Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to bokay F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Recording from the Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: we have a very special woke F Pride episode today.
Speaker 1: I am really excited for you all to hear the
Speaker 1: voice and see the face of my producer Andrew Marcello,
Speaker 1: who has been the producer for woke F for the
Speaker 1: last five years and is the reason why the show
Speaker 1: is as great as it is, and so on today's episode,
Speaker 1: for our Pride Month special, we get into a conversation
Speaker 1: about what young queer people are thinking with regard to
Speaker 1: their feelings around Pride, but also for Andrew, you know
Speaker 1: how his identity has shaped his political views and narrative,
Speaker 1: and thinking about what the pushback and violent pushback at
Speaker 1: that that the LGBTQ community is experiencing at this time,
Speaker 1: what this means for the future. So we're going to
Speaker 1: get into this conversation and so much more today on
Speaker 1: woke F. I will give you my thoughts on the hearing,
Speaker 1: which has as of the taping of this has not
Speaker 1: yet happened, so I will be doing that later in
Speaker 1: the week. But coming up next my conversation with woke
Speaker 1: F producer Andrew Marcello. Folks, I am very excited about
Speaker 1: today's episode because we're actually peeling back the woke F
Speaker 1: curtain and having a conversation with Andrew Marcello, my producer
Speaker 1: who's been the producer of woke F my god for
Speaker 1: I don't actually know how long Andrew, how long it
Speaker 1: has been. It's been legitimately it's almost five years. Legitimately
Speaker 1: five years. And Andrew is the person that has makes
Speaker 1: this show magic, makes it sound good, makes it brings
Speaker 1: in the guests that you all enjoy. And so during
Speaker 1: this Pride we decided to have a conversation that we
Speaker 1: probably have over text a million times and actually take
Speaker 1: the text conversation to the podcast. So, Andrew, we'll start
Speaker 1: out the way that we have with the last several
Speaker 1: guests that we've had on this show. Our theme this
Speaker 1: month has been Pride as a Riot. What does pride
Speaker 1: mean to you? What does that theme mean to you?
Speaker 1: That's actually a great question. Now I understand why people
Speaker 1: say that so often. Let me answer you, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's what does pride mean to me? I think? So
Speaker 1: you you started off mentioning my identity, and I am pansexual,
Speaker 1: and I realized that I was pansexual I think when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen, But pride actually wasn't really something that
Speaker 1: I thought about until my adult life after I graduated college.
Speaker 1: A few years after I graduated college, actually probably around
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen, when I moved to New
Speaker 1: York from living in New Jersey and sort of living
Speaker 1: in the same environment that I had lived in before
Speaker 1: going to college. I think part of that is that
Speaker 1: my immediate family didn't necessarily recognize my sexuality. They were
Speaker 1: kind of just like in denial about it, and rather
Speaker 1: than like push back against that harder and have that
Speaker 1: make me feel like, oh, I'm going to be really
Speaker 1: loud about it, I was just like, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll deny me, and I'll find like other outlets
Speaker 1: and other ways to express this. But once I moved
Speaker 1: to New York, and once I was in a partnership
Speaker 1: and environment where I felt more like I could, you know,
Speaker 1: be outwardly myself pride to some extent, At the beginning,
Speaker 1: I was almost envious of people who, to me as
Speaker 1: an outside observer, they had already gotten to where I
Speaker 1: wanted to be, Like I saw not just like the
Speaker 1: NYC Pride Parade, but the Unicorn Parade in Brooklyn. Like
Speaker 1: that was something that I looked at as like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's incredible that like these people can go out there
Speaker 1: and just like be themselves and celebrate themselves in a
Speaker 1: way that I do not feel comfortable with. And so
Speaker 1: when I think about Pride, I think about that journey
Speaker 1: that it took me to get from. Like because as myself,
Speaker 1: I am assis white man. Because I'm pansexual, I date,
Speaker 1: I can, you know, day and be with people of
Speaker 1: all genders, and I do end up in relationships with
Speaker 1: sis women that you know, from the outside it looks like, okay,
Speaker 1: we could both be straight. That's often not the case,
Speaker 1: but outside observers don't know, so I can be like
Speaker 1: straight passing. And so to me, to sum up, Pride
Speaker 1: is rejecting that and rejecting the idea of being straight
Speaker 1: passing and like being loud and proud about the fact
Speaker 1: that I am pants and I'm existing in my life
Speaker 1: in this way even when you're not perceiving me that way.
Speaker 1: You know. I think that there are some people who
Speaker 1: may have heard of the term pan sexual and that
Speaker 1: may have come into the lexicon because of a couple
Speaker 1: of celebrities, Janelle Monee being one of them, who came
Speaker 1: out as pan sexual a couple of years ago. Can
Speaker 1: you explain to the audience who may not be familiar
Speaker 1: with with all of the terms, what does pant set,
Speaker 1: what does the pan sexual identity mean to you? And
Speaker 1: how did you come to understand this about yourself? Sure,
Speaker 1: one thing I will say, since you mentioned Janelle Monee,
Speaker 1: I think it's great that Janelle Monee had this music
Speaker 1: video a few years ago that, like, you know, bisexual
Speaker 1: lighting is now a term that gets used a lot
Speaker 1: because the bisexual flag is just like, very aesthetically appealing colors,
Speaker 1: and a lot of art, either on purpose or by accident,
Speaker 1: uses the color scheme of the bisexual flag. But I
Speaker 1: believe with her it was very purposeful given the content
Speaker 1: that she was putting out there. But now she identifies
Speaker 1: publicly as pan sexual, and so I think that's an
Speaker 1: indication that, like there is crossover in those identities, but
Speaker 1: they're not the same. And also, you know, a person
Speaker 1: who identifies as by one year, you know, might realize
Speaker 1: that pan fits better for them or vice versa, and
Speaker 1: so you know, just because to introduce my answer, I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking about the fact that, unfortunately there is some
Speaker 1: friction between prescriptivists when it comes to language, and I
Speaker 1: do think they are distinct. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's okay for a person who's pand to realize that
Speaker 1: there by and then later realize that maybe they were
Speaker 1: incorrect and they have been panned all along. And those
Speaker 1: things happen with all kinds of different identities. I know,
Speaker 1: you know people who they started their life, like most
Speaker 1: people probably interact indoctrinated into heteropatriarchy, thinking straight and then
Speaker 1: you know this just as an example, this person then
Speaker 1: thought they were a lesbian, and then they thought they
Speaker 1: were a straight trans man, and then they thought they
Speaker 1: were a gay trans man, and so like that's an example.
Speaker 1: But you know, through life sexuality is fluid. Is a
Speaker 1: trend that gets used a lot, but like through life,
Speaker 1: that is something that's true. And to segue, I think
Speaker 1: for myself, pan sexuality is a state of fluidity. It's
Speaker 1: this state of like, I'm not rigidly attracted to any
Speaker 1: gender category. For some people, I think they use it
Speaker 1: or interpret it as gender doesn't matter to me, or
Speaker 1: I don't perceive gender. However, you know, whoever is pansexual,
Speaker 1: and however it applies to them, that's valid to me.
Speaker 1: What it means is like, of course I perceive your gender,
Speaker 1: but I'm attracted to you irrespective of your gender. I'm
Speaker 1: attracted to a lot of people use the term hearts
Speaker 1: not parts, which is kind of cringey, and I'm not
Speaker 1: endorsing it, but the message's your faith. But the message
Speaker 1: of it is like, you know, you understand the meaning
Speaker 1: of right. I do think it's cringe but like the
Speaker 1: idea you're falling in love with a person not you know,
Speaker 1: not what they are either you know, ascribed to or
Speaker 1: assigned or in any way that has to do with
Speaker 1: their physicality. Right, I'll say that, I'll say exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: It goes beyond gender. It's it's gender to the physical form.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you understand that. Yeah, you know, so I
Speaker 1: think that what is really what I find really interesting now.
Speaker 1: And there have been like a couple of studies that
Speaker 1: have been done recently with younger people, and I want
Speaker 1: to say younger, and I mean like thirty and below, um,
Speaker 1: where people are more so choosing to identify themselves as
Speaker 1: either pan sexual, non binary um in a more outside
Speaker 1: of these prescribe box place. What do you think that
Speaker 1: it is that has because society in general, I mean
Speaker 1: for queer people, particularly trans people, has become a lot
Speaker 1: more unsafe, has become a lot more violent. So what
Speaker 1: do you think, you know, just on your own ideas
Speaker 1: and in your own community, what do you think has
Speaker 1: people now ascribe themselves to be more outside of the
Speaker 1: box than before? What I perceive or have perceived among
Speaker 1: my generation and sort of my generational peers, I guess
Speaker 1: it's hard to speak for a whole generation, but like
Speaker 1: my generational peers who are sort of in my narrow
Speaker 1: five year age group, I would say, and you know,
Speaker 1: within the more left wing queer or at least queer
Speaker 1: friendly group, I think there's been a transformation in how
Speaker 1: we understand gender, sex sexuality. For me, a lot of
Speaker 1: that just came from being exposed to more different kinds
Speaker 1: of people. I also had the privilege of how a
Speaker 1: college education that didn't include I went to a Catholic
Speaker 1: university and we had probably a Title nine mandated Women
Speaker 1: and Gender studies department, and it was like one class
Speaker 1: every semester. To keep that department rolling, and you bet
Speaker 1: I took at whatever class one class was being offered
Speaker 1: that semester. But even beyond that, I was on I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this earlier before we talked, I was
Speaker 1: on Tumblr and at the time, like at the turn
Speaker 1: of the twenty tens, Tumbler was it. Tumbler was the
Speaker 1: place to be. And they're sure there was misinformation and
Speaker 1: misunderstanding on Tumbler, but at the same time it exposed people,
Speaker 1: and especially younger people and people who were becoming young
Speaker 1: adults around the same time that I was, to these
Speaker 1: ideas that like some people would radically explain it as
Speaker 1: gender does not exist. Some people would, in a more
Speaker 1: nuanced way, explain gender is a social construct and explain
Speaker 1: how I'm not there to explain those things. If you're
Speaker 1: not aware of those things, there's a lot of more
Speaker 1: intelligent and informed people than I am to explain those
Speaker 1: very detailed concepts if you were not familiar, but your listener,
Speaker 1: if you're aware and familiar with the idea of gender
Speaker 1: being a social construct, and even the fact that I
Speaker 1: can say that, right, do you like do you think
Speaker 1: I wasn't an adult at the time, but like, if
Speaker 1: you think back to like the mid two thousands, well
Speaker 1: before the concept of gender being a social construct. Did
Speaker 1: that exist within the general public consciousness? No, it honestly did,
Speaker 1: and I don't even think I think that in general
Speaker 1: we were still trying to wrap our minds around what
Speaker 1: it meant to be trans, right, So, so, oh sure,
Speaker 1: I watched Comity Central, right, So it was it was
Speaker 1: really that as being and as a person that has
Speaker 1: been in movement LGBTQ movement politics for a long time,
Speaker 1: even being trans and having those conversations was divergent to
Speaker 1: the rest of the LGBU community, right who who at
Speaker 1: that time was really just focused on marriage equality. So
Speaker 1: you want to talk about gender as we're trying to
Speaker 1: at that time assimilate, to be accepted, to then be
Speaker 1: able to pass. So no, I think that there has
Speaker 1: been there is there. We have let go of the
Speaker 1: boxes in that way over the past very short time
Speaker 1: of ten fifteen years to have these conversations that are
Speaker 1: part of national discourse as opposed to just community based. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think one thing too, as you were talking,
Speaker 1: I was thinking of I think something that sort of
Speaker 1: that social uprising fed into and then at the same
Speaker 1: time that legal validation fed into the social strata is
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision to officially recognize same sex marriage
Speaker 1: and the validity of it as marriage, not unions or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I completely recognize that in the very long journey,
Speaker 1: activists were fighting for civil unions as a strategic move.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people who were in civil
Speaker 1: unions who call themselves married because to them they were,
Speaker 1: and that was the way that they could get it
Speaker 1: legally recognized. And it's great for me for a young person,
Speaker 1: like what was that twenty thirteen? So I was like
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one when that was passed, and that was
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. I was okay, a little later than I thought,
Speaker 1: but still that was there was a lot of agitation,
Speaker 1: and I think the agitation got louder when younger people
Speaker 1: started to become voting age and the Obama administration getting
Speaker 1: voted in was very catalyzing for both young people who
Speaker 1: voted for him and people who didn't who saw that that.
Speaker 1: I hate to call it this, but like all all
Speaker 1: good elections are run on like marketing campaigns, right and
Speaker 1: like with the benefit of hindsight, like Hope and Change
Speaker 1: was kind of it was a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a marketing campaign than it was promised, but we buy
Speaker 1: into it. Right, he won, So there was like this
Speaker 1: optimism even if people who maybe didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to vote for him, that like there was hope and
Speaker 1: there was hope for change. And even when President Obama
Speaker 1: was saying, I don't think we can do gay marriage.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can legalize I don't believe in
Speaker 1: even he was saying at the beginning, and then of
Speaker 1: all people, Joe Biden oop seed that he was turning around,
Speaker 1: which will never know. Maybe we will find out one day,
Speaker 1: but like we'll never know whether that was a strategic
Speaker 1: move to him in that direction, right, or it was
Speaker 1: really just like a you know, uncle Joe oopsie. But
Speaker 1: either way, that was astronomical, both the administration pushing for it,
Speaker 1: that itself was a big social step, but then it
Speaker 1: being validated by the Supreme Court. I think that opened
Speaker 1: all kinds of doors that now we're seeing unfortunately awful
Speaker 1: pushback against Hey, I'm David plots a slice political gab fest.
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Speaker 1: to subscribe so you never miss an episode. So that's
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that you made that correlation because
Speaker 1: that's actually you know, I have been thinking about for
Speaker 1: the last couple of for the last couple of weeks really,
Speaker 1: as we're in Pride Month and talking to a lot
Speaker 1: of different folks, is that you know, you sent me
Speaker 1: a message yesterday that was personally heartbreaking, UM, with regard
Speaker 1: to Smithtown, a town in Long Island in Suffolk County,
Speaker 1: that the city council or whatever the township council has
Speaker 1: decided to board, has decided to ban pretty much any
Speaker 1: display of pride, any books, any uh, you know, decorations
Speaker 1: or anything in all of their libraries. UM. And I
Speaker 1: think about, you know, how we have seen the the
Speaker 1: pushback again, the idea of hope and change, the idea
Speaker 1: that we could actually have a black president, the idea
Speaker 1: that you know, there could be queer people in cabinet positions,
Speaker 1: right whether or not we love those people, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's the fact that you have a person
Speaker 1: that is trans, that is out trans. As a part
Speaker 1: of the Abiden administration, you had people that were you know,
Speaker 1: out and queer. In the Obama administration, you have a
Speaker 1: Secretary of Transportation that is a married gay man. But
Speaker 1: now we see all of these targets, all of this violence,
Speaker 1: and I wonder, Andrew, what do you think they're like,
Speaker 1: what are you hearing? The response to this is going
Speaker 1: to be because we're being jammed back into the closet,
Speaker 1: We're being pushed into places that you know, you know, again,
Speaker 1: I've been working in politics for a long time. I've
Speaker 1: only been a part of the ups I have never
Speaker 1: been a part of you know, of the regression. And
Speaker 1: so what are you hearing and what are you feeling
Speaker 1: now about the direction that that this country is headed in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of in the same boat where you say,
Speaker 1: I've only been part of the upswing. And I think
Speaker 1: the upswing part of it is important because you know,
Speaker 1: being born I was born basically when Clinton was elected,
Speaker 1: like one month between my birth and Clinton's election. So
Speaker 1: there was you know, the nineties where it's sort of
Speaker 1: I feel like culturally it was essentially a softened continuation
Speaker 1: of the Reagan era. I remember a lot of just
Speaker 1: dominant cultural conservativism at the time. There was don't ask,
Speaker 1: don't tell, which I was too young to recognize, but
Speaker 1: I feel like that was probably the prevailing attitude at
Speaker 1: the time. I have an uncle who was gay, and
Speaker 1: he could certainly speak more of this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to speak for him, but when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to know that he was gay. My
Speaker 1: uncle Adam was his roommate. They were friends whatever they were,
Speaker 1: they weren't a couple, and me, as a child, I
Speaker 1: was asking like, are they married? Are their boyfriends? Because
Speaker 1: that didn't matter to me. But my religious family, in
Speaker 1: my religious suburban family, was maintaining the lie to a
Speaker 1: child who was making it evident that he didn't care,
Speaker 1: that he wasn't passing judgment, but that lie was being maintained.
Speaker 1: And then we entered the Bush years, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about cultural conservatism. We were both
Speaker 1: there moving on. So then you get the Obama years,
Speaker 1: and then Obama years were the rejection of that heightened
Speaker 1: cultural conservativism, in my opinion, and then you get that
Speaker 1: real upswing, that big upswing where people can be out
Speaker 1: and proud and validated by their government and recognized by
Speaker 1: their government and start to be recognized by society at large.
Speaker 1: All that to say, with this changing tide, I think
Speaker 1: about people my age for sure, because we're not going
Speaker 1: to be shoved back in the closet. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think most people my age are going to
Speaker 1: take to being shoved back in the closet. But I
Speaker 1: think about younger people who just grow up in this
Speaker 1: is wider age of acceptance and just like the high
Speaker 1: school experience. From what I understand, I worked as a
Speaker 1: substitute about five years ago and there was a boy
Speaker 1: putting on his makeup in the detention room. So this
Speaker 1: is like the hard kids, and he's over putting on
Speaker 1: his makeup and like no one's saying anything, and then
Speaker 1: the sub like asks about or the eight whoever they
Speaker 1: asked him about, like what kind of makeup he was using,
Speaker 1: And he was in front of all these other like
Speaker 1: tough guys who were in detention for doing whatever tough
Speaker 1: shit they were doing, and he's like, oh, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: seeing my like beauty later or whatever, you know, not boyfriend,
Speaker 1: but like the guy he was talking to and like no,
Speaker 1: not even no slurs, which is what would have happened
Speaker 1: when I was in high school and you know, and
Speaker 1: sometimes slurs were said and the teacher wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't say that. They were just said yep. So the
Speaker 1: generation younger is sure as shit not going to be
Speaker 1: pushed back in the closet. They you can't drag them
Speaker 1: kicking and screaming. So they're you talk about this all
Speaker 1: the time. There's going to be a cultural war, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be passive. I think
Speaker 1: if it gets to a point where you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I think that that is my that's the
Speaker 1: place of worry that I find myself right now, is
Speaker 1: that I don't think a lot of young people are
Speaker 1: so worried. And I'm going to say that too. I
Speaker 1: think they're more ready than they are worried. What do
Speaker 1: you think that they're ready for? Um? I think because
Speaker 1: I know what the right is ready for? Right, I
Speaker 1: know what they're a R fifteens and they're you know,
Speaker 1: the the White Nationalist group, the thirty one members that
Speaker 1: were just arrested in Idaho for you know, attempting a
Speaker 1: riot at at a pride in Idaho. We know, you
Speaker 1: know what happened with the Proud Boys rushing into a
Speaker 1: drag que queen children's story time. So what do you
Speaker 1: believe that they are ready for? Well, I will say
Speaker 1: among just this is more general than queer communities and
Speaker 1: discourse that I've observed. I would say, just generally, among
Speaker 1: leftist millennials and younger people, there is less emphasis on
Speaker 1: gun control and more thought being given to I mean today, right,
Speaker 1: we're recording this today, the Supreme Court has made a
Speaker 1: decision regarding I believe, open carry as well as concealed
Speaker 1: carry of firearms. And so it's if everyone around you,
Speaker 1: and I hate to say it, because this is a
Speaker 1: move designed, yeah, at least partially to benefit gun manufacturers
Speaker 1: and put more money into their pockets. At the same time, Logically,
Speaker 1: if there's a very real possibility wherever you go in
Speaker 1: the United States of America, and you are choosing to
Speaker 1: stay in the United States of America, that anyone around
Speaker 1: you at any time could have a firearm, what logically
Speaker 1: are you meant to do to defend yourself? That's all.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to younger people, I think they're,
Speaker 1: like I said, there's a more of a rejection of
Speaker 1: the what's becoming an increasingly liberal and center left idea
Speaker 1: of gun control and more of this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: feeling where the wins are going. And you're talking about
Speaker 1: like being prepared for what conservatives are doing. I think
Speaker 1: young people, and certainly young leftists are more prepared for
Speaker 1: what the conservative political majority in this country, not the
Speaker 1: cultural majority, not the actual majority, but unfortunately, the conservative
Speaker 1: political majority, the people who maintain and use power in
Speaker 1: this country, some of whom are in the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: if they're in control right now, and the Democrats are
Speaker 1: saying we don't want to have control, we have stained
Speaker 1: from control. Yep. That I see older people and you know,
Speaker 1: even people like five ten years older than me still
Speaker 1: believing in the Democratic Party. I think there's a cut
Speaker 1: off where that's no longer really there's faith not being
Speaker 1: put into that and certainly voting. I mean, I'm old
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you that right in the comments time
Speaker 1: the show. It's like, I'm seventy years old and I'm
Speaker 1: woke as now and it's you know, it's funny. I
Speaker 1: you know, I was at the White House a week
Speaker 1: a sorgo or two weeks ago. At this point, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Time is a construct, uh, And you know
Speaker 1: I'm seeing Nancy Pelosi and I'm seeing, you know, Senator
Speaker 1: Baldwin and it was for you know, the Pride event,
Speaker 1: and I'm just thinking to myself, like it took everything
Speaker 1: in me, of course, like not to just do my
Speaker 1: you know, nice hello and you know, give Senator Baldwin
Speaker 1: a hug and like all of those things. And I
Speaker 1: am thinking to myself, do they not see like are
Speaker 1: they part of the don't look up right? Like they
Speaker 1: honestly believe that if they lose this cycle, that they
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to come back stronger next time. Like
Speaker 1: they believe it. Yes, I just I hear it. I
Speaker 1: hear it in the way that they're like, we just
Speaker 1: need to keep on fighting and you know, and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, and we just need more people
Speaker 1: to vote. And it's the same recycled shit that I've
Speaker 1: heard for well over a decade plus. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: do you not see what these people are doing? Did you?
Speaker 1: Are you not paying attention like at all? Like there's
Speaker 1: no sense of urgency. There's this belief that they're going
Speaker 1: to get another chance. And I think that young people,
Speaker 1: to your point, are just like so we actually are
Speaker 1: aware right of what these people are doing. They're telling
Speaker 1: us out loud, like we're going to have to protect ourselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, the other thing that the Supreme Court gutted
Speaker 1: evidently was your access to miranda rights, right, and the
Speaker 1: fact that you're not going to be able to like,
Speaker 1: if the cops don't issue you your Miranda rights, well,
Speaker 1: you're just fucked right. You're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to sue them. You're going to be able to have
Speaker 1: any recourse in action, right, They're just going to be
Speaker 1: able to coerce you, beat you out, just do the
Speaker 1: shit that they they've always been doing, essentially, but you're
Speaker 1: not going to have the even the perception of legal
Speaker 1: recourse to take right. So I'm like, you're setting up
Speaker 1: a situation that is a tinderbox. And I don't think
Speaker 1: the democratic establishment, I know, the democratic establishment outside of
Speaker 1: like the Corey Bushes, the Eric Swalwell's, the AOC's, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of those folks who are like, do you all
Speaker 1: see what the fuck is going on here? I don't
Speaker 1: think they get it. Yeah, And to start talking about
Speaker 1: politics and power building and coalition building, I think unfortunately
Speaker 1: the left wing in this country wasn't thinking about and
Speaker 1: focusing on power building both within the Democratic Party and
Speaker 1: without the Democratic Party until it was too late, Because
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned some names like Alexandria Costio Cortez Bush,
Speaker 1: and those are new term YEP members of the House.
Speaker 1: The this kind of building needed to be happening twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, thirty years ago after Jimmy Carter lost to
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. Um, it's it's easy to wag my finger
Speaker 1: as a young person, so I don't want to do
Speaker 1: that too much. But I would even say even if
Speaker 1: you wouldn't go back that far to Reagan, right, this
Speaker 1: should have been happening in two thousand after the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court decided the presidential election, and not the people of
Speaker 1: this country. So that I'm going to say to the listeners,
Speaker 1: I didn't prep with my favorite soapbox. I didn't tell
Speaker 1: Danielle to bring up I'm like, anyone who's listened for
Speaker 1: a long time, they know my favorite. Yeah, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about like that. A bigger
Speaker 1: wake up call to me was twenty two years ago.
Speaker 1: I think people were really placated by the Clinton years,
Speaker 1: by the Obama years too. When I think about it,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, I don't want to go
Speaker 1: full conspiratorial and be like these presidents were plants designed to,
Speaker 1: you know, make the masses docile and complacent, because I
Speaker 1: don't think that's the reality. But I think an unintended
Speaker 1: effect of the third way strategy that brought Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: into power was then this idea of yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: the fact that history almost made me forget his name.
Speaker 1: Al Gore lost, and al Gore lost in a fully
Speaker 1: illegitimate way, and looking historically, Democrats just kind of said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we'll get them next time and didn't even fight it.
Speaker 1: And then on the ground, it's like there was leftist movements.
Speaker 1: I know, there was the Battle of Seattle, so like, leftists,
Speaker 1: we're doing something, but they just they weren't interested in
Speaker 1: building I hate to separate like leftists from Democrats in
Speaker 1: this way because I'm sure they're just crossover. But like
Speaker 1: when you think about the grassroots leftist versus the establishment Democrats,
Speaker 1: the grassroots leftists were not thinking about building political power
Speaker 1: in a way that people were really awakened by and
Speaker 1: sixteen by the election of Donald Trump, the additionally illegitimate
Speaker 1: election of Donald Trump, but it took to your point,
Speaker 1: it took that long sixteen years between a legitimate elections. Three,
Speaker 1: but it'll go. Maybe we should stop this from happening, right,
Speaker 1: But even still, now that we've experienced two thousand, experienced
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, where in twenty twenty two headed
Speaker 1: into mid terms twenty twenty four, what do you see
Speaker 1: any guardrails that were put in place to ensure that
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four presidential election one isn't going to
Speaker 1: be corrupt and then two that that president isn't going
Speaker 1: to be the last president that we have in these
Speaker 1: United States as an authoritarian because absent indictments, absent accountability,
Speaker 1: all we have done as a nation is set up
Speaker 1: our demise. And I think that complacency is a great word,
Speaker 1: because I too was complacent during the Obama years. I
Speaker 1: too believe that this was the beginning of that arc
Speaker 1: bending itself towards justice, and that we were going to
Speaker 1: be on the bend side, right and that everything was
Speaker 1: just going to be about expansion from here. We're not
Speaker 1: even holding onto what the fuck was one fifty years ago.
Speaker 1: So it's I think that, you know, I guess last
Speaker 1: question for you, Andrew is what do you foresee? And
Speaker 1: I don't like to future cast, but I really want
Speaker 1: to know what do you foresee happening in the next
Speaker 1: couple of years in America as a as a as
Speaker 1: a queer person living in this country. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if you what your plans are, if you have
Speaker 1: plans to stay, your plans not to, but what do
Speaker 1: you foresee happening right now? I would love to stay.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of I mean not to air my laundry
Speaker 1: too publicly, but it's a big state. I've been aiming
Speaker 1: moving to California, and now I'm looking at the election
Speaker 1: of Rick Caruso and being like, go Karen Bass, go
Speaker 1: Karen bask you should try to have her on the show.
Speaker 1: We should again. But you know, beyond, it's like when
Speaker 1: I think about things, I think about that that's like
Speaker 1: a micro thing, right, But it's like, will this country
Speaker 1: keep just like sliding further and further to the right.
Speaker 1: And even these narrow electoral efforts to get leftists into office,
Speaker 1: are they going to continue to be opposed by people
Speaker 1: who favor the status quo. I hate to go back,
Speaker 1: but I ultimately I never said I never fully responded
Speaker 1: to you talking about you know, don't look up and democrats.
Speaker 1: I don't think democrats live in the real world. I
Speaker 1: think the tools that younger people have, you know, the
Speaker 1: younger you go, the more people have grown up with technology,
Speaker 1: and the more people know how to those younger people
Speaker 1: know how to use technology more deptly, and not only
Speaker 1: how to use that technology, but how to avoid disinformation.
Speaker 1: We talked about Tumbler, and there's TikTok now as well.
Speaker 1: It's not like disinformation isn't out there and young people
Speaker 1: don't buy into it, but it's not so much on
Speaker 1: the scale of like here is the dumbest clickbait Facebook
Speaker 1: article in the world that your sixty five year old
Speaker 1: parent is going to fall forward because they just don't
Speaker 1: have the tools, whether in their mind or just like
Speaker 1: you know, practically in their Internet browsing to filter what
Speaker 1: is true and what is not because they grew up
Speaker 1: in a time where if information was being given to
Speaker 1: you by what you perceive as a reputable source yea,
Speaker 1: then you will receive it. And to connect that to democrats,
Speaker 1: I don't think democrats use like Democrats aren't tooled into
Speaker 1: their constituency in a large sense is the sense I get.
Speaker 1: And so when there are people on the ground yelling fire,
Speaker 1: yelling wolf, and there's actually like Democrats, I feel are
Speaker 1: the ones to bring that analogy, and Democrats are actually
Speaker 1: the ones who feel I feel cry wolf. I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of people have grown up with like
Speaker 1: this is the most important election ever. This time, we've
Speaker 1: really got it. So if that's really what happens in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, it's you've been saying that to us.
Speaker 1: I don't know, at least since Obama's second election, probably beforehand. No,
Speaker 1: they said it for Obamas because McCain was I thought
Speaker 1: that was true. But it's like if every election is
Speaker 1: the most important, that loses, But now we're the ones
Speaker 1: saying no, Look there's wolves, there's fascist, there's white supremacist,
Speaker 1: there's all these things, and Democrats are shaking their hands
Speaker 1: with them, and they're going, my friend across the aisle,
Speaker 1: you point us out all the time, and it's just like,
Speaker 1: I think their class blinds them from what is going
Speaker 1: on in the world, because in terms of class, they
Speaker 1: are fully aligned with Republicans, and I worry about how
Speaker 1: that will affect our younger crop in the long run,
Speaker 1: but I want to be optimistic, and speaking of a
Speaker 1: long run, neither of us know whether there actually will
Speaker 1: be a long run. Will Ocasio Cortez actually even get
Speaker 1: to be the age where even theoretically she could run
Speaker 1: for president of the United States and there still be
Speaker 1: a United States government. When I look at the next
Speaker 1: few years, I'll say publicly that I spoke to you
Speaker 1: and a recording engineer last summer, and I said that
Speaker 1: the Democrats were not going to win these midterm elections.
Speaker 1: That I think was in June twenty twenty one. I
Speaker 1: think it's you know, now it's Dune twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: I think it is increasingly evident. And if you're saying
Speaker 1: that's the mood on the hill, that means they've accepted lost,
Speaker 1: they've accepted defeat, and they've decided they're not going to fight.
Speaker 1: I'm I legitimately feel like I'm about to cry, because
Speaker 1: it's like, in terms of government, we don't have course.
Speaker 1: We don't we being the left wing, and we being
Speaker 1: the people, do not have the recourse to fight. If
Speaker 1: Republicans are saying we want to dismand if Republicans and
Speaker 1: the conservative right are saying we want to dismantle everything,
Speaker 1: and Democrats are saying we'll get them next time. You're
Speaker 1: not You're You're absolutely right. I agree with you. There
Speaker 1: is not going to be the next time. And I
Speaker 1: can't read the tea leaves. I can't say what that
Speaker 1: will look like. I do think it's not going to
Speaker 1: be pretty. I sometimes think of Joe Biden as James Buchanan,
Speaker 1: and what came after James Buchanan was very, very, very unpretty.
Speaker 1: And I think the only one more crossover between both
Speaker 1: is that after James Buchanan there will be a Republican,
Speaker 1: but they will be two very different Republicans. And what
Speaker 1: will that mean for America? Yeah, oh god, I wanted
Speaker 1: to end on a high note, but that is not
Speaker 1: going to be. That's not going to be today. I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot is, certainly not people younger than me.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a lot of optimism for the
Speaker 1: immediate future. I mean, we didn't even talk about the climate,
Speaker 1: which also don't want to do anything about. So is
Speaker 1: there going to be you know, how much of the
Speaker 1: United States is that it's actually be war on So
Speaker 1: it's like either we're going down We're going down with
Speaker 1: the civil war, We're going down with climate change. We're
Speaker 1: going down. I think that whatever is whatever comes after
Speaker 1: the fall of everything um is going to be a
Speaker 1: considerable dark period that I don't know if we I
Speaker 1: don't know if there will be light that we will see,
Speaker 1: right like I, you know, I think that we're talking
Speaker 1: about generational loss, and I don't think that the majority
Speaker 1: of America understands really what that means. Do you want
Speaker 1: to end on a positive note? Coma one thing? There
Speaker 1: is some optimism in my heart. If we fight for
Speaker 1: a better future, a better future is possible. But we
Speaker 1: have to fight. I said, had we started fighting thirty
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, it would be an easier fight. But
Speaker 1: if we start fighting now, we will have to fight
Speaker 1: very hard. And we can fight for a better future
Speaker 1: and we can fight back, but we have to fight.
Speaker 1: And fighting doesn't just mean voting every two or four years.
Speaker 1: We have to fight. It's true, Andrew. It is wonderful
Speaker 1: to have you on this side of the microphone. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you and your five years plus of work with me
Speaker 1: and on this show. But honestly, great, great, great conversation,
Speaker 1: and you know we'll have to continue it, but we
Speaker 1: thank you for me will appreciate you. Hey there, I
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Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: f As always, Power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.