After spending a short tenure as one of the front page writers here I moved over to Salon where, for the most part, I write exclusively. I also host a podcast which has become a type of informal Trump University—except that folks are not scammed out of their money and there are actual experts who want to help the global public understand the disaster that is Trump’s regime. On my podcast I have featured many of the country and world’s leading voices and experts on Trump and the social forces which launched him to power. I will be sharing some of those conversations here at the Daily Kos on a more frequent basis.
Jonathan Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, and the director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Metzl is the author of several books, including Prozac on the Couch and The Protest Psychosis. His new book is Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland.
Metzl explains how Trump's voters in Red State America are literally dying of whiteness and their devotion to the Republican Party and its harmful policies, why guns and god are such an important part of personal identity and meaning for white "working class" Trump voters, and how racism and a need to punish nonwhites and other "outsiders" motivates "working class" white conservatives in their political decision-making.
Dr. Metzl also shares stories about white Trump voters who are on their death beds but are proud that they never took "Obamacare" because they wanted to make sure that "welfare queens" and "Mexicans" did not have access to "their" health care. Dr. Metzl also recounts tragic stories about white Trump and Republican "ammosexuals" who love their guns more than their children, relatives, and friends.
On this week's show, I offer some extended thoughts about the Mueller Russia report and how, even in its redacted form, the 450 page document paints a damning portrait of a traitorous president and his cabal who colluded with Russia to seal an election and then obstructed justice to cover it up. I also share an important concept which explains how Trump, Barr and their right-wing media were able to control the public discourse surrounding the Mueller report by introducing the concept of "criminal conspiracy" being the same thing as "collusion".