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: I am going to tell you that today's conversation with
Speaker 1: Jonathan was pre recorded following the announcement the decision by
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court to end our democracy, and it is
Speaker 1: a very low conversation in terms of energy feeling. We
Speaker 1: are in a world of trouble and I cannot express
Speaker 1: that enough. I cannot urge you enough to use the
Speaker 1: remaining months that we have to organize, to strategize to
Speaker 1: get people to vote for Joe Biden. But understand that
Speaker 1: that is about a four year lifeline. It is not
Speaker 1: indefinite at all, and the Supreme Court has saw to that.
Speaker 1: If Donald Trump is elected, I will tell you that
Speaker 1: the first one hundred days are going to be the
Speaker 1: bloodiest and the worst that this country has ever seen.
Speaker 1: And that's saying a lot. I need people to take
Speaker 1: this with the gravity and the seriousness that people took
Speaker 1: their lives in Germany in Austria in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: You are not overreacting. Do not let anyone tell you
Speaker 1: that you are overreacting. But I will urge you not
Speaker 1: to allow your fear to paralyze you into a place
Speaker 1: of apathy and complacency. I will urge you to utilize
Speaker 1: that fear to propel you to make really hard decisions
Speaker 1: in the coming months about your future, the future of
Speaker 1: your families, of your community. We are at that moment,
Speaker 1: and the more folks that can share these messages, that
Speaker 1: can share these podcast interviews, that can post them on
Speaker 1: your Facebook, on your Instagram, on whatever social platform that
Speaker 1: you use to get this message out, please do. It
Speaker 1: is not about the numbers, I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 1: It is about getting as many people to a place
Speaker 1: of safety as they can possibly find for themselves in
Speaker 1: this moment. The demise following a Trumpet win will be
Speaker 1: swift like nothing you've ever seen, and there will be
Speaker 1: no protests at that point that can stop it. So
Speaker 1: folks need to prepare. And that's the conversation that Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I get into on today's show. Well, I like,
Speaker 1: I I don't even know what to say. It's gonna
Speaker 1: say my usual, which is like, you know, it's doctor here.
Speaker 1: This guy right so excited to have our in house doctor,
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan metzel Uh here because if there was any
Speaker 1: time that you felt like you need a doctor, it
Speaker 1: is probably at this moment, Jonathan. We are talking, uh
Speaker 1: recording this a day after uh the Supreme courtious ended
Speaker 1: democracy in this country, and I'm still reeling from the news. Uh,
Speaker 1: not doing that well? So how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Oh boy? How the words? You're gonna ask me that? Well,
Speaker 2: let me start by first responding to some of our readers,
Speaker 2: listener fans out there who want us to talk about
Speaker 2: cheerful stuff. So I'll start with a cheerful thing, which
Speaker 2: is it's July. It's beautiful outside. We got another good July, August, September, October.
Speaker 2: Now we got take another good five months of this thing.
Speaker 2: So this should be our summer of love. Right, if
Speaker 2: we're going down on the Titanic, this should be that.
Speaker 2: You know, if there's a restaurant you always wanted to
Speaker 2: go to, go to that restaurant. If you wanted to
Speaker 2: stay at home and make couscous or get a dog,
Speaker 2: or practice dry humping or whatever you want to do,
Speaker 2: this is the time to do it. Because this is
Speaker 2: this is our summer of I wouldn't say it's our
Speaker 2: summer of freedom. I would say, it's our summer of
Speaker 2: relative freedom relative to freedom we might not have later
Speaker 2: on down that road. So if you wanted to do it,
Speaker 2: like do it now. So that's that's part of it,
Speaker 2: is like, you know, I just think that there's you know,
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, there's a waking up moment for a
Speaker 2: lot of people who are like, oh my god, And
Speaker 2: it is a kind of Cassandra moment because like a
Speaker 2: lot of people are saying, like, oh my god, here's
Speaker 2: all these freedoms we took for grant aid. And I
Speaker 2: don't know, like it's just they obviously didn't listen to
Speaker 2: our conversations or our show or something like that. And
Speaker 2: so the question is, I don't know. I'm to be honest,
Speaker 2: it's the last hardest twenty fours for me, not that
Speaker 2: it was any surprise. Honestly, you and I are the
Speaker 2: least surprised people in the world.
Speaker 1: I think that we are the least surprise. I honestly do.
Speaker 1: I think that we are among the least surprise. But
Speaker 1: I also think that, like I don't know, Jonathan, when
Speaker 1: the news broke six to three, I at least thought
Speaker 1: it would be five to four, and I at least
Speaker 1: thought that it was not going to give Donald Trump everything, Like.
Speaker 2: I thought, more more than everything, more than he asked for.
Speaker 1: I thought that it was going to be like, no,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. But in the instances of whatever, pick and
Speaker 1: choose and so a decision as blatant, as broad as this,
Speaker 1: that is just so. I mean it is there's no
Speaker 1: mincing of this, there's no hopefulness attached to this, there's
Speaker 1: no this is beyond the pale. And for I think
Speaker 1: for Joe Biden to address the nation for the first
Speaker 1: time a president addresses the nation following a Supreme Court decision,
Speaker 1: and for him to end that five minute speech with
Speaker 1: God bless the troops and may God protect our democracy,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh it was. It was just so clear.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people held on to
Speaker 1: a bit of hope that the Supreme Court is crazy
Speaker 1: and the nice and their right wing, but they're not
Speaker 1: going to usher in the fourth right. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what they did yesterday.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about the long game, right, I mean
Speaker 2: how long have how long have they been like you know,
Speaker 2: if we think about the Materian candidate, but like these
Speaker 2: guys are like Cicada, see you know, they've been living
Speaker 2: in the soil for seventeen years, like in full view,
Speaker 2: just plotting this takeover, right, I mean, because the ironic
Speaker 2: thing is like the most radical are the dudes that
Speaker 2: have been there the long cast. To me, that's that's incredible,
Speaker 2: Like it's just to me, that's incredible that it was
Speaker 2: in plain view. It was in plain v this whole time.
Speaker 2: But there's so much there's just so much disbelief, and
Speaker 2: so I think there are two questions I think we
Speaker 2: should be asking right now, to be honest. One is
Speaker 2: what's the nature of that disbelief? Like when people like
Speaker 2: you and WAJ and me and other people have been
Speaker 2: frustratingly shouting this for so long, and maybe there's just
Speaker 2: no avenue, Like we can shout all we want, but
Speaker 2: it's kind of like the elevator button to close the
Speaker 2: door that's not connected anything. Maybe shouting wasn't enough or
Speaker 2: something like that. But part of the question is like
Speaker 2: why weren't I mean, you know, my personal frustration right
Speaker 2: like even my last book, I was trying to name
Speaker 2: it how we lost, And the argument of the book
Speaker 2: was that we weren't paying enough attention, that guns were
Speaker 2: a false issue compared to the bigger story, which was
Speaker 2: taking over the Supreme Court, which they were using guns
Speaker 2: to take over the Supreme Court for largely anti democratic
Speaker 2: issues that weren't about public health. Public health was a misnomer,
Speaker 2: and my publisher rejected the argument, made me change the
Speaker 2: title of the book, said that's never going to happen.
Speaker 2: And everybody who has been in a Cassandra position probably
Speaker 2: has twenty stories like this. So part of the story
Speaker 2: is what's the nature of that disbelief that all of
Speaker 2: a sudden people are waking up now with four months ago,
Speaker 2: until you know it matters, and then what can we
Speaker 2: do between now and then, Like what's the strategy? We
Speaker 2: need a strategy right now, like we shock. We're in shock,
Speaker 2: like we were in shock after Dobbs, we were in
Speaker 2: shock after Pearl Harbor, we were in shock at these
Speaker 2: other moments that are akin to this in American history,
Speaker 2: which is like a real threat to what we thought
Speaker 2: America was or safety or security. And then what's our strategy.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what my sister said to me this morning,
Speaker 1: because neither one of us have slept and so it
Speaker 1: was like five point forty five and We're on the
Speaker 1: phone this morning, and my sister said, Okay, we basically
Speaker 1: have essentially six months to four years for American democracy.
Speaker 1: And she's like, six months if in fact Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is elected, and four years if Joe Biden is re elected.
Speaker 1: But she's like, regardless, whenever a Republican becomes president of
Speaker 1: the United States, it's an endgame. And she's like, so,
Speaker 1: what is the plan? And I will say this. I said, Look, basically,
Speaker 1: I want everyone and I'm gonna just be as honest
Speaker 1: as I have been. Everyone needs to be operating on
Speaker 1: a six month plan to be absolutely completely frank things
Speaker 1: that I was researching today, Jonathan, like in the wee
Speaker 1: hours of the morning, I was like, how long did
Speaker 1: it take Hitler to moments? It took two months. He
Speaker 1: was elected in January of nineteen thirty three, and by
Speaker 1: March of nineteen thirty three, the first camp in Dushua,
Speaker 1: Germany was built, and the first people that were sent
Speaker 1: there political prisoners and perceived enemies of the state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's you know, Rachel Bitkofer has been just
Speaker 2: you know again nobody listened, but no, it's incredible. And
Speaker 2: the other interesting story about Hitler is a failed politician
Speaker 2: who was in power, lost, came back, there's a collapse,
Speaker 2: and then asked a form of government, and then people
Speaker 2: thought it wouldn't be too bad and all this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, and then even then it was working for
Speaker 2: a lot of people. So yeah, no, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's this site happens quickly, you know, and and it's
Speaker 2: so easily manipulated. And as we've said, citing our good
Speaker 2: friend Jason Stanley so many times here, the conditions that
Speaker 2: allow this, among other things, are a fractured opposition, right,
Speaker 2: and so the ways that we've been fractured to let
Speaker 2: this happen are a huge part of the story, in
Speaker 2: addition to the thing itself. But it's just you know
Speaker 2: that part. Okay, six month lane, what else you got?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I know, I'm just I'm saying
Speaker 1: the folks here, here's what you need to do. While
Speaker 1: you need to be able to do multiple things at
Speaker 1: one time, which is you need to be able to
Speaker 1: organize as many people as possible to vote, uh and
Speaker 1: vote for Joe Biden. Please stop the nonsense of a
Speaker 1: call for someone else. It is not going to happen,
Speaker 1: not at this late stage and definitely not after this decision.
Speaker 1: So get as many people organize, donate up and down
Speaker 1: the ballot. And at the same time, if you are
Speaker 1: part of an unprotected class of people, if you are
Speaker 1: from a religious minority, if you are from a racial minority,
Speaker 1: if you are from the LGBTQ community, if you are
Speaker 1: a person that is disabled, if you are you know,
Speaker 1: liberal liberal, if you have been, if you were a journalist,
Speaker 1: if you are an academic that has been very vocal
Speaker 1: about where we are. I suggest that you developed up
Speaker 1: and exit strategy for yourself and your family and understand
Speaker 1: that unfortunately, everyone will not go because people will tell
Speaker 1: you that we survived it the first time, we'll make
Speaker 1: it through the next time. And tell me, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not disclosing that at all.
Speaker 2: Where can a first and go.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can go to a lot of places.
Speaker 1: You can go to a lot of places. But I
Speaker 1: as sure as how I'm not disclosing where I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about going.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows where I'm going, sir, Where is that, David Busters?
Speaker 1: They'll never look for you there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I said it on TV like nine times already.
Speaker 1: But it's just, you know, I think that I mean,
Speaker 1: you have talked about your family many times on this
Speaker 1: show with me fleeing.
Speaker 2: Well, let me just say please. My grandfather was the
Speaker 2: one guy who said, this shit is getting real. And
Speaker 2: my grandfather had a lot of non Jewish friends. Our
Speaker 2: family in Austria, we had a religious side, and then
Speaker 2: we had a kind of really secular side. My grandfather
Speaker 2: super secular. He worked in a horse stable with tons
Speaker 2: of non Jewish friends, and they all said, dude, get
Speaker 2: the hell out of here. This is getting bad. And
Speaker 2: so my grandfather tried to convince my whole family, our grandparents,
Speaker 2: our aunts, our uncles, our cousins, and they were like,
Speaker 2: you know, we've been through this before, we'll get through
Speaker 2: it again.
Speaker 1: That was there since around what time is this happening?
Speaker 2: So this is obviously right at the very beginning of
Speaker 2: when the stuff started getting bad, and they were in Austria,
Speaker 2: not in Germany, and so it was before obviously before
Speaker 2: the really bad stuff happened in Austria. So he gathered
Speaker 2: my grandmother and my dad and they just packed up everything,
Speaker 2: got the hell out of their effect. They took like
Speaker 2: their three most valuable things, one of which was a
Speaker 2: feather quilt of goose feathers that my grandmother had plucked.
Speaker 2: So I still have that down comforter in a bag
Speaker 2: because it was so valuable to them, just as to
Speaker 2: me a kind of reminder it smells like goose, to
Speaker 2: be honest. But for them that was kind of the
Speaker 2: one of the things that they thought, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is the thing we need. And then they were
Speaker 2: displaced persons for ten years, and then they finally got
Speaker 2: into the US, which was a beacond of the opposite ideology, right.
Speaker 2: I mean the question now as I say where do
Speaker 2: you go? I wasn't saying like where you specifically going?
Speaker 2: But besides, Dave Investor is like, what ideology is going
Speaker 2: to be home for people who do flee? Is it?
Speaker 2: And I got an open question which don't answer, but
Speaker 2: I'll just say, is it Blue States? Is it other countries?
Speaker 2: Is it sanctuary areas? Like all these things are all
Speaker 2: there's no easy answer the way like a mayor which
Speaker 2: was not an easy answer, right because it wasn't letting
Speaker 2: people in.
Speaker 1: And it was on the other side of the world.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's just it's a complicated time. And
Speaker 2: again we have some time now to also mobilize I mean,
Speaker 2: I just don't want to say like, oh, we're all
Speaker 2: giving up. I don't think we're given up. I do
Speaker 2: want to ask you one question about the Biden thing,
Speaker 2: which is not going to happen, but just ideally, and
Speaker 2: I realized it should have happened three months ago if
Speaker 2: we were going to do this, but a convention where
Speaker 2: everybody makes their best case, We hear everybody out. It's
Speaker 2: like a national primetime thing, a debate for different strategies
Speaker 2: for Democrats, we all decide to get around somebody knew
Speaker 2: that Biden gives his blessing, and whether it's Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: or it's one of the people people are talking about
Speaker 2: now or something like that. There actually is what Democrats
Speaker 2: used to do, which is a contested convention that then
Speaker 2: generates excitement and then, like in the UK system, a
Speaker 2: seven week barnstorming kind of deal, which is what the
Speaker 2: US used to do. You think there's no chance that
Speaker 2: would work?
Speaker 1: No, I don't, cause I don't think that it will
Speaker 1: work because one, I don't think that this election is
Speaker 1: any more about excitement than it is, you know, fear.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there is anything that is going
Speaker 1: to quote unquote, excite the people. This is not two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight or twenty twelve. What people need to
Speaker 1: be voting on now is an existential threat to your
Speaker 1: absolute way of life. And you know, the best thing
Speaker 1: that I think they can do, and by day I
Speaker 1: mean Demo, big d Democrats is talk about the scare
Speaker 1: the shit out of everyone is breakdown Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: like a fucking fraction. Like give it to people in
Speaker 1: little bitty bites. Tell them about you know now that
Speaker 1: this power is absolute and the president is a king.
Speaker 1: Remind them of some of the things that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has said. Put it up on billboards, put it up
Speaker 1: on commercials. None of this is hyperbolic. There are no
Speaker 1: guardrails whatsoever at all. And so when he says I'm
Speaker 1: going to deport eleven million people, who's going to stop
Speaker 1: him a six to three Trump Supreme Court. When he
Speaker 1: says that he's going to have retribution against his political enemies,
Speaker 1: what's to stop him? No one, right, because he's immune.
Speaker 1: And then for anybody else who's going to do his bidding,
Speaker 1: he will just provide them with a pardon. And what
Speaker 1: does a pardon really matter? Again, when you have a
Speaker 1: six to three Supreme Court that doesn't give a fuck.
Speaker 1: So I think that any move or distraction away from
Speaker 1: just supporting Biden and understanding that he has a very competent,
Speaker 1: very young vice president of the United States and if
Speaker 1: she was not a she or a person of color,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be having this fucking conversation. And so we
Speaker 1: have to also understand them misogyn war that is at
Speaker 1: play here with this conversation of Biden should walk away
Speaker 1: or can't we have the contested whatever. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: was a conversation for two years ago, right, This was Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was a conversation that serious people needed to be having.
Speaker 1: Who are at those levers two years ago? Right? And
Speaker 1: so this is not a conversation that now everything has
Speaker 1: come to fruition that we thought couldn't is now here.
Speaker 1: And now people want to say, like, oh, well, the
Speaker 1: New York Times wants to do a coordinated attack. When
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was convicted of thirty four felonies, where were
Speaker 1: the calls for him to drop out of the race,
Speaker 1: Where were the calls for him to step down from
Speaker 1: the Republican Party? There were none. So we have to
Speaker 1: understand that there is a coordination and a strategy that
Speaker 1: is happening at all levers of power, including the media.
Speaker 1: Right that is implicit they are accomplices. And so no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that we have time even for the
Speaker 1: speculation at this point.
Speaker 2: All right, well then let's get it together. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, it just feels. You know, democracy is a
Speaker 2: system of checks and balances, but people smell something very
Speaker 2: tribal right now, which is the defeat of the other side.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what is driving a lot of this,
Speaker 2: like this false promise that you can own the libs
Speaker 2: or own the culture world.
Speaker 1: But they do. This is the thing too that I
Speaker 1: want and why I say, like, we can do both,
Speaker 1: and you can both organize and use whatever platforms people
Speaker 1: have in order to spread the truth and get as
Speaker 1: many people to vote as possible. But we're like America
Speaker 1: as we know it has been done for the last
Speaker 1: several years and this last decision by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: There is no more abortion, there is no more affirmative action.
Speaker 1: There is legalized bribery, there is agencies no longer have
Speaker 1: any powered those they have centralized power to the executive
Speaker 1: branch and to the court. There is no like Oh,
Speaker 1: but we could do X, Y and Z. It's like
Speaker 1: the only thing that we can do is vote for Biden,
Speaker 1: hope that he would that he gets re elected, and
Speaker 1: then in those first two years of his reelection, that
Speaker 1: he expands the court that we have also won the
Speaker 1: Senate and the House, and that we take drastic measures
Speaker 1: to protect the Constitution and our democracy. But barring that,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know how how they haven't won.
Speaker 2: Well again, those are more options than we're going to
Speaker 2: have five months from now, possibly, So I guess let's
Speaker 2: do that. You know, you got me, Let's do that.
Speaker 1: Think like you know, I just I think that we
Speaker 1: are at the precipice of our demise and we are
Speaker 1: like looking over the ledge and we're just like, well
Speaker 1: should I jump? Should I not jump? And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you're being pushed regardless. So this final choice is honestly
Speaker 1: the last choice that Americans will have. And you know,
Speaker 1: when I saw I don't know if you saw this,
Speaker 1: but the BET Music Awards were a couple of nights
Speaker 1: ago and Taraji p Henson, actress phenomenal actress, takes a
Speaker 1: moment to tell people to google Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: and the analytics went through the roof. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and that is a captive audience of young people of
Speaker 1: color who are like, what is that? You know? And
Speaker 1: again we've been talking about it, but when you have
Speaker 1: now some people's icons and folks really saying, hm, things
Speaker 1: look bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, let's do.
Speaker 1: That final final thoughts tell me oh, I mean.
Speaker 2: You know, just some huge front of me wants to
Speaker 2: say better late than ever. People are weak up. We
Speaker 2: do have options right now, and so I hope we
Speaker 2: mobilize again. It's just like I mean, think about you
Speaker 2: go back to our conversation two years ago where we
Speaker 2: were saying people aren't paying enough attention to judges and
Speaker 2: the power judges have. Like that was two years ago
Speaker 2: that we have been having this conversation, and so I
Speaker 2: don't know, We're up against an adversary that was very directed,
Speaker 2: understood how power worked, and we get distracted and right
Speaker 2: now we can't get distracted. That's just kind of power.
Speaker 1: Is one hundred percent. So folks need to be able
Speaker 1: to do both. And and I would encourage you to
Speaker 1: be sharing these shows with your networks, to be posting them,
Speaker 1: and to stay connected to independent voices as much as
Speaker 1: you possibly can.
Speaker 2: And you rest up, then let's go to theve investors.
Speaker 2: Then let's get cracking here.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a plan. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: dear friends. As always, power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as
Speaker 1: fun