Good morning, Keeps, and welcome to ook F Daily with Meet your Girl. Daniel Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, Happy Memorial Day. I hope that you have the day off. I hope that you are doing something outdoors that if the sun is shining where you are today. Coming up my conversation, my weekly conversation with our friend, our in
house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. And you know, Jonathan and I get into a conversation on tactics and what tactics we think that Democrats should be imploring as Republicans continue to run gangbusters with their anti LGBTQ, anti black, anti people of anti women, anti abortion, anti democracy, slate of policies and bills, that they are just drowning, drowning the country in And you know, recently we've talked about on this show, and I've talked about on others about the
NAACP's call for a travel advisory, HRC's call for a travel advisory, and other people to Florida, and we you know, I've had conversations on this show. I have called for a national boycott. I think that if you want to see real change in this country, it looks like shutting down capitalism. It looks like shutting this country down, grinding it to a halt, and not in the way that the Republicans are trying to do with the debt ceiling.
Who knows, by the time that this airs, maybe they will have concocted a deal.
You know.
Again, I won't hold my breath because I don't want to pass out. But the reality is that money talks and bullshit walks. And I believe that boycott's work. I believe it's why Martin Luther King called for a boycott of the state of Alabama back in nineteen sixty five. I believe that a call for a boycott nationally, though, however, will do a lot more damage like a walkout and be like, so we're done right until this country returns
to its democratic values. And look, I am very well aware that America is flawed as fuck, But what we have seen transpired over the last seven to eight years under the Maga regime is absolutely abhorrent. Like it is things that we have never seen in our lifetime and have only read about in history books that are now fucking banned in states around this country. And so when we look at this and we realize that at this time, this critical time in our body politic, that the people
still have a voice, still have a voice. We have got to utilize it to the best of our ability. We have got to take the action right, the drastic actions. And look, I'm not saying that boycotts are easy. I'm not saying that it will be a magical you know, switching on of the lights and then all will be well in this sea of darkness that we seem to be swimming in. But what I am seeing, what I am saying, is that people need to recognize their power.
Right.
No one is trying to take away your vote if it didn't matter right. Nobody is trying to ban books if education is not power right. Nobody is trying to shut down trans people and non binary people, if living in your truth isn't powerful right and doesn't encourage other people to do the same and drop the fucking charades and lies right that they have been leading their entire lives.
You see, trans people represent power in this country, the power to live in your truth, to stand in that truth, and to buck systems and conventions that tell you that you don't know who you are, but that they know who you are right, that you need to just fall in line right otherwise you will stand to be erased.
And so what I recognize is that the experience that we're having right now at the hands of these right wing fascists, white supremacists is their fear, and they lash out with their fear, and it is hateful legislation left and right, front and back. And the way to stop it from happening is to stop it from happening, right.
Not to pretend that because right now you live inside of a blue state that we're like, oh, we're good, right, Like, oh, California will always be blue, where New York will always be blue. No, it's not because I in the last election for governor here all of a sudden, Kathy Hockle is go in and run in the campaign speeches in places like the Bronx where they haven't seen a governor.
I don't think ever, because Lee Zelden came that fucking close. Right, She's still won by double digits, but it should have been a much larger margin than it was. So understand that the tactics that are being used are same, same but a little different right where they're not just coming for blue states but they're coming for blue cities and different disenfranchising them and the way that they have done in Nashville, in the way that they've done in Memphis,
right and giving all power to rural areas. And what are rural areas largely full of white people?
Right?
Racist white people, not just any type of white people. So I think that it's really important for us to think about the tactics of boycotts and whether it's time to really employ them in a way that is nationalized as a way to fight back against the unrelenting anti democratic forces at play in the Republican Cultish Party. So
coming up next my conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to sit down with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled and pleased. And Jonathan, I want to start off today's conversation with what the NAACP has issued over the last couple of days, which is a warning
to black travelers. It is a warning to anyone that is from a marginalized community, namely LGBTQ people and black people, that Florida is a dangerous place for you to be traveling too, that you need to be aware of the rules and your rights before you travel to this state. Now, in real response to that, you had the likes of Ted Cruz say that Martin Luther King would be, you know,
disappointed with who the NAACP is. And then funny enough, you had academic historians bring receipts that offered that Martin Luther King called for a similar warning or ban of Alabama in nineteen sixty five because of its rise in white domestic terrorism. So I want to get your first year reactions to what is very much a symbolic move, but is one that hasn't taken place in the twenty first century.
Well, it's interesting. It follows up on the conversation that you and I had last week, actually, which is there's so much violence happening right now on every level, physical violence, emotional violence, racial violence. And the question is what's the response to it. And our conversation lest week for people who didn't catch it, it's like, what do you boycott and step back or do you step forward? And what's
the value of a boycott? And what we talked about last week, I'll just repeat what I said, which is that my concern is that we end up boycotting too much, and the boycotts are too diffuse and they don't have the impact that they that they may have had. And so before we get to Florida, I just want to say that I still think that's the question.
Like.
Do you quit Twitter or do you step forward and have everybody you know go on Twitter and try to drown out the other voices? Which is hard, But I guess the issue is, and we talked about this last week, is it better to be present and fighting back or is it to be to be stepping back and saying whatever? And my concern from a financial perspective, and I think Twitter is a good example that boycotts in this social media age don't just don't. If there are too many
of them happening, they don't have the effect. And sometimes the impulse to step back should be balanced against an impulse to step forward. I mean, what if every liberal person today got a blue check on Twitter and started blasting tweets again and stuff like that, like started flooding the zone. You know, it's it's a strategy, you know, do do we do we just go somewhere else? Or do we step forward and and and both are both
are forms of resistance, both are forms of fighting. But my concern again is that there's that you end up in a position where it's it's easy to counter and you're just limiting your voice. And I've seen this in many instances. I mean, we could debate other place boycotts, you know, bds being one of them, and other other kinds of boycotts, and I just think you really have
to really strategically, first of all, pick your battles. And then second there's a just in this era, which there was, I mean, I don't know, I should probably know this, but I don't know in the Martin Luther King era where there are counter boycotts of blue states and things like that. But I know in this era, with social media and everything like that, the strategy of boycott is very easily countered by boycotting bud Light or boycotting New York,
or boycotting any kind of blue state thing. And so for these reasons you can hear my voice. I'm concerned about this as a strategy just because it might not have the effect it that it seems like it would have, even though it makes it makes a lot of emotional sense. But what would a massive right wing boycott of New York look like or something like that.
I would love it. I would love it. Stay away, you know, it would make Times Square so much more, a bit like easy, easy manage everything was right, So stay away. We're making we we spend enough money and do enoughing as New York is here to sustain New York.
But no, let's I mean, let's unpack the Twitter example, right, because I think that this is one that people much like us, people like us who use Twitter for work, use Twitter to amplify our our work and messages of our colleagues, and whether or not to stay on right.
And I think that each of us vacillate between I'm gonna leave this place's as cesspool, I'm going to stay, I'm going to fight, and I honestly, Jonathan, for me, it comes down to self care right where I announced this earlier this week that I'm going to take a break from Twitter for the month of June. I don't feel like being being like lauded with anti LGBT, anti black, like just anti equality justice, all of these things in
the month of June, which is Pride Month. As a black queer woman, you will see me go on there and post. But will I stay and like be in conversation with folks. No, I'm not gonna do that because
my emotional wellbeing deserves a break. And I think that what we are finding is that more people are finding themselves not just abandoning the platform altogether, but taking longer breaks from the platform because it's not it doesn't have the same utility it did, right, I mean, you talk to me about this about you know, I don't understand this tweet has you know, fifty retweets and a six months ago it would have had one hundred and fifty retweets, right,
And you know, and I also know the issue with leaving the platform in that way and the algorithms that are already working against you. But again, it's like how long can you stay in a space and in a place that is incredibly hostile, that is incredibly violent and think that you are actually doing something good to move the needle forward?
Right? And to be clear, I mean, self care should come first, for sure, And my concern is not to dictate. I honestly don't have an answer to this. I don't know, you know, as I said before, like my concern is that we do so much stepping back, and then what's our strategy for the twenty twenty four election when we really need to Now there's no doubt, there's no doubt that the algorithms of Twitter have been turned against us this.
You know, if you're a liberal on Twitter, you see it happen, and that the platform is monetizing Tucker Carlson and the Dasantis announcement and all that kind of stuff. But I guess the question is then what's our what's our counter strategy? And I don't know, I'm not a tech person. Is our counter strategy to stay in a place where we can argue back against people? But it's not just about arguing back against people. It's also, of course the role of mobilizing, mobilizing those numbers of people.
And there's just for me, a cautionary tale and all this stuff with Twitter, because remember we were all the people who were like cheering when Elon Musk was like trying to back out, and we were like, you know, don't you know you got to buy it, sucker and that kind of stuff. We were probably mistaken about that, but also we you know, we've we there was a vacuum created, which is on purpose that that's obviously his strategy. But the vacuum was he lost a lot of liberals
and he's gaining an awful lot of conservatives. And so now the megaphone for this huge public square has been just seized by the other side. And and I guess the question is, like, what's the lesson in that? And I don't know. I'm asking that question. I really truly don't know. But my concern is again leading into twenty four.
If our answer is an app with much smaller reach, which only speaks to people who already agree with us, who are already going to vote for people we want them to do, we kind of lose what Twitter once once offered us. And so I'm not sure. I mean, I go back and forth the most.
You know, in all honesty, and I've said this before, I believe that people are going to do what they have always done throughout the history of organizing, which is you cannot just rely on social media platforms that you do not own right to be those unless they were in less Congress were to have turned Facebook and Twitter into a public utility, right and then have the power
over it in the way that they could have. You as an organizer, cannot just rely on tools that you don't own, right in order in order to fight the oppressor. That just doesn't make any sense. And so you're going to have to do what folks are doing in Georgia, what folks did in Alabama, what folks did in Wisconsin, is use the original organizing tools, which is of gathering people together, right, which is of knocking on doors and going to town halls and creating those opportunities for people
to connect in real life. Because it's harder to threaten somebody's life and curse them out face to face than it is on you know, on the social media apps. And so, you know, I think that it is a both and I think that it is lazy to solely rely on social media platforms that you don't own in order to get your message out. It's why the rest
of us have had to diversify. Okay, well, we used to use Facebook, and then Facebook, you know, is not that is not that tool, and then it was then it's Instagram, and then it's Vine, and then it was this, and then it was that. It's like, there is a level of adaptability. But I think that the lesson here is that you cannot get too comfortable in places that you do not own.
Yeah, for sure, So maybe we need to own more stuff, right, I mean, so I mean that maybe that's the lesson is like, you know, we should have on Twitter, you know, But I mean I think that's that's fair, is like, how can we own more stuff? I think that's exactly right. I think there are two caveats to that that I'll just throw in. Number one is it's not just about
amplifying your message. It's also what's the validity of the stuff you're hearing, Like is the are the right wing boycotts working now or are they just being amplified by social media? It's hard to know all these other stories. Is DeSantis a real candidate or is he just being boosted now by Twitter? And so it's not just about your own message, It's like what else is being amplified beyond you know, what's real and what's being amplified by
social media. So there's a kind of way of listening that you have to do also, not just about your own message. And then second is I do think there's something And I say this with a heavy heart because I just want to be honest, I love bud Light. Bud Light has been there for me at times in my life. Bud Light never wanted to hurt anybody. It just wanted to make everybody happy. Bud Light is like boycotting,
like your family pet. But the right wing boycotted bud Light over I mean, the idiocy of that boycott is should be stated, right, which is that advertising is targeted. That's how advertising works. So different communities get advertised to by influencers who matter to them. And so if there's a transactivist who has two million followers, the trans community is going to be seeing ads from them. But the people who are doing country music in rural Georgia are
not going to be seeing the trans activist. They're going to be seeing a country music star and stuff like that. Like, advertising is targeted toward your community. So this idea that like trans stuff was being shoved down on people's throats is not how advertising works. But that being a side, I do think there's something important about this bud Light boycott, which is it did actually have an effect beyond what
anybody thought. And so I think, you know, the interesting thing for me is that that's usually a strategy of the left, these kind of boycotts and protests, and I bet we see more of this on the right.
I mean, but we've seen it. I mean, this is this is Their boycotts look like bands, right, Like their boycotts look like Oh one parent in Miami Dade County has said that they don't they don't like a poem of a Pulitzer Prize winner, and so that poem is now taken right, Amanda Gorman's poem that was read at inauguration is now taken out of an elementary school. It looked they have been like, this is not new. None of this is new, right it is. It is not.
Boycotts are not employed by one side or the other. It is effective based on the amount of public pressure and or acceptance. You just saw the Dodgers turn around after being pressured by to disinvite a LGBTQ of organization from like I guess their parade or their game or like whatever. And now they were pressured by the right to do that. Then there was all of this blowback, and now they have reinvited the people right because again the public, the public pressure on the right side of
history outweighed the detractors. You know, there was somebody that put up and said, you know, when you go back in time, how thirty percent of the country was for segregation, was against integration, was for like you know, didn't care about the assassination of MLK, was for you know, was
against women voting, Like it's always thirty percent. And so I think that sometimes we get caught up in what we are currently facing and not really understanding the historical context of it as a way to be our guide, not just like our woe is me, Yeah, it fucking sucks where we are, but like we cannot woe is me ourselves about all the ways in which they're employing the same tactics they've been employing since people have tried to get their rights right from the hands of slave owners.
And I'll admit, like I'm certainly probably playing the role of the white street man this morning.
You know, do you play a different role.
I'm just saying, like I'm I'm like remember Ed McMahon, like in the old days, like you know, he would just be like throwing the stuff in. So I'm gladly Ed McMahon this morning. I accept that, But I will say I think there was something about this corporate boycott, this bud Light boycott, that was different for me at least than a band. I crew through with a band,
a band. Like there was a great story in the Post or Times yesterday about how like ninety percent of all the social media posts about the book bands were coming from like twelve accounts, right, that were amplified accounts. So that's a place where social media we can see like everybody wasn't for a bookman, most people aren't for a book, aren't for a book ban, but these twelve accounts like amplified it. And so the question is how
do you counter that strategy? Right? And so it's really I think what's our counter strategy when that kind of stuff happens. But I do think there was something about this, I will say I do think there was something about this bud Light band, whether or not it goes anywhere, that was different from a band in that it mobilized a bunch of people to turn on something that was seen as like an everyday part of their life, like light beer is. I don't know, I play a lot
of sports. Light beer is like it's like second to like putting on your shoes for a lot of people, as far as how important it is in sports, and so the idea that they could kind of get everybody to participate in this, I think is something that will get corporate America to pay attention, maybe in a different
way or maybe not. But but but but so I just want to say that I think there are two strategies that are different, but they kind of all link back to our bigger question which you started with, which is kind of so, what do we make of Florida. Well, of course, what's happening in Florida is horrific. It's it's important that people take a stand. This band is important for having conversations. Of course, there are a lot of people who are impacted by what's happening in Florida who
are not white, and it's terrifying what's happening. And so I'd be curious to see how this plays out. I think it's important they did it. Of course I support it. The danger of boycotts I've seen like having I know the BDS boycott really well, and it was like a very important and noble cause. And the unintended effect, or maybe the intended effect of what happened in BDS is that there were a lot of anti Zionist pro Palestinian Israelis and Israeli Israelis of Arab descent who were who
were also affected by this band. They got like isolated from international communities. And so I think that these bands, it's just important to also some support communities of color in Florida who. I think that's the lesson of other bands is if this is going to happen, I think it shouldn't just be like we're going to not go and never visit Florida. It's also like, how can we support Latino, African American liberal all the communities that are being oppressed Disneyland.
But I think to your point that is totally right, is that it's not enough not to It's not enough to just say I'm not going to go to this place, right, because there are people that do have to go to that place for work for different reasons. But it's the other side is how are you helping those that cannot flee, right, those that are actually on the ground and fighting, support their efforts in their internal fight. And I think that
that is the counterbalance, right. It is like, yes, I don't want to give money to this state, but if I'm going to actually want to send a message that I want to help the fundraising for a Quality Florida, for the NAACP chapter in Florida, for you know, undocumented immigrant workers in Florida, Like how am I and politicians, how are we doing that?
Yeah? Yeah, So I think that has to be because I mean, it's it's so weird to like boycott in this day and age, boycott states in your own country. It's like, how the hell did we get here? It's really depressing. But I just think that in a way, it also leads to a doubling down. I mean, there are a lot of important people fighting the fight from Nikki Fried on downstill and all these people who really
need help. So I just think checking out on Florida Now, I would love a Disneyland Times Square, like you know they're if they're not going to do that, like come on here to.
Trying to make more traffic and more.
I love it.
We need Disneyland Times Square, lord, we need more people.
You know, we serve at Disneyland Times Square, bud Light and everybody coming here. But no, New York needs revenue, man, New York needs people. We've lost way too many people for the pandemic and so yeah, come here, mickey mouse, and but but but again, I just think I just think it's it's easy to just say, oh, I'm not
supporting that, and it's so important. Really, it's got to be I don't know, it's time for both and both it's time for liberals to like be capitalist right now now honestly, and like, how can we invest in things like we just cannot We're you know, how can we meaningfully, meaningfully, meaningfully support people in Florida and now people in every place else that I mean, we can talk next week about what's happening in Tennessee since all the stuff happened,
but you know, there was a lot of attention in Tennessee, and now much worse stuff is happening in Tennessee. People in Texas need support. So it's just, you know, we can't. There was a fantasy before that we could just say, oh, all the stuff in the South is happening down there, but what's happening in the South is happening everywhere, and so it's really like, I mean, thankfully that they you see that ten Commandments bill in Texas that they were going to have to hang at ten Commandments.
And yeah at cools.
Yeah, And I was excited because I have a poster from mel Brooks History of the World of he did the Fifteen Commandments. It was hilarious when I was a kid. I've a poster of mel Brooks with the Fifteen Commandments and I was going to hang that. But I just think, right now is the time to like, how can we invest, how can we own things, how can we create a counterbalance to really what's happening right now, which is that these platforms are turning against us.
Let's remember that. For next week we'll talk about the capitalistic resistance and what that actually what that actually can look like. Jonathan as always friend, thank you so much for making the time for wokaf and these really important conversations that I know people are having with themselves, with their friends, with their colleagues, and it's important that we have them on woka app. So we appreciate you.
Take care everybody.
That is it for me today, dear friends on woka app. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.