Nadine Smith - FREEFLO 2025

Coming up next, we've got Naen Smith. Naen is the executive director of Equality Florida, and she is an award-winning journalist turned organizer. Her background is insane. I'm just going to touch on a couple of things.

She was one of four national co-chairs of the 1993 March on Washington. Were any of you at that march on Washington? Hey, I see a couple hands. Nice. Nice. She was part of the historic first Oval Office meeting with the sitting president and LGBTQ community leaders and she served on the founding board of the international gay and lesbian youth organization. She's received numerous awards and accolades including Beyond Times annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.

This afternoon, Naen will be talking about the inevitable ebb and flow of equal rights and social justice. She'll speak to where we are now and what humanists can do as individuals to make the world a better place for the future. Please welcome Naden Smith.

Last week on Facebook, I posted this thing about how a choir can hold a note for a very, very long time because they work together and it's like a little relay race of breathing. And, uh, I felt quite smug about it and I clearly did not take my own advice because I have been sort of going and going and going and I just sort of hit the wall, um, after six weeks. And so thank you for, uh, you know, letting me have a seat while I, while I, um, give these remarks. I'm usually just imagine me high energy, moving up and down, jetting into the audience like Oprah Winfrey trying to give you a car. That's me at my usual.

So, um, it's okay. Thank you. I appreciate that because, uh, you know, I'm unlearning some generational, you know, curses by asking for what I need. There we go.

So, so, um, I I want to leave time for questions because to me that's kind of the point of, uh, you could watch a Zoom video, um, rather than be here. So, I want to make sure that we leave time for that. But I also want to make sure that I lay out for everybody both the dire reality of the situation and a hope that is rooted in something more than wishing. And, um, because facing things honestly is where I get my greatest sense that we will prevail.

I spoke earlier about how much the history of our country not only tells us how we got here, but it also includes the keys to how we're going to get out of this. And I am very proud of the fact that I come from a long line of activists. My grandparents, my grandfather was one of the co-founders of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Um, he and my grandmother were part of the first integrated farming cooperative in it was set up in the Mississippi Delta. Uh, the first place in the South where black and white children went to school together and worked the fields. Um, black and white adults worked the fields together. And I do not mean to paint a rosy picture of it because it was filled with all of the things that you might imagine: the threats from outside and the internalized white supremacy that even the good-hearted white folks who helped create it could not, uh, extract themselves from.

My grandmother was one of the black angels. And if you don't know what that is, um, when tuberculosis was ravaging New York City, the Seaview Hospital on Staten Island was the place where they basically sent black and brown, mostly immigrants to die. And the white nurses fled. Um, and so they recruited, uh, black women from the South to be nurses. And it echoes some of the same things that we're dealing with. They didn't want them to wear masks. They, uh, they did not provide them with the most basic, um, protections. My father would tell me that he would meet my grandmother at the bus stop when she got off at midnight and, um, she would go to the bathroom, put all of her clothes in a bag and put it outside. Wouldn't let any of the kids touch her until she had taken a bath and washed everything. But it was precisely because those black nurses actually could see the humanity of their charges that they noticed things that the white nurses who did not fully recognize the humanity and fled did not. And so when they found the treatment for tuberculosis, they, the doctor who headed the research said it was because they read to the patients. It's because they actually sat at their bedside that they noticed things like somebody whose foot was moving underneath the comforter was more likely to respond positively to the treatment, which gave them clues as to what the next treatment might be.

So I tell you that because I have held the hand of a relative who used to plow fields in Mississippi with relatives of mine that were enslaved. And sometimes when we think about this, we think about it, um, in this sort of weird timeline. You know, there's, um, I remember thinking that Rosa Parks, for example, was an was an elderly woman, so tired that she just decided one day she wasn't going to give up her seat. And it was shocking to me to discover she was a young woman. She was an organizer, an activist, and this was an action that had been planned and formulated and had been tried earlier, but the young woman who was at the center of it was pregnant. And they didn't think that she would, she was ready for, uh, she was the right look to create some empathy within white culture.

It's important that we actually hold on to and understand how much what has happened in our country still resonates today. Especially at a time when they are doing everything to erase, whitewash, recast in the same way that post-Civil War, what was it? How many decades after the Civil War did Confederate statues go up with dedication language that said the purpose of these is to assert that the negro has no rights that any white person is bound to respect. That they were purposely put up in front of courthouses and government buildings as a kind of intimidation.

And when I was growing up in the panhandle of Florida, I remember our, uh, history teacher who was also a coach who, side note, later got shot in the butt by his girlfriend. Kind of tells you everything you need to know about the panhandle. But, uh, but I, I say that because he was my history teacher and he said, you know, a lot, there's a whole lot of talk, this was when Roots came out and, uh, he said, a lot of talk about all the negative sides of, of, um, slavery, but I want you all to write a paper on the positive things that came out of it.

So, I'm, I'm saying all of that because I think it is important for us to understand only the timeline of slavery and Jim Crow. You know, um, I was born in 1965. Um, what rights my mother had when I was born are very different. And we have to see things as they are and call them what they are.

Part of the authoritarian playbook is really, it's basically 15 steps and I'll go through them very, very carefully. But one of them is they almost right now are reverse engineering everything that has caused us to make progress. Right? When I was in college at USF, we were doing anti-apartheid work. We had built a shantytown and I was working with this group of people and one day one of the guys said something he said, uh, to somebody else, "Oh, you still believe in that God stuff? Yeah, that's weird." And I remember I looked at him and I said, "You're an atheist?" And he said, "Yeah, like, how, how do you know me and not know that?" And I said, "Oh, wow. You don't, you don't seem like an atheist?" And he said, "What do atheists seem like?" And I thought, "Oops. I don't, I don't know, but it ain't good." Right?

Um, and so college is a place where you encounter people who are different, have different perspectives, come from different parts of the world and it has the effect of generally speaking broadening your view of the world, causing you to embrace people. It is sort of one of those significant emotional events that can cause you to actually challenge things that were fed to you by the people you trusted and loved the most. So of course they want to shut that down. Of course, that is threatening to them. Of course, they want to turn everything over to PragerU and these, you know, right-wing Christian nationalist indoctrination centers instead of places of inquiry and academic freedom and free thought.

Um, you remember in North Carolina, part of how they gerrymandered was they, I think they did a decision tree in a computer and said, "What are all of the things we can do that will make it harder for black people to vote?" And then they set about doing that, um, everything that would have a disparate impact. And so they're doing the same thing. They're reverse engineering everything that has led us to progress. Um, but they are doing it in service to their financial agenda first and foremost. And they are using the culture wars to cobble together people who ordinarily would not align.

And I'm going to talk about Luigi because I'm not going to say anything. Do, do what you must. I'm going to talk about Luigi because that was a flashpoint moment that showed us, I think, that rather than left-right, there was the possibility of an up-versus-down populist movement in America. And that the last time we saw this, we saw huge breakthroughs. Um, and, you know, we understood that billionaires did not have our interest. Instead, the culture has gotten us to the place where people, um, think that they are just temporarily embarrassed, um, financially embarrassed and on their way to becoming the next billionaire.

So among the things they do to feed the beast is they manufacture a crisis. What's an example of something that Americans have been told is the most important and dangerous thing happening in our country right now? That must be transgender people in sports. Transgender people in sports and even illegal immigration. Immigration. There we go. And there, and it's, and it fits into the same category. These things like, if you don't know immigrants, if you don't have a relationship with people, and if you don't know transgender people, you, I can project anything I want onto it that community. But suddenly the biggest issue facing Americans, remember the caravans right before the last election that suddenly went away, right?

Um, so manufacturing a crisis so that they can then be the ones to solve it. It appeals to, perversely, it appeals to our sense of belonging and being in community. It's us against them. When I was in basic training at the Air Force Academy, our shared hatred of our, uh, commanding officer is what, you know, brought us together as a unit. And it's not accidental. They very purposely play on that dynamic. Um, and so one of the questions you should always ask yourself is, who are they trying to make me hate with this message, with this conversation, right? And if you can identify who they're trying to make you hate, then you can ask the question, why?

The other is related, but it's, it's a scapegoat. Like I would say immigrant is the manufactured crisis, but scapegoat is the trans community as well. And again, it is, who, who was it that said, "If you can make the lowliest white man feel like he's better than the highest black man?" Who was that? LBJ. LBJ, and that is very much at play here, you know.

Um, the next thing is undermine the press. And this has been an ongoing campaign. Um, the consolidation of media by billionaires is not accidental. It has been an ongoing strategy to erode ever since Watergate. You know, after Watergate, the, the ideas of who journalists were were sky-high. They were very much seen as part of the checks and balances, um, the voice of the voiceless, all of those things. And so they have very intentionally chipped away, um, not just at the ownership, but the very, uh, institutions of, of what people think of journalism.

Um, attacking elections, attacking election integrity. Um, they have been calling every election that they lose, uh, a fraud because again, the purpose of propaganda is not necessarily to make you believe their claim. It is to make you distrust everything. And a world in which people go, you know what, they're both liars. They're all no good. Uh, it's just the nature of the beast is a country where the largest percentage of voters did not choose either candidate. They stayed at home. Or as AOC said, "We didn't lose to Trump, we lost to the couch."

Um, and in that, and I think Fish touched on this in our panel, if you were to think of the population as a horseshoe, um, what you would see, oh, I'll give you this other. Let me start with this one. The first time I met Rich Lois of Leaving MAGA was after I, after I spoke at Howard University and in a much, almost entirely black audience, there was a white man sitting at the very front table and he was 6'5" or whatever. He's very tall. And the minute questions came on, he stood up like Horshack from, from, you know, Welcome Back, Kotter, baby. And he said, "My name is Rich Lois and I, um, uh, I'm from Delray Beach, Florida, and I, I'm MAGA." I will confess that I frisked him with my eyes because, you know, Floridians like, is he carrying? But he said, "Or at least I was until about six, seven months ago." And I had said something about leaving the light on because there are a lot of people, um, who are trapped in the ways that many of us are in the algorithmic information bubble so that we don't have a shared, we're not all watching the, you know, the six o'clock news together. We're not getting the same newspaper. We're not sitting on our porches. Most of us don't even talk to our neighbors. Um, we have gotten into information silos and so your neighbor may never have seen the articles that are shaping your worldview. And if you can have some grace to to realize that if you saw what they saw, believed what they believed, you might conclude what they conclude. Um, and yes, it does appeal to, um, prejudice. It does appeal to a sense of superiority. But I think most of all, it gives people a sense that I am part of a community that matters. And when I go to my MAGA meetings or when I'm part of this world, I'm told that I'm okay, that I am, there's nothing wrong with me in a world that I feel like every time we deconstruct some new level of, of bad thing, discrimination, um, that what they receive is a message that they are inherently bad. And Trump and DeSantis and MAGA are all saying, you don't have to feel that way anymore.

The, so there's a guy who works on computers for us occasionally. We have children about the same age. Maybe I've seen met him three or four times in my life, but we were in my office. He was working on computers at one end of the conference table and I was typing on the other end and we'd been there for maybe 20 minutes and he said, "Uh, hey, you know, Nadine, you know I'm good on the gay thing, right? You know that, right?" I'm like, and I felt the same way you all feel right now because you know what's coming. And he said, "I just don't get it, though. I don't, you know, the whole pronoun thing. Why the anger?" And I said, "Well, what, what happened?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "What happened to you that has you feeling so powerfully about this?" He said, "Oh, no, nothing to me." I said, "Well, what happened to somebody you know that has really gotten you so upset about this?" He said, "No, no, I just, you know, I read things." I said, "Wow, that's really amazing that you are this upset that you've been stewing for 20 minutes on something you've never experienced and nobody you know has ever experienced. Isn't that interesting?" And, uh, and I said, "But you know what? I'm not going to, I don't want to treat you like I don't understand what you're saying because what I think what you're saying is this all feels very new, different, and uncomfortable to you." And I can relate to that because I went through, I went to a party one time and there was one person whose gender I could not tell. This was like 25 years ago. And I followed this person all around that party trying to glean clues, you know, and every time I thought, "Oh, that, oh no, actually it tells me nothing." And I had overheard this person talk about getting a beer. And I knew that the only place they could get a beer was in the garage at the refrigerator. So, I dashed around the other way so that, uh, when they came out to get a beer, uh, I'd be like, "Oh, hey, we keep bumping into each other." The look on this person's face let me know that I was not fooling anyone. And so, my girlfriend at the time, I, I came back in. I thought, "Okay, I'm going to have to fall back and deploy a different agent on this mission." I'm not proud of this story at all. Um, and then I heard, I felt this someone grip my arm just above the elbow and it was her. And I said, "Oh, I've just been looking for you." And she said, "What are you doing?" And I began to explain. And at the end of it, she said, "Why do you care?" And I thought, "Because if I suddenly turned into Jordan Peterson, if I can't put you into a box, how do I know how to treat?" You know, it's like, so and I think it's important for us to like just not be afraid of saying, "Yeah, you know what? This, I bumped into my own internalized stuff." Because because I shared that story with him, his defenses were not all the way up. He's like, I said, you know, so I get it, but the problem was that was my problem and I made it this person's problem. I ruined that party because of my own ignorance, discomfort, fear. And the problem I have is not that you are struggling, but when you say things like, "Whoa, where's all the anger coming from?" You're making your own struggle their problem, and it ends up showing up in laws and violence.

So, so I, I also tell that story because I also said, you know, and I'll tell you, I misgender people all the time. Not on purpose. It happens because the population I work with and there are people and here's what happens. I've never had my face ripped off. Here's what happens. I said, "We've been here for 30 minutes. Not once have we used each other's pronouns because we don't tend to do that when we're talking to each other." I said, "It usually happens like this. I'll say, hey, have you seen so-and-so? He, he was supposed to meet me. Oh, they, them. Oh. Oh, really? Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Thanks. Are they going to be here?" And we move on with our world. Um, or sometimes it's somebody I knew for a long time before they transitioned and out of reflex, it's the wrong one and the person corrects me. I say thank you and we move on. But if I suddenly start calling you by pronouns I know are not your pronouns, you don't have to imagine or wonder if I mean you harm. I have made it very clear that my purpose is to disrespect you. Um, and people responding to that, I said to the computer guy, they, people respond precisely the way you would respond if somebody did that to you. So part of the reason I'm saying this is when we start talking about how we counter these strategies, I think it's really important that we be willing to engage people with vulnerability and honesty. Not for the purpose of winning the argument, but for the purpose of calling to some shared humanity. Like I got a lot of friends in the panhandle and who are MAGA to the core. And I said, you know, John, when, when Hurricane Michael came through, it was Mexican and Guatemalan construction teams that put our town back together. People were bringing them casseroles, right? How did, how do you now justify treating those same people as though they are a blight? You know, well, I'm not talking about them. The hell you are? Yes, you are. You know, like, or how are you going to, okay, if you're not talking about them, how are you making sure your voice is heard? Um, to, to speak up on behalf of people who, you know, follow the rules, you know, um, came here in all of the ways that our friends, our Vietnamese friends did back in the '70s. And so, I'm not saying that my friend just went, "Oh, you know what, Naen, you are so right. I'm going to go change my voter registration immediately." But I notice what people do and don't post anymore. You know, I notice what they liked on my page. And so if I know you, I'm going to, I let a lot of things slide. And on, on my page, if I'm not, I block trolls immediately. But if we've been through some things together, we grew up, went to high school, played basketball together, I want to be in relationship with you. And, um, and I do see the difference that it makes.

So Rich, with Leaving MAGA, we ended up talking for 45 minutes in the stairwell and he let me know that he was a "never Obama Trump voter." And I just, what? But you know, like, uh, Ted Lasso says, "Be curious, right?" How, how did that happen? And he said, "Well, I was looking at a race that was about to be a Clinton versus a Bush, and I just thought, people from the same family are about to, one of them is about to become president. How on earth is this a democracy? I think the system is just broken." And I get that he wants to burn it to the ground and maybe that's what needs to happen. And that attitude is not rare, nor is it driven by hatred of trans folks or immigrants. It is driven by a sense that the system is rigged. And Trump is the guy that says it is rigged. You know, I know I take advantage of the way it's rigged and y'all are suckers for still letting this system work. That is not an evil reason to have voted differently than I did.

Low-information voters tend to latch on to narratives that are very simple in a world that is very complex. But we do ourselves no favors in not recognizing that. And younger people are more progressive, more inclusive, more LGBTQ friendly. But where they are diverging is young men. And not just young white men, though many young white men. Um, one of the things everybody should be paying close attention to is the role of cryptocurrency for red-pilling young men and how much the crypto industry invested in this last election where the margins were very narrow. Most people stayed out or or didn't bother to vote. Uh, they put in close to a billion in direct and indirect funds. And that's before you consider the way that NFTs and other things within the crypto world can be used to move money fairly undetected. And it is a huge issue now when you look at who makes up, uh, the Trump inner circle. It is all the crypto tech bros: Elon Musk, David Sachs, um, Scott Bessett, head of Treasury. These are all crypto bulls. And their message to young men, you know, Americans generally, but young men and a lot of ambitious, uh, black and, and people of color, young men, is the system is rigged and this is your path out of it. Both in terms of it being a casino where you can hit it big, but also, um, it is the future of money. And I'm not here to debate whether or not anybody here thinks that there's some truth to any of those statements. I'm simply talking about the function it plays in red-pilling young men into the Joe Rogan brolikarty mindset.

Um, so eliminating, attacking elections, undermining the press, and eroding the rule of law. The pardons of the January 6th folks is, think about this. If you were someone who turned in your boyfriend or your ex-husband because you knew he was January 6th and you knew he was violent and you recognized him from those clips, the message is not only that we will not hold our people accountable. We want stochastic violence to play the role of intimidating people. We want, uh, these, you know, paramilitary groups to inflict harm to do what the Proud Boys were doing at those school board meetings. It is also to make us fearful of turning them in or even trying to pursue accountability.

Um, so, you know, part of it is to encourage vigilantes. And we have seen dramatic spikes in hate violence as a consequence. If you're wondering why DeSantis had the legislature give him his own police force, because, uh, the loyalty of the, the police is a huge part of enforcing authoritarianism, especially as the executive grabs more power and people push back. So, you saw a whole bunch of anti-protest laws being passed. Um, a lot of people being, um, no charges being brought against them for, you know, driving through crowds, um, or engaging in violence. Uh, they, in fact, they like those confrontations because it allows them to expand executive power. And we just saw, was it yesterday, after a judge said, "No, you cannot deport Venezuelans," where he has declared basically wartime power to deport whomever he, he chooses.

The other thing, and again, we see this playing out right in front of us: cronyism, nepotism, loyalty to the leader, not to democracy, is critical. So what? Laura Trump takes over the RNC and his daughter and son-in-law become, you know, come to lead these, these programs. You know, DeSantis is working very hard to make sure his wife succeeds him in the governor's mansion.

The normalization of disinformation. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. Even as Republicans and everybody on the ground was saying that was a lie, they didn't back down. They didn't apologize. They didn't say, "Well, you know, maybe we got it wrong." They said, "Nope, we know that this is true." And so I think it is really important that we, the ways that we will begin to normalize and capitulate to, um, in advance became very clear with the passage of the Don't Say Gay, Don't Say Trans bill. You know, there were schools where, where in anticipation of books being removed, school districts began to remove them just to not provoke the eye. There were lawmakers who saw the state attorney out of Hillsborough get removed from office who suddenly stayed as far away from the line as possible. And this is how they gain power that is more than the laws that they pass. They gain it by creating an air of intimidation and an environment where, um, they won't be challenged and people will anticipate what they want and conform and obey in advance.

Um, On Tyranny is a great book. I know a lot of people in this room have read it, um, by Timothy Snyder, but it really, it's, "Do not obey in advance" is a huge part of it. And so one of the things that we did with schools is we said, "Whatever they ask of you, tell them you want it in writing and that they must cite the statute that they are invoking to justify the request. And with that, you would, you would comply." And what we saw very quickly is the request went away because they couldn't. They were counting on the intimidation factor to make you take your partner's picture off the desk or, you know, take the poster down or not wear that jewelry, what have you.

Um, I think, I think the other thing that's important to talk about is how they, like every accusation is a confession, right? And again, I know we've talked a lot about the attack on the trans community, but it is the perfect example of the level of misdirection. What is the number one most dangerous, who, who is the greatest threat to a woman? Anybody want to hazard a guess? Her husband. Her husband or her partner, right? Um, number two, a male in her family. Number three, what's that? Um, yeah, there's some that show the workplace and economic vulnerability ahead of clergy, and then others that show clergy, but I would put them side by side. Um, stranger is so far down the list that it almost, it's almost never. And as a former, uh, police reporter, that was always true. Um, there's a reason that they immediately go, "It's probably the husband, it's probably the boyfriend." And yet, they have spun a wild tale where these same abusive, how many felonies? Uh, how, how many, um, sexual assault allegations and convictions? Um, if you do a search about who is preying on children, preying on women, you are going to see pastor after pastor and Trump insider and DeSantis insider over and over and over again. But by casting transgender people in this role of being the terrifying other, they not only get the benefit of scapegoating, but they also get to turn the conversation away from what the real threat is. Like statistically speaking, clergy should not be able to read books to children, not drag queens. And I think it's time that we start talking about where the real dangers are.

I, I had this, uh, fantasy that we would have a march on Washington that was about sexual violence. Um, I was in a leadership Florida course and somebody in the room, one of the women in the room said, "I've never met a woman who has not either experienced, uh, sexual violence or barely escaped the, the fear of it, the threat of it." And the guys in the room were like, "That is ridiculous." And she said, "Go home, ask your daughters, ask your wives." And they came back our next meeting and they were like, "I had no idea." I think there's a way that as feminists talk about the personal is the political, the same systems that are allowed to thrive in the house and in the family get recreated in the national sphere. And it's part of why they're so hard to disentangle.

So, I want to, I want to, um, start setting up for questions. And while we do that, um, I want to turn to, um, the ways that we can fight back. Because one of the things history shows us time and time again is that we can fight back and that we can in these moments turn what have been deficits into, um, assets. There's an author named Steven Prothro. I think he's a Boston University professor and he talks about the backlash that comes in these moments actually sets the ground for the future progress. And I like to think of it this way. Think of it as a slingshot. And they've grabbed a hold of us and they're dragging us backwards. And with each step, they think they are undoing that progress. But what they're actually doing is creating this dynamic tension so that when we break their grip, we don't just go back to where we were when the backlash began. This is our opportunity to spring forward.

And marriage equality is an excellent example. We lost 38 ballot measures in a row. Um, and it was driven by the far right. Our national organizations were not prioritizing marriage equality. But those, every one of those losses created a platform for us to talk about what we wanted to talk about. And some of those were really close. And it gave hope to people. Wow, we came pretty close. And suddenly we won, you know, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts. Um, and then the tide began to turn. And what we realized in Florida was even if we lose going to court, it will give us a platform to call these questions. And that's what civil rights movements do. You, you go to a lunch counter not because you think the food is great and you ought to be able to eat it. You go there to compel people to see the gap between what they think and how things actually are. And once they see it, the question is, it's no longer, um, propelled by custom. Everyone's not playing their role. Now you're going to see the force of the state and the culture that you are a part of exert itself to do harm. And are you okay with that? And increasingly, when people are confronted with, "Am I okay with this?" the answer is no.

So you have an older man in Wisconsin who came to an assembly hearing to speak out in favor of an anti-trans medical care, um, initiative bill. And by the time he got to the podium, he had listened to everyone who spoke. And it, what he said was, "I was, I was invited to come here to support this, but I have heard what people say. And I didn't know a lot about the whole gay, all what have you. He said, but I just want to say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here for that."

So, so yes, let's talk about it. Who's got a question? What could we do to help Equality Florida or to work with them? I just want to point out that you are not a plant. Oh, you're such a good person. Thank you. I can verify that.

Um, well, you know, I really appreciate what Cheyenne said because, um, I, let me begin by saying, there is no one group that is going to untie this knot. It's going to take a lot of coalition building and we have invested deeply in that coalition work. Um, you know, we just got a big award from the National Association of School Psychologists for the work that we've been doing around mental health. Our, yes, thank you. And our, our parenting work is funded by a whole constellation of organizations. So, I would say go to the capital with us. We are there every single day of session. Come to the capital. Um, become a member because there's strength in numbers. Um, you know, you, you don't have to write big, big checks to be a part of, uh, Equality Florida. There's somebody here who's a, came up and said they are a $20 member of Equality Florida, and we are thrilled to have you. Um, the other thing is engage. I, I mean it, where you spend your money. Be that person who calls the question. There shouldn't be an elected person in your, in your world that you do not, who does not hear from you. Um, if you are in a Republican district, as I am, and they are refusing, uh, your congress member is refusing to host a town hall, host one yourself. Host one in their absence. You know, um, and, you know, the, the thing that we need less of is online pontification that substitutes for in-person action.

So, I just want to know, what is our canary in the coal mine for this country? What is the point of no return that if we get there, if we lose this right or this human right or whatever, where do we, no, we no longer can get back?

Um, I get, I get what you're saying and I don't mean to be glib with my answer, but my ancestors were treated as animals of beasts of burden in America. I don't think there is a line of demarcation beyond which we cannot win. I think we have to have, um, we, we have to let go of our normalcy bias and thinking that the guardrails will hold because the guardrails were set up to protect other things as a higher priority than the well-being of the masses. And I remember when, uh, Luigi was arrested and, um, I follow a lot of right-wing media and I was on Ben Shapiro's, um, you, I know, I know, I'm sorry, YouTube page and I was listening to him just do this, you know, this is the kind of communist, you know, this is the evil that, uh, a permissive society brings. And in the chat, his own base was just excoriating him. They're like, you know, man, I'm usually with you, but you missed it on this one. You know, I'm not calling for violence, but you have to recognize that guy's a mass murderer, you know, like, and suddenly there was just this moment where ordinary people speaking from their own lived experience were responding not through the lens of Republican versus Democrat, but they had their own stories. And his feed began to fill up with stories of people who'd been denied healthcare. Their kids had been denied healthcare. Their family members had died because surgeries that were planned were canceled. And they just, to the point that he turned off his comments. And I think, I, what a snowflake. Yeah. And I think that there's something really profound in that that we need to to be aware of. And we're seeing it also in these town halls where people aren't, you know, I think the real danger for, for those of us who understood the threat of, of this MAGA movement that did not begin with Trump, you know, all of this replacement theory, these racist dog whistles, all of the scapegoating, all of this has been an ongoing thing. But I think that the, the thing that we have to be careful of is that that whole FAFO, anybody know what that means? There you go. Um, my mom, or, you know, raised me not to use these words. But that whole FAFO response, you know, "Oh, farmer, you're losing your farm because USA was shut down and the Equip program is over and boohoo, and you voted for Trump, you know, you, you got what you deserve." Or Venezuelan immigrants who voted for Trump and you thought he'd spare you and inflict that pain on some other group of immigrants. Haha. Right? I mean, this is, this is what we're seeing online. And I think we have to, we have to resist the temptation to do that, you know, like we have to reach for a different level of humanity because that doesn't serve us. We've got to knit together a majority out of all of these shards. And very few people are animated by this entire hateful Project 2025 agenda. Um, and they're reachable as long as we really can engage. And I see it. I see it every day. I see people who, um, who, who are having an awakening right now. And that is where we should put our focus. Not in a condescending sort of dance of superiority, but a welcoming, a, "We're glad you're here now. You've arrived just in the nick of time," right?

Thank you so much, Naen Smith, for coming. It was really awesome to have you. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.