WEBVTT - Arrogance and Apathy 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.080 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay f Daily with 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:20.440 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live from the Brooklyn Silarium. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.880 You know, I want to start off today with a 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.400 couple of questions that I received over the weekend and 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.839 at the end of last week, UM, with regard to 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:38.520 the Kyle Rittenhouse CASEUM, many people had asked me on 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.599 Twitter and on Instagram if I would jump on and 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:48.520 do a live I got messaged UM, and I gotta 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.680 tell you this, There's a reason I didn't go live. 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.160 There is a reason why I am doing my best 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.920 these days to protect my emotional, spiritual, and physical wellbeing. 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.760 And it's because I've decided that white supremacy doesn't get 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.920 to have the best of me. And it's the lesson 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.600 that not only am I trying to embody in my 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.840 own life, but I'm trying to share and impart with 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.080 all of you as well. Rage is important, Trust me, 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:23.000 I am a big philosopher of the importance of getting 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:28.679 that toxic anger heat out of ourselves and as a 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.080 way to then be able to cool ourselves down to 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.319 have clearer heads. And I don't mean to expel that 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.000 energy in violent ways. I mean that it's okay to 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:44.400 commune with other people, with friends, with family, around rage, 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:50.000 around frustration, around anger at the state of our current 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:55.400 society and politics. It's to say that it's a disappointment 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:00.680 where we are would be a euphemism. Beyond you famisms. 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.200 It isn't just disappointing if you really sit down and 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:11.639 unpack where we are as a country. It is unbelievable 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.480 in so many ways. It is unbelievable. It would have 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.840 been unbelievable to think, um five years ago that a 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.320 member of Congress putting out a video depicting the murder 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.600 of one of his colleagues would ever happen. It is 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:32.079 unbelievable to think that a member of Congress that had 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:37.160 that is under FBI investigation and has been accused of 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:44.800 sexual sex with a minor sex trafficking or is connected 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:49.200 to sex traffickers would still be in Congress. It is 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.600 would be a you know, impossible to think five years 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:59.000 ago that an insurrection would have occurred, That we would 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:03.200 have seen a yilloteen in real life being built on 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:05.760 the steps of our capitol building and watch our capital 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:11.200 be ransacked by a violent white mob. All of these 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.680 things have happened in the court in the shortest span 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:21.280 of time. I bring it up constantly because I was 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:26.720 brought back to a piece that was written by Larry 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:32.560 Diamond in The Atlantic on October nineteenth. It was published 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:37.520 October nineteenth, twenty sixteen, and the piece is entitled it 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:42.400 could happen here. Democracy is facing setbacks around the world, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:47.680 but there hasn't been reason to doubt America's resilience until now. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.480 And I remember reading the piece in October, right, and 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.080 this is again go with me in the time machine. 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:01.040 This is but a couple of weeks before the election 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:10.240 that would alter our country's future, our democracy. And I'm 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:15.560 rereading it today and I'm thinking to myself, Dear God, 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.440 how do you stop a train that you know is 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.800 certainly colliding with a wall that is running off the 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:31.719 rails and has no breaks, has no conductor, and you 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.080 know that it's headed towards certain destruction, but you can't 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.640 stop it. That's what it feels for me right now 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:45.560 to be in media, coming off of the last four 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:51.520 years of Donald Trump and moving into year two of 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:56.880 the Biden administration. Now, I got to tell you that 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:01.000 I want to highlight some parts of Larry Diamond's piece 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:05.000 that I encourage everyone to reread if you or read 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:06.640 for the first time if you did not read it 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.080 back in twenty sixteen, because there are so many things 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.720 that are so much more salient now given the things 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.000 that I have just outlined. And in a minute, I 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:22.080 will also go over my feelings about what we should 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.320 be paying attention to with regard to the outcome in 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:30.039 the Kyle Rittenhouse case. But here are some pieces of 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:36.800 Larry Diamonds. It could happen here he wrote, among the 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:46.520 most dangerous, among the most dangerous things of democrats in 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:52.920 this time is arrogance and apathy. I want to unpack 0:05:53.040 --> 0:06:00.120 that for a moment, that arrogance and apathy are two 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.960 of the things that democrats do really fucking well. Arrogance 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.960 in the fact that we just believe that, you know, 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:12.360 when people know better, that they'll do better. Right, that 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.320 we believe fundamentally that if you provide people with information 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.039 and facts, that they'll just do the right thing, right, 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.680 that all people inherently want to do the right thing. 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.320 And then there is the apathy in feeling like you 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.360 don't actually need to do the work, that the work 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.600 for a majority of us was in twenty twenty was 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.520 in voting in the midst of a global health pandemic, 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.000 and then just sitting back and assuming that because Donald 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:44.120 Trump was gone, that meant that our democracy was going 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.320 to be back on track, that we could then go 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.240 back to believe being political ostriges, putting our heads back 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.800 in the sand, and only being concerned about our day 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.719 to day that the good guys, right, the good men 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:02.279 and women and people would take it from there. That 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:08.880 is the most dangerous thing. And when Larry Diamond wrote 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:13.800 this piece back in twenty sixteen, he didn't know that 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.320 Donald Trump was going to win in a couple of 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:24.720 weeks using McCarthyism tactics that we had since said from 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.920 fifty years prior were some of the darkest times in 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:35.000 America's history. That we were creating committees in the in 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:39.960 the House of Representatives, that we're going to investigate people's patriotism, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.000 That we were setting up ways in which to blacklist 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:48.120 people in Hollywood because of their perceived connection to our 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.640 relationship with communism. And it just so happened that the 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.600 people that McCarthy, of course wanted to go after were 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.720 the intellectuals, were the artist were those people whose society 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:03.040 looked towards right as we were advancing. But if you 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.240 silence those people, and you instill a certain level of 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.080 fear in them, right, a fear of the other, right, 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.680 a fear of their neighbor, then you can control them. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.600 And we knew that. That's why Joseph McCarthy's name is 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:23.360 associated with the Red Scare, is associated with everything that 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.600 is wrong with the body politic. So you would think that, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.520 because we made such a case over the last five 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:35.160 decades about this part of our history, that the rising 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.080 of Donald Trump would never happen, because we would see 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:43.840 it miles and miles away. So when Larry Diamond is 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:48.480 writing this piece in twenty sixteen, he's saying, how is 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:53.760 it possible that this man is this close to the presidency? 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:59.719 How is it possible that America right, it could never 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:15.800 possibly happened. Here chorus is now applauding and celebrating this horrible, horrible, racist, misogynistic, islamophobic, transphobic, homophobic. 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.560 I mean, you name what is wrong, Donald Trump embodies it. Man. 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.120 Larry Diamond didn't know that in writing this that Donald 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:29.480 Trump was not only going to secure sixty five seventy 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.480 million votes in twenty sixteen, but that he was going 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:37.719 to extend his reach in twenty twenty, and that it 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:42.920 was the assumption once again from Democrats that oh, you know, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.400 once the American people have more information than they will 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:53.040 do what's right. Well, what the fuck? If there was 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.240 anything that anyone should have known and realized over the 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.360 last several years, even just before Donald Trump in the 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.720 Tea Party, as our politics began to disintegrate into some 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.360 version of reality TV, that it was the media right 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.200 and their power to sway people one way or the 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:18.120 other that was one of the most dangerous apparatus and 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.720 threat to our democracy. That if you had a person 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:29.800 that both embodied the outlandishness right but like what America 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:34.360 craves around celebrity, and then you couple that with the 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:39.199 foundation of America, which is racism and cruelty, that that 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.760 would be a winning recipe for millions of so quote 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:51.720 unquote aggrieved white people. So when he says that among 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:57.679 the most dangerous things that Democrats can do is this 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.360 coupling of arrogance and apathy, I am seeing it now 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.960 even after having lived through the last five fucking years, 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.880 because you see democrats right now doing what they do, 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.120 which is partially let me be clear, we need them 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.640 to pass policy. We need infrastructure bills, we need human infrastructure, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.840 we need immigration reform, but most importantly, we fucking needed 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.439 voting rights. But that's a time for another day. Evidently 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.240 we need these things to happen, but not outside of 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.760 understanding the danger and the threat that we have yet 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.960 to nullify. I would argue that we are in more 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:46.960 trouble now then we were in twenty sixteen. You see, 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.000 in twenty sixteen, we were just seeing what could happen. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.479 And even in twenty seventeen, after Donald Trump is inaugurated, 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.559 you have the fucking march of the tiki torches in Charlottesville, 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:03.880 again signals to the decline of our democracy. You had 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.840 the President of the United States hail these people. This 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.400 was all the slow roles set up for where we 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:18.839 are now, for the insurrection. And so another point that 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:27.600 is made in this piece is this, democracies fail diamond 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:35.840 rights when people lose faith in them and elites abandon 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:41.120 their norms for pure political advantage. Let me say that again, 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:47.920 democracies fail when people lose faith in them and elites 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:57.160 abandon their norms for pure political advantage. Again, this is 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:03.320 written before Mitch McConnell force through over three hundred federal judges, 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:08.000 many of whom the American Bar Association said, we're not qualified. 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:15.679 This is before right we would have an attorney general 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.840 turned the Department of Justice into an extension of the 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:26.680 presidency and weaponize it against Donald Trump's political foes. This 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:33.040 is before all of that. And so when we arrive 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:35.840 in this moment, it's not as if alarms have not 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:41.080 been going often, people haven't been warning, writing, speaking, screaming, 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.880 marching to alert people to where we are. But I 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:51.440 keep going back to our fundamental understanding of history and 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:55.520 the way that it is taught. We always use the 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.000 same setup. If you don't understand your history, you'll be 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.680 deemed to repeat it. But all America does is repeat 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:07.839 its history over and over and over again. I would 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.400 make the joke about slavery coming back and how that's 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.680 not out of the realm of possibility, except I don't 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.360 think that it's funny, because I actually don't think that 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.960 it's out of the realm of possibility. The only reason 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:24.280 we don't have slavery in America right as a legal 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:29.520 institution still is because of some laws that were passed. 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.239 It's the same reason we currently are holding onto abortion 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:39.960 in this country by our fingernails, because of laws that 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:44.080 were passed. But what we are seeing, and what cannot 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:51.240 be understated or overstated enough, frankly, is that those laws 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.080 are only as enforceable and powerful as the people that 0:14:55.120 --> 0:15:01.600 are willing to enforce those said laws. Right. We only 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:09.080 abolish slavery because of a mass insurgence of people, right 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:15.520 and a full on fucking war that ended it. But 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.720 those things that we think are just our part of 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:27.240 our political norms came blood soaked. It wasn't without sacrifice. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:33.720 It wasn't without centuries of lost lives and brutality and 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:39.080 torture and terrorism. That we arrive at this moment. When 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.560 we are looking around it, we're like, fuck, even the 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.040 free ish place that we have arrived in right now 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.200 is up for fucking grabs. And if you don't, if 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.200 you think that again, I'm being hyperbolic. I mean, just 0:15:54.400 --> 0:16:01.640 look around. Let's take the Kyle Rittenhouse case as an example. Now, 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.600 everybody knows because you've been listening to the show, that 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.320 I have not been following this case day in and 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.280 day out. Why Because, like I stated at the top 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.280 of the show, I give a shit about my emotional 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.760 and spiritual well being and I hope folks that you 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.320 care about yours as well. Because there was no need 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:26.320 to follow this trial because from the outset with Judge 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:32.160 Schroeder and his clear and present fucking bias against the prosecution, 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:37.480 you knew where this was headed. Right when we are 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.360 not referring to people that were gunned down because they 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:46.880 were they were exercising their First Amendment right to be 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:52.320 able to assemble right in protests against an unjust criminal system, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.520 and who were gunned down by the likes of a 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.600 seventeen year old that cross state lines with a fucking 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.600 R fifteen and then was patted on the back by police. 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.480 Where the fuck did you think this was going? His 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:12.560 bullshit performance on the stand of his crocodile tears, the 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:19.399 embrace that he is receiving from Republicans who want to 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:25.280 offer him positions of promotion like a congressional internship. Right, 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.919 he has an entire fucking docuseries that's being hosted by 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.840 Get This Tucker fucking Carlson. He will have a sit 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:41.400 down interview this week in Prime Time with Tucker Carlson, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.320 who I'm certain will embrace him as a son and 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:49.240 as a patriot. This is the same motherfucker who referred 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.600 to an unarmed teenager walking home from the fucking store 0:17:54.840 --> 0:18:02.600 as a thug and a threat. When you take these 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:13.760 stories of America and you put them up against how 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:20.959 democracies have fallen before, every single sign is pointing to 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.280 where this is headed and where we are headed as 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.760 a country. And the fact is is that we have 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.080 democrats that are too busy with their bullshit in fighting. 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:36.160 You have democrats that are too busy saying we need 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.280 political wins instead of recognizing the urgency of this moment 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:45.440 to repair our democracy. So we have a future to discuss. Right, 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:53.280 you realize that hope isn't on the horizon that we 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.720 are going to be heading into. Not we are going 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.000 to be We are headed in to some of the 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:04.560 darkest time this country has seen since the nineteen sixties, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:10.280 since the Jim Crow era, since the consistent and unrelenting 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:17.639 terrorism of the KKK. With a not guilty verdict in 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.480 the Written House case, where do you think the rest 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:25.160 of the written Houses are going? You know, I did 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:31.359 an interview earlier this week with The Daily Beast with 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:37.600 the New Abnormal and Molly jung Fast and Jesse Cannon, 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:44.080 and they were talking about the fact that some of 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:51.639 their friends are very concerned with attending another political protest 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:57.040 that they may not do so, And mind you, I 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:01.040 have gone to countless protests. I mean I lived in Washington, 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.239 DC for damn near twenty years. I felt like I 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:08.480 was at a protest every other week, right, But the 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:14.520 thought of people being too scared to protest because of 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:19.600 the likes of Kyle Rittenhouses, because that now we know 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.320 that they have more rights to carry a gun and 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:29.119 shoot and murder in called blood anyone that they want, 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:35.000 and know that now they have precedent, recent precedent to 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:41.000 get off would make me worry too. But the reality 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.520 is is that America has always been fucking violent. It's 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:50.680 a violent, fucking nation founded on cruelty, founded on bloodshed. 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:56.760 So this is not a shock. My response to Jesse 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.879 and his friend was to say, look, motherfuckers are getting 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.880 murdered and trampled and shot at concerts, but they don't 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:11.320 seem to stop. People don't to stop attending them. So 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.520 when it comes to fighting for our rights, and voicing 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:22.720 our descent against a biased and unjust government. Should we 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.880 stop because of the potential of fatalities? And look, it's 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:34.720 fucking serious. You know, we've been and seen these situations 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.200 with these cops. I mean, we saw the elderly white 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:42.320 man fucking knocked over, bloodpoiling pouring out of his goddamn head. 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.960 They didn't give a shit. We saw police beat the 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:55.720 shit out of protesters right causing serious harm. Stories of 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:01.480 people that we interviewed running from Lafayette Square where famously, 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:06.719 right or infamously, Donald Trump cleared Lafayette Square with the 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.439 help of Bill Barr and the help of the fucking 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:11.960 Pentagon so that he could take a photo op with 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:13.720 a book he don't read in front of a church 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:20.240 he don't attend. Each and every one of these examples 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:27.240 that I'm laying out cannot be considered in isolation. They 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:35.200 are what form the fundamental fall of our democracy, the 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.440 erosion of civil liberties, the erosion of our faith in 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:46.440 our institutions. I didn't watch the Written House trial because 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.600 I knew where it was going. And I'm a person 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:55.720 that still is trying so desperately to believe that we 0:22:55.840 --> 0:23:01.960 can reimagine America. But each and every day me, it's 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:07.480 becoming harder and harder to assert that truth, to even 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:13.080 believe in it myself. And it's my job. And that's 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:19.000 why I tell people like, look, you can be a 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:23.880 responsible citizen, pay attention and understand what is going on, 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:28.520 but then recognize that if you don't take care of 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:32.320 your emotional and spiritual well being, understand that nobody else will. 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.720 That nobody's going to walk into your apartment or your 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:39.560 house and tell you to turn off the news, Go 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:44.800 walk in nature, take some deep breath, go do an exercise, class, meditate, pray, 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:47.959 do an art project. Nobody's going to tell you to 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:51.359 do those things. You're just going to have a breakdown 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:55.680 and then shut it out completely. And that's why I'm 0:23:55.760 --> 0:24:00.359 saying take it, much like you know our indulgence in food, 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:08.200 Take it in little bites, because the desire here is 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:12.600 to wear you down. The desire is to accelebrate, accelerate 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:16.240 our erosion of our trust in our faith in these 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:21.160 institutions that we are watching fail us one major case 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:23.840 at a time. I had to turn off the news 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:29.600 earlier because I refuse to listen to the closing arguments 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:34.760 in the McDaniels trial, right, because once again they were 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:38.120 referring to it as the Ahmad Arbory trial. It's not 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:43.560 Ahmad is dead, right, he was fucking gunned down in 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:50.440 cold fucking blood after going for a fucking jog. It's 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.439 not his trial because he's not alive to stand trial. 0:24:56.400 --> 0:24:59.440 But once again, the media does what the media does. 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:05.840 But I can't watch every single instance of white vigilantes 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:09.800 being able to walk go back home and pretend that 0:25:09.880 --> 0:25:12.840 nothing ever happened, but then be able to recant these 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:16.640 stories to their friends, to their colleagues about their bravery 0:25:16.680 --> 0:25:21.000 and their fucking patriotism, because that's how it will be told. 0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:30.840 What did Cricketer Holden say? History is not written by 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.119 the conquered, it's written by the conqueror. So what do 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:38.040 you think the narrative is going to be for the 0:25:38.080 --> 0:25:41.640 written houses of the world. Oh, white people already talk 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:45.160 about the fact he didn't do anything wrong. He's a hero, 0:25:46.240 --> 0:25:51.480 a hero, he's a fucking murderer. But why should they 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:55.840 think otherwise when you're driving on highways, in attending schools 0:25:56.119 --> 0:26:00.199 named after fucking Confederates and what nation do you do 0:26:00.320 --> 0:26:05.960 that in? And we wonder how we arrive at this 0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:09.080 place because we are so disconnected from the fucking truth 0:26:09.320 --> 0:26:14.320 and so disconnected from facts and our real history that 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:17.239 we are always going to be destined to repeat it. 0:26:17.359 --> 0:26:20.840 And I see no maneuvering into our future to make 0:26:20.880 --> 0:26:24.560 me believe that things are going to get better. How 0:26:26.320 --> 0:26:28.720 I'm still trying to convince you the sky is blue? 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:33.120 How would I ever convince you that you're doing damage 0:26:33.160 --> 0:26:35.399 to the environment When I got to spend my fucking 0:26:35.440 --> 0:26:38.000 time and energy telling you the sky is blue and 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:42.800 water is wet, I have to move you from that 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:49.440 fucking obvious place to the effects of climate change. Give 0:26:49.480 --> 0:27:01.439 me a break. What is scary right now too, is 0:27:01.520 --> 0:27:15.520 that America for the first time by a organization IDEO no, 0:27:15.560 --> 0:27:22.119 I'm sorry, idea organization that has been tracking they've been 0:27:22.160 --> 0:27:27.000 tracking for the last decades democracies and the health of 0:27:27.040 --> 0:27:34.120 democracies in the world, and they've come out recently as 0:27:34.119 --> 0:27:37.439 if the news can't get any better that for the 0:27:37.480 --> 0:27:42.119 first time since they've been tracking democracies around the world, 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:50.160 America is a backsliding democracy. One in four people, according 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:55.240 to this organization, live in a backsliding democracy. But what 0:27:55.480 --> 0:28:00.320 is and should be alarming to every fucking person. Is 0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:03.879 that again the things that we thought could never happen 0:28:04.000 --> 0:28:09.040 here are not only happening, but happening at breakneck pace. 0:28:12.240 --> 0:28:16.479 You can shrug off that organization and say, oh, you 0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:19.639 know what, do they know? Well, they've been tracking this 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:23.640 for the last fifty years and for the first time ever, 0:28:24.760 --> 0:28:29.040 and this coincides with it can happen here at the 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:33.040 peace in the Atlantic from twenty sixteen is that for 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:37.680 the first time in the world, we have less democracies 0:28:39.200 --> 0:28:42.960 And so what does that mean? That this isn't just 0:28:43.080 --> 0:28:47.760 about what is happening in America, although incredibly important, but 0:28:47.840 --> 0:28:54.880 it is about what is happening around the world, and 0:28:55.440 --> 0:28:59.840 people having looked at countries, having looked at America as 0:28:59.840 --> 0:29:03.320 an example for as fucked up and imperfect as our 0:29:03.360 --> 0:29:10.840 country is, looked at our country as a symbol of democracy, 0:29:11.600 --> 0:29:14.480 no one believing that what is transpired in the last 0:29:14.560 --> 0:29:19.240 five years, that you would have ever thought in twenty fourteen, 0:29:19.320 --> 0:29:24.800 twenty fifteen that this could happen. And that was our 0:29:25.040 --> 0:29:30.040 as he said, our arrogance and our apathy. And that's 0:29:30.080 --> 0:29:35.720 not just democrats, it's everyone believing that, Oh, it's those 0:29:35.800 --> 0:29:40.840 countries over there that are unstable, that have been war torn. Right, 0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:45.120 it's those people over there that are violent, being able 0:29:45.160 --> 0:29:50.400 to look and make assumptions and judgments about other parts 0:29:50.440 --> 0:29:54.840 of the world without truly examining and unpacking what has 0:29:54.960 --> 0:30:01.640 been happening here. Again, I think it's our desire to 0:30:01.800 --> 0:30:05.160 shrug off. Right, Let's shrug off the Tea Party. Let's 0:30:05.160 --> 0:30:08.840 shrug off the calls for Obama's birth certificate. Let's shrug 0:30:08.880 --> 0:30:12.280 off Donald Trump calling Mexicans rapists and murders. Let's shrug 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:16.240 off the fact that, you know, members of the Republican 0:30:16.320 --> 0:30:20.400 Party have been caught up in multiple scandals with sex traffickers, 0:30:20.520 --> 0:30:23.880 drug traffickers, murderers, all of these things. Let's just shrug 0:30:23.920 --> 0:30:27.800 that off. Let's just say that, you know, Derek Chauvin 0:30:27.920 --> 0:30:30.800 is just a bad apple, but not a part of 0:30:30.800 --> 0:30:35.440 the poisonous orchard that America has been seeding since the beginning. 0:30:37.800 --> 0:30:42.239 And it's because we refuse to interrogate our history in 0:30:42.360 --> 0:30:46.360 any real way that we are here in this moment. 0:30:47.280 --> 0:30:49.480 It's because of the fact that we would rather spend 0:30:49.480 --> 0:30:54.360 our energy and our resources upholding democracies around the world 0:30:54.560 --> 0:30:57.800 rather than safeguarding it here at home when we are 0:30:57.840 --> 0:31:02.400 watching it falter, you know, I said the other day 0:31:02.480 --> 0:31:08.320 when Biden was it overseas and he's speaking, you know, 0:31:08.520 --> 0:31:11.960 in front of the UN talking about democracy blah blah, 0:31:12.120 --> 0:31:15.400 and I'm like, if I were one of those nations 0:31:15.440 --> 0:31:19.440 sitting in the audience and he got applause, and I'm like, 0:31:19.640 --> 0:31:22.120 I would have been sitting there like, who are you 0:31:22.240 --> 0:31:26.240 talking to fix your own house before you come out 0:31:26.240 --> 0:31:28.560 and step to me talking about how we need to 0:31:28.600 --> 0:31:32.360 clean up these international global streets. Your house is literally 0:31:32.520 --> 0:31:37.680 on fire, sir? The fuck you doing here? But that 0:31:37.760 --> 0:31:43.760 has always been America's bravado, right that we are somehow 0:31:43.880 --> 0:31:47.560 these these fucking cowboys that are out and I say 0:31:47.600 --> 0:31:51.040 cowboys and I mean that right, This idea of like 0:31:51.600 --> 0:31:54.240 you know, the horseback ride and wheeled in the whip, 0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:56.320 you know, like we saw with the fucking Haitians at 0:31:56.360 --> 0:32:00.680 the border, that is the symbol of America. It has 0:32:00.720 --> 0:32:06.280 always been us up high looking down on whoever else, 0:32:08.240 --> 0:32:15.120 not paying attention to what is going on around us. 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:25.680 Larry Diamond writes, this democracy is facing setbacks around the world, 0:32:27.800 --> 0:32:33.800 but there hasn't been reason to doubt America's resilience until now. 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:41.440 And I keep wondering, folks, Honestly, we've seen, we got 0:32:41.480 --> 0:32:45.680