Minority Rule

Is great news. But what would be even better is if we had more than sixty one percent of the population that was vaccinated. I know that I am beating a dead horse every time that I go back down this road, but it discuss me to no end that no one from the Trump administration is being held accountable, even as we receive more reports on the fact that they had information for the public to share about COVID nineteen. They had the protocols that they should have been using,

and they just refused. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to weaponize a virus, right, turning people against each other and creating absolute chaos so that they could hold on to power. Right. We lost over eight hundred thousand Americans, and that number continues to tick up, and they're twenty five percent of the population that will refuse still to get vaccinated. They're killing their own constituents, they're killing their own followers, and yet still here we are, sixty one

percent of the population is vaccinated. You know, all I can continue to say, following my conversation yesterday with our friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel is, friends, do everything within your power to stay safe. As Jonathan said yesterday, now is not the time for us to want to get COVID right now. It's not the time for us to allow ourselves to, you know, fall and lag in our daily habits that that we've created, washing our hands six feet of distance,

wearing a mask. Make sure that you are vaccinated, make sure that you are boosted, and just stay as safe as possible this holiday season. I want to switch gears now to going back to that son of a bitch from West Virginia, Joe Mansion coming up later in the show. I have the opportunity. I'm so excited to bring you this conversation. I've wanted to interview this member of the squad, Representative Jamal Bowman, from New York for the longest time

since he was elected. He is outspoken, he is passionate, he is thoughtful and strategic, you know, everything that we actually want out of the Democratic Party, but yet don't get in mass. And we have a very candid conversation about his thoughts on Joe Mansion, which he has not minced any words on any of the shows that he has appeared on. But the reality is this that we, as he will share with us, are moving into a really dark season, right. And I'm not just talking about winter.

I'm talking about, you know, the winter of our politics. I'm talking about the dark corners right that we are headed into when we know that we have a rabid Republican Party that is willing to do anything and everything in order to hold power. We have a really apathetic Democratic Party that is not messaging in the way that

they need to message. And one of the things that I bring up two Congressmen Bowman, is this, you know, it is evident right that the Republicans have embraced the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green, have embraced the likes of Laura Beaubert as the new faces the Republican Party. They're not moderate, they're not economically fiscal. They are crazy white nationalists that are armed, that don't just use violence as a threat, they use it as a campaigning tool as well.

They use it as a fundraising tool. If you see the reception that Kyle Rittenhouse a murderer, right, a person that murdered two people in cold fucking blood, two citizens of this country. If you see the type of embrace that he is received from the Republican Party, from Lauren Bobert, from others, right, they are making no qualms about who they are, who they see their future as. And the question that I ask Congressman Bowman is why won't Democrats

embrace who their future is? Why do they continue to run from the likes of him, as well as Congresswoman Omar and Ocasio Cortez and Pressley, And you know, it just makes no fucking sense. Right. We know the demographics of this country are rapidly shifting. We know that white supremacy tied into capitalism, which are just one and of the same, are going to be what destroys this country. We know why people voted in mass right for the historic twenty twenty election. We know why the squad was

ushered into power in twenty eighteen. And it's because we right, who still believe in progress, who still believe in justice, believe in these young voices of color, And yet our folks that are in leadership, the Peloses and the Schumer's right, are still running from these people, are trying to distance themselves from them. And I'm thinking to myself, but yet you want to continue to run to the fucking mansions of the world. You think that it's the independence that

saved you in twenty twenty. You think that that's what got the Biden administer stration in. You think that that's what solidified a democratic majority in Congress. You think it was the independence or the fucking Republican karens that you still try in court. It isn't right. It's people of color, it's progressives, and they continue to ignore these people to

their fault. Right. You know, I just saw right before it came on air that Biden has decided to extend the waiver for paybacks of student loans until May because

of the omicron variant rise. And I gotta tell you, if Joe Biden wants Democrats to stay in power, you know what he could do instead of delaying the inevitable, maybe cancel fucking student loan debt, right, maybe for those people that have student loan debt that is above fucking, you know, fifteen thousand dollars that you fucking canceled that

shit out. It's just consistently amazing to me, and by amazing, I mean absurd that we can make the excuses as to why you continue to give tax breaks to the rich, on why you continue to allow loopholes to exist so that they don't have to pay their fair share. Then you want to turn around and you want to tell people, oh, if you want to be successful, if you want to be quote unquote wealthy or middle class, you got to go to school. You got to get an education. Then

those same people listen to you. They go to school, they go to get an education, only to be saddled with six figures worth of debt too, then have to work in a low level, low paying job that they are tied to not only for their benefits, but so that they get to pay back the very institutions that gave them blown you know, blown up fucking student loan debt.

It just doesn't make any sense, you know, everywhere It doesn't matter at which at which end of the educational spectrum that you're looking at, whether you're looking at preschoolers or you're looking at those that are headed into post secondary learning. We don't care. We don't care about you, We don't care about students, we don't care about young students, we don't care about older students. We don't want to

invest in workers in this country. And then we want to turn around and say that they're lazy, right, We want to allow the mansions of the world to say, no, you don't deserve tax credit, you don't deserve student loan debt relief, you don't deserve any of these things because we, the rich and the mighty, who are wielding our swords of power, believe that you are lazy and undeserving. You know, it's amazing to me, and I will say this in

the interview with the congressman, you know us him. If I have very little hope right about Congress and the direction that Congress is going in. How do you feel? How does it feel to show up every day into a chamber with people that you know want to kill you? Right? Like? What must that feel like? This isn't just oh, I'm going to work and Peggy over there gets on my nerves.

Or every day, No, it's like I'm going to work with somebody that put my face on their website and with a with crosshairs, right, or I get on talk radio and I tell them, oh, yeah, she's a terrorist and we should kill them, like I You know, folks, I swear to you, this year for me cannot end soon enough because you know, and I'll just continue to say this, I need a break, and I think that

we all need a break. And I wish, I wish that I had the power to be able to say, you know what, America, you know what, you deserve a sabbatical, You deserve a year off, You deserve some time to breathe right that we have if you, folks, if you really think about it, as we're reflecting on, you know, this year that has just passed, the fact that we have been working, continuing to work, pay bills, pay rent, pay mortgages, find ways to put food on the table

during this health pandemic where now in New York folks are back to wearing masks just outside right, Like we had gotten to a place where it's like, okay, we all have our masks, and as soon as we're walking into any store, any restaurant, our masks go on. And it wasn't right. It was in twenty twenty when we knew very little about COVID. So we're walking around out on the streets and you're masked up because we don't know, right,

we didn't know how the virus worked. Well, now we're back at what it feels like in New York right now square one. And I know it's not square one because we have a vaccine and we have a boost, but I mean square one. Is it pertains to fear Like I am not walking out of my apartment building without a mask on. I am walking down the street with a mask on. Right, I am seeing lines wrapped around you know, city mds and pop up testing sites because people are fearful. And you know the fact that

we are able to make it through this year. If you are getting to the end of your workload for the year, I know it may not have been perfect, right, there may be some things left that will just have to wait. But I want you to give yourselves a pat on the back. I want you to give yourself some high praise because you know, I don't know who is due the studies right now on our emotional state as a collective, what it means to go through or

exist in collective trauma and anxiety and depression. And I'm going to be you very candid. I've had many moments as I'm trying to close out for the end of the year this week, where I was in full blown tears because things just feel so big, right, like the problems, they just feel so unwieldly, like are we ever going to be able to wrap our arms around this? Are we ever going to be able to tackle this issue?

And I'm not just talking about Omicron, because it'll be Omicron right now and in a couple of months it'll be something else. That's the reality of where we're living now that any moment, any reprieve that we have in between these very enjoy them, right, Enjoy the ability to socialize with your friends, Enjoy the ability to you know, to connect with family, because we are going to be living in what I believe are just going to be consistent waves of this virus that will happen between November

and February of every year. So you know, during the show, I have been you know, the past couple of weeks, I've been talking about fire seasons and these once in a century tornadoes and once in a century storms and all of these things. Well, the reality is that we're living inside of a once in a century pandemic that

I don't think is ever going to end. I think that much in the same way that we have these different seasons right that through climate change have become exasperated over time, that we're going to be living in and with COVID forever, and that there will be seasons that are way worse, that see a lot more death and a lot more illness than others. And that is simply right because of wealthy nations desire not to provide lower incominations with the ability to manufacture at a high level

their own vaccines. It has to do with Donald Trump and the Trump administration's initial handling of COVID nineteen that after a year of being lied to every single day by every single member, by every single fucking outlet that a Republican would go on that the damage was already done. The genie had already left the bottle, and we were never going to be able to put it back. And because of that, we'll never have one hundred percent of

the country vaccinated. We won't even ever get to probably eighty percent of the country vaccinated, right, and that is because of the Trump administration. And I'm just wondering why we ever, we will never call a fucking spade a spade. We'll keep talking about well some people and over there and conservatives and the saying no, no, it's one person, one party to blame for this. Fucking own it before

they do, right, But that's not what Democrats do. And so in my conversation with Congressman Jamal Bowman coming up next, we are going to talk about a range of topics. We're going to talk about COVID, We're going to talk about build back better, and we're going to talk about what he hopes to manifest in twenty twenty two. That conversation coming up right now, folks. I am so excited to welcome to wakayeff Daily for the very first time.

Congressman Jamal Bowman, who represents the sixteenth Congressional District of New York, which is the North Bronx and Westchester and has been one of the most outspoken, vocal progressive voices in the House of representatives that I've been dying to talk to you. Congressman, let me just say one, your spirit and your passion give me hope at a time when I am not the only one in America these days that is feeling hopeless. As we're trying to head

into the holiday season and into the new year. The first question that I have for you, I mean, is the question that is on everyone's mind. Why is Joe Mansion, a man that was elected by two hundred and ninety thousand Americans the President of the United States. Why is he the one that is leading our democracy when eighty one million people voted for Joe Biden, voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, voted for change, and he's sitting on a yacht and a maserati doing anything but creating change.

You are speaking to the reason why we have to deal with the electoral College and change what's happening there. You are speaking to the reason and why we need to elevate the issue of the filibuster and ending the filibuster right now, because it's that issue I think that will uncover sort of the historical and systemic discrimination and how it exists in Congress and throughout much of America's institutions. We have a system of minority rule, which means it's

a fifty fifty split. So Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate, but the fifty Republicans represent way less people than the fifty Democrats, and those fifty Republicans, their votes have as much power as the fifty Democrats. And what makes it worse to your point, is we have one Democrat. And I would say too, because I think Senator Cinema is an alignment with some of what we've

been fighting against. We have one Democrat that's pretty much caucusing as a Republican, pretty much behaving as a Republican. And on the one hand, you could say, well, you know, his state was won by Donald Trump at thirty nine points, so he's behaving in alignment with that. That is true.

On the other hand, he represents a state where that has some of the highest poverty rates in the country, where has the seventh highest poverty rate when we're talking about childhood poverty, when you talk about climate injustice, when you talk about lack of access to healthcare and the history of an opioid epidemic, as well as a literal scandal where private industry poisoned the people of West Virginia.

When you talk about those things and what constituents they are really dealing with, and who mentions donors are and how those donors and special interests literally control Congress, that's when we begin to have the right conversations and bigger conversations about what's happening there. So that's a very long answer to the simple question of why he has so much power. The short answer is we have a slim majority. The longer answer is, wait a minute, this is all

pretty corrupt and how it wor right? Yeah, because I'm because I'm saying I sit around on woke a f you know, on a regular basis, and I say to myself, if this is what winning looks like, then I hate

to see what losing would look like. Right, Because if if winning looks like no voting rights legislation, no build back better, no direction on climate change, if it looks like the House of Representatives passing hundreds of pieces of legislation that without the graveyard of Mitch McConnell still goes to die, right, then what is it that we are telling the American people to vote for you know, And so I ask you, you know, as as a staunch Democrat,

as a staunch progressive, are we messaging as Democrats in the way that we need to? Should we take a piece of the Republican playbook? And in my humble opinion, I'm not putting words in your mouth, but go after Mansion in the same way that we see Republicans go after people that refuse to tout Donald Trump's big lie. It's a time for the niceties to end. So no, we are not messaging correctly. Yes, it's time for the niceties to end, but I wouldn't even say it's time

for the niceties to end. It's time for us to tell the truth. We just have to tell the truth about who we are, where we come from, how we got here, and where we want to go. That's it. Let's just have honest conversations about that. And because you know, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party both kind of serve the same master when we talk about moderate and

conservative Democrats and Republicans. The master is money, The master is green, the large corporations, the master of special interests. This is why we're trying to get big money out of politics and afore, the People Act that we passed out of the House back in March would have done just that, but as you mentioned, it hasn't moved in the Senate at all, and partly because Mansion didn't support it, rewrote the bill, and now we're going to deal with

his rewrite of the bill. Right, So it's all of that. It's also about getting organized, right, So we need to get organized on the outside of Congress. And I'm talking living room to living room conversation after conversation, what do we want the country in the world to look like

twenty years from them? And then what are we doing individually and collectively every day in our lives to get to that world Because you're not going to defeat settler colonialism in just a couple of years, because it's taken hundreds of years to build. But we also need to be organized on the inside, meaning is the Democratic Party really going to embrace its big tent and it's and it's brilliant communicators and orators and fundraisers like Ayana Presley,

Corey Bush and AOC. Are we really going to embrace people like that to make the party what we should be, which is the leader of the next iteration of American democracy, and we need to get organized in doing that. What's happening in the Senate. How could we win a supermajority in the Senate next year? How is the Senate working with the House? How are we working with the White House? What's our twenty year plan? None of that is happening

at the level as should. And that's why we need to, you know, we need to do more to make the change that's necessary to get that done. You know, I'm really thankful that you mentioned your other colleagues, you know who collectively the mainstream or the right wing. I don't even know who has named this squad. And one of the things that I find really frustrating is that it is evident that the Republican Party has decided to embrace what we had hoped was just the fringe, the Marjorie

Taylor Greens, the Lauren Bouberts, the Matt Gates. We thought that that was the fringe of the Republican Party, but we now know that it is the face. Why do you think or do you believe that the Democrats that are in leadership run from the progressives and don't have their back in the same way that we are seeing the Republicans consistently have the back of their most rapid members. You're talking about members that have threatened violence and death

against their sitting colleagues. And I sit around and I read strongly worded statements rather than you know, seeing the full breadth of the Democratic leadership embrace and have the back of their warriors. You know, I agree. When I was on the outside looking in, still a middle school principle, just paying attention to what was going on, I said to myself, Wow, we have Nancy Pelosi, who's the Speaker of the House, who as a woman who's been in

leadership in that space for a very long time. And you got these four new, dynamic, incredible women in Congress coming into you know, shake things up and move things forward in a good way. And imagine if Speaker Pelosi would embrace them in a way that truly empowered them and centered them. We had an opportunity to do that with the Democratic National Convention that we just had, and I saw all these other faces and all these other people.

I mean, we had a case at who's a Republican gets some airtime at the DNC and others not saying they shouldn't, but that would have been the perfect time to elevate people like Rett Presley and Kazio potez Omar and to leave and others. So that so that because they represent the full breath of America and what America is, so we can't run away from it. We have to be who we are, and we have to be honest

about who we are. But I'll tell you, you know, we have people in Congress who are quote unquote frontliners, which means they are you know, they're in swing districts who the party caters to and dictate sort of how we should go about doing business as a party to support them, and of course we want to maintain the majority.

But when we do that, we only target independence, and we only target moderates, and we don't target the eighty million people who consistently do not vote in presidential elections because they don't believe in our politics and our democracy. One reason they don't believe is because for thirty one years it was Elliot Ingle in the seat versus a jamal bowment. Now you got a Jamalowment in the seat.

So let's do something with that. Let's not just you know, continue to maintain a status quo that's that's long since past. You know. I want to feel encouraged by the consistent fire that comes out of the progressive voices in the House.

But it's almost as if Democrats consistently want to go after people of color, which is the base of their constituent, go after black people, black women, the base of the Democratic Party, and then once they get our vote, they hide those very voices and the very people that God us excited to begin with. Right It's the same feeling that I have currently right now about Vice President Kamala Harrison.

Why we haven't seen her front and center. It's this sense of fear that Democrats have of whatever type of retribution or reaction Republicans are going to bring them. Is there a way do you see? And I know we haven't turned the calendar year yet, but is there a way for Democrats to win these mid terms, to make some type of significant pivot in our messaging and in the sense of urgency about what's at stake in this upcoming election season? Yes, but you use the perfect word,

which is urgency. You know, like, if we don't act and respond with urgency going into January, then we have no shot. We already have to climb out of a ditch that we've dug for ourselves because we didn't communicate our successes with the American Rescue Plan, because there were a lot of successes there. We used a lot of political capital to pass the bipartisan bill. We pretty much spent most of the year doing that. But we haven't moved to needle on voting rights. As you mentioned right,

we haven't moved to needle on George Floyd. George Floyd died in the Senate with a whisper. It died with a whisper. There's not even there are no longer negotiations happening, and it's just dead. And the whole world stood up to demand police accountability and police reform, and George Floyd was supposed to be that, and that there's been no delivering on that. There's been no deliverance on the Women's Health Protection Act, which would supersede whatever the Supreme Court

does in terms of women's reproductive rights. No movement on common sense gun reform. I mean, you think about it. You haven't talked about gun reform probably all year, and we had we've had one hundred and eighty school shootings and a big one in Michigan. So Democrats have to react with the urgency and move with the urgency to kill the filibuster, in my opinion, and get these bills passed. And we got to do everything we in our power

to get Mansion on board. And that's about holding him accountable. And until now that wasn't really happening, and now it's happening, and now we see him complaining about all of the pressure people up putting on him. That's the thing with people with people of privilege right there, So you see the vivillage and their comfort. Once they're challenge a little bit, all hell breaks loose for them while ignoring the the hundreds of years of systematical black people and several decades

of systemical oppression of everyone else. You know what drives me crazy about Joe Mansion, And there are many and I won't bore you with them because I know that you in many ways feel the same way. But what drives me crazy right now is that he continues to say things need to be rewritten right, that he does not answer to the people of New York in LA That's that's one of his favorite things right, you know, because it's only in West Virginia that apparently real Americans live.

I don't know. I guess I'm an avatar because I live in Brooklyn. But you know, the thing that he continues to say is, you know the people of West Virginia, those are the people that are on my mind. But to your point at the top, they're behind in every socioeconomic indicator that you can look at. Right, But this man has been in power in their state for four decades. Just recently this week, the coal union right, which is the biggest in his state, has come out and said

we need build back better. Right, So if he's not listening to them, and then his buddies on Wall Street also just came out and said you need build back better because we're going to go into an economic downturn without it. So his donors on Wall Street are telling him we need this. The supposed coal miners that he loves to bring out every campaign season, he say that they need this. But Joe Manchin is sitting and saying

he doesn't like the way people talk to him. I don't know what more compromise do you think that you're willing to give when we've already come down from three and a half trillion dollars to one point seven five trillion. He wasn't comfortable with that. Apparently he's not comfortable with the childcare tax, he's not comfortable with climate change legislation.

So where do you see the room, Congressman, in terms of being able to get this through when the media, to me, also frames it as if it's your problem. This is if it's the progressives problem and Joe Mansion

is just trying to be a moderate centerist. Yeah, absolutely, And thank you for saying what you said about the media's framing, because I've noticed that throughout my time in Congress, and it's it's crazy that they're constantly asking progressives to compromise and ask for less and if we don't take this, we get nothing. And the reason why they're doing that

because the power structure is controlled by corporation. So we're talking about the corporate media and we're talking about a status quo that has done everything in this power for several decades to keep progressives from having a voice. So for me, and this goes back to the Democratic Party, including Mansion, if you have boots on the ground in your district, and across the country. You'll really understand what the needs of your people are, what the needs of

the people that you serve are. But we don't have boots on the ground. We're in ivory towers. We're in ivory towers, reading polling, watching from afar what's happening, and then making decisions based on that in alignment with a status quo. That's that's embedded both consciously and subconsciously in how we do business. So we have to disrupt all of that because the reality is, again, tens of millions of people have been lost faith, not even now, they

already were gone, and we're losing many more. And I also worry about the psyche of the American people. Right we were we were sort of coasting through Obama and you know, I love the sign. I always go back to this, if Hillary were the one, we would have all been in brunch. That's a great sign, a great sign. And then we got Trump and it's like, you know, that's how God works, like you thinks you're chilling bomb.

Take that. So we took four years of Trump and we had an insurrection, and now we got twenty million radicalized across this country, ready to take up arms to defend their freedom. So if that doesn't wait, Joe Manchin up and President Biden up and many of the old status co op to to understand we need to do better. I don't know what does. So for me to speak out and for others to speak out, we have to

do that. And even though people don't always hear it or understand it, we're actually speaking out with love, with love for the people, with love for the planet. And we think if we move forward with love and cooperation instead of the competition that's that's damn that is killing us,

then you know, what are we gonna do? You know, I'm so I'm so grateful for the fact that you that you have brought up, you know, this sense of urgency and the fact that twenty million Americans have been radicalized. And if they looked and if they looked like me and you, right, if they were a Muslim, if they prayed in a different way, where do we think that

those people would be? What do we think that the headlines on every news station, on in every paper, on every blog would be twenty million white people in this country are radicalized. We are learning every single day about the ways in which this that former administration criminalized in administration, put together a war room right and a plan to overtake the government, are still doing so and nothing is happening.

What is the faith level that you have right now in the one six Commission, right in the committee to be able during what is going to be one of the most consequential years right this? Twenty twenty two to me is more consequential than twenty twenty four, because I don't think we get to twenty twenty four without some serious in twenty twenty two. But what faith level do you have right now, Congressmen and your fellow members and their ability to actually get the job done here. I

have faith in the January sixth Commission. I have less faith in Joe Mansion and the Senate. But I have unlimited faith, omnipotent faith in people, in human beings to do great and be great. So my faith is in my constituents, the majority of them are black and brown. My faith is in the progressive way of moving forward, and we have a ton of constituents who fit that category. If what happens in Congress doesn't translate to the people,

then we're going to lose. And that's what continuously happens, right, does a disconnect between Washington and the people, and the only conduce that connects them is mainstream media. And that's problematic. The other thing is, you know, I mentioned the people because what has transformed this country historically has been sustainable movements throughout history. You know, the George Floyd Uprising was

powerful and important, but it was only a year. We need sustainable organizing an action for five to ten years, for five to ten to fifteen to twenty that starts in liver rooms and expands through school boards, city councils, state houses, and Congress. That is what we need more than anything else. And so I hope that the people take a breather during the holiday season as much as I can, enjoy it, rest and get ready for it.

To your point A twenty twenty two, that's going to require us to be consistently engaged in our democracy on the day to day basis. And one other thing I want to mention, we can't eat our own as we build this movement and as we engage with this movement, because we are very critical of each other, right, it's like crabs in the barrel. We pull each other down very critical. You know, I gotta get mine. It's us

versus them. That's colonial thinking, and we have to recognize that as colonial thinking and free ourselves of that because it's going to take all of us to defeat colonialism once and for all in the next five to ten years. But this year being a consequential year to your point, you know, want to I want to ask you this because I think that it's really important, particularly as people hopefully have an opportunity to get some rest and recharge as we head into the new year. How do you

keep your hope going? How do you? You know, because I said, if I had to go to work with some of your colleagues, I think I would have quit, Like I think, I think I would have been like, so I'm good and I'm out. Um, you know it. How do you continue to go to the hill, you know, day in and day out and continue fighting when I can imagine if I feel exhausted, right and I'm not in your shoes, that you must be exhausted. So I want to be very honest, it's very hard. It's very

very hard. It's tiring, it's stressful, it's often overwhelming. Even being a middle school principal in the bronx around the corner from the projects. Uh you know, that wasn't as stressful as this can be at times, but that was

good preparation for me. So I'm happy for that. But uh, yes, dealing with children, yes, but it starts with this and I'm not promoting this particular brand of alkaline iodide water, but it starts with like, you know, our diets and you know, drinking brother, getting your vegetables, in getting your sleep, unplugging from social media, turning the TV off. If you have a loved one, spend time with them just doing nothing or reading or whatever relaxes you find what relaxes you.

I'm blessed to have three children. Oldest is twenty in college, my son, my second oldest is twelve, and my youngest is Maya. She's seven, my only daughter. So when you're a dad, and you gotta when you're a girl, dad, like nothing can really like that center is everything for you, right, So for me, I try to just you know, like monitor myself and I'm getting when I feel the triggers and whatever, and just unplug because to your point, it's it's tremendously hard. And then the last thing just to

connect with that we really need each other. We need each other, and it's really important for us to be there for each other, not just as black people, but anyone who who's woke, who realizes that we have to this is wrong, like what like the way things have been can no longer be. We need a new world and it's on us to build that world together. So just just be there for each other as we go

through all of these stressful times. I mean, I just you know, once again, I can't thank you enough, first for making time to join woke af but in all honesty, for your belief in our democracy right and and the fact that your voice can change it. I'm a former educator as well. I taught first in second grade. With that and I transitioned my education of youth into trying to educate you know, adults, which is a lot harder.

But you know, I really I feel that there you provide me with the sliver of hope that I need. That if more good people, if more warriors like yourself take up the mantle of protecting our democracy, then maybe we will say it right. Because I think again that twenty twenty two is the most consequential political year that we will ever see. And if we continued with the lack of urgency at the helm of the Democratic Party,

then we will lose it. And it won't just be because of republican insurrectionists obstructionists, it will be because of democratic apathy. Final question for you, what are you hoping to manifest in twenty twenty two? Great question. So I was just texting with my chief of staff, Sarah, who is originally from Eritrea, East Africa, which is the birthplace of civilization, who started her career a professional career as a teacher in my school many years ago and it

is now my chief of staff. So we were texting and we're settling up a meeting to talk about our ten year plan and our twenty years and you know, I want to highlight that because you know, oftentimes we just we just were, We're trapped. We're possessed with this moment to moment, day to day, anxiety, stress inducing way of being. A year to year is good, but the moment, the moment, day to day, week to week, month, that's too much. So we're going to take a step back

twenty years from now. What do we want the world to look like, and how can we be a part of it ten years from now? What we wanted to look like, and how can we be a part of it next year? What do we need to get done. We gotta get built back better done. We gotta get voting rights done. We gotta get secure women's reproductive rights and access to healthcare, equity about access to healthcare through passing the Women's Health Protection Act. We gotta get immigration

reform done. And we gotta get George Floyd and gun control done. So my energy is manifesting towards all of that. Now. I realize maybe two or three of those things may not happen, but I absolutely think that four or five

of those things can happen. So I'm looking to manifest those things in Congress while also building power in the district because you know, this is a new thing for the district, first personal color representing this district in history, So it's a paradigm shift, and you know, I want the district to continue to trust me, to rock with me, because I'm going to rock with them because everything I fight for starts with the most needy person in our district and part of that group, and I want to

mention this before our goal. New York State is fighting for care workers this year, so fair pay for home care workers. Right now, home care workers don't even earn The average is under minimum wage is twelve fifty hour and they do some of the toughest work. We got to make sure New York State pass passes policy that pays a prevailing wage to homecare workers so they can finally live with dignity. I want to give a special shout out to them and hopefully that manifest in New

York State. Congressman Jamal Bowman, thank you so much. Thank you for your work, thank you for your passion, thank you for your time, and I hope that we can continue this conversation with you in the new year. Appreciate you, of course, Peace and love. Thanks for having me, God bless you. Happy holidays. That is it for me today. Here Folks on woke app as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.