Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay, a daily with me.
Speaker 1: Your girl Danielle Moody in quarantine in the home bunker, folks.
Speaker 1: So while your girl was out on vacation, or dare
Speaker 1: I say, before she actually got to take her vacation,
Speaker 1: I contracted COVID for the very first time. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that the irony is not
Speaker 1: lost on me. That of course I would get COVID
Speaker 1: when I never take a vacation and then decide to
Speaker 1: actually take one before midterm elections and the craziness of fall,
Speaker 1: and then I would get it literally hours before I
Speaker 1: was headed out for my trip. I will tell you,
Speaker 1: as I do in my interview coming up with our
Speaker 1: friend doctor Jonathan Metzel, that getting COVID wasn't for me,
Speaker 1: just about this symptom surrounding it, which thankfully mine have
Speaker 1: been very mild. You'll probably hear me for the next,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of days, maybe the next a
Speaker 1: week or so, seemingly a bit more nasally, maybe interrupted
Speaker 1: by a coff or so. But I've been lucky, right
Speaker 1: as we all know. I'm sure that there are many
Speaker 1: of you that have contracted COVID. Or know somebody and
Speaker 1: maybe you know, before we had the brilliance of science
Speaker 1: and vaccines lost someone as I did to COVID. What
Speaker 1: I will tell you is that my first feeling upon
Speaker 1: knowing that I was positive was absolute, full fucking emotional breakdown,
Speaker 1: Like I burst into tears, because for so long it's
Speaker 1: like you are masking and dodging and washing hands and
Speaker 1: you know, eating outdoors and thinking that you're doing all
Speaker 1: of the quote unquote right things, and then poof, you know,
Speaker 1: you feel like a failure, or at least that is
Speaker 1: how I felt. You know, Jonathan will tell me later
Speaker 1: that you know this is not like a moral failing.
Speaker 1: COVID is highly transmissible, and even if you are doing
Speaker 1: all of the right things, unless you're going to stay
Speaker 1: in your bunker and never leave, you are going to
Speaker 1: probably contract COVID because everyone else is not taking the
Speaker 1: same precautions, is not doing all of the things that
Speaker 1: they can do, and may not even be testing. And
Speaker 1: so even if you are outdoors and you know, we
Speaker 1: know that the latest version of COVID is highly transmissible
Speaker 1: outdoors as well as indoors, and so it just sucks,
Speaker 1: right like it brought up it has been bringing up
Speaker 1: a lot of feelings for me around you know, isolation.
Speaker 1: Thank God for technology is what I will say, because
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine going through COVID and not having access
Speaker 1: to FaceTime and a computer and the television behind me,
Speaker 1: and you know, but still, even with all of those
Speaker 1: different tools, feeling really lonely. And it's not just the
Speaker 1: sense of like fomo, it's just like this just real
Speaker 1: deep sense of kind of sadness. And you know, well,
Speaker 1: I'll get into this more in the conversation with Jonathan
Speaker 1: and talking about the emotional as well as mental toll
Speaker 1: that COVID has taken, you know, not just with my
Speaker 1: own issue that I'm working through now, but obviously with
Speaker 1: us as a country. And I realized that, like with
Speaker 1: most things in life, just ignoring the fact that this
Speaker 1: is happening, just ignoring how people are feeling, doesn't make
Speaker 1: it go away. Earlier today I was watching a report,
Speaker 1: you know, about the severe decline in mental health in
Speaker 1: young people and little kids. I'm not just talking about
Speaker 1: high schoolers. I'm talking about middle schoolers and elementary school
Speaker 1: children and their complete decline in their mental health and
Speaker 1: how this is yet another crisis on top of a crisis,
Speaker 1: on top of a crisis. And the idea is that,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly for young people, we want them to
Speaker 1: grow up in a world and in a place where
Speaker 1: they feel safe, because safety then allows us the ability
Speaker 1: to dream. It's the foundation from which we build on.
Speaker 1: But when we can't actually tell our kids that you're
Speaker 1: going to be safe when you go to school, when
Speaker 1: they see headlines each and every day of mass shootings
Speaker 1: that are taking place in buildings that are just like theirs,
Speaker 1: right when you know one year they're masking, one year
Speaker 1: they're not. One minute it's remote learning for a little
Speaker 1: bit that ends up being you know, for a year.
Speaker 1: Another time school is being shut down for something else.
Speaker 1: So what I realize is that we have taken away anxiety,
Speaker 1: has taken away this feeling of safety. Right And people
Speaker 1: will say, well, safety is an illusion, but it's an
Speaker 1: illusion that we wanted to protect for young people because
Speaker 1: what does it mean to have generations of children growing
Speaker 1: up into adolescence and then adulthood that have no sense
Speaker 1: of security? How will they learn to navigate? What will
Speaker 1: that mean for how we all engage with one another,
Speaker 1: how we work, how we live? And I don't think
Speaker 1: that we think often or hard enough about all the
Speaker 1: ripple effects of what we've been living through and dealing
Speaker 1: with over the past two plus years going on three
Speaker 1: in a couple of months. So you know, I tell you,
Speaker 1: as somebody that has been spending the last well when
Speaker 1: by the time that you listen to this, it will
Speaker 1: be nine days and CDC says ten days, well, five
Speaker 1: days of isolation and a mask and then five more
Speaker 1: days of masking. But being in the population, it fucks
Speaker 1: with your mind, it really does, and it messes with
Speaker 1: your emotions. And so you know, as I often say
Speaker 1: to people, and I need to remind myself to have grace,
Speaker 1: you know, to give myself grace if I tell you
Speaker 1: some of the things that I had been doing. You know,
Speaker 1: I had doubled down, tripled down in meditation when after
Speaker 1: the first day when I really had you know, just
Speaker 1: like really tired, you know, pretty much had kind of
Speaker 1: slept all day. And again at that point, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that I had had COVID. I just had taken
Speaker 1: Benadryl the night before and I took it late. And
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes when I take over the counter sleep
Speaker 1: medication or medication that have sleep beside effects to them.
Speaker 1: I often feel weird the next day for a while,
Speaker 1: which is why I try my best not to really
Speaker 1: take those things and to use more so you know,
Speaker 1: home remedies or natural remedies. So I didn't put it
Speaker 1: together until the following day. Then I would take the
Speaker 1: test and I would find out that I had COVID.
Speaker 1: But you know, I continue to say that we are
Speaker 1: going through and living in such absolutely extraordinary times that
Speaker 1: if you aren't giving yourself grace or providing yourself with
Speaker 1: grace and also for those around you, you know you
Speaker 1: will lose it. You'll feel fucking crazy. And you know,
Speaker 1: on the days that you are feeling crazy and want
Speaker 1: to throw up your hands and want to scream, you know,
Speaker 1: do that right, like do whatever it is going to
Speaker 1: allow you to be able to move through without ignoring
Speaker 1: the they're there, right. And I think that for me,
Speaker 1: it was recognizing that this is never going to end,
Speaker 1: that we could, we did have an opportunity to get
Speaker 1: rid of COVID, and we chose not to because of politics,
Speaker 1: because of hate, because of lies, and because of bullshit,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I am fearful for the long
Speaker 1: term effects of what all of this means for us,
Speaker 1: for our society, for how we live, for how we work,
Speaker 1: and how our children develop over time into adults. I
Speaker 1: think it will be really really interesting to see. So
Speaker 1: coming up next my conversation with our friend and in
Speaker 1: house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Hey, I'm David Plots of
Speaker 1: Slates Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can
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Speaker 1: Each week on The Gapfest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathalona and
Speaker 1: I decipher the headlines, break down the races, and tell
Speaker 1: you what issues really matter. We do not always agree.
Speaker 1: We definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver
Speaker 1: thoughtful debate and we always have a good time. So
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Speaker 1: Tune in every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Friends,
Speaker 1: I am very happy to be back with the first
Speaker 1: show since my vacation and since the Labor Day holiday.
Speaker 1: And there's nobody to return better with than our friend,
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Metzel. I have bad news. I guess good
Speaker 1: news and bad news. I guess to tell people, because folks,
Speaker 1: you've all been wonderful why I have been away. And
Speaker 1: guess what your friend got while she was on vacation.
Speaker 1: Jonathan covid for the very first time, after two years
Speaker 1: of dodging this like a fucking whack a mole and
Speaker 1: seemingly doing all of the right things, I will tell
Speaker 1: you that I contracted COVID at an outdoor family party.
Speaker 1: And you know, have had fairly mild symptoms. You know,
Speaker 1: some days tired, you know, you know I have the
Speaker 1: awful cough and all of those things. But I will
Speaker 1: tell you that one of the first feelings that I had, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: was of feeling like a failure, like a moral failing.
Speaker 1: Is is exactly how I felt, And you know, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that. Andrew was kind enough to tell me,
Speaker 1: He's like, it's not a moral failing, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: wildly transmittable right now. But that's how I felt. Is
Speaker 1: that normal? Like do people tell you that when they
Speaker 1: finally do get COVID that they feel like they're the
Speaker 1: ones that have clearly done something wrong? Well, first, let
Speaker 1: me just absolve you. Nobody knows how they got it.
Speaker 1: Very often, and very often it's because other people are
Speaker 1: nowhere near as careful as you. So you'd be the
Speaker 1: most careful person in the world. And if you're going
Speaker 1: to come out and socialize, you're dependent on other people.
Speaker 1: And also the COVID now is so much more contagious
Speaker 1: than you know, your grandfather's COVID, and so um and
Speaker 1: so I would say that the choices like stay in
Speaker 1: your basement forever, but if you're going to go out,
Speaker 1: it's it's really you know, I wish I wish more people.
Speaker 1: There was a great study that just came out on
Speaker 1: masks a couple of days ago in a big infectious
Speaker 1: disease journal. If everybody masks, we wouldn't have a pandemic.
Speaker 1: It would be over period. So you know, that's not
Speaker 1: the world we're living in. And so I just think
Speaker 1: you've been so responsible, You've been so great, and so
Speaker 1: number one, I'll say you did not do anything wrong
Speaker 1: except for do everything right and then rejoin the world.
Speaker 1: And so number one, please don't feel guilty. If you
Speaker 1: feel guilty, call me. I won't charge you. You know,
Speaker 1: it would be totally free. That's number one. Number two
Speaker 1: is COVID messes with your brain, right, and so people
Speaker 1: actually have emotional responses to getting COVID because it actually
Speaker 1: crosses the blood brain barrier. And so people do have
Speaker 1: emotional effects to COVID. And then number three is this
Speaker 1: kind of anticipatory thing because like people like me and you,
Speaker 1: we've been so careful, as you know, I got it
Speaker 1: this summer, yep, and like I felt like I kept
Speaker 1: thinking of like twenty eight days later the zombie movie
Speaker 1: or something like that, and I felt like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just one of those zombies. I feel like I would love,
Speaker 1: you know. So it does create a lot of emotions,
Speaker 1: especially if you've been worried and concerned about it, especially
Speaker 1: if it's something you've been careful about. So I just
Speaker 1: want to absolve you of any kind of bay. Thank
Speaker 1: you really you really did not Yeah, that was my
Speaker 1: agnostic um, my agnostic x um. But I would just
Speaker 1: say you didn't do anything wrong. But but it's an
Speaker 1: emotional time, especially because it's something we've been worried about
Speaker 1: for years here. Yeah, I think that that what like
Speaker 1: was it? It was so like I was in tears,
Speaker 1: you know, I I how often am I taking these
Speaker 1: at home tests. I'm taking the at home tests and
Speaker 1: I know the drill and fifteen minutes later and boom,
Speaker 1: it's negative. And I go about the rest of my day.
Speaker 1: And it was like this time I took the test.
Speaker 1: I looked down and I'm like, you have got to
Speaker 1: be fucking kidding me, right, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: I was I was literally leaving in five hours to
Speaker 1: head to a trip with my friends, um, you know,
Speaker 1: to go away, and I wanted to be extra careful, right.
Speaker 1: I was feeling got it in New York. I got
Speaker 1: it in New York. I was feeling, you know, I
Speaker 1: had UM. I'd had a scratchy throat and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, but allergies are going around, you know, allergies.
Speaker 1: It's allergy season, and it's been really dry you know,
Speaker 1: we're in a drought. It's been horribly dry in New York.
Speaker 1: But I said, I want to be extra careful. I'm
Speaker 1: about to get on public transportation. I'm about to travel
Speaker 1: to go see my friends that have kids. And so
Speaker 1: that's you know, I was taking the test. Nobody asked
Speaker 1: me to take, you know, to take a test. That
Speaker 1: was my personal responsibility. And so when it came back
Speaker 1: and it said that it was positive, I like lost
Speaker 1: my shit and was you know, and was hysterical. Um
Speaker 1: and and so it is like there there is this
Speaker 1: this extraordinary emotional build up. But can you just talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the blood brain barrier and like,
Speaker 1: you know, have have we have we disc just enough
Speaker 1: not just the physical symptoms of COVID, but the actual
Speaker 1: you know, emotional mental ones. Particularly when folks were talking
Speaker 1: about brain fog. I have not experienced that, but again
Speaker 1: that being something that is that is very real. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we're learning a lot more now than we
Speaker 1: used to. I mean, certainly that was Remember initially people
Speaker 1: thought this was just a respiratory infection, and it was serious,
Speaker 1: right because it was getting in people's lungs. And then
Speaker 1: when the big oh, came, everybody thought, oh, well, it's
Speaker 1: good because it's just an upper respiratory CHAC infection. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, when viruses can cross the blood brain barrier,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a membrane kind of deal that separates,
Speaker 1: like all the fluid that surrounds your brain and your
Speaker 1: spinal cord from the rest of your body. And so
Speaker 1: a lot of viruses can't do that, right, you think
Speaker 1: about the flu you think about the cold. So the
Speaker 1: viruses that do a cross that barrier, it can be
Speaker 1: you know, it can be potentially serious if you think
Speaker 1: about like herpes can cause encephalitis. There are different other
Speaker 1: kinds of brain brain brain viruses and some quite quite
Speaker 1: really serious. And so I think the minute we started
Speaker 1: seeing COVID show hoping people's brains was a time where
Speaker 1: people thought, you know, this thing is a little more
Speaker 1: complicated of a molecule than we were expecting. And there's
Speaker 1: been steady research since then. I will say that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of research now on long COVID, and thankfully
Speaker 1: it's not just all about medication. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff about diet and different kinds of brain exercises and
Speaker 1: activity things. There's a whole kind of holistic approach. And
Speaker 1: so I guess I would say that for people who
Speaker 1: have long COVID, which sucks, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: long COVID clinics now which there didn't used to be before,
Speaker 1: where people are looking in a much more serious way.
Speaker 1: And conversely, I do kind of worry because people got
Speaker 1: depressed after getting COVID, or confused or confused and frustrated
Speaker 1: and depressed. And I think there was a wrong move
Speaker 1: to just give anti depressense in the beginning because nobody
Speaker 1: knew what was happening. So now the fact that this
Speaker 1: is a bit more, um, this is a bit more Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we just know a bit more about it
Speaker 1: than than we did before. Um, So we'll see. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if anybody's suffering long COVID, go
Speaker 1: to a long COVID clinic, I guess is the message
Speaker 1: and think about it holistically. But I guess the main
Speaker 1: point is for something that does involve your brain. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not surprising that people have emotional effects
Speaker 1: or cognitive effects. So Jonathan, you are in a tie,
Speaker 1: which means that you are back on campus and at school. Um,
Speaker 1: and no you don't and you are teaching a class
Speaker 1: on pandemic and society. Tell us a bit about that,
Speaker 1: and also, you know how how it's been being back
Speaker 1: on campus. We have another virus that we haven't been
Speaker 1: able to wrap our arms around him. Dare I say,
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't monkey pocks. So how how are things going? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm at Vanderbilt. I'll just put it out there, and
Speaker 1: I would just say, first, the experience of COVID has
Speaker 1: been that, like pretty much all other schools, many other
Speaker 1: schools are many schools have just kind of given up.
Speaker 1: The good thing about Vanderbilt is that you can They're
Speaker 1: still doing testing. There's still a lot of awareness among
Speaker 1: the students. But there's no mask requirement whatsoever. It's it's
Speaker 1: um mask or not. Some students mask, many don't, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to mask in college if a lot of
Speaker 1: people aren't doing it. I'm just back. My class has
Speaker 1: two hundreds toudents in it, and I'm teaching in a
Speaker 1: big lecture hall and there's no airflow really in the room.
Speaker 1: I opened up the backdoors today because there was no airflow.
Speaker 1: I kind of freaked out, and then some other professor
Speaker 1: came in and yelled at me. For making too much noise,
Speaker 1: and then I had my students do the wave to
Speaker 1: get back at him. But I would just say that there,
Speaker 1: whereas last year, people were really you know, testing distancing,
Speaker 1: and now, like many schools, they're just kind of letting
Speaker 1: it go. Now. I'm I'm a little nervous about that,
Speaker 1: to be honest again, because number one, long COVID's a crapshoot.
Speaker 1: Number two, we don't know. We haven't opened college in
Speaker 1: this way quite yet, and so it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1: And there certainly are I'll just say, in a very
Speaker 1: general sense, quite a high number of COVID cases at
Speaker 1: the school. Faculty are getting it, a lot of students
Speaker 1: are getting it. So a lot of people are getting
Speaker 1: sick here. And I guess that it's the trade off
Speaker 1: that a lot of places are making is we can't
Speaker 1: stay shut down forever. It's weird. What I was lecturing
Speaker 1: about today was the profound irony of like, like if
Speaker 1: you went to a red state and said we're going
Speaker 1: to go back to zoom education for middle school, people
Speaker 1: would like light your tires on fire right away. But
Speaker 1: college is still like there are all these like online
Speaker 1: college degrees and stuff, like that now, so the same
Speaker 1: as a technology that a lot of colleges are using.
Speaker 1: So it'll it'll be interesting. I mean the class I
Speaker 1: teach is called COVID and Society, and it's it's really
Speaker 1: processing with two hundred students every Tuesday and Thursday, let's
Speaker 1: let's imagine how the world is changing around us. So
Speaker 1: we're doing a lot of thinking and talking about the
Speaker 1: pandemic and it's it's great. The students really like having
Speaker 1: an analysis of something that's happening right now. But I said,
Speaker 1: like in the beginning, I don't know the answer. I
Speaker 1: don't know where this is going. I wish I did.
Speaker 1: It changes the dynamic of the class and so it's
Speaker 1: a very meaningful class and it still feels that way.
Speaker 1: But you know, we have no idea how where is
Speaker 1: going to end up? You know, a question for you
Speaker 1: what are some of the things you know, again, like
Speaker 1: I'm not in my twenties right, so what are some
Speaker 1: of the things that the students are bringing up that
Speaker 1: for them has profoundly changed versus you know, how you
Speaker 1: may have thought or how we may think that things
Speaker 1: have changed for us. Well, today I did a class
Speaker 1: on COVID and college, and the theme of the lecturer
Speaker 1: was how has the pandemic changed how we think about college?
Speaker 1: And I started the class talking about the GI Bill,
Speaker 1: and in the GI Bill at the end of World
Speaker 1: War two, like it was like in exchange for you
Speaker 1: risking your life and then doing the ultimate patriotic sacrifice,
Speaker 1: going to defend the country, We're going to give you
Speaker 1: the pathway to middle class, which is a college education.
Speaker 1: So the g I Bill, you know, signaled that college
Speaker 1: was a form of patriotism really, and the sixties had
Speaker 1: debates about politics and action on campus. And then I
Speaker 1: and then I talked about a twenty fourteen study that
Speaker 1: showed that college graduates, on average, ninety eight percent of
Speaker 1: college graduates would make more hourly than non college graduates.
Speaker 1: So college was seen as the great equalizer from a
Speaker 1: socioeconomic and racial and gender perspective in terms of salary.
Speaker 1: And then I said, how does this feel now? And
Speaker 1: to a person, the students were like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: college is really expensive now. There are other ways to
Speaker 1: make money. There are other ways to they are better
Speaker 1: ways to Like we know this guy who started to
Speaker 1: start up or he's an influencer and he's making just
Speaker 1: as much money. So I think there's been a real
Speaker 1: conversation about what the value of colleges right now. And
Speaker 1: so it's not the theme of the class isn't just
Speaker 1: direct information about COVID, it's also like, how did it
Speaker 1: change our perceptions about a bunch of other things? And
Speaker 1: college is certainly one of them. And it's interesting that
Speaker 1: a lot of the students were like, yeah, what what
Speaker 1: does college mean? And I think the theme of the
Speaker 1: lecture was college college is going to have to reinvent
Speaker 1: itself right now to adopt to this new economy. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because a couple of things are coming up
Speaker 1: for me as you as you're saying that, which is one.
Speaker 1: I think that for a lot of people, particularly you know,
Speaker 1: working adults, professionals that we're working in offices, you know,
Speaker 1: we have all been in a state of reimagining what
Speaker 1: does work actually mean? Right I was actually having this
Speaker 1: conversation with another friend of mine who works for a big,
Speaker 1: you know, media company, and was saying that now they're
Speaker 1: getting ready to bring people back two and three days
Speaker 1: a week in person, because the corporation feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're a big family and you know, we should all
Speaker 1: be together and be in these meetings together and you know,
Speaker 1: having camaraderie. And her response to that was, I actually
Speaker 1: have a family and have friends. I don't need work
Speaker 1: to be the environment for which I am building community in.
Speaker 1: And I think that for a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were able to actually delve more into their actual families
Speaker 1: and then let work just be what it is. I
Speaker 1: have these tasks to do that I then receive payment
Speaker 1: for doing these tasks. Well, I think that for them,
Speaker 1: you know, for for Corporate America and even some nonprofits,
Speaker 1: work was like this hub that we were all you know,
Speaker 1: utilizing as the formation of our lives. And what COVID
Speaker 1: told us is that like, um, you were sold a
Speaker 1: bill of goods through capitalism that made you think that
Speaker 1: that was where your life was. It's where you get
Speaker 1: your livelihood from. But it's not where your life is.
Speaker 1: And so people again with the you know, the quiet
Speaker 1: quitting that you're hearing about, which isn't people quitting, it's
Speaker 1: people deciding that like you're not, I'm not a mule,
Speaker 1: right that, like I'm coming in, I'm doing this job,
Speaker 1: and then I am I'm closing my computer or I'm
Speaker 1: leaving the office and I'm done. So I think that that,
Speaker 1: to me, is really interesting in the ways in which
Speaker 1: I think that work, much like college needs to reinvent
Speaker 1: itself because so many people you see that Biden, you know,
Speaker 1: just wiped away debt for millions of millions of Americans,
Speaker 1: or at least you know, wiped away a significant amount
Speaker 1: of debt for millions of Americans, and people are looking
Speaker 1: at college and they're saying, what am I getting out
Speaker 1: of this? If I can be an influencer or a
Speaker 1: content creator and I can make six figures right doing that,
Speaker 1: why am I going to incur six figures worth of
Speaker 1: debt in order to go get a job that only
Speaker 1: my head above water. So I think, like, that's a
Speaker 1: really interesting place that folks find themselves in. Now. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because we talked about this a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: on one hand, the reason corporations can bring people back
Speaker 1: right now is because they can right In other words,
Speaker 1: the power was all with the labors because there was
Speaker 1: a labor shortage before. But if all of these interest
Speaker 1: rate hikes end up changing the economy back in an
Speaker 1: anti inflationary way, it puts the power back in with
Speaker 1: the corporations, and so in a way, labor just won't
Speaker 1: have I mean part of the stories that labor won't
Speaker 1: have like they'll just be fewer jobs, right, So there's
Speaker 1: more competition for jobs in effect, and so part of
Speaker 1: the reason people are they might say it's a big family,
Speaker 1: but it's also because there are other going to be
Speaker 1: other unemployed workers out there. They can get to fill
Speaker 1: people's jobs if they say forget it. And so part
Speaker 1: of this return to work is in part showing what
Speaker 1: happens when you correct for inflation, which is that you
Speaker 1: cut await jobs. Basically, now the economy isn't cooperating totally
Speaker 1: because there was a very strong job report last time yep.
Speaker 1: But but I think that's the general idea is now
Speaker 1: corporations feel like they might be doing this now. The
Speaker 1: other thing we talked about today, which is really interesting
Speaker 1: is so we were talking about education in general and
Speaker 1: how the pandemic has changed the politics of education. And
Speaker 1: I use the example of these untrained military people who
Speaker 1: can now teach in public school in Florida, and I said,
Speaker 1: like what I was asking the students, like, what's the
Speaker 1: effect of this going to be? And no, knock on soldiers.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, but I feel like I don't
Speaker 1: need to defend soldiers to like I like, it's a
Speaker 1: bullshit it's a bullshit thing that is doing right. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: But what I told them is on on one hand,
Speaker 1: I would be I would much rather give soldiers free
Speaker 1: college like we did in the in the after World
Speaker 1: War two. But so having people who have who have
Speaker 1: just been in the military and and just have I
Speaker 1: don't have a college degree and no teacher training. What
Speaker 1: I said is it's going to it's going to create
Speaker 1: a bunch of under educated working class students, right. And
Speaker 1: so the whole idea is, it's another way of dealing
Speaker 1: with the COVID economy is to create like an untrained
Speaker 1: underclass of people who then will fill menial jobs, especially
Speaker 1: if you're blocking immigration. And so you know, there's that
Speaker 1: book The Viral Underclass by Stephen Thatcher that we're that
Speaker 1: that we're going to read part of um but um
Speaker 1: but um. But the whole idea is basically education is
Speaker 1: changing and it's adopting to create more economic inequity by
Speaker 1: by by that that's an example, a bunch of other examples,
Speaker 1: and also all that anti CRT stuff. It was a
Speaker 1: front to be able to just destroy public education in
Speaker 1: a way. And so in a way, the leveling out
Speaker 1: factor of education is, unfortunately, I worry, going to create
Speaker 1: a divide between people who between third grade and eighth
Speaker 1: grade were taught by someone who never took college calculus
Speaker 1: and people who went to private school who are getting
Speaker 1: you know, advanced concepts and skills. And so in a way,
Speaker 1: it feels like this is a really nefarious way to
Speaker 1: reproduce and expand economic divides after the pandemic. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, it's obvious, right. I don't
Speaker 1: know any parent in their right mind who thinks to themselves, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to send my child to school and they're
Speaker 1: going to be taught by you know, Commander so and so,
Speaker 1: which great, I'm you know, I'm happy for them that
Speaker 1: they decided to go into the military. But you know
Speaker 1: what I would love is that the person that is
Speaker 1: teaching my child right actually has an education background, actually
Speaker 1: has expertise in a skill set in what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And so what we know is going to happen is
Speaker 1: that white people who can afford to pull their kids
Speaker 1: out of schools are either going to put their children
Speaker 1: in private schools or they're going to put their children
Speaker 1: in religious institutions. Right. Religious institutions were just now allowed
Speaker 1: to now get federal money after a Supreme Court decision
Speaker 1: was overturned. And so you're right, there is a completely
Speaker 1: leveling and divesting from public education in order to create
Speaker 1: a permanent underclass in the United States, because the only
Speaker 1: way that capitalism works is if somebody is on the bottom,
Speaker 1: and historically in the United States, we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that that is black and brown people who are
Speaker 1: under the bottom, right, because the whole pretense of desegregating
Speaker 1: schools was about giving black and brown people opportunities that
Speaker 1: white people wanted to hold for themselves. Right. And so
Speaker 1: this is the way that sciantists and other Republican governors
Speaker 1: around the country will decide, like, oh, this is what
Speaker 1: we're going to do, because if this isn't going to
Speaker 1: affect our kids or their kids, right, it's only going
Speaker 1: to affect these people that we never want to succeed anyway.
Speaker 1: Funny enough, in the long run, it's going to fuck
Speaker 1: us all because when you have an under educated class
Speaker 1: and you have stark economic divides, and you have fascism
Speaker 1: that comes in. There's only one direction that this all
Speaker 1: heads in. Well, also, you're much worse at creativity or
Speaker 1: complex problem solving. I mean, don't even get me started
Speaker 1: on the list. So it's a horrible strategy in so
Speaker 1: many ways. And the other part of it is it
Speaker 1: goes hand in hand with blocking immigration, right, so all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're going to have like an internal
Speaker 1: supply of people that we're doing jobs that immigrants did too.
Speaker 1: So it's it's horrible. But people I don't know, like
Speaker 1: somehow people aren't seeing the connection between A and B
Speaker 1: and C. Well, how can you see the connection when
Speaker 1: you don't have a teacher telling you what the connection?
Speaker 1: Your teachers teach your teachers teaching how to field strip
Speaker 1: or rabbit, you know, or start a wonderful They'll never
Speaker 1: make it to Vanderbilt. Oh yeah ahead, No please, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say last thing for you, Jonathan. I just
Speaker 1: I do want to get a fifty thousand foot view
Speaker 1: on where you are seeing or what conversations are being
Speaker 1: had on campus about monkey pox and what projections are
Speaker 1: for the fall. Now that um we're officially all back
Speaker 1: to school, UM, people are nervous about it, but there's
Speaker 1: not a ton of like top down I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much uncertainty about monkeypox right now. So people are
Speaker 1: here living in dorms, and we're also like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: going to the gym. Everybody uses the same gym and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So I do think that there's attention
Speaker 1: to cleanliness and people are worried about monkeypox, but it's
Speaker 1: not like there's a top down dictum. And to create
Speaker 1: even more uncertainty, like, to be honest, nobody knows if
Speaker 1: the vaccine works in humans quite yet, Like the vaccine
Speaker 1: is not the vaccine was fast tracked and so there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of data. We're still figuring out the vaccine.
Speaker 1: So I still I don't know people know the strategy
Speaker 1: quite yet. Um. But but I think it's in the
Speaker 1: it's in the there's so much covid right now that
Speaker 1: people are freaking about covid. Um. So we'll just see.
Speaker 1: I'll pay attention to that bit more and I'll ask
Speaker 1: my classmend Oh, just another day in America, Jonathan. So
Speaker 1: happy that you are my first guest back. Welcome back, well,
Speaker 1: first time, welcome, you know, welcome to the world, like
Speaker 1: now we can go around biting other people and you
Speaker 1: know and stuff. So no, but anyway, no, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're okay. It's it's really scary. M I would also say,
Speaker 1: next week when we talk, it's not like we haven't
Speaker 1: ever said anything about judges on this show. I think
Speaker 1: people are kind of waking up to what it means
Speaker 1: to have a Trump judge right now. Okay, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So I feel like next week
Speaker 1: we're gonna be revisiting that topical. So I would love too,
Speaker 1: because it's nothing like you know, being locked into fifty
Speaker 1: years of oppression to wake people up to the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, we should have been paying attention to the
Speaker 1: courts for the last forty years, because now they're fun
Speaker 1: for the next fifty. Doctor Jonathan Matzel As always thank
Speaker 1: you so much for making the time to join us
Speaker 1: on Woke. We appreciate you, Thank you and hanging there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're okay. That is it for me, dear
Speaker 1: friends today on Woke. F As always power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people. Power, get woke and
Speaker 1: stay focus. Fuck