The Daily Beast Podcast - You Don’t Get More Reality TV Trash Than Donald Trump’s Indictment

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal, hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie discuss the latest in Donald Trump’s New York indictment. Plus! The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer stops by to talk about what Republicans really mean when they say the word woke and Hunter College’s Basil Smikle talks all about gun violence in America and what it’ll take for something to change. 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. 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. What an excellent show we have today.

The Atlantic's Adam Surwer, who's, of course, the author of The Seminole book, The Cruelty is the Point, stops by to talk to us about what Republicans really mean when they say the word woke. Then we'll talk to Hunter College's Basil Smichael, who's also an MSNBC analyst, all about gun violence in America and what it will take for something to change. But first, let's have some fun. Well, Danielle, we recorded this podcast earlier on Thursday, and we're back. Yeah. Because at a little after 5.30, as most of you listeners, I assume know by now, the New York Times broke the news that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict Donald Trump.

Mm-mm. We don't know the details. The indictment is under seal and has not been officially announced by Alvin Bragg or his office right now. But we do know, you know, the other news organizations have confirmed this. We do know that the grand jury has voted to indict. So Donald Trump, shout out to Mr. Trump for becoming the first president to ever face criminal charges. There's a part of me that doesn't even believe that this has finally happened. I mean, we have to understand that this case is seven years old.

The Stormy Daniels' hush money case is seven years old at this point. Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, went to jail over this. And it's not the one I think that a lot of people were rooting for to go first. But, I mean, just to think about the history that Donald Trump is making right now, not only is he the first twice impeached president of the United States. He is also now the first former president of the United States to face criminal charges. He is also the first former president of the United States twice impeach to face criminal charges because he paid off a fucking porn star. I mean, you don't get much trashier, much more reality TV trash than this right here.

And it is America welcome to the Bidana Republic and not the clothing store, friends. Yep. My feeling on this is, look, I agree with what you just said, the stuff in June. Georgia is far more serious. By feeling on this is twofold, I've already seen people say, oh, they shouldn't charge him with this. It was from before he was president. It's not that big a deal. I don't give a good goddamn.

If he broke the law and you have evidence of that, charge him because that's what would happen to anyone else. My second feeling is maybe this breaks the seal. Maybe this makes it easier for there to be an indictment in Georgia because there's no pressure now for the Georgia prosecutors or a Georgia grand jury to be the first. to indict a former sitting president. Yeah. It's been done already. So the precedent has been set. And I know there are people who are going to say, well, it's a bad present.

People on the right who are going to say, well, this is a bad precedent because this is going to happen to every president now. You know what? If every president. Is a fucking criminal? Yeah. Then it should happen. So I am all for the precedent.

And I'm hopeful that if there is evidence in Georgia, you know, if there's enough evidence to go to trial, which it would boggle my mind if there's not. like I said, that this makes it easier for that to move forward. So in that sense, I think this is, even though it's for the, you know, the lesser case or whatever, it could be good overall. I think it's going to be outstanding. I think that we're going to watch the Domino's, God willing, fall. And I think that with regard to people saying, oh, he shouldn't be tried for this because it was so long ago, you're right. Nobody is supposed to be above the law. Not the wealthy, not the powerful. They're not. We're supposed to have the appearance of justice in this country.

and accountability and responsibility. And a grand jury sat and listened to God knows how long did they sit for, to hear mountains of evidence to make the decision. This was not a one-person decision. This was a jury of 12 people that had to come to the conclusion to make this really bold decision to indict a former president of the United States. And I just hope that their names remain sealed because we saw what Donald Trump did in Georgia with the poll workers with Shay Moss and Ms. Ruby. And I pray their names

remain sealed because Alvin Bragg is going to receive a lot, a lot of heat. And it's already started. Agree with everything you said, Danielle. And on that note, we'll move on to the fun stuff that we recorded for you all earlier today. Enjoy. Enjoy. So Danielle, before we get to the usual nightmare fodder that we cover on this show, a little bit of good. news at the end of this week. And I don't know, I never really thought in my life that I would be rooting for Disney in a fight. But Ron DeSantis has been up to all kinds of shenanigans with that company because he's mad that they do things like I have Black Mermaids. Yes, yes, yes. He established this board to oversee the Walt Disney World in Orlando. And then it just came out

this week that that board said that their predecessors who were controlled by Disney kind of owned them by passing some stuff before they were stripped of their powers, or removed, rather. One of the things they did was they prohibited this new district that's been created where Walt Disney World is from using the name Disney or any symbols associated with the theme park result without the company's permission. They can't use Mickey Mouse or other Disney characters in any manner. The company can sue them for damages. And this agreement is in effect until perpetuity, according to this thing that was signed. And then there's a clause in there that says if the agreement violates rules against perpetuity,

which is an obscure legal thing that I've seen Twitter lawyers sort of throwing their hands up about because they don't remember it from law school other than that it exists. But if it violates those rules and it can't be in effect in perpetuity, according to this declaration, it will then be in effect until 21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of England's King Charles the third. So, look, I am not a lawyer and I don't understand any of that, but I love it. And I, again, the idea that I'm now in favor of this huge corporation is mind boggling, but here we are.

It is not often that we get good news on this show. So Bravo to the Disney board for creating the most embarrassing fucking moment for that little mini-fascist Ron DeSantis down in Florida who thought that he was going to place in his white evangelical Christian fascist friends to make sure that mermaids stay white. By the way, they don't fucking exist. So imagination, but let's criminalize it. And also just giving randomly. I don't know what other pilgrim ship I missed, but I don't know why they dragged King Charles into the mix. But hell, the youngest successive member of that family and descendant of him is Lilibut,

who is Megan and Harry's daughter. And so I'm like, bravo to them. So they get to give a big F you as well. And by the way, I don't even know if Lilibet is won yet. So that's great. Okay, so they used King Charles. It's a thing called a royal clause, and they do it because there are some jurisdictions where these contracts that last in perpetuity are not allowed. They invoke a thing called a royal clause, and apparently, I guess they pick the British royal family, according to a law firm, Burkitts, quoted in the Guardian. The British royal family was chosen because information about the family tree is readily available.

And also because of, quote, better health care available to and longer life expense. of a royal family member compared to a non-royal. So they basically were like, we need someone whose lineage can be determined and who's probably going to live to be very old so we can really fuck this guy up. Oh, my God. I love it. Bravo, Disney. Bravo.

All right. Now on to horrible things. Daniel, why don't you lead us into the less fun stuff? Okay. Let me lead you. Let me take your hand, Andy, and lead you back into hell. Please guide me through hell. Yeah, let me bring you there.

So, be my Beatrice. Good God. This country, I don't even know where we are most days. Hell doesn't even seem appropriate because, as I said before, their weather seems too consistent. So here we have, after the mass shooting earlier this week that claimed the lives of three children, three adults, and also the shooter. As we're speaking right now, there are protests that have unfolded actually in the

Capitol in Nashville. Parents are just outrage. Children, they're outdone. And right now they've taken over the Capitol building. But if you want a model of the kind of moral outrage that you should have, then look no further than a viral video that happened between Representative Jamal Bowman, a Democrat from New York, and Representative Tom Massey, Republican from Kentucky. Bowman, for folks who don't know, is a former middle school principal. And he was in the midst of the rotunda at the Capitol building and just yelling at his colleagues, calling them gutless, calling them cowards and saying, how do you not want to save America's children from shootings? Like, how is this okay with you? And Bowman is yelling and expressing the fucking outrage that every single person in this country should have, that every single

representative should have. And then Tom Massey starts talking about, what are you talking about? Talking about, oh, we should be civil and asking him, what are you talking about? Because clearly, they must not have televisions in fucking Kentucky. Clearly, his smartphone must not work. What are you talking about? And Bowman's responses, I'm talking about gun violence. When we saw the initial reaction from a Timber Shet who said, well, we're not going to fix it. it. Yeah. Like, you know, criminals are going to crime. So sorry your kid is dead, but like, there's nothing I can do about it. You understand Representative Bowman's fucking outrage at his disgusting colleagues. Absolutely. The Bershett went out to say that we need a Christian revival

to change people's hearts and that that was his solution. That was right before I think he said that he homeschools his kids, a real winner there. Great job, Tennessee. And in order to change people's you'd actually need to fucking have one, which they clearly don't. You would think. But look, Bowman is exactly right. The word gutless is 100% applicable here. We are talking about a party that is fully in thrall to the gun lobby and to gun fetishists, which I separate from gun owners, because I do think there is such a thing as a responsible

gun owner. It's just that they don't talk about guns and they don't wear AR-15s. on their lapel. But look, I'm, I'm straying here. But this party, again, is completely gutless. And I've seen quotes from some of them saying, well, we've done all we're going to do. And it's like, you've done nothing. Nothing. You've done nothing. And okay, I look points, I guess, for admitting you're going to continue to do nothing and saving us the trouble of having to, you know, figure that out on our own, not that that was too much trouble. You know, and then you have people like Tom Massey sitting there trying to tell Bowman that the solution is to allow teachers

to carry. And as, you know, as people have pointed out, you mean the same teachers you spend the rest of the day calling groomers. Right, that you don't trust to read a book? Yeah, the same teachers that you think, you know, if one parent complains about a book, then that parent should have more agency than the teacher in terms of a curriculum. So you don't trust them for literally anything else, but you want to arm them. I don't get it. It's all. almost like they're not serious people. And it's almost like they're just throwing shit out there because they have no intention of actually doing anything and that they ultimately, they don't care. They absolutely do not care. I've seen people say, you know, the Second Amendment is more

important than the lives of a few children. I don't understand the mindset there. Not to mention that you can do a million things without actually violating the Second Amendment to restrict guns. time we have a shooting, Republicans get out there and they blame anything that they can other than gun culture. And every time it happens, someone has to get up there and put up a chart, which I saw going around Twitter, which is a very good chart, but it plainly shows that every country that does not worship guns the way we do does not have these shootings. I don't know what more of a direct line you need than that. But again, they don't care. The reality is that we have to stop having this conversation on the side of progressives and Democrats

and actually people who just give a fuck with a factual one, with our charts and our graphs and with the facts on our side. Because this has long since been a factual conversation. This is one that is actually steeped in feeling. The fact is that we should not have to live in fear. We should not have to live in fear of going to the movie theater, the grocery store, a house of worship, or school, or any other places in between where mass shooting. have taken place, that this is no longer about the Second Amendment, because frankly, because they think we're going to come and take their guns away, let's just start talking about taking their fucking guns away, because you're clearly irresponsible. And the worshiping of the AR-15 is new.

That ain't old shit. This is not historical. This has happened since 2004 when Congress allowed for the assault rifles ban to lapse. And then the worshiping began. Then in manufacturing and the targeting and the commercials, you know, targeting people as making the AR-15, the quote-unquote Corvette of guns. And let me just tell you, if you don't know what a man driving a Corvette symbolizes, then you can wrap your mind around how they were able to turn that into the AR-15. I'm like so fucking outdone with us wanting to battle people with facts when this is a feelings conversation. And look, the reality, I watched this TikTok the other day, Andy, that was this guy, white guy, who had taken his family to Japan. And he's doing this whole video around

how he sees, like, all of these children that are his daughter's age, around nine, you know, years old, like walking around alone, like going to the store, like getting things, blah, blah, and children that are younger that wear a yellow hat. Because they've decided as a society in Japan that the responsibility of rearing and caring for children is a collective one. So children are able to go to the corner store, able to ride the subway, are able to have a semblance of independence because collectively, as a society, they've decided that the care for children is one that they do together. And the fact that we allow Republicans to continue to have a conversation and own labels like family values and say that they're pro-life when clearly

they are fucking not is a choice that we are making. We are choosing this now. And that's the conversation that we need to be having. It isn't about charts and graphs. It is about how do you want to feel when you're dropping your kid off at school? How do you want to feel when you close your eyes to worship and the possibility of somebody breaking in those doors within AR-15? Yeah, you're absolutely right. We need to stop seeding terms like family values to the Republican Party, which is neither a family nor has values. Well, let's get to the other, you know, disgraceful thing that has come out of this last particular shooting, and that's the transphobia. Yes.

And in a huge New York Post headline that couldn't wait to say that the shooter was trans, we've seen it from a bunch of people in Congress, other people on the right, the Matt Walsh's, the Benny Johnson's, like the scum of the world, trying to make this about transgenderism or whatever word they're using to describe it now, when, again, and it goes back to exactly what you were just saying, this is not a factual argument. Simple statistics, the overwhelming majority of these shooters are cisgendered males. But you don't see a headline in the New York Post saying cisgendered man shoots up school. And look, you could even argue, like in a odd sense, it is news that a trans man did this because it happens so rarely.

And it's the same reason that you cover plane crashes and not planes that land safely because 99. Whatever percent of planes land safely. And 99 point whatever percent of mass shootings are done by cis men. So in a weird way, yes, it is news, but not for the reason they're trying to say. The reason it's news is because it's so fucking rare as to be a statistical blip. It's an anomaly. Yep. And to try to tie this in any. way to the fact that this person identified as trans. It's literally insane. It makes no rational

sense. It is nothing more than a phobia rearing its ugly head. And half the people who are doing it know that. They're doing it to play to the other half. And that's the part that really gets me. Tucker Carlson, who has been sounding this trumpet all fucking week, knows damn well what the statistics are. He's not a stupid person. He knows damn well what the statistics are. He knows how rare this is. But as we know about Tucker Carlson, he is more than willing to lie for ratings. And that's what he's doing this week. It's just, it's, it's beyond shameful, but expected because these people have no shame. But it is truly disgusting the stuff that we have seen this past week. I just wish that people had critical thought and didn't fall for bullshit. Because the reason why they're able to do that is because there's still a

large majority of the population that doesn't know a trans person that, you know, so you can make up stories about people that a majority of Americans have yet to come into community with. And what makes me so fucking angry is like, yeah, sure, Tucker Carlson isn't stupid, but he sure is a fucking asshole. He sure is a person that is willing to and wants to incite violence. And again, you know, we see this time and time again. And it's why Fox finds themselves in court right now. And I just pray every single day that the Dominion case bankrupts them. Because they are willing, and able to go on air and talk to tens of millions of Americans and lie to them and fill their minds with fear and hate and nonsense because no one checks them. Oh, because the FCC doesn't have

this jurisdiction and oh, free speech and oh, this, that. It's not free speech when people are literally taking up weapons to harm people, to kill people that they do not like. And they're getting that information from a quote-unquote news source that wants to claim entertainment on one hand when it's convenient, but then have news in their title. When you see this type of headline from New York Post and the nasty fucking things that came out of Marjorie Taylor Green's mouth and onto Twitter, which she is now, her representative account, is restricted at the moment, which shock of all shocks coming from Elon Musk's Twitter. I'm shocked at that because it was just so overt in its call to violence against an already

marginalized community. Yeah. Like Marjorie Taylor Green, who posts things about a so-called trans day of vengeance that's supposed to be happening on April 1st, which, come on. Really? Seriously? April 1st, you can't figure out that this isn't fucking real. Fox News, they are not in the truth business.

And the more and more evidence we get coming out of this Dominion trial just shows this. And there was a slideshow that, I don't know if it leaked out or was put out. But you have Suzanne Scott, who is nominally, supposedly the CEO of Fox News, even though it appears that it's the quote-unquote talent that is running the show there. She got mad at anchors who were pushing back on Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud. And she wrote, our talent must stop disrespecting the audience. What she did, I believe that's about Sandra Smith, rather. And what Neil Cavuto did was worse.

Neil doesn't think the American audience is smart enough to make a decision for themselves and watching a press conference. Terrible. If they don't get it, they don't deserve the scale of our platform to diminish our viewers. So literally what they're saying is that giving facts to Fox News viewers is disrespecting them. That's what they're saying. That's wild. It is wild, but I'm not, like, I'm not even extrapolating that.

Our talent must stop disrespecting the audience by pointing out that all these claims of widespread voter fraud were fact-free. That is somehow, it's disrespecting the audience to tell them that. Look, I worked there for a long time and it was bad in a lot of ways. It was nothing like it is now. And I'm not going to say, oh, who could have seen this coming? because, yeah, you could see it going down that road. But the place it's at now is just, I do disagree with you, it is free speech, regardless of anything else.

And I'm not sure how you deal with that other than, as you say, look, if they get bankrupted by this, if advertisers pull out, if they stop getting carried by the cable companies, because that's where they make their money. Yep. That's the only way in the system we have, those are the ways to fight them. They have to be monetary. They have to be financial. And I am not sold on that ever happening.

Their audience is very loyal. You know, all this shit has come out. Tucker's ratings are up. Tucker's ratings are up since all this shit has come out about him straight up lying, about how much he hates Trump. His viewers don't care. Also, they don't hear that. They don't know.

They don't know any of this because they're in that closed ecosystem. And it really is. It's like a perfect machine. And so I don't know what the fuck you do about it. I have no faith at all that this. trial is going to, regardless of the outcome, that it's going to change anything, unfortunately. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm-mm. Convierted your passion in a business with Shopify and bathe records of

ventas with the form of pay with a better conversion of the world. Has you heard it? The best conversion of the world. The incredible system of Pago of Shopify facilitates in your site web, in the and in whatever that's music for your ears.

No, you know your business will your business will be a super-exit with Shopify. my next guest is a

period of trial for a year old month in Shopify.combe, and joining me now to explain what he means is staff writer at the Atlantic and corner of the phrase and author of the book, The Cruelty is the Point, Adam, Swer. Adam, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. So Adam, you wrote woke is just another word for liberal in the wake of conservative writer Bethany Mandel's failure to articulate

how she defines woke, a word that like most people on the right these days, she throws around at least once a paragraph. And a word that seems to have a different meaning depending on whatever the made-up talking point of the day is in conservative media. So before I get to your definition, I guess my first question is to shamelessly paraphrase you, is the ambiguity the point? Yeah, I mean, I do think the ambiguity is the point. I think, you know, obviously, wokeness is a term from Black English that could have ironic or earnest applications. Once upon a time and now it's become sort of a conservative pejorative for things that they consider sort of excessive egalitarianism. And I think, you know, in particular in the aftermath of like 2020 and the George Floyd protests, people latched onto it because they

wanted a word for what they felt was like a sort of silly application of social justice concepts or language. What you've seen is it's sort of metastasized. So people are talking about woke capital or woke banks, woke TV shows. And when they say that, you know, like for example, they said the Lord of the Rings was woke because they had black people in it. It's sort of metastasized to be like, what they want to do is associate the things that people generally think are kind of silly with the things that people think are kind of good. So if you think some of the sort of Twitter-inflicted discourse about social justice is really stupid, they want you to think of civil rights laws as like similarly stupid. Right. And you can see this. And I'm not going off of my

definition. You know, I think the word is like sufficiently nebulous as to not be clear, you know, what people mean when they use it. But when Ben Shapiro and Bethany Mandel offered their definition, their versions, it was like the belief that Americans, the institutions are rooted in discrimination. And I think that's just sort of a basic historical fact. I mean, if you go back to the founding of the country. It was constructed in a way to exclude everybody was not a property owning white man, you know, from the franchise. Like if you were a white guy and you were not rich, in many states, you can vote. It's just a basic truth that a lot of American institutions are rooted in discrimination. I mean, you know, the obvious one is that compromise that created the constitution

was rooted in, you know, in agreement over slavery. Preserve the institution of human bondage for the purposes of labor. Like, these are basic historical facts. And so you can see how the usage of woke is politically useful precisely because when you use it, it makes people think you might be talking about something really silly when actually you're talking about sort of basic facts about American history and life. Yeah. So as you wrote in the piece, Mandel rallied the next day and posted her definition of woke on Twitter, which you addressed part of that. I'm just going to read the whole thing now. A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination, it seeks radical

redefinition of society in which equality of group results, is the endpoint enforced by an angry mob. I wanted to break that down, clause by clause. And you handled the first one, the radical belief system, suggesting our institutions are built around discrimination, which, as you pointed out, is less radical than it is historical and factual. And then the next clause is the claim that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. So I feel like the all there is a bit of a straw man.

But that aside, as you point out in your piece, either the history policy and structure of the American economy matter or they don't. Yeah, I think basically there are disparities that are caused by discrimination and there are disparities that are not caused by discrimination. I think there's a lot of a disagreement over which ones are which, but the idea that it's insane to think that, you know, these lawfully imposed disadvantages that targeted certain groups of people were removed relatively recently have nothing to do with what she calls group outcomes now. is actually a lot more radical than the belief that those lawfully imposed disadvantages matter.

Everybody did not have the right to vote in the United States until 1965. American multiracial democracy is a relatively young concept. I think it's actually a little ridiculous to suggest that because, you know, the civil rights movement happened in 1964 and 65, they passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, that every single thing that happened up to that point no longer matter, which I think is like pretty much the anti-woke argument as articulated by people who are militantly anti-woke. And I think when you look at what their perspective actually is, it sounds actually not very smart or not very intelligent or actually not descriptive of reality. And I think that's one of the reasons

woke gets deployed so much is because you can cover up what you're actually saying. Right. Which actually sounds pretty ridiculous when you articulate it. Yeah, absolutely. And then the final clause in her definition is it seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint enforced by an angry mob. And again, this is pretty much just Pablam, isn't it? Equality of group result is actually a really weird phrasing because, you know, you could see equality of individual result, sounding kind of scary, but equality of group results sort of sounds like you think it's ridiculous that people of different ethnic backgrounds have the same human potential. I don't know if that's what she meant,

but that's sort of what the phrasing suggests. If that's what she intended, that's actually a pretty racist argument. And I think it's understandable why someone who is an egalitarian would have disagree with that. But also, you know, the concept of a radical redefinition of society will, you know, a lot of things we take for granted and think we're good were radical redefinitions of society at the time. The abolition of slavery was a radical redefinition of society. It did not begin as a popular idea. The civil rights movement was a radical redefinition of society. The extension of the right to vote to universal white male suffrage was a radical redefinition. suffrage is a radical redefinition of American society. Say something's radical does not actually

give you an idea of the merits of the particular idea. And I think it's sort of, when you say radical, it's just sort of a scare word. Right. And I think enforced by a mob, it's like, well, you know, the structure of the internet as it exists, social media, is very conducive to mob behavior. And I think that's true regardless of ideological persuasion. But do you think that like people actually want everything enforced by mob action? I mean, that's actually pretty stupid. I, uh, I don't even understand how society would work that way. It's just sort of her trying to cram everything she doesn't like about liberals into her definition. Well, yeah. I mean, as you point out, you know, saying radical is a dog whistle word. And then it's not just mob, Adam. It's an angry mob.

Right. So if the mob is not angry, it's okay. Right. Exactly. But no, but you're right. It's just, it's throwing in every, you know, throw in all the scare words you constantly can. The only one I think missing from that is socialism. But, you know, as you point out, there have been all these radical redefinitions of society. And I suppose if I were being uncharitable, I would say that maybe these people would have been opposed to those as well. I mean, we're not in that period of time. But there was, I mean, in all of these periods that we're talking about, there were majorities of people up until that change happened who opposed them. There were lots of people who opposed the abolition of slavery or who opposed racial equality

after the abolition of slavery. There are a lot of people who pose women's suffrage. One of the things about being human is you can't be certain you're on the right side of an argument. But to say something as radical doesn't really tell you much about the merits of the argument. All it tells you is that it might be a little unpopular or very unpopular. And there are some very good ideas in American history that at one point were very unpopular. Yeah, it just has the feel to me of the people who go around saying of things like Black Lives Matter and other stuff like that of saying like, you know, why can't they protest the way Martin Luther King did as if they wouldn't have been yelling at Martin Luther King for shutting down a bridge and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, everybody forgets how

unpopular Martin Luther King was at the time of his death. He was very unpopular. His attempts to come north and to try and work on economic equality and deal with the sort of de facto segregation of the north as opposed to the explicit de jour, Jim Crow, the South, pissed off a lot of people. And so he was not popular at the time that he was assassinated. And it's nice. to think that we all would have been like great people and had the right answer at the time. That's not something we can possibly know. But it certainly is the case that it's not enough to denigrate something about calling it radical. I mean, calling it radical is pretty much just sort of an appeal to the status quo bias of the reader. They want to change something. And

changing things is bad. So it must not be good. But it doesn't actually address the merits of whatever the proposal you're talking about is. I'm curious. Why do you define woke or why did you define it in this piece as simply another word for liberal. I've seen other people say that I think there's some, if not a lot of truth to, woke has just become another word for black when they use it. Again, it's a flexible word. Like when you're saying, the new Lord of the Rings is woke, what you mean, is there are black people in it, right? But sometimes the target of woke is a political epithet is actually not a black person, but it's sort of like a white liberal who thinks that they are being very socially aware, socially progressive in a way that maybe is silly or counterproductive. You know,

that's what I mean is it's very slippery. And if you say it's just one thing, and sometimes it is one thing or the other, if you don't acknowledge how nebulous it is, it can actually be confusing as to what the person who means it intends. I deliberately did not impose my definition on it. I used her definition that she offered after the fact, precisely to say that, you know, this is basically an argument that traditional hierarchies are good and just and should not be altered by the state. That is a very old liberal conservative argument that the society is not equal and we should do something to make it equal. And there are other people who think, well, actually, you know, societies and equities are a reflection of people's

inherent potential and we shouldn't mess with that at all. I mean, that's just the old liberal conservative argument. And I think when you use their definition, again, not my definition, but the definitions that they offer woke to them is essentially a criticism of that kind of liberal egalitarianism. And I mean that in sort of like a broad sense. Sure. And again, you know, I didn't offer that. definition. That wasn't me. Some people were like, no, no, woke is, you know, when corporations do land acknowledgments or something like that, it's like, well, no, I am not operating off of your definition. I am operating off of the definition that these people who are professionally anti-woke

gave as their definition of what woke mean. Gotcha. There was an interesting thing that you, that you wrote about in there that, to me, I think, gets to the heart of a lot of this. You wrote, the idea that no one ever succeeds based on advantages unrelated to their personal abilities is likewise radical and also ludicrous. And this does seem to be at the heart of a lot of this, is people like, whether it's Bethany Mandel or Ben Shapiro, they get very angry when you suggest that they've had some sort of privilege and some sort of advantage in life that allowed them to reach the level that they have. And it feels to me like a lot of the anti-woke posturing is the sort of fear that more people will start to realize that, hey, wait a minute, this system itself

isn't fair, and you did not do this all by yourself. This is, again, this is the old liberal argument. We should try to structure society as best we can to make sure that your station in life is not determined by the luck of being born into a poor family or a rich family. And the way you do that is redistribution, which conservatives tend to oppose for, you know, moral and philosophical reasons. But you could sort of get, like, you know, where I cite Elon Musk complaining about the, quote, woke mind virus.

And you could sort of get why if you think a lot of people succeed due to unearned advantages is a dangerous idea because it leads to higher marginal tax rates for people who own private planes. And that doesn't mean that every egalitarian proposal is a good one. But if you simply think that everybody gets where they get simply because everybody who succeeds succeed simply because they're better than everybody else, if you really believe that, then you're likely to oppose any kind of redistribution regardless of whether it's a good egalitarian idea or a bad one. And along these same lines. So in just the past few weeks, a Florida elementary school temporarily, they claim, remove the Disney movie Ruby Bridges, which is the true story of the six-year-old black girl who integrated New Orleans schools in 1960, because one parent complained that the use of racial slurs and scenes of white people threatening Ruby as she entered the school might result in students learning that white people hate black people. This is as described by the Tampa Bay Times.

All the stuff like this that's going on in Florida is being done under the rubric of Ronda's saying. this is stop woke act. This is the kind of stuff that makes people like Mandel, I guess, very uncomfortable. So they use the word woke as a catch-all pejorative because they, they sort of don't want to explain something like this, something that is basically wants to erase history. Yeah, I mean, look, I think this is, this goes back again to woke its utility as a political epithet. You can make people think you're talking about something that most people think it's silly, or you can use it to cover up the fact that you're talking about something that most people think should be taught. For example, the history of segregation in the United States.

And I think it's not a coincidence. With the 1619 project and all this stuff, we had a lot of arguments about American history. And fundamentally, those arguments are really about contemporary politics in part. I mean, some of them are genuine arguments over historical fact. A lot of them are sort of arguments about the moral implications of that history. If you look at black history in the United States and you look at the extent of dispossession of black people in the United States, well, that might make you feel like maybe the government is obligated to do something more to ensure that black people are equal. But if you don't want that, you might be tempted to downplay that history in some way or make sure that people can't learn about it. And again, this fits

the expansive definition of woke, not the narrow definition of woke. Segregation is something that happened. It's something that kids should learn about. They can draw their own lessons about what it means and what moral obligations it might confer in the present. But the point is stuff like the Stop Woke Act is intent on erasing this history so that people don't even consider the possibility that the government might have moral implications to people. It is previously mistreated. There was a huge argument about these laws and whether or not they would do this kind of thing when they were being passed. And the supporters of these laws insisted it wouldn't. Now that these things are happening, they're sort of, you know, they're just dismissing all.

all the complaints about it as, you know, quote unquote, wokeness, which is the purpose of the epithet, is to associate things that are serious with things that are unsurious so that you can justify censoring the things that are actually important for people to learn. You end your piece and you say a lot of what you've said in this interview that we're talking about basically the heart of the argument between liberalism and conservatism. And as you point out, at the very end of your piece, you say to say that traditional hierarchies are just and good, well, that's simply conservatism it has been since the 18th century. And to say that those hierarchies do not reflect justice and that people should be equal under the law, all the people not only property white men,

well, that's more or less just liberalism. But if you don't like it, you'd probably call it woke. And that, I guess that really does just sum it up. And what you've got is a bunch of people who somehow in 2023 still think that traditional hierarchies are just and good. I think a couple of things haven't. I think conservatives are really freaked out by the rapid acceptance of of same-sex marriage. And I think they were freaked out by the outpouring of racial justice protests and the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. And I think this is sort of the undercurrent of the sort of anti-woke industry explosion.

I think people are afraid that society will evolve rapidly in ways that will harm them or ways that will, I think in some cases they're simply afraid that they will be judged for opinions that they feel are not bad opinions and they don't want to be judged for them. I think that is sort of the undercurrent of the sort of almost termador like reaction to what people consider, you know, the reign of terror of social justice. You know, but I think it's always important to have some perspective about what it is we're arguing about. And that's why, you know, when you have someone who comes in and starts calling things woke, you need to ask them, you know, to define what they mean so that we can have an actual conversation even if we don't end up agreeing. And sometimes when you do that, they can't answer the question. as happened with Bethany Mandel.

Adam, thank you so much for being here. Adam does great writing over at The Atlantic. Definitely check it out. And his book, The Cruelty is the Point, is absolutely amazing. Adam, thanks again. Thanks so much for having me. And thank you for those kind words. Nothing is more abnormal than the rise of the radical right.

Fever Dreams is a Daily Beast podcast, taking you inside the rights push to retake power, from the Maga Acolytes to the straight-up grifters. They recently released their 100th episode, so there's no better time to listen. Head to beast. pub slash fever dreams to check it out. Folks, I am very happy to bring on to the new abnormal. Basil Smykel, who is distinguished lecturer

and director of public policy program at the Roosevelt House at Hunter College, and is also an MSNBC analyst. Basil, we are at what I want to say is an inflection point in this country. This week, we witnessed yet another school shooting that took the lives of three children and three adults, as well as the shooter. Right before this, earlier this year, we saw a shooting at a lunar festival in California. This has been, I believe, the 130th shooting.

And if you do your math the same way I do, that is more days than have been. been on the calendar year thus far. There is always this talk about the Second Amendment and the Second Amendment being obviously what seems to be in America the most important amendment. What do you think that we who believe in gun reform are getting wrong here? First of all, thank you for having me. It's good to be with you again. It's a topic that is really important to me because in the height of a lot of drug activity in the Bronx where I grew up as a kid, you know, I was shot by. a 14-year-old and I was 12. I questioned and wrung my hands around, why does this 14-year-old have a gun? Right.

That clearly was an illegal weapon. In many cases in these shootings, we're talking about people who've bought these weapons legally, and in this case in Nashville, that I think there's seven weapons that the shooter had. But I think it's important to say off the top that we are a profoundly and unequivocally violent nation. Yes. This championing of the Second Amendment, I think, has been wrongheaded for, you know, a century. But it's clear that for so many gun control advocates that trying to go after the Second Amendment in itself is not going to solve the problem because they'll just be consistent pushback. We used to think that it was the NRA that had such a stronghold over elected officials that we couldn't budge on any reform. I'm not even

even so sure that that's the issue anymore, frankly. My feeling is that the NRA aside, and it's certainly they're very powerful, they're a very powerful lobby in this country. But I think what's happened is our tribalism in this nation has made it so that even the folks who do support gun rights and our strong Second Amendment advocates have deepened and hardened their position so much so that they are unwilling to hear any changes in gun laws to make things safer to restrict any kind of ownership or use of guns in this country, even as we see children being killed. You know, I remember Columbine, and I remember, you know, we said, oh, my God, you know, it was a school shooting. We could never have that happen again. Then Sandy Hook, which were six and seven

year olds. No, we could never have that happen again. And here we are yet again. And the folks that are resolute in their belief about a strong Second Amendment are staying that way, despite the fact that the majority of the country is moving in the other direction. There is no opportunity to change their minds. I feel very strongly about that, that those folks are never going to change their mind no matter what. And so it takes individuals that really care about our young people and care about the future destination to either push them out of office or find some other way around making these changes. Because you would think that those folks have a moral compass, but it's clear that they're okay with seeing dead children being pulled out of classrooms.

There was a tale of two different members of Congress this week. Representative Jamal Bowman was in the Capitol building. I mean, just shaming, yelling at the Republican leaders as they were coming out from the floor, pointing at them yelling. It went viral because he's disgusted at looking at his colleagues and their spinelessness, their cowardice, their callousness, right? You had the chaplain who oversees and prays before session say that he is tired of thoughts and prayers and please God provide these senators with the moral courage that they need to act. Then on the right, you had Timbershett who said to a reporter, yeah, they, they're This is awful, but there's nothing we can do about it.

Criminals are going to crime. That's what he said. He is a representative from Tennessee. I could not, Basil, when I saw that man say, as the bodies of those children are still warm and still riddled with bullets, criminals are going to crime, so there's nothing we can do about it. Right. So the interesting thing about Jamal Bowman is that he actually represents the district I grew up in where I got shot. Mm-hmm.

So I am glad to, you know, first of all, I'm just glad to see that he took a stand and he's, you know, he engaged those members rightly and appropriately in the sense that one of the things that I've said about this Trump era of politics, whether it's attributed to Trump or not, but this era of Trumpian politics, what it's done is it's eliminated guilt. And in that sense, there are folks like Timberchette and other members that will look at what happened and say, well, exactly, that, you know, criminal's going to crime. And they're, They'll do what they do. And he also said, there's nothing we can do to fix it. You know, we're not going to fix it. And, you know, one would think that if you're a leader, you would try. But there isn't even an attempt. You had the member whose name escapes me who had circulated a picture, a Christmas photo, a Christmas card with his family holding assault weapons.

And it's, you know, this is after, again, several shootings that are already taking place. and there is no shame, there is an elimination of guilt, and when you take away those guardrails, those sort of human guardrails, that as a country we would think that when we talk about American exceptionalism that we're supposed to have, when we take away those sort of moral and humane guardrails, this is what happens. It's not just in the criminality from the point of view of the shooter, but it's also on the accountability on the part of the part of of the people who should know better, who should be making laws to protect us, who are basically not doing their job. I mean, just straight, not doing their job and ignoring everything that's in

front of them. Because that in and of itself, like you're saying, is criminal, right? It is a dereliction of duty to be voted in, to represent your constituents and then to look them in the face, as Burchett said, and we're not going to fix it. That's right. We're not going to fix it. There's nothing we can do. So I'm saying to myself, well, then why the hell are you in office? You ran, so what, so that you could fill up your bank account, so that you could cozy up with corporate donors? You know, what is your point? And earlier this week, much like many people, I want folks to understand that there are a majority

of Americans, poll after poll after poll, a majority of Americans want to live in a safe country. And I just don't understand, Basil, how we continue to say or continue to even allow to be said that America is exceptional, that America is this wealth. nation when we are morally bankrupt. I don't know another nation that allows babies to be murdered in their classroom for doing nothing other than daring to go to school that day. I don't know any other nation that makes the most jarring part of a caregiver's day is dropping a child off of the bus stop. So when we look at this continual moral failing of America, and I'm also watching

Basil as other citizens of other countries take to the streets from Israel to Iran to France taking to the streets because they are demanding better of their leaders and they are grinding their countries to a halt. What is stopping Americans from doing the same? What is it going to take for us to get off of our couches for more than a summer like we saw during racial uprising for George Floyd. What is it going to take? Yeah, I mean, I talk to my students about this very issue frequently. I mean, and one thing that I always think about is the moment where you change your behavior to accommodate the circumstance. And what I mean by that is, if you're a student, if you're an adult, if you're concerned about a particular issue, like, you know,

whether it's mass shootings and whether or not, you know, do you feel safe in your school or your college campus, whether you feel safe in the streets, whether you feel as though on issues like voter suppression, so on. Are you changing your behavior to accommodate the trend, to accommodate what's going on? And I think that's the one area that may make the difference between what you're seeing and what you're seeing in other countries versus what you're seeing. That in many ways, as a nation, we're encouraged to just move on. We're encouraged to just keep going and just carry this burden and this trauma on your back because anything, less is seen as weakness. It's seen even in the worst case scenario as unpatriotic. So you just

deal with it, right? That is not confronting the problem. We have seen in the case of, say, Congress member, Carolyn McCarthy, several years ago back in the 90s, she was a nurse on Long Island and her husband was killed. Yep, and the train shooting. And the train shooting and her son seriously injured. Public member of Congress did not support a gun control law and she was so upset. She ran as a Democrat and beat him and served in Congress. Lucy McBath runs for Congress after his son is killed in that stand-your-ground shooting. And so there are certainly courageous individuals who have taken a stand against not only policies that they think are unfair, but also the people who uphold those policies. And those individuals, particularly to their mention,

should be rightly champion. As a country, though, sometimes we're just too quick to move on to the next thing. And in some ways, and I would say this, a former law enforcement officer talking about this shooting said that the criminals have these long, powerful guns. Not every law enforcement agency has the same kind of weapons to counter that. If we did, we'd be some, quote, third world country. Now, I understand the point he was trying to make, and I do absolutely hate that term. Coming from Jamaica, I hate that term. Right. But the point is that, in his view, America is better than everybody else. We're not.

But we're not. We're clearly not. And until we get that out of our head and really get rid of the arrogance associated with that sentiment, then I do think that as a people will come together in a much more, not just in a stronger way, but in an elongated way, will come out stronger and push back more quickly and more forcefully in ways that we're seeing, as you said, in Israel and in France and in other countries, because those residents, those citizens feel that what's happening in their country is counter culture, counter their morals, counter their values.

When you see the lackadaisical attitude by members of Congress and by some leaders about these shootings and other issues related to it, they're not pushing back because they know this is our culture. This is reflecting our values and they revel in that. And so many of us need to say, no, this is not who we are. got to maintain the fight over periods of time and don't let the media cycle. We don't all respect to folks in the media because we're both a part of it. But, you know, the media cycle has a way of just kind of going to the next thing and we can't let that happen.

You know, I just think that there is a collective trauma in this nation that we have allowed, I think, complacency and this idea that this is who we are to be the bomb. to say that, oh, well, gun culture is a part of America. Well, to understand that, you know, it wasn't until the expiration of the assault rifles ban in 2004, did we see the proliferation in our society of AR-15s and other machine guns. And that we saw manufacturers turn this into, as they had said,

quote-unquote, the corvette of guns. So, again, AR-15, assault rifles, military weaponry, was not a part of our culture. It was the fringe. And much in the same way that we wanted to believe that Donald Trump was the fringe. So everybody laughed as he was running for office until we laughed his way into the White House. As much as we wanted to say that Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates and Paul Gosser, oh, they're fringe, they have now become the mainstream in the same way.

that the AR-15 has become the mainstream. That's right. And, you know, when you, I mean, the assault weapons ban is an incredible example of how policy done right could make substantial change. And then in the reverse of that, what happens? And everybody swoops in and says, this is our time, this is our moment. Let's make the money. Let's flood the market.

Let's change the culture around having an assault weapon. And if you look at the video from Nashville, you see the shooters shooting through the glass doors with that rifle. Why should any individual have that? I mean, you really do see with everybody, and no one's ever seen the power of that gun being used. You see it there in front of you. Why should anyone have that gun? Why think about what happened then when that person took that gun into that school, the firepower, the destructive power of that weapon on those bodies, those nine-year-old bodies and those adult bodies. This is something that so many Republicans in our system in our Congress will look at and say, yeah, that's terrible, but I'm not going to do anything

about it. Yeah, that's really sad, but, you know, still got to have these guns on the street because, you know, people need to still make money and, you know, folks need to be, you know, have their rights upheld. I mean, that's just absolutely ludicrous. And again, as you said, it's sort of a dereliction of their duty as leaders to really shape the future of this nation for these young people who now, at least in the case of these three, don't have a future because they're dead. That's so tragic. There's a quick point I would make is we've talked excessively about why having these weapons is problematic, why the Second Amendment in many cases is problematic.

And when I talk to my students, they'll say that this is just something that they've grown up with. Yeah. They were born after Combine, but they're, they're first. first sort of, and I hate to say it this way, but their first mass shooting was Sandy Hook. So in some ways, I think, no matter what we do now, there's a lot of damage already done to this younger generation because they've, as we talked about trauma earlier, this trauma now becomes internalized. Because every time they see something like this on the news, not only is it almost numbing for them,

you know, after a period of time, but they again have to find ways to alter their behavior, even if they're not conscious of it, to make sure that they can stay safe and feel safe and secure in some of these environments. And that's really sad. We are raising a generation of American that is not only accustomed to seeing mass shootings and extraordinary violence, particularly directed at young people, they've in some ways almost normalized it in how they have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis. And that is, that is tragic. Yeah, that is absolutely tragic. Dr. Basil Smichael, thank you so much for making time to have this conversation on the new abnormal.

We absolutely appreciate it and appreciate, you know, you being the one to stand in front of young people and try and guide them through this moment and hopefully become public policy advocates that can figure out something better. Thank you so much for having me. I was glad to be on with you. Danielle Moody. Andy Levy. So who is your first? Fuck that guy for this fabulous Friday.

You know, ending a pretty shit fucking week. I've decided not to just make it a person, but an entire state, as one is doing in these divided states of America that we are living in. So Idaho takes the fucking cake this week. Idaho, which, according to the Huffington Post, already has some of the most extreme abortion restrictions on the books, has passed a new piece of legislation. House Bill 242, which is expected to also sail through the Republican-held Senate. And this is what the bill seeks to do, Andy.

It seeks to limit minors' ability to travel for abortion care without parental consent. The legislation would create a whole new crime, dubbed, quote, abortion trafficking, which is defined in the bill as a, quote, adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant unmancipated, either procures an abortion or obtains an abortion-inducing drug for that minor. Recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within the state commits the crime of abortion trafficking. Let me tell you something. I hate this place so much that we are in.

I think about these disgusting Supreme Court justices and they're lying smug asses when they said that Roe v. Wade was precedent in their Senate confirmation hearings. I cannot stand that we live at a time when books and curriculum are banned, but AR-15s are worn on the lapel of our members of Congress. I cannot stand that instead of actually protecting children from harm, we are going to force them to become parents. And we're going to force people who actually want to care for and tend to the lives of children, we're going to call them abortion traffickers. Like, what the fuck? I just am so, like, we are so fucking upside down right now, and I don't know if in our lifetimes, we are going to see the United States become right side up.

But I got to tell you, Idaho, my fucking God, a disgrace, disgusting. I'm running out of deep. words, but like fuck the whole state, all of y'all, every single one. Yeah. And what sucks about this is they're getting creative because the bill doesn't, or the law, I guess, soon to be law, doesn't specifically talk about traveling to other states. So they are claiming, no, this is just for within Idaho, which of course is a lie because you already can't get abortions in Idaho, basically. Right. But there's some fear that because it doesn't specifically talk about traveling to other states, it may somehow pass constitutional muster, which, look, seems insane to me, but on the other hand, look, who's on the Supreme Court. So I have no idea how that would turn out. I'm out of words

to describe how we live these days. And so all I can say is fuck those guys. So to round out this superb week in America, Andy, tell us who your fuck that guy is. Let me start with a question, Danielle. Oh, please. If you were a member of Congress, would you hide. as a legislative aid, someone who is a convicted war criminal. Wait, hold on. That's just such a tricky question, Andy. I know. Let me think about that.

I feel like I sandbagged you there, and I'm sorry. Yeah. No, because I'm not a fucking idiot. But please, go ahead. Okay. Well, then you are at least a little bit better than Florida's Matt Gates. I mean, I would hope I'm a lot better than him, but please. At least in this one instance, Danielle, you're better than him.

Gates has hired a guy named Derek Miller to work on military policy. He served eight years for shooting an Afghan civilian in the head in 2010. Wait, what? Yeah. He shot a 27-year-old man in the head during an interrogation. He was a National Guard member, according to another National Guard member. Miller threatened to kill Adam Muhammad if he didn't tell him the truth, then sat on top of him and then shot him in the head, killing him and then said, I shot him. He was a liar. He then left Muhammad's body in a latrine, which you don't do in the military. And he served eight years in prison for this. And that, apparently in the mind of Matt Gates, qualified him to be a legislative assistant on military policy, a guy who violated military policy so badly that he spent eight years in prison for it. I can't stand

the phrase, let that sink in, but come on. I should note that. I should note that, All of this has been, this is as reported by the intercepts, can Clippenstein, if that is his real name. Again, it's insane to me that things like this, I don't know how you can do this. How can you do this? There's two possible answers here. Either Gates didn't know, in which case he is an absolute moron who has horrible staff way beyond this guy. Or Gates knew and doesn't care. I guess there's a third possibility, which is that Gates knew and thought it was a plus. which actually now that I think about it is probably the case. So fuck Derek Miller, who did this, and fuck Matt Gates for hiring him as a legislative aide. Oh, my God.

Yeah. How is it that the formally incarcerated, which, by the way, Florida politicians, Republicans, voted against the people's will in wanting to provide formally incarcerated people with the ability to. gain their right to vote. Right. How is it that some formerly incarcerated people can't work in a grocery store, but you can be hired as a legislative assistant for a member of Congress? What the entire fuck? You know what?

Everything is dumb. Everything is dumb. Everything is horrible. Matt Gates knew. I'm sure he knew. He knew. Of course he knew. Because his smug fucking face always, I hate them.

Fuck all of them. Fuck all of them. Yeah. The entire state. Trash. Yeah. Also, probably not a surprise to learn that before he worked for Gates, Miller was a military advisor for Louis Gomer.

Wow. Wow, Andy. You really picked one today. Bravo. Bravo. You win. Have a great weekend. Yeah.

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