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Announcer (00:37):
Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.
Dr Wilmer Leon (00:45):
Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode, my guests and I will have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between the current events and the broader historic context in which the events take place. This will enable you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue is the Guardian and other outlets have reported that the Biden campaign has decided to jumpstart its 2024 reelection by highlighting what they perceive to be a sharp contrast with former President Trump ailing in opinion polls. Biden has decided to jumpstart this campaign with events designed to symbolize the fight for democracy and racial justice against Trump. So the question is, what are Americans to do in a 2024 election when many of them don't have faith in the process and or the system? Well, for run insight into this, let's turn to my guest. He's a scholar and activist. He's an expert in WEB Du Bois, one of the most cited Du Bois scholars in the world. He's an organizer with the Philadelphia Saturday Free School. He's Dr. Anthony Montero. Tony, welcome to Connecting the Dots podcast.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (02:31):
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here
Dr Wilmer Leon (02:32):
With you. And let's do this as a first point here, just a little data. Joe Biden's job approval. This is according to real clear politics, 40% approve, 56% disapprove. That's a negative, almost 16 rating direction of the country. Is the country headed in the right direction? About 24% say right direction, 67% say wrong direction. It's about a negative 42% spread. Tony, your thoughts on where we are right now as we look towards November of 2024?
Dr Anthony Monteiro (03:30):
Well, I think we have to start with the polling numbers. Over the last, almost five months now from reputable polling companies, Biden has been losing to Trump and his favorable numbers have been in decline. In fact, in many respects, Biden's approval numbers are below 40%. The real clear politics numbers are an average.
Dr Wilmer Leon (04:13):
Yeah, that's an aggregator. Yes,
Dr Anthony Monteiro (04:15):
That's right. But I think for the most part, for the most credible polls, we're continuing to see Biden in the mid thirties. This is unprecedented for a sitting president at this stage of a campaign,
Dr Wilmer Leon (04:36):
Not only in the mid thirties, but heading south. He's, and no pun intended as it relates to the border, but as they would say on the corner, he's hustling backwards.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (04:50):
Oh, yeah. There's no question this is unprecedented. I don't think this has ever been seen in the modern history of polling presidents and their attempts at reelection. I think what the public is saying is that we don't trust Biden. His presidency has failed. Inflation is still hitting working people in the lower middle class, very hard. The jobs that they are counting as showing a vibrant economy are in many cases, gig jobs, jobs without benefits, jobs without security, and in many cases at the lower end of the minimum wage. So
Dr Wilmer Leon (06:00):
In fact, hang on to that point because one of the things, the misnomers that people have about these employment or job numbers is that they equate job to one person working, one person, working one job. But in this gig economy, what that now means is in many instances you have one person working multiple jobs just to remain poor When you were growing up, when I was growing up, we heard these job numbers and they usually meant one person, one job. That's no longer the case. But they don't factor that into their analysis, particularly as they're explaining these numbers to the people. So when you hear, oh, unemployment down to 3.5%, there are also a lot of other factors that go into this that don't reflect a strong economy. What they reflect is a middle class, a working class in a poor group of people that are struggling to get by.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (07:23):
There's no question about it. And people are saying to pollsters what you, and I know that the majority of working people, the majority of the lower middle class, are not doing good at all. People cannot afford food. And that is where the rubber meets the road, where you go to the supermarket and try to buy eggs and milk and cereal and other things that you need. And there you discover that inflation is as bad as it's ever been while there's some relief at the gas pump. But when it comes to feeding your family, things are not good when it comes to paying rent or renting an apartment. Things are bad when it comes to getting a mortgage. You can almost forget that. So the Biden campaign, who in the spring and summer of last year said they're going to run on omics until they realized that that was a sure enough loser because Biden had produced an economy which was austerity for the majority and good times and big profits for the billionaire class reflecting the fact that inequality is greater now perhaps than at any time in the last 80 years. This is a serious situation for the people. And when people say that the country is moving in the wrong direction, forgive me when 70% of them say that what they are saying is things don't look good for them and things look even worse for their children and grandchildren, that is where we're at going into perhaps the most consequential election in the modern history of the United States.
Dr Wilmer Leon (09:39):
In fact, to that point, there have been studies and reports out recently indicating that the American dream is dying. I want to say, and I might be slightly off on my numbers, but the point is valid, that polling those who were born in 1940, almost 90% of those born in 1940 are now doing better than their parents were able to do those born in 1980, only 50% of those polled were able to say that they're doing better than their parents did. That tells us that the American dream is dying. You mentioned last year Biden wanted to run on omics, and I have to now wonder if it's been determined that omics is no more than voodoo economics, a La George HW Bush referring to Reagan's plan. So we're talking voodoo economics 4.0.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (10:47):
Yeah, we're looking at something like that. But we're looking at the fact that the Biden administration and the Biden campaign have no way to achieve narrative hegemony. That is, they thought that given the fact that most of the corporate media or all of the corporate media would be a propaganda arm of the Biden administration and of his reelection campaign, and given that elites, for example, university professors, politicians, part of the religious community, certain labor leaders or most labor leaders would all be on their side, that they would be able to achieve narrative hegemony, by which I mean that what they were putting forward would dominant over what their opposition would try to put forward. So the narrative would be controlled by the Biden campaign. That has not happened, and the reason it has not happened is that the nation is in a profound crisis of legitimacy where no matter what Biden says, the results will be the same in terms of the majority of people. They don't trust Biden, they don't trust insiders. They don't trust elites. Be they university professors or presidents, be they politicians, be they church leaders, be they labor leaders, be they military leaders. People do not trust the institutions and those who lead them in this country, and therefore this point
(13:02)
People will vote against rather than vote for necessarily. People. I think in November, and this will gather momentum throughout this year, will kind of set into a mindset that says anybody, but those who are currently in the highest office of the country, they will vote against Biden. Biden will not be able to dig out of the hole that he's in. So I would predict that in November we will have a new president, and not just a new president, but the nation will enter upon in this year a political realignment, the likes of which we have not seen since the Franklin Roosevelt years in the presidency.
Dr Wilmer Leon (14:13):
I wanted to throw out one more data point on the food issue because we have been seeing stories on local media affiliates about the rise of retail theft in this country, and we've been seeing the flash mobs that run into the high-end stores and steal Gucci bags and all kind of stuff. But what's not being reported as much is theft of retail in grocery stores, people stealing food and the guardian in the UK has us to the international implications of this, Brits stealing food to sell on the black market. The UK's cost of living crisis is fueling a record surge in shoplifting as people increasingly turn to black to the black market for food, the items most commonly stolen are meat, cheese, and sweets, because those are the items that can be stolen in large quantities and can be sold on the black market. So I wanted to make that demonstrate that point to show that it's not only happening here in the United States, it's also happening to some of the US allies that are blindly following the United States down this perilous rabbit hole. And you mentioned as a fellow political scientist, we were taught people tend not to vote against things. They vote for things, but in this instance, the script is being flipped because things are so bad. That's why Biden can't run on his record. He's got to run on, I'm not Trump a negative message trying to convince people to vote against something. And so I just wanted to, oh, final point. I don't think Biden's going to be on the ticket.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (16:20):
Yeah, why do you say that? I think that's a possibility. But why do you say it?
Dr Wilmer Leon (16:24):
I say that because the numbers are so bad. I don't understand how anybody in the Democrat party elite can look at these numbers and think they've got a winning ticket. That's one point. No,
Dr Anthony Monteiro (16:44):
Dr Wilmer Leon (16:45):
When you're at 35% approval rating, that means that you got 65% of people that disapprove. That's a losing bet. And also with his cognitive decline, I don't see, look, they're not having any debates in the primaries. They're not having any debates. They're not allowing any Democrat challengers to challenge him. And they've also come out now and said they may not even participate in the general election debates because they know that he cannot stand on a stage unscripted for 45 minutes and engage in combat, in intellectual combat. He can't do it. I don't see him on the ticket.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (17:34):
Well, I would agree with you, and I think given what you just said, there's a big irony here. The Democrats are shutting down all the primary opponents for Joe Biden, even though those opponents, Marian Williams and the other guy are doing abysmally poorly. I mean there's no way they can win, but the Democrats don't even want to have a public debate with those people. So they're shutting down democracy in the name of democracy of
Dr Wilmer Leon (18:16):
Dr Anthony Monteiro (18:18):
And the claim that Trump is a threat to our democracy, when in fact what we see is that the Biden campaign is pursuing a campaign that is anti-democratic in the primaries and in the general election and supports. This is what is also interesting, supports the two states that have already kicked Biden off the ballot and the Trump
Dr Wilmer Leon (18:53):
Dr Anthony Monteiro (18:54):
The ballot, Trump off the ballot, forgive me, and the 17 others that have legal suits that have been filed to put him off the ballot. So here we have in the name of democracy, perhaps the most anti-democratic campaign in our history.
Dr Wilmer Leon (19:20):
You mentioned people not trusting in the, well, I mentioned people not trusting in the system. You mentioned that as well, and I really want people to understand this conversation is not an antibi conversation. It's not an anti or pro-Trump conversation. We're social scientists and we're looking at the data, and Pew Research Center has a poll out from September of 23, public trust in government from 1958 to 2023, public trust in the federal government, which has been low for decades, has returned to mere record lows following a modest uptick up through 21. Currently fewer than two in 10 Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right. That's the data. That's not my opinion. That's not your opinion. That's the data. So I just wanted to throw out that data point. So the people listening to this saying, oh, these guys are going into this antibi conversation. No,
Dr Anthony Monteiro (20:32):
Dr Wilmer Leon (20:33):
Just giving you the numbers.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (20:35):
And to your point about Biden not being on the ticket by the time of the Democratic National Convention.
Dr Wilmer Leon (20:45):
Now that is my opinion, but
Dr Anthony Monteiro (20:47):
Yeah, that's my opinion. But you have leading figures in the Democratic party calling for Biden to step aside. They're usually saying on the basis of age, but they're also saying more than that when they're not speaking publicly. A lot of this is coming from the Obama wing of the Democratic establishment. As you know, the Biden wing, which is also the Hillary Clinton wing is the most powerful side of this. However, the Obama people, especially Axelrod and probably some others have come
Dr Wilmer Leon (21:41):
Dr Anthony Monteiro (21:43):
David Ignatius. Well, definitely I would say, but I would say he's not with the Obama wing. Oh,
Dr Wilmer Leon (21:48):
No, no, but no, I was just saying he wrote, he came out before Axelrod
Dr Anthony Monteiro (21:53):
Did. That's right. That's right. And so these figures are saying Biden can't win. Robert Kagan who writes mainly on foreign policy is saying that for the sake of national security, Biden should step aside and allow a more capable Democrat to challenge Trump. But the thing is, the question is will Biden do it and can he do it? What do they do? Who do they turn to if Biden is not the candidate? Kamala Harris, certainly not. No, I just don't. I mean maybe the governor of California, but besides winning California, which Democrats will win anyway, what does he bring to the conversation and to the contest for the presidency? I just don't think they have an alternative to Biden. They're going to have to go with him, come hell or high water. And that is the paradox, the dilemma of the Democratic Party at this moment.
(23:17)
And to add more hurt to the situation with the war in Gaza and people looking at babies and children and mothers being bombed, Biden has now lost the youth vote. Trump is leading him by six percentage points among young people. I don't know when in recent history a Republican has won the youth vote, maybe Reagan, but Democrats almost could take young people as a part of their coalition, and now they are bleeding. Black voters, especially black male voters who I contend are the angriest part of the electorate, the most alienated, the most angry. And those who say, for example, if you are in the barbershop, you might hear the conversation where one of the people says, I am for anybody except Biden, and I'm for the one that the Biden people and the establishment hate the most. If Biden hates them, I can see a path to aligning or voting for them.
Dr Wilmer Leon (24:55):
You mentioned who do the Democrats turn to in a baseball analogy? I will say they got no arms in the bullpen. They're calling the bullpen and nobody's answering the phone. But I think the only options they have are Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. And I'm not saying that this is a winning ticket. What I'm saying is any port in a storm, and they don't have many options here. Gavin Newsom is young. Gavin Newsom is white. Gavin Newsom looks great in a suit, and he's the governor of California.
(25:49)
So let me say he checks off those boxes. Gretchen Whitmer is young, white female, fairly attractive, and the governor of Michigan, which is a state they can't afford to lose. And right now to your point, based upon Biden's approach to the genocide and Gaza, they've alienated African-Americans in Michigan. They've alienated Arabs in Michigan. So by putting Gretchen Whitmer on the ticket that might enable them to salvage Michigan, and by throwing Kamala Harris overboard because she's a big fat zero, by putting another female on the ticket, they may be able to offset some of that ire from females or from women who are angry about Kamala being jettison. So I'm not saying it's going to win. When I look at the options, when you have no options, that's your only option.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (27:00):
It's a desperate situation. And then you got Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And Cornell West, and who knows who else. If there's a no labels candidate like Joe Manchin or the former governor of Maryland and they're nipping at Biden's coattails, head up, Biden Trump, it gets close. But if you throw these independents in there, Trump goes ahead. It seems like the independents take more from Biden than they do from Trump. Trump. It's a very desperate situation for Biden and the elite of the ruling class, the ruling elite, they have no answers. It's just all over the place. The president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haes, went so far as to say the greatest threat to America's national security is not Russia or China. It's the rebellion of the people here at home who are against war, who are against war spending when there is not hardly enough being done for the people here and who are angry about open borders. I mean, it's a situation that I don't admire the people who have to live it and have to try to work through it. It's a lose lose situation, I think for the Democrats.
Dr Wilmer Leon (28:48):
I want to mention one more name, and we mentioned Kamala Harris, and so there are those who are listening that they're saying, wait a minute, why are y'all saying they're going to throw her overboard? Well, as the sous chef of the word salad, I don't know that Kamala Harris brings anything of substance to the game. She had to leave the campaign early and she didn't even make it to the first debate. Well, she did make it to the first debate, but she didn't make it to any primaries. She couldn't get 1% of the vote. So again, folks, this ain't anti Kamala. I'm looking at the numbers and the African-American community didn't want her. Why is the nation going to want her again, sous chef for the word salad? I don't see it. But you were also talking about people, black males and others voting for Trump. How much of this do you think will be actually people crossing over party lines versus people just deciding to stay home as a friend of mine says they're going to stay home and rake leaves, they're not going to turn out to vote.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (30:17):
Well, we see it here in Philadelphia. We just went through a mayoral election, the Democratic primary, which is the major election that chooses the mayor because the city is so overwhelmingly democratic and the leading candidate, one of the two or three leading candidates was a black woman. And in spite of that, 75% of registered black voters did not turn out when it got to the general election where her victory was more or less guaranteed. Again, only about 25 or 26% of registered black voters turned out, and this is for black woman, which would've made her the first black woman mayor in Philadelphia. Most black voters didn't see it as a historic opportunity to do anything. But that is prologue for what will happen in this November, black Philadelphia whose turnout decides which way the state of Pennsylvania goes in presidential elections, I would suggest to you will not turn out inadequate numbers to deliver Pennsylvania, which is a major battleground state to Biden.
(31:52)
They are fed up, they're tired, and in fact, they're sick and tired of being used by Democrats who once the election is over, look the other way, in fact run in the opposite direction from the black community and so on. All of the issues that people are concerned about in their day-to-day life, the Democrats who run this city have done horribly for people. And the separation between the Democratic party elite and politicians and the masses of black people who regularly vote overwhelmingly for Democrats is so wide that the way I see it right now, Biden would have a very difficult time winning the state of Pennsylvania.
Dr Wilmer Leon (32:57):
What do you think about the discussion that if in fact he loses or whoever they decide to put on the ticket does not prevail, they're going to blame black people for failing to turn out? We're seeing a number of articles. There was a New York Times article, black voters shift to Trump, why black, Latino and Asian voters are leaving the Democratic Party as black voters drift to Trump. Biden's allies say they have work to do. Some black men lose faith in Biden and Democrats In 2024, I remember the Hillary Clinton campaign, and when she lost, there were many and many African-Americans and African-American women of Democratic note that were coming out and saying we did not turn out. Therefore, we got stuck with Trump never taking into account that Hillary Clinton ran a horrific campaign in Philadelphia. She ran a horrific campaign. She didn't campaign in Michigan. She rolled out Barack Obama the last two or three days of the election, just as my older brother would say, just felony stupid kind of things, but then turned around and blamed us. Your thoughts,
Dr Anthony Monteiro (34:32):
My is so what I mean the blame game is going to be played however the election goes. And I think as a black man, most black men don't care anymore who blames us for whatever. We are the most politically alienated group in the electorate. We feel that we have nothing to lose by abandoning the Democratic party, which most black men feel, especially as you hit into the working class and the working poor, most black men feel that we have gotten nothing from the Democratic party. And let me tell you another thing, black men have a longer memory than people give us credit for. We haven't forgotten the crime Bill of 1994 and Joe Biden being the major spokesman for it publicly and in the Senate. So we haven't forgotten that. We haven't forgotten mass incarceration. We haven't forgotten the unequal treatment that black men experience in every sphere of social life in this country. There is deep resentment among black men. Polls can't fully detect and explain what black men feel, but it's a deep resentment and a sense of betrayal. So I think black men, no matter what elites say, don't care anymore.
Dr Wilmer Leon (36:29):
So now the Biden administration has decided that they're going to, they're going to retool. They're going to talk about democracy and saving democracy when in fact, not having democratic primaries, not allowing candidates on the ballot to run against Joe Biden not having debates is anti-democratic. So they want to save democracy by being anti-democratic. Help me understand that. But people also don't, probably many never knew and don't remember that after the 2020 election, Joe Biden was basically forced to have a meeting with African-American leadership, those that were responsible for putting him over the top. It was probably about 10 days, maybe two weeks after his inauguration that they finally got him into the room. And the readout from the meeting was that he was so disrespectful to the members of leadership that Reverend Sharpton and so many others, mignon Moore and all of these black Democrats begged him for the meeting. He comes to the meeting and I think it was a teleconference that they had or a Zoom meeting, and folks had to pull his coat and say, Hey, man. Instead of the leadership hanging up on him saying, Hey, dude, you talking to the wrong people, they, of course, they went ahead and took the whipping, but just another data point. So now they want to come out and talk about saving democracy and racism under Donald Trump,
Dr Anthony Monteiro (38:27):
Why people are not going to buy it. The whole country is in a state of protest against the establishment. I don't think people understand this very well. A crisis of legitimacy means that the people do not accept the leaders of the society. And that means in universities, it means politicians, it means journalists. It means wherever a dominant elite figures run things, people reject them, soundly reject them. I always mention the Italian revolutionary, Antonio Gramsci who said from a prison cell where he was confined by Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader of Italy in the 1930s, Graham, she said, the old is dying and the new cannot yet be born. I think in this country we see that the old system of political rule of the organization of political power is dying. However, I do see that the new is being born and it's from the bottom up, not from the top down.
(40:03)
And if you are a black leader who is connected to white elites, black folks see you as much illegitimate as the white power structure. They don't see a difference between the black leadership class as it is now called and the white establishment. So black people do not generally protest blacks in high spaces being fired by whites that control those spaces because they don't see those people as black in the sense of standing up for ordinary black people. So what is the end goal? What is the objective of this logic? It is a profound political realignment of the country. You see it in the labor movement. Labor leaders take one position and all the workers in those unions vote in the opposite way. Not all, but the majority of them vote opposite to what the leaders say or how the leaders say they should vote. That is a crisis of leadership, a crisis of legitimacy.
(41:32)
The same true in the black community. Most black leaders, the overwhelming majority of so-called black leaders are going to come out and say to black people, we should vote for Biden. I would say a huge part of the black electorate will not vote, and a considerable part of the black electorate will vote for Trump or one of the independent candidates, either Cornell West or JFK Jr or whoever else is out there. They're in rebellion, in the labor movement, in the black community, in the Mexican and Hispanic communities. There's a rebellion against the established order and the elites can't rule. They're not trusted. We have not seen this. We have not seen this, I don't know, even in the time of the Civil War, if it got this bad. Now, desperate times often produces desperate measures. Let's hope that the elites, especially those institutionalized in the deep state, don't attempt to do anything crazy like a provocation that could be used to justify calling the election off or a provocation that could lead to a major war, let us say with Iran or something serious with China where they could declare a national emergency and say that if Biden does not remain in office, the nation faces a foreign threat that could undermine our nation.
(43:47)
I don't rule any of that out. I think the easy way would be to remove Biden and put somebody else as the candidate. But that does not guarantee very much Gavin Newsom or anyone else might not do as well as Biden can do, even though they look good in a suit. But I think it's a more than desperate situation. It is an existential and a systemic crisis for the ruling elite for the political order as we have known it. And so Biden and knows who are the elites. The Democratic party is the party of elites. In fact, the two parties are almost the direct opposite of what they were 50 years ago where the Democrats were a party of black people in the working class and women and so on. Now, it is becoming the opposite that the Democratic Party is the party of the rich.
(44:57)
It is the richest party, the most wealthy party perhaps in human history. There's nothing like it. Whereas the Republicans have become what the Democrats were. And so it is a deep undoing of what was and the possible replacement with something that we have not seen since The Great Depression in Franklin Roosevelt. His administration was the result of a political realignment, and his presidency redefined what the Democratic Party was leading to John F. Kennedy. And finally, the alignment of the Democratic Party with the Civil rights movement. That was the last time we saw anything like this. But we are coming close to that happening similarly in this period,
Dr Wilmer Leon (46:07):
And you mentioned Black Elite coming out and telling African-Americans that they need to vote for the Democratic party, and let's unpack quickly what they're advocating that we vote for. They're advocating that we spend more money in Ukraine, that we waste more money in Ukraine, that we pay for the salaries of Ukrainian civil servants, that we pay for the retirement plans of Ukrainian civil servants that we pay for the healthcare for Ukrainians. We don't have those things here. That's when the Black Caucus votes in favor of this funding. This is what they're voting for. They're voting for us to send more weapons to commit genocide in Gaza. Your taxpayer dollars are paying for genocide. It's paying to try their damnedest to start a fight with China. We haven't won a fight since 1953.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (47:23):
Dr Wilmer Leon (47:24):
Unless you want to throw in Grenada and Panama.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (47:31):
Yeah, I think we won that, right? Maybe you could throw Iraq in there. No,
Dr Wilmer Leon (47:38):
That was an ass whooping too.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (47:40):
Oh, I didn't know that. I was going to say I wouldn't include Korea in there because that was a standoff.
Dr Wilmer Leon (47:47):
That fight still hasn't ended.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (47:49):
Dr Wilmer Leon (47:51):
So you mentioned Gramsci. I'll mention Fred Hampton as he said. That's why we come up with answers that don't answer explanations, that don't explain, and you come up with conclusions that don't conclude. When you have members of the caucus that want to convince black people that we need to pay Kenya to invade Haiti, these are the things that they are advocating that we do. And how do I know that? Because that's the stuff they voted for. Again, you just got to look at the data, Dr. Montero.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (48:33):
Well, of course, and I think, well, we've been talking about these matters for a long time. In a sense, the majority of black people have caught up to where we have been, and they don't trust the Black Congressional Caucus. They might sometimes trust their individual Congress person, but not the caucus, not the Congress
Dr Wilmer Leon (49:05):
Dr Anthony Monteiro (49:06):
As a body. That's what I'm saying. Right. And certainly the more they learn about their individual Congress person, the less they will trust them. And you are right. Black people have returned after the Obama years to our historic position of being anti-war and anti-military spending, and most in the Congressional Black Caucus are big military spenders. They are big spenders on aid to Ukraine and now to the genocide in Gaza. Well, some people say that the Jewish lobby or better the Israeli lobby in the United States controls the Congressional Black Caucus and many of the mayors, black mayors in the United States, for example, the one in New York and the one here in Philadelphia who are embarrassments given the historic peace attitude, anti-war attitude of black folk.
Dr Wilmer Leon (50:20):
So really quickly to that point, help me with what I perceive to be hypocrisy here. We get our shorts all in a bunch when Russia is tampering with our election and our hair gets set on fire. China is tampering with our election, but somehow the Israeli lobby can spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying votes and influencing electoral outcomes at the state and local level. I see that as being somewhat hypocritical. Dr. Montero, what Say you?
Dr Anthony Monteiro (50:59):
I agree with you, Dr. It's profoundly hypocritical, but isn't that what American politics has descended into where money talks? The Congress for the most part, is bought and paid for, and it is really a grotesque thing for we black people to look at black elected officials who overwhelmingly are elected because of the black voter, and we have to be for real about it. We didn't actually, as a people have the vote until 1965, and now the people who have benefited from the struggle for voting rights and benefited from black people voting in hope, that by putting black people in high places, some things can change. We are now looking at, as you say, a hypocritical group of opportunist who dance to the piper that pays the most.
Dr Wilmer Leon (52:18):
That's why I called it. I wrote a piece called The Dangers of Menstrual Diplomacy.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (52:24):
Dr Wilmer Leon (52:25):
Because it's basically a black face on white folks foolishness.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (52:31):
Dr Wilmer Leon (52:32):
Really quickly shifting gears are what has happened with the resignation of Harvard's president, Charlene Gay, and I bring that up because she's one of a few that have lost their positions recently. Do you see this as an attack on free speech? Do you see this as an attack on intellectualism at the academic level?
Dr Anthony Monteiro (53:06):
Well, yes, but it did not start with the president of Harvard or the president of the University of Pennsylvania or of MIT or the faculty at Cornell University or wherever. The universities, especially the elite ones, had been captured by the billionaire class some time ago. If you were looking for freedom of speech, maybe the last place that you should have gone would've been to a university. The professoriate has literally been subdued, silenced. They know how to keep their mouth shut, and they know that if they speak out on issues, they shouldn't speak out on the Palestinian cause, that they will be fired and driven out of the university and driven into poverty. Now as to the first black president of Harvard University, she wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, and in it, she drew attention to the fact that what she was going through was much larger than her and much larger than Harvard University.
(54:40)
And it was a matter of speech and the rights of students to speak as well as the rights of faculty. But I cannot believe that she did not know what she was getting herself into when she was made the president of Harvard, she had been around Harvard for some years. She knew, for example, that Cornell West was denied tenure while she was there. She wasn't president, but she was in the administration. Cornell West was denied tenure because of his views on Palestine. You knew that. So why is it all right to reduce Cornell West and to diminish him as a scholar and a public intellectual? And nothing is said by most of the black faculty, if not all of the black faculty and administration at Harvard, but suddenly, when it happens to you, it's something that we should all rise up and be concerned about. No, Harvard had done away with effective free speech several decades ago. The American University is a scandal of corruption, of money controlling what goes on of professors and departments being bought. It's a scandal. So yes, she is right. It is an attack upon free speech. But has it been free speech any of the time that Professor Gay has been at Harvard? I don't think so,
Dr Wilmer Leon (56:49):
And I go back to the George W. Bush administration. When Dick Cheney was vice president, his wife Liz, was one of those crusaders against liberal thought in academia, and I can't remember whether it was the Heritage Foundation that she was part of, but she led a crusade across this country getting what they deemed to be progressive thinking academics removed from their institution. So this goes back quite a while.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (57:32):
Yeah, no, when you said his wife, I think that's his daughter,
Dr Wilmer Leon (57:36):
Liz. His daughter is Lynn.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (57:39):
Dr Wilmer Leon (57:41):
Either way. Either way. It's either Lynn or Liz.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (57:44):
Dr Wilmer Leon (57:46):
Dr Anthony Monteiro (57:46):
Two. I recall that very vividly. I know I had a situation at Temple University where what I stood for and the speech that I was trying to defend was not acceptable.
Dr Wilmer Leon (58:05):
Lynn Cheney, you're right. It's Lynn Cheney.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (58:08):
Yeah. It was not acceptable to the head of the department, and so I was fired. So this is not new. I'm saying to those who are now saying, well, I'm a victim because it happened to me. Well, why were you silent when it was happening to other people?
Dr Wilmer Leon (58:30):
Dr Anthony Monteiro (58:32):
Yeah, it happened to you too at a historically black college to show you that it does not end at the color line. And black people have learned well from white people how to silence, freedom of speech. But yeah, the American University has to be remade. It is a corrupt enterprise. It is a billionaire's playground. Universities are more interested in gentrification and building up their endowments than they are with educating students educat or discovering new truths. I think there was a recent article in one of the major newspapers, the New York Times, Washington Post or somewhere that said that at Yale University, everybody is given an A one. It's less work for the professors. They don't have to grade papers and so on, and everybody walks away happy. And so we find at universities this transactional relationship between professors and students. Students say, I'm going into debt to get a degree at a university, and the professor work for me, and you must give me what I want because I'm paying for an A or high grade.
(01:00:03)
I read someone somewhere where Professor said that, well, I gave a student an A, and they came to him. The student came to him and said, well, why didn't you give me credit for that outside presentation I gave? He said, because we don't give a pluses. Well, you could have made an exception. In my case, it's just that bad. And professor Gay, I think there's the other question of her scholarship and whether she plagiarized, and I think the university has acknowledged, or the committee that was looking into it, acknowledge that in fact, plagiarism did occur, but let's keep it real. That's normal in the academy where careers and tenure are the most important thing. So a professor might write on a very obscure matter that is published in a relatively obscure journal, which claims to be peer review and use that obscure article, which may be plagiarized for tenure.
(01:01:27)
And so the question is, what is going on among elites? Let's be real. The president of Harvard is part of the elite class. Professor Gay, as was the case with the president of the University of Pennsylvania, got caught up in elite conflict having to do with the question of Israel and Zionism, and whether or not Jews are a protected group, who stand above society and whose interest have to be defended. Even if in defending the rights of Jews and Zionists, you violate the right to freedom of speech of students and professors. That's what they got caught up in and that's what brought them down.
Dr Wilmer Leon (01:02:36):
And by defending that, you also are defending genocide.
Dr Anthony Monteiro (01:02:39):
Dr Wilmer Leon (01:02:41):
You mentioned plagiarism. Well, Joe Biden has plagiarized. He became president, so that seems to be the order of the day. Professor, Dr. Anthony Montero, my brother, thank you so much for your time. I greatly, greatly appreciate you joining me today, Anthony Montero
Dr Anthony Monteiro (01:03:06):
And thank you and good luck with your podcast Will.
Dr Wilmer Leon (01:03:09):
Amen. With interviews with brothers like you, this is nothing but success. I got to thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. I'll see you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wier Leon. Have a good one. Remember, folks, that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history, converge talk without analysis is just chatter. We don't chatter on connecting the dots. Peace. I'm out
