Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Meet your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. You know, this week, a clip that I have posted onto my Instagram of Sonny Houston of the View has gone viral, and in the clip, Sonny very clearly lays out the path and plan of the Republican Party and very articulately tells people that are watching that this election is not about a candidate. It is about the few
future of this country. And I urge everybody to watch it, to watch you know that I think it's a little over, you know, close to two and a half minutes, because like I said yesterday, I get it, you know, I get it, and I feel it. I feel the anger and the rage that I have against this administration and their actions in Gaza. I have rage and anger about their inability to create a large enough narrative to disrupt
Maga supremacy. And I just need folks to realize that these people, these white supremacists, they are not fucking around. And for folks who think that like I'm gonna sit this one out as my protest because Biden doesn't align with my values, well, Donald Trump, sure as fucked doesn't align with your values either, right, none of them do.
But the fact is is that with a person in office that is imperfect and actually still believes in the rule of law and the constitution, you can fight them, You can protest them, you can push them and call them out to be better. That does not happen in an authoritarian, dick tatorship or fascistic rule. It does not happen. People are disappeared, they are killed, they are silenced, their
families are threatened. And if you think like, oh my god, well that's not happening, folks, how many fucking times have the judges that are sitting on Donald Trump's cases now been swatted? How many elected officials right? How many poll workers? How many election workers have been threatened since twenty twenty.
So if you think that the escalation is not possible, I tell you that this shit will happen in a blink of a fucking eye, and there'll be not a goddamn thing that we can do about it, because Donald Trump will control the military and there will be no General Millie, there will be no fucking guardrails as shitty as we thought they were in the four years that
he was president. What we know is that those people, the handful of them that wanted to write books after the fact, really did save our democracy from going into a nuclear, literal fucking meltdown. They will be gone, and everybody that has money and access and influence will flee because they will see the writing on the wall. The rest, however, will be left here to suffer, because cruelty is the
fucking point. So I can't express enough the legitimate fears that I I have that much like climate change and the experience that I had and people on the East Coast had, you know, with a mini tropical storm that decided to roll through in the middle of the night last night with sixty mile per hour fucking winds and rain in fifty degree weather in January, just like we continue to ignore the very real effects that are happening outside of our window of climate change, and elected officials
who have the ability to do more than put together packs that they don't actually uphold, do anything about. There will be no fucking recourse if we fuck this election up by not voting, or voting third party, or voting for Donald Trump, because they all amount to the same thing. White supremacist Christian fascist rule for generations to fucking come.
The conversation that will be coming up with our friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel is talking about a public health crisis around despair and anxiety and depression and loneliness that is all stemming from the same places. The thing that a democrat in the White House provides is possibility, and possibility is what eventually leads us to change without possibility and
hope we die plain and simple. Coming up next my conversation with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, who, by the way, folks, if you happen to be in the New York area, I will be live and in person with Jonathan February fifth in Brooklyn at green Light Bookstore in conversation with him about his latest book, What We've Become, that you can pre order now folks. It
is Oh my god. I think it is the first conversation of the new year with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan metsl That has you know, Jonathan, when I think about it in hindsight, I actually have no idea how many years we've been in conversation on this to go seventy five, But I have absolutely continued to be so grateful for the way that you show up for me and the WOKF audience, particularly as we are navigating just I mean unprecedented times, I miss precedented.
Times, I.
Miss it a lot.
Give us some precedent.
So I want to start off today, folks. Jonathan had sent me two really interesting pieces that I think kind of play into where a lot of people find themselves in terms of understanding mental illness, understanding emotional well being, and how these unprecedented times continue to affect us. And so Jonathan, first off, you had sent I want to
start with the with the with the graphs. And there was a report that was done to who is more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness And the person that is writing this is Ryan Burge, and it says liberals that consistently, that's consistently true across all kinds of measures, but when it comes to religion, Liberal Protestants and Catholics are less likely to be diagnosed an atheists and agnostics. And so he runs through what we're talking
about when we're talking about mental illness. For this particular study, they're talking about anxiety, depression, and loneliness in in that way. So talk to us about this report and why you think that it's important that we understand kind of the context around it and how it's being measured.
Well, First, happy New Year, everybody, and I want to first, you know, hopefully before we start talking about depressing stuff again. I hope that everybody got a little bit of a break over the over the holiday. And also just put in a quick plug which we can do a lot now, which is that you and I are going to be live. We're taking our show on the road, or like on our road. So we're going to be in Brooklyn doing my book lunch the first week of February, so we
can talk more about that and all this stuff. But it's an interesting time for me, right because I have two books coming out. I've got the book about mass shootings and the ways our country normalizes mass shootings, and that's really a book about mental illness, right. That book is a story of how a naked white man who was really psychotic broke into a waffle house and killed
four young adults of color and injured for more. And that's really a book about, you know, how do we define sanity and safety in the context of a country that is armed to the teeth basically. And then also I have a new version of Dying of Whiteness coming out February fourth that looks at my argument from twenty nineteen twenty twenty, which looked at how health policies that were rejected by white America were killing white Americans at
a greater rate. You rejecting the Affordable Care Act, doing
all these pro gun stuff, all these things. And so it's really interesting for me because in light of these two books really coming out that are about whiteness, I've been tracking a lot of articles that really complicate my argument, particularly my Dying of Whiteness art art argument, which basically say that maybe before the pandemic or twenty nineteen or twenty ten to twenty something or other, there really was a clear correlation between conservative politics and negative health outcomes,
but now we're seeing those issues creep into liberal populations as well, or maybe we're just doing research differently that ask the same question of the question, is is it the research or is it really happening? And so there were two articles that have been on my mind, and this is a long preamble to get to your question, but the one that we'll talk about in a minute. Here was an article in the Economist that showed how deaths of despair is not just a metric for poor
white people anymore. Actually, if you look at different pathogens, that's happening across multiple populations. But the one that you're talking about really caught my eye because the header, of course was does liberalism lead to mental illness? Basically?
And we and we know. I mean the reason why I laugh, right is because we've heard that refrain from the Maga supremis where they're you know, they they say all types of things about liberals and liberal brain disease and woke brain disease and blah blah blah. And so when you sent it to me, initially I thought it was a joke.
It was like, oh damn, there's some data here, here's some data, and what's really interesting about it. So I first let me just say, as a caveat, I would take this research as a grain of salt, because it's done. It was published by a religious outlet that has a vested interest in telling people, yeah to go to for their mental health. But that thing said it did kind of feel right. I Mean, the basic argument was that liberals, particularly liberals who identify as atheist or agnostic and are
non church going. So that's the big you know, red flag or about the research right there. But it said that basically, if you're socially unconnected, you have a higher chance of getting a diagnosed with anxiety or depression or other kind of loneliness disorders. Now, of course, you could poke holes in this until the sun goes down. You know,
liberals are probably more likely to go to psychiatrists. If you're atheist or agnostic, you're probably more likely to go to a mental health practitioner than go to a confession and things like that. But it did seem like something that we used to I guess when I read the study, I thought about the research that depression and heart attacks
are higher if your sports team loses. You know that basically, if you feel like you're on the losing side or there's no momentum, there's no community built thing around this, that people feel isolated, particularly when they don't have a fallback community. And I do think that there's a sense of the world spinning away from us right now as liberals that's not tied to like imagine if you don't believe, or you don't go to church, or you know, you're
an atheist or something. Imagine like being a democrat in the time of Obama, for example, there was a massive social movement, you know, believe and hope and all these kind of things. You were part of some bigger social movement. And I don't know do liberals or democrats have that right now. I don't think fighting the end of democracy is like an uplifting movement in that way. And certainly there is just a lot more depressing stuff, as you
and I talk about every week. And so the interesting thing was it was kind of making this argument which I'm curious, I'm curious about your thoughts about it, but it basically said, even when you control for the fact of who goes to psychiatrists more or less, us that liberals are more likely to have mental illnesses link to loneliness.
In all honesty, we started to get into a greater conversation about loneliness and the effects of loneliness in COVID, right, you know, and there being a lot of research that was done and just you know, our own anecdotal research, like humans are pack animals, we are communal animals, and so when we are left in isolation, obviously you're going to see a deterioration that happens in your mental health
and in connectivity. And then after right quote unquote, after even though, folks, I just learned the other day that a thousand people a week are still dying of COVID, but we don't talk about it. Nonetheless, but after we came out of isolation, re engaging with one another was
also really difficult thing to do. So I mean to me, if you are involved in any type of regular community based activity, whether that be through a religious institution, through a sports team, you know, through a writing group or dancing or what have you, like, that is going to be fundamentally better for you than to remain in isolation all day every day, particularly when you know a lot of people still like myself, work from home, right and so you know, while I communicate with people all day
long and talk NonStop, it isn't like I'm going into a studio every single day and connecting with people in real life. So taking those extra steps are really important. But Jonathan, the other the other piece that you had sent me is one that I that I also found really troubling, which was the one that was in the economists the depths of despair narrative is out of date.
Can you give us a kind of like fifty thousand foot view on again, this kind of connecting to mental illness, this rise that we're seeing, and why this should be on our radar.
Sure. Well, So there were two very esteemed economists who were coupled who had a argument basically that tracked where it was really an unprecedented it's really unprecedented in industrialized countries to see a fall in lifespan among people who are in the demographic majority in other words, white men
a lot of times. And what they saw was the across rust Belt America, Red state America, white longevity, white lifespan was falling by two to four years in some instances, which is again unprecedented if you were like in the privileged quote unquote group. And so they looked in detail at that and it was a lot of stuff that I talk about in Dying of whiteness, you know, no access to healthcare, but it was also a lot of addiction fentanyl factors like that or you know, earlier versions
at that time. And so the idea was basically, you know, their finding was white Americans are having a worse, worse drop in life expectancy than pretty much any other group. Other groups or more communal, They're less into guns, they're less addicted, all these kind of things. They had two versions of their book come out about Death to Despair and a number of articles, and it was the jumping up point for a lot of stuff, including for me.
It was very useful in dying of whiteness, even though of course I tied it to the ideology the performativity of what it means to be white in America. But what we're seeing is economists are now al ying these same metrics to other groups, and we're now seeing falling lifespan among other groups as well. It's not just a white people disorder. So Black Americans are dying of overdose and gun violence and other factors in ways that are
impacting longevity. And the article in the Economists, I think, did a really good job of talking about suicide in Native American communities, for example, which is really impacting longevity. And so trends that started as being a dying of whiteness kind of disorder now look like they're a dying
of everybody kind of disorder. And to me, that's not really surprising, right because, as you said, we're not tracking COVID, and our health infrastructure is falling apart, and it's really spotty across the country, and we're not having the kind of unifying national programs that you would think in industrialized, advanced society would do, like national health care for example,
and other things like that. And so in a way, what we're seeing is that those same factors and also addiction, right which has been a driving point of right wing talking point that I personally don't feel like, with no disrespect, liberals have done anywhere near a good enough job of addressing or refuting or rebutting. Now their hands are tied in many ways, but it gets tied into immigration and then we can't answer and things like that. But it
really is having an effect on longevity. And so this question of dying of whiteness, you know, it kind of begs the question should I write another version of dying of whiteness? I don't want to called that dying of americanness in a way, which is what.
We're seeing, you know, And I think that that is I mean, it's so troubling and so deep. First of all, you know, again going back to COVID, that we learned that our life expectancy fell by three years collectively. I think back down to what seventy three years old. But when you are when you were basing that on various demographics and various groups, the numbers, just like equal pay,
vary across the board. But I think that what is startling is that to your point, for a highly quote unquote one of the wealthiest nations and industrialized nations, a democratic nation, for us not to have the healthcare system that is preventative right for us to for for people. I mean, now you have women that are basically waiting in parking lots to die, you know, in order before
they get any type of care. You're you know, doctors are giving you more medication because that, you know, feeds into their bottom line as opposed to telling you, you know, to get outside, maybe eat some plants and like, you know, change your lifestyle. Well, that doesn't help the part of sumical pharmaceutical industry. And so you know what I see, Jonathan, which is very scary. The movie that I bring up
all the time, Elysium, terrible movie. Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, you know, but all of the healthy, happy, you know, fit people are in this place called Elysium, and Earth has turned into a disease ridden, you know, toxic, horrible environment. Stop me if it sounds like a documentary, and you know what you are going to see, I think is an incredible increase in divide and it's going to look like help. So when you see people that are fit, that are well rested, right, it is going to be
the privileged class. And I'm like, how do you combat that inside of a system that doesn't want to give health care to everybody? Because the politicians are racist, right, and they don't want everyone to have care. They want white people to have care.
Well, I think that's part of it, absolutely, But I mean, how many people got a COVID booster for example, COVID boosters are the COVID booster. I have to say they hit a home run with this booster. I mean, the numbers on this COVID booster are incredible, but they couldn't get anybody to get the COVID booster. Nobody got it.
And now there are states like Florida that even though the data the data either there's another study this morning, the data is a slam dunk on the COVID booster in terms of safety, blocking long COVID, you know, not having you know, seventy two percent reduction in hospitalization, all these factors. But it's also it's not it's for me.
I have to say, I agree with you, of course about socioeconomic class, but it's also an information and trust issue because they're just the disinformation that's out there, the trust in science, the defunding of science. I mean, again, we have a vaccine that's that's effective, honestly effective, and an entire state of Florida that is trying to block the entire vaccine in that state. And so it's just
a weird moment that is tied to socioeconomics. But I have to say, I think we're it's obviously politics, ideology, all the things we've been talking about in terms of the despair of American ness and things like that. Just I think that a class analysis is part of this. But I also think our country is ripping apart ideologically, and it's impossible to have any kind of coherent narrative, even if that narrative is like add four years to your life.
You know, And that's the thing I just again, yes, I believe that there is an information vacuum. I think that there is a trust level, and I think that all of these things were strategic and have been done to continually rip this country apart, to make room for a big strong man right, to make room for authoritarianism. Because if all of the systems fail and then somebody comes in and says, oh, I alone can fix this, and you're in a place of desperation, well guess what
you're going to do. You're going to drink the sand and think that it's water. All I have to say to Peep is that you have to take your health and wellness all across the board into your own hands, because there are full systems in place to try and make sure that you don't access health care. And even though that there are the Biden administration tells people to get their shots, tells people to get their boosters. We know that medicine and medical information and public health have
been weaponized. So Jonathan, last question for you, which is, you know, what do you want people to take away from the from from kind of this narrative, this alarm around despair and americanism.
We have an opportunity now as Democrats to reverse all of these narratives, right I mean, there's really two choices, as you've been saying, I think, very articulately on media
NonStop for the past couple of weeks. We can either join in a cross cut movement to save democracy that also has tons of health benefits, joining in a broader coalition reaching across divides that you didn't think were possible, being activists, being hopeful and advocating for things like better healthcare and more universal gun safety and other factors like that. So are the Democrats to going to create a big tent where people feel like they're all under the tent?
Which is I don't know, it seems almost laughably impossible right now, but that you know, right now, you've got about ten months really to create. You have autonomy for the next ten months to create that movement to you know, as they said in my childhood Kumbaya or that decision is going to be made for you and it's going to be leading to a lot more despair. And there's a pretty clear choice of a big tent right now.
So I don't I know that it's almost funny hearing the words come out of my mouth because it feels so impossible. But I would just say, we have a choice right now, which is are we going to build alliances that improve these metrics or are we going to go the other direction? And so I realize I'm just riffing off of your talking point, but it has to be the talking point.
Yeah, no, I mean, you know, and I as belate, A'm struggling with that talking point because people are fucking angry and I don't know if it's going to subside in the next ten months. And I am worried, you know, as everybody else is. I am. I am absolutely worried because we say this with every election, but this is absolutely the last election if Joe Biden doesn't win. And trust me, folks, Joe Biden is not one of my favorite fucking characters right now at all. But I also
know what the alternative is. As always, doctor Jonathan metzell our in house doctor. So happy to see you happy and healthy in the new year, folks. We will be at green Light Bookstore in Brooklyn on February fifth. Absolutely go go, go and check us out. Go head to Jonathan's website Jonathannetzel dot com, and you can find out all of the information there and if you follow him on social media and me, we will be promoting it
as well. Appreciate you hanging there, everybody. That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke af AS always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.