The Future of Women Leaders in Politics - podcast episode cover

The Future of Women Leaders in Politics

May 17, 202523 min
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Episode description

In the second half of today’s show, we discuss the future of women leaders in politics and ways people can continue to support and champion women despite the losses of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris in their respective presidential election campaigns.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from.

Speaker 2

The hip hop Welicly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramsy's Jah.

Speaker 3

He is Rams's Jah, I am q Ward. You are tuned in to Civic Cipher.

Speaker 1

And we have some more show for you, so we want you to stick around. Jasmine Crockett was in the news and she kind of let a little bit of I guess let the cat out of the bag that Democratic donors are lining up behind a candidate for twenty twenty eight and she says that they selected the safest white boy, and the implications of that decision, I think

can be kind of troubling. So we're going to examine the results of the past couple of elections that were run by women and hopefully make a case that women still have a place at the top of the political ticket moving forward. So stay tuned for that and so much more. But before we get there, it's time to be aba. Become a better ally Baba, and today's Baba

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Speaker 1

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Speaker 2

All right now.

Speaker 1

Jasmine Crockett is i'd call her a friend of the show, but she's a dear friend of the show. Jasmine Crockett is one of our our great she ros. And I won't say that Jasmine Crockett is not telling the truth.

But I do want to talk to people because so in this conversation, it may be the case that I will make a plea to you, our listener, so that you can continue to put pressure on your elected representatives, continue to champion women and so forth, and Q if you so choose, you can play the role of the realist, which is often the role that you play anyway, and I'm the optimist.

Speaker 3

I'm playing roles. I don't want to give the audience that propression.

Speaker 1

Okay, okay out then then then we'll we'll play it as it lies.

Speaker 2

How about that? But I think that there's something here that we should be mindful of.

Speaker 1

In in the conversation since the last election, knowing that the last two women that ran for president lost to Donald Trump and the man that ran against Donald Trump did win against him, you have a very simple formula that could suggest that women are not viable presidential candidates, right, And I think that that simple formula is dangerous because that conversation requires a lot more nuance. There's there's a lot more to look at in terms of the why.

There's a lot, you know, and and we'll get to that in just a second. But before we get there, I'm going to share the words of Jasmine Crockett just to kind of help paint the picture, and then we'll go from there.

Speaker 2

All right, This is from the Black Information Network.

Speaker 1

Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett has revealed that Democratic donors are already eyeing the safest white boy as the party's presidential nominee. During a recent radio appearance, Crockett discussed the future of the Democratic Party following president Vice President Sorry Kamala Harris is lost to now President Trump in the twenty twenty

four election. Per The Independent, the Texas lawmakers said Democratic donors are eyeing a white man to represent the party in twenty twenty eight since the previous women candidates like Harris and Hillary Clinton have been unsuccessful in their bits for the White House.

Speaker 2

Quote, it's this fear that the people.

Speaker 1

Within the party, within the primary system will have about voting for a woman, because every time we voted for a woman, we've lost so far, Crockett said. She goes on to say, I think that that's a natural fear because we just want to win. So there's a lot of people that are like, you know what, like, let's go find the safest white.

Speaker 2

Boy we can find. I mean, I'm just saying.

Speaker 1

The Democratic congresswoman noted that major donors were excited about one specific candidate.

Speaker 2

Quote.

Speaker 1

I had a donor on the phones with me telling me that all the donors are lining up behind that candidate. So I can tell I can tell you it's not a black person nor a woman. So they have quote unquote, they have chosen. When I say they, it's the same donors that most likely had their opinions about Joe Biden and moved, So like that would be the day that I would talk about unquote. Crockett declined to reveal the

candidate's identity. There are several twenty twenty eight front runners who the Democratic presidential nominee that aligned with Crockett's comments, including California Governor Gavenuwsom, Pennsylvania Governor Joshapiro, Illinois Governor J. B. Pritsker,

and former Transportation Secretary Pete Budhajetge. Okay, now, so far, everything that we've stated is is factual, and I want to keep the conversation as factual as possible before I jump off, do you have anything that that you want to stay here?

Speaker 2

Do you want to go first at all?

Speaker 3

I think it would make more sense for you just stay your position first, Okay. Okay, So mine is as contrary to yours as you believe.

Speaker 1

And yeah, no, no, no, don't. I don't think it's a contrary. I just I know that it plays better because you kind of give some uh there's just a separate voice in the room, you know what I mean. But and I know that you don't disagree. It just helps flesh out the argument for the sake of, you know, the show. But here's the problem with these Democratic donors lining up behind the safest white boy. If they want to win,

that's all well and good. But I think examining why they lost more critically, more thoroughly, you might find that it's not as simple as oh, well, she was a woman, so that's why she didn't win, any more than you could say that about Hillary Clinton. I believe it is possible for a woman to win the presidency of the United States, and clearly I believe it's possible for a woman to lose the presidency of the United States, just the same as it's possible for a man to win

the presidency of the United States. And indeed, it is possible for a man to lose the presidency of the United States. All the presidencies, all the presidential campaigns that have ever existed, there was a man that lost. Okay, so men lose to. The Democrats didn't lose to in a row, but they did lose two.

Speaker 2

There were two.

Speaker 1

Women that lost in a row. Now, I could argue that for the first residential election against Donald Trump back in twenty sixteen, Hillary Clinton, Democrats maybe they underestimated the monster. That Donald Trump was the monster in terms of the numbers and the support that he had, but also you know, the monster monster. But I think that there's another element,

there's another layer here too. I think that Democrats may have been feeling invincible, not just insofar as Donald Trump is concerned, but.

Speaker 2

I think that what Democrats did to Bernie.

Speaker 1

Sanders in the eleventh hour, which ultimately secured Hillary Clinton's nomination for the Democratic frontrunner for president in twenty sixteen, that felt deceptive and it felt like what's the word I'm looking for, Like cheating and cheating the voters and cheating you know what I mean? Like it felt like I'm not thinking of the right word, but it felt

like underhanded. And I think that the arrogance of the Democratic Party back then making a move like that caused a lot of people to say, you know what, A lot of people that were excited about Bernie Sanders to say, you know what, I finally found somebody who was listening

to me. We're trying to pull this country in a direction that's decidedly more kind, it's more thoughtful that cares about people were you know, Bernie Bernie Sanders famously is trying to get health care for everybody, lower drug prices, you know, tax billionaires accordingly, you know, put more funding into social services, and just kind of improved the quality of life for everyone, not just billionaires, but everyone, you know.

And there were a lot of people that really liked that idea yea, and Hillary Clinton represented kind of a more or less more of the same, and all the people that were super excited about Bernie Sanders, they just kind of got left out, you know, by the wayside.

Speaker 2

Now there are still people that voted for Hillary Clinton.

Speaker 1

She won the popular vote, and I think that that makes a case that this country will still vote for a woman, But there are people that were disillusioned by that.

Speaker 2

Couple that with the fact that.

Speaker 1

Donald Trump was something that no one expected back at that time, you have the result that you ended up with. But again, I think that her winning the popular vote back in twenty sixteen illustrates the fact that women are viable presidential candidates. That maybe the strategy wasn't the right way. Maybe you know, what they did at that time wasn't the right thing to do. Maybe Trump was just something

that no one could have prepared for. But that doesn't mean that Hillary was not viable because she was a woman.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 1

Now, the other half of this argument, of course, is Kamala Harris, and you know famously she was unsuccessful at her bid for the presidency. But Kamala Harris got the nomination well after she should have and it was directly handed to her. The voters didn't get a chance to There was not a robust primary, you know what I mean. They were just kind of like Joe Biden is thing longer than he promised that he would in the office, and then at the last minute he's like, okay, fine,

I won't run. This is the person I want to take over after me. And then that's what everyone was stuck with. Right, So people that wouldn't have preferred her, people that might have wanted a Boodoo Jedge or Bernie Sanders or whatever, it didn't get the opportunity.

Speaker 2

So she's starting laid in the game.

Speaker 1

In a set of under a set of circumstances that you know, maybe she wouldn't have asked for, you know, but she was the candidate and the backdrop of you know, our political I guess the political backdrop of the country at the time. You know, there were attacks on the border, a lot of attacks on the border. There were attacks

on you know, trans people and there still are. And you know, Democrats were vulnerable to attacks from activists and people that were very concerned about what was going on in Gaza that commanded a huge amount of the bandwidth on social media, and people had made up their minds.

Speaker 2

That unless.

Speaker 1

These people condemned this war and stopped funding genocide and all.

Speaker 2

That sort of stuff, that Joe Biden.

Speaker 1

Wasn't going to get their vote, and by extension, Kamala Harris wasn't going to get their vote. Right, So here we have a lot of things again, the border we got, you know, all these vulnerabilities for Democrats, and the Democrats did you know hindsight's twenty twenty. And I'm not a political strategist, but I'm making a point that the strategy or lack thereof played a bigger role than the fact

that it was a woman. Okay, the Democrats have you know, I said, I said on a recent episode on the Black Information Network talking to que about the very same thing that we're talking about now, that the Democrats did not do a good job of picking a side. They were kind of kind of trying to play the middle. It was Joe Biden and then later Kamala Harris, right, and that that was the play that they wanted to run, and that might that could very well have been the

right play. But one fundamental truth is that when you play the middle, you're now vulnerable to attacks from both sides, and you need people to vote for you from your base, but you also need people to you know, from the independence and the people they wouldn't have voted for Trump, right. But I think that Democrats maybe underestimated how important that the war on Gaza was and their stance on it,

and they're funding the war on the Gozins. And again the border, you know, with Kamala Harris being labeled the borders are quote unquote Trump taking the border deal and them not making a big enough deal about that. Like, Yo, the reason we don't have a more secure border is because of Donald Trump, because he wants the campaign, because he needs a weak border to scare you the voter in a voting for him. But we already have a

plan in place that is a bipartisan effort. They did, They didn't do a great job of messaging, right, and this was under Joe Biden's time and not Kamala Harris's campaign time that they could have, you know, messaged that quite a bit better. But anyway, these vulnerabilities I believe were based or rather the vulnerabilities of the Democratic Party were based on things that we saw happening in real time.

Speaker 2

We talked about on the show.

Speaker 1

You know, we talked to Q and I have certainly talked about him in private, and we talked about it with the actual.

Speaker 2

Democrats, right, And.

Speaker 1

To have now the Democratic donors look at a simplification of that formula, Well, we ran to women. They both lost, So women are not viable. I think that that is very damaging to women in general in politics, especially wanting to pursue the highest office in the land, and.

Speaker 2

On both sides of the aisle.

Speaker 1

Because if this is the narrative that gets chronicled about this time in our life twenty sixteen, in twenty twenty four, Republicans would look at that too and say, yeah, we don't need to run a woman because women are not the country doesn't want to vote for a woman. And I think that just the fact that Hillary Clinton secured the popular vote in twenty sixteen shows that the country,

most people are perfectly fine with voting for a woman. Now, a lot of people are fans of Donald Trump for whatever reason, but the fact I just don't see the woman part of it being something that's prohibitive.

Speaker 2

And the only reason, the only way rather that women.

Speaker 1

Don't get to participate at that level of politics moving forward, is if this is the version of the story that we choose to tell ourselves, this very simple version of the story, Well we ran away. That's like, you know what, we ran in an alternative universe. If Barack Obama would have lost his election, imagine for the following fifty years, people look, oh, remember we ran that one guy, Barack Obama, and he lost. So black people don't win elections. See

that's like, we know Barack one. But you see how that's the wrong way to approach that. So this is kind of what I'm thinking about this.

Speaker 2

Again.

Speaker 1

Jasmine hasn't said anything wrong, and I know that you're agreeing with me, but I worry that if we let them chronicle this version of the story, then we're doing a disservice to a lot of really brilliant, even tempered women who really do have what it takes to, you know,

get us back right, you know. And the truth of the matter is that it's been black women in this country that has saved us from ourselves many times throughout this country's history, and for us to for this version of the story to be to be chronicled feels a little scary, and it feels like we're kind of like, whether it's the saying when you chop off your nose to spite your face or something, maybe that's how it feels.

Speaker 2

So your thoughts, well, first of all, very very well put.

Speaker 3

I do want to point out some things though, I think in listening to our sister's message, you might have taken and made a turn that she didn't make. The viability of women as candidates was never questioned.

Speaker 2

Yeah, she never said that.

Speaker 1

That's fair.

Speaker 3

So the position that we just took several minutes defending or explaining.

Speaker 2

It, yeah, that's more the donors than her maid.

Speaker 3

What they're saying is that we live in an anti immigrant, anti gay, anti woman, anti people of color country, so it's more likely will win if the person running is white. That is not to the viability of people of color, or women or gay people. I think the candidate that I'm most excited about is a gay man who I think would by far be the best candidate that we

could produce. However, to the conversation that we're having, the only two women that ever make the top of the ticket lost to the least qualified candidate that's ever run.

Speaker 2

For president, that's a fair point.

Speaker 3

Not because they weren't good enough or smart enough. They were actually not just more qualified than him. They may have been more qualified than everyone else who's ever run. They didn't lose for bad messaging or bad policy. Again the personal The other side of the ticket was Donald Trump and the case where apathy played such a huge role in this most recent election. Donald Trump argued the opposite point of the people who stayed home. The man said, out a loud on record, I want that Yahoo to

finish the job. I want him to wipe your people out, and then we can go build golf clubs and resorts. She's still saying out loud he plans to do so. I think we give people who have shown us that they are anti women and anti LGBTQ and anti immigrant and anti black a pass. When we say that that's not true about them, it's absolutely true about them. The only way you explain those two women losing is that Hillary Clinton's emails were a problem, Kamala's position was too

center when the other guys saying destroy it all. The only way you find those reasons to disqualify them is when you've already decided you're not going to vote for them, So you just need something to point to. You said men can lose an election, Well, of course, if there's only two people running and one of them as a man, then by nature, someone has to lose. So you know, the argument that men can lose in election, that anybody can lose, but women have never won. But it's never

about their qualifications or their viability. They're probably just based on evidence and data and our eyes, working far more qualified to do this job than we are. Everything would show it the level that they're educated. You know, raising families alone, health care and education for everyone didn't happen because they thought black people would have access to it.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, I.

Speaker 1

Know we got along road ahead, but I think that you would join me in saying that at least remembering that women are viable candidates and impressing that onto our elected representatives at every level of government. Is how we control it for women, because you never know when we might need them.

Speaker 2

So we'll leave it all right there.

Speaker 3

And just before we go, we weren't less racist when Barack won. Yeah, and anyway, and he won, so yeah, definitely keep running. Yeah, yeah, no help us tear this thing down.

Speaker 2

But there it is.

Speaker 3

Again. The viability of women is not what was that question. It was our country's desire and ability to vote for and elect them.

Speaker 2

Well half of the country.

Speaker 1

But your point is well made, so yeah, we'll leave it right there, and thank you for tuning in to Civic Cipher.

Speaker 2

I have been your host. Ramses Jah I am q Ward.

Speaker 3

Thank you guys for tuning in once again to Civic Cipher and.

Speaker 1

Be sure to follow us on all platforms at Civic Cipher. You can download this in any previous episode at civiccipher dot com and until next week, y'all peace,

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