Ta-Nehisi Coates: This Is Armed Identity Politics

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At the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all, because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round. Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Glad to welcome back to the show a journalist and author and contributing editor at Vanity Fair. It's just published as newest column, The Homeland, is a war on America, the blood and soil nationals and the killed are made good and Alex Prety, it's time to ask you codes. How you doing man? I'm doing good. How about you Tim? Well, you know, we're here. All right, we're living. So that's the best we can do. It was a great piece man. I'm so appreciative you coming back on and the word homelands have bugged me a lot. So you scratched an itch that I've had and I guess I just started. Wait, I'm so sorry. Can I actually, can I actually why has it been bugging you? Sure. Well, here's why it was funny. I was reading the article and you quoted Peggy Newton who I kind of hate now, but who I loved in 2002. And this was an article of hers from 2002 where she said, Homeland isn't really an American word. It's not something we used to say or say now. It has a vaguely tutonic ring. Vee must tell Ziffier protects the homeland. And that's like how I felt about it. How I felt about it. And I didn't feel that way about the Department of Homeland Security during the 20 odds I should have in retrospect that I didn't. But like the way they use it has drawn out that kind of German tutonic sense for me in a way that's made me feel very uncomfortable. It's the blood and soil element of it. So that'd be my answer. What about you? No, I, well, actually, because I can't say I was either. I mean, I was in my 20s when they, you know, founded the Department of Homeland Security, but I certainly was not saying why this sounds really, this sounds a little off, you know, and I probably did not have enough political awareness to understand that some of the problems that, you know, we're seeing today, actually had their roots back then. But what was interesting to me is that some people did. And some of them were people that you would suspect and some of them were people that, you know, you would not necessarily suspect either. Yeah. I thought that was the interesting thing about the Peggy column that you referenced it is, to me, it speaks to something that I think basically everyone would have agreed about in 2002 that the Trump supporters would disagree with now because they have to out of convenience, which is the like words matter framing their Kate, carry with them, some type of definition, you know, whether you want to or not, they carry with them implications, you know, whether you want them to or not necessarily. And it feels like the fact that they gave it that name, the Department of Homeland Security had these implications. You could kind of see some of it in the Bush and Obama years. You don't want to say you couldn't. The sort of rhetorical implications that had really fully bloomed in this in this past few years. Yeah, definitely. And there are people like Russ Van Gogh who I interviewed for the article and Spencer Ackerman who wrote this great great history of the war in terror called Rain of Terror, which I, you know, very much influenced this article, by the way, who would say that even then like the pivot to merging border security with anti-terrorism, actually, that there's a lot of roots of what's happening now in that that is not a mistake that you ended up in a black Muslim immigrant, sometimes not immigrant community that that became the flashpoint. Yeah. The other thing that Russ that you referenced to the story that I think was super oppression you look at now was there are a lot of those who were responding to his concerns were saying, well, like we have we're better than that. Like, you know, you're worried that this might happen, but the norms will protect us. And he was saying at the time, well, we can't just rely on like norms protecting us. And like here we are today. And literally, DHS is signing warrants for themselves to beat down the door of people's houses. And vice president is out there saying, well, we got to warrant because they're just checking their own boxes. Yeah. And it's like, man, we really probably should listen to Russ Fungold. That interview was so good. And there were aspects of it that I actually, I just cousin of the boundaries of the column, I couldn't get in there. And in this sense, I mean, I think he was of, you know, two minds, he was sincere, but he was of two minds in the sense that on the one hand, you know, he was suspicious of this notion that the norms will protect us. But at the same time, same time, one thing he said that I didn't get into article was that against somebody who is just determined, you know, to become a time or determined to just violate, you know what I mean? And who's elected, you can't really design a system that, you know, is foolproof. You know, because even sent, you know, he had come from this space of thinking of the Constitution as this, you know, great genius document, you know, emanating out of the American people and all of this. But what he had taken over his years was that really is actually quite hard to design a system that is invulnerable to the kind of things that Trump is doing. Now, the horrible mass security made it easier, I would say. But to make it completely, it's extremely hard to do. Some of this is not about rules, man. What else was worth saying? What's he up to right now? I just Google it. He's 72. He is at our current status. He could be, he could be the Democratic Brown Manine next time, be the youngest. He'd be the youngest to the last three presidents if he won in 2028. I don't know why more people don't talk to him. I mean, he was just so wise and you know, that he was so, he was so free. I mean, if we started one place and you, because I didn't expect to talk about this whole thing about constitutionality and, you know, how he himself had changed, which was very, very interesting because he didn't go into the interview and say, ha, ha, I was right. You know, all these other people were, I mean, you know, he told the truth about what happened. But then he said, listen, I'm just going to tell you, even I did not foresee it going this far. Like, I said, you don't like paying it like I knew like Trump was going to happen. I did not. I did not. And you know, one of the stories that we did get in that article was that he talked about how, and I just, this is so sad to me, but it's true. He said, you know, as, as part of his, you know, duties as a senator every year, he would go to every county in Wisconsin. And he would, you know, hold these town meetings. And he said, you know, sometimes people come out, they would disagree. And, you know, sometimes those people would, you know, get booed by his supporters and you tell us the supporters, no, let them talk. And, you know, but it never really got nasty. And he said as soon as Obama won before he was even sworn in, it immediately, immediately degraded. And I think we was very, very depressing about that. And this is, I think hard for a lot of us to say, but those eight years really broke something in some portion of this country. And I think we're still under it. We're going to track him down. He might be on the podcast. I think you should. No, I think you should. He was great, man. He was great. He was replaced as you mentioned the article by Ron Johnson, who was the biggest fucking buffoons in the entire Senate, which is a competitive category. At the time you wrote the article, he said he hadn't commented on pretty yet. He has since someone to play it for. Okay. You know, this is ginned up by the radical left. They've now got a couple of martyrs. This is the predictable results of inciting people toward violence and obstruction of justice. It's just tragic. Models predictable. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know how to take that seriously. I think one of the problems of American politics is that built into the system is this notion that both parties will have some, if at times, tenuous connection to the truth. And I don't know what you do when half-time has no commitment whatsoever. You don't have me to the truth. I think it's a tough system then. Yeah. I think about the other day just about the vice president. There's just one who's under my car the most these days. He doesn't tell the truth about anything. He takes glee in it. You know, it's like Trump is a liar. But like Trump lies about like a consistent basket of things. Like he wants to always look good. And so he lies to always make himself look good. And so sometimes he's telling the truth. Sometimes lying depends on what he thinks it makes himself look good. You know, it's a narcissism thing. Like JD, like in his engagement about what has happened to manyapolis, I have said that the police are lying. You know, when they say that they've been racially targeted, he said that the victims are lying. He's lied about the victims. He's lied about the community. There's no basis. In fact, at all, like he's created a story basically. He's created an imaginary world of what is happening in Minneapolis and arguing on those grounds. And that's very challenging to counter in a political space, I think. It is, man. And I will say, I'm completely sympathetic to people who, because they have bills to pay, because they have children to raise, because they have grandparents to take care of, like they can't hunt down every fact. The system depends on some amount of leadership with, and I can't believe I'm going to use this term, but some amount of political virtue of some sort. If you have a party entirely captured, effectively by reality TV stars. And with the ethics of the form, with the ethics of the form also, that's tough. That's just really, really, really tough. And obviously I make no excuse and no, you know, quote, if anybody's racism, bigotry, sexism, transphobia, etc. But I also don't think it had the beatest way. You've written a lot about the way that narratives and storytelling like have power in these situations in political context. I just was thinking about the stories that they've been telling about Minneapolis. And I do think, I can some ways, part of the reason why the opposition to that, whether that be the Democrats or resistance or America, however you want to frame that, is on the front foot over the last two weeks, is because these tragedies have given them a hero's story to tell or a story about these two folks who've been murdered. But I can broader context of the conversation. It is challenging to have to fight somebody that's creating a convenient story and telling that all the time, with being on the other side having to be the people that are like, you know, using facts and trying to massage them a little bit to make them sound a little bit better for you. And like you end up in this kind of like white paper versus reality TV construct that's hard to get out of. I wonder what you think about that. I agree with you. I think one of the successes of Minneapolis is that they found the way to do that. Like they found the way to counter it just comes off as basic American decency. And if my friend Adam, so I should say basic human decency, that's what I should say. He was on yesterday. We got you back to back. So we'll talk about Adam's article. Did he talk about how like this goes back to like abolition and like how like there's always been this spirit here? No, he didn't. So you do it for him. Okay, all right. This is Adam's point, but we're with, we tell you like, you know, you mean, and we talk from time to time. And when he was first beginning working on his, you know, incredible, incredible piece for the Atlantic, the first thing he said looking at this was it reminded him of abolitionism. And one of the things that people forget because like the story of slavery, you know, becomes kind of compressed is we forget in the run up to the Civil War. How many white people were willing to put their bodies on the line to keep their neighbors as my friend, Delandee Cobb says, I'm just name checking now. To keep them from being dragged, you know, back into, I mean, there were pitch battles, you know, industry to Boston and Syracuse. Sometimes these battles, a lot of times these battles were not nonviolent. And so what I want to say is there is, I think in the hearts of most people like just this kind of basic goodness that makes it hard to watch like a five year old. You know what I mean? It's snatched or to watch like somebody's grandfather, you know, dragged out the house and people tend to respond to that. Which by the way, makes the need for what you were talking about it to begin. That's kind of why you need the other story. But you need something to overcome that that basic, you know, human sympathy. Can I just say one other thing even if I get a long get at you this role, man? We're pre-tabin this in the evenings usually a morning thing. So I got nothing but time. You're saving me from bed toe doing bedtime with my kid. So we can go as long as you want. I don't want to valorize anybody's death or anybody's you know, killing, you know, certainly. And I don't want to valorize more at you than them. But I will tell you, man, to see models of what I can only call good white folk has been really, really, really, really beautiful. I think sometimes, sometimes people who I, you know, agree with, people who are my side of politics. Sometimes, and I understand why we get exhausted, we don't want to explain things to people. We don't want to, you know, have to, you know, sit people down and have conversations. Well, it's pretty clear some of those conversations, you know, have taken place. And it's pretty clear that you have a population of people, a diverse population of people who have become woke in the best, best, best possible sense and modeling that, modeling that for other white people so that it takes us away from telling, you know, me telling you which you're not doing. Like the negativity of that, the anger, where I'm always like wagging my finger at you, you know, like white man, listen, like it's kind of been beautiful to have another conversation. Nobody in that exchange likes it, you know, the finger wagger or the finger wagging. Like, it's somebody, let me be honest, let me be honest. That's fair. You're right. I'm the first person that's going to tell the truth, right? 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When you use the code bullwork at checkout, that's 20% off your first order at American- giant.com code bullwork. The American Classic Full zip hoodie is made to last a lifetime. So you can counter it to bring you comfort and warmth year after year. You mentioned that, Jolani, and you both referenced Viola Lausa in your story. I should just say, people always ask me, I live in New Orleans for New Orleans restaurant racks. There's a restaurant called by users. They got the barbecue shrimp. That's where you go if you come to town. Just tell folks that, just a little bit of that story, what we learned from it. I mean, Viola Louisa was a racetrater, man. She was a racetrater. What that term means is somebody who decided that the privileges that were given to them because of racism and white supremacy were so offensive to their person that they would put their body on a line to be against this. We have a history of this. Me as a journalist, I would shout out, Elijah Lovejoy, for instance, people who died for this way. It was just too so offensive. Abraham Lincoln ultimately was just a racetrater, quite frankly. Viola Louisa is this white woman who's grown up in poverty. Dad is a coal miner. Mary's this dude who's like a teamster, union activist. They just straight work in class. White people with no ostensible reason to be conscious. Save this. She saw poverty. She saw poverty did to her family. She saw poverty did to black families around her and that allowed for a basic level of recognition and humanity. She's inspired by the March of Selma. Drought 800 miles from her home. Left her five kids behind to go join this march. It was giving two marches arrived on the way back when she was murdered by a group of white supremacists. Here's where the story gets dark. In that car, also of the murderers was an FBI agent under direction or FBI informant under the direction of Jay Ego Hoover and Hoover in order to hide the fact that the bureau actually had an asset in the car when Viola Louisa was killed. Spread this rumor about her. Very similar to the kind of rumors that you, other kind of stuff you hear about Renee Good that in fact she was a heroin addict and she was down there doing heroin with black men and she had only gone south to sleep with black men. And they put this stuff out there and they traumatized her family. This is the federal government, right? Like this isn't just like white supremacists. This is Jay Ego Hoover doing this. And that was the price that she paid with her life and then her family continued to pay the price after. And I guess one thing I have never understood is why we don't hear her name more. I just don't get it. You know what I mean? She's such an important and important figure and an important activist. At least be something else I wanted to ask you about. And I talked about this with Adam a little bit. So we get to compare your answer. See what I see. I see what you think. Something about this, what we've seen from ICE and CBP over the particularly this month, but even over the past year, has felt meaningfully different from stuff that I've seen in my life. Right? And just not as if there hasn't been stayed violence against people. You know, they're asked, right? Like please violence and status of people haven't they haven't lied about and covered it up. But like the fact that it's so structural and that it's so top down, you know, that it's the president, the vice president, the head of DHS and FBI and that everybody's on board with it and that it's funded by Congress. And to me, that does make a little different. But you know, when I talk about like that, then you get the pushback that's like, no, you know, this is like we have a long history of this and this is like the latest chapter. You know, it can be the latest chapter and be different too. Like you can have precedent and also like both can be true, you know, and what ways is this unique for you then? Would you say? I would struggle to tell you a time in my lifetime, we're at the federal level. We're at the federal level. So many resources have been marshaled across so many states. We did have a period after 9-11, by the way. We definitely had a period after after 9-11. But I think the scope of this dwarfs what we saw after 9-11 after 9-11, we had the FBI, you know, essentially, you know, grabbing people off the streets for the smallest immigration violations, which is something we really didn't do before. You got to see this as the whole thing. It's not just Minneapolis, right? It's Minneapolis, it's Chicago, you know, it's LA, it's national. I don't think we've had that and also had the construction of concentration camps, you know, in places like Florida and had effectively the rendition, you know, of people into other just, we know for a while that they're going to be tortured against the judges orders, by the way, against the judges orders. I don't think, you know, we've had a situation where we looked at, say, the speech or the rhetoric of pro-Palestine activists or activists of whatever stripe and decided that would be ground for us to detain them. And I think it's an important distinction to make that this is only kind about deportation. It's really about punishment. Like that's really like the inflection of pain. I don't think we've had a head of the Department of Homeland Security, turning that into effectively a reality show, cost plan, doing makeup, posing, you put all it together and it's different. It's different, right? And saying that it's different doesn't mean it doesn't have precedent. It does. It does. But it's also different. But that's meaningful though. Meeting for like, you know, we've done a lot of bad stuff and this is uniquely bad. I think that's important for people to sit with as they think about the appropriate reaction as to it. Right. Just on that, the DHS reality show. To me, the thing that is struck me the most about it, and they've just done so much gross shit. And I guess probably the worst is Christy Nome standing in front of that actual concentration camp in El Salvador, those men behind her. And that's probably the worst. But taking all together, like the propaganda stuff, the ASMR, you know, people in chains, like the chains are making the sound, you know, the memes, the activists in Minneapolis, where they altered her face. See, that's all of that is like, like some of that just wasn't possible by the way. Like it's new because it wasn't possible, you know what I mean? I know a lot of the, like memes that are putting out are just like kind of old 1950s posters re-ups. You could have done that in Photoshop. And I don't know, like that isn't like acutely harming someone in the way that taking their body and putting it into a detention center is, but the perniciousness of it like has unbelievable like long ramifications. It is a armed identity politics. That's what it is. I guess the worst, you know, you know, some would argue, not probably would agree to all politics as I identity politics, but all politics isn't this particular identity politics, you know? And I think as you, you know, point out like the memes, the 1950s stuff, the white supremacist stuff, where I, you know, it was a New York Times article where the Times reporter calls up and says, hey, this is clearly a white supremacist anthem. They deny it. The guy goes and checks it. You know, and then they act like he's lying and then they, you know, secretly take it down. This is something new, you know, and I'm, you know, I've said some pretty harsh things in my time, but I don't know that I've seen before the president of the United States attempt to build a, what I can only call a white supremacist army within the government, one that will outlast him. That is new. And I, and you know, I don't know what else to call it given the propaganda and the recruiting that like, I don't know what anybody else would want me to say. You know, there's a little of what is it? Boy who cries wolf element sometimes to the white, to like, when people throw out white supremacists sometimes lose its power. And so sometimes I get a little bit frustrated, sometimes the activists, because it's like, well, maybe you might technically be true, but we should still keep that word as powerful as possible. And that's like, what else do you call it? I mean, they're the ones doing white nationalist anthems. They're banging down people's doors with guns. They're doing racial profiling of other cops. They're racially profiled on other cops. So I don't know what else to call it. I want to ask you about the identity context thing though, too, because one of the other things that struck me about talking about Adam yesterday and like, how inspiring, you know, it was to be there. He was really talking about how, you know, all these elements of Western civilization were on display, like the classical liberal Western civilization. And before I ask this question, since this is a little awkward question to ask, it's a white guy. I'm just going to, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just verbalizing that before I get there. It's just show, man. Yeah, I know. I'm just saying it's a little awkward, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to frame it the right way because of its nature in that sense that it is this, you know, this entire community coming together in a, in a multicultural sense and saying, we are all standing united as one against this outside threat. Like, it, there feels like some kind of power in that that was, you know, absent from a more, the more identitarian, you know, kind of progressive stuff that we saw the last time that that Minnesota was exploding, you know, with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. And, you know, that had this big power in the moment and up dissipating. And I wonder if I'm over interpreting that or if you think there are any lessons there or if you think that I'm an asshole for bringing that up or I don't know what do you think? No, I think, I think there are always lessons and I think, you know, a movement has to interrogate itself. I think that is always true. I do think that people that the the stock line that maybe people want to draw between 2020 and 2026 is not as stock as they think it is, you know, I mean, I'm about to see the whole show that Adam, but one of the points that Adam makes, you know, she has done it together, probably. You have a point point, kind of a hatey agreement. No, but what are the great pointy mazes that like a lot of those, you know, messaging and signal groups like they started in 2020. When I was, you know, going out and doing the reporting for the message, like, I mean, I couldn't believe this happened, but when I went down to South Carolina to see them like they were fighting against like book bans and everything, right? And I remember I was talking to this this old a white woman and you know, she was saying, yeah, you know, at the George Floyd, man, we formed like a reading group, you know, at our white church. And, you know, she said, the first day she tried to have black folks and black folks got fed up because of their questions, but they kept it going, but they kept it going. And it was still going. God bless them. God bless them. And it was still going. And that was the network that she had activated for them to protest book bans. And so I think there are things that happen loud. And I think there are things that happen online. And I think like because of the way our media space works right now, anger and outrage particularly draw attention. But the things that happened really, really quietly out of 2020 that are tremendous, that are really, really tremendous. And I guess the the other thing I would push back on is, I don't know how identitarian it was, you know, I mean, there were like white people in small towns. You know what I mean, protests and there were people all around the world, you know, a protest and all sorts of, you know, 2020 was the first time I really, really saw white people in this modern time put their bodies on the line. Like it was crazy. You know what I mean? Again, any movement has to question itself, you know, any, I don't think that's wrong. I mean, you did have the white fragility, you know, come out of that, you know, you did like that. Like some of that stuff is pretty, it's pretty identitarian. So here's my problem with that. Here's my problem with that. Here's my problem with that. You can't make an entire movement answer for one book. You can't even make me as off the answer. I don't know. I get, I get my answer for everything that Jeff ever said. I don't know. Sometimes, sometimes you do, he's brings that up. I have a red wife for Julie. Sometimes, everybody picks on that one. That's that's that's the why, why does that always come up? Because it's horrible. Have you ever spoken to a reading group that just red white fragility and listen to their questions? It's it's concerning. I feel like I need to de-radicalize them sometimes. What are you here? What are the sort of questions that you're talking about? I don't know. There was that viral video going around that was I think representative of this. So I don't mean to denigrate this person because like her heart is such in the right place and like give me a million of this lady over one JD Vance, right? But you know, she's out in the street protesting in Minnesota and after an egg had died and interview goes out to her and ask how she's feeling. And she's like, I feel kind of bad even being here because I have my privilege and you know, and Renee Good was a white victim, right? And we should be like lifting up our brother and sisters and like it came from a good place. But like, yeah, I get in her heart. It came from like a little bit of a bad place in that book, right? For agility probably. It's probably where that came from. What don't you like about what she said? Just so I can and I don't love what she said even that that's right. Not what I would ask her to say, but I'm interested in what you don't love about. Would you? If you feel bad about somebody that just got shot down by the state, like your first thought shouldn't be what their skin color is, right? Like you feel bad and solidarity with anybody that got shot down by the state. I guess would be my answer to why that makes me feel uncomfortable. Okay, so I'll say two things. I will say that when Renee got good got killed. The first thing I noticed was a skin color and her gender. And I noticed it because so much of the way white supremacy constructs itself is in a legit protection of white women. And I do think it matters. I do think I really do think it matters. It's always being though. So that don't count. Right. Right. That's how they push out of it, right? That's how they push her out of it. But nonetheless, I do think it matters that white people are putting their bodies on the line. I guess what I'm detecting from you. And I have heard so many stories. You don't have to detect. You can ask. I'll just tell you. Yeah, but I think what I'm saying what I'm hearing I think is like maybe discomfort, maybe even an annoyance with some of the vocabulary that came out of that period of time. But that sound right. Some of the ways of talking. Right? An annoyance for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about discomfort, but annoyance. And I think like a counterproductive nature of it sometimes. And it's something that like take something that was good about about visibility and make sure everybody's protected and like turn it into something about like Gil and Wright speak. So Tim, what I have a request of you. Okay. I love getting homework. I guess. One thing that I think is worth thinking about is, look, I'm a writer. And what that means to me is I try to write and speak as clearly as possible. And so I don't really want you making apologies for your privilege to me either. I want to get down to business. I don't need to hit it. I don't need to hit how guilty you feel. That is sort of beside the point for me. I don't have a desire to get that out of you, you know. But I do think that in mass white people in this country do not have a very, very long history in trying to formulate a vocabulary for how to talk about these things. And I think in the course of formulating that vocabulary, people will make mistakes. People will make mistakes. And there will be language that we used three or four years ago that we decide, hey, it don't work. That probably is not the approach we should take. And maybe what you're feeling now is even the movement has kind of advanced over where it was five years ago. Maybe that's some of what is heartening to you. But I just think we put so much pressure. You know what I mean? I'll be, me and my other side is I'll hit talking crazy. Like talking crazy. You know what I'm saying? I'll hit my mind. Like talking. You know what I mean? You know, we were strong enough to do it. Season green line. You know what I'm saying? Like because we can. You know, just I'll hit talking crazy. And yet, you know, we get one book. And you know, we're like, I'm a beat them though. Yeah, I kind of want to beat them though. You know what I mean? I want to just empower them as much as possible. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Rather than empower them. You know, yes. So I honestly, I just, I want to revise except my marks. I don't really love the guilt. This could probably be my mother because I had to deal with the Catholic guilt. I know, you know, so I don't need any additional layers. Like I'm already ridden with that. But honestly, less than the annoyance, it's more like I don't like hand in them free wins. You know, and I do think that in some ways there have been things that have happened that are not that offensive to me. Right. My feelings aren't hurt that that, you know, that woman felt guilty or that there's a whatever, you know, whatever some weird new speak thing at the beginning of a meeting. No, that's have a fins me. But I worry. I'm like, man, are we like are we hand in the stick to these people to like let them beat us with it? And like for what end to what end? Right. You know, and if it's to a good end, great. If it's to no end, except making people, you know, feel good in there. Like little little social media circles like that. Then I'd like to stop doing it. I mean, probably yeah. And I've probably said this a lot in public. If you can extend the the temporality out just a little bit of the struggle, I think it makes the mistakes not better, but understandable. It's very, very hard to get any movement of humans to always act right, speak right, talk right. I really, really wish people read more about the civil rights movement deeply because they were fucking up all the time. Like and people were doing crazy things all the time. And some of the people that came out of that, you know, who led some of the most noble, you know, struggles in the world like became like Lyndon LaRouche conspiracy pairs. Like it's some crazy people that you know, I mean, I literally had this old black folks the first time, like, I don't know when I was 40, probably. I can I was old. Then I ended up on deep jazz. Like I didn't know nothing about like the internal fighting, right? Because it all gets glossed over the factions and the factionalizing and like in the history books, like that's one sentence, you know. Yes. So I hear that. And then we compare ourselves against this perfect image of what activism was. And in fact, it was messy. It was like really, really, and there were a lot of uncomfortable things. You know what I mean? That that that were going on. I mean, Fannie Lou Hamer, who is like lionized, you know, by bottom of the moon. And should be. And should be. But I've never forget this quote that she, you know, she that you know, they had her as when she's talking about organizing. And she says, we have to get the damn terms out the movement. And it's like, we don't want people calling people uncle Tom's now. We don't want to hit it. But they were saying that. Like that was part of like like the vocabulary, you know, of things. And look, I on them like anybody else, but these were human beings. And I don't know that we're any worse today. I think this is what it looks like. Which does not mean you should not critique it. That's not what I'm saying. So your homework for me is just give it more grace. Is that what you're saying? Or read more about them? John Mayworth. Give my people some grace, man. I lost the homework. What were you asking me? Okay. Let's see. Just take next time you hear that. Just take a breath. Just be like, all right. Whatever. Okay. That's good. I should do that. Nice thing I'll say on this, it is kind of frustrating. The people like me in the sense that I don't expect everybody to agree with everything I say. But like for that article I just wrote, dude, it took me three days sitting there trying to define what the homeland was. I felt what it was. But I couldn't. I was just writing over and over again the same three paragraphs until I got to the thing to what it was. I'm telling you to tell you some of us are working really, really hard, really, really hard and investing a lot of energy. And we don't want to have to answer for other people's books. You know what I mean? Who, you know, maybe I don't know. My wife is still at least so. Was that line the I shouldn't have brought up, Robin D'Angelo. I throw myself on the mercy of the court. We have news. I know. And that's what makes you feel worse now. I don't know. I'm just spitballed. She wasn't in my notes. You know, we're way off the script. I got news to get to this is a daily podcast was the homeland is skeptical of aliens. The line that you was up in the three paragraphs. That was good. Emigrant is skeptical of aliens, which is a different construct. Yeah. I agree with that. Can we talk about the news real quick? Because we do have a couple of news things. Yeah, sure. I guess we should just say just really quick about Minnesota, the actual updates and so on. I spoke. They're putting a new face on this with home and Star Tribune is reporting that the exact same number of ice patrol vehicles left the Whipple building where they're based. Didn't know it had any other day. Right? So like now there's no evidence anything's changed. And they're putting out this video, which I've not confirmed yet, but it appears to be legit. I've Alex Freddie, like, kicking a kick in a car from like two weeks prior. So you should have got shot, right? So you guys should have got killed. So you should have got shot. Right. So that's it. My take, which I assume is the same as yours, but I think we said to get it on the record is that it seems like, you know, new boss, same as the old boss a little bit for now, at least a minute seven. Look, the one thing I will say about this administration and the one good thing I can say is look, they're true believers. They believe this stuff. You know, some of this is, you know, content. Yeah, some of this is, you know, spectacle. They really believe it. They do. I mean, with the exception of maybe JD Vantan, you know, maybe there's other opportunists, you know, like him who have no core beliefs. But, you know, somebody like, you know, Steven Miller. I mean, these people, like, they believe in this glorious past of his homeland that they want restored Trump believes that. You know, it's like, you have to take them seriously, you know, I think as true believes this is not a distraction. You know, like, this is the world they want. To that point, there's another news out of my God for you. The DOJ rated FBI rather rated Fulton County's Election Operations Center on Wednesday. They wanted to get the 2020 ballots. The Fulton County clerk, Jay Alexander said a large number of agents were retrieving the boxes of ballots from the warehouse where they're being stored. I figured that is about it, you know, as ominous as what we're seeing out of of DHS at this point, like looking ahead to the midterms. Yeah, I think it's pretty bad. I think it's pretty bad. And let's say look, like I say, the worst thing that, you know, we think is going to happen or we suspect might happen. In the midterms, it doesn't happen. It's bad to groundlessly so skepticism of like the electoral system in people's minds. You know, again, like people who would just kind of, you know, going through that day, it's bad to feed them this stuff. It is not, there's a great book that I, I don't really want to write about this book, but it's by Chris Hays called Twilight of the elites. And it's about how in various sectors, you know, people who are in an elite class have kind of given up their authority. And we are kind of living in that right now, you know, but it's just, it's just to complete, complete decline and for lack of a better term, I hate that I keep using these words, but for lack of a better term, you know, expertise, authority, you know, those sorts of words. And so if massive people really come to feel and maybe they have already have that their elections are real, I mean, I mean, that's bad. That's bad. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Exactly. So we'll keep monitoring that. I couldn't let you go without asking about the board of peace. Jared Kushner did a PowerPoint in front of the board of peace at his plans for Gaza. I want to play folks a little bit of that. We've developed ways to redevelop Gaza. Gaza's President Trump's been saying has amazing potential. And this is for the people of Gaza. We've developed it into zones. In the beginning, we were toying with the idea of saying, let's build a free zone and then we have a Hamas zone. And then we said, you know what, let's just plan for catastrophic success. We Hamas signed a deal to demilitarize. That is what we are going to enforce. People ask us what our plan B is. We do not have a plan B. We have a plan. We signed an agreement. We are all committed to making that agreement work. There's a master plan. We'll be doing it in phasing. In the Middle East, they build cities like this in two, three million people. They build this in three years. And so stuff like this is very doable. Once this starts going, we think there should be 100% full employment and opportunity for everybody there. They have a master plan with zones for Gaza within three years. I believe people have the right to determine how they governed. I strongly, strongly believe that. I also believe that even when we object to things that their leadership does, what that government does, that we don't have the right to then subject them to genocide. This country, in a lifetime of many people, overthrew the government of Iran because it didn't like it, then went over through the government of Iraq because it didn't like it. And we would be very, very angry if any group of people cited that as cause to do harm to civilians in this country, the degradation of Palestinian life that we have seen particularly over the past, I don't even know how long it's been now. But since the onset of this war since October 7th is horrifying. And we will not get away with it. I just strongly believe that. I don't believe that you get to degrade life in one place. And then you know, escape from it untouched. I just don't think that's how the world works. And so to hear him talking like that, you know, about these people who, you know, to be ruled over. I mean, I'm at a point, I'm sorry to ran about this at that, but like, you're talking to somebody who is, you know, talked to people and who knows people who, you know, got not a Gaza. And to hear these people talked about with no will, with no decision making power, with no ability to determine like, like, like how they live and how they'll, you know, be ruled is just, I don't know, I feel like I'm not fully getting to the heart of it. It's bad. The whole picture is dystopian, like also. It's just like his visage, like how he looks. And it's like a, it's a McKinsey PowerPoint. And it's like we have these buildings and people, everyone's going to have a job or never work. It's like the folks, I mean, the folks you've been bombing, you know, whose family members have been killed. They're going to, they're going to work in your hotel in Casino and golf club. That's sure, but that's the plan. You're the boss. It's just, come on, come on. If I were to take it on the terms of everything I know with no proof of this, necessarily at all, and nothing to cite, nothing to report, I would say they probably plan to authentically cleanse those people, like those people won't be there. Or at least there would be a significant minority of them who would probably live on what we would call a reservation and maybe work in places like that without any real empowerment in terms of deciding any, any politics. It is gross. And what is most gross for me, again, is that the people themselves, the Palestinians themselves are completely off screen. Like imagine, you know, like somebody's going to have a conversation, you know, about how like your city, your country is going to be governed. Your people are going to be governed. And you're not, you're not even going to be there. Like you're not going to be there. Belarus is going to be there. Kazakhstan, Rotten, Turkey, you know, it's, it's sickening. It's really, I think part of the reason why it's hard to put into words how sickening is it is, is because it's so fucking preposterous and absurd. You know, like you want to mock it and laugh about it almost, you know, if it was now for like the consequence. Damn. Kind of related. I'll be remiss. I'd be not a good podcast test if I didn't ask you about this. There was a lot of hubbub online about your interview with the host of new host of CBS evening news. Back when you did it for your book about his room Palestine. And I was just saying, I was listening to another pod you did. I think it was the Guardian, then I'd be wrong. But with the British podcast and you were so gracious. Like you were talking about how you thought that interview was great. Like it was fine. It perfectly fine. And you're not great. I think you said it was fine. And you you're happy to take hard questions. That's why you wrote the book. You expected hard questions. And so, you know, the other guy I think wanted you to be mad at mad at telling me we're asking those questions and you weren't. Yeah. Yeah. Since then now though, like a lot has changed with the takeover of CBS. And I'm just wondering if you look at it at all differently now. You know, I don't. I know that a lot of other people were mad. You know, I actually had a friend of mine who was one of those people who were like a lot of people were mad. I mean, my own public is mad. I think particularly the part about, you know, take away the cover, take away the take away that you know, the people to have things invested in you as a as a public figure. And so when you say that, like you're kind of not just talking about, you know, the person in front of you, like you're making a bigger, you know, sort of global statement. And I think that probably was a root of a lot of the anger. But I don't know, man, like I came back and I understood that I had views that were going to be contrary to a lot of people. And I was perfectly fine. I'm here. I'm here. You know what I mean? And I'm not, I'm not here to be fetted. You know what I mean? I'm not here to be told how great, like I felt when you said that, okay, take it. Now, let's talk. Now, let's talk. Let's just say I'm just do trying to hide see from West Baltimore. Okay. Now let's let's have this conversation. I went where I went. I saw what I saw. I'm gonna tell you what I saw. And you tell me why that's okay. I'm good with that. You know what I mean? I'm completely, completely good with that. To your question though, tell me to your question about how it's gone. It's pretty clear that other people who are not good with that. You know what I mean? Like it's pretty clear that other people, you know, who maybe, like I don't want to put thoughts and words into people's mouths. I dance say that they're people who wanted that to go a different way. What do you mean? I think one of the things that happens is what I had was these kind of catch phrases that I would hear all the time that American politicians would say. And I didn't understand why they said them. Okay. And it was a vocabulary. And you know that that vocabulary, you know, included, you know, phrases like Israel has the right to defend itself. Israel has the right to exist. You know what I mean? And it wasn't even like what you think about that is, you know, whatever, but what I'm trying to say is it was repeated so much and uninterrogated and so specific about Israel that I was just like, like, why is this? What I think is there's a world in which you tell yourself or you speak a kind of language to yourself over and over and over and over again. And you never have to actually defend it. You never have actually have to have it interrogated directly, publicly. And I think when you haven't had the practice of defending the thing, you know, when you tend to speak in slogans, you know what I mean? Which I really try hard not to do, right? Like I try to find my own language for what I saw. And then, you know, we can have it out about, you know, what that was. But my language is not somebody else's language, you know, whatever you think about from River Tidacity. I'm not going to say it because it's not my language. I'm a writer. You know what I'm saying? And I think people get out of practice. I mean, you just, you know, get out of practice. And so you think, you know, you can say to me, yes, Israel has the right to exist. And I'm going to say, and I'm just going to fold because that's how it's already always been. But I don't know how I was to say this. I'm not the one. Yeah. Like I just spent too much time thinking about like words. You know, and I don't mean that in any sort of arrogant way. I, you know, even now I don't mean any insult to Tony, but I'm just telling you like, there's a way in which I got all of those words. I think they weren't just given to me. Yeah. No disrespect to anybody, you know. Not to compare myself to you, but there's the element that you've scratched another itch for me. Another thing I get my backup is a people demanding that I repeat a slogan. Like, for example, I want to abolish ice. I really do. I want to abolish ice. But it bugs me when people are like, you have to say that. Like, why didn't you say that? And I'm like, well, I don't, maybe I want to explain it a different way, you know? And I do think that there is that element where folks who really dug in on a slogan want you to either, you know, sort of pay homage to it or be in it, be opposed. And complicating that is challenging for folks. I did want to ask you that just like the broader CB like media, you concerned just about media, like I was consolidation, like the other element of what's happening. CBS sense. Yeah. It's really bad. And I guess I feel a little uncomfortable, especially given that, you know, I was, you know, given way that interview was like, I don't, I don't want to comment too much on other people's media plans. But because I think it does need to be said, when I see that you're firing journalists who do actual reporting, right? Who go to and talk to people and interview people. And like, you are hiring people that have takes. That's bad. That's bad. That would be bad if I agreed with all the takes. You understand what I'm saying? Yeah. They were all my political compatriots. And you were firing like, you were letting go of the reporters and bringing in, you know, people who just kind of, like I would say, that's bad. I would say that's bad for journalism. I would say also that some of the commentary, like I read, like we had this culture, man, where people are in love with debate, right? And so, like I read these comments about how like the newsroom needs to be a place, you know, where people can, you know, vigorously disagree. Well, yeah, maybe, but newsrooms tell stories. Like that's what they do. And then sometimes people disagree. But the purpose of it isn't to debate. That's not why it exists. You understand them say, like I don't write actually to debate. You know, now sometimes debates will come out of it. Sure. You know, but it's not, I'm not motivated. It's not the thing, like in all of your beautiful places, you know, I worked at the Atlantic for 10 years and it was, it was like, home to me. You know, I worked at Washington City Paper for five years. It was like, home to be, do we debate sometimes? Yes. But like the thing that made it productive was not the debate. It was a lot of other things too. Like you should be in pursuit of stories. You should be in pursuit of news that, you know, moves, he went and grabs people's attention. And when you are in in pursuit of takes, I don't know. And he's bad. I don't think that's journalism. Period. Yeah. Tim, can I say one last thing about CBS? Oh, failure. Let's end with that. I'm sorry. Let's end with one more rant about CBS. That's a, that's a perfect way to end. I do want to say that one thing that really bothers me about this is there are people in this world who I guess what upset because somebody told them that they had to add, you know, one more black person to their writers room or somebody, you know, questioned, you know, what an intimacy coordinator was doing when the sad, or they had to be pulled into some, you know, sort of debate about using the wrong pronouns. And then they decided to empower somebody who was currently destroying one of the jewels of journalism. And I just think you got to do better. You got to be more discerning about people. Somebody is telling you something that is challenging. Somebody is telling you something that is deeply informed and somebody that is bullshitting you. You know, and maybe some people wanted to be bullshit it, but now we're all going to pay for it. You know what I mean? You wanted this era of anti woke. You got it, but a lot of others of us are going to pay for it too. You know, we're not going to go down along. And it's distressing. That's a much better place to leave the board podcast. That's distressing. I'm distressed. I share your distress. His article is the homeland. In vanity, fair, go read it and I hope you can talk to you again soon, man, all right? Thanks, Tim. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us. I really also see you back here for another edition of the podcast. Peace.