a lot of ways blue right UM, and
Speaker 1: and and inherently democratic. And also where where every other
Speaker 1: part of every state receives its economic viability. So what
Speaker 1: does it mean now, right that this decision has come
Speaker 1: to pass. You are right that virtually every major city
Speaker 1: in America has a democratic majority, and most of them
Speaker 1: have democratic mayors, and they are the economic engines of
Speaker 1: their state. But Texas has had an open carry bill
Speaker 1: for a while now. The legislature has been moving rapidly
Speaker 1: in that direction. For a long time. We had a
Speaker 1: reasonable and I think correct, concealed carry law which required
Speaker 1: people to get a permit. It wasn't oneris to get
Speaker 1: a permit, but you did have to spend time in
Speaker 1: class proving that you knew how to handle a gun,
Speaker 1: and then you knew the gun laws in the state
Speaker 1: of Texas. But the last session they passed something called
Speaker 1: so called constitutional carry, which anybody essentially what the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court has now done to the entire country. There's no
Speaker 1: there's not going to be an immediate practical effect, but
Speaker 1: over time, what you have is more and more people
Speaker 1: normalizing the carrying of guns and less and less knowledge
Speaker 1: about how to safely do that. So now we've had
Speaker 1: this so called again constitutional carry for long enough that, um,
Speaker 1: we've had a rash of child shootings where they have
Speaker 1: an find an unsecured gun and start playing with it.
Speaker 1: Or we've had a rash of road rage incidents in
Speaker 1: Houston where you know, people are frustrated shooting somebody barreling
Speaker 1: down the freeway, which isn't just a danger to the
Speaker 1: poson they're shooting at, but to everybody else on the road.
Speaker 1: And that's it. It's like a barrier breaks that. We
Speaker 1: already have a serious problem of gun violence across America,
Speaker 1: particularly young men shooting other young men, and violent gang
Speaker 1: violence where you have known essentially known as sales, are
Speaker 1: silence known to each other. Um, what this adds is
Speaker 1: that is a layer of an additional unsafe layer. It's
Speaker 1: people who never thought about having what to do. I
Speaker 1: my children are now in the ground, My youngest is
Speaker 1: twenty seven, but I have grandchildren now. And you know
Speaker 1: when you think about, oh, my kids are gonna go
Speaker 1: on kids or grandkids gonna go on a playdate. And
Speaker 1: you know you used to think about, well, is there
Speaker 1: going to be a parent at home? And and you know,
Speaker 1: what do I have to what do I have to
Speaker 1: worry about? Now you have to worry about is there
Speaker 1: are going to be an unsecured firearm somewhere and and really,
Speaker 1: you know, parents are going to have to to step
Speaker 1: up and step in. Now. We are also having the
Speaker 1: conversation right now because of the horrific shooting in Uvalde
Speaker 1: about arming teachers in the weeks since that shooting, where
Speaker 1: we find out that three different police agencies on the
Speaker 1: scene failed to act and allow those children to be killed. Yep,
Speaker 1: so you have armed, trained police officers huddled outside. But oh,
Speaker 1: let's get a give a teacher who really has no
Speaker 1: place to secure that weapon and no time for something
Speaker 1: else to do, and not no requirement for training. Now
Speaker 1: to have a gun in the in the classroom, that's
Speaker 1: going to make us safer. That's just that's just an
Speaker 1: absurd argument that you know, the Second Amendment is a
Speaker 1: well regulated militia being necessary. To my mind, the well
Speaker 1: regulated militia I was perfectly comfortable with. Yes, go learn
Speaker 1: how to shoot a gun, handle a gun, prove that
Speaker 1: you know how I can accept that. But this open
Speaker 1: you know, complete open carry is insane. And at a
Speaker 1: time when you have this rising tension, and we've already
Speaker 1: talked about that that this is not you know, the
Speaker 1: principal opposition is that you have. As we saw with
Speaker 1: the January sixth, the rhetoric is so extreme on the right.
Speaker 1: The people who look like like you and me, we're
Speaker 1: we're in the enemy, yep. And if you are the
Speaker 1: enemy and not an opponent, then it's a small step too.
Speaker 1: I can do violence against you, yep. And I have
Speaker 1: the means in my hand, are on my waistband. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I guess there's not a lot.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot that mayors can do, even if
Speaker 1: the states do that. Now, you know, we cities do.
Speaker 1: We do gun buy back programs, we do violence reduction programs,
Speaker 1: We give away gun locks, um, so the responsible gun
Speaker 1: owners can can secure their firearms. But when I was mayor,
Speaker 1: we at the request of the Houston Zoo. Of all things,
Speaker 1: the Houston Zoo belongs to the city of Houston, but
Speaker 1: it's privately operated. They wanted to in the summer. I mean,
Speaker 1: as a zoo, it's filled with kids all the time,
Speaker 1: and particularly school field trips during the during the school year,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to be able to ban guns at
Speaker 1: the zoo, and so we banned guns at the zoo
Speaker 1: in the state of Texas promptly overrode my ability to
Speaker 1: do that because of course somebody and know the I
Speaker 1: guess the chaperone of a school busful of kids at
Speaker 1: the zoo ought to have a gun. I just, I mean,
Speaker 1: it is just I feel like we are in crazy town.
Speaker 1: You say that it'll take the rest of your life
Speaker 1: to fight I this is generations upon generations that we
Speaker 1: are for the first time, I'm going to be looking
Speaker 1: at my god daughter and nieces and nephews and realizing
Speaker 1: that the world that they are coming into is a
Speaker 1: world that is completely unsafe for them, with queer parents,
Speaker 1: for them who are black, for them, with uteruses like
Speaker 1: it is just, it is a filed idea that we
Speaker 1: are creating a generation that is going to be far
Speaker 1: worse than the previous generations. And so, you know, my
Speaker 1: last question to you is about the LGBTQ community as
Speaker 1: a whole. In your opinion, you know, the radical right
Speaker 1: has placed a target on the backs of transuth of
Speaker 1: trans people, of the LGBTQ community as a whole. You
Speaker 1: have this decision that came down and I'll and I'll
Speaker 1: read you this that i'd saw right before I came
Speaker 1: on that Clarence Thomas just filed a concurring opinion to
Speaker 1: the dobb's decision, calling for the Court to consider overturning
Speaker 1: gay marriage, overturning birth control right, and overturning Lawrence v.
Speaker 1: Tribe and so Lawrence, I'm sorry, Lawrence v. Texas, Lawrence Texas.
Speaker 1: So I read this. They are saying the loud part,
Speaker 1: there's no quiet part. They're on bullhorns. They have organized,
Speaker 1: they have strategized, and Victories are saying this for a
Speaker 1: long time. Victory Fund, Victory Fund, and Victory Institute. We're
Speaker 1: thirty one year old organization. We have been a pro
Speaker 1: choice organization, even though that we're focused on. We don't
Speaker 1: do lobbying or anything, but we're a pro choice organization.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, when we were founded, it was every
Speaker 1: candidate we endorsed, they have to be LGBT and they
Speaker 1: had to believe in or right to privacy because we
Speaker 1: could clearly see the links at the time ROW was
Speaker 1: in place, and so we said you had to believe
Speaker 1: in you had to be pro choice and believe in
Speaker 1: or right to privacy because we were working to overturn
Speaker 1: sodomy statutes, which is which happened in Lawrence v. Texas,
Speaker 1: and we were working to make sure that we had
Speaker 1: um equal marriage in the over Fell decision, and so
Speaker 1: we knew that they were inextricably linked. Now everyone can
Speaker 1: see in the minds of the right that this was
Speaker 1: this is a it is a these these are calculated
Speaker 1: and planned to have a Domino's fall. We have to
Speaker 1: wake up, as the title of your your guess, we
Speaker 1: have to wake up and recognize that this is not
Speaker 1: an accident. This is a planned strategy, and that the
Speaker 1: LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, whatever the target of
Speaker 1: the week is, it is a target of convenience in
Speaker 1: a larger plan too. They truly, I believe again that
Speaker 1: thirty percent of America that wants to return to a
Speaker 1: time that will never come back, but they can sure
Speaker 1: drag us through the mud to try to get there.
Speaker 1: It is. It is an ugly mix of white supremacy
Speaker 1: and economic angst and just the need to raise yourself
Speaker 1: up only because because the only way you can do
Speaker 1: that is by belittling somebody else. And uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: fueling what's going on here but there? And when you
Speaker 1: what is it reminded me lately is the all the
Speaker 1: story about you know, riding the back of the tiger,
Speaker 1: and and um, you ride the back of the tiger,
Speaker 1: and and people fear you, and you can you can
Speaker 1: do amazing things when you have the tiger underneath you.
Speaker 1: But when when at some point either the tiger gets
Speaker 1: tiger carrying you or you want to dismount the tiger,
Speaker 1: you realize that there's no way you can get off
Speaker 1: without the tiger eating you. And that is what has happened,
Speaker 1: I think, to the right, because they have provoked this
Speaker 1: mob mentality and uh, you know, going to the halls
Speaker 1: of Congress talking about hanging Mike Pence, who was the
Speaker 1: epitome of the conservative mindset and has been a loyal
Speaker 1: soldier in the Conservative cause for decades. That's what happens.
Speaker 1: The mob runs am up. We have to we have
Speaker 1: to stand against it. I mean, and I have faith,
Speaker 1: and I have a hope, and I and and maybe
Speaker 1: it's because I know how much worse it was when
Speaker 1: I started out, and I don't think it will go
Speaker 1: back there. But let's close it with talking about young people.
Speaker 1: And when when the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance went down
Speaker 1: in flame as my last years, as may actually the
Speaker 1: day we elected my successor as mayor of Houston. That
Speaker 1: uh equal rights ordinance was on the was on the ballot.
Speaker 1: The average age of voter was sixty eight years old. Wow.
Speaker 1: This was a regular municipal election in November with a
Speaker 1: ALD initiative to provide non discrimination protections not just to
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community but to everyone in Houston. Houston remains
Speaker 1: the only major city in America doesn't have any local
Speaker 1: non discrimination protections. It went down because of the age
Speaker 1: of the voter. If the age of the voter had
Speaker 1: been fifty, I think the outcome would have been different
Speaker 1: if if anybody under forty he had bothered to show
Speaker 1: up in that municipal election. There's no doubt in my
Speaker 1: mind that the outcome would have been different. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it takes. Maybe this road decision will wake
Speaker 1: up millennials and jet xers to what we Baby boomers
Speaker 1: have been facing for a very long time and working
Speaker 1: for and thought we had handed them a better world.
Speaker 1: Now we can all see that, Yeah, we did hand
Speaker 1: them a better world, but it's not safe. It could
Speaker 1: go backwards and we can all see it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that this is the first time in our
Speaker 1: lives that folks are seeing things go backwards. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I entered I entered politics at a time of progression,
Speaker 1: at a time of expansion, where we thought that we
Speaker 1: had already done the hard, bloody, violent work, and then
Speaker 1: we were in a place of conversation about expansion. You
Speaker 1: didn't have to go to the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Now
Speaker 1: you may have to go to the Edmund Pettis Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mayornie Parker, thank you so much for making the time
Speaker 1: to join woke A. Thank you for the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing to get as many as many LGBTQ candidates
Speaker 1: at the state, local and national level to run. Folks.
Speaker 1: If you are interested, please do check out Victory Fund.
Speaker 1: Do check out Victory Institute. They also train candidates, They
Speaker 1: support candidates and give you everything that you need in
Speaker 1: order to win, and winning is what we need more
Speaker 1: than anything. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.
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Speaker 1: a new episode. Folks, be well, this is one of
Speaker 1: the most fucked up weeks that I've experienced since Donald
Speaker 1: Trump became president, since the insurrection, by the way, which
Speaker 1: nobody has really been indicted for, because Merritt Garland is
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Because that makes fucking sense. Let's go save
Speaker 1: other people's democracy while ours continues to go up in flames.
Speaker 1: Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: Get woke, get woke, and stay woke as fuck.