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Peppermint’s Blue Wave Warning: Democrats Must Deliver | Queer 101 · Queer 101 with Peppermint

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: Would you vote for or against Medicare for all?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_05: Not legislation that I currently am co-sponsoring or that I support.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_05: Donald Trump said I am your retribution.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: He spent two years on a campaign of retribution and he got wiped out.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_05: How do you now say, hey, let's not look behind us?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_05: We're gonna focus on bringing costs down for working Americans.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_05: The American people don't want us to get even.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_05: They want us to get things done on their behalf.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_05: Because life is way too expensive.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: We ran on the Hakeem, this is why people don't fuck with you.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, one more thing, Hakeem Jeffries and the traditional democratic establishment.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you think that after last night's blue tsunami, we're not about to also beat up your ass all the way up to your eyeballs, demanding accountability for what the fuck we all just went through for the past decade, you're out of your rabbit ass mind.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: How dare you try to frame this moment as the American people seeking revenge?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, lots of people want revenge, but what I'm talking about is accountability and justice.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Justice is not revenge.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: It is not enough for us as Democrats to win power.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: We have to use that power to deliver change that Americans can feel in their wallets.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, honey, darling.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's me, Peppermint.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another an emergency episode of A Queer 101.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I am just feeling real good after last night's wins, after the day before, by the time you're seeing this, I don't know when.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I can breathe.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I feel good about it.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really nervous.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Don Lemon's viewing party, and and now uh, you know, I I've I was nervous and now I'm not.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling the relief, you know.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw so many really funny, you know, memes and things on social media, people drinking Magatetears, people, you know, talking about they want to just go to brunch, all that.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm down with all that, but I think before we do that, before we go to brunch, I think we should stop and realize the lessons that were learned.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: We learned that change is possible and that voters in red states can rally around populist progressive issues.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Who to dunk it?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: We also learned that radical DSA socialist candidates can get elected.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they did.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: We learned that the people who basically have been supporting and cheering on this the terror of this administration are really trying to trick us into thinking right now that it wasn't them all along.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: They're just deleting their tweets, getting rid of all the evidence.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Darling, no.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the evidence is clear.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Many people stood by and watched or even cheered for this administration, despite the fact that the pain that we're all experiencing right now was very foreseeable down the line.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's impacting people who thought that they would be protected from this or exempt somehow.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, this administration went on a full-scale attack against the American people, trying to pit everyday people against each other instead of pointing the finger at those at the top who are getting richer and richer while we're getting poorer and poorer.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, I have never seen more blatant corruption out in the open.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, I was so busy reacting to some of the things, the more absurd things, like bulldoze in the White House or waste of money in that damn reflecting pool or threatening to permanently close the Kennedy Center if it's not named after him.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, I was so distracted by that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I could have barely had time to react to all of the cuts to Medicaid and USAID and PEPFAR and HIV funding and pediatric cancer research.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention that all of the attacks on the nonprofits, which are the organizations that are going to provide the services that we're all going to need when the cuts come through in January, this administration, honey, they've had their foot on the gas the entire time, accelerating chaos, giving us cruelty.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving harm, honey.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you meaning to do that?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they are.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, they've been making things more expensive and harder to access for everyone across the board, while allowing the American public to use trans people and immigrants as some kind of punching bag for their frustrations about being poor.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, the approval ratings for this administration are at a historic low.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And last night the voting public had a chance to grade this administration.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And honey, the reports are in, and the grade is a resounding F.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as we're at it, if we're handing out grades for the past two years, honey, we have to grade everyone.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have to grade every single person.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And believe me, I don't have amnesia, but it's important that we are realistic about what got us here so that we know what not to do moving forward.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Zora Mamdani, my mayor, uh is definitely one of the most popular politicians in the country right now.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And although I have plenty of criticisms for him, much like Abdul, he stayed on message during and after his campaign.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he did it with kindness, much like Abdul, while he was receiving some of the most racist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant attacks I've ever seen in American politics.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: The most powerful people in elected office are supposed to support the candidates in their party that are coming up.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But instead of supporting, they join the Republicans in attacking these candidates.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_04: We've got to go and earn the mandate that we've gotten against Republicans, and we've got to earn the support.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_04: This should be the floor for us.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_04: That's how we gotta operate, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody's so excited about the outcome.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_04: This should be the floor.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_04: We've proven what we can get.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: Now the question is can we govern like we deserve it?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's the choice that we are going to face.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm hoping that as Democrats, we rise to the challenge.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I've been clear: the big challenge that's kept us from being able to do this is people don't trust our party because too often we're funded by the very same people who fund Republicans.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: Too often we're just doing a lighter version of that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: Can we actually cut the cord that we've had to corporate money and start governing like we give a damn about working people and start passing the policies that are actually going to make people's lives better?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: That's the choice we got in the next two years.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: For me, I got six years to prove out that I am who I said I was going to be.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And last night in Florida, honey, it was on track to turn blue, to have one of the largest political upsets that we've seen this cycle.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: When Angie Nixon ran a tremendous campaign with very little spending money, very little political spending.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think just over$10 million, compared to the nearly$125 million for John Ossoff in Georgia.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was an uphill battle, but she ran a very promising campaign.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And people could tell that very early on.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the leaders of the National Democrats decided to ignore her calls for support and abandon her campaign, allowing her to lose by just two percentage points.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: Angie Nixon lost because Chuck Schumer threw her under the bus.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Nixon came within just a few points of flipping Florida's Senate seat, despite not receiving a cent from Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senate campaign committee.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: Compare that to 2024 when Schumer gave the Democratic Senate candidate over a million dollars and she lost by 13 points.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Or even this year's Florida governor race, where David Jolly received over millions from the Democratic National Party and still lost.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: Some commentators are saying Chuck Schumer made a mistake, but I reject this framing because Schumer didn't make a mistake.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: He just didn't want Angie Nixon to be a senator.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: This was a winnable race that the Democrats lost because the party is led by a racist who prioritizes protecting his favorite foreign country over protecting disenfranchised Southern black Americans.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Chuck Schumer is undeniably unfit for leadership and should be removed from this position immediately.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Her loss last night proves that it's possible for Florida to turn blue, especially when you have a candidate like Angie Nixon, who is brilliant and connects with everyday people.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But instead of listening to their constituents, these elected officials use their positions of power to funnel money to the least popular and most out-of-touch candidates this election cycle.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, if you think Haley Stevens suddenly became detached from reality on Monday, honey, you have not been paying attention.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Last night, there were some of the most historic wins we've ever seen for the trans community, for the black community, for women, for immigrants, and beyond.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But while we celebrate, we have to be realistic.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: There was an overwhelming turnout of voters by the progressive Medicare for All, Money Out of Politics, Anti-war, Anti-Genocide left.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is as much an admonishment of the torpid, languid luster, barely their job performance that had people asking, where are the Democrats?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: For the past year and a half, where are the Democrats every single time this administration would do something?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, honey, we remember, especially your response to the 2024 laws, that you were too woke, blaming it on trans people and throwing us under the bus.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, after the election, Trump's first order of business was to attack the trans community.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of supporting the trans community, instead of supporting progressive values, many candidates and elected officials spent all of 2025 and 2026 releasing anti-trans ads, doing podcasts with Charlie Kirk, agreeing with Trump and his anti-trans policies to ban trans people from everything from sports to bathrooms to healthcare.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_06: I'll be canon with you.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_06: I looked at that issue and I said, boy, they're just exploiting this.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_06: It's a handful of people.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_06: What the hell is this?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_06: It's being weaponized.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: It was just another cultural issue.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_06: Until two years ago there was a state track championship.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_06: We had a trans athlete that was successful, and there was a video of the girl that lost and she was devastated.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_06: That video went around everywhere.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_06: And it was very emotional, it was very real.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_06: I remember calling my team and I said, This is legit.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_06: And I did this podcast with Charlie Kirk.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_06: Unsurprisingly, he brought it up.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_06: And he said, Tell me that's not fair.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_06: I said, It's not fair.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_06: You're right.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_06: My party was pissed.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_06: LGBTQ caucus, furious with me because I don't think it's fair.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_06: It's not.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_06: But because you oppose sports doesn't make you homophobic.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_06: And my party needs to stop saying that.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_06: You can't handle the truth.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Gavin had a conversation with Charlie.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: The conversation did not go well for Gavin Newsom for a good reason.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_06: Would you say no men in female sports?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_06: Well, it's I think it's an issue of fairness.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_06: I completely agree with you on that.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_06: It is an issue of fairness.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_06: So it's deeply unfortunate.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_07: Would you speak out against this young man, A.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_07: B.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_07: Hernandez, who right now is going to win the state championship in the long term?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_07: I could see you wrestling with it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_06: No, I'm not wrestling.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not relaxing with the fairness issue.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_06: I totally agree with you.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_06: The issue of fairness is completely legit.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_06: And I I saw that the last couple years, boy, did I saw how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_06: Well, weaponized maybe pejorative.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_06: You're right.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_06: But you were able to shine a light on?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_06: Highlight it in a way that, frankly, I there are not that many out.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_06: We're talking about, I think the ND NC2A, what, 510,000?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_07: No, no, but I just didn't realize it's 890 medals and trophies that we know of in the last five years.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_07: That's a lot.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: So again, look at Charlie just corner Newsome.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he's right.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can see Newsom getting ever more uncomfortable because he understands that he's now boxed himself in.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: That once he says it's a fairness issue, then why don't you just say that it shouldn't happen?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: And this this was a very bad exchange for Newsom because one of the things that happened from it is that it started to be implied that maybe he was actually going to break the mold.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: It would have been good for him to do it, by the way.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Charlie was right about this.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: It would have been very good for for Gavin Newsome to run to the middle on this issue.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Just take that issue off the table for Democrats.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Newsom wouldn't do it because it is an order of faith for Democrats that men can become women and women can become men.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And some sort of sin to claim the opposite.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then ICE started abducting anti-war student protesters.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the response to that was to attack the student protesters.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then turn around and approve an increase of the ICE budget.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then ICE started shooting and murdering people in the street, starting with Alex Pready and Renee Good.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it hasn't stopped to this day.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: When this administration started defunding colleges and cutting Medicaid, pediatric cancer research, HIV funding via the big, beautiful bill, honey, the response was a strongly worded letter.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, as to be expected, as predicted, there was a blue wave last night.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the most surprising and I would say rewarding wins were also the most progressive candidates.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So let's be clear.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So what now?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are we still too woke?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it still very important to reject the trans community and immigrants just to show that you can get along with this administration?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that you're not gonna work with the Democrats that won last night?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that instead of important and dramatic and radical reversals and permanently restoring things like Medicaid, trans health care, and reproductive access, you're just gonna leave things the way that they are right now?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Will there be no release of the Epstein files alongside continuing to defund social service programs, keeping up with anti-trans laws in place and continuing to let people get kicked off their health care?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you just gonna keep all that going?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I get it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you couldn't fight Trump, what some of the Democrat officials say that they couldn't fight Trump, if they couldn't fight Trump, could you at least have full-throatedly supported the candidates that we elected last night?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Honey, because I heard nary a word of support from many of the most powerful Democrats in the party.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Except for basically a few key endorsements that came through for Abdul in the last 24 hours, basically 24 hours before the election.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of making a call to support or fund Angie Nixon's campaign in Florida, Chuck told Angie Nixon on the phone, uh, we'll see.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're on your own.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then the Democrats joined the Republicans in rebuking Hassan Piker instead of questioning Hakeem Jeffries on why his ass is meeting with Jared motherfucking Kushner.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's important to celebrate, but my fear is that if we spend all of our time talking about going to brunch and just celebrating and drinking Maggot Tears, we're gonna end up in the same position again in two years.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really important that we reflect on why we elected these people and what it is that we really want them to do.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: This win I saw people taking victory laps today.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Chuck Schumer taking a victory lap.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hakeem Jeffries, taking a victory lap.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, babe, no boo.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: This win was for the voters.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: We did this.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are the voters who work multiple jobs but still can't afford to put food on the table.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: These are the voters who are about to go bankrupt because they can't afford their medical bills, and they still have to choose between putting gas in the car or paying their rent.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: These are for the voters who had to sit through two years of representatives telling us that they had no power, that there was nothing that they could do watching all this happen in response to these terrible things that the Trump administration has put in place, and that the best course of action was just to join them and be quiet.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That was the strategy, James Carville.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when what we wanted you to do is fight.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: All I know is that you didn't.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking when I say you, I'm talking about the elected officials.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about voters.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that they didn't fight, that is not worth celebrating.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do not take a victory lap on that.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: What is worth celebrating is the thousands of voters, people like you and me, who knocked on doors, thousands of doors, all over the country to bring in thousands of votes for from people who are desperate to see anything other than what they've been seeing over the past several years.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need to make our politics transactional, just like shopping.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to be the only language that our elected officials understand.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: We put them in there for a reason, and now we get to place the order, and they better fulfill it.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And throwing some French fries on the side.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because we have one shot right now, y'all, and we cannot mess it up.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So last night is not the end of the story.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the beginning of real accountability for this administration, for this current administration.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an absolute mandate that we must make sure that this can never happen again at all costs.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes real action, a real desire to reflect back to the voters what the voters want and are asking you to do, not what the corporations want.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it can't just be symbolic, it has to be radical and measurable to be compared to what we're currently experiencing.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So to all of you elected officials, y'all work for us, the people.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Stop taking bribes, get money out of politics, release every single Epstein file and pass Medicare for all.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today on Queer History 101.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is part of Pride House Media, produced and edited by Josh Rosenthon.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Original music composed by Nell Balabon.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're there, leave a rating and review.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: It really helps others discover the show.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Stay connected and join the conversation by following us on Peppermint 247 on all socials and at Pridehouse Media or email us at queer101podcast at gmail.com.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.