Regressive Politics

this nation. I'd never really realized because I'd never had to experience that. We've never had to experience what the emotional toll is of living in countries that are regressive, that are dangerous, that hate women, that hate queer people, that hate black people, and what that toll is. And for me, as I was sitting at my kitchen table watching the news, I burst into tears at new reporting on the young man Jalen Walker, who was murdered by

police and acron Ohio shot sixty times. I listened to white people once again make comments on social media, well he shouldn't have run from the cops, fuck you, because guests who also ran from the cops oh, I don't know. The fucking murderer, Robert Crimose who killed was a known fucking assailant, armed and dangerous, who ran from police, and

guess what, was taken into custody without fucking harm. What does it say about a country that every single time that we hear a report from media say the assailant was taken into custody without harm, that everyone knows that that person is white, right, and we just think that, well, that's just what it means to live in America. No, it's not, and it shouldn't be fucking acceptable, but it is because this country is built on white supremacy, is built on racism, is built on the blood, sweat and

tears of indigenous people. This is who America is. But the new reporting about Jalen Walker is even more depraved and disturbing than the sixty rounds if you can possibly wrap your mind around that. It is the fact that the police brought him to the coroner in motherfucking handcuffs. So it wasn't enough that you riddled his body probably unwrecked, ignizable, with sixty rounds, but then you turned around and handcuffed a dead man and brought him to the medical examiner.

What kind of depraved fucking human beings do that. You know, it's so interesting to me that when you listen to the media talk about these mass shooters, and they talk about them with such fucking empathies such oh, we just want to understand, and no, there's nothing to fucking understand. Right. The only difference between a Robert Cremos and a fucking police officer, an Akron or Uvaldi is a badge, right, that's it. They have the same intent in their heart

to cause harm. Right, It's just so that the police officers largely don't cause harm against other white people. But that's not why they went to the force, right. It was to extend their power of white supremacy and act as overlords and slave catchers, right, that's their fucking goal. And so you know, this country is just so fucked up these days that like, you can't go through a day, you can't get through an hour without just feeling sick

to your stomach. I was watching video that is now circulating around as well with regard to the mass shooting that took place in Philadelphia. You see these images up above of the fireworks going off and people scattering below running for their fucking lives because there is a shooting

that is happening. If that is not the perfect video, along along with right the other images coming out of Highland Park with turned over strollers and empty picnic chairs and toys and the makings of what would have been a parade in celebration scattered on an empty main street in America filled now with police, police tape, and empty bullet cartridges. Because this is the country that Republicans in the Supreme Court want us to live in. This is

what they think is normal. They think it's normal that a toddler is now orphaned. And now we can turn all the people who have donated over two million dollars at this point to help what alleviate the trauma that this child and their family is going to now have to live under for the rest of their lives. But

we turn those people, those average people, into heroes. They shouldn't have to be, because we shouldn't live in a country where a toddler is walking around a road aimlessly and alone because both of their parents were gunned down in an instant by an aar fucking fifteen just another day in America. So whether you have the police shooting black people in using them as target practice, as was found by the Boy Scouts who were on a tour

to the police department in Detroit. You have multiple mass shootings that happened over the celebration of independence, which I have no idea what the fuck this country is celebrating these days, because independence for whom? Freedom for who? And now all of a sudden you have white people getting him to the idea that they didn't want to celebrate

the fourth of July. Well, guess what, Black people haven't been celebrating the fourth of July for a really long time, because, much like I had said on July fourth, as I was reciting Frederick Douglas's speech, what to the slave is the fourth of July? You tell me what the difference is in the things that he said, in the call outs to Republicans into the absolute just debasement of what it means to be free that we continue to witness in this country. Tell me the difference other than the

fact that currently slavery is no longer legal. But give the Supreme Court time, because I'm sure that they have it on their docket for the October session. And if

all of this isn't enough. If all of this, If all of this isn't enough, our friend doctor Jonathan Metxo will tell us in today's show as he is recovering from COVID which he got while he was on his way back from Scandinavia, is that the two new variants that have come out of Europe are guess what, guys, really fucking bad because they are now going back to

working into people's lungs. So you are going to see over the next couple of weeks hospitalizations rise, and guess what, our second fucking vaccine shots not going to stand up to this new variant. Welcome to what will be our fall and winter again. I wish some days that there

was good news to offer. There isn't. Because the longer that I sit here, folks, and the more that I read, and the more that I'm waiting for Democrats to act as if there is some sense of urgency, to act like they give a fuck, to act like the people gave them power, and not to do what the Vice president did the other day, which was just throw up her hands and say what do you want us to do?

Do what exactly? For Joe Biden to stand up It's been almost two weeks since women lost the right to bodily autonomy and people with uterus has lost the right to bodily autonomy, and there is no fucking urgent action being taken by this administration on things that can actually be done. You can't even get that motherfucker to utter the word abortion, but he's supposed to be somehow standing

with women and people with uteruses. Bitch, sit down, Sit down, because if this is what it looks like to stand with us, then please go away. I don't know who the fuck Democrats think that they are asking people for their votes for and what it is that they're going to show that they are doing. But right now, let

me tell you something. Miss me with your fucking fund raising emails, miss me with your fucking prayer vigils, you have power, But instead you want to go ahead and make backdoor deals with Mitch McConnell to put in another forced birth fucking judge on the courts? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh my god, every day, every day feels worse than the next. It's not sustainable. Don't ask me what it is that we do, but this ship is not sustainable. Coming up next, my conversation with our friend,

our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzo. It's no secret that the news is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully, there's The Bituation Room podcast hosted by comedian and commentator Francesca Freer and Tini for a lighter take on the heavy stuff. Each week, The Bituation Room brings you progressive comedians, experts, and activists to break down the issues in a way that won't just leave you crying under a weighted blanket. Get The Bituation Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and

streaming on YouTube and Twitch. Hey there, I want to tell you about another podcast I think you'll love. The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Gohler, the president of Emerge BGG, is the one stop shop for women of color who want to hear and talk about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season as she talks to incredible women of color who are changing the face of politics and tackling some of the most important issues basing the United States, from reproductive justice

to voting rights, to climate change and more. Tune in every Tuesday. We're ever you get your podcasts. Folks, You know that I love when we have our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, join us on Woke F two. You know, really, Jonathan, I guess at this point, which is to remind us what we all seem to not know, which is that COVID is still around and happening. People are still getting infected. And I want you to tell us where we are with the latest, because I'll say I have been out.

I was out for the holiday weekend. I'm not celebrating this country, just out having a good time with friends and family, and it does not look like from the outside that there is still a pandemic happening. So explain to us where we are right now. Uh well, I feel like we're having grownhog Day honestly right now. I mean I realized there's so many things happening right now, and it's July fourth, and it's summer, and the country's falling apart. So this could be like our last fun summer.

But I have to say I'm worried again for the first time in quite some time about this. There's a new set of Subbariant's B A four and B A five that are coming from Europe. As you know, I'm just recovering from them myself. But the issue is we're seeing dramatic rises in infections in places where this has become dominant. It's much more transmissible than the big oh that we had last year, And I think the most concerning thing for me is that there are reports that

people are having lung involvement. The thing about omicron and why people could almost let their guard down a little bit was that it was an upper respiratory infection, but it didn't enter the lungs. But we're hearing more and more reports from other countries and from lab studies here that BA five has lung involvement, which is the thing

that remember got people into ICUs on restaurant. Yeah, and so if that's the case, if we're going to have a much more transmissible and also more dangerous subvariant, then I think, as we've said, for what is it like the thirty five years of the pandemic now, the virus kind of sets the narrative despite all the other crap

we have going on. But really, if this subvariant is as transmissible as people are saying, and it has the possibility of making people sick, then I think we're going to see a wave that's going to be here longer than other waves we've seen and leading into the fall also, So I think now is a time. I mean, I believe me, I know how hard this is. I try to convince my parents of this and my brothers to

like start masking inside again. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I would say if there's a time to not get this, now would be that time, because there's our possibility at least a lot of people are going to get sick pretty soon here. But this is this following I mean, this is our third year, right, Like we're either headed into our third year or this No, we're

headed into our third year. So this is our second summer dealing with COVID, right, And my question is this is the same pattern that it has always shown that as the summer progresses there is a new variant that happens in the summer. Things get very dramatic in the fall and in the winter, and then it subsides again.

This is the same I mean, tell me how what you are seeing in terms of patterns, So I'm not talking about intensity of the illness and where it's going yet, just in terms of patterns of how it rocks like this seems to be similar to omicron and delta. This thing is so much more spreadable than anything we've seen before. Um and so I and you're probably hearing this people like me who have been super careful for years now have covid um and and maybe I let my guard down.

I'm sure I did. Also, I've went on an airplane. I ate the meal for ten minutes. That's probably what happened. Um. And it was a crappy ass meal also um um. But but I would say that again, this is just me. I worry that we could have a longer wave than we've had before. And and I'm a I'm a doomsdayer, right, that's what. Oh, you're not a doomsdayer, you you you do not. You're not the bearer of bad news. You're the bearer of reality for woke af and for every

other place that you speak in. I'm looking closely at the data now, and and I'm saying that there are two things that worry me. Number one is that prior infection is not protecting people from this new variant. So this is different, and that's bad. So it shows that this new variant can escape, can escape the kinds of protection we had from vaccines and from infections, and so that's number one, and the number two, I'm kind of

worried about the cumulative effects. Like people are like, I'm just going to go out and get it and then I'll have immunity. But I think, actually, COVID is not letting us do that narrative very well. I think the narrative that we're seeing, unfortunately, is the more you get COVID, the more cumulative bad effects you have in your body. And so people who are now going to get it for the second or third or four time are just going to be at greater risk. It's not like your

immune system is ready and that kind of thing. And the reason I say that again anecdotally, is people who are getting at the second or third time or at least from what I'm reading, potentially getting more serious cases than the first time they got it. And for me, just as somebody who tries to pay attention to this stuff, that's that's an alarm. So again I realize, you know, we have the fallow democracy, We have bullets in the air as much as virus particles. We have everything going

on right now. But I would also say that in the middle of all that, it maybe is time for people to play it safe the way they did earlier on about indoor space just right now, because again there's this new variant that's very, very spreadable, and we just don't know what it does quite yet. But I'd say the early reports of what's happening are not are not uplifting.

So what steps are being taken right now across the pond in terms of how they are dealing with this and talking about it, because again, I'll be honest, we have not, at least that I have seen on the news as of late, had any serious conversations, any serious segments dedicated to COVID that we were having six months ago. So and that's that's what happens. The coverage wanes, the conversations wanes, the restrictions you know, go away, and we

have all decided that this is done. So, I mean, what are you hearing in terms of the precautions that they're taking in Europe? Who is dealing with this right now? I would say the one thing for the United States that is the most alarming is that the Republicans in Congress blocked any kind of COVID funding and so vaccine roll out, vaccine update, testing, regiment rapid tests, all that kind of stuff. There's no funding for it right now, and so hopefully again I'm wrong and it's no big deal.

But if I'm right, like, let's let's see where we are in two weeks. Basically, if this is a non issue, I was wrong. If this is an issue, then we're really in big trouble because we are prepared for what's coming. And I would say that's not the case in other places. Certainly.

I was just in Europe before. I can guarantee you I got this on an airline on the way back, one hundred percent chance, and so I would just say, over there, I mean, it's not like, oh my god, they're doing the one thing that's like social distancing or masking. It's that over there they have a robust health infrastructure, so people have access to healthcare, so they don't like wait till they're super sick and super infectious and then

go into the doctor. And so would they have beyond any immediate thing, right, I mean, hopefully, you know, we're going to see an updated version of the of the vaccine here pretty soon, and hopefully hopefully you know, a lot of stuff will be improving for our immediate treatment.

But I would say that our healthcare systems falling apart, and that to me is what isn't fallen up, Jonathan, Like in all honesty, I mean, we're going to make the transition in a moment because I want to talk about all of the mass shootings that happened over this you know holiday that's supposed to celebrate freedom, and you know, the reality is is one Democrats or don't have any type of conversation or push back to the fact that it is Republicans that want to make sure that Americans

are as unsafe and that is including with COVID, that's including with guns, that's including with everything as unsafe as possible. Right, And so whether we're voting against people's healthcare, we're voting against vaccine rollout and protection in a pandemic, you're voting for, you know, everyone to be able to have an a

R fifteen Like that's where we are. And so with this iteration again of COVID, which everyone is emotionally, physically, spiritually exhausted from, how do you foresee ringing the alarm or is it just that we'll just wait for it to be as stage fucking five fire the way that it it has been and flared up over the last

two years. I mean, it's in the United States. It's at tension between people's ability to ignore that this is happening and the virus is really excellent ability to get our attention, and so if it happens, it's not like it's going to be super avoidable. I mean again, like in the worst case scenario, people are going to really see it because they're going to start getting sick. And so I think that's I think that's it now. I

hope I'm wrong. I hope this is just a rise of mild infection that is the last gasp of the pandemic. But I don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't know. At this point. Let me just I just want to articulate for everyone who has been listening to Jonathan over the past two years on this show, you haven't been wrong,

so the idea. So it's like I would love to be wrong too about the fall of democracy, Like I'd love for somebody to be like Danielle, this is absolutely not going to happen, right, But the fact is is that we've been having these conversations because we're not wrong and trying to avoid as much pain and fear and anxiety and sickness as possible, right, Like, that's the point of the work that we're doing at this ederation. And

I just you know, you're right. Every time that we turn our back on COVID, COVID taps us on the shoulder and it's like, no, no, I'm still here. And well, I mean, if if people want to do something to keep informed, follow hospitalization rates in Israel, like that to

me is the canary in the coal mine. I realize it's exactly like the movie World War Z, but but I feel like that that's the country that has the one of the higher natural immunities, and when their hospitalizations start going up, then that means that this virus is breaking breaking through in a way. And so um, I mean there are other countries like that. I was just in Scandinavia. It's like ninety something percent vaccinated, and so I would just say, there are places where we can look.

And it's not like I have any more information than anybody else. I just kind of I'm a non denialist. I feel like, if it's happening in places that people know what's happening and they're prepared, it's probably going to happen here, and so that's that's kind of why I'm trying to spread the word of caution right now. If anybody's listening, I would just say, for the next two weeks until we know what this is, enjoy your summer, but wear a mask inside. You know. That would be

that would be my main advice right now. Okay, So Jonathan, let's switch gears with a few minutes that we have left to talk about the escalation in um mass shootings and gun violence that we've seen over the last couple

of weeks. There was a once again a black man gunned down in acron, Ohio, Jaln Walker, who I have gone on MSNBC to discuss the absolutely heinous and absurd use of force with eight officers in a traffic stop that ends in a hail of more than ninety rounds being released and sixty of them ending up in the

body of a young black man. You have that where there has been, of course protests in Ohio because when black and brown people protest, we are protesting to not be shot dead and to have the same assumptions of safety and protection as white people do, which we know does not happen in this country. Then there was a shooting at a Fourth of July parade in a suburb in Chicago, twenty miles twenty miles away from Chicago, halfway through the parade, hail of bullets. It's been caught on

TikTok video. By bystandards, I believe at this point, when the last time I saw it was six people that were dead, I think that now it may be eight or nine. And I believe that the shooter was finally caught, which means that they were white. And then there was another shooting in Sacramento. Jonathan, what are you making of all of this? Are we covering all of this more? Or is it increased violence? It's ink, Well, we certainly have more mass shootings. That's there's no doubt about that.

We have more shootings. I trace everything back to unconscionably horrific and shitty gun policy. There are many more guns on the street, and there's no avenue for people to do anything about it right now, And I think it links all the narratives that you just told me. I certainly think, of course that there is horrific police violence against communities of color. But I also know from having researches for a long time that when the police don't know who has a gun, they're in shoot first mode

all the time. And there have been cases where I believed or not police unions have come out for tighter gun policy. Now, this is not about racism. I mean, this is about racism also, obviously, But I'm saying, you know the places where so, so I would just say that I bet we're going to see more of that kind of thing, because as as there are many more guns, it's just people aren't. It's not like, so is this a case where I should call mental health or something

like that. Now, in this case it was. It was a murder, obviously, But I would also say that I just don't see how we I just don't see how. I feel like the police violence problem is many things, but it's also connected to the gun problem in a certain kind of way. I mean absolutely. I mean, but here's the thing. When you have a Supreme Court that essentially says that everyone in this country has a right to a right to conceal and carry, and then you set up the laws in such a way that that

is going to be the case. Police officers no longer have a fucking leg to stand on, in my humble opinion, to say, oh, we thought they had a gun, because you have now a right to have a gun, right, a right to have a gun wherever you are. That's what the Supreme Court has said, that's what the Republican Party has wanted, right, and so for then for cops to turn around and say, well, I thought so and

so had a gun. So right, so like tell me how, like how we're not just going to see an escalation, but like there is no responsibility to police officers because we have qualified immunity, so they can say, I fear for my life they had a gun. But yet we live in a country that tells you that you can have a gun, just not if you're black. As you know, I'm writing a book about this topic right now. It's

very complex, it's not there's no one easy answer. I can tell you that there are more police shootings and places where there are more guns for whatever reason, however you want to interpret that. I can also tell you that there are many examples of police unions trying to push back for better gun policy and so it's not like police are automatically Republican. New York police were strongly against the Supreme Court decision. The police union came out

against m NRA action on kevlar piercing bullets. Campus police across the country came out against campus Kerry. Their argument was always, we get to a scene, we don't know who's armed, and we don't know who the shooter is. It just makes the outcome a lot worse. Now, I'm not trying to but but I'm saying that I just think that it's it's actually not true to say that all police are automatically Republicans and they and they are supporting what's happening. I just I can give plenty of

examples where that's not the case. And I do just think that adding more guns to any situation just increase is the chance of their being a shooting in that situation. Again, when you compound it with all the other factors involved, including you know, bias and brutality and all those kind of factors. But I would say that I certainly think we are going to see more of these kind of

shootings for this exact reason. Because the other point that I'm kind of making in the work I'm doing now is that police literally can't stop anybody until they fire a trigger. Now, obviously that didn't stop them last week.

But the thing is, there were de escalation tactics that police used when they saw an armed person that are literally now unconstitutional because everybody has a right to carry a gun in public, and so the kind of de escalation tactics that were used before, for better or worse, I mean obviously a lot of worse are not allowable under the Supreme Court rule before you literally have to shoot your gun to be in violation of of a law.

And so in a way, I just think it's it's such a toxic, horrible mix, and it's it's just I

don't know. I when I'm not met about COVID and I'm not thinking about puppies and springtime and the love, my love of daffodils, I'm thinking how the Supreme Court decision about guns was among a week of horrible decisions, like we're going to it's just going to be in our soil for the rest of our country, for our lives in a way, and so in a way, just these kind of situations are going to escalate and what I'm telling you is also true not just a police

but also a course of road rage and partner violence and all these things like when when you don't know if the other person has a gun or you assume they do have a gun, it changes, it changes the outcome of that interaction. And so I'm not even talking about mess shootings. I'm just saying like everyday kind of stuff. The fact that every single person has a right to own a gun, and we all have as there are firecrackers and cars backfire and everybody whips out there gun

now and stuff like that. So I don't know, it's just what the Supreme Court did. We're so I mean, I'm not going to use the word I'm thinking, but I'll just say it was so unconformable on lovel of humanity in a way, because I think we're going to see much more stuff like this. Yeah, I mean, I just you know, I honestly I think that we are living in and I keep saying this because I have no point of reference. This has got to be one of the most dangerous times in that that this country

has seen where there is just a confluence. It's like the perfect tsunami of like violence, of pandemic, of climate change,

of scarcity, of inflation, of guns, like of racism. It's like, you couldn't get worse if I think that if you tried, right like this, this is where we are, and I'm not quite sure how people continue to keep themselves safe and to stay safe when the Supreme Court literally took away any aspect of safety we thought that we would have, which is maybe live in a state that doesn't have access to guns in that way, and now you have

no choice but to be surrounded by them. That's the kind of life that we have set up here in this country. And then tell us we need classrooms with more doors. Doctor Jonathan mepzol As always, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us, to remind us of the importance and the danger that COVID still presents, and to kind of walk us through this um, this mayhem that we're living in. We appreciate you. Stay safe, everybody. We'll keep talking and we'll just we'll get through this.

I don't know, but sure, Hey, I'm David. Plots of slights political gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all the noise and the news. Each week on the gap Fest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlon and I decipher the headlines, break down the races, and tell you what issues really matter. We do not always agree, we definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have a good time. So

subscribe to Slight's Political Gapfest, new episodes every Thursday. That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke a app. As always, Power to the people and to all the people power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.