Woke AF DailyDr. Christina Greer returns to Woke AF Daily one last time to take a deep dive into what the incoming Trump regime may look like.
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with me your girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are in for a horrific ride with the second Trump regime. I mean, if you've been listening to this show for any amount of time, I've done my best to try and stand on rooftops and scream at the top of my lungs to make people aware and woke to where our futures would be headed if we allowed those that were cruel, vindictive white nationalists to take the reins of power. Well, we are finding out right now and they have not even begun their term. And so in today's conversation, I sit down for the last time on this show with my friend doctor Christina Greer to talk about what we can expect and how to best prepare ourselves. And Christina offers, you know, she says that in the first iteration of Trump in twenty seventeen that he was bumbling right and didn't know what he was doing, but now he is very aware of what he is doing. And so the vindictive nature of his upcoming term and the cruelty and policies that they want to enforce on the rest of us is coming. But she says that we cannot react to every single thing that happens because they will exhaust us. They will grind us down in to dust. And so this conversation one gives us just a better window into what is coming, but also offers some ways for us to protect ourselves and frankly, our piece moving forward. That conversation is coming up next, folks. I am so excited to welcome back to WOKF Daily for the last time, my friend, doctor Christina Greer, who is the author of a new book that is out now, How to Build a Democracy from Fanny lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacy Abrams, which is like, girl, we need that book right now as our democracy collapses. And is a associated professor at Fordham University. Christina, you know, this has been a year. It has been a year in politics. We all know what happened on election night, and as we march closer to the second inauguration of Donald Trump, we are getting a very clear window as if we needed it. We knew what was coming, but apparently everybody else needed a window into what was coming. And now you see folks reacting in all sorts of ways of shock, which I'm surprised by because when people show you who they are, you're supposed to believe them the first time. What do you make of I guess the response right now that folks seem to be having around the appointments, the choices to sue media outlets, to get everyone and everything in order essentially before he takes office.
Yeah, well, I think you know what we have been saying, and what so many black women in particular and media especially have been saying, is that you know what is ahead is so incredibly dangerous. You should be paying attention to X, y Z, A, B n C. And so many people I'm talking about white people in particular, don't think that politics will affect them. It's sort of like, oh, well, it's too bad for them. It's really going to be sad. But you know, I did the right thing. I voted this way, but I didn't do any heavy lifting to make sure my friends and family and community members saw my point of view. And so then we get the results a weekend, and overwhelming results. Right because of the framing, we know that some people will never vote for a woman. We know that some people will never vote for a person of color. We definitely know some people will never vote for a woman of color, especially with two immigrant parents and a Jewish husband. Like that's just we know who this country is. So I don't know why people are pretending that, you know, like, oh, I thought it was gonna happen. It's like we we knew the obstacles ahead. We just had hope, right, because that's how we can survive in this country and without going insane.
Right, and and and I think and I think that that's important.
Yeah, exactly, it's very important, you know, And as an educator, it's incredibly important. But I think now that the second term is impending. And we told people the second term would be more dangerous than the first because the first term he didn't know what he was doing. The second term he's got vengeance and vendettas to settle. And he's actually, as I've always used the sort of robbery imagery, he's already cased the joint.
That was the first time around.
The second time around, the first time was casing the joint in the smashing grab. The second time around, it can be a lot more methodical. You actually don't have to appoint Republicans that actually do care about this country and will have a little stop gap. You actually don't have to try and put in career pology titians who actually know how the government works. You can just put in grifters like you. You can put in grifters like greedy people like you. You can put in people who don't care about the will of law or democracy. You can put in people who think just the way you do, that immigrants shouldn't be here, even though four of your five children and children are immigrants, and two of your three wives are immigrants. But you can tell yourself all that you need to say with this white supremacist agenda, because don't forget, you don't have to be white to believe in white supremacy and get folks on board. And so then what we've seen, and we saw some of this the first term of number forty five, I just I really can't even stand putting his name in my mouth. But you see these grown men, grown men acquiescing in a way where they just look like tulips on the twelfth Day, just bending, you know, just bending towards this man before he even asks.
And so we told you that.
We told you that he doesn't care about education. Yep, we told you he doesn't care about the environment. You can tell yourself what you want about global warmings a hoax. It's sixty degrees in December, Yep, you can. And then then when we get a blizzards, can we see there's no global warming? It's like no, no, no, there's a reason why the summer is super hot in the winter and hav these like flash freezing storms.
That will kill people. Thinking about buffalo yep. So we know that.
He's gonna have the most incompetent people in the health department. You know, you're gonna have people who literally have an enemy's list. You're gonna have folks who are suing media outlets because they reported facts or sometimes you know, the poll that said Donald Trump was losing to Kamala Harris, you're suing the Iowa of registered.
He's suing and Selzer. He's suing a polster for running a poll that said that he was behind. And this to me, like when I saw that Christina I, which came up earlier in the week, When I saw that, I said, oh, so now no one can do their jobs. It isn't just about the media reporting. It's like you're not going to be allowed to get any facts whatsoever.
Right, And I don't I think that some of this is bluster.
I mean, we know he's been suing people his whole life, right, and so like some of these will get thrown out, but we do know that he stacked the courts, right, so you might get a friendly judge who cares about this stuff.
If nothing else.
It's a distraction from other real issues that we should be talking about. But as Steve Bannon said the first term, it's like I'm just gonna throw so much at these people. Yep, they're not even gonna be able to focus. And so I do think that there is something to be said about not subscribing to the child who throws the cheerios on the floor, and you pick up every single cheerio every moment he throws it on the floor. There has to be a certain level of ignoring it. Like, yes, independent media is incredibly important, and it's going to be harder and harder a to fund and B to have people who want to say things because of the fear of you know, maniacs coming and suing you and trying to ruin your life. But I do think that there are enough people who were just like, yeah, I'm you can do all that. I'm like, I'm not interested in your blustering. But I also think that, you know, we have to like protect our spirit. And I mean that in an intellectual and an emotional way, in the sense that the first time around, Remember we responded to almost everything as much as we could. Yeap, like it couldn't have been everything, right cause we know that things still fell through the cracks because it was so much. But I mean, you were on it. I was trying to be on it, like so many people were like he said this, he did that, he appointed this person, that person did this.
I mean, it's just every day it was like I had on a level, we were trying to have a map of like all the crazy and we would literally wake up from the moment our eyes opened.
It was chaos and mayhem, and I think our.
Health suffered from it, like collectively as a country, as a nation, you know, as a world. And I think for some of us, we actually have to choose not to chase every cheerio on the floor, and that's gonna be hard to do.
But I don't think.
I think the whole point is to have us do that, so we grind ourselves into dust and we actually have to save our energy because the midterms actually do matter. We do know that this country does like divide a government. The party not in power tends to gain seats m h during the mid terms because usually the party in power sor does certain things that makes people displeased. So it's like, then let's focus up on some of these districts that were lost. If you really look at the numbers that are coming out, the Democrats did not do as terribly as it seemed on election night. Yeah, as the whole numbers are coming through, you know, the numbers actually seem a lot better. And there there are inroads, and you know, think about say like the abortion band in Florida. Fifty eight percent of Floridians said that, you know, they thought it was a crazy idea. The only issue is you've got a rule sixty yeah. Yeah, So it's like, but fifty eight percent actually did say no, no, no, like this is a bridge too far. You've got these you know, hyperbolic bills that are coming through in South Carolina. You know, let's execute women if they try and get abortioned, you know, or let's let's prosecute people if they're traveling through a portion of Texas trying to get an abortion going to a different state. I think that, you know, that's for like these hardcore sheriffs and you know, das trying to make names for themselves. But I do think that at a certain point in time, certain people are like, this is a bridge too far. Like I'm not I'm not taking this case. I'm not moving this case forward. I hope I'm not being too pollyannish, because I know I know exactly who this country is.
I am under.
No false pretenses as to who this country is. But I do think that there are more people who think like us in this country than not. I just think that, honestly, we got other lazy people who believe like us, Like I think a lot of folks who just do not do the hard work during election season, and it is frustrating as all get out.
Let me ask you this, speaking of people doing the hard work or acquiescing or folding like a tulip, which I have to use that because that was just so good. Democrats right now seem to be missing Christina and when they do pop their heads up, they make decisions like they just made with regard to who's going to be ranking member on the Oversight Committee. It was between Jerry Conley, Democrat out of rigine Jinia, seventy four years old with throat cancer, with throat cancer versus Alexandrero Cassio Cortez, thirty something year old firebrand of a communicator, and they chose the seventy four year old. Talk to me about the decisions that the Democrats are making right now, and that to me it looks like they have learned nothing and are signaling that we are going to stay the course as these moderate Republicans in Democratic centrist clothing.
Yeah, and I think that that is literally the strategy, which is if we are in tumult and chaos, stay the course, like keep the status quo. This is not the time to choose a thirty year old firebrand. I think the frustrating part for me is that isn't there a third reel? Like, isn't there a third vi? You know, like I am, I am probably more when it comes to politics, much more of an institutionalist than say you you know, like I actually do think when it's in tumult. Maybe this isn't the time to try something brand spanking new. We can try something different, but like I don't I'm not a pendulum swinger in that sense. And I think AOC brings very smart, fantastic politician obviously going to be a leader in the party. I don't know if she's there yet in my opinion, my own opinion, So I would have liked to see someone in between a seventy four year old who has some health issues and a thirty year old who is still I mean, she's been in Congress, she's doing a great job, but like I don't think she has her sea legs just yet for that type of leadership position.
That's just my opinion.
So I would have liked to see something else. But when in doubt, Democrats go with what they're accustomed to. Now, for a lot of what happens in Congress, you kind of do need people who know how to coalesce votes. No, folks from across the country aren't necessarily polarizing, you know, working with AOC for some people in their particular district looks bad for them, you know, So I understand strategically, you know, like think about I was thinking about this with like Al Sharpton.
Mm hmm.
What makes Al Sharpton such like a brilliant politician is he works with lots of politicians, but he knows that sometimes it's like I can't be your friend in public because that's bad business for you. So it's like, yeah, we can organize and you know, strategize together, but like I don't need to do it in front of the cameras because then your constituents might feel some kind of way because he knows exactly who he is. So I'm you know, I feel like for AOC, I think a strategy for her, honestly, if she wants to kind of move up, is to be more like I move in silence.
Yeah, I agree in terms of the move in silence. I just what I see in the forefront, what I see loudly or right from Democrats is the same old, same old right, and the same old, same old isn't going to move the needle. The same old, same old isn't going to get the seven million people who sat home to decide to engage and let this be their party. I think that Democrats are not built for this moment in their current formation they and because the MAGA extremists have moved so far to the right and drag Democrats with them, who would notably be seen as centrist Democrats are now Republics, are now moderate Republicans right in terms of how they move. And so, what do you think legislatively resistance would look like for the Democratic Party if they were to create a strategy around how we need to deal with Donald Trump moving forward? Knowing that we have a very small there's a very small margin in the House, much bigger one in the Senate. But what does what would resistance look like if in fact they were actually interested in it.
Yeah, and I don't disagree with you at all that Democrats are more comfortable, especially in moments like this, moving towards the center. We saw that in the nineties with Bill Clinton, and we are still seeing the vestiges of some of those policies. However, I will say what I think a form of resistance has to look like with this tiny margin, and essentially people who do not know what they're doing in government in certain cabinet positions, people who were sick of fans with the incoming president, for career politicians who actually do know how the leavers of power work. I think right now, a lot of resistance looks like peeling off a few Republicans and making sure you build coalitions with them to block a lot of legislation that.
Would otherwise get past.
Because the first time around, Donald Trump wasn't interested in legislation those first two years when he had unified government. In unified government means he has the House, the Senate, and the Presidency are all of the same party. He was more interested in executive orders because he thought he was a king. First order of business Muslim ban and the courts are like, you can't do that. That's just not how government works. He had zero idea how government works. But he also had people around him in government who were like, hey, sir, we can't do that.
We're not going to do that.
This time around, the people around him are fewer and fewer who actually understand and respect government. That means the people in Congress are by and large some of the old guard, because everyone else in the cabinet is kind of new and bonkers. I mean, we've got RFK Junior, you know, I mean, we can't why is his name even rf K.
Junior, Because you're nothing like your dad like nothing.
Right, So we honestly don't know Elon and Cash, you know, just these people where it's what and how yet and still here we I don't forget jd.
Vance's been in office for twenty minutes. So it is actually, I think going to be a strategy to work with Republicans who actually do care about the institution that is Congress, that actually do care about the institution that is American democracy. And so it's like we might disagree on certain things, but we got to figure out a way Stacy Abram style when she was in when she was minority leader in the Georgia House, it's like, you disagree with this for a totally different reason than the reason why I disagree with it, but we can still vote knowing it because we both disagree.
But do you think that there are going to be enough of these Republicans because you have Elon Musk saying I'm gonna primary you if you don't run through every single, every single policy, every single legislative whim every sing you know, then you are going to be primaried. And we know that these people care more about their own ass than they do their constituents or the country so I'm like, are there even those people to work with?
Well, I think the people who who might end up being the ones who saved the day are the old dinosaurs who've been so difficult to work with in the past, but those who were just on the way out. So like I'm thinking, crazy enough, Mitch McConnell might actually be someone that Democrats have to and need to and begin to work with because he's on his way out and he's like, you know what, I'm not going to burn the institution down on my way out. Like, I know that sounds totally insane, but I think the strategy for Democrats is to find Republicans who aren't running for reelection who can actually be a stop gap before they.
Leave, you know, my you know, And I will say this, My concern with that is one that there aren't any and two that regardless of whether or not these people run for reelection, I don't think that they are necessary. I think that they're more concerned about, oh, I don't know, violence than they receiving, you know, being a product of MAGA violence than they are about being primaried. And I wonder, like, if we won't see I guess well, last question for you do you think when you think about what's happening, what's unfolding. We know that he's going to get in and part in these January sixth insurrectionists and set the tone of you know, the stand back and stand by and deputize these militias. What do you think about the increase in political violence that could be geared at his own people? Frankly, is what I'm thinking.
And we've seen that in over history in American democracy. I mean, like white people have killed other white people for trying to do the right thing.
I mean that is part of our history.
That has been a race from history books as well, right, I mean, like this whole book banning is not new.
We've done this time and time again.
It's how you know, so many black families have to educate their kids after school right about the real America. No, I think that that's a very real threat, and I think it's a very real possibility. What I try and do is explain to sort of white people that if Kamala Harris lost, we were boarding up DC because we thought that people were going to rip this country apart. But we had to board up DC because if Donald Trump didn't get his way, then he would resort to physical violence, like helping them see that we have now reached a point where we have allowed specifically white men and now growing up or Latino and Asian men, but mainly white men, to sort of to say, if I don't get my way, I will burn down this country. Like that can't be a strategy moving forward in this country. And so when we think about like, well, you know, working class whites and poor whites, you know, I could see why they're so frustrated they would have rip apart the country. It's like, no one else in this country defaults to that behavior. No one else does when they don't get.
No one else can, no one else can. You know, because if you if you throw that kind of tantrum, like you're dead and you're if you're black girl, imagine.
That thought experiment of hundreds of black people ripping down the capitol on January sixth. Do you realize that they would have bombed the capitol. They would have just setted a blaze. Yes, they would have killed everyone. And it's like, well, rebuild.
The capitol next week.
But guess what, everybody's dead, Like I think everyone knows that, Like what if it were a bunch of Muslim, yeah, one off, a bunch of Latino. It's like, you can't imagine people beating up police officers, but you know there's all if you go on YouTube and it's like white people fighting cops, you will see cops like chasing white people, tussling with them on the grass, I mean, getting slapped, getting their guns stolen, you know, like getting their vest pulled up, and it's just like and not once does a police officer think to shoot them now once? And so I think, you know what this is going to expose and what it has exposed, and it's becoming more and more evident every day, is how Donald Trump and people who believe in him and act like him and oftentimes look like him, have a totally different reality in this country. And I do think in the positive way that a lot of white Americans are like, this is not right and it's insane, Like now, you can't even the first time this happened, it seemed like a vote for you could say it's Donald is one person. The second time it's like, oh, this is a problem with the country. And I think this is a positive note. This election has exposed, yeap, what you and I have been saying what you're screaming from the just but some people, For some people, this is the first time.
That they're seeing it.
This is the first time they're going from black and white to technicolor, right, and it's like they're not even in HD yet, so they're literally this is still beginning, and it's like what And so I do think as an educator giving people now, we've been giving you a moment, but it's like, oh, you need a second to process this because this has been forty five years of reality imagine, you know. And it's sort of and it's not the same thing, but it is sort of the way I explain to my younger LGBTQ plus students, I'm like, listen, when.
We were growing up.
One, it was gay, right, so it's like we didn't have the different letters and definitions. And two when it comes to pronouns, I'm like, as an educator, I've been in the classroom at Fordham since two thousand and nine, so when I started, we never talked about pronouns, never asked, never did anything. It wasn't until like five or six years ago where we started saying, what is your preferred pronoun that's now even wrong. Now it is what is your pronoun? Not your preferred pronoun. So I was like, so just understand, there's been a lot of movement with issues in a short period of time. And I was like, and I'm trying to catch up and I'm not even quote unquote old. So I try and have a little grace where it's like, now I'm you're pushing me to my limit with this grace and patience and compassion. But I recognize for some people this is like a lot of movement in a.
Short period all at once.
Yeah, all it feels like all at once. It's like, but you know, for my students, this might live reality. It's like, exactly, it's your lib reality. But I'm I'm just being caught up to speed, and some of this stuff I straight up didn't know. For some people, we're like, how did you not know? But for some people, they didn't know, and so now we're trying to get them to be Yeah.
Well, my friend, I want to thank you one for your critical analysis, but also for your support and voice on this show over the last several years. It has been an absolute pleasure and I appreciate your honor.
And you know the beauty of you, and you know the public service that you do educating in the public. I so appreciate, I respect obviously you're onto bigger.
Brighter, new things.
Twenty twenty five is you know, it's gonna be new beginnings in the best ways. It's listen, there's gonna be one side that's gonna be what is gonna be. But like you know, just like in the Disney movies, it's like, you know, when you look over it's like Scar lives over there, and it's like then it's like Bright and Sonny over there.
It's like, I'm gonna choose to live with the Brighton Sonny Peace like they can be.
Over there, one hundred percent. Appreciate you, my friend.
I appreciate you.
Two more, Timore. That is it for me to day, Dear friends, on woke a f as always Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
