Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woo k F Daily
Speaker 1: with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the
Speaker 1: Home Bunker. Folks, you know, it's not often, honestly that
Speaker 1: I get to interview a politician that makes me feel
Speaker 1: good right, that is doing the right things, saying the
Speaker 1: right things, and just engaging with constituents in a way
Speaker 1: that should be modeled. I'm excited to welcome on to
Speaker 1: the show for the first time Commissioner Devonte Lewis from
Speaker 1: the third District in Louisiana, a black queer man that
Speaker 1: won his seat by eighteen percentage points in Louisiana. DeVante
Speaker 1: is not the first, you know, black queer politician that
Speaker 1: we've had on the show from the South, which is
Speaker 1: just an exciting, exciting to witness right and exciting to
Speaker 1: have folks on because I think, much like we have
Speaker 1: with patriotism, with faith, with family, that we have ceded
Speaker 1: way too much fucking ground to the Maga supremacist Party,
Speaker 1: that we have allowed them to be the ones that
Speaker 1: control the narrative around family, that control the narrative around patriotism,
Speaker 1: that control the narrative around religion. To assume that everybody
Speaker 1: then that is on the left is devoid of all
Speaker 1: of these values that in fact we actually hold in
Speaker 1: the truest and fullest sense of the word. Right, I
Speaker 1: can think about nothing more patriotic than marching and fighting
Speaker 1: for a more just society. Right. I can think about
Speaker 1: no better display of family than fighting for marriage equality
Speaker 1: and the protection of trans youth right from oppressive policies
Speaker 1: and figures. You know, I can think about nothing greater
Speaker 1: than to see religious figures from all major religions and
Speaker 1: not by standing in their convictions about their scripture and
Speaker 1: it being about helping the most marginalized among us. Right.
Speaker 1: And so this conversation with Devonte Lewis was just really
Speaker 1: heartwarming in a way that is needed, because it isn't
Speaker 1: as if we don't know what to say, but it's
Speaker 1: as if democrats when it comes during election time just
Speaker 1: forget how to talk to real people. And Davante gives
Speaker 1: us some really just good examples in his own campaigning
Speaker 1: and conversations with his constituents. That conversation, dear friends, is
Speaker 1: coming up next, folks. I am so happy to welcome
Speaker 1: to OOKF Daily for the very first time, Commissioner Devonte
Speaker 1: Lewis out of District three UH in Louisiana, the first
Speaker 1: out LGBTQ candidate ever elected at the state level in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: I love this quote that we have of you, which
Speaker 1: reads quote my faith helps Dick. Let me say start
Speaker 1: that again. My faith helps dictate my politics. My politics
Speaker 1: isn't my faith, and too many on the right turn
Speaker 1: their politics into their faith. I want to jump right
Speaker 1: in with that. DeVante, provide us with, like an explanation
Speaker 1: of what you mean by that, like I under like,
Speaker 1: I think that I get it, But explain what you
Speaker 1: mean in comparison to your opponents and the opposition that
Speaker 1: often weaponizes their faith.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean when I think about this, I'm a
Speaker 2: Southern Baptist. I grew up a boy of the South
Speaker 2: deep Louisiana, was in church from literally the day I
Speaker 2: was born. And for me, when I say that, what
Speaker 2: I mean is I am guided by my faith. My
Speaker 2: faith that tells me to care about the poor, to
Speaker 2: love one another, to help the immigrant, to do justice
Speaker 2: to each other. And so that shapes the political views
Speaker 2: that I hold of. Why I'm a strong believer in
Speaker 2: equality for every single person, in equity, Why I fight
Speaker 2: so hard for policies that uplift people out of poverty,
Speaker 2: but to oftentimes feel what people have done, they've made
Speaker 2: a political decision that they are anti gay, they are
Speaker 2: anti abortion, they are anti the immigrant, and then use
Speaker 2: this faith as their justification for it. And so what
Speaker 2: I say that that is my faith is dictating what
Speaker 2: political stances I have. My politics is not dictating my faith.
Speaker 2: Where I am now saying, because I believe X, Y,
Speaker 2: and Z, I'm going to distort my religion and my
Speaker 2: faith to now uphold my belief. So you are no
Speaker 2: longer questioning my politics, you have to now question my faith.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a tactic that the right has
Speaker 2: used oh too well, where they have wrapped their politics
Speaker 2: as faith based decisions to stop you from challenging them,
Speaker 2: because at that point then you're challenging their religion.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, and I think the way that you have
Speaker 1: framed it and also defined it is absolutely right. You know,
Speaker 1: I often say that we on the left have conceded
Speaker 1: way too much ground to the right. And what do
Speaker 1: I mean by that? We have allowed the right to
Speaker 1: to take over and assume patriotism right to use it
Speaker 1: again as they do faith to say that if you
Speaker 1: are progressive, then you aren't. You aren't a patriot or
Speaker 1: a person of faith, right, And we have allowed them
Speaker 1: to assume that role. And I think, but you expressly
Speaker 1: stating so that you are a person of faith, that
Speaker 1: you are a black LGBTQ person. To be able to
Speaker 1: say that, I think is so powerful. Can you talk
Speaker 1: to us about what it was like to campaign in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: You know, I live in New York on the the coast,
Speaker 1: and I know that folks on the coast have a
Speaker 1: different idea and imagination about red states and what it
Speaker 1: means to be queer in the places. So give us
Speaker 1: a little bit of background about you deciding to run
Speaker 1: and running and being queer, but not making it the
Speaker 1: center of your campaign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the South is a very
Speaker 2: interesting place, and I think the South sometimes does get
Speaker 2: a bad rap because the loudest vocal people from the
Speaker 2: South are sometimes Matt Hillary Clinton would say, the big deplorables.
Speaker 2: But the South is a very place of to geniality
Speaker 2: when it comes to niceness, right, And we can get
Speaker 2: into that later. But when I decided to run, I mean,
Speaker 2: it was very clear that other people may make this
Speaker 2: an issue, but what I wanted to do. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm my position. I'm a utility regulator, and as I
Speaker 2: told people in the campaign trail, there was no way
Speaker 2: for me to make a gay utility rate and a
Speaker 2: straight utility rate. It doesn't exist, right. Everybody wants the
Speaker 2: same thing. We all want our lights to come on
Speaker 2: when we flip that switch, and we all want to
Speaker 2: pay the cheapest amount of possible when that bill comes in.
Speaker 2: And so what I tried to do, and what I
Speaker 2: wanted to showcase to people is that I can run
Speaker 2: on the things that connect us, the things that make
Speaker 2: us a collective body, without having to focus or get
Speaker 2: into the differences. And oftentimes they think what happens is
Speaker 2: people want us to run on that identity. And I
Speaker 2: wanted to show people that you can be authentically yourself
Speaker 2: and then still not have to fit into the mold
Speaker 2: of the characatures that people have created about what it
Speaker 2: means to be a black candidate, what it means to
Speaker 2: be a progressive candidate, what it means to be a
Speaker 2: young candidate, and what it means to be a queer candidate.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had four kind of real no nos
Speaker 2: in southern politics, that I was running on someone thirty,
Speaker 2: someone who is openly progressive, someone who is black in
Speaker 2: a state that is very hostile to racial progress, and
Speaker 2: Toni is queer. So it was a lot of taboos.
Speaker 2: But what I wanted to showcase is that I was
Speaker 2: going to not shy away from any of the identities
Speaker 2: that I hold, but showcase how I can use those
Speaker 2: identities as a way to commonly connect with people about
Speaker 2: the issues that we cared about, which was protecting Louisiana
Speaker 2: and and and making our utility system stronger and better.
Speaker 2: And we showcased that it didn't come up as an
Speaker 2: issue in the campaign, and it really people didn't try
Speaker 2: to make it a focal point because there was so
Speaker 2: much of the uniting message around it. And I'm and
Speaker 2: I'm proud of that. I mean, I have people that
Speaker 2: have walked up to me and said, you know what,
Speaker 2: this is the first time that my parents and I
Speaker 2: voting for the same person, and we did it enthusiastically
Speaker 2: that there was no there was there was no heartburn
Speaker 2: between the conservative parent and the liberal child around who
Speaker 2: they were voting in my race, and even with the
Speaker 2: complexities of my identities that some say showcase that that
Speaker 2: being you, but also talking about what people really care
Speaker 2: about actually matters more, and we need to stop listening
Speaker 2: to the few people that think they know everything in
Speaker 2: politics to decide what people actually care about.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I appreciate the way that you
Speaker 1: have navigated because you know, I think that at one time,
Speaker 1: sure it matters to lift up possibility models to young
Speaker 1: people who are like, oh my goodness, you're black, you're queer,
Speaker 1: you're running for office. I can do that too. I
Speaker 1: also do think though, that there is a necessity to
Speaker 1: be have that be what it is, but then also
Speaker 1: do exactly what you did, which is, let me tell
Speaker 1: you what I can do for you. Where do you
Speaker 1: think DeVante that like, what do you think from what
Speaker 1: you have learned and experienced running for commissioner that democrats
Speaker 1: on a whole, regardless of what level they are running for,
Speaker 1: what position that they're running for, could use from what
Speaker 1: you've learned.
Speaker 2: I think the first thing you got to do is
Speaker 2: you got to meet people where they are. And one
Speaker 2: of the challenges that I think democrats and progressives have
Speaker 2: and as one and who's very intellectual, we get very
Speaker 2: caught up in the intellectual argumentation behind why we believe
Speaker 2: what we believe, and it is not to say that
Speaker 2: people are not there. And one of the things that
Speaker 2: I always tell people is we got to remind ourselves
Speaker 2: that people living are also experts. They may not have
Speaker 2: the terminology that we have, they may not be able
Speaker 2: to cite the data points that we can cite, but
Speaker 2: they are experts in what they are experiencing from either
Speaker 2: policy action or policy in action. And so what I
Speaker 2: really want, like put blank, I never truly said the
Speaker 2: words climate change and talked about CO two admissions in
Speaker 2: such an academic way because I knew the people that
Speaker 2: I was talking to would not get it. But I
Speaker 2: didn't shy away from the issue. What I told them
Speaker 2: is about how they feel that policy of climate change.
Speaker 2: I went to my voters and said, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: every hurricane now is stronger than it has ever been,
Speaker 2: the summers are hotter than they were before, the winters
Speaker 2: are colder than they were before, and your utility bill
Speaker 2: is getting higher. And this is because we haven't done
Speaker 2: these policy actions. That's the exact same thing of me
Speaker 2: saying because we haven't acted on climate change, we haven't
Speaker 2: done it, but I spoke to people in a way
Speaker 2: that matched where they were, and I think one of
Speaker 2: the challenges that we have to do better is talk
Speaker 2: to people in a way of where they are. But
Speaker 2: then secondly, we have to stop making the false dichotomy
Speaker 2: choice of whether or not we'd be bold or we
Speaker 2: be incrementalism. And what I mean by that is I
Speaker 2: can sell a vision to people that is bold and
Speaker 2: that showcases promise, that recognizes that there are going to
Speaker 2: be incremental steps without making the incremental steps my bold vision.
Speaker 2: And that's where I think we fail because we fight
Speaker 2: in this battle about well, I don't want to overpromise
Speaker 2: because I can't deliver it. It's like no, I told people,
Speaker 2: let's I want to make Louisiana Clton. I want to
Speaker 2: ensure that our security and our financial security, and our
Speaker 2: economic security and our environmental security is protected. But it's
Speaker 2: going to take a process to get there, and I
Speaker 2: want you along the journey with me. So while I
Speaker 2: sold the vision, I didn't lie to say that, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to flip a switch tomorrow and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden there's going to be nothing but renewable
Speaker 2: energy in Louisiana. And I think these are the lessons
Speaker 2: that showcase that it speaks to people, because at that point,
Speaker 2: I'm no longer talking about how upholster or a consultant
Speaker 2: told me. I was talking to the people that I
Speaker 2: desperately wanted to be part of the process. And we
Speaker 2: saw that. We saw that internal we saw people for
Speaker 2: a public service Commission race that most people if you
Speaker 2: would have asked people in Louisiana what this was maybe
Speaker 2: a year ago, they couldn't even tell you. And I'm
Speaker 2: talking people who are deeply involved in politics. Now they're
Speaker 2: aware because what we did is we spoke about why
Speaker 2: this position mattered to them, what actions could take we
Speaker 2: could take, and how inaction would also harm them, so
Speaker 2: they had a reason to come out and vote.
Speaker 1: And I think that that attitude, that perspective is exactly
Speaker 1: what is missing from our national politics right now, which
Speaker 1: is that I believe that Democrats get incredibly hung up
Speaker 1: on the wrong type of messaging, the wrong type of
Speaker 1: statistics and facts, instead of talking to the people and
Speaker 1: meeting them where they are. Because what everyone can absolutely
Speaker 1: agree on is as you were talking about it, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yep, my electricity bill went up, right, because
Speaker 1: over the summer it was hotter in New York than
Speaker 1: it has ever been, so I had to run the
Speaker 1: air conditioner longer. It is, you know, colder than it
Speaker 1: usually is at this time, so having to run the
Speaker 1: heat Like, people get that right because it's something that
Speaker 1: they deal with on a monthly basis when they're doing
Speaker 1: their bills. Right, So how can we help this lowering
Speaker 1: your bills without having to talk about climate change which
Speaker 1: has become a third rail. But we know that that
Speaker 1: is what the effects are of why we're in this place.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't have to be the front of the conversation.
Speaker 1: The front of the conversation can be about solutions.
Speaker 2: You're absolutely right, really quickly. What I say, I think
Speaker 2: one of the things that we get caught up on,
Speaker 2: and I told this to someoney the other day, is
Speaker 2: we get caught up on the cause of a problem,
Speaker 2: not the effect of the problem. And sometimes if we
Speaker 2: only talk about how the problem is affecting people and
Speaker 2: what our solution means to their effect, it matters. Like
Speaker 2: I don't need to try to go change somebody in
Speaker 2: my district for them to believe climate change is real.
Speaker 2: But if I if the effects of climate change, I
Speaker 2: demonstrate to them that that's why your bill is higher,
Speaker 2: and these policy actions that I will take will lower
Speaker 2: what you care about, then we all win. And I
Speaker 2: think that's that's something we got to stop doing, is
Speaker 2: we really want everyone to agree with the cause rather
Speaker 2: than recognizing what's the effect of the policy action or
Speaker 2: in action.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, I want to change us switch gears
Speaker 1: a bit to discuss a fellow Louisian, Uhisian Mike Johnson.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the news Speaker of the House who no
Speaker 1: one really knew anything about, Mike Johnson, and then it
Speaker 1: was all of a sudden he became, you know, a
Speaker 1: point of conversation and contention after the fact, after he
Speaker 1: was voted in. Tell us about the Mike Johnson, you know,
Speaker 1: and the people of Louisiana.
Speaker 2: No. Yes, So Mike Johnson has been around and has
Speaker 2: been trying to climb the political ladder for years. I
Speaker 2: first met him when he became a freshman legislator won
Speaker 2: a special election in early twenty you would have been
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, yeah, or twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and he
Speaker 2: came into the state legislature thinking he was the hot
Speaker 2: Hot Hot Man. He tried to pass one of the
Speaker 2: most draconian bills I've ever seen at the Louisiana Legislature,
Speaker 2: the Marriage and Conscious Act, which was directly targeting LGBTQ
Speaker 2: people right away. And it was so bad that a
Speaker 2: Republican led committee in the state of Louisiana did not
Speaker 2: even let the bill get out of committee. That's how
Speaker 2: bad this bill was. I want people to remember this.
Speaker 2: When he filed this legislation, the Republicans can Bobby Jinda
Speaker 2: was the governor of Louisiana, and the Republicans held the
Speaker 2: legislature and wouldn't let his bill get out of the
Speaker 2: committee because it was that bad. And to what I've
Speaker 2: known about Mike Johnson and why I think it's been
Speaker 2: a hardship is Mike Johnson has done what I think
Speaker 2: a lot of Christian fundamentalists on the right do, is
Speaker 2: they weaponize niceness. And this is what I mean. Mike
Speaker 2: Johnson is somebody if you talk to his former colleagues,
Speaker 2: for me, he is someone who is going to always
Speaker 2: greet you, He's going to talk to you, he's going
Speaker 2: to engage with you. And what I mean by weaponizing
Speaker 2: niceness is it's a tactic that too often the right
Speaker 2: uses to their advantage. Where then when they are passing
Speaker 2: or trying to advocate for some of the most egregious
Speaker 2: policy positions, it is hard to villainize them, because we
Speaker 2: oftentimes want to villainize people, right, We want everyone either
Speaker 2: become or bad. And it is hard for someone to
Speaker 2: think someone's bad when they're nice and and and that's
Speaker 2: what I mean when I say he has done that
Speaker 2: significantly well where all of these policies. Let to be
Speaker 2: very clear, he is to the right of Jim Jordan,
Speaker 2: to the right of Jim Jordan.
Speaker 1: On a line I don't even know what to what
Speaker 1: the right of Jim Jordan could possibly and like is
Speaker 1: it a circle? Like it's wild.
Speaker 2: I mean, like if Jim Jordan wrote the four to
Speaker 2: the Book of Scott McKay, who is a radical blogger
Speaker 2: here in Louisiana, that that it that is conspiracy theory
Speaker 2: and very homophobic, we would eat Jim Jordan alive. But
Speaker 2: the reason Mike Johnson didn't get that reaction from his
Speaker 2: caucus is because, unlike Jim Jordan's he's nice. And that's
Speaker 2: what I mean when I said he has weaponized niceness
Speaker 2: to veil to to kind of cover his very horrible policies.
Speaker 2: Is because now it is hard to villainize Mike Johnson
Speaker 2: because he's the man that's going to bring you cookies.
Speaker 2: He's the man that's gonna smile and ask you how
Speaker 2: your children are doing at the same time while he's
Speaker 2: trying to pass some of the most harmful laws, whereas
Speaker 2: Jim Jordan is just an a one asshole that you
Speaker 2: you don't want to talk to. And that's why I
Speaker 2: think he's so dangerous is because I tell people stop
Speaker 2: looking at niceness to equate good. Look at what people
Speaker 2: are doing. And I said, and that's the challenge I
Speaker 2: think oftentimes I've called it the heaven or Hell theory,
Speaker 2: where we want everybody to either be good or bad,
Speaker 2: and we use niceness as an objective of whether people
Speaker 2: are good and bad. Like I've been in politics a
Speaker 2: long time, some of the nicest people pass some of
Speaker 2: the most draconian laws possible, and some of the people
Speaker 2: I never want to talk to are doing actually good
Speaker 2: social justice work. And so we can't let that confuse us.
Speaker 2: And that's the danger of Mike Johnson that I want
Speaker 2: people to know is you're never gonna hear anyone say
Speaker 2: he's a mean person. But look at what he's tried
Speaker 2: to do and the lass he's tried to pass are
Speaker 2: the positions he's held over the last ten years. And
Speaker 2: then told me whether or not he deserves to be
Speaker 2: a Speaker of the House.
Speaker 1: Do you think you know, given the state of the
Speaker 1: Republican Party, in the state of the House, and all
Speaker 1: that you've said about Johnson, now that he lasts longer
Speaker 1: than the prior speaker, Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 2: I think he does. I think that's why you see
Speaker 2: the Freedom Caucus not revolting as much, even when he
Speaker 2: makes some of the same decisions that Kevin McCarthy did,
Speaker 2: is because Kevin McCarthy wasn't as unlinkable, was the likable.
Speaker 2: That's why my guess he's defending him because it's like
Speaker 2: it's you. It's hard to demonize Mike Johnson because he's
Speaker 2: the he's the man with the smile. But as I
Speaker 2: told people, the only difference between him and Jim Jordan,
Speaker 2: for me and Louisiana was he wore a sports coat
Speaker 2: and he put a smile on his face. That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, One hundred DeVante last question for you. You know,
Speaker 1: as we head into twenty twenty four, and you know,
Speaker 1: we know what the headlines are, we know, you know
Speaker 1: for all intentsive purposes, what the matchup is going to be.
Speaker 1: You know your state is one of the states that
Speaker 1: has a lot of challenges, right, that is just you know,
Speaker 1: we count on to be one hundred percent read one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the time. What do you want people
Speaker 1: to know about your state and why Democrats shouldn't just
Speaker 1: again just seed ground, just seed the South to Republicans
Speaker 1: in this coming election.
Speaker 2: But moving forward absolutely, I mean I think doctor William
Speaker 2: Revn Barber said it the best. The South is not
Speaker 2: red states. Where are press states? Where states with the
Speaker 2: history of racial segregation. I remind people, I'm thirty two
Speaker 2: years old, my mother's fifty fifty three. My mom was
Speaker 2: already in school before Louisiana fully desegregated their schools, right,
Speaker 2: And so when you think about even just my kind
Speaker 2: of short amount of history, there are still a lot
Speaker 2: of work to be done. And the reason is we
Speaker 2: have more people in the South who are not voting
Speaker 2: than are voting. And that's a problem. Right, So it's
Speaker 2: not that we are just this ruby red state. It's
Speaker 2: that the only people engage because they are the least oppressed,
Speaker 2: are Republicans who are now making up such a small
Speaker 2: percentage of the vote. I mean, like, look at our
Speaker 2: goodnatorial election we just had. Jeff Landry becomes the governor
Speaker 2: of Louisiana, right, brond de Santis two point zero. Everyone say, look,
Speaker 2: leave Louisiana. But I want to remind people Jeff.
Speaker 3: Landry to win the governor's mansion got less votes then
Speaker 3: the Democrat four years ago to win the governor's mansion.
Speaker 3: So it wasn't the fact that there is this wave
Speaker 3: of people. It was that the pie of voters is
Speaker 3: getting smaller and smaller. And what I wanted people to
Speaker 3: know is that the South is ripe for opportunity. But
Speaker 3: we have people who need to believe right. And these
Speaker 3: are people who are who have worked two jobs to
Speaker 3: just put food on the table. But then who walks
Speaker 3: out of their house and are breathing pollution from all
Speaker 3: the industry that have polluted black and brown neighborhoods in
Speaker 3: the South. It's a place where economic opportunity seems far fetched.
Speaker 3: And so what we have to do is not give
Speaker 3: up on the South. We have to reimagine the South.
Speaker 3: We have to fight for the South that we should
Speaker 3: believe it and also recognize that the multi racial democracy
Speaker 3: that we talk about mostly for Southerners is and I
Speaker 3: heard you say from the New Georgia Projects say this
Speaker 3: is science fiction. We are asking people to believe in
Speaker 3: a society we have never really fully seen.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And when we think about it that way, we can
Speaker 2: do work in the South. But we're so busy trying
Speaker 2: and say, well, guess what, Black voters in the South
Speaker 2: aren't turning out where they need to be. Let's move on. No,
Speaker 2: we need to invest so people see the vision that
Speaker 2: for most of their life they never knew truly existed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, DeVante Lewis, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for making the time for Woke AF
Speaker 1: and I hope that we can call on you again
Speaker 1: because I really enjoyed this conversation a lot.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me, and please
Speaker 2: anytime I'm happy to come back.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: AF as always, power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke. As fuck