Confluence of Destruction

of this country. How do you fight back against people who are becoming increasingly extreme using every disgusting word, playbook strategy that they can get their hands on. I listened this week to a clip of Perdue in Georgia, who is going to most likely be facing off against Stacy Abrams for the governorship along with Brian Kemp, but we're

not being troubled with him at the moment. Purdue, in an interview said about Stacy Abrams that if she doesn't like the way that things are, she should quote go back to where she came from. Where would that be exactly Wisconsin where she was born. Because when you say things like go back to your country, which, by the way, soft plug for my co host of Democracy Ish. That is the title of his book, go Back to Where You came From. When you say things like that, what

exactly are you saying? You are saying, in fact, that black and brown people are not from here, right, that we do not belong and so they are before we should go back to where we came from. Funny enough, though,

white people were not fucking born here. And that's the thing that I get so frustrated about when we talk about curriculum and education and they're pushback against critical race theory, which by the way, is not taught in K through twelve schooling, but the very idea and concept that they don't even know their own fucking history right, which is built on lies, the gas lighting of their exceptionalism and

them alone and the degradation of everyone else. So when you have built up an entire public education system that is about perpetuating those lies, you have a fucking Purdue and the Republican Party that comes out of their mouth with hot trash like go back to where you came from because they don't understand or care about the founding of this country. Then indigenous Native people, whom they nearly wiped off the map, which is exactly what they're trying

to do now. I want us to piece together and begin to do what the mainstream media doesn't do, which is connect all of these dots. These are not isolated statements or isolated scenarios like the massacre that happened in Buffalo. These are not things that are happening in isolation. They are part of a coordinated plan and entity to in fact run people either out of this country or to

have them live under certain threat and fear. We'll have a conversation later in the week with a doctor Brittany Cooper, which I will tell you that when I finished that interview, I felt invigorated, and I haven't felt invigorated, as I've said to all of you over the past couple of days, because I'm feeling really depressed, defeated, and like I'm a part of the losing team, and I don't like to lose.

But the Democrats are showing absolutely no ability to even create a plan to see us out of the dire situation that we are in. And Britney Cooper laid out the truth as a historian. She'll tell us later in the week that look I don't see a way out of this where violence is not a part of the equation.

And so if we can see things like that, right and see that these iterations of what happened in Buffalo, what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin, what happened in Charlottesville, what happened in Charleston, when you see these things and what happened in our passo, and we can continue to list on because the amount of racially hate motivated crimes that have been happening in this country, and according to many reports, the FBI had a report twelve years ago that told

us that all of this was coming. And do you know what they decided to do shelve it? And why

did they decide to do that? Oh, let me tell you, well, it has everything to do with politics, because you see, Democrats continually want to operate from the place that if we are not using our power for the benefit of the people that actually put us in power, if we seem as if we're willing to come to the table and essentially negotiate on the backs of the very people who put us in office, and we don't ruffle too many feathers, then when Republicans take control they'll be nice

to us. That was the thinking when the report was first surfaced, where it said, hmm, there's a rise in white extremist terrorists, violence, and groups and they are linked to the Republican Party. Well, Republicans didn't like that, and neither did the Obama administration, because the Obama administration thought that if they just ignored the threats that were on the horizon, then they could get some GOP members to vote for healthcare. Well, we all know how that turned out.

And so now we're in this situation again, not just because of Republicans lies and their desire to shelf this report. That would literally have provided a pathway for us on how we I don't know, developed task force and teams or do what the Department of Justice has decided so quickly to do with regard to Russia and the oligarchs. Oh, we put together a quick task force, and we're seizing yachts and we're doing all of these things. Look at

us busy and fighting for democracy. Maybe had somebody not taken the FBI's White Supremacy report and shelved it, maybe there would have been task force and teams that were put in place that had begun to infiltrate and break up these groups and begin to arrest these people instead of allowing them to grow into the fucking federal movement that they are right now. Folks, it is the place

that we are in. With the more conversations that I have each and every week with some of our friends like doctor Jonathan Metzo, who has done and as he will tell us coming up next thirty seven interviews Jonathan did last week as the author of Dying of Whiteness, has been going on show after show after show because he thinks that it is his duty to explain to America, to the world the dire place that we are in, and that if Democrats don't begin to use the power

that they have for the limited amount of time, because we are running out of time. We are running up against midterms in less than six months at this point, that if we do not use that power, we are done. It isn't just hyperbole. These are historians and professors and activists and leaders that are all echoing the same thing.

You've listened to Glenn Kirshner every week. Tell us that you know, if the Department of Justice does not make moves in terms of indictments and accountability and responsibility for the insurrection in the next five to six months. Then I'm not sure what happens to our democracy and where we go. I have asked many of people, there is there a country that we can point to that is lost democracy and then been able to gain it back within the same generation, And the answer is no. So

what does that mean then for us? What does it mean then that the mainstream media continues to talk about the Republican Party as if they are a normal political party and as if this midterm cycle that we are up against is somehow Oh DEM's lose, will get another bite at the apple in two years. These people just listen to their candidates right now. I talked yesterday, But the candidates in their guns, babies and god. These are the things that you would see in like twelfth century

the religious Christian wars. This is what these people are readying themselves for. And we're all as Democrats the establishment, I should say, because not you, but the establishment is just sitting around as if oh, it's all just the people on the fringe. No. If you watched just a few minutes of the debate in Pennsylvania for the Republicans

vying for the Senate seat. There, you would have heard some of the most vile things that five, six, seven years ago would have never made it to anybody's main stage, let alone on anyone's ballot. But now you have to be as vicious, as racist, as misogynistic as possible. You have to be like the governor of Oklahoma who's saying, you're having a baby, whether you watch it or not, whether or not your life is on the line, we don't give a damn. But we certainly certainly are not

going to provide you with baby formula. We're certainly not going to provide you with a childcare tax credit, We're certainly not going to provide you with universal pre k any of those things whatsoever. But where are Democrats in terms of their pushback? I keep hearing folks say that, oh, yeah, well, women are really going to come out in mass for midterms. Well here's the thing, Black and brown women been coming out.

They vote over ninety of the fucking time. So is your hope, then, is our hope and prayer on the Karen's of the world coming to leave their Republican husbands and then decide that the Democratic Party is the party they want to stick with, because that sounds like we're putting a lot of hopes and dreams on a whole bunch of finger waving Karen's that can't be fucking trusted.

There has to be another plan. And what I'm beginning to see by virtue of all of the conversations that we've been having over the last couple of months on woke AF is that I think that we are our only plan. That it's going to be left up to the people because where the establishment is going is not

the direction that the people are going. And what pisses me off is that those motherfuckers will remain safe and okay for a certain amount of time before their Republican colleagues from across the aisle decide to throw their asses in jail and they become political prisoners when Republicans take over.

But they don't think that could ever possibly happen. I want us to start living in what we think could never happen, so that we're not caught off guard, because right now you have a democratic party that is just looking up in the air wondering how the fuck we got here, And I'm saying you've been institutionalized in Congress for decades. You all should have seen this coming, and you're still sitting around acting shocked. That's the fucking problem.

None of this should have been a shock. Five decades. Republicans have been trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. Since the end of the Civil War. They've been trying to refight relitigate the Civil War. And so now a confluence of perfect events bring us to this moment. And we have a political party that is supposedly in charge right now but has no idea what direction to point the

country in. And to me, that's terrifying. We rely on these people to be our voices and our representatives and they don't know which way is up Coming Up next, dear friends, my conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Matzol talking all about his premonitions around dying of whiteness. It's no secret that the news is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully, there's The Bituation Room podcast hosted by comedian and commentator Francesca Freer and Tiny for a lighter take on the

heavy stuff. Each week, the Bituation Room brings you progressive comedians, experts, and activists to break down the issues in a way that won't just leave you crying under a weighted blanket. Get the Bituation Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and streaming on YouTube and Twitch. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the

notable guest and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer look at how and why these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes

every Tuesday. Folks, you know that if it is a Wednesday, we are getting into an authentic, honest and in your face conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of the book Dying of Whiteness, Who knew the man was a prophet when he wrote that, Jonathan, it's another week and another level of I don't even know what to call it anymore. We have GOP candidates running

on who can be most racist. I think I heard in the Georgia race Perdue, who will most likely face off against Stacy Abrams say if she does unlike it, he or she can go back to where she came from. We have a case of a white man in I believe it was Wisconsin who was just sentenced to ten years in jail. What was his crime throwing acid on a Latin X man in his face because he said,

you're coming to replace us. We have so many of these incidents, none of them are being connected in the mainstream media to say, Wow, this Republican party, this climate that we are living in is becoming increasingly violent and extreme. What do you make of this, Jonathan, particularly at a time when the FBI will see Blower who said ten twelve years ago, white extremist violence is growing in this country. We need to have a plan for it. And it was shelved, and that was shelved by the way during

the Obama administration. So how do we move forward? How do we how do we how do we even we can't even move forward because I don't even think we recognize what we're sitting in. Yeah, it feels like it's I mean The thing is, like, it's not surprising if you if you think about the history of the history of America, right, I mean, it's very consistent with other times in history. It's other it's very consistent with pre

Civil rights era America. And so I feel like, in one way, we're reverting back to so much of the world order that was shaped, you know, for in globally after the Second World War, in America, after the Civil Rights era and the and the women's rights movement, we're kind of reverting back to what things were like before that, and so all of this stuff. It feels just with no disrespect to the white supremacist listeners of this show, so many of them. So it just feels it feels

so uncreative. If it's like that, you know, that's that's what you got. Like, it just seems like whatever. So maybe there's some genetic mutation or something just leads to expression of whiteness in this particular way or something. I don't know it's but it just feels so ah historical in a certain kind of way. And I guess part of the issue for me is, as you know, my argument always is if you don't change the structures that I mean, there's always going to be people with these

kind of views. But unless you change structures in ways that reward equity and collaboration and disincentivize this kind of racial resentment austerity, you're just going you just keep replying it. And unfortunately those structures seem to be so deeply deeply I don't know, things are really structurally bad right now, and I think we're seeing a reflection of it. And so part of the issue is we have these extreme issues that are on the news, and maybe the media

should do a better job of connecting them. But I've I've had a crazy week, man, I've had I did thirty seven media interviews last week after the Buffalo shooting, and I did everything from I did the crazy c Span across America for an hour last Friday morning. I've did MSNBC, I did a lot of like different kind of calling shows, and you kind of hear from people around the country, and I guess the issue is not

so much. I mean, definitely these massive things that make the news, but it's also like people's everyday opinions about things are so much I mean, I just I just got like nine hundred calls about stop saying white supremacy, it makes me feel bad, and all these kind of things, and so where it's kind of like there's a kind of backlash against any kind of racial progress right now in this country that I find to be even in some ways even more frightening than these horrifying but somewhat

isolated extremeist attack So let me let me ask this, because you know, you do do a ton of media, and unfortunately, every time something horrible happens, whether it's a mass shooting as was the case in Buffalo, if it is a mass shooting that is directly a hate crime as was Buffalo, you're the one that people call because whenever there's a manifesto about white supremacy, it's like doo doo, doo doo doo doo, dying of whiteness. What are the questions, however,

that the media is asking. Is it about unpacking where we are or is it the continuation to sensationalize it? Because what I feel, Jonathan, is that at this stage of the game where we are, the media is absolutely complicit in the violence that I see happening. And so I want to know from you, as going on all of these shows, what is the thread that you would

say is part of the questioning towards you. It's important to be having these conversations, and I don't want to discount the importance of kind of public recognition and awareness. But I also sometimes push back even on myself, even on my own participation in this, because what more do you need than a guy who wrote a one hundred eighty page manifesto and posted it online. It's not like there aren't connections that aren't made. It's more like, what

what are you going to do about it? In a way, And so I just don't want to overstate the power of the media, Like the media can expose and they can make connections, and they can do all these things, but if it's not tied to like a viable um, don't I don't. I don't blame the media as much as I do like the Democratic Party, for example. So tell it, but tell me why, because I blame the Democratic Party as well, But I have equal blame that is associated with the two of them. What is the

differentiation that you see. We're not living in an era where like shame motivates people like we can call that, we can call things out, expose it, throw shade on it do whatever we want all day, but that just

makes people more um embedded in their positions sometimes. But I do think, like, for example, there's a massively important election in Georgia today, for example, we're getting We're getting massively outvoted, and I realize we don't have a there's no conflict on the on the Democratic side, but who's the Democratic candidate in Georgia for the secretary of State or the election officials or things like that, Like the Republicans are swarming toward these election officials, and I feel

like it's got to lead to like massive mobilization of whatever political apparatus we have. And I realized we have the best person in front, Stacey Abrahams to do that, and maybe November will be the two testing ground. But I feel like we can yell and scream and expose as much as we can, but it's got to be tied to like some bigger strategy toward something right. And I just don't I don't know what our strategy is.

I see the other side getting really worked up, and of course there's this extremist violence at the at the tip of the iceberg, but beneath it is like a massive effort to mobilize in all these top to bottom elections and take over the apparatus of democracy. And I don't see a counter strategy really that's going to get people out to recognize like what's the role of the Secretary of State in Georgia for example, or something like that.

And so I've been I've been reading a lot of these focus groups recently, and people don't understand the democratic message. And people don't think it's just like, oh, protect democracy or Trump or you know, something like that. It's it's I don't know, there's got to be some unifying, mobilizing message that counters the Republican's message. So that to me is even I mean it's not like I'm comparing or anything like that, but I would say I'm worried about

I'm worried about that. I mean, I think that worries an understatement at this stage life point. You know, I don't even know what the word is that I would use, but worries seems light, you know, like, no, it's we live in an era where like people are with a street face saying the word monkey box. Like I totally agree with you that worries. Yeah, very nice Yeah, worries feels very early offs. Yeah, it feels it feels very ray through. Um panic, panic is more, is more? Is more?

The soup di you're here, Um when we are looking though, you know, for instance, because you bring up monkey Box and you know, my girlfriend said to me the other day, She's like, can we just take one crisis at a time? Why is everything happening in waves like and not? Like waves set up easily for surfers, you know when they come in and you can see the sets forming out. No, no, no, no, It's like a friggan tsunami just keeps hitting. So let's

transition into our public health crises. Let me let me say one thing about that first, if you don't mind, Like, it's just that the paradigm of what's possible in society and the world just keeps changing. Like I keep thinking about the conversation you and I had the week that Putin invaded the Ukraine, right and or Ukraine, and it was like we were it was we couldn't conceptualize that even that kind of warfare was possible in the world

right now. And so I was looking back on that interview the other day, just because we were talking about Rocky and the Russia, and you know, it just felt like, oh my god, this guy's like living in the eighties. And now four months later, like war is like it makes sense, right. The paradigm is regressive and it's depressing.

And it also within four months has gone from like completely a joke and like something from you know, the Iron Age or something, to now where it's like, oh, yeah, nations invade other nations and we're having this huge military build up, and so every one of these waves it really feels like it changes our perspective, like we're falling back into such darkness. It feels like in a way, but it's weird that I don't know, it's just weird that like warfare makes sense now in a way that

it didn't for four months ago. And I feel like every one of these things, like two weeks ago, monkeypox would be a joke from like the Wizard of Oz or something like that, and now we had got to worry about monkeypox. And so it's kind of like how many of these hits can you take, not just the crisis itself, but to like your entire worldview of like what's going to happen that's going to change the world and drive us back into you know, some prehistoric time

or something. You know. I'll tell you that as I every day, right, we all get updates on where we are with the war in Ukraine. And I listened to a analyst yes today say this is escalating into a world war. And I don't see how it doesn't continue to escalate into a world war. What do you make of that? Right like this, the world is already at

war with COVID. Now we have monkey pocks, we have literally we have literally issued every single type of foreseeable sanction for Russia and putin without putting troops on the ground, which we keep pushing back on. And I know neither one of us are foreign affairs experts, but if you pay attention these days, um and have been embedded in this, you understand what is at stake and what's at play.

I mean, is this just inevitable? Like inevitable? I mean we threatened China also yesterday, Oh I'm sorry, I decided to go to the bathroom, so I missed that. Yeah, it's it's not the surprise of all this is that

we grew up in an era like we've had. We had two World wars in the last century, right in the past century, and then the destruction was seemingly so terrifying based on the Holocaust and the atomic bomb and all those things that we put a world order into place that we grew we were born into, right, we grew up with that. Of course, there's the United Nations. Of course, a big nation doesn't eat a smaller nation. That kind of aggression was unheard of. And also a

public health apparatus. We grew up after the polio vaccine. We grew up after penicillin had been discovered. But if you look at the even the kind of history of humanity, most people grew up when there was war and pestilence, and so maybe the problem is we thought we had escaped all of that, and now we're getting taught lesson Maybe this is a challenge to humanity and we're going to join together at some point and work it all out.

I don't know, but it's it's like we're being challenged in a way that feels like very fourteen hundreds kind of, you know, But then you realize it's it's a humility, you know, with a bit of humility, you realize that most people in the history of humanity have grown up

with these kind of threats. It's just that we haven't because we we've grown up with a certain order, and that order in many ways, which was the result of so much death, destruction and destruction, and not just about world wars, but also people dying in support of the civil rights movement, people rallying in supportive women's reproductive rights. All those things were just so much more tenuous than we realized, and we didn't take the warning signs seriously enough.

And this pandemic has been tribalizing, multiplier on stage roids. All those things have happened, and so it feels like the world order that we've known is in the process of changing. And I don't know, I just some days I want to fight it and some days I want

to like just run away. Oh yeah, you know. It was funny because the other day I was saying that, you know, what is happening for me, because I want to shift with a couple of minutes, that we have to just talk about mental health, right, and how we were all managing or not managing frankly during this time, And you hit the nail on the head when you said we grew up at a time when we were the beneficiaries of the guardrails and the institutions, global institutions

and agencies that were put together to I guess, stave off this kind of of chaos and destruction while the while we still grew up with the drug wars and all of these things in the United States, and there weren't I mean, there are many moments, like peak moments of things, but not this kind of confluence of destruction for people who are younger, though, this is what they

are like. Isn't a part of youth recognizing that there is stable ground for you to kind of fly off from and seek out the world, but you have this like foundation. What do you think happens when these young kids that are growing up now Gen Z, the generations coming below them that will never know stability, they'll be much better at instability. I mean, yeah, I would bet that there'll be much more depressed and tribal and fearful

and aggressive. If I had to get if I had to just put it that way, you know, I don't know. Or maybe they'll save us, maybe they'll maybe they'll rally in supportive shared humanity. I don't know. It's such an unsettling world that we've built. And the crazy thing, of course, is that on one hand, the world is being destabilized by people of the Putin generation and the Trump generation. Like it's a lot of like seventy year old white dudes who are making the world a lot worse right now,

which is amazing because they're the ones on their way out. Yeah, no, that's probably this is their parting gift. But I don't know. I used to believe all this, you know, oh when the Republicans are afraid because the youth coming up are so much more you know, queer friendly and multicultural and stuff like that. But I don't know, I don't know what it would be like to grow up right now.

Maybe they're much more like conflict friendly, who knows. I would just say that there's a mental health crisis right now, and part of that mental health is about psychology, and part of it is a pretty adequate reflection of the very unsable world that people are entering into, and not just medically, but economically, politically, all these factors. So yeah, I wish I had a better answer for that. I mean, one of the things that I said ye on yesterday's

show is that I have been struggling a lot. I personally have been having like weekly breakdowns. I will burst into tears and I'm just like, where is this coming from? And i would be I would start to like beat up on myself and say, like you need to power through, like there's a lot going on, but like there's a lot going on for everyone, and then I'll just crumble.

And so I said yesterday that I believe that what we all have to understand and learn is how to give ourselves grace that like our breakdowns may not make sense, they may not be linear, right because there are so many causes at this time that we may not know how to manage. So with the last minute or so left, Jonathan, like, what advice do you have for people right now that are struggling with their mental health? Because I know that

there are millions that are. I mean, you and I are talking about it on national television right now, and so I would say, I would say honesty and community is important right now. And so I do think that reaching out, I mean there's a level I just see this in a lot of my friend groups that even in my softball team, everybody was going around talking about how anxious they were. One of my friends told me,

which was not a good idea. She took to clun up and right before the game, and I'm like, no, the soft falls coming at your head hundred miles an hour. Take it out to the glam. But I just think there's a level of openness to vulnerability right now, which I think Breeze community. Two weeks from now, i'll be doing our show. I'll be in Sweden and then Denmark. I'm giving a keynote address, and so I'm curious to see what mental health looks like in a place where

they're more at least communal functioning infrastructure. That might be an interesting point of connection. So I'm also curious to see what people are feeling in Scandinavia right now. So I'll give you the yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll know we'll be talking there and I'll be and I'll just because my senses, my senses that social cohesion is very psychologically beneficial right now. Places that have social capital and social

infrastructure are probably doing better right now. But I'm going to test that out and report back in real time to see, all right, we love it, Jonathan, as always, thank you so much for making the time for us here at woke app and we'll be in touch next week when you are abroad. Now it'll be two weeks we have. I have two more weeks to talk about despair here and then I'll be checking and then we'll

talk about I love that for us, appreciate you. Indisputaful with Doctor Rasha Ricci is one of the latest shows on the TYT network and also the fastest growing news show in America. On his show, Doctor Ricci plays no games regarding policy, delivering a heavy dose of fact based truth and penetrating analysis on all the top news stories focusing on racism, criminal and social justice, politics, police brutality, Karens,

and much more. Listeners can also expect interviews with fascinating guests, political leaders, commentators, and even fiery debates with conservatives on a wide range of policy topics in the Bullpen. It is an indisputable fact that you will love this show. Listen to Indisputable with Doctor Rashad Ricci on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode. That is it for me today here

on Woke App. As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws, and take a closer look at how and why these

topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday.