The Daily Beast Podcast - Nick Fuentes’ ‘Death Penalty’ Call Is Beyond Extreme

Episode Date: December 24, 2023

The New Abnormal team says comments by white supremacist Nick Fuentes that Jewish people need to be given the death penalty is another good reason to vote in the 2024 election. Plus! ! Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, the largest online civil rights organization in the country, explains why he feels hopeful even at a time when democracy and civil rights are under attack in America. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current Campbell News conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedinan, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Welcome back to another bonus episode of The New Abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. We have a very special guest today and president of the Abbey of Secret Group, Color of Change, Rashad Robinson, and he's here to talk all about racial justice and how to use resistance as a strategy and not just for survival. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready to listen to some clips? Clips. Clips.

Clips. Clips. Clips. End of the year clips. Well, technically we got another one. This is Christmas Eve, Andy. Can't you feel the Christmas joy? Do you hear the carolers outside?

I felt the Christmas spirit. And then you said, are you ready for some clips? And now I'm begging for the ghost of Christmas past. Shit, Andy. All right. Deserved. Deserved. All right.

Well, you know what? We'll start off nice. We like to highlight here when a journalist does a good job. And right here, this is the good story. stuff as Casey Hunt interviews RFK Jr. Notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines. And over the summer in an interview, you said, quote, there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

Do you still believe that? I never said that. So stop me. We have the clip. Please play the clip. Play the whole clip. I just talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti-vaxxer. And you've said that you're not anti-vaccine. You're pro-safe vaccine. Difficult question.

Can you name any vaccines that you think are good? I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they're causing. There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective. So you did say it. Do you still believe it? Well, here's what I would say. First of all, I'm not anti-vaccine.

How is that statement not anti-vaccine? Well, it's like I can say right now. now there's no medicine for cancer that's safe and effective. It doesn't mean I'm out against all medicines. I've been fighting 40 years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me any fish. What I want is vaccines that are proven safety and what I meant, which was a bad use of words and as none of the vaccines that are currently on the mandated scheduled for children, the 72 vaccines have ever been tested in a pre-licensing safety study. What that means is that we do not know,

we do not know what the risk profile is for those products, and you cannot prove at any or say with any scientific certainty and any of those products are causing. So you're saying you still believe. Yeah, he is just an embarrassment. Those vaccines he's talking about for children have been around for how many decades now? I was just going to say, I don't know. How fucking old is he?

Yeah. Well. Because the Vax polio, all of that, mumps. The fish comparison really was, uh, that, that's like, uh, Chris Hayes recently made, uh, like this thing about like that you have to sometimes consider when somebody's making an argument that sounds good to uneducated people. I don't know what kindergartner, that argument would sound good to. But you could also tell that it's like the 300th or 300,000th time he's used that line and

he's very proud of it. Yeah. And it's like his standard go-to, which makes it even sadder. But, yeah. I have to say, too, you know, Al Franken once had the great joke that Rush Limbaugh's own ears got tired of listening to his bullshit so he would deaf. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s seems like it's revolting. It's getting worse and worse.

It's just tired of him saying this bullshit. I don't think we're allowed to make fun of his voice, Jesse. Oops. Our mayor for the three of us, Eric Adams, for those of you who don't know, He has a way with words. And by that, I mean, he constantly says things that I can't imagine he's getting what the words he's saying actually mean. Let's listen. When you look at the totality of the year, if you had to describe it and it's tough to do in one word, what would that word be?

And tell me why. New York. This is a place where every day you wake up, you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center to a person who's celebrating a new business that's open. This is a very, very complicated city, and that's why it's the greatest city on the globe. What? The fuck did he just say? He's Tracy Jordan from 30 Rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the accurate converse. Oh, my God. You know what? That election was stolen. I need somebody to investigate. I need somebody to investigate. Who the fuck? voted for this man?

Not me. And not me. And Andy? Andy did you? Oh, hell no. So who voted for him? Fucking dummy? Oh my God.

The worst part of that clip should have been when he was told to answer with one word and he said New York. And like it doesn't even register. You think of that and then, but then immediately it's wiped out of your brain. because he goes instantly to the great New York experience of 9-11. It's really encouraging for tourism, too, your main job as New York mayor to encourage tourism. And it's like, I remember when we had the largest terrorist incident on our soil? I mean, to be fair, Day he said that we had, there was a huge storm in New York, like, overnight.

And it may have disturbed the crystals. So for those of you uninitiated, one of our bear's quirks is he's really into crystals. You know what? And here's the thing is that I'm not going to shout down crystals, but I don't think it's the kind of crystal he's used. Are you saying he's like Mary and Barry? I didn't say a word, Jesse.

All right. With each episode of our Sunday clips, I like to highlight when the quiet part gets set out loud. And here we have GOP rep Mike Green doing just that. Going down these impeachment routes could be a problem politically. No, I don't. In fact, I think if we don't go down these impeachment routes, a huge part of America is going to just say, you know, we're not supporting Republicans anymore. Yeah, that's exactly what they're going to say because you all are idiots.

And I forget, he didn't seem to mention it in that clip. What are we impeaching Joe Biden for? Right. There was no mention of, you know, if we don't go down the impeachment road, crimes will be gotten away with. Yeah. You know, I mean, but yeah, like you said, Jesse, this is the quiet part out loud that this is purely political. It's just so amazing because I always think of how much the base is driving the car for this party now. and it would just be absolutely incredible to ever, because you do not hear a Democratic representative go,

I have to do this because the base wants me to. Yeah. The voters are going to vote me out if I don't do it. It's like, no, they go against it all the time, which, you know, some people could argue it's a good thing to have your representatives fearful. I think that there's truth to that, but it's amazing that they're just now like, yeah,

I give up. I'm just going to say that straight up. Yeah, no, absolutely. As long as it keeps hurting them in national elections, I'm all for it. 100%. So now we have a white nationalist in Cell, Nick Fuentes, who you may remember from confessing to pedophilic urges, dining with Trump and Kanye, and having Marjorie Taylor Green and Paul Gosar to his organization to give speeches. Well, he's going to get pretty extreme here, and it's pretty fucked up. It is an occult element at the high levels of society, and specifically among the,

the Jews. So many of the people that are perpetrating the lies and the destruction on the country, they are evildoers. They are people that worship false gods. They are people that practice magic or rituals or whatever. And more than anything, those people need to be, when we take power, they need to be given the death penalty, straight up. And I'm far more concerned about that. I am about even non-white people or mass migration. These people, people that are that are communing with demons and engaging in this sort of witchcraft and stuff and these people that are suppressing the name Christ and suppressing Christianity, they must be absolutely annihilated when we take power.

This is God's country. This is Jesus's country. This is not... So, he hates magicians, is what I took from that. Yes. i.e. the Jews and Muslims, I think. Oh, okay. Different than like Copperfield. That was a very difficult clip to follow in terms of sense making. But now I understand how women were burned at the stake.

And I'm certain that those kind of bonfires will be back in vogue. If, in fact, you people would love to sit at home and say that you don't want to vote in 2024. Here's what you got. Coming your way. 2025. It really says a lot about the Jews that Nick Fuentes hates us, even more than he hates black people. It's unreal.

I think it's interesting, though. So we heard Bannon, he keeps escalating the rhetoric about all the revenge. And then what we see over and over again, though, is that the trickle-down effect of that is, is that the other people were, competing to be the biggest extremist, then have to go even more extreme. And this cycle never ends on the right. Right.

I will say what was nice that everybody else misses is in the video. Nick Fuentes is now wearing a gamer headset while he does his show, even though he fakes a set like it's a talk show on late night, which I have to say is very appropriate for his vibe. Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck. I am so excited to welcome on to the new abnormal, my friend, Rashad Robinson, who is the president of color of change, the largest online civil rights organization in the country. Rashad, I want to start off with the fact that we are ending this year in a very precarious, very serious, and very dangerous place. globally we are experiencing and witnessing multiple wars. At home, we are experiencing a rise in

racial violence, in anti-Semitism, in just hopelessness in a lot of areas and places. And as we turn the calendar year, we're getting ready as we say all of the time, every time an election comes around, it is the most consequential election. But I have to tell you, I can't think of a more important election than the one that we are getting ready to experience in 2024. I want to get your thoughts first on how you have experienced and feel about this year and what the country has gone through. First of all, thank you, Danielle. It's great to be on with you.

You know, as I think about sort of this past year, as I think about all of the ways in which multiple challenges have hit, not just, the country, but in very clear and direct ways, have hit, you know, various communities. At color of change, I oftentimes say when we talk about the black community, when America gets the cold, black people get the flu. And that's kind of recognition of the ways in which we're not all carrying the burdens equally. We're not all carrying the challenges of how decisions are made equally. And black communities are facing a whole lot right now. I mean, if you think about the decisions that have come out of the courts that are a direct reflection of our politics and elections and all

these things, you think about whether it's the sort of who's going to be most challenged and hurt by the Dobbs decisions around reproductive justice and access to health care and access to abortion. If you think about affirmative action in DEI, if you think about just the ability to express our will for a better future through a vote, all of these choices and decisions by an unelected body, people deeply corrupt, right? And then, very visible ways, but no sense of accountability. That is just one of the many ways in which there has been just a deep vision and breaking of our structures. And it's not that our structures were great. It's not that our systems are perfect. It's not that these systems were designed with black people

in mind or with black people's liberation and freedom in mind. In fact, they were designed with the exact opposite in mind. Along the way, we have used these structures, push these structures, push these structures, change these structures, honed these structures in order to win something better and bigger for the future. And what I think is most at stake and most challenging as I look ahead is that the very sort of systems and infrastructure of democracy that we have leveraged that even in the face of inequities and challenges that we have leverage to be able to move things forward, that very thing is what is in contention and under attack. And that I think is the most dangerous and challenging aspect of the moment that we were in right now.

When I look at the decisions that have come in places like Florida to assuage white guilt, so that comes with the erasure of the true and real black experience. It comes with the erasure of the LGBTQ experience. It comes with the removal and the banning of books that they are doubling down on as they are being sued. It comes with a case that is going through the courts right now that would disallow different organizations that are not the Department of Justice to bring forth lawsuits that have shaped our country for the better over the last several decades that we have seen progress only happened through the courts. And as you've said, we recognize now that this unelected body is wildly corrupt. And so when people see that there has been such significant progress that we've experienced over the last 60 years through the civil rights movement and other movements, and now you are seeing this, what feels like a train that is just powering through and over and trampling every bit of progress that we've made.

And it shows no sign of slowing and stopping. how do you reaffirm people's commitment to want to dig in? Sometimes the Obama administration, while it was imperfect, feels like a figment of my imagination. It feels like a fever dream in comparison to what we've experienced over the last 10 years. And so how do you convince people to double down, to triple down again when it's not about progress? It's just about holding on. Well, sometimes holding on in the face of attacks is a progress, the ability to be able to hold on sometimes is a blessing. And I think, honestly, Danielle, about the generations before us who could only hold on, right?

We are in a really privileged place. And this is not to discount the deep challenges that our communities are facing. It's to, I think, put some historical context and even some recent. context behind the ways in which resistance has been part of our survival. And resistance until we can build the infrastructure to fight is a strategy. And it's a strategy that not only we've had to employ, but people who are under attack all around the world have to employ. So I don't want us to feel like we shouldn't lean into those things. But I also want to offer something else up. In 2020, when many people thought the best we could do in terms of activism, in terms of standing up and pushing back and pushing forward

in the face of what was happening with COVID and the inequities that were being made so visible, the things that you and I and so many others who do this work always talk about, but now many people were seeing it. What many people thought we could do in terms of activism in 2020 was clap outside of our windows or uplift investigative journalists. George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, and Amad Arbery were murdered in such visible ways that a new sense of energy took over, a new sense of anger, hope, optimism. You only fight when you actually believe you have something to fight for, right? And people fought in the face of that.

And racial justice brought people to the streets. Racial justice brought people to register to vote. Racial justice powered us to kick a fascist, authority. authoritarian out of office, right? It was racial justice. And racial justice is our superpower. It is the most powerful force multiplier we have to not just motivate people to action, but to at the end of the day, evaluate whether or not the things that we won were actually worth winning in the first place. So racial justice is our superpower. So it makes perfect sense that our opponents would attack our superpower, that they would go after the very thing that made.

it possible that they would try to use all sorts of tactics to undermine our trust and belief in racial justice, in racial justice organizations, and racial justice leaders, in racial justice infrastructure, in the teaching of race and black history, right? When people learned about things like redlining, you're more likely to then want to fight to make something different. You can't unsee certain things once you know them. And that has meant that that meant more questions were being asked. More people were engaged. And of course, what happens is our opponents want to silence it. That means that we were on to something. If they were ignoring us, that means that we weren't making our way. And so I know it can feel sometimes like we're full of despair,

hopeless almost in these moments. But I actually see a lot of light and opportunity in the attacks. because we are being attacked because we are constantly chipping away at a 400-year-old brick that is going to take a long time to chip away and doesn't chip away overnight. It doesn't crumble overnight. But I believe when people come together and we fight and we build strategically, and when we defeat these attacks that are coming at us, we will be only stronger on the other end. And that is why this work around racial justice is so important and powerful to me.

because it's not that racial justice is a charitable thing to do. It's not the thing that we do because we want to feel good. Racial justice is not charity. Racial justice is strategy. And it's the most powerful force multiplier we have. And I don't believe that we will get racial justice out of a true democracy, Danielle. I believe it will be racial justice and more people investing in racial justice and more people showing up for racial justice. That will actually be the thing that gives us a true democracy.

You know, when I listen to you, I feel hopeful and I feel possible because I do think in a historical context, grounded in the fact that our ancestors, all they had to your point was hope, was a dream, was a promise that they knew they would never see. But the generations after them could have the possibility of the freedom that they could only dream of. And then I look around and I see how much America has changed. And to your point, this is what they are fighting against. The opposition is fighting against. Let me remove the books because critical thought is dangerous. Let me remove their ability to navigate through the courts because we know that that's where they have seen justice and progress happen.

So let me continue to put up these blockades, right? Let me attack racial justice and diversity and equity because I'm starting as a white cis straight man to see less of myself in the places of power that I believe that I belong. What troubles me, however, is that what I am hearing from people, as we are inevitably going to see a 2024 redux of 2020, in terms of the same players, the same old white men going head to head, where one came out in 2020 and said, I am your race. redemption, I am this, I am that, I alone can fix this after he nearly broke the country under COVID. You have Joe Biden who said, we are in a battle for the soul of the nation, and here I am,

I'm willing to stand with you and fight with you. And we have people going back and forth about his age, which is old, but he's only 36 months older than Donald Trump. People somehow, though, given everything that they've seen, everything that they've learned, seem willing to gamble in 2024. And I don't understand it. I pray that as the calendar moves and changes and the months show themselves and Donald Trump and Republicans

continue to show themselves that they will not be willing to throw the dice. But some right now are. Why do you think that that is given that we've already experienced a Trump presidency? And we knew what happened then, And this time around, they've already tested the fences. They know where it's weak and they know what they need to do in order to hold on to power indefinitely.

You know, like for me, this is the assignment, Danielle. This is why I do this work, right? We actually hear this every election a year out. Young people are not going to show up. Black people are not as strongly supportive of the Democrats. And, you know, this is also like weird media play as well. blame black people and blame young people for decisions that they're not even making and we're not even making. And it's a trick bag that can sometimes keep us off of the actual set of things that we have to do,

which is to communicate for folks very clearly about what their vote means, about why they need to invest and engage in elections, about that this is not about picking, you know, your fan favorite, but about what it means to get as close as you possibly can. to someone that you can hold accountable, to someone that's going to be as close to your values as possible. It's a choice, right? And so if you're starving and you get a menu,

you pick the thing that you're going to eat. And that, I think, is for me, very important about this moment. And so I guess I just don't want to get too captured in these polls. We are so far out, we are hearing people say that they won't vote. You know, I hear this lots of times. And sometimes I'm like, do I even? check that person's voter role to see if they actually vote in the last election or not, right? Like, we've got to, like, do the work now to actually listen to what people are saying.

And underneath it, they're feeling like they haven't gotten value or that they're not seeing value. And we need to communicate that. We also need to communicate what people's role in their in fighting to actually make things. This is not just about electing people to office and going home and not continuing to push. And then I believe, and I've told this directly to the White House, and I've told this directly to leaders in Congress is that they've also got to communicate more clearly about how change happens and what are the barriers standing in the way. And they have not told Danielle, they have not told at all, right? And so if people are wondering why George Floyd Policing Act hasn't gotten past,

even though it wasn't even close to everything that I think we need in terms of the accountability on law enforcement and the type of things that will keep communities safe and move us into a new vision for safety and justice, if they tell a full story, then they have to talk about police unions. They have to talk about outsized resources going into infrastructure that is not keeping us safe. They have to talk about the lobbying of the prison industrial complex. They want to talk about wages and jobs, and they have to talk about corporate America. And they have to talk about the role of corporations and the fleecing that happens.

But that means that they have to tell a true story of heroes and villains. Because when they don't do that, Donald Trump and the Republicans can fill that story in for people. And they fill that story in with immigrants. They fill that story in with women. They fill that story in with black people. They fill that story in with communities who are targeted and under attack and allow for those who are able to, you know, win off of unequal rules to, like, not be under contested. Like, you know, when the affirmative action decision came out, Danielle.

And I heard a lot of people say, well, I don't even really like affirmative action. I was like, why are we even talking about affirmative action? We should be talking about unearned opportunity. We should be talking about unearned access. We should be talking about all the ways in which the system is rigged to allow people because of what family they were born into to have a leg up in society. Affirmative action, whether you like it or not, is just one of the many solutions to deal with the problem of unearned opportunity, unearned access, unearned benefits because of. of things that you didn't actually do. Now we are spending all of our time wrestling with the solution

rather than attacking the problem. And this is what happens on so many issues where we spend our time attacking the solutions rather than attacking the problem. Perhaps we could have better solutions. But absolutely, we have to do the work to attack the problem. And attacking the problem of voter suppression,

attacking the problems of an unjust criminal justice system, attacking the problems of these things, but the right wing can sort of, you know, sit back while we fight amongst ourselves about the solutions while they're able to uphold, protect, and keep in place the very problems that keep inequality as a structure in place. On that, my friend, absolutely 100% we need to focus on what the problem is and not get distracted by the perfection that we are seeking in the solutions that are being offered. Rashad Robinson, my friend, thank you so much for making the time for the new abnormal. And please, please, please do come back and visit us again soon.

Anytime you want me, I'm here. Thank you for everything that you're doing for continue to bring these issues forward. And I hope people who are listening will join us at colorofchange.org. Sign up. Help us fight. Help us build and help us engage in all the work ahead to translate the presence and visibility of these issues into the power to change the rules. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal.

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