Social Justice - A Conversation

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Good evening. My name is Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Boyd School of Law and the UNLV Honors College. My

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name is Kira Kramer. I'm a fourth year honors college student, a public health major and a pre law student. And this

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is social justice, a conversation, a conversation you

Unknown Speaker 0:43
Well, good evening again, everybody. This is Professor Stanton, along with my partner Kiera Kramer. I want to welcome everybody to social justice a conversation. I think tonight's discussion should be hopefully edifying for everybody. We want to talk a little bit about politics, although I don't know if what I'm going to talk about with Kira is actually going to be confined to politics, the rhetoric in this campaign, particularly on the opposite side of Kamala Harris, has gotten really, really far out, and it's an interesting dynamic that we're seeing because we're seeing a lot of what happened in 2016 and 2020 but it seems even beyond that, when people start talking about the race purity, you know that the blood of America is being poisoned and all the rest of these things, it's a pretty clear indication of where the the kidnapped Republican Party is headed in this election. And I, as I was saying to my colleague, before he went on the air, I was listening to some of the stuff that Elon Musk had said. And I was, I was really, I was really, kind of taken aback by it, you know, he was talking about, you know, basically, if, if something horrific happened to Joe Biden, if somebody did something to Joe Biden, or somebody did something to Kamala Harris, vis a vis, you know, trying to remove them from the political scene, it would be pointless, because they would get somebody else who would replace them as a puppet. I don't know where this stuff is coming from, but it seems as the it seems as the campaign has accelerated, that we're seeing more and more of the racial stuff, which I guess, in a sense, was predictable, but there's not even any subtlety about it anymore. It's basically just appealing to a certain bunch of people who, I suppose, identify with those beliefs. I don't know what else to say, but it seems that there's a rather large amount of them, right?

Unknown Speaker 2:51
And I think kind of looking at the context, after Musk had issued those statements, he retracted, I believe it was in the form of a tweet. He retracted the tweet, deleted it, and so that it was just a joke, and that people are taking it out of context, and that they can't understand it, so that it, in a way, removes him of any type of accountability for what he says. And I feel that this, especially in this election, we've seen a lot of people not being held accountable for the things they say in the way that they impact people, and particularly former President Trump's words have profound impact on the communities in which he speaks of, and people have been arrested for similar things that Musk has said, Yeah, and so to me, it's kind of jarring that the he faces no repercussions for speaking language and insinuating violence against the current vice presidential presidential nominee, right? And so the current, you know? And so it's, I just find it to be frightening that the current Republican Party states that the Democratic rhetoric has been one of inciting violence against the former president when that's just not true. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 4:09
yeah, yeah. Well, I think that through social media, through Twitter, through all these different avenues, there has been a complete breakdown of any kind of rules or standards that used to be in place. If you look back as far as broadcasting is concerned, when America had only three major networks, they had something called practices and standards where you were basically had to adhere to a certain bunch of principles when you did a broadcast. This was true of the obviously the nightly news, but it was also true of prime time television programming, that there were certain things that were not permissible. Yeah, and that all, and they all broke down. I don't, I don't know what the date was. It broke down. At the specific time it broke down, but I think now, pretty much, even on quote, unquote, regular television, not even cable, you pretty much can say anything as far out as it may be, and you're not going to, you're not going to get any kind of repercussion from it, but I think, I think it's definitely, I think it's definitely a danger to people who are who are running for political office, that you have these comments being made, and these comments are being picked up upon by people who are on social media and who already have strong feelings. So when you have a situation like that, it's an incitement to people to take up arms, almost so well,

Unknown Speaker 5:54
that's what we saw on it was, I believe, January 6. That's what we saw. How powerful not speaking about violence is, and I think, a very stark contrast the Democratic Party has taken when during this past election season, when there was an assassination attempt on President Trump's life, we see the leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, actively denounce political violence against Donald Trump, yet, when political violence and insinuations of such violence are made against Kamala Harris from Elon Musk, we see absolutely no endorsement from Trump that this type of violence is or this type of speech is inappropriate, uncalled for. And I saw in articles talking about this that Musk's only He himself said his only lesson learned was that people can't take a joke, and I find that to be deeply disturbing, in tandem with the fact that in this interview, Trump and musk are openly fraternizing with Tucker Carlson, who has blatantly said that he believes that Hitler was just trying to find a solution to the Jewish problem. How do you associate yourself with people that condone genocide? It's terrifying, and to me, it is just very on theme for this current political party in the phase that it's currently in to condone this type of speech. And looking at countries like Germany whose free speech is significantly restricted because of what has occurred in that country, their free speech restrictions would never be condoned in this country. Yet, it just goes to show that history repeats itself, that we're okay with history repeating itself because we don't respect the power of our words. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:54
of course, yeah. No. It's very true that, as the wise philosopher says, If you don't, if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it. And America, America is really at a crossroads. Now, you know, I've been giving this a lot of thought over the past few weeks and months, and I was thinking, you know, whether America has the courage to confront its past and move ahead. I think what, what Kamala Harris is saying, although she doesn't put it in exactly these words, we're at the fork in the road here that we can either, we can either move ahead to a society where people are more equal and there is more fair wealth distribution, that people have a better chance of getting good health care or affordable housing or decent wages, or we can go in the other way and the other way, which, which is, which is sad to Me, because a lot of the people that are backing the Republican Party do not seem to understand that the Republican Party has no connection to the middle class. I mean, forget about the poor. The poor has no connection to the Republican Party, but even the middle class. If you look, if you go back to history, the history of the United States, particularly in the 19th century and the 20th century, almost every single single major social program was a democratic supported program. You could go back to the time of Lyndon Johnson. You could go back to Obamacare, Medicare, Social Security, all these programs that were trying to help people out and try to, you know, raise their standard of living. And the appeal to me, as I see it now, is, is basically, is basically a racial appeal, because their appeal, from a substance of point of view as to really helping people out and making. People making people's lives better is non existent. So what is your what is your agenda? Well, your agenda, your approach, whatever you want to call it, is that it's the immigrants, the immigrants are coming in here, and the immigrants are doing all these terrible things, etc, etc, etc, when the truth actually is, as far as as far as the drugs are concerned, with fentanyl, that the vast majority of people who are bringing fentanyl into the country, 80% are Americans, American citizens, who are going down to Mexico and then, you know, bringing the stuff in, over to Tijuana or other places. But the racial element of this, the racial element and the gender element are a scourge that has had hold on the American population, parts of the American population, for a long, long time. The question is, in this election, can a majority of the people finally repudiate that and say that a black, Asian woman has the same right to be the President of the United States. Then, then a white man basically, is, does that? Is that? Is that what America is going to be? You know, deciding, really, I think this is, is such a pivotal decision. And the other decision, of course, is whether or not we're going to remain in democracy. Because if you read what the ex president has said, he doesn't view himself as a Democratic president. He views himself as like one of the people He idolizes, whether it be Putin or Erdogan or Maduro or whoever it is. And I think people really need to think, I mean, you know, prejudice is very strong. That is no there's no doubt about that, and maybe it always will be. But you're, you're not just, if you, if you reelect this guy again, you're not just guaranteeing that, you know, you may have some racial superiority, which economically doesn't exist, because you're you're you're, you're as much getting harmed as minority people, but that you're the form of government that you have, the things you've taken for granted, vis a vis the law, a lot of that's going to go out the window, but they don't. They don't seem to get that.

Unknown Speaker 12:17
It's already, it's already going out the window. We can see like that, this President, like no other in history, has been above the law, and genuinely that trend is terrifying. We see that I'm not sure if any other president in the United States has done, has gone as far as signing the American flag, his name upon the American flag, and symbolically to while we have the freedom to the freedom to express ourselves and freedom of speech, I think, symbolically, for a leader of this country to believe that you can dominate a set of principles or a set of symbols that represents the unity of our nation, to act like You are the King of that nation is just something that undermines everything this country has stood for since its origins. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 13:08
well, I think one of the problems that you have, I don't think, I don't think this man believes in anything except his own avarice and his own hunger for for for more power and more money or whatever, whatever else he wants. But the even more troubling aspect of this is the Republican Party's acquiescence and all these things. So many people who have worked for him have decried his candidacy and have warned about the dangers of him being reelected, people in the military, people in all these various departments of the government and agencies, and his intention, his intention from the manifesto, the 2025 manifesto that they put out, is basically To end civil service, end merit based, you know, employment and basically fill all these positions throughout the government with people who are who are basically his his minions. And, I mean, he's done, he's done a lot of that already in regard to, in regard to the court system that you have, the Supreme Court is just one example of people who basically sold their soul. And then how else you could put it. And

Unknown Speaker 14:31
furthermore, in addition, you have to watch what they say and what they do, and it's the his visible acceptance and celebration and just his justification with other dictators and around the world, including Putin and Victor Orban and these other he actively praises and condones, and has even gone as far as. Saying that they've saved their countries and or made their countries into wonderful institutions. And if you have a president praising dictators, what more needs to be said? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:12
yeah. Well, I thought, I thought it would be interesting, like, if you could, in some way create scientifically, where you had two people running for president, you wouldn't identify their gender, their race, ethnicity, any of those things, and you laid out what each one had had said, and each one's academic background, and each one's criminal record or lack of criminal record, nobody, very few people, would support that neutral choice, because you would have one person who was, you know, clearly, you know, more qualified ethically and educationally, but when, when you throw in the when you throw in the gender, and then you throw in the racial, you know, composition, everything changes. I mean, it was, it was really interesting. You know, I was watching a few days ago, and they had one about Kamala Harris, and he was supposed to appear on 60 minutes. I did see this, and he but he didn't want to appear. He only appears on certain very, shall we say, friendly forums. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 16:17
and it was my understanding that his team and him had asked if they fact check Yeah. And the response was, we fact check every story. Of course, of course. And to me, a president that actively and a vice president that actively denounce fact checking Yeah, is horrifying, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 16:37
Well, it was interesting too, because Kamala Harris was on. She had a diversity of venues. She was on who's my daddy site. That was one thing she did in the same day. She did the view. She did Howard Stern, and she said, Stephen Colbert. Now you can't get much more variety than that and and in a sense, you know, I admire her for what she's doing. And I, you know, I think, I think she's run considering the lack of time that she had in preparation a wonderful campaign, but it's almost at the point where you're trying to prove something to people that they don't want to entertain. It's like, it's like, you know, you could show all kinds of indications of your qualities and your your scholarship and everything like that to an audience that, in many ways, is closed off. And I think there's a lot of that. I mean, we're still, we're still, we don't. We only have a number of weeks to go before the election, but you keep hearing the same refrain, I'm trying to learn more about it. More when are you going to learn? I mean, as much as you need to know to go into vote in a situation where the person that she's running against has been convicted of numerous felonies as under multiple indictment versus a person who was a law enforcement officer, Attorney General, et cetera. Why doesn't that resonate with people, though? Why don't those qualifications elevate a person and why don't the detractive stuff on the other side? Why doesn't that diminish a person's interest in voting for that person?

Unknown Speaker 18:25
I think ultimately, Trump employs a lot of pathos. He his technique and strategy really targets people's emotions, their fear and their anger, and ultimately, ethos and logos are what Kamala Harris is running on. And I would and I would very much say pathos in terms of her stances on abortion and the like harrowing and horrifying stories of women that have actively endorsed her campaign. But ultimately, the emotions of fear and anger are so overpowering and in a way, I think it's almost as if the party is Stockholm syndromed into living with Trump and acknowledging that he is going to do for them everything he's said when he's been abusing the people that vote for him the entire time, and turning away from an abuser is hard. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 19:23
I think, I think that's very true. I think it's also true that she's running against history, because there is a, there was a profound racial disparity, gender disparity in this country that is still Extra, extra. It's still extraordinarily prevalent. How do you how do you change that? How do you get people to accept her humanity, if you want to use that word or her story, versus the other side of it, which is the complete opposite of that? And how? How? Race and gender can be so powerful that it can impel you to reject good and accept and accept all these other things that are not helpful for the country. Is very troubling, you know? I mean, you know, it used to be. It used to be, I think, and I think he's been a master of division. But I think it's also that a lot of the country has changed a lot when, you know, when I was growing up, of course it was, it was a far different country technologically, certainly, the enormous, you know, advances were made in technology has been a double edged sword. In many ways. It's been very beneficial in some ways, but in some other ways it hasn't been that beneficial. It's certainly not beneficial in the sense that disinformation, or misinformation, however you want to put it, has become so prevalent that if you're running against that, if you're running against that, so much of your energy is taken up in refuting all these insane claims and counterclaims and what have you, and not actually being able to talk about the message that you have, because what they do with the misinformation and disinformation is they try to level the playing field. They try to bring you down to their level. And with, with, with all these different like with Twitter and all these different, you know, social media companies, how do you get to the truth? You know, that's, that's the other part of it, you know, I mean, I mean, there's, I believe there's an objective truth. And the objective truth in this election is basically, you have one person who upheld the law and the other person didn't. I mean, that's an objective truth. You really can't deny it, because it's a matter of it's a matter of fact. But the problem in our country is so many other things are factual too, and we don't want to accept them, like climate change, right? There's a perfect example. I mean, now it's, you know, here in Las Vegas, we have had probably the hottest summer in the history of our city, at least in recorded time. I can't, I don't know about prehistoric times. Maybe it was a little hotter

Unknown Speaker 22:14
then absolutely it probably was and colder too. But I think, speaking of climate change, I am genuinely awestruck and just gobsmacked by what we are seeing in the East Coast, with a tropical cyclone developing in less than 24 hours from a category one, when they discovered it, to a category five, nothing has ever developed as quickly with as much velocity and strength as this storm. And the communities that were ravaged by hurricane Helene have not recovered. And this storm is particularly hitting an area that is not normally hit by hurricanes, which means that the communities in that region are not prepared. Their homes are likely not insured, and this will cause significant damage and suffering to the people in these communities and in Congress. We are seeing our Senate fail to pass aid for Helene. How are we to even get aid for a hurricane, that is for a category, or what, at least double the categories worse. And I believe Helene was a hurricane three. Yes, category three. And I'm currently doing an honors research thesis on executive orders and hurricanes, and what we see is an intensification of the strength of hurricanes due to warming temperatures caused by global climate change. Ultimately, it'll never be the people affected by these disasters that are those that have the strength and the power and the scope to change the trajectory that we're down, and ultimately, it is the public. It is the community that is the United States that has to stand up and say, We are actively being damaged. And when you have DeSantis refusing a call from the White House to organize aid because he believes it's a political statement, when you have people's lives and their livelihood, their safety, their protection on the line and you refuse to discuss with a member of the opposite party how best to serve that community. There is a clear disconnect between people who acknowledge the need to serve those of the United States and serve those who they were elected to represent, and those who care purely for themselves.

Unknown Speaker 24:44
Yeah, I think, and we've talked about it, I think it's a lack of belief too. I think our politics and our judiciary are riddled with people who really don't believe in anything they pose as Republicans or even as Democrats. But. But they're masters of expediency, and as the wind blows, so will their vote. They don't have any real either belief or understanding of what their purpose is. As people who are supposed to serve us, the dynamic has been completely reversed. They see the public as basically insignificant when they're supposed to be the servants of the people. And we're seeing this more and more now, particularly with the courts, but also with the Congress, where certain basic things like passing a budget or passing legislation to help, say, the elderly or people who are disadvantaged, I guess last year, they had the fewest amount of laws ever passed by the Congress. And why was that? I'll end on this the with the immigration thing. The immigration bill was there. The bill was there. There was no, no. It was a consensus bill. He says, No, I don't want you to pass him. Yes, we will obey you. It's like a cult where they they just don't want to, haven't they don't have the courage to do it, no.

Unknown Speaker 26:01
And not only that, immigration ended up being one of Trump's main running issues. Yeah, without that issue, what would he run on besides obscure, very controversial issues? Yeah, of course. And so that Americans likely don't care too much about, yeah, and that is the Republican Party choosing to obey and promote someone over the nation? Yeah, well,

Unknown Speaker 26:25
it's in the end, it comes down to power. I used to work for men when I was in politics, and I always tell, tell us a quick story that he he said to me, there's only through three rules in politics. Get the power, keep the power and get more power. That's it. So when you see these people who supposedly are ethical and moral and everything, you know, it's very disillusioning. When it was so funny, when they had the debate between the ex president and Kamala Harris, and they were talking about how, you know, he saved Obamacare. Obama Obamacare was saved by a man of integrity, and that was John McCain, who who voted against his party but voted for his country. And you don't have that many people like that anymore. You just don't. It's become very it's become like a mercenary enterprise, you know, what? What can I get out of it? You know? Unfortunately, you know, I agree. Well, we as we are, was we're, as we like to say heading down the trail until next week. It's, it's always been a great pleasure to be with my partner here, and we look forward to you tuning in next week. And all I want to say is, everybody who hasn't registered, please register to vote, because it's, it's, it's, it's our country and it's your country, but only if we adhere to what Franklin said, that a republic can only exist if we make the decision to keep it as

Unknown Speaker 27:46
well. My our thoughts and prayers go out to the communities that have been affected by both hurricane Helene and Milton. Absolutely and please urge your congress, men and women and your house representatives to pass aid and relief to these communities that so desperately need it. Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a great rest of your week. Good

Unknown Speaker 28:09
night, everybody.

Unknown Speaker 28:20
Thank you for listening to this broadcast, and if you have any questions or ideas for future discussion topics, please contact myself at K, R, A, M, E, k two@unlv.nevada.edu or Professor Charles Stanton At C, H, A, R, L, E, S, dot, S, T, a n, t o n@unlv.edu, see you next time we look forward to it.

Unknown Speaker 28:50
You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai