WEBVTT - The Quiet Pandemic 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.880 Good morning, Peepsen. Welcome to WOKP Daily with me your 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:19.439 girl Daniel Moody recording from the home Bunker the folks. Today, 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.600 as always, we get into a conversation with our friend, 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:28.520 our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. And importantly in 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.960 the show notes for today, you will see a link 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:37.800 to a very long but incredibly informative expose done by 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:43.320 the Washington Post on how life expectancy in the United 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:49.199 States is decreasing and decreasing rapidly, and how it is 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:55.080 falling along racial lines, economic lines, and political lines, and 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.560 the fact that in the Midwest and in the South, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.640 Jonathan wrote a book called Dying of Whiteness, and that 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.360 is exactly what is happening. Whereas those people that are 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.120 living in the interior of the country are more likely 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.160 and I mean like forty nine percent more likely to 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.920 die early than those that are living on the coasts 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.440 and in urban areas. That is a reverse trend. And 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.520 you know, Jonathan and I get into a conversation. He 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.319 has his new edition of Dying of Whiteness will come 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.520 out in February of next year, twenty twenty four, and 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.000 he argues that we need both a health strategy and 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:39.920 a political strategy. I however, am at a point where 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.560 I just feel exasperated by these stories and wanting to 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:49.280 try and save people that are not willing to save themselves. Look, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:55.000 I understand the breakdown where they are imposing right. The 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.480 right is imposing their will and their desire on the 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.320 rest of the country, whether you're talking about abortion or 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:05.640 you're talking about access to guns. That blue states right 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.079 with our governors clearly don't have as much power and 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.800 authority as red state governors do, according to the Supreme Court. 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.880 And so when we look and we see this unraveling 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.079 of America as it is measured against its pure countries, 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.480 the question is what can be done and what should 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.520 be done? Or are we at the stage where we're 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.800 just like, fuck them, let them eat kke literally with 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:36.679 all the fucking starch and the you know chemicals and 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.880 you know high fat content and all the things that 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.760 are going to kill them. Because when Michelle Obama said 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.200 let's move, they said, let's sit down and give kids 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:51.600 more dessert. Right So, right now, as we are at 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.040 this place of great divide in this country, that just 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:01.040 gets worse each and every week, each every month, each 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:06.560 and every year. And you know, when I see these articles, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.720 a part of me sure wants to feel bad, But 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.320 then the other part is, just like for those people 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.520 who do have means, this country is going to see, 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.200 and I say this at the end of the conversation 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:26.200 with Jonathan, a great exodus, A great exodus is going 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.320 to happen from the United States of America where people 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.160 that can afford to leave will leave. You know, maybe 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.240 they'll keep their businesses here, but they'll live in other 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:43.000 countries part of the time, and this place will end 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.640 up looking like the movie Lsem where there is just 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:55.560 havoc and disease and people are destitute and jobless and 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.960 dying in the streets. Right, because once Republicans are able 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.520 to do away with every single social safety net, what 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:09.600 stops this country from looking like underdeveloped purposefully underdeveloped nations 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:15.000 is our social safety nets, is our government. So once 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:21.440 that is hollowed out, right, people who have been able 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.479 to keep themselves quote unquote safe behind gated communities and 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.200 all of these things won't because the moment that they 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:32.599 step outside, guess what they're going to see. And much 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.360 in the same way that during COVID at the height 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:38.440 of COVID, which is still around because I know at 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.400 least several people that have contracted COVID over the last 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:47.280 couple of months. What we saw is that there is 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:54.800 no connectedness right around public health. It was every person 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:59.560 for themselves because of the greed and the lies and 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:04.159 just the hate that was spread from the right. So 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.840 when I look at this story and I asked Jonathan 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.239 today about his thoughts on it, because he literally wrote 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.440 the book on it, and rewrote the book on it, 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.039 where America is headed, I don't think at this stage 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:22.120 can be averted. And that's the conversation that we have 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:27.680 coming up next. Folks. You know that whenever I have 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:30.599 the opportunity to speak with our in house doctor, doctor 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:36.200 Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled, particularly when the Washington 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:41.719 Post comes out with a really disturbing expose where Jonathan, 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.400 as I said the other day with my co host 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:50.880 jajahat Ali, you are a soothsayer. You like you knew 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.320 what was up when you wrote Dying of Whiteness, And 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.640 it's just as if all of the reporting and research 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.520 is following what you had already said. So right now 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:07.520 there is a expose in the Washington post entitled Dying Early, 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.640 America's Life expectancy crisis. An epidemic of chronic illness is 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.880 killing us too soon? And Jonathan, I'll just start out 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:22.599 with saying that the opening graphs of this piece are 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:29.560 extraordinarily disturbing because it goes to say that essentially we 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:34.000 hit our peak where life expectancy in the United States 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.839 was growing. We hit our peak at around twenty fourteen, 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:44.000 at around seventy eight point nine years of age was 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.680 the life expectancy, and at that time we thought that 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:51.680 it was going to continue growing. Aside from the pandemic, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:55.160 which obviously was a major hit to life expectancy and 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:59.960 played out along racial and economic lines, what this article 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:06.360 says is that those people that are living in the Midwest, 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.120 that are living in the interior of America are almost 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.080 right now forty nine percent more likely to die early. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.920 And it is extraordinary. And I just want to get 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:25.960 your initial reactions to what is the quiet pandemic that 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:30.120 has been happening in this country since you know the 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:31.560 twenty teens. 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:37.040 Well, you know, I was glad to see this article published. 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:38.920 It obviously builds on a lot of stuff that I've 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:44.480 been working on for a long time. And the shocking 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.320 revelation is that life expectancy is not just some kind 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:54.360 of biological inevitability. Like it's not like people live longer 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.200 because we just are smarter or live longer on the earth. 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.320 The reason people live longer is because of access to 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.480 healthcare and knowledge of prevention and warding off infectious disease 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:11.040 and workplace safety protections and all the things that have 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.400 gone into basically, I mean, if you look at it, 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.240 I looked at this for dying of whiteness, but it's 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.680 pretty incredible if you just compare like the early twentieth 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:26.040 century to now, or the eighteen fifties till now, when 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:31.560 we started doing vaccines and realizing that stuff like asbestos 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.960 kills you and workplace safety protections, it wasn't just a 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.600 little blip in terms of life expectancy, like people lived 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:46.040 like two decades longer when we started implementing effective public health. 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:54.040 Basically that was structural, government linked mandated because otherwise your 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:56.080 workplace is going to be really unsafe and you're going 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.480 to die of an infectious illness that you don't have 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:01.880 a immunization against, and all those other factors. So it's 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.360 not a mystery that if you just revolt, you know, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:12.280 roll back those advances, you're going to revert back to 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:17.080 earlier life expectancies, which is that people live about forty 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.480 nine years, you know, on average, or something like that. 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:22.640 And then of course, if you add in other things 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:29.599 like having to carry bad you know, a dangerous pregnancy, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.640 to term women's reproductive health, all these things, and so 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.960 all these things contributed to rises in life expressing. And 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:41.760 what's remarkable about this is that there aren't really many 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:49.120 other examples of industrialized, advanced countries having not only a 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.480 fall in life expectancy, but also a fall in life 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.800 expectancy of the demographic majority group, right, White Americans, who 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.200 were suffering from this the most. And so that was 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.280 kind of where I started with Dying Whiteness, and I've 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.959 got the new edition of Dying of Whiteness coming out 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.520 February fourth. And part of what I argue is that 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:14.640 life expectancy is one metric, but you have to see 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.080 that people, just like I argued the pandemic, kind of 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:27.560 replayed it again. Life expectancy is just one metric. But 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.360 the metric that White America and the Red States are 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.160 playing with is power they're trading decades of life for power. 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:41.720 So part me, let me read you this piece, which 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.600 kind of which speaks to what you just said. In 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.880 the Washington Post article, they write, sickness and death are 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.200 scarring entire communities in much of the country. The geographical 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.760 footprint of early death is vast. In a quarter of 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.520 the nation's counties, mostly in the South and mid West, 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.840 working age people are dying at a higher rate than 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.559 forty years ago. The trail of death is so prevalent 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.640 that a person could go from Virginia to Louisiana and 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.960 then up to Kansas by traveling entirely within counties where 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.920 death rates are higher than they were when Jimmy Carter 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.360 was president. And they go on to say this this 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:28.520 phenomenon is exasperated by the country's economic, political, and racial divides. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.680 America is increasingly a country of haves and have nots, 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:37.040 measured not by bank accounts and property values, but also 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:42.760 by vital signs and grave markers. Dying prematurely, the Post found, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:47.080 has become the most telling measure of the nation's inequality. 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.520 I mean, I mean, the crazy thing is like, we're 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.760 choosing it right, We're voting for it. So, I mean, 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.760 I don't know. I have a very particular relationship to this, 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.680 which is just it's terrifying. But I don't know. I 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.400 got a couple of paragraphs into the article, and I, 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.760 to be totally asked, I didn't even finish the article yet. 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.120 I will do it right after we talk. But it's 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.560 just that you just think, like I guess it's crazy 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.520 because like what I learned in medical school was that 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:21.640 self preservation and longevity for yourself and your family and 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:26.800 your community was the core human like evolutionary drive. But 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.040 people are voting for this, they're choosing it, and they're 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:34.560 choosing it like really actively and knowingly. Like it's not 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.199 like I interviewed people and dying of whiteness who were 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.479 who are not aware. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.280 As I'm reading this right, and I you know, I 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.520 often go back to this movie that I say is 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.240 a terrible movie, but like it really is one of 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.760 those sci fi films that is just like that could 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.400 never happen, and then you're like, oh no, this is happening, 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.400 and it's Elysium with Matt Damon and in the movie, 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.959 Earth has completely been extracted of all of its value. 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:13.440 There's sickness there's death, there's famine. It's everywhere. And in 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.880 this place in outer space, Lyssum is where there is 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.560 only happiness and health and all of these things. And 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.920 you can get a lottery ticket to go there, or 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.920 you can be born into it. Right. But it's this 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.520 idea that it isn't just about the advent of new 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:35.520 technologies that allow us to screen for cancer earlier, or 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:40.120 to take medication that allows us to live with you know, 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.120 or to decrease hypertension or manage our diabetes or all 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.840 of these things. It's exactly what you said, that this 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.679 is an active choice that these white people in the 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.480 Midwest and in the South that are now dying at 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.400 a higher And this is not to say, of course, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.880 it falls along racial lines as well, But what is 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.880 wild to me is that the people that have been 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:06.840 actively voting for their own demise are the ones that 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.200 are dying at a higher rate. And I just like, 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:16.240 it's at one time shocking, but also I go back, Jonathan, 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.680 and I think about Michelle Obama in the White House. 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:25.120 Let's move was her initiative to combat childhood obesity. What 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.000 did the Republican Party do, right? They said, let them 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:33.000 eat dessert? They said that fruits and vegetables, now, we 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.840 don't need them, right, that they were voting for pink 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:42.080 slime and lunch meat as opposed to cafeterias filled with 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.960 fresh food and vegetables. That's what the Republican Party was doing. 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.440 And so when I read that paragraph and I think 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.760 to myself, oh, it's the political climate, I said, it's 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.560 a climate you created, you know. 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.200 As I mentioned, I've got the new edition, Edition two 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.200 point zero of Dying of Whiteness comes out or a 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:06.320 fourth And and what I argue in the new addition 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.560 is that this is actually like one of the most 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.920 terrifying findings the pandemic. And these findings, like what the 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.840 Post is finding, are among the most terrifying findings for 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.200 the future of our country, right because the fact that 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.600 people are knowingly are people, The fact that people are 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:30.680 knowingly doing this means that we have to think outside 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.160 our common assumption about like public health or communal health 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.600 or something like that. That people are doing this, they're murders, right, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.600 we have to think of these people as murders, as 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.800 as foot soldiers or something like that. But that in 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.400 a way, I don't know. We thought we were kind 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.520 of all in this together, but the pandemic and all 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.400 these factors, like the idea, all the core assumptions of 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.920 public health are things like herd immunity, the idea that 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:59.280 everybody works together to lower infection risk. So many communal 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:04.040 Americans are based on people working together to improve wages 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.200 or longevity or something like that. But half the country 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.520 is not working all that model right now. And so 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.200 I guess the question for me, and I'd love to 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:15.240 discuss this going forward, is what do you do with 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.880 that knowledge? Right? What do you do with that knowledge? 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.920 Because half the country, and it's not a surprise, but 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.200 they are really not working on that communal model in 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.360 a way, which undergirds like the entire public health apparatus 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.960 of this of everything we know in a way, And 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:37.400 so what do you do with that information? Because the 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.160 most terrifying part, which I don't think the posts. I mean, 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.480 I'll read the full thing later because it makes me 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.720 too upset to read this stuff now, but I'll say 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.480 the most important part is like what do we do 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.720 with these kind of stories? Right? Our natural tendency is 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:55.920 to say, well, look, everything's so backward in red states, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.120 and everything's much healthier in blue states. But you have 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.600 to recognize that the ideology that you're up against actually 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.639 the goal is to subvert blue states. It's not just 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.080 to keep bad health in red states. And so an 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.560 example is, for example, the Bruin case for the Supreme 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.640 Court about guns. We knew that bad gun policies were 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.200 killing more people in red states, and that data was 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.439 really clearly presented to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:29.200 Court turned around and overturned New York's gun laws. It said, basically, 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.600 you have to adopt these pathologically bad things. So I 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.040 feel like a lot of times our response to these 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:36.840 articles is like, oh, well, thank god I live in 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.120 a blue state, But you have to know that people 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.720 willing to die for their whiteness. That's the target is 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.960 blue state America. And so and so. I just think 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.120 you need a better political need. We need a political strategy, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:52.879 not just a health strategy. That's what I argue in 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:53.359 the new book. 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.160 Yeah, and I you know, and I agree with you 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.320 in so many ways, But at the same time, I 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.560 am at you know, really, as I was reading this piece, 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.439 thinking to myself that we are now at a time 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.919 where we're beyond tribalism, right that we are at a 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:15.440 every person for themselves right that if you know, yes, 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.000 of course, the Supreme Court can continue to rain down 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:24.040 terror on states that have tried to make their inhabitants safer, 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.640 whether it's from guns, whether it's from food products, whether 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.600 it's from greedy banks, whether it's all of the protections 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.600 that governors apparently in blue states don't have the same 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.600 power to command in the same way that governors in 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.520 red states do. At the same time, it's like, when 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:42.959 I think about my health and I think about the 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.720 health of my family and friends, it is really your responsibility, right, 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.800 Like your health is your responsibility. And so if you 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.560 and at that same time, we understand what happens in 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.080 terms of poverty and not having access to health care, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.840 which is why Obamacare right was pushed through so that 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.280 people could have access regardless of the type of jobs 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.879 that they had, to healthcare. Republicans fought against that and 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.280 have chipped away at it ever since it was put 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.600 in place. And so, you know, at one time, I 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:18.399 look at this and I want to throw the whole, 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.879 you know, my whole laptop away as I'm reading it, 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.240 and then at the same time I'm just like, let 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.359 them die, right like, and I say that like tongue 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.359 in cheek. But at the same time, I'm just like, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.879 what political strategy in this climate, Jonathan is going to 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.520 assuage people that decided not to put a mask on 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:44.000 their own face to protect themselves and their families from 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:49.000 a virus that killed over a million people. What political 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.440 strategy is going to move those people into a place 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.000 where they didn't even value their own goddamn lives over 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.320 the lies that were being told to them by a 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.520 political party that they pled their li and their life too. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.919 See, here's the issue for me. I mean, of course 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:07.720 I wrote a whole book on that very point. But 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:14.960 the idea of let them die, it's I just I 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.600 can't say this enough. They're coming for you. So they're 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.760 dying in order to own you in a way. And 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.440 so the idea of the idea that this is just like, oh, 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.760 there's just poor red states. That's not the goal of 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.399 this ideology. People aren't just dying because they hate public 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:35.560 health and they want a shorter lifespan. They're dying because 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.680 the strategy of their dying is part of a bigger project, 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.960 which is to take over the Supreme Court and overturn 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.359 the Affordable Care Act and overturn all gun laws and 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.320 many other factors that will actually impact not just their 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.720 life but your life. And so it's not just like hey, 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.560 those backward guys down there, it's seeing that they're dying 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.760 as part of a bigger political project. And that bigger 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.520 political project is taking over the country. Right. I think 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.719 there's something terrifying about this that's not just backward red states, 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:07.320 which is I mean, this is what I argue in 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:09.560 the New Dying of Whiteness, that we have to see 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.960 that this is part of a bigger political project whose 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.640 aim is blue state America. And so in a way, 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.440 the idea that oh, well, just we can divide the country, 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.160 we can have a national divorce, that's not what this 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:24.800 is about. This is about taking over the entire country. 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.280 And so these deaths really are like almost military foot 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:33.200 soldier type deaths, about an agenda that has that's trying 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.320 to impact your health and your life. And I just 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.119 think we've been too late to wake up to that. 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.640 I mean abortion to be illegal across the entire country, 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.720 and no gun laws across the entire country. So the 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.919 aim of this death, which again I haven't finished the 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.080 Washington Post article, but I sure hope they get to 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.159 this point is the aim of this death isn't just 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:55.400 like we want to all die in Red States. It's 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.760 that this is the strategy they're using to take over 0:21:57.800 --> 0:21:59.760 the entire country. 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:06.520 My feeling, Jonathan, and you are the expert here, So 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:11.160 outside of this Washington Post, you know, very in depth 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.520 expose of the last year that they have been doing 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.000 this research to come out here and they pull out 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:23.520 and have different interviews with different people that are struggling, 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.560 struggling from you know, from from chronic illness, a woman 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.440 that died at the age of sixty one, and so 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:33.960 forth and so on, a young man that died at 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:39.000 the age of thirty. And you know, the fact is 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.880 I hear everything that you're saying, and I hear everything. 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:45.679 They're coming for you, They're coming for your health like 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:48.679 this is I mean it is. It's going to be elysium, 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.560 where there is a place that is filled with death 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:56.280 and despair and disease, all things that were preventable if 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.400 you had invested in healthcare, if you hadn't done any 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.800 of the investment means that other peer countries have been 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:07.159 doing in prevention of disease. And that is what is 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.960 going to happen. But what what is a parent is 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:14.440 that the wealthy will be able to shield themselves from 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.120 this right, and is that the wealthy will be able 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.560 to shield themselves from this Uh, those that are able 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:23.560 and you know, and again that comes back to wealth. 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.400 Those that are able to lead this country and live 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.439 someplace else will right and you and you will see 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:37.920 a great exodus of talent, of wealth, of intellect that 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:44.560 that happens in nations that decide to battle for the bottom. 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:47.840 And I think that America is on that trajectory. And 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:51.359 you know, look, I try these days to look for 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:55.480 the hopefulness to find, you know, the rainbow in the rain. 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.199 But in all honesty, when I read this article and 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:00.879 I look at this and I talk to you every 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.520 week for you know, going on three years now, I 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:10.040 don't really see how things get better. And that is 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:13.000 because I don't see how this political climate. I'll give 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:16.720 you the last word, this political climate has not reached 0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:21.040 its bottom yet. And the only way that things get 0:24:21.080 --> 0:24:26.080 better is for things to finally bottom out and then 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:28.400 be able to That is my opinion. 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:31.439 I'm talking to you from Nashville today. I'm looking at 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.600 my window. There are cranes as far as I can see. 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:38.000 We actually once again reached crane maximum, which is what 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:40.200 it's called here in Nashville. There's so many new building 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:45.800 projects coming up here because all of these you know, 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:49.359 I can see the Alliance Bernstein Tower out my window here. 0:24:49.440 --> 0:24:54.679 It's all these New York firms and companies and businesses 0:24:54.720 --> 0:25:00.200 are moving to Red state America because there's cheap labor, 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:04.320 no labor unions, no state income tax. It's a really 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:09.400 kind of pro business. Amazon is rebuilding our downtown, all 0:25:09.440 --> 0:25:13.040 these kind of things. It's not like everybody's walking around 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:15.200 with a corn cob pipe here. There's a lot of 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:18.760 there's a lot of there's just a lot of commerce 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:22.240 and business and wealth that's coming to the South. Property 0:25:22.320 --> 0:25:25.600 values are really high. And part of the reason that 0:25:25.760 --> 0:25:29.080 is is because there's a lot of cheap, disposable labor. 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:34.080 Unions can't organize a lot of these car companies that 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:36.600 don't want to fight the battle in Michigan or thinking 0:25:36.600 --> 0:25:38.240 about you know, there are a lot of car car 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:42.600 plants down here in Tennessee and stuff like that. And 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:46.320 so the reason I'm saying This is because part of 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:48.040 where I come to with this, I'm not ready to 0:25:48.040 --> 0:25:51.840 give up on America yet, but I am saying that 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:54.760 how can you It's just funny that part there's a 0:25:54.800 --> 0:25:57.440 health story, which is people are dying earlier in Red 0:25:57.440 --> 0:26:00.880 State America. And then there's also this business story, which 0:26:00.960 --> 0:26:03.399