Tressie McMillan Cottom
Appearances
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
You know, I have often said, you know, with a little bit of hyperbole, but I think there is also a serious grain of truth in there that the only thing that has ever made meaningful change anywhere in the world is a powerful story.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think there is something to Dr. King's ability to articulate these complex, structural, interwoven, at times contradictory, yet complementary forces in a cohesive story that does not foreclose on thought or action. And this part is key to me. There's a certain type of storytelling about what is affecting us, right? you know, think peace culture.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
But there's a certain way that we can do these explainers about why things are the way they are. That, you know, you get to the end of them, you've read them, or you go to see someone speak and they do their thing. And at the end, you have no idea what you were supposed to do with that information. You may even have an emotional response if they're very good at what they do.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I'm reflecting on a lot of things this year, which actually surprises me. I have not found Donald Trump's reelection to be a moment that requires a lot of deep personal reflection. Trump and Trumpism is exactly what it looks like. But on the Martin Luther King Day, I am thinking a lot about what has changed because I do think it matters a great deal for us to be clear eyed about such things.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
But there is another level of storytelling that is both gift and skill. I think we can focus too much on King's remarkable gifts, of which they were many, but downplay, as we often do when we are talking about Black people, the extreme amount of preparation and skill that had to meet those gifts to do that. And I think that is a...
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
A once in a lifetime, a once in a generation, a once in a millennia, I'm not sure, type of meeting of person to the moment that I think we look back to, particularly in times like these, when we are trying to do exactly that. Tell a story about all of these things that are happening that I think you understand intuitively are interwoven.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
We know that Gaza has something to do with why Flint doesn't have water. Right. We understand that the fires in L.A. have something to do with the climate change displacement that is happening there. across the most populated continent on Earth.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
We have some, I think, intuitive sense that those things are interwoven, but have a very difficult time telling a story about how that doesn't send us into the depths of despair, that doesn't strip us of agency. And I think we looked at Dr. King because he had an ability to tell a story in a very similar sort of historical moment that did not foreclose on acting.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
did not foreclose on our accountability to do something, to be engaged, not just in the discourse, but to take up the discipline of actually building power and capacity to change things. And it's not that I don't think we have those people today, for the record.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think we have people with the same gifts, but not the time and the protection and the investment they need to do that other part, which is to develop the skill for it. But King had both. And so we continue to look to him.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think we can slide into hyperbole and say, you know, this country is racist, has always been racist and will always be racist. And there's a certain level of what like people in my field will call abstraction or a certain bird's eye view where that is true. But I think it's really important for us to also observe the ways in which that is not true.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And I think there are a lot of ways in which that isn't true. But it also then becomes all the more urgent to me to consider what I think Martin Luther King's legacy would have us consider, which is how is it possible for there to have been so much change, some of it positive, some of it what we might call progressive change.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Well, that's at the heart of what Make America Great, America First isolationism is, which is this idea of That you can imbue our current economic order, which Eddie so beautifully lays out there as one not just about morals, but about the sort of material landscape of extreme extraction and wealth on one end.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
and this growing, yawning, indecent level of inequality, instability and insecurity, not just on the other end, but on the other end and encroaching to the middle, which I would argue is the crisis that we find ourselves in, which is that people who have for a very long time seen themselves as middle class are realizing that they are working class at best.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And that crisis of identity and position opens people up to a lot of demagoguery. So that's like the sort of like economic material landscape that we find ourselves in. And so there is a reason that a politics of nationalism nation first would look like a reasonable solution to a lot of people. I like this term, it's called like folk economics.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And that's this idea that really economics, running a state apparatus, especially one as powerful as the United States is a really complicated, complex endeavor, right? And yet every two or four years, politicians come out and they turn to the American public and they talk about the US budget like it is balancing a checkbook, right?
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
How many times have we heard that, well, you pay your bills when you sit at your kitchen table, America needs to worry about her bills first, right? We reduce all of this complexity, militarism, by the way, you know, the vast cost and expense of running a vast network of military operations across the world can't actually be reduced to a family's checkbook, right? Right.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
But that sort of folk economics gets people to think about the nation as their kitchen table. And so the thing about the kitchen table is everybody can't sit at your kitchen table. These are some of the first decisions you actually make about who is welcome. And who is not?
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And so it invites us to think about what is effectively a moral relationship to wealth and resources that the state is responsible for as really just being about our preferences and how much money we have at the end of the day when we balance the checkbook. That's been the neoliberal promise ever.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
that if you think about this country like you think about your personal checking account at the end of the day you will be better off than where you started or certainly that your children will be better off than where they started and that is not at all how that works right we actually have to make these big decisions about what our national values are relative to the rest of the world and our responsibilities to each other and that means you sometimes spend a lot of money on something like education
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And yet for there to still be this baseline of white animosity, the urge to do the sort of political reclamation that we see happening with Donald Trump's reelection. And how can we finally, hopefully develop the capacity to hold both of those truths, contradictory yet complementary ideas like the ones I think Martin Luther King absolutely understood and really tried to
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Or health care that won't actually balance in a checkbook at the end of the day, but will mean fewer sick and dying children. And that is a moral value.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Tressie, why did you choose that clip? I chose this one because I think it goes to the issue that I raised at the beginning, the idea that we are going to have to hold contradictory and yet complementary ideas together.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
to develop a language around for everyday people, which I think is one of our upcoming challenges, by the way.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
at the same time, and that Martin Luther King, the status memory project, has worked very hard to flatten out those contradictions, whereas Martin Luther King, the actual person, the strategist, the organizer,
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
the philosopher, the scholar understood quite clearly the pragmatic nature of moral claims that this focus on content of character, as beautiful a line as that is, by the way, it is not the sum total of our responsibility to ourselves, to each other, or to Martin Luther King's memory.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Martin Luther King's memory is best served when we deal with the contradictions and the nuances that he understood so well, which is that there is nothing dirty about participating in politics. None of us have the privilege of being moral purists in that sense, but also that changing law without a moral claim will just lead to
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
to more laws that double down on the existing cumulative effects of racism and classism and sexism and all of the others, right? That you do have to do both and that none of us can afford to think that we live above the fray. The fray is where the people are. The fray is where we work out what our morality is. And we do that in part because
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
by concerning ourselves not just with people's hearts, or I might say one's racist bones, which I suspect live next to one's heart, that that is not just a product of heart and bones, right? That is a product of hard work, of not just electoral politics, but yes, also electoral politics. And if the mess did not scare off Martin Luther King, it probably should not scare us off either.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Tressie, last word. Could not agree more. You know, we have made the case here, as I think is often made, that history is cyclical. History repeats itself. I like to think of history as a spinning top that even as it moves forward, it wobbles and the interior of it is going round and round. So sometimes progress does feel like turning in circles. Right.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And that our commitment to a transactional hope that when we do the hard work, when we go out to vote, when we sign a petition, when we march, that there has to be an immediate return to those actions to justify taking yet another action.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
is one of the ways that the neoliberal order that Eddie has spoken about so eloquently here that so many of us are suffering through, convinces us to divest from the things that matter to us. You do the thing that matters, whether it feels like you are moving forward or not, because the thing about history is that you really don't know where you're standing Until it has passed.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
That's why in the moment we are supposed to be guided by something more, something bigger. Morality, accountability, responsibility to ourselves, to our values, to one another. And that this is not the first time we've been called to do that. I take a lot of comfort in that. You know, Eddie says that's the reason why he chose that speech, because it so mirrors our current moment.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I actually take a lot of comfort in the fact that we have been here before and we've not only survived it, we have figured it out. And so I think that we will continue to figure it out. But we probably need to give up the transactional nature of our hope and do the thing that needs to be done because it needs to be done. That's our responsibility to history.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Thank you. Cannot thank you enough, actually. This has been really edifying in a moment when I'm finding few things that do that for me. So thank you.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think there's something to the American story that we even find ourselves here in this moment, that a man whose campaign draws from the worst racial repertoire of American history in modern, complex times is
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
as the head of state, is by default in charge of, at least in this moment, this year, the enshrinement of King's public memory, the public memory project that the state does for Martin Luther King.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think it points out something that is important for us to relearn if we have forgotten it, to learn for the first time if we're new here, and certainly to keep in mind as we move forward in the next four years, which is that the state project memorializing Martin Luther King was never about who Martin Luther King actually was.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
It was about an idealized version of the king the state was willing to accept after he had been murdered. This is as much a memory project of reminding us, by the way, of the high cost of working against the American investment in oppression and inequality as it has ever been about memorializing Martin Luther King, the actual, who I would call an organizer, a mobilizer.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I would maybe even go so far as to call him what they called him during his time, because I don't think it's an insult, which is to call him radical. Certainly, I think a radical philosopher and a radical thinker. And the fact that that is not the king that we remember. Instead, he has been frozen in time as the Martin Luther King of the quotables, quote,
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
and of the excerpts from a speech that seems to memorialize United States of America as an always perfecting project, when Martin Luther King, in actuality, believed no such thing. He believed in the power of people to shape this nation, certainly. But that's not the memory project we've undertaken.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And perhaps the juxtaposition of seeing Donald Trump preside over the official state memorialization of Martin Luther King will remind us of our responsibility to remembering King as he actually was, which frankly should be a people's project as he was a philosopher and an organizer of the people.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Yeah. I'm a sociologist and we have this concept called anomie, which is the sense that something about social norms have started to break down. And that to me feels like the sort of bigger response that I'm feeling from a lot of black Americans in this moment.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think that when you look across the landscape of corporate America's retreat from even cosmetic displays of diversity with the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the all-out attack on access and fairness and I think really our most successful system of social mobility that this country has ever built.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I don't think that that is an accident and people feel despondent watching universities, their legitimacy is just sort of being dismantled in front of our eyes. And something seems to have broken down
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
in our social norms, not that they've ever been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they seem to have, I think, a level of friction that feels dangerous and makes a lot of black people in this moment feel vulnerable. And I think that what we are seeing here is more severe than just a temporary emotional state. of apathy and anger.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think this is also us doing some delayed grieving for what could have been had the state and so many corporate interests not turned so viciously against Black Lives Matter.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
To be able to observe something accurately doesn't mean you diagnose it properly. Yes, that's what I mean. Right. He is the only politician out there right now who says a thing is a thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, because you hate who I hate. As long as you're not a Boston Celtics fan.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, yeah. And if you have the issue, we don't have it. Yeah. You care about immigration, so we can't. That's my thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That doesn't mean. This is why I need Tressie around.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, your belief, like what you actually cared about?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
It was extremely popular, but maybe not for all the right reasons.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, that would be amazing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, it's taken on a lot of the contours of English class based racism. I think for the same reason. Yeah. Class became so important to the Democratic Party. Because they are trying to serve the interests of a donor class who has a lot of money while keeping the interests for their identity, we're progressive, we're liberals, aligned with working class, poor people, minority people, immigrants.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So to reconcile those two things, right? Think about who you have to be to have both of those things exist for you simultaneously. You got to be delusional in kind of the same way that English people are who will tell me to my face. we don't have racism here. We do have class, but we don't have racism.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
As if these are two entirely distinct, but you have to believe that when you have this like really structured class system. You have a monarchy. That's right. You have this really formal system of immigration, right? And I think the Democrats have oddly kind of a modified version of that for much of the same reasons. Their class politics right now do not align with, With their race politics.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And so you get a lot of people who make do with that for the same reason everybody went nuts over their results to the quiz. I mean, you think about who the typical New York Times reader is. Daily show employee, perhaps. And what they realize is that they have accepted a lot of casual racism and policy. Yes. Yes. Yes.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And one of the things that Donald Trump did really well that they still don't have an answer for is he pointed out the hypocrisy of that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
In the way that you and I always experienced it because we were always the black people vis-a-vis the Democrats. So we knew it was hypocritical. But for him to point it out and do it so effectively is part of the reason why I think they are spinning out.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
We love that data, by the way, as sociologists say, which we I'm talking about sometimes. We love the OKCupid data because our personal lives are the only place left in this culture where we feel safe being racist, classist, elitist and ableist. Because we say what? It's just our preference. I can't help who, you know, gets me going.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Car sales show? No, I didn't see that. Oh, yeah. Only thing I was missing was Vanna White.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's right. To sort of like catfish Republican men. No, I didn't hear about. Right. So there was this thing they would go, OK, you know, you're never going to be with somebody hot like me again unless you change your politics. And so they would like pretend to be Republicans to out them to find out where they were on January 6th. They make the romantic match, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
You got to have that part. Very, very hot.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes. Because they are apparently, according to the data, as you know… They are at a disadvantage on apps, conservative men. They all complain about it. Nobody wants to date them. Then January 6th happens, and I think this started as someone said they recognized a guy they thought they saw on one of the apps once in the videos. Oh, my goodness.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So the women start going on and going, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that guy. I've seen that guy. And so they were catfishing them, pretending to be conservative or interested in conservative men. And then the chat would go, yeah, so where were you last week? That is so interesting. And it like outed like three or four people.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
They were very clear about that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Let me tell you why.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
She was like, why don't we eat the apple?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Male's basic nature being lying, though.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes. But there's only one man in the garden. I would think that Adam was too stupid to think through the logic of, hey, apple could be good. Right? Like to get to that conclusion. That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying. Now, I'm not sure that Eve convinced him so much. She was like, yo, I'm going to try the apple. And he's like, not without me, you ain't.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Because I do think there's a basic nature here that we're talking about.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Are we on the same algorithm? I think so, yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
A return to conservatism.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, I think that's we talk about economic anxiety. You guys are talking about that. And I agree. I think we totally misdiagnosed like that whole economic anxiety argument. And the case with women, I think, is a perfect example of how we misdiagnosed it. Yes, people are anxious. That doesn't mean that they should be anxious. What people are responding to is perceived loss, not real loss.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's why you're like, what do you mean? They're rich. They're not economically anxious. Yeah, they are. It's just not real. Yeah. That's where I think the gender piece becomes really prevalent. Because what I am seeing happen, same, women in my life who were all pussy-headed out about me, right? They were throwing pussy hats at me. And they were like, we got to go.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I had to have on a pantsuit for Hillary, right? I'm with her. I'm with her. And today, you know who they are with? A dude in a fleece vest and khakis. It's like they look at, I think, they are looking accurately at a post-war reality, a world where truly the United States government is the most powerful force in the world still. And it has declared war on women. Go back home.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
We want you out of work. We want you out of schools. Too much, too far, too fast. And I think you look at that and you go, I'm hitching myself to the thing that provides some cover for Right. And I think that performing conservatism, even if it's just in how you look, everybody's getting the haircuts now. The natural hair movement.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
The shift from the liberal haircut, by the way, to the conservative haircut.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Trevor, honestly, you will.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Done. Folks are going back to the blowout. Relaxers. And the relaxers. That's why they were mad when the science came out and said relaxers might be causing cancer. Yeah. Because the transition had started. And I think it's the same reason, the same thing for Black women, by the way. We have been at the forefront of, like, economic progress for women. That sort of generational forefront, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Black women, women writ large, outpacing men in education, going to college. We're almost at parity in the most male fields worldwide. law and medicine, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Okay. Yeah. Black women had already exceeded black men, but white women were now coming forward. I mean, we were almost at parity. And now you see this like hostile sort of response to women. And I think you start going, if nothing else, let me look the part. And again, I'm not sure any of that's conscious.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I think as you look around and the aesthetics, for example, of the Trump administration are really clear. Blonde. Blonde. As blonde as you can get it. And I think that you take that as a cue for this is what we do now if you want a little bit of safety. Absolutely.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Can I just say about stay-at-home girlfriends, I'm an oxymoron of that. Pushes my buttons in a particular kind of way. Tell me more. What is a girlfriend? A stay-at-home wife is only allowed to be a stay-at-home wife with the benefits of it, however marginal its benefits are, because the state says he owes you the money. Yeah. If you a girlfriend.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Who is going to make the sucker give you the money? But that's what I'm saying.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I see these young girls, and I feel like I'm turning into an auntie, but I see these young girls, and I'm like, who raised you?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Get the bag. Yes! Do you know what people's grandmas did for you to be able to get the bag?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's what's supposed to happen.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
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What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
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What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's hilarious. And we ran it into the ground. That is hilarious. And yet she can't fathom the idea because that was her point, by the way. She was like, I don't have anything to do when we're in the car because I don't have a smartphone. Yeah. So you look out the window. I looked out the window for 20 years. But the concept, and I just don't think the brains are prepared.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I do think that a lot of what we see at sort of a societal scale is that chronic anxiety.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah. Everything should happen. I should be able to predict everything. You know, the total fear of any risk. Missing the bus. No big deal. You missed it. You waited for the next one. Now it would be considered like some major.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I am so sorry to say this. Like, I am so sorry you asked me this question because I have an answer. I've thought about it so much and it is not a good or fun answer. But yes, I don't want to be dystopian. I actually don't think it'll be like, you know, I don't think it'll be the type of revolution that maybe some of us imagine and hope for. And I don't think it is like a complete, you
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
But I do think it will take the firsthand experience of the loss of a functioning bureaucratic state, of the type of security. I don't think we understand how much like emotional security we get from knowing the government works, from not having to worry about whether water is coming, for not having to worry about whether when you call 9-1-1.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, we should maybe quarantine you. Oh, I'm the problem. That's my takeaway here.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, but he doesn't say it's all digital. No, it's all computer, like your grandma. It's all computer. Yeah, they put computer in car.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
It was a Republican utopia. Yes.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, that's right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And people can see it firsthand. The American sickness, though, is that they would look at that story and go. the solution isn't more taxes. The solution for me is I need to become that rich guy. Yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's the American disease. That we look at that and what we diagnose, again, back to like the wrong diagnosis. It was like, oh, if I want the state to work for me, I just better become rich. Now, everybody cannot, of course, be rich, which is why we created governments. But what we don't understand, I think Texas is a great example of this. Texas is like, again, one of these
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
you know, utopian political realities for people who believe in, like, the core tenets of the GOP's political platform. But it only works because everybody around them is not a Republican utopia. Wow. You need the government to be somewhere. And so you can only be a state like Florida. You can only be a state like Texas that says, we don't use the federal government. See us?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
You know, big F you to the federal government. Well, yeah, you know that because all of the rest of us, however— fund it and keep it going and you draw from it and you still need it, right? People learn that during COVID. We saw it firsthand. The thing about this country is our need for ongoing amnesia about how vulnerable we are keeps us from doing the right diagnosis.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, you look at that and go, the rich guy was able to get Private firefighters. And you go, okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yep, that's the man with the nuclear codes for you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Do you know who's sitting somewhere right now going, are you kidding me? It is Hillary Clinton. Do you remember when they made fun of her because she couldn't work the soda machine in a convenience store?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes, campaign trail. So, you know, America, you know, being a regular American. So they go to like a 7-Eleven. And I always felt sorry for her because I do think those machines actually are overly complicated. And I really felt a rare moment of deep empathy for Hillary Rodham Clinton because she was like, she's got her cup, you know? And it used to be a physical thing. You'd press that lever.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Well, that's not no more. You know that thing now that spins your cup and it does and you mix and flavors and all that. And she was overwhelmed. And they acted like that woman had lost her mind.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes. Now Donald Trump can get in a car and say computer.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, Howard Dean. Howard Dean.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, because, baby, you've seen the tablet. You know the idea. That's what I mean. Yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Like he's just doing it. He's doing it. And he said he's going to do it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Okay, but to be fair, as a black American, I love that one. Let me just tell you, the number of times I've heard an old black woman say, they dying like they ain't never died before. And I thought, okay, well now that one, I can kind of get with. People are dying who have never died before. Never died before. Yeah, that one. Yeah, we have a deep funeral culture where I'm from.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I was like, I could see that one popping off. But think about Donald Trump or the moments like you. I'm a little obsessed with these moments where he's clearly revealed. And I think a lot about why didn't that work? Why didn't that work? Because the great story to me of Donald Trump is, you know, he's New York's version of a country bumpkin. Yes. He's not a Manhattanite.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
He was never accepted here. That's what a lot of his grudge is about. He learned, however, that if you just win enough, they will at least give you a ticket. He knows he's not invited because they like him. But, you know, he learned that. And I think he just got still. And I hate all the psychological explanations. Why? Why do you hate them? Oh. Because I just think it's very American of us.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Because you're a sociologist. Yes, that's part of it. This is absolutely professional envy. But because psychologists keep winning and I'm not sure they have all the answers. You know what I'm saying? But I also think it's like very American of us to think that, oh, it's only true if he really meant it. If there's something deep inside. Oh, okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I'm like, it doesn't matter whether he means it. It matters that he does it. And I'm like, you know, I don't really care if it's because he's insecure. Lots of people are insecure and they still don't do horrible things to people. So I think we can kind of over-rely on psychology to excuse away bad behavior. Yeah. especially in politics.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I'm like, does it really matter if he really hates trans people? Like, why are we so obsessed?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's exactly right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes, it's the billionaire problem.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
No, I've never thought of it that way.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And it changes your whole personality. I'm like, this guy has a trip. I've never thought of that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's my Kanye thing. Oh, that's your theory.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I can't believe I never thought of that. He displays all the traits. The violence, the, yeah, the unpredictability.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So my thing on that is I think this might be a division of labor problem, which I mean, like, does everybody need to understand it to condemn it? Right. The behavior. It may just be that, OK, there are people who will puzzle out the how and the why. And then the rest of us, I think it takes a little humility to say, hey, I don't do that. I don't know anything about it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
But I do know that he said this thing that I find abhorrent. And so that's enough for me. I think the problem is there are too many people who feel like that. They can diagnose. So for them that I need to personally understand before I can act.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
He's chronically online. Yes, he is. Let me tell you what the through line is for me that resolves, I would say about 80% of this for me. And I'm like you, I've spent a lot, a lot, a lot of time thinking about this. And kind of like holding that voter up in like perverse fascination, like what's happening there.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I strongly agree. His political instincts are out of this world.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
We act like he is reckless to an unfathomable degree. But I have seen him, sometimes cakewalked up to a line that you would assume he would cross. Yeah. And he doesn't.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Is that what they're doing?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's a follow-up question I had personally.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I do think your point gets at it, Trevor, which is I'm not sure that understand is the right word. I don't think you need to understand to act.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's the difference. But his diagnosis feels right. Yes. That is what I think, by the way, has cut across class and across race. Yes. This is what, like, my great aunt is 91, 92 years old. And she goes, no, you are right. He is right. There are a lot of people out there who shouldn't be here.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So remove them. That seems like the most straightforward solution. Now, removing them means violating the Constitution, you know, violating human rights. Not having enough planes. Right. There are all types of complications to that. But remove them resonates deeply with a lot of people for whom observing the problem is the diagnosis of the problem. Yes. Yeah. Remove problem.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
ground people are gonna game it so based on that okay i'm gonna vote no okay okay trevor's voting no i already know i'm definitely voting no self-interest i'm one of those people with a lot of the words as soon as you said words i was like wow you're coming for my check yeah you said words so the okay see you don't
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Your next plan is coming hard, is what you're saying. I'm going to refine it, but these were good notes. I didn't spot... So taxing the microphones again. I'm going to put that back on the table for you to consider. You know what? So I'm different.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Oh, yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Oh yeah, I'm with you on that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Honestly, now that's a good.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Barring from the economies.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
So I think the issue here is the way that Quarterly earnings have changed our understanding of the world, even if you aren't in the market. Yes. Right. That's what I agree. That's what I'm saying. I think this is like something you said to me once, by the way, Christiana, which I love now using. which is it gives you this like casino economy.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
That you're constantly in a cycle of risk and loss.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
You're chasing both the dopamine and the possibility.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
It's not a sign of quality.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. And I think part of your tension is that that also happened at the same time. The quarterly earnings are changing our understanding of the world. happened at the same time that all of a sudden we were all forced into the market. Because the problem is our houses shouldn't be assets. We shouldn't have to do our retirement accounts.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
We shouldn't even have these 529s. Your baby should just go to school. So it's really hard to like now get ourselves out of the mindset of, well, without that quarterly information, how will I provide and protect my assets?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
So kind of what would need to happen in Trevor's scenario is, Basically a form of government that we used to have. You got to have a social safety net.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. Yeah. Because how are you going to push people out of the first thing you say to most Americans now is no, I need to know what's happening with my 401k.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. Yeah. They love the 401k. The 401k is actually where I might say your problem originated more so than the quarterly earnings because that made all of us care.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Once we had to do a 401k, everybody cared and we're not supposed to care.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
It shouldn't be that big of a deal.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. Well, okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. I do have some, I mean, I could obviously talk about this so long. There are lots of second order issues that I would need to work out. Is a half voter thing? No. Oh.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
To vote for you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I tried. Just like I tried just now. Okay. Ooh. I just don't think the downsides are significant enough. Because this is one of those things where it has existed before. So that means it's not like it's some weird alternate universe. We know we can live quite fine with yearly earnings. So because of that, I'm going to vote yes, believe it or not.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I didn't know it was a competition part. It's not a competition. Yes, it is.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I forgot about that part.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
See, I told y'all, this is the problem here. We need half votes. Actually, I may change mine to that, by the way. No, because people like me will still. Okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
We come back to human nature. This has actually been at the heart of a lot of our comments. Like, do you just think this is a human nature problem? Okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Because you guys don't know this, but you foreshadowed mine. Oh, that's beautiful, actually.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
And it took a lot for me not to say anything because I was like, ah! But I think my argument will be stronger than the statement. So here we go. Okay. If I ruled the world... There would be a national job corps for customer service jobs. Everybody would be conscripted into working in customer service for some period of time in their life for them to go on to the rest of the labor market.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
And let me tell you why. We have talked about Job Corps before, about going and doing the jobs that matter to the economy. But it's not the jobs our economy actually does. This is a customer service. This is a service-based economy.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
And what's happened in that, I think has helped fuel, by the way, political polarization, is depending on how much money or status you have, you can buy your way out of having to engage with customer service to get the stuff you need. You know it. How many of us go to the airport now? And I do. I bypass all of the lines. And if they come up with a new tier, I'm getting that one too.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
You're damn right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Clear, plus, advanced.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Global, global, and new. I'm going to give you both numbers at the same time and ask you which one gets me through faster. Like I'm shaking up at the TSA thing, right? Get me through. Okay. But I do think that what that has done means it's kind of like the loss of public transportation. It's the loss of any public square.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
There are people experiencing this country now from a very myopic view because we all do this. We extrapolate our everyday experiences and go, oh, that's how the world works. That's how the country works. Well, now some people's world actually works like an airport lounge. where everything is smooth and they're like, what do you mean? America's great. What are you talking about, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
But you know who always knows that things aren't great? The people who have to actually provide the customer service. The people in retail. That's exactly right. The people on the other end of the phone when you have a complaint. That's right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
So I want people, before they go off to Wall Street and before they go off to be a financial consultant or this, that, or the other, right, I want them to understand that for the vast majority of people in this country, nothing works anymore, and this is why.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Sorry, yes. But poor people don't have time, Tressie. You know why? Because I want them to work together. Well, they won't be doing other stuff. It's Job Corps. Okay. So you go, we provide for you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
For how long? Okay, that's a good question. How long before you understand just how lucky you are? Probably six months. You probably get it within two weeks. But I say this as somebody who worked a lot of customer service jobs. So I might be more sensitive. So maybe up to a year. Are you paid for it? Yes. Because I don't want to create like a permanent underclass with this.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
In fact, part of the point is people make money for this. And I need you to understand that shapes the whole thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
And what they have been able to opt out of is not the majority of this country.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yes, that was actually mine.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah, it's one I thought of first.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Anybody who answers the phone when you dial 1-800.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Let me tell you who's not included because I did think about this, by the way. Because we call a lot of stuff service now. That's not customer service. So there's like, you know, personal finance service. There's bank service. Anything where the customer service job is conditioned on the people have already cleared a high level of status to even be there, I'm not going to include.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I don't want you providing customer service just to rich people or even just to only poor people. Okay. Because one of the benefits to me of this is that there are very few places anymore where you get a cross-section of Americans.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yes. What about hairdressers? Because I have a good friend, Vernon, who's an incredible hairdresser. Oh, no, because we can't have people out here just messing with folks.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Listen, I would agree. I would agree that they would say that. And I actually also would agree that there's a coarsening of the people and how they interact with service providers. I would also say that if you gave most people a shot at working at a supercut, which coincidentally, one of my former jobs was training the people who worked. It was at the supercut.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
So I've seen it as a, as opposed to saying, Hey, go work the front desk at the rental car agency. They would take the abuse at the hair, at the haircut every day. You know why? Because to Trevor's point at the end of the day, however, you need your hair cut. Yes. There is an intimacy to the interaction. There's no intimacy in these others. So I'm just trying to understand what type of service.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah, because you need a skill to deliver it well. If delivering the customer service requires a certain amount of skilled training to do it, like you do need to know the technique of cutting. We can get most Americans based on just their everyday skills to answer a phone. OK. And to push a button on. OK. You're talking about like administrative front facing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I would say front facing frontline customer service where you have to get something you need. And it would be really hard for you to get it any other.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yes. That you're going to have to work one of them.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
You going with the hurt people, hurt people. I was about to say, I actually don't, I actually believe that human nature is a thing too. And I don't think we can solve for every like, you know, psychologically harmed person. What I do think, and again, thought this one through, is yes, people will come out of there saying, see, the people who do this are just as stupid as I thought.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Oh my God, I'm so glad to be back to my inheritance and my good life. I'm out of it, right? But those people also were never going to behave well anyway, right? I do think you're going to have a part of the population where that's not going to work. But I do think that when we talk about this pulling apart from each other, which I don't romanticize that. We were never a cohesive culture or society.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
But the intimacy of our daily interactions is, increase the risk of us acting badly in certain ways. And I think that when we have lost that, we don't have to take the train together. We don't have to sit in the park together. We don't have to sit... When people can consistently buy themselves out... of the public square to just get the stuff they need. I can live on Amazon.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I never have to interact with the public. I think it makes it really easy to dehumanize each other and to say, my fates are not linked to yours in any way at all. And I think that for maybe not everybody, but I think for a soft majority of people, any kind of exposure to having to share space with people in a way where you can't use
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Your pre-check, your clear, your app that gives you this fast line at the McDonald's. I mean, do you see how it's trickled down? I mean, there is now a special line for everybody everywhere at every level of interaction. And I don't think that has been good for us.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. Well, it solves it this way. You now have to experience the exchange from the other side.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
No, not when.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I think it's pretty much like military service. I think you get drafted up. It's somewhere between, you know, your name goes in the big bucket somewhere between 18 and 21.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yes. You can't. You can't. Remember, it's her system. That's right. I have the power. You get exemptions. No, it's her system. That's right. So no exemptions. No. Well, because think of it as customer service. We got so many variety. There shouldn't be exemptions for bone spurs.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Because I can find you something. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You can answer the phone from anywhere. Yeah, I'm going to find you something.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
And I might even be the one assigning it. I haven't gone that far, but the more I think about it, the more I like that idea. But yes, you're going to a draft.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. And they're like, Americans are so nice. And I'm like, yeah, I know where you're from.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I have built a feminist economy.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
OK. We are scaling up and providing for social reproduction in any world where I'm in charge.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Yeah. Yes. Okay. So I'm going to say something I rarely say, Trevor. You have improved upon my ideas.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Thanks, y'all.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I feel amazing. That's great. Because if I can convince the two, that's what I'm saying. If I can convince the two of you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
It's really actually.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
That's right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
It was just your number came up.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
That's the fear, by the way. This is the fear, right? So for people, when you say this thing that sounds perfectly logical and it's amazing and all of our values are embedded in it, why wouldn't you be in favor of this? Honestly, it's that. Like, I invested in a kid who should be able to, like, go on and inherit. And you are going to put them beside the cute poor kid.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Anything could happen. But that's my point. Anything could happen.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
That's right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
But that's why I like it. Anything could happen. I love it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Have I ever mentioned my competitive nature? I'm not proud of you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Okay, I have a question, but I mean... Okay, how are you going to... Because arguably everything now is text, right? This is one of the things. How are... Is there any ranking or sorting for what one contributes with the text? I don't care about the- I ask out of obvious personal interest.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
So everybody has the same amount of words?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
It doesn't matter.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Now, see, that can become a tax, though.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
But what I'm going to say... See, yours gets complicated because of that abolition thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Can I tell you, I told him that the first time I met him. Trevor's going to be the president of South Africa. Trevor, you won't remember this, but I said, so what, you're going to go home and run for office? And you went, what?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
No, I understand. And it's cumulative. It's like life course. Like, I start out with a bucket of words.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I agree.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
The podcast bros are going to come for you. Well, they'll just be on the mic more. They'll speak more. Do you see the perverse incentives there? So now the men will go from writing a whole bunch of words and throwing them at me to speaking them at me. I mean, they already have the mics, so we're already there. Well, that's what we should be going after, the mics.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Zelensky used to be a comedian.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Maybe not a good example.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Which is what he's effectively done. That's what I was going to say. This is like a, this is more the Twitterization of everything. Oh, that's a good point. So we saw this arc with Twitter to your point, because that's what Elon did. knew or figured out or saw happen with Twitter.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
He realized that there was a real moment, people kind of forget this moment, there's a real moment of fear, governments across this country when the Arab Spring happened. That yes, somehow social media had shifted the balance of power towards a democratization of voices who could influence people's beliefs. And immediately there was a technological solution to that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Who said, no problem, we will just make 50 trillion bots Right. Train on our behavior because Texas easily manipulate to make it sound like a person. This is what you see happening.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Can I put an addendum? Can I just say what I love about the music example? I just want to say this. They borrowed that from politics.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
The political influencer model, starting under Barack Obama, it started to mature later. Was exactly that. Make this go viral. Make this candidate seem inevitable. Trump just did it better and at scale. He seems inevitable with a minority of the voters because he uses audience, influencers. This is a wonderful piece.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I think in the New York Times like a week ago about this sort of like hidden influencer economy of politics. And how Trump is like just bypassing the media altogether and going straight to this. And it is embedded in the White House, the White House press machine. This has gone mainstream. Music was actually late. We did this in politics already.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
OK. OK. So you did put prison back on the table.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
See? See how fast that happens, by the way?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
I am ready to vote.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down [VIDEO]
Oh. That's fine. I was going to go with the consensus. No, no, no. No, okay. This is back to my accurate diagnosis. Yeah. I agree wholeheartedly with trying to, because what you're essentially saying, you want to take the attention economy out of the discourse because it's ruined it. I am there 150%. I think you got to go straight to jail because I think if you got any middle class,