Models of Power

excited about the opportunity to do so. But don't you ever fear. As always, we have some incredible shows lined up for you for the rest of this week. But as always, our good good friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel is in conversation with me today discussing, you know, as always, democratic messaging as we are now less than two weeks to the midterm elections. Now, folks, here's what I want to say about this hall to midterms and the anxiety

that I know that I am feeling. If you follow me on Twitter, then you know that earlier this week I sent out a tweet and I said, you know, I'm not feeling great today. I'm feeling a lot of anxiety and I'm feeling a bit hopeless, and those things are true. And you know, like everyone else, I go through valleys and streams in terms of my emotions and reactions to what I'm hearing. And so what did I

do after I sent out that tweet yesterday? I turned off the fucking news because frankly, the way in which the midterm elections are being covered is one as if it is a completely normal election, right, as if there

are just the normal things that are at stake. Once again, this being the fault of mainstream media to actually do its job as the fourth estate, to hold this country accountable to itself, to hold our elected officials accountable, and also to navigate what is really rough and treacherous terrain that we've never had to navigate before in this country. And once again, much like they did with the emergence

of Donald Trump, they are failing. Whether or not they are failing on purpose or out of ignorance, I have no idea, but either way it's not good. And so what I will say is that I know many of you who DM me, who tweet at me, are feeling the same way, are feeling this level of anxiety and

stress and are having sleepless nights. And what I am going to say to you is that outside of listening to my show, which I want you to continue to do, I'm telling you to turn off the fucking news, right it is not helpful to watch this horse race that they are portraying where Steve Cornaki and others bring out their big board and let me bring you to this place and let me pick up this random white person on the street to talk about how aggrieved they are

and how much they're going to vote for, you know, whoever Donald Trump tells them to vote for. It's not helpful because what it does is that it reinforces in us that know, regardless of how much work we put in, how much we donate, whether or not we show up, that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter that the numbers are tightening in and with those tightening numbers, our chests they're tightening. What matters, folks, is that you vote,

plain and simple. What matters is that you get as many people to vote and vote for Democrats down the fucking ticket as much as possible. Anything else outside of those actions is nothing but noise and won't do anything to assuage your worries or your fears, or your anxiety. And so I say to you, outside of getting to the polls yourself and getting as many of your friends, your colleagues, your family members to the polls as possible,

volunteering at the polls, offering rides, offering help. Outside of activating in that in real life way, turn off the news because it is going to do nothing other than drive you fucking crazy. And I would even offer that on election day, plan your election day again, if you have not, if you have early voted, then plan your election day doing something good and nourishing for yourself. If you work for a corporation or a nonprofit or an outlet that is giving you that day off, go to

the polls and volunteer, right. And if you're not going to volunteer, then go out in nature, feel your day centered around joy. And do not turn on the television. Do not go into the twe because outside of the in real life things that I have just said, that Ken, you can do sitting down in front of the television and watching every conversation, bite sized, you know, punditry on what is going to happen, and all of this tea, leave reading and all of this nonsense is not going

to serve you. And I will tell you that, you know, in the past, before Trump BT, which is how I think that we're going to be, you know, guiding our calendar around America moving forward, is that before Trump, I loved election Day. It was exciting, it was fun. I'm a person that grew up in politics, That's what my

degree is in. I used to go to watch parties and you know, it was a time to drink and commiserate and you know, and have a good time and you know, feel like you were actively, you know, participating in your democracy. That's no longer the case. It actually feels like, you know, going into dental surgery without any anesthesia. So that sounds awful. And I think that for folks who are going to vote on election day, go in vote, share your eye voted sticker with your friends and your

family and your colleagues on social media. Encourage them all to go and do the same. To drop what it is that they're doing, you know, drop a link that says like if you're living in this state, an area, or here's where you find out where your polling stations have been. Because as we have seen, as what was just aired out in Virginia that sixty thousand voters were sent to the wrong place. I don't think that that

was an accident, and neither should you. So outside of doing these very real tactical things, watch a movie, Watch ten movies, right, It is most likely then, unless this is a blowout on either side, we will not know the results until later on in the week. So again, sitting on your couch, glued to the screen, glued to your phone, glued to your laptop is not going to serve you. It's not going to serve your nervous system

in any way, shape or form. And why do I bring up your nervous system, because, folks, we have talked about wellness on this show, the ways in which I have developed rituals and practices that are keeping me sane

and steady and grounded. And I encourage you all to lean in to those rituals and practices that you have developed over the last couple of years, to really dig into them, because what happens when our nervous system is overworked and overwhelmed is that we allow disease to come into our bodies, which causes our cortisol levels to rise, which in turn allows disease to enter into our bodies.

So the more at ease that we can make ourselves by virtue of prayer if you're a religious person, meditation if you are a spiritual person, walks in nature, if washing yourself in nature and just sitting and taking deep breaths helps you. Workouts, yoga as a form of workout, walking, running, gardening,

you know, being with your animals, petting them. All of those calming activities, wellness activities are what we need to double and triple down on as we prepare our selves for election day, but also as we prepare ourselves for the aftermath of election day. Folks, I'm not going to lie to you. I never lie to you on woke f and tell you that everything is going to be okay,

all is going to be well. I think that we can learn on an individual way to keep ourselves well, but as a larger collective, as a nation, as a democracy. My magic eight ball says outlook unclear. So the way in which we can treat ourselves and teach ourselves to rest to center joy. And again, this is not me saying ignore. It is saying that we need to take in the news like doses of medicine. Right, you don't when the doctor hands you antibiotics, you don't take the

whole bottle at one time. You take a pill over the course of how many days. Well, I'm telling you, you know, maybe you watch ten minutes and then you turn it off, right, Maybe you check in on Twitter four five minutes and then you're like, Okay, I'm good. We have got to have these balancing tactics to help us be able to deal and manage and manage well with what is coming our way and what we have

been dealing with and consuming over the last three years seven. Really, when you think about, you know, the beginning of Trumpism, and it has only been for me really truly, during the beginning of COVID have I developed practices that I have been doubling and tripling down on that helped me maintain. So I'm going to offer something new to you all.

I have been having trouble sleeping, and you know it's my days have gotten a lot busier in terms of the work that I do with these shows, both WOKA and Democracy Ish, with my writing that I do with The Daily Beast, with you know, other work that I do to help movement organizations hone their voice and increase their impact. So I had sent a note to a friend of mine who owns and is one of the co owners of an online apothecary called Old Strobe st r o B and the O has a line over

it Strobe Apothecary. And I said, Hey, my schedule has ticked up. I'm gonna be traveling more, I am working more, and I'm really trying to stay in balance, and I feel myself slipping back into old patterns of behavior that serve no one. And she said, Okay, I got you. I'm gonna put together a box and I'm gonna send it your way. Inside of this box, my dear friends, and I will pull this up for people who watch the video on Patreon. This is Strobe Apothecary's how their teas,

their loose teas come. And she sent me a wonderful Rubio's Vanilla Chi tea. She sent me another one that I can't get right now, a heartwarming shy tea that it was all about healing broken hearts and pain. And she sent me another one that is about easing our overworked minds. They put together these beautiful tea blends, and I am a coffee you know now, a coffee drinker.

I used to be a real big tea drinker. And what I've started to do is what I've learned is that my French press can also work as a tea press. Who knew everybody knew, I'm making this joke. Everybody knew but me, And so now in my evenings, instead of going for my cocktail or going for you know, little a little smoke, not of cigarettes, but instead of reaching for these external things, which there I have no problem with any of them. I love a good cocktail and

all of those things. But I'm trying to figure out how to get myself at ease on my own. So I'm closing out my day with tea and going through this ritual before bed of turning off the electronics, you know, either picking up a magazine or a book, but turning off the electronics earlier than I normally would because I'm working at such a high pace during the day that

it takes me now longer to wind down. And again, these are about being in tune, in tune and aligned with our bodies and recognizing that we are not fucking machines that we are not meant to grind, we're not meant to ignore and quote unquote power through right. And so I am listening to my body as it is really stressed and recognizing that I need more time to wind down and more time to wind up. So I'm

giving myself that time. I you know, read the directions, I put in the tea, I you know, put on my kettle, and then I sit right and I poured the tea I drink, you know, which is so soothing and nice and calming, and then I head in to do my normal routine of meditations, storytelling, and trying to ease myself into sleep. I'm also recognizing that when I am stressed, that I require a good amount of sleep,

like eight to nine hours. Thankfully, friends, I don't have any fucking kids, so I don't have to deal with having to manage a bunch of other little people. But even if you do, I want us all to learn to be more in tuned with what we need and then figure out the ways in which we give ourselves what it is that we need, because we all to be operating in the fullness of ourselves in order to navigate the new world that we are living in and

so that is very real. And I offer that because you know, on top of what was also in my basket of goodies was sage and Palosanto and you know, and crystals that are for clarity and for guidance that I can carry with me as I'm now moving around

more to help level me out. And whether or not you believe in these things or figure out your own thing, I offer what I am using as what I call rituals to help me with my routines that are keeping me grounded and level in a way that I know many of us are swirling right now up in our heads. So that is it for what I am using and doing.

And again, folks, if you have different routines and rituals, share them in the comments section, share them with one another, share them with me, because I think that the more that we can come together as a community that is not only about raging against the machine but is also about rest and wellness, the better off we will all be all right, dear friends. Coming up next, my conversation with our in house doctor and good good friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Hey, there, I want to tell you about

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Person of the Week and much more. Listen to the Damage Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, folks. As always, I am so happy to welcome our friend back this week with a one on one, and that with a

classroom filled with two hundred students, our friend, doctor Jonathan Maxil. Jonathan, it was such a pleasure to join your class last week, and you know, we didn't have an opportunity to do a debrief and so I'm and I got such good feedback from the woke a f audience that they appreciated the conversation and the role reversal that we did. So I wanted to give you a chance to fill us in on what some of your students have said. Well, the Royal Reverse apart Man. Being the host is hard.

It's hard work. You have to like think on your feet and stuff. So I'm glad to be back in this chair today. But but no, the students loved it. They of course really appreciated your clarity and directness. We're spending a whole semester looking at pandemic, which of course is changing and it's impact on politics. And so I got a million comments that were fantastic. Many were about the content, and many were about what does it mean to be in the career of the media right now?

How is the pandemic changing the media? And so I just think we should do that again. It was really fun. It was I mean, it was it was awesome. It is very rare that I am interviewed on my own show, so so UM, I definitely appreciated it. And I thought that their questions, you know, a lot of their questions, um, you know, about how to move forward in this time,

and we were really great UM. And the fact that you get to be in touch on a regular basis with young people who are living through a time that you know, frankly none of us could possibly imagine. I think is really important to always be in touch with how they are thinking and how they are navigating this um this time. So that being said, I want to I want to talk about the New York Times is um article that they have done this week, UM, which

is entitled their America is Vanishing like Trump. They insist that essentially they Um, you know they were lied to, right, Um. And I gotta tell you, Jonathan, I have not gotten through the entirety of this of this article because it pissed me off, frankly, and I just brought it up in another interview, and you know, people were just like, I'm so frigging tired of the New York Times, I'm

so tired of these deep dives into white grievance. Um. So I I what are your thoughts about this continued narrative and how helpful or unhelpful it is in the grand scheme of how one democrats assess this, you know environment, as we are two weeks away from the most consequential and probably our last free and fair election in this country, and also just this changing idea. So what do you

make of this consistent narrative? Well, I mean, the thing is, like I understand, right, I understand the framework that liberal America puts around conservative America because like I wrote a book, they did the exact same thing. Right, Dying of Whiteness was about the fear of being the demographic minority, the fear of kind of status threat, losing privilege, all these kind of things we're driving, right, America to make irrational decisions.

But I would say what that didn't look at was how it's not like, oh, this is such a brilliant liberal critique that the right never thought about. The right was actually using the same method to mobilize people, to scare the shit out of them, to get them to vote and become more extreme and radicalized and adopt more extreme positions. And so the point is, like, the right has found this never ending well of resentment that will

get people to the polls. I mean, that's the main thing, and it'll get them to accept positions that we're fifteen years ago insane. And the left hasn't done that, right, The less hasn't done that. And so I certainly agree with the article. And there was another one that I helped with in the Washington Post a couple of days ago about white America dying from COVID, which is certainly true.

White America is dying from COVID much more. But the point is it's a model of power, right, And so the counter to that, in addition to critiquing the right, is like, what's the left doing now to mobilize in the face of a really existential threat across the country. It's not just in right America anymore. You know, the New York governor's race is really close, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is really close. There's a potential of some really bad stuff.

And so what's the left version of that that's going to get every single person in your under your umbrella to help to come to the barricades. And I will say that, as horrible as the overt racism and race baiting is, that's on the right. Um, they've mobilized the ORC army basically that's going to go out and vote, and not only that, like stand with guns by ballot boxes and everything else. And what's the left version of that?

We can critique it till we're blue in the face, but what's what's our version that's going to reverse that trend?

And I don't see it, but you know, to be fair, Jonathan, I don't know what could reverse that trend, right Like I think that if I think that if our idea of a pushback beyond critique and beyond pundentry, which obviously the both of us do um, but beyond that, the power that be in the Democratic Party, the powers that actually have the ability to shift to shift message and offer policy and offer broad strategy, like there is no turning the people who have adopted Trumpism as their flag,

their mantra, and their cross to die on. We're not offering those people an alternative. They're gone. And so I think that it isn't about well, what is our version of X. It's how are we not telling people very directly and clearly and lifting up in their own words what these Republicans are saying and using that as are

like we don't have to craft messaging. This week, Ronda Santis and Charlie Christ faced off in a debate where Ronda Santis was talking entirely about white comfort and not wanting to offer white people reality in the formation of this country because it will provide them with too much guilt.

Why is the Why don't Democrats take that SoundBite and play it and say you should care about what your kids are learning and not learning, who is teaching them and not You know, you have them talking about, well, we want to get rid of entitlements, Medicare, social Security.

You got the whole of Florida that is over the age of sixty five, So why aren't we messaging to them that says that what afforded you the ability to buy this retirement home or enter into this retirement village, Go and dry up come twenty twenty five if you allow for Republicans to take control, because guess what they're not going to protect what is allowing you to exist

now that you are retired. I mean, when a perfect example of this as a crime right because crime, of course is real if there is a real crime right now. And also crime is being manipulated, exaggerated, blasted out to people in the suburbs who don't really care that somebody got pushed on the subway in New York except that it reinforces their stereotype of liberal black America coming for

you and all that kind of stuff. And so the answer, the Democrat's answer very often was like, well, the crime is not as bad there, you know, over exact the station. But it's totally the wrong response, Like the right response would have been to co opt the issue of crime and then come out with a crime Reduction Act or something like that that use that language proactively to put the other guys on the defensive and make them respond to your position using the language of the stuff they

care about. I just feel like we spend so much time refuting all their mumbo jumbo, and the thing is that it doesn't work that way. And so I think, like, like, we didn't realize until it feels like three days ago that crime was a big issue, even though it really is a big issue for a lot of people. And the answer isn't to critique their formulation of crime. It's to use the rhetoric of crime to change the conversation

onto terms that are favorable for you. Now, it's easy for us to sit here and say they could just change the message. Of course, in the real world, people are being bombarded with a zillion different, you know, messages across multiple platforms. It's not just like putting it on NBC the way it used to be. But I will say that we never put them on the defensive using their language to change the narrative. We never do that,

and I'm seeing it again. I mean, I'm the most worried about the governor race in New York right because, you know, Zoldians using the NRA playbook of scaring the crap out of white people about black crime in the city. And the answer isn't, well, the crime isn't as bad as it was twenty years ago, which is what the Democrats are saying. It's to take the mantra of crime be proactive, and then reformulate an aggress of message that forces them to respond, you know, why aren't you down

with blah blah blah and so. So I don't know. I feel like, actually, Chris was pretty good at doing this kind of thing. I thought that he surprised the hell out of me. I'll tell you, yeah, I thought it was pretty good. The things like we're figuring this out like now with ten days to go, and I feel like we haven't been doing this enough, anywhere near enough,

you know. But the reality is, you know, unlike us who live and breathe in politics and know every movement of every new policy that is being released or pushed back on by the Republican Party, is that most people don't tune in until around now, right, like most like

average Americans. Thankfully, there have been over eight million ballots that have been cast, right, and that those that are saying that are following the election in the way of what's been cast and whose early voting starts right now is the fact that we are the numbers are good, right, We just don't know and won't know if it is the Republicans that have motivated their people to come out early, but the trend has been that it's the Democrats that

come out early. It's us that go will always go to early voting and do the mail in ballots and do these things. And so I don't want to just follow the trends of what the polls are saying, because for Democrats, it's not a motivator to say that we are behind, right, we have to walk that fine line of saying that. To your point, these races are tightening in a way that they shouldn't be tight right, particularly

in New York. But I'm also not gonna I'm not going to hang my hat on every goddamn pole that comes out because in the last couple of years they have been wrong. Right. So the question really is what are Democrats voting for? That's the narrative, and it can't be I'm voting for saving America from the Republicans. You actually have to vote for something, and I don't think that. I really don't think the Biden administration has crafted that.

I mean, I understand like it's complicated right now, but I don't think voting against Republicans is a strong enough platform. And so what gets people to the polls is voting for something. A lot of times, I mean also SCAREDO Trump and stuff like that, but I think that you're voting for bodily autonomy, You're voting for your right to vote.

You're voting for student loan debt relief that is being blocked by Republicans that Democrats, to your point, are not using the fact that it has been blocked by a group of Republican governors and holding that up to young people and saying we're out here trying to help you, you know, and look and here's this clip. They blocked it, right, so we need your help to have the numbers to

override it. Like that's the kind of pivot that I think that the both of us want and need at this moment, Right, Um, Jonathan, you know, quick pivot from from mid terms which are breathing down our next because with a couple of minutes that we have left with you, Um, COVID is not done. I know more people now, Jonathan that have contracted COVID than I did last year and

the year before. Give us an update as to where we are and what folks need to be doing as we had head first into winter and what I believe is going to be another COVID winter. Well, two main things the virus is meet eating like beyond anybody's world is imagination. It's evading a lot of the immunity that we built up through vaccines and through just her stuff.

But it's it's kind of going out the window. So what's happening in a lot of places, Um, you know, it seems to be a rapid rise and then and then it's coming down a little bit. But people seem to be getting sick in places like Germany and Second Pore. So now is it's a good time to play play? It's safe if you can, you know, mass and handwashing for the next couple of months for sure. And I don't know, I feel like Republicans taking over is going to be a great thing for the virus from the

virus perspective. Also, so you know, we're doing this while we have a quasi semi functional CDC. But just the infuriating thing for me is that there's a new there's a new version of what virus protection is going to look like. I think it's almost certainly going to be some kind of nasal spray kind of thing that blocks the virus, the virus from you know, from entering the

respiratory track. China and Russia are way ahead of us and developing this because our Congress has blocked any funds for for stuff, and so I just think that the funding issue for American science is going to be a major issue also. And quick, last thing, there's a new booster that is out. Is this is this booster something that people who are still on the fence about getting. What is your response to that get some kind of

booster for sure? I mean, just we have three almost three years of data now that shows that getting boosted is protective. New booster, old booster. They look like they're roughly the same, to be honest. But I think that again, we're in for a shit winter, and I think doing everything you possibly can right now is the best approach. Doctor Jonathan Matzel as always deeply appreciate your time and your insights. As you're traveling today. We appreciate you, and

we will unpack more next week. All right, take everybody? That is it for me today, Dear friends on woke A f As always power to the people, and to all the people power get woke and stay woke as fuck.