Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some.
Speaker 2: Of today's best minds. And Tom Cotton.
Speaker 1: Has encouraged people to quote unquote take matters into their
Speaker 1: own hands when it comes to protesters. I think we
Speaker 1: all know what that means. We have such a great
Speaker 1: show for you today. Professor Eddie Glad stops by to
Speaker 1: talk to us about his new book, We Are the
Speaker 1: Leaders we have been looking for. Then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Anna Hockhammer about her heroic efforts to pass a Florida
Speaker 1: abortion amendment. But first we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3: Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Such a weird, fucked up time in American life. I
Speaker 1: was sitting there yesterday thinking about Karen McDougall and her
Speaker 1: alleged one year relationship with Donald Trump and the catch
Speaker 1: and kill scheme that brought Dave vid Pecker into all
Speaker 1: of our lives, and I realized that I had forgotten
Speaker 1: all of these characters from season one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny because you know, multi season or reality TV,
Speaker 3: you sort of bring people back for another run. And
Speaker 3: I guess One of the things is, you know, people
Speaker 3: do like in soap operas, they do heel turns and stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, one of the things in the Trump
Speaker 3: shows people come back as you know, they switch teams.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I think that Michael Cohen still blocks
Speaker 3: me on Twitter from when he was Michael Cohen. I
Speaker 3: almost feel like ringing him up, like in his office
Speaker 3: at MSNBC now and saying, hey, why am I still blocked?
Speaker 3: Isn't that outdated? We certainly have a precedent that there
Speaker 3: are people who they will testify but they still love
Speaker 3: Trump in their heart right. And then you've got people
Speaker 3: like Michael Cohen who, like you're probably going to do
Speaker 3: a book party for his next book, right, you guys
Speaker 3: must be tight now.
Speaker 2: His entire ethos is anti Trump.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, and what is it? You know, the woman
Speaker 3: who was Milania's press secretary or Comm's person and then
Speaker 3: was briefly Trump's Comm's person or whatever. Everybody in Trump
Speaker 3: world lives at high volume and in only primary colors.
Speaker 2: Yes, Stephanie Grisham.
Speaker 3: Stephanie Grisham, Right, so you're not going to go back
Speaker 3: to being like I was hardcore for Trump, but now
Speaker 3: I'm just sort of providing some subtle commentary from the margins.
Speaker 3: You're just going to go mud wrestle once, mud wrestle forever, right,
Speaker 3: I mean for a lot of them, you got to
Speaker 3: be all in whatever team you're on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree, and I guess that's true. But
Speaker 1: it also like there are a few people from Trump
Speaker 1: world who have stayed in Trump world, right, people I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of Kelly ann or the really sort of the
Speaker 1: political people Walt Nada has provided. You know, he could
Speaker 1: probably be a very good witness, but you know he
Speaker 1: has a family lawyer, one of Trump's people.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, the kind of it's a protection scheme that
Speaker 3: they have, that is true. But the ones that are
Speaker 3: most interesting to me are you have people like Corey Lewandowski, Bannon,
Speaker 3: who they go through these cycles where maybe even you know,
Speaker 3: Roger ston't kind of there's a number of people who
Speaker 3: like they get sent into exile, but they're always going
Speaker 3: to come back. They do something bad, or they upset Trump.
Speaker 1: It's even just too bad for Trump, which again I
Speaker 1: think we should take a moment.
Speaker 3: Someone will rape someone and even Trump gets a little upset, right,
Speaker 3: or I may get caught raping.
Speaker 2: Someone they'll have alleged yes.
Speaker 3: Well I'm not talking about that person talking about hypothetical
Speaker 3: sexual malfeasance, or other times it's just Trump's shooting finger
Speaker 3: just gets itchy, right, and that's enough. But those people
Speaker 3: go into exile, but they always come back. There's that
Speaker 3: kind of person too, which is you know, Bannon's kind
Speaker 3: of like that. He got canned at the White House
Speaker 3: and then he's been on the outs a few times.
Speaker 3: But you definitely have some people who they keep at
Speaker 3: it from another direction.
Speaker 1: But I do think that fealty to Trump is the
Speaker 1: crucial not of this situation. For example, Trump decided he
Speaker 1: liked Michael Aavanatti last week because Michael Aavanati said the
Speaker 1: case wasn't a good case. Like I always think about,
Speaker 1: like if Trump wins again and sends me to Gimo,
Speaker 1: like how many tweets would it take to get off
Speaker 1: the Gitmo transport. Well, Trump did have some very good
Speaker 1: ideas when it came to I can't lie.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's nothing to say.
Speaker 3: You have a very different arc. Your arc is something happens,
Speaker 3: and you've had too much of being part of the
Speaker 3: woke mob, where woke has gotten too much for you.
Speaker 3: And you sort of play that out and then you're
Speaker 3: you know, I used to be woke, but I understand
Speaker 3: I got it with Trump. So you need to have
Speaker 3: a you need a you know, in Spy World Day,
Speaker 3: someone has a legend that's their fictitious backstory, and you
Speaker 3: need sort of a to create a legend to cure
Speaker 3: yourself up for this switch.
Speaker 2: And it's called Naomi wolfing it. That is the verb.
Speaker 1: You've Naomi wolfed your way from normal to Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: having you as a regular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems organic to me.
Speaker 2: It's not quite as craven.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk to you as we're looking
Speaker 1: at this casta characters. The House is in chaos, right
Speaker 1: the House Republicans one, you know, they have a one
Speaker 1: person majority motion to vacate.
Speaker 2: Now Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1: Luckily, Marjorie Taylor Green was able to find someone as
Speaker 1: crazy as she was in everybody's favorite, Thomas Massey.
Speaker 2: So now that crew.
Speaker 1: Together, they have more than a one person motion to vacate.
Speaker 1: We got this foreign aid that is really has not
Speaker 1: you know, Ukraine has not gotten any money since Democrats
Speaker 1: laws the House. You know, there's Taiwan, Israel, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: And appliance.
Speaker 1: We has been postponed another week, So how can any
Speaker 1: of us live?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I am curious to see what they
Speaker 3: will do with this, because it does seem like Johnson
Speaker 3: wants to move past this, and you know that's why
Speaker 3: he went down Tomar a Lago to sort of get
Speaker 3: the you know, laying on of hands and everything, or
Speaker 3: you know, the pallium or whatever. I do think it's
Speaker 3: possible that if obviously there is one constellation of people
Speaker 3: and both parties I mean a ton of people, but
Speaker 3: obviously not everybody who wants to move this Israel thing.
Speaker 3: And there's a very different and on the Democratic side,
Speaker 3: much more intense desire to move on the Ukraine stuff.
Speaker 3: So I do think that you could get some Democrats,
Speaker 3: probably with the permission of the leadership, to say, let's
Speaker 3: do this and we will cover you for that vote.
Speaker 3: The problem is that you can't as low an impression
Speaker 3: as I may have of Marjorie Taylor Green, she's not
Speaker 3: so dumb that she doesn't know she can't wait to
Speaker 3: wak can do it again? And Democrats don't become a
Speaker 3: permanent backstop for him. Johnson is a complete freak. Democrats
Speaker 3: just who cares, you know, for me, it's like Trump's
Speaker 3: social stock going down, right, it's probably every day for me. Right.
Speaker 3: But having said that, the Ukraine stuff especially is so important.
Speaker 3: It's obviously important for Ukraine. It's very important.
Speaker 1: For Poland, which would like to not be annext.
Speaker 3: It's very important for the whole North Atlantic alliance. It's
Speaker 3: important in the context of the macro contest in the
Speaker 3: world today between civic democracies and authoritarian regime. So that
Speaker 3: is just a big deal. And the Israel stuff is complicated,
Speaker 3: but you know, Israel has an army. They're not kind
Speaker 3: of using rubber bands at the moment, and Ukraine is
Speaker 3: using a rubber bands. So that's just absolutely critical. And
Speaker 3: to the sen I had any input on it, Yeah,
Speaker 3: throw them a bone. If you can get this done,
Speaker 3: that would be my take.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it is interesting though to see this Republican party,
Speaker 1: you know, they really want to keep the house. There's
Speaker 1: a reason that Trump has spent one hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: on legal fees is because ultimately he really did not
Speaker 1: want to be tried. And you know, he's sitting in
Speaker 1: a criminal court. He's going to be there now, the judges,
Speaker 1: he has to go every day. There's so many things
Speaker 1: I want to talk about when it comes to this.
Speaker 1: One is like the geop smear that, like the lie
Speaker 1: that he can't go to Baron's graduation though even though
Speaker 1: the judge told him he could actually go to Baron's
Speaker 1: graduation and he never went to any of the other
Speaker 1: kids graduations, Like that wasn't amazing.
Speaker 3: Baron's like the son he never had except for Don
Speaker 3: and Eric.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and right, it's that fifth kid. But I mean
Speaker 1: I also think that, like he needs to be in
Speaker 1: court now, and we spend so much time being told
Speaker 1: that this was the quote unquote weakest case. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and the guy looks terrified when he's not asleep.
Speaker 2: They're drudging up all this salacious stuff from his past.
Speaker 1: You know, it's ben Ghazi on steroids, And some how
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to believe that this is not as good
Speaker 1: a case as the documents case. Like I have to say,
Speaker 1: like this seems like actually, if you're going through like
Speaker 1: permeating the news membrane, this seems like a much more
Speaker 1: salacious case than taking home some documents.
Speaker 3: It's definitely sexier, I mean, except for the fact that
Speaker 3: of Trump getting involved right than the documents. But I
Speaker 3: do think what it also reminds us is that no
Speaker 3: felony indictment is fun. Even when you didn't try to
Speaker 3: overthrow the government, it still kind of sucks. You are
Speaker 3: kind of in the hands of the judicial system. It
Speaker 3: reminds us, you know how they say, you know, even
Speaker 3: bad sex is okay, every trial is bad, even the
Speaker 3: less important felonies really suck. And we're seeing that there
Speaker 3: are just the atmospherics to being tried by the people
Speaker 3: of New York or the state or whatever. Trump is
Speaker 3: a man of dominance, and when you are bound over
Speaker 3: by the state to answer felony charges that you might
Speaker 3: lose your liberty for if you are convicted, you are
Speaker 3: not dominant. You are being dominated. And there is a
Speaker 3: reality to that that you can't spin. And I think
Speaker 3: that that is why, in addition to not wanting to
Speaker 3: maybe go to prison, that is why he has resisted
Speaker 3: this because it is again his whole world is there
Speaker 3: are dominated and dominating, and everybody is in one bucket,
Speaker 3: and most of us live in a much more fluid
Speaker 3: world where you know, we actually have some relationships that
Speaker 3: are on par you're dominated or you're dominating, and he's
Speaker 3: being dominated here, and I think you just you see
Speaker 3: it when you see him there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I would also add that like Trump is
Speaker 1: being treated I mean, except for the fact that he
Speaker 1: doesn't get thrown in jail when he violates the gag order,
Speaker 1: but he.
Speaker 2: Is being treated much more like a normal person.
Speaker 1: I mean. One of the things that Trump has managed
Speaker 1: to do because he grew up affluent and white and male,
Speaker 1: though probably female.
Speaker 2: Too, he would have had this advantage.
Speaker 1: But as an affluent white person, he has really managed
Speaker 1: to evade responsibility for almost anything, and then having this
Speaker 1: political component has really helped him. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about like the valuation stuff, the fraud, Like
Speaker 1: I know someone who went to jail for that, a
Speaker 1: fancy real estate person.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can go to jail for that, and
Speaker 2: you can.
Speaker 1: Go to jail for cheating on your taxes, which Trump
Speaker 1: has also, you know done. I mean, Trump has done
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that a normal person would have
Speaker 1: gone to jail for.
Speaker 2: And so I do.
Speaker 1: Think the idea here that he has to sit in
Speaker 1: a courtroom on Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays,
Speaker 1: even though it's golf season. You know, the other thing
Speaker 1: that I think is a really interesting thing is that
Speaker 1: he's not out on the trail like he wasn't out
Speaker 1: on the trail before, and now you know this is
Speaker 1: going to prevent him from getting on the trail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, this is almost the part where the
Speaker 3: one place I'm almost vaguely sympathetic to him is he
Speaker 3: can say, we all knew I was invulnerable. We had
Speaker 3: a deal. Of course, I'm not responsible for anything. I've
Speaker 3: been doing ridiculous stuff my whole life. We had an understanding,
Speaker 3: and suddenly you've broken the understanding, and the reality is
Speaker 3: we kind of did have an understanding. In the New
Speaker 3: York real Estate Trump fantasy world, he's a notorious con
Speaker 3: man and just shark and kind of comical figure, and
Speaker 3: everybody just kind of laughed. Again. In a certain sense,
Speaker 3: I almost think he's right in the sense that someone
Speaker 3: changed the rules on him. You know, it's funny that
Speaker 3: I had a tax question and I was talking to
Speaker 3: our accountant. It reminded me that, you know, I have
Speaker 3: always been with a relentlessly honest accountant, but in addition
Speaker 3: to that, I have always been just sort of like,
Speaker 3: do whatever it is that is squeaky clean, right, I
Speaker 3: wanted to squeak And part of that, I think is
Speaker 3: because I'm an honest person, but also like I'm in
Speaker 3: a controversial business and I can't be screwing around. Most
Speaker 3: people don't cheat on their taxes and all that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff, and as you say, Trump has just always
Speaker 3: done that. The weirdest thing with this, you know, the
Speaker 3: basic argument, Hey, I had an affair, Like you know,
Speaker 3: covering up your affair is almost part of having the affair.
Speaker 3: What are we talking about here? But like Michael Cohen
Speaker 3: already served time in prison over this, and don't tell
Speaker 3: me this is a joke. When someone else literally didn't
Speaker 3: go to jail for something like this, he went to
Speaker 3: jail for this.
Speaker 2: I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: I mean, I too overpay my taxes because of anxiety
Speaker 1: and also because I just figure it's better to overpay
Speaker 1: than to not as well we should. But I do
Speaker 1: think that Trump avoiding responsibility and sort of living in
Speaker 1: this complete fantasy land where you just get to do
Speaker 1: what you want to do because you don't want to
Speaker 1: upset his people is completely crazy.
Speaker 2: And I will add that.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who is a straight reporter, was like,
Speaker 1: when you know, it's kind of maybe they shouldn't have
Speaker 1: brought these charges because the president's hide affairs.
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, you can't do this.
Speaker 1: You can't once you you know, the idea that if
Speaker 1: your president, you can just do whatever the fuck you
Speaker 1: want is how democracies die.
Speaker 2: Democracies die in this.
Speaker 3: Well, and look, this is not because he had an
Speaker 3: affair or whatever you want to call the stormy thing, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's like how we call that an affair.
Speaker 3: I mean an affair has to at least lasts longer
Speaker 3: than five minutes.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, also had a girlfriend at that time.
Speaker 3: Right, right, he's double stepping out. But yeah, look, is
Speaker 3: falsifying documents up there with trying to overthrow the government
Speaker 3: or jacking a few tons worth of classified No it's not.
Speaker 3: But you actually just can't do that. And this is
Speaker 3: one of the weird things the of the Trump reality
Speaker 3: distortion vortex is that you don't get to falsify documents.
Speaker 3: There are cases where the underlying substance of what you
Speaker 3: are falsifying isn't earthshaking, but you still can't falsify them.
Speaker 3: But what you also can't do is should we bring it?
Speaker 3: Because what are the optics of? Like, no, that's just
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? But it really is an example.
Speaker 3: When Trump gets into the mix, people just start thinking
Speaker 3: weird things, just strange things like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Or like should we bring this because we're already bringing
Speaker 3: three other ones and this one's weaker. So maybe when
Speaker 3: you average them out, the average will become weaker. And
Speaker 3: you just have to whoever's saying they have to look
Speaker 3: at them and say, dude, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3: Like what the average? Like you committed a bunch of crime?
Speaker 3: You think about that? I mean, one of the big
Speaker 3: reasons I don't cheat on my texts is it'd be
Speaker 3: too terrifying to me to be like in Trump's position.
Speaker 3: So I just I just go in and say, just I,
Speaker 3: let's not screw around because Josh is fraid.
Speaker 2: Yes, Josh Marshall, I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3: I would love to come back as always much.
Speaker 1: Fun spring us here, and I bet you are trying
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Speaker 2: Eddie Glode is the James S.
Speaker 1: McDonald Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of
Speaker 1: We Are the Leaders We have been looking for the
Speaker 1: web Dubois Lectures. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Eddie.
Speaker 4: Well, it's such a delight to be with you and
Speaker 4: to have witnessed, Mollie, the way in which you are
Speaker 4: in so many ways helping you know, the nation understand
Speaker 4: the stakes of this moment. You're writing at Vanity Fair
Speaker 4: and across the various platforms. It's just I've learned so
Speaker 4: much from you every single day, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a very big fan of yours.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of your work, but I'm also
Speaker 1: a big fan of the kind of thinker you are
Speaker 1: and sort of more importantly, the people you know, the
Speaker 1: historical figures that you've brought back into the discourse. So
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about your book, but first I
Speaker 1: want you to talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 1: the really I think important ways you've brought Because you
Speaker 1: are an academic and a historian, a history back into
Speaker 1: the forefront, and I'm actually thinking about James Baldwin.
Speaker 4: I was really surprised by the successive beginning. Again, I
Speaker 4: knew Baldwin was in circulation among activists. I saw quotations
Speaker 4: from his work all over the place during Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 4: And I've been teaching Baldwin for so long and writing
Speaker 4: with him and about him for so long that I
Speaker 4: thought it was time for me to try to think
Speaker 4: with him about our current moment. And so I was
Speaker 4: just so delighted to see how people responded to my
Speaker 4: particular reading of him. And here we are on the
Speaker 4: eve of his one hundredth birthday in August second, and
Speaker 4: it's wonderful to witness people taking his thinking seriously, not
Speaker 4: just his presence, his fiction, but to really see how
Speaker 4: he's thinking about democracy. You know, I think he's the
Speaker 4: inheritor of Emerson. And so what I've tried to do
Speaker 4: over the course of my time in the broader public domain,
Speaker 4: Molly is to try to bring the full weight of
Speaker 4: my bibliography to bear on these pressing issues, to think
Speaker 4: carefully in public with others, and not to lose sight
Speaker 4: of you know, my specific skill set. You know, sometimes
Speaker 4: when academics make the transition into the broader public discourse,
Speaker 4: they think they need to leave themselves behind. What I've
Speaker 4: tried to do is to figure out how to think
Speaker 4: carefully within the limits and confines of a SoundBite. And
Speaker 4: oftentimes that means bringing in tow all of these people
Speaker 4: who mean so much to me, like Jay Balden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I read a lot of like Baldwin and
Speaker 1: Gorbadal and people who are you know, the sort of
Speaker 1: like great writers of the you know, they're different generation.
Speaker 2: They're not the same generation, I think, but the people.
Speaker 1: Who sort of wrote really beautiful lyrical work I'm thinking of.
Speaker 1: And Baldwin was one of those writers who just had
Speaker 1: an incredible voice.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah on the page.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: He comes out of the church, so he's a childhood preacher.
Speaker 4: So there's this sense in which the way the language.
Speaker 4: You know, he's a student of you know, the King
Speaker 4: James Bible. He's a student of Henry James. He's sitting
Speaker 4: in Shakespeare, even if it's a kind of vexed relationship.
Speaker 4: He you know, he's reading you know, a Proost and
Speaker 4: Emerson and Whitman. He's listening to the blues. So there's this,
Speaker 4: There's a unique timbre to his voice and the delicate
Speaker 4: balance he he strikes on the page between rage and love,
Speaker 4: you know, gives his a sense of urgency and also
Speaker 4: a kind of It reveals a deep seated care about
Speaker 4: the reader, about us, and I think it takes a
Speaker 4: special artist to make that happen. And just think he
Speaker 4: grew up poor in Harlem and willed himself into becoming
Speaker 4: one of the world's greatest writers. So I'm just delighted,
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, to see us catch up with.
Speaker 1: Him in the decision to move to Paris. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that had I been in his circumstances, I probably
Speaker 1: would have done the same thing, because to be able
Speaker 1: to live somewhere that wasn't so racist must have been
Speaker 1: very interesting.
Speaker 2: But then he decides he has to come back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think he leaves in nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 4: and you know, he's not trading the American fantasy for
Speaker 4: the French one. He realizes that he needed the space
Speaker 4: to breathe. I mean, he didn't have to deal with
Speaker 4: America's assumptions about him, but he saw what was happening
Speaker 4: to the Algerians in France and Paris and many of
Speaker 4: his friends. So I think, you know, not having facility
Speaker 4: with the language in those early days, not having a
Speaker 4: lot of money, so he really turned inward, and in
Speaker 4: turning inward, admit that he had to turn to the
Speaker 4: United States, which was always his subject. You know, America
Speaker 4: was always his subject. You need that space sometimes to
Speaker 4: breathe so that you can think more clearly, so you're
Speaker 4: not just out here fighting these people, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, his struggle it feels so
Speaker 1: much like my grandfather's struggle in certain ways, even though
Speaker 1: they were fighting different things. So we are the leaders
Speaker 1: we have been looking for. Talk to us about this book,
Speaker 1: lecture series and how it came about, and anything else
Speaker 1: you want to tell me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I calivered these lectures about two, you know,
Speaker 4: in twenty eleven, and it took me all these years
Speaker 4: to return to them, to see the kind of seeds
Speaker 4: of all of the subsequent work in some ways begin
Speaker 4: again is in this text. Democracy in Black is in
Speaker 4: these lectures. And you know, so much has happened since
Speaker 4: that twenty eleven and now you know, Michael Brown was
Speaker 4: still alive Sandra Bland was still alive. To mere Rice
Speaker 4: was still alive. When I get delivered these lectures, you know,
Speaker 4: we were dealing with the Obama era and in some
Speaker 4: ways not the illusion of being post racial, but you know,
Speaker 4: the beginnings of the spike of the betrayal, as it were.
Speaker 4: And so what I wanted to do is to kind
Speaker 4: of think about this need for us to take responsibility
Speaker 4: for democracy right. We've been outsourcing it for too long
Speaker 4: to people who claim to be prophetic or claim to
Speaker 4: be heroes. We have to understand that democracy's well being
Speaker 4: rests in our hands, and that requires of us right
Speaker 4: to understand our role. And so I wanted to write
Speaker 4: about that. So I wanted to think about that again,
Speaker 4: and so I had to figure out me in relation
Speaker 4: to all of this, And so the book is this
Speaker 4: deeply introspective work about the need for every ordinary people
Speaker 4: to take up the responsibility of democracy in this moment
Speaker 4: and to do so for me, say this really quickly, Molly,
Speaker 4: to do so within the context of African American politics
Speaker 4: means that we have to resist the narrow understanding of
Speaker 4: what the prophetic is. We have to resist this idea
Speaker 4: of heroes that force us into postures of supplication and
Speaker 4: understand the power that democracy is and has when we
Speaker 4: need are its most vital expression, when everyday ordinated people
Speaker 4: are its most vital expression. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish you could say a little more about
Speaker 1: that idea of you know, sort of what that means,
Speaker 1: the kind of next steps towards a multi racial democracy,
Speaker 1: which is the dream.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I take up three particular figures in the book.
Speaker 4: I look at Martin Luther King Junior, I look at
Speaker 4: Malcolm X, and I end with Ella Baker. These three
Speaker 4: figures are so important in my own life for how
Speaker 4: I think about democracy, and all three of them have
Speaker 4: cast these enormous shadows over how I understand myself and
Speaker 4: in so many ways, the book is, as I've said,
Speaker 4: it is about me coming of age as a thinker
Speaker 4: in relation to these people who are so important to me.
Speaker 4: But Miss Baker's understanding of what I call following the
Speaker 4: theorist Sheldon Wolan, a politics of tending, a kind of
Speaker 4: attention to the everyday lives of folk close to the ground,
Speaker 4: building a sense of community that affirms the capacity and
Speaker 4: dignity of everyday ordinary folk, expressing our values in our
Speaker 4: social and political arrangements, electing people who reflect those commitments,
Speaker 4: and understanding that those elections are just simply one moment
Speaker 4: in the work that democracy requires of us, cultivating the
Speaker 4: attitudes personal individual attitudes that are necessary for democratic flourishing.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. Part of what I mean
Speaker 4: by that, Molly, is that, you know, we got to
Speaker 4: become better people. If we're going to become the leaders
Speaker 4: that we're looking for, right, We've got to be better people.
Speaker 4: And that means we have to build the relationships with
Speaker 4: others and with ourselves so that we can release ourselves
Speaker 4: from the burden of all of these noxious ideas that
Speaker 4: have got and in the way of building a really
Speaker 4: truly and vibrant democratic life in the country. So we
Speaker 4: are the leaders we've been looking for. Aims to explore that,
Speaker 4: And you know, it's a different kind of book, Molly,
Speaker 4: in the sense that I'm not a historian. In the book,
Speaker 4: I'm more of a philosopher. You know, I'm trained as
Speaker 4: a philosopher of religion, but in the public domain, I'm
Speaker 4: often read as a historian. And so this is me
Speaker 4: in a different kind of voice. I'm kind of nervous
Speaker 4: about it. But we'll see how folks, how folks respond.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you don't need to be nervous, but
Speaker 1: that is a really important point.
Speaker 2: Why did you pick those three figures?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean King means everything to me. You know,
Speaker 4: as a young child and as a young student in
Speaker 4: the eighth grade, I remember being in Miss Mitchell's history
Speaker 4: class and on the coast of Mississippi and memorizing the
Speaker 4: eye have a dream speech.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Back then, you know, I didn't have a tape player.
Speaker 4: I had to borrow the album from the library, and
Speaker 4: I remember starting it over and over and over again,
Speaker 4: picking up the needle and rising that speech and being
Speaker 4: transformed by transfigured and transformed. And then of course I
Speaker 4: went to Morehouse College, King's alma Mahuter and they are
Speaker 4: kind of baptized in his thinking. And so King cast
Speaker 4: this amazing shadow over me. And then as I was
Speaker 4: trying to find my own voice, and this is part
Speaker 4: of the pain of the second chapter of the book,
Speaker 4: Malcolm X became this hero of mine. You know, I
Speaker 4: have my goatee as an honor to him. It's my
Speaker 4: first conversion experience, right because I grew up with all
Speaker 4: of this, you know, with this vexed relationship with my father.
Speaker 4: And I opened the book with this, you know, this
Speaker 4: horrific moment that he probably doesn't remember. I'm down the
Speaker 4: street Molly playing hopscotch with coocious fifth grader named Angel Houston,
Speaker 4: and I'm messing up on purpose because I liked her
Speaker 4: and I wanted her to show me how to play
Speaker 4: every single to show, you know, every time I messed up,
Speaker 4: she would have to show me again, you know. And
Speaker 4: my dad saw me playing hopscotch with this girl, and
Speaker 4: he screams for me to come home. I run home
Speaker 4: because I know the sound and tone that voice. And
Speaker 4: in that moment, when I stepped into the fourier of
Speaker 4: my father's house, he questioned my sexuality. He said, what
Speaker 4: are you at? F something? And he did it in
Speaker 4: front of my uncle. It's like I was experiencing this
Speaker 4: ritual that they both went through or something. And he said,
Speaker 4: in that moment, with this vexed relationship with the most
Speaker 4: responsible man I've ever known, that I started to look
Speaker 4: for heroes, people who could help me become the man
Speaker 4: as I imagined myself that I was supposed to be.
Speaker 4: And Malcolm became this figure, this hero that I was
Speaker 4: looking for, and I began to lose myself in the
Speaker 4: imitation of him at Morehouse. And so what I wanted
Speaker 4: to do is to kind of think through him and
Speaker 4: to put aside the hero and to figure out what
Speaker 4: his life actually represents for me. Right, and I moved
Speaker 4: from the hero to the representative figure, reading Emerson and
Speaker 4: the like, and what does it mean to think of
Speaker 4: Malcolm as a fallible, finite, fragile, vulnerable man as opposed
Speaker 4: to this shining black prince. That's why he was so important.
Speaker 4: And then Ellen Baker is my model for democracy. She's
Speaker 4: born in Norfolk, Virginia, December thirteenth, nineteen o three. She
Speaker 4: dies December thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, on the same day
Speaker 4: she was born. She's at the center of black politics
Speaker 4: in the twentieth century. She's a field secretary in the
Speaker 4: nineteen forties for the NAACP, organizing NAACP chaptors in the South.
Speaker 4: She's the first executive secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Speaker 4: so she actually builds the infrastructure of that organization. And
Speaker 4: of course she played a central role Molly in organizing
Speaker 4: helping organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee after the Student
Speaker 4: Citizens of the nineteen sixth early nineteen sixty right, and
Speaker 4: at Shaw University, she helped organize a conference on April first,
Speaker 4: which led to the formation of SNICK. And she used
Speaker 4: to tell the SNICK of organizers Molly, as they went
Speaker 4: into the south, shut up and listen. You might learn
Speaker 4: something from these I mean, she was an amazing figure
Speaker 4: in so many ways.
Speaker 2: Is Shaw one of the women HBCUs.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's not just women, Yeah, but one of.
Speaker 2: Was it at that time? Gender or separate? Are now?
Speaker 4: I don't think so? Oh okay, But she's this amazing
Speaker 4: figure on so many levels. You know, she refused to become,
Speaker 4: you know, a teacher and became an organizer, and I
Speaker 4: was just blown away by her. You know, she has
Speaker 4: a what we call a few centered politics as opposed
Speaker 4: to a pulpit centered politics.
Speaker 2: What does that mean.
Speaker 4: She's more interested in the people than she is in
Speaker 4: the preacher.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it just seems like these three are such
Speaker 1: really good examples of totally different ways of trying to
Speaker 1: enact chate the same change.
Speaker 4: Right right, And I think there are examples of what
Speaker 4: we can find in ourselves. Right, We don't need prophets
Speaker 4: who are anointed from on high, who come in with
Speaker 4: that authority to tell us what we should do and
Speaker 4: that we should follow them. We are the profits because
Speaker 4: we can imagine the world as being otherwise. We can
Speaker 4: imagine in that which is possible and use that as
Speaker 4: the basis to critique the world. All of us have
Speaker 4: the capacity to exercise prophetic imagination. We're the profits. We
Speaker 4: don't need heroes. You know, we're in this age, Molly
Speaker 4: where we're looking to you know, the Marvel heroes of
Speaker 4: Iron Man and you know, the Hulk and Thor and
Speaker 4: you know, I'm showing my nerdiness. We don't need those heroes.
Speaker 4: Emerson made this, you know, wrote this wonderful eye. Great
Speaker 4: men and women are here for the purpose of even
Speaker 4: greater men and women. You know. That's a pair of phraise.
Speaker 4: And so when we encounter our heroes, they are revealing
Speaker 4: what we are in fact capable of if we're courageous
Speaker 4: enough to step into it. We're the heroes we need.
Speaker 4: And then, of course, democracy at its best right is
Speaker 4: when everyday ordinary people assume the responsibility for its safety
Speaker 4: and security for its flourishing. So you know, although I
Speaker 4: invoke the names of Martin and Malcolm and Ella, they're
Speaker 4: all in the service of me, calling each of us,
Speaker 4: you and me and everyday ordinary people to the task
Speaker 4: in front of us, and that saving, salvaging, reimagining democracy
Speaker 4: as such.
Speaker 1: Oh God, I'm so worried. You are interacting with students,
Speaker 1: Maybe not this semester, but often does it give you hope? Yes?
Speaker 4: Good, okay, good, It's a blue soap hope though, because yeah,
Speaker 4: our students are so burdened. They are coming of age
Speaker 4: in a broken world and they're trying to figure it out.
Speaker 4: You know, we can't put it all on their shoulders.
Speaker 4: Some of them, because they understand that it's broken, Molly,
Speaker 4: they're reaching for languages of order. They're attracted to the autocratic,
Speaker 4: the fascistic, dictatorial currents in our politics at this moment.
Speaker 4: So and then there are others who are just growthing
Speaker 4: for new languages altogether. You know, they don't want to
Speaker 4: find comfort in nineteenth century ideologies. You know, they're longing
Speaker 4: for for some sense of stability and certainty and safety,
Speaker 4: and they're willing to risk, you know, because you know,
Speaker 4: there's no guarantee, so I'm hopeful, but I'm prayerful at
Speaker 4: the same time. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yes it does, Eddie. Thank you so much. I hope
Speaker 1: you will come back.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mollie so much for having me. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Anna Hockhammer is the executive director of the Florida Women's
Speaker 1: Freedom Coalition.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, Anna.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me. Mollie.
Speaker 1: We're delighted to have you tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about how you got to be the person who got
Speaker 1: involved in this nonpartisan super pass. Just explain what it
Speaker 1: is and how you got involved with it.
Speaker 5: In my non working on amendment for in Florida life.
Speaker 5: I am a local elected official down here in Pinecrest, Florida,
Speaker 5: or one of the interring suburbs of Miami. I've always
Speaker 5: been a Democrat. I've always been active in local politics
Speaker 5: down here and ran in twenty sixteen, ran again in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty. Always been paying attention. But my meaning potatoes
Speaker 5: has always been local issues, right. I do police and
Speaker 5: hootholes and parks and tree trimming. I help people when
Speaker 5: their garbage doesn't get picked up and their neighbors are
Speaker 5: sprinkling when they're not supposed to. But I also read
Speaker 5: the newspaper and I pay attention to the stuff that's
Speaker 5: going on in Florida. And so when Florida started passing
Speaker 5: these abortion bands, I started calling around and saying, I'd
Speaker 5: heard rumors that somebody we're going to try and do
Speaker 5: a constitutional amendment. What's going on? And long story short,
Speaker 5: I found my way to Floridians Protecting Freedom, and Floridan's
Speaker 5: Protecting Freedom is the umbrella organization that's the official sponsor
Speaker 5: of the constitutional amendment. It's made up of stix organizations
Speaker 5: right Now, Land Parenthood, the ACLU, FCIU eleven ninety nine,
Speaker 5: Florida Rising, a small group out of Sarasota called Florida Voices,
Speaker 5: and I ended up creating, with our chair Dona Schalela,
Speaker 5: and a really couple of smart consultants, an independent path
Speaker 5: called Florida Women's Freedom Coalition, because we knew that we
Speaker 5: were going to have to get a pretty broad and
Speaker 5: diverse coalition of voters to support amendment, for there's just
Speaker 5: no way to get to sixty percent without it, and
Speaker 5: we knew that we needed to create some platform within
Speaker 5: Chlorines Protecting Freedom. That was single issue that was only
Speaker 5: working on Amendment four that was bipartisan as opposed to nonpartisan,
Speaker 5: and I really got out of my way emphasizing with
Speaker 5: people that there's a significant difference between being bipartisan and
Speaker 5: being nonpartisan in this space, and there was need for
Speaker 5: bipartisan action that was independent of every other group and
Speaker 5: independent of any other group in this space in order
Speaker 5: to create a Florida coalition that would get us into
Speaker 5: the end zone. And so Florida Women's Freedom Coalition has
Speaker 5: made up of a lot of current and former elected
Speaker 5: officials of both parties, including people with no party affiliation,
Speaker 5: who believe in Amendment four, believe in access to abortion,
Speaker 5: and leave all the rest to get at the door
Speaker 5: all of the other civil rights, human rights, and partisan
Speaker 5: issues out there so that we can all focus on
Speaker 5: one thing and win it together. And so I ended
Speaker 5: up being the executive director and that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 1: So first, talk about the sixty percent threshold that Florida
Speaker 1: has for amendments.
Speaker 2: Talk about that first, and then I have a follow
Speaker 2: up question on this.
Speaker 5: So the sixty percent threshold, and then the Florida Constitution
Speaker 5: is not new, It's been around over a decade, and
Speaker 5: so you know that was part of the rules of
Speaker 5: the game going into this thing. Didn't take anybody by surprise.
Speaker 5: So Florida has passed some fairly progressive referendo over the
Speaker 5: last decade or so at the sixty percent threshold, including
Speaker 5: their districts. In order to try and deal with some
Speaker 5: of the gerimandering restoring voting rights to felons, we passed
Speaker 5: a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. And sometimes these things
Speaker 5: blow through the sixty percent threshold. There is a certain
Speaker 5: schizophrenia in Florida that everybody has to acknowledge of passing
Speaker 5: these fairly capressive referenda and simultaneously voting for candidates who
Speaker 5: have absolutely no intention of enacting these challasis.
Speaker 1: Right, And in fact, that was my next question, which was,
Speaker 1: you guys have passed referenda like restoring voting rights to felons,
Speaker 1: and then your government has been like yeah, Now.
Speaker 5: I want to be clear here that they didn't say yeah, no.
Speaker 2: They said yeah, but it's going to cost you.
Speaker 5: They said yeah, but you guys left the whole fines
Speaker 5: and piece thing on the table, and so we're going
Speaker 5: to use it and manipulate it. I understand that, and
Speaker 5: I think anybody here in Florida understands that you're going
Speaker 5: to pass and then you're going to have the fight
Speaker 5: of the implementing legislation. And I also ignor a little
Speaker 5: bit when I hear people get hot and bothered about that,
Speaker 5: because anybody who thinks that politics is one and done
Speaker 5: is living at fancasy Land. There is no such thing
Speaker 5: as one and done on any issue, whether it's abortion, access,
Speaker 5: voting rights, or any of the other major themes of
Speaker 5: modern American politics. I certainly do not operate, and I
Speaker 5: don't think anybody and the coalition operates under the misconception that,
Speaker 5: you know, we're all going to win in November and
Speaker 5: then everybody's just going to go home eat because the
Speaker 5: problem's been solved.
Speaker 2: Right, good point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work
Speaker 5: that way in politics, right. And I think one of
Speaker 5: the reasons why we're in this fix across America is
Speaker 5: because you know, everybody said, well, Roby ways, the law
Speaker 5: of the land wonn't done right, right, But for twenty
Speaker 5: five years they've been telling us exactly what they intended
Speaker 5: to do, and nobody wanted to believe right it's.
Speaker 2: A really good point.
Speaker 1: But I also think what's important about what you just
Speaker 1: said is that it's really about how the amendments are written,
Speaker 1: and that's something that you have actually spent a good
Speaker 1: deal of time focusing on right, a.
Speaker 5: Lot of time focusing on the amendment that we propose
Speaker 5: is forty nine words. It's two sentences every now and
Speaker 5: every verb was tested, was argued over, was focus group
Speaker 5: was pulled, and it turned out that the simplest, most
Speaker 5: straightforward language was actually the language that hold the best
Speaker 5: every single time. And unlike most constitutional amendments in Florida,
Speaker 5: which oftentimes seem to be written in order to confuse
Speaker 5: the electorate, there's a real fence that these amendments are
Speaker 5: a bait and switch game. Ours is unique in its simplicity.
Speaker 5: And that's why the language that was on the actual
Speaker 5: petition form that people filled out is identical to the
Speaker 5: language that's going to be on the ballot that they're
Speaker 5: going to see in front of them in November. It's
Speaker 5: one of our strengths, I think.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping you could explain to us how you
Speaker 1: sort of get to the sixty percent threshold in Florida
Speaker 1: and what that would look.
Speaker 5: Like the math is super straightforward, and I mean there
Speaker 5: are a couple of assumptions that you make going into it.
Speaker 5: The first is that you're going to have historically high
Speaker 5: voter turnout. And I think that that's a pretty safe bet.
Speaker 5: That voter turnout in twenty twenty was off the charts.
Speaker 5: Voter turnout in my own community was about eighty seven
Speaker 5: percent in twenty twenty. So Floridians take their November presidential
Speaker 5: elections pretty darn seriously and tend to show up for that.
Speaker 5: I don't think given the repeat of the Biden Trump
Speaker 5: presidential race that we're about to live through, that we
Speaker 5: should assume that that's not going to happen again. And
Speaker 5: we need about eighty five percent of the Democrats who
Speaker 5: vote to vote yes on Amendment four. We need a
Speaker 5: majority of the no party affiliation voters, which is what
Speaker 5: Floridians call independent voters.
Speaker 2: And that's a pretty big group in Florida, right.
Speaker 5: It's a very big group in Florida, and it's the
Speaker 5: fastest growing group in Florida. And I think as we
Speaker 5: see people registering to vote in the run up of
Speaker 5: the primaries and then into because we have some pretty
Speaker 5: significant August elections here in Florida as well. In the
Speaker 5: run up to the August and in the run up
Speaker 5: to the November elections, we're going to see that NPA
Speaker 5: group grow again. And we need thirty five to forty
Speaker 5: percent of the Republicans to vote yes on Amendment four,
Speaker 5: which I think is completely within reach. The polling is
Speaker 5: outstanding and over sixty percent of Republicans support Amendment four.
Speaker 5: And we've even got data that shows that about fifty
Speaker 5: seve percent of the Trump voters in Florida support Amntent four.
Speaker 2: So this is ours to win.
Speaker 1: When you're sort of talking to vote because you're in Florida,
Speaker 1: you're in my Pine Crest is near Miami. Miami is
Speaker 1: very swingy in a lot of ways. So you're talking
Speaker 1: to voters on the right and the left. Is there
Speaker 1: a feeling that DeSantis, like you guys have had a
Speaker 1: real problem with inflation in a way that I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone sort of saw. I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: environmental stuff, yes, but the insurance stuff has really spiraled
Speaker 1: out of control. And I'm wondering if do you see
Speaker 1: that on the ground affecting voters, or do voters are
Speaker 1: they sort of do they not tie the insurance issues,
Speaker 1: the flooding issues, the climate change issues with their political votes.
Speaker 5: That's a really good setup. I mean, I will have
Speaker 5: an interesting sort of lived experience because I represent a
Speaker 5: city that's voter registration is about a third a third third.
Speaker 5: I was at the door for a November twenty signorance.
Speaker 5: I was at the door for a November twenty twenty race.
Speaker 5: As they say, the local politicians are as close as
Speaker 5: you can get to the constituents because if you do
Speaker 5: the wrong thing, you hear about it while you're waiting
Speaker 5: in line at CBS. So I talk to a lot
Speaker 5: of people about real stuff all the time. I think
Speaker 5: the financial concerns are very strong in South Florida. We've
Speaker 5: been the place with basically the highest inflation rate in
Speaker 5: the entire nation. We've been running several percent above the
Speaker 5: rest of the nation for a very long time. People
Speaker 5: feel the crunch insurance is a major problem. Most people
Speaker 5: understand that it's a statewide problem, but most people frankly
Speaker 5: don't understand which government agency provides which service to them.
Speaker 5: They just know that government, right, the big g government
Speaker 5: somehow has failed them, and so They're willing to blame
Speaker 5: almost anybody who comes to the door for their problems
Speaker 5: because things are perceived as being complicated, and you know,
Speaker 5: the regular Joe is perceived as always ending up on
Speaker 5: the losing side. So I think that these economic motivators
Speaker 5: are extremely strong. But in my personal experience, people are
Speaker 5: willing to vote for candidates who agree with them on
Speaker 5: policies that affect their real lives, their daily lives. And
Speaker 5: as much as we like to paint thirty ends is
Speaker 5: completely ideological, I think, like most Americans, they just want
Speaker 5: to vote for somebody who they think is listening to
Speaker 5: them and responding to their problems. And abortion access is
Speaker 5: one of those things that you know, knocks on everybody's
Speaker 5: doors and door later because we're all making families and
Speaker 5: we're all having babies, even if you're not carrying the
Speaker 5: baby yourself, you know, you know, and what somebody who is.
Speaker 5: So I don't believe that this is an issue that's
Speaker 5: going to pack very hard on the partisan level. I
Speaker 5: think it's a matter of right. You know, I'm creating
Speaker 5: a very open tent and allowing people to talk to
Speaker 5: their own communities and language that makes sense to them,
Speaker 5: and in real ways, and as long as we have
Speaker 5: a multiplicity of voices in this space, Amendment four is
Speaker 5: going to way.
Speaker 1: Historically, your state has been a very pro choice state,
Speaker 1: largely because of the sort of swinginess of it and
Speaker 1: also the libertarian leanings of the right in the state.
Speaker 1: Now you're at this six week ban, which is taking
Speaker 1: into a fact, and now it's in fact, or it's
Speaker 1: about to be put into a fact.
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court decision.
Speaker 1: I think the Florida Supreme Court decision was interesting because, like,
Speaker 1: you had the signatures to get on the ballot, the
Speaker 1: fact that the judges were still like, maybe we won't
Speaker 1: let it be on the ballot.
Speaker 2: Isn't that a bit odd?
Speaker 5: No, I don't think it's odd. I mean Florida is
Speaker 5: odd in many ways that are very unique components of
Speaker 5: the process of getting on the ballot. In Florida. We
Speaker 5: are the only state that requires Supreme Court scrutiny of
Speaker 5: the ballot language before the election. We're the only state
Speaker 5: that has that. That rule is not so brand new
Speaker 5: that we didn't understand that we were going to have
Speaker 5: to get through the Florida Supreme Court, and we knew
Speaker 5: exactly who had appointed them, and you know, obviously we're
Speaker 5: paying attention to the legal philosophy of the individual justices
Speaker 5: on the court. And again back in early twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: when we were writing this language, we were writing it
Speaker 5: knowing that we were going to have to get through
Speaker 5: the Florida Supreme Court, and given the fact that the
Speaker 5: vast majority of those justices are extremely unsupportive of abortion
Speaker 5: access as a general rule. The fact that we got through,
Speaker 5: I think speaks to how well crafted the language is.
Speaker 5: We knew exactly what we needed to do in order
Speaker 5: to get through a hostile court, and we did it.
Speaker 5: It's a tremendous achievement. I think it speaks to the
Speaker 5: expertise as the working groups that put that language together
Speaker 5: and how data driven this initiative. Haspent, I mean, Molly,
Speaker 5: I cannot tell you how dubious the entire universe was
Speaker 5: about our ability to get on the ballot here. I mean,
Speaker 5: people thought we were just downright crazy, that Florida had
Speaker 5: turned bright red, that the entire state had suddenly become
Speaker 5: hostile to abortion access, that we were never going to
Speaker 5: be able to raise the money. We ended up raising
Speaker 5: almost eight million dollars just in order to fund the
Speaker 5: petition phase. We had over two hundred grassroots groups across
Speaker 5: this massive state, with thousands and thousands of volunteers. We
Speaker 5: managed to collect about one point four or five million petitions,
Speaker 5: that's about ten percent of all of the registered voters
Speaker 5: in the state of Florida right in less than six months.
Speaker 5: And we did it so quickly that we finally had
Speaker 5: to have some tough conversations with our volunteer networks, telling
Speaker 5: them ordering them to stand down. In December, we weren't
Speaker 5: going to collect any more petitions because we were lapping
Speaker 5: in the field. We feel like we were wasting money
Speaker 5: in that kind of environment where everybody thought we were
Speaker 5: downright crazy.
Speaker 2: Right to continue to.
Speaker 5: Hear this narrative of but but but it is a
Speaker 5: little bit frustrating because what we've done every single time
Speaker 5: is we've been told there's a really hard, high bar,
Speaker 5: you're not going to be able to do it, but
Speaker 5: you're welcome to try and flame out. And what this
Speaker 5: coalition has done time and time again is meet that
Speaker 5: bar and exceed it over and over again. And I
Speaker 5: have trom as confidence that when given the opportunity to
Speaker 5: write up vote on Amendment for Lordians are not only
Speaker 5: going to get through that sixty percent, they're going to
Speaker 5: blow through the sixty percent. This is not a state
Speaker 5: that has a lot of trust in meddling and interfering government.
Speaker 5: This is not a state that has a lot of
Speaker 5: tolerance for people telling them what to do. This is
Speaker 5: not a state that has a lot of tolerance for
Speaker 5: the government telling them what they can and cannot provide
Speaker 5: to their children. And the six week abortion ban, with
Speaker 5: almost no exceptions for rape or incest, is such a
Speaker 5: profound violation of Gridian's own sense of independence. You know,
Speaker 5: the good old free state of Florida, that this was
Speaker 5: a real moment of just not reading the room, and
Speaker 5: they went so far, they revealed their ultimate intentions so
Speaker 5: nakedly that I think Florida voters are just going to
Speaker 5: clap back, and clap back hard.
Speaker 1: Now the six week ban is, in a fact, floud
Speaker 1: is an enormous state. So we're going to see the
Speaker 1: kind of stories that we been seeing out of Texas
Speaker 1: out of Florida, right, and guaranteed it's good affect the
Speaker 1: way obgyn's practice in the state.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: This is a problem that's been getting worse and worse
Speaker 5: and worse ever since they passed the fifteen week ban.
Speaker 5: So you've got issues with the practice of medicine. We've
Speaker 5: now rolled it back to the six week ban, right
Speaker 5: when most women have no idea that they're even pregnant.
Speaker 5: You're going to see cases like you know, that horrific
Speaker 5: case out of Ohio where you had a ten year
Speaker 5: old had been raped and couldn't get abortion access and
Speaker 5: her lawyer had to drive her out of state, and
Speaker 5: then everybody involved was, you know, subject to possible prosecution
Speaker 5: for felonies for you know, helping a ten year old rape.
Speaker 5: That is going to be what happens in Florida. You've
Speaker 5: got to remember the sixth week ban has language in
Speaker 5: it that makes anybody who quote participates in an abortion
Speaker 5: subject to arrest and conviction for a felony. Well, it
Speaker 5: does not define what participating in an abortion is. If
Speaker 5: that dispensing pills, is that a pharmacist, is that a doctor?
Speaker 5: Is that a husband who drives his wife to an
Speaker 5: appointment with her obgyn? Are we all about to be
Speaker 5: rounded up and prosecuted simply helping our family members who
Speaker 5: have a medical need. It's really intimidating. It's written to
Speaker 5: be intimidating. And on top of that, Florida the third
Speaker 5: largest state of the nation four million women and girls
Speaker 5: of reproductive age, a quarter million live bursts every single year,
Speaker 5: the number two provider of abortion services in the nation,
Speaker 5: right after California. About eighty five thousand abortions are performed
Speaker 5: here every single year, the vast majority of them for
Speaker 5: Floridian women's It's not that people are coming here in
Speaker 5: such great numbers. We're a big state, and we can't
Speaker 5: even properly train our doctors in our medical schools right now.
Speaker 5: Our surgical interns have to be flown up to New
Speaker 5: Jersey and New York in order to be properly trained
Speaker 5: in accredited programs because you can't even teach doctors how
Speaker 5: to serve patients in this state anymore.
Speaker 2: It's just such an insane place to be. But here
Speaker 2: we are. Thank you so much, Anna.
Speaker 5: Look, thank you for having me. I'm happy to talk
Speaker 5: about Florida anytime. My great love and obsession.
Speaker 6: No more perfectly Jesse Cannon by junk Fast. One of
Speaker 6: my favorite things in our business is when Republicans' ultra
Speaker 6: stupid strategy leaks. When even if it didn't leak, it
Speaker 6: would be stupid anyway.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the GOP leaders in Arizona. You'll
Speaker 1: remember that Arizona has enacted this eighteen sixty. They haven't
Speaker 1: enacted it yet, but they passed in eighteen sixties Civil
Speaker 1: War era abortion Man. The Democrats in the Arizona State
Speaker 1: House tried to repeal it, and the Republicans made sure
Speaker 1: that it stayed the law. Now they're on break for
Speaker 1: a week, but they accidentally sent the Democrats their plan
Speaker 1: to try to defeat the ballot initiative, the pro choice
Speaker 1: ballot initiative that Arizonians are trying to put on the ballot.
Speaker 1: The details were revealed in a PowerPoint presentation that was
Speaker 1: supposed to be circulated among Republicans only, but was accidentally
Speaker 1: sent to Democratic lawmakers. Thank god, Arizona Republicans are stupid
Speaker 1: and that, my friends, is our moment.
Speaker 2: Of fuck Gray.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
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Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,