Latest / All About The Joy / How Language Hides Power: Orwell, Policing, and the Week’s Headlines

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How Language Hides Power: Orwell, Policing, and the Week’s Headlines · All About The Joy

• 0:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey everyone.
• 0:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Welcome to All About the Joy.
• 0:02
  Carmen Lezeth: This is Culture and Consequence with Carmen and Andrea.
• 0:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Put my glasses away.
• 0:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey, what's up, Andrea?
• 0:11
  Carmen Lezeth: How are you doing?
• 0:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Good morning.
• 0:13
  Carmen Lezeth: Good morning.
• 0:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, I just want you to know, I no one else will understand why I'm saying this, but you will.
• 0:20
  Carmen Lezeth: I slept eight hours last night.
• 0:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Woohoo! Oh my God.
• 0:26
  Carmen Lezeth: And here's I'm so excited because I've been working on my sleep situation.
• 0:33
  Carmen Lezeth: And I realized, like, so since I've shared that, I'll just tell everyone.
• 0:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, I usually sleep three to four hours a night, and that has been my entire life.
• 0:43
  Carmen Lezeth: And it became a much bigger problem after.
• 0:46
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, it's always been a problem, but it's like any any any noise I hear and I get up.
• 0:52
  Carmen Lezeth: And all the white noise, all the like put the fan and whatever, none of that ever works.
• 0:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I'm it makes me even more like I can't really hear, so I have to stay awake.
• 1:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, like totally vigilant.
• 1:06
  Carmen Lezeth: So um I had to deal with it because after my surgery, I just couldn't get back to working out because I had no energy, and I've it's like that weird cycle.
• 1:15
  Carmen Lezeth: And um, so yeah, I've been working on my sleep and I've been sleeping like six hours a night, kind of consistently.
• 1:22
  Carmen Lezeth: Consistently means three nights in a row.
• 1:25
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what that means.
• 1:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and then last night I and I woke up this morning, I'm like, Andrea would be so proud of me.
• 1:31
  Andrea: I am, I am.
• 1:34
  Andrea: I'm thrilled for you.
• 1:35
  Andrea: So what share with the world, girl?
• 1:38
  Andrea: What are you doing?
• 1:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, well, I look it, I think everybody has their own um, like it's all individual.
• 1:46
  Carmen Lezeth: For me, it really is a sense of security, you know.
• 1:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and then someone said to me, I won't say who it is, but he knows who he is.
• 1:53
  Carmen Lezeth: It's like, well, you know, like if you know, I could stay over.
• 1:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm like, that's that's not no.
• 1:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm good.
• 2:01
  Carmen Lezeth: That's that's not the problem.
• 2:03
  Carmen Lezeth: No, that's that's not gonna work.
• 2:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Um so for me, it's been a few things, and and I it's it's been a lot of things, but one of them is um I stopped wearing my watch.
• 2:15
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't wear it to sleep, but what I realized is during the day when I'm looking at my steps and I'm I didn't I didn't accomplish my steps, I didn't whatever, or my heart rate, or whatever.
• 2:27
  Carmen Lezeth: And having that anxiety added to my going to sleep at night feeling sad that I didn't accomplish whatever workout goal I thought I was supposed to have that day.
• 2:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I know it sounds weird, but it's it's all these little tiny things.
• 2:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that's I'm gonna say this in a this is gonna sound really bad, but I do feel unsafe.
• 2:49
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's been my entire life because I always sleep with one eye open.
• 2:53
  Carmen Lezeth: It's just the way I grew up.
• 2:54
  Carmen Lezeth: So dealing with that means having weaponry around my house.
• 3:05
  Andrea: Oh my gosh.
• 3:06
  Andrea: Okay, we're gonna have to talk about your weaponry offline, but oh no, no, no, no.
• 3:10
  Carmen Lezeth: So that's why I put it that way.
• 3:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I know that sounds weird, but feeling like, and I'm not I'm not advocating anybody else's, and that's why I'm saying it's like, what can I do to make myself feel safe?
• 3:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, part of it is like, I know it's a habit from growing up, um, but it doesn't matter, it is what it is.
• 3:28
  Carmen Lezeth: So, like, what are the worst case scenarios?
• 3:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, what are the worst case scenarios that can happen?
• 3:34
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, like so how do I fix that?
• 3:36
  Carmen Lezeth: If I think somebody's gonna come while I'm sleeping, is there something I can have in my secret compartment in my bedroom that will hurt that person?
• 3:47
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 3:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I know it's stupid, but things are that's stupid.
• 3:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I know, but it's working.
• 3:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Um so don't even try to come in my house, bitch.
• 3:57
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what I'm trying to tell you.
• 3:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, um that's the moral of this story.
• 4:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that's the moral of this story, baby.
• 4:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Um also just um other things like uh not drinking water after eight o'clock at night, making sure I drink all my water before eight o'clock, so that when I go to bed at like 9:30, 10 o'clock, I do go to bed early because I get up at 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning.
• 4:18
  Carmen Lezeth: But um, I'm not getting up to go to the bathroom, which I think was the other part of it too, was it's not just that everything wakes me up, it's that I then have to go to the bathroom, you know, three, four times during the night.
• 4:29
  Carmen Lezeth: That didn't help either.
• 4:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Blackout curtains, I've always had them, but I didn't have the great ones, I didn't have the good ones.
• 4:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, having the place really dark.
• 4:38
  Carmen Lezeth: So I it's just been a constant changing of so many habits.
• 4:43
  Carmen Lezeth: And um, and then you had mentioned something, and this made me feel better.
• 4:48
  Carmen Lezeth: I had said to you, you know, I I always fall asleep on the couch when I'm watching TV.
• 4:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I and I was like, I wish I could have a TV in my room.
• 4:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Somewhere along the way, I made it against the rules for me to have a and you were like, get a fucking TV in your room.
• 5:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I do you know what I'm talking about?
• 5:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Like there's all this thing.
• 5:08
  Carmen Lezeth: So I didn't get a TV in my room.
• 5:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't because I I don't want to buy another TV, but I do have a um, I don't know what they're called.
• 5:15
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, you it's a sound, those little sound system box.
• 5:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh let me just show you this.
• 5:21
  Carmen Lezeth: One of these.
• 5:23
  Carmen Lezeth: And then you you it's a sound box and it takes the sound from the TV, and then you can put it anywhere in your home to like work out or whatever, so you don't have to put the TV on really loud.
• 5:34
  Carmen Lezeth: So I just put this in my bedroom now.
• 5:35
  Carmen Lezeth: I've never even heard of that.
• 5:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Really?
• 5:38
  Carmen Lezeth: But you can be on the phone and stuff too.
• 5:40
  Carmen Lezeth: It's a speaker, it's a like a portable speaker.
• 5:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, okay.
• 5:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I call it a sound system.
• 5:47
  Carmen Lezeth: I was like, a sound box.
• 5:50
  Carmen Lezeth: That's a speaker.
• 5:51
  Carmen Lezeth: We'll be talking about language later.
• 5:54
  Carmen Lezeth: No, but I mean it's a speaker, but it's not just a speaker because you can bring it to like I always think of a speaker, you have to plug it in and keep it at the I'm thinking old school, you know what I mean?
• 6:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm Gen X.
• 6:06
  Carmen Lezeth: What can I say?
• 6:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, but yes, we will be talking about language later today.
• 6:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, how are you doing?
• 6:13
  Andrea: Are you doing good this morning?
• 6:15
  Andrea: I am doing really, really great overall this week.
• 6:18
  Andrea: Why, you might ask, because my children have gone back to school.
• 6:23
  Andrea: It is the little things, right?
• 6:26
  Andrea: Yay! I love those people.
• 6:29
  Andrea: They are my favorite people in the world.
• 6:31
  Andrea: I absolutely love spending time with them.
• 6:34
  Andrea: Three weeks at home was too long.
• 6:38
  Andrea: Wow, was it three weeks?
• 6:39
  Andrea: It was three weeks.
• 6:41
  Andrea: I think that's kind of the standard these days.
• 6:43
  Andrea: And you know, as you know, it rained quite a bit during that time, so we were all in the hall together for a long time.
• 6:51
  Andrea: My husband was off for two weeks.
• 6:54
  Andrea: Oh, yeah.
• 6:55
  Andrea: We had guests for like a week.
• 6:57
  Andrea: Again, love them, happy they were here.
• 7:00
  Andrea: But I am accustomed to being alone for most of the day, and uh, you know, I was.
• 7:06
  Andrea: I mean, you know, I'm already a pretty big bitch.
• 7:09
  Andrea: And like, would you stop that?
• 7:11
  Andrea: My last weekend, it was off the charts.
• 7:15
  Andrea: Like, I would wake up and just be like, right, right, right don't talk to me, don't ask me for anything.
• 7:20
  Andrea: No, I'm not cooking for you.
• 7:22
  Andrea: I don't care if you're bored.
• 7:23
  Andrea: Shut the fuck up.
• 7:26
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what?
• 7:26
  Carmen Lezeth: You you have this body, I don't think you're a bitch at all.
• 7:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, well, you don't live with me.
• 7:32
  Carmen Lezeth: So it's very true, it's very true, but uh no, I think it's funny because everyone thinks I'm the the hardcore whatever person when it comes, and it's always like it's you, Cynthia.
• 7:42
  Carmen Lezeth: And I'm like, yeah, I'm probably the most easygoing person out of all my friends, but I'm the one labeled with it.
• 7:47
  Carmen Lezeth: But it's okay, it's okay.
• 7:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, I'm glad you're you're you're doing good.
• 7:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Can I share a video so we could start our conversation?
• 7:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely, yes.
• 7:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Let me just also say this that it's really hard to be happy and joyful and positive during this time period.
• 8:02
  Carmen Lezeth: It really is.
• 8:03
  Carmen Lezeth: And so when you have it, really embrace it.
• 8:07
  Andrea: Yeah, recognize it, call it out, talk about it.
• 8:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm kind of so happy about the sleeping thing.
• 8:13
  Carmen Lezeth: And then, of course, I had to watch the news today, and I was like, okay.
• 8:17
  Carmen Lezeth: So let me share this is from Pod Save America.
• 8:22
  TikTok Pod Save America: That woman has as part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.
• 8:31
  TikTok Pod Save America: Everybody who's been repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourself.
• 8:40
  TikTok Pod Save America: This is classic terrorism.
• 8:42
  TikTok Pod Save America: You guys are meant to report the truth.
• 8:45
  TikTok Pod Save America: How have you let yourself become agents of propaganda of a radical fringe that's making it harder for us to enforce our law?
• 8:52
  TikTok Pod Save America: She tried to run somebody over with her car, and the guy defended himself when that happened.
• 8:56
  TikTok Pod Save America: Next question.
• 8:56
  TikTok Pod Save America: There's a part of me that feels very, very sad for this woman, not just because she lost her life, but because I think she is a victim of left-wing ideology.
• 9:05
  TikTok Pod Save America: I would appreciate everybody saying a prayer for that aid.
• 9:08
  TikTok Pod Save America: He deserves a debt of gratitude, and I think the media prejudging and talking about this guy as if he's a murderer is one of the most disgraceful things I've ever seen from the American media.
• 9:16
  TikTok Pod Save America: He deserves a debt of gratitude.
• 9:19
  TikTok Pod Save America: A man who uh no one disputes, shot a woman three times, twice at close range.
• 9:25
  TikTok Pod Save America: Keep in mind, earlier on Thursday, Vance tweeted that Renee Good was a quote, deranged leftist.
• 9:30
  TikTok Pod Save America: Just imagine what J.D.
• 9:31
  TikTok Pod Save America: Vance would have said or done about a Democratic politician who called Charlie Kirk deranged the day after he was assassinated.
• 9:38
  TikTok Pod Save America: In the 10 years since Trump came down the escalator, that might be the most angry, infuriated, and disgusted I've been at something a Trump official, including not Trump himself, has done or said.
• 9:50
  TikTok Pod Save America: J.D.
• 9:51
  TikTok Pod Save America: Vance is disgusting.
• 9:52
  TikTok Pod Save America: He lies with such ease, with such little compunction.
• 9:56
  TikTok Pod Save America: He is unburdened by decency, morality, shame.
• 10:01
  TikTok Pod Save America: He does it with confidence and arrogance, and even more inferiorly, he does it well.
• 10:06
  TikTok Pod Save America: He can make any argument sound clever, at least on the surface, just to have such little humanity after someone was killed.
• 10:15
  TikTok Pod Save America: Not a lot shocks me.
• 10:16
  TikTok Pod Save America: I am shocked by just how the administration has handled this.
• 10:20
  TikTok Pod Save America: They could have so easily, they could have so easily been like, we have our own opinions, we think that it was self-defense, but we'll let the investigation play out.
• 10:27
  TikTok Pod Save America: But they're like doubling and tripling down, which I guess is what they do.
• 10:30
  TikTok Pod Save America: But I also think it's a signal to everyone that like we're gonna do whatever the fuck we want.
• 10:33
  TikTok Pod Save America: We have the guns, we have the legal system, and the rest of you can fuck off.
• 10:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Um so I I thought I would share that because I thought it was an interesting segue into what we're gonna talk about today regarding language.
• 10:46
  Carmen Lezeth: And um I actually think J.D.
• 10:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Vance is a much scarier issue than Donald Trump any day of the week.
• 10:53
  Carmen Lezeth: This morning, as we are coming onto air, Donald Trump last night, I guess, threatened to use the Insurrection Act, which basically means allowing the U.S.
• 11:03
  Carmen Lezeth: military to come into the streets of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
• 11:07
  Carmen Lezeth: And the military is not allowed to go against American citizens, but that's what the Insurrection Act would allow the president to do.
• 11:15
  Carmen Lezeth: So yeah, I thought I would just share.
• 11:18
  Carmen Lezeth: If people don't know who Pod Save America is, I'll just tell you right now that um that gentleman, John Farreau, was the speechwriter for Barack Obama.
• 11:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't care if you like Barack Obama or not, but every time he spoke, that man had something to do with his speech.
• 11:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Brilliant, brilliant individual.
• 11:36
  Carmen Lezeth: So, but anyways, thoughts.
• 11:40
  Andrea: Uh, well, I agree with you that I think J.D.
• 11:42
  Andrea: Vance is much scarier for all kinds of reasons than Donald Trump.
• 11:46
  Andrea: I mean, as much as you know, we will all be popping the champagne and dancing in the streets the day it happens, uh, we do have to think about the 15 seconds later when J.D.
• 11:57
  Andrea: Vance becomes president, if God willing it happens soon.
• 12:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Um Donald Trump decides to resign for health reasons.
• 12:10
  Carmen Lezeth: That's exactly what you mean.
• 12:12
  Andrea: Uh anyway, but yeah, I you know, he's he is a much, much scarier individual, like I said, for all kinds of reasons, including the people who back him, support him.
• 12:21
  Andrea: He's I'm hesitant to say smarter, but he is certainly smarter than Donald Trump.
• 12:28
  Andrea: Um I agree that he knows how to use language.
• 12:31
  Andrea: He's less, I don't know, uh charismatic is the word that's coming up.
• 12:37
  Andrea: I don't know that that's the right word, but um, I don't think he would have the legion of of followers and you know, the the cult-like following that that Donald Trump has.
• 12:47
  Andrea: But um they have put things in place at this point such that he could very easily take over and and you know be much more of a dictator than even Donald Trump is.
• 13:01
  Andrea: Um, so I do think that's something that we need to look out for for sure.
• 13:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Absolutely.
• 13:06
  Carmen Lezeth: I want to talk about the language thing because um, so I didn't mention one of the people that I read on a regular basis because uh he wasn't part of that group.
• 13:17
  Carmen Lezeth: So there's a pod save America.
• 13:19
  Carmen Lezeth: There are all these different things we talked about last week, but Professor Eddie Glaude is someone that I revere.
• 13:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I talked about him on Friday Night Live as well.
• 13:27
  Carmen Lezeth: I just think he's an incredible writer and human being, and he follows us on some sack, which shook me.
• 13:36
  Carmen Lezeth: And so every Friday he delivers a summary of what's going on during the week, but it's not a newscast, it's really what he feels is going on, and he always embeds in there things that we can learn about who we are historically, and it's just an interesting read on a Friday, and that's what I usually do.
• 13:54
  Carmen Lezeth: But on Monday, which was a very important day for me, he threw in a George Orwell essay that I had never read, but you've read it before.
• 14:05
  Carmen Lezeth: And the name of it is see, I thought I was all prepared and everything.
• 14:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Hold on one second.
• 14:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Politics and the English language.
• 14:15
  Carmen Lezeth: And it is a it was written in 1946, 1946, okay.
• 14:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, so we're right at World War II, right?
• 14:24
  Carmen Lezeth: 1946.
• 14:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Right at the end, right at the end.
• 14:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 14:29
  Carmen Lezeth: And so he's writing this piece and it's all about language.
• 14:34
  Carmen Lezeth: So do you want me to do a summary or go ahead, Andrea?
• 14:37
  Carmen Lezeth: I know you've already you've read it a long time ago and fucking I I sent it to Andrea thinking I was like sharing something new and shit.
• 14:43
  Carmen Lezeth: And she's like, Oh yeah, I read this and I've done a thesis on it, and I know everything about it.
• 14:48
  Andrea: No, I don't I don't know everything about it.
• 14:50
  Andrea: I I remember reading this in a writing class that I took in undergrad.
• 14:56
  Andrea: Um, I don't remember who the professor was.
• 15:00
  Andrea: I don't remember the context of the writing class.
• 15:02
  Andrea: I remember, as you said, it being very dense.
• 15:05
  Andrea: Um, you know, really hard to read.
• 15:07
  Andrea: It's really hard to read.
• 15:08
  Andrea: You have to read it a couple of times at least to really grasp what he's saying.
• 15:12
  Andrea: And it's also very like prescriptive, like he's really telling you what to do.
• 15:17
  Andrea: Um so and I don't know what the um context of him writing it was.
• 15:22
  Andrea: Was he just like throwing it out there?
• 15:23
  Andrea: Or was you know, I don't know.
• 15:25
  Andrea: But anyways, um but I do a lot of writing for work, um, and always have.
• 15:31
  Andrea: And I think about the concepts in that essay every single day.
• 15:37
  Andrea: Every single day I think about the concepts in that essay.
• 15:40
  Andrea: It's really important, and I think you know, to sort of bring it back to what we're talking about, it's it's really about how people of all kinds, and I'll kind of talk about who those people might be, um, use language to guide the way you think about things, right?
• 16:00
  Andrea: And so specifically, I think what I would say is media, uh definitely law enforcement, um, you know, politicians, politicians, uh, you know, even academia, right?
• 16:15
  Andrea: All all they all use language in a certain way quite often to hide the truth, hide the actual meaning, hide what it is they are trying to say uh because they want you to believe a certain thing.
• 16:30
  Andrea: They want you to, you know, and maybe they're not straight out lying.
• 16:33
  Andrea: Oftentimes they're not straight out lying, they're using language to make you think a certain thing or to imply a certain thing.
• 16:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Or or to confuse you so that you don't know.
• 16:44
  Carmen Lezeth: So I'm gonna read what I wrote under the essay because again, there are little things in my life that make me happy, but uh Professor Eddie Glad also said spot on to what I wrote, and he doesn't normally, anyways, I just look at these are the little things in my life that make me happy.
• 17:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 17:01
  Carmen Lezeth: So this is what I wrote underneath.
• 17:03
  Carmen Lezeth: So he wrote his introduction and then he put the entire essay for everyone to read it.
• 17:09
  Carmen Lezeth: And then I wrote in the comment section along with other people, but I wrote, I'm gonna share something I probably shouldn't, but I can't stop laughing.
• 17:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Today is my birthday, and I was so excited to see your post today.
• 17:20
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh no, until I started reading.
• 17:22
  Carmen Lezeth: This is a dense, hard read for me, but after two reads, real slow, I think I get it.
• 17:27
  Carmen Lezeth: You're warning us that Orwell said back then is the same today.
• 17:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Political language that is vague, inflated, and dishonest is not by accident.
• 17:38
  Carmen Lezeth: It helps politicians hide the truth and avoid responsibility.
• 17:43
  Carmen Lezeth: This is how they manipulate the public.
• 17:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, I don't know if I need to read.
• 17:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, when writers rely on cliches and abstract phrases, they stop thinking clearly.
• 17:54
  Carmen Lezeth: And that, wow, what did I oh, and that fog spreads to everyone who reads or hears them.
• 18:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Clear language forces clear thought, and clear thought is essential for a healthy democracy.
• 18:05
  Carmen Lezeth: So while we can't fix it all overnight, each one of us can resist by choosing simple, concrete, honest words instead of ready-made phrases that numb the mind and disguise reality.
• 18:16
  Carmen Lezeth: And there's a part where he says something like, How can you fix fascism if you don't know what fascism means?
• 18:22
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's kind of the crux of it.
• 18:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, that was such a fantastic summary, by the way.
• 18:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, thank you so much, Carmen.
• 18:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, thank you.
• 18:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, here's the thing, too.
• 18:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that so I want to tie it back into why Donald Trump actually works for so many people.
• 18:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Because for so long, I think our education system has not given us the ability to understand everything that's going on.
• 18:47
  Carmen Lezeth: And I was thinking about this the other day.
• 18:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't remember ever in high school or in college, but definitely not in high school, reading the Constitution.
• 18:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I remember the Pledge of Allegiance.
• 18:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I remember having to do that in the mornings when we were younger.
• 19:00
  Carmen Lezeth: I do not remember us reading or understanding the Constitution and knowing what our rights are.
• 19:05
  Carmen Lezeth: And I'm like, was that by design?
• 19:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, you know, and I and I'm not looking, I am not the suspicious whatever thing, but it's kind of that same thing.
• 19:13
  Carmen Lezeth: So when you start hearing about politics, why is it so many Americans don't vote?
• 19:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Why is it so many Americans don't take to heart what's going on in their local and state and federal government?
• 19:26
  Carmen Lezeth: It's because we don't know, we don't understand it.
• 19:29
  Carmen Lezeth: It feels confusing.
• 19:31
  Carmen Lezeth: So here comes Donald Trump, who talks like us.
• 19:35
  Carmen Lezeth: By the way, he doesn't talk like us.
• 19:37
  Carmen Lezeth: He does not.
• 19:38
  Carmen Lezeth: He is very simple, he doesn't have vocabulary, he doesn't have a sense of logic.
• 19:44
  Carmen Lezeth: This isn't just now.
• 19:45
  Carmen Lezeth: This is but as Americans, because we're not nuanced enough, and I'm saying all of us, we gravitate, we I'm not gonna take that.
• 19:56
  Carmen Lezeth: A lot of people gravitated towards this heat.
• 19:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Talks like us thing, but actually he doesn't talk like you.
• 20:04
  Carmen Lezeth: He manipulated you because you did not know, because we were not taught.
• 20:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Is that a fair enough assessment?
• 20:14
  Andrea: I think it's pretty fair.
• 20:15
  Andrea: I'm always a little reluctant to release people from responsibility, like you did not know.
• 20:19
  Andrea: But I but I think you're right.
• 20:21
  Andrea: I mean, we and we've talked about this before.
• 20:23
  Andrea: Uh, you know, we as a country have not prioritized educating people.
• 20:31
  Andrea: Certainly, we haven't prioritized civics, understanding our government, understanding the constitution, all of those kinds of things.
• 20:39
  Andrea: I mean, you know, in their senior year, uh I think in all, you know, all across the United States, uh, students take one semester of government.
• 20:49
  Andrea: They take one semester of government and one semester of econ.
• 20:52
  Andrea: I know this how because my daughter just finished her one semester of government.
• 20:56
  Andrea: Econ is economics for the um and well, actually, she's just starting.
• 21:01
  Andrea: She did econ, but uh, you know, the the curriculum is not a hey, let's dive in and read um, you know, the constitution.
• 21:09
  Andrea: It's like we have three branches of government.
• 21:11
  Andrea: And the kinds of things I would think that you should already know at that point.
• 21:16
  Andrea: You know, these are people who are gonna be 18 or already are right.
• 21:20
  Andrea: They're ready to vote.
• 21:22
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, it's even things like we don't learn, we don't teach kids.
• 21:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I wasn't taught how to balance a checkbook.
• 21:29
  Carmen Lezeth: We don't like there's so many things we don't do to prepare our society to be smart, and that's by design.
• 21:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my god, you know I don't do conspiracy theories, but now I'm like, I have always been who I am, curious.
• 21:47
  Carmen Lezeth: I've always been this kid, curious.
• 21:49
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, I'm not a kid anymore, but you understand what I'm trying to say.
• 21:52
  Carmen Lezeth: Like curious, wanting to understand, and always shut down.
• 21:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I remember going to Catholic school and asking questions in religion, because we were really taught just religion, English, and some math, right?
• 22:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Like whatever.
• 22:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I sucked at the math bar, but I remember questioning, asking a question about religion, why it didn't make sense, right?
• 22:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Just asking this isn't a diss on religion, just a kid asking a question and being shut down.
• 22:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Basically, it is what it is, and you just take it in.
• 22:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, don't ask any more questions about it.
• 22:21
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's kind of I think what we do too.
• 22:24
  Carmen Lezeth: So I think language, you know, now because we do have the ability to um just uh I know this is um I'm a big Ed Eagle odd fan, no doubt about it, but the ability to even be able to read his stuff from him and hear him every week, it changes the dynamic, right?
• 22:44
  Carmen Lezeth: You can you can hear him and I can understand what he's saying easier than when he's writing it.
• 22:51
  Carmen Lezeth: And then when he writes it or he shares something that's really hard, I'm now curious and allowed to be like, well, I like him as a writer.
• 23:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Now I want to understand why he, because I admire him, understand this.
• 23:05
  Carmen Lezeth: And then I fight to understand it.
• 23:07
  Carmen Lezeth: That's how it should be.
• 23:09
  Carmen Lezeth: That's how it should be in all of our classrooms.
• 23:14
  Andrea: Yeah, I I think you've hit on something really important.
• 23:16
  Andrea: That curiosity is is stifled at best, if not completely stands out in children.
• 23:23
  Andrea: Um, and there are multiple reasons for it, right?
• 23:26
  Andrea: Uh, you know, teachers have a lot on their plates, they have a lot of kids in their classrooms, they don't have all the resources and support.
• 23:33
  Andrea: The curriculum is, you know, in some cases, uh dictate in a lot of cases, most places dictated to them.
• 23:41
  Andrea: I mean, there are all kinds of reasons for that, but it's like you have to have a really special teacher to actually um, you know, honor that creativity and allow you to follow it.
• 23:53
  Andrea: Like that's the special case.
• 23:57
  Carmen Lezeth: But I think even because I had I had we all have our special teachers, right?
• 24:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, Alice McIntyre, who I'm still in touch with, was my seventh grade teacher, was my saving grace.
• 24:06
  Carmen Lezeth: She didn't just help me, she helped many, but that was also burning, it should, it shouldn't be that.
• 24:12
  Carmen Lezeth: It was so burdensome to her.
• 24:14
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 24:15
  Carmen Lezeth: To have to be that teacher like that for too many kids.
• 24:18
  Carmen Lezeth: And she can't save everyone, and it shouldn't be that kind of job.
• 24:23
  Carmen Lezeth: So you're you're absolutely right, but I want to go back to the language thing too, because I feel like I am not trying to absolve responsibility of people who made choices that were not in their best interest or in the interest of their neighbors.
• 24:41
  Carmen Lezeth: It pisses me off more that they didn't, they don't have compassion or understand that this is exactly what was written down in that what was it of 2025.
• 24:52
  Carmen Lezeth: This is exactly what you voted for.
• 24:54
  Carmen Lezeth: All the people like, I didn't vote for this at US.
• 24:56
  Carmen Lezeth: This is what we did.
• 24:57
  Carmen Lezeth: This is what you voted for.
• 24:59
  Carmen Lezeth: It's in there, and we were screaming at you and telling you over and over again.
• 25:03
  Carmen Lezeth: But okay, but here we are.
• 25:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Um what I'm trying to say is there is a part of me that grew up always feeling like everything was my fault.
• 25:13
  Carmen Lezeth: I was too dumb.
• 25:14
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't have the right FICO score.
• 25:17
  Carmen Lezeth: I, you know, whatever it is, right?
• 25:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, like everything was my fault.
• 25:21
  Carmen Lezeth: I didn't work hard enough.
• 25:22
  Carmen Lezeth: Are you fucking kidding me?
• 25:23
  Carmen Lezeth: And that one is probably the biggest one.
• 25:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, um, that I was never enough.
• 25:29
  Carmen Lezeth: And it wasn't till later in life that I started understanding that everything is not my fault.
• 25:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Everything is not my fault.
• 25:37
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't have control over why people are racist towards me and won't give me a fucking loan, even though I have a 750 credit score, whatever, and a whatever, and I have income or whatever.
• 25:48
  Carmen Lezeth: I can't fight people who are like Gataming Swatish is not going to get it.
• 25:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, I don't have control over how that works.
• 25:56
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, like I can't force the bank to be like, no, my name is Mary O'Donnell or whatever.
• 26:01
  Carmen Lezeth: And clients that I've worked for who've had worse, you know, income, worse FICO scores or whatever, and they can get, you know, loans, no big deal.
• 26:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know what that's about.
• 26:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know what that's about.
• 26:13
  Carmen Lezeth: So I'm not absolving people.
• 26:16
  Carmen Lezeth: What I'm saying is, for the most part, I don't care what it takes for you to realize it, but this is what's happening.
• 26:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Language is being used to manipulate you on all ends, and it's been happening for a long time.
• 26:30
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's kind of the crux of that article, is what I'm saying.
• 26:33
  Andrea: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:34
  Andrea: And I think you know what you wrote in your comment about, you know, the importance of saying things clearly and simply.
• 26:42
  Andrea: And simply, right?
• 26:43
  Andrea: I mean, look, the one that we all know, the the classic example, officer involved shooting.
• 26:49
  Andrea: Uh, the cops shot somebody, right?
• 26:52
  Andrea: Like, we all know that one.
• 26:54
  Andrea: It's not, it's technically true, but what are they actually saying?
• 26:59
  Andrea: A police officer shot somebody.
• 27:01
  Andrea: Will they ever say that?
• 27:02
  Andrea: No.
• 27:03
  Andrea: Why?
• 27:03
  Andrea: Right.
• 27:04
  Andrea: That and that's the question.
• 27:05
  Andrea: Why will they not say it that way?
• 27:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 27:08
  Andrea: You know, or suspect died at the scene.
• 27:11
  Andrea: Oh, really?
• 27:12
  Andrea: Did he have a heart attack?
• 27:13
  Andrea: Right.
• 27:14
  Andrea: You know, was he bitten by a rabbit squirrel?
• 27:16
  Andrea: Like, how did he die?
• 27:18
  Carmen Lezeth: A rabbit squirrel.
• 27:19
  Andrea: What are we not saying?
• 27:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 27:21
  Andrea: And why are we not saying it?
• 27:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 27:24
  Andrea: You know, the the the really, really important part is simple and clear.
• 27:29
  Andrea: And that's what I was always taught, and that's what I have to go back.
• 27:32
  Andrea: I this just happened to me yesterday.
• 27:33
  Andrea: I was writing an email and I was like, what am I saying?
• 27:36
  Andrea: We conducted an audit of blah blah blah.
• 27:39
  Andrea: It's like, we audited this, you know what I mean?
• 27:42
  Andrea: Like, why would I write it that way?
• 27:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, in that piece, uh, George Orwell, as he's writing it, says, and I know I'm doing this as I'm writing this piece.
• 27:52
  Carmen Lezeth: That's why it's so dense.
• 27:53
  Carmen Lezeth: It's like the irony of ironies is that if you're not careful of language, you start doing the same thing, which is what JD Vance is doing.
• 28:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Using words to manipulate what actually happened.
• 28:07
  Carmen Lezeth: And John Favreau, I don't know how to say this, the the guy who's on podcast, whatever, he says that.
• 28:13
  Carmen Lezeth: They could have easily just said, you know what, we're gonna have investigation, go into it, blah, blah, blah.
• 28:18
  Carmen Lezeth: But instead, they're using this as a way in which to keep justifying why ICE is doing what they're doing.
• 28:26
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, Stephen Miller, who I fucking hate with all of my heart and passion, because I think he's evil personified.
• 28:35
  Carmen Lezeth: I really do.
• 28:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Turned around and said that every ICE agent has uh, what is it like uh federal immunity or something?
• 28:42
  Carmen Lezeth: I forget what it's called.
• 28:43
  Andrea: Yeah, I can't remember what he called it, but it was essentially like, do whatever the fuck you want, you're never gonna be prosecuted.
• 28:48
  Andrea: He said that on television.
• 28:49
  Andrea: I'm like, that's not how our country works, dude.
• 28:53
  Andrea: Like, this is how they want it to work.
• 28:56
  Andrea: And I think like this is the thing.
• 28:58
  Andrea: They say these kinds of things.
• 28:59
  Andrea: Like, you know, Trump talked about just this morning.
• 29:02
  Andrea: I read uh it was Rooters, so I think it's probably true.
• 29:06
  Andrea: He said something about, you know, I've accomplished so much, we don't even need to have another election, right?
• 29:11
  Carmen Lezeth: See, yeah, right?
• 29:12
  Andrea: Like they are saying these things, and everyone's like, oh, you know, they're just racist, they're just jerks, you should exaggerating.
• 29:21
  Andrea: They just say those things, right?
• 29:24
  Andrea: No, you have to believe what they are telling you because they are literally saying this is what we want.
• 29:32
  Andrea: We want a secret police force, an anonymous police force that you cannot penetrate, you don't know who they are, you can't see their faces, they're changing license plates on the cars that they're using to obscure themselves.
• 29:46
  Andrea: We want them to have total immunity, to bust into your homes, to pull you out of your cars, to send you to secret prisons, either in the United States or somewhere else.
• 29:57
  Andrea: This is what they want.
• 29:59
  Carmen Lezeth: And it's this is normal.
• 30:01
  Carmen Lezeth: By the way, this is they're normalizing it.
• 30:03
  Carmen Lezeth: That's that's what's happening right now.
• 30:04
  Carmen Lezeth: And this is it.
• 30:05
  Carmen Lezeth: I I'm telling you right now, on my mother's grave, I am not a conspiracy theory, I'm not someone who gets alarmed.
• 30:11
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not this is what's happening right now is we're normalizing ice on the streets.
• 30:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Last night, ICE, there's there's 3,000 ICE agents.
• 30:23
  Carmen Lezeth: To put that in perspective, Minneapolis has 600 police officers.
• 30:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Really?
• 30:30
  Carmen Lezeth: They already know that.
• 30:31
  Andrea: I didn't know that number.
• 30:32
  Carmen Lezeth: They have 600 police officers.
• 30:34
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't care what you believe, I don't care if you have always thought Trump was great or whatever.
• 30:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I really need people to start doing a reanalysis of who you are as an American.
• 30:44
  Carmen Lezeth: I really who you are as a human.
• 30:47
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 30:48
  Carmen Lezeth: But you know, they're all into the rah-rah Americana thing.
• 30:51
  Carmen Lezeth: So I'm just saying, if if what you believe is the ideals of being an American versus being a racist Nazi, I'm just saying, like, you know, well, I I Andrea's head, like, I'm gonna do a little popover.
• 31:06
  Carmen Lezeth: She's like, same thing.
• 31:07
  Carmen Lezeth: It's not.
• 31:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I look, it I feel like we're we're we're at a crossroads.
• 31:13
  Carmen Lezeth: We have been for a long time.
• 31:15
  Carmen Lezeth: But I actually I think people are thrown by what's happening.
• 31:20
  Carmen Lezeth: They shouldn't be, but they are watching uh women getting cut out of cars um and thrown to the ground.
• 31:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh I think it the visuals are painful for everyone.
• 31:34
  Andrea: People being, you know, shot straight in the face, point blank with tear gas.
• 31:38
  Andrea: I mean, you know, just there are all kinds of things that we're seeing that if they were anywhere else, and I mean, we actually have this example right now.
• 31:51
  Andrea: What's happening in Iran?
• 31:53
  Andrea: What has happened in Iran, right?
• 31:55
  Andrea: I mean, it's truthfully not as bad here as it has been there.
• 32:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, I wouldn't yeah, I don't want to say that.
• 32:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, I don't want to make it like it's okay here either.
• 32:07
  Andrea: No, it's not, but you know, they have not yet murdered, you know, tens of thousands of people all at once.
• 32:12
  Andrea: But that we know of because we don't have any information that we're being held in ice detention centers.
• 32:19
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry.
• 32:20
  Andrea: No, don't be.
• 32:21
  Andrea: Definitely correct me on that.
• 32:22
  Andrea: I'm certainly no apologist for what they're doing, but you know, we're seeing that over there, and and you know, Trump's saying something like, Well, you know, we've got to protect those protesters for democracy.
• 32:33
  Andrea: It's like, what are you even talking about?
• 32:37
  Andrea: If we see it somewhere else, it's one thing, but when we see it happening in one of our cities, one of the great cities in this country, of which there are many, and you have community members, people who are activated who would never have even thought about this before.
• 32:56
  Andrea: And I what you know, I will say, I have to give a shout out because I have talked a lot of shit about men in general and definitely white men.
• 33:04
  Andrea: I know it's Minnesota and it's mostly white folks.
• 33:07
  Andrea: I've seen a lot of white dudes out there.
• 33:10
  Andrea: Yeah, and I my hat is off to those guys who are out there really trying to protect their communities, you know, and you're activating a lot of people.
• 33:19
  Andrea: And I think that I don't know if they're surprised by this, they meaning the administration.
• 33:24
  Andrea: I don't know if they're surprised by what they're sort of awakening in people, but I'm sure this is what they want.
• 33:32
  Carmen Lezeth: But I look at I'm I'm I'm done giving them the benefit of the doubt.
• 33:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't think I was really ever doing that after the first year of his first administration.
• 33:41
  Carmen Lezeth: I I, you know, I don't even think I was doing that.
• 33:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I was just hoping for the best.
• 33:44
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 33:45
  Carmen Lezeth: But I feel like what they want is uh we're already in this authoritarian situation.
• 33:52
  Carmen Lezeth: And look at that's another buzzword that people don't know what it means.
• 33:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 33:57
  Carmen Lezeth: So basically, authoritarian is the umbrella, and fascism is one of the uh legs of it, right?
• 34:06
  Carmen Lezeth: So authoritarian is the idea of a small group or one person taking over, um, and we don't have any say as a people.
• 34:16
  Carmen Lezeth: Fascism is that plus the ideology.
• 34:21
  Carmen Lezeth: So the belief that only white people should exist.
• 34:23
  Carmen Lezeth: That's Nazism.
• 34:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I hope I'm explaining it in the simple way that I understand it.
• 34:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, but it's a buzzword, and again, they're words that people don't, because we weren't taught them, so we don't know them.
• 34:38
  Carmen Lezeth: And then when you hear Nazi, people are like, I'm not a Nazi, and Trump is not a Nazi.
• 34:43
  Carmen Lezeth: And the behavior is so close.
• 34:46
  Carmen Lezeth: It's so close.
• 34:47
  Carmen Lezeth: And when you understand, again, it goes back to the article.
• 34:50
  Carmen Lezeth: If you don't know what fascism is, you can't fight against it.
• 34:56
  Carmen Lezeth: And them saying that they're not any of that doesn't make it true.
• 35:02
  Carmen Lezeth: You can see it with your own eyes what they're doing.
• 35:05
  Carmen Lezeth: They're picking up brown and black people, right?
• 35:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Latino people, whether they're citizens or not, whether they have a judicial warrant or not, they're just taking them off the street.
• 35:18
  Carmen Lezeth: These are human beings.
• 35:20
  Carmen Lezeth: These are not gang members, these are these are people working at fucking Target 17-year-olds.
• 35:27
  Carmen Lezeth: These are people who are landscapers, these are people who are farm workers, these are people waiting at Home Depot looking for work because they want to do the best that they can in this country.
• 35:40
  Carmen Lezeth: If we really cared about immigration, I say this over and over again, we would be going after the corporations, we'd be going after the businesses and the people that keep hiring people without paperwork.
• 35:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry, I'm getting, I get so angry because to me it's so logical.
• 35:57
  Carmen Lezeth: If you really wanted to deal with immigration, you wouldn't be going after the poor fucking people who traveled here at the risk of losing their lives, giving up everything from their own country to try to just have a better life because America at one point had the possibility of being that for them.
• 36:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Just like it was for Andrea's family, for my family, for every Irish fucking person here, Italian person, whatever.
• 36:26
  Carmen Lezeth: It doesn't matter unless you are somebody who is indigenous to this country, which most of you watching this are not.
• 36:34
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry, okay, I'm gonna bring it back.
• 36:37
  Carmen Lezeth: This is what happens when I get eight hours asleep.
• 36:40
  Carmen Lezeth: I got eight hours of sleep, bitch.
• 36:47
  Andrea: This is what happens when Carmen gets a good night's sleep, everybody.
• 36:51
  Andrea: I'm sorry, but it's no, it's true.
• 36:55
  Andrea: I'm like, it's shocking to me, truly, in many cases.
• 36:59
  Andrea: Why like if you look at how hard most immigrants, almost all immigrants, number one, worked to get here, number two, work to stay here?
• 37:10
  Andrea: Yes, these are hardworking, massively contributing people in our communities.
• 37:17
  Andrea: Why would you not want them here?
• 37:19
  Andrea: Why would you not want them here?
• 37:24
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, why would you believe they're stealing from you?
• 37:26
  Carmen Lezeth: I want you to show me for every time I hear this, they're stealing, they're taking our whatever.
• 37:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I I want you, I want you to name them and send me the information because I don't think anybody who ever spews that shit knows one person who's actually doing any of that.
• 37:41
  Carmen Lezeth: They're just again, language.
• 37:43
  Carmen Lezeth: You're being told stuff, you're repeating stuff, and you're not actually understanding the bullshittery that's happening.
• 37:50
  Andrea: Well, and a lot of times the people who are saying this are people like they're stealing our jobs.
• 37:54
  Andrea: Uh, are you employed?
• 37:56
  Andrea: You probably are.
• 37:57
  Andrea: That sounds to me then like your job did not get stolen.
• 38:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Shut the fuck up, right?
• 38:03
  Carmen Lezeth: And there's the job that you're talking about the one on the farm, because I think they need people right now.
• 38:09
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what I mean?
• 38:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Is it the construction job you're talking about?
• 38:12
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I think construction people need them because they're losing so many people because of this fear, you know.
• 38:19
  Carmen Lezeth: And look at I'm just gonna end with this part.
• 38:22
  Carmen Lezeth: I love the idea that people think this is only going to happen to immigrants, right?
• 38:31
  Andrea: Well, that's not where I mean.
• 38:34
  Andrea: As we know, this type of law enforcement action, we'll call it, um, to use a euphemism, um, uh, has been happening to black and brown people, black people, probably more specifically, forever, since the beginning of this country, you know, and on and on and on and on.
• 38:56
  Andrea: This is not new to people whose skin is darker than mine.
• 39:01
  Andrea: Let's put it that way, right?
• 39:02
  Andrea: The fact that this happened, you know, uh the shooting last week, Renee Good, you know, this is a white lady in a white city, really, you know.
• 39:12
  Andrea: Um, and it was, you know, it's one of those things that activates people because they're it's all of a sudden like it's happening to us, it's happening, you know.
• 39:22
  Andrea: What how can this be happening?
• 39:23
  Andrea: And it's like, well, this has been happening.
• 39:26
  Carmen Lezeth: This has been happening, and this is the trajectory.
• 39:28
  Carmen Lezeth: The trajectory is now going to be.
• 39:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Now it's happening to white people, yeah.
• 39:34
  Carmen Lezeth: And look at authoritarian governments, what they want is control and power.
• 39:41
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I'm always gonna say it's a fake power because to me that's not real power, but it's still power, you know, because right now we're all living under it.
• 39:50
  Carmen Lezeth: And that power gets activated even more when people fight against it.
• 39:57
  Carmen Lezeth: And if people cower down to it.
• 39:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Then they keep, they keep having the power.
• 40:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you know?
• 40:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I'm not saying it well enough, but it's like we have to fight this if we want our country to be the country it's supposed to be, that we dream of, that we want.
• 40:13
  Carmen Lezeth: Because right now, what's happening is Trump and his minions and J.D.
• 40:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Vance and Stephen fucking Miller are making sure that they're going to have the government they want and they're going to do things.
• 40:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Look at Trump said it last night.
• 40:27
  Carmen Lezeth: I forget what the verbiage was, but this whole idea of like we don't have to have another election.
• 40:31
  Carmen Lezeth: He's accomplished so much, is what he said.
• 40:34
  Carmen Lezeth: That is part of the wording.
• 40:37
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what he's doing.
• 40:38
  Carmen Lezeth: He wants to put it in your head that we don't need to have any more elections now.
• 40:43
  Carmen Lezeth: He's got this.
• 40:44
  Carmen Lezeth: It's all sad.
• 40:45
  Carmen Lezeth: That's not who we are.
• 40:47
  Carmen Lezeth: That's not who we want to be.
• 40:49
  Carmen Lezeth: And it's going to get worse before it gets better.
• 40:53
  Carmen Lezeth: And we need people, we need courage.
• 40:56
  Carmen Lezeth: We need courage right now.
• 40:58
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, last night, not last night, but yesterday, the Senate tried to put guardrails on him regarding Venezuela.
• 41:06
  Carmen Lezeth: So the Democrats in the Senate proposed this uh, I don't know if it was a bill or whatever, but they're like they wanted to put uh guardrails on him and they had to do a vote.
• 41:16
  Carmen Lezeth: And five Republicans crossed over to vote for it.
• 41:21
  Carmen Lezeth: And then when they did the vote, two of them, of course, cowered out because the White House went to them and negotiated with them.
• 41:29
  Carmen Lezeth: And so it failed because J.D.
• 41:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Vance came in and did the tie-breaking vote.
• 41:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay?
• 41:35
  Carmen Lezeth: So now Trump still can do whatever he wants in Venezuela without Congress having anything to do with it.
• 41:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you understand that Congress actually has more power than the president?
• 41:47
  Carmen Lezeth: And they're not using it to stop him.
• 41:50
  Carmen Lezeth: They're supposed to have more power than the president.
• 41:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Right, but they're not using it.
• 41:55
  Carmen Lezeth: They're scared and they're not using it to stop him.
• 41:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Congress has the ability to fix this, to say, hey, President Trump, if you want to go into Venezuela, we'd like to hear the argument for it first because we're here as the checks and balance.
• 42:13
  Carmen Lezeth: It's happening.
• 42:18
  Carmen Lezeth: You need to be aware.
• 42:20
  Carmen Lezeth: It's happening.
• 42:21
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm and I'm specifically talking to Trump people.
• 42:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Wake up.
• 42:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Come on.
• 42:30
  Carmen Lezeth: This is not, this is not what you want.
• 42:33
  Carmen Lezeth: It's what you voted for.
• 42:35
  Carmen Lezeth: But I'm telling you, on my mama's grave, may she rest in sweet peace.
• 42:40
  Carmen Lezeth: This is not what you want.
• 42:42
  Carmen Lezeth: This is not what you want.
• 42:44
  Carmen Lezeth: So all right.
• 42:45
  Carmen Lezeth: On that note, uh thank you, Andrea, for letting me vent and scream and yell and whatever.
• 42:52
  Carmen Lezeth: But um, you know, thank you.
• 42:56
  Andrea: Wait, did you disagree with anything I said?
• 42:57
  Andrea: Is that why you no, not at all?
• 42:59
  Andrea: No, I don't.
• 43:00
  Andrea: Jesus.
• 43:01
  Andrea: I'm I'm open borders over here.
• 43:03
  Andrea: You know what I mean?
• 43:04
  Andrea: We don't need a homeland security, we don't need any of that.
• 43:09
  Andrea: Just let them come in.
• 43:11
  Andrea: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:12
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know if I agree.
• 43:13
  Carmen Lezeth: Look, it we're not even there to have that conversation.
• 43:15
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, yeah, we just yeah, and that's where you and I are probably a little bit different, but I I don't know why we're so hateful of people in general who want a better life.
• 43:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I think that's a compliment that people want to wanted, wanted to come to the United States, you know?
• 43:35
  Andrea: But yeah, um it's sort of like outside of my realm of understanding as well.
• 43:42
  Andrea: Like, but yeah, like I said, like why would you not want someone like that as your neighbor in your community?
• 43:48
  Andrea: I know.
• 43:48
  Andrea: Let me can I ask you this question?
• 43:50
  Carmen Lezeth: What do you think is gonna happen?
• 43:54
  Andrea: I know.
• 43:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Do you have hope?
• 43:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Because if you have hope, it may I always have hope and faith, right?
• 44:02
  Carmen Lezeth: But I just I mean, I I know you don't believe this.
• 44:06
  Andrea: I am generally an optimistic person.
• 44:08
  Andrea: Um I don't believe that.
• 44:10
  Andrea: Um I do have hope, but I also think that it's going to get really, really bad first.
• 44:20
  Andrea: I do too.
• 44:21
  Andrea: And when I say really bad, like none of us even really alive right now have any understanding of what that looks like to have essentially a war in our country.
• 44:38
  Andrea: Yeah.
• 44:38
  Andrea: You know, Minneapolis is experiencing that right now, you know, what it looks like essentially to to have an occupying force.
• 44:46
  Andrea: You know, we got we got a little bit here in LA.
• 44:49
  Andrea: You know, and I think that we're going to see more of that.
• 44:56
  Carmen Lezeth: And I agree with you.
• 44:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I think it's gonna get worse before I don't even I don't know when it gets better.
• 45:04
  Andrea: You know, I don't know either.
• 45:06
  Carmen Lezeth: The only thing I'm gonna say over and over again is that we need to vote.
• 45:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't care how intimidating it's going to get because they're gonna do everything in their power to make sure that we don't vote or that our votes don't get counted.
• 45:19
  Carmen Lezeth: You have to still vote.
• 45:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Figure it out, make sure that's all you do.
• 45:23
  Carmen Lezeth: We need to put more Democrats in office.
• 45:26
  Carmen Lezeth: We just have to.
• 45:27
  Carmen Lezeth: That is the only answer right now, and that's the only power we really have.
• 45:31
  Carmen Lezeth: And hopefully, you know, Mark Elias and um Joyce Vance uh were talking today on their podcast about where are the lawyers?
• 45:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Where are the corporations?
• 45:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Where are, you know, like where are all the big leaders?
• 45:48
  Carmen Lezeth: And it's always going to be the grassroots people that fight this.
• 45:51
  Carmen Lezeth: But they're saying, like, where are they?
• 45:53
  Carmen Lezeth: And they're they're two lawyers, if you don't know who they are.
• 45:55
  Carmen Lezeth: They're two big-time lawyers.
• 45:57
  Carmen Lezeth: And they're saying, like, they're fighting with everything they can, but the big time law firms are nowhere to be found because they've all capitulated, right?
• 46:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Just like the schools and whatever, the colleges, whatever.
• 46:08
  Carmen Lezeth: So we're in this fight.
• 46:10
  Carmen Lezeth: If we want our country, we we need to know what's going on, understand the languaging, be open-minded, and um yeah.
• 46:19
  Andrea: Well, and I think I think it, like you said, definitely have to vote.
• 46:22
  Andrea: And I think look, I get into my funks too, where it's like, you know, what good is my vote gonna do?
• 46:28
  Andrea: Are they even gonna see, you know, what is it gonna look like?
• 46:31
  Andrea: Will they even be able to take their seats in 27 if they're elected in 26?
• 46:36
  Andrea: I mean, there's all kinds of concerns and worries and all of that.
• 46:40
  Andrea: You still have to do it, you have to do it.
• 46:43
  Andrea: You have to get like 17 friends and family members to go to go like convince them to, right?
• 46:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, it's it's it's the only thing we can do right now.
• 46:52
  Carmen Lezeth: That's the only thing we can do right now is make sure that we vote in this upcoming election for Congress so that we can take back the we have a chance to take back the Senate too, which is amazing.
• 47:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and definitely try to take back the House.
• 47:06
  Carmen Lezeth: It looks like we were gonna be able to take back the House.
• 47:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Everything else that happens after that, that's different.
• 47:11
  Carmen Lezeth: Our job is to make sure we vote and vote Democrat.
• 47:14
  Carmen Lezeth: And I, you know what, Andrea, you know me.
• 47:16
  Carmen Lezeth: I never tell people how to vote.
• 47:17
  Carmen Lezeth: You know I don't.
• 47:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 47:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I used to be very like listening to conservatives and Republicans could understand, blah, blah, blah.
• 47:24
  Carmen Lezeth: But now I'm like, no, we done.
• 47:26
  Carmen Lezeth: We done.
• 47:26
  Carmen Lezeth: We done.
• 47:27
  Carmen Lezeth: We need to, we need to get back on track.
• 47:29
  Carmen Lezeth: So, anyways.
• 47:30
  Carmen Lezeth: All right, everyone.
• 47:31
  Carmen Lezeth: I hope you all have a great night's sleep.
• 47:33
  Carmen Lezeth: Because just change who I is and everything.
• 47:37
  Carmen Lezeth: You know what's so funny?
• 47:38
  Carmen Lezeth: I have energy when I'm only sleeping four hours a night, but now I'm just gonna be scared.
• 47:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Get a good night's sleep.
• 47:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey everyone, thank you so much for stopping by.
• 47:55
  Carmen Lezeth: And uh remember at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy.
• 47:58
  Carmen Lezeth: Bye, everyone.
• 48:00
  Andrea: Bye.
• 48:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by, all about the joy.
• 48:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Be better and stay beautiful, folks.
• 48:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Have a sweet day.