What Freedom Looks Like

As the gun violence epidemic claims more tragic victims, the New York Times claims Trump attracts disaffected young men who are "left behind." Jonathan Metzl joins Danielle for part 1 of a spirited discussion on that - tune in next week for part 2!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Meet Your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
the opening that I was going to do was going
to be different than the one that I am about
to deliver, because right when I was coming to my
microphone to turn it on and discuss an entirely different story,

(00:36):
news broke school shooting Appalachi High School in Georgia. At
the time of this recording, currently four people are dead,
thirty more are wounded. There are still reports coming in. Folks.

(01:00):
The reason don't matter, the fucking weapon of choice does,
and the easy access to it, and a society that
chooses to allow the number one cause of death to
not be diseased, to not be poisoned, to not be accident,
but instead to be intentional carnage that happens at the

(01:25):
hand of a gun. I don't understand this country. I
don't understand people who elect Republican officials into office that
remove their flag pin and put on an AR fifteen
the way that Republicans in the House of Representatives have done.
I don't understand a nation of people that would vote

(01:47):
for a man that told families after shooting in Iowa
to quote, get over it. I don't understand a country
where elected officials who have the power of the pen
to write legislation that would keep Americans safe, that instead

(02:08):
use those very same pens to make it easier and
easier for people to have guns to carry them wherever
they want. There are other countries in the world where
after one shooting they change their gun laws, after one

(02:29):
act of heinous violence, they change their laws. Why is
America like this? Why is this okay? It is the
first day of school for millions of children, and there
are some of them that are not coming home, and
we have just shrugged our shoulders and said, well, that's

(02:53):
the price of freedom. I guess is this free? Is
this what freedom looks like? Honestly, I am just I'm outdone.
I did a whole video on this that is up
on my YouTube channel. Go to YouTube Google Daniel Moody
channel at Daniel Moody Underscore because right when it happened,

(03:16):
I needed to post something because I was near tears.
I don't have kids, and you shouldn't need to have
kids to realize that school should be a place of safety,
of innovation, of inspiration, of joy and instead too often

(03:38):
in this country they are a fucking crime scene. And
again we're okay with that. We have power come November, friends,
We have power, come November to rid ourselves of Donald Trump,
to rid ourselves of these Republican representatives, to rid ourselves

(03:58):
of their nonsensical, grift driven policies where they care so
little about our fucking children out of uter row that
instead of putting on a beanie on them in the hospital,
they want to check their trigger finger. I am just
fucking sick and outdone. It needs to end. The only

(04:19):
time that we have not had a shooting at schools
in this country was during COVID, and that's because the
kids were home. I don't know how people send their
kids to school, I really don't. I know they don't
have a choice, but I just can't imagine the fear
because one day, that text message and that phone call
that too many families have received across this country will

(04:42):
end up on your phone, changing lives forever. Coming up next, friends,
my conversation, an important conversation with our friend or in
house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel on why Generation Z men
under the a age of thirty are deciding to vote

(05:04):
with Trump, and sadly it's not just young white men.
Oh God, more on that conversation is coming up next, folks.
As always, you know that when we have the opportunity
to speak with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzl,
we are always pleased. Jonathan. Happy September. It is not

(05:28):
actually officially the end of summer because the equinox has
not happened, which is man, but it is the end
of summer for those that teach, for those that are students.
So I will say classes back in session. Because you
sent me some reading work ahead of our conversation today,

(05:50):
and friends, this article in the New York Times, which
you know is my least favorite publication right now, entitled
many gen z Men feel left behind, Some see Trump
as an answer. Men under thirty are more likely to
support Donald Trump than women their age. It's a far
bigger gender gap than in older generations. So, Jonathan, you

(06:14):
sent this to me, and I want to get you
kick us off in terms of why you feel like
this is something that we need to be paying attention to,
or why you think that maybe we haven't been paying
attention to gen z men.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, what I thought was interesting about that article was
that there's kind of stereotype of white men as the
hegemonic norm, the power structure, all that kind of stuff,
and then there's also like there's a fifty year history
of white masculinity being in a crisis. I used to
teach a class called the Politics of Masculinity, and every
year there'd be some article men are in crisis, and

(06:52):
so there's always kind of a tradeoff. I would say
that they're not a ton of sympathy for those arguments,
but I do think that there was some really interesting
and powerful stuff in this article, in particular because it
wasn't like Trump is playing the whole macho testosterone field
card and that's what Elon Musk is doing and all

(07:12):
these people, Andrew Tait and all this crazy stuff. But
what was interesting in this article is that they were
interviewing and there was citing research about men who actually
supported reproductive rights and were a fine working for a
woman boss. They weren't like out there doing the drum
circle with Trump. But they were also saying that they
were feeling ignored and left behind, and that in a way,

(07:36):
all the initiatives, all the politics of the Democrats really
weren't speaking to them, and there was you know, there
was another article I read about how like the Democratic
platform had all of the groups who were to be
lifted up and white men were not one of the
groups and stuff like that. So there's an assumption that
white men are like this toxic, crazy thing. But what
I thought was interesting in the article was it was

(07:57):
not that it was men who are kind of okay
with some gender norms, but also feel like they're worried
about the economy. They can't attract a mate because they
can't make enough money to support a family, They worry
about the fall of traditional gender roles, or things like that.
So these are the article was much more about what
you might call like centrist gen Z white men, not

(08:21):
extreme white men. And so the question for me always
is could the Democrats be doing more to speak to
those audiences, because certainly what the article suggested is Trump
is the only one who is acknowledging those audiences. And
I do worry sometimes that we've fallen into a trap
that white men don't need to be acknowledged because they
already have all the benefits or things like that. So

(08:43):
I think, you know, in a way, it complicates that
thinking a little bit if people are willing to go there.
And of course the other part is there are a
lot of men like that in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and
North Carolina, and so the fact that the Democratic messages
not speaking to them beyond just like you know, I

(09:03):
saw this with the Affordable Care Act, like, of course
our policies are going to help you. Of course, our
policy is going to help you. That kind of stuff,
but not really acknowledging them is I think the question
the article raises.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Let me take a step back before we dive into
the specifics of the article, because I want to talk
about and get your thoughts on gender norms specifically, because
what I think has been happening over the course, particularly
around the last several weeks and the shift in our
Democrats top of the ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris

(09:37):
now being the Democratic nominee, is that there is a
distinctive divide between the future and the past, between what
traditional gender norms are and the role that I am
seeing and many are seeing Governor Tim Walls present as
a different version of what masculinity can and many are

(09:59):
saying should look like. Talk to me about gender roles
in modern time what is the role, what is the positioning,
what is the reasoning behind gender roles? And is there
in the twenty first century, in this time where so
much has shifted. And I disagree to some extent with

(10:20):
some in the article saying that you know, things have
shifted so quickly, and I'm like, I guess fifty or
sixty years as quick. But talk to me about the
positioning and the reasoning behind gender roles in the first place.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, I think it's a mistake that people like me.
I mean, I was a women's studies professor before I
was anything in academia. That was my first job for
many years, which I loved. But there was a mistake
to think that we're on a progress narrative, that we're
going toward equality, and that gender roles are a thing
of the past, just like race is a thing of
the past. But when you study the history of it,

(10:55):
you see that there's always a vacillation, because gender realms
do not exist in a vacuum. First, of course, there's
a lot of false nostalgia about gender and like, oh,
it used to be so great in the old days,
and now we want to bring that back. But really,
if you go back to the old days, there were
a lot of problems. So partially there's a lot of
nostalgia about the way things used to be. But it

(11:15):
does feel like there's a lot of vacillation between liberation
and conservatism, I guess you might say. And so in
the sixties and seventies there was Gloria Steinem saying a
woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.
We were going to overthrow the male female role system.
And then people got really nervous, saying, gosh, gender rules

(11:38):
structure society, it's how I understand the world, it's how
I understand religion. And so then there's a kind of
blowback against that to say, you know, there's a return
to the head of the household male and stuff like that.
But it also responds to events. I mean, think about
nine to eleven, for example, people got nervous, and all
of a sudden we saw the valorization of the white

(12:02):
male firefighter or policeman or something like that. So there
are all these ways in which it's not just a linear,
a kind of ascended progress narrative, and I think we're
seeing that now too, which is we can be very
critical of it if we want but I think that
stories like trans women in women's sports or the bathroom thing,

(12:23):
which seemed kind of comical if you're like a liberal
person in a blue city or something like that, but
it does speak to an anxiety that I think people
feel palpably here in a place like Tennessee that the
world is changing away from my value system. And so
you see a kind of backlash against that, where people say,
it's just confusing for me. If we're doing away with
these categories, what are you going to replace it with?

(12:46):
And that's where I think there's resonance. Not that I
agree with it, but there's resonance about critiques of pronouns
and bathrooms and things like that. And so it's always
going to be a kind of back and forth. And
I think that Trump has put his face on that
by picking these picking the He's just very good at
like picking those issues and saying, the world's going to

(13:07):
spin away from you, and I'm the only guy who
can defend it. And I do think the Democrats have
had a hard time navigating that, and it's got real consequences.
I mean, if you look at the battleover abortion rights
in New York, for example, the language of the abortion
bill in New York that talked about pregnant people, not
women's right to abortion, is now being used by the

(13:29):
right to undermine I mean, the Democrats are really at
risk in New York of some real surprises. So there's
a kind of back and forth between anxiety and I let.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Me let me ask you this though. I mean, I
have so many issues with this, but I really take
issue with the word anxiety. And maybe it is because
it harkens back to this feeling around oh, economic anxiety.
Economic anxiety in twenty sixteen was a code for racism.

(14:00):
So are we talking now about oh, the anxiety that
white men and young men, because it isn't just white men,
it's young Latino men and black men that are Generation
Z is it? This anxiety is about the power that
women have gained over the last several decades. And so
now I don't know what box I'm in, And my

(14:22):
question is why do we need boxes? Because who do
they benefit?

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Jonathan, right, I think what is being tapped into. Maybe
anxiety is the wrong word. I think basically, if you
grew up where I am now Tennessee, in two miles
from where I'm sitting right now, you grew up in
a conservative state with a religious I mean, there's religion
everywhere here. There's more churches than there are like hot

(14:49):
dog stands. It's like the opposite of every places I've
ever lived, except Missouri, where I grew up. And so
I think it's about values, like, oh, my values about
family or tradition are being threatened, and so that when
I say anxiety, that's what I mean. That there's a
question of values or being devalued. Now, maybe I think
anxiety is the wrong word, but I do think that

(15:10):
that kind of concern that my way of life is
being threatened leads to either a backlash or it's easily
manipulated into a backlash. I think that there's both of
those things. And so if you're going to say there's
no categories, I just think it leads to those kind
of concerns, like people saying, I.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Mean, my question is what is the benefit of boxes?
Because if you ask me, where has there been a
benefit of boxes? Boxes only benefit those that are at
the top of a pyramid. Because if I can easily
place you into a situation, then I can easily stereotype you,

(15:49):
I can easily dismiss you. But if I'm saying that
actually humanity is a much more fluid than that, and
I don't want to go off into a philosophical tangent,
but if I'm saying that our and our sexual orientation
is much more fluid than the rigidity that has been
placed on us since the beginning of time, then how

(16:10):
do we adapt to what is that actual real science,
which is that human beings are actually much more fluid.
Then we've been situated to believe that we are. Women
actually have much more power and agency and have just
been robbed of that since the beginning of time until

(16:31):
they were able to have economic power and able to
have a voice with a vote. And so when we
look at the structures of how society was built in
the boxes that they were built on, it was to
preserve and enhance patriarchy. So when I hear you say, well,
if we do away with categories, then all of a sudden,

(16:53):
there is this anxiety and I'm just using that term
because I don't know what else to call it. There
is this supple anxiety. But then you're saying that we
should be talking to the people that are anxious and
holding their hand along the way, as opposed to, in
my humble opinion, what are the tools and skills that
these people need actually to adapt to a different way

(17:16):
of thinking and being.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, let me say two things about that. I mean, first,
as you know, I think there are ways to have
it both ways. I think the Democrats are kind of
boxed in sometimes by not being able to I think
there are ways to speak to this in a way
that also are true to values. I think Harris Interrcy
in an interview just kept saying I haven't changed. I

(17:38):
haven't changed. But as we spoke about last week, I
do think there are ways to talk about entrepreneurialism, economy,
better ment, health, crime, all the things we talked about
last week that I do think Democrats can signal in
a ways that are better kind of linked to what
you're saying right now, you know, I worry. I mean,
we can talk next week about what's happening with the

(17:59):
reaper active choice legislation in New York, which I think
is a pretty serious issue right now, which is about
doing away with categories and the political implications of that.
And I'm not saying we should all become like the
man is the head of the household or something like that,
but I do think that there have to be ways
of saying what you're saying right, which is a rising

(18:20):
tide lifts all boats and all those kind of things, Like,
I think there has to be a better way. But
I think with the way this plays out, because we're
in a zero sum political system, is that these fights
come out in very stereotypical, polarizing ways, and they have
huge implications and so well, of course, theoretically I totally

(18:41):
agree with what you're saying, of course, like that's the
basis of a lot of my work about gender and race.
But I would just say, because I'm also an ethnographer,
I interview people. I try to understand their point of view,
and so I would say that in the interviews that
I do, I also think that people's concern is not
just I don't want to give up my privilege. It's like,

(19:02):
where do I fit into the worldview that you're presenting?

Speaker 1 (19:05):
And I think but that to me, that is the
valid question. That's a valid question of as the world changes,
what is my role and responsibility in this new system?
And I think that that's a question that democrats in
many ways are posing. That the world is changing, and
I would just push back on what you said about

(19:26):
the Vice president or CNN interview. What she was talking
about is the fact that her values have not changed.
How you approach strategy is going too different from administration
to administration. But if I still have values that are
aligned with democracy, that are aligned with equity and justice, right,
then you have to understand that my character has not changed.

(19:47):
How I perceive and decide to create different policies. That's
a tactic in order to move society forward. And so
it wasn't of a I haven't changed. I haven't changed
as in like I am a statf. It's that you
can rely on my character because my values have not changed,
as opposed to the other guy who has no character

(20:08):
and has no values, and they change with whoever puts
a check in front of his face.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Right, I mean to be fair, The question I think
she was answering at the time was about fracking and
changing our view on fracking. So it wasn't about gender.
Just want to be clear about that. And so I
also think it's possible to say, look, I've evolved, you know,
like I've been in power and I changed my views
about things, and I understand now that it's easier to
tweet a bunch of stuff than it is to actually

(20:33):
make decisions that impact groups of people. So that was
the answer I wish would have been given. But again,
also again, we're in a very you know, there's always
a push and pull in history, and we're in one
of those moments where winning this election has profound consequences,
and so you want to be open and strategic. And
I think the caveat I just apologize for keep giving
caveats is that I mean, I think that the Tim

(20:56):
Walls version of masculinity is speaking to a lot of people. Well,
there are a lot of men in Red States who
want their partners, spouses, wives to have the right to
get an abortion if they have a non viable fetus
or something like that. Like, I think that in a way,
it's not like these categories are so clear cut. But
the danger I think for Democrats is, I mean, I'm

(21:18):
seeing this with guns that people think people like Timwolves
represent What did they represent? He certainly doesn't represent the
majority of gun owners who are down here, like NRA
members who buy the NRA line or something like that.
So the issue is it's a you know, a metonym,
a piece of a whole. What is the hole that's
being represented? Is there a movement toward a new definition

(21:39):
of masculinity that he represents, or are we highlighting, as
we talked about last week, the converts who are not
a valid sample size except for people who are willing
to come over to our side. And so I think,
you know, you want to talk to the most numbers
of people you can.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
I like this question, and I actually want to hold
this question for next week for us to be able
to tease out more because I think that the question
is there a movement towards a new definition of masculinity?
That is really the question that I think that we
need to be asking, and we need to be asking
in a very specific manner other than to your point,

(22:19):
where we have these new representations, whether it is Doug
Emhoff the second Gentleman, or if it is Tim Walls
and the other men that we saw on the stage
at the DNC, there is a very different type of
man that is inside of the Democratic Party that they're
putting forth, but they're not articulating and asserting it in

(22:43):
a way to say men don't have to be one way.
And I think that that articulation is something that is
missing from the Democrats' agenda. Last word to you before
we close for today.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
I'll go TMI on everybody next week because, as you know,
am back on these goddamn dating apps. And so I've
been thinking a lot about gender because there is like,
it's just funny that people there are a lot of
people who long for what they imagine to be traditional
gender norms. I'm seeing this a lot, and so it's
tapping This is a question about the election, but it's
tapping into something bigger, which is that the world feels

(23:19):
like it's spinning away to a lot of people, and
what do you fall back on, because even if we
go towards the future, there's also a lot of we'll say,
anxiety about that, like where do we land if we
don't have this thing we've been falling back on and
tradition brings comfort, but change is concerning sometimes. So this
is happening out in the world right now.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Also, we will leave it there today, folks. In the
episode notes of the show, the link to the article
in the New York Times that I think is worth
a read. Many gen Z Men feel left behind. Some
see Trump as an answer and we'll pick up and
continue this conversation next week. As always, I appreciate you.

(24:01):
That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke
a f as always, Power to the people and to
all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.