The Now Place

liar and a criminal and a grifter. And Donald Trump's like, yeah, you I need you back, right. Peter Navarro just reported to jail for you know, being held in contempt of Congress, and he's going to serve four months. And you know, prison is not a deterrent for these people, is what I realize. You know, you would think federal prison would be the place that you don't want to go to. But when you look at like an Alan Weiselberg, right, the former CFO of Trump Organization who worked under Donald

Trump and his father. You know, he's now been back and forth to Rikers, seventy year old man, this doesn't seem to be a deterrent for him to continue to be under the thumb of Donald Trump. And so, you know, if there was ever a case study on how broken our justice system is, our legal system is, it is

the Trumps, right. It is the ability to evade, evade, dobade, delay, delay, delay, and just wear out the public because you have, you know, seemingly the resources to be able to just muck up our judicial system and no one will stand up, you know,

and just say no. Right. And of course, you know, this week we've learned Donald Trump is, you know, apparently not as rich as he says that he is, because he went to thirty different underwriters for his four hundred and fifty million dollar bond in order to appeal you know, the decision in the Tiss James case against him about fraud and inflation of value, and he can't find anybody to underwrite it, right, And apparently this multi billionaire doesn't

have liquid assets enough and half a billion dollars to be able to pony up to continue his appeal. So it's just, you know, you look at all of this and it's just disgusting, and it's so exhausting to continue to follow all of the delays, all of the bullshit, all of the lies, like it's just exhausting. And meanwhile, I think about the tens of thousands of innocent black and brown people who don't have the resources for appeals, who are serving out jail sentences that are egregious, you know,

for minimal bullshit, right like drugs. You know, Meanwhile, Donald Trump has harmed three hundred and thirty million plus people and he's still walking around free. You know, it's enough to make you want to throw your fucking hands above your head and just say fuck it, like I just

don't care. You know, every day it's another assault by the Republican Party to roll back fifty years of advancement in progress so that white men like Donald Trump can continue to you know, have their knee on the neck of the little guy and say that they're tall. I'm

just tired, you know. And their strategy is working. Their flood the zone, throw every fucking thing at the wall is working in a system where you have a bunch of radical right wing judges that are doing the bidding of the people that put them there in the first fucking place. And it's just nauseating, and it's like, when will the people ever have a say? When will the

people actually win? You know, I don't know. I'm starting to believe that maybe it is just for Hollywood, that it doesn't really exist, not in any sustainable, long term way, right that you know, you could be lulled into complacency about this country with two elections, you know, back to back of a brilliant black man, and then be back in the drudges of shit, you know, all over again, to the point where you don't even remember that that

win even happened. I just, you know, to today's conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzil. We talk about this exhaustion. We talk about you know, I don't know how to move forward, you know, how to continue to pull ourselves up when you just feel so horribly weighed down. I think that it's an important conversation to continue to have, you know, And I'll just offer to some of you that I'm reading books right now like Burnout, the Secret

to Unlocking the stress cycle. I'm reading books like Laziness does not Exist. I'm reading books like Broken Open, I'm reading books like The Four Pivots, like I'm reading like six seven different books right now as a way to find some type of guidance on how to best deal with this time of you know, continued bullshit. You know, just like we've never been here before, so how can we use different tools to deal with the moment that we currently find ourselves in. And I'm doing all of

the fucking research to try and figure it out. And I, you know, I say to anyone that is an avid reader, that is, you know, listening to other shows and whatever, please do hit me up, send me a DM you know, comment on Patreon and the comment section under you know these episodes, like do tell me what it is you know that you are doing and using as a resource, because I think that we can all use it. Coming

up next, my conversation with our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to sit down with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always always thrilled Jonathan. I don't know about you, but I have not been feeling my best. I have not been sleeping well. I have felt very physically and emotionally exhausted, and like I was saying before we started

recording for the first time. No, it's this is the second time I took magnesium to go to sleep, and it works like no sleep hangover like other you know, sleep aids or anything like that. But this is a sign of my fraying nerves.

control or something like that. So there's a whole sociological literature which is basically about people like we're in right now, which is kind of the fascism for play stage of the world, which is it's not so much that like bad stuff per se totally is one hundred percent happening right now, but you can see everybody like it's like that feeling of being the only person who sees the monster in a scary movie all the time, you know, and so that's kind of what it feels like for

people who like are worried about the direction. Right, So there's this sense of like people you know telling you that, oh, I'm not going to vote, or the candidates are the same, or you know, they really like, I mean credit to the RFK Junior campaign, they're doing a great social media game, but they're like, oh, yeah, you know, maybe vaccines are really you know, I probably got cavities in junior high

because of my vaccines or something like that. People are just not reasonable right now, and so there's this sense of kind of where is this all going That to me is just incredibly physiologically personally unsettling, Like you can kind of relax for a minute, but you can't relax in the way that like we were talking about before. Remember last week we talked about like go go back to yourself before the pandemic, where you know, all the bad.

all on the same team. Yes, yes, it was like people used to say, like the invisible hand of Obama, like we're all like being taken care of, and we're all we were out strategizing those guys. So hope wasn't just like hope about like the future. It was hope about like being on a team that was really on the ball in terms of like you know, they they

were out thinking everybody. And now, like even the people who were telling us before Biden was going to win, like Mark what's his name, the trial lawyer who does the cases. I watched him on MSNBC the other day and he was the guy before who was like, we got this, Biden is not going to lose. Everybody, calm down, and he looked like he was doing a hostage video

like everybody. So people, I think are just people are just nervous right now, and the question is like how do we how do we get back to a place like of solidity or it's really a place of strategy.

maybe five different lives since twenty sixteen. Right, Like, there was the life that you were living as Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, and you still had that kind of feeling of the Obama impossibility. We can make this happen, you know, momentum, There's no way we elect this guy following you know, the first black president that the world loved, Like that just doesn't make any sense. Then that happens, then there's like this state of shock.

So you're living in like your shell shocked self, Like what is this reality that I'm in. I can't trust this country that I once trusted to be in this line of progression that it's been for my entire life, right, like, things have always gotten better. Maybe they've backslid in some areas, but by virtue of the perspective that I have as growing up, you know, middle class in America with more than enough, and so I'm recognizing the place that I'm

coming from. Things have always gotten better in my universe and world. And then they backslide. Then we go into a pandemic. Everything is just fucked up. Then we've lived, like you know, within the pandemic time at least three different lives in that time, and then we're in the now place. And then now is I can't trust anything around me at any moment. Another pandemic could erupt at any moment, like another war can be announced at any moment.

Like it's just this sense of consistently waiting not just for the other shoe to drop, but like the bomb that you're waiting for figuratively and literally to drop here.

a sustained war on like the infrastructure. That part of that anxiety is like there's just there's no fail safe in a way right now is I think I'm just trying to process like why we feel this way, And part of this thing is that it's like there's no fail safe to how this is feeling right because the institutions that you thought, like even when Trump was doing all this crazy shit the first time, it was kind of like, oh, the CDC is going to stand up

to him and that whatever, and you know now they're coming in with like a really strategic, coherent plan that every everything is going to be politicized if this happens. And so it's just the checks and balances don't feel like I want to I would take checks or balances I don't need. I just give me one even right now. But it doesn't feel like there's that. And then I

don't know here's I mean. So let me just say, like I understand every time you send a TikTok out into the wilderness, I feel it also like you know what I mean, Like.

there something that Democrats could do? I mean, I think about this a lot, like I do feel like part of the this is just kind of the part of the buying we're in right now, is that we just have like if you watch like liberal television, for example, ninety percent of it is about Trump, right, It's about

bad stuff Trump did. And it's because like we have a defensive game, but we don't really have an offensive game, like like, oh, here's some cool things Biden did, or you know, what are Biden's picks for the NCAA tournament.

of the White House. Because I think, I honestly will say that I think that they are trying right, like it comes across my social media, but mainstream media doesn't care.

the people. But so it's it's it's hard because but the other issue, let's just be honest, is Biden is not like Newsworthy in the way that you know Trump, Trump speaks in provocative, moronic social media clips or something like that, and so you know, you know, this is what we have, right but Biden and Biden is running the country. So it's pretty exhausting too, but it is, you know, it is this is what we got. So this is this is what we got so we got to,

you know. But I love that David Sedaris quote that you posted the other day.

the chicken? She asks? Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked. It's so I mean, it's so perfect because this is what Americans are doing right now. It's like Donald Trump is telling you everything. There is nothing that is a secret. Project twenty twenty five is right on the Heritage Foundation's website.

They are telling you that they're coming for social entitlements, they're telling you that they are coming for a national abortion band for IVF. They're telling you that they are getting rid of anything that has to do with Dee and I. They are telling you like every single thing that they are doing. They are rolling out in cases and in peatrie dishes like Texas and Florida, Alabama and what have you. And America is like, hmm, whoa you know?

is to me a world. And I don't think people realize quite how depressing it is, you know, hunting down your enemies and not having freedom and looking over your shoulder. And will you be able to get your driver's license renewed? Will you able to get through airport security? Can you travel? Can you work? You know? What ideological tests are you going to have to take to prove yourself. You're going

to get spied on by your neighbors. Like, we know how this works because it's happened to many other countries, not ours. It's not very fun and it's not a great way to live, but a lot of people want that life. They want like dad in control and punishing their enemies and all that kind of stuff. Those guys, I just think, more power to you if that's the world you want. But the thing the scarier part for me, and I think the audience you're talking to are like our friends who are like zoned out.

know I am in that same place. But if, for whatever fucking reason, you think that things are going to get better for people in Gaza, for the Palestinians as a whole, if Donald Trump becomes president, then you really don't know what the fuck you were talking about. Right then you really have no idea for an issue that you may have woken up to six months ago. You really have no idea like that you are holding not only your life, but their lives in your hand with this singular vote.

because we just have five minutes left. I think we need we need like a common cause, you know, And I think democracy might be abstract. I don't know, we need some kind of we need some way to remind ourselves we're all on the same team. Like, I just think losing democracy is very abstract for a lot of people, So I don't know to parts of the issue is like how can we how can we concretize being on the same team in a way? I mean, I personally have thoughts about how I plan to go about this,

which maybe we can talk about next week. I personally feel like the anti DEI stuff has actually gone way too far. It's actually, yeah, it's getting to the point where like you're either on one side of it or you're on the other. But it's getting to the point where it just is really really egregious what they're trying to do. Like I'm you know, let's talk next week

about this what they're trying to do. There's a bill today to outlaw like not just DEI and met education, but like the ability of medical centers to treat low income people. Basically, Like it's getting to the point of insanity. But I just think we need, like we need some concrete common causes that remind everybody why we're on this side of this side something something like that. So I don't know, that's that's that's my thought.

care and are never going to care. Right. There are people that are interviewed that think that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade because of Joe Biden, right, because they have absolutely no idea how government works and have no idea who installed the last three justices. When Hillary Clinton was very clearly articulating that the Supreme Court hangs in the balance with the twenty sixteen election, everyone shrugged and said, oh, I can't hear you because you're a woman,

and you shriek. Right. So it's like, I'm at the point where I do believe that forty percent of the country wants an authoritarian. I do believe that forty percent of the country thinks that somehow they will be better off even though over the four years of Donald Trump nothing in their life changed. They just had somebody who hated the same people as they did, and to all of the research and work that you've done, that's what they want. They don't actually want their life to change.