Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know, this year has given us a mix bad right,
Speaker 1: as years do. There is never a year I think
Speaker 1: that any of us can experience that we say every
Speaker 1: single month was great, right. But I think that our
Speaker 1: fears as this year comes to a close, are starting
Speaker 1: to get the best of us. And I say this
Speaker 1: to myself out loud as well as saying it to you,
Speaker 1: which is, we can only control what we can control, right.
Speaker 1: The rest is going to be up to you know,
Speaker 1: God in the universe about how things pan out in
Speaker 1: America in the upcoming year. What each of us can
Speaker 1: do right if you have the ability donate money right
Speaker 1: to down ballot candidates, Democrats, school board, city council, state legislatures, like,
Speaker 1: what we can do each of us get involved, right
Speaker 1: if that means signing up people to registered to vote,
Speaker 1: checking on at least ten people in your network to
Speaker 1: make sure that they are registered to vote and plan
Speaker 1: on voting. Talk to them about their voting plan and
Speaker 1: if they're like, I'm not voting for Biden, be like,
Speaker 1: so are you? Not going to vote for your state legislature,
Speaker 1: your school board. Are you just going to sit this
Speaker 1: one out completely because remind them right, You don't need
Speaker 1: to lecture, but you can say, you know, Virginia wanted
Speaker 1: to end institute a fifteen week abortion ban at the
Speaker 1: hands of Governor Youngkin, and you know who blocked that,
Speaker 1: Democrats because they were able to turn the state legislature
Speaker 1: blue Ohio. They tried to institute a constitutional ban on
Speaker 1: abortion in that state. They didn't get it done. Why
Speaker 1: because they turned the legislature blue and the people came
Speaker 1: out and voted to knock down the republican's' draconian measures.
Speaker 1: What we do still matters, still matters, And so having
Speaker 1: conversations with your friends, with your families, with your colleagues,
Speaker 1: donating money, volunteering, phone banking, going door to door, doing
Speaker 1: anything and everything that is within your power to do
Speaker 1: is what we can do. And the rest we gotta
Speaker 1: let go. I don't want us to overwork ourselves. I
Speaker 1: don't want us to exhaust ourselves, but I want us
Speaker 1: to think strategically about how we are using our network,
Speaker 1: our skills, our talents in order to fight for our democracy.
Speaker 1: That is what I'm asking of all of you, that
Speaker 1: is the gift that we need to give ourselves this season,
Speaker 1: is the ability, strength and clarity to continue fighting. As
Speaker 1: my friend Rashad Robinson said, every election is in just
Speaker 1: about trying to make progress and voting for somebody that
Speaker 1: you want to have a damn beer with. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: is about just holding on. Coming up my conversation with
Speaker 1: my friend Jared Yate Sexton about what he is feeling
Speaker 1: as we close out this year and we go into
Speaker 1: a new one, and why he plans to spend some
Speaker 1: time in the woods just getting grounded and preparing. And
Speaker 1: that's what I think all of us need to be doing,
Speaker 1: is figuring out the best ways that we are going
Speaker 1: to prepare ourselves right, prepare ourselves to deal with the
Speaker 1: onslaught that is going to be coming our way. You know,
Speaker 1: we weren't prepared in twenty sixteen. We got better prepared
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, but we were also dealing with a pandemic.
Speaker 1: So here we go again. You know, the battle rages on,
Speaker 1: and I think that frankly, it always will because we
Speaker 1: open the door to somebody like Donald Trump, to trump Ism,
Speaker 1: to Maga dum right, had we not, we wouldn't be here.
Speaker 1: But we did. So this conversation Jared and I really
Speaker 1: go through what is needed, what we are doing, what
Speaker 1: our hopes are and you know, frankly understanding that we
Speaker 1: got to leave everything on the field in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four if we are to survive. That conversation is coming
Speaker 1: up next, folks. You know that whenever I have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to bring on this next guest. Jared y H.
Speaker 1: Sexton to WOKF Daily, I'm always thrilled author political analyst.
Speaker 1: If you have not read his book The Midnight Kingdom,
Speaker 1: The History of Power, Paranoia and the Coming Crisis, it
Speaker 1: basically lays out you know where we are, where we're
Speaker 1: going right now as a country. You are missing out. Jared,
Speaker 1: It's been a hell of a year in politics.
Speaker 2: It's been it's been like a broken mirror. It's been
Speaker 2: a seven year situation shoved into one year. Is what's happened?
Speaker 1: It feels, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Don't.
Speaker 1: I hate the idea of the new year beginning with
Speaker 1: a you know, the flip of the calendar and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden clean slate and everything is supposed to
Speaker 1: be right. Because I said that if we actually followed nature,
Speaker 1: the new year wouldn't be until the spring. Nonetheless, as
Speaker 1: we are looking back though, because that is what I
Speaker 1: like to do in December, is kind of takes stock
Speaker 1: of what has happened, what is transpired in my own life,
Speaker 1: but also politically, You're right, it is like we have
Speaker 1: lived seven to eighteen years in one year. The beginning
Speaker 1: of this administration is an absolute and total blur. And
Speaker 1: I think that if it's a If it's a blur
Speaker 1: for us whose job it is to pay attention, then
Speaker 1: for the average American, they're lucky if they remember last week,
Speaker 1: let alone twenty twenty. And so as you are looking
Speaker 1: back on twenty twenty three, what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that have transpired that stick out to you that
Speaker 1: like either we didn't cover enough or we covered ad nauseum.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll go ahead and start off in time. In
Speaker 2: terms of time, it feels like we're living president years
Speaker 2: each of us. You know, it's like Barack Obama gets
Speaker 2: into office and you know, he is a spry young
Speaker 2: man and he comes out and he's like a seasoned,
Speaker 2: you know, an older man. You know, I feel like
Speaker 2: we're all dealing with that but I also, I say
Speaker 2: that jokingly, but I don't mean that jokingly. I mean
Speaker 2: that for real, because what has happened. You know, I
Speaker 2: was saying there, I was putting together this new book
Speaker 2: proposal and really looking at the last seven years, and
Speaker 2: I realized, you know, twenty sixteen was a hell of
Speaker 2: a year for a lot of different reasons. Yeah, Trump
Speaker 2: years were hallacious years for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 2: But if you actually start thinking about how those years
Speaker 2: started a downward slope and you started picking up momentum,
Speaker 2: it makes sense that these years feel longer, these years
Speaker 2: feel wilder because things are picking up momentum. And one
Speaker 2: of the things I think you and I and a
Speaker 2: lot of other people have warned people about is that
Speaker 2: things are changing, and they're changing in a hurry, like
Speaker 2: the idea that there's I just it boggles my mind
Speaker 2: that there are still people who believe that we are
Speaker 2: sedentary and something isn't changing, and that culture isn't moving
Speaker 2: and things aren't happening, and that we're not watching a
Speaker 2: major transformation, because if you look at it, we are
Speaker 2: in a weaponized society at this point. Our senses are
Speaker 2: constantly being overwhelmed with violence, but also with weaponized abuse.
Speaker 2: We are being told consistently and if anyone listening this
Speaker 2: has ever been in an abusive situation, I think they're
Speaker 2: going to recognize what I'm about to say, because abusers
Speaker 2: don't just be use. They abuse your idea of reality.
Speaker 2: They tell you that you are silly, They tell you
Speaker 2: that you are overly sensitive, They tell you that what
Speaker 2: your perception of what is going on isn't real. What
Speaker 2: is actually occurring right now is an escalation of what
Speaker 2: we've been dealing with over the past few years, and
Speaker 2: it starts with everything from you know, I actually think,
Speaker 2: weirdly enough, I think Elon Musk was undercovered this year.
Speaker 2: I actually think one of the richest men in the
Speaker 2: world overtaking one of the major communication devices and turning
Speaker 2: it into not just a white nationalist playland, but also
Speaker 2: like one of the main ways to promote propaganda and
Speaker 2: to basically we don't talk about it enough, Danielle. He
Speaker 2: has access at Twitter to everybody's dms. On top of that,
Speaker 2: he has access to people's Internet histories because of cookies
Speaker 2: and algorithms and all of that. Like, we have actually
Speaker 2: watched him turn himself into not just a person who
Speaker 2: is interlocked with us to FI but also in every
Speaker 2: other sphere in the world, the robber barons couldn't even
Speaker 2: have dreamed of having this type of power. Meanwhile, look
Speaker 2: around at at what has happened politically. We have a
Speaker 2: president at this point that no one expects to really
Speaker 2: do anything that's really going to push back on any
Speaker 2: of this. Like when it came out the other day
Speaker 2: that he was telling, you know, Republicans that he was
Speaker 2: going to flirt around with like even harsher deportation immigration policies.
Speaker 2: What we actually realized was everybody looked around at each
Speaker 2: other and they're like, are you surprised? Is there really
Speaker 2: anything happening right now? Like we've been told, you know, Oh,
Speaker 2: they're going to help us after Roe v. Wade. Oh
Speaker 2: they're going to help us with voting in the South.
Speaker 2: Ask women who are dying because they can't get reproductive
Speaker 2: care how they feel about it. Ask Black people in
Speaker 2: the South how they feel about their voting rights. Right now,
Speaker 2: it has moved into territory where it is accelerating to
Speaker 2: the point where you're either exhausted or you're completely demoralized
Speaker 2: and you're giving up and those are really the only
Speaker 2: two ways to you are only like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I feel like giving up or I have given up,
Speaker 2: and you go back to the regular Americans. They are
Speaker 2: so exhausted, they are so overworked that many of them
Speaker 2: weren't even in the fight to begin with, and they
Speaker 2: have no ability whatsoever to understand what the fight is.
Speaker 2: It is. These are trying days, is what it is.
Speaker 2: And I think that is what I think. That's what
Speaker 2: the story of twenty twenty three is that this is like,
Speaker 2: you know, the best of days, the worst of days.
Speaker 2: These are some of the worst of days, and unless
Speaker 2: we do something about it, it's going to get what
Speaker 2: even the worst.
Speaker 1: You know, when you give the analogy of the downward
Speaker 1: slope right and you think about it where in winter
Speaker 1: you think about skiing or snowboarding, and the acceleration that
Speaker 1: picks up, like that image is really sticking with me,
Speaker 1: because you're right right, it was like, you know, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: we were going up the mountain right. In a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, we thought that we were going to continue
Speaker 1: on with the extension and the expansion of progress with
Speaker 1: a Clinton administration. Regardless of what you think about her,
Speaker 1: it's sure as hell was not going to be what
Speaker 1: we experienced under the Trump administration. And so we thought
Speaker 1: that we were, you know, headed up to you know,
Speaker 1: to the Precipice so that we could look out, look
Speaker 1: at look at how far we've come. And instead we've
Speaker 1: been kicked down. And as we in this descent, you know,
Speaker 1: not only do we want to keep our eyes closed,
Speaker 1: but we can't, right because everything is speeding by us.
Speaker 1: Our rights are just going every which way that we look,
Speaker 1: and and we don't know how to slow ourselves down.
Speaker 1: And I think that the rate of exhaustion that we
Speaker 1: have doesn't seem to be slow. And you know, I
Speaker 1: could remember going on vacation, you know, and traveling around
Speaker 1: and into other countries that had relatively unstable governments, and
Speaker 1: you would look at the people and while they seem,
Speaker 1: you know, to to be happy, right because that was
Speaker 1: their part of tourism, you could sense this level of
Speaker 1: grief right if you were if you stayed around long enough,
Speaker 1: you saw it in their eyes. Didn't matter if you
Speaker 1: were in a Caribbean island, if you were in South America,
Speaker 1: you know, wherever you were, you get this sense. That's
Speaker 1: how I feel about America, right, now that if you
Speaker 1: look through the eyes of people, either you are a
Speaker 1: worker that is just you're exhausted because you're working so hard.
Speaker 1: Your grocery card is filling up with less. But the
Speaker 1: bill is this long. And when we're trying, as you
Speaker 1: and I do, through our shows, through your writing, through
Speaker 1: our speaking, to try and engage people in the political process,
Speaker 1: to say like, this is the fight of our lives,
Speaker 1: and they're like, I've been fighting all my life just
Speaker 1: to keep my head above water. I find right now, Jared,
Speaker 1: that it is incredible hard to not it's not even
Speaker 1: about exciting people, it's just about engaging them, right, because
Speaker 1: they feel they're already stretched so far, and we're already
Speaker 1: stretched so far because our job is to keep tabs
Speaker 1: on everything that is bad and everything that's going wrong
Speaker 1: and looking at all of the potential you know, in
Speaker 1: the problem. I just how are we supposed to figure
Speaker 1: out how to engage people in what we continue to
Speaker 1: say is the most quote consequential election of our times
Speaker 1: When we're looking at twenty twenty three and going oh god, damn, yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I think you and I and
Speaker 2: a lot of other people who are sort of cut
Speaker 2: from the same cloth as us and who have been
Speaker 2: this is a lonely lane that we're in. I want
Speaker 2: to go ahead and say that because the past few
Speaker 2: years have been absolutely filthy with people who were who
Speaker 2: realized there was a ton of money and power to
Speaker 2: gain in saying to people, Hey, I know things are tough.
Speaker 2: I promise you there's a plan and you literally you
Speaker 2: just have to believe it and you have to have
Speaker 2: faith in it, you know, whether you call it blue
Speaker 2: and on or whatever you want to call it. Right,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of that, and so a lot
Speaker 2: of people, I think, we're sold on this idea that yeah,
Speaker 2: this is hard, but guess what, it's easier than other
Speaker 2: people are telling you it is.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's almost like I think a lot about this
Speaker 2: time that I was out in the woods and I
Speaker 2: was hiking, and you know, it was like this ridiculous thing.
Speaker 2: I looked on paper and it was like, oh, four
Speaker 2: mile hike. That's that's fine, I'll do a four mile hike.
Speaker 2: I got out four miles and then you forget you
Speaker 2: got to come back four more miles. But also the
Speaker 2: four more miles are uphill, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And like you, you start to do it, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden something comes over into your mind and
Speaker 2: it's like I might not be able to do this,
Speaker 2: you know, I might, And like this is literally like
Speaker 2: people die in the woods, people get law and never
Speaker 2: get found again in the woods, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: like the magnitude of that starts to come over you.
Speaker 2: We're deep in the woods right now. We have not
Speaker 2: even actually turned around in order to walk back out.
Speaker 2: And there's a problem in this because so many voices
Speaker 2: are telling people. Don't listen to them. They're fearmongers. Everything's fine.
Speaker 2: Nancy Pelosi's on it, you know, like whoever it is now,
Speaker 2: it's Jack Smith, right, Jack Smith is the new character.
Speaker 2: He's gonna take care of it. Everything's fine. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: isn't actually that bad. The Republicans aren't actually that bad. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: what is happening with our politics and culture and our
Speaker 2: economics is that it's like we're out having these walls
Speaker 2: come in, and as the walls come in and as
Speaker 2: things get worse, like it breaks your spirit. And eventually
Speaker 2: what happens in authoritarian society such as what you were
Speaker 2: talking about. I used to think that in Nazi Germany
Speaker 2: or Fascist Italy was trained on everybody. Do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like, at any given moment they said
Speaker 2: or did the wrong thing, they were done it was
Speaker 2: at the threat of death. But that's not true. All
Speaker 2: the authoritarian societies need to do is kill some people,
Speaker 2: lock others up, and then hope that everybody else is
Speaker 2: so exhausted that they will not answer the call. It
Speaker 2: is so much easier to just shut your door and say, listen,
Speaker 2: I don't care what you do outside this door. That's fine.
Speaker 2: I'll watch TV, I'll listen to my music, I'll have culture,
Speaker 2: I'll go to restaurants. It's totally fine.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I don't need to even put on an armband. I
Speaker 2: don't even need to march up and down the square.
Speaker 2: I don't need to join the party. I'll just let
Speaker 2: what happens happens. We are now in a space where
Speaker 2: as those walls are coming in. It's understandable that some
Speaker 2: people are like, I can't do this, I'm done, and
Speaker 2: I get that, But also that comes from a place
Speaker 2: of privilege. The people who are saying that, yeah, not
Speaker 2: people of color, they're not gay, they're not trans, they're
Speaker 2: not women. These are people who can quite frankly are
Speaker 2: are either white or privileged and probably live in cities
Speaker 2: where this isn't touching them yet. And it is a
Speaker 2: big it's it's a clusterfuck, is what it is. There's
Speaker 2: no other way to put it. But at the meantime,
Speaker 2: you you either kind of have a choice. You either
Speaker 2: lay down in the forest and you say, okay, I can't,
Speaker 2: I can't make it, or you keep trudging forward and
Speaker 2: you hope that eventually you reach the point where you
Speaker 2: can find safety. And that's that. I mean that that
Speaker 2: right now, that that that's the story of the time.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, you know when I when I think about the
Speaker 1: privileged person that you that you characterized, right, it's not
Speaker 1: touching me yet, you know, like I can, I can
Speaker 1: shut my door, I can change my algorithm. I can
Speaker 1: quiet myself and distance myself from what is happening. I
Speaker 1: want to take, for instance, what has happened recently with
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court deciding to hear the mifipristone case, the
Speaker 1: abortion pill. That is you, I think it's like eighty
Speaker 1: percent of abortions in this country that them deciding to
Speaker 1: take up this case to say that to basically here,
Speaker 1: one or two things are going to happen. They're going
Speaker 1: to disallow mifipristone, which is to undermine the FDA, which
Speaker 1: doesn't just hurt the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration
Speaker 1: in this country, but it's a system that is heavily
Speaker 1: used globally, which will continue to chip away at faith
Speaker 1: in agencies. Right, So they either do this with the
Speaker 1: medication that has been on the market for roughly twenty
Speaker 1: five years, which means that nothing is safe, and by
Speaker 1: doing so, this doesn't just hurt the people that live
Speaker 1: in southern states or the Midwestern areas where trigger laws
Speaker 1: were already in place in the event that Roe v.
Speaker 1: Wade was overturned. This is going to affect everyone. So
Speaker 1: that blue bubble, that cocoon that it hasn't touched me
Speaker 1: yet will touch you this year, or excuse me, in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four when the case is heard and we
Speaker 1: learned the fate of this medication and basically the fate
Speaker 1: of the Food and Drug Administration. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: you think that it is literally going to take the
Speaker 1: erosion of the illusion that we can remain comfortable in
Speaker 1: certain pockets, and that's going to be enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a lot to unpack with that, because
Speaker 2: I think what you just touched on is something that
Speaker 2: unfortunately is not discussed and doesn't actually get into discourse
Speaker 2: from our country. I want to start with a couple
Speaker 2: of things here. First things. First is historically you'll always
Speaker 2: notice that a woman's right to reproductive rights like always
Speaker 2: comes under fire, not just as authoritarian societies are taking off,
Speaker 2: but also and this is this strange and it's probably
Speaker 2: something that needs to be highlighted here. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of problems in our system because of inequality that
Speaker 2: need to be addressed. One of them is demographic collapse,
Speaker 2: which is the idea that people just aren't having that
Speaker 2: many kids anymore because it's so expensive to have kids.
Speaker 2: Now most of the major Western countries, as neoliberalism is
Speaker 2: rolled in and made everything prohibitively expensive, suddenly you look
Speaker 2: up in the boomers are either retiring or dying. Nobody's
Speaker 2: behind them because nobody can afford to buy houses or
Speaker 2: have families. You could address this by I don't know,
Speaker 2: making healthcare more readily available. You could go ahead and
Speaker 2: take care of the fact that corporations have a stranglehold
Speaker 2: over all prices, or you could just go ahead and
Speaker 2: take away a woman's right to choose, which is what
Speaker 2: is happening right now, and by the way, is going
Speaker 2: to continue to happen. And as that's also happening, the
Speaker 2: entire progress of the twentieth century is being done away
Speaker 2: by the exact same peace people that that progress had
Speaker 2: to be wrenched out of their hands. We have another
Speaker 2: generation of robber barons guests who funded the fascists who
Speaker 2: tried to oppose the New Deal and all of the
Speaker 2: civil rights, the feminist movement, gay rights. The same people
Speaker 2: who oppose that are now the ones who are wiping
Speaker 2: the slate clean. What you just say is exactly right.
Speaker 2: We need to tell people first of all, and I
Speaker 2: want to go ahead and put a little asterisk by this.
Speaker 2: People should care about it because other people are being affected,
Speaker 2: right that straight up like people should have empathy and solidarity.
Speaker 2: They should care that people in Red States and elsewhere
Speaker 2: are being treated like this. But meanwhile, if people need
Speaker 2: self interest, here's what's happening. Eventually, they're going to get
Speaker 2: rid of this stuff. They're going to get rid of
Speaker 2: any medications or any devices that a woman could possibly
Speaker 2: use Yeah, there are still going to be those medications
Speaker 2: and devices for people who can afford them. And guess
Speaker 2: what happens whenever they get wiped out and they get
Speaker 2: made quote unquote illegal. The price goes up and up
Speaker 2: and up and up. And if you are a middle
Speaker 2: class person who is barely making it in Brooklyn or
Speaker 2: barely making it in Los Angeles, you might not be
Speaker 2: able to afford that in the future on the black market.
Speaker 2: When you look at how all of this is happening,
Speaker 2: all I can tell you is this, Eventually the knock
Speaker 2: comes on your door or not. And listen, the people
Speaker 2: who listen to my podcast, the people who listen to
Speaker 2: your podcast, no knock against them. But you are not
Speaker 2: part of the one percent of the people who are
Speaker 2: safe from this and who are pulling the strings on
Speaker 2: this thing. You are part of the ninety nine percent.
Speaker 2: And eventually someone is going to knock on your door.
Speaker 2: And you need to understand that, like, giving into these
Speaker 2: people is only going to make it worse, and it's
Speaker 2: only going to accelerate it.
Speaker 1: You know. And I love this because everything that you're saying,
Speaker 1: because the fact is that what is happening. In the
Speaker 1: comment section of this show. On my social media is
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people Jared telling me I'm not
Speaker 1: voting for Biden. I'm gonna sit this one out. He's
Speaker 1: not gonna get my vote. I'm going to vote with
Speaker 1: my values. I can't support what he is doing in
Speaker 1: Gaza and in Israel. So I'm out. And I first
Speaker 1: of all try my best not to fight back and
Speaker 1: forth with these people. I just continued trucking along and
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing and posting what I need to post.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I can't ignore these mini
Speaker 1: focus groups that happen in my comments section, which is
Speaker 1: that I don't fucking understand how people live through the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. Are living through this weaponized I mean criminal
Speaker 1: ass Supreme Court are looking all around them and saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, things can't get worse, Because I have
Speaker 1: news for folks. They can always get worse. Right. We
Speaker 1: have watched things get steadily worse over the years because
Speaker 1: we thought that, oh, if Donald Trump is in an office,
Speaker 1: then everything will go back to normal. Has everything gone
Speaker 1: back to normal? No, it has not, because trump Ism
Speaker 1: and Maga supremacy is a virus. So I just wonder
Speaker 1: to you, like what does it look like when people
Speaker 1: are saying, eleven months out from an election, not only
Speaker 1: are they not excited about the Democratic candidate, but apparently
Speaker 1: they've lost faith in their ability to secure democracy at all.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I am very worried about twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four for a variety of reasons. I mean, it
Speaker 2: is it's a really hard thing to talk about right now.
Speaker 2: We were sort of chatting about before we started recording.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm going in the woods for a
Speaker 2: little while to just sit with it because there's a
Speaker 2: lot coming down the line. I want to, first of all,
Speaker 2: say that the conversation you're talking about. I know I'm
Speaker 2: going to shock everybody by saying this, but American discourse
Speaker 2: is not nuanced.
Speaker 1: It is just.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to give this the most nuanced answer
Speaker 2: that I possibly can, because I've sat with this, because
Speaker 2: I think you and I are similar. I argue with
Speaker 2: people in my brain all the time. But then I
Speaker 2: have one hundred and forty characters or two hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty characters to try and get it across. So I'll
Speaker 2: use a silly example. I'll use another silly metaphor to
Speaker 2: get there. Did you watch the Golden Bachelor.
Speaker 1: By any chance, I stomached.
Speaker 2: I watched it for all the wrong reasons. Okay, but
Speaker 2: let me go ahead and tell your listener or something,
Speaker 2: and this is it. While I was watching, I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, there it is. Maybe there was something
Speaker 2: about watching like a seventy plus year old man do
Speaker 2: this stuff that made me think about our president. I
Speaker 2: don't know. But so there was this date that the
Speaker 2: Golden Bachelor was on. He went with his date. They
Speaker 2: repelled down the side of a waterfall. It did not
Speaker 2: make me feel comfortable. I don't want to repel down
Speaker 2: the side of a waterfall. I'm good. Right when you're
Speaker 2: repelling down the side of a waterfall, gravity is bringing
Speaker 2: you down right like you are relying on gravity. You
Speaker 2: have a choice of how fast you go down, Like
Speaker 2: you can inch down, you know, or you can just
Speaker 2: take big leaps and the next thing you know, you're
Speaker 2: you're down there and let gravity take over. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: as president is letting gravity take over. It is acceleration
Speaker 2: and quite frankly not we can't. We don't have time
Speaker 2: to get into all of it. There are things happening
Speaker 2: in this country that as of the current situation, of
Speaker 2: our representative government. It doesn't matter what party is in power,
Speaker 2: that shit's going to keep happening because you know, corporate
Speaker 2: and elite interests have taken over our government, they've taken
Speaker 2: over our economy, and they have basic control over a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff is a lot of you know, theater, right.
Speaker 2: That is true. And by the way, I think Joe
Speaker 2: Biden much like Barack Obama, and people need to listen
Speaker 2: to Barack Obama post presidency. He has told everybody who
Speaker 2: will listen. I got in there, there were things I
Speaker 2: could do. There were other things that president just does
Speaker 2: not have the power to do anymore. So while I
Speaker 2: look at this and I say, Joe Biden is the
Speaker 2: break as you're going down the mountain, it's slowing it down.
Speaker 2: Do I think that the Democratic Party is completely acting
Speaker 2: in good faith? No? I do not. Do I think
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party is going to save democracy out of
Speaker 2: the kindness of their hearts and their principles, No, I
Speaker 2: do not. Here's what I tell people, Joe Biden, I
Speaker 2: have a real problem with this presidency in a lot
Speaker 2: of different arenas, Like we don't have time to go
Speaker 2: down the list because they are long. But I will
Speaker 2: say that the destruction that is coming or could possibly come,
Speaker 2: will come slower than if you let Donald Trump in there.
Speaker 2: That is a complete and utter free fall. I'm dedicating myself.
Speaker 2: I'm going to choose the lesser of too bad options
Speaker 2: in my heart, and then I'm gonna work my ass
Speaker 2: off to try and either turn the Democratic Party into
Speaker 2: a tool to fix this thing, or I'm gonna find
Speaker 2: other places to put my energy. But going ahead and
Speaker 2: voting for Donald Trump or not voting against him, I
Speaker 2: think is madness right now.
Speaker 1: I will leave it there today with you because I
Speaker 1: want it to I want people to sit with it,
Speaker 1: sit with that image of propelling down the mountain, down
Speaker 1: the waterfall, and recognizing that we are you know, not
Speaker 1: every election is about hope and progress. Some elections are
Speaker 1: just about hanging the fuck on. And we are in
Speaker 1: a situation where we are just need to hang the
Speaker 1: fuck on to see if we can fix what has
Speaker 1: been so broken. Right, But you don't get to fix
Speaker 1: what's broken if who you elect in by virtue of
Speaker 1: not voting comes in with a fucking sledgehammer like that
Speaker 1: is just you know, then you can't and I don't
Speaker 1: want us sitting around in a cell together saying, you know, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I should have voted.
Speaker 2: It's a choice, and that's the thing is like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: but sometimes you make choices that aren't everything that you've
Speaker 2: ever wanted. Yes, and sometimes you realize, oh, I'm buying
Speaker 2: this limit of a car. I need a car for
Speaker 2: two days. Can I buy this car and drive in
Speaker 2: it for two days? And after that it can go
Speaker 2: to shit like there does and the whole idea just
Speaker 2: very quickly, just to wrap this up, the problem is
Speaker 2: that Biden and the people who supported him in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty told everybody we'll all go back to normal and
Speaker 2: be fine. That's why we're in the situation we're in
Speaker 2: right now, is because we were sold a false bill
Speaker 2: of goods and people wanted to believe it and they
Speaker 2: didn't want to do the hard work that was behind it,
Speaker 2: which was you can't just go into a voting booth
Speaker 2: every four years and expect that to be enough. You
Speaker 2: just can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent, my friend jaredy Ate Sexton, I
Speaker 1: really hope that we have the ability to continue this
Speaker 1: conversation in twenty twenty four, because it is going to
Speaker 1: be needed I appreciate you so so very much.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I can't wait to take it on with you.
Speaker 2: Here's to it.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: a f as always, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fun.