Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the Long Island Bunker. Folks, you know. On today's conversation with Jonathan, we go in on what we think is needed in terms of a narrative change from the Democrats.
What we are seeing right now is that.
Democrats, Progressives, independents are at a crossroads, and there are at a crossroads in terms of whether or not Joe Biden is going to be able to carry the water for our democracy across the finish line. In twenty twenty four, I posted a TikTok video recently where the comments have shot the shit out of me, with people that follow
me saying that they're not voting for Biden. Again, I am not quite clear as to what people think that they are going to be doing if they decide to sit home and Donald Trump becomes the last president of the United States. I want to be very fucking clear about this that this is not the time for your protests.
Vote.
You want to protest, you want to march, That's great and fine. When we have a president that actually believes in democracy, an administration that is open to being pushed. But when you are up against an opponent who has said that he will throw his political opponents into insane asylums where he will indict everyone that is against him, that he will put people into camps, and everything that he did in his first term that he said he
was going to do, he did do. Let us believe Donald Trump the first fucking time and not be murmuring to ourselves while we're all locked up in camp. I say this, and I say it not tongue in cheek. Hitler did not start with concentration camps. He ended with them. He started with rhetoric. He started with a common enemy that people rallied behind, which is exactly what Donald Trump
is doing. So for those that cannot swallow voting for Joe Biden, I would like to know how you plan on swallowing authoritarianism and what you plan on doing when Donald Trump, now with the thanks of Senator Tooperville, has two hundred open posts in the military that he can fill with his sycophans to then sick our own military on the people, which is what Donald Trump wanted to do when he was president the first time. But he had people like Mattis who said, no, those people will
be gone. And I need folks to wrap their fucking minds around the fact that you are not voting for a person, you are voting for democracy to survive. So that's the conversation coming up next with our dear friend, doctor Jonathan Metzol. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to speak with our friend Jonathan Metsol, we're
always thrilled for your analysis and insight. And Jonathan, earlier this week, well last week, when you all listen to this, I posted a TikTok video and in that TikTok video, I urged people to not use twenty twenty four for
their fucking protest votes. That we just do not have the ability or the time to be able to say that you are not going to vote for the Democrat or democracy or democracy ish for that matter, right, Like, I am not a fool to believe that the Biden administration has made everything great, but what I know for certain is that a second term of Donald Trump would absolutely destroy anything that we have left that looks like
democracy in this country. And Jonathan, the comments underneath my posts basically are like, I'm not voting for genocide, Joe, this is what they are calling him. I don't know what you're talking about, but like, there's no difference between Trump and Biden. And it this goes along with the polls recently looking at the fact that young people have dropped their support for Biden by fifty percent.
So I just want to get I want to I want to ask you.
We have eleven months, eleven and a half months until election twenty twenty four, and what is this signaling to you?
If there was one word for like the sensation of having your pants be on fire, yes, sch middle, schmertz or something like that, you know, that would be it. I am really I find this incredibly serious, incredibly serious,
and and but I'm so concerned. Okay, there's the issue itself, right, definitely the issue itself, which is that we have to figure out how to get back together when, as you and I have talked about here, we had a polarizing crisis where people automatically filtered onto one You're either one side or the other, You're either this or that, and
it's irreparable. And that something deep happened with the Palmas terror attacks and then the war on on on Gaza and it's like you're either once or another and it just feels irreparable. It's in a way reflection of the actual politics itself in the actual Middle East. And so but the problem is, unlike in the Middle East, here we're part of a coalition that has shared interests in
this kind tree. See, you would think and if I would think, and if that gets if that gets split, things are going to get a lot worse in every way possible. And one way that people aren't even paying attention to, for example, is that right wing judges just this week overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. So Trump judges are doing damage. I mean literally just
in the past week. So basically, you know, how like the NAACP or somebody can bring a lawsuit against somebody, They're not going to be able to do that anymore, Like only legal electric officials can bring these big lawsuits and stuff like that. So a massive proviso to the Voting Rights Act fell in a court, in a lower court. That's going to go up to the Supreme Court, I'm sure.
But basically, all the everything we've done, you know, we're we're protesting, we're find a lawsuit against gear mandering against whatever. That's Trump judges doing that. And then while nobody was looking, a massive gun control case came down the pike and overturned. I think it was Maryland a bill to like a decade old handgun law that said basically, you have to get a fingerprint and stuff like that before you get a handgun. Now anybody can just go in and get
a handgun in Maryland. And so they're using the Supreme These are extreme Supreme Court issume judges from a court that were Trump judges overturning the most basic gun safety laws. And so that's just a hint of what would happen if Trump won this election. And the implications are just catastrophic.
But the question is, how are we going to how are we going to get that coalition back together when we've been split so essentially, And it's not just that I feel like, just personally, I don't want to stereotype young many young voters are not saying or saying the Democrats, I don't support them, but for them, it's also almost like an anarchy fantasy that the whole system has to be destroyed to be rebuilt or something like that.
So there's this I mean, here, here's what I will say about that, because I have said on this show and on many other shows, sometimes many times, that sometimes things need to burn all the way to the fucking ground in order for us to be able to build things back up. I have said this, however, and I but you did, and other people have pushed back, and I will now push back against myself, recognizing.
That while we are.
Here trying to fight against you know, trump Ism, magaism, federal courts, federal judges that don't believe in the rule of law, that don't believe in democracy, That the world is teetering on World War III. And that is not that is not me being hyperbolic. That is me parroting and listening to of theorists, historians, and other analysts that are saying the very same thing. So, given the stakes, we do not have the opportunity to use this next election as a fucking protest vote. Am I saying that
Joe Biden is the best person. No, I am fucking not. But he is the person that we have. And the idea that people would say, just the little hints of things that you just rattled off, the idea that people don't believe that that would turn into a tsunami that would take out the Constitution. I just don't. I don't
get it. And it makes me really concerned that people either did not feel enough pain under the last four years of Donald Trump, or they're just like it's worth the gamble to see whether or not he actually does go so far as to create camps and throw his political opponents insane asylums, which all he has been saying, by the way.
You know, thinking about that, burn it all to the ground, like I know the fantasy of burn it all to the ground is I'm sure you and everybody listening has seen the classic nineteen seventies movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, where the tomatoes come and lay waste to society. Then the heroes figure out that tomatoes are killed by listening to the song Puberty Love. Only the best people survive. And then they come out and there's like a whole
open field that they can rebuild society. The tomatoes are all dead. See this movie. If you haven't seen it, I'm just kidding. It terrible. But the thing is, the idea is like, oh, we emerge from our bunker and there's an open field and we can build starting like a video game, starting at a script. But that ain't what burn it to the ground means. Here, burn of the ground means you can be burning into the ground. Well, you're enemy controls the courts controls, the prisons controls, the
military controls everything. I mean, why do you think Tommy Tuberville is holding out yep, all these positions in the military is because then if Trump takes over, he can in one day take over the two hundred main positions in the military.
I find that where we are is that everyone has forgotten how to play connect the dots, right, which is that Tommy Tuberville has been saying, Oh, I'm holding these positions hostage because I believe that the United States military shouldn't be offering up abortions to service members. Right, That's
not the fucking reason. The reason is what Jonathan just said, that you can hold these positions, these high ranking military positions hostage from a Democrat being able to name so people that they know espouse the beliefs that are entangled in the Constitution and wait for Donald Trump to come in and in one sweeping blow instill people who will do his bidding. Turn the military against civilians right, that he can operationalize the the military against people that he
does not like. That is what Tommy Twobervilla is doing and the reason why Democrats are not like painting this picture. I don't fucking understand to just say that it is about abortion.
It's not. It's exactly what Jonathan just said. Continue.
Well, but again that that suggests that they're I mean, I'm sure Toobervilla is. He doesn't seem to be much smarter than a potato as far as I can tell.
True.
So so I think what's happening is that there's a very complex strategic plan for what's going to happen if Trump takes over to exert control like right away and that kind of thing. To me, it's terrifying what he's doing, not just because of what it is, but because he you know, it just suggested there's some higher level organization going on, and so I think it would be pretty brutal. I'm just getting depressed here, but I guess, but I guess.
I'm just thinking about what we talked about last week or two weeks ago, which was remember that Cambridge Analytica movie that everybody should watch. Yeah, the Great hack or whatever. The whole idea was to divide the opposition, to lay the groundwork for conservative control and stuff like that. That's what's happening here, right that people are being told, oh, don't vote because the system doesn't work for you or
something like that. Like we're being hacked right now. I mean, there's there's real things going on obviously, but we're being hacked. And so I guess the question is, Danielle, is the our coalition? I guess I have three questions for you. Is our coalition? Is what's signaling now being signaled now? Ultimately the untenability of our coalition? Right? It was a very multi racial, multi everything coalition. Is what's signaling now
that that just wasn't going to work? Is it that we're going to call on the power of the diversity of our coalition and pull things back together by different people pulling in different ways? Or does this suggest that Biden shouldn't be the nominee? And to me, there's only really, honestly, realistically one other nominee, the vice president. Would somebody else do better than Biden? And pulling this all together? Those are the right three.
So here's and I'll answer it.
With one instead of instead of all three. I believe that what this signals is that Democrats have oftentimes allowed perfect to get in the way of decent. And right now, what we need is decent. We don't need perfect, we don't even need good. Need somebody that can usher us through. And people have said, like, well, I thought that Biden was going to be a bridge candidate, and I'm like, Biden never said that he was going to go for
one term. Nor do I think that Kamala Harris, a black woman, a woman of color, is going to be able to bring this racist ass country back together, being as how this administration has hit her for most of the four years until like they need her to unveil
a plan for HBCUs. And so what I believe is that people need to understand and come together and recognize that you are not voting for a person, that you are voting for the continuation of democracy as imperfect as it fucking is, right, but that the alternative is not
going to give you another bite at the apple. So you want to decide whether it's Jill Stein or fucking Kennedy or whomever it is that you want to decide that you want to throw away your vote for recognize that you're throwing away your vote for an eternity because you don't have the opportunity to vote. If a Donald Trump puts his hand on that Bible one last time spells out American carnage in January twenty twenty five, and you think that, oh, it'll just be four years. No,
it will be the next four hundred. So that's the thing that people need to coalesce around. It is not a fucking person, right, because we don't have a person worthy of people coming together around. What we have is the idea of the continuation of this imperfect ideology, which is democracy. And if America falls, everything else will be a domino effect after that into destruction. That's my answer.
Is that a generalizable message? Do you think right now? In other words, like if people are like I think the generational disconnect of course completely beyond agree with you, and I think we need to be shouting this every minute we can, going forward all the time forever. I think the disconnect is I mean, like I'm thinking about, like,
is there a generational problem with that message? Is that a message that people are going to hear when there's a when there's like I'm thinking of Argentina, for example, where it was actually young voters who, like people in Argentina right now are shocked and they're depressed and they're like, oh my god, how did this happen? But it was the young voters who said, this guy's going to come in and tear down the entire government and that's exactly
what we want. It was a really powerful message to young voters. And so I don't know, it seems like the scariest demographic now is the eighteen to whatever twenty nine.
I mean, I think that I don't think that they're the scariest demographic. I think that they're the demographic that has been failed the most. And when people so I think that when we're I think that the language that we're using is important and understanding. Why are why are folks that are between eighteen and thirty right, eighteen and thirty five? Why are they so fucking angry? Why because the system has failed them? Why because we're giving them
a country that is beyond disrepair? Why because their top issues are climate change and gun safety and the ability to end like economic liberation, none of which we are providing for them. And so I think that what is problematic is to continually say that there is something wrong with this generation for demanding better than they've been fucking given. Right, But I think that the conversation and the narrative switch
is about we know we have failed you. We want the opportunity to make this better with you at the helm. There is no opportunity to even imagine better if Donald Trump and his fucking handmaids and handmaidens get in control of the executive branch in this country. There is no imagining better. What there is imagining is Tenneman Square happening
in this country every single fucking day. What is what I want people to remember is that when Donald Trump decided to use the police force in Washington, DC to clear Lafayette Square so that he could go take a picture in front of a church with a book that he doesn't hold, while he had General Madis walking behind him. That will be the consistent refrain and picture that you see on television every day if these people are allowed
in office, and guess what, it will be legal. So you have to move in a place and with an administration that presents you with an opportunity of possibility. Donald Trump presents the end, and that's what people need to coalesce around. But it's not saying, oh, this generation is going to this younger generation is going to throw the country away. It's like, recognize that you failed them, right, but also explain like where there's possibility and where there isn't.
I think you just put it in the way that we have to put it, which is that instead of saying, like, what's wrong with this voting group, we have to say where do we let them down? And empathize with that acknowledged that. Like, I think that would be a really powerful move for the Democrats to say, hey, look we are acknowledging you know, I don't say they probably can't say we failed you, but to say something like we're acknowledging that the economy has you know whatever, all these things.
And so I think I think acknowledging that is to me, that would be a huge step toward getting people back. Is not to say, hey, look at this other thing and you're going to ruin the country, but to acknowledge, to really deeply acknowledge how people have been left down, I think is actually a brilliant strategy.
The fact is is that you can't, like I was listening to Biden, I don't know where he was recently, right, and He's talking about how great America is, and I'm just like, at this point, it is so fucking outrageous to even utter something like that. Right, America is not great, right,
and it hasn't been great for many, many decades. And I'm not saying to say, like where you know, we're the worst, where the worst, But I'm saying that where you have to get people is imagining that they can be a part in making things better and understanding that this generation generation Z and like and millennials, they're worse off than their parents are. We've never had a generation
like that in America. America has always been about the next generation being better and being able to move the
ball forward. So if you're not acknowledging the absolute despair that people are in and why they're not going to get married, and why they can't buy homes, and why they're saddled with debt, and like why they are opting out of so many things, because the America that Biden is talking about they've never seen and they're never going to see it, So stop fucking saying it right, allow them to be a part of what is going to make us better knowing that we have lost our way, right.
I really, I really, I really think you're really onto something now, which is that the issue is not like what the hell's matter with youth? Which I was a stereotape iPad I used myself just here, it's it's how have we failed you? You know? Just I just think acknowledging that I mean again because what I keep thinking and why I sound very hesitant today. In part it's because I'm on vacation. I actually slept eight hours two nights ago.
But we don't know what to do with that.
I know, I'm just like, oh, maybe I'll go like walk around the block and water the flowers. But but but but it's also that I just I find I find myself paralyzed, honestly by this issue because it feels like, how are we going to bring back people who have been split by such a deep division over the Middle East? And how are we going to bring back the twenty five percent of black and Latino voters who are saying
they're going to vote for Trump? And how are we going to keep that together with all the other people who are you know, just regularly like the old people who didn't just vote in old elections and stuff like that. Like so it seems so momentous and and and my fear is that the Democrats don't have a unifying narrative, which you honestly need in a presidential election no matter what. And it can't just be Trump is worse. I mean,
as as true as that is, Trump is worse. But I think actually honesty and humility here are the organizing narrative. When hearing you talk, I'm like, yeah, let's let's rally around that or something like that. Just there's no narrative that doesn't let me just finish. The one thing is that you're exactly right. The narrative now is aren't things great? And I think that that, to me is just the
totally wrong startity. That's when I feel like we're the party of Weekend at Bernie's and we're voting for you know, I'm using a lot of movie says today. I love it, but I would just say that that's to me, the wrong strategy. Just tell people, hey, look at all the great effort, and it's said to say like, hey man,
this is really incomplete, and there's something you know. I just think I think there's got to be a way to package what you said, because to me, honesty reflecting where people are at right now is better than trying to talk them out of a deep emotion, which never works.
And to that point, like, think about what Donald Trump's message has been over the last nine years, which is to make America great again. Right, it's the IEA, it's him acknowledging but for white people, for straight CITs of white men, that America is not living up to what it has promised you, right, and so we need to make it better again by getting rid of all of
these people. And what I'm saying is we need a modernized Clinton message, which Clinton said that there is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with by what is right with America. And that's actually like the Democrat's message and should be true is that like you are our possibility to make things better. So how do we listen to this younger generation and allow them to seat at the table and allow them to feel like what we know to be true is that we have failed.
But what we also know is that each generation presents the possibility. And that's who you are, right, Like that's how you invigorate people, not like Donald Trump's been able to invigorate his base by yesteryear. And where we have to invigorate people is by future possibility, recognizing that the present has robbed them in many ways of what past
generations has had. And so like, I'm like, let's just stop fucking lying, right, Like, let's stop lying, and let's stop presenting this narrative that like America is beyond reproach when everyone walking around finally recognizes that, like, oh, actually no, we've been lied to. Final thoughts, Jonathan, I.
Mean, the thing about Bill Clinton was it was Bill Clinton making that message, and so this is going to have to be many messengers who make this message, right because Biden is also for many people a symbol of the other America that you're talking about, and so it's it's really going to have to be a much more atomized approach, I think. But I do think that we're onto something here, which is that that that really has to be that some kind of acknowledgment, some kind of
acknowledgement has to be a frame. And again, it's just it's just pretty urgent because there's a huge task in front of all of us right now. It's not as Biden and task in front of alledge was over the next eleven months. How are we going to sew this back together? You know, I think, as you know, I'm
involved in Middle East politics really closely. I've done physicians for human rights for a long time, and I can just tell you I remember, I remember the days after the last Israeli election where everybody thought that their democracy was going to last forever. And then the day Nitanya who won two days later, when he started with that, you know, they realized that that judicial reform stuff was going to be real and a right winger was going to take over the courts and they did open gun laws.
People were, I mean, dear friends of mine were like, holy shit, I can't believe this happened. And it's like it happened in two days. And I have friends from Argentina who are like, our government has destroyed, our country is destroyed. It happened literally in two days. It happens very fast and so and it's not like they're not
good or bad people. I mean, there are tons of good people in Centrists and liberals in all these countries who are the protest movement but it just happens really quickly. And part of the issue is the opposition is divided, and people don't think it's actually going to happen, and then it happens, and it's because the opposition is divided, and so we really this is a huge task and I think a really really important one.
As always, my friend Jonathan, appreciate your analysis and inside and we will pick up this conversation again because the message and the messengers matter as.
We march forward. Appreciate you, thank you, thank you. That is it for me today.
Dear friends on woke A app as always power to the people and to all the people.
Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.