The Daily Beast Podcast - Republicans Launch Anti-Trans Assault as Democrats Flounder

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

Two special guests join The New Abnormal co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy to discuss a rise in anti-trans rhetoric and Black women historically preserving democracy. 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 cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty 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 Cannon, 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. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus edition of the

New Abnormal. We thank you so much for being here. While we took the weekend off, we're not going to have any clips, but we do have two extra special guests. Journalist and author of the newsletter of the present age, Parker Malloy, is here to discuss the GOP's very public acts of transphobia and the Democratic Party's inadequate defense of the trans community's urgent struggles. Then we'll talk to author and Fordham University professor, Dr. Christina Greer, who was one of my favorite podcasts, F-A-Q-N-Y-C, and she'll join us to talk about her new book, How to Build a Democracy, from Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams, which highlights the essential role black women play in sustaining democracy and how to preserve it amid systematic challenges.

It's November 2024, and the Republican Party has gone fully mask off with regards to transphobia, not that the mask ever covered much of its face, while elements of the Democratic Party, are somehow blaming Kamala Harris's loss on what they claim is Democrats supporting the trans agenda quote unquote. Here to discuss is journalist Parker Malloy, author of the award-winning newsletter of the present age, which you can find at readtpa.com. Parker, thanks so much for being here. Hey, thanks so much for having me back. So I guess let's start with the Republicans. They went hard on the anti-trans bigotry in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign with ads flooding the airway. and they haven't let up since. Delaware's Sarah McBride became the first openly transwoman

elected to Congress, and immediately, heinous publicity hound Nancy Mace, introduced a bill to prevent transgender people from using Capitol Hill facilities like bathrooms that match their gender identity. And then she introduced another bill to expand that to all federal facilities throughout the country, which of course includes places like airports. Now, Parker, this is weird to me because I keep being told this election was about inflation. Yeah, well, nothing brings down inflation faster than banning trans people from restrooms, I guess. I suppose, hey, if the cost of groceries goes down, I will be, I will be shocked and I will

be forced to hand it to them. I will be like, you know what? You did it. We didn't see it coming, but you did it. But yeah, it's been, it's been kind of wild to see. Yeah, it's so grotesque. But talk a little bit about Nancy Mace, because as you wrote and I've seen other places as well. She wasn't always like this. And in fact, not that long ago wasn't like this,

right? Yeah. I mean, she was up until like last year. She supported LGBTQ people. She and specifically said trans rights. In 2021, she introduced a bill that aimed to find a middle ground on LGBTQ rights generally, which basically, it had a bunch of religious exemptions in that that kind of made it a non-starter. for a lot of like LGBTQ rights groups. But yeah, in March 2021, she gave, she gave an interview to the Washington Examiner, where she said, I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality. No one should be discriminated against and emphasize that religious liberty,

the First Amendment, gay rights and transgender equality can all coexist. And now, now that's changed just a, just a smidge. Yeah, just a tiny bit. So what do you think is behind, I mean, look, it's obviously, what the change behind this is for her. I think I covered that when I called her a heinous publicity hound. And on top of that, obviously, sucking up to the Mago. You can't even say the Mago wing of the Republican Party, just sucking up to the Republican Party in general right now. But what do you think is behind this push that, like I said, not that it hasn't always been there in some form or another,

but that seemed to become particularly virulent in the last few months of the election and now going forward. I think that those ads that ran pretty constantly, if anyone listening to this has a TV, I'm sure they've seen it. I'm in Chicago and I was seeing these ads blasted on my screen anytime I watched a baseball game or a football game. It was inescapable. You know, I think that they saw that. They think maybe they're right that that's an effective attack line. They saw the Democrats were afraid to fight back on it. And they thought, well, maybe we can take that a step further. And that's what has always worried me about things like attacks on trans people participating in sports. You know, when you when you have people working in in the government who are saying,

we need to take action to ban trans people from participating in sports, it's one of those things that, A, it's not really something that the government needs to get involved in. But B, it's just clearly a foot in the door to do more stuff, to start shipping away at access to medical care, which is what all of these states, about half the country now has bans on trans people participating in school sports. And then what they did after that in all but one or two states, after they passed the ban on trans participation in sports, they then took the next step to ban medical care for trans teens. It's one of those things where it's never just about sports. It's never just about what sort of health care people in prisons and in immigration detentments.

centers can receive. It's just about trying to strip away trans rights as a whole. And I think that Nancy Mace kind of saw that opening and thought, I will make this my cause. I will be the number one proponent of anti-trans legislation. And that's what she's been up to. The past week, week and a half, she's tweeted hundreds of times about this. She's fundraising off it and selling merch off it, I think. She's selling merch. Gosh, you know what? Which makes the idea that Democrats are constantly talking about this, like even funnier. Because there aren't Democrats selling like a bunch of pro trans merch. You know, you might get a candidate selling like, yeah, LGBTQ4 or whatever, you know, for Harris,

you know, merch on their site. But no one's selling merch that's just like, yeah, trans rights now. And if you don't believe in it, get lost. You know, like it's nothing. You're not seeing stuff like that. To be fair, that's a lot of words for a T-shirt. That's so many words. I mean, well, then again, make America great again.

That's four words. That's a lot for that hat. And I mean, they did have to with the MAGA hat. You notice in 2016, the font was small, but in 2024, it got larger as eyesight got worse. That's an excellent point. You got to adapt with your aging population. Absolutely. Absolutely.

I want to go back a little bit to the bathroom thing. This is always a question for me. Setting aside just the plain old, in my mind, immorality and cruelty of it, can you explain to me how bathroom bands are expected to work as a practical matter? The idea is, you know, the way they presented is they say, okay, well, well, trans women can just go in and use the men's room and they should feel safe in there. And that's just not going to happen. I'm not going to go use the men's room. Right. A, I would feel unsafe in there.

And B, anyone who sees me walk into the men's room would then know immediately that I was trans. Like that's the thing. It's asking trans people to constantly out themselves to everyone around them. And the whole point is that it's supposed to embarrass them. So it's supposed to embarrass us. So the actual impact of bathroom bills is that trans people just don't use bathrooms. They hold it. They don't leave the house longer than they can last, basically.

I saw someone referred to it as a urinary leash, which is, you know, one way to think about it. And in places where there have been bathroom bans, trans people have reported, you know, having higher instances of things like urinary tract infections, bladder problems, you know, kidney issues, stuff like that because of not being able to use the bathroom. But practically, how these are supposed to function is basically if someone doesn't look enough like a one. woman in the eyes of some random person, they're going to get hauled off to the side and ask to see their documents and stuff like that, which wouldn't prove anything, but it humiliates the people, anyone involved. And there's never an enforcement mechanism for these types of bills, because any sort of actual enforcement would be a wild overreach. You know, what are you going to do? Like, have everyone register and you have to put a thumbprint on the door or something, you know?

Right. It's just one of those things that we've lasted so long without having people guarding bathroom doors to see who's allowed to use it and who's not. You know, and this idea that there are men who will dress up as women just to go in and harass or assaults some woman in a bathroom as though the door itself has been stopping them this whole time. Right. It's silly.

The goal of the legislation is to basically send a message. that trans people aren't welcome to be part of society. And that's what's so frustrating because I don't know a single trans person who wants to talk about using a public restroom. Public restrooms are disgusting. Of course. It's like, it's really frustrating to have like, to be like, well, you know, I guess that my identity is now completely tied to public restrooms.

That's what people are going to think about when they think about, you know, trans people. you know, you kind of feel like, feel like the gay rights movement got the, got the, got the better end of that deal where it's like, oh, marriage, you know, weddings, beautiful, lovely, wonderful. And then it's like trans people, bathrooms, you know? Right. You know, I was thinking that this could be solved if trans people had to wear maybe like a star, like a, maybe a specific colored star. And we could call that the solution.

The last time the bathroom bands were like a big thing. thing was 2016. So in 2016, there was a story of a school in Wisconsin where there was a trans student and they didn't know what to do or how to handle this. So they just said, okay, you can wear a wristband at all times and that way we'll know which one is the trans one. And people very quickly pointed out like, hey, historically, this has been kind of a frowned upon, you know, so maybe we shouldn't do that. and then they didn't do it. But it's something that people have floated. My God.

But Parker, at least the Democratic Party has trans people's backs, right? To an extent. I've been critical of Sarah McBride's response to all this. Because her response has essentially been to say, this is a distraction to take attention away from the other bad stuff Republicans are doing. And I've kind of thought, well, this is her kind of essentially saying, Oh, it's not a big deal. It's okay. But there was this interview that someone did at Rolling Stone with Seth Moulton. And he was the congressman who right after the election, he gave a quote to the New York Times where he's basically like, I don't want a trans person to run over my daughter on a soccer field or something like that. In this interview, one thing that caught my attention was that, you know, he said, I was on News Nation a couple days ago responding to Nancy Mace's attack on the new trans member of Congress and was proud to defend incoming reps. Sarah McBride and defend Democratic priorities. But most of my colleagues, when I told them that,

they were shaking their heads. They can't believe I even took the risk of engaging on this issue. And that I found very interesting, where there are apparently Democratic politicians that are just saying completely stay out of it. Don't get involved. And so, you know, it's likely that Sarah just doesn't have the support within the Democratic caucus to stand up for her. And it would just be her against the world, which is horrible. And it's not that there haven't been Democratic politicians who have put out statements in support of her or spoken in support of her generally on TV

and stuff like that. There hasn't been a lot of pushback. And I think that that's part of why Nancy Mace gets away with this, is getting away with this, is because Democrats are so afraid to talk about this, especially right after the election, where they think maybe this affected the outcome. you know and that's unfortunate because i think that democrats probably could have responded better you know there were better responses to the anti-trans attack ads during the election then comla harris going i will

follow the law that was kind of a weak response and didn't really address the points being made yeah it felt like there was really no response to those ads like like as you said or as set Moulton said about his colleagues like they did not want to touch it yeah well and the interesting thing is so back in twenty twenty three the biden administration proposed a rule that was that was supposed to try to make everyone happy and it made no one happy but this is what the biden administration put out basically saying no schools shouldn't be allowed to make blanket bans on trans people participating in sports but schools can assess whether there are safety issues or competitive issues and ban people on that basis. And the idea was that it was a compromise where you wouldn't have bans affecting third graders, stuff like that. You wouldn't have it affect kids who hadn't gone through puberty, where there

are no advantages. But it would affect maybe a basketball player who's a senior in high school, something like that. And I think that the Democrats could have talked about that, could have talked about how they understand that this is a contentious issue and that there needs to be discussion about it and that it's not either a free for all or banning entirely, that there is a discussion to be had there. And that, I think, would have sounded better to the American people than just silence. That makes voters think that whatever the Republicans are saying is true. And that makes trans people and allies think, oh, they don't care enough to fight back. So really, they're in action on that. I think it was the worst possible response.

I think even just doubling down on the Republican ads would have been better. Really, the best response, in my opinion, would have been to continue with Tim Walz's their weird campaign. Because that's what's weirder than what Nancy Mace is doing right now. Absolutely. This is the perfect time to bring back their weird because this is weird. She posted a photo of herself saying, like, I'm wearing pink to celebrate my actual womanhood. That's weird.

That's a very strange thing to post. going around putting signs on bathrooms saying biological women's restroom. That's weird. It also strikes me that I personally only have her word that she is cisgender. Yeah. I mean, I've never seen any proof. No. You know?

So if I wanted to raise a stink about her going into a woman's bathroom, I guess I could. You could. That's why when I ask how these things work as a practical matter, and as you said, it's basically if someone just gets it in their head that this person is trans, then it becomes a thing. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is that a lot of places allow trans people to update their identity documents. So it becomes a question of how do you even prove this at that point? How do you prove?

Because if someone looks at my driver's license, it says female. Someone looks at my passport, it says female. I imagine that as soon as Trump gets in office, it's going to be impossible for trans people to update their past people. So I highly recommend that any trans people listening go and update that stuff now. But even my birth certificate says female. There is no documentation that I could provide that would prove one way or the other. And I think that there might be a push among Republicans to introduce some sort of new form of ID documents

or to say that ID documents that have been changed for trans-related reasons aren't valid or something along those lines. lines but I guess you know we're gonna we're gonna see but for now it's it's just there were all these stories back in 2016 about women who are cisgender who they had short hair or they were a little taller than the average woman who were getting pulled out of bathrooms sometimes by men do follow them in and and say you don't belong here which there's some irony in that it's really just a sad policy and a really big over reach to kind of stake your reputation on. And it should be easy for Democrats to defend against this.

You know, it should be easy to go, yeah, this is a distraction. At the same time, we're not going to accept this. We're not going to accept this attack on a small minority group that has virtually no power. Because even with Sarah McBride in Congress, trans people are still underrepresented in Congress. Of course. You know, there would need to be three or four trans people in Congress. Congress for just population-wise for there to be proportional representation. So the fact that Sarah is the first really goes to show how out of power trans people have always been, even though every newspaper will frame trans people as this powerful cabal, basically, which is irritating. There was a story today in the New York Times by Jeremy Peters, who he wrote that it

opened with him saying that being on the wrong side of trans activists will get their ire basically you know you will yeah it said you'll you'll you'll endure their unsparing criticism that's it this of course is the man who wrote the you know people say Elon Musk has revealed himself as a conservative not so sure yeah the truth is more complicated or whatever he right so he gets into the nuance when it comes to Elon Musk but with trans people he's just like they'll criticize you and that's the worst thing that could possibly happen. Yeah. I am unfortunately out of time, but, you know, I'm so happy to know that we're entering the Your Papers Please phase of America.

That's incredibly comforting. It rules. I know. Parker, thank you so much for coming on. And I hope things get better, but I have a feeling these next four years ain't going to be fun. No, no. It's just starting. Folks, I am so excited to welcome back to the new abnormal.

Dr. Christina Greer, who is a professor at Fordham University, the author of several books. And most recently, the book entitled How to Build a Democracy, from Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams. Christina. Yeah, girl. You know, we are now several weeks, almost a month, right? almost a month removed from our last presidential election. Many of us, myself, are still trying to piece together this idea of America, this idea that we progress with each generation, this idea that America, as Bill Clinton had said,

there's nothing that's wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America, except everything that is wrong with America, the worst parts of America won. And I'm just curious as to you are a professor guiding people into this understanding of our political system, helping them frame their own ideology, their own deep understanding. How do you explain this moment? How do you explain this moment? How do you help people unpack this moment? And how do I help people stay motivated and interested and invested in this moment? That's my job as a professor, right? I mean, I have the honor and the privilege of spending time. with the future generations of American leaders, elected leaders and otherwise. So, you know, I've been joking with people. I'm like, oh, I should have been a dentist. Same.

You just finish up at work and you wash your hands and you come home. But, you know, I didn't. And there's a reason why I didn't because I'm clearly still trying to unravel this puzzle, this experiment that is America, especially as a black person and as a black woman in particular. And so the history of America is a history of progress and regress. This is, you know, so many people. are freaking out in this moment because they haven't read about what this nation is. You know, they're only sort of allowing themselves to believe the brochure that we've been

this great country that's just steadily moved in one direction over time, which we know we haven't, right? We can look at Chinese Exclusion Acts that are barely 100 years old. We can look at the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which is after our parents were born, especially our black mothers. You know, so all these realities that have been staring us in the face, the people that have been excavated by the incoming president. They were never gone. They were just quiet and working in the shadows. And so he has allowed them just to come out of the shadows. But it's not like

they're brand new. There isn't an infestation of new bigots in this country. They've just been here. Kind of like termites, right? And so like they kind of come out when they feel like coming out. And we now have a regime coming in that is saying, okay, it's fine to just say these horrible things about immigrants and about people of color and about women and what they should and should not have and to sort of treat them as animals or, you know, using just really terrible imagery. So if we remember that all that is true and that the foundation of America is weak, it's not what we think it is, you know, as Bell Hook has explained to us, the foundation of America is white supremacy and anti-black racism and capitalism and patriarchy. So then we know that the house is built

on shaky ground. So what do we do? What do we do to build it, to rebuild it, to work on it, to know that it has this infestation of really horrible things that have been here from the beginning that have really just been a part of this building of this country. But there are so many ways that we have progressed, even if we have to understand the regress moments. And that's when we do a few things. One, I mean, you started off. by saying we're barely a month out from the election. You're still allowed to grieve. You're still allowed to rest.

You're still allowed to, you know, eat extra cake and drink extra wine if you need to. You know that that's needed. Because this is a marathon. And as a lot of black organizers understand, and a lot of people are just now waking up to this, this isn't going to be solved in an election. It's not going to be solved with one person. It's not going to be solved overnight. This is a marathon.

The history of black people getting rights and freedoms and equality. in this country has been a 400 plus year marathon. So we have figured out tools to sustain ourselves, but a lot of folks are just waking up to like, wait, what am I supposed to do? It's like, yes, sweets, put on your hokas and get ready for a lot of work and a lot of heavy lifting and a lot of dark days and darker nights. Like, that's what this country has been, but that's not the only thing that it is. You know, this is why we find joy in the tiniest little things. You know, I'm big in nature. Nature is just like a free show every day.

But black folks, and this part of the book, How to Build a Democracy, like black folks have been figuring out ways to insert ourselves in this American democracy for a really long time. And we thought that we had sort of gotten to a point where we could kind of rest. And some people put it in a picture frame

and looked at our great work and marveled at it. But we recognize we can't rest. Not in this country and not just yet. So, and when I say rest, I mean, rest in sort of two ways. One, we can't just feel like it's mission accomplished and put up a banner and walk away. But I will say, we must rest.

Because it is a marathon, there are times where you are going to need to have to sit down. You do not need to be on air explaining things to people or writing articles for people to get it. You yourself, as a marathon runner, passing the baton off to me, there are going to be times where you need to just sit down on the sidelines and take a beat. so that when I need you to come back, you are rested and you have clear mind and you have the energy and the spirit to keep going in this race. I want to unpack the rest piece for a moment with you as well. And it is because since the election, we've heard from a number of black women, some known, some not known, on social media, saying that they're done. I have put in the effort. I have put in the time.

I have put in the tears. I've put in the sweat. equity into trying to make this country better than its founding, better than we have believed it to be. And I have understood as a black woman the responsibility to carry, like you say, that baton, that torch, generation to generation. Black women, however, for the first time, honestly, that I can remember, seem to be collectively saying, I'm good. You all got next. the rest of you go and do whatever it is, whether it be your marches or your protests or whatever it is. But like, I'm going to take care of myself and my own community. I'm done

trying to construct this American project. What do you, what do you make of that? What and how is it different? Do you see it being different in this moment versus past elections? even let's just say even from 2016 and the disappointment of that to to now 2024. So a few things. One, 2016 felt like it was a Trump problem. 2024 felt like it was an America problem. Like Trump was the problem in 2016. So people told themselves, you and I both know that that's not the case.

But a lot of people were like, oh, 2016, like this crazy man, you know, he's so dynamic and blah, blah, blah. He just came out of nowhere. It's like, no, no, no. it's been a problem with the country. 2024 and the sweeping of congressional races across the country showed that it's a deeper problem than just one man. I think part of the collective freak out from a lot of Americans is that, as you mentioned, there's never been a time where black women have been at rest. Never in our country. Either we were forced to be at work or we have just been so accustomed to witnessing work.

that future generations, you and I included, feel the need to consistently work to make things better. That's what black women have always done. I literally wrote a paper called Black Women are the keepers of democracy and the Democratic Party. So collectively, if we say we're out, tapping out, y'all figure it out. I hope you learned some lessons watching us work all these years because clearly nobody's been paying attention, except for black men. But nobody else has really been paying attention in mass. So do I think that black women are out? I don't.

I really don't think that black women are going to just be like, whatever, suit yourselves. I do think that there is going to be a circling of the ranks of black women where we are going to have to rely on one another because we're looking around. So y'all women can't seem to get you all yourselves together, especially you white women, right? The days of pink hats and blue bracelets, nobody's interested. Black men are definitely by far the second most group loyal to the Democratic Party, just like black women, but they're more susceptible to propaganda than black women are, as you can just look at the numbers and see. There's a little more wiggle room, and some of that is, you know, misogyny, some of that's just gender dynamics of living in the 21st century. But I think black women were probably, I would not say that we're out.

I think black women are saying, like, I'm out. But I think we're more at rest because we're not. going to sit here and watch this country go down. We have been the canaries in the mind consistently. We're the ones who see things before everybody sees them. Why? We know economic anxiety. That's how we know that this race ain't about economic anxiety. Black women know economic anxiety before everybody else because we're the ones who get the least pennies on the dollar compared to everybody else. So if groceries are too high, guess what? I'm telling you they're too high way before you even realize they're too high, right? When we know that there's a housing shortage, it's like we know that black

women, you know, there's a whole article about black men being locked up and black women being locked out, right? The least housing is secure. All of the ills that befall this country, we're the brunt, we're the front lines. And we organize to get ourselves out of these jams. But in our organization, i.e. Family Lou Hamer, we help others get out of it as well. So I don't think that we quit, right? Because quitting means quitting on our own people. And we've never done that. I don't think it's in our DNA to do that. But I do think that there's a downshifting that is going to happen and there's going to be a different type of organizing that is going to happen where we will maybe turn a little more local, maybe turn, which we've always done, always. You know, this conversation of states' rights,

I think that there will be a lot more focused because black women have been making strides and state levels. You know, obviously we've never had a black female governor. But there are these little wins that consistently happen with black women in communities because we know how to take care of kids. communities, plural, not just our own. Every single win that we have helps other communities, even if those communities don't recognize it, don't realize it, and vote against their own interests against it, we still organize on their behalf. So I think folks are a little scared because there's literally never been a moment where black women who are so used to being the cleanup women in this country have just been like, you know what, I hope you've been paying attention

because you better get that broom and that mop and that dustpan because I am on break. Yeah, I think I have said on a number of times and on a number of shows that black women are the janitors of America. And frankly, we're tired of being the domestic workers that don't even get any gratitude or applause or appreciation. And I think that that is what this moment really has felt like, you know, like you said, organized, calcified in a way that we're just, we're going to push through, regardless of what this country. throws at us, regardless of what we saw presented once again on the national stage, the misogyny, the racism, all of the hate that was directed towards the vice president. We all have experienced in our own lives. And we got to sit back and watch this show play out on a national level and be like, y'all ain't ever going to change. It's this belief, because I believe that America,

what is fundamentally American to me is this possibility. It's the possibility. It's the possibility and the hopefulness and the faith that like through learning through education, we can get to the other side. I don't ever think that we actually see the arc of justice fully been, but I think that each generation can get to the other side of whatever that obstacle is. But in this moment, it just felt like a slap in the face of all of the progress that has. I mean, you have a cabinet that is being filled right now with like not only with white, Christian supremacist ideologues, but with sexual assaulters, like a parade of sexual assaulters. And so it is the FU cabinet to women, but to black women, I feel like in particular.

And so I'm just curious with this, as some folks are calling it, the prologarchy or whatever it is, and I hate that term, and I think that it's bullshit, because what this is is an oligarchy. It is a misogynistic, patriarchal, greedy, disturbing oligarchy. How do you see, is there, like, with everything that I feel like that is going to crumble, that has been crumbling, that has been backsliding, that has been named as crumbling and backsliding, is it still possible? Do you think to build a democracy? Or will this all just need to be burnt down at this point?

Yeah, well, see, you know, I'm an American political science professor. I'm an institutionalist. So I think that there's always the possibility, right? I mean, as problematic as the framers were, I think that they left Easter eggs in the Constitution. And I do, you know, I'm not saying a fully agree with Bill Clinton, but I do think that there are enough sane people in this country. Now, are they going to be in leadership in these next four years? No. But the great thing about Republicans and this type of Republican regime is that racist always overplay their hand.

They do. And they take it too far. You know, it's like that old thing's like, you just took the joke way too far. Because racism costs money. Every economist and social scientists has done the numbers. When you have racism and bigotry, it does cost you money. It is actually better for business when people are included. And so even if the business community is like, yeah, I like some of this stuff, it's like, at a certain point in time, it starts to cost them money.

And this is where the relationships are going to go south. We're clearly dealing with an erratic man who, you know, the level of cognitive dissonance is astounding. but also the march of incompetent white men that we're seeing is a lot even for white people. They're like, this is a bridge too far. Sexual assaulter after sexual assaultor. Like, come on, guys. Like, let's at least give a veneer of decorum. Let's just give at least some little modicum of competence.

And he's like, no, I don't care. So I think that there aren't going to be some people who are like, we've got to slow down this train, even in unified government, right? where it's like he's controlling all these branches. But the thing is, he's not interested in the methodical thought processes of democracy in any way, shape, or form. He wants to be a king. So there still are some Easter eggs that I think can save this democracy. If we burn down this country, we burn down all the efforts of my ancestors, and I'm not willing to do that.

And I don't really understand the point of doing that. But no one's talking about how do we excavate the foundation? How do we uproot that? That's never been a conversation. So how do we uproot white supremacy in this country? Like, well, we have to get some people to understand that it exists first and foremost. And so I think the great thing about this regime coming in is that they are exposing themselves as white supremacists and having some people like, mm-mm. Now, granted, there are a lot of folks, as I've said before, you don't have to be white to want to be a white supremacist.

And we've seen that in voting patterns. But I'm always hopeful, Danielle. And maybe because I spend time with young people quite a bit, you know, but I'm always hopeful that, like, there are enough people who care about not just this country, but other people in this country, where they understand, and this is my job, to help them understand that, like, democracy isn't a thing that's in the ether. We are democracy. We are the country.

We are the government. We are the state. So a lot of folks see it as, like, something over there. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Everything that we talk about, we are part of, like, we're some of the brinkings. bricks that make up the foundation. So like to burn down the country is to burn down ourselves too. So I'm not necessarily willing to do that. It's like it's really just in this kind of moment, finding more and more people who are like us and organizing however we need to organize.

And for black women, that might just be for right now, we're just finding other black women. Y'all find each other and then we'll talk. But I do think it's a real opportunity for black women to really come together and like do what black women have always done, which is like create this really strong intellectual sisterhood network that isn't always advertised, but to really build that across space and across states. I mean, you know, you think about September Clark and Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, you know, these are women who are organizing like sharecroppers, domestics, you know, women who made little to no money, who worked 20-hour days. Well, girl, you and I both have college degrees and jobs and a little bit of, you know, spare pocket change.

I'm like, if they could do it, we damn sure it can do it. You know, this is why I love having you on because I think that you are one of those people. You're a lantern and you offer light and a perspective, but also an understanding of a lineage. from hence we came from the place that we have all arrived from. And I think that it's really important, particularly now, to be able to look back as a guide to how we move forward. And Dr. Christina Greer, I appreciate you so very much. And you will have to come back and join us again. Folks, the book is How to Build a Democracy from Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams.

I appreciate you so very much. I appreciate you always. And the book is free to download until December 11th. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens?

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