Speaker 1: Welcome to the nonprofits, and tonight we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about a politician and how he wants to go back.
Speaker 1: When I say back, I mean backwards. But Rob is
Speaker 1: going to fill us in on this, Rob, what do
Speaker 1: you got for us?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Holy wow. Imagine being a lawmaker and trying to
Speaker 2: push a law that sixty nine percent of all Americans
Speaker 2: do not want. This seems futile for your own efforts.
Speaker 2: Josh Josh Shriver wants to outlaw same sex marriage in Michigan.
Speaker 2: He clearly knows who he's going for because he claims
Speaker 2: to be Michigan's most conservative state representative, which is fair.
Speaker 2: I suppose you can pick a camp. But he also
Speaker 2: always adds I'm a white rapper. I don't know why
Speaker 2: he keeps adding that it is irrelevant to his points
Speaker 2: and it only seems to score points. But he's really
Speaker 2: proud that he's a white rapper. This story is from
Speaker 2: Raws story by David Padash the New Civil Rights Movement
Speaker 2: on December third, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Thanks Robin. I can only imagine this guy wrapping. Well,
Speaker 1: actually I can't because I actually know what that sounds
Speaker 1: like now. But having said that, Rob, how did this
Speaker 1: staff react to this tweet? I mean, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: this is something that's not even popular on what we
Speaker 1: would consider traditionally his side of the aisle.
Speaker 2: So what did they do? Yeah, so he's apparently gotten
Speaker 2: into a couple different controversies. And then after this came out,
Speaker 2: most of his staffers and the people that work with him,
Speaker 2: most of them resigned, just straight up and out. And
Speaker 2: when we say sixty nine percent of Americans, we don't
Speaker 2: even mean sixty nine percent of Michiganders my home state.
Speaker 2: It is all Americans do not watch to ban same sex.
Speaker 2: And then when he came out and said this, there
Speaker 2: was then more tweets about persecution. And then because he
Speaker 2: also tweeted a racist conspiracy theory, he said, ooh ooh,
Speaker 2: I be called a racist, which is yes, if you
Speaker 2: do that, you get called that. So it's just it's
Speaker 2: just more of the same. And I am pleased to
Speaker 2: know that at least some people that were working with
Speaker 2: and for him had the decency to resign immediately after.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I was a little surprised that
Speaker 1: they're resigned, considering that there is a segment in the
Speaker 1: United States obviously that not that sixty nine percent, but
Speaker 1: there is a group that that's like red meat to them.
Speaker 1: I think he just overestimated the support that he expected
Speaker 1: to get from that. But Sendy, what do you think
Speaker 1: motivates politicians to spread information like this when they're defending
Speaker 1: really a rather indefensible stance. What do you think their purpose?
Speaker 2: Why do you think he's doing this?
Speaker 3: It's completely eligant to me because first of all, if
Speaker 3: you have to lie constantly to defend your position, then
Speaker 3: your position is from by definition, and every single quote
Speaker 3: from Fear in this article is like every single one.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he's the symbol of a political party that
Speaker 3: became about nothing else but hates I grievance and performance.
Speaker 3: But one of the reasons I think he keeps talking
Speaker 3: about this is he's part of a political party that is,
Speaker 3: as I said, performative, and taking an extreme stance is
Speaker 3: in itself performative, and so the problem is that it
Speaker 3: has consequences. Like when Trump got elected in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: I spent hours explaining to people around me in France
Speaker 3: why it was such a bad thing, because they didn't
Speaker 3: take him seriously at the time, and my main argument
Speaker 3: was that his violeness was going to incite other people
Speaker 3: like him to be more vocal, more apologetic about their
Speaker 3: season and bigotry. And that's exactly what happened. We had, well,
Speaker 3: we the US had a racist, homophobic and anti Semitic
Speaker 3: insults and aggressions that skyrocketed after his election. Uh And
Speaker 3: and now he's just got re elected on the same platform.
Speaker 3: So it's going to be all the time worse. But
Speaker 3: it's to me, it's even worse when you think about
Speaker 3: it in terms of rights. It's one thing to oppose
Speaker 3: the right that is being discussed to be given to
Speaker 3: someone else, like the UK right now is discussing a
Speaker 3: lot to provide access to theying with dignity, so you
Speaker 3: can have people who are against it and during this
Speaker 3: period and that's fine, but it's something else entirely to
Speaker 3: stay it on purpose unapologically after it's been in place
Speaker 3: for over a decade.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: The cynicism at play here, to me, is stuggering the
Speaker 3: moral and social and class superiority that he must feel
Speaker 3: in order to say, Okay, I'm going to take this
Speaker 3: right away from you, and for more reason, just because
Speaker 3: I don't like it. That's just to me, is really scary.
Speaker 3: This entitlement and this sense of superiority. Yeah, it's really scary.
Speaker 1: For me, you know. And I agree with you on
Speaker 1: the aspect that it's one thing. And I know that
Speaker 1: you and I from many other conversations you mentioned the
Speaker 1: death with dignity. We're on the same page there. But
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying that it's one thing for
Speaker 1: people to debate and discuss in an open forum with
Speaker 1: their pros and cons for something that we're talking about
Speaker 1: whether we're going to allow this to happen. But now
Speaker 1: we're ten years over, ten years past this, and we
Speaker 1: should should be needing to have this conversation again. So
Speaker 1: you know, and I look at it that my oldest
Speaker 1: child will be impacted because they would fall under this category.
Speaker 1: And that makes no sense to take people who have
Speaker 1: families and relationships and say, oh, just kidding, we said
Speaker 1: you had this right, but we don't. So switching to YOUAJ,
Speaker 1: how do you think, and I'm going to worry this
Speaker 1: carefully because you and I have talked about this before,
Speaker 1: how do you think the personal religious beliefs that people
Speaker 1: go to church on Sunday? Because a lot of this
Speaker 1: is what this boils down to this guy is promoting
Speaker 1: a religious belief about what he thinks about LGBTQ people.
Speaker 1: How do you think that that, whether it's religious or
Speaker 1: something else, should influence a politician or an employee who
Speaker 1: provides a service in the public. How should how should
Speaker 1: they be able to carry that over into their professional
Speaker 1: lives on Monday morning?
Speaker 4: True? Absolutely no. These personal beliefs are things that you
Speaker 4: practice in private at home. But unfortunately Josh Scool isn't
Speaker 4: going to stop wanting to make gay marriage illegal again.
Speaker 4: He wants to impuse all of his personal beliefs onto
Speaker 4: the public, onto the people that he serves in Michigan.
Speaker 4: Another one of the things that he mentioned is that
Speaker 4: he wants to refuse gender affirming care for transgender people,
Speaker 4: whether there are minors or adults consenting adults. He thinks that,
Speaker 4: for example, not allowing the conscience exception for d MB
Speaker 4: employees to discriminate against trans people in Michigan is going
Speaker 4: to lead to more Christian persecution by the way, the
Speaker 4: conscience class allows an employee a public employee to refuse
Speaker 4: service based on their personal beliefs. For example, a doctor
Speaker 4: in a publicly funded clinic may refuse to perform an
Speaker 4: abortion if it goes against their personal dogma or whatever
Speaker 4: they may believe in. I don't know, I mean speaking
Speaker 4: of reproductive rights. Like he also wants to refuse birth
Speaker 4: control to women. He said that if doctors are worn
Speaker 4: to do no harm, then lawmakers should look into banning
Speaker 4: hormonal birth control, implying that preventing a pregnancy is harming
Speaker 4: a baby, which is you know, a very commonly, highly
Speaker 4: on scientific conservative belief. So I mean to put it simply,
Speaker 4: not like none of these personal beliefs should come into
Speaker 4: his office on Monday.
Speaker 1: I think that we're seeing some of the side effects.
Speaker 1: Cyndia talked about this from about a previous situation where
Speaker 1: we're seeing people in bolden by rhetoric they've heard previously
Speaker 1: to think that I can say even more intolerable things
Speaker 1: and push for even more unacceptable things because it isn't
Speaker 1: just gay marriage that they're concerned in marriage equality. They
Speaker 1: want to roll back, as you mentioned, body autonomy for
Speaker 1: a whole host of issues. But Rob, how do you
Speaker 1: think we should respond to politicians who use because we
Speaker 1: mentioned the persecution if they don't get to discriminate, which
Speaker 1: really means privilege that they're losing. What do you think
Speaker 1: how should we respond to politicians to use fear and
Speaker 1: hatred against marginalized groups. Really, what it sounds like is
Speaker 1: a popularity play. What do you think about that? What
Speaker 1: is our responsibility?
Speaker 2: I think it's society's responsibility for education and fact checking,
Speaker 2: and that this is really a preventative thing. Once it
Speaker 2: gets to this point, it's going to be mostly messed
Speaker 2: up and screwed because I don't even want to push
Speaker 2: back on what you just said at aj just I
Speaker 2: agree that their religious beliefs should not come into the government,
Speaker 2: and yet that is impossible. It is simply impossible because
Speaker 2: people have religious beliefs that inform their worldview and also
Speaker 2: inform their moral system and what they believe is right
Speaker 2: and wrong. So while it would be really nice that
Speaker 2: we could literally compartmentalize these things, it would be wrong
Speaker 2: to ask a person to ask to ask a person
Speaker 2: to act morally when that moral action is against what
Speaker 2: they believe to be moral. The problem is that their
Speaker 2: morals are wrong, and it is impossible to expect a
Speaker 2: person to come into power and then go I'm just
Speaker 2: now going to forget everything I know and the only
Speaker 2: way to deal with this is to have it never
Speaker 2: have gotten to this place in the first place. So
Speaker 2: when these things do happen, I mean, I suppose we
Speaker 2: can demonize them and say, haha, look at the strange
Speaker 2: man who has strange beliefs. That's useful. Sometimes public shaming
Speaker 2: is actually a very strong motivator. But because their persecution complex,
Speaker 2: that's also a strong motivator for their base. So what
Speaker 2: should we do. We should never have a lot. Let
Speaker 2: it gotten here in the first place, And that could
Speaker 2: only really be done with drug models and preventative care,
Speaker 2: which is actually just educating everybody from the outset. It's
Speaker 2: just the best. Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I completely agree with what you just said, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that the problem isn't like the beliefs that are taken in.
Speaker 4: It's just like how did they get there in the
Speaker 4: first place, and how do you get them to not
Speaker 4: go there anymore?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you, so, Sandy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: On the topic of compartmentalization, someone I knew was he
Speaker 3: was He used to work in UH radio dating UH
Speaker 3: rocks and and fossil fossils and things like that, and
Speaker 3: he was working with U with the younger younger creationists
Speaker 3: so it seems to be a little bit impossible, but
Speaker 3: actually the guy managed to compartmentalize the two things completely.
Speaker 3: Like during the day he was dating uh rocks and
Speaker 3: fossils and he said, yeah, they're there, are like two
Speaker 3: hundred thousand years years old, and then went home and
Speaker 3: taught his kid that the earth was six thousand years old.
Speaker 3: So it's possible to have those extreme views and still
Speaker 3: managed to avoid cognitive dissonance. I also, so I live
Speaker 3: in Belgium and not many people are religious. I have
Speaker 3: discovered resetting that I had a few ones in my
Speaker 3: soccer team and it doesn't influence their view because they're
Speaker 3: not thought that their religion is the source of morality.
Speaker 3: So religion is more like, I don't know, cultural thing
Speaker 3: more than really a very strong belief in an entity.
Speaker 3: All that exists too, but it's not as important. So
Speaker 3: I think it's still possible to to have religious beliefs
Speaker 3: and not have them influence your view of the world.
Speaker 3: But that means the religious belief itself has to be
Speaker 3: taught in a very specific way in order to avoid
Speaker 3: what we see in the US or any any Muslim country,
Speaker 3: or any very very Catholic country like Nigeria or some
Speaker 3: South American countries. So yeah, it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 3: complicated topic and we should avoidy generalizations.
Speaker 1: A j you had mentioned limiting reproductive right, I mean,
Speaker 1: and this concept of going backwards, because that's precisely what
Speaker 1: he's doing, is saying, you know, not just let's slow
Speaker 1: things down, but let's do one eighty in full speed
Speaker 1: the opposite direction. What do you think the long term
Speaker 1: consequences of this type of action people throwing this type
Speaker 1: of rhetoric out there, What do you think this has
Speaker 1: to do? It can impact the legal landscape and societal norms.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, there's a lot of steak because
Speaker 4: in the case of Criber, as if trying to you know,
Speaker 4: take things back in time by trying to make the
Speaker 4: LGBTQ community disappear, dominating women's bodies or trying to take
Speaker 4: away by the autonomy wasn't enough. He also has voted
Speaker 4: against certain bills that will prevent racial discriminations or you know,
Speaker 4: he's posted racist conspiracy theorist in his professional social media,
Speaker 4: not just his private personal page. And according to Josh,
Speaker 4: just like there is this anti Christian agenda, there's also
Speaker 4: an anti white agenda. He said that there is a
Speaker 4: racist plan to replace whites with non whites through illegally
Speaker 4: equation too irreversibly America's demographics, voting citizens, and national identity
Speaker 4: to keep power in the hands of the godless regime.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, sir, but is that not what the conservative
Speaker 4: white Christian nationalists have been doing like two people for
Speaker 4: you know, generations to like people of color, minorities. To me,
Speaker 4: his set of beliefs are just generally toxic, and that
Speaker 4: is what we often discuss regarding people that make decisions
Speaker 4: for entire populations based on their individual personal belief Like
Speaker 4: Grab mentioned earlier, you can't take away people's religious beliefs
Speaker 4: from who they are, from how they see the world,
Speaker 4: and they can often not separate that. But in the
Speaker 4: case of a representative, this is somebody that is meant
Speaker 4: to represent entire populations, like he's supposed to say, okay,
Speaker 4: to put myself aside and represent these people, and you know,
Speaker 4: listening to what these people want. And you know, again,
Speaker 4: Rob says, sixty nine percent of Americans or Michigan and
Speaker 4: Michigan nurse do not want to do away with gay marriage.
Speaker 4: So listen to that right, Like he should be listening
Speaker 4: to that rather than be listening to his own personal
Speaker 4: wishness and desires and dogmas. So to me, like, I
Speaker 4: don't know, she's the bullshit that he's feeling just shows
Speaker 4: me why why it's a problem to let his personal
Speaker 4: beliefs seep into the decision making that he's supposed to
Speaker 4: be making for people.
Speaker 2: I want to I want to jump in and say
Speaker 2: I think the fact that the word representative was used
Speaker 2: is perfect because he is a representative and he should
Speaker 2: represent clearly. I'm an atheist. And when I first watched
Speaker 2: the movie First Contact and they're trying to figure out
Speaker 2: which person to go bet the ambassador for the human
Speaker 2: race with aliens, and then the the lead characters like
Speaker 2: I should go in the main and in one of
Speaker 2: like the generals is like eighty nine percent of all
Speaker 2: of the population of the planet believes in some kind
Speaker 2: of God. Why do you think you should go? And
Speaker 2: even as an atheist, like, oh shit, that's a compelling point.
Speaker 2: He should be representative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this great replacement theory that ag was talking about,
Speaker 3: this idea that you know, white are slowly replaced we
Speaker 3: So it originated from from a French guy, sorry about that.
Speaker 3: And to me, it's it's one of the most stupid
Speaker 3: in hypocritical argument because what they're saying is that non
Speaker 3: white people have more kids than white people, and therefore
Speaker 3: we need to do something about it. I mean, and
Speaker 3: the obvious responses, well, why don't white make more kids?
Speaker 3: Why don't you make more kids? And usually, and especially
Speaker 3: in Europe, those people only have one or two kids.
Speaker 3: And so when you start going into this discussion is
Speaker 3: why don't you make more kids? Uh, well, why should
Speaker 3: I be? Well, you want white people to be more represented,
Speaker 3: so make more kids. And and they don't see the
Speaker 3: stupidity of their position because they see a problem, they
Speaker 3: have the solution, but they don't want to implement it,
Speaker 3: and that that to me is just just stupid because
Speaker 3: as soon as you try to answer that question why
Speaker 3: don't you want more kids, then you start talking about
Speaker 3: the systemic issues of the society, like the cost of living,
Speaker 3: like the cost of healthcare in the US, like all this,
Speaker 3: all this, all this, and and all those problems they
Speaker 3: don't want to acknowledge because they don't want to solve
Speaker 3: them because they hit mostly the other people compared to
Speaker 3: them so yeah, this, I don't understand how this arguments
Speaker 3: this position, that this great replacement theory is so popular
Speaker 3: in the right, right wing media and right wing people,
Speaker 3: because it's stupid to me.
Speaker 1: Well, you have to understand, and this is something I
Speaker 1: was going to say when Aja first brought this up
Speaker 1: before I was rude. Not is that this is something
Speaker 1: that we talked about over thirty years ago in very
Speaker 1: extreme right wing like White Air and Resistance and other
Speaker 1: people who I was involved with at the time. This
Speaker 1: was something that was commonplace then, but they wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that in public. And that's what unsettles me is that
Speaker 1: now I'm saying elected officials propagating something that open racists
Speaker 1: used to say behind closed doors, and that is very concerning.
Speaker 1: But one quick thing I wanted to run through because
Speaker 1: I know where I want a quick answer on this,
Speaker 1: because this is just what you view about it. Because
Speaker 1: we're getting close to the end of this. We've talked
Speaker 1: enough about these kind of people, you rob, do you
Speaker 1: do you think this is a performance as some we
Speaker 1: mentioned before, performative politics. Already think this guy really believes
Speaker 1: some of these things that he's saying.
Speaker 2: Not mutually exclusive and I'm sure that it's actually both.
Speaker 2: For the existence of all politics, the person who wins
Speaker 2: is the person who's most popular, or I guess is
Speaker 2: the person who kills everybody else and takes a monarchy
Speaker 2: and then nobody else decides to kill them back. But generally,
Speaker 2: if you're the most popular, you're going to win, and
Speaker 2: that requires spectacle. It just does. That's out like even
Speaker 2: a lot of the ancient Roman stuff and why they'd
Speaker 2: have large parades about their and things like that, and
Speaker 2: they would give gifts to the commoners. So of course
Speaker 2: it's a theater. Of course it's performance. He knows he
Speaker 2: knows the people he's trying to get, and he's not
Speaker 2: afraid about alienating the ones he doesn't. That doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that he's gonna then have a majority, but the majority
Speaker 2: doesn't matter as long as there's enough people around that
Speaker 2: are similar enough to him. So he's trying to make
Speaker 2: himself deeply popular with the people that he wants, and
Speaker 2: he's doing it through performance. Absolutely