American Hate

We would look no further than the killings, the continued killings of unarmed black people during at the very height of the global health pandemic that not even during that time in twenty twenty did we see a reprieve from

police violence against unarmed black people. We also saw in twenty twenty our own president at that time, Donald Trump, use the Asian community as his battering ram, referring to COVID nineteen as an ethnic slur as a way to defer responsibility for his ineptitude in taking action against COVID nineteen when at first set its sights on the United States and instead would blame Asian Americans for the fact

that COVID nineteen would reach our shores. During this time, we would see an absolute and intense rise in hate crimes against the Asian population here so much so that there was a hashtag created Stop Asian Hate, so much so that legislation was created to acknowledge the rise in Asian hate. Then we would experience in twenty twenty one, a continuation of the violence against Black Americans which we have been experiencing since we were shackled and brought to

this country. We would continue to see the hatred lauded against the Latin X community, against undocumented immigrants, against Asians, and then once again we were to return to ye old faithful, which is using Muslims as a pinata in this country, particularly by Republican members of Congress, threatening the lives of their own colleagues. You know, there was a report that was buried a decade ago that talked about the rise in white supremacy in America and the rise

in hate and hate groups. It was buried because, of course, anything that mentions the word white. You know, law enforcement intelligence agencies don't like to pay attention to They'd much rather focus their people on the perceived enemy, right, which has always been people of color. That's why they were created to protect white people from people of color. The reality is is that I don't think that the hate we have seen thus far has even reached a fever pitch.

That's what scares me the most. We have leaders in power, because there are leaders, and then there are leaders that actually pull the power and pull the levers of power, who want to create their own armies like death santis, who praise white supremacist militia, like Donald Trump, who want to embrace murderers like Lauren Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates. And I wonder where it's all headed. You know, I can remember and excuse me because I

can't remember his name. I like to these things out. There is a Republican member of Congress that said, well, we have more bullets on our side because they are itching for a new civil war. And I remember being on Sirius XM and having a caller say, Danielle, We're in a silent civil war right now, one that is being fought with words and the media and enforced with policy. You see, when we look around right now, we have

no voting rights legislation. After the world watched the excruciating murder of George Floyd, the legislation that bears his name is currently dead in the Senate. With no hopes of revival, because it was disingenuous to believe in the first place that Republicans would do anything about qualified immunity, right because you know, you put on a badge. So long as you're not protecting the Capitol building, you put on a badge, and you get to do whatever the fuck you want.

You get to both go through training, hold a gun, but still fear for your life by unarmed civilians, and then have no accountability and responsibility to the actions that you take because all you're a police officer, and God forbid we were to dissolve qualified immunity, which would then maybe have these officers, who we continue to refer to as just a collective group of bad apples instead of

the poison orchard that they come from. Maybe they would think twice about you know what Kim Potter did, which is say, oh, I thought it was my taser, but it was really a gun, and then take a twenty year old away from his friends, his family, and his child. American hate is real, and we saw its bare face on January sixth. The screams, the racial slurs, the taunting, the red faces, demanding their country back very reminiscent of

the lynching photos of yesteryear or present day. If you look at the McMichaels and what they were able to do to Ahmad Aubrey, and without the outrage from the public, we would have never received guilty verdicts, we would and have received a trial, and they never would have been arrested. So how many stories do we not hear about? How many acts of violence and hate never reach national news, never trend on social media, names that we will never know. You know, it was a big deal when the Lynching

Museum was created, the Lynching Memorial. It was a big deal because the country I had never seen it before. It was a physical representation in Alabama that would showcase on six acres overlooking the Alabama state Capital, some of the many victims of American white supremacy. It would force people to have to reckon with what has been so long buried in this country, which is why you have Republicans right now fighting against a curriculum that doesn't even exist.

Because the mere thought of what history would look and read and sound like outside of the white gays is terrifying, is enough to be a campaign tool. Your kids shouldn't be subjected to the truth your kids shouldn't know about the fact that black people have always lived in fucking terror that was condoned, that was legalized for centuries. This is what The New York Times wrote back in twenty

eighteen about the memorial. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens Thursday on a six acre site overlooking the Alabama State Capital, is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy, and it demands a reckoning with one of the nation's least recognized atrocities, the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades long campaign of racial terror. At the center is a grim cloister, a walkway with eight hundred weathered steel columns, all hanging from a roof.

Etched on each column is a name of an American county and the people who were lynched there, most listed by name, many simply as unknown. The columns meet you first at eye level, like the headstones that lynching victims were rarely given. But as you walk, the floor steadily descends. By the end, the columns are all dangling above, leaving you in the position of the callous spectators in old photographs of public lynchs. Hate is not new to America.

If you are any student of American history at all, then you would know it's what it was founded on.

We love the stories, the whimsical tales of the first Thanksgivings and the gatherings, and the indigenous population meeting, the welcoming the pilgrims at the shor's end, only to literally be shot in the back, scalped, raped, and infected with deadly viruses that their bodies hadn't developed immunities too, only to then be picked up and put on small plots of land that they would struggle to be able to grow food on, to exist on, spiraling them into generations

of alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, and worse, suicide rates on those reservations are higher than the nation's suicide rates. You would never learn until maybe recently, that America had had a legacy of stealing, kidnapping Native American children, forcing them into residential schools where they would beat them into submission, and for those that they could not break, they would then just end up burying them in mass graves. That's

the truth of American hate. We, of course, have many inflection points over the course of the two hundred and seventy plus years of our existence. But it's the story that we as a collective don't ever tell, except in moments of great grief, like watching George Floyd take his last breath by calling out for his dead mother. Coming up is my conversation that took place in May with the editor at Large for The Daily Beast, Molly jung Fast,

and we delve into American hate. Friends. I am so so so excited to welcome to woka F Daily for the very first time. My friend Molly jung Fast. You may have read her, You read her, you listen to her. She's the editor at Large for The Daily Beast as well as one of the co hosts for the New Abnormal podcast with The Daily Beast. Molly, let me tell you one, congrats on all of the stories that the

Daily Beast has been breaking left and right. I think that the coverage has been fantastic around Republicans, around Matt Gates. Let's start with where Republicans are right, like where we are in our political landscape right now, we have, in my humble opinion, one political party and one cult. What do you think about how Let's let's look at their reactions to Biden's joint session last week and what they were applauding and what they were refusing to applaud to.

What do you think the Republican Party stands for these days? You know, that was that moment when the GOP leader refused to applaud clean water right because also child poverty right, child poverty. I mean again, you know, the problem is they are basically right, they believe the election. I mean, they just have these like insane beliefs. Right, they don't

believe the election that Biden won the election. They believe that Trump is still president, right, they believe you know, there's a forty percent of Republicans don't want to take the vaccine. I mean, we've sort of gone through the looking glass with this group. And I don't know. I mean again, like it's like I was watching the MSSEN today and we're listening to, you know, our Republicans going to compromise an infrastructure, like, you know, they didn't even

accept the election results. Like, how are you going to make a deal with these people when they are so not so Yeah, I don't know what happens. I mean it just seems crazy to me. You know, one of

the other things too. And I was on MSNBC, you know, over the weekend, and you know, I was on Reverend al Show and he's asking, you know, what are we doing with Kristen Cinema and Joe Mansion, right, like they are and I keep referring to them as Democrats in sheep's clothes, like democrats and Republicans in sheep's clothing, right, like they are not even democrat light, Like they are becoming just as big of an obstacle as the Republican

Party is. How do we manage them? And the fact that Joe Mansion's like, no, DC doesn't deserve the right to vote, and no, the infrastructure bill is going to cost too much money, and no on all of these things, like essentially signing with Republicans. But he's supposed to be a Democrat. Well, Mansion is a harder is a harder lift than Cinema, right, because Mansion is an unreplaceable politician.

You don't you can't primary Mansion. Mansion is Mansion. He is the only Democrat that could conceivably win that seat. Cinema is a different story, right, because that's a very liberal and much more liberal state that is really turning blue, and so she really could she's really out of step with her party, right with mansion. You could see rural of West Virginia, even though these are people who would benefit a lot from infrastructure and brought you know, this

is a place where they really actually do. I mean, where I live, broadband is not going to change my life, but where in some parts of West Virginia really will. So I don't quite know what his calculus there is. I do think like this should fall on the Biden administration to go and talk to him, you know, I mean, certainly the first thing that needs to happen is the voting rights bill, the H one, and like that has to happen because that is about democracy right and keeping

democracy going. And so if it were me, I would go to them and get them on that and do that as like you can. You can sort of fix it, so you don't you have a filibuster list bill with that one bill, And so I would do that, and then I would go into infrastructure. Infrastructure is a longer conversation. The voting writes is number one in my mind, and

so I think that's really important. But yeah, no, it's a problem, and I think that some of this needs Biden administration needs to go in there and explain to them. I mean with Cinema. Mark Kelly is up for reelection in two years, right, so she can't there really is her inability to do the things she needs to do for her party could have real, real world results. Now, the interesting thing is Mark Kelly is much more popular in Arizona than she is, so you do have an

interesting dynamic there. But yeah, no, I think number one is protect voting rights. Number one is make sure that companies are that the companies in these states where there is this move towards anti democracy, that they're speaking out right. So like Florida just passed So we have Georgia pass this really bad bill and now Florida just passed it. And Florida's bill also has these like you can run

over protesters in your car. Yeah yeah, so I mean that needs to be like we need companies in Florida. And I know Ronda Santists. I mean it's so interesting because like Republicans used to be so pro business and now they are super into trying to punish businesses for not doing what they want, which is like such a strange kind of chrony capitalism, but like we need businesses to stand up and push back against some of this and say like no, you know, I mean, I mean,

I think like we have to. There are activists in Georgia who I'm sure you know, who are like on the ground, who have sort of had good direction on what to do exactly in Georgia, but certainly in Florida.

I mean, that's a bigger shoe, you know. I think that what is incredibly troubling right now, what I'm concerned about with the Biden Harris administration is that we're looking at all of these other pieces of legislation, We're looking at this double infrastructure bill, We're looking at the George Floyd Police Reform bill, but there isn't as fervent a

conversation happening around voting rights. And in my opinion, just like you laid out, I'm like, if we don't do that next right as the clock is running out, as we're heading into midterms, then this is going to be a one term presidency for Biden and Harris because people aren't going to be able to vote. So why do you think that their focus is not here or is their focus there? As well as all of these other things, but it's not receiving the type of attention it should.

I don't know. I mean, the voting Rights Bill is not sexy, and I don't know how you pass it because you don't have ten Republicans whore at all. I mean, like one of the quote unquote sanist Republicans. And I'm not saying I'm saying this is like to show how unsane she is is Susan Collins, And Susan Collins said that Democrats are all part of like a woke mob this weekend, like, I mean, she didn't quite say that,

but I mean, it's completely insane. If you think about where Republicans are, like supporting a lie that the election didn't even happen, right, it's crazy. So I do think there aren't many sane Republicans, So I don't know how. I mean, I think it's scary and it's hard to do, but I think it's important, and I think it's more important honestly than infrastructure right now, and then George Floyd policing,

which is also super important. I mean. The good news with that is it feels like there's more there's a bipartisan at at you know, I mean, I don't know that Republicans really have Like, it's hard for me to imagine Republican Republicans having a good faith effort on anything. But if they are, you know, Tim Scott would be the is in my mind, the only one who would have any you know, so we'll see, I mean he does.

It's at least we have a Republican who's interested in doing something, which is sort of very much his star change from the usual. I want to talk about Matt Gates. Yeah, and the fact that he's a creep, which you have written about on numerous occasions, and the Daily Beast is breaking stories left and right. Where do you think that

this story goes? And whether or not Republicans are going to be forced into a corner or can be forced into a corner with getting him off of the committees, right, Like, we know that Democrats have the ability to do that, but Republicans have been silent. They say things like the accusations are super serious, but they're not calling for anything.

So is this just them being okay with embracing you know, sex with miners, and okay with trafficking and okay with all of these things like where do Democrats step in to own the narrative around this? You know, I think Republicans will do what they can get away with. I mean, that's what we've seen in Trump worlds, right that it just there's no bar too low. So I think it's possible that they don't ever call on him to resign, that they just let it play out. I don't know.

You know, there was a lot of speculation that there was really really that this was much worse than anyone knew. There definitely is a seventeen year old girl, I think she's a eighteen now who is like who exists, but she won't talk. So until she'll talk, I don't know what they do there. There definitely is Gates's friend, and did is doing a plea deal, so maybe he can roll on Gates. I don't know. I mean a lot

of things have to happen. Remember, Gates has this very wealthy Florida Republican family that's working hard to protect him, so you know, he's kind of ensconced, and he is a congressman, you know, he's not a senator, and he is from a very red district. I mean, if it were me and it were my party, I would want him out because he's so problematic, and you know, any Republican can win that seat anyway. You know, it's not a situation where you have a Republican in a blue seat.

You have a Republican or a very red seat. So I don't know. I mean, I think it's unlikely that. I don't think Republicans are motivated by like doing the right thing. I mean evidently, I mean that's clear. So I think it's I don't know how that goes or what happens, but it's not It is not great for them. What platform are they standing on these days? Or does it?

It doesn't matter, I guess because here we have forty three states right now with over three hundred voters suppression bills right that are specifically targeting black and brown people. We have them attacking our elections, we have them attacking the judiciary with all of the three hundred plus federal judges that Mitch McConnell sat. We have very slim majorities in both the House and the Senate, and then we have elections coming up mid terms. Yeah, how do you

see this playing out for our democracy? I won't even say for Democrats, for our democracy? Because I've been saying I said that the election was like a band aid, right, that there was going to need to be a lot more that was done. Yeah, I mean, historically, the party in power has never done well in the mid terms. If Trump doesn't get re platformed, I don't think Trump will have the same power that he's had before, which

is good. I could see a world where, I mean, it seems like from what I've heard from people who around Trump, you know, in that world, they're very frustrated. They feel like he's not doing anything anymore and that he just like takes people to the omelet station and plays golf. But isn't that what he's doing. It's what he always and also the question the truth is, it's what he always did. But he and even his son don't seem all that interested in like continuing their political life,

even though there is tweeting. So I don't know. I mean, I could see. I mean, he's sort of he's sort of gone out and said that he sees Rohn de Santists as the heir apparent. What's scary is that, you know, Trump is very anti democratic and he's also very you know, sleazy and not smart and misogynistic and racist. But what's scary to me is, like the Santists is not wildly different, He's just a lot smarter. So how that goes down

is kind of scary there. You know, over the weekend, there was video that was shown, you know, as we're looking at the trend of Republicans going to the sleeves, there is was a video of Mitt Romney right out at giving a speech and he was damn near booed off of the stage once he said, once he started to question out loud the character of Donald Trump. What do you think that that signals to him and all

and the Republican Party as as a whole. Regardless of whether Trump is replatformed, which I don't think should happen and we'll talk about in a second, is that normal middle of the road Republicans don't exist anymore? And the ones that do their own people hate. Yeah. I mean that was pretty intense watching that video of him. Ah, yeah, No, I think that's right. There aren't any more of these modern Republicans. I mean, you see this with Liz Cheney.

They're trying to deep you know, she's number three in the Republican Party and they want her out because she's indefficiently umpy. I mean, it seems to me the Republican Party is like trumpy and racist. They're against like you know, every they're anti anti racist, you know, they're anti like,

you know, education basically. So I don't know, And I mean I think some of it is they've managed to focus on, you know, getting some groups excited about Republicanism with misinformation, right and lies and Q and on and really scary stuff. So I don't know. I mean, I I there wasn't a lot of sane people in the Republican Party to start with, but they're gone, like the Will Hurts and the people who were at all reason

of are gone. I don't know how you still have I don't know how like the few people left there, like the Tim Scotts, still stay and and it's really sad. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the Republican Party, but I do think that American politics works better when

you don't have one party that's completely insane. I mean, are they going to completely cannibalize themselves because people, you know, during the twenty twenty election, I think it was the largest if I'm not mistaken, on registering as a Republican that we had ever seen, and yet they still hold power in thirty five states right where they where are red states with red governors and at the state legislature.

So it's like, will they cannibalize themselves enough or is this just this is just the way that it is. And America is essentially a stool, a two legged stool.

I don't think that it can stick around like this, Like, I think it's kind of you can't have a situation like this, like either Trump comes back and he goes for democracy and decides to sort of destroy it, which I think is actually not as likely as a more likely scenario, which is you have a Roda Santa who's a little smarter and chips away at it if he wins, which you may not. Um, I don't I think it will. I don't know. It may get worse before it gets better,

but it may not. I mean, like part of what's happened is Trump has really ginned things up. You know, He's made everybody kind of crazy, and so it's possible that if he goes away, that sort of that craziness dies down. Remember, like the people like by, they like him, they like the infrastructure, they like the no drama. You know, he's sort of boring. There's not anything they can attack that's like inherently you know, he's just sort of an old white guy, you know. So I do think, like,

I don't know. I mean, I think if you if you take down the temperature, you take down the temperature, right, So if you stop, like one of the problems with COVID and the vaccine is that Trump for so long was pushing so many lies about the virus that like his supporters really did get a lot of missing ration. But if Trump goes away, you sort of have that kind of lull. So I don't know, it could go either way. What do you think about the replatforming situation?

And again, like you'd mentioned at the beginning, Florida going to try and penalize social media platforms for not agreeing with them. And this was the party of big business, right, Like, this is the party if CEOs and shareholders as long as they keep their mouth shut and fill their coffers. But now these CEOs and shareholders are just like whoa, you all are stepping a line. You have jumped the shark in terms of like what is considered acceptable and

what is not. And so do you think that Trump gets replatformed or do you think that social media companies and other companies begin to sue gop legislatures. Well, it'll be interesting, you see, right, Like there's a bunch of things that have happened over the last week, right like Dominions held with Newsmax, right, so they're getting ready, and

you know, once they're settling, then there's culpability. So now Dominion can go to Fox, and Dominion can go to Trump and Dominion, you know, they have this lawsuit and they've really had damages, right because now red states don't use dominion voting machines even though they're the same as all the other voting machines, just because of a trumpy lies. So you know, there's a lot of legal recourse for

corporations in America, And so I could see that. I don't know how I mean, this idea that they're going to punish social media platforms for being unsufficiently trumpy in Florida, I don't even know how that would work. I don't even know, right, Like, I mean, it's not what are you going to ban it from the state. You can't get Facebook if you're in Florida, but you can get it in Alabama. I mean, like you can't. I don't

know how. I mean, it seems like a dumb like foura into the culture wars, you know, like Mitch McConnell going after the sixteen nineteen project Jack, Like it just doesn't. It seems like more of like anti virtue signaling than actual like things you could conceivably do in the real world. So I don't know it's the answer. Why do you

think you know? My last question for you, I mean, I'm so glad that you brought up the sixteen nineteen project because let me tell you, I don't think that I have seen outside of them attacking the LGBTQ community in the beginning of the early two thousands, in late nineteen nineties, this type of targeted attack on a different on the actual the true narrative of America, which is what the sixteen nineteen Project presents. Why are they so

crazed by this? Why is it something that they are willing to go to the mats for suspend grants, shut down public schools like do the most so that this Pulitzer Prise winning piece of work is not shared in schools yeah, and it's so weird because like this is a group that does not care about any thing, right, I mean they totally I mean you know they care. I mean it's sort of good they're caring about books, right, But um no, I think it's just racism. I really do.

I think it's just like, you know, these are their hits, right, like target someone. So like this is an easy one because it's like, you know, we don't want our kids to be exposed to being taught about history. Like that's not okay. So yeah, I mean I think that's what it is. It's it's it's enraging to me because I feel like we have a chance to like do some

things to you know. What's interesting is like if you see the polling right and this is like I don't know if you saw this weekend I was reading saying about Barack Obama. But like when Barack Obama was born, there was like poll that like seven percent of Americans agreed with interracial marriage. Right now it's like ninety seven percent. Like it's so nobody care, you know. And that's like

gay marriage too, Like people were very instant. Yeah, nobody cares, and so like they know, I think a lot of Republicans know they're losing the culture wars, like that people don't care what other people do with their lives because it's none of their fucking business. Excuse my friend. And so um, it's the situation where you have these Republicans who are like, if we can't fight people and discriminate against them, then what do we do? Right? And especially

because Mada corporate, I mean the corporate tax stuff. I have to tell you, I'm starting interrupting because you please, no, go, but the corporate tax stuff. They are fighting so hard to keep this tax rate, like um, Biden wants to bring up the tax rate to where it was when Trump brought it down twenty nine twenty eight percent. Remember it was up to mid third. Yeah, and they are

like desperately don't want this corporate tax rate race. But they also want to punish corporations for I mean, for saying that you know they don't want I mean, it's just like a completely crazy thing. So it's very infuriating to me. You know, it is very infuriating. And you know, I know that you have like you have a son, right, and I'm just curiously you have two. I'm just curious, like do you see how I mean I ask this of parents often, do you see hope in the upcoming generation?

Or are they gonna be so like outdone and over politics and over this this kind of crap country that we're leaving for them. It's filthy, it is, you know, filled with police killing people. We have you know, where we can't get people to clap for clean water and ending of child poverty. Like do you think that your kids generation, Like are they coming in like gangbusters and saying, so, we're gonna we're gonna take this ball over the line or are they just like forget, forget this, We're all

out for ourselves. No. I mean I have three kids, three teenage, and I think I mean, certainly two of my kids are pretty committed. I mean I always say to my kids though, because I you know, I say to them, like, think you are so lucky, Like there are kids your age who are getting stopt by the police, right, I mean, who are getting murdered by the police for having like a cell phone. So I'm like always like,

you are so lucky. You have so much privilege. You don't realize that you're sitting you know, I mean, you're safe in a way that a whole group of people are not. And so I think they know how lucky they are. But I think they're also very disturbed by how fucked up American society is. So I do think that my kids will be involved in that. And I

don't think that I think this. I mean, I think why Republicans are sort of grabbing on so tight, it's because they know that the next generation isn't like them, right. I mean, people largely don't care. You know, nobody can nobody can hare ors who you marry and who you love, right. I mean that's not something like I feel like people are less and less and it's so funny because it's like,

here's a Republican party, right. They don't want you to tell corporations they can't pollute, right, but they do want to care who you marry, you know. I mean it's just so I do think ultimately, I think ultimately the younger generation is really good. I mean, the question is do we stop the climate change stuff before it kills them?

And I don't know. I honestly I don't know. Yeah, I really don't, because every administration we kick the can further and further down right, and we're kicking it off of a cliff at this point with the rate that we have glaciers melting, with the rate of forest fires.

You know, we forgot that in the midst of the beginning of the coronavirus, there were a billion animals that were lost on the planet from the fires that were happening in Australia and then the fires that were happening in California, and we just kind of went about our business as if that's normal, and it's not. Yeah, exactly, I just worry. I worry too. Yeah, No, I do too. Last thing for you is, you know, what do you

think the responsibility is of media right now? Because I still feel like media doesn't ask the right questions, doesn't hold the right people accountable, and the flood of misinformation makes it less so for us to get on the same page. Well, I would say the biggest thing that needs to happen is that the murdocks need to be held responsible, either financially or legally for the kind of

division that they sew in American society. And I don't know exactly how you do that, but like the fact they are so much they push so much disinformation into the ether that that is incredibly problematic in my mind. So I would say that's the first thing is to hold you know, the Murdoch's need to be I mean it's like a joke. I mean I was thinking about this the other day. Rupert Murdoch lives in London got

vaccidated in December lock when Murdoch lives in Australia. I mean, these people are not living in the mess they're creating.

That is really bad. I also think like we need a mainstream media not to platform people who supported the January sixth insurrection and they and that means you know, those are people like Marsha Blackburn and you know Rick Santaur who still has a CNN deal, right Rick Santaoram who still has a But also like the senators like Josh Holly, like you know, Washington Post should not have Josh Holly on a on a you know, they should not be platforming him like the you know there, so

that needs to happen and they there needs to be accountability there. Um So yeah, no, I do think there needs There's a lot that needs to be happening there. I mean, God, will we will see something. I like to hold onto my mustard seed of hope as it pertains to the next generation. But my god, I don't think if any other prior generation has fucked up as much as as this one, and so I'm like, I'm

terrified for what we're handing them to. Molly, thank you so much for making time to join woke app daily. You'll have to come back again. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you so much. Oh, the feeling is mutual. I love seeing you. Thank you. That is it for me today. Friends on woke app as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.