 These men that we see, these talented political actors, are everything despite what America has made. It's not because of, because America would like make you want to believe that, oh, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and you'll be able to make it, that is not true. The people that have made it and the people that they like to point to as paragons of political talent, have made it despite what has been levied against them. Well, should we talk about the Tennessee situation? Because I know a lot of people were commenting and it's really, it's kind of like crossing the Rubicon in a different way, at least when it comes to fascism. I don't know if anybody wanted to start or if, I know Blair was talking about it, but I can also open as well if you all want. Feel free to take it away. Okay, so basically after the Nashville shooting, there were thousands of protesters, mostly Gen Z activists that were marching in Tennessee. They marched straight up to the Capitol. They had disrupted a session and in solidarity with these protesters, there were three lawmakers who basically joined them and they went up to the podium and they started talking about the need for gun control and because they joined this protest, not even joined, just stood in solidarity with them and uttered positive comments about it. The right is now labeling that as an insurrection and now they were up for expulsion. Media was pushed out. In fact, Justin Jones, who was expelled, was filming just like the chance from the Gen Z activists outside and on video he caught one of his Republican colleagues just straight up assaulting him. It's genuinely insane, they're very brazen, but now one of the three have been expelled. I think this is developing so I'm not sure where we're at currently. And yeah, they were literally expelled just for saying that there should be gun control. It's unhinged. Like I get that the Tennessee Republican Party, they're against gun control. They've kind of gone in the opposite direction and deregulated even further, but this is like next level fascism and there's a lot of protests right now in Tennessee and they're chanting, fuck you fascists because this is straight up authoritarianism here. Here's a speech from Justin Pearson, who it was either him who's been expelled or the other Democrat. Yeah, Justin Jones was expelled as far as I know. I don't know if Pearson is gonna be expelled or was expelled yet, but he's up for expulsion. No, they were both expelled. They were three people up for expulsion, the two young black men and an older white woman and they voted to not expel the white woman. I mean, there's a message there for sure. I mean, the Republicans who made that decision are sending a clear message there just to be clear, but also we should also say that she's come out and said that herself too, the woman who stood with them. She was asked, why do you think you weren't expelled? And she said, maybe it's because the color of my skin, like she's calling it out too, so good for her. I did read though that there's gonna be a special election and they will be allowed to run again. Like they're not banned from running. And if they run again and win, they cannot be expelled again for the same thing. Like that's it. So it's possible that these Tennessee Republican lawmakers just, you know how Republicans were going crazy this past week about how we've turned Donald Trump into a martyr. I mean, they may very well have actually done that with these two young men. These two guys are gonna have a big future I think in politics for sure. Yeah, this speech is really good. Let me just play this clip. We and you are seeking to expel district 86's representation from this house in a country that was built on a protest. In a country that was built on a protest, you who celebrate July 4th, 1776, hot fireworks and eat hot dogs. You say to protest is wrong because you spoke out of turn, because you spoke up for people who are marginalized. You spoke up for children who won't ever be able to speak again. You spoke up for parents who don't wanna live in fear. You spoke up for Larry Thorne who was murdered by gun violence. You spoke up for people that we don't wanna care about in a country built on people who speak out of turn, who spoke out of turn, who fought out of turn to build a nation. I come from a long line of people who have resisted. They're great. Justin Jones, if you watch any of his speeches, they're incredible. It's clear why they made him a target because it's not just this issue. Like he has been holding the Republican party accountable and really standing up for his constituents and representing Gen Z in a very loud way. And so they wanted to find some excuse to get rid of him because he's been a Thorne on their side and they did. Like it's not just this issue like gun control, like on LGBTQ plus issues when it comes to welfare issues, he is excellent. So these are two people who are leaders and they don't like that they're leaders. They don't like that they're able to set the agenda because that's what they wanna do. They wanna monopolize discourse and they just try to find some way to undemocratically remove them. Yeah, I'm not surprised. I mean, I'm not surprised. It's just the reality. We can't constantly recognize the Republicans are fascist at this point I say it every episode. Like this is the kind of extremism. This is not at all surprising. And I would like in a different world, you wanna, and first of all, yes, that speech is incredible. He's clearly an incredible speaker. And in a different world, you'd like to be like, oh yeah, he'll have a great career in politics because you see how talented he is or what great of a speaker is. But in this world where he's a black man in that environment where those kind of powerful white supremacists have it out for him so bad that they would remove him, I think I worry about his safety. Long-German, I think that's something that doesn't get, I feel like mainstream media will never delve into that part of it because to delve into that would have to be to recognize the kind of dangerous forces these people are with the kind of things they've done, historic things and the reality of that. And it would change the tenor of the very like both sides, the way people try to treat politics. But a real thing is his safety, honestly. That's something that I think about that in a situation where people have targeted him as somebody that is a leader, as somebody that they need to get rid of, as somebody that they would go to these lengths. So yeah, I hope you stay covered. Yeah, I got it. I have to give credit, this is a Jones. I can play this as well if you want. Yeah. We are brought to here where members are responding in the most extreme measure, not because of what we did, but because by breaking the quorum, we broke the glass of your false power for the world to see. We broke the glass of this chamber that someone called sacred. One of the members on the other side of the aisle was in tears and said, I've never seen such a breach of this sacred chamber. And I thought to myself, that representative has obviously never read history. Because is it in this chamber, if you walk around this capital, you'll see bullet holes when representatives got into conflict. You'll see duals take place on this house floor, debating whether people like me should be treated like equal citizens under law. This is not a temple. This is a place where we're supposed to wrestle for our democracy and wrestle ideas and give voice to 78,000 constituents each of us represents. But for so long, this body drunk with power has modeled for the world what we know as nothing less than authoritarianism. And today is the climax of that behavior that a week after a mass shooting plagued our community. The most direct action this legislative body takes or should I say my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are taking is to expel us for speaking about the issues of weapons of war on our streets. Let's talk about expulsion. For years, one of your colleagues who was an admitted child molester sat in this chamber, no expulsion. One member sits in this chamber who was found guilty of domestic violence, no expulsion. We had a former speaker sit in this chamber who is now under federal investigation, no expulsion. We have a member still under federal investigation, no expulsion. We had a member pee in another member's chair in this chamber, no expulsion. In fact, they're in leadership but in the governor's administration. And so once again, what you're saying to us is that you're trying to put us on trial. I'll say what you're really putting on trial is the state of Tennessee. What you're really showing for the world is holding up a mirror to a state that is going back to some dark, dark roots. A state in which the Ku Klux Klan was founded is now attempting another power grab by silencing the two youngest black representatives and one of the only women, democratic women in this body. That's what this is about. Yeah, it's like they're incredible. They're incredible. But when I see incredible black men in this context doing this, I can't help but recognize all the times I've seen incredible black men in that context doing that. And we are talking about them in what ifs and what could have been because past tense, because they're killed. They're targeted and killed. Like, so that is, like I say, and I think that's something, we forget sometimes how different, different environments are for protests. And like people could take that for granted. For what New York City is and what NYPD is, there's still a big difference between protests in a black lives matter in Manhattan versus what it is in Mississippi. Like there are serious things. Like when I've talked to different organizers on the ground and different activists and stuff following the different deaths of different black people depending on what they are, they are far different constraints of what the danger is locally in those places and those environment. And the internet sometimes can blend the world in a way where we don't really realize what the outside environment is there, right? Like that might be going viral on Twitter and we're like, oh my God, this person is amazing. This person is this, this person could be a great speaker and this person, but this person could be in real life where they're at. They are a target and they are a person that has a lot to be concerned about and are in danger. So when I see two black men and a woman targeted on this level to where they have to give a very moving speech like that. Cause I don't know when last I've seen either a speech to the level of either speech they've given. It makes me, it makes me, you know, worry for them and hope for, you know, that they are covered and protected. And yeah, that's, that's my, that's my thoughts on that. And, and like a really, the point is also because people would have you believe that alignment is being hyperbolic with this, but it is actually, it is actually very tempered and a reasonable response because every black resistance movement, especially in the continental USA has been either co-opted or just absolutely obliterated. We think of Black Wall Street. We think of, I saw people mention Fred Hampton, MLK. It's a constant, it's not like this is not, and in the same way when people are talking about the trans genocide that is happening and using those words extremely purposefully, it's because it exactly is. This is not hyperbolic. Like this is not Fox News trying to say it's overblown. It's a sigh off or something like that. This is, in fact, maybe like not even speaking to the level of severity we need to take it to. And everything that black talented political orators, people with political talent like that, people made mention of the way that they spoke and the cadence being extremely religious and probably ecclesiastical and how the matrix for it was probably a church. And when you think about that, that's just so poetic because when we think about how the church as an institution is a place where they're able to develop these political talents at the same time, they have to fight a litany of different aggressions, whether it be the colonial construct of church, all the different things that are said in church in order to break down black men in particular and socialize them into being a particular way. Yet they still come out like this, which is my point that these men that we see, these talented political actors are everything despite what America has made. It's not because of, because America would like make you wanna believe that, oh, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and you'll be able to make it, that is not true. The people that have made it and the people that they like to point to as paragons of political talent have made it despite what has been levied against them. So these men, if they are able to actually realize their full political talent and get to the stages that they deserve to be on, it is not because of America, it is in spite of America. Big facts, round of applause. Clap track. Well said. Thank you for the clap track, but I'm not sure which button it is, so I don't wanna screw it up. I got an air horn, but I don't know if it's gonna play. Let's see if this, what's this? Yeah, there we go. Yeah. I guess right, there we go. You could have done like a laugh track that it would have been completely inappropriate. Rational, national sense. There you go. Rational national sense. Rational national sense. I love that. Yeah, no, it's sad and like, yeah, again, like especially also like these protests, we were talking about the trans genocide, like it's very, it's not even eerie, it's extremely numb. Like when I was like hearing like Alami talk just now, like the tiredness, the lethargy that you see on her is because she's had to say it like a million times, like they're saying you. It's almost like a broken record because you get tired and that's exactly what they want. Like they want you to get tired of, when I, but listen, when they let them babies die in San Diego, I was just like, look, America will never. Oh yeah, I know. I feel the same way. Once that happened. It was over. Like I was just like the gun debate, like I say, you lost. Like they will care more about their guns than they babies. They will. Yeah, yeah. I have one more clip that's actually, that's a Pearson talking to the media. This is also pretty good. And so every Tennessean needs to be very concerned that we are not in a democracy. And across the United States of America, there has been no House members who have ever been expelled for exercising the First Amendment rights and a peaceful protest. This is a first in American history and we are losing our democracy to white supremacy. We are losing our democracy to patriarchy. We are losing our democracy to people who want to keep a status quo that is damning to the rest of us and damning to our children and unborn people. It is no coincidence that the two youngest black lawmakers in the state of Tennessee and one or two women are on trial today. That is not accidental. This is what happens when you lose democracy. This is what we are fighting against and must stand up against as legislators and as people and as citizens across this country because it's starting in Tennessee, but it won't end here. Excellent speakers. Yeah. And even the Afro, like all of it is purposeful with that. Like, unfortunately, black hair is very political, but like even a choice like that, you think of Angela Davis, you think of the people that wear the, he knows what he's doing. And the thing is, he has to perform these political markers in order to access even the rooms and the possibility of influence that he's able to access in. So like all of these different qualifiers he's doing in order to get into these rooms. So I watch his career with a lot of veganism and also trepidation. Yeah, rightfully so. It's just really dark times down. I think that people, they're starting to wake up to the fact that one of two parties, one of the only two parties in this country that are electorally viable is fascist. And I don't think that they really understand what that means because to all of us, it's kind of a foreign concept. Like we think about fascism back in history in World War II, and it's like inconceivable that that could happen here and that fascism could be on the rise here. But it's like, we're well past this whole identification phase, which is where I think some people are finally emerging and we're into the implementation part of the fascism. Like you look to Florida and specifically the laws that are being proposed and it is deeply authoritarian laws that require journalists to register if they criticize the government, laws that require universities to report on, I can't remember the specifics, report on what they're covering if they cover any social politics or critical race theory. Like these are all the state seizing power for fascistic reasons. You see the way that they go after opposition in a very authoritarian and direct manner. Like this is all part of fascism. Like fascism isn't like one thing. It's a number of things, there's criteria. And as the years go on, we meet more and more criteria. Like we check more boxes and we're starting to realize what that looks like. It looks like transgenocide. It looks like the disempowerment of political opponents in an authoritarian way. The removal of civil rights that have been fought for centuries. I mean, Roe v. Wade being overturned. It hasn't even been a year, but that is monumental. To even recall that, oh yeah, we're back to pre 1970 America with regards to reproductive rights. That is no small thing. And for people who are kind of like in this privileged position to where it doesn't personally affect them, it will affect you eventually because one by one, like each group, like everyone is gonna be touched by this in some way because that's what fascism does. It is like the takeover of power, of culture, of all institutions. And so like we're seeing that. And I'm glad that people are starting to wake up finally and acknowledge it for what it is and finally use the F word. But we're kind of, we're past the acknowledgement phase as I was saying. And we need to be in the mobilization phase to stop it if it's not too late. We will never bow to the model. Ever. No matter what or what. Do you see the final expression of cancel culture in terrorist groups like yours? We'll see who cancels who.