Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, I've been thinking a lot about what is at stake in this country and in our day to day lives, as I look through the headlines and see the maneuvers, the underhanded political dirty tricks that Republicans are using to suppress our democracy, to basically break it and destroy it,
to control the uteruses of women. Because as I said last week, they are no longer talking whispering behind closed doors. They're saying everything that they want and think out loud. They want more white babies. They are afraid of the demographic shift. They are afraid of people of color gaining equity and power in this country, so they're proliferating it with guns. They are afraid of people having critical thought,
so they are banning books and defunding libraries. They are afraid of young people waking up to the realities that the things that they've been taught about America are not really true, that this country isn't the center of the universe, that it isn't all great, that it isn't the beacon on the hill. That America's dark, dirty, violent, brutal past is a part of where we find ourselves in the present.
And without a significant change, without a collective of Americans, a majority of Americans choosing consciousness, choosing to be awake, choosing action over complacency, choosing to have a voice rather than have comfortable silence, we are going to continue on the path of no return. Now here's the thing that I want us to understand, and this is the place that I find that it is difficult for us to grapple with, is that the America that once was is
not returning. We are never going back to normal because as we all understood during the three years of this pandemic, is that what was considered normal wasn't racial inequality, economic disparity, greed, right, hatred, this me, me, me, this scarcity model, that there isn't enough, so I must hoard. None of that is normal. It is not conducive to a healthy, productive society. And what Republicans are doing now is what Steve Bannon told them
to do. Flood the zone with shit right, close all the libraries, ban all the books, roll back abortion, do everything and anything that you can so that you seed and breed hopelessness and despair so that you suffocate them with complacency and the belief that they no longer have power,
because that is the biggest trick. The biggest trick is for us to believe that there are more more of them, single minded, narrow mind did hateful white supremacists who have weaponized religion, weaponized the Bible in order to excuse and celebrate their brutality. Not all wars begin with tanks and bombs.
They begin by picking away at civil liberties and freedoms one by one by one, and they start with the groups that are most marginalized until they get to those that believe themselves to be at the top of the pyramid, who think that they're safe because they have enough money, right,
they have enough whiteness, they have enough protection. But absolute power is kind of like it's kind of like an addict that is always looking for one more hit, that is always looking for one more fix, until finally they take too much and it's done. Except we can't just wait, dear friends, for Republicans to overdose on power. You have to understand that we have to take it back. What does that look like? It looks like calling your representatives.
It looks like running for office. It looks like if you have the economic ability to be donating to candidates, not just in your states, not just in your towns, but wherever you see democracy on the brink. It looks like organizing. It looks like sharing these you know podcasts. It looks like getting a collection of your friends and family together and saying, what are we doing this week to preserve our democracy? Because if it's just one action
that you can take a week, then take it. But it is not enough anymore for us to sit back and wait until November or wait until there is some type of special election for us to get our shit together. If they are closing libraries in your fucking state, then you pick up your picket signs, You get a collection going, you get to know your librarians and you figure out what the fuck they need, and you organize your community
against fascism. It is going to take us all moving outside of what has been comfortable, what has been safe, and recognizing that that safety has been an illusion. It has been an illusion. Just like Americans exceptionalism. We always have the ability to change, We always have the ability to get woke, We always have the ability to take action. We don't always have the will. They the opposition. They are unrelenting. Their boot is on our neck, it is on our back, it is on our wounds. It is
time for us, the people, to own our power. We cannot. We do not have the luxury to get caught up in fucking despair. Because let me tell you something, dear friends, that any time that I find myself getting down, and it is common, I remind myself of this. My enslaved ancestors got up every fucking day when they weren't free. They found ritual, they created community, they sang songs, they
found joy, and they got free. They didn't have time to wallow in self pity to go woe is me because masses whip and boot were literally on their backs, on their necks, on their wounds, and they kept fighting. So whatever it is that you need to ground yourself in, and I'm telling you it is time that we stop the sedation, that we lean into the meditation, and that we move from the contemplation into action. The people that we've been waiting for to save us are in our mirrors.
It is our time coming up next, dear friends, my
conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, you know that whenever we have the opportunity to speak with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled, and Jonathan, you are our eyes and ears now on the ground in Tennessee, which is ground zero in many ways for what is happening, not only as it pertains to gun violence and mass shootings in the United States, but also overall the overall threat to democracy
by an authoritarian, fascist Republican party that is committed to shutting down voices of dissent. And so I want to start with just in general. You're at Vanderbilt University. These protests that we've been seeing have been led by young people on the ground, and I've seen some that look as young as elementary school age and others that look, you know, to be in college, and then obviously other older supporters. What is the feeling right now on your campus and just overall in the city.
There is a tremendous amount of learned helplessness that just people like us have in Tennessee. We've been beaten into.
The ground, like you know, like for so long.
A lot of us, particularly like senior scholars like me. You've been working on guns here and I never thought anything would change. And the fact that these young people are here like lifting us up, lifting us all up, young legislators, young students. I think it's I'm winning into a very remarkable moment. Right, protest is leading to actual change. Right the governor, I never thought I would see it.
But even the idea that the governor of Tennessee would even say the word gun violence strain order, let alone think of something that is maybe linked to that. So I think people are feeling the pressure. I think the idea that these aren't just protesters there, it's a potentially
mobilizable voting block. I think that they the Republicans, realized they were on the wrong side of this issue in a certain way, in a certain way, And so I do think that there is I wouldn't say optimism, but I would say it's not utter despair and hopelessness, which is what it Here's so it feels like it's not utter despair and hopelessness. And I have to say it's remarkable, right,
what energy feels like is pretty incredible. The fact that there were so many people who came out, the fact that people.
Are just said, you're not getting away with this.
So on one hand, I think there's energy, but you know me, I'm giving you the caveat next, And the caveat is that what got exposed here was something much bigger.
Now certainly we're having a big conversation about guns, because there was not just a mass shooting, but a school shooting at a school shooting in a religious school, and a school shooting where white children died, and all of a sudden, the usual bs that the NRA does after this didn't work right, Like the line that this was some kind of hate crime against Christians was like laughably preposterous, and so all of a sudden they didn't have a way. They got exposed in a way.
So that's number one.
And number two is it with the world watching. I don't think they realized how much people were watching.
With the world watching.
They expelled three people initially and turned out to be two people then, but.
Everybody was watching. And so.
But I think the important point is they've been getting away with this for like months and months and months, right right, And so this is just the one time where they very badly miscalculated because it brought attention to what they're doing, and this is the most important point. I apologize for getting to it a kind of roundabout way,
but what they're doing is not about guns. What they're doing is they've figured out a way to first get a super majority in a state through gerimandering and controlling the courts, is what they're doing, and then using that just for something that is truly terrifying, which is they have a way of getting people out of office who are democratically elected. Desantists did it with lawyers and das and attorneys in Florida, and they're doing it here, and
they're doing other places. And so I'm honored and thrilled and delighted and uplifted honestly that people are protesting because it's just ridiculous to throw out like three elected congress people. But I would also say that the fight of what's happening here is going to be for red state state attorneys general and public defender things that are like people aren't really paying attention to in such a high profile way.
And so I don't know, we've always I just feel like we undersold it when we said it was disenfranchisement. They're not just trying to block people from voting. They're actually throwing people out of office who were elected, which a lot of people are like, wait.
You can do that.
That's totally anti democratic. That's the playbook. And so I just want to highlight that what's being exposed here is this ca where there's a tremendous amount of attention, but there's a much much much bigger, much bigger strategy that I think people just really need to keep their eyes on.
The prize about.
Yeah, I think that what the Republican Party did in Tennessee was really like against what their normal movements, right, Their normal movements are to do things over the cloak of darkness, do it by voice vote, do it without cameras.
I mean again, I just saw recently, you know, local reporting by a Tennessee local news station that uncovered the fact that the Republicans worked to kill legislation that would alert high schoolers to when they could register to vote and provide information on voting to high schoolers that are getting ready to graduate. They killed that bill. They did it by a voice vote, and they turned off the cameras, right,
And this was uncovered at a local station. And so I think think that by virtue of them believing that they are all powerful right and can do whatever it is that they want. We can expel who we want unless you follow our rules. We can say it's decorum when we know that that's bullshit. Really showed. I think the craven behavior of the Republican Party and that it isn't just the headliners that we see like Marjory Taylor Green and Matt Gates at the federal level, but these
people are like gremlins. They are all over the state and local levels. And I think that that's what's really important.
And to your point, Jonathan, I actually have seen since the shooting in Tennessee, have seen and watched folks on cable news talk about the strategy that you've been talking about for so long, that they are diluting the power of urban areas by jerrymandering them in such a way like they've done in Nashville and Memphis, as you brought up a week or so ago, and modeling that in other places and trying to instill and engrave power in the rural areas. And again, I think that this is
something that has been lifted up by the shooting. The other thing that I heard, Jonathan, and you tell me if you heard this as well. And I say that I heard this via social media by the host of the Simone Show, Simone Sanders, who said that the Tennessee First Lady lost one of her best friends at the Covenant shooting. Is that correct?
I mean the irony, right, I mean not irony, it's I mean, one in five people know somebody who's been shot and killed in this country. We had a shooting where the first Lady knew people at Covenant who were killed, as many people did. Right. These are very public people, right. A principle of a school is somebody a lot of people know. Then we just had a shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, and it was a friend of.
Two friends of Governor Brasher.
Yeah, and so it's not like people are targeting people who know governors. It's that governors are part of a bigger demographic of people who live in the United States.
And so the number of people who were affected by this it's pretty high. And so but yes, it's true.
It is absolutely true that this Covenant shooting hit home really in a way maybe that the Las Vegas shooting did, right, because the people who were killed were like often white conservative people like people who are.
Well, I mean, tell me what you think. Then, is the difference between why you say this about Covenant When we looked at Parkland was the same demographic, new Town was the same demographic. So what is it about this one? It's that you're saying that it's like that. It's like, oh, it's what I mean, it's been white kids getting killed.
Well, it's not just about the race, right, It's actually that it's happening in the middle of like not just an one of the more pro gun areas of the country, like Florida rebounded, right. The rebound in Florida, right was to get red flag laws in Florida, which are now being taken.
Off the books by DeSantis.
But I just think it just kind of hits It hits close to home for people who are maybe supportive of gun rights but don't believe that every single person should be able to go get an air fifteen whenever they want. And I just think the irony of this moment is that this shooting happened at the moment that the Tennessee legislature was overturning every possible gun law, like and so they just think the contrast could not have been any more stark than it was at this moment.
And so it just there's something about the juxtaposition of this happening. And again, I just think it's just ludicrous to say that this.
Was a hate tribal against Christians.
Like nobody, I didn't even hear that that that was their talking point.
Yeah, that was their talking there's a hate crime against Christians.
And I mean.
It is true, right the shooter had used male pronouns at this moment for the last couple of months ago something like that. So they were saying this is a trans hate.
Crime against I mean, they were saying everything, everything except just like and none of it's stuck.
The thing is, none of it's stuck. You just watch that video for a second and you see somebody in tactical gear with an air fifteen and a baseball cap and all that stuff. That person was acting like.
Every other shooter, every other shooter, every other shooter that we have come to see and had, you know, access to seven different types of guns and rifles and the like. I want to transition a minute from Tennessee because of course, you know, this is just becoming the absolute norm where you know, over one hundred days into this year and
there have been over one hundred and fifty shootings. And this month is extraordinary in the fact that we had the Tennessee shooting happen and now two weeks later a mass shooting in Kentucky. So can you talk, I mean again about this Kentucky. You know, you have a democratic governor, but you have a Republican legislature. Talk about this kind of back to back to back that we're starting to see.
Well, we already we're having more than one messaging a day in this country, but now we're having more than one Americana style mass shooting. Right. In other words, people are heightened, they're terrified, they're paying attention. And I think it was just easy for America to look the other way when it was like a gang shooting or an urban shooting, even though every shooting is a mass shooting. But now you just cannot look away, right it's happening.
It's just the smoke is burning very close to the mansion right now for a lot of people, and I just think that it's just really affecting people's lives. And so before they could just say, like, oh, the gangbaggers are doing this over there, but that is not what happened, and it was what was happening before. But at least
it was a rhetorical strategy that people could use. And we still have a ton of guns suicide, and so I just think so many corners of our world are being hit by this, touched by this right now, and so the kind of deflection that people use. And I also think, I mean again, I have a lot of friends who are gun owners. I speak to gun owners a lot. I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of arguments, and as you know, pretty critical of a lot of liberal arguments about guns because they just
don't they kind of stereotype in reverse. But I will say there's something about the shootings that have been happening recently that just give complete lied the idea that just everybody's armed, you can stop.
This right right, Because at the school in Tennessee, there was there there was a teacher that was armed. At the bank, right there was I believe there was a guard. Yeah you know, banks are pretty well are pretty well protected. So there was already a gun in there, right, and it didn't stop it from happening.
Yeah, Yeah, So go ahead I mean again, the other other important point and why you know we still have four hundred and fifty million guns in circulation in this country. It does seem like a lot of the recent mass shooters have pretty recently bought their guns legally, but there still are.
Just we got a lot of guns are out you know.
So you know, one of the things that we have brought up in our conversations, Jonathan, is a fact recently that the number one cause of death of children zero to eighteen is now guns. And I want you to be able to elaborate on that a bit because there are a couple of things that I have seen and to me, honestly, it doesn't make a difference either way, if it's suicide, if it's homicide, if it's an accidental shooting.
Like all of the it's just there are too many fucking guns, and young people have too much access to them or they are around them. But when you hear that statistic, what comes up for you.
There was this graph I used to show in a lot of my talks that looked at what happened, like we used to have what fifty thousand car deaths a year in this country, forty five thousand something like that, and then people just saw what happened, which was automakers were liable for the deaths that their product was happening. And all of a sudden, they found Jesus right, All of a sudden, they figured out that you could have anti lock breaks, and you could have seat belt laws,
and you could have airbags. All of a sudden, all this technology came that made cars safer. And so that graph is like the exact opposite of the gun graph. That graph, that graph goes down with liability and technology.
Those are the two things that happened with guns.
We have the exact opposite, which is an industry that is shielded from liability, and so there's no impetus to install the kind of technology that we could do. I mean, when President Obama way back but a couple of decades ago did an executive order about guns whenever twenty twelve he invested in smart gun technology that was going to identify people by their handprint. There's tons of different things we can do that is just not there's no incentive
for it. And so in a way, I just feel like we have the technology, we have to know how it's just that it hasn't ever cost anybody anything. In the fact, has been beneficial for politicians to support these unfettered gun rights. And so it's really about the calculus, the calculus of the system that I think is the issue.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I just I will say that for the longest time, I have been really cavalier in how I talk about folks that live in red states. And yes there's a voter suppression and Jerry Mandarin, but how do you have these people that are in office that are literally walking past your children with signs that
say save us and are refusing to do so. But the energy of folks in Tennessee and just seeing all I mean hundreds and you know, maybe at this point thousands of people take to the streets over the past couple of weeks has really been heartening. It's really been eye opening. Right, this wasn't in a march that was organized that was happening in Washington, d C. This was,
you know, happening. People go into the state capitol, people you know, being in on the House floor when justin Representative Justin Jones was sworn back in like participating and showing up and holding these elected officials accountable and saying we see you and we see what you're doing, right. And I think that that is just something that in this area. Jonathan, if I tell me if I'm wrong that we have not seen this kind of energy.
No, it's exactly right. There have been a lot of people who've moved to Nashville over the past decade, me included. There's a lot of people here who haven't grown up in this system. And there's also a very strong tradition of you know, there's a ferry festival here, there's East Nashville with a bunch of hipsters, there's a music tradition. There's like a lot of different kinds of people in tennis See. And what happened was everybody relatively got along.
But I mean, we've had al Gore in the past, We've had Democrats in the past, and the Republicans figured out a way to like hijack the entire system. And so there are people who have not had their say here and they're they're getting not just disenfranchised or Jerry manderd, they're getting like literally silenced.
And so I just think people were just fed.
Up with it, honestly in the end, and it just released something here. But again, you and I have talked about this before, the politics of what's trying to happen in.
Tennessee. It's not just about red states.
I mean, they're going to try this playbook in twenty twenty four in New York, I can guarantee you. And so you need this energy in New York right now, honestly, because there's you could mobilize around fear of crime and smelly, disgusting New York City, the unsafe blah blah blah, and defund the police and all that kind of stuff. You could mobilize rural New York against New York City in a very similar kind of way.
Yeah, and I think, I mean, I think that we saw that happen with the last governors right right. I think that we saw that happen with Lee Zelden. And again we saw those that live in the dense urban areas that have the numbers and have the diverse populations
say yeah, that's not going to happen. And when they realized and they saw that, for instance, you know, Hokal was starting to do events in the Bronx, They're like, oh, we actually need to vote because we've never seen a governor here because they've never had to be so I think that, yes, what is happening in Tennessee can absolutely happen in New York and as you've said, and a lot of other urban areas. But I think that people are now getting hipped to and dare I say, woke
to the strategy that is out play with Republicans. But Jonathan, thank you so much for keeping us informed on what's going on in Tennessee. And I think that we're going to be watching your adopted state for you know, for a couple of weeks and months to come to see what happens.
Well, thank you.
And I just want to say one final thing, if you don't mind, which is we've had some powerful voices rise to the four over the last couple of weeks. Also, obviously the Tennessee politicians were phenomenal, all three of them leaders for the future, for the president and the future. I want to also say that Governor Bisher of Kentucky was just phenomenal. I mean, his response to that horrible shooting was incredible. I mean that's the tone we need.
And even Greg Popovich, the leader, the coach of the San Antonio Spurs, I mean go figure, and so I don't know.
I've been.
On this show nervous about the Democratic beant much. I've been nervous about if Trump goes to jail and DeSantis is the candidate, Biden's voice against somebody like that is not going to be that great. But I have to say, we've seen we've seen a kind of new kind of leader emerge over the last couple of weeks that I just.
Think people should pay attention to.
I think something's happening here in terms of like how we define a leader that is unexpected, and so I just I'm also just going to highlight to keep an eye on that space.
Also, absolutely, we appreciate you, Jonathan, Thank you, Take care everybody. 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.