The Daily Zeitgeist - Election Night Jamboree: We Still Won't Know! 11.3.20

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

In episode was 751, Jack and Miles are joined by activist and organizer Taz Ahmed to discuss election night updates.FOOTNOTES: Most States Have No Laws About Guns in Polling Places Michigan Supreme Court declines to intervene in challenge to open carry at the polls States grapple with open-carry gun laws and the polls Election Security Experts Warn of Voter Intimidation as 'Trump Train' Caravans Plan to Pass Through Polling Sites Suspicious robocall campaign warning people to ‘stay home’ spooks voters nationwide Three Words That Haunt Joe Biden: ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

hello the internet and welcome to this election night special of your daily zeitgeist a production of iheart radio this is a podcast where we take a deep dive into american share consciousness so on and so forth i do believe uh the election results thus far have done some manner of neurological damage to me. I've like gone through a folksy phase where I'm like speaking like folksy ways or like writing in our dock and folksy ways. And then I don't know. My cadence is all off. But it's what is it?

It's like Tuesday, November 30, 1040 Eastern time. Yeah, 1040 Eastern, 740 Pacific. I'm Jack O'Brien. That's Miles Gray. You didn't have an AKA, did you? No, I think we could just focus on the matter at hand without getting too musical. Yeah. Well, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by the brilliant the talented

hi everyone hi hi thank you for joining us uh late on this night when i'm sure you would typically just be relaxing with a glass right to bed um yeah i am nail biting on the edge of my sofa you said something uh that made me feel good before we started recording you said that as a organizer like the organizing community was this is like what they expected they expected it to be tight and they expected uh something that hasn't happened yet but that we expect like Trump fuckery is going to start popping off on Twitter at some point. Yeah, it's going to happen soon. So there's a website actually,

if you go to democracyrising.live and they have this kind of countdown on time remaining until Biden pulls ahead. And so I just think that like, it's what's bringing me comfort. I just keep going to this website going like okay like they've done the math they know that like once he wins uh biden wants the west coast we're gonna be in total votes for biden and we're just in that in-between point

where you know the states are red because we're just counting poll day voters right i mean there's some like florida has been counting so florida did not go well that's like the one thing we know for sure like trump exceeded his polling in florida yep uh biden did the opposite of that wait can i push back on florida a little bit because i know we are talking about the presidential election cycle but i'm i have an organizer that i've been working with in Miami she works for an organization called Power U and she just texted me that they elected a progressive mayor in Miami probably probably Miami and I think you know like we are gonna have terrible wins but Miami Dade County turned out blue and it turned out progressive for their local mayor.

Yeah. Just not in the numbers like last time. I think that was the big thing that they said, like, oh, okay, so didn't do too well. Where they're being like, Cubans and Hispanics. Oh, my God. I can't take it. What the? I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. What is Cuba then? Pardon me. That's a very interesting. The other thing where I think people are also seeing too is there's like people need to stop looking at certain votes as like a monolith. Right. Because I think for all the people that are like, oh, my God, I don't understand. Like there are a lot of Latinos coming out for Trump. It's like, well, not everyone subscribes to the same like belief system, like of what it means to come to america what it means to be self-sufficient

like everyone has very different versions of that that they're looking at the country uh through and so i think that's that's an interesting thing i will say the one nice thing so far is that we have not heard about terrible violence at polling places yeah yeah implied and threatened violence uh there's been trump trump trains uh and caravans that uh look like some kind of as jam or it's fun to get right all right we have a writer from canada who just like writes about this stuff just with his mouth a gape uh from from canada and he was saying that you know it from where he's sitting it looks like a tackier version of mad max fury road down here uh just choking the

highways actually like driving through or ending at polling places uh just very very strange and and they as we talked about like in baker's field and other places they are uh violent they're angry so i don't know like i as we we set the bar pretty low with like the no violence no violence nobody attacked each other at the polling place i think there is violence now happening outside the white House because both Trump and Biden supporters are gathering. But I think it's a big headline. Other than Florida, we're not going to know. We're not going to know. There's so much going on.

Yeah. Just again, I wish the media like Steve Kornacki would just You know always throw a caveat On MSNBC like yeah there's still A lot of mail-in votes to count too I know we're kind of getting back into that cycle Of like oh wow remember this from 2016 Let's do it all over again But yeah I mean it's

Slow going but the shit is Tight you know what I mean like I don't Maybe the blowout happens In the popular vote. But the in terms of like the fucked up electoral college shit is very tight. It's very tight. And I think honestly, I think everyone should have expected that given the nature and the degree of polarization that we have in the country. Like it's people are, you know, split on shit.

And we're just seeing that in so many ways just play out yeah i just think that like it's split but but we're in a fucking pandemic like they're in a death cult like i just yeah like like how how it's wild because yeah repeated like that we we've called it a death cult for a while on this show but like they're actually you know coming out in full force uh to tell us that no that's what we are we will die for this motherfucker because he validates our identity by it's not just like they get a small charge out of like his sick burns on the libs like they validate something about them that is very powerful to the point that they will let him kill them uh in order to just continue to have that feeling whatever whatever that feeling

is um you know so depressing let them let them fucking freeze while he flies off in a helicopter it's wild truly yeah like he just what like all of these rallies he's just dropping them or that he's taking busting them to the spot letting them like walk walk their way back home yeah so i i do feel like i don't know that i got i i feel like the mainstream media sucked me in to this fool's gold world where i don't know like it was like i reverted back to 90s era democratic thinking where it was just like, well, yeah, no, everybody loves Joe Biden now because he's like the middle of the road guy and everybody's

you know, I'm just being brought back to when like during the Democratic primary when I was like, nobody's going to support this motherfucker. He's old and just like doesn't really stand for anything nobody's excited about him

um but i feel like the dnc and the mainstream media speak with such a like unified voice that it's like hard to not get sucked into just these you you know, like I thought Cornyn was going down in Texas. He won. Biden was favored by like 70% in Florida, according to the polling averages. It's just like, I think these are part of the same issue. I think the fact that those people are so angry at the mainstream liberal, neoliberal culture, cultural elite, in quotes, that they will die for President Trump is probably related to the fact that that cultural elite cannot figure them out, cannot even conceive of them when it comes to polling, when their lives are like on the line, they just like, can't get them. Uh, yeah.

It's, they're just like invisible to them. And that's probably all about polarization. Yeah. I mean, you know, we just, we just gotta keep watching.

I'm like, I I'm really, you know, especially with like things like, you know, now obviously Miss Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, obviously have, but it's all looking over there, that blue wall up there.

And Pennsylvania barely counted a fucking thing. Yeah, 34% at this point. Yeah, it's and like, you know, that's why I just I feel like the one thing I got to do is take myself out of the fucking like watching water boil phase. Yeah, yeah. it take myself out of the fucking like watching water boil phase yeah yeah because it's like anything you know like i feel like just as human beings we have this instinct or this impulse to be like if i why if i stay on top of it my eyes may affect what is going to come on the screen yeah uh and really it just it's a matter of process my magical thinking is bad right now my magical thinking uh my my son is obsessed with asking alexa what the air quality is because of the fires he like he asks alexa like 20 times a day what the air quality is in los angeles and right uh it was 45 this afternoon i was like

fuck trump's gonna win the election 45 degrees yeah it's 45 particulate matters like per whatever oh right right right the qpi or q whatever and that just whatever i was like well there it is we're losing he's gonna do it again so that's where my brain is at just fully broken but i'm i'm willing to acknowledge that yeah yeah i i think other than that there's a total lack of i think emphasis on the senate races that i've seen uh you know because there's a lot that goes hand in hand with who controls the senate with the ability to get things done especially at this point because we know the house isn't going anywhere um like that's a wrap but the senate is still you know i don't think so lindsey

graham won yeah lindsey graham won uh you know doug jones you know he did he did the right thing he didn't do the thing that maybe someone in his position would have done which was vote with the republicans to try and save his skin in a election uh and yeah you know tommy t came through so yeah mitch m. Mitch McConnell won too. Yeah, Mitch McConnell won. Yeah, that was always, I think, that was a wrap. That was a wrap. He had like purple hands, right?

So he must have like made some sort of deal with the devil. Oh, absolutely. And if you're the devil, please call in. The devil personified. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious. What's the deal look like, Satan?

Just let me know. What are the deal points? Purple hands. Yeah, if we're curious. What's a deal look like, Satan? What are the deal points? Purple hands? Yeah, if we're going in business together. I'm a little concerned by seeing... So I've been following the Rogue POTUS staff. They just tweeted, a lot of people are getting mad at us

for telling you what's happening. But the fact is, it's going better for POTUS than expected. Going better for POTUS than expected. Going better for POTUS than expected. Yeah. Which is, ugh. I think, yeah, I think that became clear when there was no smash happening in any of these other, like, swing states. Like, hey, maybe North Carolina, maybe Georgia.

But, again, still fully not done done. So, I don't know. Whatever. That's right. Either way, like, no matter what happens, and I just keep reiterating this. The mission of like good hearted people is going to be the same, you know, like no matter who the driver is, we're still in a fucked up car. That is a danger to everybody else on the road. And it's still very difficult to navigate and maneuver. And that's where, you know, the hard work is trying to change this vehicle that we're all riding together in to make it be something that works for everybody.

But yeah, I'm just going to reserve my energy for when the reality is what it is. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back after this. And we're back do we even want to put ads in a election episode i was noticing that people on twitter were like there's sure a lot of like ads for watching like our democracy burned down uh it's fun to like get sold cars while you're watching your democracy burn down so yeah this is america hey um yeah i so philadelphia uh i think owes america an explanation just so in georgia we i can't i can't remember if we mentioned it on mic or before we started recording but uh georgia there is a burst pipe uh which this shit always seems to happen uh when it when it's gonna benefit the democrats or progressive candidate but there's a burst pipe at uh at an arena that is the biggest vote counting

arena and then there's also a software error that has made it so they can't count 270 000 uh mail-in votes in georgia so i but yo like they have an excuse they're like they gave their reason for why those things uh are not being counted immediately in philadelphia they're just like yeah now we're gonna go home we're calling yeah we did about 76k votes yeah i'm going to wawa yeah i'm going to uncle yugi's we're gonna get some wawa but yeah i'm like i'm like well how many votes are on the table they're like okay we got through 75 000 of about 350 000 and i'm like okay okay all right well and those are obviously as we're seeing huge numbers for biden is coming in the early vote but what's funny is like how even pundits are like and then that early vote, as if every early vote is exclusively for Donald Trump.

Like no person who votes Democrat is also voting on the day. But what I don't know, like it's it's just very unsettling to like watch people try and pretend like things are settled when they're very much close. And like, there's all kinds of things in play. Uh, but I think maybe that could be a self preservation mechanism. I don't know,

but either way, uh, I mean, the polls are still open in California. We don't close until 8 PM here. Yeah. So we were still literally in, in game still.

Yeah. I'm curious to see how a lot of votes go, especially in art in LA County. That'll be interesting. I'm curious what happens with Jackie Lacey, if she's still the district attorney. Oh my gosh. If Nithya's gonna win her city council seat, if Measure J passes, if we're gonna side

with Uber to not classify people who work for Uber and Lyft as employees. I think they're gonna win that one. They fucking blew it out with that messaging like they really made it look like you were gonna kill a single mother if you voted no and i feel like they paid their work like their drivers or maybe like their drivers are just like yo i do this as a part-time job but like i know people who are like yeah but when i talk to uber

drivers they're like yeah no, no vote. No. Like we want to be able to. Yeah. So I don't know if that's paid. That's SponCon for their people in the labor minds. Just be like, hey, we'll give you, we'll float you an extra 50 driver points that can be redeemed for an extra 50 cents an hour for a drive time limited offer anyways um that that's that's the one where people were trying to legislate so that uber and lyft had to pay

drivers and like cover them and you know treat them like employees yeah with benefits and health care things like that. Sickly. Here in California, we do so much. Only about half the states in the U.S. have ballot initiatives the way we do in California. And I'm just looking at the LA Times article that says that $785 million

went into these 12 ballot measures this year. Which is just bananas to me. I hate ballot initiatives so much. I've always been anti-ballot initiatives because I think we just need to elect smart people to run our legis run our policies for us and that we shouldn't have to be voting on this as voters that's just absurd 785 million dollars into these 12 ballot initiatives right where would that money go if there weren't ballot initiatives? Into treating drivers as employees and pay for the benefits

that you're trying to not fucking pay for. You've already spent the money, you fucking scumbag. Just fucking treat people humanely. There's precedents involved here, man. Gotta start treating some people, some employees like humans, then where's it gonna end?

Treat all humans like humans? What? I do think that it does seem like there's not going to be a Democratic blowout. Miles, as you said, this is going to be a nail-biter. This is going to be razor thin. Thinner than Sean Paul Gauthier. Yeah, even thinner. That's what Kornacki was saying.

Yeah. Well, this race in America, if you look right here, you'll see that this is going to be thinner than now. John Paul goatee air Cologne fill the air. Um, but I,

like I saw somebody making the point on the five 38 live blog that like, it's pretty clear that there's not going to be like a landslide rebuke of Trumpism. And so the Republicans will, you know, if he overperforms his polls, which it seems like he's going to, um,

you know, Republicans like this is their future. They, they see this as the future now of just, you know, populism and uh identity politics and fucking q anon uh we saw q anon adherent get elected uh to congress in georgia um and that could be a sign of things to come in the future the republican party uh yeah do Do you think Republicans are upset by this? No. I mean maybe the Lincoln Project

is like those Republicans but I don't know. They had that autopsy after the 2012 election where they're like well what do we do? We're going to have to like change things. We'll have to like find a way to become more moderate and instead they went in the opposite direction and that ended up being the the future um yeah yeah well again like it's a weird night for i think to put a lot of energy into the results yeah like at this point because like we've just even been saying like we're not gonna fucking know like we're not yeah so maybe we won't come back to you like this is gonna be our episode in the

morning for the morning like we're gonna put it up tonight but don't expect us to be dropping anything tomorrow morning uh we're gonna wait for a little bit let these results come in uh i'm honestly feeling like 80 it's gonna be a trump win but like it's too early for me to feel that way but that's just uh my magical thinking at this point uh i do i still feel pretty confident about a biden popular like total vote win i think biden's to win total vote. I think it'll win total vote. It just doesn't matter. Sadly. Not enough to become the president. We're going to have to win one of these elections to make it stop being so that doesn't matter. We're going to have to win a couple congressional.

We're going to have to win a pretty giant majority in Congress. And it just doesn't seem like they can fuck up hard enough for that to happen. Yeah. For the Democrats, because the Democrats are bad at their job. Yep. Yep. Yep. Truly.

It would seem. All right. Taz, what were you working on this election, like in terms of organizing? This election cycle, I was, or I am the senior narrative specialist at a group called APIs for Civic Engagement Fund. We basically do, we fund civic engagement work for API communities. So a lot of our work was, you know, giving money out to grassroots API organizations on the ground. And I was specifically engaged with working on an election art project called Voting Together, where we commissioned 13 different pieces of artwork. So we had music, videos, poetry, images of API artists making

art for elections. Hell yeah. Very cool. It's exciting. So what are you guys going to do for the remainder? You just going to go to bed and do the mantra, man. Count the motherfucking votes.

Yeah, count the votes. But what are you going to be doing while they count the votes. We're gonna count the votes. But what are you gonna be doing while they count the votes is my question. I'm done. I think it's stupid to look at the fucking screen tonight. Yeah. I honestly feel that way. It's really like this fucked up self-torture thing where like you can

feel like a physiological sensation. You know what I mean? Watching like, ah, ah. Like, yo, turn that shit off. Because at the end of the day you gotta count that shit up and whatever comes is gonna come and that's the thing i have to like i'm also just reminding myself again no matter what the problems are not solved and yes there we could have we could have four more years of this bullshit um but until we have like a majority of people that we can really all get on the same fucking page

to like pull in the right direction this is gonna be the you know the undulations of a shitty quote unquote democracy so yeah just wait for the fucking votes and then we'll see then we'll go from there

I was talking to my wife who's back with her folks right now and I was you know they wife who's back with her folks right now. And I was, you know, they were like, wow, you look sick. Are you all right?

And I was like, ah, they just, it's just called Florida. The, the New York times needles pointing towards Trump in Florida. And she was like, yeah,

well, there's nothing we can do about it. Right. I was just like, ah, that's smart. You are a smart person. I mean, the thing is like, I think there's nothing we can do about it, right? I was just like, duh, that's smart. You are a smart person. I mean, the thing is,

I think there's obviously count every vote. Obviously, Trump's going to declare something in the next whatever, couple hours. Obviously, that's not going to count for anything because all the votes haven't been counted. And traditionally, the only way the winner gets declared is when the opponent like concedes so

also obviously Biden is not going to concede this election until all the votes are counted so we just we have a long race in front of us but I think so that's like the like intellectual part I think I still think people are gonna like take to the streets I feel like something might happen at the White House I feel like things are gonna at the White House. I feel like things are going to happen in urban cities with lots of people. I know downtown LA is all boarded up. I don't know when things are going to pop off,

but I feel like things might pop off either tonight or tomorrow night. If Trump wins. Who knows? I think both. A lot of energy. Yeah. Alright, guys. Well, get some rest. It's a lot of energy yeah alright guys well get some rest it's a long election and even if it's

not a long election we will need our energy in the coming days I now sound like a fucking character in a post apocalyptic movie right rest up young one you will need your energy for us to fight in the

franchise wars yeah i'm going to uh also reach out to uh jason pargin because i know a lot of people have been hitting me up about trying to get him on to reprise our uh conversation the day after the last trump victory um so i'll see if we can get him in the next week. Right. But until tomorrow, stay safe, stay sane. Don't do nothing about white supremacy.

Yep. And we will talk to y'all tomorrow. Yep. Sleep well.