Fudged Shift Nation

me your girl, Danielle Moody, recording from my Long Island bunker. Folks, I get into a conversation today with our friend Jonathan Metzel on this Woke Wednesday that is just really about every single amount of fuck shit that we are going through UM and what it feels like and the experience of kind of living through one apocalyptic week after another UM, but also really talking about the neuroses right that we are seeing of this Republican Party UM, around the insurrection,

around their denial, talking about the fact that we are using our ability to share space with one another and do so in a civilized manner with the purchase or impending purchase I should say, of Twitter by Elon Musk. And you know, folks, it's funny because I've been talking to Jonathan for as well as you guys know, every every week for the past two years, and you know, it's it's amazing because in the beginning, I just want

to offer this to you. In the beginning, we thought that what we were initially experiencing with being in this global health pandemic was like the worst that things could get. But as time has gone on, I don't think we realized at that time how good we fucking had it. And I don't mean to be flippant, trust me about

the people that have lost their lives to COVID. I in fact lost my step grandmother to COVID in November of twenty twenty, So I'm not trying to be flippant, but I'm saying in terms of we thought that that

was the worst that it could get. It never occurred to us that, as we were, you know, buying up every bit of toilet paper and hand sanitizer, that once a vaccine was available, that we would have people that would protest it and protest hospitals, that we would get to a place that even though we learned much much later thanks to the lack of journalistic integrity of people like Bob Woodward and others who decided to sell a book as opposed to allow the American people to hear

from Donald Trump himself that co COVID nineteen was in fact not a hoax, that it was lethal, that it was airborne, and that it was much more dangerous than the flu. But instead he decided to hawk a book the same way that the Kevin McCarthy tapes were just released, and it just in time once again for New York Times journalists to be able to sell a book as opposed to airing out the fucking dirty launcher of the

Republican Party. I'm watching the news this week, and if you are somebody who lives in Pennsylvania, please do put in the comment section whether or not you had it in you to stomach the debate for the Republican primary for governor. But I'm watching local news here on Long Island and just the fact that we are two years or moved from the twenty twenty election and you have candidates for the state of Pennsylvania to be like folks

who are still uttering the big lie. And I just watched this segment where, you know, another reporter said, you know, it's Republicans in private to each other know that this is crazy, but they're so just they're just so scared, physically, fearful of their base. Well, you're the ones that created the monster. So do you think that I'm going to feel fucking bad for you now that the monsters that you've created now want to bite your head off if you don't go along with the lies. That you brought

to their front door. That now you have a situation where your base is totally and completely out of control, where if you were to step out of the line, which means step out of favor with Donald Trump, then you could be potentially physically assaulted or worse. You know, they were going back to when Mitt Romney was verbally accosted and I think jostled around a bit for his votes recently, you know, during the Trump administration, voting to

impeach and all of these things. And you're saying to me yourself, and I'm sorry, he didn't vote to impeach. He voted to go along, you know, to certify the elections and all of these things. But he was accosted. And so you have these people that want to do tough talk, right like they did during the Judge Katanchi Brown Jackson hearing. They want to bolster up their chest and scream and spit and do all that shit. But they won't do that with their own base because they're

afraid of those gun toten motherfuckers. Right. They're afraid that they're going to catch a case quite literally, And I'm just like, I wish you fucking would and yeah, I said what I said, because frankly, they are the ones to blame for the situation that we are in because much alike right, reports have come out about what exactly Mitch McConnell thought after the insurrection, what exactly Kevin McCarthy thought after the insurrection, And if they either one of

them had control over right they're members, then they should have circled the wagons on the Republican Party, regardless of

how despicable I think that they are. And Alice Donald Trump, like the Republicans could have solved their own fucking problem right, and they could have recognized that, you know what, if we allowed this to persist outside of the primary, outside of you know, his first term, if we allowed this to persist, then our party is going to be beholden to this man, to his image for decades to come.

They had a moment right where they could have said where Mitch McConnell could have laid down the fucking law and said, we are voting to impeach period. If you care about this country, if you care about the future of this party, that is what we are doing, right, and I'm going to ensure that we're able to cast this vote in secrecy if in fact, you are fearful for yourself, and I believe that the Democrats will go along with it. But this is what we need to do.

There were so many avenues right for Republicans to actually do the right thing. But what we need to realize is that they had no desire to because Donald Trump is them and they are Donald Trump. And I keep listening to these analysts and reporters, you know, talk about, oh, Donald Trump is the leader of the party for now. Folks, you have a twice impeached, right criminal ass president that is under investigation in multiple states, where at least one

still because the Manhattan da is chicken shit. So at least right you have the continuation of the investigation that is happening in Georgia. And maybe Merritt Garland is awake, maybe he's not. I'm assuming that Merritt Garland is still in a coma. But and this is the man that you continue to rally behind. So when folks say to me, he's the leader of the party for now, who do you think the leader of the party is going to be?

Right now? You know what I said earlier this week with regard to Rhonda Santis is what I believed over the weekend. I do think that Rhonda Santis is absolutely going to run for president regardless of if Donald Trump runs, and I think that the entire party will get behind the more cunning, politically savvy, and strategic Donald Trump, which

is Rhonda Santist. And I think that if Rhonda Santists were to win, it would be a decision to allow Donald Trump to say that he's going to run, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna run, I'm gonna run, so that he can continue to grift off of his followers and then he will turn over the baton to Rhonda Santis.

I only believe that he does that if there is no indictment that comes down, because the only way that Donald Trump could protect himself, and the only reason why he wanted to be president in the first fucking place, was so that he wouldn't he would be free from persecution. So the reality is is that all of this is

one big grift. Whether you're Rhonda Santists and you know yunken in Virginia who are narrowing our public school curriculum in their state to a place where they're only bringing in one textbook, and it just so happens to be one that they're both financially and politically tied to. Whether it's that grift or whether it's the way that Donald Trump used the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC as a revolving fucking door for foreign dignitaries as well as members

of his own cabinet to throw their events right at cost. So, you know, folks, we look at all of these things and I am just struck by the fact that no political party in this country has any gravitas. The Republican Party completely capitulated to Donald Trump, to Donald Trump's whims. The Democratic Party refuses to actually go to the lengths of standing up for our democracy and persecuting Donald Trump to the fullest extent of the law because they're afraid

of the political pushback. I don't know which one is worse, to be honest, but right now I have such a distaste for Democrats, for the Democratic establishment for this reason, because you wouldn't be able to continue to refer to Donald Trump as the head of the party if Donald Trump had been indicted, right because they can only guide this so fucking far, and if he's thrown in jail or on trial. You think that he's going to be able to run for office? I don't think so, right.

You think that if that is playing every single day on primetime television, that Donald Trump is going to get away with running for the presidency in twenty twenty four. And so again Democrats have his solve for their problem that they refuse to use because I don't want to be I don't want to be seen by the people who hate me and literally would kill me, who say the most hot, disgusting shit about me. I don't want them to react. Well, guess what, folks, they're reacting anyway.

So the question is what is your reaction going to be? Right? Like, are we just going to sit around, right and dick around until everything is gone, until we don't even recognize this country? Because I barely recognize it now. Right, Everything that I have loved, that I have worked for is

pretty much gone or on its way out. And so how do you continue to have, like I keep talking about that mustard seat of hope when your own political party is acting like a bunch of punks and think that they're going to take the moral ground and like that's going to serve them it's not. So we need to figure out as a party who the fuck we want to be when we grow up and stop acting like a bunch of little kids. Stop acting like a bunch of toddlers that are afraid of the bully in

the park. Right, you need to use every single weapon that you have at your disposal, right, the brilliant legal minds that are in this country, to look like you are fucking fighting. Otherwise we lose everything for good. Because I don't know of any country that has lost their democracy and then got it back within you know, a year or two. That shit takes decades, decades that we don't have and our kids shouldn't have to suffer through. Coming up next, my conversation with our in house doctor,

doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of Dying of Whiteness. Friends, when it is Wednesday, I'm always so grateful to be joined by our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of Dying of Whiteness, which in fact, we are dying of each and every day in America since roughly twenty sixteen. Jonathan, biggest news this week? I mean, I don't know how we keep track because there's so much news every goddamn week.

But big news this week that Elon Musk has made an offer to Twitter to buy it for forty four million dollars after the fact it still has to be approved by shareholders. It still has to be approved by the board, but everybody stands, including the CEO current CEO, to make hundreds of millions of dollars. However, right after the announcement was made, hashtag I'm leaving Twitter or Twitter

fail was trending on this site. And people are really concerned about Twitter turning into a cesspool of toxicity given the fact that Elon Musk is probably one of the biggest human trolls that I have seen. He's tweeted things like coronavirus is fake. He has tweeted things against the LGBTQ community, particularly charged challenging trans trans identity and trans people's existence by saying pronouns are bullshit. What do you

make of folks reaction? And what is your reaction? Because both you and I are avid Twitter users for our work to lift up our voice, what do you make of this decision and how it honestly can potentially impact people's emotional and mental health on this platform that is already egregious in a lot of ways. Well, I've been dying to say this, and I couldn't say it in public before, But now I can say coronavirus is real.

And you know, I was blocked before people didn't listen to cardib But now I can just say that in public. I can say I can say anything I went to public because free speech, no one, no one, everybody has the right to free speech. I can also say that slavery was horrible for enslaved people. I couldn't say that before, but now we can say whatever we want. I think that gender fluidity is a logical response to a very uncertain world. I can say that everybody's going to embrace

me for all these opinions. So there's all these things we can say now that we couldn't say before that I think are are great. You know, the binary system, that's just how our brains are devised. But it turns out the life world is non binary. So let's embrace non binary approaches, and so all these opinions are going

to be celebrated I think by by the open. Yeah it's a total bunch of horseshit, obviously, Yeah, it's it's like free speech for who right, And so that's kind of the issue is like the people are yelling free speech are the same people who are trying to, like, um, are trying to like make figure out what you can teach in a college class, you know, or um, what

you can talk about or whatever. Like I don't know, I just like this just the snarkiness and me like, I want to go write a book that's like, you know, Wanking with Wood by Pinocchio or something like that and sell it at disney World or something, you know, Like I I just like it's it's so the so the the bs ness of the world has never been on display more than right now. And so the question is

like what do you do? And the irony is, you know, you and I like we love doing gloom like that's our thing, right, I mean I don't love it's not actually Okay now, I'm just kidding. There's a lot of people I like. I like light things. It so happens that we're living in the midst of the apocalypse, though, name one light thing you like. I like plants, Okay, when knows that I am a huge plant person. That's how I keep my sanity. Yeah, I mean I play softball weekend. I had a good soft I mean, I'm

in a batting slump. So if any of our viewers have any yeah I can't I can't hit the ball right now. But but but let me just say what I was going to say is, you know, but I guess the point about doom and gloom is this um like there's a fanta see that things are unregulated. Like that's what's behind this whole Twitter fantasy and other fantasy. Is like if everybody just has a gun and an opinion and equal access to the conversation, the world's going

to be a better place. And and really what it means is that if everyone has has that really horrible oppressive ideologies rise to the top, and we end up reinforcing hierarchies that are baked into the cake of the of the society and have been for you know, since, you know, for centuries now and stuff like that, and so in a way, what it does is just reaffies all the really bad shit and silences any kind of protest or or or alternate way of being in a way,

and so part of the issue is like something like Twitter need I mean, I was just thinking, how great would it be if there was a public utility that was based on letting people communicate and communicate with each other that was then also regulated to make sure there weren't threats or hate speech or other things that were like blatantly you know, blatantly un un Christian to be up on that and stuff like that. And so, M

so that's kind of what we need. And and so I just think this idea of like everything being unregulated, I don't know, it just I grew up in a world where like libertarianism was always a thing, but it was it was a fringe thing. And the fact that we're like moving into libertarian not just communication, but health and self defense and everything else like that, it just it just seems to me like a slippery slope toward anarchy.

And more than that, it reinforces, it reinforces the bad stuff that that regulation is designed to to keep people away from so they can live happy, productive lives. You know. One of the things that I have been thinking about since this news you know, dropped, because you know, one I had never Jonathan until last week experienced re really hurtful UM pushback on Twitter. And I mean that I had joined UM MSNBC Reverend Owl Show. And this was before when we thought that him buying Twitter was not

going to happen. And so for the first time, I'm speaking publicly about Elon Musk and how I think that he's a transphobe and a bigot and all of all of the things that he has put on display with his Twitter account and in interviews that he's given. And I got so much hate that and I you know, and it was and it was more than I'd ever gotten before. But I realized as I had, you know, a mini breakdown during the week, that wow, this was really hurtful, right, Like, and that's the point, right The

point is to get at you. The point is to devalue you, to dehumanize you, and all of these things. And then with this sale moving forward, I'm just like, oh, so is this going to be every day? Like? Is this going to be that one picture shot of what

happened to me? By speaking out against Elon Musk and then apparently recognizing that, you know, white men love this man like he is some type of deity, right, I mean, the same way that they have this love affair with Donald Trump, like he gets to do whatever he wants. And I'm starting to realize that, you know, for right wingers, these conservative white cis gender men, whether or not there they have any economic status at all, their desire in life is to be able to walk through it and

do whatever the fuck they want without accountability. And Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the picture perfect examples of that, which is funny because most of us believe that white men walk around and do whatever the fuck they want anyway, regardless of their fame or economic status. And so what do you think that it is that has people take

up for the likes of a and a mosque? I mean, there's there's such a strong under and overcurrent of like, um giving voice to racial resentment in a way, and so the kind of sense of your aggrieved, you've been oppressed, you've been oppressed by villain the blank usually government or wokeness you know, or whatever the hellum, and and and so it kind of gives voice, It makes it okay. He kind of profits unimagined, unimaginably by giving voice to

that aggrieved sense of kind of white victimhood. And I think that's that's that's kind of it, you know, and that that combines both those guys. I mean, I think in this case, but I mean, Jonathan, how is it that that that like rich white men are the ones that are giving voice to the victimhood, Like, isn't that ridiculous? No, the whole thing is absurd. And the thing is like like,

like was Twitter really that regulated? Like people really he couldn't say, like, you know, they couldn't say winking with wood by Pinocchio. That was the one thing you couldn't say on Twitter. I'm just going to try to make that a profitable thing. But but but no, I think that you know, it wasn't that regulated, right, But finding like oh I'm oppressed by this fauci Is Hitler and all these kind of things, like you know, you just you find the thing that is oppressing your freedom and

your liberty and then you blow that thing up. I mean it's a pretty standard thing, but it works, right, I Mean, they can see their works. Oh we're oppressed. We're oppressed by this thing that I didn't even know as a thing and I don't even encounter it at all in my daily life ever. But but but I think that narrative of like being aggrieved by the way the world is turning away from you is a pretty powerful thing for people who can articulate that pretty well.

I mean, I I've certainly seen that in the stuff I do in my work, and yeah, so I think that's it. I don't think the content, I mean, consistency in the intent is not is not going to be. I mean, you know, we have a Jewish guy from South Africa and a guy who inherited a bunch of money from his dad, who was a Democrat supporting abortion and gun control until like fifteen years ago. Like, it's

not like consistency is the message. It's more like people who give voice to that aggrieved sense can can pretty much get away with murder. And that that's kind of what we see. I mean literally, but let me ask you. Let me ask one thing, because like I don't I don't really care that much. But I lost a ton of Twitter followers overnight, I guess, And so are people

quitting Twitter? Is it bots that are running? I think, I honestly, And and this was I asked like a couple of people because um Anna Navarro, like a lot of you know, folks who have hundreds of thousands of followers were tweeting that they had lost thousands. I lost I think to this point right now about three hundred and you know, and that's it's I think that it's

bought sweeping. I think that it's really coincidental to have this announcement come out and then all of a sudden people are losing thousands or hundreds of you know, of followers. Is it just a regular bot sweeping. I have no idea, but I have I have been gaining followers, and so I haven't lost anyone that I was following, right So I think that it's just that it's it's really going to be like what happens to the Forum. I mean,

I think that's going to be true. It is Twitter going to be so toxic, like it's not even worth the headache, you know. I mean that seems like that's a real possibility. Is that just the tone of Twitter is something that is so off putting to just the average person that um that it just becomes a place to go listen to like Trump and Babylon Bee and

Alex Jones and all these kind of things. And so in a way, the possibility of just a total right wing takeover of this megaphone seems to me pretty high, and so I would I would just and in a way that kind of silences the voices. I mean, what you experience after TV, I bet will be the response. I'm wondering if it will be the norm, you know. Yeah, And so the thing is two things. Number one is just pay attention to I mean, I've I don't know anything.

I'm not an inside at all, and I you know, I'm very like I if it's up to me, we'd still be using atari pong, like I'm terrible with technology. But I will say watch to be watch if you're followed by like right wing stuff, I mean, that will be the issue. Is like I bet a lot of people like us will be followed by right wing stuff, and then every time we say, hey, I'm tying my shoe, then there'll be ten thousand people saying shoes, shoes or

liberal shoot hard, you know that kind of thing. And so I just I would watch that because I would bet that it's going to have a massive silencing effect. And then for me, it's like, you know, health follow me on tender. I don't care like just I would be but this is you know, but that's one of the things too, is that we know right that these environments, these platforms were initially created I think out of good right,

which was the desire to bring people together. For Twitter was to kind of create this town hall, you know, type of vibe where you can follow all of these people. I believe for me, Twitter at least is where I follow academics like yourself, where I follow you know, journalists

and things like that. But you know, somebody had tweeted and had said something really powerful, which was love E J. Jones, and she said, you know, the thing with content creators is that unless you own the platform that you are on, you're always going to be beholden to somebody else, and you're going to be beholden to whoever, you know, whoever

takes the ownership's stake. And so if you're not finding a way to get your own email address, to get the email addresses of the people that follow you to create and direct them elsewhere, then like this will just keep happening. And what is going to happen is that you know, you will have these major social media sites.

We didn't like it when Meta took over Instagram and is like has tried to disrupt and kill tiktoku by hiring a right wing firm, Like, so, where what what does it mean when we live in a society where free speech and how it has evolved over time is actually I'm silenced, right because I've been thinking, Jonathan, and you know you do this work, like you know, Hitler didn't need social media, right, Like you know he had tens of millions of people following him by use of

the media. While Hitler was killing millions of Jews, he was getting fucking you know, uh coverage in the New York Times Home and Garden section about the long walks that he likes to take. And so I wonder, you know why we know that Russia is still messing with our social media. We know these bots, we know what we believe, we know what Elon Musk wants to do

with Twitter. What is what do you think that that means for our personal power and understanding how we utilize our voice, particularly at a time when we're watching our democracy crumble. Well, I mean, I think that's exactly right, that the bigger the issue is certainly personal. And I mean I don't know, I can't hardly, I don't know. I have like signal on my phone and that telegram or telegraph or whatever on my phone, Like I don't.

I don't have time for that. Like you know, so there's only so many things to get people's email addresses. Would I don't know, I'm not doing I'm not doing that. Um you know, just meet me at Central Park at three o'clock or something like that. Yeah, yeah, but um, but I would say that the bigger the issue is personal,

but it's also profoundly political. If you think about the role that Twitter plays, for example, in mobilizing political campaigns and Twitter ACTIVI in all the work of you know, I mean for better or worse, right, I mean, think about the Bernie Sanders you know, bullshit and stuff like that in the primary. But I'm saying like Twitter is like the it's not just any artery of communication. It's the one that is that is mostly used by political

campaigns also and to mobilize things. And so I think the issue is also going to be what's the impact on our on our elections, on our politics, and and so I think, you know, it's kind of TVD there, but that's well, that's where also I think you're exactly right.

I would be worried about that. Also, it's kind of like what does this mean for campaigns, for campaigns of people who aren't already incumbent and their name recognition might not be that great, or who are trying to create alliances between different kinds of people who aren't usually together. So I don't know, hope hopefully we figure that out. But it's just weird that there's a lot of money people have tried in like creating alternate social media platforms

um and uh, and it just hasn't worked. So we'll have to see what happens. Yeah, I think that it. I mean what they are saying, at least by the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg is that this takeover, like the sale will be done in twenty twenty two, the takeover Musk takeover would happen in twenty twenty three. Right, So it's like getting through mid terms potentially potentially um but then leading up to the presidential right to your

you know, to your point. But again I say, is this an opportunity? Is this a time for us to really to realize that like what was supposed to be social platforms to bring us together have been weaponized And is it do we need even in this rise of you know of more technology, of you know, of oculus, of these spaces that you can you know, you can go into virtually of the metaverse and all of these things. Do we need to go back to just yeah, meet me in Central Park at three o'clock? Do we need

to go back to just door knocking? In terms of political you know, get out the vote and connection to go back to where we started because these places, I mean, you're not going to be trolled if you go back to you know, knocking on doors. But we also live in a more violent time and think about like the pandemic for example, Like the power of disinformation that plays to people's fears and moments of crisis is deep. And so I think all of those things. I mean, well,

we'll see how this goes. I mean, I think that it's just weird. Like if you think about the role, for better or worse that government played, like when we were growing up, or you know, people people had government jobs and people you know, think about how like the post office was never late and they delivered in snow and sleet and until yeah, and and healthcare could could you know, you could see the promise of things like something like medicare for all or a single payer system.

That's that's a government healthcare system. I mean, the idea of kind of promoting equity in our society rests on somebody being in charge. But if it's every single person is out for themselves, it's great for gun sales, it's great for people who already have power, and it's terrible

for everybody else. And I think we're seeing that in multiple ways, rhetorical and real and and so I think that's going to be the issue is how do you possibly make government or regulation or something like that, how do you how do you restore trust in that in the face of this when you don't have the you don't have the voice in a way. So it's it's pretty it's pretty. Um, it's pretty it's serious. It's pretty serious. Yeah,

it's pretty serious. Yeah. You know. I last, you know, last thing I will say to um, last question for you is you know again, I know that we talk every week and we try and be lighthearted in between our apocalyptic comments, because you know, I want people to continue listening to the show and not feel doom and gloom. But did they come for dooming gloom? Come for dooming

bloom and Pinocchio jokes. But the heavy but seriously, the heaviness of the times that we are living, like every week just feels worse than the last, right, And so it's like, I, I don't know, like how we're supposed to be navigating this time when there feels like there

is no light at the end of the tunnel. So I just want to know, you know, I know that you just wrapped um your semester, but uh, you know, the year with your students, what was there, what was the energy going, you know, going, you know, going out of this of this year. Imagine for young people particularly, Yeah, there's so much anxiety right now about what world are

we entering and will the world still be there? Because they of course very much care about climate, they care about inequity, they care just that there's going to be a functioning economy which requires grown ups to like get along enough to like think that they're in the same system. So there's a tremendous amount of of anxiety right now in students at places like where I teach at Vanderbilt, certainly, and but but it's not like everybody's feeling doom right now.

If you are a right winger, this is like, I mean Spanish fly floating in the air kind of momentum. This is this is the greatest thing that's ever happening. So if you're one of the people who's like the adoring crowds in a Lenny reference Stall movie, then this is like a great moment for you. And so it's it's really honestly just going to take remobilizing the majority of this country in a way that's effective in light of what are It's not like every week is bad.

It's like every week follows from it just gets worse from the week before. So so we need a better a better strategy and in a way how to mobilize right now is really going to be the main the main issue. I mean, we're facing some pretty big things and just beyond all this stuff like like what what defines a democrat right now, as we're like nine months away from facing like this massive threat, they could even

get much worse, much worse. Um, I don't know. I feel like we need a we need a narrative, a sap about how people are going to get together about this. Jonathan, Well, we'll continue to get together every week until somebody locks us up. No, they're not taking they're not learn morse code. No. I mean the thing is like I'm gonna I'm gonna make a zillion dollars with my Pinocchio book and then I'm going to buy DCP and A and then that'll be the That'll be ther Yeah. That love it. Well,

we'll see you next week. Jonathan here's helping take care. Guys. That is it for me today. Dear friends on Woke f As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.