Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews - 4/06/21 - Alabama Vs Amazon

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Tonight we dive into what many are calling the greatest labor struggle of the 21st century as the good people of Bessemer, AL take on the Goliath that is Amazon in their efforts to unionize. Plus a conversation with author Andrew Seidel on the dangers of Christian Nationalism. And more!Support the show

Howdy there, everybody. Today is Tuesday, April 6, 2021. I'm Trey Crowder. And that back after a one episode hiatus is Mark Aegee. Good to have you back, buddy. How's it going? It's going great, man. Yeah, I had to miss last week due to a dentist appointment I couldn't move because my health insurance was running out.

We're going on Cobra for a little bit. Ain't that America. Yeah, if you guys that are overseas and wondering what the hell I mean by my health insurance is running out, that's a very American phenomenon where basically to get to the doctor, you have to answer this series of, you were trying to take a ring to mortar. That's what trying to go to the doctors like in America. But so Corey subbed in for me, and my understanding is that I didn't watch his episode back, but I saw his public apologies he issued afterwards. So if you could fill me in on what exactly he did. Yeah. So, you know, we have Marcus Flowers on running for Congress there in Marjorie Taylor Greens

and also Corey Rhyme Forrester's district, the district where Corey lives. Because Corey and Marcus are both from there, Corey knows Marcus. They've went back and forth, multiple, they've talked on the phone, a bunch of stuff. They know each other. Corey's our senior Georgia correspondent. Marcus, we're talking to him about coming on the show. And he had mentioned that, like, you know, what if Corey, I know Corey is on the show. a lot. What if Corey was on the show? And that would be great. And I was like, hey, good news.

Mark ain't going to be there. But I was like, not only would Corey be on the show, Corey's guest hosting this week. So this is, and George's in the news. This is the perfect week to do it, Marcus. And he was like, great. Stars have aligned. So Corey comes on. So keep that in mind that, like, Marcus wanted Corey on the show. And who doesn't? Corey's great. Uh-huh. Yeah. But Corey, he was like, he talked to me. before I was like, look, you know, I'm not smart Mark. And I was like, buddy, I know. We all know you're not smart Mark. It's fine. I'll try to fill in as much as I can for Smart Mark. You just come on and respond. You just react. You just hit

whatever. And he was like, okay, well, you know, I can handle that. So smooth sailing. He's just hitting. He's doing his thing. We had talked repeatedly about Mark is coming on halfway through. But then we start and we go for 30 minutes and Corey's just going and he's

drinking. He's having a good time. And then he happens to, right before U.S. Army veteran Marcus Flowers is about to come on and talk about his congressional campaign, literally right, but 15 seconds before that, Corey goes, you know, they try to act like we're the weirdos or whatever else. But as far as I'm concerned, conservatives are the ones that are always got an apple in their mouth while their old lady pegs them in the butthole while they watch tool time and shit like that. and I was just like okay well he is the Army veteran running for for Congress and joining and when I did that

Corey was like he put his hands on his head he was like I forgot I totally forgot Marcus was coming on the show and Marcus was like yeah we'll talk about it tomorrow Corey it's yeah don't worry it is I think they had a little discussion the next day but everybody's good we're all still both it is but yes

yeah it's beyond hilarious to me that because Marcus is word about the appearances he does because he's not media trained and media savvy, right? He's just fucking doing a shoestring campaign David versus the Goliath

that is Marjorie Taylor Green and Georgia 7th or whatever and he's out of doing it on his own and he's skeptical of coming on our show because we're a couple of like a dick joke mechanics and but like you but so he's more comfortable with Corey who is I mean it's the best possible way

a loose cannon. And Corey makes him feel better about making it and then he makes a joke that, I mean, that's not something I particularly would do. Right. It wasn't, it wasn't that Marcus was anti-smart Mark, of course, but yes, we talked a lot beforehand and, like, he had some, he had some, you know, he was a little trepidacious about him getting on here and me or you saying, why don't you just hit Marjorie Taylor Green with a fucking bus, be done with it, you know, or whatever. And he's like, you know, I can't,

I can't do that. And we put in his mind today, he's like, it won't be like that, man. We're cool. We ain't going to do that. And in the meantime, he was like, well, you know, you're buddies with Corey. I'm buddies with Corey. Corey comes on the show. Let's also have Corey, you know, like made him a little more comfortable. And then that's how that played out. That was his mistake.

That was his mistake. Yes, of course. But still hope he wins. You need people who don't have media training who are willing to do shit like this to talk to their constituents in Congress. So vote for Marcus Flower. Yes, please vote for Marcus Flour. Now, yeah, Marcus rules. And yes, the whole situation.

It was funny. We all had a good time. It was good, but we're glad to have you back, Mark. So, and also with us as always, producer Matt doing his thing. This here is weekly skews. Tonight, we're going to dive fully into what some are calling the greatest labor struggle of the 21st century. It revolves around the good people of Bessemer, Alabama, in their fight against the Goliath that is Amazon in their attempts to unionize. To that, I say, for the first and only time in my adult life with sincerity, roll tight.

Also, we will have a conversation with author and constitutional attorney Andrew Seidel, who works with the Freedom from Religion Foundation to ensure the separation of church and state in America and educate the public on the subject of non-belief. Happy Easter, y'all. All that and more on tonight's skews, but first, as always, we begin with the Daily Dumbass. Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's D.D., anyone who thought it was impossible. to out weirdo Tucker Carlson. They said it couldn't be done, but enter Florida Congressman

Matt Gates, who as we mentioned last week, is under investigation for alleged sex trafficking involving a minor. Here's what he had to say about all that when he appeared on Tucker's show. I'm not the only person on screen right now who's been falsely accused of a terrible sex act. You were accused of something that you did not do, and so you know what this feels like. I can say that actually you and I went to dinner about two years ago. Your wife was there and I brought a friend of mine. You'll remember her. And she was actually threatened by the FBI.

I really saw this as a deeply troubling challenge for my family on March 16th when people were, you know, talking about a minor and that they were pictures of me with child prostitutes. Yeah, yeah. Talking about a bold strategy. I haven't heard anyone say there were pictures of him with child prostitutes. He just introduced that into order to deny it. And I also be like, you and your wife were there, Tucker. She looked 18 to you, right? She looked 18 to you.

It's like, that's so fucking funny. Yeah, and starting that with being like, like, going on this major conservative platform in an effort to address these very serious allegations that just came out about you. And choosing the approach of, look, you know how it is. Like, you've been there, right? You know what it's like to have people say shit about, like, people. I'm not the only one to have been accused of horrific sex crimes or whatever. It's like, maybe don't go in on the host like that.

Yeah, it's worth noting he hasn't been been on Fox News again since then, and I've only been mentioned once he got fucking disappeared. He, like, you remember in Soviet Union when they would, like, erase people from pictures? Right. He's gone, buddy. but one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this and the clips a couple days old, maybe a lot of you guys have already seen it,

is that, like, that was the day the story came out. And if you can tell what he's actually been accused of by those denials, then you're a smarter person than me because I could not figure out what the hell he had actually done or been accused of doing because he's done a really good job of flooding the zone bullshit. He's also pulling this,

the deep state's trying to frame the card, or also he's undercover working for the deep state. I don't know. It's not fucking clear what he's doing. He said his dad wore a wire or some shit. so we've been trying to figure out what exactly how exactly he's connected to this so this is good this dude Seminole County Florida tax assessor but anyway Joel Greenberg all right Joel is a bit of a dirt bag he's got a bunch of weird stuff he's under he's only been

indicted for five things so far the first one so he got a he got caught a couple years ago he's a tax collector right he made a tax collector badge for himself and which tax collectors don't get badges and he was using it to do traffic stops, all right? And not even, you're like, oh, he's pulling over women. They're like, no, like, apparently these are just people that pissed him off driving. You thought they drove shitty. So he pulled them over to yell at them.

He had a light in his dashboard and pulled him over this taxed like a badge. Now, he didn't get criminally charged for that because apparently he didn't tell anybody he was a cop. He sincerely thought he had that authority as a county tax collector. All right. So that's just the example of what a weirdo is. Yeah, dude, fucking a guy, like a public official making a badge for himself and going around pulling people over and be like, Joe Greenberg, tax cop. that is so Florida man like just it's such it's such a small like like tax collectors are really

powerful dude like you decide what everybody's house is worth like everybody everybody's afraid of the tax man everybody you can you can do a lot of chicanery and crooked shit and help your good old help your boys out with a lot in a lot of ways you don't need to pretend to be a cop in order to feel powerful as a tax collector right that's just something to point out so matt is boy like these guys are very close they hang out a lot they post a lot instagram stuffies together they party hard right um and so uh so the first you got a this guy greenberg got on law enforcement's radar because he started an anonymous twitter campaign to harass the school teacher including accused him of being a pedophile and uh being a white supremacist just to get this guy in trouble

so with internet internet harassment campaign um cops raid his house they find a bunch of fake IDs in his car all right turns out what he's doing his tax collector i guess in florida you're turning your old driver's license the county tax collector he would keep them all your old IDs you turn in and use him to make fake IDs for himself. So you got accused of identity theft. That's indictment number two, I believe. Now, it turns out he'd also used those IDs to make a fake ID for a 14 to a 17-year-old girl according to an indictment.

Now, you think of all the reasons you'd make a fake ID for a teenage girl you're not related to to be hanging out with. And there comes in the sex trafficking indictment because the New York Times is saying that Matt Gates is connected to the same girl that Greenberg made the fake ID for. all right so are we closing the loop here a little bit uh so and then it turns out that uh uh greenberg and gates had went to greenberg's office on a saturday night and been caught on a video rifling through that big box of fake IDs don't know what they were doing they don't have any reasons to be doing that so they so and it's also worth pointing out that

Gates represents the panhandle, and Seminole is Orlando, basically, right? It's out right, like Sanford, Sanford, Florida, where George Zimmerman was from is in Seminole County. And, like, those are far apart, like a four-hour drive. Gates works in D.C. These are not natural dudes to be spending a lot of time together. The question becomes, what the hell are they have in common, right? Right. And so, and this isn't all, like, that's just all the illegal stuff that Gates has indicated in.

There's also a bunch of dirt bag stuff, like apparently there's a story that he's been showing dudes on the, I guess, other dudes probably on the floor of Congress, naked pictures of girls he's been seeing. He's engaged, by the way. He's also a congressman. Like, yeah, I mean, you shouldn't frat boy in an 80s sex comedy. Yeah.

Activities coming from an actual congressman who, yes, also is engaged. He's like, I check us up. Totally fucked her. Look at that. See that? Yeah. Look, she's sending me. Check that out.

You like that? Yeah. Those are real. So it's a dirtbag behavior in like 10 different ways. But yeah, you shouldn't be. do it no matter who you are, but also you're a congressman and you're engaged. All right, so it's so forth. Also, there's a story came out.

Apparently, this has been common knowledge, but he was in a state legislator in Florida. He created this points-based sex game that had Harry Potter elements where you got points depending on who you were slept with, right? And this one woman was known as the snitch. Now, if you're familiar with Harry Potter and Quidditch, I want you if you capture the snitch, the game is over. So there's one woman whose were so many points. If you, if you managed to sleep with her, you would, you'd won the game.

But everyone else got so many other points. So therein lies the character of Matt Gates. And this is why no one likes him and what Republicans are throwing him under the bus so quickly. Knowing all that, just go back to the clip from Tucker Carlson show and listen to how carefully his denial is framed. Matt, if you had that last video clip, pop it up.

The New York Times is running a story that I have traveled with a 17-year-old woman, and that is verifiably false. People can look at my travel records and see that that is not the case. head. Okay. He's hate. Yeah. Is that, so, all right, is that, you know, I kept her in the same place, okay? I never traveled with, or is that a, she was 15 when I traveled with her. By the time I traveled with her, she was 18, or she had an ID. I don't know where she got it,

probably somewhere in Florida from a guy named Joel Greenberg who said she was, you know, of age when I traveled with her. Like, he's playing the technicalities here. Like, the, explicit way in which I just described this deviancy is verifiably false. But every other variation of it, hey, that's in play, baby. He's hanging the entirety of his denial on this travel with thing. And when you combine that with his other, other denials I've seen in their places where he, he's basically saying, he said, all I did was pay for her airfare because, so I'm in trouble merely for being a generous boyfriend, all right?

because it seems like what he's saying is like the state that the age of consent was 17 in one place she the place I flew her from and the place I flew her too and you're trying to hang sex traffic only just because I paid for to travel between those two places and the thing is Matt yes that is explicitly what the federal sex trafficking statute is written for also you shouldn't be having sex with 17 year olds even if it's legal so I just fucking throw that out there it's like uh It's like, Tucker, listen, when I brought that child sex slave to the dinner I had with you and your wife, where was that? Florida. Exactly right. Where do I live? Florida. Ergo, what are you going to do? No sex trafficking. Is a plane ticket compensation for sex? Can you be, is that paying for sex? You pay for someone to travel to have sex with you? I don't know. It's close. I look forward to making that case in court. Yeah. Right, especially when the subject and question is a minor. Like, yeah, we're getting in the semantics of what is or is not sex trafficking, specifically where children are involved. I'm asking for a friend. Yeah, it's also just to roll us in our continuing conversation about Q&I and all the bullshit they're caught up in.

We've defined sex trafficking down to the Scooby-Doo fucking horse shit that is like, Like your kids are walking home and a guy in a mask, grabs them out of the bushes and whisked them away to a satanic ritual, right? Right. But that's not what it is. Never. It is what Epstein was accused of doing is paying girl, teen models to travel with them to various locations. Yeah. This is exactly what Gates was doing.

So grow the fuck up. And what you did was scumbaggy and illegal and you're going down for it. It appears to me you're going to see you're in serious trouble. All right. Yeah. I don't know, you know, yeah. I mean, I hope you're right. We'll see America is, you know, gone the other way multiple times before.

But, yeah, it seems like he's in a pretty rough spot again. When even, like, Carlson and the rest of Fox News are like, we don't fuck with this guy. He's probably in the best position. Yeah, I mean, he tried snitching, he tried snitching on Tucker to drag him in the boat with him. And it's, that's essentially, you know, yeah. On Tucker's show. Anyway. All right. So moving on again, let's get into the greatest labor struggle of the 21st century.

So if y'all have been following it, right now in Bessemer, Alabama, which is a small suburb of Birmingham, population of roughly 30,000 people, 71% of which are black, so largely black community there outside of Birmingham. They got a couple years ago a big Amazon warehouse, 1,500 new jobs. It was a big deal for the community. And now as of present day, there are nearly 6,000 Amazon warehouse workers who work at this four-story Amazon warehouse that's the size of 15 football fields. And they are attempting to unionize a large Amazon facility, which is the first time in Amazon's 25-year history. There's been a lot of talk in recent months and years about the conditions that Amazon workers, go through so far, no successful offense to unionize have materialized, but the people in Bessemer

are given it their damnedest. The voting on the subject is closed now. Ballots are on track to be counted any day now, sometime very soon, and could be announced this week. So we're about to find out how this all goes down, but it's been, to put it lightly, a whole thing, Mark. yeah i mean like if you you wonder why amazon so panicked about i mean like you want to gauge the level of panic one of the reasons the the voting takes so long is they're entitled to object to each and every ballot and that is what they are doing they are dragging this out make it as painful as possible like again this is this is this is how we treat presidential elections that come down to 200 votes right this is what this is like what we did in brownwood county

Florida in 2000. So it is very, very important to them. They seem to think it's life or death for the current version of Amazon. And it may very well be. But it's, I mean, you guys have still seen the numbers of how much Richard Bezos has gotten

during the pandemic, during which at this warehouse, they had an extra two bucks an hour of hazard pay from the first like two months of the pandemic. Then they got cut off last June. So this is one of the reasons they got super fucking pissed off and said a unionized. was that.

If they do vote to unionize, they'll bargain for a contract of Amazon under the retail wholesale and department store union, which represents staff in department stores like Macy's at H&M, as well as lots of poultry plant workers, which is important remember because that's the, that union's foothold in Bessemer is from local poultry plants. So that's what they, all these people have family members that are in that union at different other plants, right? If you're wondering why Bessemer, so Bessemer, a few basic details. else. Bessemer as a city was incorporated by a coal baron. It was a steel town. It sat on iron ore and

became a steel mill county. They've had a bunch of union fights there before. All these people, their parents and grandparents had good union jobs at steel plants. There's also a big coal fight there. There's an interracial coal strike union. The fight got racialized when the management tried to divide them. But 16 strike and miners were killed in a big union fight there in 1920. So this town has had labor struggles before and they're familiar with it's baked in the town's DNA not only being so close to Birmingham and all the civil rights movements connections so they are including like like MLK was arrested once in Birmingham and held in Bessemer and they still had they have his arrest papers in the town museum all right so uh all that's part of this town's history also

bo jackson and james winston are from Bessemer as is matilda the chicken the world's record holder of the world's oldest chicken who appeared to this night show and you can find that on you two that's one thing i discovered all right so Talking about the city's struggle with labor, we came across this clip that Matt found from Democracy Now, that thought's worth looking at because this guy explains why this region is so right for labor story. Yeah, this is a UCLA professor, historian, Dr. Robin D.G. Kelly discussing the matter. So yeah, Matt, play it whenever you got it. This is definitely the most significant labor struggle of the 21st century, no doubt. In fact, this is the largest NLRB election in three decades. I mean, because this is a big plan.

You're talking about 5,800, 6,000 workers. Now, in terms of Bessemer, Bessemer basically is part of Greater Birmingham. So it's hard to separate the two. These were industrial sections of a state. actually has long and continued to have the largest unionization rate of any southern state. Now, one of the things that we make this mistake of thinking the South as backwards, as conservative, but the South has been the epicenter of the country's most radical democratic movements, which is why it's completely, you know, unsurprising that Bessemer, Alabama would be the place

where you'd have a kind of renewed labor movement. all right so a couple of things about that he at the end of that clip we you know it's like almost three minutes long it's a long time to show a clip but at the end of that clip he says something like you know just served by nose and I'm paraphrasing obviously when we see these like these laws like voter suppression laws and these racist laws that come out Jim Crow types of legislation it's like that's not a coincidence that happens exactly because the powers that be in these states have seen the drastic impact of racial unity in opposition to them, they've seen it before in these labor disputes because that's what a lot of people maybe don't know.

It's not just Bessemer. It's like all kinds of cold disputes, Blair Mountain and stuff, where like in the early 20th century, a hundred years ago, you had racially integrated labor forces that joined hands and marched in an effort to unionize and were very violently quashed all around, especially the southern part of this country. So there's a big precedent for that type of thing happening. And it also shows, like he said, at the end of that, at the end of his clip, like the danger that they could face if people did, you know, kind of join hands and come together.

in opposition of these types of things, which is what's happening in Bessemer right now. Yeah, I mean, like, I never thought about it that way, but the South's history of oppressiveness has also created the DNA and the muscle memory for how to do organization, which is like we saw in Georgia there in the election and all. It's like people know how to, if you're talking about to organize or die, people know how to organize in the South because they've also lived on a threat of death, a lot of, you know, a lot of working people have. And talking about the coal mine strikes, like it's worth, it's worth mentioning, Amazon got caught literally hiring Pinkertons. They hired the Pinkerton detective agency.

I didn't know, I didn't realize that Pinkertons were actually still a thing. Like the bad guy from every Western, you know, Pinkerton, the Pinkerton man, that they were still a thing. That kind of blew my mind. But yeah, you're like literally, objectively, an actual fact, Amazon hired Pinkerton agents to spy on warehouse workers. They, I mean, they sort of invented it, but there's a lot of corporate intelligence firms that essentially do this work now. You're talking about, like, like, huge chunks of McKinsey and, like, K3 and, like, Cambridge Analytica is owned by a firm that does a lot of corporate intelligence work, which is like Harvey Weinstein hired the equivalent of pickerence to follow around as a queues and get dirt on them. Like, this is, these kind of people are still fucking around.

And they should all get other jobs or fuck off and die. my opinion this is a big fight you want to just get a little bit of sense of the stakes that Danny Glover flew in just to do a promo video check it out Matt has it I'm Danny Glover here in

Bessema Alabama and I'm here in support of workers here right here at Amazon right here with you knowing that it is a very important moment I just wanted to show that Danny video. Plus, I love the Amazon logo where the smiley face turns upside down.

It's just quality graphic design work. The graphics people should un-unized, too. So just to get into the silly shit, Amazon's doing their own online Pinkerton kind of stuff, where they hired a Twitter army. Some of the people seem to be organically real. Some of it seems to be AI-generated bots or corporate, like PR people pretending to be Amazon workers. But this program called Veritas, they're created a bunch of people who were paid extra

to say that working in Amazon's office. I mean, like, search out, like, people criticizing Amazon and be like, actually, I've never peed in the bottle and do shit like that. So they get a bunch of that and like they denied they were doing it, but then leaked internal corporate strategy documents detail like with the, like they didn't actually have the program actually had a name and they have strategy, yada, yada, yada. They, this is all been so fucking. Anyway, so the Amazon's done a bunch of shit, really crooked shit, okay? They bombarded their own workers with text messages on the private phones. They put up a bunch of oppressive workplace poachers, which you could imagine. But they hung on the inside of bathroom stalls.

You couldn't even take a – the two 15-minute bathroom breaks you'd get in a 10-hour day, which is true in an Amazon warehouse. You couldn't even take a shit without reading anti-union stuff. They started running anti-union ads on Twitch for Amazon workers. We had Twitch accounts. Workers are pulled off the line in a classroom-style meetings, which lasted hours where they were blasted. by anti-union propaganda.

Okay, all right, okay. Workers were pulled off the line for classroom-style meetings where they were blasted with anti-union propaganda. Now, this is an anecdote, and this isn't, it's not about Amazon, but still, I guarantee you they all pull from the same playbook. I got a good buddy that works for another big corporation that made a big, you know, we're bringing jobs to a part of Tennessee where I'm from, and he worked for them. And early on in the process, again, it's not Amazon, but still, same playbook.

He came back after he'd been working there for, I don't know, six months or so, and we were all hanging out and he told us the story about how early on they had this kind of like retreat on the subject of unionization. And they were all told like, we're going to present to you both sides of the argument fairly so you can make an informed decision, right? That's what they told them. And he said they came in there and they walked in the room, the classroom-style meeting room. And there was a big banquet of all these banquet table with all these donuts and coffee and stuff. set up and they walk the boss man walked in was like okay we're gonna our first speaker is going to be representative from the pro union organization blah blah whatever this is the union person to give you their perspective on the subject of unionizing and he said this lady walks in first thing

she did was walked over to the donuts literally spit onto the donuts and then start berating them all. It's like clearly she's not an actual union rep. It's like some actor they've hired to play the part of big union to, you know, for propaganda, anti-union propaganda that this major corporation did. And like, you know, what pisses me off, Mark? No subtlety, no nuance. Just going straight for the throat like that. But yeah, that's a true story that I told you third hand. But I, but he wouldn't lie. My buddy wouldn't lie. true story how you make that up it's so fucking ridiculous like like but you talk about why they need to unionize how one side of the power is like one thing amazon did was like the the voting booth

the polling location it's supposed to be a secret ballot they put it in the middle of the parking law wherever we're going to see who's voting and when they're going to vote all right that's against federal law they did it anyway um they work with the town they colluded with the town government to change the timing of a stoplight because union organizers were handing out literature the the stoplight from the plant during shift changes. So in that dynamic, I want to give, we don't give, we don't give Joe a lot of props. But in that dynamic where these workers are getting fucking basically threatened implicitly, if not explicitly, he became the first sitting president at a long time to come out

in favor of unionization without mentioning Amazon because that would be against federal law as saying, you guys should vote pro-union. He just acknowledged the importance of union and said that everyone should vote. So if you had that video queued up, just play a small chunk of it there. Today and over the next few days and weeks workers in Alabama and all across America are voting in whether to organize a union in their workplace. This is vitally important, a vitally important choice as America grapples with the deadly pandemic, the economic crisis, and the reckoning on race, what it reveals the deep disparities that still exist in our country. And there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda.

Yeah, and again, that seems like, you know, like a very, you know, like a very basic thing, a president should say you would think as like a working class person, but like you said, it's actually, you know, noteworthy because it's very rare for a president to make, a sitting president to make statements like that. So, yeah, good for me. And I hope, I mean, obviously the people, I hope the people felt like they could vote how they wanted to vote. And personally, I hope it, since the union driver is successful, but if it's not, I hope they all voted honestly, how they preferred. And I hope it's an

honest result. And either way, Jeff Bezos should give all of his employees a $100,000 bonus. Absolutely. He has enough money to buy the moon. He could certainly afford it. So, yeah. Totally. And yeah, maybe we'll circle back to that later in the Q&A segment. But now let's get to our guest tonight. He is an author and a constitutional and civil rights attorney who is the director of strategic response at the Freedom from Religion Foundation where he works to keep state and church separate and educate the public about non-belief. His first book, The Founding Myth, Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, came out 20 months prior to the very relevant capital insurrection, and his book also holds the distinction of being burned by a Christian nationalist

preacher in my home state of Tennessee. I'm jealous. I don't think I ever got my book burned. I'm have to look into that. His follow-up, weaponizing religious freedom, is due out next year. Everybody, please welcome Andrew L. Seidel. Andrew. Thank you for having me on. I am. Thanks, Jess. Welcome. Hey, buddy, good to see you again. You as well. Yeah, how's it going, man? Where are you at? You up there in Wisconsin? Where are you? I'm up in Wisconsin. You know, the weather, like, we can finally go outside here. It's like over 60 degrees now, so I'm a happy man. I've got a little bourbon here, so I'm feeling good about life right now. Nice. right on buddy yeah well thanks for being here so um let's get into it you talk about the dangers of

christian uh christian nationalism and a recent article just came out from foreign policy dot com this the headline of which is the u.s needs de radicalization for christian extremist programs that were designed to reform violent jihadis could potentially help tackle the spread of Cuban-on and other conspiracy theories in evangelical communities. So we're looking at the danger of radicalized, you know, frothing white people in this country. And we've seen it firsthand recently, right? We have. I mean, what we're talking about is white Christian nationalism. That's what this really is. I mean, when you're talking about white evangelicals, that is really what we are focusing in on. You know, everybody likes to cite that 81% of white evangelicals

that voted for Trump in 2016, actually a better indicator was being a Christian nationalist. Thinking that the United States was founded as a Christian nation was a better indicator of a Trump voter than being a white evangelical. And it really is this ideology, this political theology that cuts across all these different crucial issues from views on police brutality to views on getting the vaccine or wearing a mask. I mean, you name it. Christian nationalism is one of the best explanations for so much of what we are seeing today. And really was, I think, one of the primary drivers of the January 6th attack on our democracy.

For sure. But I want to know, like, I think it totally makes sense when you say, you know, for so many people, their guy, right, like being like the Christian nationalist guy. that cuts across all the other policy issues. That's the thing that matters the most for them or whatnot. I feel like that makes sense. But how do you think Donald Trump became that dude when like I felt like even he himself for a large chunk of his campaign early on? He didn't even really pretend to give a shit about God.

I think. So how did he, how did they slide him into that role so effortlessly? I mean, he really tapped into this undercurrent of. of Christian nationalism that has been bubbling. And this isn't the first time we've seen this in American history. There have been waves throughout American history in the lead-up and through the Civil War was a really big one in the 1950s was another really huge wave of Christian nationalism. And then Trump kind of just was the right candidate to come along who just does not care

about truth or reality in any way, shape, or form and is willing to spew any kind of disinformation that will get him a few extra votes. And so he's just kind of this perfect candidate to capture. that Christian nationalist vote. And, I mean, he really did it in a way that is, that's really an arguable. I mean, there have been a bunch of really good studies that have come out since 2016 that show this really was kind of a primary driver. And it's fascinating, too, because this entire identity, real quick, so people who haven't

heard this, Christian nationalism is the idea that we were, the United States was founded as a Christian nation, right, that were based on Judeo-Christian principles. And most importantly, that we've strayed. from that foundation, that we've gotten away from our godly roots. And they use that language of return to justify all this just hateful public policy from things like the Muslim ban to the child separation policy at the border. I think a lot of people forget that Attorney General Jeff Sessions pointed to the Bible to Romans 13 to justify this, which he learned to do in the White House Bible study. I mean, the opposition to gay marriage, LGBTQ equality. I mean,

you name it. Christian nationalism is really kind of there on the ground level. level tapping into this idea that we were founded and based on this this mythical past and we got to get back to it when they when they when they say god made uh america for christian they mean white christians and they're very big about it yeah yeah yeah i mean i should say too like the and there's really good data and studies on this too so the idea of a christian nation is very different for a black american than it is for a white american um andrew white head and Sam Perry have done some really interesting work on this. But there's very clearly a difference between those two things.

So when I'm talking about Christian nationalists, I'm really talking about white Christian nationalism. And I can also say that the overlap between white Christian nationalism and white supremacy, you know, if you're looking at a Venn diagram, that's basically a circle. So on that note, actually, you already mentioned the capital insurrection, how that was this huge driving force in that. We also know that a lot of, you know, QAnon, right? You've got the QAnon shaman at the very center of that. And 538 just recently put out an article that says why QAnon has attracted so many white evangelicals. Q from very early on started throwing his lot in with the Lord, right?

So what is the sort of relationship between white nationalism and what you're talking about and the conspiracy side of this whole thing with QAnon and that whole deal? How does that all sort of link up? I just put a video of this up on my YouTube channel. It really is a fascinating sort of incestuous relationship between these. I mean, first of all, there were, of course, other motivations and drivers of that attack on January 6th. But the permission structure that Christian nationalism creates, right, I'm doing God's will. I'm fighting for God's law. I'm returning this country to its Christian roots or fighting for the chosen one.

Do you guys remember Trump, like, said I am the chosen one, like looked up at the sky? Remember that? I mean, but there were these other obvious drivers, and QAnon is a great one. There was this famous picture that circulated at the time of, you know, a Maga-Hadded insurrectionist. She was carrying a portrait of Jesus, the white Jesus, of course. And Jesus has a red Maga hat on, and he has like a Q&ON slogan on his white robes. And so you got Trump and QAnon and White Jesus rolled into this one image.

that really captures what multiple studies are now revealing. And it's this intimate relationship between Q&M and Christian nationalism and white evangelicals. And I think a big part of that is the simple explanation that the religious mind is primed to accept lies and disinformation, right? They are instructed on a weekly basis to turn off reason and skepticism and engage their faith. And that comes at a cost. do you think though like i also think that part of it is um you wrap all those things up together and for a lot of these people it's like the people who think the things that i think they are they're right they're the right ones and then the people who don't they're the wrong they're the bad guys we're

the good guys right and if you have that mindset i feel like incorporating into that mindset the idea that the Lord above is on your side, that helps with that mentality a lot, right? Like, it's really easy to wrap all that up together because you can justify anything if God is behind what you're trying to do. Or at least if, like, even if God's not behind it, God is a co-signer. No, I mean, and they believe that God's behind it. I mean, they really do. And you're right.

What you're talking about is tribalism, right? Right? I mean, that's what you're talking about at the most basic level. And having that divine sanction on your tribalism is so powerful. The attacker who kicked in Speaker Pelosi's door, hoping to tear her, quote, into little pieces, was an attorney. And his rantings were, they were recounted at one of the hearings after he was being charged in court. And he said this. He said, God is on Trump's side. God is not on the Democrat side.

And if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists, it is God's will. I mean, that sums up, I think, exactly the tribalism and that really scary violence trait to it as well. I mean, it's like that's that's a garden variety fascism, right? Well, perfect utopia once we kill all the bad people. Yeah. We'll be murder free once we do all the killing. But there is also, I mean, like, one of the reasons Q and I was primed to fitting of the Evangelical

was like, I remember I grew up in a Baptist church in the height of the satanic panic. And like, like, the idea that Satan is a literal person who's out there doing, uh, doing dirty deeds is both, is both in Q&A and any evangelical. Like, like the God and Satan are in a war and it's a close fight. You know what I'm saying? It's sort of like, yeah. No, absolutely. You're right. I mean, and I mean, like if you look at, if you look at that rally that was held on January 6th that Trump closed out, that started with Paula White giving a prayer.

And she invoked the adversary and essentially talked about how we have to guard Trump and you have to go out there and fight for him. She actually added really a perfect moment for Christian nationalism. She added the United States of America to the Lord's Prayer that's written in Matthew 6 while she was saying it. Yeah, it was really a remarkable moment. So, I mean, you're right. And there's other overlaps and analogs, right? Like the idea that, you know, cue the storm, whatever their apocalypse is, you know, the date keeps getting pushed back. Just like all the other doomsday prophets.

Oh, I miscalculated this part of Revelations. It's actually going to be next year. You know, I mean, you keep seeing, there's a lot of overlaps. You're definitely right to hone in on that too. So, doesn't it? Go ahead, Mark. Oh, I was going to, like, two moments that stuck out to me that are really funny in my memory, just because, like, there's this famous anecdote where when Trump was at the beginning of his presidential campaign,

I think it was started in the primary, they brought in a bunch of evangelical ministers to meet with him as like a meet and greet. and they talked to him for a while and at the end he goes, evangelicals, but you're Christian, right? Like, you didn't even know. And then there's also the famous one he did publicly, which is he went to Liberty University, which is in a round film and called it two Corinthians.

But he just, like, no one ever gave a shit about. Like, it obviously was just, I mean, they got other judges, maybe it was worth it. I don't know. But it was like, just what a cynical fucking play, man. Yeah, I mean, he couldn't name a favorite passage of the Bible. I mean, he was very clearly tapping into it for political game. But, you know, I mean,

Right. Well, what both you guys are saying right now, doesn't that almost kind of prove that politics comes first over religion to these people we're talking about? Because, like, they see, meanwhile, they see Obama go lead the choir in Amazing Grace and Charleston and whatever else. But he's a secret Kenya Muslim, right? But then everything that Trump, y'all just said Trump did, he does that. And he is God's chosen one. Like, doesn't that kind of prove that really it's possible? politics first for them, and they just fit it into the God mold and go from there? I mean, I think there's a really good argument to be made that American Christianity is reorganizing around political lines and sort of shedding those sectarian differences. You know, being Protestant or Catholic doesn't matter as much now as being, you know, a conservative slash Republican Christian. I think, and that is really, I think why Christian nationalism is sort of rising to the top as one of the best explanations for so many of the culture war issues and the political issues that we're seeing today.

I don't know whether I would agree that it proves that conclusively, but I definitely think there's a really good argument to be made there. And it is something I explore in the book a little bit. There's a decent argument to be made that, I mean, obviously, I think to the degree it's accelerating is because fewer other types of people go to church, so they overwhelm the religious sphere. But like, I mean, this is sort of what happened when the John Burr Society and when segregation academies took off and they did the more majority reframe for being about segregation to being about being pro life. And they, it feels like they've been trying to get like they got

really uncomfortable starting around when school started desegregating. And they've been trying to figure a way to get organized since then. And now it's just sort of like they figured it out and they're all on the same page. So it feels like. Yeah. I mean, I mean, school vouchers actually originated after Brown versus Board in the fight to desegregate schools. I mean, so I think, I don't know, it's a fascinating conversation. And there's, like I said, there's been different waves of Christian nationalism throughout history. I mean, the one that happened on January 6th, it was kind of the culmination of Trump's wave of Christian nationalism, but it's also not gone. Like, it's not going anywhere. It's going to be a very important driver of the political debate and the religious debate for a long

time to come. And I mean, you know, one of the things you just said that I think was so important is that people are fleeing religion in this country. I mean, there's been a precipitous drop over the last 20 years in people who go to church and call themselves a Christian or, you know, believe in a particular God. And a big part of that is the politicization of religion that you were just talking about, Trey, right? Like the fact that there's all these conservative assholes talking about how LGBT people aren't people and don't deserve equal rights is driving a ton of, you know, millennials away from the church. And then it becomes this kind of this awesome feedback cycle

where we're going to have a majority non-religious country soon. Right. Well, Andrew, so give it, I want to give you an opportunity to let people know about the book, what you got going on where people can check the book out and all that good stuff. And also, like, if there was any big highlight, you want you know want to put out there for the world this is your opportunity to do it so any and all that hit us with it i mean i do think that uh my book was burned by a preacher in your home state is a pretty good selling point for anybody who has like i said i'm jealous i'm jealous of that

i'm mad i want to send that guy a copy of my book and be like you sure you don't want to burn this i mean that's how it happened we got into this little twitter spat and i was like i'm going to send you a copy of my book and then a couple days later he posted this video of himself with a blowtorch. And he, uh, he, uh, he dubbed, uh, Hell's Bells, ACDC over top of it. It was, it was not. Honestly, that kind of, that kind of fucking rules. Yeah.

If you call that cancel culture, you could have got sold a couple hundred thousand more books. Yeah. Ah, man, I don't know why I didn't think of that. But yeah, so the book is the founding myth why Christian nationalism is un-American. Um, you know, I'm really proud of it. It's, it's been doing well. I got a new book coming out next year. Um, if people are interested in it, please pick up a copy.

If you want a signed copy, you can actually get one through the organization I work for, FFRF. If you go to ffrf.us slash founding myth, you can just write a little note when you check out asking for a signed copy, and I'll personalize it and sign that and get it out to you. But, yeah, I mean, that's the big thing. Join the Freedom from Religion Foundation, too. If you've got a little disposable income, the fight for the separation of state and church is kind of a silver bullet, a panacea for a lot of the other fights that we kind of care about as progressives. right on yeah well thank you very much for coming on andrew was a great time perfect post-easter

discussion uh but yeah always good to talk to you buddy and um i'll see you down the road no yeah thanks so much for having me on and yeah i mean as far as easter goes you know if you don't sin jesus died for nothing so just remember that my man Andrew siddle everybody thank you very much brother nice to meet you ander uh yeah i wanted to Like, do you think, Mark, you don't have kids? Do you think it's like at all weird or anything that we hide eggs and stuff like that when we are such a godless household? Like, that's fine, right?

Like, I mean, I say this as a person who spent every Sunday for 18 years in Sunday school. Like, I always assumed like 40% of the people there didn't fully believe everything. They were just there for community and a family. It's a place to go see your neighbors on a Sunday. And it gives you a routine to teach your kids about morality and help make friends and stuff. Yeah, we don't do none of that. I was actually going to make a point to say, like, we ain't said a word about Jesus on our Easter celebrations. We're just like, yeah, there's a, because, I mean, hell, I feel like it's not like the two connect anyway.

You know what I mean? It's like there's a bunny. He hides eggs. And I feel like it almost be more confusing to tell him. And that's because of Jesus. You know, like just let them think there's a bunny that hides eggs. And that's all their minor eight and nine. And they already know it's bullshit.

Even the bunny, let alone the Lord. But yeah, we just, we do it for. fun family fun time it's funny that uh like we if you think of it like churches teaching morality like uh the day so lesson that thing is because it's first it's fighters keepers the fittest go the spoils and steal that shit if you get there first yeah it's uh interesting uh i wanted to this came up this just came across right people questions the comments put them up there might start looking through them but yeah go ahead mark hit hit the primer there apparently right as we started the show, there's a New York Times story that came out

that says that Matt Gates asked Trump for a blanket pardon before Trump left office and Trump told him to fuck off or just didn't do it, whatever. But the same article has a quote from his book that I guess hasn't come out yet, but it has this passage in it. The president has called me when I was in my car, sleep in the middle of the night

I'm a Longworth office caught on the throne on airplanes and nightclubs and even in the throes of passions. Parentheses, yes I answered. So regrets to whoever Matt Gates was fucking like talked to Donald Trump about sometime he almost did it with Cindy Lauper or whatever, whatever.

So, all right, everybody. Hit us with whatever you got, including Mark. We want to talk a little bit about vaccine passports. Yeah. What did you think about them? I got mixed opinions. I mean, hell, I'm for it, I guess. I don't have, like, if you can't have a vaccine, you can't,

I don't really feel that much differently about it than I feel about the rest of vaccines. Do you know what I mean? Meaning like, I don't want your bullshit endangering the health of like my people, my family or whatever. So I'm not on board with you being that way. And if that means we got to have vaccine passports to police that type of thing, then I mean, hell, I'm for it. So here's the here's the circle I've been in repeatedly for the last guy's a couple days. Okay. It's like, okay, well, we want to encourage as many people to get vaccines as possible, right? That's definitely true. Right. But also because of who got the vaccine. first, we're basically

creating an apartheid system where all the rich white people can start going places and other people can't. Right. Yes, that's a good point. But then I go, okay, but everything in America hits poor people harder, including actual COVID. So measures that encourage people to get vaccine faster, the lives they're saving are actually the poor people that are getting fucked

for the vaccine passport. It's not back around to being pro. So then I go, but it is fucked up that a private company can have that much say over a person's private medical choices, right? If I want to go to Disneyland, I have to get this medical procedure, right? So that's kind of fucked up. But also, there's no legal structure I'm familiar with that can prevent Disneyland from requiring a vaccine. We already went through all this

stuff in the civil rights movement. The list of reasons you have to let people in your business or can't exclude them is really short. It's basically you can't refuse service to someone for being black or because of their religion or the sexual orientation. So occasionally, but also bars don't let people in if they have baseball caps and wear bagging clothes. We know that's out, right? So like, if a bar can kick somebody out for wearing a baseball hat, but not for intensely trying to spread COVID, I don't understand what the fucking system is. Yes, 100%.

And also, I'm not going to lie, I didn't, in my head, I only thought of it as, like, the anti-maskers who, like, refused to get vaccines or whatever. That's who I was thinking of. And I was like, well, fuck them. They ought not be allowed to do shit. Yeah. But I wasn't thinking about, I mean, right.

like disadvantaged people and people that can't get it for other reasons, even though they would like to, which is definitely how this country works. I wouldn't even thinking about it from that perspective. And that does kind of, you know, that's a good point. It does kind of change things a little bit. But it basically, I mean, I saw that Ron DeSantis is making noise about preventing vaccine passports. But here's the thing. Conservatives fought really, really hard for private property rights during the civil rights

movement. The parameters are pretty clearly drawn. And you've already won Ron DeSantis. And you have fought really hard. I keep using Disneyland's example. The Florida Marlins can refuse entry to anybody if they want for any reason. It includes if you can't prove you've got a fucking vaccine. So I don't know where you're going to do, Ron DeSantis.

It's a betrayal movement. Go for it. Lauren Russell Pink says at Andrew, our guest tonight. Glad I can order a book through FFRF and don't have to go through Amazon. Yes, that's right. Like, look, I, like, dude, I ain't going to lie, especially with the wife I got. I ain't going to blame it all on her. I do it too.

But, like, it's a damn Amazon box outside my house pretty much every day. Like, we're like, like, we've gotten just addicted to these motherfuckers, you know, like, as a society. Like, but if they just did shit in an all right way, that would be fine. So let's just make them do that. And then it's fine. We can be hooked on Amazon if we want to be. Yeah, I will, I mean, we, we subscribe to Amazon. I would sell a TV show to Amazon if they wanted to buy it.

I have. They didn't put it on there. That's fine. It's okay. I'm not mad at you, Amazon. That doesn't mean I can think a company is good. And also they should pay their employees fairly. The Chick-fil-A makes a delicious goddamn chicken sandwich.

I still think they should be nice to gay people. And I can tell all those thoughts at the same time. And I think the solution is just the support unionization effort. Because if you need a bunch of toilet trees delivered to your house, there's only one option. Right. Another anecdotal thing I share is if you've been following me for a while, you probably know DJ Lewis. Good buddy, DJ. Jay Lewis, been on the Will Red podcast countless times.

Yes, DJ has worked seasonally for Amazon a lot, and he confirms all the worst stories you've ever heard about the way they treat their employees. Again, that's one buddy of mine, but I'm just saying, he says it's all true. At a high school, one of my best friends from high school, when he got out of the Air Force, he ran a logistical center for Amazon because they hire a bunch of veterans, of course. He quit not happily. he didn't like working there and that was as a new that was as a management so yeah david s skipper says mlb all-star game coming to denver screw stupid georgia all right david okay here we go

oh i wanted to say you mark wasn't here last week this got brought up last week uh well first all go ahead mark say what you're going to say oh some some Andrew said i don't like disagree with it but he's talking about how like churches train people to like like ignore reason and some of that's true but like the good aspect of it uh is it makes you believe like the Amazon Union efforts largely being organized through churches and that's sort of like it makes you believe that you can do things like a Reverend King did

you think you can make America less racist through God's power and you think you can go up against Amazon to win so it's not it's not unless all bad to have faith I think faith like as a concept and as a general thing I think faith is good actually You have to, you know, like we've had many debates about the future of this country on here, whatever. And I try to be generally optimistic.

And what is that? But faith, you know. What else is there, man? It's like, I don't have, right. I have nothing else. Yeah. I have to just put faith in the idea, but not in God, in the idea that we as a society will see this thing through. So, yeah, I don't, and like you said, the whole Bessemer, the people organizing Bessemer, like the Christian faith is a huge part of what they're doing.

And that's an example of what the good that could come of it. But to be fair to Andrew, he did draw a very clear line between, he was like, this is white Christian nationalism I'm talking about specifically, which is, you know. It's just, and I'm not putting him in a bucket at all. It's like, Andrew's very nice and very pleasant to talk to and stuff. But a lot of atheists are very strident in that. And I happen to be a non-believer. I'm not like guilty about it.

I don't like, I don't think too much about it deeply at all anymore. I major, modern philosophy in college. and sort of decided to stop thinking about God after that. Yeah. But it's just like there's a school of atheism, which is very abrasive. Do you know what I'm saying? And I'm sensitive to not trying to, because my mom's one of the smartest people I know. She's also a deaconess at a Southern Baptist church.

She has her PhD. She just has a deep and abiding faith in the Lord that helps her through life. So I understand that. It's just I'm not blessed with it. So actually, yeah, because you weren't you weren't here last week. I want to see where you're at on this, actually, since David Skipper said this. Again, MLB All-Star Game coming to Denver. Screw, Stupid, Georgia.

We talked about this last week with Marcus a little bit. I actually put a video out about it today. I don't know where you're at on it. I'm not, I guess it's because I'm from, I guess it's because I am a liberal southern. I'm from a bad state, and I don't want to be, I'm from a bad place, and I don't like the idea of being punished for that, just because that's where I'm from or whatever. I don't know if that's all it is, but I'm not, I've never been about this. these like statewide boycott things that crop up every now and then because when I first got

stuff when I first went viral and started touring and stuff it was North Carolina with the transgender bathroom laws and people would ask me all the times like are you going to boycott North Carolina you're going to not do shows in North Carolina and I was always like hell no I'm not going to do that like that the people that all that's going to do is punish other liberals in North Carolina and I'm not fucking the MLB right at all but I just don't, I'm not down with punishing an entire state because the people who run it are shitty. There's a lot of good people there still. And, you know, they get affected by this type of shit too. So I'm just not, I'm just not on board with that. I don't know. How do you feel

about that whole thing? I mean, I don't know, I don't know the demographics of who goes to an all-star game. Is it corporate donors or just flying to a different location for it or corporate sponsors? Or is it like, like, because you move the Super Bowl, that's what happens. It's just like, the set of people attending are just flying to a different city so a different city gets the cash injection, right? Right. That's a good point. I don't know how Austin. I'm not a big baseball fan. I don't really know how that works, but the I don't know. I mean, what is basically baseball supposed to do? I mean, I got if I'm Rob Manfred, I probably don't do anything. He's just keep my mouth shut and nothing happens. But as a business decision, because like, your fans are white and old and conservative.

So that would lead you to believe that they wouldn't boycott Georgia, which they did. Maybe they just did. But they made a gesture in that direction by moving it. Maybe they thought doing what they thought was the right thing. Well, but like Marcus last week was saying, please don't do that. And Stacey Abrams has said, please don't do that. Because like, to me, it's like these are just a few. weeks ago, Georgia was

the darling, the liberal darling of this country, you know? Like, they had done such a great job. And, like, all those people who were involved with making that happen, they still live, they're still in Georgia, you know? Like, and now everybody's flipped the script. They're like,

no, fuck Georgia, boycott Georgia. And it's like, I just don't, I just don't think that's the way that it should work. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't, like, if you see how mad Republicans are about, it. It seems to have worked, so I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I guess posturing about it and everything, I guess, is okay because it does

certainly get them very fired up, which that part is funny to me. But if it gets to a point where it's like, you know, actually impacting people, because, you know, like, I'm pretty sure, and I don't want to put the boss on blast, Lord knows I love the boss. If I'm wrong about this, I apologize. I think, like, one of the first big acts that, like, removed dates from North Carolina with the transgender thing. I think spring. Springsteen did that, I believe. And, like, I just think about my godless red-ass daddy and how disappointed he would have been if he didn't get to go get, if he didn't get to go see Springsteen, because the people in charge were assholes, you know. But also the people that work at that arena and everything, like, that's, they don't get to work that night.

They make less money. And I just, I love, I would not even invoke the name of the boss because I don't even know if what I'm saying is true. and even if it is, I don't necessarily blame him. Like, I get it, but I don't. I'm just not into it, me personally. I think. Yeah, I don't, uh, I don't, I see all sides. This is like the vaccine passport thing.

You convince me multiple ways both times. I don't know. Right. Okay. Well, I, what a great welcome back show for Mark we had. It felt like, it felt like a month. It was gone. It felt like, yeah.

Glad to have you back. Love Corey. He's still our senior Georgia correspondent, everybody. He's not been fired. He, you know, I know, I know he made his public apology. People were trying to cancel him, not the skews. He's going to remain gangfully employed for nothing at all.

Hashtag cancel Corey. Let's get it going, baby. As our Georgia correspondent. And so with that said, we'll see y'all next week. And we're going to have a good time. I'm trying to as Mark. So you love you. Bye.