Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Meet your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, you know, there was a video that was circulating over the weekend and I posted on social media about it, which was a fundraiser apparently that was held by Kansas Republicans where you could pay money and assault a mannequin of President Biden. And I have to tell you that there is nothing funny about it. I think that these
people are absolutely fucking deranged. And the fact that the Republican Party, because the Republican Party is filled with white people, that there are no investigations, there is no surveillance, there is nothing that is done for this white supremist, politically violent group of domestic terrorists in training. That's what the
Republican Party is. And they love to tell you that it's lone wolves, and they love to tell you that the people that we saw bringing guns and zip ties and knives and bombs and cocktails and building up of gallows were just fucking tourists. Meanwhile, in nineteen eighty five, a black neighborhood was bombed in Philadelphia because it was
being led by black liberationists. Any time that there has ever been a successful movement for black liberation in this country where black people are actualizing their power as citizens and coming together as a collective either to exist outside of government constraints or use government for their well being, they are done away with. Their leaders, are killed, the members are jailed, right all in the name of, you know, public safety and a national security threat. White people pose
the biggest national security threat to this country. And I'm talking about those that pledge their allegiance to the Republican Party to Donald Trump, who are anti democratic, pro violent, pro authoritarian. And these people are just allowed to continue on as if their behavior is totally fucking normal, and it is not, and we need to stop treating it
that way. Because if you change the color of their skin, if you change their religion, you change their orientation, then all of a sudden, mainstream media has a different conversation to have. We should be having a different conversation because they are a threat. Coming up next my conversation with the president of the Center for Our American Progress, Patrick Gaspard. And in this conversation, Patrick and I talk about what
their Democratic Party needs to do moving forward. We talk about the Heritage Foundations twenty twenty five and what is at stake in November. That conversation is coming up next, folks. I am very excited to welcome back to WOKF Daily the president of the Center for American Progress, Patrick Gaspard. Patrick, you know, I remember and I talk about this with
you every time that you come on. My time at the Center for American Progress, being surrounded by some of the most thoughtful, brilliant minds who had a vision for how we shape our country, how we expand progress, how we expand rights and freedoms, how we engage in information and storytelling and create policy that matches the needs of the American people. It was an inspiring time my time at the Center for American Progress because it felt like
we were on an upswing. Right. This is during the Obama years, and now, you know, I want you to be able to offer up to the listeners. What does it feel like to be at the center of an organization and institution that is about creating ideas and opportunities for progress when we are in a state of regression, and the regression feels like it is everywhere, coming from every angle.
Danielle, you always frame things up perfectly, which is why you are dearly missed at the progress and I'm always pleased to be able to join you in conversation. You're right that we've seen a sea change in this country. The way I describe it is the period that you just defined was the age of aspiration, and now we've shifted from that into the age of anxiety. This is a moment where the entire public debate is defined by
this notion of security and insecurity. Right, there's a way that Shrump and the MAGA and all of his acolytes are trying to exploit a sense of insecurity. There's economic secure, there's personal security, but there's also cultural security, which they're weaponizing and deploying into the election cycle in ways that
I'm happy to talk about. But we really have shifted from the age of aspiration to the age of anxiety, which is understandable when you consider that you have an entire generation that went through the Great Recession, a very slow and lagging recovery through that recession, got to even ground, and suddenly saw all of our democratic norms upturned with the election of Donald Trump, and then so the entire global economy freeze again, Danielle, with a pandemic that, instead
of uniting folks actually pull the curtain back on all these cleavages that exist in somebody. And sometimes it feels, Danielle, that I'm working at cap at a moment when half of the country has turned into Linus from the Peanuts Gallery and Charlie Brown, where he's walking around with that blanket and he will not let anyone be that blanket away for him from him. So half the electorate is feeling that insecurity, more than half feeling that insecurity, and terrified that both Democrats.
And Republicans are going to pull that blanket away.
And at a time when people don't trust institutions that the way they used to government, that's church, that's business, it's across the board and media time. They don't trust institutions, they're putting all of their trust in individuals.
So when a download comes forward and.
Says I am your justice, I am your retribution, and if not for me, you'll have disaster, they feel as if you know what, I'm going to lean on these simplistic solutions and I'm going to listen to this individual who's telling me what I feel in my gut, which is that these institutions are rigged against me, they're corrupt, and they're not trying to bring me forward.
So it's a destabilizing time.
The tectonic plates have shifted under us, and those of us who are at CAP and from your platform, we still have an obligation to lift up an affirming vision that unite, that pulls us forward and defines exactly what progress looks like in economic inclusion, what progress looks like, and putting a scaffolding around rights like abortion, what the progress looks like when we are all of us trying to build a more participatory civic democracy with voting and
with real access. So it's a challenging time, but it's also a moment of real opportunity, Danielle, because if you and I are completely honest, even in that period of aspiration, we knew there were a lot of folks who were being left behind, who were being ill served by institutions, and so sometimes you understand you have to do the work of reforming institutions in order to be able to save them.
You know, I think that trust is a really important word and is kind of a marker of where the anxiety is being weaponized. And also exasperated. Right that there was this feeling. I think that during the Obama years that we could trust that each generation was going to
have an opportunity to be better than the last. Right, that the promise of America that made America an aspirational place was this idea that you were afforded the benefit of your parents and your grandparents and your great grandparents' work to be in a better place than they were.
And then, all of a sudden, through what I call on this show, the forces of greed, we have seen an absolute backsliding and an erosion of that American possibility, that economic growth that would happen with generation to generation. We're talking about young people that have more degrees, more knowledge right than their parents and grandparents, but more debt and are less likely to buy a home and get married.
And so when we think about trust, right, the trust and faith in the promise of this country that has now faltered for an entire generation, what does it look like, in your opinion, for us as progressives to be able to regain that trust or at least say, we may not ever get back to what your parents and your grandparents experienced, but we can get to a better place than where you are right now.
So you're asking the right question.
I would push back on at the very end, Danielle, on this notion that we would communicate that we can't get back there again.
I think we can.
But I think we can only get there if we're honest and if we're building platforms of accountability. Everything that you said that lays out that there was a moment when folks believe that the second devices that they made would accrue to the benefit of the next generation. That all felt real and right, and it felt as if
there was a linear trajectory. It all got disrupted at about the moment of the Great Recession, and folks felt already before that moment that there was this asymmetry that existed between the kind of profits that massive corporations were making and the distance between how they rewarded themselves and renumeration to folks who were on the front line of providing services, providing care, keeping the engine of the economy
going and growing in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, California, elsewhere,
but not really getting the benefit of that. So that had already been disrupted, but it got blown wide open during the recession, and then folks saw big businesses being rewarded for the mistakes that they made, for their callousness, getting bailed out, while homes were going under, were being foreclosed, And immediately people realized that this new generation that was advancing into the economy, the generation of the millennials, were
really the generation that would take on the affordability crisis that would make it impossible for them to get to level playing ground and to meet the kind of games that their parents and grandparents made that seemed to be assured to the next generation. So your your assessment is spot on, and we can't underestimate how that was part of creating this real sense of disparity and location of trust. All of that has been hardened in the algorithmic personalization.
That we all live in.
There that really lifts up skepticism and cynicism about organizations, about institutions in a way that makes it impossible for us to believe any of the facts. The writer Eli Powerser, who wrote the great book The Filter Bubble, said recently that the data doesn't show and demonstrate that the data works explaining to people know how we're going forward, and facts don't matter and we've lost a sense of a
common narrative in our society. Now, my notion of why it's possible to get back to where we were or all hangs on a sense of how we have to organize towards accountability and we have to celebrate and take advantage of successes that we've had.
How do I mean that? Think about this for a second, Danielle.
As a result of actions taken by this current president, by President Biden and Democrats in Congress, they've been able to roll back, be transparent, and expose excessive banking fees in this to the tune of over five billion dollars, which is about one hundred and seventy dollars per banking family.
It's a huge deal.
But at the same time that they've done that, the banks are pushing back, they're suing, they're taking the government to court around these regulations. And you have a political party on the other side of this that are defending that greed and that interest and are trying to stop
the progress that we've made with that regulatory framework. So there's a way that the legislation that's passed by Biden and Democrats should and can we help us regain a sense of trust that the government is an institution that can create accountability that's going to benefit me directly in my bottom line. But that notion has to be held up as a sharp contrast to help people understand that they have a role and the choice to make because
these fights are ongoing. You can't talk about protecting democracy without talking about the obligations of citizenship and the choices that citizens have to make.
So, yeah, they're fighting the big banks.
They have an obligation to tell us about it and to bring us on the journey with them, But we have an obligation to take up our choice in a way that will strengthen the regulatory framework, that strengthens the institutions, and that makes it possible for that next generation to get another rung up the ladder to be solidly middle class.
So there's a synergy there, I believe fundamentally in organizing towards accountability, whether or not it's against big oil, find it, big pharma on the price of prescription drugs, big banks as I just described, So.
That's really key and important to it.
But it's also important Danielle, and you know we're having this conversation during the week of the State of the Union. It's important that leadership come forward to folks and talk in a robust way about that accountability and rally us to the fight that's going to get us on the other side of these challenges.
I believe right that when Biden came into office, I believe that he thought that Republicans were better than they were. I believe that he was hearkening back to a time when you could, you know, be disagreeable and have dinner and we were still cronies and friends, and that he could get the country back to that place because he was a known entity, right, unlike Barack Obama. And so what he has realized and very harshly over the last
couple of years, is that those days are gone. That the Republicans that he was able to call on and come to the table with no longer want to be at the table. As a matter of fact, they want to blow up the table, right. And so when we talk about getting to a place of fighting right, because I believe, and as you know, and as everyone who listens to this show at the very least understand, is that this is the most consequential election of our time. I tell people. I don't care if you don't like
Joe Biden. Right, this election is not between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It is between authoritarianism and freedom. Right, That's what the election is really between. And I wondered if you think that the Biden campaign has the ability to narrate the dangers that America would face if in fact, Donald Trump or any Republican were to become president again. Given the Heritage Foundation's twenty twenty five project.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm so glad that you brought up Heritage twenty twenty five. And I'll say something about that in a moment just for me. That kind of makes clear, crystal clear, exactly what the states are.
You're right about the enormity.
Of this election, Danielle, But you and I also know that folks are tired, right because we you know, we told them that the twenty sixteen election was the most important, the twenty twenty election was the most important, tu mid terms were the most important. Now we're knocking on their door and telling them, you know what, we know that you have saved our democracy countless women. Yes, come about now do it one word time, because the stakes are
higher than they've been before. So there is a there is real fatigue there, and you're right, there's in some camps, in some quarters a lack of enthusiasm, and there are many reasons for that. There's the you know, the challenge of cost inflation and folks feeling that just can't catch
a break at all. They're not entirely sure what things like the Infrastructure build and the Investment Reduction Act all means in their lives, and we have to do a better job of landing that squarely in their living rooms and at the kitchen.
Table when they're trying to settle their bills.
But there's also, as you know, the challenge of the humanitarian crisis that has control in Gaza, that the US has responsibility and has to lean in hard and use its strength to compel long term settlement and peace there. So there's that, but you're right that Project twenty twenty
five by the Republicans brings us into hard focus. I bring your audience's attention to a meeting that Donald Trump is having at the very end of this week with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor orbon who is one of the worst extreme authoritarians that we have in this planet. Somebody who was elected through democratic means and then managed to suspend the instruments of democracy in his country, in the courts and the economic ministries and in the media.
He is a model for Donald Trump. So Victor Orbon served a term as Prime Minister. He lost his election the very first time he was in office. He had extreme ideas but didn't even understand the mechanics of governance and didn't know how to execute on them. Came back into office and God does he know how to organize inside of the administrative state in Hungary and execute on his extremism in a way that is marginalizing rights in the country. Donald Trump expects that he's going to have
the same playbook. People need to appreciate that in his first term, Donald Trump has some guardrails. There were institutional Republicans who were still in Congress, There were Republicans who were in his cabinet, who puts some guardrails around some of the most extreme instincts that he had on democracy, on workers, on the rights of women. He's not going to make quote that mistake this time around. He's been
very very clear about that. Project twenty twenty five for your audience, is an ultra right wing playbook that would upend the constitution, rule of law and pave the way for Trump to grab much more power for himself and his extreme allies while implementing his authoritarian dreams. It would be a body blow to the fundamental rights of everyday Americans. The Heritage Foundation, extreme right wing activists, and anti democracy Koch Brothers and dozens more have spent millions of dollars
on this project. Their aim is to literally dismantle governance as we know it. One of the core elements of their agenda, Danielle, is to fire as many as fifty thousand non partisan career public servants who are dedicated, who are serving all of us across this country, and they want to replace them with a binder full of vetted extremists.
They've already identified twenty thousand of such people that they have been a database that they intend to populate the federal government with, many of whom have already been on record willing to flout the law and norms and put personal and partisan loyalty ahead of the nation's best interests.
It is a.
Bone chilling document that cuts across women's bodily autonomy, looks it goes right at really exploding their notion of how to deploy censorship in our public schools with book bannings. It's going to double down on the Trump tax cuts that we all know benefited the extremely wealthy in this country while stripping us of the ability to have essential services. They're going to go hard at entitlement, social security and medicare programs.
And on foreign.
Policy, they intend to blow up the allianceship that we have in NATO with the European Union and they will literally turn Ukraine and other nations over to Vladimir Putin. I could go on about this agenda. It is extraordinarily dangerous. And here's the thing. It is not a fantasy for these people. It is literally a blueprint of how they will govern. So you're right, you know, folks, I understand
why folks are frustrated with the pace of change. I understand that people are bewildered about some of the investments that have been being in government. They're not really sure how it lands, and they're upset about cost spiraling out of control, and some are upset about foreign policy. But folks need to be able to hold up the mirror to project twenty twenty five, which tells us very very clearly how these folks with Donald Trump at the helm will up end society as.
We know it.
Thank you so much for laying that out so extraordinarily clearly, because when we talk abstractly about democracy and about what is at stake, you know, I think that there is an ego that is attached to a lot of Americans that it can't happen here, It won't happen here, And what they don't recognize is that it is happening if you go into states like Alabama, like Texas, like Florida,
like Tennessee. They are using the Red States as their petri dishes and their workshops for what they want to nationalize. And Project twenty twenty five just lays it out and it's not a secret, and that's what I also want to be. Anybody can go to Heritage Foundation and download this nine hundred page document and see from start to
finish what their vision is. My last question for you, Patrick, is you know, in knowing that and in knowing that this type of blueprint is backed by billionaires and hundreds of millions of dollars, what is our mechanism, right is what is our vision and who is funding it right? Because when we look at the Heritage Foundation and we look at a LinkedIn for right wing extremists of twenty thousand,
I'm saying, where is the progressives? Where is the left's version for what they see for America for generations to come.
I can give you two responses to that, Danielle.
One, progressives are not as good at building for power as the right way in this country.
That's a real critique that we have to take up. That's one.
The second is, of course, I'm going to tell the Center for American Progress and brag about the fact that, working without broad coalition, the ecosystem that we sit in, we are pulling up together what it means to be able to invest in the care economy and the family economy as we go forward. We're being clear and what it means to codify the decision Will v. Wade and
to extend protections down to the state level. There's a clear and convincing case that we're able to make about what the green transition looks like in America and how it's going to accrue to the benefit of average citizens if we double down on it.
In a second, bite Harris's term.
We're also trying to make sure that we do this within the arc of storytelling and social identity that builds
broad consensus Danielle. And of course, we're going to remind everybody of the gains that have been made in this administration, from forty million new jobs to inflation being down nearly sixty percent from its high in twenty twenty two, etc. But we're also going to tell really simple stories about what it means to further invest in the expansion of healthcare in this country and the fact that you have
folks like you. I'll give you an example of a woe named Robyn Craicroft from Missouri who was able to retire because she's now paying thirty five dollars a month for her insulin as opposed to the thousands of dollars that she was paying under Donald Trump and previous administrations in this country.
Being able to take the wholesale successes and make them retail and intimates that people get, Oh, what the difference is here? And this is why I want to continue to double down and bet on this team. And this direction is the responsibility that we're giving ourselves in this extraordinarily fraught and yet opportunistic moment.
Well Patrick, as always appreciate you making the time for woka app in any way that we can continue to help amplify the work of Center for American Progress and your partners consider us a place to have your voices and your policies and your idea is heard. We really appreciate you.
Thank you, Danielle. We appreciate you. I'll see you on the socials.
On this That is it for me today. Dear friends on woka app as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.