wellRED podcast - #30 - "Nostalgia is a Hell of A Thing" + An Interview w/ JOY REID!!!

Episode Date: August 30, 2017

This week we sit down in the green room at Helium Comedy Club in St. Louis to discuss 90's country music, the Star Wars Prequels, Game of Thrones (No Spoilers, promise) and the recent controversy surrounding Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede Dinner Show. After that, we are joined by the insanely impressive Joy Reid (Of AM JOY on MSNBC) in our Pasadena Hotel during our stay at Politicon and discussed Trump's presidency up to this point, and what democrats will have to do to get back on the right track.

And we thank them for sponsoring the show. Well, no, I'll just go ahead. I mean, look, I'm money dumb. Y'all know that. I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life. And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion. Because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing. But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.

It's just like, you can just, it makes it easier to lose count of, well, your count, the count every month, how much you're spending. A lot of people don't even know how much they spend on a per month basis. I'm not going to lie, I can be one of those people. Like, let me ask you right now, skewers out, whatnot, sorry, well-read people, people across the skew universe, I should say. Do you even know how many subscriptions that you actively pay for every month or every year? Do you even know? Do you know how much you spend on takeout or delivery,

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Wellred comedy.com. W-E-L-L-R-E-D. Comedy.com for all the new tour dates. We're literally going everywhere. There's no point in me listening to them off. Get tickets. They're going fast in several. cities they've sold out and we've had to add new shows so just check the list get your tickets by

our book the liberal redneck manifesto dragging dixie out of the dark we got shirts we got hats we got all sorts of cool shit we're super pumped to be on our new tour starting you know basically next week from dixie with love super excited thank you guys so much for making all this possible this week on the podcast super awesome episode we have joy read the host of ms n bc's a mjoy which airs Saturdays and Sundays. She was a delight and made all three of us feel supremely dumb, which is how smart and

insightful she is on this whole political conundrum we have going on. So anyways, love you guys, well-readcomedy.com for tickets and all that good stuff. And tell your friends to download the podcast, subscribe and all that good stuff, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website so you'll know when we're coming to your city first. Thank you guys.

Love you. Skiw! Is it the vegetables or the hummus? Who moves? It's the broccoli or the cauliflower or both of them. Broccoli be stanking like that. You want to boil broccoli? It stinks.

I mean, I like it. That's all right. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Is that a bottle opener? Yeah. I mean, dude, I love broccoli, but it do stink.

It do stink, yeah. Cothar stink too. Yeah. They're so nice here. They are. This is a great. club. We're in Helium in St. Louis, Helium Comedy Club in St. Louis, Missouri.

We had that thing happen to us. It happens sometimes when people actually do what's in our rider and we get freaked out a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, when an actual vegetable show up. About Byrdow, what's going on, man? Oh, okay. We'll fill these out. All right.

Yeah, okay. We will do that. Thank you. All right. Thanks, buddy. Drew, you, the logger. This is supposed to be different, right? Yeah, I don't.

We get paid. I don't think we have to do that. We're incorporated now, boys. Yeah, fuck that shit. Individual W-9s. I don't make no sense. No, no, we're just going to tell them all that. Okay.

Okay. Anyway, we're in St. Louis. Me and Drew, we're a little full right now because we went to a crab shack earlier because, you know, St. Louis, Missouri, the literal very middle of America. That's where you go for seafood. I wasn't even thinking about it when. Also, Cajun seafood. Yeah. And it was ran by Asians.

And patronized mostly by black people. So it was America in a nutshell, really. It was really something beautiful. Yeah, I mean, I didn't even think about that. When you sent me the picture of the seafood, I was just like, God damn it, why's my belly have to hurt? But it was, I mean, it was good. I'm sure it was wrong. It was good.

But, yeah, here we are. It's Sunday, August 25th, six. Who could know? Well, the reason I bring it up, we normally don't even say what the damn date is. The reason I bring it up is because tonight, is the season finale of Game of Thrones. And everybody watches Game of Thrones, except for Corey's sorry-ass.

Because of that, we can't talk about it too much because spoilers. We ain't going to do that to the boy. I mean, I'll gladly leave and y'all just do this without me for a while. Well, the thing is, we couldn't, I mean, hell, we'd have to start a whole separate podcast. There's just us talking about Game of Thrones. I mean, that's how in detail you could go with that shit. But I am a big fan. Drew is a fan.

and our wives both watch it. Everybody we know pretty much watches it. I read, I'm a bit of a nerd. So, like, I've read the books and I get on, like, online forums about it and read, like, other nerds, talk about episodes and shit. And so this is what I want to bring up. If you've been watching this season, season, this is season seven or six?

Seven? Yes. Yeah, if you've been watching this season, a lot of people have said, myself included, that the pacing and like the timelines on the show have gotten just completely and totally ridiculous. Like people basically teleport from, like in earlier seasons, you're going from the wall to King's Landing. That would take weeks and in showtime, three or four episodes or something. It would take to get there because, I mean, they ain't got airplanes or nothing.

I mean, nowadays, one girl with dragons, but nobody else has got dragons. Is that the blonde? Yeah. Calisi. DeNaris. Deneres Stormborn. Anyway, she's a Targary.

They fucks with Dragon. De Narius. Yeah. But everybody else is just on horses and shit. You know, so like it takes a long time to go from the place to place. Well, now in this last season, because they've got so many storylines, they've got to wrap up. They're just all over the place. Right.

People go from one end of the continent to the other in one episode or whatever. and it's a little wild. And what I've said about it is, yeah, it's ridiculous. And, like, it's, like, a flaw with the show, but it's a necessary one because, like, from a writing standpoint, they got to do what they got to do. So I'm just, like, I'm just ignoring it. I'm like, who gives the fuck?

You know, they ain't got no choice. If they're going to wrap all this shit up, that's how they got to approach it. But a lot of, you know, the nerdier among us have been, have just, you know, are bitching about. about it basically. And when I told, we were talking about this the other night

and when I mentioned it, Corey said, I said, and I mean, yeah, and you gave me shit for it, but whatever, I said, dude, I don't give a fuck because also there's dragons

and when I'm watching a fantasy like that, I just know that there's going to be some holes, which I mean, now, that being said, I don't know exactly what you're talking about because I haven't watched the show. There's always holes in my fantasies too. For sure.

I mean, if I was to watch it, and if I was to watch it as a fan, which I, I mean, I watched the first episode and I love it. But I may find it to be more egregious than what I'm currently that. Mr. Butt. Mocel de Riel.

I might actually find it to be more egregious. Senior Extremo. Yeah, senior extremo. That's what Mr. Butt and Spanish, or at least on my phone at it. I mean, I'm sure that's, but yeah, senior extremo. Mr. Britson luchador. Yeah. Senior extremos.

So anyways, stop eating vegetables right now. Okay. It stinks enough already. God damn. stank. Anyways, my point is, is that I said that having no knowledge of

what all you're actually really talking about. But your immediate knee-jerk reaction was, yeah, butt-fucking dragons. I just, dude, I... You said butt-fucking dragons. But this just comes down to, and I don't even think this is like, has anything to do with fantasy or not. Like, I have

genuinely gotten less cynical in the past couple years and, like, shit that you still would bother me where I'd be like, oh, like this shit or whatever the fuck i'm just like look i'm being entertained by this i really like the characters what the fuck ever i don't give a shit well that is fine is my bigger problem than the timeline is i feel like the characters probably because of the pacing just as a side effect no matter how good of a writer that you are if everything speeds up it's hard to develop the characters along with the new i guess facts i'm trying to give away spoilers right i'm saying

like new information comes in and these characters the way they deal with it, I watching it, I'm like, what the, what's going on? Right. By the way, I was trying to make sure I didn't say spoilers, and I also made myself not cuss. Well, that's a big deal. That's a big issue with Marvel. Like a lot of people, a lot of huge nerds get upset with Marvel because in the MCU, they don't take as much time developing some of the great villains of all time.

Like, they basically show up in the movie, you find out who they are, and then boom, they get killed because they focus so much. on, you know, developing Thor and all these people. So, I mean, that's a huge. But again, I don't give a fuck. I'm like, I love this Marvel movie. Right.

Well, here's what pisses me off about that is those comic book movies, they're for kids. Like, that's what comic books are made for. Now, in saying that, I'm not one of these people that's like, so shut the fuck up or you're not allowed to watch it. That's not at all what I'm saying. I don't know. I think it's beautiful if you can sit down and enjoy a kid's movie.

But if kids like it, but like your childhood was somehow changed. All right, you need to shut the fuck up. I'm going to go ahead and call J.C. Ratliff out. I don't even give a fuck. Jay, if you're listening to this, which you're not, because it's not about Lemmy dying.

He'd be doing that shit all the time. He's like, this goddamn, this Marvel movie, this blah, blah, blah, it's ruining my child. I'm like, first off, JC, you ruined your own goddamn childhood.

Secondly, and I'm just kidding, Jayce, you know, I love you. But yeah, secondly, the movies for fucking kids. If you don't like it,

you have to just go, you know what? Maybe I'm too old for a fucking comic book movie now. Or write your own. Yeah, do your own shit. And by the way, J.C.,

you know, I love you. You're just a good example of someone that sucks in this regard. And also, you have no talent for making your own.

With Game of Thurl's been huge right now. That's something that a lot of people are going back and forth on and it's like, it's either the people that complain, right, about the timelines.

And then a lot of people who respond to it with, yeah, but dragons, though. And it's like, and again, you don't have to get

all defensive about it because you don't, like you said, you don't even watch the show. But when we were first talking about it, your knee-jerk reaction was, yeah, but dragons, though. But what those people say is,

oh, really? In a show with fucking dragons and ice zombies in it, it's the accelerated timelines that you have a problem with. And my reaction, my response to that is, yeah, it is. Story is a story. Because it's a show about dragons and ice zombies.

It's not a show about fucking time travel and teleportation. Like, within the universe of the show, they can't do that. Do you know what I'm saying? Within the universe of the show, it's been established that it takes X amount of time to do this shit. So it doesn't make sense. And to point out that it doesn't make sense is not inconsistent or stupid. Having said that, my ultimate response is, but I'm willing to just say, all right,

fuck it, it's fine because it's entertaining enough. And also, as a writer, you said write your own, thinking of it as a writer, I'm like, I don't know how the fuck else you approach it. Other than what they're doing. That's my name. So I'm okay with it. Here's how I know I'm full of shit. I just don't like that response of... It's a drag and joke, you queer, you know, or whatever.

Again, that shit sucks. It just annoys me. Again, though, I think that's just my reaction to having never seen it. Because now that you were just saying all that, I remember when I was fucking with Lost, and I started having... I love the shit. It got awful thing, though, didn't it? I'm not out on this one.

I've never seen Lost. Which, it's fine. It doesn't matter. But, like, so I love... loss and it was so great for like three, four seasons. It was fucking awesome. I still stuck it out to the end because that was like a, that was, you know, once you're in,

you're fucking in. Completed, yeah. But they started, there was a bunch of horse shit going on there towards the end. I was like, what the fuck is going on? And people would say things like, well, I mean, you know, after they'd introduce the Stokemont. And I was like, yeah, I hear you, but still, like just, so yeah, I mean, I did that, I did the exact same shit with Lost and Buddy,

it was equal as ridiculous as as that. So yeah, that was me just going, I don't watch the show, I don't have any other thing to say. Dude, having said, yeah, again, I mean, I've said this, but just to be as emphatic as possible, anybody listening, the shit that is happening in this season, like, is awesome. Like, don't get me wrong, like, there's been a lot of awesome-ass fucking shit that's happened this season. It's been hitting. It's totally completely worth the other timeline shit, but, like, when people grab about it.

The main complaint. Don't act like they're off base with those complaints, is all I'm saying. The main episode that was being complained about as far as I know in regards to timeline was also the most awesome. Which was which one? I'm trying to think of how to describe it. I think it was the last one. Well, Corey was actually not paying attention right now. Yeah, but our fans.

Oh, yeah, spoilers. But if they're... That island? Yeah, yeah. That was the last one, yeah. That was sweet. Yeah, it was. Like the end result of that, the last scene?

You're right. The time... That was all I've been wanting. But, I mean, first of all, yes, $100. percent completely agree with everything you just said. And that was the most agree just example of the timeline shit. But it's been there throughout the

season, like earlier season with the boats, the fleets and stuff. Right. Again, they're basically just teleporting. Just the Greyjoy's having a huge fleet of all of a sudden? Yeah, when did they build those fucking ships? Anyway. And also, it seemed like there were 40 of them on the island.

Right, I know. People, I know. And then half of them left. Anyway, well, now we're getting an actual plot. But I'm saying, yes. And so it's valid to be like, what? Right.

But then after you go, what, to just go, I fuck it, this kicks ass, who gives your shit? Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. Well, that's the thing people can't seem to get over, and it's more pronounced with the, you know, comic book movies because it's been around for people so long. I just, again, I'm not saying people shouldn't be fans. Be a fan whatever you want to be, but just, I don't know,

put in its proper context. Right. I mean, there's an insane amount of plot holes in fucking all the Star Wars. Right. And when they came back and did the prequel because of how it affected the canon, it made there be even more in the old ones if you go back and watch it. But I don't give it. Well, it just makes you imagine be like, it just, it was awful.

It was like, well, my nephew loved it. It was. It was, and it really wasn't awful. Well, I was disappointed in it. Well, your parents are disappointed in you. I feel like a very lucky. I feel like the younger generation of Star Wars fans are super lucky in terms of when I. Special effects.

Well, that too. But, like, when Star Wars episode one came out, the prequel, I was in fucking sixth grade. So that movie was awesome to me. I didn't, when people were talking about it sucked, I was like, what are you talking about? Right. So, and now that I watch it as an older person, I, and I'm watching it going, okay, I see what they were saying. However, because of nostalgia, just like how I still like the first Nickelback album, because it, I'm not listening to it. What?

Because it came out when I was in sixth grade. I like that song, never made it as a blind man stealing. That's the first one. That was their first one. I like that song. I like that song. I like that song. But when I got that album, I was like, this is garbage.

Well, you were in Nate. ninth grade though you were older than mid so sixth grade grade dude so when i hear that when i hear those songs i don't think this is i think also reminds me being in sixth grade you know what i'm saying i was already enough i was already developed enough as a fat nerd even by the time the prequels came out to have been like i was pumped and while i was in the theater watch it i was like oh this is great but then after i walked out i was like i don't know that kind of sucked maybe and then the uh the later ones two and three, they both, like,

were very mediocre for me, even then, which is why I, like, I don't really fuck with him now. I thought three was actually, I don't ever go back. I thought three was okay. Well, nostalgia. I mean, personally, I just, dude, Hayden Christensen, and I don't even blame him entirely, but God damn, dude, I thought that it was just, the writing is garbage. It was so terrible.

What could he have done? The lines, the dialogue are just so bad. Even McGregor doesn't even do that good in the movie, just because how can you do anything with those lines? No, I agree. No, every year, I still watch all six, well, now seven, like, I still go back and watch all of them from front to back. Every year?

Once a year, yeah. Nostalgia's a hell of a thing. It's so powerful. And it can make you enjoy something more than you should have or hate it more than you should have. We were listening to John Deere Green on the way up here. Yeah, and I was like, damn, this is a bad song, actually. What? It's the worst Joe Diffy's a song.

Okay, but Joe Diffy's a genius. And that's part of it. I feel like we remember and know how good Joe Diffy is, and that song's funny. But that song's good, though. The music is bad. love that song. I mean, I just think the story's kind of cool. The story is cool, but like, he wasn't full Joe Diffy yet. B'I love Charlay

Hey, Drew. Trey? How damn. Tray, do you disagree with me that he was not full Joe Diffy in the musicality and the him being full? He was like harmonizing properly. You could just tell it was very overproduced, whereas Third Rock from the Sun, he wasn't doing any of that shit, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, because to me that would be his

worst. And Trey was like, Trey was like, uh, boy, he, that's it. Wait, you think that's the worst one? It's worse than Billy Ball, love Charlotte. I love them all, by the way. I'm just saying... This proves my point. No, I mean, when does Pickup Man fall in the cannon? That's what...

It's a second or third best. Very near the top. Ships that don't come in is the best. You put pickup man below. You see this? He is a white woman in his 40s. And so Billy Bob loves Charlene and ships that don't come in. It's... Ships that don't come in is about the goddamn

it's like veterans and shit like that, man. Yeah, the consumers of that kind of shit is white women and men in their 40s. white men. You're Ohio right now. Yeah, that's fine, but not that's not a... That's not a woman.

That's not a woman. That's about a goddamn man. But it's about you being a 40-ish-year-old white woman. No. You like Keish, and your favorite Joe Diffy'song of ships that don't come in. Those are in the same... I didn't say it's my favorite. Still, those are in the same vein.

What's your favorite? Probably fucking John Deere Green. Mine is John Deer Green. Really? Without a doubt my favorite. Wait, it's not probably up beside the Jew box? John Deer Green, number two, is pick up, man. Without a doubt.

That's everybody's number two. I feel like... I just think ships that don't come in is a fucking fantastic song. There's no love for prop me up beside the Juval. I love it. I just got to say in there all the best. He brought that up to me,

like, not disparaging it, but being like, ain't that on the same level? I got furious. No, no, no, no idea. You misunderstood what I said. And now, granted, I can see why you think that because I totally changed artist.

I said, I guess maybe John Deere Green is the Bubba shot. the jukebox of Joe Diffy's Ovoie. I like Bobbushat the Jukebox. I do too. I love that fucking song. Dude, 90s country cannot be fucked with in many regards.

But I totally agree, but there's a dividing line. Between Joe Diffy and everyone else. Absolutely. Also that, but like there's 90s country like like the rain by Clint Black. Yes. Oh my God. Or, um.

Willis. Stapid by morning by George Strait. Stampede by Chris Ladoo. Or, or fucking, uh, maybe it was Memphis by Pam Tillis. There's between,

between that. There's a line between that and then, uh, John Deere Green, Bubba shot the jukebox. Yes. They're different. Those are party countries.

I love them all. Let me, let me throw this out there to you. I can defend one of them way harder than I can. I want to hear we all. This is just my last thing on. My war. I want to hear a crawl still hits for me.

Right. I want to hear y'all, if John Michael Montgomery had done John Deere Green, it wouldn't be any worse. If John Michael, this is just my opinion, if John Michael Montgomery had done, prop me up beside the jukebox, pickup man, or third rock from the son, they would have been way worse. In other words, Joe Diffey didn't bring any Joe Diffey to that song. I mean, I'm going to have to just. It's so quintessentially Joe Diffey in my mind that I can go back and listen to the music of it, though. It's so produced. I don't know, man.

All that short shit was produced. Yeah, but welcome to our... Come on, man. Well, yeah, but that's not what we're talking about. Rob me up. Dude, his ban was on all cylinders on prop me up beside the jukebox. Hello. That's all right.

No, not a problem. It's okay. We're arguing about Joe Diffin. Oh, then just, uh, Coors lot's fine. No. And the only reason is, I know in our writer it says that we want these fancy beers, but I got gout, so, uh, I've been trying to lower the uric acid levels, and I believe those beers have lower.

I'm probably going to get told on this podcast. No, they don't, you idiot. But I hadn't had... What's your equivalent of a Coors-Lider, Miller Lider? Probably the Miggul-Liter. I don't. What, Budlite's fine. Yeah, I just need a light beard.

And that's all, that's all him. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm sorry to bust again. That's okay. I've got to bring up my gout again. I'm sure our listeners will love that.

Well, you know what? This actually makes for a much better... Gout, man. Gout, man. This actually makes for a much better transition than you might think. Well, no, yeah, nostalgia. and into the next subject. That's what I'm saying.

No, nostalgia is the segue. Yeah, but. Only on my side. There's way more. We're talking about Dolly, right? Yeah. Dude, fuck, nostalgia. I mean, nostalgia, too, but like, it's way more.

I'm talking about the Dixie Stampede and the South's a Empress. Nostalgia and the Civil War that they did not win. Okay, let's set this up, Drew. Tell everybody what happened. And then I got to be up front. What happened was, there was a Slate article that has come out where, Slate. Yes.

The bane of liberals. Shit. Anyway, if... What's worse, Slate, Salon, or Jezebel? I don't know. That's the holy trinity of you. I think it's Salon. Salon?

Salon? Yeah. Because, like, Slate, it's like you got to make an argument as to why they're bad. Jezebel, depending on who you're in the room with, you might have to make an argument. What do you talking about we wanted to... I don't even know anyone who likes salon, even like really super leftist people like, yeah, it's kind of a rag. It's weird. It was talking about we wanted to make a salon parody.

but it was just about southern things. We were going to call it Beauty Shop. Yes. We weren't done that. Yeah, that should be the article that wrote about Goddammed.com. So Slade. Just about like Brenda down the street or whatever. Just smear pieces on them.

Slate sent one of their writers a young Ivy League-educated black Brooklynite to the Dixie Stampede. Now this girl professed to be a fan of Dolly. She's the center to the Dixie Stampede in, pigeon forge and she wrote an article about it she said on the north side the first time and the south side the second time i saw that somebody had shared it or whatever and i as i usually do at least at first just didn't give a fuck because why would i but then i saw a bunch of my friends being up in arms about it because they had you know quote unquote gone after dolly so i was like

maybe i should read this and then i saw my wife go on a facebook rant like i haven't seen since right after Trump got elected. It was something else. About how you don't go after Dolly. So I went and read the article, and my problem was I couldn't find anything in the article I disagreed with.

I'll back you up right now because I read it and I didn't either. She didn't attack. I didn't read it and I'm furious. That's the redneck part of the liberal redneck. What's funny is I'm not, I'm joking. Like, I'm self-aware about how ridiculous that is, but I had that, my immediate

reaction to that was like, I did. No, mine was. Before I read it, that was mine too. Before I read it, I absolutely thought. Me too. Me too. I'm going to have to somehow defend the Dixie Stampede.

And then I read it. And she didn't say anything disparaging, in my opinion, about Dolly. She called her well-meaning. And I think she may have suggested at the end that she should, like, check in on this. She probably was just aware being a fan of Dolly on some level that maybe Dolly wasn't involved. I have since learned because of some of my posts that Dolly's not really involved. Yeah, she's got her name on it, well, I mean. Well, a company, not just not involved in the sense that she didn't, you know, write the story because of course she didn't that.

Like literally a company bought the rights to a thing. Yes, and blah, blah, blah. Now that being said, you know, if your name's on something, you got to watch out. But anyway, and you got to own it. Calls her well meaning a bunch of times. It simply points out that, uh, It's a Civil War dinner theater, much in the same way that there's like nights

of the round table dinner theater. Yeah, medieval times. Yeah, the difference, of course, being that the Civil War, though it was hundreds of years ago, is still resonating in our country. Large trickle-down effects of that whole hoodspah. They do not address slavery. And some other people are like, why the fuck would they?

And it's like, no, you're right. But that's not an argument that the Dixie Stampede should address slavery. That's an argument that the Dixie Stampede shouldn't exist as a kitchy dinner theater thing. You can't turn the Civil War into kits yet. Right. Right. Yeah.

I mean. She compared it to, which I thought was funny. She said it's the South Springtime for Hitler like that with the Mel Brooks, you know, and the producers. And I thought, that's pretty, I mean, it's pretty fucking good. Yeah. Yeah. And then the only thing that she said that would make, you know, that. It's just so, like, it's just so ridiculous.

No ridiculous. The fact that she had to write it's ridiculous. The girl did a great job doing what she had to do without making Dolly look like an asshole. The existence of that article is absurd. It's such an existence of Dixie Stampede. Yes, exactly. You know what? Exactly.

It's the same kind of bullshit show for people who go there who already feel a certain way can masturbate. Right. It's like one of our shows. Yeah. But it's like, but now. Should it exist? Yeah. Maybe not.

Maybe not. Yeah. I just, I can't help again. And again, I ain't read it. They have a Norganers and Soutenner's only bathroom tray. Like, the people listen to this. With white and black signs. And the people there's like, yeah, that's ridiculous side of the way.

Have y'all ever been to Gatlinburg? Yeah. It's like the 58th most ridiculous thing in that fucking place. 100% agree with you. That whole place exists to just be that shit. All right. Well, so I've got to read. It's so silly and just stupid.

Yes. It's not worth getting outraged over. Well, and that was what. It ain't worth. nobody's fucking time. In my defense, I want everyone to know this is a big part of what I posted was that that article was just designed to jump on the back of an outrage cycle that's happening right now because of

very real issues. And therefore that article. And very real and justified outright. And therefore that article is bullshit. But what I was seeing on my wall tray was these like up in arms defenses of Dolly. A, Dolly wasn't attacked. B, Dolly probably should shut it down. And see, Dolly don't need anyone defending her.

That would be like me coming out and being like, I heard people were saying mean things about Connor McGregor. They ought not do that. You can't hurt, Dolly. Of course. I'm going to read what. A friend of the podcast, Sarah Perkle, a fan of Irish from Marrival. She's a musician.

If I'm not mistaken, I know her brother or her cousin, I think it's her brother. Perkle? Yeah. Don't that hit? Does hit. Y'all talk for a second while I find this. She's worked there, and I want to read what she said. I hope she don't mind me using her name.

Drew's right. There's a huge difference, and he's already covered all this. but like when he first, I found out about this from him. And when he's first describing it to me and he was like, yo, just the fact that like Dixie Stampede, it kind of just sort of glosses over all the slavery stuff. It doesn't really address it at all. And I was just like, yeah, well, it ain't like medieval times has a part

where a fucking peasant's wife gets raped by the Lord or whatever. Like, I mean... That's true, but in it. Of course it doesn't cover fucking slavery. It's a dumb ass... They race pigs in that shit. Sure, sure, sure. But to that.

point, the medieval times is just, no, it's called the medieval times. It's not like there's a specific event and you go, well, no, that actually, they're just covering the medieval times the day that they didn't rape, you know? The civil, there weren't none of them. You're right, but I'm saying the civil war. The medieval times was like 80% rape. It was a huge rape in time. It was a great time to be a rapist. I've always said that. I've always said that. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying if you were a rapist and you want to go back in time, that would be the greatest time to go to. But my

point is, the Civil War is first of all, it just happened. Even if, fuck what the war is about, it's still a war. Yeah. Like, it, to me, it'd be weird if we had a goddamn World War II dinner theater. Like, that would be awkward. Right, you don't do it, you don't do dinner theater. It's weird. When you

need nuance. Right. Exactly. And this war, this particular war, as far as being divisive, literally the most divisive one we've ever had. So I can't imagine us doing a dinner theater where it's us versus the Germans. Even though in that scenario, I could get behind it and go, all right, you know what? Yeah.

But how would you deal with all the dead Jews? Right, exactly. Just gloss over why we're there. You have to wait a thousand years. Okay, yes. You have to wait long enough and then you just do it. Right. Because that's what medieval times is.

He said, he said, how long till 9-11 is like a holiday? Like a burger in the park holiday? exactly and so the one thing that the writer said that i that i could see a lot of people get mad about i didn't have a problem with her saying this but she said you know what this really is is a relic of a time when we as a country were just pretty much okay with the fact that the south wanted to pretend like they won because they almost always win the competition and i i think that that's probably true i don't think that it was created for that i don't think it was created to, you know, actually

you're right, Corey. Corey's making the, I think it was face. The conceded meme face. Now listen, I'm going to ask her if I can use her name. And if she says no, Corey, you just bleep it out. And then if you're listening to this now... Yeah, this will be fun. Yeah, Facebook, she'll be fine with it, I think. This is what she said. I've got friends in that

house band, world-class musicians. Now, I've heard her and her family play. When she fucking says world-class, she means legit. Like the fiddle player or whoever it is she's talking about. Ken Jam. I'm sorry. There's bands. play at the Dixie Stampede. Okay, and she knows people that play in the band there.

I've got friends in that house band, world-class musicians. It's been ten years or more, but I've subbed at that hillbilly expletive theater show because I needed the money, and my friend I was subbing for needed to keep his other job. That said, I avoid pigeon forge and Gatlinburg. This was a pot-stirring shitpiece from Slate,

even though it was all true. They carpet-bagged us. I hope my friends make all the money they can, and then St. Dolly, and then I hope that St. Dolly will tell the production company that's capitalized on her good name to come up with a better production for her fans and the many good people employed there. And when I said back

to her, was I wish I wouldn't have posted anything and just found you saying that and just posted that. That's exactly how I feel about it. I too love it when some... That's why I love sharing Tray's videos. Like, I'd have said that. I'm not saying I would have said it. I'm saying I couldn't have. That's what I meant.

Thank you. Uh, but yeah, so... Progressive presents precious moments. Yeah, I caught my first fish, Dad. Great job, buddy. He's a beauty. Thanks for taking me fishing. Love you, Dad. I love you, too, son. The exchange you just heard didn't actually happen, but it could.

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But Slate and the headline and the links and shit. Without a doubt. Some clickbaity shit that absolutely is implying that Dolly is fucking race, or not race baiting, but whatever. And why did they do that? Because it gets clicks. Because it gives people in that. Because it makes people like us defensive hillbillies go comment, share it, talk about how it's bullshit. I mean, they sent her out to do a hit piece. And it looks to me like she chose actually not to do as much of a hit piece as she could have.

But they still were like, all right, well, we're going to do our job to at least make it look like that's what you did to people that didn't read it. Or, yeah, we want people to click it. So I still ultimately, at the end of the day, as an ignorant person who has a, read the piece in question, come down against it. Sure. A lot of the people who came down against it. You are a redneck, for sure.

The only reason I was posted about in the first place is a lot of people who came down against it were like defending Dolly. And I was like, against what? She didn't write this fucking thing. And she probably should take her name off of it. But that don't make her evil. Hell no.

That, again, of course they're defending. Like I said, that was a that was a goal. A goal on. Slate's part. Yeah, I mean, they went, they did, the author might not have, but they did go after Dolly. Yeah, if they just

said one thing, but if that girl had said one thing about Dolly in there, I mean, we would be having a completely different conversation. Right. But like I said, I read it and aside from, but dude, that's one of them things too where I'm like, I'm going to start getting on the slate now for clickbait shit because it's about myself.

That's all they do. Every single one of them fucking are. You know what I'm saying? So for me to sit here and go, these devil trying to clickbait Dolly and it's doing to fucking everybody. You know I just realized? We're doing it now. What?

We have a fucking successful podcast and we're talking about a goddamn Slate article. Yes, we've got. They beat us. Yeah, they win every time. They did. Well. Fuck them.

They don't have it. We hit. Yeah. We do hit. Well, anyway, we need to wrap this intro up to hell with Slade. I don't know how much that will hit for our guest this week.

Our guest this week is the inimitable joy Reid, who is one of the most immediately impressive people that I've ever met in my life, probably. She has a striking intellect. I don't know how else to put it. I think I said to her, which of course, she's like, oh, don't say that. You're too sweet. I told her, we were sitting there in our hotel room, and we

got done, and I said, I've never felt more stupid in my life sitting next to you. And I didn't really say much because I couldn't, but like, literally every answer she gave was perfect. And she, and She was coming at, but she came at it from both sides. She's reasonable. So, yeah, anybody looks, I know there's so many people that want to look at her show and be like, oh, you know, fucking her show, which is A.M. Joy on MSNBC.

Yeah, dude, she, she said some things that I was like, oh, my God, I'm guilty of doing that shit, you know, as a liberal or whatever. So, like, go, you know, go fuck yourself with that. She's insanely talented and smart. She is a journalist, obviously, and I just, I don't think you can overstate how important good journalism is. in a democracy. I think she's good. I mean, you know, she occupies a space that's very different than, for example, our friend, Saras Marsh. She is, you know, Joy is absolutely, and everyone on her level is as much as celebrity as they are a journalist.

And that does change things. And people can critique her all day long for that. But Mal was blown away by her deep, deep intelligence. I love the conversation. Me too. We hope y'all will, too. So enjoy this conversation with Joey Reed, and we'll see you next. time.

Scoot! Dolly's the best. Absolutely. I heard that. So are we good? Yeah, buddy. Are we going? Oh, yeah.

All right. Hey, here we are. We've been going. I can cut that out if you want to. Let's go ahead. I can't help but feel like we've kind of dute Joy Reed into joining us in our hotel room up here in Pasadena. I'm calling my lawyers. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

But either way, we are certainly thrilled. You are here. Thank you, Joy. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. So the reason we're all here is Politicon, which, you know, I guess is like Comic-Con, but for politics and political junkies. How has your Politicon been so far?

I'm a little disappointed that nobody cosplays at this thing. Yeah, I mentioned that. And we did a live recording earlier, and I brought up the, I said the same thing. I was like I was expecting to see more. I thought I thought cost playing was what you did at, Collins and stuff. That's what I thought. We saw one guy in a Lincoln hat, but he didn't go all the way with it. Like he didn't commit.

Like he had the Lincoln hat and he had sort of a black coat, but he didn't go all Lincoln. He didn't have the beard. He didn't have. So I'm a little disappointed for that. I saw someone in a glittery jumpsuit, full body jumpsuit that was open all the way down to his belly button. Okay. And he was had on platform shoes and it was like the American flag. He looked like evil conneval, but in drag.

The fancy flag. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, see, that's at least committing to the idea of a con. Right. Yeah. And we will.

have said this in the intro that we record and also in the description of the episode, but just to put it back out there, Joy is the host of A.M. Joy on MSNBC, where she was kind enough to have me as a guest this morning. That's the second time I've done the show. Thank you very much for that. Always a pleasure. Next year, can I go as Taft and y'all carry me around in a bathtub? You made the Politicon? You're going to cosplay as Taft. Scott's going to bathe? I love that. That's a good one. Yeah. You should have a rubber ducky, like right on the edge of The tough? Make it real. I wanted to start this podcast with a question we ended a previous podcast with.

We interviewed Allison Lundrigan Grimes, who's the Secretary of State of the State of Kentucky, youngest Secretary of State in the country, and a fellow Southern Democrats like we are. And she was fantastic. And we closed that interview with Drew asking her, what I'm going to ask you now, is America over? Is the world ending joy? From where you're sitting, looking around,

how pessimistic or optimistic are you? Well, first of all, I would like to take this moment. I think it's an important moment to tell you that I am a Kentucky colonel, exactly like Colonel Sanders, courtesy of the current governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin. I'm not sure he knew he was giving me his coloneldom.

But when I went down and did an event, I got like one of those proclamations. And I did not realize that Colonel Sanders was not like an Army colonel. if he was the same kind of colonel as me. So actually, that's either really amazing or really depressing. But I'm a colonel. So as a Kentucky colonel, I greet you all.

But I think the country is in a, you know, not to be doom and gloom. But we're in a very precarious state. This is the most sort of frightening time that I've ever experienced in politics in my entire life. And I'm, you know, not trying to be dramatic. I think the norms that we assumed guns. governed us and governed the presidency. Donald Trump is proving that they are that they are much more fragile than we thought. So we thought, you know, there's this a monuments clause. Presidents can't enrich themselves being president. He's just flagrantly doing it. Right. We thought,

well, you know what? The president has to sort of respect the press and deal with them. No, he can just turn off the cameras and then we'll let him. The idea of the things he's getting away with, I mean, Donald Trump is probably making more money being president than he did in real estate. We just don't know. It's so opaque. And he's also. proving that Congress as the check and balance on a president can be completely ineffective because this Congress is doing absolutely nothing

to random in. And the idea that a foreign government, a hostile foreign government like Russia, could enter into our political system and make decisions to help pick our president and that a lot of Americans would shrug that off. I don't think it's a good

thing. Sorry. Hot take. Hot take from Joey Reed. Yeah. No, I definitely, believe me, we agree. We, you talk, so about the Russia thing, we've talked about that a lot on our podcast. And I keep saying, you know, like a lot of people keep saying, like, when is it actually going to matter?

Like, when is enough going to be enough? When is it going to amount to something? Because you're right. Like, they, just, the Congress does literally nothing about it. And, you know, Drew always points out the minute that it's politically advantageous for them in their opinion. to do something about it. Like when the tide turns enough or whatever,

then that, but up until that point, it doesn't matter what happens or what comes out. And that is extremely disappointing. Like, I keep thinking, like, I agree with that, and that makes sense, but I keep thinking,

and maybe naively hoping, that there will reach some kind of tipping point where they know they don't have a choice but to do something about it. it. You know what I mean? No matter what they would prefer to do, they're like, okay, our hand has been forced at this point. But I don't know. Maybe not. We've been talking today already a lot, and a lot of people are talking about McCain voting. No on the health care thing. And we were talking this morning about how frustrating it is. He's getting all this credit for it. And you could tell that he set it up as a political move with that really dramatic entrance. And he looked like Caesar turning his thumb down. And, you know, there's, The Alaskan senator and, I forgot where the other one's from.

Markowski and Susan Collins. Where's Collins from? And she's from Maine. Bain, the Maine Senator Collins, you know, they've been against it the whole time. But that speech that McCain gave before that, when they brought the vote to the floor the first time, I actually thought that he should got more credit for that than any of the damn vote that he did. And the reason why, and it's related to what you were saying, he said in there, he said, I want to remind you guys that collectively we are as powerful as him.

The way it is written and the way that our government is structured, we are equal to Donald Trump. He cannot bully us and we cannot let him bully us. I wonder if that is a signal. It's not going to happen overnight, but if that's a signal where Republicans are starting to perhaps realize, basically what you were saying, that the tipping point's coming and we have to stand up to this guy, or we might not have the same country to govern when this is all over with it. I think McCain realizes that. I'm not sure the party does.

And, you know, the Congress is the first branch of government. that the Article I power, in a lot of ways, they're more powerful than the president, you know. But Congress has only seemed to realize that when the president is of the opposite party of the majority in Congress, then all of a sudden they assert their power. When Barack Obama's president, suddenly Republicans want to try to control and micromanage the White House and rein the White House in. When it's a Republican and their Republicans, you know, they sort of shrug it off even when he's kind of spitting in the face of their power and their authority. And we have a Congress, unfortunately, whose majority just wants to pass their agenda. don't really seem to care what Donald Trump does. They don't mind even if he humiliates them. And John McCain cares, because John McCain is at the end of his career, quite frankly.

And he is now deciding he's going to try to save the institution. And that speech was an institution-saving speech. And so I think that McCain really does believe that. And he's shown throughout his career that he's had moments of glory, right? In addition to his obviously war service, as a member of the Senate, he's had some dark moments. you know, he did pick Sarah Palin to be his running mate, which I'm not sure what that was about. But he's also had some sort of glorious moments when he defended Barack Obama, when they were running against each other from a woman who said, you know, he's a Muslim or he's a terrorist or something. And John McCain said, no, he's not. He's a good man. So he can do it.

He's capable of it. But Republicans are going to need a leader, and whether it's John McCain or someone else, to stand up and lead them against Donald Trump. Because right now what Republican strategists and folks that I talk to tell me the only thing that will change their mind. two things would change their mind. Number one, if Donald Trump were to fall below 60% with Republican voters. And right now he's at 83. The other thing would be... Watered, 83?

Well, the 83, just to give you a caveat, there's some new sort of data that suggests that the reason he's not falling with Republicans is that as people turn against Donald Trump and decide they don't favor him anymore, they also stop identifying themselves as Republicans. So his number stays artificially high. They're just less and less Republicans and he's still popular with them. Right. Because those are the diehards that are left over. So, of course, the number is going to be high.

And even Nixon had 25% even after he's impeached. You know, there's just a quarter to a third of the country that are just hardcore Republicans, right? And then the other thing that might change Republicans' minds would be indictments. You know, for Robert Mueller, who is a longtime Republican very respected, you know, if he were to come out and say, there are crimes here, Republicans would have to seriously think about doing something about it. or that there is a third, if Trump were to find a way to fire him, have Mueller fired, you would then see civil war on Capitol Hill if he were to fire or have him fired. I've made that very clear that if he goes after Robert Mueller that it's kind of over for him.

Yeah. I just want to take a moment that has nothing to do with you and I apologize. It feels really good being right. That's exactly what I said was going to happen. And that's the only way the Republicans are going to turn on him. So I'm going to bask in that for a second. Basque, yes, yes, you deserve it. I wonder if, because it sounds like you're sort of saying, well, they're just trying to get their

agenda passed and that's all they care about. So he's a distraction. Well, does it change anything that they can't seem to get their agenda passed? Right. I was going to ask the same question. That's sort of the great irony. So, you know, the Republican Party has always been this sort of three-legged stool of, you know, the religious right, the sort of Wall Street faction in the party. And then what, you know, I in my book called the Archie Bunker Wing, the part of the, you know, base that is just angry that some of them used to be Southern Democrats that just feel like the country's going culturally in the wrong direction. They're sort of perpetually angry group of people. And then there's a fourth little bit that's libertarian. Those wings have never agreed on anything other than they hate Democrats. And so they will band together and vote and win. And they probably do. But they don't agree on anything else. They literally don't agree. So the problem is you have some Republicans who say, you know, maybe we should have Medicaid and maybe the poor should have health care. And then you have some who say, no, pretty much if you get sick, it's your problem. And they don't agree. So they can't get their agenda through because they don't agree. And so I go back and forth on how to feel about that.

What I mean is they have all the, they have control of, you know, both sides of Congress, they have control of the White House, and yet they can't get a thing that, ostensibly they all agree needs to happen. They can't make it happen even with that.

And so I go back and forth between feeling good about that because, oh, well, clearly they are incompetent. means they're not going to screw things up too much and also being terrified by that because it's like, well, these are the people running the country. And clearly they're completely incompetent. You know, so what are the ramifications of that? What does that mean? And, you know, I'm about 50-50 depending on my mood at the time. What do you think? What do you think?

You have to remember that the Democrats throughout the 20th century were the governing party. Democrats have held the Congress, you know, for the vast majority of the 20th century. Republicans only took it back in 94 and then they took it back again, obviously, in 2010. But Republicans are a much better opposition party than a governing party. They're very good at being the minority in opposition because they are ruthless. They will filibuster every bill. They're sort of like the way the old Southern Democrats were, who were ruthless and would filibuster and hold up the whole Senate to stop civil rights bills.

Those same people actually migrated into the Republican Party. Strom Thurman went into the Republican Party and took a lot of those guys with him. You look at some of these even well-known. I think John Cornyn used to be a Democrat. They sort of moved into the party and they brought that same sort of spirit with them in which you fight to the last dog dies to stop Democrats. And so in opposition, they're very effective. In terms of state party building, very effective.

Very good at the long game where they'll take a Scott Walker and sort of nurse him up from county executive all the way to the governor's mansion. The Democrats, on the other hand, have always been a governing. party. And they used to be good at like ward politics, like getting your low, you know, like go knocking, they called the knock and drag, like getting all the people in the ward. You'd have the Irish ward and the sort of boss would get all the Irish voters to come out. And then the black guy would get all the black people to come out. They used to be good at that. They stopped being good at that because they started winning a lot. And they're a governing party. They're very good at passing

laws, very good at coming up with really complicated legislation like the Affordable Care Act that you can't undo. But politics, they're not so great it anymore. Right. Unless they get one charismatic sort of genius guy. like Barack Obama, he did that. The party really wasn't the brains behind what he did. Yeah, what Drew actually said earlier today, and when we recorded the live episode,

he said the way he put it was the Republicans aren't, you know, historically they're not good at leading or governing, but they're good at winning elections and it's kind of the opposite for the Democrats, you know. But like that, but like that's, I mean, that sucks if you're on our side because if you don't, I mean, if you don't win,

you can't govern. You know what I mean? Like, we've got to figure that shit out. It used to be the way that Democrats would win is they would imitate Republicans, right? You'd have Bill Clinton sort of imitate some of the things they were for, so they would co-op the other side. Or you have Barack Obama who had kind of like a big aura, like a celebrityish sort of aura. And he was, you know, the young people wanted him. And so he had a cachet almost like a celebrity.

So absent that, Democrats have a hard time like putting together the mechanics of winning elections. They just do. Well, I mean, you know, Clinton, Bill Clinton, I think. pushed us a little bit towards the middle. And the Democrats are pretty moderate right now. We talked about that a little bit earlier today. I'm curious, do you think that's true? And do you see it as a problem or as a positive thing in terms of winning elections, not necessarily personally? Right. Because a lot of my friends, and I mean, I was a big Bernie guy personally, and a lot of my friends are like, they're saying to me, these millennials are saying, the Democrats are toast if they don't start pushing themselves a little bit more to the left. I don't know if that's true. But yeah, it's interesting because I feel like the Democratic Party is the most liberal. It's been since the 70s. It's interesting that, you know, after Lyndon Johnson, who was himself not a liberal, you know, but he pushed through all of this incredibly liberal, all the Kennedy legislation, the civil rights bills, the voting rights act, this incredible, you know, raft of legislation to help the poor, Medicare, Medicaid. And that shifted the party to the left. And it pushed a lot of white voters, especially in the South, out of the party because it seemed to a lot of people to be too far to the left. And then Jimmy, Jimmy,

Carter and Bill Clinton pulled it back. I mean, people don't think of Carter as being to the right. But remember, Jimmy Carter ran as the right-winged Christian Democrat. And the Kennedy wing of the party couldn't, they hated him. They had the ABC movement, anybody but Carter, because he was seen as dragging the party toward the religious right. He's now looked at it as a liberal, but he moved the party pretty decisively to the right. And then Bill Clinton did the same thing. He sort of emulated kind of a Reagan-y message. He said, you know, the age of big government is over. we're going to get rid of, we're going to reform welfare. He sort of used Republican messaging. Barack Obama moved the party decisively to the left because he was moved to the left. He's a

moderate guy, but the energy in the party, much like in the 70s, was all on the left. Everyone was pulling him to the left, DACA for immigrants, gay marriage, all the LGBT rights stuff. The party's been dragged to the left. And because the energy is really on the left, the Sanders sort of really liberal part of the party is who's got the energy. And the moderates are kind of of, you know, sort of losing energy and losing steam. So it's a weird time for the party. But it is to the left of where it's been in a long time. In terms of just success, what do you think, which, what should the party do? Yeah. I mean, I think what the party has to do, first of all, being to the left now is not as dangerous as it used to be. It used to be if the party got too

liberal, it even made it hard for black voters to vote for Democrats because a lot of African Americans were, you know, were very culturally conservative for a long time. But Barack Obama has kind of broken that. I mean, you saw a huge change in the attitudes toward gay marriage because Obama changed his mind and that changed a lot of African-American minds without that kind of religious cultural conservatism and with the religious right really turning off black people in huge numbers, especially young people. I think now the party's kind of open to a more liberal message. I don't know if a openly socialist message will keep like voters over 30, but Democrats should just embrace it. They just need to figure it out. What are you for? If you're for universal health care,

stop being like so warm glass of milk that you can't say you're for universal health care they're really too cautious for the party they're turning into i feel like that yeah that should be their new mascot as a warm glass of milk putting this all to sleep it's extremely frustrating for me personally i can probably get a job as that mascot I just, hello, I'm a warm glass of milk. So you may not be allowed to answer this question or just would like not to, but I'm just curious. I'm just wondering that, because I'm assuming you guys track numbers pretty heavily at your show and at the network. Like what, from MSNBC's perspective, or at least from the perspective of your show, like, how do you guys do in Red of America. I'm particularly wondering about the South. Like, because we, a lot of times we run into people in other parts of the country who literally think we are like unicorns. You know what I mean? Like,

we're literally the only ones. And I'm always, you know, very quick to say, no, I'm not, I mean, yes, we are the minority. Don't give me wrong. We are the minority. But we're not, you, that me, Corey and Drew, are not unique either. There are plenty of other people, especially in the cities and whatnot. And, um, but a lot of people don't know that. So I'm just kind of curious. Yeah. Because I figure you might have some actual like data on that. Oh no. I am obsessed with data and numbers. I'm a complete nerd. So I definitely know that. And you know, it's interesting because, um, you kind of have to stop thinking of it being a regional divide, like the north, south divide. It's a big city, exactly, small city suburb. That's what we came to that same conclusion just from

traveling the country on tour, right, driving around the country. But we came to the same conclusion and that's what we always tell people now. Yeah. Yeah. is the exact same thing. It's like it's not a geographical thing. It's not a, you know, south, north divide. It's a rural urban divide. That's how I mean, that's how I knew Trump was going to win. Because we kept traveling around.

I was like, I kept seeing his signs everywhere. And I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah. They're everywhere. Where are you seeing them? In rural areas. Yeah. Well, like in between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the stretch of I-5 that goes

through all that barren, like, you know, almond farms and stuff. A lot of Trump signs there. Same thing in Washington State. a very liberal, liberal state, but you drive from Spokane to Seattle across like basically the nether regions of the state, and you see as many Trump signs as we saw anywhere. Well, and what I was getting to is that it's not just in the rural parts. The rural part of the country has always been very conservative, where Trump won was the suburbs and the exurbs. Right. Because what's happening is that the liberal, the sort of, the urban, you know, sort of revitalization, if you want to call it, or gentrification is driving affluent, educated people into downtowns, into the cities.

with money want to live near work. They don't want to live in the suburbs. It used to be that the suburbs were the affluent, educated, people with PhDs lived in the suburbs. Now, poverty is going to the suburbs, and people who are more conservative are moving to the exerves, the far suburbs. They're moving way out of the city. So Donald Trump didn't just win the rural part, which he's supposed to win. He's Republican. Where I was seeing the signs and which should have set off alarms for the Democrats was in the suburbs so that you would see only, the only place Hillary Clinton had were the cities. You know, Donald Trump won about, what, 2700 counties. She won maybe 400 counties.

It's because, but her counties are responsible for much, many more people and about two thirds of the economic output of this country come from her 400 counties. And he's got these 2,700 counties with a lot less economic output, a lot less jobs, but a lot more suburban people. So that's how he won. So, yeah, you go to, you know, Columbia, South Carolina. It's a blue city. People vote for Democrats.

You know, the mayor of Columbus, Georgia, second biggest city in Georgia, is a white woman. Democrat. Yeah, the mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee is a Hispanic woman Democrat who has, well, I don't know if I should have her on here, but I'm going to. She has sent me messages telling me to keep it up and she, uh, you know, likes my videos and, you know, so she's definitely on her. And yeah, that's, you know, that's East Tennessee, which if, you know, if you're familiar with, uh, the stereotypes of the South and where we're east, you know, that's hillbilly country. Like, that's like, you know, wrong. That's literally deliverance land. You know what I mean? mean like in watch your mouth well i mean i'm just saying like that's the perception of it she was

mayor at the same time that stacey don't say gay campfield was a rep from the same area like they had the same constituents a little bit of overlap i made her gasp one time on stage when i said i'm glad they killed kennedy but uh that's a joke anyway i i guess to be contrarian a little bit i have been pushing back a little bit on this um urban rural divide not because i don't see it as true as a generalization, but I think there is this notion that, well, that the urban area is a monolith and that the rural area is a

monolith. You sort of touched on it with that suburb thing because there's like a lot of people who would say, where are you from? And they would say Philadelphia. Now, they're actually from some suburb or whatever, but it's just easier for them to say Philadelphia. And they're huge Trump people. And you touched on, I was glad you said it. Rural

America keeps getting blamed for Trump. And a lot of them voted for them. So it's not like you can say, no, but it's like, well, what about all the affluent, educated white people who voted for Trump? Why are we not talking about them? Because all white people voted for Trump, right? All the different demographics of white people, socioeconomic, gender, all that, across all of them voted for Trump. But it's not just for Trump.

I mean, if you go all the way back, the last time a Democrat won a majority of white voters period was Lyndon Johnson. Since then, every Democratic president has lost the white vote. It's just a matter of how much you lose it by. And Jimmy Carter won 46% of the white vote. So he came the next highest. And then by the time you get to Bill Clinton, he did about the same, about 46% in the white vote. Barack Obama did pretty well. He got like 42%.

But Democrats always lose the white vote. And they always lose white women. And I think there's this presumption that white women are more liberal, but that's not true. There's still majority Republican. I mean, especially like, but with Trump specifically and the whole, you know, pussy grabbing and all that. He still won white women. side of the shit, he still won white women. That is the closest that he came to losing.

As I recall, college-educated white women was 51-49, and that's the closest that he came to lose. Still. He still won. He still won. Yeah. What was it? Lyndon B. Johnson's chief of staff said to him after he passed the civil rights bill, he said, well, congratulations, Mr. President. You've lost the South for Democrats for your entire lifetime. And God damn, if he wasn't, I mean, that's 100% correct.

But, you know, it took a long time. I mean, people think that immediately the South just flipped a switch and became Republican. It wasn't until 2014 that Republicans won all of the southern state legislatures. You know, up until 2014, North Carolina still had a Democratic state legislature, because you had to have, first of all, individual Democratic politicians die off or switch parties. You know, if you go to Northern Florida, there are people who are still Democrats. They only vote for Republicans for president, but they'll still vote for their local state rep or state center, who's extremely conservative, who's in every other way a Republican, but to keep getting reelected,

they're a Democrat. David Clark, that insane police chief from Minneapolis from Minneapolis is a Democrat. But he's only a Democrat because that's the only way he can win. Because that's such a democratic voting area. So it's a lot more complicated than people think. I was a public defender in Miami day when I got out of law school. And there they, you don't look old enough to have done any of that. You started 32 and South Florida. Didn't you down in that area? Yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah. My boss, and you had to run there, the public defender's run, is a gay Republican, Catholic, super progressive, especially in terms of criminal justice, a politician there. And I was like, wait, we work for Republican? How does that work? Because it was a very like,

you know, fuck the police kind of situation there. And everyone's like, oh, yeah, yeah, but I mean, he's Cuban. He has to be Republican. And they're all Republicans. And absolutely, there are a lot of liberal sort of philosophically liberal Cuban Americans, but they have to be Republican to win. Well, and he himself is a very small government kind of Republican, which sort of informs his, you know, I want to be a public defender because, you know, in spite of what many Republicans will tell you these days, the police are part of the government, and we should keep them small too. They are, and I love that you said that, because, yeah, I have to remind people often that they are the government. And if you don't like the government, and it's not about not liking them, it's about holding them accountable because they work for the public, just like the public defender works for the public, the president works for the public. These people all work for us, including the police. Well, a lot of times those small government, you know, spouting Republicans, it really just comes down to like, we want to be taxless or whatever. Like, they don't, it's an issue-by-issue thing is what I mean. Because for so long, they wanted, you know, government to be directly involved in the lives of gay people, you know, or weed smokers, women.

Yeah, pregnant women, women in general. So, like, that always has been bullshit to me. Like they rally, but it really, it all depends on, you know, each specific issue and how they feel about it, where they really stand on, you know, the size of government. Yeah, and in policing, they want the biggest government because you're also talking about the one entity that's got super strong unions with ironclad contracts, with constant raises, where the unions get their way no matter what, they're the only unions that don't get cut. Those Scott Walker bills to defund unions do not ever touch the police. And they want them to have absolute power. That's the ultimate big government, right? You should want to rein them in as well.

Rain in all government, if that's what you're for. There was a young DA down there that I had to go up against a lot. He had a don't tread on me tattoo with the snake, and he was a prosecutor. And he was a really nice guy, but I just couldn't like him because I was like, you are either the dumbest or the biggest hypocritical person I've ever been around in my life. Yeah. So I know how busy you are, and thank you for coming. We're going to let you go in a minute. But there's one thing I did want to ask your opinion about, because obviously you're as on top of all this stuff as anybody is.

and it's been on my mind a lot recently. So I get asked a lot in interviews the question, how do the Democratic Party, but also just American liberals in general, how do they reach your people, Tray, meaning rednecks white working class people, the people that voted for Trump, because that was this huge narrative.

What can we do to get them back? And my like knee-jerk reaction is to lie because that's what really works on them. And I mean, that does work, but also I'm not actually advocating doing that. But like, I don't know what to say to that because Trump, you know, his big thing that he, you know, spouted the whole time was about bringing their jobs back and restoring their livelihood and all this. And I know that he can't do that, but I'm from a town where it was devastated by a factory leaving and it's never gotten any better. It's absolutely, you know, destroyed that whole area.

And so I understand those people hearing that and it resonating with them, whatever the reality of his ability to, you know, to deliver on it is. So I do think you have to lie because I don't think no matter what, I don't think those jobs are ever coming back. Whoever's in office. It's not a political thing. It's a technological. It's a wave of progress thing with automation and robots and all that self-driving cars. You know, the whole trucking industry is huge in America with jobs. jobs. That will be gone the second Walmart can, you know, put a robot truck on the road.

And so there's not, it's not even a political opinion. To me, it's just the reality. That's what's going to happen. So what in the hell do we do? And I don't even mean just on the left. I mean just in, you know, just period. What are we going to do about that? There's got to be a huge paradigm shift. The only answer I have is some kind of universal basic income. But those people do not want to hear that. They're very prideful. They don't want that. They want to work. You know, so what do you think about that? I mean, do you agree there's a storm coming? Yeah. As far as that goes? Oh, no, absolutely. I think the whole world is coming to this kind of the same cataclysm because you have people all over. Remember they used to be toll collectors? Remember that job?

There used to be people who have humans who collected tolls. Right. Now, if you go to South Florida, it's all automated. They just read your tag. There used to be things like the operator. Now you have to keep yelling operator into the phone to get a human, or if the human comes onto the phone. I'll also do that. Just scream. We talked about that the other night. We're like, I said something about 4-1-1. That was what, you know, people say, what's the 4-1-1 on that? People now, like, younger people are like, what, they don't know what that means? I mean, you used to call somebody and go, hey, what's Steve's number? And they would tell you what Steve's fucking number was. Yeah, yeah. I got a phone book on my doorstep the other day. And I'm like, what is, why is this here? Like, what is

the reason for putting this? It's like, yeah, it's kindling for the fireblaze. But I mean, so the thing is, you know, In a country of almost 200 million adults, the total number of coal jobs are 54,000 jobs. Right. And of those 54,000 jobs, probably half of them are administrative. Those jobs are not coming back. You cannot bring back a technology that is a dying technology. Right. And so you could either go and lie to those people like Trump didn't say, we're going to bring your coal jobs back, which you do not.

And at a certain point, they're going to realize you're not. They're just going to get demoralized. They're not going to vote for Democrats. They're going to stay home, which is what most poor people do. Poor people, black or white, don't vote. So these people who came in sort of out of the woodwork to vote for Trump because they thought he would bring their jobs back, they're not going to suddenly become Democrats. They're going to just stop voting again like they used to. The only thing Democrats can do in those situations because you can't change people's philosophy.

The Democratic Party is associated with, as you said, those prideful people as being the party of non-work, that the message of the Democrats is to care for you rather than give you meaningful work. And that's so ingrained culturally in people that they just reject the party philosophically. And, you know, I was having this conversation at dinner the other day that, you know, liberals tend to think that people tend to not think of other people as being just like them. And what I mean by that is that liberals vote against our economic interest all the time. I live in a high tax state. I choose to live in a high tax state and I still vote for the party that raises my taxes. That's voting against my economic interest. So why can't poor people do that?

If I do it and I do it in every election, I vote for the party that philosophically fits me, but I vote against my economic interest. So for me to say, why do those dumb people vote against their economic interests? Because they do what I do. They vote their values. And to them, the Republican Party's values fit their values. You can't do anything about that unless you're going to change the values of the Democratic Party to match the values of the Republican Party and pretend to be on the religious right, to pretend to want to bring back prayer in school and pretend to want the things that they think are important. Right.

And I don't think the Democrats are going to do that. The only thing you can really do at the local level, if you are a Democrat and you're in, let's say, rural West, Virginia is what Joe Manchin does, deliver. Joe Manchin wins, not because he lies to people in West Virginia, but because Joe Manchin, when he was governor, proved that he could really deliver the goods and services that he said he would when he ran. And if you have like a local politician, let's say, like a, you know, Londonman Grimes, same thing.

She gets reelected because she's effective, right? So even though she's a Democrat. That's exactly what she said was that to her, you have to follow through. You have to deliver, like, you know, do what you say you were going to do and then they will, you know, come with you. Yeah, Reverend Dr. William Barber, who's now Bishop William Barber in North Carolina, travels all around the state. He spends a lot of time in rural, conservative, Republican areas where people are like, how can I open up an NAACP? Why? Because he's helping them. So he has these white, conservative people coming to him because they know he will fight for them to keep their rural hospital open.

If you took him out and like an alien beamed him up and you beamed in a Democratic politician who goes to people one-on-one and says, I will help you keep your hospitals open. and then people take a chance on them even though they're a Democrat because it will be even though it won't be because it'll be even though and then they start delivering they'll keep voting for that individual

it has to be the individual person the Democratic Party is never going to appeal to Red America because the values of the Democratic Party are in anathomence of them and you know what there's nothing to do about that yeah I mean I completely agree

anytime I get asked that question I always feel like bad or like I wish I had a better answer I would you know whatever but like I mean I agree with you completely you know, but I mean, it is what Democrats can do, and it's my philosophy of politics, you can't pine for the other guys' voters. It's like, it's like another guy's girl. Go get your own. Right. You have to go find more Democrats. And they're all out there. There are unregistered voters who believe in what Democrats believe in, but who aren't registered to vote. You said you like Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders had a national campaign that registered almost no voters. Why would you have a movement that doesn't actually register people to be able to vote for you? If Democrats want to win, register voters. If Bernie Sanders had registered a million voters, Hillary Clinton lost by 77,000.

If he'd registered a million voters, probably 900,000 of them would have been registered as Democrats. Even if they'd registered independent, they would be leaning toward the Democratic Party. But the party has lost the will to do voter registration. It costs money. It's not sexy. Ads are much better. And the consultant class in the Democratic Party makes a ton of money on ads. They get a percentage on the ads.

That's where they want to spend the money because that's how they make money. I think you have to quit talking or someone comes in his window and shoot you. Start saying. Yeah, you make it too much. And we can't have that because I have to work tomorrow. Seriously, Joy, thank you so much. This has been an incredibly enlightening conversation. Thank you.

So thank you for braving the comedian's hotel room to. It's luxurious. It really is. Swinky. Thank you very much. Seriously. And thank you for the work that you do because I think that if anything gets us out of our current, it's going to be good journalist. I really believe that.

I read that thing that Andrew Sullivan wrote. He's a conservative, but he was telling me how Trump's a shit show right now. And it was like a breath of reasonable fresh air. Yeah. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I'll see you down the road. All right, Joy Reid, everybody. Thank you. Thank you all for listening to The Well Red Show. We'd love to stick around longer, but we got to go. Tune in next week if you got nothing to do. Thank you, God. Bless you, good night, and skue.