Reclaiming Our Patriotism

supposed to take off. But nonetheless, I landed in Chicago just in time to hear AOC's speech, to hear President Joe Biden speak on the first night of convention. I obviously did not get to go to the United Center that day because I think i'd landed. Man. I think that it was probably after ten thirty, because I know that for the East Coast, Joe Biden didn't go on till fucking midnight, which was crazy. But you know, I

want to provide for you. If you're following me, and if you have yet to subscribe to my new YouTube channel, I really do encourage you to. I'm really excited about bringing more video content and just exploring another platform. And for folks, you know, I know that people are like, oh, you know, you go to so many different places. You're on this platform, you're on that platform, and the fact is that, you know, I go where the people are.

And what I'm being told a lot is that, you know, the fact of the matter is that a lot of people aren't abandoning mainstream media for a number of reasons, right, the reasons that I talk about on this show all the time. And so a lot of folks are getting their information from hosts and from channels that are available on YouTube or you know, podcasts. So I like to go where the people are and see what I can

do in those spaces. So, if you were following along with me, you were following me on the Brokedown site Twitter as well as on my YouTube channel at Daniel Moody Underscore, which is my same handle on TikTok. It was God, how do I even encapsulated? I posted a lot of pictures and reels over on Instagram as well.

Here's what I will say. It was so well done, from the major speeches that you saw during prime time to the role call of theleg which was done to a DJ and each state having a song and Little John coming out and the musical performances. The energy in the building was just electric, intoxicating, beautiful, joyful. I mean, I just feel like convention took you through all your

emotions every day, all day, just up and down the stories. Honestly, and I've said this for a while now, I seated my patriotism, and I think a lot of us did to the right wing, you know, with their Donald Trump hugging fucking flags and they're, oh, we're the real America, and all of their rhetoric has kind of corroded my sensibility and my sense of where my place is, what my place is inside of this country that has had a really complex, violent, negative relationship with black people and

people of color, and women and queer people, right and people of varying religions. If you're from a marginalized community, your relationship to America has been one that has been very layered, right and at times incredibly adversarial. You know, Colin Kaepernick was pushed out and blacklisted from his job for doing nothing more than taking a knee during the national anthem to draw attention to the unrelenting attacks on black bodies and the killings of black men, women, and

children by police. The man is still blacklisted. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has turned those that invaded Capital Building into patriots. So you can't take a knee and do so in a peaceful manner to utilize your platform to protest, but you can absolutely storm the Capitol and defecate in the halls of power so long as you're white, because that is your rightful position as an heir to what it

means to be an American. And so when I tell you that I'd never waved a flag so emphatically, that I'd never with such joy chanted usay, usay outside of an Olympics, and so many other Democrats that I was sharing space with said the same exact thing. When was the last time you went to a political event and you were chanting usay and waving American flags and saying

the pledge of allegiance with pride. There is something about the energy that the Harris Walls ticket has conjured in Democrats that has finally said to us, it's time to reclaim your patriotism. And I did a full video that is up at YouTube saying that very thing. It is something powerful in reclaiming what is rightfully ours. No one understands and is more patriotic than those that have had to fight with blood, sweat and tears for the ability to be full seen as full citizens in this country.

No one understands the value that America offers more than an immigrant to this country that comes here for no other reason than to make a better life. Kamala Harris's story of a Jamai father and an Indian mother traveling across oceans to find each other in the United States, in the midst of enhancing their education and in the midst of protest to find each other is a story

that is uniquely American. And you heard it over and over again from her family members, to her colleagues, to the former First Lady and President Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Like you heard this over and over again. And the four days of convention were an absolute reminder

of the beauty that this country does hold. But all we've been fed over eight and nine years is everything that is fucking wrong with this place, Oh, Donald Trump and MAGA has offered over the last eight years, is how broken America is, how there's carnage in the streets. What a shitthold this place is blop up up, up, up up up, None of it inducing a sense of pride and commitment and responsibility in wanting to make this

country any better than it is. It's like when you keep hearing that you're worthless over and over again every single day. Guess what, you start to believe it, and you start to believe, well, I guess that's just the way that it is. And there is no getting out, There is no pivoting, there is no moving forward, there

is no future. That has been the major weapon of the MAGA movement is convincing Americans that their way is the only way, and unless you align with white supremacy and white Christian nationalism, you in fact have no future. And not only do you have no future here, you

should get the fuck out. And so the last week of hearing the stories of union workers, hearing the stories of survivors of gun violence, of sexual assault, even through their pain and tragedy, their commitment to ensuring that other people don't go through the pains in which they have experienced, and their commitment to working with A. Harris Wall's administration to strengthen this country and policy measures, around gun reform,

around economic viability, around sexual assault and violence against women. I mean, inspiring is not even the right word, because it's tears that came down my eyes as I'm listening to brave women talk about the loss of their children, the young woman who spoke about carrying her father's child and how having an abortion gave her her life back.

These are real people, and what the DNC was able to do was to make the statistics into real people with real stories, matching the headlines that are nameless and faceless, with the spirit of persistence and thriving that these people embodied. You know, we just came off of the amazing two weeks that were the Olympics, which really, again was another jolt, another shot of patriotism, recognizing that we as a nation have needed desperately something to unite around, and that's what

these extraordinary athletes gave us. Common cause, common language, you know, let us applaud and lift up and share the exceptionalism that we all got to witness together. Because MAGA doesn't offer community, it doesn't offer connectivity, because it can only thrive and gather strength if, in fact, we are separated and see each other as enemies. The DNC offered the American people another story. We don't have to succumb to the darkness, that we can in fact be joyful warriors.

Dancing is in fact a part of the revolution, that we do not have to succumb to the darkness, to the anger, to the hate, and acquiesce to an American fascist takeover. But that by moving people from a place of joy, from a place of possibility, is actually how

you win. Because I've been sitting here, folks, for how long now talking about Project twenty twenty five, talking about the evils of Donald Trump, trying to wring the alarm of this emergency, and guess what, I've gotten more feedback over the last month in terms of a joyful focus and one that has led through a place of promise that I have over the last year plus from a place of fear and rage. This has been an eye opening experience for me the last month of the Harris

Walls ticket. It's only been a month, by the way. That was the thing that was blowing my mind in Chicago is that all of us who have spent our lives and dedicated our lives in some form of fashion to public service to advocating and whether it is on Capitol Hill as a lobbyist in nonprofit organizations, as a

media personality advancing the cause of America and democracy. Where like, it's been a month and it has felt like both a month and a decade all in one, because time is both moving super fast with just ten weeks until the election, and super slow, because I feel like we've been living under the knee of trump Ism for it's

been almost a decade, but it's felt like two. This campaign and this time in Chicago renewed for me this belief that I don't have to move through rage in order to be and be seen as committed to our democracy. I can't express to you how exhausting it has been, folks that on a day to day basis, on a weekly basis, that I have wanted so many times to come on this microphone and quit and be like I'm done. I don't have it in me anymore. And I know

a lot of you would be supportive of that. You'd be disappointed, but you would get it, And so you know. I will tell you that my standout speech, aside from the Vice President's acceptance speech, was Michelle Obama as so many people had said, Michelle Obama took do Donald Trump to fucking school and drag that motherfucker in a way that I believe she had been waiting for since twenty seventeen.

The hell that that man and this movement put her and her family through, the questioning of Barack Obama's legitimacy as this nation's first black president, the disgusting, fucking slurs that she was called, But the elegance and the razor sharp wit that I'm like, that is my role model. That is how I want to learn how to slice

and dice. Sure, I love an F bomb and an M and F bomb with the best of them, but I'm like, the ability to cause that kind of lethal damage and not curse is a skill that I hope to learn. Because, let me tell you something, Michelle Obama called Donald Trump basically everything but a child of God. Michelle Obama basically said that Donald Trump is a small, narrow, thoughtless man who is not worthy of the office of

the presidency. He is not worthy of our time. Right when she said, who going to tell him that the job that he's going after is a black job? Let me tell you that inside that arena we were gagging, like, oh my god, I cannot believe that she just said that. There were so many ways that she just laid bare who like, you don't need to be afraid of these people. These people are small, right, They're so beneath us. Right, they don't care about America. They care about themselves. The

only person Donald Trump has ever served as himself. And I'm like the way that she read this man was breath taking because there was not one lie, There was not one even fabrication. She just opened up her bag, took out a mirror and put it up to Donald Trump and to Maga, and she said, go ahead and look, tell me something different. They're playing the same old song, the same old shit that they've been doing since twenty sixteen, since before that when they were lying about my husband

and lying about me. And what she reminded us and said was that you know the tricks that they are going to pull, and so when they do that, don't get into the Goldilock's sensibility of everything has to be just right. Do something when you know that a lie will take hold because it does, do something right, like this energy of this is not an election where we are going to sit on the sidelines where we are

just gonna hope our way there. No, we are going to turn that hope into action because she said we need numbers in this election that cannot be questioned, because we know that they are not going to accept the results of this election, because Donald Trump, Fox News and MAGA are already planting the seeds that something must be awry, because, as Joe Biden said in his speech, you cannot only love America when you win. It does not work that way. The DNC pose such a stark contrast to what the

art and see was. First of all, in the room was America gay straight by trans, black, White, Asian, Indian Latino Like. It was absolutely beautiful. You could see yourself everywhere. I mean, you can't manufacture the spirit and the joy that was inside of the United Center. And so many of my friends and family said that they were dancing around their living rooms, that they literally felt the spirit. And I say, I'm not a religious person, but a lot of people have said that it felt like a revival.

You had testimonials, you had music, You had this sense of possibility and this renewed sense of faith. I talk about my mustard seed of hope, and how that blossomed into a deep, rich, vibrant, fertile meadow in Chicago. I believe now more than ever that we are going to win because I believe in the power of people. I

believe in the power of hope. I believe that when I'm seeing and hearing that there are hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the country, that people are phone banking and text banking, that people are organizing house parties, that people are continuing to do zooms, that people are raising money and raising awareness, that everyone is getting activated because they are seeing what the future can possibly look like.

And maybe, just maybe America will once again do the impossible and show the world what democracy looks like and fight back this and beat back this white supremist fascist once and for all. But the thing that we have to understand is that the closer Donald Trump gets to losing, the more dangerous hem and his ilk are going to become. January sixth was a dress rehearsal, So we cannot also pretend right that he is going to go quietly into

the cold, dark night. He is not. He is one of those people that if he's gonna go out, he's going to try and do cause as much damage as possible on his way out. So we have to remain vigilant, we have to remain conscious, we have to remain woke. But I have never felt so possible. And this goes well beyond two thousand and eight, it goes well beyond twenty twelve. There is something, as Hillary Clinton said when she was on the stage, something is happening, and you

cannot manufacture that. You cannot make this shit up, you cannot focus group this shit. So while the poll numbers are looking good in our direction right now, I say, don't pay attention to the polls that they're showing you on television. Pay attention to the only poll that matters, which is the poll booth that you walk into on November fifth, or the early voting that you do. Right in New York, the deadline for voter registration is October twenty six. Look up and see where the deadline to

register to vote is. Because I just learned most recently that in New York State you can register a sixteen and a seventeen year old to vote, so that by the time that they're eighteen, they don't have to register. Check your voter registration. Make sure, particularly if you're living in a red state, that your name is still on the rolls so that you are not surprised come election day. So check now and make sure am I registered to vote? If I'm not? Are my family members registered to vote?

Are the young people in my life registered to vote? What is your voting plan? Are you early voting? Are you voting on election day? Are you doing a mail lan? What are the deadlines for these things? Because folks, we have but ten weeks to go. We are coming to the final lapse of this marathon and we need to run through the fucking tape on this. So I encourage everyone, it is not just about you. It is about bringing

five people with you to that voting booth. It is about making sure that you and another five people in your life are good to go, and then challenging them to make sure that another five people are good to go. That is how we are going to win. This is gonna happen from the grass roots all the way to the grass tops. But we have a responsibility, as Michelle Obama said, to do some thing that is your call to action. 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.