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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Biden walk the picket line while

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Speaker 1: Trump spoke to scabs at a Boss organized event supported

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Speaker 1: by the National Right to Work Foundation. Because of course

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Speaker 1: we have a great show for you today, Congresswoman Summerly

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Speaker 1: tells us why we need to hold our corrupt government

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Speaker 1: officials accountable. Then we'll talk to historian Heather Cox Richardson

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Speaker 1: about her new book, Democracy Awakening, Notes on the State

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Speaker 1: of America. But first we have the host of the

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Speaker 1: Ali Velshi Show, the author of the Trump indictments, the

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Speaker 1: ninety one criminal counts against the former president of the

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Speaker 1: United States, and the host of the Banned book Club podcast,

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Speaker 1: MSNBC's Ali Velshi. Welcome to Fast Politics, Ali.

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Speaker 2: Belschi, always my pleasure to be with you.

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Speaker 1: You are discussed. I want to talk about banned books

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Speaker 1: because as I am the daughter of a writer who

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Speaker 1: wrote a band book and the granddaughter of a writer

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Speaker 1: who wrote a band book. So first let's talk about

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Speaker 1: the band book club, and then we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about how normal everything is.

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Speaker 2: Yep, the band book Club is probably the thing that

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Speaker 2: I'm most fascinated by that we've done in the last

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Speaker 2: year and a half. Because I didn't think it was

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Speaker 2: going to be a thing. It was born out of

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Speaker 2: a conversation that I had a really great conversation on

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Speaker 2: air with Nicole Hannah Jones. She had just written the

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Speaker 2: sixteen nineteen project, not the book, but the magazine's bread

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Speaker 2: you know, the New York Times magazine story.

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Speaker 1: Then inspired the book, and I.

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Speaker 2: Didn't know anything about it, like I've just had no

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Speaker 2: idea about the year sixteen nineteen, of why it was

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Speaker 2: relevant and what it meant. And as we learned about

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Speaker 2: it together, I remember thinking to myself how grateful I

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Speaker 2: was to people like Nicole who write about things because

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Speaker 2: I love histories that I don't know about. And I thought,

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Speaker 2: you know what, my hard drives pretty full, but it

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Speaker 2: can always take more good information. And I was so

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Speaker 2: surprised by the backlash and targeting she had, including by

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Speaker 2: the President of the United States, about this whole idea

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Speaker 2: that by introducing the date sixteen nineteen when African American

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Speaker 2: or Africans were first brought to American shores, it somehow

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Speaker 2: undermines the history that we've already gotten that we've already learned.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I just don't think about history in those

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Speaker 2: terms right as absolute and being full already. So she

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Speaker 2: was actually my first guest, but it fast became an

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Speaker 2: interesting thing in which we were dealing with young authors,

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Speaker 2: new authors, authors who didn't know, authors who were queer

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Speaker 2: or hispanic or black or all three, or dead authors

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Speaker 2: Tony Morrison who their stuff is still being banned, or

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Speaker 2: Margaret Atwood, whose Handmaidsdale is playing out in the society

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Speaker 2: in which we live right now. So A, it's become

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Speaker 2: one of the most successful things we do, and b

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Speaker 2: probably the easiest thing to book that I've ever been involved.

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Speaker 1: In, because there's so many banned books.

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Speaker 2: Every week, new material, new material being generated by authors

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Speaker 2: and publishers, and new things being banned. So on all sides,

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Speaker 2: this is a win win situation because every time we

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Speaker 2: feature one of these books, they shoot up on the charts.

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Speaker 1: It's so amazing though to me, as like someone who

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Speaker 1: grew up in the eighties and nineties and thought this

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Speaker 1: would not be a thing to be like, struggling with

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Speaker 1: book banning in the year twenty twenty three is like

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Speaker 1: beyond what I could have ever imagined.

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Speaker 2: It's beyond what Margaret Atwood imagine because she wrote a

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Speaker 2: Handmaid's Tale in nineteen eighty five. So remember in nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighty five, we had all for several years been talking

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Speaker 2: about the book nineteen eighty four, right, and how the

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Speaker 2: world hadn't turned out to be what that book suggested

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Speaker 2: it would. And so when Margaret Iwood wrote her book,

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Speaker 2: people kept telling her, Margaret, this is stupid. That's not

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Speaker 2: how the world's going to be. It's not going to

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Speaker 2: end up being a theocracy, particularly in America, where they

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Speaker 2: punish and execute people for crimes that were not crimes

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Speaker 2: when they when they happened. I mean, she really wrote

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Speaker 2: about all that stuff and that was actually happening in

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Speaker 2: this day and age. So you're right, we grew up

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Speaker 2: in a time where you couldn't have imagined this. There

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Speaker 2: was a dystopian novels, but they were dystopian and they

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Speaker 2: were novels.

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Speaker 1: Right now we live exactly. I'm right. They were dystopian

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Speaker 1: and they were novels. So we do live that world.

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Speaker 1: And last week we saw some book burning from a

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Speaker 1: gubernatorial can today.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he was mostly burning other stuff. He was

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Speaker 2: metaphorically saying that he would burn books. I think you

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Speaker 2: must have called them smut or pornography or whatever. It's

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Speaker 2: all the same stuff for the last five hundred years

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Speaker 2: they've been complaining about. But the imagery was remarkable. Flame throwers.

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Speaker 2: He said he's going to burn them on his front

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Speaker 2: lawn if he becomes governor, or maybe even if he

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Speaker 2: doesn't become governor. There's a lack of sophistication here, Molly.

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Speaker 2: There are real reasons to discuss whether or not high

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Speaker 2: school kids should have access to mine COMF or the

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Speaker 2: elders of the Protocol of Zion. I would argue that

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Speaker 2: people should because how else would you become a scholar

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Speaker 2: on the Holocaust or anti Semitism, more Third Reich or whatever.

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Speaker 2: But that's a different discussion. Burning books as a whole,

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Speaker 2: that's another thing. There's challenging books. There's not wanting them

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Speaker 2: accessible to young people without a sort of a level

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Speaker 2: of education. Then there's outright banning them. Then there's preventing

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Speaker 2: them from being in school curricula like they do in

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Speaker 2: Florida and Texas. Then there's arresting at team in Texas

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Speaker 2: last week for teaching a version of Anne Frank And

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Speaker 2: then there's the burning of books. And the next thing

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Speaker 2: after the burning of books is the decline of democracy.

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Speaker 2: It's really a very direct correlation. When you burn books,

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Speaker 2: you are sending an instruction to the people of your

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Speaker 2: society that you do not choose what to read. We

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Speaker 2: choose what you read.

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Speaker 1: Chilling, speed of chilling. This weekend the publican front runner,

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Speaker 1: you may remember him, Donald J. Trump, may have bought

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Speaker 1: a gun.

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Speaker 3: Well on bail my word and make up up discuss Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so very interesting because there were no reporters who saw

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Speaker 3: said transaction.

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Speaker 2: Is campaign team said he bought a gun, and then

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Speaker 2: very quickly because there were a bunch of people around

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Speaker 2: saying I don't think he can buy a gun if

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Speaker 2: I've just been indicted bad Then there were some lawyers involved,

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Speaker 2: and then suddenly he hadn't bought a gun. And so

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Speaker 2: no one knows what's true. But that could be the

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Speaker 2: tagline for the entire Trump administration, right, No one knows

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Speaker 2: what's true. The ilridy, of course, is that the memes

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Speaker 2: create themselves on this one. First of all, that the

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Speaker 2: more serious ones are. This is the man who said

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Speaker 2: I could shoot somebody on fifth avenue and nothing would

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Speaker 2: happened to me. And you know, increasingly, Molly, we believe

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Speaker 2: that to be true. These trials that are coming up

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Speaker 2: with Donald Trump are going to be important to demonstrate

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Speaker 2: whether or not he was right, or society and democracy

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Speaker 2: and reasonable people were right. The other thing for with

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump is you can't be that much of an idiot, right,

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Speaker 2: You know that you can't buy a gun under bond.

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Speaker 2: But I don't know where he was letting him putting

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Speaker 2: in my mind went to plexico birth, like don't shoot yourself,

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Speaker 2: don't shoot yourself. But the whole thing was a stupid conversation.

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Speaker 2: But that's the stuff we talk about in twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 1: I also think, like, besides that, that was like this

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Speaker 1: sort of funny, trumpy, crimey, sort of ilegal story. But

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Speaker 1: there were other things that Trump did this weekend that

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Speaker 1: were pretty hair raising, like musing about executing General Melody.

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Speaker 2: So here's the thing with Trump, and as a student

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Speaker 2: of history, I'm very concerned about it. Donald Trump is numbing, right,

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Speaker 2: That's the net effect he has on people. He numbs you.

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Speaker 2: You stop believing it, you think it's all conjecture, and

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Speaker 2: so then he escalates what he does. It's very much

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Speaker 2: like having a small child, except your small child can

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Speaker 2: only do so much damage, right, They can mess up

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Speaker 2: your furniture and your carpet and throw up on it.

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Speaker 2: But Donald Trump is actually doing this thing with stuff

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Speaker 2: with democracy. So every time he jokes about something that

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Speaker 2: is extra judicial, we have to keep in mind that

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Speaker 2: we have been living in a world of extra judicial

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Speaker 2: bad things. Certainly, if you're a black male American, black

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Speaker 2: female American, you understand the concept of extra judicial killing,

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Speaker 2: George Floyd being a perfect example. But when we say

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Speaker 2: this stuff's okay, think about the president of the Philippines,

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Speaker 2: do territe right. He wanted to clear the streets of

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Speaker 2: drug addicts. A lot of them just disappeared. There was

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Speaker 2: no trial, Nobody got tried and convicted. People just disappeared,

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Speaker 2: generally speaking, assumed to have been killed. We don't want

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Speaker 2: to permission to that structure that Donald Trump is talking about.

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Speaker 2: You can like Milly, you cannot like Milly. You can

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Speaker 2: like the fact that Trump's fighting with Milly. None of

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Speaker 2: it matters. Donald Trump suggested suspending the constitution. Then he

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Speaker 2: said within twelve hours that he hadn't done that, except

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Speaker 2: he does it on social media, so we all have

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Speaker 2: a copy of it. He suggested suspending the Constitution of

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Speaker 2: the United States. That's straight up dictator stuff. Recommending people

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Speaker 2: get killed is straight up dictator stuff. Wanting to tear

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Speaker 2: down institutions of government is dictator stuff. Complaining about your

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Speaker 2: judges is dictator stuff. So we have to just remember

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Speaker 2: not to be numbed by it. We have to remember

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Speaker 2: this guy is seeing the quiet parts out loud, because

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Speaker 2: you and I both know people who say things like,

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Speaker 2: you know, Biden's really old, and I'm not sure he's

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Speaker 2: going to make it now. You know, he's not really

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Speaker 2: you see these polls, he's not really penetrating. He's not

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Speaker 2: getting through to people. And I don't know. And then

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Speaker 2: I know people who would like their taxes to be

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Speaker 2: lower and want less regulation and really like these Supreme

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Speaker 2: Court judges, and some people who like the fact that

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Speaker 2: abortion has been bad. You have to be very careful.

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Speaker 2: This is not about your personal choices. This is about

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Speaker 2: democracy or not democracy. Unfortunately, these elections are binary choices.

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Speaker 2: So you may not like all the choices you have,

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Speaker 2: and you may think that in a country of three

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Speaker 2: hundred and thirty million people, you should have better choices.

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Speaker 2: That's not actually the discussion right now. The discussion is

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Speaker 2: there's a guy who says out loud all the dangerous

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Speaker 2: parts every day and he's asking for your vote.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's really really important. And something that

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Speaker 1: kind of gets lost in all the drama is like

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Speaker 1: you have this binary choice of like do you want

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Speaker 1: to continue living in a democracy or do you want

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Speaker 1: to spin the wheel again? With Donald Trump? And like

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Speaker 1: the fact that he even like left the presidency, I

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Speaker 1: thought that he might not one.

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Speaker 2: Hundred percent agree with you. And now that we read

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Speaker 2: those indictments, I've just written the most geeky book in

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Speaker 2: the world. It's just a compendium of the indictments with

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Speaker 2: a forward by Mean.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about that.

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Speaker 2: I really want people to read it. I really want

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Speaker 2: people to read Jack Smith's January sixth indictment and Bonnie

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Speaker 2: Willis's Georgia indictments just as a enough. They're written as

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Speaker 2: somebody like you would understand that. They're written as a knob.

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Speaker 2: They're like a thriller. You almost read it and you

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Speaker 2: think this can't actually be true, right, this didn't happen

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Speaker 2: this way. But to understand the degree to which This

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Speaker 2: was not a fool's errant. This was not Rudy Giuliani

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Speaker 2: with makeup running down his face having a press conference

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Speaker 2: at the Four Seasons Landscaping place next to a porn

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Speaker 2: shop in Philly. We keep thinking of this as a

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Speaker 2: clown car of idiots who will trying to change the

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Speaker 2: result of the election. This was substantially more sophisticated. They

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Speaker 2: almost did it. Our institutions did not save us, Molly.

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Speaker 2: There were some people who either did the right thing

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Speaker 2: or didn't do the wrong thing, and that's what saved us.

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Speaker 2: And that is not enough for me in America in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, as this country contemplates two hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty years of its existence, this is not enough that

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Speaker 2: a few people who generally did the right thing saved

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Speaker 2: us from critical collapse. I think we need to take

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Speaker 2: this much more seriously than many people do.

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Speaker 1: So, since you've read these indictments and you've really studied

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Speaker 1: them and written an introduction on this book, you really

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Speaker 1: understand them. Tell me what were the things that really

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Speaker 1: struck you.

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Speaker 2: The thing that struck me was the fourth count in

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Speaker 2: Jack Smith's January sixth indictment. It's the smallest one. I mean,

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Speaker 2: out of the forty eight or forty nine pages of it,

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Speaker 2: it's the last page. It's just a paragraph. But it

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Speaker 2: is the idea that what Donald Trump did was he

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Speaker 2: attempted to take away the right for people to vote

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Speaker 2: and the right for their vote to be counted. Those

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Speaker 2: are the two things upon which all democracies exist. If

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Speaker 2: you believe that you have the right to vote, that

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Speaker 2: your vote will be counted. So it was the simplest charge,

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Speaker 2: but it was the idea that what he was doing

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Speaker 2: was not simply underminy. And by the way, page two

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Speaker 2: of that indictment says very specifically, donald Trump has First

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Speaker 2: Amendment rights to lie about the election, to claim that

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Speaker 2: he won the election, to do all that stuff. He

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Speaker 2: has those First Amendment rights. What he did went far

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Speaker 2: beyond that. It was a conspiracy to actually not have

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Speaker 2: votes counted and not have votes cast. And that's the

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Speaker 2: actual This is not an abstraction. The reason to read

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Speaker 2: these indictments is that it is not an abstraction. They

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Speaker 2: were actually aiming to do something very specific that would

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Speaker 2: cause the person who did not win the election to

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Speaker 2: win the election. And that is why we have to

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Speaker 2: be alarmed about a lot of people say, well, there

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Speaker 2: was an impeachment, it's done, he lost the election, he's gone.

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Speaker 2: We're moving on to other things. Uh, there is a

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Speaker 2: deep scar and rip in our democracy that needs to

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Speaker 2: be mended.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're also not moving on to other things

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Speaker 1: because he's a Republican front runner. I mean you could

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Speaker 1: maybe say that if someone else were that charge has

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Speaker 1: historical significance, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Our entire civil rights movement is based on the idea

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Speaker 2: that people tried to not have votes cast and not

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Speaker 2: have votes counted. That is the statute against which that

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Speaker 2: charge is made is a civil rights era and actually

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Speaker 2: post Civil War era statute. You're not allowed to do that.

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Speaker 2: You used to be allowed to do that. That's the

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Speaker 2: basis of this country from the end of slavery sort

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Speaker 2: of through to the early part of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 2: Was Okay, first we didn't allow black people and women

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Speaker 2: to have vote votes. Then we let black people have votes,

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Speaker 2: but we just want to make sure that they don't

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Speaker 2: actually cast those ballots. So we had all sorts of

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Speaker 2: ways of getting them not to cast it, and in

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Speaker 2: the event that they managed to actually cast the votes,

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Speaker 2: we could probably figure out a way to not have

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Speaker 2: them count it. And that continues molly in sophisticated ways

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Speaker 2: with gerrymandering things like that. We are still determined to

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Speaker 2: not have a world in which everybody gets to vote

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Speaker 2: and everybody's vote gets counted. There was somebody in one

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Speaker 2: of the western states who complained that we've made it

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Speaker 2: so easy to vote for a college kid that they

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Speaker 2: can literally roll out of bed and cast their ballot.

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Speaker 2: And I thought to myself, that sounds outstanding, right, that's

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Speaker 2: the goal. That's the goal. I should literally be able

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Speaker 2: to roll out of bed and cast my ballot. I

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Speaker 2: understand for security reasons that can't happen. Everybody can't go

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Speaker 2: beside everybody's bed to get their vote, But that's how

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Speaker 2: easy it should be. Our goal should be everybody who

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Speaker 2: can vote votes, and if you'd like to win the election,

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Speaker 2: you campaign to get those people to vote for you.

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Speaker 2: This trickery and bullshit about not having people vote. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I live in a county outside of Philadelphia where if

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Speaker 2: you want to do advance voting, it is such a

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Speaker 2: complicated thing. You got to put an envelope inside an

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Speaker 2: envelope with a photocopy of your it. It's designed that

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Speaker 2: died out of ten people will get it wrong. And

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Speaker 2: that's the point because they've figured out least in the

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Speaker 2: last few elections. It's Democrats who have been voting early.

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Speaker 2: So anybody who lives in those counties, they just make

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Speaker 2: it hard for you to vote. Whether you're a Democrat

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Speaker 2: or a Republican, the point is you're probably a Democrat,

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Speaker 2: so we're going to make it hard for you to vote.

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Speaker 1: Now you have segued here into Josh Shapiro talk.

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Speaker 2: That's just fantastic. It was a tremendous attorney general. He

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Speaker 2: took on the right issues. He was a real leader

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Speaker 2: during COVID in a state that was, you know, had

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Speaker 2: some problems with that. Pennsylvania is not understood to be

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Speaker 2: Georgia or Michigan or Arizona. Right in terms of the

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Speaker 2: craziness of the Republican Party. It's there. It's fully there.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the head of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, who

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Speaker 2: by the way, was running for governor, he had gone

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Speaker 2: to Arizona to watch that fraudut to see what he

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Speaker 2: could learn from it. They had hearings in Pennsylvania. I mean,

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Speaker 2: the thing about Josh Shapiro is that he not only

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Speaker 2: won this election because he was Josh Shapiro, he won

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Speaker 2: it because mainstream Republicans in Pennsylvania supported Josh Shapiro because

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Speaker 2: they definitely didn't want the guy.

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Speaker 1: The crazy guy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's crazy like that stuff. You know in Arizona,

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Speaker 2: we know that the people who ran for state wide office,

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Speaker 2: the Republicans didn't want them either. I mean, Liz Cheney

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Speaker 2: went down to Arizona to campaign for Democrats in Arizona. Michigan,

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Speaker 2: same thing. The head of the Republican Party in Michigan

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Speaker 2: was a woman who ran against the Secretary of State,

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Speaker 2: a complete election denier, and they're a bit crazy. Same

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Speaker 2: thing in Pennsylvania. So Josh Shapiro has returned normalcy to

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Speaker 2: Pennsylvania for the moment at least.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that Jos Shapiro has done

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Speaker 1: is he is now trying to enact automatic voter registration,

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Speaker 1: which has gotten Donald J. Trump to give up the

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Speaker 1: game once again. And Tim Hughes that automatic voter risk

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Speaker 1: registration hurts Republicans discuss the truth.

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Speaker 2: Is it doesn't. It don't hurt anybody in American history.

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Speaker 2: Mail in balloting advance balloting, open balloting days where you

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Speaker 2: can vote, you know, for many, many days. These, more

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Speaker 2: often than not in America, were Republican inventions right back

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Speaker 2: when the Republican Party cared about what democracy was. This

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Speaker 2: I don't know if we can characterize it that way anymore.

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Speaker 2: It's not a Republican or a democratic thing. It just isn't.

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Speaker 2: Having everybody vote as easily as they can is a

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Speaker 2: democracy thing. Now, Historically there have been groups, and in

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Speaker 2: the past they have been Democrats, and now they're Republicans

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Speaker 2: who have not wanted certain demographic groups who they thought

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Speaker 2: would vote a certain way to vote as much. I'm

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Speaker 2: generally talking about black people. And so wherever you are

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Speaker 2: in America, if you live in a black enclave or

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Speaker 2: an overwhelmingly black community or county or district, it's generally

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Speaker 2: speaking harder for you to vote than not. And so

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Speaker 2: we saw in Georgia, and we saw in Texas efforts

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Speaker 2: to try and fix that through redistricting or ways in

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Speaker 2: which you could get people to vote. You remember, there

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Speaker 2: was a ban, I think in Georgia on providing people

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Speaker 2: with water if they stood in line vote.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: My father was first South Asian, first Muslim first South

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Speaker 2: Asian to be elected to a level of parliament anywhere

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Speaker 2: in Canada back in nineteen eighty seven, and Molly, we

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Speaker 2: drove people to the polls, then we drove first if

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Speaker 2: that needed, we drove them to campaign office first and

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Speaker 2: we fed them. Then we drove them to the polls.

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Speaker 2: Then we drove them back. They want to come back

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Speaker 2: to the campaign office and have another meal, we'd serve

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Speaker 2: them again, then we'd drop them home. That's what society

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Speaker 2: should be. Feed everybody, give everybody drinks, drive them to

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Speaker 2: the polls. Anything you can do to make democracy more robust.

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Speaker 2: And by the way, we may have been driving people

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Speaker 2: to the polls and feeding people who were not voting

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Speaker 2: for my father. Who knows. I don't know, because nobody

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Speaker 2: knows what happens in that polling booth. But that's what

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Speaker 2: democracy should look like. And Donald Trump does give up

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Speaker 2: the game. He does say the quiet parts out loud,

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Speaker 2: but he's actually not correct. Republicans can simply campaign on

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Speaker 2: the basis of the fact that there's lots more voting.

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Speaker 2: You're automatically registered. Now all you have to do. It's

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Speaker 2: way easier if you want to do elect Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: just go out there and.

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Speaker 1: Vote right exactly. And I think that's a really good point.

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Speaker 1: The one last question we've got. We've run out of time,

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Speaker 1: but I have to ask you about this because it's

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Speaker 1: about your own network. This weekend, Donald Trump truths that

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Speaker 1: NBC MSNBC was guilty of treason discuss.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not losing a lot of sleep over over that.

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Speaker 2: I'm losing without Donald Trump becoming president again, because we're

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Speaker 2: all guilty of treason at that ping you, Molly, I

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Speaker 2: mean that I do worry about about this, this culture

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Speaker 2: of retribution where he said I am your retribution, which

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Speaker 2: is language that sounds very similar to what Mussolini used.

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Speaker 2: Talk of revenge, is talk of being an avenger. All

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Speaker 2: this nonsense that does scare me. The specific threat to MSNBC.

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Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, get a lot Donald Trump's world. We're

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Speaker 2: all treasoners and I'll wear that as a Thank you

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Speaker 2: so much for joining me, Amiley, Always my pleasure.

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Speaker 1: Congresswoman Summerly represents Pennsylvania's twelfth congressional district. Welcome to Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: Congresswoman in Summer late.

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Speaker 4: Thank for having me, Molly. It's good to be here.

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Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you back at a really important

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Speaker 1: moment pre shutdown. Tell me what it's looking like in

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Speaker 1: the House of Representatives right now?

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Speaker 3: WHOA.

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Speaker 4: Honestly, it's not looking good. And I think it's very

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Speaker 4: important that we say why is not looking good? Right?

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Speaker 4: This is a Republican shutdown. This is Kevin McCarthy's shut

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Speaker 4: down because he can't control right, the rowdiest, the most extreme,

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Speaker 4: the worst of his caucus. This has been the case

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Speaker 4: since day one. This is our third crisis, our third crisis.

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Speaker 4: This this man has tried to become speaker. So with

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Speaker 4: that in mind, right, I just think it's really clear

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Speaker 4: that he is one not capable of leading. He is

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Speaker 4: not capable of leading our caucus. He's not capable of

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Speaker 4: leading our government. And two he is still not willing

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Speaker 4: or able to put the needs of our country above

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Speaker 4: his knee. Had his name on the sign right above

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Speaker 4: the door, that's where we are. However long that lasts, right,

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Speaker 4: whether it's one day or a half a term, that

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Speaker 4: man wants his name on that sen I.

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Speaker 1: Feel like sometimes we ignore these democratic victories because we're

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Speaker 1: so busy talking about the Republican dysfunction. I want you

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Speaker 1: to talk for a minute about this Office of Gun

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Speaker 1: Violence Prevention bill that you were involved in with Maxwell Frost.

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Speaker 4: Kudos not just to Maxwell Frost, but really really kudos

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Speaker 4: to the organizers, the activists who had been working on this,

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Speaker 4: like who had been really truly leading the charge nationwide.

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Speaker 4: I want to start by saying it's important to know

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Speaker 4: that all of the victories we get, right, however big

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Speaker 4: or small, you know whether or not their first steps

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Speaker 4: are one of the really big ones.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: These victories are because people have been organizing, especially young

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Speaker 4: people who had been on the frontline, to bring attention

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Speaker 4: to gun balance, to bring a really sad perspective to

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Speaker 4: this right that just couldn't be ignored. And it's that persistence,

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Speaker 4: right that led Maxwell to team up with those of

435
00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:06,119
Speaker 4: us who are here in the House with them serving

436
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 4: this year to start to do something about it where

437
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 4: we can. Right, we recognize that with the Republican majority, right,

438
00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:14,480
Speaker 4: we recognize with the stranglehold of the NRA and other

439
00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:17,719
Speaker 4: Republican and just dark money lobbyists groups, that it's going

440
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:19,880
Speaker 4: to be very difficult to get some of the big

441
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:21,800
Speaker 4: things that we're looking for, like the soul rifles bands,

442
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,040
Speaker 4: things of that nature. But This Office of Gun valid

443
00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:27,199
Speaker 4: Prevention at the White House really is a testament to

444
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:31,199
Speaker 4: that movement's ability to move the Biden administration in the

445
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:33,159
Speaker 4: direction that we need to go and to start to

446
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:38,480
Speaker 4: look at to really put resources into programs, into efforts

447
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:41,159
Speaker 4: to start to stem the tide of gun violence, to

448
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,399
Speaker 4: start to address some of the more pressing needs that

449
00:21:43,440 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 4: we have, even as we're kind of working around, right,

450
00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:49,720
Speaker 4: this NRA majority or this NRA choke hold that they

451
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:51,160
Speaker 4: have on our government right now.

452
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean I feel like that was a

453
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,200
Speaker 1: pretty big deal. We've never had a president start in

454
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:58,760
Speaker 1: office of I mean, like that's a pretty big deal.

455
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,359
Speaker 4: And it is so right moldy, like we really are

456
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:03,919
Speaker 4: not talking about these things when we do get a victory.

457
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 4: And what that ends up doing is it makes us

458
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 4: think that our organizing efforts that are rallying to the

459
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:13,000
Speaker 4: polls have no effect. That's it's not always true, right,

460
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:15,639
Speaker 4: Sometimes it is slow, sometimes it is a slow slog.

461
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 4: But to see the President move on an office gun

462
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:21,359
Speaker 4: balnce permission, that is such a big indication that this

463
00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:24,200
Speaker 4: is an important issue, right that he sees, that the

464
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:28,879
Speaker 4: administration sees and Congress see that our nation can't go

465
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 4: on like this anymore. That this is going to be

466
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 4: a cultural shift that we have to make. Right. Gun

467
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 4: balance isn't just going to be a gun safety laws right,

468
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:41,040
Speaker 4: gun balance prevention and addressing some of these issues around

469
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,960
Speaker 4: gun balance, school shootings, my shootings. Right, this is a

470
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:48,240
Speaker 4: cultural issue and getting to it and really digging in

471
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 4: or recognizing that there's no short term fixed But this

472
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 4: is going to be a persistently chiffing away and persistently

473
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 4: working on it, persistently directative resources to write the folks

474
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 4: who are doing you know, gun balance, interrupt the folks

475
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:03,720
Speaker 4: who are on the ground doing that work, letting them

476
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 4: know that there is a place that is focused on

477
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:06,880
Speaker 4: getting resources for that. Its important.

478
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:13,520
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this Senator Menande's indictment. It is

479
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: his second indictment. There's a lot of fire. Democrats are

480
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: really working hard to be the party of anti corruption.

481
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: I think your thoughts on why Menendez must step down

482
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: are really important in germane.

483
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what, I think that sometimes those of

484
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 4: us in these positions that we forget that we serve

485
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 4: at the wheel and the trust of the people. These

486
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 4: are not jobs that we are guaranteed it is a privilege.

487
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 4: We are not owed it. But also part of that

488
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 4: privilege to serve in this job is to maintain that trust.

489
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 4: It is to maintain the trust of the people who

490
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 4: have sent us here, the trust of people truly, honestly right,

491
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 4: who are struggling with government, who are struggling with the

492
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 4: royal of government. Right now, we're looking at unprecedented amounts

493
00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 4: of flagrant corruption from the Supreme Court. We're looking at

494
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,439
Speaker 4: people like George San Tos not just get to be

495
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 4: able to conn their way in here. Donald Trump conned

496
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 4: his way into the presidency, but we're looking at to

497
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 4: be able to keep their jobs. And then when we

498
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 4: see one side of the out a freasingly becoming fascist,

499
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 4: increasingly becoming just blatantly really I would say uncaring about

500
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 4: the perception of corruption, the perception of you know, the

501
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 4: illegitimacy of our offices, our institutions. We can't afford to

502
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:27,679
Speaker 4: play into that at all. Right now, where we are

503
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 4: dealing with democracy versus fascism, where we're going into election

504
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 4: cycle where everything is at state right, we've already lost

505
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 4: right for the first generation to lose rights, and right

506
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 4: now we're one in the twenty twenty four, and we

507
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 4: have folks who are playing around. We are playing around

508
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 4: with the trusted, the American people. This isn't a job

509
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 4: where you are able or supposed to come in here

510
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,239
Speaker 4: and take corrupt deals. You're not supposed to be able

511
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 4: to enrich yourself today. We have to get to the

512
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 4: correct for that. Right, American people do not want their

513
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 4: politicians to go into this role and enrich themselves while

514
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:57,360
Speaker 4: the community is being suck dry, while student loan did

515
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 4: is starting back up, right, while women in birthy folks

516
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 4: are worried about being able to get either abortion care

517
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 4: or be able to deliver safely. Right while you know,

518
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 4: our ways is are stagnant. A corporate bossing are taking

519
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 4: in more and more money. Right, we see corruption at

520
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,240
Speaker 4: the corporate level, we see corruption at the government level.

521
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 4: We're seeking coruption at the court. And then what that's

522
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,360
Speaker 4: going to do is going to depressed turnout, is going

523
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 4: to make American people feel like this is not worth

524
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 4: you know, investing in, participating in, and it's going to

525
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,399
Speaker 4: really cause a hopelessness that we just cannot afford to

526
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 4: have right now. It is disempowering and disenfranchising, and.

527
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: I think when we talk about like every day is

528
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: more corruption from Clarence Thomas. But we just learned recently

529
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: that he was involved in being at least at at

530
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 1: least two different Koch Brothers, donor Summits. This is a

531
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: member of the Supreme Court. I mean, if we are

532
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: going to have the moral high ground as Democrats, we

533
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: must stay on it.

534
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have to speak truth to power, even when

535
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 4: that power is our friend, even when that power is us.

536
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,680
Speaker 4: Speaking truth is an important charge when you are in leadership,

537
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 4: and all of us are in leadership. Right if we

538
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,719
Speaker 4: are elected by the people of audition, we are in

539
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 4: some form of leadership and we have to take that

540
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 4: incredibly seriously. So yeah, right, we can't call out Clarence

541
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:16,479
Speaker 4: Thomas to be clear lagrant lagrant corruption. There is no

542
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,919
Speaker 4: world in which Clarence Thomas believed that what he was

543
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,679
Speaker 4: doing was the right thing. In fact, if you were

544
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 4: at other levels of the judiciary, a local level magistrates,

545
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 4: court of common please, state level courts, they all know

546
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 4: and they all have codes of conducts that say they're

547
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:34,639
Speaker 4: not allowed. Not only are you not allowed to be

548
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 4: the draw at a fundraiser for a donor, for a

549
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 4: donor base that has business before the court. The we

550
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 4: know that, but also know, I know judges who are

551
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 4: actually elected, unlike our Supreme Court right appoints it. I

552
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,880
Speaker 4: know judges who are elected, they have to run for office,

553
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 4: and they're still not even able to ask for money

554
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 4: for themselves, Like they're not allowed to fundraise for themselves.

555
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 4: So in no world should a Supreme Court justice be

556
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,880
Speaker 4: able to fundraise on behalf of organizations, on behalf of politicians,

557
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,360
Speaker 4: all behalf of donor networks, all behalf of dark superbacks.

558
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 4: Right that had business before the court. Right, we have

559
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 4: to then at our level. Right, we now because we

560
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,159
Speaker 4: see and because we're in an era where we recognize

561
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 4: that this Supreme Court and the Conservative members have no shame,

562
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 4: They abide no unwritten code of content. That means we

563
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 4: need to write some codes of content. That means that

564
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 4: we need to start to move on transparency acts. We

565
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 4: need to ensure that we are creating accountability mechanisms through

566
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 4: our body to hold them accountable, to make sure that

567
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 4: there are codes of contents that reflect the same codes

568
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 4: of ethics and contents that every other profession has. There's

569
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 4: no reason, in fact, it is dangerous you know in

570
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 4: any other body there are codes of ethics. This is

571
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court. They've literally just made it unsafe and

572
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 4: even deadly for women and birthing people to become pregnant.

573
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 4: They took away rights for black and brown people to

574
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 4: get educated.

575
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 2: This is the group.

576
00:27:57,800 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 4: These three folks, more than anybody, need overs.

577
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: They certainly do. Are you disappointed that more dumb grunts

578
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: in the Senate haven't called for Menendez to step down?

579
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: Or are you confident like I am, that they will

580
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: today and tomorrow.

581
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 4: I've been seeing some more. I think I just saw

582
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 4: both of my senators have now called for resignation, and

583
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 4: I think that more people will. I don't think disappointed

584
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 4: is the right word, because you kind of have to

585
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 4: have an expectation of something to be disappointed. I think

586
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 4: that what people really underestimate is that these books are

587
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 4: serving with their friends. They're serving with their friends or

588
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 4: good or for bad. And when your friend does something wrong,

589
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 4: your first, asthink does not always to call it out again.

590
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 4: I think Dumbledore said right, not shouting out the person

591
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 4: who creates double doore, but Dumbledore himself.

592
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: Yes, an important cavit.

593
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 4: Important gobby, not a shout out not a shout out

594
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,040
Speaker 4: of the person who created But Baba Dumbledore once said

595
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 4: that it's difficult to call out your enemies, and sometimes

596
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 4: it's even more difficult to call out your friends, but

597
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 4: we still got to do it.

598
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so interesting because it's like, you think about

599
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: all the Republicans who refused to call out Donald Trump

600
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: again and again and again, and it is really so

601
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: important because part of how Donald Trump was created was

602
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: because of a weak Republican party that refused to hold

603
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: him to account for the things he did.

604
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 4: Yes, and I think that he was a perfect store.

605
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 4: We have a Republican Party that has increasingly shameless in

606
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 4: their pursuit of power, power by any means. Right, That's

607
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 4: where we are. This is the ongoing insurrection. But also

608
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 4: there are other institutions that have colluded. The Democratic Party

609
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 4: played a role in this because as long as we

610
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 4: as Democrats are failing to realize the ways in which

611
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 4: the two party duopoly has played into the polarization, has

612
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 4: played into even the bollying that we have of going

613
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 4: back and forth between administrations, the fundraising that goes into it,

614
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 4: all of that. And I'm not this is not a conspiracy.

615
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 4: This is not to say that this is the both said.

616
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 4: I don't want anybody to think that the Republicans that

617
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 4: the Democrats are the same. My goodness, they are not.

618
00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 4: They're absolutely not. But even we Democrats have to realize

619
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 4: that sometimes the call out has to be swiftter and

620
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 4: harsher when people are doing things, when Republicans are doing

621
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 4: things that they should not be doing, things that are

622
00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 4: harming our nation, harming our democracy, harming the economy, which

623
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 4: means not just our local and our and our national

624
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 4: kind of our global economy. We need to have harsher

625
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 4: words than we need a robust Republican party, right. We

626
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 4: need to have harsher word than bipartisanship by any means.

627
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 2: Right.

628
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 4: We need to say that, you know what, this is

629
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 4: a part that is increasingly illegitimate and we will not

630
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 4: stand to legitimize it. We need a media that understands

631
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 4: its role, right, a media that where Donald Trump grew, right,

632
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 4: that man grew and said off of the unearned media

633
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 4: or the earned media that he got throughout his election.

634
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 4: What lessons have been learned from that? And I'm not

635
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 4: seeing lessons learned. I still see the Republican Party that

636
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 4: is committed to its pathway, a democratic party that's adjusting

637
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 4: in real time, which is important that we are making

638
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 4: the adjustment, but a media that's still trying to grapple, Well,

639
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 4: what is its role in unwap laying or challenge democracy.

640
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 4: When we report every single thing that VI that Ramaswami

641
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 4: says that's racist and harmful, or everything that Donald Trump

642
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 4: says that is insurrection minded, without any coveyats, without any

643
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 4: fact checking, sometimes without any context, we're perpetuating it.

644
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a really important point. And we

645
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: all have to, especially in the mainstream media, adjust to

646
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: this sort of brave new Republican world. So you are

647
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: in this ground zero for Republican Fucktory right now, which

648
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: is the United States Congress. Kevin McCarthy. He is clearly

649
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: does not have control of his caucus. Matt Gates is

650
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: clearly doing the will of Donald Trump. I mean, where

651
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: do you go from here? And that is the sixty

652
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 1: four million dollar question? Is that the number that it

653
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: really is? We talked about a lot. Donald Trump wants everyone.

654
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 4: He said, you know, he could pull a gun out

655
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 4: if that noon shoots some let and that's proven to

656
00:31:57,040 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 4: be true.

657
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: And he may have bought that gun this weekend, out

658
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: the gun this weekend.

659
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,959
Speaker 4: Which charges we're being in charges right is that we

660
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 4: have existential crises that we're working through right now. I

661
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 4: think the first thing that we're working through, obviously is

662
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 4: the government shut down. Right there are a role like

663
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 4: people who are going to be harmed at every level

664
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 4: of the federal government, and then the trickle through their families,

665
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 4: through their communities, right through our schools. We're going to

666
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 4: see that trickle as we have in it passed. We

667
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 4: got to sort that out come hell, how water we

668
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 4: have to sort this out for working class people. The

669
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 4: long retim question is is what are we going to

670
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 4: do about this part? What are we going to do

671
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 4: about the Republican Party? And they're just shame with power graphs,

672
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 4: And again, I think that goes back to the way

673
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 4: that Democrats interact with them, the way that we talk

674
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 4: about them honestly, the way that we start to reflect

675
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 4: on how we navigate right That goes back to dealing

676
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 4: with not just me nindads, but everything that we do.

677
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 4: The way that we navigate the way that we interact

678
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 4: with money and politics. Systems have to shift right now.

679
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 4: If we're going to if our the markets is gone

680
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 4: to sur bath, systems have to shift. Means that even

681
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 4: things that Democrats are advantage that get an advantage from, like,

682
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 4: we're gonna have to start to reassess that because anything

683
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 4: you know, that breathes life into this monster that the

684
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 4: Republican Party is becoming has to be nipped in a

685
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 4: butt right now. And that's gonna be tough, right, That's

686
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 4: gonna be tough, but it's real.

687
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a really important point. There are all

688
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: these Republicans that very likely will lose their seats or

689
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: can lose their seats, you know, if Democrats play their

690
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: cards right. I mean, do you think that it's possible

691
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: that those Republicans join together with Democrats to get us

692
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 1: out of the shutdown.

693
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:36,719
Speaker 4: I think that those are the conversations that are happening.

694
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 4: It's I'm reading the room correctly. I don't feel like

695
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 4: the majority of Republicans e didn't necessarily want this shutdown,

696
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 4: but it's a train that's going off the tracks right.

697
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 4: This isn't the reilment that we're watching in world time.

698
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 4: So even if they don't want the shutdown now, there

699
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 4: are ways on which they've empowered the freedom cack is,

700
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, the freedom clocks might be a gnat

701
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 4: to them right now, right, they might just be an

702
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 4: annoying slat of them, But listen, they helped to position

703
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 4: them to where they are. So we're going to need

704
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 4: a little bit more to talk. Right. What we need

705
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 4: them to do is to take them on head on.

706
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 4: They got to take them on head on, and that

707
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 4: might mean that they need to start to reclaim their

708
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 4: little conference. That might mean that, like, whoever these folks are,

709
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 4: I'm gonna need them to have some energy clip behind

710
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 4: and getting rid of them. Then, right, if they are

711
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 4: working out to how dangerous they are, and this is

712
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 4: not the direction they want to go in, and they

713
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 4: have to put their money where their mouth is. So

714
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 4: the first thing that they have to do is to

715
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 4: team up with Democrats to get a deal of that

716
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 4: saves the American working families, that just keeps the light

717
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 4: on for the government, keeps light on for poor working

718
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 4: class people. Right first. The second thing they need to

719
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 4: do is that they need to be committed to replacing

720
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 4: these people. They got to be committed to using their platforms,

721
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 4: using their pocketbooks to readirect this Republican movement because this

722
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 4: is not going to be the last time they do this.

723
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 4: It's the third time this in the one hundred and

724
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 4: eighteen that's right.

725
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: I don't want to laugh because people are being hurt, right,

726
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: veterans and you know, disabled people, people are not going

727
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 1: to be able to get healthcare. I mean there will

728
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:00,839
Speaker 1: be huge real world reverberations for working people.

729
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 4: All right, ch out here, yeah, baba formula you.

730
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, food stamp. So I do think it's really

731
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: important that we take this very seriously. But it really

732
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: is true. They waited for I mean, Republicans really wanted

733
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 1: Democrats to handle those well.

734
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 4: Republicans wanted to be in the majority. Right when you're

735
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 4: in the majority, and you you were in the gay

736
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 4: on governor, you know, you can't want somebody else to

737
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 4: come and do it for you. You got to make

738
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 4: the hard decisions, and the hard decisions right now are

739
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,720
Speaker 4: getting this deal done, keeping his promises and holding McCarthy

740
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 4: accountable not to the Freed and Caucus, but to the

741
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,919
Speaker 4: American people. So they got to redirect this one. They

742
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:39,360
Speaker 4: have to. What did Matt Gates say, we can't blame

743
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 4: Joe Biden, we can't blame the Democratic Caucus for not

744
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 4: moving their bills and not voting up. They can't blame

745
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 4: even Chuck Schubert, and he said it's on him. He

746
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 4: say him, but he said it's on Kevin McCarthy.

747
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: Representatively. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope

748
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:56,879
Speaker 1: you'll come back.

749
00:35:57,080 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 4: I would love to come back. But listen, the only

750
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 4: way that can come back, I'm gonna do this shamelessly,

751
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 4: as shameless as the Republicans.

752
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: Yes, let's go.

753
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 4: If I want to come back, right, I got to

754
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 4: beat back against the exact same forces that we're seeing

755
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 4: right now corrupted on our Supreme Court. Yeah, no, that's

756
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 4: not even hot proberly. Literally, the same folks who are

757
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 4: buying out our Supreme Court, right singer, the folks who

758
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 4: are flying you know, a leito out having them on

759
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:22,759
Speaker 4: a shot, those are also the same people who are

760
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 4: funding my opposition, even million to the folks who they

761
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 4: put in five million against me last time. Those same

762
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 4: folks promising millions and millions of dollars. Literally right now

763
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 4: you can read the articles. They are promising millions to

764
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 4: defeat me because I'm fighting back against corruption in the court, right,

765
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 4: because we're calling out their dark Dono net who are

766
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 4: just harming and keeping black women and progressive women out

767
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 4: of Congress. But they're also buying our courts to erodear

768
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 4: rights to abortion care and healthcare and so much more.

769
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 4: Right so, right now, I'm going into a primary, and

770
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 4: it's going to be early. It's probably going to be

771
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 4: as early as mark, which means we're months away, and

772
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 4: we still have to raise so much money. Black women

773
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 4: are the most underfunded candidates in our country. So there

774
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,240
Speaker 4: are people who appreciate the voice that I have, the platform,

775
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 4: the way I use my platform, the way that we

776
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 4: stand up for working class people, for workers, for labor,

777
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 4: you know, for our environments, for gun safety, for schools,

778
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:16,280
Speaker 4: for health care. But we have to have a funded

779
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 4: campaign to fight back against these very people because they're

780
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 4: coming for me. They're coming far. So please send you folks, please,

781
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 4: if you appreciate the work that we're trying to do,

782
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 4: the work that we are doing, the movement that we

783
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 4: are keeping alive, go to Summer FORPA dot com. Anything

784
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 4: any amount helps us five dollars, ten dollars, but also

785
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 4: the max of the thirty three hundred dollars. Right, all

786
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 4: of that helps us to keep this movement alive. And

787
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 4: this is not a selfish ask. This is a selfless

788
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 4: ask because our movement depends on it. So where they

789
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 4: attack black women in distress like Pittsburgh, we know that

790
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 4: they're going to then take that and expand that and

791
00:37:46,239 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 4: stop our movement in its track. Wherever we show up.

792
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: Thank you, Summer, Thank you, Mollie. Heather Cox Richardson is

793
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:59,359
Speaker 1: a historian and author of Democracy Awakening, Notes on the

794
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: State of a America. Heather Cox Richardson, Welcome to Fast Politics.

795
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:05,959
Speaker 6: Oh, it's such a joy to be here.

796
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to have you. So let's talk about Democracy

797
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 1: Awakening Notes on the State of America. What are your

798
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 1: notes on the statement? Give us the elevator pitch.

799
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 6: Well, the elevator pitch is. This is a book about

800
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 6: how we got here, where here is, and how we

801
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 6: get out of it. But the idea of Notes on

802
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 6: the State of America is this is intended in a

803
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 6: way to be a snapshot of this particular moment in America,

804
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 6: which I really think is a moment in which we

805
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 6: are transitioning from one kind of country to another, and

806
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 6: what that might look like, especially if everybody puts a

807
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 6: shoulder to the wheel.

808
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: Kind of country were we before? And what kind of

809
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 1: country are we now?

810
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 6: Well?

811
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 2: Before?

812
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 4: And now is?

813
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 6: I mean now is pretty easy. Before is a little

814
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 6: bit sweeping. But the argument in the book is that

815
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 6: the modern day political situation in which we find ourselves

816
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 6: began in nineteen thirty seven when a group calling themselves

817
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 6: conservatives coalesced around the idea of essentially taking the country

818
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 6: back to the era before the New Deal, and they

819
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 6: called themselves conservatives, although one of my big arguments is

820
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:16,879
Speaker 6: that they were not, that they were in fact radical activists,

821
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 6: and that from nineteen thirty seven to twenty sixteen they

822
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 6: managed to convince a number of people to give up

823
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 6: on democracy. And then Donald Trump entered the scene in

824
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen and took office in twenty seventeen. And actually,

825
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 6: one of the things I found most shocking about writing

826
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 6: the book, because I know that Trump presidency so well,

827
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 6: was that when you strip the noise out of it,

828
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 6: the piece is about oh so and so got fired, Oh,

829
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 6: this letter was sent, Oh Congress did this? When you

830
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 6: strip the noise out, the Trump presidency was really a

831
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:51,919
Speaker 6: very concerted move toward authoritarianism in this country. But then

832
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,359
Speaker 6: instead of throwing up our hands and saying we're all

833
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 6: going to hell in a handbasket. The final third of

834
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 6: the book, to me is the most interesting one, and

835
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 6: that is is sort of a blueprint for how in

836
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 6: the past Americans, of all people, but really led by

837
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 6: marginalized Americans, have reasserted the principles of the Declaration of

838
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 6: Independence and have managed increasingly over time to expand that

839
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 6: definition to include more and more people. So it ends

840
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 6: up on a very hopeful note.

841
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: When you think about this idea of authoritarianism. I mean,

842
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,359
Speaker 1: how many times does Trump need to be defeated before

843
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 1: we get out of this thing.

844
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 6: I think it's crucial to remember that Trump is not

845
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 6: himself alone meteor coming from nowhere, that in fact, he's

846
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 6: a really interesting historical figure because in a way, he

847
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 6: was never a politician. He was a salesman who could

848
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:47,800
Speaker 6: read a certain part of the US population and see

849
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 6: exactly what they had been primed to want. So it's

850
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 6: not a question of simply defeating Trump. It's an issue

851
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 6: of defeating the entire movement Conservative project, which, as I say,

852
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 6: began in nineteen thirty s. But then even before that,

853
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 6: the United States has always had one strand of its

854
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 6: history that was supportive of authoritarianism. I mean, it's a

855
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 6: truism at this point that Hitler got some of his

856
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 6: key ideas from the United States Jim Crow laws and

857
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 6: Indigenous reservations. So there is this whole, long strand of

858
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 6: American history and American thought that says some people are

859
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 6: better than others and have the right to rule and

860
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 6: should rule. So it's not just a question of getting

861
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 6: rid of Trump himself or even of the manipulation of

862
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 6: our political discourse to give us an authoritarian like Trump.

863
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 6: There is really a need to grapple with that whole concept,

864
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 6: which is so antithetical to the genius idea on which

865
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 6: the United States was founded, which was that everybody has

866
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:48,720
Speaker 6: created equal and as a right to say in their government.

867
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 6: That's a principle that defined the United States but has

868
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 6: never actually been realized.

869
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: Right, let's talk about what it means to sort of

870
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: defeat this kind of authoritarianism. Okay, how do.

871
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 6: You want how do you want to get into this?

872
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:07,760
Speaker 1: I mean, is that no more republican party?

873
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 4: What is that?

874
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 6: Well, so in the theoretical vision is to recognize as

875
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 6: the Republican party of today did early on that the

876
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 6: way you change people's minds is through the way you

877
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 6: talk about things is through rhetoric, and that you can

878
00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 6: use the history of America and the rhetoric of authoritarianism

879
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 6: to convince people to give up on their democracy, which

880
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 6: a lot of Americans have at this point. And one

881
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:34,760
Speaker 6: of the key pieces of that is to convince people

882
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 6: that somewhere in the past there was a magical moment

883
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 6: in which your country was whole and perfect, and that

884
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 6: kind of history, I think, is an authoritarian history. And

885
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 6: you can argue this through Hannah arent and Eric Hoffer

886
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 6: and all the people who grappled with what it looked

887
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 6: like to convince people to embrace authoritarianism. But once you've

888
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 6: recognized that, it's a pretty simple matter and a pretty

889
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 6: easily accessible matter for everyone to refuse to use that language,

890
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 6: to use instead a different kind of language that the

891
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 6: United States has used over time at different periods, to say, no,

892
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 6: that's not what we stand for. We don't stand for

893
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:14,919
Speaker 6: the idea of a few people ruling over everybody else.

894
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 6: We stand for the idea of equality. And crucially, when

895
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 6: we have done that, we have altered our laws in

896
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 6: such a way that it broadened economic opportunity, it decreased

897
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:29,399
Speaker 6: the extremes of wealth in this country, and invariably, when

898
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 6: we did those things, racial and gender equality got significantly better. So,

899
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 6: in a way, a very simple formula, and it sounds

900
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 6: like that I'm looking at and it sounds like almost

901
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 6: too easy, but it is theoretically informed both with the

902
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 6: stories of how authoritarians rise, but also with our own history.

903
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,279
Speaker 6: I mean, you look at moments when this country has

904
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 6: made huge strides, both in economic equality and also racial

905
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,720
Speaker 6: and gender equality, and they are always ones in which

906
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 6: leaders have wreckedize that our democratic system has been taken

907
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 6: over by a small group of people, an oligarchy or

908
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 6: in this case, an authoritarian figure, and have said, wait

909
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 6: a minute, no, no, no, no, this is not who we

910
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 6: stand for. And we know that we don't stand for that,

911
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 6: because this is not what we stand for. And we

912
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 6: know that we don't stand for that because look at

913
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 6: our history, look at our documents, look at the Declaration

914
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:24,479
Speaker 6: of Independence, look at Abraham Lincoln, look at the Civil

915
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 6: Rights movement, look at all these different moments in American

916
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 6: history where we have been much better than we are today.

917
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,800
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that is a really important point.

918
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 1: So those times when Americans have sort of come together

919
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: and been less terrible to each other, Like, are you

920
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 1: thinking of as sort of a Lincoln? Who are the

921
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: historical figures that fit well.

922
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 6: Lincoln is an easy one to point to because most

923
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 6: people know who he is, and he very much was

924
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 6: the person who articulated that in his era, Southern enslavers

925
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 6: and the large Southern enslavers had come not only to

926
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,400
Speaker 6: dominate the Demmocratic Party, but through at the American South

927
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,240
Speaker 6: and then through at the American nation by taking over

928
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 6: the White House and the Supreme Court and the Senate,

929
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 6: leaving only the House of Representatives to stand against them.

930
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 6: And of course he built a movement behind that. But

931
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 6: one of the points of Democracy Awakening is that it's

932
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 6: a real mistake to look at our history and see

933
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 6: just those shining figures, who are individuals, That these movements

934
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 6: have always come from the bottom up. They have always

935
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:32,799
Speaker 6: been characterized by a community, and they have always been

936
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 6: characterized pretty seriously by shifting political alliances. So while you

937
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:39,960
Speaker 6: want to look at somebody like Abraham Lincoln, because he's

938
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 6: an easy figure, people know who he is and you

939
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 6: can point to his record, which is pretty complete. You know,

940
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 6: you think about people like doctor Hector Garcia, who recognized

941
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 6: after World War Two that it was really important that

942
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 6: Mexicans and Hispanics be recognized as equal American citizens, and

943
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 6: how that gradually snowballed into a movement that includes then

944
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 6: Senator Lennon Bains Johnson and later President LBJ that later

945
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,800
Speaker 6: on becomes things like the Civil Rights Act of sixty

946
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 6: four and later on the Voting Rights Act of sixty five.

947
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 6: You know, it's a mistake, I think, to start at

948
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 6: the end. Similarly, if you look at black rights. One

949
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 6: of the things that really jumped out to me about

950
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 6: this book and that I really loved about it, was

951
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 6: that the way we have told the Second civil Rights

952
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 6: movement in the nineteen fifty, sixties, seventies and on has

953
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 6: been to focus on a few really shining examples. And

954
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 6: there are examples of people like Bob Moses and Fanny

955
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 6: Luhaim are people who are in the pantheon, Emmett Till

956
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 6: or Rosa Parks. But if you actually move back, the

957
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:47,280
Speaker 6: group that really informed all Americans about the unequal conditions

958
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 6: under which African Americans lived was the NAACP, which is

959
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 6: out there publishing the crisis, and it is publicizing lynching,

960
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 6: and it is going around to places like around the

961
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 6: South where Rosa Parks was electing stories of sexual assaults

962
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,759
Speaker 6: and lynching long before anybody knew that she was not

963
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 6: going to sit down on a bus. So that community

964
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 6: organizing in that sense of taking back your government to

965
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 6: be what it says it could be in the Declaration

966
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 6: of Independence is a really important part of the piece,

967
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:19,319
Speaker 6: rather than simply looking at the Abraham Lincolns of the world.

968
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,160
Speaker 1: Right a really good point. So give me sort of think,

969
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 1: if you are a person who listens to this podcast

970
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 1: and you're worried about democracy, what are the things you

971
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:29,360
Speaker 1: should be doing well.

972
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 6: So everybody always asks that, and there's the obvious thing.

973
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 6: You should vote, and you should get people to vote,

974
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 6: and you should donate to the causes that you care about.

975
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 6: But one of the things that I really wanted to

976
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 6: do with this project was to make people feel empowered.

977
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 6: Because if you are an idealist as I am, which

978
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 6: means that we believe that ideas change the world, we

979
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 6: know the most effective way to change the way people

980
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 6: think is to take up oxygen to re assert a

981
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 6: vision in public discourse. And I just made that sound

982
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 6: really fancy, but what I really mean is take up oxygen.

983
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 6: Talk to people. When somebody says something that is inaccurate

984
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,239
Speaker 6: about the way the United States works, correct them, make it.

985
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 6: The same way that the radical right managed to take

986
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 6: over our political discourse was simply by repeating garbage again

987
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 6: and again and again. There is no reason that we

988
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:23,759
Speaker 6: can't reassert a reality based community by simply speaking up.

989
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 6: And that's something you can do at the supermarket without

990
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 6: feeling like you have to go be a hero. That

991
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 6: is precisely the way that people like the John Birch

992
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 6: society corrupted the country to begin with, and it's precisely

993
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:38,279
Speaker 6: the way that we as people who care about the

994
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:40,240
Speaker 6: values of this country, could take it back.

995
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: So you think this is a propaganda war.

996
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 6: Yes, except my big thing is that what we have

997
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 6: lost really in America, very deliberately since the nineteen fifties

998
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 6: on the part of the right, is a reality based community.

999
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 6: This actually happened. And if you're on Twitter right now

1000
00:48:57,800 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 6: or any of the social media sites and you look

1001
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 6: things like Senator Marshall Blackburn is spewing on Twitter, or

1002
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 6: Senator Ted Cruz from Texas. It's just not reality based.

1003
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 6: And that idea of flooding the zone with shit, as

1004
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 6: Steve Bannon put it, is a really very effective propaganda tool,

1005
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 6: but it's not real. I mean simply reasserting reality, which

1006
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 6: I think at the end of the day most people

1007
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 6: actually want, is a really effective way to stand up

1008
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 6: for the kind of you know, enlightenment based community, reality

1009
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 6: based community on which this country was founded.

1010
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you think that it's just people, when they

1011
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: get more reality, will come back to reality. I mean

1012
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 1: some of that polling sort of says that these people

1013
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,760
Speaker 1: support Trump. I mean Trump supporters support Trump over their family,

1014
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:51,919
Speaker 1: over their religion, over this, over the That is your

1015
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: supposition here that this crew is will come back to

1016
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:57,760
Speaker 1: reality if offered it or now.

1017
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 6: No, I think that the real Trumpers are gone. And again,

1018
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 6: when I say that, it's not simply my opinion. If

1019
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 6: you actually study the theories of authoritarianism and how the

1020
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 6: political belief systems work, you know there's a significant portion

1021
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 6: of people who are just going to follow an authoritarian

1022
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 6: down whatever road that person goes. And there are really

1023
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:22,719
Speaker 6: interesting studies of why that is the case and the

1024
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 6: degree to which people's identity gets wrapped up into an

1025
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:30,280
Speaker 6: authoritarian in part because of how badly that authoritarian acts.

1026
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 6: That is, once you have said okay, I'm along for

1027
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 6: the ride on this, it's very hard then to say, okay,

1028
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 6: but I'm not on the ride for this, because you

1029
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 6: have to admit that you were wrong before, and by

1030
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:42,439
Speaker 6: the time you've gone a long way down that road,

1031
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 6: it's too much work to come back from that. And

1032
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 6: interestingly enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger did a really interesting video about this,

1033
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:51,280
Speaker 6: I think it was about a year ago, in which

1034
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 6: he actually directly addressed people who were embracing Donald Trump

1035
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:58,879
Speaker 6: and authoritarianism in this country. It's the only time I've

1036
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 6: actually seen somebody directly embrace them and say, that's going

1037
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 6: to be really hard to get out of where you are.

1038
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 6: But even if they are lost, the real issue in

1039
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 6: a democratic society are those people in the middle, the

1040
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 6: people who aren't really paying very much attention. And that's

1041
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:17,400
Speaker 6: why I talk about taking up oxygen. I know a

1042
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 6: lot of people who vote Republican because their parents did

1043
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 6: and their grandparents did and whatever. As long as it's

1044
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:26,759
Speaker 6: gotten our by it, they're going to, you know, because

1045
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 6: they're really not paying attention and how bad could it be?

1046
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 6: Those people are reachable, and that's when I talk about

1047
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 6: taking up oxygen. That's when somebody's saying, you know, that's

1048
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 6: not really what's happening has the potential to make a difference.

1049
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:43,840
Speaker 1: Thank you, Heathery, so interesting and so important.

1050
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:45,720
Speaker 6: Well, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure

1051
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 6: to talk to you.

1052
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 2: They're no more.

1053
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:53,640
Speaker 1: We're changing up the format today because we have been

1054
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: at trip Fest together. We are now we've survived the

1055
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 1: RFK Junior interruption, are comrades in arms, and so this

1056
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: moment of fuckeray is a special one for you. I

1057
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: know that you've seen it because I texted it to

1058
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: you earlier. Our ex mayor, one of the few mayors

1059
00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 1: that we really one of the few Democrats that has

1060
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: really gotten our ire one, Bill de Blasio.

1061
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:21,960
Speaker 5: That's kind of funny how they're always New York mayors.

1062
00:52:22,520 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: It's only it's called the Curse of the New York Mayor,

1063
00:52:26,600 --> 00:52:29,680
Speaker 1: and we are truly cursed. We now have the New

1064
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 1: York Post, which is our local paper, but it is

1065
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,840
Speaker 1: owned by Rupert Murdoch, so it tends to run a

1066
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 1: little fascist. But they tweeted out and again I'm just

1067
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: gonna read it to you because it's so upsetting. And

1068
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:47,000
Speaker 1: then I want your first your first thought, horn dog,

1069
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 1: horn dog. They of course they're so excited anytime they

1070
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: can use that horn dog.

1071
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 4: X his honor.

1072
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 1: Bill Deblasio caught in heated makeout session with mystery woman.

1073
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 5: Discuss as a twenty plus year reader of page six,

1074
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 5: there's part of me that admires the headlight, but the

1075
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 5: other part of me is like, oh, I need a shower,

1076
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 5: build a Bungler, big bird.

1077
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:12,640
Speaker 2: No one wants that.

1078
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: The groundhog killer. He is our moment of suffering. Don't

1079
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: say Democrats never get it on this podcast. That's right,

1080
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: that's right, Fuck you, Bob Mendez. That's it for this

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Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and

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00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 1: Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense

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Speaker 1: of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,

1084
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,760
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.

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Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.