Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20240711

Across the United States. We will speak to members of the Standing Rock sioux and Navajo Nation and go to north dakota, which has the highest covid19 death rate of any state or country in the world. Then democracy now cohost Juan Gonzalez looks at how the Corporate Media missed the real story about latinx voter turnout in the 2020 election. Juan the main story is that in an election which saw historic tnout, people of color, and especially latinos, had an unprecedented increase in voting. And they, not white voters, represented the bulk of that increase. Amy plus, we will speak to antiracist activist bree newsome bass and princeton professor eddie glaude about the election of joe biden and Kamala Harris. We have to get about the work of responding to the problems we face as a nation at scale and not returning back to some sense of normalcy, which in some ways laid the foundation for the disaster that was and is trumpism. Amy a that d more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the quarantineeport. Im amy goodman. Today in this special broadcast, we look at this years historic election and the devastating covid19 pandemic. Begin in north dakota, which has the highest covid19 death rate of any state or country in the world, with one in every thousand residents dead from the virus. South dakotas death rate is nearly as bad, after both republican governors spent months downplaying the crisis. As covid19 ravages the dakotas, we turn to look at how thrapid spread of covid19 is affecting native american communities. We begin with two guests, Jodi Archambault is a citizen of the Standing Rock sioux tribe and the former special assistant to president obama for native American Affairs for the white house domestic policy council. She is ibismarck, the capital of north dakota. And in farmington, new mexico, were joined by allie young, a citizen of Navajo Nation, founder of protect the sacred. She lives in arizona. I began by asking Jodi Archambault to talk about the pandemics devastating effect on native americans. This has been a tough several months, just hoping that the government takes action. The state government, the way that they behave and the way that they react affects our people directly, stly because we have some of the highest rates of the underlying conditions that make covid19 a deadly disease. And so were having a lot of people rish. Were having a lot of death, a lot of hospitalizations. And its affecting us in ways at is nowidely known by the rest of america. We have very few years we have about maybe a decade, maybe 15 years, where we have to save our language, our lakota language, our dakota language. We also have other tribes in north dakota, like the arikara, the mandan, and the hidatsa. There are most of the speakers of our languas are over the age of 70. And we dont have very much time to spend with them and learn and protect and revitalize our languages. And vid19 h put on an additional layer of risk that is just putng us into a very difficult time. Juan and Jodi Archambault, how did it get to this stage, especially in the native communities of the state . How did the pandemic spread so rapidly in your community . It didnt spread very rapidly at first. As you know, the covid19 hit the cities first and hit seattle and new york city. In north dakota and south dakota, we shut down the businesses and took a lot of precautions early on, until about may. And north and south dakota were the first states to open their doors to business usual restaurants. People were shy at first. But at this point, theres a lot of people who have followed the line of thinking that covid19 is a hoax, or its some kind of democrat conspiracy. And a lot of people refuse to wear masks, even with a mask mandate. This has all accelerated on the reservations. Reservations or tribal nations, such as eagle butte, the Cheyenne River sioux tribe, and the ogla sioux tribe, the sisseton, wahpeton, rosebud, theyve all installed roadblocks. Theyve all implemented roadblocks to op traffic and outsiders from coming on the reservation. And the response to their action to protect tribal members, elrs, and the like was for the governor, noem, to torture them and hold them hostage with funding. She has coordinated with the Trump Administration to make it difficult to receive the federal resources that are allocated to the tribal government and have used that as a stick for them to try to force them to take the roadblocks down. And rather than supporting them and anking them for trying to address the lack of Health Services available on the reservation, she s made it more and more difficult for people, for our tribes, to protect ourselves. Amy north dakota governor can you talk about his originally saying that people who are healthcare workers who test positive for covid should remain working if they are asymptomatic and treat covid19 patients, and governor burgum then being forced to back down after the outcry, saying no to a mask mandate, then saying yes . I will just tell you that from we dont have its really hard to speak up in north dakota. The news sources out here dont cover an alternate perspective. But i will say thathe nurses association, andvocacy group, did issua press lease after governor burgum said that they could go back to work while they were testing covidpositive. That was last week on wednesday. D withinours, there was a pushback from the nurses association. None of the hospitals have taken him up on the offer. And its ridiculous that the leaderships response to being the worst covid rates in the world would be to allow nurses to infect other nurses, other doctors, and other patients by coming to work with covid. Its the most preposterous type of Government Action that ive ever heard of. So the business is the business of the hospital is asking for this kind of, i guess, allowance to allowick people without symptoms to come and spread . But tually, this has always the situation that wre talking about is the lack of compassion for those elders, not just native elders, but all elders, all people with Underlying Health conditions like cancer. It is an absolute choice, a clear choice, tohoose prof over people. So the governor isnt putting people first, hes putting profit first. And the same with governor noem down in south dakota. They have been she has been tively aing people to come to south dakota, come to the hottest spot secondhottest spot in the world and have your vacation, because we dont care if you wear a mask or not. Thats what her response is, and to increase the risk that tribal governments by forcing them to te down their barriers, or trying to force them down they havent taken them down. Its remarkable that theyre able to stick to that governance decision, that is saving lives on the reservations. Its still spreading. Its still spreading on the reservations because there is active commerce between reservations and cities. And so its getting in. Juan yeah, id like to bring in allie young to the conversation, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and founder of protect the sacred. Allie, welco to democracy now could you talk about the situation in Navajo Nation in terms of covid . And also, maybe comment on the fact that not all native areas have gaming, but quite a significant percentage do, and often its the gaming revenues that help provide Health Services or social services. Could you talk about the impact of the shutdowns on the ability of native peoples to provide Health Services, as well . Yeah. Yaateeh, hello, everyone. Thank you for having me. Yeah, right now we are seeing another surge in Navajo Nation, as we excted. We, as you all know, were the number one hot spot in the country per capita in the spring. And we worked hard to flatten the curve, and we were able to. There was a day where we had zero reported cases. But recently, because of the spikes across the country, what weve been seeing throughout the nation, with some of the rallies i mean, you know, some of our border towns around here are trump territory, and so there were rallies that i witnessed. And a lot of our people come into these border towns to do their shopping, because on Navajo Nation, you know, we have like 13 grocery stores. So we have to travel to these territories where theyre not thinking about theyre not wearing masks, and theyre not thinking about their neighbors who have been impacted. And then, to your point about the gaming industry in native communities, at Navajo Nation we have some casinos and hotels, as well, and theyve all been shut down. And it has impacted us economically, financially. And as far as healthcare, weve had to you know, i worked on a psa through protect the sacred that called out for medical volunteers. And thats the state that we were in, that we had to make that call out for ppe supplies, medical volunteers, because we just lack all of those resources and funding in our tribal communities, when were supposed to be guaranteed quality healthcare through our treaties with the federal government. Amy and, allie young, youve talked about feeling that so many native elders are suffering as a result of the decades of uranium mining, particularly of pulmonary and respiratory diseases, making them even more vulnerable. Were talking Something Like over 600 people just on the navajo reservation have died as of this weekend of covid. Yes. And that is something that am trying to connect e dots to anyone i speak to, lets not forget about how the federal government greenlit these companies coming in to extract our minerals on tribal reservations. In Navajo Nation, for 30plus years, we had peabody up in the Northwestern Region of Navajo Nation, which was our hot spot within the nation. And a lot of our people up there the waters and our lands are contaminated by uranium. And our elders had to work through and even my own uncles you know, they just shut down last year, in 2019. So a lot of our people have worked through those unsafe environments and certainly have those preexisting and underlying conditions that we need to consider in why were so lnerable to this virus. Amy Jodi Archambault, can, at least increase in native american turnout, not noted in the Mainstream Media . Sure. I just want to say that, despite the risk of being exposed to covid, the numbers were incredible, and i think that this is something often overlooked by Mainstream Media, only because Mainstream Media has a tendency to leave out the full picture when it comes to native americans. Inact, cnn did an info graphic and did a breakdown of all the different people who voted in the election, and for native americans, they called us Something Else amy e have that actual graphic right here. It says latino. It says black. It says white. And then Something Else. And then asian. Yeah, yeah. And social media, our resiliency is through our humor, so it just took off. Everybody kept saying, like, custer said, gosh, they are sure Something Else, custer, from the last couple centuries ago. And a lot of people taking it as a call to try to bring attention to the people at the cnn, to the people at the mainstream, who just continuousl do not see us. They do not see us, and it is intentional because we are a reminder of the bloodshed that it took to make this country. We are not congruent with the american dream, and were still here. We are actually leading the way how to handle pandemics because we have been through so many of them, and it is so much ingrained in our communities, that we are not victims in this, we are actually ready to fight. We are ready to push back into what we can to protect ourselves because it is the only way we have made it this far, and we know that people in america do not see us so we have to do it for ourselves. Amy still with us in arizona is allie young, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and founder of protect the sacred. Allie, if you could start off by talking about what you did in the arizona talk about the horseback ride that you took. I work with my father who lives in rough rock, arizona, and we work together, and i ha always voted in arizona, reded with my father, and we have always done trail rides. That is our bonding thing. And we have done them throughout Navajo Nation. In this year when we were thinking about the election, he wanted to do a bidenharris trail ride. And when i called him back and thought about the significance of a trail ride and the respect that our people have for the horses, and as we call it, horse medicine, and rse medicine is when you are in rhythm with the horse and almost in sync and you are reconnected d refocused. As you ride in our homelands and are reminded of exec that what our ancestors have fght just reminded of exactly what our ancestors have fought for, our lands still in our helands and our cultures and also our right to vote. So i went back to my father and said, what is happening with the trail right . He said, i dont know, i do not think we are going to do it. But i said i think we should do it, but with protect the sacred, have to be nonpartisan, so it is more like getting folks out to the post so they can cast their ballots. I was hearing on the ground that they were not feeling very motivated to participate in the selection, as a lot of other communities of color. Because why continue participating in system that has never worked for us, is not working for us . I find that are native youths, we are more educated than ever, and that is why the resistance, because we know our history and what has happened to us historically. Also, we are more connected to technology and information than ever, and were more eager to reconnect to our cultures and that respect for our ancestors and elders. So i wanted to strategize and use that and say, ok, lets find something that will excite our native youth, that is rooted in our culture and will help us reclaim arizona. I keep saying arizonas indigenous dna is not republican dna, which i heard on the news when i was watching about a month before we decided to do ride to the polls. And that is what really motivated me, because arizona has this deep history of many tribal communities, and it is not just a place where white conservatives go to retire. And this is our homelands, and i called on my people, lets show up, lets show them that were still here, lets be represented, lets make sure that we have a seat at the table and that our voices are heard. So that is what it was so important, and i am so happy that a lot of young people did come out. It did excite them. I got so many positive messages from our effort. It was an exciting turnout. Juan what were the results or have you been able to tell . The exit polls to factor in or count native american what have been results in the actual vote totals you have been able to see so far . Well, i believe around 60somethingthousand navajos in Navajo Nation. Pocono county, and the the unty where i did all my work and i vote, navajo county, and apac county, they all overlap the Navajo Nation, and in those areas, navajo people turned out to vote, i think, 84 of those restered turned out to vote. And 97 of those who cast their ballot voted for joe biden. Anthat is just incredible, just shows the contribution of the native vote in key swing states, not only the Navajo Nation but there is a map that compar tribal communities, and all of those tribal communities voted blue. So we came out strong. I think we did do a great job in reclaiming arizona, saying that were still here, that we have always been here, and that now were going to keep working to hold this new administration accountable, as well. Amy what kind of message do you have for what is the most effective way to get firsttime voters involved, to make them feel they really are making a difference when it is you know, they have not done this before . My strategy was all around, you know, you have to think about what we are working with, and with young people, we are very tuned into social media. Definitely, it is a powerful tool. So connecting with them that way. Had a huge social media strategy. Also, layering in the cultural revitalization, particularly with native youth. But also i think with a lot of other youths across other communities of color. I think we are in this amazing moment where our communities of color are reconnecting tour cultures and really proud of who we are and where we come from. So using that and saying lets show up in that way, lets use social media in fighting for our representation. That takes work, and we have to you know, were not just going to automatically be talked about in the media. We have to show up. Juan allie, quickly, what are your main expectations of a new Biden Administration and policies towards native American People . Well, were definitel going to be making sure that we are represented, especially when it comes to climate change. We do want a seat at the table. We want to be in the conversation, because we have st Incredible Knowledge about the ways that we respect mother earth, that we honor mother earth, and those are things that will end up saving mother earth. And so learning from us and collaborating with us and also on issues still on covid19, still severely impacting our tribal communities. We are expecting them to work with us anhelping us to bring the funding and the aid that we need, because a billion dollars was not enough in the initial stimulus package. Amy navajo activist allie young, the founder of protect the sacred, and Jodi Archambault, a citizen of the Standing Rock sioux tribe. She served as the former special assistant to president obama for native American Affairs for the white house domestic policy council. Coming up, Juan Gonzalez on how the Corporate Media got it wrong, missed the real story about latinx voter turnout in the 2020 election.  [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the quarantine report. Im amy goodman. We continue to look at this years historic election. We turn now to democracy nows cohost Juan Gonzalez, a professor at rutgers university, and he looks at how the Corporate Media missed the real story about latinx voter turnout in the 2020 election and how latino and latina voters helped joe biden win the presidency. Juan well, amy, the cascade of stories continues, claiming aurprising turn by lato voters toward donald trump. The New York Times this week front page, how democrats missed trumps appeal to latino voters. Then the l. A. Times, latino voters tired of being taken for granted by baffled democrats. Cnn d others claiming theres no such thing as a latino bloc. And even the intercept saying in one of their stories that nonwhite voters are not immune to rightwing populism. Well, i said last week, and ill repeat it again, the key narrative of this election is not whether there was a small shift in the percentage of latinx voters in some areas of the country turning toward trump. The maintory is that in an election which saw historic turnout, people of color, and especially latinos, had an unprecedented increase in voting. And they, not white voters, represented the bulk of that increase. Virtually none of the reports ha mention this, that for the first time in. S. Story, in u. S. History, latinos turnout appears to have reached comparable levels to the rates for white and black americans. 20. 6 million latinos went to the polls in this election. Thats 64 of the 32 million eligible latinx voters. While in previous election cycles, the turnout had been routinely below 50 . In raw numbers, 8 million more latinos voted this year than in 2016. Thats a 63 increase over the last president ial elections. Now, ive updated and tweaked the chart from last week, and it shows that the biggest increase in both percentages and actual votes from four years ago came from latino voters. Their jump in number of ballots cast nearly equaled that among white the increase among white and black voters combined. The next biggest jump, in percentage term, came among African American voters, who increased by 20 , Asian Americans by 16 , while white voters increased by just under 6 . Now, some of these numbers, i should note, are different from what i displayed last week, in part because theres been some littlenoticed changes to the Edison National exit poll in the past few days compared to what was released on election day by all the netwos. For instance, the original version estimated that whites were 65 of the electorate while the latest figures say that they were 67 . And the poll also increases turnout for African Americans and asians. Well, the edison poll has always been flawed, and numerous anases have shown its past samples were skewed to oversampling cuban americans, undersampling both black and latino innercity polling sites, and also undersampling voters whose primary nguage is not elish, all of which means it tends to undercount latino voters for democrats. But the basic contours of the sampling remains the same, and its inescapable. After decades of political experts talking about the growing latino vote, this year it actually happened. Hispanic voters felt compelled like never before go to the polls, because covid19 fell them more than other groups, because of the constant demonization of latinos by the president , because of the barbaric family separation policies, or because of the threats to healthcare, even, for some conservative latinos, because of their hopes of finally turning back roe v. Wade. One thing is sure, neither the democratic nor republican parties ll underestimate or ignore latino voters from now on. This should be cause for widespread celebration as a longawaited democratization of the vot but what abouthose who claim that trump made major, unexpect inroads among latino voters nationwide, as reflected by the 66 to 32 split of the latino vote between biden and trump . Some say that latinos could be deserting the democric party those of us whove been around the block a few times have heard this narrative before. In reality, these results are in the geral ballpark of previous president ialampaigns. I want to put up, hopefully, a chart here of how latinos split their vote over the last 30 years inresidential elections. The republican share of voters has varied, from a low of 27 when mitromney ran against barack obama in 2012 to a high of 44 that george bush got in his second president ial run in 2004. Even john mccain, when he ran against obama in 2008, got a similar percentage of the latino vote as trump did this year. And the high point, the bush victory in 2004, we should note, is the last time a republican candidate got a majority of the popular vote. But the big differen now is that e latinx vote is so much larger. When you get twothirds of a vot that has tripled in size in just a few years, you begin to achieve critical mass. No wonder Lindsey Graham is warning that if these elections aret changed somehow, republicans will never win the white house again. What about those places like the Rio Grande Valley of texas and south florida where trump made real inroads in largely latino districts in the aual vote . What about those pundits who claim latinos are so diverse and diffuse as a population that it is erroneous to consider them a Single Community . First, on south and the Rio Grande Valley, yes, actual vote rests show that trump had significant increases in his suppo there. Florida is not surprising, given the influx of conservative refugees from nicaragua and venezuela in recent years, but the Rio Grande Valley is. In hidalgo county, along the border, which is 90 latino, trump went from 27 against hillarclinton to 40 against joe biden. In maverick county, which is 95 latino, he went from 20 against clinton to 45 against biden. Those are significant numbers. The valley, however, has changed rapidly during the trump era. Always a socially conservative rural area, it has seen enorus job growth in recent years as a rest of the militarization of the border, which brought thousands of new jobs to the area for Border Patrol officers, for workers private construction of the wall with mexico, for immigration detention centers. In addition, the valley has replaced the san diego sector as the epicenter of undocumented migrant crossings and the failed immigration system of the United States. All of that, no doubt, helped turn its residents for trump. But in the big cities of texas, where most latinos live, theres another story. San antonios bexar county, for example, 60 latino, saw bidens margin of votes climb, from 54 to 58 , though well need better figures on how much of that was in the Latino Community. It seems clear, however, that latino turnout in states like nevada, arizona, and pennsylvania helped biden win those key battleground states. And then theres california and new york. The latino share of the vote that went to biden appears to be breathtaking in those states, 77 in california, 72 in new york. Now some argue that those are reliable blue states anyway, so those hispanic voters are not really critical. Really . Arent those enormous latino margins year after year what has made those states reliably blue . And the same for new jersey, connecticut, massachusetts, and, lately, colorado. Then there are these nonsensical questions as to whether a Latino Community actually exists. Lets be clear, latinx identity in the United States is a social construct created both by the dominant society that needed to define and categorize and other other and by the marginalized group itself, organically, from the ground, by disparate latin american migrant groups who were ford to unite in order to survive in a Hostile Society and whose chilen gradually intermarried to create a new social construct, the latino in america. More than 20 years ago, i said in my book harvest of empire that latinos had become were becoming a new third force in american politics. They largely vote democratic, but a significant portion is susceptible to republican candidates if those political leaders dress even a few of their concerns. Since then, Latin Americans from educated and middleclass backgrounds have migrated to this country in growing numbers, and a good portion have adopted typical american conservative views. Some of that community, though still a minority, have been drawn to rightwing populism, to national chauvinism, and even to racist views. All of this xation on latinos, however, ignores the fundamental question of this election, which very few political observers i have seen have to tackle. Why the heck did 58 of White Americans vote for donald trump, including 55 of white women . With the United States consolidating itself as the worlds most powerful imperialist nation and the economic gap in the country widening, rightwing movements have only grown at home, and the defeat of trump will not halt their growth. The key to building a progressive majority is to keep mobilizing more young latinos to vote, burying the small percentage increases in support for rightwing candidates under an avalanche from people of color, organized labor, and their allies. Amy democracy now a cluster gs democracy now s Juan Gonzalez. To watch juans commentary in spanish visit democracynow. Org es. When we come back, we will hear from princeton professor eddie glaude and antiracist activist bree newsome bass. Stay with us.  [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org the quarantine report. Im amy goodman. We end this holiday special looking at the election of joe biden and Kamala Harris, who will become the first woman Vice President , as well as the first African American, indian american, caribbean american, and Asian American elected to the office. Two days after the election was called for biden and harris, spoke to two guests, professor eddie glaude, chair of princeton Universitys Department of African American studies and author of begin again james baldwins america and its urgent lessons for our own. And also, bree newsome bass, an artist and antiracist and housing rights activist. She made National Headlines in 2015 when she scaled the 30foot flagpole at the South Carolina State Capitol to remove the Confederate Flag shortly after the massacre of eight African American parishioners and their pastor by a white supremacist at the Emanuel Ame Church in charleston. When Police Ordered her down, she responded by saying you come against me with hatred and oppression and violence, i come against you in the name of god. This flag comes down today. Amy you come against me with hatred, oppression, and violence. I come against you in the name of god. This flag comes down today, she said. I began by asking bree about her reaction to the Election Results. Yes, i mean, it is undoubtedly a historic moment, right . I also see a lot of historical parallels right now. You know, i am repeatedly saying that i think that the central conflict in the United States is and has always been this tension between the ideogy of White Supremacy and this concept of having a multiracial democracy where everyone is allowed to participate in it. And i think that tension is continuing to play out today. You know, of course, we just had the election of the first woman Vice President , black Vice President , a woman of south asian descent, a descendent of immigrants, i mean. And so, on one hand, you have what kind of like represents, again, this concept of multiracial democracy. On the other hand, you have or on the other side, you have a blatant White Nationalist movement. And then somewhere there in the middle is this constant conversation around unifying the nation and trying to, like, heal that divide, which i frankly think is an ideological divide that cannot be unified. I think that part of the reason why this tension is ongoing and is unresolved is because those two things cannot coexist. And so, even while you have, on one side, the extension of the hand and this language around healing the nation and reaching across the aisle and unifying, the other side has still not even conceded the race. The other side is refusing to acknowledge the Election Results. And i think its important to recognize, as well, that the entire trump era was in many ways a backlash, right, to this very concept of having a multiracial democracy, to the election of obama and what that represented in terms of the shifting demographics. And i think that this election, again, is kind of like another echo of that, where biden and harris, they were elected because of this multiracial coalition, essentially, that formed among the voting base. And thats why we are where we are. And so, while of course it is a very historic moment and you see people celebrating all across the nation, that central conflict has yet to be resolved, just as this election, really, in many ways, has yet to be resolved. Amy and professor die glaude and feel free to channel james baldwin, if youd like, which i think you cant help but do if you can talk abt what your feelings were on saturday as you watched joe biden and Kamala Harris ascend the stage in wilmington, delaware, what this all means . Well, you know, my initial reaction was, thank god were going to see the back of Donald Trumps head, that the disaster of the last four years, at least embodied in the Trump Administration stephen miller, betsy devos, william barr, the whole gaggle of folk, giuliani, the children all of those folk will be behind us soon, and, of course, the symbolic signifance of Kamala Harris as the first black vi president , the first black president of south asian descent and caribbean descent and the like. I was thinking about t Nation Council of negro women. I was thinking about the atlanta washerwomen strike of 1881. I was thinking about the womens Political Council in mtgomery, who were the backbone of the montgomery s boycott. I was thinking about ella baker and fannie lou hamer. All of these folk are the wind behind Kamala Harriss back that make her possible. But shes a symbolic also the symbolic impoance of her, of course. But we must understand that yesterday was a day and the day before was a day of celebration. Today is the day for the hard work. The country is deeply divided, as bree sa. And we have to get about the work of responding to the problems we face as a nation at scale and not returning back to some sense of normalcy, which in some ways laid the foundation for the disaster that was and is trumpism. Amy as we continue our conversation with eddie glaude and as well as bree newsome bass, were going to turn right now to a comment that is brewing part of the debate thats happening right now about the direction of the Democratic Party. This is House Majority whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, who went on several sunday talk shows to criticize calls to defund the police, arguing the phrase hurts Democratic Congressional candidates. Here he is on ecs meet the press on nbcs meet the press citing the defeat of Jaime Harrison in South Carolina against incumbent republican senator Lindsey Graham. Jaime harrison started to pteau with defund the police, shed up th a caption on tv right across his hd. That stuff hurt jaime. And thats why i spoke out against it a long time ago. I have always said that these headlines can kill a political effort. Y thats Congressmember Clyburn speaking on the sunday talk shows. Clyburn is credited with really joe biden winning the democratic primaries, having endorsed him right before the South Carolina primary, which then launched him to victory. I wanted to first go to bree newsome bass. Youre in the carolinas, but you are in the other one, in north carolina. Can you talk about this major debate, this debate for the soul of the Democratic Party right now, bree . Yeah, certainly. Well, i mean, first of all, to this argument that is being made so fiercely right now, you know, attacking the defund the police effort, i mean, i have yet to see anyone provide any concrete data that supports that claim, other than people making this conjecture. I mean, i live in the carolinas. I have seen all of the ads that have been running. I mean, they were also running a lot of ads trying to tie Jaime Harrison to Hillary Clinton and nancy pelosi. So, i mean, unless someone is showing data that can really show that one or the other is what led to Jaime Harrison specifically plateauing in South Carolina, which is a deeply red state, you know, was an uphill battle against Lindsey Graham to begin with, i frankly dont give that a whole lot of weight. And i think, again, we cannot gloss over the racial aspect of this whole situation. So were talking about a situation where the democratic leadership is making the claim simultaneously making the claim that we need to reach across the aisle, we need to engage in bipartisanship with the party that is not acknowledging the Election Results, the party that just tried to prevent us from having a free and fair election, the party that engaged in rampant voter suppression, disenfranchisement, and intimidation, particularly in communities of color, the party that, you know, is completely opposed to the idea of our existence, the party that is essentially advocating a form of genocide through medical neglect, that has been ravaging our communities. And so we cant just gloss over when people are saying that the path forward is to build with republicans and at the same time to essentially demonize, make a boogeyman of black activism and black causes. It is the organizers, the same exact people who have been organizing black communities around issues that impact us, that mobilized those voters for the bidenharris win. You know, ive also seen people making reference to progressives as being the ones who are being divisive or, you know, ending the truce within the Democratic Party. And its quite the opposite. You had a situation where you have a significant segment of people who either traditionally vote democrat, a lot of people who are completely disengaged from the electoral process completely because they feel that regardless of who is in power, their needs are not met, regardless of who is in power, the Police Continue to kill us, regardless of who is in power, we do not have access to proper healthcare, we do not have access to housing. So you had a lot of organizers who had to do a lot of heavy lifting to convince folks that it was worthwhile simply to get trump out, to mobilize behind biden and harris. And thats why you got georgia turning out as it did. Thats why you got arizona turning out as it did. So, in my view, for anyone to look at the Election Results and for the takeaway to be we need to figure out how to appeal to the Lindsey Graham voters, you know, and the deeply red districts, as opposed to recognizing that theres an entire electorate that is younger, that represents where the electorate is going its younger, its more diverse, it can win you states in the south this is the argument that Stacey Abrams has been making for quite. Instead of looking at things and saying, how can we invest more in black and indigenous and people of color organizing . How can we really look at those issues . Politically, that makes a lot more sense than saying, how do we tap into the electorate that lost the president ial election, the electorate that is shrinking, and then, morally, the electorate that opposes democracy . Because they are more committed to racism than they are to the idea of a democracy that allows everyone to participate. So, you know, again, i just think that we cannot we cannot gloss over. Yes, i recognize, of course, that James Clyburn is a longstanding politician from South Carolina. He is black. And i dont you know, im sure that he recognizes what the Political Landscape is like in South Carolina. But if were looking at the bigger picture, theyre going to cost themselves the senate race in grgia if the case that theyre making is that were going to try to lean more towards republican than making it clear to people that unless they turn folks out for those senate seats in georgia, youre not going to have access to the things that you need, like healthcare and all these other things. So if they embrace a more centrist or republican agenda, then theakeaway from folks is going to be, again, that it doesnt matter whether they turn out to vote or not. So i think its just like thcomplete opposite. And the ct that the focus in the immediate aftermath of the election, when we are still dealing with the situation of a president who does not acknowledge the Election Results, weve got him stoking violence among White Supremacists who are threatening violence against sitting governors, who have threatened to blow up ballotcounting centers, that folks would pick defunding the police as the target, as the threat, as the danger, when youre talking about communities that are still being killed by police and still turning out to support this party in spite of that, complete opposite direction of where they should be going. Amy that brings us to professor eddie glaude. Professor, you tweeted this quote from james baldwin, it has always seemed much easier to murder than to change. And this is really the choice with which we are confronted now. Explain. Well, you know, theres a sense in which the reckoning that we find ourselves involves the question of whether or not were going to fundamentally embrace the idea that we are a multiracial democracy. And the history of the country suggests that we constantly, when faced with that question, will double down on violence, that White America will choose violence to defend its way of life, to defend those noxious assumptions, that have, in some ways, led to the organization of ouray of life predicated upon this idea that white people ought to be valued more than others, that they will in fact exact a certain kind of violence to defend that view. And so, baldwin, in this moment, is kind of marking this, right . That america is always talking about it changing, but it never changes, right . And so whats so interesting about the conversation around the Democratic Party is that it is actually insane, right, that we would think that the way to respond to the scale of problems that we confront as a nation is to harken back to an older form of politics that is dlc, third way democraticoriented you know, democratic politics, that seems to try to triangulate and appeal to this reagan democrat that they are so obsessed with as a way of responding to this problem. It makes no sense that we would go back to the politics that actually produced trumpism in the first place. Thats the first point. The second or the second point. The third point is this, we cannot allow these folk to disentangle trumpism from the republican party. I think this is what bree newsome bass is trying to suggest to us. We cant allow them to disentangle these two things. They are one and the same. So what are you asking for when you talk about reaching across the aisle . What are you asking us to do when you talk about reaching across the aisle in unity . We wont do that again. Thats not going to happen this time. And then, lastly, we need to get beyond, i think, these narrow labels. The politics is much more muddled. Muddled. Right . We need to get beyond these narrow labels. We need to get beyond Big Government and small government and smart government and get to transformational government. We need to understand what defund the police means. Budget your values. Budget your values. Thats what it means at the heart of it, right . Why are you spending 60 , 70 of your municipal budgets on policing, when you have education, social services, and the like . Stop lying. Stop lying. And then what we need to Pay Attention to, lastly ill say this really quickly we need to Pay Attention to who biden appoints as his secretary of treasury. If we get another rubinite, if we see someone in that tradition, we know what we got. And so, remember, we celebrate yesterday and the day before, but today begins the hard work. The problems of this nation require us to break from the old frames. And we will not allow clyburn, we will not allow kamala harri symbolic and significance, we will not allow the threat of donald trump to get us from seeing that that is the issue. We have to break the political frame that got us in this mess in the first place. Amy i wanted to ask you, professor glaude, black male voters, a lot is being made of, came out in higher numbers for trump this time than last time. But my colleague cohost Juan Gonzalez did a brilliant analysis of the information thats come out on who voted in this unprecedentedly high turnout campaign, the highest in absolute history. Now, what it looks like at this point, as he was pointing out, white voters did not increase that much. That meant people of color increased. Yes, there were moreeople of color who voted for trump, but overwhelmingly more who voted for joe biden and Kamala Harris. Apparently, many people are concerned about well, i mean, obviously, many people are concerned about how close the election was trump winning possibly about, at this point, 57 of the white vote. And you in your piece in time magazine, said, alongside the details of policy and the particulars of governing a deeply divided country, will have to confront what donald trump refused to face, that our way of life is broken. Can you end with that . Sure. You know, i think we have to deal with the reality of our dead. Close to 240,000 americans are dead, and theres no communal, public rituals to acknowledge the collective grief and individual sorrow that were experiencing. We have to deal with loneliness and what does it mean for us to be stuck in our homes and hidden behind our masks, where social interactions are kind of overdetermined by the specter of death and the virus. And then, of course, the principal issue is selfishness, that you have folk who have simply given up stake in the American Life for their own selfish ends. And so when we look at those numbers among black men and latino men, we can say that, you know, the epidemic of selfishness doesnt end at the doorstep of white people. And so you have people who are concerned about their 401 k s, concerned about their own individual selfgain, individual selfinterest. And so these folk have opted out, in some ways, of any robust conception of the public good. So were going to have to deal with death, loneliness, and selfishness and how it poses, i think, an existential threat to our democratic way of life. But, you know, everybody is bringing up black men. When you look at black folk, when you think about what happened in atlanta, when you think about what happened in milwaukee, when you think about what happened in detroit, when you think about what happened in philly, you see the path for the bidenharris ticket to get to the white house through black america, black folk. Black men voted at 80 plus. They need to Start Talking about why white women have voted at 56 for donald trump, given what hes done. But, again, whos at the center of the gravity of our politi . Who are folks thinking about all the time in a certain sort of way . We need to these numbers will allow us to drill down at some point, but we need to understand the reality for what it is. Amy last 30 seconds, bree newsome bass. Yes. I mean, i think that there is this constant abusive relationship between Party Politics and black communities, where we are scapegoated when its convenie, and then we are thrown under the bus when its convenient. And otherwise, its, you know, show up tohe polls to help us stay in power, because we cant get elected without you. And ths a dynamic that has to end. When its time to try to scapegoat and talk about, you know, why did trump do better, then they want to talk about black men. When its time to talk about the issues and why 80 of black men turned out to vote for biden, no one wants to talk about defunding the police. Thats the dynamic that has to end. And i think the last thing i would say is its important for everyone to recognize that the black movement, the black organizing of our communities, that is independent of the Democratic Party. We are interacting with Party Politics, but this Movement Began during the obama administration, it continued through the Trump Administration, and it will continue through the Biden Administration. Amy antiracist activist bree newsome bass and princeton professor eddie glaude. That does it for todays show. Coming up tomorrow, four days in Western Sahara africas last colony. [captiong made possible democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. Narrator on this episode of earth focus. The race to transition to sustainable solar power is underway. In zanzibar, rural women are learning solar skills, bucking a tradition of entrenched gender roles, empowering their communities in the process, while in southern california, its generating the growth of green jobs and winning over skeptics. [film advance clicking]