Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wik f Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, today, get into a conversation with our friend or in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel about just the exhaustion that we're feeling and asking him, as you know, a psychologist, how do
we move through this moment? And you know, I'll say that I was surprised by Jonathan's answer, which you all will hear in a bit, But what I will say is, you know, something to the effect of what I posted earlier this week, which is this, and I was specifically talking about the Supreme Court, because if you've been following the Supreme Court this week, my god, are they so fucking clear about who is allowed to protest in America,
namely white insurrectionists that are trying to overthrow the government who they've decided that they're no longer going to look at the obstruction law because apparently building a gallows, beating up police officers, apparently that's not an issue that's apparently patriotic.
But organizing a march after the killing of George Floyd, which is what Deray mckennison did, now that somehow is criminal and you can be held liable for the organization of said rally if in fact somebody, namely a police officer,
is hurt. It's bullshit and I'm fucking over it. And what I said is this, the Supreme Court of the United States has effectively banned mass protests in three states, feels uncomfortable with the use of an abstruct law for the insurrectionists that tried to overthrow our election, and are slow walking the presidential immunity case for Trump where all we got vote? And what do I mean by that?
I think that for the last several years, right under trump Ism and MAGA, that we have been looking to external forces to save us right to shake this you know country that it has been I don't know, lulled into complacency or are under the spell of the world's greatest grifter, Donald Trump. We've been looking to the courts, We've been looking to you know, our elected officials to do what's right, and no one has right to this point. And what I realize is that the only people that
can save us are us. We're the last defense against the final death knew of trump Ism. Now you can say to yourself well, you know, we have Joe Biden, and we lost abortion and we lost afirmative action. Those things are true. We also have to remember that Donald Trump, because he was president and elected in twenty sixteen and sworn in in twenty seventeen, because of America's deep seated misogyny and hatred for women, he had the ability to
appoint not one, not two, but three Supreme Court justices. Right, So we're here because of America's desire for a strong man. We're here because apparently Hillary Clinton's emails were just too overwhelming that we decided to go with a four times now indicted, ninety one charged fucking criminal to be our
president of the United States. We didn't know the extent of his crimes that he would commit while in office, but was sure as hell knew who the fuck he was before when he was on Access Hollywood talking about I can grab them by the pussy. That should have been disqualifying enough. So we were able to stave off Donald Trump in twenty twenty in the midst of a
global health pandemic. And folks, if we have the ability to do it one last time, Donald Trump's fucking I don't know benefit of the doubt will finally have run its fucking course, and those criminal cases and those court cases will now have full breath and will be full steam ahead because the excuse of the election and the excuse of him being a candidate will no longer be there.
So if we can hang the fuck on and do what is necessary, even though it is hard, even though we may not like it, then we can live to fight another day. And so, you know, with the exhaustion, with the grief, with the weariness, I get into a conversation with our friend, doctor Jonathan Mepzil, about how we continue to move forward. Folks. You know, whenever we have the opportunity to chat with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Mepzil, I am always pleased and happy. Jonathan, How are you please?
I like how you put that. That's how I feel. No please, you know, yeah, I'm hanging in there. I mean, you know, what can you do at this point? We have we have bird flu in our eggs, you know, but it's a beautiful day outside, so.
You know, well, I want to start off honestly, because I've been in a lot of meetings and a lot of conversations where people are feeling this rise in frenetic energy. They are feeling like things in our society, in the
world are just moving rapidly in the wrong direction. And you know, we are getting close to the six month mark until this presidential election, and I want to come to you as our in house doctor and saying like, how do people manage emotionally during this time as everything is becoming incredibly just devastatingly overwhelming.
Well, thank you, and I'm going to then ask you a question as an in house social media expert after I answer that question. Sure, But I mean it's funny because like I feel like for people like you and I, we were kind of built for this moment. Like I'm always doing nine hundred things and the world's always coming
to an end and it's not pleasant. But like my brother said to me there day, he said, sometimes the sky is falling, and so get I think right now it's a time to recognize there just is an unbelievable amount of uncertainty and instability. As we've talked about here, a ton of it goes back. I mean, yes, we've always had uncertainty, but when people say that, I don't think they account for many things, including what we've talked about here, which is that the pandemic actualized the sense
that the world could come to an end. You know, that mortality could come from breathing somebody else's air. And so in a way, I feel like, even though there always has been instability, it's personal in a way because of the pandemic and also because a lot of things that were happening in other places are now happening here.
And also because what's happening here is reflective of a much bigger global agenda of attacks on liberal democracy in the Middle East, in India, in South America, which we haven't talked about anywhere near enough, where liberals are attacking liberal democracy. So, in other words, the pandemic and social media and TikTok just gave voice to it's just a toolkit for authoritarians, and we're seeing that all over the place. So it does feel like we live in a really momentous,
biblical moment. And so what will make you feel better in that moment? Well, Number one is vote for sure, because it's not like we don't have agency right now. And I'm just mirroring a lot of things You've been saying a lot on media and social media, And I think you're exactly right that it's not like I mean, it's not like it's helpless. Right now, we have a choice before us that actually I think can reverse the course of a lot of things in the United States
for the better. In other words, if Trump convincingly loses the Republicans, will I think that'll be enough of Trump for the many Republicans. I know there's many more Trumps on the way, but I just think voting right now is is important, and I don't think we should give people an off ramp from that so that it's partially
a political answer. But then it's all the stuff we've talked about here also, which is to try to articulate, to try to prioritize all the things you do just to organize around your house, you can do in the world, like what's the most important thing? When am I responding to? How can I take breaks? All those kind of things. So there are certainly mental health things that are important right now, but I'm kind of I mean, it's funny. I give a big talk at the University of Louisville
yesterday and I said, anxiety is generative. Right now, it tells you that something is not right, and so acting on that checking out is sometimes not the right response. Then instead stepping forward is the right response. And I still kind of feel that way.
I love one everything that you just said, and in particular when you started off with what your brother said that sometimes the sky is falling right, some times it is as bad as your mind, right, because our mind does have a way of playing tricks on us. But the reality is that what we're seeing and what we're feeling is as bad as what we're seeing and what we're feeling. And I think that we have a desire as humans to create a new story in our heads.
And what you just offer it is that like we still have choices before us, right, like all actually is not lost, and that we do still have agency for this time being. And what I'm focusing on is that the next six and a half months are the most crucial not just for this country, but I think for ourselves and our psyche and understanding like where our agency is, but also Jonathan, where our impact needs to be as individuals and as a collective. And so I wonder for you.
You you know, when you talk about agency and you say like people can still vote, we know that the voting is not happening for the next several months, and so what does it look like to take care of your emotional and mental and spiritual well being at a time when this sky actually is falling.
Well, first, nothing will make you feel emotionally better than voting. So let's just get that out there. And I'm you know it's before I answer that question again, I will say I've interviewed a lot of people recently because I'm doing this project in the Middle East now, and like for Israeli, as I talked to who are like lefty liberal, you know, anti occupation, oppressed by their own government. Now, I've asked them in recent interviews like what moment would
you go back to? And I thought they would say before October seventh, but they all say, the day before we didn't vote as strongly as we could for the like their whole world turned the day after that election. They couldn't believe how much the entire everything change. And I've heard this before from people who you know, in my elder relatives in Europe, that everything was fine and then twenty days later the whole world was different. And
so I think first of all is to conceptualize. I'm not going to give it out here to say, yes, people should take care of their mental health, that's really important, and take breaks and go on trips and do recess and all that stuff. But I also think staying engaged is really really important. So I think the natural answer for somebody like me, a psychiatrist, would be everybody, you know, do you know, do all the roofie you need to, that's for sure, and float around and stuff like that.
But honestly, we need to stay engaged right now, like we're up against the other side who they're not. They're super engaged and they feel energized. And the reason I want to highlight, even though I know it's problematic and any other ways, but the Israeli example, why I think it's useful for us to think about, is if you look at all this election data in Israel, the election that got Nittanyahu and people who were a million times worse than Natanyahu in power and created all these things
and didn't change the course in the country. The Liberals were told their vote didn't matter, and they voted roughly in the same numbers they had voted in the election before, but they didn't realize that conservatives were all being told, this is our moment to take control over the liberals.
And so the conservatives, the right wing, all these people in Israel, all the messianic nut jobs, they all voted one point five times their usual average, much more than they normally did, and so we should again take care
of our health. But I'm resisting giving a psychiatrist answer because I also think it's important to note we're up against another side that is not resting right now, and so do what you need to know for sure, but also recognize that like engagement is really important, civic engagement is really important right now because the message that we're being told is to check out because the system doesn't matter for us. So I apologize. I know you want me to tell people to.
Like, No, I want you to tell people the truth. It isn't like I tell people all of the time. I mean, the whole point of will Gay Up is to make people conscious to the systemic injustices that we are existing under and in right. And I think that the point is that I also want people to recognize that we don't need everyone to be engaging in rapid response. I need some people to be thinking about like what impact actually looks like, right, and what real change and sustainable change looks like.
Right.
Like everyone has a role to play in this moment. And also you can't really navigate this moment if you are emotionally, spiritually and physically unwell. Right, So I don't I believe that there is a both and proposition. You can be engaged and also take good care of your emotional and physical and spiritual well being, because one can't happen without the other.
It's interesting. I gave a talk where was I? I think I was in pisforg okaying a lot of talks recently, and I was talking about how gun owners felt energized because there was a forty year NRA plan to take over the Supreme Court and kind of everybody knew it, but they were part of this really coherent narrative which was partially about guns. That was my talk, but it
was also that the end goal wasn't guns. The end goal was taking over the Supreme Court and owning the lips and somehow like people all up and down the food chain for the right that I interviewed, I said felt like, oh, this is our strategy and it actually which makes sense of some of the interviews I did and Dying of Whiteness. Also it made sense to them and they felt like, oh, this is our strategy in a way, and I realized it's harder with our side
because we had ninety thousand different strategies. But I do think there's a lot of anxiety because we don't have a coherent long term strategy. And so somebody in the audience said, how can we give that strategy? How can we teach liberals? She was like, how can I teach my liberal students to play the long game? And I said, well, first,
think about all the barriers to thinking about the long game. Right, the whole world is trying to get you to have an immediate response to something you just heard about five seconds ago. But that's a strategy to make you feel overwhelmed, right.
In other words, long game doesn't come from TikTok. In fact, TikTok disrupts the long game, and so in a way, having people not But it was just interesting for me how many gun people I interviewed in twenty eleven, you know or something who felt like, yeah, man, this is crazy, but this is our long term strategy. And I mean, like, really, people who were part of this grassroots thing. So I
don't know. I think part of anxiety is about I don't know how to say this, but it's like almost like it's like having nine hundred agendas but no long game in a way, and also consciously being distracted from having a long game. So I just feel like a lot of this anxiety if we all felt like, oh my god, we're working on the Obama campaign right now and it's all about hope and all these things, like we had one narrative. So I just again, I again, everybody should go for a jog, or buy a fake pet,
or water your plants. All that stuff is really important. I'm making a lot of jokes about like self care. Self care is important, but I also think, like why are I just feel like people on our side are feeling disproportionate amount of anxiety because we need a coherent long term strategy that's not generated by social media.
But that's exactly right, Like one social media, the whole point is to get you to stay on, and there's nothing that makes you stay on more than like doom scrolling and catastrophe, right, Like that's what's that's the point and the goal. So Once you know that, you can decide how you want to utilize social media, right, do you want to stay in doom scroll or do you
want to take respites from that? And that doesn't necessarily again mean just like tuning out, because to your point, the opposition isn't tuning out, but they are also inside of a very loud echo chamber. And that's what I want people to understand too, is that, like, I don't really know to the extent of how big the rights movement is. I don't know if it's thirty percent or
fifty percent or sixty percent. I have no idea because of how cable news and how social media amplifies their messaging and their points and their wins, right, And so, which is why every time that there's an abortion ballot measure, we're shocked that like it doesn't pass, because people actually do show up. So we say that people aren't engaged, but clearly, when the message is very clear about what's at stake, they are very engaged and they show up
to our surprise. Every time that we've heard there be talk about a red wave that has not happened, right, And so not to say to rest on our laurels
and think that there isn't work to do. There is absolutely work to do, but I think how we do that work is really what my question is is if if you're using the Israelis as an example and their post mortem on Netanyahu's election one example, one example, you know, if you're using it as one example and like the reflection on you know, what should have happened prior to I guess it is if we're using that, then what should be happening six months ahead of time?
Well, I think the main thing, like it's worth like I it really does fall back on your own social networks. I mean, I think that's also true right that in a way, everything you're talking about that the mobilizing all those kind of things, it doesn't mean convincing people who weren't going to vote for stuff we care about to vote for it. It means it means mobilizing in your own social networks to get people who aren't going to
vote to vote. Because the whole strategy, I mean, we've talked about this a million times, but like from that Cambridge Analyticas strategy on down, the strategy to their side is to get people to feel like their vote doesn't matter. Or the system is not working for them. It's not to get them to vote for Trump. It's to get them to not vote or to vote for you know, Jill Stein or something like that. And so in a way, it's really about like mobilizing your own networks to vote.
I think that's you know, if everybody, if everybody in all of our networks votes were in fine shape, you know, I mean fine shape as much as staving off this catastrophe. But then we still have a lot of work to do, obviously. But so I would say, like fighting disengagement in your own networks is certainly very important. Explaining to people how we're being tricked into thinking the system won't work for us is very important. And here's where I'm going to
ask you my question. Now, the number of times I want to be I want to craft a tweet about this, will you help me craft a tweet because I'm bad at tweeting. The number of times that I've heard people say this fill in the blank and that's therefore, how can anybody vote for Biden? But I hear people on
both sides of exactly the same issue say it. So in other words, like there was a rabbi in the security line in the airport yesterday when I was flying, and he said he's not letting us fight back against Iran. How could anybody in their right mind vote for Joe? How could any Jewish person in the right mind vote for Joe Biden? And I just thought, man, that's exactly the same thing I've heard from like my progressive colleagues. But the exact opposite side, How can anybody in the
right mine vote for Biden? Because he's you know, genocide Joe and all that kind of thing. So the exact opposite side, how can anybody? But it's also true for a million issues that it's like totally both sides of the coin lead to how could anybody vote for Joe Biden? And you know, I just want to scream, like, what do you think is going to like do you think Trump is going to answer and make both sides of this debate happy or something? So I don't know, it's
just weird. How much like it's just weird how many issues people on both sides see, Oh, and therefore Trump is going to be a better option than we have now.
So it's not that's not that and I it's a reframing that needs to happen, because that's not what people think. They don't think that Trump is going to be better, So it's not. The retort to that is not, well, Donald Trump is not going to be any better. The retort to that, to me, and what I have been doing doing is to revert it back to people's rights and freedoms. Like I continue to say that this election
is not between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It's between the rights that you want to have and the rights that you're willing to lose. That's it, Like it isn't. It isn't. I'm not going to have you know, larger conversations about you know, democracy on Twitter and this and that. But it's just like I continue to say that you are not going to be able to fight for democracy or whatever your version of democracy is elsewhere if you
lose it in these United States. So the question is what rights are you willing to lose that you have not lost already? Right, And have people understand that things if Donald Trump becomes president will change at a pace that no one is actually prepared for. Like it's not going to take four years, it's not going to take four months, Right, And so I think that The response to that is not, well, do you think that Donald Trump will be better? It's what rights are you willing to give up?
Do you think there's a way? And again, it just the irony for me is people don't see it right. It's just people on both sides of the same issue, Like it would it would make more sense intellectually, even though I know, of course you're right, It would make more sense intellectually for me if people had said he's he's pro gun and or he's anti gun and I'm progun or something like that, like in other words, like my candidate is going to deliver for me better than
Joe Biden is or something like that. But it's not even linked to that. It's almost like Trump becomes the default choice because Biden isn't delivering on phil And yeah, I mean Biden's not delivering on a lot of things, no doubt.
We're not at a place of impossibility at this moment. We still have choices. Yeah, so it's like, what what are you choosing? Are you choosing your rights right or are you choosing not to have any more rights? Like that to me is the fundamental thing, Like you know, you think that if you're living in a blue state that oh, I'm going to be safe. No, you are not right. We have the National Guard in the subway stations here without any clear guidance onto when when they're going to leave.
There was an excellent essay in the Trace about that.
Actually, yeah, you have abortion right now in this state, but not an anti abortion agenda becomes nationalized. So to me, the conversation isn't about like, well, how can you vote for Joe Biden? It's how can you even consider voting against your own rights?
And also, I mean, maybe there's a way to also you tell me aspirationally put a spin on that, which I really do believe that America has the opportunity to show the world how to fight back against totalitarianism. In other words, like, there's so many societies that are on the brink right now. India really comes to mind a lot, but Argentina, and I mean the list is really long. And so if America has the you know, America can show the world how to save democracy. I mean, I
realize we don't. We're not great at looking globally in this country, but maybe there's a way to also frame it that way, or you think it's about everybody. The way we think in this country, it's all about our rights and our freedoms.
I mean, I think that right now it is all about our rights and our freedoms. I don't think that we're really interested in what and how to frame it globally. I think that the issue is having people really focus honestly on themselves. Yeah, and that is going to be
the way. That's going to be the way forward is I need people to really think about themselves, their lives, their families over the next few months and ask yourself, you know, what are you willing to lose from what it is that you have right now, because you will lose a lot.
I wish people could hear some of these interviews I'm doing. I mean, I'm writing it up a little bit, but it's kind of like it's one of those moments, like remember the moment after Trump won, Like the next day, everybody was crying and in shock, like people kind of realized in other places that just how deeply their world completely completely changed, Like in one day, every just the air was flowing in a different direction and stuff like that,
Like the entire world was totally different. And so I don't know this. It's just like if you can have people see that moment where you know where, like they were like, why can't I go back three days and like whatever, and again we have an awful lot of imperfection. And part of the reason it's hard for Biden right now is because, like our coalition is a lot of people asking like am I in coalition with that? You know? I mean, like our coalition is really divergent in a
lot of ways. But man, I don't know. I just like that that moment of like the day after and can I ever redo? I mean, it would be a million times more intense for us than that moment of like why didn't Hillary Clinton campaign more in the restel you know stuff like that.
So yeah, yeah, well we will have to leave it there today, my friend, thank you as always for making time for wok af.
Always appreciate you hanging there everybody.
Indeed, that is it for me today, dear friends on wok f as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.