America Is Sick

a couple of days early. Nonetheless, folks, I want to talk about just the stark contrast of what we are seeing represented by the Republican Party and Democrats. When you all watched the debates last week, or maybe you didn't, you just watch some of the clips, I know that your stomach turned, as did mine. But this is the bansh of the Republican Party, people that are willing to parrot white supremaist, misogynist, patriarchal, you know, masionic fascistic talking

points in order right to get power. Whether or not we think that Nikki Haley believes the anti LGBTQ things that are coming out of her mouth, or the thatch Raamasa Mean believes anything that's coming out of his lion ass mouth doesn't matter. What does matter is their desire to fall in line in order to court the MAGA vote. So when anyone says that there are alternatives to Donald Trump, the fact is that is a lie. They all think

speak this. The only difference is that one person has ninety one counts against them and the other people, so far as we know, have clean records. But you have people on that stage that were cheering lawn white supremacy. The vek Ramaswami. As ironic as it is, he said on the debate stage quote great Replacement theory is not some grand right wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform as it pertains to January sixth.

The claim that he made was does look like it was an inside job. We'll let me stop right there. We know that January sixth was an inside job. It was an inside job that was conducted by Donald Trump in the White House as he threw catch up against the walls. We know it was an inside job because Donald Trump, the president then of the United States, told the oathkeepers and the proud Boys to stand back and stand by. We know that it was an inside job,

but that's not what Viveck meant. But he doesn't really care about the truth. He cares about having his name in the headlines and he can self fund, so who knows how long this idiot will be in the race. But he doesn't say things that are so contrary to what the rest of those people on the stage think. Because Ron DeSantis, says, Governor of Florida, what has he done? He's promoted white comfort in his state above all else, which means that you can't possibly learn about the truth

because that makes white people uncomfortable. You can't possibly learn about the civil rights movement or any aggression that this come had towards indigenous populations, black people, brown people. So we got to remove those books from the shelves. We can't celebrate and acknowledge the fact that not everybody loves the same, looks the same, or identifies the same. No, we need to shame those people, put targets on their back,

and silence them. So while we may look at some of these characters and want to laugh and roll our eyes, the fact is that many of them could end up in a Trump administration two point zero because they know that if Donald Trump were to win, he would assume total control and power until whenever because all of the people that have abided by the Constitution in some semblance

of law and order will no longer be around. According to Donald Trump, those quote unquote vermin will be locked up, put in camps, indicted by a potentially Stephen Miller run Department of Justice. Let that shit sink in. These are

unabashed white supremacists. Imagine what Tucker Carlson would do as a member of the cabinet, A man that went and while he still was employed at Fox, did his show for the week from Hungary where he was celebrating and lauding all types of compliments on urban democratic name only, but an entire authoritarian holding up Hungary as a country that America should aspire to. Are you crazy? But that's what they are doing. And all I urge everybody listening

to this show to do is believe them. Let's not look away, Let's not shrug it off. Let's not just dismiss Donald Trump's fantasy about being a dictator on day one. Let's believe them the first time. Coming up next, my

conversation with our friend that was pre recorded doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity each week to speak with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always always thrilled, and today, Jonathan, I need your doctor hat more than ever because America is sick,

or I should say Maga, Maga is sick. So you know, just recently, Donald Trump, who makes news on a regular basis, made news when asked at a town hall Fox town Hall with Sean Hannity whether or not if he were reelected he would weaponize his office go on a campaign of retribution, and his response was, I'll only be a dictator on day one. He said this to rousing applause

from the audience. His threats have become louder, and they have increased in their volume, and his supporters are lapping it up as well as watching Biden's pull numbers continue to drop. And every time I post a video, people telling me that they're not voting for him and they're just not going to vote. What's the diagnosis here? What the hell is going on?

our prestige, We're out of everything's out of whack. You know, people are burning stuff in the streets and critical race theory and all that kind of stuff. So there's a massive, massive, massive machine that we should talk about. This we're contributing to also, right, I mean, we are totally contributing to this. And before even Gaza or anything, you know, we were playing into this. But this idea of we're going to burn it down like that just feeds into their narrative.

And then Trump says, I, like your quote this morning on television was perfectly right, his quote at the NRA convention, I alone can fix it. That basically, I'm the only person who can come in and control all of these unruly liberals and people of color and you know whoever else, everybody else. And so in that sense, on one hand, this is kind of what we're seeing in the world right which is the world's out of control because of because COVID made people feel like, you know, governments couldn't

protect them. And then whatever side you're on, I mean, if you're Ukrainian or Israeli or just watch the news, this idea that governments there's a social contract or governments can can can protect people kind of breaks down when governments act in the way that Putin did or that you know, the Israel The response is now and stuff like that. And so in a way, this idea that this kind of social contract we used to have, which was that states, states will can will protect you is

is is not a contract anymore. And then people turn to like, well, if they have a strong man, we want a strong man. And so it's really dangerous right now because the more strong man Trump is, the more he plays into that narrative like there's only one guy in the world who can come in and restore order to all this shit, and it's me and it's not you know, that other guy who doesn't look like he

can complete a sentence or something like that. And so in a way, you know, we're gonna have to figure out really quickly a strategy for this, because it is quite it is quite serious. Right now, as you rightly sounded the alarm today.

He is absolutely not. Is that some for some reason, the rhetoric that Donald Trump is offering, which to me is a more dangerous than it was in twenty twenty, is more dangerous than it was in twenty sixteen, doesn't seem to be resonating with people. And I want to know, why do you think that is right? The things that he's saying are increasingly wild, right, and yet there isn't an alarm that is being sounded. What I said on MSNBC was, you know, Donald Trump needs to stop being

covered entertainment, right. He needs to be covered as a danger and as a threat. And you know, and when you say that, you're going to shut down a news network. Right when you say that you're going to jail your political opponents and you know that there will be no guard rails this time around. I just don't understand why people are willing to risk it.

this like populism fascism card against the establishment. There are just so many people who number one, feel like they're getting screwed by the system right now. And number two, there's the vengeance narrative that Trump's going to come in and he's going to take your side against your enemies. It's a slippery slope because his enemies changed every minute. But it's also like, you know, what do we need

to elect Biden? We need a coalition of people working for the common good, across across divides, all those kind of things, and that logic is just incredibly difficult. So it's beyond just not knowing what Trump is going to do.

It's also that the conditions, right, the conditions are really ripe for somebody like Trump to make sense to a lot of disaffected people beyond even his base, right people, communities of color, Arab Americans who feel like Biden hasn't done enough in the Middle East, Jewish Americans who feel like Biden hasn't done enough to stand up for anti symptism.

It's just like fill in the gap here. And that's why, like all these things have kind of led to this, right the Elon Musk like, I don't know, I was thinking about this day, Like I don't really even care about Twitter that much anymore. He used to be like a core of my life.

And so you know the political system, obviously, people are very adamized, and so this would be a hard job for any candidate, honestly, but it's a particularly hard job for a candidate who, as you know, I've been voicing concerns about for two years on this show because I just think that right now you need more like what Briden Biden brought the first time four years ago was

the promise of a return to the Obama days. But now you need somebody powerful and forceful and unifying and charismatic to bring together all these factions.

of work together. So I do think that your guest, your other guest on the show today was probably onto something when she said the only thing they have going is running against Trump. It's not it's not the positive message that Biden won on last time. But I just think it's a scary time because Biden just barely won last time anyone, because there were a lot of swing voters who came over to his side. And so it's a it's a it's a dangerous moment. I mean, thankfully we still have group on.

that he knew the people, we have no idea. At this point. To me, it just doesn't matter anymore what the motivation? I mean, am I I know I said this to you recently, but it's like, am I crazy to not care what is motivating people to gun violence? Because it's just another day in America?

threaten share humanity. And so for me, like these mass shootings were kind of canaries in the coal mine of much bigger problems, which is that our fractures are so big that we can't actually work, you know, there's external threats, but then when internal threats that threaten the well being of society are not dealt with by coalition, that's when

you really realize that there's a fracture. So that's why I called my book what We've Become, because you know, if you remember back, think about like Columbine or Sandy Hook, like the whole country would stop for a month and say, what the hell? How do we get here? And now it's just, unfortunately, like part of daily life. And so that's kind of where I got the title of my book is what does it mean to the soul of

a nation when you habituate criminality like this? And it actually means that you value life less, but you also value democracy less.

from why I'm trying to raise alarms. You're trying to raise alarms all sorts of things, and like if all you hear is an alarm, it starts to become white noise.

we're at right now. It's it's a it's a scary time, but it's also like, I mean, the challenge for people like us, right is how can you tell people Now It's not even just I mean people have seen Trump, right, It's not like you're going to shock them by reminding them of Trump, Like people have seen Trump and Trump is out there, but it's more like how can you tell people that their decisions now have consequences, right, I mean, that's really the issue, that voting matters, that checking out

is giving up for future generations, all these kind of things. So it's more like, you know, we talked about this a bunch before, but like those those disinformation people in the first Trump election, who were they weren't trying to convince people to vote for Clinton. They were trying to convince people not to vote, saying your vote doesn't matter. That's kind of the same message here, So that's part of it. But then I don't know, this is kind of an aside, a little bit of an aside, and

I apologize, But there was an interesting article. There's this new book about the Squad, you know, I've.

so it's on the left. And so it's just hard to know with everything floating around right now, like when are we making a real decision? What's real? What's fake? This? You know, remember twenty sixteen, like the idea that Trump said fake news was like really radical, and now the trust in the truth is zero, right, and so in a way you just don't know, like when am I being manipulated? Where is this coming from? All this kind of thing, So there's also just kind of a who

do you trust? Thing? And again, all these things mobilized toward dictatorship, right, everybody's yeah, you know, rolling toward dictatorship. So disrupting that has to mean people feeling like their vote matters, like they matter, people feeling like information is trustworthy, Biden doing remember that movie Cocoon, like where they jump in the pool, you know, need some shit like that,

like a lot of things of that eighties. Yeah, and in fact, maybe they jumped into king spawn now that I think about it, But I'm sorry, I want to make that joke until it's funny. But but but but I would just say that you know, all these things are conspiring, and so it's a big hill, right. I mean, honestly, I can tell you I wish we had a different deck of cards right now, but this is the deck we got, and so we just got to kind of mobilize.

But there's a lot of I mean, I mean, just think of think about everything that happened since Hamas and Gaza, right, I mean, like the the coalition that needed to band together to fight all this shit.

protest vote situation. This is not a you know, I'm going to sit this one out and think that you're going to get a do over in you know, in twenty twenty eight, Like if Donald Trump becomes president again, he is the last president of the United States, and everyone needs to like wrap their fucking brains around that, yeah, and make the decisions that they need to make about like their freedom and safety moving forward. Like that's what

you're voting for. You're not voting for a person. You're voting to decide whether or not you want to continue to live as free and safe as possible.

was Also, the midterms are state politics. But the reason I still thought we should have made a change at that time was that the election is electoral college politics, and so it's you can have a very strong state level candidate, but but now you've got to play the electoral college game, which means like convincing people in state that are probably enamored by you know, the the Jeffrey Epstein, flying Kennedy guy or Cornell West for whatever reason, or

whoever else. So you know, the words like it's not just about like your vote, it's about the vote of people now in you know, yeah, like think of think of all the people who voted. I mean, think about what happened before, right Trump got on stage in a debate sweating from COVID and scared the shit out of Independence and something kind of similar, you know, like it pushed people in the middle, and so you've got to think about the people in the middle right now.