Who's Fighting For Us?

on the news. I just sometimes I want to I want, like my twenty tens version self to listen to fifteen minutes of news in twenty twenty two and get that version of myself's reaction, because twenty minutes into any newscast and you are hearing everything from the World Health Organization naming another health emergency as it pertains to monkey pox. You hear about BA four and BA five, the two new variants that have taken over Amicron, which was the

old Big news variant of COVID nineteen. You hear about multiple mass shootings that have taken place, you know, one in a airport, love Field Airport in Dallas, where a thirty seven year old woman we're assuming that she's white because she's still alive, goes in, is dropped off around eleven am, goes into the bathroom, puts on a hoodie

and then starts shooting the place up. There are no casualties that are reported, and she was shot below the waist, so that leads you to believe that she was not a black person because they would have been talking about her in the past. Tense, you are about the triple digit temperatures that are not just happening in notoriously hot places in the United States, but everywhere. You hear about multiple wildfires that are happening in this country as well

as in Greece as well as in France. You hear about, you know, declarations of public health emergencies as it pertains to climate change now, because we didn't want to heed the warnings from twenty and thirty years ago, and we clearly don't want to do anything now, or I'm sorry, Joe Mansion doesn't want to do anything now, So we're not going to take any major action on climate change ever, so that he can continue to get wealthy along with the rest of his family. That was just twenty minutes

of watching the news. So when I tell you a couple of weeks ago that the New York Times did an entire or expose on distract depression, which is the combination of anxiety, depression, distraction, and just overall hopelessness. I get why so many Americans are on medication. I get why there has been a steady rise in mental health medication prescriptions since the beginning of this pandemic nearly two

and a half years ago. Functioning is really fucking hard, and I don't even know what we define as functioning. I guess the ability to make it through your work day and not have just a nervous breakdown at your computer at your desk. The fact that employers are forcing people to go back into work and then making you feel a type of way if you're a back in the workplace and you're wearing a map. I don't know what the fuck is going on, you know. I literally look.

I wrote down in my handy dandy notebook a list of topics that I wanted to tackle on today's show, and I got to tell you, what I really want to tackle is just this feeling of overwhelm, just this feeling of literally feeling beside myself because I know that I'm not the only one. I know that millions of Americans are really suffering right now on so many different levels. And I got to tell you, for the folks that are listening to this show who also have kids or

our caregivers to children. My god, I don't know how

the fuck you all do it. And I'm not about you know, calling people heroes or heroines or any of those things, because I feel like you shouldn't be forced into be a hero or a heroine that you know, this state and the federal government should be providing families with aid in order to be able to you know, parents and caregive in a way that doesn't put your future, your you know, home income at risk, right because you have to make decisions between do I put my child

in daycare or do I quit my job because I'm only working to pay for daycare, Because that's the situations that we force people in this country in. I just, folks, I mean, my fucking god, you know, I want to start out with in just the coverage of what's been

happening with Indiana and this disgusting, egregious state. So we all by now know that the story, the heinous story of the ten year old girl that was raped who then was impregnated by her rapist, had to lead the state of Ohio where their trigger band took effect when Rovie Wade was overturned and had to travel to Indiana

in order to get an abortion because she was raped. Well, the state of Indiana is holding a special session right now because when Republicans here that a ten year old girl is raped and needed to have an abortion so that a ten year old girl is not forced into motherhood before she even turns thirteen, they think about the need to overturn abortion. I just want you to like wrap your mind around that for a minute, that Republicans

in Indiana. People in Indiana hear about the heinous crime of sexual violence that was forced upon a ten year old who then becomes pregnant by her rapist, is forced to cross state lines because abortion is banned in her state. And when Republicans hear this, they think to themselves, we need to ban abortion so that more ten year old girls are forced into motherhood before they become fucking teenagers. How how is it that we have succumbed to minority

rule in this country? When you do national polls on access to abortion, and over seventy percent of Americans believe that people with uteruses should be able to have access to an abortion and be able to have bodily autonomy. That then you have all of these laws that are now in these red states, which are a majority of the states right now, our banning abortion are making absolutely no exceptions, not for rape, not for incests, and certainly

not for the life endangerment of said pregnant person. What the fuck right? Because here is the thing. Friends. I was on MSNBC over the weekend and Simone Sanders asked me. She said, Danielle, what do you say when Democrats are out here telling people that they just need to vote more, that we need more senators, She said, which we do, and people need to vote, which they do. But that's

the only thing that they're offering. Meanwhile, Republicans are out here telling people with uterus is that you are not fully fledged citizens of these United States, telling rape victims we don't give a fuck, right, like telling people who are potentially on their deathbed that women who are going into labor with complications are having to beg their doctors in saying please save me if something goes wrong, and

not the life of this unborn fatus. How is it that Democrats are not using this as their fucking rallying cry. There are so many things that are happening right now. I just listed several in the first five minutes of this fucking show. Democrats aren't using any of it. Instead, they're talking about fucking jobs, right how many jobs Biden added? And you know, I listen to another report where they

were like, you know, here's the reality. Biden only has but a handful of weeks to actually offer some type of policy initiatives that they've been able to do since coming into office in January twenty twenty one. And because of Joe Mansion and Kirsten Cinema, they really have nothing to offer the American people in terms of what they

have accomplished. And so my fucking question is, then why don't you go and run on what it is that Republicans are doing to dismantle rights in this country for everyone who is not male, who is not white, and who is not quote unquote fucking Christian. They are handing you your campaign strategies, But do you know what fucking Democrats are doing in places like Pennsylvania, in places like Arizona.

Oh well, they're deciding to run a different type of campaign where they spend millions of dollars backing the trumpiest of people in the hopes that then Democrats who win their primary are able to beat that person in the general election. Yes, you just heard me right. Let me

say that again. Democrats are running campaign ads for the trumpiest of people in some of the most critical battleground states in this country because they are playing a game, rolling the dice and gambling that the trumpier the better for the general election and then the Democrat will be able to beat them. What the fuck are you doing?

Why in God's name, in this current political climate, would you be playing Russian Roulette with Trumpism, which we already know is akin to fascism, which we already know is the biggest threat to our democracy. And what you are gambling on is that their message is not resonating with the majority of people in said battleground states. But it doesn't really matter because we know that these motherfuckers cheat

and lie. So you tell me why you would spend the hard earned money that people donate, right, individual donors and these big ass motherfucking packs, and these big fucking millionaires and billionaires of the Democratic Party, that you would pay to boister up a Doug Mastriano, for example, in Pennsylvania, who wants to ban abortion all out, who wants to change voting in Pennsylvania altogether, who was at the insurrection and is in a fairly tight race right now in Pennsylvania.

Why do we think that this is a risk that the Democratic Party should be taking, as opposed to using every single bit of fucking money that they have to be running ads on television, on every single app, on every single streaming service that would then show you exactly who the Republican Party is and what it is that

they are doing to America in broad fucking daylight. Why wouldn't you be using the opportunity and the money that is presented in front of you to blanket every single fucking streaming airwave everything in order to convince the American people that the Republican Party is actually no longer a viable political party, but a threat to our national security, a domestic terrorist organization that we should all be terrified of. Because they are starting with abortion, they are starting with

these fucking don't say gay bills. But this is not where this shit is going to end. Right. I am so beside myself these days with trying to understand the rationale that Democrats have right now, or the strategy that they have in place. And look, folks, I'm no stranger to getting called out on Al Gore's fucking Internet about why am I not going hard against Republicans. I go

hard against Republicans every fucking day of the week. But I need to wake up Democrats to the fact that you literally have been given a pooh pooh platter of what to choose from of what it is is that Republicans are fucking doing, and you're choosing not to. You're choosing to say that, oh, the American people want to

discuss and vote on kitchen table issues. Well, when your house is on fire because a climate change, when you don't have a job, when you have no right to bodily autonomy, when the police you're using us target practice. I don't understand what you think we're discussing at the kitchen table right now, right like, that's where the fuck

I am, and I'm confused where Democrats are. The Damage Report with John Idarola is one of the most popular shows on the TYT network that serves as your daily breakdown of the genuine threats and challenges facing our country and world. These days, we're confronted with an overwhelming sea

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The other thing that I will say with regard to Democrats and their messaging, because I keep getting asked the same question all the time, is this, it is not hard to just tell people or to share, to share in their rage. This is the thing that I believe that Republicans have been doing since the beginning of time. Right. They know that their base is older, or actually not so old, white people who are racist, who are misogynists, who believe in patriarchy, and who fashion themselves as white

evangelical Christians. And so what was Donald Trump able to do in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. He was able to lift up their fucking economic anxiety, their grievance about how vastly different America is becoming because of the demographic shift and the fact that no, you can't just get a fucking high school diploma, work in a factory for twenty five years, and then to have the ability to buy a home, own a car, send your kids to school and all will be well with only a high

school diploma. So what has the Republican Party been able to do. They've been able to give a voice and

a platform to that racist white grievance attitude. And so my question is, well, why the fuck can't Democrats get behind the base of their party who is outdone and so overwhelmed with the fact that their kids are going to have less rights than they do, that their kids will most likely be living with them if in fact they own a home, because the average prices of homes have gone through the roof, right, and that the average price of rent, like I'll tell you this, for living

in New York's four thousand dollars a month. That is more than most people's fucking mortgages. Right, So how is it that Republicans are able to give voice to their racist white base, but Democrats can't share in the rage that we have in this moment where we are watching every single day one righte be ticked off at a time. If nothing else, get behind these people and the rage and the fear that we have. I say this all the time. Obama and Trump are two case studies of

America at very different times. Obama, we are in the early two thousands, where we think that you know anything is kind of possible. Technology is changing rapidly. You have this new fresh candidate that is like, yes, we can, right, we can come together as this multiracial coalition and we can change America. And for eight years they absolutely did, right, but also on the belief set that we all had

this shared value right called the Constitution. But once the Obama team started to recognize that, look, these people are not trying to fuck with you solely because you are a black man who had the audacity to ascend to the highest office in the land. That should have been a signal point, right that they are going to try and drag this country backwards, that we are going to experience whitelash at any time any bit of progress it's

made in this country. You have racist white people who are still in power at all local, federal, state, right on the bench, in the fucking police uniform all around this country. And so what preparation are you doing for that backlash? Fast forward to Donald Trump who says American carnage, there's drugs and murder in the streets. Well, now there

are right. Following his fucking inability to get COVID under control and lie about it for several months, causing the deaths of half a million Americans right by the time that he was ready to fucking leave office. And let's let me not use the word leave office, because we know that that was not going to be the fucking case right that the January sixth Committee has laid out for us. Donald Trump was never leaving office voluntarily. He

was needing to be pulled out, kicking and screaming. But nonetheless, what Donald Trump was selling to his constituency, to white America was fear and rage. These people are coming in caravans and they're gonna take your jobs and put up taco carts on every corner and sleep on your lawn. And Black Lives Matter is in Tifun. They're gonna kill cops in all of this bullshit because fear sells so right now, you don't even have to think, if you're a Democrat, how were we selling fear? Because we wake

up scared to death every fucking day. Every day there's another mass shooting right that is becoming more and more at the norm. Whether it's at an airport, it's in a church, it's at a fucking grocery store, or it's at a school, it is happening every day. So either you're gonna vote for politicians that are actually coast playing fucking the Civil War in their political ads, going rhino

hunting and showing off their ar fifteens. You're gonna either vote for crazy, or you're gonna vote for saying you're gonna vote for a world where your kids are able to go to school and learn about the fullness of American history, or you're gonna vote for book burners. Like, it's not that fucking hard. And so when I get on Democrats, I'm like, how difficult is it to draw the fucking line right between sanity and insanity, between democracy

and authoritarianism. It should not be that hard. And yet here we are with Democrats trying to run on policy initiatives. Well, guess what, you have no policy that you have passed that anyone gives a shit about. They're talking about, Oh, well, we're gonna run on lowering prescription drug prices. Who gives

a fuck not? When you have Republicans that are upending public education and gutting it, when you have no bodily autonomy, when police are literally using black people as target practice and putting sixty fucking rounds in a human body, right, Like, I don't understand why it is so hard to point to the villain, the Republican, evil fucking villain, and say, if these people take control of the House or the Senate, this country is done. That is not a hyperbolic statement.

You can't get fucking climate change pass right now. They're pulling up votes on same sex marriage. You have the Supreme Court signaling that not only are you not allowed to get an abortion, we're also not going to provide you with birth control. That is not your right either. And you have these red states that are getting ready to ban all of that as well. So what if you are a person with a uterus? Do you feel safe in this fucking country right now? Or do you

feel like a target? It is not that difficult to lift up these truths that Republicans are laying out and say it is either you are with us, this imperfect political body but that still believes in the founders of this country, still believes in the constitution, or you're with these people who base is the proud voice, the oath keepers, the three percenters, and Nazis, because that's who they are, right, you know, Switching gears for a moment. Let me let

me talk about Merrick Garland real quick. So last week, at the end of last week, I said on the show that Merrick Garland had you know, given an interview and had signaled once again, you know, his famous line that no one is above the law. And when pressed by a reporter and saying not even a former president of the United States, says not even a former he said,

let me be clear, no one is above the law. Right. Well, yesterday, Andrew Weisman, former counsel for the FBI, is asked by Nicole Wallace on MSNBC whether or not he believes that the Department of Justice regardless of what Merritt Garland said about the fact that we don't do investigations in public, right, that we don't. That's not who we are, right that I'm about restoring the integrity of this fucking agency above

all else. Nicole Wallace asked, well, you know, Andrew, do you think that this Department of Justice is moving on any type of investigation? And his response was sadly no, there is no indication whatsoever that this Department of Justice is moving And how do we know that, Well, we know that they were completely caught off guard by Cassidy Hutchinson. We know that the January sixth Committee recommended much in the same way that they recommended Steve Bannon beheld in

criminal content for not complying with the congressional subpoena. They recommended the same from Mark Meadows, but the Department of Justice decided that they weren't going to go after Mark Meadows, right, And maybe it's because he supplied some information but then didn't supply all of it, so they were like, oh, okay, well,

at least he did the bare minimum. What I want folks to understand is that this country is not moving on whether or not Merrick Garland has the backbone and the fortitude to actually see a criminal indictment through of Donald Trump and every single one of the architects behind

the insurrection. This country is not getting repaired. The bare minimum of beginning that repair would be to signal to the American people that, in fact, saying that nobody is above the law isn't just a slogan of the Department of Justice, but it is actually a value of the Department of Justice that they will hold up regardless of who is in front of them. But that's not what we're seeing, right, We're seeing ag Fanny Willis in Georgia

going to the fucking mats. We're seeing her begin to subpoena the likes of Rudy Giuliani and others right and bringing who were part of the fake electors scheme. How do we know that Fanny Willis is working because she's fucking telling us that she's working. But we're also seeing

the subpoenas come out. Fucking eighteen months after our government was almost overthrown by thousands of Trump supporters who he weaponized and turned on his vice president of the United States and on members of Congress, we have seen nothing but their foot soldiers be taken up, and those people mostly got slaps on the rise. You have people serving more time in jail right now for marijuana charges right then, they are for attempting to overthrow the government and actually

beating and terrorizing police officers. The War on drugs, which incarcerated more black and brown people in this country right broke more homes and more communities. They are more successful doing that because the target was black and brown people than they are going after white people who are trying to overthrow this government and not doing anything to stop this not so slow moving coup from continuing to take hold.

Why because the people that were at the fucking insurrection are now running for governor, they're running for secretary of state, they're running for the fucking school board. How are they able to do that? Oh, because federal charges were not fucking brought against them, and they weren't thrown in jail. One of the things that Andrew Weisman said following up on Wallace's question on Deadline White House was, you know,

here's the thing. If we fail as a country to hold a criminal president accountable for his crimes against this nation, what comes in his stead is going to be worse. And what you are doing, by virtue of not indicting, of not providing prosecution, is a de facto pardon. Donald Trump has already signaled and said time and time again he is running in twenty twenty four, right, and this Department of Justice is so hell bent on not seeing

meing political. So how is it going to look then, because you've dragged your feet this whole fucking time, if you finally start getting your ducks in a and now we have candidate Donald Trump once again, I just you know, it is always so amazing to me, And by amazing I mean incredibly disheartening to just be slapped in the

face with America's injustice and imbalance. That the bar must be so high to be able to prove that a which white man is a criminal, but we assume criminality by virtue of birth of anyone with melanin that there is no real proof that is needed other than how you feel in your heart. I just, folks, I want to continue to have faith. I want to believe that good will prevail, but there is nothing that is indicating that whatsoever at this point. And that is what I

find most troubling. You know, as we watch the world on fire, literally, people dying, tarmax melting train tracks, buckling flights not being able to take off, trains running slower because of too much heat, grids failing, books being burned, doctors being sued and investigating for helping rape victims. I don't know where to turn for air. I don't know

where to turn for ease, for breath. But I gotta say that if we don't do something as a people, if we don't take direct action, we can understand and know to be true that the darkness that we are seeing take hold across this nation will only get worse. And if Democrats don't use the fear of that truth to win, I think that we're lost indefinitely. Hey there, I want to tell you about another podcast I think

you'll love. The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics, hosted by a Shanty Gooler, the president of Emerge BGG, is the one stop shop for women of color who want to hear and talk about the world of politics. Join a Shanty this season as she talks to incredible women of color who are changing the face of politics and tackling some of the most important issues basing the United States, from reproductive justice to voting rights, to climate change and more.

Tune in every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm David Plots of Slaves Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all the noise and the news. Each week, on The gap Fest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlon and I decipher the headlines, break down the races, and tell you what issues really matter. We do not always agree, We definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have

a good time. So subscribe to Slight's Political Gapfest, New episodes every Thursday. 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. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests

and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer look at how and why these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday.