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- [00:00]
A
A list of sensitive themes and topics included in this episode can be found in the episode description. Welcome to this Guy Sucked, the show where we prove that it's never too late to have haters and you can't libel the dead. I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified hater. On this show, we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar every week to tell us why. With me today is Austin McCoy, who is an assistant professor at West Virginia University specializing in African American history, social movements, labor, and hip hop culture. He. He has a very cool and honestly fascinating new book that we were just talking about out later this month, actually at the time of this episode. It'll be out later next week called Living in a Daisy. The Music, Culture and World De La Soulmade. So get your pre orders in now. Welcome to the show, Austin.
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B
Thank you for having me, Claire. I appreciate it.
- [01:20]
A
I'm sure you get asked hip hop questions all the time, especially because you teach hip hop glasses, but unfortunately I'm going to ask you another one.
- [01:28]
B
Sure.
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A
If someone said, what three albums should I listen to? If I've been living on a desert island and I've never ever encountered hip hop ever before in my life, what three albums would you give them to listen to?
- [01:41]
B
Wow. The desert island question.
- [01:43]
A
Sorry.
- [01:44]
B
No, it is fine because I think about this all the time. So. Which means I'm going to give you the answer for today and that answer might change tomorrow. Right. I mean, so I think album number one going to go with De La Soul's first album, Three Feet High Rising. It is a revolutionary album, came out in 1989 and, you know, it's a very bright album, you know, in terms of its sound and it is very whimsical, Right. I mean, it is built upon scores of samples, right. I mean, that's what the album is sort of famous for. And it's one of those albums where on the one hand it's a concept album, right? I mean, like, so it is sort of telling a story about, you know, the three artists as they're sort of of playing a game show, right. I mean, that's sort of an underrated part of the album. It has a bunch of skits, right? I mean, some of the skits being very influential. I mean, so like you can sort of hear Artists like Kendrick Lamar, Missy Elliott, outkast. When you sort of listen to this album, and then, yeah, a lot of the songs are just fun, whether it is the magic number that is based upon Schoolhouse Rock song.
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A
Cool.
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B
And if anyone seen, I guess it was the latest Spider man movie, like, that song played as, you know, part of the credits, you know. And then of course, there's Me, Myself and I, which is the huge single based upon the George Clinton song and a song that over time, they grew to hate. So speaking of haters, right? I mean, like, instead of saying me, Myself and I, they would say we hate the song. If you read my book, you'll understand why they came to not like the song, at least for a while. I mean, I think, you know, it's different now. There's all kinds of wacky songs on it, you know. So I think it's an album that a lot of people enjoy. A lot of people who don't even like rap like this album, right? So I think that's number one. Number two, I think I'm gonna go with Missy Elliott's first album, Super Duper Fly, and of course, hall of Famer, you know, in terms of being an artist, one of the most influential rap artists, if not music artists, especially coming out of the 1990s, it's another album if you wanna feel good about life or I guess about living by yourself on a desert island. It's, you know, it's a. It's a good album to pick up. So, like, I've chosen two pretty fun albums. I guess the third album, see, this is when it gets hard, right? It's like. Because then you're just thinking about all the other stuff you're not choosing. I think I'm gonna go with outkast's Atlans.
- [04:10]
A
Okay, cool. Yeah.
- [04:11]
B
And part of this is when I taught my hip hop class this past semester, I told my students, like. Cause no, I asked them, like, how many of you have listened to a. A full Outcast album? And only a few raised their hands. And I was just like, okay, your assignment for this weekend is just go listen to every single outkast album. You will not regret it. You will not regret it. And most people would choose the first album, Southern Playlist of Cadillac music, because it has some of their earlier hits on it. A lot of people would choose the Love Below speaker box because of hey Ya. But Atleans has always been one of my favorite Outkast albums. It's more serious than the first two albums that I chose. I Mean, but then it is the type of album too that you listen to and it's very meaningful. I mean, like they talk about aging, they talk about what it means to be different. They talk about trying to sort of make it in the music business without compromising their ideals. Right. I mean, so in many ways, great connective tissue between De La Souls, Three Feet High and Rising and Missy Elliott's Super Duper Fly. Right. Which you know, they are also sort of rapping about these things and singing about these issues at the same. But I think, you know, 3ft high and Rising, Super Duply are a little more upbeat. Outkast's album is a little more chill in that regard, but also serious. So those are the three albums I would choose now. Like, if you asked me 20 minutes later, I probably would revise it in some way.
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A
An interesting through line in all of these also is they're all like weird rappers. Does that make sense? Like, it seems like for today we're enjoying, as in literally today, right now in this conversation, we're enjoying people who have really sort of like big personalities and music that is about that personality, which I think is really cool. I think those are three great options. Also my partner and I, we have this thing where when we're. We do a lot of road trips, especially recently we like moved from California over to the east coast. And outkast is for some reason like their albums are so good for road trips because they really take you on such a journey through the album. They're really, really fun to listen to like the full album through on road trip. So that's my recommendation for people, which, I mean, they're great for all these other things too. People think of Outcast as like party music or something. And I have to be like, no, you should like experience.
- [06:33]
B
Exactly. No, this is exactly why I tell students and everyone, like listen to the full album, you know, like enjoy the full piece of work. Because no, it's nice to be able to pick out your favorite songs, put em on a playlist. I mean, we all do that and it's great to never be able to have to skip anything. But at the same time, these artists are telling stories and they're telling very compelling stories. And especially at a time right now where it's. I feel like we're living in a moment where it feels like our collective imaginations are shrinking. Whether it is because of, you know, technology, AI, you know, but also the way that streaming companies work. But then I think politically where it's about, well, you know, we are going to make sure that only, you know, some of us are going to win wars for resources, and we're not going to come up with any sort of actual solutions that could help more people, you know. So I think listening to, like, folks like outkast, Missy Elliot, De La Soul reminds us that it's okay to have an imagination. It's okay to be weird too, you know, which is, I think, something that we're in a political moment too, where people are trying to push back against this idea of being weird because you know what you should be able to do? Pull ups in the airport. You know, it's like, what? What are we doing?
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A
Well, also, like, I think if nothing else, if people don't even listen to the rest of the episode, I want people to know that my official position is that we need to bring back skits on albums.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like, I think that that is a lost art, genuinely. Like, there are who are still doing it, but because things like streaming services incentivize a single song or one or two songs.
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B
Right.
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A
And only listening to those and not experiencing all these other things, skits are like, people aren't doing them anymore.
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B
Right, exactly.
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A
Well, a lot of people aren't doing them anymore.
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B
Right.
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A
And that used to be. So as a. When I was younger, I remember growing up and those being a, like, big part of albums and thinking they were so funny and like, you would, like, learn the words of a skit, not just a song.
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B
Exactly.
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A
And so for anybody who's younger than me listening, listening to this, which there are, we have a pretty solid amount of like Gen Z listeners. Because I'm like a zillennial. Any Gen Z listeners, go find an album with skits on it and listen to the whole album straight through and enjoy them. And if you don't enjoy it, don't tell me.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
You don't want to know.
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B
Right, Exactly. Cost you nothing to say. Nothing.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Which is another lesson that I think a lot of people could learn.
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A
We should probably, like, do the thing that's the point of the show. Who did you want to talk to me about today? With the knowledge that I will have to give a preface to this after you tell us who it is.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This person is alive.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And it's William Jefferson Clinton.
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A
Yeah. I also, through this, learned that his name was not William Jefferson Clinton originally and that it changed because his dad was a bigamist, which also I didn't know.
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B
Wow. I didn't know that J.D. vance, he pulled a J.D.
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A
Vance, truly, we are talking about Bill Clinton. Born 1946, dead. Not yet. Yeah. And I want to preface this by saying people who heard this episode might have been like, did I miss a very important historical event? Austin gets the dubious honor of talking about our first living guy on the pod. Normally it's because I don't want to be sued for defamation or libel or whatever, but Bill Clinton was the President of the United States.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And there literally is a Wikipedia article called Relationship of Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein. So I feel like he has bigger fish to fry than a history podcast talking about him. I think he has more PR scandals to deal with than you and me. Saying his laws were bad. Basically.
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B
Yeah. No, all they have to do is look at his policy record.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And things that he's done in public.
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A
Well, yeah. And when it comes to presidents and just like general world leaders, I think it's a little bit safer to be talking about one who's still alive because their job while being alive is being criticized. Like, we're not going to say anything new necessarily. We're just gonna have our own particular perspectives on it. Can you tell us perhaps what Clinton is most famous for? Give us a little sense of like, how people might have encountered him before. Slash what you think the general view of him is going into this.
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B
Well, first off, of course, he is most famous for being the 42nd President of the United States elected in 1992. Before that, he served multiple terms as governor of Arkansas. And then of course, even before that, I mean, getting involved in Democratic party politics wasn't necessarily a member of the left or the new left. Right. As many folks in his generation were. But he still somehow was able to not go to Vietnam like a lot of people, including our current president. Right. I mean, so sort of that's the general resume before he was elected. Of course, there's a list of things that we can cite that he is famous for. Elephant in the room. Famous for his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky, other rumored affairs, you know, with other women. His sexual harassment.
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A
Sure.
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B
Sort of accusations as well. Right. I mean, so like, you know, these are the elephants in the room. All this coming out of the Starr report that was a investigation into some of the Clintons dealings, which then sort of evolved into an investigation around his personal behavior with Monica Lewinsky and other women. And then of course, he was impeached. So he was impeached and somehow politically survived, which in some ways sets the foundation for where we are today, considering that, you know, like, if you Think about, you know, obviously our current president and him being caught on tape talking about grabbing women. Also all the just, you know, sexist and racist comments that he's made on camera, and people are just like, yeah, it's fine. You know, and then, of course, January 6th. Right. I mean, so in some ways, Clinton surviving in the late 1990s was foreshadowing what we would see today. You know, so if we're going to address the elephants in the room, he's probably the most famous for those, if we're being completely honest.
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A
Yeah. I mean, his survival of that, I think is very interesting because it sort of creates this image. Like, presidents have been doing all kinds of wild stuff before that, obviously, and doing all kinds of like having extramarital affairs and sexual harassment. This is a long term problem. But the fact that he's acquitted, first of all, his impeachment is not just that he has this affair with Monica Lewinsky, but it's that he, like, obstructs justice and purges himself to do this. And it basically sets the stage for the idea that this is just how presidents are. Like, this is just what they do and they're allowed to do that. And you have like, you know, George Bush after him was like, well, you can just be a little stupid. Like, you're just allowed.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
And like, I don't also don't think George Bush is that stupid. But I think there's this thing where you can create this public Persona that's around bad behavior.
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B
Right.
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A
For some presidents. Other presidents are required to be exactly like Obama is required to be exactly perfect in every possible way publicly.
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B
Right.
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A
But other presidents can just be like part of an old boys club or be a little bit of a sexist or be, you know, and it's.
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B
Right.
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A
I think Clinton actually does play a significant role in like normalizing this publicly.
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B
Yeah. And it's something I hadn't really even thought about until we started talking about it, where it's like, oh, wait a minute, hold on. Like, I mean, because, I mean, because. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, the longer history, you know, a lot of people think about John F. Kennedy and sort of what he was doing outside of his marriage while he was president. But then things sort of change in the 70s and 80s where folks like Gary Hart get busted with having another sort of relationship outside of his marriage, and that just tanks his chances for the presidency in the 1980s. Right. I mean, so, like, when Clinton comes around. Yeah. It is something totally different where, like you said, it's not just about his behavior, but it's about also him breaking the law, you know, being sort of found breaking the law. And it's like, well, he not only survives, he, like, comes out of it stronger, you know, in terms of the polling and continued to sort of enjoy a lot of Goodwill until the 2010s.
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A
Yeah. And I think what's interesting. Interesting in a bad way is, like, if you contrast that with the Obama thing, for example. So, like, this is not to say that I'm, like, a pro Obama, because I have. I think there are many qualms we should have with literally every president.
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B
Exactly.
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A
But, like, Obama gets accused of loving his wife too much.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And, like, giving her too much power and be, like, having too good of a relationship, which is also insane because we've just had someone who, like, cheated on his wife, and they're like, well, that'll happen. That's just what you do. So it's. It's a very interesting contrast between the two in terms of the expectations we set for certain people and expectations we don't set for others.
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B
Right, exactly.
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A
And I. I will say this is just on the top of my mind because Austin and I had a very interesting conversation going into this beforehand about certain expectations of certain people versus others. So that's at the top of my mind. But it actually fits very well into the Clinton narrative. Can you, like, tell me a little bit about what you perceive as his current legacy? Like, how people currently look at him and the time that he was in office? Like, do you think they have a sort of nostalgic view of it, a positive view? Like, why do you want to talk about him, basically?
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B
Right. I mean, I think it depends upon who you're talking about. Right. I mean, so I think if you're talking about, you know, folks who may not be part of the, quote, unquote, left in the United States. And I mean, left being to the left of the Democratic Party or. Well, to the left of the Democratic Party or if you're talking about folks who aren't in academia who study 20th century US politics. I think there's a lot of people who lived through the 1990s, and they thought, well, I bought my first house when Clinton was president, or there was more economic stability. I don't remember there being any sort of major military conflicts. So there's gonna be some people who will probably continue to view the Clinton presidency positively because of those reasons. I remember engaging in conversation with someone when I was a grad student, and I think this was during the 2016 election. And obviously Hill Clinton was running against Trump. And I remember someone asking, why would anyone support the Clintons? And I was like, well, I mean, my parents voted for him twice, and they would probably be the first to tell you we got our first house when he was president. And that matters to a lot of people. And I'm not going to argue with that. But I do think in the last 15 years, people's views of the Clintons have also shifted. And I think part of this is, on the one hand, having more distance from the 1994 crime bill and the role that it played in growing incarceration in the United States and setting the foundation or sort of solidifying, really solidifying some of the more draconian crime policies of the 1970s and 1980s. So the 1994 crime bill and people seeing that as a part of the foundation for the anti black police violence that we would see in the 2000 and tens, whether we're talking about Eric Garner or even. And we bring it up to more recent time with, you know, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Right. I mean, so I do think people do sort of see Clinton or see the crime bill as part of his legacy. You know, so the crime bill, mass incarceration. Of course, there's also the North American Free Trade Agreement, nafta.
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A
Yeah, right.
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B
Which, it's complicated in the sense of NAFTA was negotiated by the previous president. And the sort of roots of this agreement was in other free trade agreements between the United States and Canada. But Clinton signed the treaty, it is passed. And whether or not it sort of caused massive job loss is debatable, but it has become a very toxic, as we know. Right. Free trade as a concept. Right. I mean, and I put free trade in quotes, you know, since no one can see us. You know, it has become a toxic issue. And obviously, whether it is President Trump, you know, you have folks like Bernie Sanders who really put it on the front burner in 2016. And it really hasn't left. Right? It really hasn't left. And of course, now our current president is trying to do all these tariffs, which has also been bad. Right. I mean, but I think NAFTA as being a symbol of deindustrialization or sort of factory job loss or manufacturing job loss, especially in the industrial Midwest. You know, I come from, you know, my hometown, Mansfield, Ohio, lost multiple factories since the early 1970s. And so, like, no, I grew up sort of learning more about what manufacturing job loss meant to not just, you know, folks in my family who worked in factories, but also communities. But I think people have equated NAFTA with that. And whether that's a right or wrong position. That is the position. That is the perception. Right. It's that sort of cliche. Perception is reality. And people have sort of pointed to NAFTA and pointed to free trade agreements as the culprit for job loss, which. Yeah. Came back to kick the Democrats butts in 2016. And Democrats have. They have not been able to shake it, you know, since.
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A
Right.
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B
And obviously it feeds into the xenophobic immigration policies that we see today. Right. I mean, so NAFTA is also seen as part of Clinton's legacy. And in some ways automation has been very problematic. May be, you know, a bigger culprit than free trade agreements, but that's not what people believe.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And when people don't believe something, sometimes whether or not you're right doesn't matter.
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A
I think there's another interesting thing that happens with Clinton where this is wild, but they like want him to be cool.
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B
Yeah.
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A
If that makes sense. Because he played the sacks. And this is actually an interesting thing to talk about like maybe a little bit later when we're saying what's wrong with him because he seen as somehow like this hip guy, which he was not. But he has this strange legacy that's really complicated. And his wife has also complicated his legacy enormously through the stuff that she's done. Another thing I really wanted to bring up is that he sort of, in terms of like his legacy is that he really helps to reshape the Democratic Party around more like centrist New Democrats policies.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Things like welfare reform, which we will be talking about. Free trade, which you just mentioned, tough on crime stuff. He basically moves the Democrats more to the center than they were previously. Not that they were like that far to the left, but like he moves them. And now what we see as the modern Democratic Party is a legacy of that in a really big way where like things that used to be accepted on the left as like just a normal function of Democratic Party politics are now seen as like far left crazy stuff.
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B
Right.
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A
That were not seen that way previously because he wanted to appeal to like, he could say, I'm from Arkansas, I'm like a good old boy. Don't worry, I'm not scary. I'm not that far left. And in doing so, he moves the whole party towards him.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Because they needed to mount someone who. What they didn't feel was a threat after the previous president. So it's he has a very weird legacy, I think. I think you're right that people are sort of like, oh, well, there's a strong economic growth in the period that he's president, so we could buy houses and things weren't that bad. And music is. Is. We're having this huge boom in the kind of musical genres that are, you know, like, got a really weird mixed bag in terms of his legacy. Hi there, it's Claire. The episode you're currently listening to is free for everybody, but the next one won't be because we're trying to make this show independently and sustainably. We switch off between free weeks and Patreon weeks. So if you're a fan of good, accurate public history made by actual experts, consider supporting our Patreon. It's only one tier, which means everyone who subscribes gets access to the same perks across the board. For the price of a pair of socks, you'll get access to a new episode every week instead of just the bi weekly free ones. And they'll all be ad free for you. You'll also get access to the full episode archive, bonus content, early access to merch, and lots of other fun Patreon exclusives. To sweeten the deal, just head over to patreon.com thisguysucked or follow the link in the episode description to sign up. Up. So why did you want to talk about him? Why did you pick him as your guy?
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B
So there's two reasons. So on the one hand, I think he intersects with much of my research, especially with my book about De La Soul. So, you know, he pops up as a character within this story. Yeah. There is the sort of immediate relationship with my own research. The second piece relates to what we've been talking about, which is with more time and more time that has passed since his presidency, I think people are beginning to reassess. Right. Sort of taking a look back at what kind of president was he and what were the ramifications of his policies. Right. I mean, so, yeah, a lot of people still think he's one of the best politicians of our lifetimes. You know, there's people who were like, I thought he was a cool person. And Toni Morrison called him the first black president.
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A
Yeah, famously.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. Which is like, you know, you're just like, well, that's regrettable. But in the 90s, I mean, it's sort of a critique of. Of us's racist history. Right. Where it's like, this is the closest we're going to get, which is A white guy from Arkansas. But then, on the other hand, it is also just unfortunate. At the same time, I wanted to talk about someone who. Yeah, he's sort of in this middle ground in terms of his legacy, in terms of people still sort of at least, looking back with nostalgia. Right. Looking back to the 1990s with nostalgia, remembering the time as pretty positive, but then also his fingerprints on policies related to trade, crime, welfare, even the media industry and obviously finance. Right. I mean, we can sort of draw some lines from, you know, some of these policies to the financial crisis, police killings, the corporate concentration in the media that has ramped up in the last several months, you know, under this administration. Right. I mean, there are so many lines that we can draw from the Clinton administration.
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A
So there's a lot there.
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B
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot. There's probably going to be some people who are going to listen to this and be like, well, I'm not sure. I mean, like, look at what we're living under now. And I would say it's a fair argument, but also, we might not be here if it wasn't for some of these policies as well.
- [25:52]
A
I also think it's interesting to remind people that we need to look at these people on their merits in the sense that, like, I can't be like, well, things are worse now. Look at what we have now. Like, it can't always be this comparative thing where we say, well, things are worse now. So somehow what we think of as better redeems their legacy long term. Like, no, we should be looking at people on their individual merits, and in this case, like, the individual bad things they did. But, like, we should be taking seriously the idea that a person. We can look at them as an individual and weigh them based on that. It does not have to always be, well, Trump's worse. Like, yeah, so, like, yeah, yeah. And that's not what a historian does, actually, is we don't just look at someone and say, well, I should give this guy a pass because the next guy is. Is even worse. Yeah, that would be a failure of us to do our job, basically.
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B
Exactly.
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A
I think a good place to start with this. I mean, we've already talked actually quite a lot about the bad stuff, and so we don't really have to do, like, hard cut. Now, here's the bad stuff. But a good place to start here, I think, is talking about the Sister Soulja moment, because that's right out of the gate, he does something that I think is horrifying. So in 1992, during his presidential campaign, an emcee slash author slash activist. You can tell if I'm characterizing any of this wrong name Sigma Soldier is quoted in, I believe, the Washington Post. And she later, since then, has disputed that this is actually what she said. She said in 2016 that she didn't say this and that she was misquoted. So that's an interesting dynamic here too. But she's quoted basically saying that what's happening in riots in LA is reasonable and that people who are subjected to enormous violence, who grow up and like, join gangs, that it's understandable that they would turn their rage on white people, basically. So this is what she's quoted as saying. Whether she actually says it or not is debatable. Which also I think, even if that is what she said, I actually think that's fairly reasonable. Like the thing that she says where she's like, well, yeah, if you're in this pressure cooker situation and you see someone as being the person causing this trauma for you, of course you're going to turn against them. Like, I actually think that's a pretty reasonable proposition. Sorry for people listening who might not like that. But in response, Clinton basically disavows her and says, like, she's not a representative of my party. So, like from jump, the second he gets close to political power, he's willing to just abandon and disavow people who could theoretically have been on his side in order to make a sort of rhetorical gesture to the right to say, no, no, no, I'm not dangerous like her or like them. So I also think this is incredibly anti black in this moment, in a way that signals that that's what the rest of his presidency is going to be.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Do you think that my read of this is fair or reasonable?
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B
Generally, yes. I mean, I think there's the context. And I think this also comes back to your point about Clinton and folks around him, especially trying to move the party to the right. Right. I mean, so I think on the one hand, Lisa Williamson, AKA Sister Soulja, gives this interview in response to the uprisings in la, where according to the quote, she says, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? That's sort of the thing that everyone sort of hones in on. And there's a lot of things to be said about that quote. Right. In the sense of it does raise a specter of black led retaliatory violence in response to anti black violence, which is something that a lot of white Americans A lot of white people who, you know, started settling in North America, engaging in chattel slavery have been afraid of.
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A
Yes.
- [29:45]
B
So, yeah, some people will say, well, you know, just as we've seen in the last six months. Right. Like, just any sort of talk about politicized violence or political violence is bad because we live in a quote, unquote, democracy. But. But the problem with trying to apply that principle to what she is saying is one, she's not being literal. You know, if that's the quote, it's clear that she's not being liberal. She's not saying, actually, folks should just go out and just go do this.
- [30:10]
A
She's not saying, let's have a white person killing week. Let's designate the week for that.
- [30:17]
B
Right, right. It's like, I mean, on the one hand, it's like she's raising questions about inner city violence among African Americans and black folks and brown folks. Right. I mean, so, like, that's in some ways because she's talking about that, which is something that when we talk about structural racism, a lot of folks who are skeptical want to sort of redirect conversations back to, quote, unquote, black on black crime. So she's talking about that, and she's actually sort of critiquing that within that statement, if that is what is quoted. And then she is also raising a question that a lot of black leaders have raised when it comes to living in a structurally racist society, which is, well, we live under the system. We know who the real enemies are. Right. And the real enemies are white supremacists. Right. I mean, like. And this is something that Malcolm X has mentioned before.
- [31:05]
A
Right.
- [31:05]
B
At least generally in the sense of black revolution as being a violent thing. And also black folks having the right to defend themselves by any means necessary. Right. I mean, so, like, it's sort of part of this pro black, also sort of almost prophetic type of, you know, sort of analysis of racism and violence. Right. I mean, we could take this back to Nat Turner and all the folks who had sort of led slave rebellions. Right. I mean, so, like, when she said that, if this is the correct quote, she struck a nerve. That is very historical and part of the sort of psychic fears that many white Americans have had since shadow slavery. So, like, that's part of the context here. And then you get an inter. Bill Clinton. Right. Who obviously is going to use her as a political prop.
- [31:59]
A
Yeah.
- [32:00]
B
And not just her, but he's using Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition.
- [32:04]
A
Yeah.
- [32:04]
B
As political props as well.
- [32:06]
A
That's where he says this to the Rainbow Coalition. He says, if you took the words white and black and you reverse them, you might think David Duke was giving them that speech. Like, he basically says, she's as bad as the grand wizard of the kkk.
- [32:19]
B
Which is, you know, incredibly intellectually dishonest. Well, yes, in a form of dishonesty that many folks encounter when it comes to race and racism. You know, I mean, like, I have had conversations with folks who are like, well, aren't the Black Panthers like the black kkk? And you're like, absolutely not.
- [32:37]
A
Definitely not.
- [32:37]
B
We could critique the Black Panthers, but they're not the same thing. You know, and this is sort of similar when, like, white Southerners would equate the NAACP with the kkk. Right. It's just, it's preposterous. I mean, obviously grounded in anti black racism and grounded in this erroneous belief that, you know, quote unquote, reverse racism is a thing that, like, black folks could be just as bad, if not worse, you know, than white folks when it comes to sort of having views about white people, basically. Right. I mean, so, yeah, like Clinton, he clearly is, you know, using all this as a stage to signal to white Americans that he's willing to stand up against Jesse Jackson. Right. And the Rainbow Coalition, which, if we take it back, you know, take your references, talking about his changing of the party, the Rainbow Coalition was one of the main, probably the major rivals of the Democratic Leadership Council, which is an organization that Clinton came out of. Right. I mean, so he's doing a lot of things that are diabolical. This is just completely diabolical in a sense of like, he is using this as a stage. He's using it to tell white Americans who might be on the fence about civil rights, hey, I'm not going to take orders from Jesse Jackson and other black leaders. And I'm also willing to criticize black folks who are part of the hip hop generation, which is something that the Republican Party, as well as law enforcement have been doing for the previous few years in response to NWA's F, the Police, Ice T's Cop Killer, and other hip hop artists, rap artists who had been criticizing law enforcement, criticizing racism. So Clinton uses this situation to completely establish that, okay, I am going to be willing to do these things, and I'm not going to be the same type of Democrat that's going to appeal to people of color. And I'm going to show that the Democratic Party isn't, quote, unquote, beholden to people of color. And Other, quote, unquote, special interests in this regard. And then two weeks later, he goes on the Arsenio hall show. Two weeks later he's at this show, like one of the leading talk shows in the US at that time. You know, Arsenio hall sort of being the first real black talk show host. It's a show that a lot of African Americans are watching. And yeah, he goes on and he plays a saxophone two weeks later. And this is why in some ways, you know, on the one hand, people think he's, you know, quote, unquote, cool, but then also the politics is incredibly shrewd because, yeah, he goes from basically trying to attack black politics and black culture to trying to sort of use it as a performance to appeal to the same people that he was criticizing a few weeks before.
- [35:30]
A
And there's a level of trying to sow discord, I think, and maybe this is me being kind of a conspiracy theorist here, but like trying to sow discord within the black community. Because that happens anytime you're saying, oh, younger people are doing this thing that older people are wary of and are wary of the optics around. And he says, basically, actually, yes, you should be wary of the optics around this, but actually, I'm cool and I can play the sack, so you can trust me. So this discord that I'm sowing and this distrust that I, or this mistrust that I'm encouraging within your own community, it doesn't matter because actually, like, I am the trustworthy person here. And so what you should do is create more mistrust within your community, which then becomes a long term thing. He does, essentially. And he does this over and over and over again. It's almost never focused on white communities. It is almost always focused on black communities, communities, communities of color. It's a thing that he does, and I think he does it very effectively, such that even later people are like, Clinton was so great. And I have to be like, yeah, he literally put so many people from your community in jail. Yeah, like, how could you possibly still feel that? But it's because he's very good at the optics around himself and in turning those against other people, basically, at this point in time.
- [36:51]
B
Yeah, no, there's a word for it, right? There's a word for it that they were using and it's triangulation, right? It's, you know, which is, you know. Yeah, we're willing to split constituencies or even the party as a whole and sort of link up usually with other constituencies that are probably going to be More to the right, in order to sort of either pass legislation or at the very least, construct an electoral coalition. Right. I mean, so it wasn't a conspiracy. This was the plan.
- [37:20]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I think we can fast forward just two years because I really want to make sure we highlight two things as maybe our two pillars here. I want to talk about the 1994 crime bill, and I want to talk about the 1996 welfare reform bill. Those are the things that I feel really strongly about. But also, I know that you have a lot of thoughts on them. So maybe we can start with the 1994 crime bill, because that's not that long after the Sister soldier moment, which, by the way, becomes a name. Like, it becomes a thing that people do. They have Sister Soulja moments. And I think that's so for her, like, just thinking about that, the fact that, like, your name is permanently tied to this horrendous thing a politician did in response to something you may or may not have even said and misquoted you and because quoted you out of context. Because also the broader context of what she says. She says a lot more in that interview, which are, like, fairly reasonable things that she says. Like, I think that's also such an enormous slap in the face to her that forever she's associated with this, like, horrible thing, basically. Anyways, that's an aside.
- [38:25]
B
Yeah. And you have people who ask politicians to have their own soldier moment. Right. Which it is incredibly, at best, cynical.
- [38:34]
A
Yes.
- [38:35]
B
At best cynical.
- [38:36]
A
Yeah. So can you tell me, us, slash the audience, about the 1994 crime bill a little bit, also known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement act, or the Clinton Crime Bill, the crime.
- [38:50]
B
Bill, you know, signed in September, actually signed on the same day that Notorious B.I.G. 's ready to die comes out.
- [38:56]
A
Right.
- [38:57]
B
I mean, which is like a very sort of interesting coincidence, for lack of a better term. But no, this bill is about, like I said, sort of solidifying some of the Anti Drug Abuse act or Anti Drug Abuse policies that had been passed in Congress in the 1980s. It sort of had their roots in sort of state policies around mandatory minimums and such. In the 1970s, the crime bill expands death penalty offenses. So the US government is still well, in the business of killing people for certain crimes. It establishes the three strike rule. Right. I mean, so this refers to if a person commits three felonies, they can be, you know, incarcerated up to life, and that sort of as a minimum sentence. Right. I mean, so you go from having mandatory minimums for drugs like cocaine and Crack, which, you know, had the sort of infamous disparity. You know, if you were caught with the same amount of crack as you were with cocaine, you got more time for crack. You know, three strike rules, mandatory life sentences, put more police officers on the streets. So around 100,000 police officers. And then, you know, there are some other aspects of the crime bill that we don't talk about as much, such as the ban on semiautomatic assault rifles and then the Violence Against Women act, which if you spend those two out of the crime bill, you're like, oh, you know, like, okay, like these are positive updates or developments. But no, it's the mandatory minimums, three strikes rules, these policies that basically help fuel and grow mass incarceration in the United States, especially within the next 10 years. So we go from having hundreds of thousands of people incarcerated to more than a million in short order. So this bill sort of solidifies some of these policies that were passed in the 1980s. And, and there were Democrats who supported them. Like, you know, there were black mayors who supported the crime bill. But then you also had folks like Jesse Jackson, naacp, who criticized the crime bill. So when we're talking about people looking back at Clinton and it's just sort of like this presentist interpretation of him. No, there are people who are criticizing this.
- [41:13]
A
Yes, absolutely.
- [41:14]
B
All the time. You have these policies going into effect. Also you have sort of increased militarization of police at this time as well. Sort of, you know.
- [41:24]
A
Yeah.
- [41:24]
B
State and local police forces being able to continue to acquire military style equipment from the federal government as well. Right. I mean, so. Yeah, no, the crime bill. He even said that he regretted, you know, in our previous conversation before this. Ready. I mean, he even sort of expressed some regret about contributing to the problem that led to the amount of police violence against black people that we've seen in the last 15 years.
- [41:49]
A
There are some other things also I want to add to that. This, for example, it incentivizes the building of prisons.
- [41:54]
B
Yeah.
- [41:55]
A
So, like, they say that they want to increase the number of beds available for violent offenders, and so they give financial incentives for more prisons to be built. And in fact, the only way most prisons are not profitable, the only way it can be profitable is if they fill those beds. So there is incentive to basically find and sentence more violent offenders to fill the prison beds that are only built in response to this bill in the first place. Yeah, bad. You're right. The militarization, that was another thing I want to talk about. Like, this is also really terrible. It Authorizes the creation of boot camps for minors.
- [42:25]
B
Yeah.
- [42:25]
A
It overturns part of the Higher Education act of 1965, which permits prison inmates to receive a Pell Grant for higher education. Also, as someone who was on. Who went to college on Pell Grants.
- [42:36]
B
Yeah.
- [42:36]
A
The level of difficulty you have to have experienced in your life in order to qualify for a Pell Grant, like the level of financial difficulty you have to experience. The bar is already so high, like the threshold to have that. And then also be like, oh, you are currently in. In prison.
- [42:51]
B
Right.
- [42:51]
A
And you can't access this thing, which is for many people, the only way that they will be able to access higher education in the first place. Yeah, I think that's pretty bad too. Like, there are a lot of things that this creates because it also creates long term structural difficulties for people who then exit prison trying to reintegrate into the world. And now also we're not able to access higher education while they were in prison. So they come out both with. With a conviction on their record and no degree which they could theoretically have earned while in. Everything I read about this bill just makes me so mad.
- [43:25]
B
Yeah. Like, yeah, this is a time where it's like, yeah, if you were a black man living in the 1990s, you were more likely to. Or at least one in three of you. Right. Were more likely to at some point be incarcerated. And the other piece of this that is brutal is that the crime rate that folks were scared about and talking about and sort of crafted politics around was starting to already go down before the passage of this bill. Right. I mean, so it's like, again, sort of trying to address a problem that really was sort of subsiding. But obviously, you know, we know that it's just the roots of law and order politics and law and order politics directed at black and brown people, poor people, working class people. Yeah. In many ways, this is sort of just the solidification of a, at that point, almost nearly 30 year process, but a solidification of the type of law and order politics that was being implemented during the Reagan administration. And yeah, like, I mean, you think about the boot camps. I mean, the 1990s, another big moment for like all these daytime talk shows and the amount of quote unquote, Scared Straight episodes. Like, you could probably go and Google one right now and you'll find it. Right. I mean, that's how much this politics seeped into popular culture as well. Right. Where it's like, we're just like cops. Right. You know, the TV show really becoming a thing too, at this time. Right. I mean, so it's just like we were just living in a very reactionary time. And Clinton was at the vanguard of this in the 1990s.
- [45:02]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Things like the US prison population skyrockets in the late 1990s as a result of this, in the early 2000s. You've already mentioned, like, black Americans are incarcerated at vastly disproportionate rates to any other group, obviously, in comparison to white Americans as well. Entire neighborhoods, families, communities get completely destabilized and, like, gutted by the results of this bill. And the US Becomes the world's largest jailer as a result of this.
- [45:30]
B
Right.
- [45:30]
A
That was not the case. The thing that's interesting that we talk about a lot on the show is how often people project their current experience of America back onto how people were experiencing it previously. And, like, yes, people were being incarcerated at, like, unreasonable rates before then, but America as, like, the prison center of the world. That's not how America was viewed or what it was previous to this. We become that out of this bill. That is still a relatively recent development in the history of America. And again, only in terms of, like, incarceration. Like, things like slavery is also a version of imprisonment. Like, so there are lots of other things, but we're not viewed as this, like, carcerally, like, dominant state before this.
- [46:13]
B
Right.
- [46:13]
A
So just a reminder to people, things that you think are just the way they are have not always been that way and don't always have to be that way.
- [46:20]
B
Exactly, exactly.
- [46:23]
A
This is so recent.
- [46:24]
B
Yeah, exactly. You know, and then there's this sort of coda, I would say, sort of in 1996, when Bill Clinton is running for reelection and his wife, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, makes her remark about, quote, unquote, super predators, right? Where she says they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We could talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel, right? I mean, like, she is saying this in support of her husband's reelection. You can go Google this, right? I mean, like, people can go and watch her say this. And obviously, right. She's referring to, you know, John Dilio's article, the Coming of the Super Predators, where he's arguing that, yeah, like, there's this sort of demographic crisis coming of young folks who they have no conscience and they are going to commit indiscriminate acts of violence against people like, quote, unquote, you. Right. I mean, against, you know, white Americans, middle class Americans, and you should be afraid of these folks. Right. I mean, and it sort of catches on, but it's so bad that even several years later, he's even like, I think I might have. I don't know how much I should even, like, have stuck in this. Right. I mean, like, he was even, like, regretful. And that remark of hers comes back to haunt her in 2016 when we're in the mid of the Black Lives Matter movement. She's running for president, and no, there are activists who are confronting her and telling her, I am not a super predator. And of course, you had Trump, who was trying to capitalize on that, too, in the campaign. So these policies and discourses, even when some of the folks might disavow them later on or express regret later on, they still live on in political culture. And people obviously remember these policies and the destructiveness of them and the destructiveness of the ways in which the carceral state in some of these discourses demonized their parents or their grandparents and them in their present day.
- [48:30]
A
Right.
- [48:31]
B
I mean, so the sort of afterlives of the crime bill and the law and order politics of the 1990s, they continue to shape outcomes. Obviously, not just outcomes for the people that are directly affected, but for people who want more power.
- [48:45]
A
Sure, yeah. I have two thoughts also on the sort of super predator thing that Hillary Clinton is saying. One is, even if that were true, like, say we're living in this world where this is true and people are behaving this way, the fact that she says, you know, we can debate about why that is, it's like, well, because of your husband's stupid bill, like, the reason, if that were the case, and people were acting totally lawless and violent, whatever, with the knowledge that basically whatever they do, they're going to be incarcerated because they have no opportunities and their lives are. Are destroyed because of this crime bill, and they started acting like super predators or whatever, and they have. They're conscienceless. Well, yeah, that's the result of the policies that you put in place. In the first place, even if that were true, her logic doesn't make sense. And second of all, there's an interesting moment in this same 2016 thing where Sister Soul just says, I didn't say that, where I didn't write this quote, it's because it's during the Clinton campaign and she is being interrogated once again about something she said. But this time she basically says it with her whole chest and says, yes, I did Say that. And it's that she says Hillary Clinton reminds her of a white plantation wife. Like, reminds her of a white enslaver's plantation wife. She says, I look at Hillary Clinton and I see that same woman, basically. And it is very interesting that that haunts Hillary Clinton, and rightly so, forever. That people are like, no, you stood up there smiling, saying these awful, awful things that will have long term consequences for the outcomes of the communities that you are talking about. And then later, you go on the campaign trail and you want to be buddy, buddy with the people who are from the communities that you and your husband just utterly ravaged.
- [50:21]
B
Yeah.
- [50:21]
A
20 years prior.
- [50:23]
B
Yeah.
- [50:24]
A
It's so disingenuous.
- [50:26]
B
Yeah.
- [50:26]
A
And people saw that and like, she never, ever got over or past that, basically.
- [50:31]
B
Right.
- [50:31]
A
And I don't think she should have to be completely honest.
- [50:35]
B
Yeah. No, I mean, it's clear that Bill and Hillary Clinton had built a political machine, whether it was sort of out in the open or not and expected, especially in 2016, I think more so than, in some ways, 2008. Because I think when Obama won Iowa, then it was like, okay, it's game on.
- [50:55]
A
Right.
- [50:55]
B
I mean, everyone was sort of trying to figure out where they were going to be within the party. Whereas 2016, there was a supposed consensus around and behind Clinton. Clinton Dace automatically expected that everyone was gonna move in their direction. And yeah, you get this. You had younger folks who were like, wait a minute, why should we. Yeah, like, we can draw a line from the murder of Michael Brown back to 1994, or we can draw the ways in which folks see us as young black folks and young brown folks back to the super predators remark. Like, we knew how y' all saw us then or people like us then. Why should we trust you now? And of course, right. I mean, like, the Clintons were, you know, being generous very late to the game when it came to trying to do some of that repair work that would have been needed. Obviously, we could talk about whether or not they actually cared, but they didn't do enough work to get her elected.
- [51:51]
A
No, definitely.
- [51:52]
B
Just like, yeah, it's one of those lessons that everyone should learn, right? Where it's just like, no. Like, what you say, especially publicly, could have some unforeseen ramifications and consequences. You might want to be careful, right? Because someone somewhere, especially now, the Internet is forever, for the most part. Someone somewhere is going to remember what you said and sort of talk about what you might have thought about people who look like them.
- [52:15]
A
Yeah, definitely. Hi, gang. It's Claire with my usual quick mid episode shout out to tell you about other Multitude shows I think you might enjoy listening to. If you like history that suggests you're the kind of person who's into bizarre and esoteric lore about people doing inexplicable things for equally inexplicable reasons. What if I told you there was a video game series that was basically just many, many hours of that exact same thing, which has been leaving people saying what the hell for the last 23 years? What if I told you there was a podcast about that video game? Simple and Clean is a show where hosts Misha Stanton and Myanna Barron talk about Kingdom Hearts, a little video game franchise about really big feelings. Join them every week as they discuss the plot, characters, world building, music, fashion and societal impact of a thing that by all means, probably shouldn't even exist. Never heard of Kingdom Hearts? That's okay. They're here to break it down for you, explain why they love it, and hopefully convince you that it deserves a place in your heart too. In each episode, Mayonna and Misha attempt to unravel how this deceptively expansive game series has touched an entire generation of deeply earnest weirdos. They put out new episodes every Sunday, so go check out simple and Clean wherever you listen to podcasts. If you've been stuck on a six month wait list for a psychiatric appointment or are bouncing between online mental health sites trying to find medication support, Talkiatry was built for you. It's virtual psychiatry that actually fits your life and your insurance. Talkiatry is a 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses and ongoing medication management for conditions like anxiety, depression, insomnia and more. Unlike therapy only apps, Talkiatry is psychiatry. That means you're seeing a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medication when it's appropriate. All of their 600 plus clinicians are in network with major insurers so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out of network fees. You'll meet with an experienced licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and can prescribe medication when it's right for you. This means that your care stays consistent and evidence based. Head to tokiatry.com TGS and complete the short assessment to get matched with an in network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's tochiatry.com TGS to get matched in minutes. The last thing I want to make sure we talk about. Just because we. You could talk about the crime bill forever, basically, because it has. It's so important. But I want to talk about the welfare reform bill and make sure that we talk about that because I think that's another enormous part of his legacy that people sometimes forget about a little bit.
- [55:04]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [55:05]
A
And has really, really long term deleterious effects for American. Which is in 1996, he signs the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation act, also known as the 1996 welfare bill. Some of the major things it does are slash long term assistance.
- [55:27]
B
Yeah.
- [55:27]
A
Impose work requirements without job guarantees and basically like punish poverty as this sort of moral failure. When you talk about welfare and then call it the Personal Responsibility act, you can already see that it's placing itself not as, like helping people who need welfare provisions, but as against them.
- [55:51]
B
Right.
- [55:51]
A
Because it's saying, actually this whole bill is about your personal responsibility, not our responsibility to you as the state who. Who should be providing these things or has promised to provide these things. But actually this is about helping you with your personal responsibility over your own welfare. And it has some, like, really terrible consequences. It removes these safety nets that people need. It intensifies the precarity that you experience when you need welfare. And I think this really has a long term bad effect. It rewards this, like, hyper individualism that we still see as like, like a major problem in politics now where there's this, this belief that like, someone who needs help is simply failing to do things themselves and that that's a, like a moral, personal, individual failure.
- [56:43]
B
Right.
- [56:44]
A
What's your take on this?
- [56:46]
B
Yeah, well, I would say this one, this is another policy that is again, sort of codifying reaganism of the 1980s. Right. And this sort of like, you know, Reagan running on this sort of, you know, quote, unquote, quote, welfare queen critique of the US Welfare state. Right. And sort of using this racist and sexist term to further delegitimize the New Deal state in the safety net. Right. I mean, so of course it was about black women and brown women, but it was also, you know, it was trying to sort of destroy the larger structure. So, again. Right. I mean, it's like the Clinton administration. Right. You know, sort of like fulfilling Reagan's goals. But then also, I remember being an undergrad, I think I took a social work class, and I remember the professor actually talking about how terrible this bill was, and she was talking about how a lot of social workers just left their profession because of the draconian policing that accompanied this law. And that Obviously, sort of generally accompanies the welfare state.
- [57:53]
A
Right.
- [57:53]
B
I mean, the welfare state, in some ways, you can argue, is sort of just an extension of the incarceration Israel state. I remember that very well. And no, like, there were people who operated within the Clinton administration or attached to the Clinton administration who quit over this. They were just like, I can't support this. This is terrible. Right. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, I think, again, trying to address a problem that doesn't exist. Right. I mean, so, like, this idea that everyone who's on welfare, like you sort of intimated. Right. Is somehow cheating.
- [58:23]
A
Yeah.
- [58:23]
B
And they don't deserve any help. And if they are failing, it's because of their own personal behavior. And it's like. No, it's a safety net. Right. I mean, like, you know, like, especially if you're going to penalize people for trying to buy certain forms of food that might be more healthier in some cases. Right. Or sort of trying to enact ways to where you're going to penalize people who are being poor. But maybe both parents want to be more in the home. Right. I mean, like. So, yeah, it's ridiculous, but it drives more people off the rolls, and it does make life more precarious, especially for single mothers and women, especially women of color. And it further stigmatized the welfare state. It stigmatized what it meant to be able to be eligible for government aid. I mean, there's been times in my life when my mom had to get benefits and, you know, we had the food stamps and, you know, having to sort of make do, you know, I mean, all money is fake, but, like, you know, but make do with these pieces of paper where there were restrictions on what you could buy and there were restrictions on how much of these pieces of paper that you could get per month. You weren't getting rich. There's no scenario unless you were running some other larger underground enterprise, there was no way that you were going to experience any sort of socioeconomic mobility just by virtue of receiving food stamps and cash aid. No, it's like, in many ways, the Welfare Reform act, it was political performance. Right. I mean, Clinton being able to say, we're going to, quote, unquote, end welfare as we know it, which it didn't end welfare. It just made it more difficult for people.
- [60:08]
A
I will also give my own experience of this. So when I was in undergrad, I've talked about this online, like, pretty regularly. But when I was in undergrad, I was, like I said, on Pell Grants, I was working a federal Work study job. I was also usually working at least one, if not two other jobs on top of that to like pay for my life and pay for rent and all those things. And for two years during my undergrad I was also on food stamps or had an EBT card basically because I literally could not make ends meet. Like it was simply not possible. And I didn't have of the family financial support or commitments to be able to support these things. That was just how it was. But there was so much shame in my experience associated with it that I used to shop at night, like I remember going to Safeway like an hour before closing basically in Eugene, Oregon and shopping at night because I felt really embarrassed. And this was a point when I had like an EBT card. So it even looked kind of like a credit card or a debit card. But I used to like give them my card and then I would also separate things that I could buy with it and things that I couldn't buy with it and pay for like one round and then go back and pay for the other round. Cause I was so embarrassed by people seeing me. The idea of someone saying you can't use that card for this and like the idea that this is the kind of act that increases that shame.
- [61:31]
B
Right.
- [61:32]
A
I'm 19 in this scenario, like 18, 19. Having the experience of having to feel embarrassed at the grocery store buying my like food for the week or whatever. And this is a thing we hear over and over and over again now. People being like, well they shouldn't be able. Allowed to buy candy. They shouldn't be able like, right. I always have this vision in my head of telling 19 year old me like you're not allowed to buy Diet Coke. Sorry.
- [61:56]
B
Yeah.
- [61:57]
A
This thing that I would buy myself because it was like my, I'm so broke and my life is terrible and I'm in college, triple majoring and working three jobs and whatever. And like, like this bill is not the only thing that does this, but it increases the sort of political culture that encourages that. The, increases the shame and the terror around this. I remember being like, what if it gets cut off this month? Or what if I somehow don't qualify for it? Like that was a real thing that I was thinking about and that a lot the people around me definitely were not thinking about. And that also sets you apart when you feel like you're, you're doing something that the people around you aren't having to do. Another thing included in this welfare reform bill is a ban on food stamps for drug felons which I think is very interesting. Like, then later, most states. Because states are able to decide if they want to have that on a state level. Most states end up opting out of this part of the bill, but it basically makes it so that people who have drug convictions are not eligible for SNAP benefits or for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance benefits.
- [63:02]
B
Yeah.
- [63:03]
A
Which again, is like, you create this bill that puts people in prison.
- [63:07]
B
Right.
- [63:07]
A
And then you say they can't have food when they get out of prison. What are they supposed to do? Right. And you've made it also harder for them to get jobs coming out of prison because you've made it harder for them to access higher education. Like, actually, what are people supposed to do?
- [63:22]
B
Right, Right.
- [63:23]
A
And there's no answer for it.
- [63:25]
B
Like, the answer. Right. Is, well, don't make a mistake or don't be too poor while making a mistake. Right. I mean, because how many folks who come from wealthy families who might be dealing drugs but also have access to good lawyers at the end of the day? Right. I mean, it's US Capitalism, where it's just like, all right, well, yeah, we're going to try to make your life as hard as we can make it on you. If you were to participate in the drug trade, because guess what, you don't have any sort of access to real jobs that would allow you to experience any socioeconomic mobility. And before you even get into that, you're not even going to have a real opportunity at going to college, probably because your school system is underfunded because you live in a poor neighborhood. And then don't let your family already be poorer where you may not be able to concentrate in school.
- [64:22]
A
School.
- [64:23]
B
Right. Or you might be living in an apartment that is still contaminated with asbestos and lead. Right. I mean, like, there's all these structural failings within the economic system that we still live in and that folks were living in the 1980s and 1990s. That could really affect people's life outcomes. And. Yeah. Like, they don't even get a chance to even walk a path or be on a path that could be decent. And then they make a mistake. Like, they're already just in the doldrums and it's just like, yeah. Like, how do you get out of it? Especially if you're just going to continue to police people at every step of the way.
- [64:59]
A
Yeah.
- [65:00]
B
Because it becomes stigmatizing.
- [65:02]
A
I think that's also important here is when someone is like, well, that's not all Clinton's fault. Right. Like, the welfare reform bill happens because he makes a pact with Newt Gingrich and that's how this happens. Yeah, but presidents don't have to sign things. They don't. Famously, they're able to say, actually, this one's not happening. So it's a circular argument. And people are like, well, he had to do this because it's kind of like, well, he didn't. And part of the job of being president is understanding that the bad things that you do while you're the president will be assigned to you. That is part of the thing that you take on when you're the president is the things you sign into being are therefore your fault now.
- [65:40]
B
Yeah. How about not moving to the right?
- [65:42]
A
Yeah. You can also say, sorry, Newt Gingrich, I don't want to make pacts with you.
- [65:47]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, how about not moving to the right on all these issues? Right. And I mean, so then, yeah, that's been one of the lessons of US politics, especially after World War II, is that you have presidents who pursue certain policies that might be expedient in the moment, and then they just come back to really bite them in the ass because something blows up, Whether something literally blows up up or the economy blows up. And then people are like, wait a minute. You know, the roots of this are in what this person did.
- [66:20]
A
Yeah, totally. The roots of this are because you needed to be seen as a tough on crime president to follow up Reagan's insanity or Bush's insanity. Like, you need to do this to do that. And instead what you ended up doing is selling out entire communities that are now kind of decimated forever because of this.
- [66:36]
B
Right.
- [66:36]
A
Bummer that we're mad at you for it. Like, sorry, that that's what happens. Yeah, we do need to end the episode. Although we can talk about this forever. We can always do a Clinton part two. Yeah, yeah, the argument is convincing. Like, I'm fully convinced by this. He sucks. I was already went into this thinking he sucks. I should honestly just take that part out of the episodes where I have to say, am I convinced? Because, like, I'm making the argument too. And I'm. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so very much for coming on, Professor. Austin McCoy can be found on Blue sky at Austin McCoy, Instagram @oss McCoy, and his website is Austin McCoy.com. you can get yourself a copy of Living in a Daisy Age at the link in our episode description. Please go and pre order it. If you're listening to this before it comes out, and if you're listening to it after it's out. Just go buy it. And I'm also going to add links to the albums that you recommended into the episode description so that people can go buy those. And don't skip any parts of the album.
- [67:35]
B
No, no, Listen to the whole, like, be nice to yourself. Right? This is part of, like, just be nice to yourself. Enjoy the whole piece of work.
- [67:43]
A
I will say one of my favorite things about listening to music is I'm a big vinyl person. My dad is huge. My dad, who is almost certainly listening to this show, was like a community radio DJ or has been for like 26 years. He's like a serious vinyl guy. As the most insane vinyl collection I've ever seen in my life. And that has made me appreciate listening to Alba in the right order and the whole way through. Yeah, because unless you're gonna be someone who, like, picks up the needle and moves it to songs, which is like, why would you do that? It really encourages you to do that. So also my recommendation to people is go experience physical media.
- [68:20]
B
Yes, yes. That's the other lesson that I gave my hip hop history class. It's like, I understand it can be expensive. So if you can't afford Vinyl, get some CDs and you might be able to find some tape and be intentional.
- [68:34]
A
See the art, see the right.
- [68:37]
B
Exactly.
- [68:37]
A
So many things to it. Like, also, you can participate in historical material culture if you do this, which you can't do if you're just listening on Spotify. And also CDs are mostly not paying for drones to go murder people.
- [68:49]
B
Right.
- [68:50]
A
So I'm just saying there are many.
- [68:52]
B
Right, Exactly. Yeah. No, I totally agree.
- [68:59]
A
Thanks for tuning into this episode of this Guy Sucked. A member of the Multitude Podcast collective. This episode was Hosted by me, Dr. Claire Aubin, featuring special guest Professor Austin McCoy, and edited by spooky little lady Julia Sheffini. All of our theme music was written and produced by Comfort Colors number one customer, Marshall Dean Williams. If you'd like to support the show and get access to all episodes, including two extra episodes per month, and access to our full archive of episodes, you can subscribe on Apple Podcast Casts or to our patreon@patreon.com thisguysucked. See you next week.