How to Buy a Politician

We don't want to keep you waiting On our pre production call, we were talking about what we want to talk about today, and Angela, I think you had a really good topic.

So I think we have a question from a viewer that can speak, can help us get into this conversation. Let's hear from the viewer.

they're firing, you know, a million federal workers. They are pulling back regulations, they're defunding and canceling, you know, the education. And it's like, what is this country supposed to look like when you're all done? And said, you know, the rich get richer and the poor get poor, But like, what is this world? What are we supposed to look like, what are we supposed to do? But thank you all for all that you do. Love you bye.

coexist with them. And I have to say, I think he may have had a point because he essentially said, they will never forgive us for enslaving them, and white people will never want the stain of slavery around them, So let's give them some money and ship them out

of America. And you look at us hundreds of years later, and I do I think it is always it's been a bitter battle in this country because we are the keepers of America's memory, and so this anti black discrimination has a wide impact and cast a dark shadow across so many areas of our politics. And they were able to convince other people to hate black folks too. And there were certain people who are now considered white, but they didn't have white folk. The Italians weren't considered white

for a while, and then they got white privilege. And the way you the fastest way to get that is to hop one hat and black folks. So I think we are at the center of all of this discord, to be honest with you.

made to seem like they are the actual haters. And I think that accountability is not hate, even though it's uncomfortable. And you know, when I think about the question, because we did a whole podcast on Project twenty twenty five, what is it? What is its origins? Thank you to all of you who've watched it. It's one of our biggest shows. Please visit it again, Please visit it especially for the underpinnings of Project twenty twenty five to the

point of the question. But I think the fundamental question here is what do they want the country to look like? You know what does the country they imagine include us? Does it include brown people, does it include the actual founders of this space, people from Indian country? Or does it exclude everyone because they think white is right? You know, do they think that make America great again? I remember they did this poll around the twenty sixteen election about

what was the era? Right then? You want to get back to that demonstrates when America was at its greatest, and these my mothers went into the fifties. Yeah, you know, they went to the pre civil rights era. And what I got to tell you guys, and I don't want to disrespect our predecessors at all, but I think that we almost in nineteen fifty. Right now, in twenty twenty five, it feels like they rolled back all of these rights.

I'm not going to say his name, but I had a really interesting conversation with a thought leader among us right now who said, you know what I think we have to pay attention to is we spent all this time focusing on civil rights advancements, our voting rights, affordable housing, fair housing, access, equal opportunity, and employment and education. And they were able to roll that back in less than

two months. So if we were to examine where we put our focus to the same point that Congressman wrangel raised upon his retirement from Congress and a CBC meeting, he said, have we spent too much time focusing on social policy and not none enough on economic policy? The reason they are able to advance in these ways at our expense is because they can afford it.

right lane. Do we go right back to protecting voting rights and civil rights and all this, or do we go into fighting for our own space, our own dollars, our own access, our own communities, so they can't take it away.

And so there is something in the right that was not the anomaly, that was the norm, because years prior to that, the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen, it was rampant violence across this country aimed at black people, black communities. So, Andrew, I don't know that. I don't know that it can be one or the other, or should we be fighting for both, or does this even system of capitalism ever serve us?

We fought for fair housing so that when folks went out and worked a full time plus days of work, that they could then invest in this economy by affording to live where it is that they work. When our four parents fought for much of the social safety net, I would argue, practically all of it is economic in nature.

So I actually, I actually believe that while our fight has been informed by our consciousness around fairness and ending discrimination, it has all been toward the end goal of being able to earn a wage that you can live on, take care of yourself and your family, and have a vacation every once in a while. So that's just my slight exception, and folks may land on different sides of that. And then to the question around Project twenty twenty five,

I'll say two things. One, I think part of its goal was to turn what we right now associate as a democracy with three branches of government helmed by an

executive branch. They would like to create what they discussed as the administrative They want to get rid of what they call the administrative state, which is all these agencies running things, and they want to create the unitary executive, all powerful, all being exempt from criminal prosecutions, who can make decisions unilaterally, to shut departments, to decide whether to enforce laws, so on and so forth. So they argue a very different picture of what democracy looks like than

I think how most of us conceive of it. But I would argue that their belief is probably closer to where the Framers were. Remember, the Framers didn't give everybody the right to vote, not even all white people. It gave all white property owning men the right to vote. They did not believe largely in direct democracy in the sense that you vote for the person, and whoever votes

the most of that person wins. No, they thought that the emotions of the people, the emotions of the general public, needed to be muted, or at least the edge taken off by a more sophisticated, smarter, intelligent, a richer group of white men who could then calm the passions of the people. So they have today. This is wild, but that's because that's exactly what they believe in. It's been

it's been the belief since the very beginning. And then the second part of the response on present between twenty five is to say they hold I think I think your point Tiffany was right that black people, but I would argue that it's been black people, uh and eliminating us as as a productive part of this society by virtue of what conditions exist that allow our uplift in the first place? What do I mean? I believe that they are intent on destroying the entirety of the social

safety net, social security. They were not for it when it was proposed. It happened because there was a Democratic president and a super majority Democratic Senate. When we think about retirement benefits, they don't support that. When we think about medicaid, medicare they believe in this mythology of the survival of the fittest that whoever survives were the ones

who were fit and meant to survive. Donald Trump told us that in the first administration, he said, the people who are affected mostly by COVID are folks who are already sick, are older, or are the black people. They said that he said it from a white House, right. So I think where they want to go is back to a time where if you had means and wealth, name and privilege, this country was for you. And anyone who didn't have that in their possession, you fail by

the wayside. Oh you can't afford retirement, find you sleep on the streets. Oh you can't afford to get health care? Then and die. I don't mean, I mean, I don't mean to be dismissive in anyway or cute by one half. This is their vision of the country, and through Project twenty twenty five and then dismantling of all of this, they are well on their way to trying to achieve the kind of country that they that they that they believe should have existed in the first world.

twenty five was funded. You know, it came out of the Heritage Foundation, but there are people funding it. This presidency is funded by a sole immigrant, for the record, not an American citizen who bought the presidency for this man. He's funding, you know, a lot of pieces he's defunded the government while funding his own special projects through the government. And members of Congress are right and the government funding him, and members of Congress are standing by watching this happen

amidst you know, some of these angry town halls. Why on earth would that be? And as you talk to US Angela, I think it's also important to explain the laws around it because this was a big part of Citizens United. There used to be caps on how much you could contribute to a member of Congress and individually what I think it's twenty five hundred? Do I have that wrong?

But I wanted to introduced that so we could understand why some of these people while you have private interests controlling how our government functions.

the size of the contributions of your biggest donors. They have direct access to you and your cell phone number. They have your personal email address and at ben Yo family's house for a barbecue. Your constituents have never had that access to you or that point of privilege. These are the kinds of things that make people completely jaded, eyes glaze over. Me would bring up politics, It's like this is never going to be a level playing field. Why should we even get involved? I actually get that.

And I can say, as a former staffer who has set up fundraisers for my bosses, who had to ensure that we were talking to donors, there's a cooling off period between when somebody can write a check and when they can ask for something from a member of Congress. But nevertheless they can still ask, and of course constituents can too, but I can tell you from firsthand experience, it is a different experience with the donor. It just is. Now.

I think what is potentially are particularly troubling to me from last week, as we know in the Senate there were ten Democrats who voted with Chuck or tintotal voting with the Republicans, including Chuck Schumer who's the centimonority leader, on this bill to keep the government open. And we talked to government employees. They did not want the government to stay open because we've all been arguing the government's been shut down. They are abusing their power and waste,

broad abuses running rampant. Why are we even doing this well special interests. So this is what I was able to attain. I want to shout out our producer Lolo, who sent this over to me, but I just want to run through some of these really quick, and all of them aren't bad, but I think it's important. Here are the top donors from the folks who voted in favor of the continuing Resolution last week. Despite what the people said, which was overwhelming, we do vote against this thing,

so Senator Jean Shaheen, who is not running again. The largest donor was Emily's list at one hundred and fifty nine thousand dollars. That's New Hampshire, Yes, New Hampshire. Brian Shatts of Hawaii Charter Communications. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan University of Michigan, which I find fascinating his four hundred five hundred thousand dollars, and I still think this might be LOLO over the course of five years. But nevertheless,

it's important to understand. Senator Angus King, biggest donor American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. That's a PAC independent he is, but he caucuses with the dooms. Senator Maggie Hassen Emily's list. Senator Dick Durbin Power Rogers LLP, which I assume is a law firm in Illinois. Senator Catherine Cortez Vasto Emily's list, Senator Kirsten Jillibrand Apak Senator Chuck Schumer Blackstone Group. Now, I went to Chuck Schumer last week because I was like, no,

why what the Blackstone Group care about a shutdown? I'm so glad you asked. Let me tell you why. So. Blackstone Group is an asset management company that is also an investment firm. I fill up this fortune piece. I'm being accountable to our resident journalist, Tiffany d. Cross. The title of this piece is Blackstone's seventeen billion dollar property lending arm isn't giving up on its office bets. What happened last Monday, y'all? Somebody tell me what happened last Monday.

I'm so glad you asked. Beteral workers had to go back to work, which means they are in an actual office building. When we're talking about one of their biggest assets at Blackstone. We're talking about office buildings. Guess would have been mostly vacant since twenty twenty. Office buildings. So they're hedging their bets on people going back to work. The fact that DOGE is doging and trying to shut down all of these leases, trying to close down on property.

They know that he's going to make mistakes. Why because he's made so many. But lo and behold, they're gonna need office space. So black Tone is hedging its bets on the federal government needing to rent office space. So anyway, that is all I want to share. You look like you got something to say, be it. I want to hear.

you know what I mean? And I was also sick because I didn't mean to go on this rampage job, but I was sick looking at who a pack donated to after something called Standing Strong Pack, which I'm going to look up. They're top two recipients of a pack money, Wesley Bell and George Latimer. That is, Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman's.

be a benefic benefactor of that. Yes, the companies that own the buildings that leases the space to the government as an entity, so long as the government has a policy that their workers have to be in that actual edifice to still be employed by the government that is good for, that is good for. How do you say, I don't know the landlord, but guess who's also good for? It's good for Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington d C.

Rial you may find them in joint community. I apologize Mayor Bowser and who else might be in common cause with Mayor Bowser and Blackstone on this? How about the retail Association in Washington, d C.

common calls on an issue like this. The other thing is side note, which is Emily's list, which was mentioned a number of times by Angela as related to a number of the women, I think exclusively the women members of the Senate who were part of that ten. Well, Emily's List doesn't tell the full story because Emily's List basically takes money from anyone Andrew and so an individual donor who might be just interested in in in Senator Shaheen, but they don't want their names or their company's name

to appear as a supporter of hers. They say, oh, I'll give the money to Emily's List, and what Emily's List will do is then rewrite that money through its own ways. I don't want to suggest an illegality here, but essentially the name Emilies, this does not tell the full story of where the money came from, whether or not the candidate or the elected official knows where that

money came from. It's a more diluted picture. But this is the big I think this is a big piece that must be owned here, and that is that we have a lot of our elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, to almost whole sale allow non disclosed money from corporations to completely infuse itself into politics and their positions. And I gotta say the nineteen nineties, the early nineteen nineties in the Democratic associations that were outside of the party,

and then it became inside the party that existed. We're largely in outreach and extension to the corporate arm of America. It basically said, we'll bring you after so you can produce cheaper products and sell them at higher prices, increasing the profit margins of your companies. And what we'll do is we'll we'll pass policies that is sympathetic and favorable

to you. And what happened in that collision, whereas their business community used to be wholesale for Republicans because Democrats didn't fight for them, so they said, became advocates for both sides. It didn't matter to them Democrats or Republicans, the business community by and large in the early nineteen nineties made the conversion. And so as a result of it, the people have been on one side of many of these issues, and Democrats and Republicans have largely been together

on the opposite side of those issues. So free trade, yeah, they yelling and screaming about it today, But people lost lives, they lost businesses, they lost homes, communities lost populations, schools, children, children, and you had wholesale communities experiencing depopulation. Well in American jobs no longer around. So I'm just saying this problem. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, and you're probably if you're a Republican, you may not be listening to

the sound of my voice was just fine. But I just want to exclamation mark what doctor King tried to see, tried for all of us to see, which is that black folks, brown folks, and yes, working class white people are in common cause with each other. But this is economic issues.

Morehouse and has done great for the community. However, the mechanism that's allowing him to do that is crushing the community if they are funding you know, Leader Schumer, who is not working in service to the people. So I just wonder does this entire system ever service And that's not to call out Burden, I hope I'm saying his

name for Burdoon Vernon, mister Perry. He's a very wealthy man, and we are proud of you as an individual, brother, so I'm not attacking you at all, but it does It keeps bringing me to this question, does any system of capitalism serve us as a people, particularly since so much about the system of capitalism started on the plantation, So I just wonder, is that even something that can survive here? People keep saying, you know, private equity is

destroying America. I don't know enough about it to know. I'd be curious to our audience, like explain it to me, because I don't really know. But it also, you know, it cancels jobs. It also creates jobs. But Wall Street only exists because of our labor, and it's crushing all of us. So I just wonder if we have so much of that money.

time or you're not. And I think that it feels especially true right now because of how terrifying it is to be living in this era in twenty twenty five

and or this administration. But the truth of the matter is, even though right now I feel like Chuck Schumer should face a different level of account ability given the severity and the seriousness of seriousness of his vote, as well as the other ten members, just like the folks who voted against Algreen, Like, there's some there's some accountability conversations that we have to have and if you can't align with us, you need to be, you need to be,

you need to stub down. But if somebody's voting with us eighty five percent of the time, I don't think that we risk it all and go find somebody that, like, we might get five more percent out of And I don't think all of that is special interests. But like when you're so out of lockstep with what the community is saying, I think that's the time to do a gut check around special interest I mean, I'm fine questions. Also, go ahead, Andrew.

And I don't take issue with groups and special interests in and of themselves my real beef because I think special interests, Yes, they have power to an end, and what is that end? That end is the elected officials willingness to do it, to carry the water, to comply.

And so maybe these are twin issues, but I think part of why we are where we are is absolutely yes, special interest but I also believe it is the cowardice of elected officials who make the choice to go against what they ran on, maybe with their constituents might feel and in their in their gut about how they should perform.

it's all good. There are some others. No, I didn't want to there are some others, and I would love for you to quickly, you know, take people into the space in the world of that when they come to you and say, you know, Andrew, we want you to stand against charter schools, or Andrew, we need you to stand with us. What Israel all the way? Or Andrew, we need you to support this uh, and don't say

anything about this development project whatever it is? What what were what were those conversations, like, you know, and what are they saying? They're saying, we would love to support you, gonna door knock for you, going to do this. We expect you to be with us on what like tell us about that and what? Yeah, I mean leaned into your convictions because you're different in this. Everybody doesn't land where you land. Some of them land where Chuck Schumer is.

If you support me, you support me because I'm a responsive elected official, that you know that I'm going to vote my conscience and that I had to have a forward looking and progressive view about what the future of this state ought to look like. And if you want details, we can go through it issue by issue, But I don't. I don't want anybody's support contingent on the fact that you think you're going to predict how I'm going to vote.

do that ever, but I have been in space. Whatever they need, they got no question there.

there's a lot to be said there. But for most individuals, I have to believe, first of all, the overwarming majority of elected officials who I know, are not going to stand up in no damn middle of the room and talk about being anybody's proxy on this issue, that issue, that issue, because of unless they're saying, you sent me to DC voters, and because you sent me, you better know you always have an opportunity to walk through my door, sit down and have your grievance with me. And that's

what I've always said to you. Anybody can book a meeting with me. My schedule is mayor and as commissioner was easy because we took them from everybody. You didn't need to be a contributed for that to happen. But for a lot of people, especially special interests, most of them by and large are when they are giving you a money, what they are, what they're asking for is access to you. They want to be able to reach

you when they need to. That's their clever way of of of of of letting you be known and we can rock with that.

contact by aid for this is that. And the third because because I lose some of it, she gets some of it, and and ultimately she's gonna be the one responsible because she controls account under but but but largely business interests and special interests where the money lies right, where the money raiser. Those are the people who who I have to tell you are going to have the most access to elected officials. Why because they're the ones who show up at the fundraisers. They're the ones who

throw the fundraisers. They're the ones who have the pre meeting setting up to the fundraiser, and they want you to know that you're that your friendship with them has value, a real value. But I got to tell you this, y'all, on every issue that I stood for, fought against for as as a mayor, as an elected official, the most powerful constituency that ever showed up in the staff and anybody on the opposite side of them always knew it

was going to be a fight if this happened. Is when your chamber gets filled with people who say this is the wrong thing to do. It doesn't matter how powerful, or how friendly, or how much money you raise me or any of that stuff from most selected officials. When the people show up in the room, the people usually

win the day. The problem is, most selectors can count on maybe one or two hands how often they've dealt with an issue where the chamber was filled up with people on one side, and business can name every other nine of the ten issues where they have been in the room on a particular issue. That's the balance.

And hearing you talk about Andrew like the kind of mayor that you were, it makes me so upset because I feel like our people are losing, and I think we have to have a conversation about how do we become our special interest how do we elevate our voice this to be as powerful as these special interests groups.

Andree for you to say that so many people had your mobile number, you know, I mean that's y'all know how I am about my cell phone, Like I rarely give it because I don't want to be responsible for having to respond to a text. I want to be horrible at it. For you to have this open door policy with your constituents, right the open phone and open door it is you just don't see that. And I feel like when those people emerge, there is an effort to silence, to take them out. So I'll say, Andrew

and I had a conversation. I'm gonna sound like a hypocrite. I own it, but I sent Andrew some text and he didn't respond, and to excuse me, I understand I'm a hypocrite. Hypocrite here, Well, I just want the viewers to know because at any point I can ask Andrew any question.

I'm like, and can you read this and maybe you'll you'll understand it better. I can ask Andrew questions like Andrew, what was the negotiating table after World War Two? Like how did NATO even come to be? And like how did that benefit us? And off the dome, Andrew, you have an answer for me if I asked, well, what was the time limit between World War One and World War Two? What were the lessons that we took away from that? Off the dome, Andrew will have an answer to.

just really appreciate that about you. And to hear how open you were with your constituents it makes me so enraged. And so then the other part of that is there has to be a leveling of this playing field. And my fantasy is we just erase this the government and we start from scratch, We start from a blank wall,

and I want to empower people listening. What would democracy look like if we were its architects, not just the because we built the country, but if we were the actual architects of what government looks like, and to tap into our imagination in that way, and Andrew, you tapped into your imagination and led with conviction and just thought, this shouldn't be, so what if it wasn't or this

should be so what if it is? I don't think right now we have leaders on Capitol Hill who are prepared to lead with that level, who are supported enough to lead at that level. But I do believe we have millions of people across this country who at some point, when this comes to knock on their front door, they're going to be ready to pay attention. Special interests can also be geopolitical. We have a lot of global interests. Donald Trump has yielded to a lot of global.

equal branches of government. This is an erosion the failure of the media to treat this like oh, Trump's having a disagreement with the judge. No, no, no, no no. This is the erosion of what the framers intended. It's an erosion of society as we know it. We talked about my mood a little before. I think this punctuates where we are as a country, and if you all will permit me, I'd like to read this letter that my mood Khalil he was a Palestinian activist at Columbia

University in New York. We talked about him being arrested. The video is widely available online. For those of you who are watching, you can see those images on the screen now if you're listening. He was arrested by playing closed ice agents while his wife looked on, and he was quickly moved to various detention centers, so it was hard for lawyers to keep up with him. And this is what he says. The contents of the letter have

not been edited. It was dictated to an attorney, and he says, my name is my Mood Khalil, and I am a political prisoner. I'm writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana, where I wake the cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law. Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here.

It isn't the Senegalese man I met, who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in Limbo and his family in ocean away. It isn't the twenty one year old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing. Justice escapes the contours of this nation's immigration facilities. On March eighth, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant and accost it my wife and me as we

returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Nord's safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours. I did not know the cause of my arrest or

if I was facing immediate deportation. At twenty six Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor in the early morning hours. Agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request. My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night was January ceasefire.

Now broken, parents and Gaza are once again cradling two small shrouds, and families are forced to waste starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom. I was born in a Palestine, in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, to a family which had been displaced from their land since the nineteen forty eight Nakpa. I spent my youth in proximity to, yet distant from my homeland, but being

Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel's use of administrative detention imprisonment without trial or charge to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Katib, who is incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home

from travel. I think of Gaza Hospital director and pediatrician doctor Hussam Abu Saphia, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December twenty seventh and remains in an Israeli torture camp.

kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention for decades. Anti Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand US laws and practices that are used violently to repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and

other communities. That is precisely why I'm being targeted. While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who are enabled those who enabled my targeting remained comfortably at Columbia University, President Shaffik Armstrong and Dean Yari Milo laid the groundwork for the US government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro Palestinian students and allowing viral dosing based on racism

and disinformation to go uncheck. Colombia targeted me from my activism, creating a new author authoritarian disciplinary office, the bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to

the Trump Administration's latest threats. My arrests the expulsion or suspension of at least twenty two Columbia students some strip of their BA degrees just weeks before graduation, and the expulsion of the SWC President, Grant Minor, on the eve of contract negotiations are clear examples. If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of student movement in

shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change, leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the front lines of the civil rights movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa Today too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us towards truths and justice. The Trump administration is targeting me as

a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs in the weeks ahead. Students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties for all. Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my firstborn.

rest of us is one that cannot go unnoticed. When Ron DeSantis in Florida decides to criminalize protests because a group of students disagree with a state position, When Donald Trump says that he is going to go after students who protests on the issue of of of of of Israel and Palestine, and this in this unjust war, when when administrations, government and private sector entities decide that they are no longer going to defend the people who are

in their care who they have responsibility for, and willingly give over contact information, names, addresses, don't track down on them being docked on the internet, so people can go to their homes and do even worse things. Y'all. It's been said before. It may not be us today, but we see the outlines of what this thing looks like.

Just insert community. That's the only thing that needs to change. Yes, immigrants who may be here in the country without proper documentation might be a tinge more vulnerable, but I wouldn't say much more vulnerable, because they have rights. Even if you are here without proper documentation, they have us rights to the system for due process regardless. Well, you're full a citizen, you got due process rights too. Yes, that's true.

But what happens when the institution's private and public who are supposed to keep your information private, decide to hand it right on over to an authoritarian leader. What happens when the government that it's going to stop being your protector and you're champion, and turn against you and incarcrate your ass and then force you to make the proof to get out. It can happen to any one of us. And it's outrageous for any of us to think otherwise.

That we cannot because we're American citizens, we cannot find ourselves in this exact predicament on the right issue, On the right issue, we just on the right issue of which we take exception or disagree with this administration. We then find ourselves on the other side of the law. They are creating the foundation for that to happen right now.

that that thing is going to go away. I get how easy it is for all of us to avert our eyes because we just can't.

of your children. Imagine if somebody came and got your twenty year old child who all they know is America and ship them off to a country where they may not even speak the language and they were being treated as a criminal. That is what is happening to thousands of people, and that is what can happen to any of us at any second. We're living in a society that is questioning birthright citizenship.

It's costing the elections of people who vote with their conscience. Frankly, it is muting the conscience of people who we know

and love. And I think that that is a really good point for us to say, there has to be a fundamental shift because we can't be so quiet by the special interest dollars, their outsize role, that we will turn a blind eye to fascism, that will turn a blind eye to the democracy that we say that we hope for, that will look at everything we said leading up to the twenty twenty four election and pretend like that isn't in fact the case while we're watching this

mandesimate agencies that support our people that have not balanced the scales, but like kind of made it a little more fair. And I'm not suggesting to your point earlier tip of like as capitalism service. I don't really know, but I know what we have, and I know the game we're supposed to play. The rules that we're planned by now don't even we don't even qualify for them. They're not even available to us. They are literally developed

developing a system where we are locked out completely. And I think whether we work in those companies and we've been promoted in those companies and where the figurehead of those companies, or we have the power in those companies, if being in that role means that you have to support interests that antagonize your community, you're in the wrong place.

Even if you gave the biggest philanthropic donation, if it is going to support some folks that are literally suffocating us in our rights, Nah, that's just a bridge too far, not in this era. Yeah.

I have no empathy for people who did this. I have no sympathy for people who did this.

answer this. I don't understand why they don't know. But I think it's the same way that people in communities everywhere don't know there's an election, or don't know who's running, or don't know who's different.

have space for them and empathy for them. For the people who are out here cheering on January sixth, performing at the Kennedy Center. For the people who are out here wearing these dumb ass maga hats, For the people who are out here shouting for Derek Fielding to be pardoning. For the people who are out here watching Fox News every day like a bunch of armchair idiots. I could give a shit about them. I understand that I'm not

trying to have a bounce of empathy for them. I feel bad for them because I don't know how they got there. But I'm not talking about them.

are impacted by it. So, for instance, a lot of people are going to lose access to healthcare as a result of this Republican budget, a lot of people with kids who are special needs, under the shift that this administration plans to take with the Department of Education unchecked by anybody and any other branch of government, are going to move onto their monthly budget lines new expenses for the care of their children that they have never before

had to bear. The brunt of for families who are experiencing what it means to transition your parents into retirement and into elderly systems that are there to help support them in retirement. Good luck when we look up and we see that the retirement that is supposed to be promised to our seniors who report into this system are now at a point where don't cover much of anything, and don't even get me started on the healthcare access

that they have. And as the price of things continue to go up, and the government then caps the amount of the contribution that each one of these recipients receive, what is it sixty percent of seniors are on Medicaid, Medicare they're getting with no other subsidized health insurance. So when those caps kick in, it is it big frustration. I dealt with this as an elect official, where people come knocking on your door once the crisis hits them.

But every one of the three hundred and sixty five days that on the local news this thing was mentioned, and the meetings were held and the rallies were held, nobody looked up to check the symptoms. Nobody looked up to see how they were going to be impacted. And so I don't know that I have hard limits right now,

because I just I like to give chances. But my frustration really does sit there that it isn't until it ain't, not that it crawled up your doorstep, not that it knocked on your door, but until it is sitting with you in the living room that you decide that I'm going to wake up and pay attention to how we got here, and by that point, good luck in being saved.

her thoughts. Just it's just really really dope. And I am so grateful that our folks are not just like the hell it ain't know what we can do, Like we don't even have it in us. It's like we are going to fight. If we lose this fight, we over here doing this fight. So I think that my call to action to y'all is simply this, it's don't give up. It is even if you don't find the strength to fight today, just yoke up with somebody else who's fighting. I guarantee you if you don't have the

strength to fight, you still will have the idea. If you don't have the idea today, you probably don't have it tomorrow. So I would just say, please, don't give up, and if you have ways that we should be fighting, DM them to us. I got an incredible DM from a sister who I hope will send in a video. Who's we even talking about getting videos in from the podcast or to the podcast. She had a really dope idea that I would love to talk about on this show.

So Hopeully, we'll get this idea anyway. Don't give up the fight and keep these ideas comfortle nice ten is nice.

and you're not having a positive experience. I would just ask us to not create our default position to then be the exact thing that we experienced or somebody else we know experienced generations ago, that that shouldn't be our automatic setting, That our automatic setting really needs to adjust to our level of expectation that they will perform, because I think a lot of us are we don't expect much from a from an institution when you haven't felt

like you've gotten much from it. But simply because you haven't gotten much from it doesn't mean that the status quo position ought to be that I'm not gonna get much from this. Maybe your expectations have to raise. And then when you walk into that space or in that place and you make that call, and you're making it from a position of glass half full of full versus one empty to lower empty, I promise you the receiving

end of that gets a different message from you. When I go into my children's school and they know we come in, and they see us coming up in there, the expectations that we have, they know are going to be at a level that your rudimentary this thing won't work that okay, uh huh, sure go later. Now we have a greater expectation than that. And I just I would ask us to interrogate the things that we assume are going to work out a certain way, because that's

how they always work out. To interrogate that further, to see if we couldn't put on a different hat, a different disposition, a different set of expectations to make that thing work out our way. Because I fear in politics that a lot of it is is our default is we have no expectation. And when you ain't got no expectation, Yes, the worst is is gonna be the worst, and the

worst is what it is. But when you go in there with it and you act like it a different you're gonna they're gonna meet a different version of you. And I getarantee, I think you'll meet a different version of the thing you want on the other side of that.

all that to say, she's trys. I say all that to say, if you are somebody who is keeping your pet tied up outside, or your neighbors are keeping their pets tied up outside, shame on you. Dogs are not lawn furniture. If you are cold outside, they are cold outside. If you don't like getting wet in the rain, they don't like getting wet in the rain. Please don't be a shitty human being and treat animals poorly. Treat animals like you would want to be treated, and they deserve.

If you can't take in a pet and treat that pet well in your home, then you don't deserve to have one.

lot less of that. Thank you very much. We're available on all platforms that is, and also YouTube, and new episodes dropped every Thursday and Friday, and please be sure you're listening to these solo pods on Monday and Tuesday. And if you need even more, be sure to check out our girl, Jamel Hill Politics that she hosts and Off the Cup the other shows on Reason Choice Media Network.

And also please don't forget to follow us on social media and describe to our text or email list, and you can do that by visiting our website native Land dot native landpod dot com. We are Tiffany Cross, Angela ri and Andrew Gillum. Welcome home, y'all. There are five hundred and ninety three days until a midterm election if we in fact have them.