Tour de Cruelty

religious background. But I do understand how politics and our policy and frankly the founding of this nation is wrapped up in religiosity. I mean, for Fox's sake, we have on our coins in God, we trust God, bless America. We do all of these things reflexively and for people who are like myself, who deem themselves more spiritual agnostic,

not subscribing to any organized religion. Getting into conversations with folks who do subscribe to religion if it is not a thoughtful, open minded conversation can end up in huge

squabbles and just everyone shutting down. That is not the case with Corey Nathan and I have enjoyed joining his podcast him joining now Woke f for the first time, we get into an in depth conversation with regard to how we engage, you know, rather than shut down with people, we open up the conversation talking about the cruelty that is being exhibited by Republicans who claim right Christian faith and yet their actions say otherwise and what that means.

And so I really hope, folks, that you enjoy this conversation with Corey Nathan. I hope that you will check out his podcasts, Talk in Politics and Religion pod. You can follow him at Corey Nathan on all social media platforms as well as his podcast. So I do hope that you enjoy this conversation. Do let me know in the comment sections below how it lands with you. I always appreciate your feedback. 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 free Erntini 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. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to woke F Daily Corey Nathan, who is the host of the podcast Talking Politics and Religion, who just has We've had incredible conversations Corey on democracy Ish my other podcasts on your own podcast, and I wanted to bring this

conversation to the woke a F audience. I love the way that you are able to weave in religion politics and just kind of give us a fifty thousand foot view and then zero in on the contradictions, the many, many contradictions that we see in our body politic today,

particularly at the hands of Republicans. The topic that I kind of want to start off with today is one that has really Corey been grading on me for the last week or so since it's happened, which is Rondes Santis and Greg Abbott in Texas playing political games with human beings, most recently with Ronda Santis lying to a group of migrants and then from Venezuela who were not even in his state, putting them on chartered planes and sending them to Martha's vineyard as a way to quote

unquote own the Libs. These are people, Corey, who profess to be somehow children of God. I don't know what God, but that's what they profess to be, These christo christo fascist right, which is what I will refer to them as, because I don't see what else you would refer to their behavior as. When you see these images and these examples of cruelty being normalized in our media and in our politics. Cory, what comes up for you? Well, you used a word at the beginning of your thoughts that

I think is key, and that word is human. I think that this the actions that are taken on the part of the Santis, in particular because i've I've watched his stand up comedy routines. I don't know what else you could call it. There he's like going on tour now, he's going to other states, and he's brazenly proclaiming and

showing off his cruelty and and is celebrating it. And I think the only way that you get there is by numbing your sense of someone else's humanity, losing or never having seen or never having acknowledged that this is another human being. You know. I got to talk to Wag and he had a really insightful way of describing this whole Christian thing. This the way that someone liked De Santis would use the name of God or Jesus or his label of Christianity, and wash put it in

such way. He said, Jesus is his mascot. Jesus isn't his lord? Wow, Jesus is his mascot, you know. And

and it's something very different. I mean, I you mentioned that we were going to be talking about this, and I've gotten into really heated conversations because to me, it's very clear whether we're looking at Hebrew by and I know not all of your audience are or of the Judeo Christian background, but I do bring it up, not to evangelize or anything like that, but because this is this is supposed to be the word and the authority

that guides our morality, our ethic, you know. So I've gotten too heated debates about Hey, listen, I know, I know y'all prefer your socio political leaning is you know, closed border, and you know they're only bringing the rapists and the you know and seeing them seeing other humans in another light, you know. But listen, this is the word of God. When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born, love them

as yourself. For you or foreigners, this is still true even if you do book, don't buy the Bible. We could take this statement and say, this is a virtue to see our neighbors a certain way, to see our neighbors as ourselves. Because I know you know your your parents are originally from Jamaica, Jamaica, right, so I'm sure you can identify. I identify with it. We talked about my grandmother arriving here at Ellis Island on March third, nineteen twenty one. I was a foreigner. This is my story,

you know. And if Desantists can't see that, if Desantists doesn't know his own family's history, we're happy to look it up for him, just like we looked it up for Donald fucking Trump or drump I should say, you know, we're happy to look it up for you. You know what it is, It's that what I've come to understand is that there is no shaming the devil, right, there is there is no there is no shaming of the devil.

And I say that because I believe that these people are at have come to a place where they are celebrating they're evil, Like you said, Ron de Santist is on a tour, a toward the evil, right, a toward the cruelty. But this isn't how the media is depicting this. They are depicting what is happening and what continues to happen with these migrants as political posturing, as opposed to dehumanization and cruelty, as opposed to where is amnesty international? Right?

Where is the UN in terms of what laws against humanity this country is breaking? These governors are breaking. And so my question for you is, you know, one of the major tenants of authoritarianism and fascism is to normalize violence, is to normalize political violence and to normalize cruelty and brutality in such a way that people begin to look

the other way. It's similarly that we've all when we see headlines with regard to mass shootings, it's really only the amount of people being gunned down at one time that moves us. If it's for or less people we're like, oh, isn't that sad? And we turn the page or we turn the channel and we move about our day because there's just been so many shootings. It's hard to shed tears for all of them because you'd be crying all

day every day. So, but my question, Corey is when we start to become desensitized to this level of cruelty, what do you see as the long term impact on our ability to have empathy and compassion and what that does to our founding principles, whether or not we've ever truly met them. At least each generation in some form or fashion, has strived towards that. Yeah, I want to

hold out hope. I want to. I think one of the ways that I've been able to continue in my efforts is to hold out hope for individuals, to hold out hope for other human beings, even for people who are in that room where De Santis is giving his performances. That there are other human beings that I think are not beyond our reach. You know, I think that there are folks. I've been thinking a lot about this Bible

study I went to. It was a Sunday school class that we were going to for like ten fifteen years. When I first became a Christian, first having kids was called young marriages. And listen, I'm realistic. I think if there were twenty twenty five of us in that room, they're going to that class. I'm still friends with a lot of them. I'm not gonna fool myself into thinking

that that entire room is persuadable. But you know what, I do think that there's one or two or three that are you know, and what does that look like?

So so what might be the question, But no, there is a so what Because just as an example, and I'm kind of taking a left turn here, I live in a district, a US Congress House district, California, twenty seven that was decided by three hundred and thirty three votes out of over three hundred and forty thousand people who cast a vote, and Christy Smith lost that one, but she's running again. So why do I think of my son day school class and how is that connected?

Because if I can persuade one person from my old Sunday school class, that means Christy wins this time. And that's exactly a suburban college educated women in particular, that is exactly the content constituency that's that's in a swing. So if I can convince you know, my friend Margaret, like, hey, you know, I think we got it wrong on this immigrant thing. I think we you know, I know that we're rooting. We're always trained to root for the Red,

root for the Republicans. We're always training to vote. Don't think, just vote and vote the way you know our people. You know, no, no, no no, no, it's time to think. It's time to think why. Because loving the Lord your God involves loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. So let's think. So I'm talking to Margaret right now, and I'm saying we got this. You know, Trump separated children from their parents, and we're still having

to clean up the mess. You know. Uh, De Santis and Abbott are are making it about own the lives. So to them, it's not about any philosophy, it's not about any theological premises that they're basing it on. It's based on this worldview that everything is a contest that they have to win. They've identified the enemy, and the enemy is anybody outside of a particular cult, that cult being anyone who's going to bow down to the golden

statue of Nebuchadnezzar, a modern day Nemicadnezzar. I eat Trump, you know, or or that Trump is m if you will, even if you want to take Trump out of the equation, this Trump is M because that's what that's what DeSantis is trying to do. He's trying to do his bad imitation of Trump. But maybe he's a little bit more polite about it. Bullshit, he's not polite. He's sending he's he's forgetting about the humanity of human beings, and and he's he's tricking them into going thousands of miles away

after they've already been on a thousand mile journey. You know. So I think that it's one it's one area where we might defer because, like I said, I want to hold out hope, even for maybe not de Santis himself, but for people in that room, because I think one or two or three are persuadable not to get on, you know, not not to start carry protest signs and you know, be full on board with um with you know, democratic activists, and you know, I don't think that's that's

the case. But I think if we can if we can persuade even one degree, one percent, you know, one person out of that room, just to just to cast one vote for a person who believes in our democratic institutions, who understands that this time. I know you've always voted a Republican and you think that's the Christian thing to do. I'm a Christian, I'm a conservative, and I'm voting proudly for a Democrat because no matter how much I disagree with Christy on certain fiscal issues, uh, we we agree

that democracy itself is at stake. So yeah, sorry to go on so long, but again I think I would just I just want to hold out hope for some of those something, not just for the folks in that room, but that that circle gets wider, because there are some folks who are just sort of um, they don't want to talk about it, they don't they don't want to think about it, and they're just kind of getting carried

away with this wave. But but you know, loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and strength requires us to really think through this stuff, to really think through are we worshiping a god? Or are we faithful to even taking God in Christianity had the question out of the equation for a second. But are we faithful to what we know to be true and right to what we know to be good virtues? Are we being faithful to that? Or are we sending all that aside because we happen to be on a

team that wears these red hats. And part of being wearing red hats means that it's okay to be cruel. It's it's it's winning to be cruel, you know. So, yeah, yeah, no, but that you know that. But that's the thing, is that the reason why I love our conversations is because there has to be some other way to persuade people

to tap in to their shared humanity. There has to be a way to open up people's eyes to the fact that the zero sum game means that they lose as well, right, that there is no way to put on that red hat and to for instance, deny the existence of climate change as you're standing in front of trumbling infrastructure, your home and community being hit once again by raging floods and fires, and to think that like you're going to continue to vote against your best interests,

you don't have, you don't have to carry a protest sign right to understand that taking care of the land, the water, the environment, and the air should be a principle of the very religion that you are touting as a reason you are against so many other people, so

many other issues. And so I'm wondering, Corey, like, have we just has the tribalism just consume so many minds that we have, because this has always been a part to me of republicanism, which is the demonization of education, the demonization of what it means to have an open mind,

right to ask questions, to critically think. And so, you know, is there a way do you see that there is a way that we break through the tribalism, this red web that has fallen across this country that we call Trumpism now that we are all trapped in, whether or not we are subscribing to it or not, we're all trapped inside of this red web. Is there a way to break out by appealing to people's humanity when they are being indoctrinated to dehumanize and applaud the humiliation and

the cruelty being expressed onto other people. Yeah, yeah, and listen, there is a place to fight. There's a place for I prefer non violent resistance, but resistance nonetheless, and resistance as a means of fighting a good fight, you know, and getting in good trouble as as the late Representative Lewis would say, you know, but I think so there's a place for fighting, But I also think there's a place for bridge building. Now what does that look like?

It doesn't It doesn't look like getting into a thread on Twitter with somebody, does that? You know? I'll tell you, you know, I'm going out for beers tomorrow night with this guy. I've been friendly with him because I've played poker with him a bunch and we stayed in touch. I didn't realize how magnified he is until he invited me to a game. And first thing I see in his garage is this huge locker, a gunrack, you know, like a huge gun locker. Um. I think I'd like

to think that he's a responsible gun owner. But he's one of these guys from the mindset of we might have talked about this last time, but of the come and take them kind of mindset. Yep, yep, yep. You know. So, I'm not going to convince my buddy Darren to become

you know, a social justice warrior. But I do think that if we if we go out for beers and there'll be some sort of connection that all of a sudden, I'm not just some you know, some guy that he's getting in a spat with and contesting with on Twitter

or Facebook or whatever. I'm a human being, you know, and and but also he's a human being to me, you know, And I can understand if I if I seek to understand what what's behind the big gun rack, what's behind his feeling about that, I might be able to we might be able to get underneath to something

that does we do hold in common? For example, his concern for his family, His concern for his family and wanted to keep his family safe, and we share that, you know, how how we what's derived from that, and how we act and decisions that we make are obviously very different, but there's an underlying value that we share.

So I think maybe making that connection and understanding that connection, I'm gonna I'm not gonna turn him around one hundred and eighty degrees, but I think there's one or two things, one or two ingredients that I can throw in the mix where I'll give you an example we were have an extended conversation about January sixth, and he referred to guys who storm the capitol as ass hats. I'm like, okay, good, we're making some progress. Yeah, at the very least they

were ass hats. But then he quickly diverted the conversation to, yeah, but where was your outrage when you know people were storm Seattle in Portland and you know all those people. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, these two things are not related. So if we're going to address one, we'll address it.

But these two things are not related. But if you want to talk about it, let's talk about the fact that we're a year and a half, almost two years past January sixth, there hasn't even been a thousand arrests yet. And by the way, there's been so much process. So some people are just you know, got a got a minimal fine. But some people who are beating, trying to beat cops to death and stab them to death, Yes,

they're in jail deservedly so. But you know, you know what, we're a year and a half, two years out and still not even a thousand arrests. Fourteen thousand arrests within two weeks after George Floyd's Floyd's murder, So we talked about that, you know, and I think, I think again, he wasn't thoroughly convinced. He didn't want to join the next protest march, you know, but I think he understood the depravity frankly, and trying to connect these two things,

the seditiousness. What's the word I'm looking for. It's like toxic, It's like poison, and he bought the poison. He took that bill, you know. So I can't convince him of everything, but I can help him. I can understand him a little bit better and and honor the values, honor him as a human being, even if we've arrived at very

different conclusions, you know. And that gives me. It's like the ticket that I have to buy in order to persuade him just a little bit on one thing, you know, and our relationship I think is going to bear fruit. Not that I need him to agree with me on everything, but just if nothing else, that he can see the humanity in that what we were originally talking about, in the human beings that that fled, violence that fled. You know. It's not like they wanted to leave their homes. It's

not like they wanted to leave their business. But that's the That's the thing that I think is consistently lost, right is, and particularly around our broken and purposefully broken immigration system, where we are assuming that people have this deep desire to flee everything that they have known, everyone that they have loved, with a frigging knapsack on their back, that being it, and going off into a land of people that you know half of at least hate you,

right have been trained to literally hate you. You've seen images of people at the border, and yet you are compelled by virtue of just the desire to have safety to do just that, to make that journey, and so like is there and the thing to me again, go back last I don't even know, Yeah, I guess it was last year when we had fourteen thousand Haitians at the border that were being beaten on horseback by border patrol.

The images were all over the place. Biden's cooped up fourteen thousand Haitians and sent them back to Haiti, to political violence, to unrelenting COVID, all of these things. Literally in the same month, welcomed in one hundred thousand Ukrainians. No one bats an eyelash. Oh my god, we had changed our social media avatars to Ukrainian flags and do

all these things. So my question, Corey is how how do you go about having conversations about the clear, the clear distinctions between who we see as human, who we can align ourselves with, and be like, oh my god, look at that mother with that abandoned stroller. Look at those people, you know with just their backpacks. There's the same. Their skin color is different, their language is different, the desire for safety and freedom is not. So how do

we can how do we get to that? There? There? Yeah, that's a quadra to say the least. You know, I think when we see folks that look different than us, that maybe have a different religion than us, you know, I see the fault in myself, you know, I see. I was I was watching this old Bugs Bunny cartoon

and the portrayal of an Asian character. Oh, I see it now, I'm like, oh, oh my god, Like these are the cartoons that I was watching, And I wasn't even aware of the caricatures that that that we're getting emblazoned into my own mind, it's my own imagination. Until I had a friend this wonderful woman. She's one of those like fuck you friends like I don't but she's like, fuck you, Corey. And and I love her to death.

Her name is Helen, but she she like she's like, she's one of those people whose whose love language is punching you in the face. She's she's, um, you know, she's an Asian woman. Uh. And and she's she's educated me, she's taught me. She's she's opened my eyes. There's a blindness, and I think in a way, there's there's a deadness. You know. I wasn't even alive, My soul wasn't even alive to these these blind spots that I had, you know, until I had a wonderful friend who opened up my

eyes to it. I'm thankful for Helen. Well, now, listen, we still disagree on some things. We've got a really, really a fight about a year ago about I was trying to make a comment about freedom of expression, freedom of speech. Um, I used a bad example because it

was too it was too tenuous. I'm not even gonna bring up the example, but it was the wrong example because it was part of my point, because I felt that the freedom of speech, if we really believe in that isn't tested when we agree with what the speech is all about. But I think I used an example that wasn't like one step outside of her of Helen's belief system. It was so far outside of her belief system. It was just a wrong example. And then our our

argument became about the example itself. I'll just say what I used, Chappelle's stand up the Closer. Oh, yep, yep. So it was so far beyond the pale for Helen. She couldn't get past that if I use if I used, like somebody, the freedom of speech, I don't know. I was trying to make a point. It wasn't a great point because so far beyond the pale for her, you know so, But it helped me to learn. It helped me to learn, you know, how to make a better argument if I want to make an argument about the

freedom of speech. It helped me to learn, I have to respect certain folks boundaries. I have to respect certain folks, you know, what is beyond the pale for them if I want to stay in the conversation. So I'm not going to say it was a good argument. I'd rather not have gotten into it. I'd rather have learned some of the lessons that I learned in a less contentious way. But I did. I did learn a lot about that,

So I guess, I guess again. I come back around to having having friends in our life that are different from us, having people in our lives that can teach us and open our eyes to things that we didn't see that. I don't know any other way. You know, maybe maybe we can read a book if they're not banned. The Damage Report with John Idaola is one of the most popular shows on the TYT Network that serves as you're a daily breakdown of the genuine threats and challenges

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If you like what you here, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You know, like, but I know, I say, I say that you know. I say I say that you know seriously, because there are you know and the last question I want to ask you about before I get there, I say that there are people that are desperate for information, that want the truth, and I just want people to understand that politicians are going to the extreme to say that no, you shouldn't

read this book. We're gonna burn it, we're gonna ban it. And I'm like, these are the tenants of how authoritarianism and fascism take hold. Education is and the freedom of

education is the first place that they go to. So for those people who may live in community, don't who don't live in you know, particularly diverse communities, whether it be culturally, linguistically, you know, racially, and so they're the only way for them to build that bridge of understanding that you're saying is to begin to try and educate themselves. But then I'm going to my library or I'm enrolling in my kids in school, and I can't get those things.

I can't you, I can't access those tools because those tools are being kept from me. That's the that's the

extreme of where we are. But my last question for you, Corey is this, there are a lot of people you know, over the particularly since the insurrection, so you know, we're we're coming up on two years, Like you said, since since the insurrection that lost that have lost a lot of family and friends that have lost the ability to come to the table and have communication UM and have thrown up their hands right, Donald Trump magasm Trump is

M has been the most successfully divisive tools and strategies UM that this country has ever seen. And it has divided families, it has divided friendships, It's divided entire communities. And so my question to you for you know, for people that listen to this show, who they are one of those people that they are like, I'm done, and there are certain people that you need to be done with.

But then there are those like you're saying that maybe all is not lost, right, what advice do you give them in terms of how one decides to even go back to a table that's been overturned right a table that has been flipped. What advice do you give to people who still say, you know what, I want to keep trying or I want to try again right to reach who I thought was unreachable. Yeah. So I think it's a great question, and I think having that goal is a step number one. Having that disposition is a

good way to go. Giving yourself permission to mess up is really important, you know, giving your self permission to have a bad conversation, but to still be committed to come back around to it, you know, So give because because you're going to revisit it with a friend and something's going to come up and it's just gonna be you can't do it anymore, you know, And like it happens to me all the time where I just lose my shit, like I just I can't, like I mess

it up, but I'm committed to continuing the conversation and trying again and getting better, you know. So I would say that one thing is, you know, I had a conversation my middle kid, I have twenty one, nineteen and seventeen year old. Nineteen year old, when vaccines first became available, he took a weight and see approach. But because he was waiting, he got beat up by a bunch of other people in our family and friends, and I was one of them. I was like, dude, what are you

fucking stupid? Like, just get the damn shot, you know. But because of that, being the nineteen year old boy that he is, he just decided to screw you. I'm now I'm definitely not getting it, you know. So I stayed in the relationship. He still hasn't gotten his vaccines. But I knew that I lost the privilege of having that conversation with him because I was one of the ones that was beating him up. I was dog ponding on the rabbit, you know, So what do you do?

I just want to stay in the relationship with the kid, and maybe we could talk about welding, which is his trading. Maybe we could talk about I love the Mets. Let's talk about the Mets. You know, stay in the game, you know, just stay in a conversation, talk about everything else. You know. Yeah, you gotta still get back, gotta get back around to the big important things. But I didn't

get him to get the vaccine. But we were going on a family outing with three other families and he did submit to getting a test, you know, so that was something at least he acknowledged. Yeah, this thing is actually real. It's not made up by the fake media. It's actually real. And you know what, could you at least get a test before you join the rest of us. There's there was one or two people that were immunity immunocompromised.

He's like, all right, so again, like I didn't get him to get the shot, but like even him acknowledging that, yes, there is a pandemic, there is a disease. It is real, and I'll get the test. You know, any tested negative, thank god. And you know it was it was it

made it. It was a compromise that everybody made. But that's just an example of like, stay in the conversation, recognize, and give yourself permission to mess up, you know, and maybe you just got to talk about the METS for a while before you get back to politics and religion, you know. But eventually, I think what earned my right back into that conversation was acknowledging with Jackie Boy, the older of the two boys, that I messed up and I'm sorry, and uh, you know it gave it gave

me the open door to revisit it. And even though he didn't do what I wanted him to do, he like came once step in my direction, you know, to what I think is good for him, frankly, and good for everybody else around him. So I don't know that that's not it's not an entire book. It's not you know, here's here's the ten Steps to. But it's just an illustration, a short story to illustrate how how you can do this thing. We can do it better, we can do

it better, and we should try. We should definitely try. Corey Nathan, thank you so much for making the time to join Woke f folks. His podcast is Talking Politics and Religion pod. You must check it out. There are great conversations I've been on, My friend Wajahat has been on, many other people have been on, So do check Cory out and follow the pod and follow Cory Nathan. Appreciate you friend, Danielle. I love hanging out with you. We definitely have to do this in person and Whiskey is

definitely going to be involved. It will be that is it for me to day. Folks on Woke app as always Power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.