Jim Crow 2.0 | An Analysis of Trump's White Supremacist Power-Grab

What if the political chaos we’re seeing right now isn’t random at all?

In this intense episode of Fearless Politics, Dr. Avis breaks down what she believes is a coordinated long-term effort to reshape American power, voting rights, and political representation.

From the Voting Rights Act and Supreme Court rulings to Project 2025, redistricting, DEI rollbacks, and the growing influence of conservative legal movements, this episode connects the dots behind what many people are experiencing in real time.

This is a direct and deeply personal analysis of race, political power, democracy, and the future of representation in America.

In this episode:

•  The impact of the latest Voting Rights Act decision 
•  Why redistricting battles are accelerating across Southern states 
•  The role of Project 2025 and conservative institutions 
•  How Supreme Court decisions are reshaping voting rights 
•  The long-term strategy behind recent political shifts 
•  Why Black political representation is at risk 
•  What communities can do moving forward 
•  Why Dr. Avis believes this moment requires bold political action 

This episode challenges listeners to think critically about where the country is heading—and what resistance, organizing, and political engagement may look like in the years ahead.

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Transcript

Dr. Avis 0:00

What we are experiencing right now is a coup. Let's just call a thing a thing. It is not only a coup when it comes to quote unquote democracy, it is a coup which has a specific focus to take us back to a time where you had unfettered white male power. That is what's happening. And the whole world knows that the biggest threat to that is an organized, energized, powerful black community that can fight effectively against it. In a political world that is defined by unending chaos, crisis, and unprecedented action, politics as usual is no longer an option. Instead, this is a moment that requires bold, fearless, and fierce truth telling. And that's exactly what you'll find right here on Fearless Politics. I'm your host, Dr. Avis. Buckle up, it's time to be fearless. What was a week actually feels like we are going back in time well over half a century. And if it feels like that, it's because that's exactly what's happening. When you think of what this latest Supreme Court decision means for black people, there is no other way than to interpret it like that. This is not just another Supreme Court decision. This is not just another day in the plethora of chaotic days, weeks, months that we have experienced under this regime. And I'm gonna stop calling this an administration. It does not deserve that level of respect. This is a regime. And we need regime change. I would argue that we need regime change even more than Iran needs regime change. What we are experiencing right now is a coup. Let's just call a thing a thing. This administration attempted a failed coup, as you might recall, on January 7th, when he didn't want to give up the office. But now that he has finangled his way back in office, he has done something really quite extraordinary. And I'm not going to give him all the credit. I believe that he is the figurehead for a much broader, a much more intelligent, a much more patient collaboration of foes that have worked towards this day for 40 years. And so I really want to break down where we are and how we got here. I want to be able to really lay out for you the masterminds of this coup. When I think about what really brought us here, and I think about the slogan, Make America Great Again, black folk always knew. That slogan, it made the hairs on the back of our necks stand up because we knew it wasn't right. What does this phrase make America great again mean? What time in our history were they referring to when they were talking about make America great again? And I will tell you, we now know. In their mind, America was great during Jim Crow. And so what we are experiencing right now is their attempt to make America Jim Crow again. Their attempt to bring back legally sanctioned American apartheid again. That's exactly what's happening. Now, I know I've laid out for you previously the degree to which this administration from day one has been attacking black folk. It has been the case, though, that typically the attacks on us have not been quite as overt as the attacks on the immigrant community has been. We haven't had video of people being ripped out of their homes and families being torn apart and shipped to detention centers and shipped to countries that they've never been to before. We've not had all of the outrage around the Alexes of the world, right? We have not had that sort of outrage because our plight has been very much undercover. It's been seen in the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of emails that people have gotten all across this country, disproportionating black people telling them that their services are no longer wanted. The 600 or so thousand black women who no longer are in the workforce. The unemployment rate among black people that rivals unemployment rates that we would see in a recession. When just in the last administration under Biden, we had an unemployment rate that was only around 4%, the lowest unemployment rate for Black people in the history of this nation. And now we have whiplash to this recession-level unemployment for black people. Not only when it comes to government contracting, but the weight of the law with the threats that they have made to corporate America to make corporate America scared to even give business to black contractors. Because under this administration, DEI is somehow thought to be synonymous with black, even though we understand that statistically speaking, historically, white women have been the greatest beneficiaries. But it's being wielded like a weapon against us, both with regards to our businesses and with regards to employment opportunities, promotion opportunities, anything, honestly, that relates to our economic empowerment has been under assault by this administration since the very first day he set his fat flabby ass in the Oval Office. We know that to be true. So we have felt his attacks from day one, but it has not been in the public purview. It has not made the six o'clock news in a very persistent and powerful way. However, with the decision of the Supreme Court to give the fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act, their attack against black people is no longer hidden. It is overt, it is bold, it is relentless. And I want you to know it is not the end. We were their first targets, and we continue to be the target to this day. But I want to break down for you what God is here. And then I want to talk a little bit about what we need to do now that we are here to fight back. Okay, so let's get going. So there have been several things that have happened just since the Supreme Court rendered the Louisiana v. Calais decision. The number one thing that they did right after, they told Louisiana, you don't even have to wait. You know, the roughly 30 days or so that you typically have to wait after the Supreme Court decision to make sure that everything is certified before you start moving. No, you can start moving today, right now. Redrawing the maps. You don't have to wait. Get moving immediately. And I find that very interesting because I recall a little decision called Brown v. Board of Education, which by the way was all about ending segregation of public schools. And you might recall that when that decision was made, the Supreme Court said, you can implement with all deliberate speed. And I remember when I first read that in elementary school, and I was thinking, what does that even mean? All deliberate speed. And I remember just like it was yesterday, me picking up a dictionary to look up the word deliberate. And it's very interesting that they chose to juxtaposition the word deliberate right beside speed because putting deliberate right beside speed basically nullified the word speed. Deliberate means slow, methodical, and honestly, at glacial speed. And here we are today, over 50 years post-Brown v. Board of Education. And according to a lot of scholars, we're even more segregated now in public schooling than we were back then. That's how deliberate the damn speed was. But the Supreme Court has told Louisiana, don't even wait a day, don't even wait a week, don't even wait a month. Go ahead and start redrawing those lines now. And so what the governor of Louisiana did was even though there was an actual election in progress, like early vote had already started. Stop the presses. Essentially ended that election immediately, even though people had already voted. And instead, they are preparing now to redraw those lines. Compare that to what's going on in Mississippi. You know, Mississippi has never, ever, ever, never have they ever slept on the opportunity to discriminate against black folk. I'll tell you, if there's one thing that Mississippi understands how to do, is how to discriminate against black folk. Now, if you look at about any list in America, like quality of education, like healthcare, like any of those lists, they're either at 50 or damn near 50 at the bottom of the list. But when it comes to discriminating against black folk, oh man, that's one place that they can really stand out. They're gonna be towards the top every damn time. Now, what has Mississippi done? Mississippi has really outdone everybody in the sense that they have already made the decision that they're gonna hold their redistricting vote, not in their normal legislative space. No, they have decided that they are gonna hold their vote in what they now call their old Capitol Museum in Jackson. You know what their old Capitol Museum is? It is the same building where Mississippi voted to secede from the Union. Yeah, it's when they decided to become part of the Confederacy. It's also the very same building where white supremacists crafted the 1890 Constitution that then stripped black men of the voting rights that they had earned as a result of fighting in the Civil War and kicking their asses in the Civil War. The brief period of voting rights that were earned in the Reconstruction period, when we made that shift to the post-Reconstruction era, this is the very same building where they decided to go ahead and craft a brand new constitution that made sure that black folk couldn't vote. Well, now they've decided to go in that very same space to once again make sure that black people's votes would be diluted, that their ability to have their voting power directed in a way in which they would have representatives that look like them, not only in Congress, but in the state legislature, would be severely undermined. So go ahead, Mississippi. You can be towards the top on something, racism. Congratulations. And that's really interesting because when you think about Mississippi, Mississippi is one of the places in the nation where you have the largest percentage of black folk. Have a large proportion of black folks in Mississippi. They will have no representatives in Congress. They will largely be wiped out of the state legislature, if not totally wiped out of the state legislature. But not to be outdone, you have Alabama. So literally, while the Capitol building was flooding, literally while it was flooding, they had people up in there voting to take away our political representation in Alabama. You have to admire their commitment to racism, don't you? I mean, in a way, they're not gonna be committed to healthcare, they're not gonna be committed to education, they're not gonna be committed to making sure that people have good quality jobs, they're not gonna make sure they're committed to any of that or anything that makes sense in terms of helping people, not even their own people, but they're gonna be committed to being racist. Congratulations, Alabama there goes the two black people who are in Congress right now. Their districts are likely gonna be eliminated, and likely you won't have any in their state legislature as well. Now, Tennessee. We're recording this on the day that Tennessee has just voted to eliminate the one district that they had in Tennessee that represented a largely black population. And that district basically overlaid Memphis, Tennessee, which is over 60% black. So you can't say that the district was ill-shaped. You can't say that it was one of those funny-looking districts that went all around the state. No, it was very much clustered because the black population was clustered largely in Memphis. They only had one representative in Congress. And ironically, he wasn't even black, but he was representing a black constituency who had voted for him to represent their needs and had voted for him over and over and over again for several years. Well, that district too has been eliminated, and you can believe that also aligned with their state legislatures. They are committed to being racist. If you look at all that is imperiled, all that could be impacted by this particular Supreme Court decision, overall, roughly a third of the congressional black caucus could be eliminated just by the redrawing of these lines. And all over the nation, nearly two hundred state legislative seats could literally be erased. In the midst of all of that, what's also interesting is the level of vengeance and hatred and evil to the target state Senate member Lewis Lucas out of Virginia. She was just targeted by an FBI raid. She was one of the key leaders that led to Virginia actually holding their redistricting that was meant to put some sort of check on what happened in Texas and other places where Trump had convinced Republicans to start this whole mid-cycle redistricting. So they have targeted her by the FBI. They are continuing to use the Department of Justice as a Gestapo, for lack of a better term. So we have seen all of this that they have been doing, ripping away our voting rights and economic rights throughout Trump's entire first year, all the way up to this day. He just signed another executive order maybe about a month ago. Once again, yet another DEI executive order that pertains to contractors and potentially federal charges against people who have programs that are meant to make sure that they are more equitable and fair. This is going to make things even harder for people, not only who are contractors, but quite frankly, it's going to make it harder for people who are looking for employment and promotions in private institutions. Because anything that is perceived as benefiting black people and other people of color, women, as DEI. So they are still on the war path when it comes to that. But here is what I want to propose to you. What if everything that is going on right now is not quite as chaotic as it looks? What if everything that's going on right now, in fact, is a plan? And what if that plan is not just Project 2025? I know people were forewarned about Project 2025. They voted how they voted anyway. And now we know that this administration is lockstep in tune with Project 2025 and implementing everything that it has proposed in that document. But what if that's just the tip of the iceberg? What if what we're experiencing now goes much deeper? What if it started decades ago? What if the end point is even more stark than we had imagined? What if January 7th wasn't just a failed coup? What if it was just the first attempted coup? What if what we're experiencing right now is another attempted coup, which quite frankly is being much more successful than those ignoramuses we're able to pull off during January 7th. We need to reframe how we're looking at what's happening right now. I'm telling you, this is a coup. But guess what? You don't have to believe me. Hear it from the horse's mouth. Take a listen to this.

Speaker 2 21:00

That we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.

Dr. Avis 21:06

Guess who that is? Let me introduce you to Dr. Kevin Roberts. He is the president of the Heritage Foundation, which is the author of Project 2025, who actually had the unmitigated gall to admit on live TV that they are in the midst of a revolution, a bloodless revolution, if the left allows it to be. It's absolutely true that he has had a significantly interesting graduate education experience, a PhD in American history, but his focus has been African Americans during the slavery period. He has written both a master's thesis as well as his dissertation specifically on us. He spent over a decade in terms of his scholarship, from his master's thesis all the way up through his dissertation, all the way up through academic articles that he's written, volumes that he's put together, books that he's written or contributed to, where in each and every one of these publications he has specifically focused on learning everything that he could about the interior lives of black people. He studied us to destroy us. Let me say that again. How our families were connected, and how we supported one another within those connections. He studied our religious practices. He studied our family formation practices under oppression. He specifically wanted to look at how our family formation structures were devised under the stress of oppression. He also specifically studied how black people preserved our identity and built networks of resistance under oppression. He wanted to know how we survived it. He wanted to know how we resisted it. He studied us to destroy us. What I want you to know is that if you are wondering why everything is being attacked all at the same time, not only us as individuals, in terms of job opportunities and businesses that have been targeted and have been undermined, and our organizations that are now hanging on by a thread because their funding mechanisms have been undercut. How many of our institutions now aren't even equipped to support us in this time where we are being attacked? He studied us to determine exactly where we would go for refuge, what we would do to resist, how we would resist in this moment. And so is it any wonder then why all of the things all at the same time are under attack? It is not. So he could destroy us. What I want you to understand is this has been a decades-long journey. It is not only a coup when it comes to quote unquote democracy, it is a coup which has a specific focus to take us back to a time where you had unfettered white male power. That is what's happening. And the whole world knows that the biggest threat to that is an organized, is an energized, is a powerful black community that can fight effectively against it. They understood that if they could completely destroy our ability to fight back, that there is no one else in this population that is anywhere near as effective at doing that. And that's not just in this nation. I want you to understand that people around the world still study our movements when they are looking to put together movements in their home countries in order to fight for their own freedom. There is something special about us, African Americans, that the entire world seeks to mimic when they want to be free. And so is it any wonder that so much time and effort was put into learning how we resisted under the most brutal forms of oppression because they wanted to know what we would likely do right now and cut off all the exits all at the same time. Cut off all the pathways towards resistance all at the same time. Now, I will say that doesn't mean that we are not a creative people and can figure out other ways of doing things. Because the fact is, we are a very creative people and we can't always figure out another way to get to the promised land, so to speak. But those very first notions of what we have historically done, they're all under attack at the same time, and now you know why. I have to give it to him. He must have read Art of War. Because that's one of the first things that's in there. Know thy enemy. He learned us before he sought to destroy us. But you know what else? He's not the only one. Ever heard of somebody call Edward Bloom? Edward Bloom. You probably haven't heard of him. He's not someone you're gonna see on television, you're not gonna see him on your nightly news. He moves in silence, but he's very effective. Edward Bloom, interestingly enough, white man who ran for Congress back in 1992. And guess what? He lost to a black man. Let me just say it crushed him, apparently. Because when he lost that race, he decided he would do any and everything possible to undermine black progress. And so since then, he has been on a tear, specifically fighting against black progress in the courts. And he has been successful in getting many of his cases to the Supreme Court. So when I talk to you about some of the things that he's done, you'll probably be shocked to find out that at the root of all these things is this one person, Edward Bloom, who has now over time put together three different organizations that fight on different issues. So, what are some of the things he's fought against? Voting rights and redistricting. How interesting! After he couldn't get in Congress, like, damn it, I'm gonna make sure none of y'all black folks get in Congress, okay? He all started with his first case, which made it to the Supreme Court back in 1996. Bush v. Vera. He tried to at that point eliminate race conscious districting. Was not successful at that point, but was not deterred. Came back again in 2009, Northwest Austin Municipality Utility District number one, v. Holder. This was during the uh Obama administration because Holders, Eric Holder. At that time, he was the attorney general. This one was not successful, but the court did begin to show some deference to the idea of ending the pre-clearance process, which was part of section five, which was a key part of the Voting Rights Act, that was specifically put in place to say these specific Southern former Confederate states had a history of denying voting access to black people. If you're gonna make any major changes, you have to get clearance first from the Department of Justice before you do that. With that 2009 case, there was some suggestion that the Supreme Court was beginning to become less stringent on that. And so, not to be deterred, by 2013 he came back again with yet another case. Shelby county beholder. This one is the one that gutted Section 5. This one is the one that ended pre-clearance. Right after that, you literally had over a hundred election laws immediately start to change all around the South. Had all sorts of stupid things passing. Just to give you one example, like in Georgia, where you can't even give people water when they're standing in line for hours. And that's just one example, it's many examples. But the whole point is that was his first major win with voting rights. He kept trying in 2016, he came back with yet another case where he tried to redefine what one person, one vote actually means. Luckily, he lost that one. But all of this set up the situation, which now has eliminated section two of the Voting Rights Act. And with both section five and section two gone, it's literally toothless at this point. So though he was not behind this latest ruling, he basically set it up so that this ruling would be as effective as it is. But you know what? He didn't stop with attacking voting rights. He also attacked affirmative action in higher education, starting back in 2008 with the uh Abigail Fisher case, which was one of the first ones to weaken affirmative action in higher education. That led to basically ending it in the state of Texas at the time. Went on from there, had some other cases around that back in 2013 and 2016 that continued to chip away at affirmative action in higher education, but it didn't eliminate it. However, it did chip away at it and make it weaker. He was also the one behind the most recent case in 2023. Now, here's what's interesting: he changed tactics between 2016 and 2023. Abigail Fisher was a white woman, a mediocre white woman, mid-tier grades, who didn't get in. And he recruited her as the face of his affirmative action cases. And then he made a strategic decision that white women weren't sympathetic enough. And so he made the decision to go after recruiting Asian plaintiffs because he felt like they would be more sympathetic since it would be another person of color. Okay. So then he recruited an Asian defendant for the 2023 case. Those cases were against Harvard and UNC. And those cases went to the Supreme Court and he won, basically eliminating affirmative action in higher education as a result of that.

Speaker 1 34:38

But guess what? That's not all. He didn't stop there.

Speaker 34:44

At the same time, he went after black businesses and entrepreneurs. This is the same person that sued the Fearless Fund. Remember the Fearless Fund? The specific organization that was developed to help black women business owners get seed capital for their businesses. Black women typically get less than 1% of seed capital, but according to him, apparently 1% is too damn much. So he successfully sued the Fearless Fund and made them completely shut down their grant program. They now operate largely outside of this country in Africa. Same person. But guess what, y'all? Believe it or not, he ain't finished. Currently, he has sued the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation over its scholarships. Once again, using the Civil Rights Act of 1866, weaponizing the legislation that was put in place in order to protect us from the discrimination that we have been facing in this country ever since the day that they have kidnapped us and bought us over here in the first damn place. And it's interesting too because his whole playbook, once again, lacks originality. What he's really done is he's copied the strategy that the civil rights movement used in order to fight against the discrimination that we have historically faced. So he used the same strategies of the Charles Hamilton Houstons, the same strategies of the Thurgood Marshals to pick specific, sympathetic plaintiffs and to use that person and those situations to take cases all the way up to the Supreme Court in order to move towards a finding that would completely change direction in the country. That's really how we got. Brown v. Board of Education, for example, and others. He's using that same strategy, but this time he's using that strategy against us. He has been on this crusade now for years. Well over 20 years, probably closer to like 30 years, he's been on this crusade. Anything that is specifically focused on expanding access and equality of opportunity for black people, he has been there fighting against it. But wait, y'all, I'm not done. This is just two of the people I want to tell you about today. So we know we have Robert, the architect of the whole plan, the president of the Heritage Foundation, and all the work that he has done, learning who we are so that he could use his in-depth knowledge of our culture and our ability to resist against us. Couple that with this work to really use the law specifically in bringing cases meant to undermine the expansion of our rights. The third pillar of this trifecta is Chief Justice John Roberts. Now, if you know anything about the Supreme Court, you are probably thinking I was going to say Anito, maybe Clarence Thomas. Both of them are definitely enemies to the progress of black folk. Anito in particular, just hateful, just a hateful motherfucker. I'll just say that. Chief Justice John Roberts, I would argue, is the most dangerous of them all. Because Alito and Thomas, you can see them as really extreme ideologues, and you know what to expect from them. Roberts comes off as someone who is reasonable, who is thoughtful. He holds the position of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. So he has to appear to be more fair and even-handed. And he plays that part well. But look at his history. He first really came on the scene in 1981. He worked in the Reagan administration as a special assistant to the attorney general. And guess what he focused on? He began to focus on voting rights immediately. His specific focus was how to undermine our voting rights. In fact, according to his colleague who remembers him from those days, Bruce Fine, he described him as, and I quote, the architect of the administration's anti-voting rights act position. Another one of his colleagues who worked with him at this same time, this is all according to reporting done by the nation, found that voting was John's fight. It was always John's fight. So according to two of his colleagues from his time in the Attorney General's office under the Reagan administration, from the very first day that he started working there, John Roberts, prior to him becoming a justice on the Supreme Court, he was focused on developing a strategy to undermine the Voting Rights Act. In 1982, while still working at the Attorney General's office, John Roberts wrote a memo in which he called the Voting Rights Act the most intrusive interference imaginable by federal courts on state and local processes. So think about how he framed that. Instead of worrying about people being treated inequitably, he was worried about states being treated inequitably. He didn't give a damn that black people were not provided the franchise for the majority of our time in this country, even though we built this country. Well, guess what? The states didn't treat us fucking equally. So all this time that Chief Justice Roberts has been cosplaying as if he's some kind of moderate, the reality is that he has been trying to undermine, destroy, damage, obliterate the Voting Rights Act for years. This is a 40-year crusade for him. Do not think this is something that he didn't want to happen. He has been trying to make this happen for years. And just like Kavanaugh, when he was asked about this memo, when he was being questioned about it in the Senate, when he was put up for the Supreme Court, just like Kavanaugh, he lied. He tried to say it's established law, it's precedent. And as soon as he had the opportunity, he's sitting here undermining it. He undermined it in Shelby, and he undermined it most recently in the Louisiana case. These three men, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a man who has himself devoted well over a decade of his life deeply learning and studying black people, our history, our kinship networks, our ability to resist under times of oppression. This man is the architect of Project 2025, the blueprint for what's happening right now. You had John Roberts, the Supreme Court Justice, who, since the 1980s, when he was 26 years old, was sitting here trying to figure out how to undermine the Voting Rights Act. And you had Edward Bloom, who for over 30 years has been taking multiple cases to the Supreme Court to, in multiple ways, undermine the power of black people. This was a multifaceted, simultaneous attack on black people. And it included a think tank with a very specific agenda. It included a litigation shop that manufactured multiple cases. It included an activist Supreme Court led by a Chief Justice who headed out for the Voting Rights Act since the 1980s. And when you put all of this together, what happens? It becomes extremely clear that Make America Jim Crow again, it was coordinated infrastructure that these three men and others put together in order to usher in the next wave of American apartheid. These men aren't alone. I could sit here and talk about other folk. I could talk about how they brought in other people to help with the implementation. People like Elon Musk, a child of South African apartheid, the grandson of someone who was a known Nazi sympathizer, a child whose family moved to South Africa specifically because they practiced apartheid and they wanted to be a part of that racialized state. Someone who himself has shown racist tendencies. And someone who they tapped to implement doge that led to mass firings of federal workers, disproportionately black people, ending all sorts of different government programs. He's also currently, interestingly, suing on behalf of his current AI company for the right to discriminate. And guess who's joining him in that fight? The Department of Civil Rights of this Justice Department. It's not hard to see who these people are, but the reality is that this administration is rife with white supremacists and racist people who are implementing a racist ideology that is specifically targeting black people for economic and political obliteration. This is real. The reality is this is going to create a huge shift in voting power, particularly in southern states. Our votes are going to be partitioned off into multiple districts instead of clustered into one district or a couple of districts. And so over the long term, one of the things that we really need to do is to maximize the voting power in these other districts. Though they're trying to put us in districts that will advantage the Republican Party, the reality is that right now the Republican Party is not as strong as it used to be. And if we overperform, we could be enough to make a difference. We could also maybe even be strategic. Maybe it makes sense to see how many of us can start to vote in some Republican primaries just to sabotage the Republican Party. Honestly, we need to start thinking creatively about what we need to do under these new rules unless we're able to pull them back. And I think that it's possible, but it's not going to be possible in the short term. In the meantime, though, we need to make sure that we are putting pressure on the Democratic Party to ensure that when they are back in power, we have significant Supreme Court reform. We need to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court andor put a time limit on the number of years that a person can serve on the Supreme Court. We definitely need to put ethics rules in place for the Supreme Court. There are well-known instances of people like Clarence Thomas and others accepting very, very expensive trips and gifts from individuals who have interest in front of the Supreme Court. They've literally been bought off. This is clearly a right-wing activist court that has a political agenda and they are working lockstep in the Republican Party as part of the coup that they are undertaking. Lastly, I'll just say this. When I say that this is the resurgence of American apartheid, I want to be clear that I'm saying what I'm saying because I mean what I say, and I'm saying what I mean. Understand the history of this nation. We were the blueprint for South African apartheid. We were the blueprint for a lot of what Hitler did. We have a very long and disturbing and destructive and violent history. And so we need to understand that in order for us to fight this thing, we cannot just simply wait for the natural order of things because it would not be corrected in our lifetimes if we did that. This is a nation that takes decades for corrective action. If we are along the same patterns that we've been in previously, we could be in this position for another 60, 70 years or more. So the only way to undermine that is to make sure that we get people in office who are ready to break things, be bold about it. We also need to get people in office that are willing to hold people accountable. Because the big reason why we're here is because for years we have allowed the other side to get away with murder. And then when Democrats get in office, they are like, oh, well, let's bygones be bygones. Let's figure out how we can be bipartisan. Fuck being bipartisan. Absolutely fuck being bipartisan. This is what that gets you. These people do not know how to play nice. Don't even try. When we get in power, we need to act like it. People need to go to jail. Epstein files need to be open. People need to be put under the jail. There's so many illegal things that have happened in this administration, it would take a whole nother episode to go down the mall, but people need to pay. And then at the same time, we need to figure out how we are going to reform the Supreme Court and be about the business of doing it. Because if we do not, who knows what is next? It is not going to stop here. I knew the moment that Biden appointed Merrick Garland to be attorney general, I knew shit wasn't going to happen. That was the dumbest appointment ever. He sat there, wasted time, didn't do shit. We need aggressive people. We don't need little mice like Merrick Garland, who are afraid of their own shadow when it comes to actually doing what needs to be done. We need people who are bold, who are decisive, who understand that you have to fight fire with fire, and who understand that corrective action can't be incremental when the other side has been literally revolutionary. Corrective action needs to be just as bold, just as revolutionary as this disaster has been. Because if we don't, our grandchildren are still going to be suffering the same fate that we're suffering right now, if not worse. They are not done. Just think about it. They have not even been in office two years and look at all that's happened. I don't put anything past these people. They have already shown us our biggest vulnerability at this point is our lack of imagination about how ruthless they are. Too many of our quote unquote leaders are stuck in the boundaries of what is, and they think that the other side is playing by the boundaries of what is. The other side has created a completely new playbook, unfettered by boundaries, unfettered by history, unfettered by legal precedent. And they are engaged in a coup with the intention of creating an entirely new reality. That is what we're experiencing right now. And so we have to start to think bigger about what is possible once we regain the realms of power. This whole approach of incrementalism, Trump has murdered now. He's killed it. Not that I was a big fan, but I have to say, with all that he has done, it's going to be very hard for people to accept business as usual once the Democrats are in office. And neither should they. Now is our time to think not only defensively, because that's the position that we're in right now, but also think offensively. That needs to be one of the gauges by which you are judging people when you are determining who you want to vote for come primary season. Are they thinking big enough? Because I personally am not voting for somebody that's just talking about making tweaks around the edges. Now is the time for big, bold, definitive action. Now is the time for fighters. Now is the time for people who think outside the box. Now is the time for people who are bold enough to do things that other people have always said couldn't be done. Now is that time. Given what this administration has done and continues to do, if the Democrats were to move in the normal course of policy action, it would literally take easily a century or more for all of the shit that has been done in just a year and a half to be rectified. So no, we can't afford that. We need to vote and we need to overperform in voting because now that our vote has been dispersed to multiple, especially in the South, by voting power that was once concentrated in one majority black district, now could be spread out among four or five districts or more. So each one of those districts would have a smaller proportion of us, but hopefully, if we can overperform, it might be just enough for a margin of victory. So that at the end of the day, we could be the deciding vote in multiple districts and not just one. That is the most optimistic view of what is possible as a result of this, but that only works if we truly overperform in those districts. If we take this event to fall for the lie that our votes don't count and then we underperform in all of the districts, our political power is done. We can't let that happen. I just wanted to share with you how deep the rabbit hole goes with regards to the multi-decade effort to get us here. This is way deeper than Project 2025, and it's much more multifaceted than any one person. There are multiple key players that have all worked together to create this catastrophe. And in the way that they've worked together, I hope that we know that we need to work together. Not only as a voting block, but also as institutions. We need the think tank that's going to come up with the plan. We need the person who's going to be fighting in the courts and the organizations that's going to make that happen, which we do. There's been a lot of successful fights in the courts that have happened just since Trump's been in office. Things would be way worse if that wasn't happening right now. And we really need that third leg, the Supreme Court. So we need to reform the Supreme Court so that we can make sure that it gets out of the hands of these right-wing ideologues that have shown themselves to be yet another arm of the Republican Party. When we can fight back in that multifaceted way, I guarantee you we will win. Until next time, I'll see you on the next episode of Fearless Politics. Take care, everybody. Thank you for joining us on today's episode of Fearless Politics. And while you're here, don't forget to subscribe, follow, and leave that five-star rating that you and I both know we deserve. Also, feel free to leave a review so more people can find out about us and become members of the Fearless Politics Crew. And finally, if you want to go further down the rabbit hole with us, then be sure to check us out at FearlessPoliticspodcast.com. Or connect with me personally on Instagram at fearless dravis. With that said, we'll see you next time. And don't forget, it's time to be fearless. See you soon.