It Could Happen Here - Freedom and Suppression at the DNC

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Palestinians are denied a time slot on the DNC stage as Gov. Walz reclaims Freedom for the democrats.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was,

should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners,

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Call Zone Media. everything cool zone media welcome back to it could happen here a podcast being recorded in garrison's hotel room which is 30 the shopping bags that they got from the nazi clothing store you can't see that you cannot see that well look they don't they used to be the nazi clothing store can't see that you cannot see that well look they don't they used to be the nazi clothing store now they just make suits right right buddy why are you trying to cancel it's a nice blazer i that white blazer you had on last night looks good it's a good blazer it's a good it's a good look jesus christ anyway we're back we're still in chicago we are all just exhausted i feel like death is coming. I am missing the unhurried, relaxed pace of war zone journalism.

Full nights of sleep, long rides in Humvees. Even the RNC felt a little bit more manageable. I'll tell you what it is. They were so unbelievably scheduled at the RNC. You knew nobody was going to be speaking past 10 p.m it was done yeah by 10 p.m we were safely back in our very very bad hotel and the the actual physical setup of the event was more for one thing it's smaller there's more people here so that makes definitely more people but it was also kind of i think better laid out for walking and stuff i agree everything is very spread out here the entrances here to it especially

take a lot longer to get into now i think that some of that's not even on the dnc it's just the fact that the dnc has the president and vice president at it and so it's going to have more security but yeah it is it is just fucking exhausting. And I guess probably the main reason why Garrison and I are so tired is every day has been many thousands of steps of walking around Chicago with different protests. So we'll be talking about all of that. But we wanted to get into the episode by kind of doing some horse race stuff, like actually talking about what are we seeing in polling? What are we seeing in polling, what are we seeing in viewership numbers. So Sophie wanted to start with one of our favorite topics, the popularity of the various vice presidential candidates. Yeah, and national polls find that still both vice presidential nominees

are pretty much fighting to make themselves known to the U.S. voters. But as of this week, at least, and this is before Walls' speech last night, so they haven't come back with a poll just yet on that. As of this week, Walls is viewed more favorably than Vance, with 27% of U.S. adults saying Vance is favorable, while 44% find him unfavorable, compared to 36 percent who think walls is favorable and 25 percent who find him unfavorable and interesting to note more democrats are supportive of walls 62 percent than republicans advance 57 percent which is wild but also very consistent with what we saw at the rnc we're like at the heritage foundation event which vance is supposed to be their man no one

would say a nice thing at him like at the heritage foundation event i could not hear a good word about jd vance the night of his speech whereas the sheer number of dims that i've seen with coach wall signs last night including people like walking up to and interacting with folks at the uncommitted demonstration in front of the convention center was like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds like i haven't seen any jd vance people genuinely like tim walls versus i i don't think i heard a single person at the rnc give any inclination that they deeply liked jd v. Vance. Particularly when he was speaking, people were very much asleep. Very bored. It's, I mean, it's reinforced that so far outside of Biden stepping down,

picking walls is the best decision I've seen the Dems make this year. He got a great reaction from the crowd last night. Yeah. So I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of what we're seeing in polling, at least according to Nate Silver's analysis. There was a tiny tick down between Tuesday and Wednesday and common list chances vis-a-vis Trump, just based on some polls that had come out. All of that's kind of it's you can't really tell if there's going to be a convention bump until after the convention. So one way or the other, I wouldn't read too much into that. So one way or the other, I wouldn't read too much into that. What is kind of worth reading into is the comparative popularity of the DNC televised speeches with the RNC. And so far from Monday through Wednesday, the DNC is ahead. And on Tuesday in particular, they were well ahead with Barack Obamaack obama and michelle both speaking okay that got something like five million more viewers than the comparative night at the rnc which is a really significant and and

all of this is obviously beating 2020 it's kind of unclear the biggest night for the rnc was thursday sure uh so we'll see if if kamala can crack the 28 or 29 million viewers that Trump got the height of his event. But so far, a sizable, like maybe 15 to 20 percent edge for the Dems in terms of viewership. And obviously, you have to keep in mind that like half of the people listening to any convention are not necessarily supporters of that candidate. They're just people who want to be informed. But it furthers the narrative that there is a lot of energy behind the dims right now that kind of like vibe thing that people have been talking about and speaking of vibes speaking of vibes boy howdy we wanted to end

this segment before we get into the pro-palestine protests uh and the uncommitted sit-in that's still going on at the uh convention center by talking just one more time about J.D. Vance, who, while all of this is going on, yesterday, as Tim Walz was preparing his speech at the DNC, J.D. Vance visited a donut shop. And we're just going to play you audio of him talking to employees at the donut shop, trying to get a photo opportunity or a good video clip uh the zoo has come to town thank you for letting us come in here um i'm sorry okay yeah she she doesn't want to be on film guys so just cut her out of anything appreciate that man um i'm jd dance american vice president let's see it okay um man of JD dance American vice president this year oh I mean here's the beginning of July okay but is she okay good how much you sir almost two years okay good helps everything yeah I'll be a lot of glazed here some sprinkle stuff so these

cinnamon rolls just what I'm right. How long has this place been around? About four years. About four years? Okay. How long have you been here? A little over six months. Okay, good. Quite literally, nobody has ever been worse at interacting with human beings. What is wrong with it?

Okay. Good. Okay. Good. Good. That was, by the way, in Georgia. Oh, Georgia. Great, great. I'm J.D. Vance. I'm running for vice president. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Yeah. That was, by the way, in Georgia. Oh, Georgia. Great. Great.

I'm JD Vance. I'm running for vice president. Okay. Okay. If I wanted to win Georgia and I was Trump, JD Vance is the last man I would send to the state of Georgia. I'm JD Vance. Oh, God.

But I'm JD Vance. Okay. Okay. All right. It was like that SNL Pete Davidson skit where he just goes, okay. Uh-huh. And he just orders a random assortment of donuts. That's how everyone should react to J.D. Vance.

Uh-huh. Okay. If he loses, that's going to be the rest of his life, is him showing up places going, I'm J.D. Vance, and people going, all right. Please stay away from my children. Are you about to tell me that you can't be within 100 meters of a school yeah seriously that's how that beard looks anyway ads here's some ads hi i'm ed zitron host of the better podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez.

At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story,

as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parente. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone.

But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 percent. I'm not saying you're going to get 15 percent every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your we're back and uh yeah so the protests have continued garrison and i nearly got arrested

during a kettle that wound up being about 60 it looked like people who were both cited and arrested most of those people cited and released on the scene a couple about two dozen or so actually arrested including four members of the press pretty nasty scene yesterday was very different there was a protest march that moved up to the uh gates of the convention and then marched back there were a couple of moments where like police would grab people that happened at the train station and detain them but ultimately did not not significant numbers of arrests at least from what I saw and from talking to people, it did sound like they were mostly kind of detaining and releasing.

We had not intended to do more protests last night, just because the first two nights were supposed to be the largest. And I had not even been to the DNC until last afternoon, actually passed the gate. So we all went went in together we watched a couple of speeches thank god i got to catch the bill clinton speech oh my god wouldn't have wanted to miss that barn burner epstein affiliate bill clinton he sounded almost closer to death than joe biden yeah which was just shocking sounds a lot better now yeah he also like spoke very early on in the night and his speech was so long it wasn't great and it was bad it was bad i don't know why speech don't speak for that long if your speech is bad but also just

like don't invite him in the first place it speaks it's why was he there because probably because of the sheer amount of clout that the clintons have within the democratic party still to this day because if you don't have bill there well they also they wanted hillary and hillary did get a big reaction and i'm sure hillary dislikes bill clinton as much as anyone sure but for a variety of complicated and stupid reasons you can't both have hillary clinton and exclude bill and repeatedly attack trump for his epstein connections it just doesn't work very well which is why they shouldn't have had any Clintons there and hit on Trump for being a pedophile.

But I don't know. He spoke for so long. I can't, I'm not a politician. It set me over the edge. It was fine. It was not like, it was just kind of boring.

Thankfully, more important things happened. If not inside the DNC, just, just outside the actual United center, like stadium still inside the dnc just just outside yes the actual united center like stadium still inside the security perimeter so while we were watching mindy kaling talk about how she should be the ambassador to italy which i know was a bit but i was just not in the mood no we start i start getting like uh updates from uh there's a journalist on the ground prim thacker

who was outside with some representatives of the uncommitted movement. So the uncommitted movement started as Democrats were voting uncommitted in the primaries, in order to make a point about, you know, the fact that there is significant solidarity among the democratic voters with Gaza, and that if Democrats do not do something more than a thoughts and prayers, they won't get those votes. And particularly Chicago, massive Palestinian population, it could be something that matters in some of the swing states. So the uncommitted movement has kind of coalesced over the last couple of months into a group of delegates who are, again, we're not talking about

like the folks marching outside. These are not people who are generally committed radicals. They're certainly not communists. I heard a number of folks who engaged with people from the DNC who were, and again, these are members of the uncommitted movement wearing Palestinian scarves who specifically

would say, I think Israel has a right to defend itself. Would you describe these folks as moderate Democrats? It's a mix of moderate moderate and like radical democrat but democrats right progressive progressive democrats and the point i'm making about like i heard a couple of them say no i think israel has a right to defend itself is not that i think that's a particularly valid thing to mention but that it shows you the level of rhetoric, which they were taking pains to be speaking within the bounds of extremely acceptable Democratic Party rhetoric. Right. We are loyal Democrats. We were very excited. I listened to a couple of representatives of the movement give speeches.

One of them was delegate June Rose, which in my initial thread, I think I went with he, him, but I believe their pronouns are they, them. And Rose basically mentioned, this is a quote from them, when President Biden was the nominee, I felt hopeless. And this is both because Biden was providing Israel with bombs and because he could not win. This is a quote from them when Harris was chosen. I heard empathy in her voice for Palestinian suffering. But then June says they remembered what Democrats give Republicans shit for saying, you know, thoughts and prayers after mass shootings. And I thought that was a valid point to make, right? A month ago, the fact that Dems had really

changed their messaging on Gaza sounded like it could be the start of something promising, but it hasn't led to any kind of like strong commitment for actually anything actionable, right? Just saying, I support a ceasefire isn't enough when people are getting killed. It's not like an actual commitment to, for example, stop sending Israel arms. Now, to be totally fair, I don't want to be flattening this too much. There have been some significant concessions from the DNC to Palestinian palestinian solidarity movement right uh not just a number of mentions and and embraces of ceasefires from multiple speakers that got massive lines of applause but sophie you went to the panel that the dnc put on with doctors who had just been working in gaza and that particularly it was a first of its kind panel yeah and that i would

say more than people's advocating a ceasefire in their speeches that's not nothing right like that that's an actual no and and robert uh june also posted that over 280 harris delegates have signed their letter demanding a permanent ceasefire and arms embargo and says not another bomb which is which was one of the signs that they had last night so that 200 over 280 harris delegates that is not insignificant no that's a and those people you know come here representing you know a large a significantly larger number of voters so what what had happened outside of the united center is uncommitted led by the co-founder of the organization abbas allawi, were essentially engaging in a sit-in. Although Abbas was very open about like, I don't want this to be a sit-in. I

want to go home. I'm very tired. My feet hurt. I am just waiting for a call. We presented the DNC some time ago. The conversations really started about a month ago. They were initially trying to get a doctor, a five-minute speaking slot at the DNC to talk about medical care for children in Gaza. That has evolved over time into they have a list of Palestinian American Democrats who they were willing to let the DNC pick from and let them vet a speech. Including some who have endorsed Harris already. From what I was listening to, all of this was very much in the context of and endorsing Harris, right? I've seen a lot of people be like, yeah, but what if they come up and, you know, attack the Democratic Party and called them genocide supporters or whatnot? And I don't get that feeling from this group of people. But these folks are not coming at this and certainly not framing themselves as we are radical leftists. They are framing themselves as we are normal Democrats who want to see the Democratic Party acknowledge the humanity of Palestinians and also start taking real steps to reduce and mitigate the violence that Israel is able to do over there.

And that's what these people were were standing for and at least in terms of the actual dnc like convention at the united center the fact that they do not want to do this and would rather just continue like this big like party we want to be partying with you is really part of the vibe that they were getting on sure and but the dnc doesn't even want that to like put at risk this whole vibe shift party that they have going on and and that that is like you know a massive issue and similarly we had we had videos coming out last night of dnc attendees leaving the area plugging their ears as as as people read out like names of dead palestinian children it just creates this overwhelming like atmosphere that these people don't want to be inconvenienced by the genocide and and the genocide for them it just is a political inconvenience that's prohibiting them from stopping

Trump and prohibiting them from just making this big like Kamala party. And it is, it is very much an own goal because one thing I will say, if I'm trying again, if I'm trying to be fair is when I saw people leaving the event, I saw people who got angry. I saw people who tried to ignore it. And I also saw a decent number of people come up and engage politely and with interest in the people who

were doing a sit-in. And in fact, before the event let out, there were maybe a hundred people, including press, around the uncommitted sit-in, and it was a couple hundred when I left. And a lot of those were people who had come out. And so it is not fair to say, but when you have people reading out the out. And so it is not, it is not fair to say, but when you have people reading out the names of folks killed in a genocide, leaving an event, and you get any photos of Democrats leaving, plugging their ears, that's the image that's going to stick with people, right? And that was obvious going into this. It's a sign, number one, I think, of how scared people are of AIPAC, but also of kind of the lack of trust that the DNC leadership has in any one Palestinian being able to balance being a Democrat with wanting to end a genocide. I think that probably a lot of folks who were outside of the event at the more radical protests would be frustrated by some of the language that I heard uncommitted representatives use.

But I think that sit-in is having more of an impact than any of the demonstrations outside, right? Because it's right in the middle of the DNC. It's impossible to ignore. And you cannot write these people off as protesters who are out there breaking the law. You know, there's a guy with a Hezbollah flag. Why are they walking around with a Hezbollah flag? These are people whose messaging is as moderate as it could possibly be. They just want the reality of a genocide to be acknowledged, which is not a big ask, in my yeah and did you go to any other protests that night robert yes i sure did garrison and i had several drinks at the hotel which we've been doing because you know when you get a chance to sit with your friend both wearing your nice suit and uh act world weary

at a political convention it's really nice i wish we could still smoke indoors garrison we'd be we'd be four packs of palm all into this by now once we get back to vegas once we get back to vegas ces right around the corner buddy i'm so sorry so like at 1 a.m and at 1 a.m in the morning we go to bed just fucking exhausted and there had been sort of word that was supposed to be some kind of radical demonstration. And it was unclear exactly what was going to happen. And then right as I got up to my hotel room, I saw from one of the reporters I cover on the ground here, Talia Jane at Talia OTG, that a noise demonstration had opened up outside of the,

they'd figured out what hotel Kamala Harris is at and had started doing a noise noise demonstration just making as much noise outside of the hotel as possible uh and it was like a block away from us so down the street i went maybe a hundred people or so including one individual with a flute playing as badly as they possibly could while standing as close to the police riot line as they possibly could uh a hero a hero, a hero. And yeah, it was interesting because when I got there, I expected because the police were telling people to move. They were in front of the president's hotel. It was one in the morning and they were being very loud in front of people who have money. So I kind of expected, OK, wagons are going to come in and people are going to get the absolute shit beat out of them.

But nothing happened. The cops didn't even keep a tight cordon. There was clearly no, as we saw last night, there was no walling in the protest. There was no sign that like they considered this something that needed to be met with a significant degree of force. I kind of think some of it may be that they were tired too, because they looked exhausted. So I wonder how much of it is that. I think it also, they got surprised as opposed to yesterday where they came in knowing, okay, this is supposed to be a radical militant demo. So we're going to have a overwhelming force response. I think they just had some teams show up and kind of catch as catch can handle the event. But, you know, they played around outside harris's place for 30 or 40 minutes and

then marched on and dispersed and it was fine no arrests that i saw whatsoever pretty calm night and i believe the actual hotel she was staying i was actually like a like a one or two blocks over they they it was fortified it's a fortress right yeah you're not going to get that close it's the secret service like headquarters essentially right the vice president is sleeping in the building you're there's not going to be protesters directly outside on the sidewalk they're going to have some kind of radius yeah people got as close as they could to what they believed the hotel was yeah but you know it's it's it's not like they're going to be throwing eggs on the window of the vice president

no and i didn't even see any implication that people wanted to do that i have not at any of these demonstrations seen any sort of cohesive, committed property destruction or even like a hint that people are thinking of property. These are, and in part, because I think most of the people I've seen have been younger.

They seem to be newer to this kind of protest. It seems like a younger movement is the core of things here. And I don't think if they ever do, I certainly they they have not yet psyched themselves up to that kind of direct action yeah all right we will go on an ad break and come back to hear about a few of the other speeches that took place last night at the

dnc including governor tim walls to the, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse

and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is

still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Parenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone.

But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud,

but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we're back. I did want to note before we get into this that a Texas delegate who was in the south side of Chicago got robbed

last night. Oh, yes. Which is not surprising because the south side of Chicago is the baddest part of town. And as I was warned before coming here, if you get down there, you better beware of a man named Leroy Brown. All right. Anyways, Garrison.

He stands about six foot four, Sophie. This week has lasted a month. I've aged. All the downtown ladies call him treetop lover. All the minges call him sir. If you were curious about his pronouns. I'm just trying to make sure that we refer to people properly. The theme for Wednesday night inside the DNC was a fight

for our democracy and with a big emphasis on trying to maintain the freedoms that we now have. There was a lot of we're not going back chants, that kind of stuff. A lot of speeches focused on redefining freedom. Yes. This is kind of part of this liberal

reclaiming of patriotism and freedom that I've kind of been talking about these past few weeks. It's probably the smartest thing they could be doing. Yes. So this was kind of the main push, not only how Democrats will continue to secure these freedoms, but if Trump is elected, these freedoms will be gone. And people, the judge gave an OK speech, speech you know talking about how his current life being married with kids was like you know impossible 25 years ago and if project 2025 gets enacted it will be no longer possible anymore so like a lot of stuff kind of like that oprah winfrey showed up gave a very long speech i did have a moment of very jarring disconnect where as I listened to the boss who

was openly weeping talking about his grandmother having to flee her home in Lebanon as it was bombed. And then I look up as this man is crying on the ground talking about his grandmother fleeing bombs. And there's Oprah Winfrey's giant head speaking on the jumbotron above me. Yeah, similar to the RNc when the crowd started chanting usa usa usa yeah during oprah's speech i i got one of those alerts on my smartwatch that my heart was was rate was a little too high which again very funny that's all that it takes to trigger my poor little heart i got some magnesium supplements sophie let's take though and then even though there's just all this like you know freedom democracy stuff there was also some of the most conservative

speakers of the night were also here there was there there was a few police officers there was a sheriff talking about the border and how how trump killed the most secure border bill even though they're denying any uh any palestinian to speak on the main stage they are inviting like former trump co-workers a sheriff sheriff hard texas police officers so all of these guys are speaking which people are similarly pointing to as as you know showcasing what exactly the dnc i think actually cares about right now. But I think I just want to go straight over to Mr. Walls, Coach Walls. Right before he came out, volunteers at the convention center were handing out these big Coach Walls signs.

There must have been thousands of them. Just handing them out to everyone on the floor, almost everyone in the stands. Just the whole stadium was full of people holding these big Coach Walls signs. He comes out onto stage, and people seemed to really like him. He gave a short but sweet speech, I guess. He was one of the most efficient speakers of the night. He talked a lot about schools and how schools are kind of one of the big battlegrounds for freedom right now

because he used to be a teacher for geography as well as football. He had this line that instead of banning books, we've been banishing hunger in his schools, how he signed that free lunch bill. Meanwhile, all these Republicans are just trying to ban science books, ban social studies, and he's giving kids free food. So there's a lot of stuff about protecting schools, a lot of stuff about empowering teachers. That got great reactions from the crowd. I'm sure there's plenty of teachers here at the dnc sure speaking of crowd reactions joe biden was very briefly mentioned in the thank you joe chants that normally go on for a very long time they've been getting shorter getting shorter and shorter getting shorter and shorter it was quite literally thank you joe once and

then thank you and then he kept talking and the chance ended so yeah the party's slowly weaning themselves off of hair joe in so waltz uh waltz's approach in his speech was similarly on this like freedom and democracy theme one of the reoccurring talking points he used was back in either minnesota or nebraska because he's lived in both places their golden rule is to mind your own damn business and that's kind of his his stated approach to a lot of these things it's like republicans are trying to get up into your business the republicans talk about freedom but what they really mean is freedom for the government to get involved in your own business yes saying that the democrats are going to not do such a

thing we're going to we're going to not do such a thing. We're going to keep the government out of your doctor's office. We're going to provide reproductive freedom. That's kind of the messaging that he kept using consistently throughout the night about being a good neighbor, calling stuff like Project 2025 an agenda that no one has really asked for, but Republican oligarchs are trying to force upon the nation just to get more involved in everyone's lives and this is something that me and robert were talking about kind of back in the hotels everyone really likes like libertarian messaging yes like this style of messaging always plays very well people just don't like actual libertarians and they don't like you know

lots of like libertarian like you know you know, urban policy, right? But this style of messaging typically plays really well as something that Republicans have been using increasingly, like since like the Tea Party and stuff. And because the Republican Party has gotten much more authoritarian over the years, I think it's interesting to see the Democrats starting to realize that they can actually weaponize this style of framing themselves to a very good reaction. You know, where we get these big we're not going back chants he in in one of his many sports metaphors he said when somebody draws up a playbook they're going to use it referring to project 2025 and the crowd loved that a lot of a lot of sports references that i so many sports references i did not really get but that's okay because you guys don't like the only real sport in this country. I was translating all the sports references to you. Robert, you don't know sports. I know football. Great.

Sophie. Anyways. He also talked about things that Kamala has helped fight for, including fighting big pharma, securing rights for workers, healthcare, and housing. Those are just a few of the actual kind of, still not super big policy things, but hinting towards policy things that democrats have gotten closer to over these last few days as they

did release their actual like dnc party platform and finally the kind of last thing i want to mention is that with like buddha judge and a few a few other uh like lgbtq speakers you know walls walls talked about how he sponsored the the gayStraight Alliance in the 90s, and that under his and Kamala's watch, the government's going to stay out of your bedroom. Similarly, you know, going back to this, like, freedom messaging. But there has been these few mentions of, like, you know, keeping the government out of the bedroom and, like— Doctors' appointments as well. Doctors' appointments and not regressing on LGBTQ rights. not and not regressing on lgbtq rights there's been very little actually talked about positively about helping secure the lgbtq rights that are currently like actually in jeopardy like

specifically like trans health care like there's not been a trans speaker at the dnc i've heard almost no mention of trans issues on any of the speeches or any of the or any of the panels and that this is i guess just slightly um i don't know i i guess i was expecting something honestly on this because this is such a big topic for republicans because there was consistently every night mentions of of trans people at at the rnc i was expecting at least some degree for the dnc to like push back on that and be like no we actually are gonna make sure we have health care for trans people and make sure that trans people are not unfairly discriminated against and they have just sidestepped this whole issue and and that has been that's that's not great that is that is another thing as well as palestine to

to push them on because this is like literally one of the core parts of the republican party right now is is attacking the ability for trans people to not only get health care but it just to exist in public life. And it's specifically something Walls has a really good record on. Yes. Some of these people do have a good record on. Conversion ban and stuff. So it's not something that they have shied away from in their own electoral history. But at least at the DNC, they're not putting it on like the national stage. Maybe they think it won't play well. Maybe they think it's a little bit too weird for some of the people that they're trying to kind of court their votes for. I'm not sure. I wonder if the calculation is a little different. The only direct references I've heard to trans people have been as part of LGBTQ. I wonder if there's a degree of strategy where they're thinking like the smart

way to play this is to reconnect trans people with LGBTQ as opposed to deal with it as if there's some sort of like separate thing going on i wonder if that's a calculation that they're making i don't know but you're right it is kind of it is very conspicuous in its absence i mean we just had this massive flare up at the olympics with this like increasing like trans panic stuff and yeah i mean it's just something i've observed the past few days that, you know, we'll see if there's anything tonight. I'm going to try to talk to some people who've been at the LGBTQ caucuses these past few days. Yeah. I want to end by, just as we're recording this, it's come out, Mother Jones has published it, the text of the speech that the uncommitted movement wanted to

give at the DNC. This was from Rep. Rua Roman was supposed to be the one giving this. And this was like specifically turned down by the Democratic Party. And I want to read a couple of paragraphs from it just to give you an idea, again, make it very clear the actual kind of rhetoric and how modest it is that these people are using. In this pain, I've also witnessed something profound, a beautiful multi-faith, multi-racial, and multi-generational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. multiracial and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we've stood together demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire in the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That's why we are here, members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights

and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world. They'll say this is how it's always been, that nothing can change. But remember Fannie Lou Hamer, shunned for her courage, yet she paved the way for an integrated Democratic Party. Her legacy lives on, and it's her example we follow. But we can't do it alone. This historic moment is full of promise, but only if we stand together. Our party's greatest strength has always been our ability to unite.

Some see that as a weakness, but it's time we flex that strength. Let's commit to each other, to electing Vice President Harris and defeating Donald Trump, who uses my identity as a Palestinian as a slur. Let's fight for the politics long overdue, from restoring access to abortions, to ensuring a living wage, to demanding an end to reckless war and a ceasefire in Gaza. To those who doubt us us to the cynics and naysayers I say yes we can yes we can be a democratic party that prioritizes funding our schools and hospitals not for endless wars that fights for an America that belongs to all of us black brown and white Jews and Palestinians all of us like my grandfather taught me together Jesus Christ yeah like I it's the least objectionable thing I can imagine.

Yeah. So anyway, that's what the DNC didn't want people to hear. It's pretty despicable. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty frustrating. Yeah. Well, this is how we're going to be closing this week of coverage. We will start next week's episodes by talking about the final day of the DNC, including Kamala Harris's speech.

And I also have some kind of disjointed thoughts I'll try to put together more about some of like the discourse revolving around some of these protests have they been handled a few like tactics things but yeah this has been this week at it could happen here recording from chicago illinois i'm exhausted well you guys listen to the speeches i'm gonna try to find jake tapper at the politico bar and grill and uh you know read him the lyrics of bad bad leroy brown let us know that baddest man in the whole damn town normally i would i would be against abandoning you at a big public event but see ya it's fine if it turns into a fist fight i feel confident we all do i feel very confident i can win if you're getting close to jack it's gonna turn into a fist fight. We all know this.

All right. Bye-bye. Horrible. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find

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