Bernie Sanders and AOC toured through Denver this past weekend and seeing them got us – attorney Ariel Speedwagon and I, aka your Dyke Daddies – to kick off a series of chats about how we’re all going to move through this terrible time in the US. Transcript below the video.

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, gang. Hadassah Damien here with Ariel Speedwagon. An attorney, but not your attorney. I have to say that it’s part of the rules.

And we are here with a brand new series called your Dyke Daddies. Because what we’re understanding is there as this rising tide of fascism crests over all of our heads.

We are trying to figure out how to understand this, how to frame this. And frankly, people just keep wandering around with lost looks on their face. And we don’t want you to be lost. No, no.

And, so we’re here, squarely in middle age, talking to our friends who maybe haven’t been around the block as many times, who are like, what the is this? or other people out there who just want a little perspective.

Lord knows we have perspective. Yeah.

We’re here to talk about, where we see history coming around. To talk about politics, economics, legal issues, social issues. And just to maybe help you feel like you’re not the only one thinking about this.

What we’re going to start with this first episode is Bernie Sanders and AOC just came through Denver, where we live. And honestly, it was a really interesting moment. They’re on this little tour.

They had all these different, labor leaders with them. Teachers union, welders, union, painters union, actual working class people talking about actual working class needs, interests, and problems, which is sadly unique in politics. happy to see that.

They were saying it was Bernie Sanders biggest rally ever in Denver. It was 34,000 people, I think was the count. They were up in Greeley, which is about an hour, an hour and a half north. They had 11,000 people, which is 10% of Greeley’s population, to be clear.
cool.

Pluses, things that we liked about this conversation that got us kind of fired up is They were talking about, obviously, like, how our government is getting dismantled, but what is the function of government. And one frame that they used was that government is an agreement that people make with each other. And in particular, how we want to support each other is a type of agreement that we make with each other.

That’s one of our governing agreements, as a body politic. And we don’t always think about it like that because we think about capital G, government, people doing things to us. But governance is how we agree with each other.

and what I loved about it is they were like, look, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, These are all just agreements we’ve made with each other that we contribute to. And this idea that the government isn’t just this thing over here, which I think we’re all understanding is very confusing right now.

But instead, we are all putting our little piles together so we can redistribute those piles in a way that supports what we value as people.

Totally. And this idea that actually there’s some pretty basic common sense values, which is that if you’re sick, going to the hospital shouldn’t bankrupt you. If you need to stop working, you should be able to do, that and still have income and be fine.

And it was really interesting to hear. And again, aoc, obviously, so much of her politic is about, I was a waitress. My mom was house cleaner.
My dad had a small family business until he died when I was relatively young. And I think part of what’s really cool to watch about what they’re talking about is just we all just need to have enough. We all deserve enough. There’s a basic human dignity, and we have enough as a society. We just need to distribute it fairly. It is unequally distributed.

And that’s something else they talked about, this is not like a right or left thing, Democrat or Republican. This is a working people versus corporations and billionaires, which takes me back to my Occupy Wall street days. oh, my God. Battle in Seattle or the 99%.

But really they did bring it there. And I think that there is a fundamental battle that we have in this country. That’s an economic level. There’s also battles around, ideology and, racism. There’s other battles being fought, but they were in the economic one, which is one of the, underlying organizing principles of how do we take care of each other. That’s what economics is. It’s resource distribution. And if we decide that we want to unequally distribute resources based on things that are systemically determined, well, then we end up with the implications of colonialism or racism, et cetera.

So it was something else. And also, just being in a vast park of 35,000 people, all of the different cuts of Denver was amazing because it was remembering in this moment that everything feels atomized and, falling apart, and everyone feels paralyzed and very alone. There’s actually a shitload of people also feeling like that.

all I could think was speaking about Occupy, what if everyone just stayed let’s take it back to Zuccotti park. Or, I’m sure it was here in Denver, too. Everyone just stayed. I fucking chilled. We did great. We’ll be talking.

So things that we didn’t, like Democrats, they just brought it back to the capital D. Democratic Party and third party system. They failed to do the fundamental thing that everybody wants, which is just bring up a viable third party.

uh, it would just take the two of them to name that there’s going to be a third party. And you would see a, wave of people around it. It would be so epic. And then I feel we might end up with my understanding of, how things are in Canada, where you have, a vast right wing with a couple of weird fringes. You have the centrists who are kind of annoying, and then you have, the NDP where there’s actually, a lefty thing happening. obviously it’s more complicated, but you talk so much about the overtone window, which is the window of what we think is normal just keeps shifting. right, right, right.

What would happen if Bernie and AOC were just like, fuck y’all, we’re going left this way. And then suddenly the Democrats just couldn’t move as far right as they think they can. Well, I don’t know. There’s nothing to the left of us because there would be something left of them. And it’s like, I know AOC Is a Democratic congresswoman. Bernie Sanders hangs out with the Democrats kind of and he ran for president on a Democratic ticket, so. Cool. They have to do the Democratic part.

But I really, I’m party politics right now, bro. Guys, we’re not the world’s falling. Apart, so vote Democrat. bitches be fucking sitting on their asses. tell me about Chuck Schumer. Back to our topic.

Other things that we didn’t like… Dad’s mad. They didn’t bring up universal basic income. They, went around it.

I do think it was cool Bernie by name called out the genocide in Palestine. Yeah. That I shouldn’t be surprised and thrilled by that, but I was surprised and thrilled by that. get it, homie? Yeah. Good job, Bernie.

But they did. I think they just did a really good job of bringing the conversation about what do working class and middle class people need in America and how do we. What are we agreeing on? And College, healthcare, retiring. Actually not wild ideas,

I’d like the Star Trek future with ubi. I think that’s what we should have. I was just in cute jumpsuits, doing whatever they’re best at. You look great. Would too. Thank you. But I think. And I think to close, like, the thing that felt most important was the moment.

I think it was AOC who said, people think we are talking about this because we went to college and we’re fancy and we’re bougie, we’re out of touch. But actually, these are things that are very on the ground. she, I think said, I don’t know about this shit because I went to college. I know about this shit because I was a waitress. I had tears of my eyes. And I know, and I did too.

It was a moment of this shit isn’t elite. It’s not. Whatever, bougie abstract. It’s really concrete and clear. The minute anyone has stepped foot in the real world. Yeah.

So you’ll be back with more. We’ll do more of this. Your ranting dyke daddies. Your dyke daddies have talks for you till later. Bye, kids.