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Over in the Sunshine State. Ronda
Santis has declared himself a general in the

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War on Woke, and he's attacking
teachers, medical providers, and marginalized communities

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all to score political points. Schools
have become political battlefields, and educators are

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fleeing faster than Floridians in a rainstorm. Florida's teacher to population ratio has plummeting

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faster than a roller coast. Also, strict anti abortion and anti translaws are

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scaring away medical provider leading to longer
wait times than ers and less attention in

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Classter. It's like a never ending
roller coaster over there in Florida, and

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these battles are leaving more scorched earth
than sunny days. But grab your popcorn

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and stay tuned for more drama.
This article is from The Sun Sentinel by

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Ray Liner from October twenty ninth,
twenty twenty three. Jimmy Junior, what

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do you have to say? I
thought that the author's comment that these policies

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and laws have created an incubator for
harm in similar states was really brilliant,

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because I've never really associated the term
incubator with kind of the birthplaces, if

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you will, of some of these
more harmful laws that seem to transcend state

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lines. And so we know that
a lot of these states that share maybe

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similar values, similar demographics, kind
of have these same harmful laws taking effect.

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They've seen it all across maybe the
Deep South. But I really don't

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want to harp too much on that
because I want to pivot to another point.

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Just a personal pet peeve of mine, and that's hearing politicians, among

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others, use warlike terms and inflammatory
rhetoric to describe issues regarding legislation. So

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when I hear like athletes, for
example, talking about, you know,

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we're at war or we're bringing out
the big guns, or hear certain groups

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taking a certain position, politicians,
you know, political parties, whatever that

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may be, it always strikes me
as like being a little bit cringe worthy.

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Might be due to some of my
military service, maybe some of the

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images that I have in mind,
but whatever the case, I try not

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to romanticize this kind of thinking or
this kind of imagery or stance. But

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while it may not necessarily be warlike, or I think it might be cringe

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worthy. Like I said, on
the other hand, this kind of thinking

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really does make it warlike for the
people that are being victimized and who are

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on the receiving end. So we
have like members of the African American or

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LGBTQ excuse me, LGBTQ communities that
have really been impacted by harsh laws that

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really seek to discriminate people, and
so they might feel like they are in

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some kind of crisis, some existential
threat is taking place because they have people

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with this warlike combative mindset. And
I really just think that it's this kind

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of language and this kind of attitude
that causes people to fear for their own

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safety, their own futures, their
children, really is quite divisive. So

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I'm sick and tired of hearing politicians
equate legislation to battlefield because it does nothing

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but put other people on edge and
makes everybody anxious, and it's really just

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inappropriate in my mind. What do
you think? Yeah, I think the

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entire JOPI movement right now is based
on fascist principles and nothing else, the

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main one being the strong man defense. You know that you need, you

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absolutely need a strong man in order
to get out of whatever solution situation you

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are right now, and the idea
that only a strong man can solve the

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party or the country's issues. It
runs deep in the US is psyche.

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Uh, it's because it's intertwined with
the gun culture, exceptionalism, misogyny,

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and and other deeply deeply rooted ways
of thinking. And you know, every

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hero needs a villain, so if
you don't have a villain, you just

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make one up. And that's what
the UP has been doing since pretty much

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Reagan, with increasing strength and precision. Work is great because it's a vay

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word, and every time you see
on camera a right winger asked to define

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it, they just can't because it's
too vague, and so it's it's it's

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it's really great for for for them
because you can ascribe to it whatever you

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want, whatever you don't like.
So it's pretty much like communism back in

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the day, the previous iteration of
the same trigger world. So it's not

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surprising to realize that this so called
war on woke basically shoots itself in the

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foot because the population is meant to
attract is already known to vote against its

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own interest very very often. They're
against socialism, as they say, well

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at the same time being the population
with the highest use of footstems and federal

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assistance so yeah, you have one
population that's flamed up with with the use

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of that of that world so that
they can vote against their own interest by

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people who just want to rule them
and not lead them. So it's I

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don't see how the US can can
get out of this in the current situation.

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One quick point note that Jimmy Jr. You were talking about the warlike

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language, and it always seems like
the people who use that kind of language

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aren't the people who have actually been
there, So you know, it's kind

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of a weird dichotomy to me.
But I'm going to be the odd man

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out on this segment. I think
one of the things I really had a

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real problem with this article about was
that the author seems to think that the

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whole thing started in Florida. It's
all about Florida. The whole war on

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woke is Florida, and it's just
spreading out from Florida, And that's not

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the case. DeSantis is just following
a playbook that was already established. Has

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he been able to implement it better? Yes, Because he's the governor of

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a large state. He's gotten a
lot of press lately because he's running for

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president. As he runs for president
and he's losing. He's getting a little

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bit more radical and a little bit
more anti woke. But I don't think

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we can blame this all on DeSantis. I don't think he's a good guy

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in any way, shape or form. But I think we have to remember

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that this isn't just a Florida thing. This is a nationwide thing. And

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just this week he was endorsed by
the governor of Iowa, of all places,

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Kim Reynolds, and she's been overseeing
her state in pretty much the same

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exact way. So, like I
say, I want to make it clear

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that this is not just Ron DeSantis. This is going on everywhere, and

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I'm going to pass it down to
Aaron. Yeah. So don't forget that

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the word woke they seem to kind
of be using as a pejorative, but

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what really means just being kind to
people and listening to what they have to

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say, and listening and believing them
when they share their experiences, When they

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when they share their experiences that are
negative in the world and that cause them

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pain, we just we just need
to they want us. We need to

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listen and help them and make the
world a better place for everybody. And

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this war on Woke is really annoying
at best because it just shows that the

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GOP really they really have no policy
platform anymore. They really have no laws

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that they want to put forth other
than culture war bs. They just they

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want they want people to be who
they want them to be instead of trying

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to make this country a better place
and pass laws that actually help people,

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laws that actually help move us forward
and make our country a better place.

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And how do we get out of
this mess? I think Cindy asked that

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is going to take a lot of
work from a lot of people to combat

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these ideas and to stand up and
show up and and and and you know,

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counteract these policies and these these ideas. Jimmy, Yeah, I like

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that you kind of pointed to Cindy's
analysis because I thought it was very astute.

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And I think the idea of needing
a strong man, especially in the

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GOP or what we understand now to
be the GOP. I think that some

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former Republicans would argue that the Republican
Party is dead and is long gone,

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but what we identify now as the
Republican Party, I think it's it's very

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much in their playbook and to Kelly's
point about Rod DeSantis becoming more enraged,

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more more boisterous in his approach to
how he kind of sends his message out,

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I think is very much the playbook
as well. I think we're seeing

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a person that realizes they're probably not
gonna achieve the goals that they want,

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I'll say that, and so they're
just reacting harshly. I also think that

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while it's not spreading in Florida,
or not necessarily only in Florida, Kelly,

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I will say that the Governor of
Iowa's endorsement is probably just made in

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an attempt to kind of divert away
from the MAGA crowd, and they probably

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see DeSantis is the only real alternative
instead of going down the road of MAGA,

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which surprisingly I think a lot of
Republicans actually don't want to do.

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Probably many of them feel compelled to
do it. But anyway, what I

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wanted to get to though, was
that this all is not in just Florida.

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To Kelly's point, you know a
lot of these states are attacking doctors,

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they're attacking teachers. The mass exodus
of teachers that this article references is

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something that is incredibly important I think
to our country because as we see them,

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as we see them move on because
they're expected to take on more for

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not any increased pay, things like
you know, expecting to provide security and

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overall health and welfare to children,
when when they're really not getting recognized for

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those things, they're dealing with heavy
government intervention telling them how they can and

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can't teach, what they can and
can't do in the classroom. That is

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so far outside of what's expected for
a teacher. You know, a teacher

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should be able to relate to their
students, but this kind of anti woke

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legislation is preventing them from doing that. And so we're starting to see that

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this warlike tone, this strong man
trying to lash out at whoever they can,

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often victimizing teachers and doctors and students
in states like Florida, but not

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only Florida, And so I think
everybody's analysis kind of comes together in that

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way. How does this relate to
what we do at the ACA, Well,

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it's because Christianity and these rights wingers
tend to hijack the moral high ground

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and kind of point the finger at
the rest of us who don't agree with

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him and call us woke. As
a pejorative like Aaron manche Sidney. Yeah,

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the summer thing that I wanted to
address. The first one is the

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reason why the article calls Florida the
incubator of this war on woke is because

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the scientists made it his trademark and
he was elected for that. And remember

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he was elected in a landslide.
So on one hand, it's what he

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wants, But on the other hand, he's also stuck now because even though

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he realizes that many of his positions
are too extreme to be accepted by most

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of the population of Florida, he's
stuck with it because people ask for it,

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and he knows that if he doesn't
provide, he won't be re elected

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and he wants to be president one
day, so he cannot fail. So

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he is stuck right now. And
I would love to be in his inner

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circle, to be able to speak
to him and see what's what's in his

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mind, because how do you succeed
in in flaming people if you don't believe

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yourself what you're selling. I mean, it's and I'm not trying to evoke

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sympathy for him because he really doesn't
deserve it, but it's still quite interesting

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a position to be in in my
opinion. So yeah, Kelly, Well,

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I did do a little bit of
diving into some of the problems that

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were mentioned in this and one of
them was that there was a shortage of

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obgy obgyns in Florida. And it
turns out it's not about the war and

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woke and it's again something that's happening
all across the United States. In fact,

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the US Department of Health and Human
Services estimates the will be a shortage

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of into it, there'll be a
shortage of five thousand obgyns and twenty thirty

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all across the country. And this
isn't a new trend either. It's been

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going on for decades because of the
ever increasing population, and Florida is one

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of the states where the population has
been increasing the fastest and the longer the

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problem goes on. The more people
are being born, and they just aren't

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getting enough people to do the doctoring, which may be an economic problem since

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the job doesn't pay as well as
it did, say thirty years ago.

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Cost of education insurance is skyrocketed.
Doctor Ashley Hill with Advent Health in Florida,

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whose job it is to recruit obgyns
says the lack of doctors applying to

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these programs in central Florida has little
to do with state restrictions and more to

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do with the population. In fact, she says, one of the reasons

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we have a shortage is we are
not training enough younger doctors who are taking

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the place of older doctors who are
retiring and all of the people moving into

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this area. And then she goes
on to say that only a handful of

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prospective recruits have actually mentioned Florida as
abortion restriction, so apparently that's not causing

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a shortage of doctors in the area. However, and you mentioned it,

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teachers, this has on the other
side of the coin, this has hurt

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edge vucation really really bigly on the
Is there a single school with or library

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board actually anywhere in the country that
hasn't experienced something like this or had to

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deal with somebody. I live in
a place where there's like very few people

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on our library board and our local
school board has both had war on woke

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people running for the boards been very
vocal at meetings and yeah, it's happening

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everywhere, just everywhere. I want
to get like quick thirty second answers and

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ask because I think education is probably
what's hurt been hurt the most, but

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I'd like to get a quick thirty
second answer from the panel to see what

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they think. Aaron, what do
you think has been hurt the most by

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the war on Woke? Well,
education certainly has been hurt. Education is

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critical to a functioning democracy. I
think the war on Woke is just our

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ability. The biggest thing that's been
hit is our ability to listen and believe

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people and compromise and try to make
the world a better place. I mean,

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when you when you turn other people's
experiences into a war, that's you're

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just You're not going to be able
to move forward. You're not going to

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be able to be harmonious and come
together. Jimmy, I think the quality

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of education that students are going to
receive is going to decline, if it

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hasn't already having a mass exodus of
teachers who have already gone through the training

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and education to be able to do
their job leave, who are they getting

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replaced with people that are you know, fast tracking their training or who maybe

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are not as qualified and a probably
the second or third tier in the hiring

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pool. And so I think that
the education system as a whole, especially

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in these states that have these laws
that target teachers, are probably going to

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suffer. Sure, I think that'll
be a long term problem to analyze,

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but it's certainly not a good thing
when one of the professions that's so critically

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undermanned starts to see a mass excidity. Yeah. I agree that education is

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going to suffer a lot. But
to me, the worst thing about this

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so called on woke is that,
as Aaron said earlier, Walk is just

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trying to be nice. And when
this is uh turning too being the bad

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the bad guy, it means that
the assholes are being the nice ones and

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and and and that reverse is to
me, uh, the scariest part of

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of all of this, because suddenly
you live in a society where collaboration is

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not seen as neither beneficial or even
even a good thing. So the US

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is already very very uh a place
where being competitive and uh and where singiler

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people are are always always a better
view than than collectivities. And so I

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think that this is getting worse,
much worse, And and I again I

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don't see how you can go back
against that. All right, thanks,

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And nobody mentioned the marginal as of
minority communities, including the LGBTQ community,

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which I think is a big problem
to you. I'm not sure which is

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worse that one or the education,
but they're right up there with each other.

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To me quick update, in the
recent elections, the War on WO

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candidates did not do very well in
school board elections all across the country,

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so that's maybe a hopeful thing.
And I want to mention that if you

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want to check out lots of cool
ACA merchandise, you can go to tiny

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00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:27.559
dot cc Aca merch