Weaponizing Ignorance

which is a part of the Young Turk's Network. Because you know, John and I go through a host of headlines that we've been inundated with, but one of them I want to really lift up today, which is my absolute and total fucking aggravation with the way in which the media continues to cover mass shootings, particularly those that

are directed and targeted at marginalized communities. So, whether it was the shooting that took place only six months ago in Buffalo where several black shoppers lost their lives at the grocery store there, whether it is you know what just happened in Colorado at Club Q and LGBTQ Club where five people were murdered and several more injured by a shooter that was subdued, thankfully by very brave patrons

of the club. You know, I'm just tired of listening to the fucking media say, well, we don't have all of the details yet, so we don't know if it was a hate crime. If you are going into a fucking gay establishment and shooting it up and passing by a whole host of other bars in places that you could go to, what else are we supposed to fucking infer?

And also if you don't leave behind a manifesto, as was the case with the Buffalo shooter, but it is all black people that are shot and killed, or all Asian people that are shot and killed as what happened at a salon a couple of months ago, as well, like, are we just supposed to pretend that white supremacy, white nationalist rhetoric does not have real fucking world consequences? Like are we just supposed to all act as if you know, words, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words don't

actually hurt me? Are we dumb? Because that's what I think the mainstream media wants us to believe, right, is that, oh, there is no real link between Rhonda Santists passing don't Say gay legislation, between Greg Abbott passing anti trans and anti LGBTQ legislation and criminalizing parents that want to have and create an environment of affirmation for their trans child and the violence that we are seeing on the rise.

Do we think that there's no correlation between Donald Trump referring to African nations as shit whole countries between that Trump administration referring to COVID nineteen as kung flu and then you seeing the escalation and anti black and anti Asian. Hey, Like, I'm just sick of the bullshit, and I'm sick of us allowing the media to continue to lie to us and place it on us in the vein of neutrality, Like, oh well, we need to get all of the fucking facts.

Here are the facts, and let me make them really fucking clear. The facts are these. The facts are that the Republican Party has become a white supremacist stronghold. That is who their base is, that is who their people are. That white evangelical Christians that they hold up as this

religious sort. Would rather vote for a man in Georgia who has repeatedly gotten abortions and paid for abortions for his girlfriends, couldn't pull together two sentences from the Bible if his life depended on it, as opposed to voting for an actual reverend who preaches at the same church

that Martin Luther King Junior did right. So it's this idea we are supposed to allow all of the facts to come in and the chips to fall before we recognize that there are direct consequences between Marjorie Taylor Green and the Republican Party referring to queer people as groomers and pedophiles and then acts of violence that are taken

out against that same community. Are you dumb? Right? And so that's kind of my feeling when I'm watching the news and I was doing so, you know, with my mom, and she was just like, I mean, does everyone need to walk in shooting and saying like anti Semitic slurs in order for us to recognize that there is anti Jewish attacks that are on the rise. Do you need to have the N word literally tattooed on somebody's body

to recognize again that they are rabid racist? Like, I'm just so fucking tired of not providing contacts, not connecting the dots, and thinking that somehow you are unbiased. These journalists have a responsibility to tell audiences the fucking truth, to let them know that there is direct consequences between the rise and political violent rhetoric that is coming from

only one goddamn party in this country. It is not a both sides issue because you do not see Democrats ever or hear Democrats ever other than referring to the actions that this party is taking as authoritarian and fascist,

because they are right. But I'm not going to pretend that the ship that Donald Trump said while he was president, that the ship that you hear in the legislation that is being passed that is trying to erase black Indigenous people of color, that is trying to erase LGBTQ people from our classrooms, from our societies at large, is not directly correlated to the violence that is happening against these communities.

That's just bullshit, right. The danger that we have here, folks, is people not holding these political leaders accountable and saying that what they're offering in the way of their thoughts and prayers are enough. If it was, folks, then there wouldn't have been a series of fucking mass shootings that have happened between May with the Buffalo shooting and what just happened at Club Q right like, there just wouldn't

have been slew. And I'm tired of the lies because they are actually costing people their fucking lives and somebody on top of the gun manufacturers need to be held accountable for that. So John Iderola and I will get into a larger conversation about rhetoric about the mainstream media and about the Republican Party and where in fact Kevin McCarthy is going to fall in the elevation of members of Congress like Marjorie Taylor Green and others. That conversation

is coming up next, folks. I am very excited to welcome to Okay f for the very first time the host of the Damage Report, John Idarola, who is part of the Young Turk's network and is daily daily you can find him breaking down all of the threats that we are facing in our country and the world. John, welcome, Thank you. So So where to begin? You know, it's like what part of the sewer would you like to dive into first that I refer to as our democracy.

I think where I want to start is with the umpteenth mass shooting that we have now has all come on our radar, that took place in Colorado. Colorado has been the been ground zero for multiple mass shootings that make headlub that have made headlines over the years. This one at Club Q and LGBTQ plus nightclub. Five people are dead. I believe over fifteen or some odd had been shot and injured. Thank god, the gunman was taken down by patrons inside of the club that were able

to hold them until police arrived. Let me just ask you, you know, another headline, another shooting. What do you make of this? Yeah? Well so, yeah, I don't know how many of these you've had to cover in your career, but yeah, they're pretty much constant. And the thing that's most amazing about these is how every one of these terrible acts of violence has its own unique flavor, either in geography or the particular type of establishment that was attacked,

or the particular group that was targeted. And yet there are so many things that are almost always the same between all of them. You start to feel kind of sick that, you know, you know the phases that the media is going to go through, you know the phases that the politicians are going to go through. They're going to send out the stock canned responses, and almost nothing will change that will make it any less likely that the same or similar sorts of attacks will happen in

the future. When we were talking about this on my show this morning, my co host Dan Evans said that he only briefly detoured due sadness before moving to rage, and I said, I, you know what, honestly, I don't even know that I was at sadness because I just instantly felt in my gut, I know what all of those who've been pushing hatred against the LGBTQ plus community

are going to say. I know what those who are in the pocket of like of you know, the big gun manufacturers are going to do to stop any sort of reforms. It just feel it makes you feel so help you know. Yeah, it's just a consistent rinse and repeat, and you know, and and to your co host point, I don't even know. I was in bed right as many people were. The alert came across, you know, my phone from the New York Times, and I don't even

think I paused at sadness. I think that I went directly into rage because what I realized is that it's only been six months since the Buffalo shooting that took place at the supermarket in Buffalo, where a white supremacist went in and killed supermarket shoppers, black supermarket shoppers on a Saturday morning for no other reason than they were black and had the audacity to you know, be living. Then fast forward and we had classroom of children killed.

Then we had people picked off at the parade. Right They're out at a you know, at an Independence Day parade and they were shot from you know, from the roofs I just like, I don't know how we're supposed to continue to have these conversations in media without actually drawing attention to the fact that what you say, the rhetoric that these right wing politicians have have real world consequences, and every time that someone like us says these things,

we're told now is not the time. Now is not the time John for us to make logical connection of dots. So what do you make of that pushback of now is not the time or you know, Lauren Bobert she also sent out tweeted out her thoughts and prayers on

the issue. This is the one who everyone knows who had a restaurant where the servers carried nine millimeters on their hips, and she's tweeting out her thoughts and prayers on top of hoping that you know, our national school curriculum would turn into Florida, which is notorious now for the don't say gay bill. Yeah, yeah, Lauren Bobert, who I defy anyone to find a photo of her with her family that doesn't involve at least two a R fifteens. Yeah,

she hates the community. She loves guns. That's it. That's what she's going to do. She put out a statement like ostensibly condemning the violence. Everyone should go look at that tweet and you tell me who was attacked, because you can't tell from the tweets she sent out. Who's to say what community was being targeted in this? She's certainly not going to say that, because then the line between who was attacked and the sorts of hate speech

that she's been encouraging would be all too clear. Yeah, she's been an active participant in this. They all thought it was fun in games. The base lows it when you demonize people and you declare that your enemies are our groomers. This quannonization of Republican politics, where everyone disagree with wants to murder and or sexually assault your child, ye disgusting and it has clear consequences. I'm glad that you pointed out in Buffalo, but there was also the

Walmart shooting in ye Passo. There were the women that were the Asian women that were killed in the SPA. Like how many incredibly clear targeting that immediately that follows the hatred, whether it's over COVID nineteen or supposed caravans and all that, it's just constant. And every time it happens, they'll say, well, it doesn't by the way, it doesn't even matter if the guy has like a manifesto, like super clear record, as with the guy who tried to

bash in Paul Pelosi's skull. And by the way, we're not supposed to make links to politics, but they can start joking about this guy almost being killed. Immediately they will say, well, he's just crazy. This is a crazy loaner.

And I will say, and many people will say what we always say, which is yes, America is a place that is filled with crazy loaners, and some of them are looking to be told who to target, and that Lauren Boberg is not going to take a totally sane person and get that person to go shoot up a target. But if they are crazy people and you fill them full of conspiracy, theories about George Soros organizing Guatemalan caravans,

then maybe they'll pick up the gun for that. And that's my fear that they are weaponizing our mental health

crisis for their own political ends. You know, I want to stay on this for a minute because I have to say too that you know, when you have the likes of a Marjorie Taylor Green who stood up at rally's saying that Democrats are trying to kill us, when you use terms like you brought up groomer and pedophile, and people are thinking to themselves, well, I have to save the children, right, and I have to do whatever it's going to take in order to save the children

if it harms a few people. I mean, this was the logic behind blowing up abortion clinics, right, or shooting

up abortion. I have to save the children. And so how do you think responsibly mainstream media makes these contextual contextualizes what is happening, and makes these links in a way where it's not um considered biased to tell the truth that when you put cross hairs, which Sarah Palin did you know years back, when you put crosshairs on members of Congress, and then you turn around and be surprised that they're that they're shot and all, and attempted

murder happened. Like I how do you make that case in mainstream media these days? Yeah, I think it's difficult. I think that the media is still really bad at pointing out certain types of radical rhetoric and lies. They're they're hesitant to declare that extremely powerful people are just openly lying or openly soaking hate. They don't like to do that. But at the very least they do seem to be They seem to be pretty free to declare

that like Marjor Green's a crazy person. They don't seem to be too worried about declaring that she's insane, or Paul Gosara is saying something dangerous, or Matt Gates is a creep. They'll do that, So that's important. People need to understand who these people are. Putting their current statements in the context of things they've said and done in the past can be useful. But I also think that

at least this isn't gonna work in every area. But one thing they can do to disarm these sorts of attacks is to make it so that a fairly ignorant nation ignorant when it comes to certain communities, isn't ignorant. It's easier to demonize the trans community if the only thing people have heard about the trans community has come

from a transphobic YouTuber. And there's a reason that I think that they're focusing on the trans community because other areas of the LGBTQ plus community aren't as unknown, aren't as hidden in the shadows as they were ten years ago when the Republics would have just been demonizing them. The trans community is still relatively new because there's not a lot of representation in media or on the news. Look at the conflation of the culture of drag queens

with the trans community. The media would make sure that people understand that the being a drag queen is not the same as being trans. It isn't necessarily a statement about your sexuality at all. It is a culture, it's not a sexual thing. And so if America knew more about these communities, they might be a little bit more

resistant to weaponizing the ignorance against these communities. I think, John, you're making too much sense, and clearly you're making you're making too much sense on the ways in which you know the media can actually educate audiences. But speaking of folks who weaponize ignorance, let's talk about Kevin McCarthy and the fact that he is about to get the gavel back. You know, if he can make it out of getting two hundred and eighteen other rabid Republicans to vote for

him to be Speaker of the House again. You know, he is taking his direction from Marjorie Taylor Green, he is taking his direction from Jim Jordan and other members of the Freedom Caucus. So what do you perceive as Kevin McCarthy's, you know, next reign as as House Speaker. How do you think that that is going to unfold? Yeah, I mean, look, I'm waiting to see how crazy we're

going to get as a nation. I mean, we know that like best case scenario, the baseline is pretty crazy, pretty much a waste of time of Congress for the next two years, they we are going to hear way more about Hunter Biden than any regular person has any interest in hearing. It's going to be a constant thing.

So that's going to be annoying. I'm sure that people like Anthony Fauci and Mark Garland are going to and more time testifying before Jim Jordan and all that, than they'd want to, and it's going to be mostly a waste of time where people like Jim Jordan and others are going to be just giving their little sound bites so that they can spread on social media. That doesn't

bother me so much. I'm more bothered by the opportunity cost because having one Chamber of Congress who is letting you know ahead of time, but the next two years they're not going to accomplish literally anything might be fine in a country that's not facing any actual crises, like if we didn't need to fix these things, if we didn't need legislation, then that might be fine. But there's a lot of problems that are that are going to go unfixed at least for two years. And that's unfortunate.

The fact that people like Marjorie Green and Paul Gossar, who thankfully were stripped of their committee positions after just countless instances in social media where they spread conspiracy theories and disinformation and normalize political violence, they're going to be back on their positions. So that's our country taking a big step backwards. So I'm worried about all of that.

We'll see if we have weekly impeachments of Joe Biden, or you know, God only knows what else, the raising of the debt ceiling being weaponized to try to destroy social security and medicare, I mean, those sorts of things. When they go after these big social programs, that's where I think they can do the most actual damage. And so we'll have to see how willing they are to

do that. They seem to think that doing as much damage as they can economically and making people's economic position as precarious as possible will benefit them going in to twenty twenty four. But that's only true if they can evade some responsibility for and they will technically be in power in the House. So I think it's going to be on the media and the Democrats to make sure that people understand that the Republicans are They've now they've

gotten what they wanted. Okay, they caught up to the car, and now people need to understand the consequences of that. We'll see how successful they are. What do you think? You know? And my feeling is the same with regard to what the Democrats and the media needs to do, because I think that the appointments that Democrats make on these committees that are now going to be chaired by Republicans are and we're going to be constantly hammered with

a circus day in and day out. Is that it's going to be up to Democrats to paint that picture, to show that narrative, like, here are these people that said that they want power, and this is what they are doing with it. What is the investigation of Hunter

Biden's laptop doing for your day to day life? And if they fact in fact come back with a comparison of well, what was January sixth, Well, you're talking about thousands of people that broke into our capitol building, defecated in the halls of democracy, and beat, you know, police officers to death. I think that that may be different than an alleged conspiracy that came out of Quranon's fantasy land.

But Democrats need to make that distinction, and if they don't, then we're just going to be inundated with bullshit, um for for as long as humanly possible. UM. You know. Kevin McCarthy though, on the tip in terms of getting rid of people who are crazy, which is what UH Speaker Pelosi did with Marjorie Taylor Green and Gosar. He's come out and said that he's going to strip Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar of their committee assignments. What

do you think the pushback needs to be to that. Yeah, yeah, that'll be that'll be interesting. I mean, the Democrats in the House don't necessarily have a lot of power to do anything about that, unfortunately, I mean they can, they can try to make a big deal out of it in the media, certainly. Um. I think Elan Omar is already set and Representive Omar should say, is already saying that this is effectively under the guise of being concerned about anti Semitism. This is them attacking her for being

a Muslim, for being Somali Americans. Right, It's important to make clear to those communities that these are identities that the Republicans feel one hundred percent free to attack without any fear of consequences, which is one hundred percent true. And also they would they would love to say that

they're against like censorship, they want free speech. Well, I think the case of Representative Omar is a very interesting one because, look, I understand that she apologized for them the tweet that she sent out a couple of years ago about being all about the Benjamin's, but to be clear, she was talking specifically about a lobbying organization, and so like, I think, especially in the modern area, with all of the anti semitism, I think that is acceptable to tread

extra carefully to avoid invoking any anti Semitic tropes in that area. I believe that that is fair. However, we also have to be free to be able to criticize a very well funded lob organization that is weighing in on many different elections and in many different issue areas, and I feel like she needs to be free to do that. This is literally years ago. As many people pointed out, Representative Amor, a Republican who's now the number

three amongst Republicans in the House. He said more recently that Jewish billionaires are buying the Congress for the Democrats, and yet he's not being stripped of any of his positions. So at least you could have some consistency there. Anyway, with all of the anti semitism we see coming out of the right just over the past couple of weeks, I don't think this is going to be very successful in them convincing Jewish Americans that the Democrats are against them.

I don't like the precedent being said. I don't like especially,

and I apologize for going on about this. I hate that when you finally get consequences for something in America, for instance, Gosar and Green being taken off their committees, which does not often happen, and brand even happened the first couple of times they did something completely unacceptable, but you finally got consequences, and we all kind of knew that as soon as that happened, the Republicans are going to be looking for literally any excuse to turn it

around the Democrats. I wish that we had a system that didn't work that way. That, you know, if the Republicans commit an insurrection and we point that out and criticize that we don't have everything, the Democrats do be called an insurrection by the right. I don't like the like devolving everything down to everything's the same, everything's in the mud. What Green and Gosar did is not the

same as what Representative Omar did. Now I don't think so either, And I think that what is really problematic to me is the fact that I want to see how Democrats are going to then if those three members are stripped, you unreasonably so, of their committee assignments, then how they're going to be elevated? Because I would make the three of them the messengers of the Democratic Party. I would have them on every single show all the time, talking about what the Democrats are fighting for, what it

is that Republicans are doing. Like, I would turn them into the mouthpieces, right because if they're going to be freed up with their time, we know that the three of them are quite a really good at communications, particularly Swallowell and Ship who both played major roles in the impeachment trials. And I would turn them into the new managers of the Democratic Party and put them everywhere. So it's just like, oh, you thought that you were going

to shut us up. No, I'm actually going to give them a microphone and a platform and say go with God. Last question for you, John, is you know again I have such I take such issue with the kind of complicity of mainstream media in the way that they covered the Trump administration, in the way that they covered the candidacy of Donald Trump, and in the way it seems that they are going to cover him again his twenty

twenty four bid. What do you think needs to happen if you could control how the media was going to move forward in twenty twenty three with their coverage of Donald Trump, what would that look like? Oh, that's a big question. I'm sure there's a lot of newsrooms where

a lot of people are debating that. My fear, and maybe you share this fear, is that a lot of those big news from CNN, MSNBC, who they've been hurting in terms of rating since twenty twenty, I'm worried that whether they acknowledge it or not, explicitly or not, they're going to lapse back into some of the same behaviors because it benefited them economically in terms of their rating and ad revenue, you know, the last time Trump was around. I hope that they don't forget how unprecedented he's been

as even a Republican political figure. I hope that they remember that. I hope that, and maybe the events of this last weekend will be a reminder that they it's easy to talk in a general sense about the threat posed by Donald Trump and by the MAGA movement. I hope that they center the people who are actually at risk, because let's bear in mind, like when if Trump gets back into power, Anderson Cooper's gonna be fine. Probably he's wealthy, you know, like most people are gonna be fine. It's

it's the people who's job. Like, I'll be fine, you know, whatever I'm I do media stuff, I'm a white male, I'm gonna be just fine. You have to talk about the people who are actually going to be at risk, the people who might be deported in mass numbers, the people who might have some sort of federal don't say gay bill, you know, sponsored, or if the Supreme Court decides to go beyond just destroying Roe v. Wade and they get rid of same sex marriage, or they go

after interracial marriage or whatever, like I would. I would like to see an approach to him that brings all the people who will be hurt and centers their anxieties, their fears about what another term for Trump could actually represent.

And I also hope that they understand along the way that it isn't necessarily gonna be Trump, but if it isn't, and if it's Rhonda Santis, he's more normal in some ways, but that we can't let that lullis into a sense of complacency and assume that then everything's great and nobody's at risk. So I just I hope that they consider things beyond just how this is going to impact them and the experience of covering the news, because that's not

representative of a lot of people's experience. Yeah, and I'm you know, basically what you're saying, and what I have said many many times on this show is that Donald Trump was really great for ratings and really bad for our democracy, and I wish that, you know, one took precedent over the other. John Idaolla, host of The Damage Report, thank you so much for making the time to join Woke, f and I hope that you will. I'm back soon.

Thank you. I would love to as a pleasure. That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke app as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.