Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Hell. No just kidding,
Speaker 1: welcome to Okay. F with me your girl A Danielle
Speaker 1: Moody recording from the Brooklyn Bunker, where I will probably
Speaker 1: stay for the rest of my life until the American
Speaker 1: Gestapo come and drag me out and put me in
Speaker 1: some type of federal prison for political prisoners. Friends, the
Speaker 1: decision that came out, that was leaked by the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court to erase Rov Wade, to undo fifty years of
Speaker 1: work of equality of justice in this country as it
Speaker 1: pertains to women and pregnant people, is beyond a wake
Speaker 1: up call. Because here's the thing that I have been saying,
Speaker 1: and you will hear me, Delvin, to this conversation with
Speaker 1: our friend today, doctor Jonathan Metzel, is that this is
Speaker 1: only the beginning. This is only the fucking beginning. If
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade can fall after fifty fucking years, what
Speaker 1: do you think isn't on the table? Do you understand?
Speaker 1: Because they are going to come for contraception, they are
Speaker 1: going to come for same sex marriage, they are going
Speaker 1: to come for social security, they are going to come
Speaker 1: for desegregated schools, they are going to come for immigration,
Speaker 1: they are going to come for every fucking right that
Speaker 1: we have ever won over the last sixty plus years.
Speaker 1: We have a case that I talked about last week
Speaker 1: with regard to prayer in schools. Right at the same
Speaker 1: time that we are having a conversation in Washington State
Speaker 1: about a fired coach's ability to organize prayer for his
Speaker 1: football team to do so on the fifty yard line,
Speaker 1: we're having that conversation. We're rolling back abortion rights, we
Speaker 1: have already gutted voting rights. We are allowing cops to
Speaker 1: kill black and brown people have been right with impunity.
Speaker 1: Where do you think the fuck we go from here?
Speaker 1: You know, on my other show, Democracy Issue that I
Speaker 1: do with my friend ja jahat Ali, you know, he
Speaker 1: always would say, he's always saying, Daniel, they want to
Speaker 1: take us back to nineteen fifty two. He wouldn't say
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three. It was nineteen fifty two, right, Because
Speaker 1: the front lines of the conservative, white, even jelical Christian
Speaker 1: cult movement has always been in our schools, but it
Speaker 1: has also been right at all levels too. What is
Speaker 1: the word I'm even looking for, Folks, I'm struggling. I'm
Speaker 1: struggling today, So please bear with me. I am struggling.
Speaker 1: I stayed up overnight, I did not sleep. I wrote
Speaker 1: a piece in the Daily Beast, which I will share
Speaker 1: with you now. The anger and the rage that I
Speaker 1: feel has driven me to tears more times today than
Speaker 1: I can count, because I am worried. I am worried
Speaker 1: about the lives of all of us. I am worried
Speaker 1: about our lives for people who are not white, who
Speaker 1: are not straight, who are not Siths, who are not Christian.
Speaker 1: In this country, they have declared war, they have long
Speaker 1: since declared war. And I'm reading strongly worded fucking statements
Speaker 1: by the Biden administration, by the Harris by Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, I thought was a fucking prosecutor of the
Speaker 1: largest goddamn staying in the country. Where the fuck is she?
Speaker 1: This administration is too busy hiding the fact that a
Speaker 1: black woman, right an Asian woman, is a vice president
Speaker 1: of the United States, that they think that what if
Speaker 1: they keep her out of camera shots and Mike shot
Speaker 1: that what the rabbit white racist will forget? Folks. I
Speaker 1: am so fucking tired of Democrats running scared. I am
Speaker 1: so fucking tired of watching Chuck Schumer wag his fucking
Speaker 1: finger and say, this is infuriating, as if you didn't
Speaker 1: fucking know what Republicans have been doing out in the
Speaker 1: open for fifty fucking years. This ain't new. They didn't
Speaker 1: come up with this plan overnight. They have been activated
Speaker 1: at the state and local level for decades, waiting for
Speaker 1: this moment. When I watched Elizabeth Warren, Senator Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 1: enraged as she's walking to her car. Senator Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 1: has said, they have been organized, they have been catalyzed.
Speaker 1: What the fuck have we been doing patting ourselves on
Speaker 1: the back for Democratic presidents that turn around and then
Speaker 1: we realized that the executive branch under Democrats doesn't have
Speaker 1: as much fucking power as it should. I won't tell
Speaker 1: you that we don't have a leader in this moment.
Speaker 1: This is a thing that troubles me the most is
Speaker 1: that back in the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: before they were all assassinated, we had fucking leaders that
Speaker 1: were out front, that were speaking the truth, that were
Speaker 1: organizing people. People were willing to sacrifice because what they
Speaker 1: have understood, what they have always understood, is that freedom
Speaker 1: is not free. There is a cost to freedom. People
Speaker 1: have given up their lives on the way to bring
Speaker 1: us along to the path to freedom. We couldn't even
Speaker 1: stay in the fucking house for three months and watch
Speaker 1: Netflix when we were asked to quarantine. They want to
Speaker 1: open up the country, open up the states. Do you
Speaker 1: think right now that we have the fortitude to do
Speaker 1: what needs to be done, to go out into these
Speaker 1: streets and not to leave. Do you think that we
Speaker 1: have the ability to collectively decide that we ain't tapping
Speaker 1: into fucking capitalism. We're sitting the fuck out that all
Speaker 1: that is left is to figure out what is going
Speaker 1: to hurt them and hit them where it hurts, instead
Speaker 1: of thinking that we're gonna go to the negotiation table
Speaker 1: and negotiate our humanity, negotiate our fucking lives. Fuck them.
Speaker 1: This is the place that I have been at. I
Speaker 1: ain't somebody tweet at me talking about I hate wokeness, right,
Speaker 1: I am so against wokeness. Oh so you want to
Speaker 1: live your life asleep because that's what the fuck you
Speaker 1: just said. Oh, I'm against woke culture. So you're against
Speaker 1: consciousness because what you prefer is what George Orwell had
Speaker 1: laid out for us in nineteen eighty four. You prefer
Speaker 1: somebody else to do your thinking for you so that
Speaker 1: you can just sit back and what be in depository
Speaker 1: for their bullshit, because you think that that's what's going
Speaker 1: to keep you safe. Folks, we are not in a
Speaker 1: good place. Things are going to get much worse. And
Speaker 1: I don't even know if the rest of us will
Speaker 1: live to see things get better the first half. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of my life. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: it's like to live in a country that doesn't have
Speaker 1: access to abortion. You see, because everything and people will say,
Speaker 1: and you tell me in the comments section. My life,
Speaker 1: my lifetime has been about progression towards progress, right. It
Speaker 1: has been about us moving the needle generation by generation.
Speaker 1: We had never reached a point in my lifetime where
Speaker 1: the needle was just ripped out and thrown away, where
Speaker 1: it wasn't about expansion of rights, it was about trying
Speaker 1: to regain them. You see, once you lose constitutional rights,
Speaker 1: they're just gone. Once you lose democracy, it don't just
Speaker 1: come back. Right. That's the thing that I believe that folks,
Speaker 1: especially the democratic establishment, are still sitting around and believing
Speaker 1: that they're going to get another bite at the apple
Speaker 1: post mid terms in a handful of months. Are they crazy?
Speaker 1: Are we all watching the same things unfold in the
Speaker 1: confirmation hearings you had any COVID Barrett, you had that
Speaker 1: rapist Kavanaugh lie tell the American people that, oh, what
Speaker 1: is law? What is precedented? Will stand? Do we understand
Speaker 1: now that these motherfuckers will just tell you what it
Speaker 1: is that you want to hear when you want to
Speaker 1: hear it, and then do what and then do the opposite?
Speaker 1: Do we get that now? Do we get that these
Speaker 1: people that Joe Biden still considers his friends would rather
Speaker 1: see him hung from a tree alongside his vice president?
Speaker 1: Do we recognize that violence is what it is going
Speaker 1: to come from the actions that they are taking right now,
Speaker 1: because you see, there is never going to be enough.
Speaker 1: They are going to gobble up each every single right
Speaker 1: like they are a bunch of fucking pact men. And
Speaker 1: then if we don't power in their presence, if we
Speaker 1: do not submit, what do you think that they're going
Speaker 1: to do? You think they're just gonna leave us all
Speaker 1: alone to be and to brood. No, they are going
Speaker 1: to take us out. They are going to make examples
Speaker 1: of those of us that decide to continue to speak out.
Speaker 1: They are going to terrorize and dismantle communities and organizations
Speaker 1: that have been working for and towards equity. We are
Speaker 1: living in the most unstable and unjust times that any
Speaker 1: of us have ever seen. I want to read to
Speaker 1: you a part of my Peace with the Day Beast,
Speaker 1: which is upright now. And you know I posted this.
Speaker 1: It was posted, I should say, at about one o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning after the decision was leaked, because that's
Speaker 1: what happens. My mother said to me, so, I guess
Speaker 1: you just can't sleep these days, And I said, what
Speaker 1: does that look like? No, I can't. The title of
Speaker 1: my piece has caused a lot of people to be
Speaker 1: very upset, and I said, you know, what I would
Speaker 1: love is that if people would actually look past the
Speaker 1: titles of things and read articles. But you know, alas
Speaker 1: they don't do that either. But what it does is
Speaker 1: lay out the ways in which this could have been avoided.
Speaker 1: How we could have maintained a five to four split
Speaker 1: in a Supreme court if Democrats had any strategy or
Speaker 1: a fucking backbone and didn't think that, you know, the
Speaker 1: world was just filled with an unlimited amount of chances.
Speaker 1: It's entitled. Ruth Bader Ginsburg could probably have saved Roe
Speaker 1: by retiring. Yeah, I said, what the fuck I said?
Speaker 1: But she earned the right to make her choice. Point
Speaker 1: a finger instead at Democrats who've proven they will give
Speaker 1: in while Republicans will fight to the end to protect
Speaker 1: their power. The death of Ruth of Justice Ruth Bader
Speaker 1: Ginsberg in twenty twenty was almost two on the nose
Speaker 1: for a year marred by unimaginable tragedy and trauma whose
Speaker 1: impact was sorely felt. Monday night, when Elite drafted the
Speaker 1: majority decision written by Justice Alito in the highly anticipated
Speaker 1: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case, appeared to seal
Speaker 1: the fate of Roe v. Wade, the nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: decision that legalized abortion nationwide. As one of the most
Speaker 1: esteemed liberal justices to sit on the bench, Ginsburg had
Speaker 1: scoffed at the idea of retiring before she felt that
Speaker 1: she could quote no longer do the job following multiple
Speaker 1: bouts with cancer and a broken hip. Her ability to
Speaker 1: conquer each health obstacle with perseverance and strength turned her
Speaker 1: into a living feminist, folk hero and rock star until
Speaker 1: her death at the age of eighty seven. She seemed
Speaker 1: indestructible until she wasn't. Now the question must be asked,
Speaker 1: could her retirement at the age of eighty and then
Speaker 1: President Obama's second term have deterred America's now inevitable backslide
Speaker 1: into a neo dark age's where the freedom to control
Speaker 1: one's life and destiny no longer exists for those dwelling
Speaker 1: outside the womb. In that alternative future, the Court would
Speaker 1: still have a conservative majority, but a narrower five to
Speaker 1: four split would have at least given a semblance of hope.
Speaker 1: Now here's where is here in the piece? Is my
Speaker 1: t be sure? Because folks, you know I am not
Speaker 1: an attorney. I am not a lawyer, but I understand
Speaker 1: how policy works and I understand politics. So I go
Speaker 1: on to say this. Ginsburg alone couldn't have saved the Court,
Speaker 1: but in giving up her seat, she could have stalled
Speaker 1: its transformation into the conservative juggernaut that is about to
Speaker 1: achieve the Republican's holy grail. Then President Trump was able
Speaker 1: to seat three justices in a single term thanks to
Speaker 1: the diabolical strategic maneuvering of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: who aided and abetted Trump in the hijacking of the courts,
Speaker 1: and with them our democracy. Folks. You know that when
Speaker 1: it is Wednesday, I'm always grateful to be joined by
Speaker 1: our friends and in house doctor doctor Jonathan Metzl, author
Speaker 1: of the book Dying of Whiteness. Jonathan, you know, let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. I don't know where the fuck
Speaker 1: to begin, and I'm just gonna curse a lot because
Speaker 1: I feel I can't say that the leaked Scotus decision
Speaker 1: in the Mississippi abortion case has caught me off guard,
Speaker 1: because that would be a lie. I can't say that
Speaker 1: I didn't believe that, after fifty years of hammering at
Speaker 1: the same nail, that I didn't think eventually that white
Speaker 1: evangelical Christians and the rabid Republican base wouldn't eventually send
Speaker 1: that nail through the uteruses of women across this country.
Speaker 1: But what I can say is that Democrats have as
Speaker 1: a whole, have woefully underestimated the Republican Party and have
Speaker 1: woefully underestimated white evangelical Christians and their power. Tell me
Speaker 1: how you are feeling today, um as a medical professional,
Speaker 1: as a progressive um. Waking up to and having absorbed
Speaker 1: this news, well, I don't curse very much, you know.
Speaker 1: I usually let you do the cursing, and I'm like
Speaker 1: the voice of reason. But today, like Smegma, you know,
Speaker 1: what the hell I'm going to say every cursor? I know, like,
Speaker 1: because because it's a it's an insane moment. It's an
Speaker 1: insane um for a couple of reasons. Number one, of course,
Speaker 1: is it just in of itself is horrible. Number Two,
Speaker 1: there's this leak. We don't know, I mean, the league,
Speaker 1: we don't know the story of the leak. Was it
Speaker 1: somebody on our side, somebody on their side? Was it
Speaker 1: the Russians hacking? Like we don't know. So there's also
Speaker 1: the bigger story about the you know, also a story
Speaker 1: about the institution. But also this pretends a lot of
Speaker 1: really bad shit. I mean, if if that is the decision,
Speaker 1: which we don't know what, I mean, the one thing
Speaker 1: is what will the final decision look like? But even
Speaker 1: if that was a draft of a decision, I mean,
Speaker 1: that was pretty close to like let's keep women at
Speaker 1: home baking pies, M kind of deal. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: just the assumption about just that people think about gender
Speaker 1: that way is so upsetting and and so you know,
Speaker 1: even if you study this, so shocking and so unbelievable
Speaker 1: that that we're going to go to this red you know,
Speaker 1: retrograde gender kind of stuff. But of course that's what
Speaker 1: happens when societies go through you know, Tehran was a
Speaker 1: totally vibrant place, very route, totally vibrant place, you know,
Speaker 1: Russia fifteen twenty years ago. I mean, so when societies
Speaker 1: go backward, they go backward on race and gender. That's
Speaker 1: kind of how they go backward. I mean, they go
Speaker 1: backward on a maddow their stuff. Two. So I think
Speaker 1: the issue is, you know, I think people are waking
Speaker 1: up today to the realization that they can't really take
Speaker 1: it for granted that really, when societies go backward, this
Speaker 1: is what happens. The rights that people have are not
Speaker 1: etched in granted forever. And so these are things we're
Speaker 1: going to have to fight for. You know, here's the
Speaker 1: thing that I want to talk to you too about,
Speaker 1: because you are essentially an investigative reporter. Excuse me, when
Speaker 1: it comes to understanding whiteness. Talk to me about white women, right,
Speaker 1: now and the fact that we think that this is
Speaker 1: going to wake white women up. I mean, that's for
Speaker 1: me is the hardest thing, honestly is I mean the
Speaker 1: two hardest things for me in terms of that narrative. First,
Speaker 1: of course is pain and anger and fury and sadness
Speaker 1: of what this means. But beyond that, I'm surprised how
Speaker 1: many people are surprised, Like where you've been, Um, you
Speaker 1: know that they've been. This has been quite predictable. And
Speaker 1: number two, I think it's important for people to realize
Speaker 1: that this moment right now took fifty years for these
Speaker 1: other dudes to do, and it was fifty years of
Speaker 1: starting at the bottom. They lost, and what they do.
Speaker 1: They ran for local elections, They figured out how to
Speaker 1: seat judges at the local level. They ran, as we've
Speaker 1: said a million times on here, for school board and
Speaker 1: election officials, and they figured out what kind of deals
Speaker 1: they had to make with odious businesses and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of like an eyes on the
Speaker 1: prize momentum that as we know, and involves a lot
Speaker 1: of people. And so really the question right now is
Speaker 1: did the Democrats the Democrats have it in them to
Speaker 1: sustain the fight that this is going to take um.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a fair question. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that there are a lot of women who agree
Speaker 1: with this decision. Obviously, there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who feel on many sides of this. So the question
Speaker 1: is can Democrats and mobilize what this is going to take? Um? No, Okay,
Speaker 1: they can't because none of this was a shock, right,
Speaker 1: Like you're taking fifty years to write the same playbook
Speaker 1: and literally just roll out different volumes every single year
Speaker 1: over five decades, and Democrats have come up with no plan,
Speaker 1: no plan whatsoever to comeback this which was to control
Speaker 1: the courts, to expand the courts, and then to control them,
Speaker 1: meaning that every single time that there was a Democrat
Speaker 1: going back even before Clinton, that that should have been
Speaker 1: the main goal, but it wasn't. But the thing is
Speaker 1: our base, that's never been our the argument of our base. Right.
Speaker 1: In other words, like the one thing I was thinking
Speaker 1: when you asked me about spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: interviewing white people, when you interview Republicans, like their goal
Speaker 1: is control the courts, get power, and everybody be like,
Speaker 1: well what about your healthcare and what about your thing?
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I thought, and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: we want to control the courts and get power and
Speaker 1: implement our thing. And so, you know, mister McConnell is
Speaker 1: like the perfect illustration of that. Everything just just about
Speaker 1: getting the course and Democrats we've had. Think of all
Speaker 1: the random issues we've had over the years that are
Speaker 1: hot button issues for five minutes and then they go away,
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and even stuff that really matters.
Speaker 1: I mean, I study guns, and after mass shootings there
Speaker 1: would be like two weeks of fury and marches and
Speaker 1: never again and that kind of stuff, and then people
Speaker 1: would go home and do their own thing. But I've
Speaker 1: just stay studying Republicans, like I don't know, these fuckers
Speaker 1: slept in front of women's abortion clinics for fifty years.
Speaker 1: They're still out there tonight. And so in a way
Speaker 1: that you know, it's hard because the Democrats are, as
Speaker 1: we've said here, a confederation of a lot of different interests.
Speaker 1: So the question is will this be the one that
Speaker 1: mobilizes people, that creates a common cause. And the reason
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical of that A is because of history, as
Speaker 1: you say, but B also is because a lot more
Speaker 1: bad shit is coming down the pike. So this is
Speaker 1: this is you know, if you're going to use this logic,
Speaker 1: then there's a lot more bad stuff coming. What do
Speaker 1: you think that the bottom is? Where do you think
Speaker 1: that it goes? Um? In studying, in studying these people
Speaker 1: really understanding how their brains work, what is their end goal?
Speaker 1: Like literally like this this was the holy grail. Abortion,
Speaker 1: I believe was the holy grail. In the decision that
Speaker 1: we have that some of us have gone through that
Speaker 1: was leaked, there is mention of the Lawrence case which
Speaker 1: was about which was about decriminalizing sodomy. There was reference
Speaker 1: to marriage, there was reference to LGBTQ marriage. There are
Speaker 1: reference points to all of these things that have been
Speaker 1: one over the last fifty years. And so if they
Speaker 1: belief you, if this can fall, then everything that we
Speaker 1: thought was quote unquote codified into law, it's done. And
Speaker 1: so in your conversations and in your research, what does
Speaker 1: what does the utopia of white evangelical christian Hood look like?
Speaker 1: It's weird because there's no consistency right. Nobody's ever lost
Speaker 1: a constitutional right in this country until yesterday apparently, and
Speaker 1: so all the things like states rights and the Constitution
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff. It's really just a
Speaker 1: smokescreen for power. But I think it's important for people
Speaker 1: to realize that a lot of the stuff like with
Speaker 1: like you can't get an abortion in Tennessee, for example,
Speaker 1: pretty much like a lot of this stuff, you can
Speaker 1: get a gun anywhere in Tennessee. Republicans dominate the states.
Speaker 1: So if you want to know what this is going
Speaker 1: to look like, just imagine Tennessee of America, because that's
Speaker 1: that's already happening. And I guess one of the frustrations
Speaker 1: for me why I wrote Dying a Whiteness where I'm
Speaker 1: writing the book I'm writing now, is because it was
Speaker 1: too easy, honestly for coastal liberal people to say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this is just happening in the red state America,
Speaker 1: and we're it's like whatever, and we don't have to
Speaker 1: deal with it, like but it's coming for you, you know.
Speaker 1: And so that was kind of the point of Dying
Speaker 1: of Whiteness was if you want to look at what's happening,
Speaker 1: look at what's happening there, and then intervene there, because
Speaker 1: that's that's the focus of where this is happening. Really
Speaker 1: try to figure out what would it mean to turn
Speaker 1: the tide, not in New York or Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: in rural Tennessee. What would you mean to gain influence,
Speaker 1: to talk to people, to do all these kind of things.
Speaker 1: And I can't tell you how hard that argument has
Speaker 1: been for many, many years, but I would say that
Speaker 1: that's kind of the issue is if you want to
Speaker 1: look at what this is going to be, just look
Speaker 1: to my home state, because that's kind of what it
Speaker 1: is already. And so this idea that New York is safe,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's it's it's sadly tragic that
Speaker 1: people think that they're they're just going to be abortions
Speaker 1: in Connecticut and Los Angeles and New York. Like have
Speaker 1: you not been paying attention, dude, Like you know, you
Speaker 1: think people from Tennessee are just going to get to
Speaker 1: come here and have abortions. It is not going to
Speaker 1: work that way. And so I don't know. I hope
Speaker 1: this is a wake up moment. I really do, But
Speaker 1: like I guess, I guess when I when we say
Speaker 1: things like that, and I'm not like attacking you, it's
Speaker 1: just I you know, I spent all of last night
Speaker 1: on Twitter and writing my piece that's in the Daily
Speaker 1: Beast today that dropped, you know, in the morning. Like
Speaker 1: we say, like I hope that these things will be
Speaker 1: a wake up call. It's kind of the way that
Speaker 1: we say, you know, when a loved one dies, Oh,
Speaker 1: they're in a better place. No, they're not right, because
Speaker 1: that better place I wanted to be with me, right,
Speaker 1: not you know, in the ground or in an urn. Right.
Speaker 1: And so it's like these are things that we tell
Speaker 1: ourselves too, I guess, make ourselves feel better. But in reality,
Speaker 1: I think that the wake up call is too late.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Well, I mean, I do think there's something palpable
Speaker 1: about the anger this morning that is different than what
Speaker 1: I felt. So I'm willing to keep the possibility open
Speaker 1: that this is a turning point moment. I mean, certainly
Speaker 1: it's a turning point moment in our country, that's right.
Speaker 1: But I would say I can give you nine zillion
Speaker 1: examples of times that people have been angry that have
Speaker 1: been anger for the expression of anger sake, and not
Speaker 1: anger for the let's seize the mechanisms of powers stake.
Speaker 1: You know. One great one is the Women's March. It
Speaker 1: happened right when Trump was elected, very powerful, tactile, angry,
Speaker 1: coordinated event happening, But it wasn't tied to voter registration,
Speaker 1: it wasn't tied to any specific demands about judiciary. It
Speaker 1: was very I mean, it was democratic, which was great
Speaker 1: about it. But I kept thinking, like, why aren't we
Speaker 1: doing like voter registration at this march, or why aren't
Speaker 1: we doing something that? And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's I guess for me, it very similar to
Speaker 1: a lot of the marches we had after mass shootings
Speaker 1: where people were protesting and saying in the NRA or
Speaker 1: expand the Supreme Court, all these kind of things, and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, to do that, you actually have to
Speaker 1: you have to like understand how power works and they
Speaker 1: gain power like Republicans really understand that. So a wake
Speaker 1: up call and anger is not going to be enough.
Speaker 1: It's actually going to be understanding, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: just like understand the system. We're not going to unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we're not going to expand the Supreme Court. That's not
Speaker 1: going to happen right now. That's a step wise process.
Speaker 1: And so to say stuff like that, you're just in
Speaker 1: a way risking repeating the same problem that got you
Speaker 1: here in the first place, which is not understanding top
Speaker 1: to bottom how the American political system works, which is
Speaker 1: really kind of what we have to do from here.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things that I've said in
Speaker 1: the piece that I wrote is that, you know, Republicans
Speaker 1: have been going at this four fifty years. They have
Speaker 1: never given up. They have fund raised off of it,
Speaker 1: they have and candidates on it. It has been much
Speaker 1: alike with gun rights. It has been the litmus test
Speaker 1: that they have used to be able to show how
Speaker 1: conservative a candidate, whether at the school board level or
Speaker 1: um for president, has been, has been whether or not
Speaker 1: they agree with abortion, whether or not, you know, they
Speaker 1: believe in gun rights. And we don't have that kind
Speaker 1: of litmus test, right Like, we sat around and believed
Speaker 1: Susan Collins when she told us that that the confirmation
Speaker 1: of Brett Kavanaugh wasn't going to mean the end of
Speaker 1: Robie Wade. And I'm like and and people believed her,
Speaker 1: and and I'm like, are you dumb? Right? Like again,
Speaker 1: I go back to the fact that Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: a is a statesman from another fucking century, right, believing
Speaker 1: that these people are his friends, and that he's going
Speaker 1: to sit down over a glass of scotch and just
Speaker 1: hash out these you know, these big issues and then
Speaker 1: go about his day. This is they played to win.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that we're getting another bite at
Speaker 1: the apple. I don't think we're going to get another
Speaker 1: opportunity to pick up the ball. I think that this
Speaker 1: is it right for women's rights. I think that what's
Speaker 1: next is lgbt Q rights. I think that what comes
Speaker 1: after that is, you know, is the d is a
Speaker 1: resegregation of schools. I think that they are coming for
Speaker 1: everything pre nineteen fifty two. That's a sad I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a sad world. Um yeah, I mean, but not
Speaker 1: for white not for cis agender had a row white men.
Speaker 1: It's not it is the world. Well yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I mean, clearly, that's what we're facing.
Speaker 1: I mean, in other words, when you read that opinion,
Speaker 1: even if it was just like notes to myself, I'm
Speaker 1: dictating on the treadmill, you know, and maybe that'll stuff
Speaker 1: a log get taken out of the final. But if
Speaker 1: the leaker was on our side, I think people wanted
Speaker 1: to see, like here's the here's the here's what's at
Speaker 1: stake here, And so if the leaker was on our
Speaker 1: side and not like a Russian packer, I think I
Speaker 1: think it's important to see this draft, even though it's
Speaker 1: you know, antithetical to how we think about the court.
Speaker 1: Um but um. But I would also say, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think of all the democratic things and now
Speaker 1: is not the time to be critical Democrats, not now
Speaker 1: the time to unify. But I've said on this show
Speaker 1: a bunch of times like, um, like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we hate Management and Cinema because they don't vote for
Speaker 1: the Social Safety Net plan and therefore, I mean they're
Speaker 1: douchebags too, but uh but um but they're But you
Speaker 1: want people to vote for your judges basically, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, people and Management and Cinema have
Speaker 1: voted for every one of the Democratic judges, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like in this like, oh, like, let's let's
Speaker 1: replace that. They might it might as well be a
Speaker 1: Republican And I'm like, no, it's actually worse of it's
Speaker 1: a Republican because Management, Cinema vote forever have voted for
Speaker 1: everyone of Biden's judiciary nominations, and so you know, it's
Speaker 1: just just something about how power works that Democrats don't
Speaker 1: quite understand. It's much more about it's much more about
Speaker 1: I don't know. We're gonna have to change how we
Speaker 1: think about how power works. I'll support it that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to change how we think about
Speaker 1: how power works because we ain't never going to get
Speaker 1: it again. Jonathan. Final thought to you about what is
Speaker 1: the one thing if you were to say to Democrats
Speaker 1: about their understanding of the aggrieved white voter, what is
Speaker 1: the one thing? And I use that in quotations, but
Speaker 1: what is the one thing that democrats are missing about
Speaker 1: this voting block that Republicans know and hammer it's weird.
Speaker 1: I interviewed a bunch of people last night. I was
Speaker 1: up all night also, and and a lot of people
Speaker 1: who I was interviewing, they you would think they were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, fifty year fight, we won, let's go celebrate,
Speaker 1: but they were They were feeling incredibly aggrieved even now.
Speaker 1: So they were like, oh my god, this league it
Speaker 1: had to be liberals who were doing this to undermine us.
Speaker 1: And this is going to be just another twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and Black Lives Matter is going to loot and burn
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, Like there's this constant casting of
Speaker 1: yourself as the victim, even in a case like this
Speaker 1: where you won and you're the aggressor, and so the
Speaker 1: question is how do you how do you combat that? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a constant narrative even now that is
Speaker 1: casting this as we're the victims of this thing that
Speaker 1: we just won. And it's NonStop, It's literally NonStop. And
Speaker 1: so the only way you fight back on that is unfortunately,
Speaker 1: by taking power, And the only way you take power
Speaker 1: is by building coalitions. And the only way you build
Speaker 1: coalitions is by broadening the appeal of what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And I feel like Democrats have not done that right
Speaker 1: in other words, we did it like again now like
Speaker 1: centrist versus progressives right now? Really you really would have
Speaker 1: that fight right now? What about like every voter under
Speaker 1: our tent and stuff like that, And so, I mean,
Speaker 1: right now we're still in the American democratic political system.
Speaker 1: That might not be the case going forward, but it's
Speaker 1: the same answer. Run for school board, run for election officials,
Speaker 1: Like how where's the massive campaign to have Democrats running
Speaker 1: for election officials that are going to be like Trump
Speaker 1: nut jobs and stuff like that. Like that, that's got
Speaker 1: to be kind of where you start. Yeah, where you
Speaker 1: start is where they have been rallying and where they
Speaker 1: have been organizing for the last five decades. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, it sucks that Elon must took over Twitter,
Speaker 1: but like, I don't know, we've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time tweeting and not a lot of time running for
Speaker 1: school board. So that's got to change. Well, I will
Speaker 1: say that my role is not to run for office.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested. I'm running for you, for you, and
Speaker 1: people ask all the time, no, you all go run
Speaker 1: for office. Like I have no desire to be in
Speaker 1: political life. I have desire to be in policy world. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: which I have done throughout the entirety of my career.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to be beholden to constituents. But
Speaker 1: there are people out there who need this push to say,
Speaker 1: you don't got to be a congressman, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be a city count. You could run for your
Speaker 1: kids school board, even if you don't have a goddamn kid.
Speaker 1: Go run for school board if you care about education,
Speaker 1: equality and justice, because that's where the front lines are
Speaker 1: right now. I think it's like the thing it is
Speaker 1: like I don't have I don't have a kid, like
Speaker 1: I want to run for school board, and so I mean,
Speaker 1: that's actually the only thing that I would run for
Speaker 1: this is a school board. If I were to move
Speaker 1: back to Long Island. That's the only thing that I
Speaker 1: actually would run for because I believe that education actually matters. Yeah, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: dear friend, thank you so much on this terrible day
Speaker 1: to make time to join us. The thing. The thing is, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess there's just I mean, there's some
Speaker 1: point that I'm trying to say here, which is just
Speaker 1: you know, I do hope it is a turning point.
Speaker 1: I really do hope it is a turning point. And
Speaker 1: it's not like everybody has to run for school board.
Speaker 1: But people have to understand how the political process works.
Speaker 1: We have to understand how the political process works, like
Speaker 1: we need a coherent strategy, which is how we got
Speaker 1: versus way in the first place. Yeah, appreciate you, and
Speaker 1: I hope that you'll be back next week, unless you know,
Speaker 1: we're in some type of political prison somewhere and you know, Tennessee.
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.