TYREL
“When you really look at what's going on with this crisis -- as we talked about earlier, we saw how bad the healthcare system is because of this crisis; we saw how bad our political system is because of this crisis -- you're going to see more people start looking for new ideas.

ROB
Completely agree.

TYLER
And they're going to say, “You know what? This old way isn't working anymore.” -- Rob Richardson with Tyrel Ventura

----------------------

ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson.

AMESHIA CROSS
I’m Ameshia Cross.

TYREL VENTURA
And I am Tyrel Ventura.

ROB
All right. Well it's great to have Tyrel. By the way, I’m going to brag on him a little bit. He has a great show on RT America, “Watching the Hawks.” Ameshia Cross is his co-host on there all the time, too, as well.

I had the pleasure to come on his show and I am honored that he could come on this show. I think we have a lot in common. We both don't really care what anybody says. I’m a democrat but I don't necessarily… I don't find any allegiance and I will call out bullshit when I see it. -- So Tyrel, this is going to be a really fun conversation because there's a lot of shit to be called out at this point.

TYREL
There’s a lot of bullshit free-flowing in the world today.

ROB
It is. It's free-flowing in a way that… I don't know. We're going to have to find a way to end the conversation because we have a whole lot to talk about.

What I want to get to, Tyrel and Ameshia, is to really talk about the COVID-19 crisis we find ourselves in. The general conversation is something like this: COVID-19 is affecting all of us. It is causing this massive amount of damage. But I want to just look at it at a really different way to say, “Is COVID-19 actually really the virus? Is the virus really our political system?”

And I want to talk about this in really just several ways. I actually think this virus has done a lot to not destroy our system but expose the vulnerabilities, the weaknesses, so on and so forth. I think that's more of what this has done to do that. I don't think it has done… I mean, obviously, it's caused some short-term damage but that's not the biggest problem I see. I see that it has exposed the long term problems that we have -- and I’m just talking about America right now.

So let's just talk about, if you can, what you thought about the response to this. I’ve talked about it so much that I want to hear both of you guys points of view. We'll start with Tyrel and go down to Ameshia. I mean I want to really hear your point of view on this and kind of get your thoughts.

TYREL
Well… Hold on. This needs a cigarette. [Laughter] The response to me was kind of… I mean we all know the bad response. To me, it failed miserably because whenever you have upwards of 90,000 going on a hundred thousand dead Americans… US citizens, that, to me, is a failed response. Obviously, the big target there is the executive branch -- Trump and the White House. But it's also Congress's fault, too. They get lost in that shuffle too because--

The general US government response has been a failure when you have ninety-some-thousand people dead because… The simple fact that we saw those stories, we saw the reports, they knew that this was coming, they could have done a much better job in educating the American people about what was going on and why we had to do “Stay at home” orders. Instead, everything kind of got locked in this partisan back-and-forth battle that I think did more to hurt our response to anything.

Plus, as you said, and I agree, it exposed a lot of the things that our political system has been ignoring for a long period of time, not just in terms of response to pandemic and response to this particular problem but also in general -- infrastructure issues, communication issues, people's ability and access to good information. This really exposed a lot of the major problems and I think it's been a miserable response.

Common folk, people outside of Washington, I think that their response has been as best as it can be given what they've had to deal with. I think first responders’ response, again, best they can be, given the supplies and things like that, that they were able to get or had to fight to get. But on a political level, the response has been atrocious. I think it's one of the biggest stains in modern US history.
ROB
No question. Ameshia, what do you think?

AMESHIA
I agree with that. I think that in the interim time, we had this ideology of, “We're all in this together.” And we found out really quickly, once we got the demographic down, of who was affected the most, that we definitely were not all in this together. Once it was shown that Black people were the most affected and then we saw a growing number right behind Latinos that were the most affected, they were all in this together. It was like sink or swim. “You figure it out on your own.”

ROB
[Laughter]

TYREL
Yeah.

AMESHIA
I think that we definitely saw that and that's something that we see [crosstalk]--

ROB
On that point… and then we'll let you finish because you just sparked a thought in my head. I mean it went to, “We're all in this together” to “Why are you so fat? Why are you unhealthy? And why did you call…” I mean that's essentially what they said. They were like, “Well of course you're dying. You're overweight. It’s stuff you're doing. Take care of yourself. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. What the hell is wrong with you people?” That's basically the responses of what happened. -- Go ahead.

AMESHIA
You’re absolutely right. Once the disproportionate numbers came out and they were minorities -- largely Black and Latino -- then the blame game started with how it was your fault, how your personal actions or your personal decisions could have changed the trajectory, meanwhile, ignoring the fact that lack of health care equity is a major cause, so is people living in food deserts, so is lack of housing availability. There are so many things that are going on that causes these two specific groups to be affected the most.

I would also argue that we have an administration that continually, for the longest, up until end of March, said that this was a hoax. They didn't want to believe that COVID-19 was something they should take seriously at all. We had a president basically talk it down regardless of how many scientists, regardless of how many world leaders were there to tell him otherwise. A president who broke down and disavowed the pandemic response team [crosstalk] [inaudible - 06:15]…

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
…is by President Obama. A president who, even after he started seeing more and more Americans infected and dying, instead of moving towards actually acknowledging what could be done, what levels of treatment were available, rushing to make sure that people had adequate access to hospitals and to a lot of the PPE equipment, he decided to go on a full-on attack on the Chinese people and the Chinese government.

ROB
Right.

AMESHIA
So I think a lot of things that went wrong.

ROB
Yeah. I mean go to what works. When in doubt, figure out somebody else to blame to keep it off of you.

And you guys got to the point that this is a failure because so many people are dead. That's a mic drop. I really don't have a response to that except to say that this is also done something to show the failures that--

I want to go back to what you talked about, Tyrel -- when you talked about the failure of how we communicate. I think Trump, this current president, if you want to call him that, he took this opportunity and he's taken this opportunity in this moment like no one else ever did. He got in front of the train. Like he is not the source of the problem. I do not like Trump but he exposed an environment that is here, used it better than anybody else did. And the fact is, it's working.

Look, the strategy has been… How do we discredit anybody that has science behind them before this? We do it with climate change. We do it with lots of other things. They're like, “Well forget those numbers. Those leaders are trying to tell you what to do.” And I’m not discounting that sometimes leaders don't always know but sometimes you got to trust the science and the data. And we have gotten to a point where how we communicate… We can't trust if it’s--

We will argue if the sun is out when it's clear as a sunny day and somebody else… half of the country will say it's raining.

AMESHIA
To that point though, Rob, what we've seen interesting here that we didn't see in some past administrations… Yes, there are conservatives who, by and large, have always disagreed with science as we know it but they haven't necessarily disagreed with the scientists and the medical professionals who are on their own team.

ROB
Oh yeah, yeah. That is unique.

AMESHIA
[Crosstalk] [Inaudible - 08:18] president and create an all-out assault against Anthony Fauci who's somebody that he put on his team.

ROB
Fair enough.

AMESHIA
And now he's looking for doctors who basically agree with him. He's literally trying to make hydroxychloroquine be something that works and matters for COVID-19 treatment even though all things medicine say that it doesn’t.

So he's going to find some fly-by-night doctors who actually agree with him and parade around the media. So we're also seeing him create an illusion of science by people who have an MD in front of their name.

TYREL
And let's also not forget the simple fact that I think that this virus has exposed, when you talk about failed infrastructure, things like that, it also exposed how ludicrous our pay-or-play healthcare system is because when you have a health crisis…

ROB
Oh yes. Preach, brother, preach.

TYREL
Yeah. ….that's only based on the dollar and only based on what's being sold or how much you can be charged or insurance companies and all that then when you look across the world and you see other countries… Italy had a big problem. But when you see countries that have real strong socialized medicine and things of that nature, they were more prepared. Their population was healthier. They were all more prepared to deal with this so you didn't see the same amount of affects that hit them. Even London, which had a real bad bout with it at first, is starting to kind of balance out because, again, you have a healthy population that you're not going to see as many fatalities because… You know, we have a population that doesn't go to the doctor because it's too expensive.

Me and Ameshia were talking about the other day, it costs $3 to $5000 just to call an ambulance. That’s ridiculous. So when you have that, it's a perfect cocktail to have a massive, massive hit to our system.

I think the problem that you're seeing now is you see a lot of politicians -- Trump, left and right included -- trying to shoehorn how to deal with this virus into a broken system that doesn't work. But they won't give up the fact that it doesn't work. They're trying to like shoehorn it in but then at the same time, say, “Oh well maybe we can get people to pay for it with like… taking it out of their future Social Security.” Why do they have to pay for it in the first place? This is a massive problem that shouldn't--

This is when you need governments to step up. This is why we pay tax dollars in order to say, “Hey, use my tax money to keep the population safe and to keep us healthy.” But we're not seeing that because we have this leg broke thinking in Washington that says it can only fit into the systems that we already have rather than thinking of new systems that we should be putting in place and new designs and how both our economy and our health care system work.

ROB
Yeah. I mean we've seen this played out with health care. I think you made a really great point there. It also played out with what Trump and Democrats and Republicans say they all agree with which is how we can make sure that the economy doesn't just tank. It did. And here's the thing: It tanked faster here than anywhere else in the world.

And it's a similar reason to what you said with health care. It's because the value wasn't put in workers. The value was put in, “Oh how do we give more money…” It was supposed to be the small businesses and to workers but really, that was just catch language for doing the same thing they've always done -- being able to approve more money with $2.3 trillion. I think it was more than that -- $2.5, whatever it is. I don't know. It's a lot of money. They approved a lot of money very quickly. And suddenly, people like the LA Lakers, Harvard got the loan. I’m sure some people got the loan they needed but lots of people, I’m sure, are getting the loan that don't need it and are further exposing our income inequality.

That's a choice America made. America could have said, “We want to make sure we'll give you some money but only that money will go towards workers. So you want to keep your workers on staff. We'll give you that money. It will go towards workers.” That wasn't a choice we made. We said, “Okay. Well we'll just hand out money and hope it all goes well.” This is my question: Was this stupidity or corruption? What the hell? Was it both?

TYREL
I think it's a combination of the two when you look at it because I think, A] it's kind of indoctrinated thinking that a lot of people go into Washington and kind of getting doctrinated into this very narrow-minded view of how to solve problems within a broken system. And I think it's also corruption as well. I mean it played to what we see over and over and again, is that the only way that your voice is heard in Washington is if you have the money. And this is not a partisan issue. This is a bipartisan issue because both sides…

ROB
That’s bipartisan. 100%.

TYREL
…collect too much money and that's the only sides they listen to, is who can write the biggest check to the party because they needed to run every year for elections when you associate with the two groups. As you could tell, I’m an independent. I kind of like to take the best ideas whenever I see them and not be kind of stuck in one idea… you know, one base of one party or another.

ROB
Yeah. We had good training on that, too [crosstalk] [inaudible - 13:03]. -- Ameshia, what do you think?

AMESHIA
I agree with Tyrel here. I think it is a little bit of both. We also have to remember that it's an election year. Democrats are placed in a very interesting position by President Trump because, on the one hand, he and the Republicans in Congress knew that the original Recovery Bill was… It had a lot of gifts and gimmies to large corporations, consultants and the like.

And Democrats were basically just hanging out trying to see what was going to happen because what the Republican Party did was basically stage an all-out media assault on Democrats. At the same time, to say that, “Okay, well they're trying to waste time. They're trying to hold back you getting this funding.” And I think that for Democrats, it was they were losing the messaging more quickly. Americans [crosstalk] [inaudible - 13:51]…

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
…were out of jobs. “We need to see this money in our [crosstalk] [inaudible - 13:55] was happening.

ROB
What if Democrats not losing not losing the messaging board? [Laughter]

AMESHIA
So they allowed for this messaging to happen. And then what do we see? Republicans were going to do what they were always going to do. They were going to make sure that the big businesses and corporations and the lobbyists, groups and firms that helped them get elected, ended up getting this money when it was released. And Democrats, they ended up failing and I think that that was in large part because [crosstalk] [inaudible - 14:18]…

ROB
I agree.

AMESHIA
…early and weren't willing to continue to work, continue to make sure that the language made sense, that the money went to the people who need it the most because you also had the Trump administration and conservatives in the media day in and day out saying that Democrats were stalling.

Yes, Democrats were stalling but the reason why they were stalling was because they were trying to work to change the language to make sure that the cash got in the hands of the people who needed the most.

ROB
Right.

TYREL
Let’s also remember, too, those that the problem that… I think one of the reasons the Democrats were stalling isn't just to say, “Hey, we're trying to figure out how to help the little guys,” it's also because the Democrats, a lot of them are boxed into a corner because they know they get their money from a lot of the same sources.

It might not be the same like select group of billionaires and that kind of thing, whether you're talking about Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers, but they're still getting their money from a lot of businesses, a lot of big corporations that give their money to the Republicans, too.

And so they're trying to figure out like, “Well how can we play both sides when we know we're just as liable of getting called out on this as they are? How can we develop the language to kind of insulate us from that? But we've taken money from that trough, too.”

Now those people are coming and saying, “Hey, we want our take in the stimulus package.” You know, that puts them in a tough position because they know that while we need those people, too, to give us money--

And then that's where you create the messaging problem because they can't just come on TV and say, “No, we will not give bailouts to big corporations on this” because then those big corporations are going to say, “Well come election season that we're in, well maybe we're not going to give you as much money as we did the years before.”
ROB
And they don't get as much money anyway. I would say, Tyrel, you really make a lot of great points. Two things I would say -- just to keep this real simple -- I think it's because the dem response is typical. It's scared and it's weak. I’m going to go over both.

All right, so “Weak,” I’ll start it there. I was having a problem with a colleague long time ago -- I won't get on who it was -- and I was trying to figure out what was going on. And it started like this colleague was looking out for me but basically, this colleague was very weak. When something happens, he would go and just make me look bad just because he was scared of telling the truth of what happened with some of the work.

I tried to get advice… and someone told me this and it stuck with me. He said, “Look Rob, you have to understand, weak people are dangerous. And sometimes, weak people are more dangerous than the straight-up, direct a**holes because you know what to expect from them. You know how to respond. With weak people, you don't know what to do. You don't know what they're going to do; how they're going to do it.” I look at Democrats that way sometimes.

The second analogy I would make is kind of like… It's poker. Do you play poker, Tyler?

TYREL
Yeah, I do.

ROB
I know Ameshia. Ameshia says she’s going to beat me in poker. This is I want to see by the way. I’m anxious for this day. I’m ready for us to… I’m sure she's good. So am I.

AMESHIA
I play for money. So if you’re not [crosstalk] [inaudible- 17:00].

ROB
No problem. Look, we’re going to have to have--

TYREL
If I play for money, I don’t mess around.

ROB
No. We all play for money. So we're going to play each other in DC when this craziness ends. But back to where we are right now, I’m saying in poker, “Scared money don't make money.” You can't win in scared money.

Democrats were right to be worried, to be a little bit nervous about not getting in front of the message. But you can recover. You can pivot. But I think Republicans know, at the end of the day, that Democrats are going to cave because… -- whatever they think. They’re worried about what's going to happen to people. They're just afraid of what the messaging is.

Sometimes, you have to be willing to go all-in and then to call people on their bluff because Republicans, at the end of the day, are the ones in charge. They got the presidency. They got the Senate. They are the ones… A simple response would be, “Yes but we don't want to do what we did in 2008. We don't want to give money away and it doesn't go to the people that it's designed to go to.” That's what Republicans have right now. That's not what we want. Not hard. But that message never comes out.

And I actually think some corporations would still give money. Here's why -- because at the end of the day, if you have a United Party that’s not going to try to screw over corporations but is going to say “Okay look, do you want this or do you want to go full, whatever, socialism…” because if we don't actually solve these problems, people are going to revolt. That would be my response in talking to corporations. That’s what I would do but you know, who the hell? I’m not in charge here.

TYREL
That’s a legitimate res… And don't forget, too, is that the Democratic Party, on a purely political thing, they're split anyway. They're facing major divisions within their own party over like which direction to go. You got like Bernie and AOC and that kind of wing in a party, wanting to take it in one direction. You've got Schumer and Pelosi, them trying to take it in the other direction and kind of trying to say, “Okay, we'll take a little bit from this kind of popular uprising. But we can't take it all because of our loyalty and our belief system of kind of going more towards the middle and more to the extreme.”

And I think what the Republicans have been able to do is they had that same fracture in their party awhile back with the Tea Party and like all of that and that upsurging… Not to equate the Tea Party and the Bernie people in the same block.

ROB
They don't care anymore. Deficits don't matter at all. -- Go ahead.

TYREL
Right. You know what I mean? They were able to kind of take that division within their own party and utilize it because they saw, “Hey, these are the people that are going to be the most aggressive; who are going to be out knocking on doors and one of the loudest in the room.” They were able to take that and kind of envelop in.

Now, did that pivot them as a party to some place that probably a lot of Republicans wish they didn't go today? Yes. But it made them a stronger party because it didn't create…There wasn't the same amount of infighting that we're seeing now in the Democratic side of things. And then people wonder why I’m an independent. [Laughter]

AMESHIA
I think that's absolutely true. Fractions and fragments in the parties have existed for a long time.

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
We saw groundswell and the separation. Part of that was a result of Barack Obama's election. That kind of sped up the process in the Republican Party. And Tea Party leaders were starting to get elected at statewide but also at the federal level. And it was interesting to watch how the Republican Party envelope them in much like the Democrats now. They were very aggressive towards them when they initially started breaking apart.

I think that Democrats, sad to say, are going to have to, to a certain extent, take a lesson from the Republican Party in that aspect of things because right now [crosstalk] [inaudible - 20:29]--

ROB
Which aspect?

AMESHIA
To envelope this group in that has [crosstalk] [inaudible - 20:33]--

ROB
Well I agree with that. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree.

AMESHIA
Because right now the Democrats have had a process of standing by their moderate base and steadily trying to push out or to prove that the further left people are more [afraid - 20:46] than anything else and not really including them.

And I think that Biden, to his credit, is trying to do it for election purposes come November. But for the most part, the party, as a whole, has tried to quell those voices and I don't think that that's going to be something that's effective long-term.

TYREL
It's not because when you really look at what's going on with this crisis, as we talked about earlier -- we saw how bad the health care system is because of this crisis; we saw how bad our political system is because of this crisis -- you're going to see more people start looking for new ideas.

ROB
Completely agree.

TYREL
And they're going to say, “You know what? This old way isn't working anymore. I lost my grandmother. I lost this.” That’s serious pain. And anytime you have a populace that's put through serious pain, that's when they start saying, “We need massive changes to how the system works because clearly it doesn't.”

When I’m may be getting $1200, in response to this, but then if I look overseas and see people getting $2000-$3000 a month and seeing… you know, rent freezes and mortgage freezes, saying like, “Why were we left out to hang when all these other countries over here seem to take care of their people,” that's when you see major uprisings and major change.

I mean the government literally… I think it was in The Intercept the other day, they kind of know that something's coming if this goes bad because they just spent a fortune on riot gear, things of this nature because they know that if people get pushed into this corner, you're going to see that -- and tragically. I don't want to see that. No one wants to see that. But I think that that could happen.

And if you get the wrong leaders of these groups that are trying to come up and say, “Hey, we want change,” if that energy of wanting to change the government is then focused in the wrong direction, that can become a very dangerous situation.

ROB
Oh that's absolutely true. This has been the problem with, I think, the Democrats. There's a saying with Republicans that Republicans fear their base and Democrats hate their base. So it’s like you look at it as… depending on how you define “Base.” But I’m talking about people that are in your party that have some energy. It's like Democrats tend to view some folks that are more liberal that, “We just need to make them shut up. This is how you win elections,” which is not always true, by the way, but that's how they see it.

And I look at it this way: You can be a moderate that gets some progressive things done. Honestly, that was FDR's model. There were people on the left that were more further to the left. They were way far to the left. But he was able to get the country together because he actually showed results.

So this is what I think for a Joe Biden presidency or a Joe Biden campaign right now. This, to me, is the last… It's like the last Jedi. This is it. Like the last stand. I think he has to… First of all, he has to win, right? If he didn’t win, there's all types of problems for all types of reasons that we can go down. But even if he wins and then we see the same thing and it's just, “Oh he's just not mean. He’s just not an a**hole. He's just not Trump” and then there's nothing that changes and we keep our system as it is--

Let's actually go through some of what I say is a pattern of failure particularly over the last 30 years. We’ve had many crisis in this country, all within our lifetime, and we have failed to respond in a way that actually changes things fundamentally like we used to. We used to be able to do that World War II, everything else. That's what we used to do. But now starting with 9/11… We took 9/11. George W. Bush said, “Everybody go shop” and then created a war out of nowhere. And then we got that that built the deficit even more.

2008, Barack Obama came in. But right before he came in, we just gave billions to corporations. They never got the money back. People got enraged. To your point, Tyrel, some people had legitimate rage. But it was misdirected I think into hate, into division, not into the people that were taking the resources. So that to me was not a good response. It didn't fundamentally change a lot of the… fixed things.

And now we have the coronavirus which is showing to me a pattern of failure. Why do you think we keep having this pattern? I guess we've answered that. But what do you think the results of not really fixing this? Do you agree with my assessment? What do you think has to be done differently?

TYREL
Well I agree with your assessment. I think they haven't put in the real effort to fix the problem because they… Maybe I’m cynical but I think there's a lot of people in Washington who don't really want to fix the problem because it doesn't really affect them. They are so detached from the reality of what's going on outside of Washington and they kind of look at it more as like, “Well they're whining.” They looked at the Occupy protesters, “Well it's a bunch of kids in parks whining,” not really looking at it saying like, “Wow. It takes a lot to get people to go and camp out overnight in parks.” I mean that's not some small thing.

But instead what you see happened, “Well we're going to break up the parks and get these things out because, hey, they've been there too long” instead of actually looking at, “Well what motivated this mass amount of people to really put in true time and effort in a protest?” They didn't really do that. They kind of did a lot of lip service. And then there was a lot of TV pundits and things like that, kind of pooh-poohing them and saying, “They're crazy.”

But what happened? We saw massive wealth inequality spike dramatically after 2008 and continued a spike. It's one of the major problems we're dealing with today. And nobody wanted to get in on that because at the end of the day, like I said, that then disrupts the flow of money in Washington.

And anytime that something is going to come along and say, “Hey, we got to disrupt the flow of money in Washington,” when you don't have politicians who want to do that or who want to legitimately look at that and want to legitimately change the foundations of how this country operates on an economic level, on a healthcare level, on a pentagon level, that's where you get major problems.

Look, let's be real. A majority of Congress and the White House, apart from Barack, in 2008, most of those cats who get in office are old. And I don't mean to bash on old people but there's a certain point where… when you got two guys running for president--

ROB
And rich usually, too.

TYREL
And rich, too. That all insulates. That's all an insulator to where they only see the world through one little prism. They don't see it through the master prism. I think in previous generations, you have I think… maybe I’m wrong but I feel like you had more variety of people holding office on all levels -- on state, local and federal. And when you have a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds, that's where you can get new ideas. That's where you can get people to say, “Hey look, I know what it's actually like out here. I’m not just living in a “Washington bubble” -- in Washington that kind of spin zone that takes place.

Plus look, at the end of the day, all of our media is run by extremely rich people. Our politics is run by extremely rich people. So again, that creates a very narrow view of what's actually happening in the world because they only view it in terms of, “Well how does it affect me?”

ROB
Yeah. To that point, I actually think a lot of the ideas of some on the left, including -- I’m talking about Bernie Sanders -- resonate with people. I mean the polls show this. The issue I think… and this time, I think the messenger wasn't that good. No disrespect to Bernie Sanders. But I think the messenger matters just as much as the message. So that never happened and so there hasn't been that type of alignment because I do think if that happened, that's how things move forward.

But I’d love to get, Tyrel, your point of view, given how you grew up in. In fact, you watched your father become governor of Minnesota without being in either party. And I will give you my outside perspective. It seems as if… because he wasn't going to choose a party, both parties collapsed. They came against him and tried to make sure he failed. That's how I looked at it. There was bipartisan agreement that, “We don't want any third parties in here.”

TYREL
His vetoes were the most overridden in Minnesota history.

ROB
Wow.

TYREL
Meaning, both sides got together to override his vetoes when they put him forward. And that simply came from the fact that rather than looking and saying, “Hey, here we have an independent governor where… you know, fiscally conservative, socially liberal…” and that's in a very general sense. My dad is far more dynamic in his viewpoints than that.

But in a general sense, for the sake of brevity, rather than looking in that saying, “Hey, some ideas on one side Jesse might like; some ideas on the other side, he might like. Let's play to those and let's see if we can find these good compromises that we're talking about to where people can come together and get the best ideas from both sides” because regardless Republican-Democrat, Left-Right, there's good ideas on all sides. You just have to kind of weed through the garbage to get to them a lot of times.

ROB
Agree. But the garbage pays the bills. That’s the problem.

TYREL
And rather than doing that, rather than saying, “Hey, the people have spoken. They want something new,” they instead doubled down and said, “No. We have to destroy this new force” -- you know, what the people wanted. “We got to destroy Jesse. We got to destroy this. We're not going to really try to implement any of his ideas coming from the executive level of Minnesota. We're only going to stick with the status quo” because, again, a third party is a threat to the power structure of the two parties. If you want to see the two parties get into bed real quick together, you introduce a third party candidate. They will.

And there's a lot of fringe garbage third party candidates. I’m not saying that they're… Of course, there is. But when you have really strong third party candidates with a really strong message that clearly are winning elections, that clearly people are saying, “We like this idea. Let's go in this direction,” they will still team up to take that down.

So does that affect my view of the two parties? Yes. Because, again, when you go to the conventions… I’ll never forget. There was two… I believe there was a Republican convention in Minnesota… Or actually, my dad told me, when he went out to Washington, that's where he discovered, firsthand… When he would go out there as part of governors’ conferences and think like that, he literally saw firsthand that you would see lobbyists from these different groups going to the opposite conventions.
So if the money is flowing into the parties from the same people then you're not going to get that big of a change in thought or perspective. It’s a lot like wrestling. On TV, they'll tell you what you want to hear. You got your good guy and your bad guy and they're fighting and all of that. But then once the cameras are off, they're both getting paid by the same promoter and they're both all going to dinner at the same place [crosstalk [as the other - 31:29].

ROB
It’s just like wrestling. That’s a good metaphor.

TYREL
Just like wrestling.

ROB
That was good. Like a WWE match. It’s all about lights and cameras. So the fight, at the end of the day, everybody is getting paid.

TYREL
Here’s what I’ll say. Apart from some cursory changes and some good changes that Barack did… and I’m sure there’s people that felt that George did some good changes and same going on down. Realistically, since Jimmy Carter, has there really been any major change in how the US has operated? I mean not unlike an out layer level of few little things here and there but the fundamental direction of where we’ve been going…

ROB
But the answer is yesterday--

TYREL
…there hasn’t really been that much change, whether it’s a democrat in office or a republican.

ROB
Since Reagan changed things, I don’t think in a good way…

TYREL
No.

ROB
…he changed things in terms of how we view private debt, how things… I’m not offering good changes. When I say that we’re--

TYREL
Neither am I. Neither am I.

ROB
There was changes though because before that era, you had to… Let me get down to a nerd track for a second. Before that, places like Bear Stearns or whatever corporation will be responsible for the debt that they carry and then people would be more cognizant. “Oh I can't just take these risks because my whole business could go down.” That whole model changed. We changed the rules to allow things like that to happen.

So yes, you're right, that change, I guess, I would say before Reagan has…Reagan has pretty been the model that everybody has followed and no one has interrupted.

TYREL
I would totally agree with you on that. And that’s the problem because then… because you remember back in the early ‘90s… then Bush Sr. came in and then in the early ‘90s with Clinton, the Democratic Party said, “Hey, we need to go more right.”

ROB
Correct.

TYREL
“We need to go more “centrist,”” as they called it, in order to win elections because clearly, the Republicans are winning left and right. Now, trust me, there was a lot of gerrymandering involved in that. Let’s be real. But they still made that choice to go more to the right and more to that middle. And they've never gotten out of that line of thinking. That doesn't mean that just super progressive ideas are the only ideas that are good. But it just--

ROB
To your point, Tyler, very quickly on that because people look at Bill Clinton and… You know, Bill Clinton was a smooth operator. He was a great talk… He was a fundamentally sound politician in terms of just the skill level. But even his first election, people think that he didn't… He didn't get a majority. Like 10% of it went to Ross Perot.

TYREL
Yeah.

ROB
People don't understand that and so there was some pull, initially. And then because of his skill set… He is a fundamental… Again, when he got there, he could communicate in such a way that people said, “I like the guy,” right? But he never gets past the election if the Republicans were united, not even close, during that time.

I want people to understand that Barack Obama was the first candidate that I’ve seen in my lifetime talk about a hope message that was pretty progressive. And he won in a landslide. So I really don't understand the philosophy that somehow you can't embrace a message of being progressive and win. Someone has to show me [crosstalk]--

TYREL
You can. Actually, you can.

AMESHIA
I think we also should [crosstalk]--

ROB
Go ahead, Ameshia.

AMESHIA
I was going to say I think we also have to look at… you know. But Barack Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. A lot of different stars aligned.

ROB
True.

AMESHIA
Yes, he produced a progressive pathway but I would argue that once he actually got into office, that progressiveness tended to shrink back quite a bit. And even when he was Senator of the great state of Illinois, which I’m from, his progressive banter was not nearly as strong as it was when he decided to run for president. As much as I love Barack -- worked on his campaign, was in the administration -- we do have to be very honest if we're going through like this [crosstalk] [inaudible - 35:08]…

ROB
Right.

AMESHIA
…for him as well. Barack, just like Bill Clinton, great orator -- again, someone who has his stars aligned for him.

We were also coming out of an era of the George W. Bush administration where people were weary of war. There was a lot that we had burned through. It created a mass deficit and people really want to see some level of change.

To be honest, I don't think that no matter who the Republicans ran for president in 2008, they were going to lose that, period, just because when Americans are that weary and they're that upset and they're watching a nation in debt and they’re that aggregated over consistent wars, many of which we saw during the course of the second W administration, war started for absolutely nothing and now we're [crosstalk] [millions of dollars - 35:51]…

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
…in debt. There was a level of upset with the Republican Party, that it was going to take them some years to be able to get over.

TYREL
Oh yeah, I totally agree. And I agree, too, is that that‘s what really… I think that’s where the fracture started in the Democratic Party, truthfully, was when Barack ran on that more progressive hope message. “We're going to change things. We're going to do this.” But then they kind of saw him leading from the middle.

That was one of my big problems with Obamacare was kind of like, “Hey, I get that you're trying to change health care. That's great. We need to do that. But why, when you're negotiating, the first rule they tell you is, “Start from the extreme of what you want. Don't start from the middle.” And Obamacare kind of started from the middle. I mean it was a Mitt Romney thing in Massachusetts that’s the majority of it.

ROB
And then it went backwards.

TYREL
And when you start from the middle then you lose… You want to be able to kind of start from the extreme, lose some things but then end up in a happy medium, not start in the middle and then just keep getting pulled in the direction you don't want to go.

So yeah, there was a lot of mistakes. And I think that's where that big rift that we're talking about started…

ROB
There’s no question.

TYREL
…because I think a lot of people felt like, “Hey, you kind of lied to us. You promised X.” And yeah, that's not discounting the amount of pushback that the man got from Congress. That's very real. It's hard to get things passed. Everyone knows that a president can’t waive their magic wand and make the country better. That's impossible. And whoever tries to tell you that line of goods, which they always do every election year, it’s bullshit. But at least if you stick to your guns, you know that they eventually have to cave on some level if you have the political power to do that. And sadly, Barack did. He had the country behind him. That was the thing.

ROB
He had the country and he had the votes. And people tell me that they didn't but he did.

And I just want to just go on this point a little bit because… Look, I supported Barack Obama, raised a bunch of money for him, still love him but you can also love somebody and be critical of what they do or show signs of where they can improve.

So to your point, my issue with Barack was not that he was going to the middle, it’s that you don't define what the middle looks like. Listen, when you’re in charge and you have power, you use it. And Barack's strengths and his weaknesses, that he believed that kind of hope stuff and that people would come and respond just because people liked Barack and… Republicans do not care.

So at the end of the day, if your opponents are doing that, the only thing that they respect… -- particularly, I’m talking about the other party right now. They respect strength. And the only way he was going to be able to move them is by strength.

AMESHIA
He also had something else. Barack Obama, obviously, was a Black man.

ROB
He had that, too, yes.

AMESHIA
[Crosstalk] [Inaudible - 38:27] before, multiple times over, there is a certain level of strength that can be exerted and accepted from those who look like every other president we've had in America. That same thing is not seen in the same way or expected the same way when it comes from African-American [crosstalk] [inaudible - 38:41].

ROB
That’s fair.

TYREL
Oh yeah.

AMESHIA
So I think that, to a certain extent, there is some criticism to be made about him running with these lofty goals and wanting to bring in an esprit in this era of progress. He also lost control of Congress… the Democrats lost control of Congress during his first two years so [crosstalk] [inaudible - 38:57]…

ROB
Yeah, he lost control of Democrats.

AMESHIA
…change anyway. And I think that, to a certain extent, we have to be reminded that the power structure looks different if the color of your skin is different.

ROB
There's no question. I agree with that.

TYREL
I completely agree with that.

ROB
The pushback I have on that is, not so much the first… I agree. I still think he could have done more in the first two years when he had the Democrats. That’s neither nor there because I think he make a lot of great points there.

My biggest, I guess, pushback to that is the second term. That's something I really didn't understand. I did not understand the lack of pushback with the Supreme Court and the lack of pushback with knowing the election was hacked and still asking Mitch McConnell to sign the letter and bipartisan agreement before you would come out. Like “What?”

So those are the things that to me… I hear you. And I agree that he had to be the least aggressive person in the history of America because he was a Black man. He was the first Black man to occupy that position. And Barack, one of the most important things he could do is make sure that another Black person can hold that position because we know, had he really royally screwed up, no other Black person would ever have a shot in the history of America because people will say, “Well we can't repeat that Barack stuff again.” He did do that so I have to give him credit for that.

But the second term of not really pushing back… and I think it was for several reasons. One, he probably thought Hillary was going to win. But that still wasn't good. And I still think that helped set up some things because… Can you imagine a George W. Bush or Trump having their Supreme Court pick and not even getting a vote? There would be a massive fight. They would hold up everything. So that is really… if everything with Barack--

AMESHIA
I think you make a good point with the concerns around everyone believing the DNC having all these conversations. There was never a belief that that much push was going to have to happen because the assumption was Hillary's going to get this and then we're going to see her assuring whatever wave of Supreme Court justices she will have during that time frame and we won't have to worry about it…

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
…or gave any level of credibility that Donald Trump or Hill -- any of the Republicans that were running at that time -- would have actually been able to turn this thing around.

I think that was a huge fallacy on the Democrats part for not seeing what America changed to or how people were reacting, not necessarily because President Obama did a demonstratively bad job as president but because we saw a huge growth of folks, particularly in the white community, who were very upset. I think that was a very different thing that many people didn't take into account. And those extremely upset people would have voted for anyone that was not a Democrat after the Democratic Party chose an African-American male.

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
And I think that we cannot underscore that enough. There was a lot of pushback. The whole creation of the Tea Party wasn't just because there were fractions within the Republican Party. Hell, those have existed for 30-40 years. They were because there was a reaction to what happened in the Democratic Party and who the Democrats chose to lead them.

ROB
But that reaction happened in 2012, too. So Barack Obama received the least amount of white votes anybody has ever received at one. He still won at a pretty large margin. The issue I think is that he didn't step up and want to fight enough and then do the same type of tactic.

AMESHIA
It’s the second term. The second term throughout history has been a lame-duck presidency. He did what every other president be in their second term.

ROB
Yea. But the Supreme Court--

AMESHIA
He got through marriage equality and then--

ROB
Wait. Wait. I want to focus on Supreme Court really quick. What I think and what a lot of people told him he should have done, “You know what? Put your base here to get people engaged in the election.” So at a minimum, if you don't get it, people will say like, “So you put… instead of Merrick Garland who… whatever, doesn't appeal to anybody, it is a blah-blah-blah, you put up an African-American woman that people can resonate to.

You're saying they are trying to deny her… See, you made a big deal out of that. You pushed this. This is what Democrats… Democrats just think they like to have the moral high ground and that's it. Like, no. You have to actually do the exercise of the theater and put things out there to win, too. I wish he didn't. But--

TYREL
You got to do that basic level of saying, “I'm so supremely confident in this person” or this issue or whatever, “that I’m willing to stake everything I have on it.”

ROB
Correct. What convinces is conviction.

TYREL
Yeah.

ROB
Period.

TYREL
And behind closed doors probably were. But like you said with messaging, they didn't get that message across. And it's okay to fight. You know what I mean? I mean the Republicans look bad. When they shut down the economy, that made them look horrible. And the thing that we have to remember, too, is, at the end of the day, not enough people--

And I agree with you, Ameshia, in terms of like… you know, there was a lot of white resentment that came out because of him being elected and that kind of inherent institutional racism that exists in this country that we see every day. That's there and that's not going away just because we had a Black president. That was the tragedy of it.

The other thing, too, is that the reason Trump got in there was not just of that vote but also the fact that people at that point were very sick and tired of Washington. The wars were still going on eight years later. 2008, the bankers got let off the hook. Like what? One guy went to jail? People saw that wealth gap rise. They saw their wages falling. They saw the respect for the work that they do falling. And they just felt, “You know what? No one's a voice for us right now.”

ROB
Yeah. And Hillary had been tied to that system, rightly or wrongly. She's been seen in Washington for a long time so I think she was also not the best candidate for the moment.

TYREL
And there was a tidal wave saying, “We want something different.” Now Donald Trump came along with his showmanship bullshit and essentially was--

ROB
He was definitely different.

TYREL
Yeah. I remember, too, he called a lot of that bullshit out.

ROB
He did – the trade agreements and things like that. That resonated with some union members I know.

TYREL
And I think there’s a lot of people--

ROB
I voted for Barack Obama--

TYREL
Yeah. And I think there was a lot of people that kind of were like, “Well I don't like Trump for XY and Z. But f*** anything at this point, we just have to have some kind of change because this is all going on.” And you remember, Trump, at that time, and I wouldn't underestimate this, had said, “We need to get out of a lot of these wars,” blah-blah-blah. That resonated with a lot of people.

ROB
I agree -- so the trade agreement stuff. Yeah, you’re absolutely right because no other political class would say things that everybody else saw was obvious.

TYREL
And that's not to say that Trump was some f***ing amazing guy. No. He was terrible.

ROB
Well we’re on this half page because--

TYREL
Yeah. We’re all--

ROB
Now it’s “What works?” It worked.
TYREL
He played to that and it worked. Now the key with this upcoming election is, are people smart enough to see that he got in there and it was just business as usual and it was the same corruption and probably in a more flagrant scale.

ROB
He took corruption to new levels we’ve never seen.

TYREL
Yeah.

ROB
He definitely innovated our corruption.

TYREL
Oh yeah. Well if there's one thing I’ll give Donald credit for, he's not afraid of saying he's corrupt. You know what I mean? That’s his weird thing with him of… And not credit in a good sense but just like… He'll just blatantly say, “Oh well, you're not going to support me? Well I’m not going to give funding to your state.” We just saw him do that with Michigan and all of that.

That's a blatant level of corruption and a blatant level of that… It's going to be interesting to see when this election comes around if the base that wasn't just his core base of sycophants but the people that won him that election, that middle group that kind of said, “Let's go with the guy who's a little different and call shit out.” they're going to look at him… I think they're going to look at his presidency. This was an abject failure. This guy's only out for himself. I didn't vote for that. I want someone who's out for the rest of us.

ROB
Yeah.

TYREL
Honestly, I think this is going to be one of the lowest turnouts in history regardless of whether COVID was an issue or not.

ROB
That’s scary because I think that could be a re-election of the present occupant.

TYREL
That is scary because I think that right now, there's a majority… I mean I remember, in all of our presidential elections, a majority of people don't vote.

AMESHIA
In June.

ROB
Which is the issue.

TYREL
“None of the above” technically wins every single presidential election right now. Most of those votes don't come in over 50%. Usually, they're on… What? 46? 43? …in presidential elections and then they're just kind of splitting between that vote? There's a lot of people who stay at home on Election Day and it's easy to write that off as apathy. But you could also say, “You know what? What if a lot of those people, that big chunk of people, are simply because they don't like the options they're given?”

You know, my father won not because he pulled from the group of people who normally vote, he pulled because he got people who don't normally vote out. He got young people out to vote in droves. There were lines around the block at the University of Minnesota because they had same-day registration which I agree with we should have that in this country across the board.

ROB
I agree.

TYREL
That’s the reason he won that election, is he got that group of people that a lot of times Democrats and Republicans don't pay any attention to because they don't consistently vote.

ROB
Yeah. I agree.

TYREL
And if you can capture that… Now I don't think Trump's going to have that going into this election which makes me scared that it's going to kind of come down to who normally votes… or “who's normally allowed to vote” -- let me clarify that because there's also a lot of that gerrymandering that I mentioned earlier. A lot of people don't vote because they're not allowed to vote or they make it so hard for them to vote that they're not allowed and that's where you get into a lot of, as we talked about earlier, with the racism in this country and how we treat people in this country who aren't white.

ROB
Yeah. No question. I actually think to the corruption point… I have a different point on this. I think people accept some level of corruption. Corruption has been here even when the system is working. I think the problem is the system doesn't even work at all. The only part that’s working is the corruption. You used to be able to say, “Okay, you got some corruption--”

I’ll give you an example. When we ended slavery -- of course, we know Jim Crow followed but still ending slavery was something -- there was a lot of things that had to be done that were unsavory. But it worked, right?

Lyndon Johnson did a lot of good stuff. He was kind of corrupt, too. He made a lot of money off of the system. But you know what he did? He did Medicare, Medicaid and he passed the largest Civil Rights bill. The problem is nothing works. The only thing that is working is corruption at this point. I think that's how people see it.

AMESHIA
I agree with that. I don't think people in general… Well people put politics and corruption together like peanut butter and jelly [laughter] [inaudible - 49:17] if this will ever be a non-corrupt system. But as long as they feel like there's a certain level of benefit from it to them…

ROB
Correct.

AMESHIA
…they are okay. If the only people who are profiting are big business and folks who are trying to fatten their pockets then there's a problem. In Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich was guilty as sin. However, there were a lot of people that were very upset because he gave free rides to seniors; because he helped take care of impoverished communities; because he made sure that there was available housing. There was a lot that he did to help communities that were suffering. So yeah, they knew he was doing other shady stuff.

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
And when the federal investigation happened, nobody denied the fact that he was doing shady things. But hey, he was doing all these other great things as well. If you have a spreadsheet of nothing but shady [inaudible - 50:01] people who need help then you're going to have a higher level of pushback.

TYREL
Yeah.

ROB
Yeah. There's no question about it. So what does the new “normal” look like after the smoke clears; we're on the ground? That's my first question then I have a second question. What are you thinking?

TYREL
Ameshia, you can take that one first.

AMESHIA
Oh, “Once the smoke clears and we're on the ground.” The new normal is going to be interesting. I think it's going to be largely dependent on the state. For instance, in Georgia now, everything is open. People are walking around without masks, living their best life. There are some social distancing, sort of, in different bars and restaurants. They're not as crowded as they were before. I attribute that to a lot of smarter folks still staying at home more than I do restaurants actually enacting social distancing policy.

ROB
Sure.

TYREL
But the biggest changes I think are going to come at the college and university level and at the school level because we're seeing more and more folks being extremely afraid of what this might look like, not only for the students but also because our education system has never been geared towards small classroom sizes; has never been geared towards not having social activities or sports or assemblies and things like that.

Now they're saying your class could have 12 or less students in it. You can't eat in the cafeteria at the same time. What about football games and things like this that draw in crowds? What about graduation ceremonies? All those things that we traditionally do in large number going to look like moving forward?

And I think that that's something that people are really considering in addition to the move to work from home. Many corporations were saying Facebook, Twitter… We're also seeing many more nonprofits and organizations that rented out their spaces or use things like we were, which is now about to go belly up, to have a certain level of what they assume productivity. You had to be in a space and that space was not your home.

Now they're seeing that their workers are doing just as much, and in many cases, more work from home and being able to produce it faster and the quality is great. So, “Why would I pay thousands of dollars or a space in a downtown area when these folks can do it from the comfort of their own home and still be able to do the work at a higher level in most cases that they were actually doing in office?”

ROB
Yeah. I’m a little nervous about your new normal. Wow. But I’ll have a lot of disagreements. -- Tyrel.
TYREL
You make some really great points. Actually, Ameshia, we were talking about earlier today, I think that the new normal of, let's say, more businesses are letting people work from home, I think if done right, that could actually be a good thing because--

You know, as we were talking about earlier today before we did the show… or I think yesterday, that actually helps because in a certain sense, that allows more people who maybe can't afford to move across the country for a job or can't afford just the basic going back and forth if you live in a city with a terrible public transportation system and things like that, that might actually allow people who might not normally get those good jobs of being able to get those jobs if the company chooses to hire them.

So that could actually help in a way level a certain amount of a playing field for a lot of people that normally would be overlooked because, oh, well, you don't own a car, you can't get the job. You know, there's a million things that stand in front of that. And yeah, it does save money at the end of the day if you're not having to pay those offices.

Going forward, it's hard to really say what the new normal is going to look like. I will say this: I think that we have to do a very good vigilant job as citizens to make sure that as we rebuild our society in the wake of COVID, that we start looking at our healthcare system and saying, “What worked? What failed? Let's fix that.” We start looking at our infrastructure saying… because to me--

I said it on the show and I’ll say it again, when you have an economy and you have a health care system, you have a government that literally goes in the tank because people are forced to stay at home for a few months, you have to step back and say, “We need major changes.” That’s not working at all. No economy should be that weak. No business should be that weak.

We always see they yell and holler at the average citizen, “You need to have savings. You need to be able to have savings for a rainy day,” even though we don't get paid enough to do that. They always yell and holler about that. Well businesses should also be the same. Why should we be bailing out businesses if they didn't save for a rainy day? That's also on them, too, not just the worker.

And then also, looking at it moving forward, to me, I have a lot of hope because I feel like it's a really good strong wake-up call. And I’m hoping that people will truly change things for the better coming out of this and we’ll really hold people accountable and really say, “Hey, let's rethink how this whole system works so that way you can work for all of us, not just us from all select few.” I hope that we see that change moving forward.

That’s not coming this year but I’m hoping that five years… That's one of the biggest things I’m sad about in modern politics today is we don't have many visionary leaders who make decisions that will affect the country 50 years from now.
ROB
Correct.

TYREL
When you go back and look at people like John Kennedy and things like that, you had a lot more politician standing up saying, “It's not about my time in office. It's about where the country has left. It's about where it's going at the end of the day.” And we don't have that kind of visionary leadership -- rarely -- where someone says, “Hey, let's talk about problems 10 years, 20 years down the line, not just by the next election cycle.”

ROB
Yep.

TYREL
And I’m hoping that we'll see a lot more of that in terms of how we deal with COVID. I hope people wear masks. And it gets under my skin like to the nth degree when I see these people out protesting and all that kind of thing because look, part of the reason of having the Bill of Rights, part of the reason of having freedoms, is that you're also responsible with them.

ROB
Right.

TYREL
And right now, we're such a “me” centric society in a lot of ways that, “It's all about “me” and it's not about my community and it's not about my neighbors.” And I think the COVID exposed a lot of that. So I’m hoping that people learn from that at the end of the day, that it ain't just about your personal rights. It's about all of our rights together. That's why we have these freedoms.

ROB
Yeah. Amen. I would say that I hope that people in the new normal recognize, as you said, the old normal was not a good one. It wasn't good. It wasn't a good system. It wasn't working for a lot of people.

I actually wrote a letter to the graduates of 2020 to really say, “Look, I hope that at this moment, you do work to create a new normal, one that doesn't just accept inequalities based upon race, based upon income; one that doesn't say, “Oh we want to thank essential workers” but then not pay them; one that just says, “Okay, we're going to get broadband to only those who can afford it so when this stuff happens, there are whole communities that can't get education, that can't receive the resources that they absolutely need.”

As you said, this is a moment that will expose us in a way that shows that… Look, you just look in the mirror. At the end of the day, we have to improve this because if we try to recreate the past, we may destroy our future. We have to work towards building a better future and that means looking at things differently, disrupting the system. But to do that, the eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, always has been, always will be. So that means people are going to have to decide. They're going to have to work together, work harder.

And yes, there's going to be barriers. Yes, people are going to put in voter suppression, methods; people are going to try to discourage you from voting. They're going to do all these things because power concedes nothing without demand, never has, never will. The only way to overcome voter suppression -- I think Stacey Abrams said this -- is huge voter turnout, period, to the levels where people, “No, we’re not going to put up with this.” It's not going to happen once. It's not going to happen twice.

I look at this way. When someone tells me that they want to lose weight -- they're 60 pounds overweight -- and then they say, “Okay, tomorrow I’m going to just work out hard and I’ll get there,” no. It’s going to take you day after day after day.

This voting system is not going to take one hit against the wall. It's not going to take 10 hits against the wall. It's going to take a thousand hits. And then sometimes you don't even see it and it breaks. But we have to keep hitting and keep hitting and that's the only way we're going to get the disruption that we so badly need.

So I do hope, Tyrel, as you said, that we get that type of change because sometimes the only way people can see change is when they go through a little bit of pain. We're about to go through a tremendous amount of pain. We're already going through it. But I think this is going to be just the beginning with automation, with a lot of other things that are going on and the issues we haven't addressed in our society. The pain is coming at a level that Americans haven't seen. And so we have to decide, “Are we going to move forward? Are we going to hold our government accountable or we're just going to give up?” If we do that, things get worse. So I’m hopeful that people will see that we can keep moving forward; we can get better.

TYREL
Was it Chicago’s own Lupe Fiasco said in that song, “You can't just complain about the neighborhood. Pick a broom up.”

ROB
Get up and start sweeping.

TYREL
Yeah, exactly.

ROB
You don't have to change the whole block. You could change one corner. Sweep.

TYREL
Yeah. It ain’t just about the complaint. It's great to recognize the problems but everyone has to get together and do their little small part.

And I’ll just add to what you said, I think with the voting, that's very important. At the end of the day, too, we can't allow ourselves to only focus on the American Idol side of voting in terms of like, “Ooh president. Ooh this.” The biggest change that you're going to see to your community is going to come from actually being involved and who's running for your local council elections, who's running for your local state elections. And I think we, a lot of times, get ourselves lost…

ROB
No question.

TYREL
…in just looking at the dazzle of the federal level and not actually paying attention. Local is going to have a bigger effect on people's lives.

ROB
No question. Your mayor, your governor, your prosecutor -- those people will have a tremendous… a way larger effect than any president, any Congress person will have on your life. Those people will really affect most of your freedoms or most of your opportunities.

TYREL
Don't bring down a giant by going after the head. You bring down the giant by taking its legs out from under it. And those legs are local elections and local communities and leadership.

ROB
Yeah. I’ll get ready to end but I want to have Ameshia to say a couple of things, to get last thoughts. But I do want to say that's also a shortcoming of how the Democratic Party thinks about things as well because everything is about the presidency pageant; everything's about the federal. And I know this as a victim of that because I was running statewide--

AMESHIA
Because it’s shiny and it’s money…

ROB
Right.
AMESHIA
…raising. It’s everything associated with it that gets people's attention. The last folks how… changes in their school when they look at Betsy DeVos and I’m like, “No. That's a school board issue. [Laughter] That’s [inaudible - 01:00:41] issue. That’s a superintendent issue. That has absolutely nothing to do with Betsy DeVos.”

I think she doesn't deserve a lot of the criticisms that she gets but I do think, to a certain extent, there's a large level of misdirection when it comes to the belief that the federal system is in charge of all things local. People often have a mistaken idea of who actually leads what and what functions of government actually exist at their fingertips. You will always be a lot closer to your city council member than you will the president of the United States.

ROB
Yeah.

AMESHIA
I think it will change your life most dramatically at the local level -- at the level that you exist at every single day is going to be there, even when people talk about criminal justice reform in the First Step Act. The First Step Act is about the federal prison system. The majority of Black and brown people locked up in America are [inaudible - 01:01:27] imprisoned at the state level. So it has no effect on them whatsoever. You still have to look towards your governor. You have to look towards your state's attorney. You have to look towards infrastructure at home.

ROB
Yep. Be frustrated but keep moving because otherwise we're going to keep getting what we got. I just want people to be encouraged. I want folks stay involved. Tyrel, you can catch him by watching the Hawks. You can also catch Ameshia by watching the Hawks. You can also, obviously, always catch her on Disruption Now. We love having her here. We love having you on. We’ll see you next time.

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