Days of Struggle

When I woke up at the beginning of this week to see that Italy had elected a fascist to lead their country, Georgia Maloney, who who had become and was lifted up as a darling of the American far right, being you know, celebrated by Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, Victor orbon In, Hungary the Dictator and Hungry Putin and others. And she has made no qualms about her agenda and

about her allegiance. This is somebody that at the age of fifteen fifteen years old, began their own fascist nationalist organization that then was disbanded because of Italy's history with fascism and authoritarianism, it was illegal to create those types of groups. Well, change a few logos and you call yourself a conservative, but continue with the same ideology and teachings of Mussolini that she has held up as an incredible statesman. She is now going to be in charge

of the third largest economy in Europe. Italy, not unlike the United States, has experienced economic devastation, a lot of it prior to the pandemic, but certainly exacerbated by it.

What has also happened because Italy has a coalition government, you know, you had votes that were split, and as we will have conversation with doctor Jonathan Metzo, there was a miscalculation by the center left parties that if you hold up this extreme personality and character, that that in and of itself will be enough to drive people to the polls. Well, guess what, it didn't, and many many people in Italy stayed the fuck home and it was

a historically low voter turnout. So now they have a fascist in arch, somebody who is believes in cleansing the country when it comes to the migrant population, that wants to have strict borders for particularly for Northern Africans, that is, believes in the quote unquote traditional family, and wants to rescind Italy's same sex marriage law that was passed in

roughly around twenty sixteen. Any of this sound familiar, and after her win, all of conservative social media lit up with congratulations and applause, and I am left absolutely fucking dumbstruck because one when Biden referred to these fucking basket of deplorables as semi fascists, they got all up in arms, and clearly the only thing that they got up in arms about was the fact that they were being referred to as semi fascists as opposed to one hundred percent fascists,

because I don't know in what other fucking time in America's history do you have American politicians celebrating the win of somebody that is associated with celebrates lifts up is in communication with the fucking granddaughters of Mussolini, a man that was murdered, captured, murdered by his own people, hung upside down by his fucking feet in the town square

in Milan. Rachel Maddow did a kick ass opening on Monday Night where she gave the history lesson that you know you probably didn't get in school because we gloss over every fucking thing. Hence why we continue to repeat the awful aspects of our history, Because we don't fucking teach it. So here we are arriving at a time when world powers are reorienting themselves around authoritarianism and fascism.

This is not hyperbolic. Look at the fucking maps. Look at who's running and winning in both this country and abroad. Jonathan and I will get into a conversation that frankly is making my stomach turn because it's thinking about where would the world have been without the bombing of Pearl Harbor that forced the United States into World War Two? After six million Jewish people and others were murdered in camps that we knew about but didn't do dick about

until we were bombed. What happens to the world when there isn't America to come in and actually advocate for and fight for democracy. Now we know that America ain't fucking perfect that we know to be one hundred percent try. We also know that we only enter into wars and

supply you know, arms when it suits us economically. We absolutely know that it doesn't diminish the fact that without the United States entering into World War two, the number of six million Jews would have exceeded exponentially and just spread right around Europe, around the world. So when you have a realigning of power that is happening right now, and it is going into the hands of those that believe that white supremacy is the way by lens is

the only fucking solution. An oppression is the mode of operation. What do you do? I can't express to you all enough that we are being called up in a moment that is going to define this country and the world for generations to come. We're so obsessed with sci fi and fantasy like the Hunger Games and The Handmaid's Tail, and the reality is all of those things have been foreshadowing for this fucking moment. If people have ever asked themselves,

who would I have been in World War Two? Who would I have been during the fight to abolish slavery? Who would I have been during the Civil rights movement? This is that time. Are you willing to answer that call? Are you willing to mobilize as many fucking people as possible to get to the polls? Are you willing to donate if you have the ability to give money as

much as you possibly can. Are you willing to run for office yourself, whether that be from the school board level to the fucking Mosquito board to city council and onward. Now is the time for good people not to sit by and allow bad things to happen, because we think that by sticking our next out or keeping them in rather that we are going to isolate ourselves from bad things happening to us. It is already happening and it

is going to get worse. Coming up next, my conversation with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzo. The Damage Report with John Idarola is one of the most popular shows on the TYT Network that serves as your daily breakdown of the genuine threats and challenges facing our country and world. These days, we're confronted with an

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streaming on YouTube and Twitch. Folks who know that when it is our weekly conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metal day, I don't know what day it is, folks, because I feel like we live inside of a weird uh continuum that Jeff, I feel like I'm on loop. You know what came out is coming out anew Jonathan quantum leap. I would like to quantum leap the fuck out of the time that we are in right now.

But um, I want to talk to you about what has happening globally and get your thoughts on how it ties back to dying of whiteness, how it ties back to what we've been experiencing in the United States since roughly twenty fifteen. So this week in Italy they had elections and have elected Georgia Maloney, who is essentially the

second coming of Mussolini. When she was fifteen years old, she joined a fascist regime that then had to be put down because in Italy at the time, creating fascist organizations were illegal, right, because of what the country went through for decades plus under Mussolini. And she has been activated in nationalist groups, in fascist groups, and has become a darling of the far right in the United States. She has spoken at Seapack, she has spoken at several events.

And you would think a country like Italy that went through so very much under fascist dictators that we wouldn't be in this place where we are seeing a reorientation of the World War two kind of access that was disrupted, you know, because of World War Two, because of America coming in, because of other nations in Europe coming in and fighting back against Hitler. And you know, we're watching.

I watched all you know, for the last day or so Republicans congratulate this win, celebrate the win of this leader that is a fascist. I've watched historians talk about her. I've watched people compare the ideology, the even the logo right.

So I want to get your thoughts on how we get to this place where Italy has had the lowest voter turnout that they've had in a really long time, and but this is this is who now they are looking to restore, order to restore I guess jobs talk to me about like the parallels that you see and how these far right, fascist authoritarian dictatorships come to power, Like what is the perfect storm that we're inside of. Well, I think there is an important point for the United

States here. But I think it's important, of course, and I'm sure everybody who talks about this says that there's kind of a caveat that the Italian right is not Marjorie Taylor Green. It's not like they're all part of

the same party. It's not like I mean, certainly there is a move back toward authoritarianism and fascism across the globe, and certainly that this reflects that but I think it's important to also recognize what the local factors are that lead to the rise of power are, because they're different in every location. I think the important point for the United States, among many, is that the rise of the right in Italy is not just about people either tuning

out or running fascism. It was also about miscalculations on the center and the left. They basically people who were in the center and the left figured if they put up somebody, if they basically destroy their own party and put up somebody who was so preposterous on the right that people would just kind of see how idiotic this was,

it would push them back toward their own power. That in a way, so she was in a part supported by the center and the left because people thought, well, this is a perfect way for us to seize power. And and and Italy of course is coalition politics. So this government may last for a long time, it may not.

I mean, certainly, fascists are good at holding onto power once they get it, so I would not underestimate that, but I would say just that that the important point for the United States is that this was partially a result of miscalculation by our version of the Democrats to say, if we put up somebody who's so far right, there's

no way voters are going to go for it. And the reason I say that is because, of course, that's the gamble that Democrats have made across the country in the United States, that if we put up the Mastriani's and the other guys and all these crazy JD vances and all this kind of thing. They've in a way supported a lot of far right candidates with the assumption that everybody's just going to see the world the way

they do. And I think that is the flashing warning right sign besides having a right wing ruler who is like super right on every social issue that Democrats care about. But I would say that that really it's a challenge for for the the Democrats who have pushed for these far right candidates in all these positions. I mean, I just think that it's a terrifying moment right in a way for that reason that that could be a miscalculation

depending on what happens in the terms, you know. I want to talk about the psychology of the moment right now and what what we are and what human beings are are going through and are experiencing because I feel like, because we don't teach history in a comprehensive and honest way, that we are always destined to repeat it. There is fertile ground that has been laid for the type of desperation that people in Italy or feeling, and people around

this country are feeling, and people around the globe. And what I realize is that the people that are responsible for creating economic insecurity are also the same people that come in to swoop down and say we alone can fix this right, that they are creating the conditions for societal instability to uplift this fact that if you were to just follow us give away a little bit of your freedom, that we chip away a little bit here

and a little bit there, you'll be okay. So my question, Jonathan, is about the fertile ground, is how does how does this groundwork get laid? Because it doesn't happen overnight, like Madeline Albright had said, you know, and it's an old quote that, like if you want to pluck a chicken, you don't pluck all of the feathers all at once. It's the same thing with authoritarianism. You do it one feather at a time, and then nobody realizes until the chicken is bald that here we are. So how hey,

let's leave bald out of it. But how do you get to a place where you've you've created such fertile ground for for these types of people, these types of personalities, I should say, to become the answer, I'm teaching this class COVID in Society this semester that looks at the kind of tectonic shift that was brought about by the pandemic.

And so given that I'm living in the kind of COVID world right now and everything you and I've been talking about for the past seventy four years, I would say that I would I would say that for me, part of the question I always ask is how many of these things would have happened without the pandemic. Of course, that's an alternate universe where Michael J. Fox doesn't let his the bad guy marry his mom. That's not the

world we're living in. But I would say that I would say that, you know, think about what happened with the pandemic, right, profound instability risk of globalization exposes social safety nets which become all of a sudden costs that we can't pay disrupts, supply chains, economy, economies are turning upside down, and so and I guess just at the most human level, you know, you can get killed by talking to somebody else, and so who do you trust

to breathe their air becomes a really important factor. And so I just feel like we're kind of living through pandemic politics right now. I mean, that's my personal read of it. Is just that the world and existence became so uncertain, right the guardrails we thought we had we didn't. The things we thought were supporting us became liabilities. And in a way, people who rise to the top, not just in governments, people will probably see this in their

daily lives, are kind of asshole naysayers. Really is this is a perfect moment for them. Not people who are like, let's all solve this together, but more like, I'm selfish and we have the right to be selfish or against everything that is in any way telling anyone to tell anybody to do anything. And so in a way, it's it's that kind of moment, and I think we're seeing leaders who are a reflection of that around the world. Now. I don't know if that would have been the case

without the pandemic. Certainly we had of course elected Trump will before but but I don't know, it's it's a it's a moment really for that, because that's the thing that that's exactly what I was going to say, was that prior to COVID, right, which I believe that we are in the perfect phrase, we are living in the politics of COVID, the politics of a pandemic, and there has been that tetonic shift that I don't think we'll ever shift back to normal. We're just we're operating in

a new abnormal. But prior to that Donald Trump was elected, we had we had all of the information that was available to us about who this person was, about who what kind of politics they believed in, about their misogyny, their racism. Donald Trump came out and said I alone can fix this, right. Democrats were looking around and saying, what are you trying to fix? Because we're coming off the Obama years, right, So what you wrote the book on racial resentment, which he was able to exacerbate and

become this strong man figure. And so I'm like, what aside, if is there anything aside from just racism and the fact that a black man became president of the United States. That created the fertile ground for Trumpism in this country. I mean, we've always had these tensions, right, I mean America. The rough economic framework of America is like people roughly speaking, and people come to this very differently and have different

relationships to it. But the rough framework of America is like people roughly buy into a common pool, right, I mean, Otherwise, somebody from Louisiana, what do they have in common with somebody from Massachusetts, for example, And then you break it down by all other kinds of racial groups or ethnic groups or political groups. But it's kind of like, yeah, we all buy into the notion that we vote for

our elected leaders. Yeah, we buy into the notion that, at least in the post FDR world, you know, we pay into things like Medicare or social Security. The state does certain things for us, things like that. But those things are not given, right, None of those things are given. And so I do think that I mean again, those things were those things are based on communal participation, and when a good part of the population isn't going to participate or pay into it, then we can see the

whole thing is can fall apart. And so I certainly think in my book, I saw that with the election of Obama, absolutely, and the fact that Obama tried to instill the you know, affordable care actus first as first move, which was kind of like telling people to pay into a common pool, this assumption that we're all in it together, and there was a lot of rejection against that. I don't know, I guess that's really my question for you. Had let's say Mitt Romney had won the presidency, would

we be in a better place right now? I think that we know. I think that in terms of a better place with the lack of political violence and the rise of white supremacist organizations. Yes, I think that in

terms of, you know, policy to advance the country. No, So I feel like it was you know, six of one half and as and of the other, which is, you know, were was a black person never supposed to ascend to the highest level because we were always going to experience a violent white lash, right and because we didn't address real racism and we and you know, one of one of the things that one of the questions that's that's being posed right now is we're as we're

watching the shift globally. Rachel Maddow did a killer opening uh the you know on Monday Night when she gave a whole history on Mussolini and a whole history on what the Germans did in their deep excavation of how did we get here? The Nuremberg Trials, all of these things to like get to root out, right, um, the core of this, of this hate right, of this, of this uh nationalism that that rose in their country to such prominence. They were the only ones to do that

in Europe. No one else went through the kind of record that Germany did. And I so my feeling is that had we done that, we had we ever done that and had that as a core part of our values in America of what equity and justice looks like.

It doesn't mean that the slave trade and Jim Crow would have been avoided, but when we had that twelve year opportunity for reconstruction, had we had an actual racial reckoning that was embedded into our advancement as a society, no, I don't think that we would have ever arrived at this place right like, because we would have learned, we would have known. That's a part to me of education, and that's why this far right movement in the United

States as well as globally, is so anti education. It's so anti you know, academics, it's so anti anyone that actually is a critical thinker, because it goes against right,

their ability to cajole the masses. Yeah, I mean, and so the question is like, I mean, I'll just be obviously, I come from a family of Holocaust survivors, right, and so certainly when things started happening in Germany with anti Semitism, it was the intellectuals that got targeted first, shutting down papers, burning books, all the things that are almost become like if you're living fifty year, eighty years after it like almost a stereotype like, oh, burning books, isn't that so

not creative or something like that. But it's just crazy how much these things, these kind of issues replay themselves with kind of find another who we can all rally against and then take the kind of liberties that would be unimaginable against secular society. And so it does feel I mean, people who come from my traumatic past or were traumatic past, I mean, there's not there's it's not a it's not a mystery why we've been like on pins and needles for quite some time about these kind

of things. Um and and at the same time, the lesson of kind of World War two is that ultimately there were checks and balances in the system. Ultimately, the United States, because of a miscalculation of bombing Pole Harbor, was forced into a war it probably didn't want to go into, but it became. It became a check and balance against aggression. But who's the you know, if the Republicans take over here, what's the what's going to be the world? Who's going to write the world again? Right?

In a way, you know, it feels like it's a continuation of the same, the same conflict. And I'm not in any way trying to, of course minimize racism in any way, shape or form. And I do agree with you that there's that that reckoning that have needed to happen. But it's also important to note that it's not just that the reckoning didn't happen, it's that the resistance to all those things has been going on, just people haven't

been paying attention to it. I mean, that was what I found in Dying of Whiteness, And so I would say, I'll just say, is one important, active, active note that people better frigg and vote, you know, in this mid term. I mean, I mean the lesson of Italy is not that people were for or anti fascism. It's that some people wore for fascism and other people didn't show up,

and they're going to pay the consequence. And so I think that the importance of voting in New York for the governor election, in Wyoming, for the secretary of state, in wherever you are, for the school board, you know, this is kind of the last stand this midterm. In a way. I think it's going to be a really really important mid term, and so people we can say all we want, but if people don't choke to vote,

we're going to meet the same fate as Italy. Jonathan, I have a last question for you that is not a light one. You know, you have often talked spoken about your family being a family of Holocaust survivors, and the question that I have is did they stay and survive the camps or did they flee? And if they fled, which you're shaking your head that they that they fled, what was the final writing on the wall for them that said we need to get the hell out of here.

I mean, we have a huge family. My dad came from a huge family of cousins and aunts and grandparents, and everybody was in Austria. They'd been in Austria or Austria Hungary for hundreds of years. This is our land, is our language. And all this shit started happening, and my grandfather, of everybody there, started saying, wait, we better take this seriously. They're not getting around. All the aunt's, uncle's, cousins, grandparents said it's fine, you know, we'll weather the storm.

It'll be fine. My grandfather was the one person who said, no, wait, we got to pay attention to this. He and my grandmother and my father escaped to Switzerland at the time, which was neutral, and some a few of the last people who got into Switzerland. Everybody else stayed in Austria. Everybody who stayed, with two exceptions, got murdered in concentration camps. So it wasn't about surviving the camps. It was about having the foresight to say, hey, wait, we're gonna have

to upend our life, but this stuff is real. So it was kind of taking seriously the clue that that other people were missing honestly, and so that's kind of something I've obviously you can tell carried with me. You know, I don't take clues lightly when I think that they're real clues. So but but again at the time, you know, anyway, well, we'll see how this goes. The world order, you know, responded in many ways to the horror of that by reshaping the reshaping the world order that's kept us going

until now. But that seems to be crumbling, and so it's kind of like what comes next a new world order? Yeah, bitcoin uh, Jonathan adopted Jonathan Metzel, Thank you so much for always taking the time to carry such heavy topics and help us, um, I don't know, create some create some sense, and create some type of pathway. I don't know where the pathways lead up today, but hopefully the bathway will lead us toward. Like I mean, I'm really concerned about the lack of energy for voting in the

mid term. I mean, I think that's a huge issue and that's something that is very palpable right now that people can address. Yeah, that is true. Thank you, dear friend. We'll pick this up again next week. That is it for me today. Dear friends on woke app as always power to the people and to all the people power, Get woke and stay woke as fun.