Republican Taliban

How is it that Republicans have done something that, if you look at it, as Basil will say, from a purely political science perspective, is brilliant. How do you decide that over decades, you're going to begin to invest in the areas where this country has made intense change. It has come through the courts, it has come through state legislatures, right,

it has very rarely come from the oval office. And yet for Democrats, the only thing that we've ever been focused on as democratic establishments are those higher echelons of office. For the last five decades, Republicans have been making inroads with secretary of States, with school boards, with city councils,

with governorships. We saw how this was unfolding while Donald Trump was president, when you know the Senate was going to decide while we're not sending COVID relief to blue states, we're only going to pay attention to who's in the red states. The reality is that we do not have the opportunity to get another bite at the apple. I have been saying this for years now. You lose democracy,

it does not come back. And there is no point to be made over the last several years in this country that says that our democracy is safe and secure. We had a white domestic terrorists drive for hundreds of miles to do reconnaissance in a black neighborhood to take as many black lives as he possibly could. Now folks refer to this individual as a terrorist as I have, as a white supremacist, as he so proudly wrote about in his hundred and eighty page manifesto. Let me pose

this question in the eyes of the law. What the fuck is the difference between Kyle Rittenhouse and the Buffalo white supremist. Kyle Rittenhouse drove across two states within ar fifteen over his shoulder, going to look for people to shoot and harm. Now, folks on the right want to say, well, he was out there protecting property. It wasn't his motherfucking property to protect, wasn't in his state, wasn't on his front fucking lawn. Peyton can say the same shit, Well,

I was going to protect property from what. The only difference in these scenarios is that the buffalo white supremist decided that he was going to walk into a grocery store and take as many lives as possible. Kyle Rittenhouse decided to put himself in the middle of a peaceful protest and erupt in violence. He got off. Not only did he get off, he was fucking offered internships in Congress at the goddamn White House. The reason why we are seeing this persistence in violence and anti blackness is

because there is no accountability. There has been no real accountability for the thousands of white people that decided to attempt to overthrow our government. The democratic establishment doesn't even outside of the one six House Commission, doesn't even really

talk and fucking remind people on a regular basis. You see me if I were Nancy Pelosi and Chuck's humor, every time I had a microphone in my face, somebody's cell phone in my face, I would be talking about white supremacy and how fucking dangerous the Republican Party is, because you see, what they are not lacking on that side is passion and rage. Their passion amounts to violence, right, it amounts to legislation meant to threaten and cause as much harm as possible for those that are not white,

not siss, not straight, and not Christian. For folks that think that they are sitting comfortably right now in blue states and oh, this won't affect me, Doctor Basil Smichael later on this show will tell you exactly how it is going to affect you that in the next six months. The violence that we are going to see in this country is going to grow as we head into midterm elections where Democrats, Joe Biden, being our leader, has said, We're going to focus on inflation. You're going to focus

on inflation. Yeah, I know that the cost of shit is high. I know that gas prices are high. Do you know what else? I know? Women and people with uteruses are about to lose the ability to have an abortion. Not only that they're going to lose the ability to have access to birth control. Not only that they are going to be tried and convicted as criminals for trying

to have bodily autonomy. Not only that that if in fact, you attempt to move outside of your state in order to get the kind of reproductive healthcare that you need, that you can wind up in prison and those that helped you do that will also arrive in prison. So how were we talking about freedom of movement or freedom at all in a country that is going to begin to regulate the bodies of people with uteruses at our

state's borders. But the New York Times the other day wants to run articles about what the Taliban is doing to women in Afghanistan, and oh my god, these people, how heinous, how backwards? Where the fuck is the expose on the Republican Party turned into a white supremacist, fascist

extremist cult. Where is that conversation you mean? Because they're not talking about what he jobs that then we're not talking about control, We're not talking about patriarchy, We're not talking about Christian fundamentalism and the abuse that that reigns down on people who do not subscribe to that way of thought. Tell me how Republicans are different than the Taliban.

I will wait because I don't see it. What I see is a right wing zealot political party that has created a violent insurrectionist movement to threaten the lives of people who they don't see as human. Within the hundred and eighty page manifesto, the Buffalo Terrorist talked about white birthrates, which is a point of conversation on Fox News often

from the mouth of Tucker Carlson. Talks about masculinity, talks about replacement theory, which once again Fox News and entire network has dedicated themselves to stoking the fears and escalating the violence of fragile white men. Tucker Carlson did a documentary called The End of Men. The biggest problem in America to him, is low testosterone rates in white men.

So what do you think that the action is going to be When you have these mouthpieces like Tucker, like Laura Ingram, like Ron de Santists, like Donald Trump tell you to go and take your country back, tell you that white people should not be feeling discomfort and if they do, we must do something about that. Peyton like Kyle, like Dylan. They're not fucking mentally ill. They've been fed a steady diet that all Republicans have been fed, which is that black and brown people are coming to take

from you. Meanwhile, if we actually taught history, which we do not, all we do is provide American propaganda about exceptionalism that no one experiences. If we would actually talk about history in its real context, white people would know that they have been the ones that have robbed everyone and everything. Raping and pillaging is how they have had access to power and have been a part of the hierarchy at the top. So the audacity to even have the idea in your mind that somebody is coming to

take something from you that you did not willingly. You do not own anything, you didn't create anything, you stole, you robbed, you raped. That's how we are here. So what black and brown people and other people from marginalized communities are only trying to do is create equity. Because white folks Republican, these conservatives operate from a place of scarcity in the country that they then also want to turn around and tell us it's the most powerful and

the wealthiest, but we can't do for the least. Oh, because you don't want people who don't look like you, don't level like you, don't pray like you, to have access in the way that you do. Folks, they've been saying the quiet parts out loud four decades. We just have always wanted to believe that somehow these people are better than who they are showing themselves to be. President

Biden gave what folks are saying. It is an emotional speech about the shooting, about white supremacy being a poison, about we as a country needing to hold one another.

I don't need a comforter in chief. I could give a fuck about how you want to comfort people, because you know what people find comforting safety protection policies that hold the people that do violent acts accountable, and not just the person that pulled the trigger, but the person that riled up, the person that decided to pick up the gun. Where is the FCC and their investigation into

Fox News? Why has nobody called into that? Because let me tell you something, and I said this earlier in the week, if Tucker Carlson were a Muslim and Fox News was Al Jazeera and we were seeing the same level of violence, what the fuck do you think they the United States government would be doing. Where do you think that those people would be you think that they would be safely taken in their millions talking about freedom of speech. No, they would be someplace under a jail.

So why don't we have the same rules that apply to white domestic terrorists. Whether you are holding a gun or a microphone, you are still doing the same amount of damage. And until we decide to start calling these people out consistently and by fucking name, nothing is going to change. It is only going to get worse. Coming up next, my conversation with Doctor Basil's Smichael about where we go from here. 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. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws, and take a closer look at how and why these

topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday, folks. I am very excited to be back in studio and to also be joined by old time friend colleague who we haven't seen each other in two years, doctor Basil Smichael, who is the director of Public Policy the Public Policy Program at Hunter College, to talk about you know where

we have been, where we are right now, Basil. We are days removed now from the most heinous shooting that we have seen in the United States in the last several years. I would love to say ever, but we can't say that, because we are a country that is in love with guns and in love with white supremacy. Those two things collided in Buffalo, New York the Tops grocery. Ten black people murdered, three other people, wounded, an entire community,

and frankly, a country rocked once again. What is your initial reaction to learning about thee hundred and eighty page manifesto, to learning about the reconnaissance that was done, the fact that this white supremacist terrorists drove two hundred miles in order to commit this act of terror. What do you make of this? My initial reaction was that black people are being hunted, were continuing and continue to be And first and foremost, let me send my regards to the

Mayor of Buffalo, Byron Brown. We used to work together at the State Democratic Party, where I was executive director, and I spent a lot of time in Buffalo, a lot of time in upstate New York. I had just been in Upstate New York talking students at RPI read to the Polytechnic Institute, and they were talking about how they feel that so much has changed in this world and are fearful about what it's going to be like.

Why when they graduate in certain parts of upstate New York, you know it as liberal as the state is, or we'd like to say that we are. They had reported seeing more pockets of Confederate flags being flown from cars on lawns, language about people of color, black people in particular that they had not really heard before, so this was making them feel very anxious. And then a day later I heard about the shooting and I said, yes,

black people are being hunted in this country. I remember in twenty seventeen a man traveling from Maryland to kill black people in New York and he didn't wound up stabbing someone. This country is in love with guns, is in love with white supremacy. We have not. The country has not been absolved of its original sin of slavery. And you know, I went to Catholic school for twelve years. I'm actually an Anglican, and I was taught that there

has to be penance before forgiveness. And I have not seen this country engage in any type of penance for either their past or their present actions towards African Americans. Having said that, it's clear that individuals will travel great distances and go to great lengths to manifest their hate.

And we what we have seen certainly in the last few days, but we continue to see in our country this inability for the nation to really not only reconcile with the existence of domestic terrorism, but even fomented in many instes certainly during the Trump earn. We can spend a lot of time talking about Trump, we have, but

it really didn't start with him. It just gave people who had these thoughts, who were organizing, and that's an important point, organizing around these thoughts and feelings about black people. It gave them an opportunity to bring that to the forefront without fear of retribution or consequence. And I think that, in many ways is the biggest one of the biggest

lessons of the Trump era for me, action without consequence. Right, that folks feel compelled to and able to engage in this behavior without fear that they'll have their guns taken away, without fear that they're going to be prosecuted. That a guy Kyle Rittenhouse killed protesters in Kenosha, right, And so without that accountability, there is this freedom to act. And that makes me feel nervous for the first time in

my life. And I grew up in a bron and I've been shot when I was twelve, but I feel that as a as a black man, in this black body, there are no safe spaces for me, and I've not felt that way before a mon and that makes me really terrify because My question was going to be, you know, when was there a time when you did feel safe? Right? But the reality is that we have watched a progression, just like your students that were talking about seeing the

slow population of Confederate flags. Similarly, I'm from out east on Long Island and Trump Country had has taken over Suffolk County in New York, and in my neighborhood that I grew up in, right, it was always ninety six ninety seven percent white, But I never felt unsafe as

I started to see Trump flags populated, right. And I mean not just a flag that says you know the candidate or the person that you're supporting, but it's the actual threatening language that they are lying so freely in front of their homes or riding around in their cars, like go ahead and take my gun if you want

to this type of threatening posture. You know, what do you if there were to be some type of penance, wouldn't that come from our education system, which I believe has been the biggest perpetuator of white supremacy, and the gaslight of American excellence comes from our public school system. A couple of things about that, weren't I also, yes, I also don't think that I don't think a lot of times people have this language. We all need to come to the table. And I'm like, wait a minute.

Black folk has been at this table for a long time. We've been saying this for a long time. And when Trump became president or started running for president, you're like, hey, all right, even if you don't like Hillary, but this thing here you've got to pay attention to because it's a problem waiting to happen. So we've been at the table,

were waiting for a willing partner. So that said, Um, you know, I feel very strongly that you know, this is a conversation that it's happened in the black community. It needs to really happen in the way we should be there because we've got to be able to aid that conversation. But this is this is this is coming for them. This isn't just about us. It hits us first, perhaps first and foremost, but it's also coming for different

parts of the white community too. So if they're not really awakened them and aware of this, it's going to come to their doorstep next having and it already has in many instances. Oklahoma City, among other terms, right. So it's it's there the shooting of the baseball the congressional baseball game, right, and even then they did not think

to curb gun violence. The second point I want to make is on the flags themselves, because I've seen flags from twenty sixteen, I've seen flags to twenty twenty, and I'm seeing flags for twenty twenty four. What that says to me is that this isn't just about the election. This is about a movement. It's about their movement. Trump might be the focal point of it and made by the face of it, but it's a larger movement when

you see that kind of energy and vigor, right. And the problem that we have is that on the other side, there isn't that movement. It is an incident to incident activity and objective. It is not a social political movement meant to push that back. And that is one of the things that I that I'm nervous about that I talk about a lot, that there isn't that same level

of energy. Should we be focused more on what's happening in the schools, absolutely, but we should have always been this whole thing about critical race theory, banning books and so on. That's a that's not new, but it is a proxy for issues of race. It's a proxy for more or conversations about inclusivity that people don't want to have. But here's my issue from an organizing standpoint, there are

almost fourteen thousand school districts in the country. That means that there are fourteen thousand opportunities for us to be in the room making arguments, organizing parents, which is what folks of color and African Americans they did pre and

post Brown. We did it pre brand talk about folks like Ella Baker in Harlem, among others, that were organizing parents because they she believed and others believe that when you organize parents around the urgency of us happening in schools, you get them to develop urgency around other things in their community. So it leads to change. That is that at the school level, but also at the city, state, federal level, we're not doing that right now. The party

could be doing that, should be doing that. They're not doing that. How does that change? That doesn't change on a dime. And that's the problem. But I think about why I got motivated to be a politics because I saw Jesse in eighty four and eighty eight on TV saying the party need to be more inclusive. In eighty eight he did it. And think about what happens. Eighty nine, David It becomes the first black man of New York City. Ninety two, Doug A. Wil It becomes the first elected

black governor of Virginia. Bill Clinton gets elected that same year, and he started to see all these African Americans in positions of power. Alexis Herman, Rodney Slater, Ron Brown becomes was a DNC chair Secretary of Compress at one point. There is a direct there's a micro and sort of a macro effect of my political engagement through Jesse's engagement and movement. Right where is that movement today? Maybe it was Bernie, maybe it's the Poor People's Movement, Reverend Barber.

But there has to be something that brings us to the table in every school district and every police precinct, every police jurisdiction across the country that gets as an energized and engage you know. I do interviews with my friend, another doctor, doctor Jonathan Mexol, who is the author of Dying of Whiteness, and he said to me recently, the

problem that I'm seeing. And the consistent problem is that Republicans have a theory of change, a theory of power is what he said, Actually, what is the Democrat's theory of power? And he said because marching and protesting great, But like you said, that is reaction to reaction. It is momentary, right, It is not about a consistent strategy or plan. If you were to say what you believe the democrats theory of power to be, what would that be?

I would have to say it is winning elections to have more more of Democrats in the House of a Senate, more governorships. Okay, The problem is there are two issues with that one, because that is an election cycle to cycle strategy. If you think about what Republicans do from a straight political science point of view, it's actually amazing. They have realized that in order to force change they have to move multiple institutions at the same time. Think

about what they've done with judges. Think about what they're doing with schools. Think about what they're doing with secretaries of state, many of whom are elected in this country and run our election systems. They're focused on those elections, right, all of these different institutions they are focused on and managing operations and policies at the same time. And mind you, these are institutions not previously designed for us. That's another issue.

But the fact is that these are institutions that they are moving and manipulating over time to force their theory of change. Because as you say, over time, because I want people to realize too, this is not something that has happening over night. Absolutely, this is the way that Republicans have been moving. It has been a five and six decade movement. That is that is now perfectly aligned and meeting the moment that they but they have planned

for for decades. And they do it even through substantial laws. They'll say, they'll say they'll take that lass, they'll take the they'll take the Obama victory over over McCain, fine, over Romney, fine, because we focused on this other stuff down here, right, They'll take substantial losses because they know

they're playing the long game. And if you think about the if you think about one particular issue, well, if you took out any particular issue that's decided on a state level, like let's say voting rights, right, think about what they have to do to make sure that they

change state legislatures across the country. During the Obama presidency, Democrats lost about a thousand state legislatives LEAs across the country on thousand, Now what that and it flipped state legislatures, and in doing so, the Republicans are saying, hey, there's a lot of policy on the federal level. Presidents matter absolutely, but state policy, state vocal policy, that's what's really that's where the reborn really needs to grow. Let's stop focusing

on that. We weren't focused on. Democrats weren't focused and as a result, we don't We didn't even contest in many races. There are races we don't even contest in because it's a foregone conclusion that we can't win or whatever. All right, But in making these decisions cycle to cycle, you lose sight of the long term plan, which is what the Republicans have had for decades. As you said, So here we have arrived where we have midterms in

six months. We have the Democratic Party that says that they are going to run on inflation, not white supremacy, not fascism, not authoritarianism, not voting, not any of those things. They're going to run on inflation. And I'm not saying that kitchen table issues issues that the gasp. I'm not

saying that those don't matter. I'm saying that in the large grand scheme of things, if you are not living inside of a democracy, those things start to matter less, right because the gaps between the haves and the have not are going to be just ripped further apart. What do we do because again we're only focused on mid terms, then we're focused on twenty twenty four. I don't know

this country makes it to twenty twenty four intact. And I have been saying that, and people tell me that I'm hyperbolic, and I'm like, tell me where I have lied over the last several years. When I said in twenty sixteen that Donald Trump's presidency was going to be white supremacies last stand, I said that on air the minute that Florida went bread, here we are, and it's not white supremacies last stand. It is a reaffirmation. Right. So that is the one clarification that I would make

about what I said. I said, Oh, this is going to be their last stand. No, they have doubled down and they are reaffirming what white supremacy looks like in the twenty first century, and so six months I believe we will have another shooting. I think that we were going to see them more and more, because I honestly I don't know the difference between what Kyle Rittenhouse did and what Peyton Gendrin did. I really I have no except one was a march that you decided to shoot

up and a judge said that that was okay. But you decided to drive cross states in order to do that. This man decided to drive two hundred miles and shoot up a grocery store. What's what? Where's it? What's a difference? So what do you see over the next six months. Well, the one thing that really troubles me is to a point that you made earlier. You know, there's a really

interesting report that I was done at. Seventy five percent of the world's population now lives in the lives in a country where the democracy is in backside, the democratic backside seventy percent of the world's population in the United States included. So our institutions are failing us and a smaller and smaller number of people are making decisions for

more and more of us. What I think, the point that I made before is is probably where I would go with this, because my mentor in this business told me very very early on, people vote for one or two reasons, pride or anger. And if we're thinking about pride, right, what has really brought out people in major ways? Anger doesn't do it enough, at least on the Democratic side. It's got to be a little more kind. We kind

of have to love people, right. And if I think about it, if I think about major political movements, I think that's where the Democrats should go. Clearly, it's really difficult for the establishment to create it in and of itself. So go where the heat is. Go where the strength and the power is. If that means signing on and get it right, getting Rever Barbara or others to take a more forceful role in moving people through the party, do that. But we've got to go, We've got to

go where that power is. And I don't think I don't think the system, the institutions, the party, its structure itself is set up to do that. But we need to find that. We need to find that thing that really creates that social political movement. It's happening in ways that are I don't want to say that disconnected but they are much more they're not as connected to what happens in the party as much as it probably should having.

In addition to that, I also feel, and I'm going to do a little more research on this, that one of the problems is trying to overlay all that we're doing on top of a Democratic coalition that no longer exists.

Because if you look at that coalition that got Obama elected, there's the folks of color or the black foots, didn't come out for about a year, but eventually did it what we would call those Latte liberals, lives the liberals, high income, high educational team and Democrats, and historically it was also blue collar, white white nails, mostly organized labor. The problem is that Obama did very well around those high educational team and high income earners early on, eventually

got people of color. That working class population never went to him, and I think there's still this conversation about trying to bring those folks back into the party, trying to go get rural voters, try to talk to these suburban voters. All valuable and I think worthwhile, but we really have to sit down and think about who the new Democratic coalition is, including a lot of young voters who need to who want to be a part of

something right, including a lot of young birds voters. We need to find what those people, who those people are, what those policies are, and focus on that because if we try to, if we're trying to cobble together a frame coalition, it's going to keep falling out of our hands. We need to find something that's strong, that is resilient and build upon that with the kind of policies like whether it's affordable college or more toward universal health care,

whatever it is. We've got to find that sweet spot. But I think we are strategy and we're willing to take losses in the short term with a long term goal. I don't think we're there yet. Last question for you, Basil, is this, we lose midterms. Have you ever seen a democracy be lost and gained back in a handful of the years, Because I don't think that folks understand the

urgency and the alarming situation that we're in. I personally believe that Democrats lose midterms, which everyone is normal political climate, the party in power all always loses. I get that we're also not in normal times. We're also not dealing with two normal political parties anymore, we lose what happens everything that we're we're nervous about now, just that that feeling becomes worse and the policies become worse. You think this pro this pro life movement has strength with this

Scotus decision. If the Republicans gained both houses, you're going to see lawmaking away from what the President wants to do that is going to be ten times as worse because they're going to find ways to create legislation that if they can't do it, mashally push it into the States to try to really curtail people's rights and ability, you know, sadly, maybe even ability to move around in this country. And I don't I don't mean like show

me your papers communist Russia. I mean like you want to be able to go get services in New York and you live in Texas, They're gonna find and because you can't get what you need in Texas, they'll they'll find a way to keep you from getting what you need to get. You know, That's what that's what makes me most fearful. We're going to be in a position where where I live that is going to make it so that my movement is constrained, my ability to go and get the kind of services that I want to.

But it's healthcarity. Thing else is how constrained is that going to be? Um It used to be sort of that was a red state issue. It's going to be a red and blue state issue. If there even anything as red and blue states anymore. M going forward. That

is that is my real concern. Everything we take for granted and say that that's somebody else's probably will our problem individually and it will not matter where you And that's that's the that's the that's the thing that excures me most because a lot of times you can use their money and mobility to say I'm just gonna go here and I'm gonna be okay, I'm not gonna save you. That's the that's when you'll feel it, doctor Basils. Michael, thank you so much for making the time to join

will kay as. We appreciate it absolutely. The Damage Report with John Idarola is one of the most popular shows on the TYT Network that serves as your daily breakdown of the genuine threats and challenges facing our country and world these days. We're confronted with an overwhelming sea of shocking, confounding,

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