This week, Farai Chideya talks to Charles Blow, New York Times opinion columnist and author of “The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto,” about his proposal for building Black political power in the South. Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University explains why vaccinating against Covid-19 must be a global effort, and Dr. Debra Furr-Holden of Michigan State University says getting Black Americans vaccinated is a key part of that effort. Our business of entertainment contributor Casey Mendoza breaks down who was nominated, who was snubbed, and who might be miscategorized at the Golden Globes. And political roundtable regulars Errin Haines and Jess Morales Rocketto explain why it’s important to keep trying to hold former President Trump accountable for his actions, despite his acquittal by the Senate.
EPISODE RUNDOWN
0:55 Writer and columnist Charles Blow explains how moving en masse can change the political dynamics of a state.
7:04 A central argument in his book, Blow dispels the myth that racism only exists in the South.
10:34 Blow says that because of implicit bias, multi-racial coalitions can be limiting for building Black power.
14:16 Dr. Ashish Jha explains how herd immunity works in the vaccination process.
16:26 Dr. Jha says there is promising research that current vaccines can fight against most variants of Covid-19.
17:54 Dr. Jha says that vaccination efforts must be global in order to eliminate the threat of Covid-19 variants that prolong the pandemic.
19:58 Casey Mendoza looks at past controversies addressing the lack of diversity in entertainment awards shows.
22:38 Mendoza reflects on the role of white creators in the conversation about diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.
24:38 Mendoza explains why the Golden Globes were highly criticized for the categorization of “Minari” as a foreign language film.
25:53 Categorizing international or foreign-language films still proves to be problematic, Mendoza explains.
30:00 Errin Haines reflects on her interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
33:28 Farai Chideya discusses Charles Blow’s idea for obtaining Black political power with Errin Haines.
36:02 After the impeachment acquittal of former President Donald Trump, Jess Morales Rocketto says that the threat of Trump and Trumpism is still very real.
39:00 Chideya tries to make sense of the conflicting positions from Senator Mitch McConnell regarding Trump’s role in the January 6th insurrection.
41:27 Sippin’ the Political Tea’s experts discuss other ways people are trying to hold Trump accountable for the events of January 6th, and why voting to convict on an impeachment charge would have had different consequences.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening and sharing Our Body Politic. As you know, we're new and creating the show with lots of input from listeners like you. So I want to ask you a small favor. After you've listened today, please head over to Apple Podcasts on your phone, tablet, laptop or anywhere you listen and leave us a review. We read those because your ideas matter to us. Thanks so much.
This is Our Body Politic. I'm the creator and host Farai Chideya. We're looking at the fallout from former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial and diving into what herd immunity from COVID-19 looks like.
Charles Blow has been a New York Times op-ed columnist since 2008. For years, he was the only Black columnist at the newspaper and the only Southerner. He moved back to the South from New York to Georgia while writing his book, The Devil You Know. In it, he proposes a novel way to build Black voting power: getting more Black people to move to the South. This is a little bit of Charles reading from his book.
Charles Blow:
"We need a block of states, a region, in which we and our children are equally conditioned to success, support and safety. We need a space in which Black imagination is equally encouraged, where we recognize that Black children dream too."
Chideya:
Charles, welcome to Our Body Politic.
Blow:
Thank you so much, happy to be here.
Chideya:
Let's just jump right in here. I want to start in an unlikely place for a Black power manifesto, as the subtitle of your book reads, and that is Vermont. I have had very nice trips to the Ben and Jerry's factory. I don't think of it as directly relating to Black power, but you make a persuasive case. What are you talking about?
Blow:
Well, Vermont is an interesting case where mass migration for the specific intent of changing the political dynamic of a state has worked. 1972, two young Yale law students write in the Yale Law Review, a paper called Jamestown 70. This is after young hippies across America had been protesting against Nixon's execution of the Vietnam War, but Nixon continues to do it exactly the way he wants to do it. They have very little impact on how he does that. Those two law students make a case that what you can do is what they called radical federalism. You can move en masse and change the dynamics of a state. And young, white hippies from all over the Northeast, they do it.
Even though that wasn't enough to make them the majority in the state, this massive influx of young, vibrant, activist minded liberals changed Vermont from one of the most conservative states in America to now it is one of the most liberal states in the Union. It is the state that gives us two of our most liberal senators; including Bernie Sanders. That is the power of what migration can do and it has been proven by these young, white, liberals in the 70s.
Chideya:
Let's say that I'm someone who's a Black person, who's in Vermont, for example. Pitch me on what you're suggesting in your book.
Blow:
Right. What I'm saying to Black America, that if you want to do what the young, white hippies did in Vermont, which is to move to a region, exert a political power, maybe even move in great enough numbers to make yourselves majorities in those states, which in many of those states you were the majority after the Civil War, or near the majority after the Civil War. The only reason that you're not there now is because of white terror chasing you out of those spaces. If you want to reclaim that power, you should move there.
It is for the young primarily, it is for those who do not feel that the space that they're in values them, that they have enough power to demand of the power structures that they change and accommodate and see them as truly human, truly equal and truly worthy of access to the exact same opportunities as other people are. If that is not your reality, maybe you've found the place you're supposed to be. If it is your reality, that those things do not apply to you where you are, there is another option where you can exert enough power to bend the system. To make it more amenable to you.
Chideya:
You talk about Georgia's population and how it shifted between the censuses. Tell us a little bit more about how Georgia became more Black in recent history and how that may have affected the current body politic, certainly in the last election cycle.
Blow:
Absolutely. This last election cycle was the first time that Black people were the majority of a coalition that elected a senator. And they didn't just elect one, they elected two. There are two prongs to why that was possible. The one that is prominent is what the activists did and organizers did on the ground. Tons of groups, including most notably, Stacey Abrams, who's a super woman of this entire story. But the other side of that was reverse migration of Black people from the North and West to Georgia. Those organizers just had more bodies to organize. The Black population of Georgia doubles between 1990 and 2020, from 1.7 million people to over 3.4 million people. With this election, Black people made up 33% of the population of Georgia and that was part of the tipping of Georgia.
Chideya:
It's true that younger people tend to be those doing what people are calling the reverse migration, going to the Black meccas. You write about how your son had an experience on campus. Explain a little bit about what this says about racism in the North.
Blow:
Well, one major thing that the book is dispelling the myth that racism is sectorial and isolated to the South and that geography. I make an argument that I see racism as having developmental cycles that in the South it's just an old man. It's made some sort of peace with itself. It hasn't disappeared by any means, it's just that it learned how to get along. People learned how to function with this racism in their midst.
In the North, it is acting like a young, teenage boy acting out, using many of the same tactics that the South used when it was younger. It is using militarization of the police and employing the police in the active, overt oppression, segregation of Black and brown people. They are hyper segregating the real estate and therefore, because the way our schooling is set up, schooling. The most segregated school system in America is not in the South. It is New York state, mostly because of the hyper segregation that's happening in New York City. If you look at the most segregated cities in America, they are these states that people migrated to. Chicago, for instance.
Chideya:
Yeah. You talk very movingly about Tamir Rice. You also talk about the ways in which the trope of protecting white femininity is used against Black men, in particular. And I can't help but think about the charges recently being dropped against Amy Cooper, the white woman who made a false call to police about a Black male birdwatcher. You write about that case and others. Why is it important to the context of your book?
Blow:
Well, in the same way that it's important to knock down the mythology that racism only exists in the South, it is also important to knock down the idea that white supremacy is only confined to men and not women. That the entire apparatus, regardless of gender, has a role and always has played a role from the time of enslavement, when 40% of those who enslaved African people were white women. You have to track that history over the entire course of American history to unravel that. Even up until the insurgency, it is not just men. That is a woman on that bullhorn telling them which places to go into as if she has cased that building before. This is not just a white male problem. This is a problem of white supremacy that expands and encompasses all white supremacists, regardless of gender.
Chideya:
I certainly have seen coalitions of many different types operate in Georgia, for example. There was strong Asian American organizing, there was strong Latino organizing. What is the role of multi-racial coalition building in the context of this idea of specifically and explicitly building Black political power?
Blow:
Well, I think coalitions are wonderful when and if they work. However, Black power cannot be dependent on convincing someone else to see you and value you and therefore, join in arms with you. Otherwise, Black people are always in a position of pleading. And pleading is the opposite of power. Coalitions are great, but the data suggests that they have limitations. When I look at Project Implicit's data on implicit bias, which they were able to break down by racial group, they found that there was just as much pro white, anti Black bias among Hispanics as there was among white people. And that the group with the most pro white, anti Black bias was Southeast Asians.
That is not to pick on any particular ethnic or racial group, it is just to lay out the facts of how people behave and what the research says about that behavior. So we are always working not only against white supremacy, but against anti Blackness.
Chideya:
Well, Charles, I wanted to end by asking if you could read a little bit of your book.
Blow:
Sure. "We need a space in which Black narrative can exist and must exist outside its relationship to anti Black white supremacy. The Black story must be much more than slavery, oppression and poverty. We need a space in which Black beauty is equally honored and exalted."
Chideya:
Charles Blow, thank you so much for joining us.
Blow:
Thank you for having me.
Chideya:
That was Charles Blow, author of The Devil You Know, a Black Power Manifesto.
This week in our public health coverage, I've invited Dr. Ashish Jha, to tell us more about why we should think about COVID-19 vaccination as a global effort. Dr. Jha is dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, a practicing physician, and a globally recognized expert on pandemic responses. Welcome, Dr. Jha.
Dr. Ashish Jha:
Thank you so much for having me here.
Chideya:
We've been following a lot of your Twitter threads about vaccination. Just give us an update on how you're feeling now about the effort.
Jha:
Yeah, I'm pretty excited about where we are on the vaccine roll out, on having these vaccines that we have, two of them authorized already and a third one coming soon. Really terrific vaccines. Obviously, a little frustrating right now that people who want them can't get them, but there's so many coming that I think certainly by the time we get to May or June or maybe even earlier than that, I think we're going to have lots of vaccines available and anybody who wants a vaccine should be able to get one.
Chideya:
There are other people who are not particularly concerned about getting the vaccine because they think their community is headed for herd immunity. And overall, from what I understand, our goal is to get a form of herd immunity mainly through vaccination. Can you explain what herd immunity is and talk about how it does or doesn't happen?
Jha:
Herd immunity is the idea that there are enough people who have immunity in a population, that the virus can no longer spread effectively over time. It doesn't mean that when you have herd immunity that no one ever gets infected. It's just that you don't tend to get big outbreaks. That outbreaks are self-limited and they fizzle out because so many people are immune. The idea behind it is really straightforward. If I'm infected and I'm in a community that has herd immunity, every person I interact with, almost all of them will be immune, I won't be able to spread it to enough other people. That's how outbreaks come to an end.
The question on this pandemic, on this virus, is how much immunity do we need? There are different estimates probably ranging from 70% to 90%. Now, you can get there through natural infections will give you immunity and then vaccines will give you immunity. The upsides of getting there through vaccines, there are two of them. One is people don't get sick and die. That's a pretty big upside. Much, much better to get immunity from getting the vaccine than from getting infected. We know there are longterm complications of the infection.
But the other part, which I think will surprise people, is most of the evidence so far says that vaccines give you much stronger and more durable immunity than natural infection. This is a surprise to people because they think, "Well, natural infection's got to be better." No, not necessarily and there's, I think, pretty good evidence now that two doses of a vaccine, certainly Moderna and Pfizer, and probably even just one dose alone of Johnson & Johnson, is going to give you a much more robust immune response.
You don't just care about having immunity right now, you care about having immunity for the long run. That's why I think a vaccine based strategy is so much better than letting people get infected and sick and die.
Chideya:
What about the variants that are propagating? Should we be concerned about whether or not this will affect how effective the vaccines are in the US and the world?
Jha:
There are several different variants out there. Most of them look very, very susceptible to the vaccine. The one that has given us some pause is the variant, what we call B1351, it's the one from South Africa. That one the vaccine still works pretty well against it, but it's a little bit less effective. That's the best assessment we have right now. We're still learning a lot.
I think our vaccines are going to be fine for these set of variants. The question that I worry about is what about future variants that might end up evading our vaccines? That's the challenge in front of us.
Chideya:
Finally, let's talk a little bit about the world. The United States, during the past administration, was not particularly engaged with a lot of the super structures of how the US approaches the world, including the World Health Organization. Now we're re-entering some of these relationships. Why is that important, if it's important?
Jha:
Yeah, it's important and I'm going to actually argue that it's not enough. Let me make the case. First and foremost, we all have to remember this is a global pandemic. It's not an American pandemic, it's not something you can solve domestically, alone. Because it's a global pandemic it's going to come to an end when the whole world is vaccinated and the whole world is able to bring it to an end. We are not going to be able to bring the pandemic to an end even for Americans if we only focus on vaccinating Americans.
Imagine the following scenario: Imagine it's fall of 2021, we've all gotten vaccinated, life is starting to return back to normal. And there are large outbreaks happening, let's say in India. One of those large outbreaks leads to a variant that is resistant to our vaccines, I can promise you those variants will spread quickly around the world and make land itself in the United States and all of a sudden we find ourselves going, "Oh, my God! Now there's a variant circulating that none of us have immunity to." That's what happens with global pandemics. You can't stamp it out. It's like a fire in a neighborhood. If your entire neighborhood is aflame, you don't say, "Well, I'm going to put my house out," and then go back and start living in it. The problem is you got to get all the entire neighborhood's fire put out.
The last point on this, is America's had a long history of leadership on this. Very bi-partisan. The move of the last president, Donald Trump, was particularly upsetting because it just squandered decades of moral leadership that we had. Given the size of the problem, we got to do much more than just rejoining the WHO. We really have to double down on a global effort to vaccinate everybody.
Chideya:
Dr. Jha, thank you so much for joining us.
Jha:
It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
Chideya:
That was Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University.
The Golden Globes are a week away so we've invited Casey Mendoza to break down all we need to know about who is nominated and who's not. She's our business of entertainment contributor. Hi, Casey.
Casey Mendoza:
Hi, Farai.
Chideya:
It's always great to talk to you and now must be such a busy season for you because there's the award shows. They have been bad at highlighting and celebrating diversity in major films over the years. Has that changed this year?
Mendoza:
Well, see you're absolutely right in saying that award shows have been historically bad at highlighting diversity. But ever since the Oscars So White controversy of I think 2015, there have been small steps towards improvement. I remember last year Ramy Youssef and Aquafina getting recognized at the Golden Globes for their acting roles. But even if you still take a look at the bigger picture, it's still not perfect.
And this year at least with the Golden Globes so far, critics are pointing out some major snubs. The TV show, I May Destroy You, which is helmed by actress, writer and show [inaudible 00:20:02], Michaela Coel, was critically acclaimed and frequently heralded as one of the best shows of 2020. But it was completely ignored by the Golden Globes. And in the best drama category, the Golden Globes also failed to recognize movies like Da 5 Bloods from Spike Lee, One Night in Miami, by Regina King, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Judas and the Black Messiah. The fact that I could name all of these titles off the top of my head, because they were so well received in 2020 and predicted to be major front runners in these races. And yet, be ignored and shut out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has been very baffling and very frustrating in these conversations about diversity in entertainment.
Chideya:
Yeah, when you think about that, who did actually did make the cut in the Golden Globes in terms of women of color?
Mendoza:
Yeah, some of the categories did a much better job. In the best actress category, we have nominations for Viola Davis, in her role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Andra Day for her role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday. Then even in the best director category, which is what I'm most excited about, the Golden Globes is celebrating Regina King, who we raved about the last time I was here for, again, her movie, One Night in Miami. Then also Chloe Zhao, who directed Nomadland.
Chideya:
How much does it matter for people who are white to speak up? I was noticing that before we spoke, there's an article by Deborah Copaken, who's a journalist and now screenwriter, who I happen to know from college and post-college life, that said, "I'm a writer on Emily in Paris. I May Destroy You deserved a Golden Globe nomination." How much does being an ally or being a self-aware white person in Hollywood matter to the industry? Or like many things, is it not going to transform the industry?
Mendoza:
As a woman of color that covers this industry, it was very validating to hear Deborah Copaken's perspective. I don't want to make fun of Emily in Paris, because I think the internet has done that enough already. It was very validating to see a writer from that show recognize Michaela Coel's, I May Destroy You, because for the past year, I May Destroy You has been just praised for it's nuanced portrayal of sexual assaults and PTSD. It was amazing to see Michaela Coel tell that story in a way that was so personal and so introspective and also make it intersectional.
Again, I don't want to compare it to Emily in Paris, because I don't think that's the conversation that should be happening. But to have more people in the industry say this art is important, even if it comes at the expense of my art, I think it'll help make the conversation about diversity in entertainment more inclusive, more collaborative and more understanding about what deserves to be recognized, if that makes sense.
Chideya:
I also want to ask about “Minari”. The Golden Globes categorized it as a foreign language film, but is it? And how is that playing out?
Mendoza:
I want to say that Minari was one of my favorite movies that I've seen recently. It is not just a movie that was written and produced and distributed by American creators and American companies, it is also at its heart, a story about the American dream. It's about an immigrant that wants to start a farm in Arkansas. It's about the Arkansas community that welcomes him for the most part. Having grown up as a second generation Asian American, I feel a lot of my childhood in the film. And the reason I think it's controversial that this film has been categorized as a foreign language film, makes it feel alienating or othered. As if this isn't an American story or it is a foreign story, which it isn't.
This has been a controversy that's happened at the Golden Globes before. Last year The Farewell was also nominated in the foreign language category. A fun statistic for you is that eight films from the US have been nominated for the foreign language award. One of them is Dreams, which came out in 1990, it is mostly in Japanese and French. Another one is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is French. The Kite Runner, which is in English, Urdi and Dari. So many of these titles, despite the fact they're US films, are categorized as foreign language. And it highlights this discrepancy in Hollywood over what is foreign and what is American, even though the entertainment industry, I think right now more than ever before, is global and stretches beyond Hollywood.
I think overall, this controversy isn't just about Minari, it's about the perceptions of again, diversity, but also what stories are universal or what stories deserve recognition.
Chideya:
So et me end on a broader question for the awards shows. We've been talking about the Golden Globes. There's also the Oscars and in general awards shows, not just for the movies, but also some of the music related awards shows, the audiences have been dropping. How does that change the game both for the Golden Globes and for the Oscars?
Mendoza:
Absolutely. I think the pandemic is a big reason why audience numbers are dropping. The Emmys last year had one of the worst viewerships it's ever had historically. But it's hard to say what the solution is or what should come next. Because overall, the entertainment industry does have to find new ways to appeal to an audience that is maybe jaded about these awards shows. Maybe apathetic, but overall, also just out of touch a little bit because awards shows are essentially highlighting celebrities. They're highlighting producers and studio executives who have the money to throw at these projects. It makes it hard to watch when it's been such a difficult year for so many people. In regards to the pageantry of awards shows, a lot still needs to be done to make it accessible.
Chideya:
All right, Casey. Thank you so much.
Mendoza:
Thanks so much, Farai.
Chideya:
That was Casey Mendoza, our business of entertainment contributor and a reporter at Newsy. You can find her latest articles on newsy.com.
Each week we ask listeners to call the speak line to tell us what's on your mind. We've been asking you, what is one thing you learned about yourself in the pandemic that makes you happy? We had a few people write in last week. You share how you've learned that you're resilient and stronger mentally than you knew. One listener wrote in to say she'd come to feel more secure as a dancer. She's using dance to process her emotions about all the issues facing her as a Black woman in the US right now. One of you said you discovered you were secretly an introvert.
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Each week we invite two fantastic experts to join us on Sippin' the Political Tea. That's our weekly political round table with Our Body Politic contributors, Errin Haines, editor-at-large at the 19th and Jess Morales Rocketto, civic engagement director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Jess, welcome back!
Jess Morales Rocketto:
Hey!
Chideya:
Errin, it's another week in politics. Welcome back.
Errin Haines:
So it is, my friend. Thanks for having me.
Look, let's just get into it. What stuck out to both of you most this week in politics? Jess, let's start with you.
Morales Rocketto:
Well, I'm really heads down in immigration land this week, so it's a pretty big policy week over in immigration. We have the border reopening this week, the big, long promised Biden immigration bill drops this week in Congress. So I've just been totally consumed around what's happening there. It feels good to be on the offensive instead of on the defensive.
Haines:
Farai, what about you?
Chideya:
There's this journalist I like, I think her name is Hines or Ham, or I don't know. But she did this great interview with the vice president. Oh, wait! It's you, it's Errin Haines. Congratulations! Tell us about it.
Haines:
Yeah, it turns out I hadn't had a chance to touch base with Vice President Harris since she became the second most powerful person in the country. But yeah, we had a chance to sit down to do the first national print interview that she's done since taking office. I had a pretty robust conversation, mostly centered around the new administration's response to the pandemic and the relief package they're trying to get passed. They've been in office for a month already, if you can believe it, and what she had to say around just making sure that the roll out is equitable, focusing on the women who have been disproportionately economically impacted by this and making sure that she fulfills the great sense of responsibility that she feels. Especially around the Black folks who we know are disproportionately dying from this disease. Really was a very interesting conversation, so thanks for the shout out.
While we're on the topic of this administration, let's talk about President Biden's town hall on CNN this past Tuesday. Here's a clip.
Female:
We need student loan forgiveness beyond the potential $10,000 your administration has proposed. We need at least a $50,000 minimum. What will you do to make that happen?
President Biden:
I will not make that happen.
Haines:
Jess, what are your thoughts about this moment?
Morales Rocketto:
This is a really important moment in the fight against loan forgiveness and the people who are doing debt strikes. Folks don't have enough money right now and one of the things that would help is if we didn't have to pay $1,200 student loan checks every month. There is a pause on student loan payments now, but real debt forgiveness is what activists have been asking for for a very long time. And it's what young people have overwhelmingly supported.
My hope is that there will be more pressure from groups to make sure that this can actually happen because the fact that he just comes through so clearly like, "I'm not going to do that," means that they are getting pressure on it, that they're feeling that this is important. It's coming up as an issue. I think we've seen that Joe Biden can be movable and this is a really key place where he needs to move.
Haines:
Yeah, yeah, it seems like it. I also saw Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren putting out a statement really telling folks to hold the line on this and that the $50,000 number is really what is needed to address the racial wealth gap in this country. Farai, what did you think about the idea that President Biden said, "I will not make this happen"?
Chideya:
It didn't surprise me in the sense that I think that President Biden is trying to hold his place as a centrist, but this country doesn't really have a center right now. We're in a food fight and the center is not always right. I think if you look at something like the pre-civil rights era, the center said that Black people were lesser than and didn't deserve voting rights.
So this is one of those cases where we need to look at the facts. And as you said, this not only could help Millennials and Gen Z who are struggling in particular with the debt because the cost of college rose sharply over time, so Baby Boomers didn't pay as much for college, even going to great schools. But it also would close the racial wealth gap, so I hope that we keep talking about this with facts in mind.
Haines:
Yeah. Well, Farai, you interviewed somebody with a plan for building Black political power. That's writer and columnist, Charles Blow. Let's listen to a clip.
Blow:
With this election, Black people made up 33% of the population of Georgia and that was part of the tipping of Georgia.
Haines:
Tell me about his argument.
Chideya:
This is absolutely fascinating. Charles Blow, who is a New York Times columnist, very powerful. Originally from Louisiana, an all Black community in Louisiana, went to a Black high school, went to a historically Black college. Has now moved back to the South, this time to Georgia and talks about how if Black folks moved en masse roughly about half of the Black folks who don't live in these states, to the Southeastern states, all the way up to Maryland and Delaware, Black folks could control electoral college votes.
Chideya:
Not every nation has a winner take all system, the way that America does. But this is in some ways to me, not only an adaptation, an idea that's an adaptation to the racial politics of America, but to the electoral college. I'm curious what you think, Errin, about that. Being someone originally from Georgia.
Haines:
Yeah. It's certainly an interesting premise and I think that what I'm curious about, he emphasizes cities and I wonder about valuing rural Black voters, many of whom already live in the South and are waiting to be mobilized and invested in. As we saw in Georgia with folks like Stacey Abrams and Latasha Brown. Really seeing them as just as important as voters, as folks in places like Atlanta or Charlotte or et cetera.
I think exploring that as part of not necessarily a multi-racial coalition, but even intramurally within the Black community. Bringing rural voters into this conversation a lot more, I think has to be part of this conversation going forward. Because we've seen that it can be part of a winning strategy, especially in the deep South.
Let's move on to the acquittal of former President Trump on charges of incitement of insurrection. Here's a clip of Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat and one of the impeachment managers.
Rep. Ted Lieu:
You know, I'm not afraid of Donald Trump running again in four years. I'm afraid he's going to run again and lose. Because he can do this again.
Haines:
Jess, what were your thoughts when Representative Lieu said that?
Morales Rocketto:
The threat of Trump and Trump-ism is still very present. I think that because we won the election, because there's a new president in the White House, and frankly because of the rhetoric that many are putting forward, including President Biden, it's like, "Now, let's put that behind us and move forward." But Donald Trump is a former president. Given his importance in pop culture even before he was president, on The Apprentice, in movies, all those kinds of things, it really is saying something that he has more power now.
There is a base that is frankly, rabid for him. You saw what that base will do at the Capitol during the insurrection. There is a narrative that he can be building for the next four years with that base, which has won him an election, that's about the aggrieved economic insecurity, the disrespect, and all that stuff that he can apply to himself resonates with them as well. So there is a real danger, the fact that the Senate did not impeach President Trump is a really big problem. Because he makes more money the more he's in the limelight and that's what he really cares about. Staying in the public eye, making money. And if he thinks that being president is going to help him do that, he could run again even if he wants to lose because he doesn't actually want to be president. He could waste all of our time.
Whenever we're in the rear view mirror on these kinds of questions, we are like, "Oh, well. It worked out in the end, he lost." But actually, this is a person who was just next door to authoritarian. The slow descent of four years into fascism. So we should be very afraid of this. I agree with Representative Lieu, it would be actually very scary if he did run again and lose. We are just in this perpetuated cycle of using our democracy as his new television show.
Haines:
Yeah, and I think we've seen this week with his ability to still command a platform, to be able to go on national television and do interviews or the energy of the state party still very much seems to be around the former president and also centering members of Congress who go against former President Trump the big lie that he continues to promote about the idea that the election was rigged and that he won. When we in fact know that that was not the case.
Morales Rocketto:
Yeah, let me just jump in here with some of the fallout in the Republican party. After he voted to acquit former President Trump, Senator Mitch McConnell said this.
Sen. Mitch McConnell:
There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.
Morales Rocketto:
Farai, help me make sense of this.
Chideya:
There is no sense to be made. But it also makes complete sense because this is what happens when you try to have your cake and eat it too. And let me just say, I am the queen of that. I am the queen of trying to lose a little weight. I'm a have my cake and then I'm going to eat it and then going to be mad if it doesn't come off my waistline. Essentially, if I can use a dieting analogy, Mitch McConnell wants Trump light.
There is no Trump light. You acquitted him during impeachment and then you come back and you're like, "But what you did was awful." And now he has lost on both sides. He didn't stand up for impeachment, which apparently he believes that the president did incite and let's not forget he had the power to bring the Senate into session while Trump was still president. He could have changed the whole game here because his whole argument is like, "Oh, we can't impeach someone who's no longer president." He wants to go with that and at the same time he doesn't want to provoke the fans of Trump into hating him. But it didn't work.
Haines:
House Speaker Pelosi has ordered a 9/11 style commission to take a look at what happened on January 6th. Jess, how do you feel about this?
Morales Rocketto:
If I'm being honest, I just feel like a commission, I know that's how Congress works. But it's a little tepid for me, maybe is the right way to say it. I have a number of relationships with members of Congress and when you talk to them about this they are really, really scared. They are actually literally scared for their lives. That's just not something that we should be okay with as a country.
Haines:
Yeah, Farai, what are your thoughts on this?
Chideya:
I feel about commissions like I feel about diversity committees in journalism work spaces. It's a good way to waste a lot of time.
Haines:
Well, look, there is a lot of talk about what accountability does look like. Like censuring Donald Trump. Here's Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a clip.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose. We don't censure people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the Capitol.
Haines:
Farai, are they considering this and would it mean anything?
Chideya:
What would mean something is actually a ramification. I'm not clear that a censure actually has much of a ramification. Now, one of the important points about impeachment, is that had the president been fully impeached, he would no longer get Secret Service protection, which is costing me, I pay my taxes. In fact, once last year, put my taxes on the internet to show exactly how much I paid in 2018 compared to the president, who paid $750. I will be subsidizing his security and his children's security for his lifetime when Mitch McConnell said that he actually did incite an insurrection at the Capitol.
He could run for president again. Now, I'm not clear whether or not that's even remotely likely, but he has that right. A censure doesn't accomplish any of the things that an impeachment would, so there you go.
Haines:
Yeah, I guess I'm just unclear on what censuring would mean for him, especially like I said, he can go on platforms like Fox and OAN at will, to spread lies about election fraud and Black voters in this country.
Let's talk about all the other ways aside from impeachment, now that that's out of the way that people are demanding accountability from former President Trump. Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, filed a civil lawsuit against the former president and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Jess, do you think this move could be more fruitful?
Morales Rocketto:
I mean, I think that in Congress they love symbolic actions. This is somewhere between a symbolic action and actually helpful. The civil lawsuit is important. It is the first civil action taken against the former president related to the attack that feels like something that is a shift from where we've been. And it means that President Trump and other people in his orbit, like Giuliani, would be subject to discovery in depositions. We might find out more information and potentially former President Trump has to pay money. I think that matters a lot.
I think that Representative Thompson filing it is also important. He is the lone Democrat from the Mississippi delegation and I think he's a very prominent, senior Democrat in Mississippi. That also feels like a big statement from him, particularly given what we were talking about earlier about the South and building power in the South for African American folks. So I think that there is something really interesting about him taking matters into his own hands, even as a representative, even as that plays out in the Congressional process.
Haines:
Yeah, well, we know that Representative Bennie Thompson filed that civil lawsuit in his personal capacity and that was the first civil action filed against the former president related to that attack at the US Capitol. But Representative Thompson was also chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. With the issue of white supremacy as the major domestic terrorism priority of this government identified as such, what he does in his official capacity, as well in response to this could be yet another avenue of accountability.
Farai, what about other ways people are demanding accountability?
Chideya:
Well, there's a lot of fallout about the whole froth of different ways that Trump and his allies sought to undermine the election. I think just to do a little aside, a quick aside, I think that one thing that happened in America, is that people assumed that we were not privy to some of the ravages that happen when democracy becomes unstable. The state of America's democracy has actually been downgraded by several international measures. We sometimes love talking about people in Banana Republics, et cetera, but we could become one if we're not careful.
What's happening that's more constructive in terms of looking at this, is that organizations like Lawyers Defending American Democracy have filed an ethics complaint against Rudy Giuliani, saying that he, "Violated multiple provisions of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct while representing former President Donald Trump and the Trump campaign." There's officials in Michigan seeking the disbarment of Sidney Powell. The Georgia Bar opening an investigation as well, because we can think about all of the pressure that basically the Trump campaign put on various states and various legislators. I think that all of this is productive.
Haines:
Well, we're going to have to leave it there for now. It was nice talking with you, Jess.
Morales Rocketto:
Thank you. So great to talk with you.
Haines:
And as always, nice to chat with you again, Farai.
Chideya:
Great talking, Errin, and great interview with the vice president.
Haines:
Thanks, again.
Chideya:
That was Errin Haines of the 19th and Jess Morales Rocketto from the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Thank you so much for joining us on Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Our Body Politic is produced by Lantigua Williams & Co. I'm the creator and host, Farai Chideya. Juleyka Lantigua Williams is executive producer. Jen Chien is executive editor. Paulina Velasco is senior producer. Cedric Wilson is lead producer and mixed this episode. Original music by Kojin Tashiro.. Our producer is Priscilla Alabi. Our booker is Julie Zann. Michelle Baker and Emily Daily are assistant producers. Production assistance from Mark Betancourt.
Funder credit:
Funding for Our Body Politic is provided by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, empowering world changing work.
Chideya, Farai, host. “A Provocative Way to Build Black Voting Power, Why Covid-19 Vaccination Must Be a Global Effort, and the Limits of Inclusion at the Golden Globes.” Our Body Politic, Diaspora Farms LLC. February 19, 2021. https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/