Episode 314 – Chaos Fatigue with David & Dai
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David & Dai of the Call Me Limbo podcast talk with Steve about class struggle, community, and the therapeutic value of humor.
Depressed about the state of the world? Meet podcast hosts, Dai Poole and David Kugler, who are able to talk about the depressing stuff, yet manage to have a little fun along the way. In November, they brought Steve onto Call Me Limbo because they’re interested in Modern Monetary Theory (smart guys). A few months have passed since then, and things have changed in the US.
The episode dives right into the thorny questions of divisiveness and weaponized identity politics. Anything that further divides us is dangerous, but anti-wokeness threatens the very people who are most vulnerable. The opposite of woke is sleep.
Dai suggests “we’ve become so hyper focused on individuality that our individuality – our ‘rugged individualism’ – has just become rugged narcissism. We’ve gotten to the point (where) patriotism just means loving the idea of America more than loving the people that make up America.”
Throughout the episode the three talk about working class solidarity and the need for collective struggle. In conversation and in their podcast, David and Dai include psychological insights as well as a therapeutic dose of humor.
Check out David & Dai’s Call Me Limbo Substack https://callmelimbopod.substack.com/
David Kugler and Dai Poole are hosts of the award-winning Call Me Limbo, a weekly podcast that brings the concept of the Fireside Chat into the 21st Century.
Steve Grumbine
All right, folks, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. And I gotta tell you, if it wasn’t pneumonia kicking my ass. This election kicked my ass. The news of the day kicked my ass.
The frigging snow kicked my ass. And everything about this world right now is just kicking my ass.
And I have just gotten to a point now where went through an entire year of genocide every day and went through an entire year of snarking at everybody and seeing nothing change whatsoever and just really getting bored of politics altogether. Hearing people talking like it’s very, very serious stuff and like, they have a serious play on this thing and…
And just realizing that the oligarchy, if it was really ever going to let us vote away their power, probably these elections weren’t going to be the way it happened. And so I figured, you know what? I’m going to have some therapy. I haven’t done a therapy session in a long time.
And this podcast today is going to be a therapy session.
It’s going to be a therapy session with a great group of guys, guys that I happen to think very highly of that have a wonderful podcast called Call Me Limbo. And they were kind enough to have me on their show a little while back talking about Modern Monetary Theory.
And, you know, I wanted to bring them back on because these guys are just… They just make me laugh, they make me smile. They’re kind of a fun take on the way they view not just politics, but the world around them.
I think it’s just so needed right now for, you know, like a collective sigh and exhale and just sort of, okay, here we are. What are we going to do now? So I’m going to do an introduction for them. This is from their podcast, Call Me Limbo. It says, “Move over, FDR. There are two new visionaries on the airwaves. Introducing David and Dai, hosts of the award winning Call Me Limbo podcast.
Call Me Limbo is a weekly podcast for about thirty-ish minutes that brings the concept of Fireside Chat into the twenty-one st century. Dai and David are tired. Tired of feeling hopeless about the world and tired of feeling like they can’t do anything to initiate change.
Join them on the Call Me Limbo as they serve BGE, big grassroots energy, and explore how ‘everyday Americans’ can harness collective power to shape the towns, cities, states, countries, and world we all call home. America is an idea. Call Me Limbo strives to turn that idea into a more hopeful vision for the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
David
Oh, my gosh, thank you, Steve. I was like, what’s funny is I had therapy on Tuesday, and I was thinking I might need another session this week.
And so thank you for coming through and delivering for me.
Steve Grumbine
It’s what we do here, right?
David
Yeah.
Dai
It’s funny because when I tell people I’m getting my master’s in psychology, they assume I’m talking about therapy, and I’m not. But today, I will happily embody my therapist role from my session on Tuesday.
So I’m really excited because I tell you, watching the news these past few days has truly felt like comedy, and I needed some reprieve. We had already recorded before most of the crazy of the world happened this week, so I’m excited to do this.
Steve Grumbine
Well, you know, the lone thing, I’ll be honest with you, I know this will probably knock me down the activist pegboard here a little bit, but I have been completely consumed with football. I’ve allowed myself to slip into football, and it’s something that has provided me with the escape I needed.
And my Washington Commanders are in year one of a rebuild, and they are about to play the Philadelphia Eagles for the championship game and the right to go to the Super Bowl. So I am really, really stoked about this.
I know it’s really pathetic, given all the hell that’s going on in the world today, but I needed a break, man. I’m serious. It was either break or break, if you know what I mean.
David
Yeah, break down.
Steve Grumbine
Exactly. Yes. Yes. So what I found fascinating, you guys just did a great episode, and I don’t want to relitigate that episode.
But, folks, if you haven’t heard their podcast, I’m begging you, do go check this out. It is just the greatest little refresher that you’re going to hear all day. It’s amazing. [Thank you.]
But, I mean, they talk about eyebrow care and they talk about nose hair care.
David
I’m having an existential crisis with my aging, so that’s showing up in the podcast content. But, Steve, it sounds like you’re leaning into the circuses of the bread and circuses.
Steve Grumbine
I have no choice, right? It’s like I can only resist empire so long before I have to recognize my mortality, my humanity
and my army of one has to recharge its batteries and like, you just have so much life suck. You can only see so many dead kids, you can only see so many burning bodies, can only hear about so many lies from your government.
And you can only be gaslit so long into being told it’s the greatest economy ever. It’s the greatest world ever. We’re going to make it great. We’re going to this and that and until you finally just lose it.
And you know, and it is, it is my escape right now. I’m not going to lie. I don’t have good eyebrows, so I’m not doing anything.
David
Neither do I. Dai’s the one with great eyebrows. The one with great eyebrows.
Dai
But Steve, if I may, I would like to inject some therapy because what my therapist might say is that you watching football is an external manifestation of the tackling that you wish you could do of our political system so that we could actually do something better. So there is me offering today’s dose of serious.
Steve Grumbine
I love it. That’s great. I thank you. You gave me my get out of jail free card. I feel so much better.
David
If you can’t get out free, Steve, I’ll come bail you out. So send me your jpay number.
Steve Grumbine
So let’s talk about Donnie Tiny Hands for a minute, right? Obviously it’s been the punching bag for the Democrats now for eight years. Really? They stop focusing on policy.
They stop focusing on any kind of thing that would help the common man. And I love the way you guys said that in your podcast too. It was just great. It’s like, yeah, far be it for me to give us health care.
You know, the Supreme Court goes ahead and gives you immunity and everything and what do you do? Nothing. Nothing for us. Not a damn thing. Not medical, not nothing. [Yeah] and here we are now.
You had eight years of back and forth nonsense, non stop Trump derangement, with good cause in some respects and other cause just a complete nutter, you know, gaslighting to hide the fact of the ineptitude of the administration.
And now we’re dealing with a completely demoralized group of people. I mean, society is demoralized right now. The racists are happy.
The folks that are on the other side, if you will, that want to say things but can’t say things, but now all of a sudden they get the veneer of legitimacy. And so all this shit’s going on and you’re sitting there like pinching yourself like, is this really the world that we’re living in?
And I think, you know, listening to the number of executive orders that have come out in the last week alone, it’s just been a blitzkrieg, and I’ll use that word proper, you know, frickin blitzkrieg. Right. Intentional of just ridiculous insane stuff. From renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America to renaming the mountains in Alaska, Denali [to Mt McKinley]
I mean just ridiculous nonsense. But then other things that are much more serious.
And I think this kind of plays into some of the conversations we’ve had about Modern Monetary Theory with, you know, they’re trying to bring workers back into the office to fatten up some capitalist wallet while families have been budgeting on an inflationary budget for the last couple years and now all of a sudden they’re expected to put $ three thousand a year extra into getting new clothes and buying food and traveling on the roadways and tolls and everything else to get to and from an office because of some asshole that doesn’t understand we live in an environmental crisis right now that requires us to take cars off the road, et cetera. I mean this impacts everybody. You know, there’s nobody that doesn’t get impacted by this.
And I wonder how many idiots didn’t think about this that are out there, you know, circle jerking and getting all excited about it, but in reality…
David
Let me know where that is.
Steve Grumbine
Yeah.
David
And I can show up.
Dai
But yeah, don’t say that out loud. [Therapy]… they’re going to make gay gonna be illegal in like two seconds. So listen, you better be careful.
Steve Grumbine
Oh, that’s so racist. But think about it though.
I mean the things they’re targeting, you know, we’re talking about eliminating DEI [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion] now this may have been the shittiest program of them all. Could have been right, I don’t know. But it was a program with the right idea, with the right intentions. But they target that.
It’s like, what about your hetero white life were you so worried about somebody getting an opportunity that would have otherwise maybe not been afforded them?
What about that gets you all stirred up that you feel like you need to kill that? I mean like every single aspect of this, it’s an overreaction to weaponized identity politics of the liberal order.
So the anti-woke pushback, if you will, has really destroyed the real woke, the real assets of woke and we have literally sitting there running in reverse. We’re like running backwards, scared. I mean, I think this lady that acknowledged Elon Musk giving the “Sieg Heil.”
Oh, I mean, throwing his heart out to the crowd, by the way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what it was.
David
That’s what he was doing.
Steve Grumbine
She’s a weather lady and she gets shit canned for critiquing the fact that he did the Nazi Sieg Heil. What are your thoughts on what you’ve seen so far?
Dai
Where do we begin?
Like, I feel like for me, I can definitely say that I was laughing with a friend of mine because forcing people to go back to work, to me, it was kind of like your boss telling you, hey, we’re going back to the Oregon Trail, so get on your horse and buggy.
But then looking in my garage and seeing like, I have a Tesla or something, like, it just doesn’t make sense to me because I’m like, just like you said, there were so many benefits to people staying home. As a person who liked to stay home and work and was still late every day despite a two second commute, I personally adored it.
My job did say, well, my former employer, they said, hey, I know you all have been doing this job for the past three years at home, but we want you to know that you’re no longer able to do that. The world has shifted and all your skill sets have just magically gone away, so now you need to go back to the office. So I hated it.
And I was like, yep, I’m out. And I think with Hitler, I think the whole, well, sorry, with Hitler, with Elon – Freudian Slip. This really is a therapy episode.
For me I struggle because, one, I’ve never understood the way that the right has used “woke,” because to me, the opposite of that would be to be asleep. As a person with insomnia, I much prefer to be awake. But now to watch them create their own version of it.
Because I was like, is renaming the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of America, not just the quote unquote, woke version of conservative grievance. Like, I don’t understand that.
And then for you to tell me I have to watch Elon Musk put his hand to his heart and throw his hand out not once but twice, and then say, nah, I didn’t really see what I said. And then for the people that identify with that symbolism to also come out and say, my brother. I still have to pretend he didn’t do what he did.
Now, do I think that’s less substantive than some of the executive orders. Of course I do.
But I think the level of gaslighting that is soon to come for the next few years, I’m telling you, you’re going to have to need a hazmas [hazmat, hazardous materials suit] because it’s going to be a lot of work in mental gymnastics from that side to defend the indefensible at this point.
David
Yeah, Dai, when you said the Oregon Trail, I don’t know if you know this. The Oregon Trail game. I grew up in western Nebraska, twenty minutes from Chimney Rock. So that’s my claim to fame.
Dai
Are you serious?
David
Yes, that’s my claim to fame is growing up twenty minutes from Chimney Rock. But I was raised in a town of eight thousand people in a rural, very conservative, very evangelical community.
And so this was the worldview where I grew up of what I am seeing right now in Donald Trump’s second term, Elon’s performative, racist, Nazi actions, behaviors. He even doubled down in a tweet the other day talking about Himmler. And like, it was awful. Göring, was awful.
And what scares me the most is that he’s doing it under the guise of trying to be funny. And people that I know, people that I spent nineteen years of my life with, do think that this is funny.
And they do have idol worship of these billionaires and of these false idols that we elect.
And so from a young age, I remember not identifying with this yet these people were still part of my community and would show up for me and my family for Friday night football games. I was not playing football. I was the statistician for the football team, but the community still showed up for one another.
And so, like, that’s what’s been really hard for me to grapple with over the last, like, eight years with Donald Trump is recognizing that, like, I know these people. Like, they’re not my people, but they’re not necessarily bad people, even though I don’t necessarily believe or align with a lot of their worldview and how they see systemically oppressed and marginalized folks. So, yeah, that’s where I’m kind of at with where I’m just thinking about, like, how people are reacting and what I’m seeing.
Truth be told, I have sort of tried to isolate myself from… I did not watch the inauguration. I went to the Martin Luther King Day march parade here in Denver that day.
And I tried to spend time in community doing local actions that were within my own sphere of influence because I’m out in Colorado. And so I’m closer to the Republic of California than I am to Washington, D.C.
And so for me, what happens here locally and in this state is going to impact me more. So that’s where I’m trying to spend a lot of my time and energy right now, is taking those actions locally.
Steve Grumbine
That’s great, man. I mean, that’s kind of the thing is people are always looking for, what can I do, right? What can I do right now?
And, you know, I think that that lack of clear vision of what I could do to make an impact, what can I do that is not a complete waste of time. You know, I think that’s an elusive thing, and I think that creates a lot of the anxiety all of us are feeling. It’s kind of like this, wow, this is really it.
One of the things that I see, and I want to get your take on this, I’m not so much worried about what Trump’s policies are, because supposedly, and I don’t believe this, by the way, but I’m going to say it just to be a good stooge, supposedly.
You know, there’s an opposition party there that will prevent him, even though the Democrats have literally blank checked every one of his appointments from Rubio to, you know, Hegseth, you name it. I mean, you’ve even got John Fetterman now, suddenly. Anyway, I just.
It’s hard for me to even give the kayfabe this fake theatrical stuff, the kind of gravitas that some would like to give it.
But what it does do, and this is serious, I’m watching people that I grew up with, people who I’ve known for forty or fifty years, and I’m watching them suddenly avail themself to the fact that they can yell at Brittney Griner and say, oh, you’re not a woman, you’re a man.
And just openly, like, no big deal, Just literally just shitting all over it, you know, I mean, and feeling emboldened to do that, like, it’s okay now. We’re the ones making the rules, and the rules are it’s okay to shit all over people. Now, as a class guy, I’m a class guy.
So identity politics has always been a real challenge for me to overcome, because I don’t think we can win anything if we stay in little teeny micro slices of the working class.
I don’t think we have enough power, and I don’t think we have power through electoralism to begin with, But I definitely don’t think we can do anything even outside the system if we’re broken into tiny little factions that can’t, you know, turn a light bulb on because we’re busy, bickering right? Yeah. So with that in mind, I think to myself, as a class based thing, all of our struggles as part of the working class are all of our struggles.
I mean, they make up working class struggle.
And so whether it be DEI people, people that fit the DEI, whatever, or whether it be black and brown people, whether it be Muslims, Palestinians, whether it be gay, trans, you know, all of our friends in different groups, ultimately they are put into a position now where it’s okay to say really wicked, evil things.
And I’m watching these people from my childhood, people who my mom and dad probably knew before they passed away, and you’re just looking at it and they’re like telling people to here have a pacifier, basically shut up and enjoy it. And I’m thinking it’s not really Donald Trump that I’m worried about. It’s what it does to Main Street.
It does what your local community, what the schools, where your kids are, where your friends are, how we treat one another outside that political sphere is what I’m seeing change now. I knew it was always bad there, but there was still kind of like a leash.
There was still kind of, I don’t want to say a guardrail, but there was some weird like buffer that said, you know, this is wrong, you just don’t fucking say it. Right. You just don’t do that. Now it’s kind of like, you know, let your freak flag fly. I’m not sure how to combat that. Right.
I mean, it really does put it into local hands, like down to relationships and educating people. And I think that there’s value there. I don’t think it’s a zero sum game.
If we didn’t get people to believe and understand this stuff before, I’m not sure if they ever will. But there is something to be said for intimate conversations. What are your thoughts?
I mean, obviously David, you talking about doing what’s within your sphere locally was a big deal for you, but Dai, you guys, what do you think? How do you envision change coming about while it’s wide open for this demonic kind of troll-level lifestyle?
Dai
Yeah, it’s funny because David and I recently launched a Substack to kind of do more long form, quote unquote, more of our serious introspection about certain things, but still some of our humor. But one of the articles that I didn’t post that he read was actually about free speech.
And it was actually me trying to wrestle with what you’re talking about because as we’ve seen, free speech just means who, whatever it is the perspective of whoever’s in charge. Like right now, you know, Elon is, oh, I’m pro free speech, but really it’s just the speech that he likes.
And it started making me think that you can’t really legislate away cruelty that you mentioned. You can’t legislate away bigotry and ignorance.
And it really made me realize that it’s our collective inability to care for one another, to, like, see humanity in each other.
And so, like, to me, we’ve become so hyper focused on individuality that our individuality, our rugged individualism or whatever has just become rugged narcissism. We’ve gotten to the point that I said patriotism just means loving the idea of America more than loving the people that make up America.
And to me, that automatically sets you up for failure.
Like, I would much rather a world where I care less about this concept of America and I care more about the person next to me because to me, you are America. And yes, we might not agree on everything, but a baseline of decency and respect has to exist.
And we’ve gotten to the point now where it’s like, eh, you know, we’ve turned Internet conversation, which research has shown is way more vile and grotesque than normal, everyday person to person conversation. We’ve made that the norm.
And I think as a lot of data and articles recently have come out about being lonely and how Americans are kind of isolated in digital spaces, we’re losing the ability to see real people, and we are now believing in caricatures like, as a gay man or black man, it’s like, yeah, I have those identities. And it’s like I engage with right wingers and they’re so shocked to hear my thoughts or the nuance of my takes.
And I’m like, have you ever, you know, engaged with anyone like this? And like, no, because people just shut me down and they don’t want to say anything. And I get it. Everybody doesn’t have the patience of Mother Teresa.
And I’d rather you step away than to start knucking and bucking big ups to crime mob. Like, I wouldn’t recommend that.
But I do think it’s important for us to start trying to have conversation, because if we don’t, we’re gonna find ourselves at the point where when you quote, unquote, “cancel,” which is this weird concept, all they do is gather together and then they start festering. And that energy manifests and it doubles. It doubles and it goes out everywhere.
And to me it’s just like, you have to stop the cancer where it begins or it’s gonna be too late and it’s gonna metastasize to the point that there’s nothing you can really do. So, I don’t know.
Steve Grumbine
I wanna just add this. I was listening to another gentleman the other day, and I would give him credit, but I don’t think he’d want it.
But what he said was, you know, if we don’t stop, you know, just canceling Republicans and canceling these bigots and canceling all these folks, we’re going to end up in an echo chamber of elite white educated people, black educated people, and a handful of trust fund babies and the rest are going to be over there. Because the Democrats were so disgusting with the way that they kind of eliminated the Bernie Sanders element from the movement.
They eliminated any kind of working class solidarity by cracking down on strikes. They literally eliminated all the things that could have been a win by placating their billionaire donors.
Somehow or another, the Republicans are able to both placate their billionaire donors with weird language that allows people to somehow or another think, yeah, they got my back. Because really, at the end of the day, these people just want to own the shitlib because they don’t expect more from government.
They don’t expect anything. They’re like, yeah, just shut those people down. And that to them is enough, that, hey, we win. We want government out of our lives.
So by him telling them to shut up, leave us alone, he did a job for us.
Dai
Yeah.
Steve Grumbine
So we, we’ve gotten to a point now where we have made our sphere of influence, our Venn diagram, so tiny.
Not because we, but the powers that be, the people that are the influencers, the political consultant class, the folks that are crafting these platforms have literally made it so exclusionary that there is no path there. So I’ve always advocated building outside of the electoral system so that we can not let politics derail the truth.
That we could work together, asynchronous of the election cycle and have these kind of educational engagements to build trust. Trust, right. Think about it. When you trust someone, even if they don’t necessarily think exactly as you do, there’s trust there.
So you give them a grace, you give them room to be themselves without trying to control them.
And I think that the lack of trust that came as a result of the Democratic Party destroying the Bernie Sanders movement, it may be so far gone it can never be fixed. At least through that means.
Dai
If I can quickly add to that, because I do think it’s important to acknowledge that what so often I think is an Achilles heel of the Democratic Party, especially, is that the part of the brain that analyzes issues like the prefrontal cortex, people always say, oh, we got them on the issues. That’s correct. But that’s not the part of the brain that helps people decide who to vote for.
That’s when you’re bringing in things like the amygdala involved in, like, emotion, et cetera. And not to be our real therapy nerdy session, but Donald Trump is actually very good at emotional plays. Donald Trump doesn’t speak from the head.
He speaks from this intuition and this gut feeling that translates to people. Most people are not voting, thinking, okay, so the tariff that they’re going to put on this thing is going to do this and blah, blah.
Yeah, they’ll have those words that he says in their brain to regurgitate, even if it’s wrong. But it’s a feeling they get.
And unfortunately, with the Democratic Party, there became this nasty elitism, almost like the moral majority of the eighties with Ronald Reagan from an educational and cultural perspective. And that doesn’t mean I’m excusing some of maybe the language that I wouldn’t agree with, but it’s me recognizing where are they at.
Like, I love my grandmother to life.
Like, I know if I’m bringing home a boy to my grandmother, she’s not going to say certain things, but later on she might say, hey, I saw pictures online. Make sure you post one with YouTube. He was welcome there, too. I know for her, that’s her giving her stamp of approval.
She might not say, go outside with a pride flag and go “lgbt…” That’s not going to be her thing. But can I see her growth and trying? Yes.
And I think sometimes we want to pull people all the way to where we are at, not realizing, hey, just meet them where they are. Are they showing up with love? And some people don’t know. Like, I had a friend right before this, I was texting.
He didn’t know what Tulsa was or Rosewood. And, you know, he is a Trump supporter. And me having this conversation instead of judging him, like, what do you mean?
David
You don’t know what that is?
Dai
I just said, hey, these are these things. And he was shocked. He was like, what do you mean? I didn’t. I didn’t know that was a thing. So then he’s like, well, how does that apply to today?
And it opened a conversation.
David
Yes, yes, that’s what’s needed.
Intermission
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Steve Grumbine
Listen to this. I want to throw this out there. Trump was interviewed with Hannity the other night, okay. And there was this one clip. I’ll just read the statement.
It’s very short, but he says, Trump says he can tell if immigrants are bad based on how they look. “You look at them and say, could be trouble.” Literally. This is, this is what he said.
And you think to yourself, there’s no line of logic that you can deploy against that statement. It’s purely his gut saying, yep, good, bad, you’re a one, you’re a two, you’re a zero, you’re a one, you’re a two.
You know, you in that box, you in this box, you in that box.
And for the average person that we’re talking about here, that flocks to him, that speaks to him, because they don’t want to be held to some scientific method of determining whether or not these are good people. Well, did they get a four point O? Or did they, you know, take their mom to church or did they, you know, cut the grass Monday, Wednesday?
You know what, they don’t want to know any of that. They just want to be able to do a quick scan and yep, you’re bad, you’re good. You know, I think that this is kind of a universal thing.
So how do you overcome that? Right? I mean, or do you, or do you just accept that this is it?
Dai
Yeah.
David
What’s interesting as you’re talking, I’m like, I’m a white man. And like, no one has ever said that to me that I know of.
They should be, because I’ve been listening to North Korean pop music and advocating that North Koreans at least get health care. And my flight search recently was Denver to Pyongyang, but I should be on some sort of list.
But, like, consider the source here, Steve, as a former self-identified liberal who has likely been owned by these folks.
But I’m, I’m reading a Yahoo Finance article right now that’s from June twenty-fourth that says of all US adults surveyed, eighteen % said the largest emergency expense they could handle right now using only savings was under $ one hundred . What’s even scarier, only fourteen % said they could handle an expense of $ one hundred to $ four hundred ninety-nine . And only ten % said they could handle an expense of $ five hundred to $ nine hundred ninety-nine .
And so when you grow up in a really poor community, like I did, very economically deprived, but relied very heavily on undocumented immigrant labor, my community, what was really interesting is that they had these views that were very, very racist. Very much like, “deport the illegals.” That’s in quotes. That’s their language, not mine.
Steve Grumbine
Yep.
David
But then at the same time, I’m seeing the public school district during the summers when the parents are harvesting the crops. The public school district is teaching these children for free and feeding them for free.
And so for me, it was this really interesting disconnect between the rhetoric and the actions. And so I was seeing direct action from the community to support these families who were working in supporting our local economy.
And that, to me, was what was most interesting about that. Something else that I’m thinking about is that related to therapy, I talk a lot about [psychologist Abraham] Maslow in my therapy sessions and, like, the hierarchy of needs.
And when so many of us, I would argue a majority of us are stuck in the focusing on our basic physiological needs because the system has just more creatively implemented slavery through capitalism.
Because think about who’s impacted by this. It’s mostly black and brown folks. It’s mostly people of color, and then very poor white folks.
And so when I think about, like, we all have so much more in common, but when we’re stuck in focusing on those physiological needs, it’s hard to progress to higher levels of feeling safe, to feeling like you have community. Even if you do, you’re looking for someone to blame that, oh, somebody got theirs and I didn’t get mine. And so that’s what’s really hard.
And so I think about the importance of direct action a lot in terms of, like, economics.
And so, like, I carry cash in my car to give to panhandlers on the side of the road, because that is more quickly and effectively addressing an immediate need for someone to go get a meal or maybe get a hotel room for the night than it is for me to donate to an organization.
Or like, the city is just creating additional hierarchies and systems that we have to work through when if we just gave people the cash and allowed them to make the decision for them. Like, that, to me, feels like is the best use of resources and time. And also, like, this driver carries less than $ twenty in cash. So it’s not like I’m…
And it’s all in singles, so which is really funny, when I go to the bank and ask for $ one hundred in singles, just, yeah, going to the club, that’s what they think, no, I’m passing it out to panhandlers. But I think that’s important. I think that having certain systems and like nonprofits that do this work.
But I also think individual direct action, when we collectively harness this, can make a bigger impact. And so again, it’s just thinking about, like, what I can do within my sphere of influence.
Dai
Yeah, I was going to say, because there’s no amount of private charity that can override bad public policy.
And I think what you’re getting at is important because even going back to what you said, Steve, one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness”. And many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s life.” And that’s from the Innocents Abroad. And I think it goes back to what you were saying, David.
When these people had relationships with people, they didn’t see those people as the same groups that they were advocating to be deported or advocating for something bad to happen.
And it’s kind of crazy to think that, but I’ve always said that a lot of times with conservatives, once you make it personal for them, they understand it and they become the biggest advocate.
I remember, Steve, you talked about your experience on our podcast, you know, with the incarceral system and how once you experience that personally, it changed everything for you versus being able to conceptualize and empathize with it when it’s just this abstract concept.
Steve Grumbine
Absolutely.
You know, it’s funny you say it, because I watch the concept of them cutting government spending right now, and everybody is really excited from that side about all the slashing that Elon Musk and the gang, the DOGE [the so-called Department of Government Efficiency] are going to put forward. They’re, they’re like, we’re going to cut this program. We’re going to lop off eighty % of all those DEIs.
We’re going to be putting pink slips out and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And that might just very well be your neighbor.
But fundamentally, one of the challenging things that really brought me into not only Modern Monetary Theory, but this leftward swing is the understanding that we have not only the ability, but easily to take care of each of ourselves, each one of us collectively as a society. And it’s not even a hard thing to do. Right. But the average person doesn’t understand not only that these are people, right?
They’re othered, but they don’t understand the way the monetary system works or the power of the government. You could watch our government send bombs all over the world. You could watch us destabilize entire regions.
You could watch us build monstrous ships and airplanes and everything.
But when it comes to something as simple as eliminating student debt, or when it comes to something as simple as providing a home for every person in America, or healthcare, it’s like, where are you going to find the money for that? And trying to make people have feelings about, yes, we should give everybody these things.
When fundamentally they believe that it’s coming from a place of scarcity, they’re holding on to what they’re protecting. To David’s point, they’re friends. They know those people in real life. And so they’re worried about those people losing out, not some other person.
Like, I remember a lot of going, I don’t give a shit about those Palestinians. I can’t see them. They’re not in front of me. They’re not real then, you know, and it’s like until it’s real, it isn’t real.
But these concepts we talked about, the job guarantee when I was on with you guys, we talked about Universal Basic Services. These are all game changers.
That would eliminate so much of the xenophobia, it would eliminate so much of the hate for minorities and for their quote, unquote, “DEI people”. Right? We have the ability to make it a very fair and just society where we all share in the fruits and it’s not like tax dollars. Right?
I think that’s the hard part, is if we could overcome that brain rot that makes us feel like there’s a zero sum thing that you’re taking from me to give to them. And so it creates this automatic clutching of keeping what I’ve got maintaining mine.
Because you see people getting ground up by the system every day.
And so in your mind, your job as a protector, as a provider, as a man of the house or whatever, it’s threatened by someone that could possibly take it away from you. And so overcoming that, it goes beyond just that. People may want people to do well.
People may like each other, they may even in the back of their mind, feel bad for feeling the way they feel. But because they don’t understand that we could do it, they clutch and they revert to protectionism.
They revert to a very conservative mindset that protects them and it doesn’t matter necessarily who else gets hurt. I don’t think they think of it that way. I think they think of it, period, as I’m protecting mine as a result of that. It’s a false dichotomy.
It doesn’t have to be that way. And yet it is the dominant, most pernicious lie controlling the realm of possibilities.
Seriously, they are looking to cut the Department of Education. Maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t know. They pulled us out of the Paris Accord [Paris Agreement]. They’re looking at cutting, slashing and burning.
And when you understand that the government spending is our income, you know that that’s going to have a really big effect on probably the lowest on the totem pole and work its way up. What are your thoughts on that?
Dai
Yeah, if I can go first in that. To be honest, it’s something I’ve thought about a lot.
And I think where I’ve come to right now, so I’m in transition, is I don’t know if there’s another area of American life that exemplifies what it’s like to not have to feel like you’re in a zero sum game.
I think the most pernicious thing that our political elites have done is that they get on these pedestals and tell us that we can’t afford things and we can’t have nice things. But then they take advantage of the system. I was like, they totally understand that government.
It’s like when Santa Claus is coming, kids never ask, how are you going to pay for the toys? They just enjoy the toys. And I always say that’s essentially the government, in some ways is like that, with Santa.
But it’s like there’s no real world. Like, when we’re in business, we’re taught it’s all about competition. It’s all about getting one up on the other person.
So we take that mindset and apply it back to government. We tell each other, oh, you gotta be responsible with your spending and do this wise, which is true, personal spending.
We apply that to the government. I don’t know if there’s any area of life where we all feel relaxed to say, let’s be in harmony, let’s do something together.
And that’s, for me, I think, the most convincing argument for creating systems outside of just electoralism so that people can at least think that it’s real. And whether that be mutual aid or whether that be, you know, people aren’t going to church as much, they’re not in labor unions as much.
So there’s no communal aspect where people feel this sense of, oh, wait, if I help my neighbor and they help me, we all elevate. And I think it’s going to be very uphill climb to just get the point across that, like, baby, the money is never the issue, okay?
Your great-great grandfather took care of that many, many, many decades ago. You deserve nice things. Do you believe you deserve nice things?
And I’m starting to think that Americans have limited political imagination to actually think the answer is “no” at large.
Steve Grumbine
That’s sad.
Dai
And as long as I’m doing better than the other, I’m good.
Steve Grumbine
One inch above the pig slop, huh?
David
Yeah, it is sad. And I was like, Dai. When you were saying about, like, when people, like, complain about their jobs or unionizing.
My default now has gone to whenever people complain about their jobs, my default is like, I should start asking, do you want sympathy or a solution? But I just jumped to a solution. But my default is always, why don’t you unionize your workplace?
And as a former HR manager for a couple of large corporations, maybe that’s my way of addressing the former baggage that I’m carrying. But also, I’m thinking about, like, right now, we need community more than ever. Covid, I think, really forced a lot of us into isolation.
And especially couple that with the language of individual liberties with the United States. Like, we really need each other. We really need to know our neighbors. Start there.
It’s important to join, like, clubs and organizations, even as an adult. Like, I have found so much community in going to Zumba classes over the last year.
And I think about when I lived in Singapore for a year, one of the things that people there would say, not necessarily like, how are you? But it was getting at this question was, did you eat? Have you eaten? And I thought that that was such a beautiful way of caring for one another.
And because I’m like, if your belly is full, then you can feed your soul as well.
I think there was a mayoral candidate here in Denver a couple years ago who was running, named Terrence Roberts, and he talked a lot about how when he was a kid growing up, he was really hungry. And this is why he aligned a lot with the Black Panther’s philosophy of around free breakfast.
And so, like, when you’re feeding your community and you’re in community with people eating, like, then you can build bonds that also feed your soul. I also think about how Starbucks, like, that’s one of the places where I used to work. I basically been boycotting them since I left. Yeah, but.
Yeah, seriously. But CNN recently reported that Starbucks is stopping their free bathrooms policy. And the reason was in quotes, was to “improve customer experience.”
And so when there are fewer and fewer and fewer third places, corporate third places. Then my default is to start thinking about, like, well, where are their public third places? The library and where else?
And then you start to see signs, like, outside of public areas here, even the library in Denver, that say, like, you’re not allowed to be here basically after sunset and before sunrise. And it’s to criminalize camping or criminalize homelessness.
And so that, to me, is why I’m like, okay, like, we need to invest more in these public spaces. Then I’m thinking about in terms of, like, policy or government, government features. I am a corporation. The way I file part of my taxes.
And I have had friends tell me, David, you’re more than just a corporation. And I really appreciated that.
To me, I intentionally set myself up as a corporation so I could legally, legality does not equate with ethics in this country. But legally pay less in federal income taxes so that I could keep more of that money for myself. And so for me, I think it’s twofold.
Whereas I’m intentionally paying less legally as an act of protest. But I would happily pay more in taxes if I could see what the government was doing for us.
So, like, if they were funding universal healthcare, universal child care, paying for student loans, I would feel less inclined to have to go through all of these extra steps for my taxes just in order to do this. It’s very complex. Complex and complicated by design. And so, like, I’m thinking about that.
But then also, like, the government can also just print more money to fund these resources. We already have these teachers, like, so many teachers in other countries make so much money. Like, it’s an aspirational career.
And here, when the starting salary for a teacher in Colorado is $ forty thousand , and then we also know that teachers are funding and buying supplies for their classrooms. It’s awful. My niece, who’s in second grade, since she started school, she has sold these, like, pastries, basically.
And then half of the money goes to her school, and then half goes to this company that makes these pastries. First of all, why do we have six, seven and eight year olds being salespeople for these, like, pastry companies? Which I’m like, is that legal?
It is, right? Exactly. Professionals. It’s a developmental opportunity. As they weigh, they face it in, in corporate language.
But, like, also, she was doing a fundraiser for books for her classroom recently where the public had to donate to her school. And I get that.
But when we tie, like, school funding to property taxes and then, like, it’s all interconnected and it’s all related like why can’t we just fund the schools? Why can’t we just relieve the suffering? I tell my clients a lot of this, they’re just numbers.
We are the ones that assign the value to these numbers and call it money. So like we can deploy these numbers in a way that is more compassionate instead of sending these numbers to military industrial contractors.
And so that’s what I thought about when you asked that question.
Steve Grumbine
Ah, it’s great. I love it. I start, I was sitting there, I had my spring wound up.
I was about ready to tell you, well you know, the taxes aren’t really funding the spending and I just, you know, I just ready to do my thing. And then you came back around and you, you pull my feet out of the fire.
Dai
We listen, Steve. We listen.
David
It’s both/and right. This is my way of influencing the system from again within my own sphere of influence.
So again I think if we all collectively did this, whether it was through like self employed sole proprietor, like single member S-corporations or worker owned co ops to own the means of production, this is a way within our own sphere of influence in impacting the system that we are already operating in. Until we can build and create an entirely new system. This to me is the way that we sort of do manage decline of the existing system.
Dai
And this is not financial advice.
Steve Grumbine
No, but it’s good. So well stated. My God…
Dai
…had to get the legal disclaimer.
Steve Grumbine
So all right, so Dai, let me ask you this. I wanted to bring it back.
You know, we’re, we’re winded down here a little bit and you know one of the things that I really appreciate you guys, I’m not going to say anything that’s going to catch anybody off guard here. You guys are both openly gay and you have spoken at length about your experiences, and you don’t have any, any kind of pullback from that.
But you guys would fit into that mold, if you will of the people that are kind of in the target space.
You know, I mean the, the anti trans movement, the anti lgbtq, the whole thing I can’t imagine, just to be fair, you know, what it would be like if I were on the other side of that. And I’m not. So I can’t.
I mean I could try, I really do try to empathize at all times because it’s hard to really get anywhere if you’re just living in your own head.
But you have such a unique way of tying together psychology and the things that you brought up earlier and interspersed with your own experience for a straight ally, or, you know, for people, maybe, that are struggling. What would be your advice to them? To keep your head up, to move forward, and to be productive in this space to survive.
What’s the field guide look like, based on your psychology?
Dai
Well, I would just tell people, you got to start doing what the Bible say. that’s clearly what they say.
So if you do that, you know, I mean, look at Lindsey Graham and them get you a wife at night, a wife in the morning, and a man at night. I’m just kidding. Allegedly.
David
Allegedly, yes.
Steve Grumbine
I mean, good.
Dai
No, in all seriousness, like, what I do lately is I try to hearken back to history.
Like, we know that right now is a dark time, and we know that it’s challenging, but as a black person and as a queer man, I come from the legacy of two of the most powerful civil rights movements.
Throughout our history, we have seen where there have always been forces that wanted to oppress and make people subjugated to bad things and people who fought back, whether it’s abolitionists, women’s suffrage, civil rights, the LGBTQ through Z movement, all of those great things. And I think it’s important for us to believe that we possess that same power and that same strength.
And for me, I don’t view myself as any less capable than they were. I have to put in perspective that some days it sucks.
And, yeah, I’m tired, and I might have to tag David in or, you know, David might have to hold me up to walk across the finish line. But the biggest gift you can give to those in power is relinquishing your own. And I refuse to do that.
I mean, we have too much access to history to see how people like [Bayard] Rustin or see how Harvey Milk and other people were able to push back. And so I believe that’s the first place you have to start. I think the second place would be to, as David mentioned before, have a strong community.
Because, listen, there are times when David and I turn the camera off, and there are times we’ve cried on air, but there are times I’m like, I do want to talk about something or cry about something off air.
You need to have a place where you can vent, because every day, you are not a superhero, and everything is not going to be said perfectly or done perfectly, and you need to be able to get that out, because perfection is stifling.
And when you feel like you’re someone who has to always, oh, I gotta be the perfect gay or the model minority, as they say, that garbage has to go out the window. And it’s definitely something in the political space. I live very close to D.C. as you do, Steve, not too far from it.
And I forget the psychological concept, but it is a concept in the psychology about how pretty much gay men tended to overperform in an effort to be accepted and seen as, quote, unquote, “normal.” And we see people, I mean, everyone was, you know, the conservative gays were up, you know, oh, they got the Scott [Bessent] guy as Secretary of Treasury.
Potentially he’ll be the highest, you know, ranking gay and blah, blah, blah, blah. See, you guys want to say he’s homophobic. He can’t be. And I think to myself, like, George W. Bush had Condoleezza Rice. Like, I don’t think that people take into account minority groups in general when it’s somebody in the Republican Party you can accurately identify. They’re probably not looking out for us.
But when, soon as you put a D next to their name, it’s like they get that object permanence and they’re unable, kind of like babies. When you, like, cover their eyes or you cover your face, they’re not able to recognize that they too can be sheep in wolves clothing.
And I think it requires that level of analysis to say, like, hey, I don’t care what you’re saying, and I kind of don’t care what your identity is. What is your ideology that comes first?
Because if you’re a gay that believes homosexuals are also repulsive figures that need to do X, Y and Z, or we shouldn’t have kids, or women shouldn’t be in the military, et cetera. You’re not really my ally. Black people. There’s a quote we often say in our community, you know, all skin folk ain’t kinfolk.
And that’s something I truly believe. And so ideology has to start taking precedence. And for me, it always starts with basic humanity. And you need straight people, you need allies.
Like, I’m sorry, people love to be like, oh, we don’t need any of those people… We can do it. And I’m like, “no.” Civil rights wouldn’t have happened without allies in the white community. Civil rights wouldn’t have happened.
I mean, electoralism. I mean, you got a racist man to sign that legislation. It is what it is from outside pressure. So we do need everybody.
And so we need to make sure that our arms are open to those willing to learn.
Steve Grumbine
I gotta tell you, from my vantage point, the biggest growth that I have had over the last fifteen years has been understanding the intersectionality of movements and the need for each other’s struggles. Just, you know, I’m not going to leave you behind in your struggle because I’m going to need you when I’m going through my struggle.
And together our struggles make up the working class struggle. That right there has been probably the most difficult. Because you know who that includes, right?
That includes them, that includes those guys, that includes the MAGAs, that includes the beer bellied redneck that calls everybody, you know, the N word and stuff. He’s a misguided soul, but he’s part of that working class. And I don’t know how to get over the edge there to help bring him into the fold.
But I know that at the end of the day that if I attack him in terms of instead of attacking power, instead of attacking systems, instead of attacking oppression, I attack the individual, I’m gonna lose everything, right?
Dai
That’s right.
Steve Grumbine
We are up against big systems. We’re up against things that are greater than the sum of the parts if we don’t do it in a unified way.
You can’t win your struggle without me winning my struggle and vice versa. And I think that if we can look at each other’s struggle as part of our own clarion call, I think that that’s gonna be how we get forward.
Because what they’ve done perfectly is divided us up by middle class, lower class, upper class, this class, that class, and everybody’s holding on to something different. So we don’t have a shared sense of what it means to be human. We don’t have a shared sense of what it means to struggle.
And as a result of that, we oftentimes think, oh, that’s not my problem, that’s your problem, that’s not my problem. And I think that that is key to us moving forward.
Being able to recognize that you’re a member of the working class and you have unique situation that makes up for the overall working class struggle. I’m curious, David, I’ll let you have the last word here.
David
Oh my goodness. Well, can I.
Dai
Real quick, David, please, Dave?
David
Yeah, please.
Dai
I just want to offer. You said something, Steve, that I think is so important and something that so many people think. How can I work with these people to do this?
And I would like to offer MLK’s quote where he said, “God said I have to love my enemies. He did not say I have to like them.”
And that has saved me in so many scenarios because he also said, you know, you lose all moral and persuasive power when people can sense your underlying contempt for them. And that is something that I had to train. I’m still working.
I’m not perfect to really train myself to do, in those situations and remember that no matter how they’re acting, I don’t know what they went through to get them to that point.
Steve Grumbine
,Right.
Dai
And that’s not my job, but my job is to still show up with love. And to show up, even if that means putting a boundary. Love doesn’t mean you have to be walked over.
Steve Grumbine
That’s right.
Dai
But show up with that, and I believe that you’ll be amazed at all the things that you can do within that realm. Okay. Sorry, David.
Steve Grumbine
That’s okay.
David
That was beautiful. I loved that. That’s way more beautiful than what I was going to say.
Dai
That’s why we’re balanced. The ying and yang.
David
I was going to say, like, I am a gay man, but I’m also a white man. And so I think that it’s really important for me to show up and people see me as a white man first.
And I think that that’s really important to lean into a lot of times.
On the Fourth of July, when I was standing down the police in front of Coors Field, downtown Denver, when Lockheed Martin was doing the free giveaway for the baseball game and we were a group of Palestinian anti war protesters, I put myself in front of the police wearing a T shirt that had an American flag on it. It was in a fist that said “Resist” on it.
But still, like, I’m trying to show up with symbolism and appearing in a way that where, like, the system and the state and the police think is safe. And again, my ideology is not necessarily safe a lot of times, but the way I present is. And so I do think visibility is also really important.
And so for me, my first exposure to the queer community, I’m not kidding, was like, Maury Povich when they were “that’s a man, Maury.” Like, I did that. And to me, that was in, like, the nineties. And to me, that felt like progressive visibility, considering the time period.
And you even look at the way hearts and minds have changed and shifted, particularly toward gay, lesbian, bisexual folks, like the sexual orientation piece of the LGBTQ+ community. There has been a lot of evolution in the acceptance of sexual orientation.
There still needs to be a lot of growth in gender identity, especially for, like, trans folks.
But I think about shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy at the time, that was also really important for me, too, to see myself out there as a little boy from Nebraska in a town of eight thousand people and knowing that, okay, there’s other people like me out there, the visibility is important. And I think that, sure, passing laws and anti discrimination laws, sure, those are important. Those are a great backup.
But to me, all laws are a decree for us to change our hearts and minds. Like the actual work comes from inside.
And getting to know your neighbor and getting to know people in your community who you might not necessarily think you can find some common ground with.
But what I think is really interesting too, in Colorado, and I’ll wrap up with this, but in Colorado, the largest voting block is unaffiliated voters.
And what I have noticed in the last ten years or so, as that shift has really started to emerge, where the largest voting base is unaffiliated is we talk about issues. It’s not partisan. It’s not your team, my team.
It’s here’s the issue, here’s the question in front of us that we collectively get to decide on how do we want to proceed forward. And a lot of times I think that the community makes the best decision for themselves.
And so I think that that, to me, is the places to ignore all the division, ignore all the theater; Dai, I quote Dai all the time saying, we’re all paid actors. Some of us get paid more depending upon our roles.
And so again, thinking about the role that we each individually can play, because there’s an analogy that says if we all pull the strings or all pull the threads of this blanket, it will all start to unravel eventually. And so we all have to do it. One person’s action can spiral into someone else making an action. And then. And then we can dismantle the empire.
Dai
Until the empire strikes back.
David
So it’s not easy, Steve. It’s not easy.
Steve Grumbine
Oh, guys, this was absolutely fantastic. I really appreciate this. This was so much more interesting than my… with being with you guys.
David
I love it.
Steve Grumbine
This is great.
David
Thank you.
Steve Grumbine
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So tell folks a little bit more about where we can find your podcast.
David
Yeah, we are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music. Really just about anywhere where you stream podcasts. Go follow us there. That’s the primary place where we post our content.
We also just started a Substack. So the Call me Limbo Pod is just what you can search in the feeds. Call me Limbo Pod is the Substack.
You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, RedNote, @ call me Limbo Pod. And then we also have a patreon, patreon.com/CallMeLimboPod. And then we also accept one time contributions on Venmo at Call me Limbo Pod. Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads: @CallMeLimboPod
And we set ourselves up as a business partnership like we are fifty , fifty partners in this where we believe in actually like owning the own means of our production and being equals in this. So yeah, that’s where you can.
Steve Grumbine
That’s fantastic. All right, well, listen, you both were just absolutely wonderful. I really appreciate it and really look forward to your shows each time.
I mean, you guys are really, really fun to listen to. I thank you.
I always learned something because I have a very unique way of approaching the world and you guys are a little different and it’s, it’s really nice though, you know what I mean? Like for real, like you can only handle so much Steve and after a little while you need a little bit of the way you guys approach it.
I think is really, really healthy and it’s good for my soul. So I, I really enjoy the show quite a bit.
David
Well, thank you.
Dai
That means a lot.
Steve Grumbine
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. I am Steve Grumbine. I am the host of Macro N Cheese. We are a part of Real Progressives, which is a 501c3, not for profit.
Please consider becoming a monthly donor if you like the work we do. If you consider the work we do valuable, we live and die on your contributions.
On behalf of my guest, David and Dai on the pod Call me Limbo, Macro N Cheese. We are out of here.
End Credits
Production transcripts, graphics, sound engineering, extras and show notes for Macro N Cheese are done by our volunteer team at Real Progressives, serving in solidarity with the working class since twenty fifteen. To become a donor, please go to patreon.com/realprogressives, realprogressives.substack.com or realprogressives.org.
Extras links are included in the transcript.
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