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Social Justice - A Conversation
Announcer 0:00
You're listening to local programming produced in KU NV studios. The content
Wesley Knight 0:06
of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Charles Stanton 0:18
Good evening. This is Professor Charles Stanton. I'm a professor of Boyd School of Law,
Blanca Pena 0:23
and my name is Blanca Pena. I am a third year law student at the Boyd School of
Charles Stanton 0:26
Law, and this is Social Justice a conversation, a conversation. Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome back, Professor Stanton, here with my partner, Blanca Pena, and we're going to try to start this program with some with some good news. The last number of broadcasts have not exactly probably brought joy into your home, but we're going to try to sort of look at the glass being half full tonight and talk a little bit about the election results that went on last week. There were three. There were three major elections in the country, the mayoralty of New York City, the governorship of New Jersey, the governorship of Virginia, and also the proposition with the gerrymandering that happened out in California. So we'll talk a little bit. We'll get a little bit into the New York City thing. First, mandami, of course, was elected mayor of New York, which, in many ways, considering the opposition to him was a miraculous event. He got him. He got over a million votes. I think he benefited from the fact that the forces that were against him were pretty much split up. Looking at the numbers, I think if Curtis slew had dropped out maybe two or three weeks before Election Day, we might have had a different outcome. But be that as it may, he was, he was and is the mayor of the city now, he's going to have an enormously challenging job, because the forces of, I was going to say, inertia, but the forces of greed and the forces of keeping things the way they have been in the city for generations, will do everything they can to impede him. It would be, it would be naive to underestimate the amount of money and resources that were put into trying to defeat him, and these same forces are still there. He wants, basically, to change the nature of what the city is, make it more make it more open. Change the tax structure, which has always been a noose around the necks of the poor in the middle class, and ultimately change also what it costs to rent an apartment in the city. He wants to revamp the rent regulations, so he's going to face an enormous amount of opposition on that, but we we hope that he'll be able to at least make some inroads the other two elections, the election in Virginia and the election in New Jersey, I think, were momentous elections, because in the state of Virginia, Dave, for the first time, elected a woman governor. They elected a woman lieutenant governor, they elected a black man to be the Attorney General, which, you know, is quite fascinating, because the state supposedly had been trending conservative. And then, of course, the election in New Jersey, where the election produced another female, another female, female nominee, who was who was elected, Jackie Sherrill, basically, who was in, who had been served in the military, was supposedly at an extremely tight race with Jack citarelli, who had run for the governorship twice before. What's fascinating, of course, is if you look at the demographics, if the if the election had been held without any diversity as to the voting power. Population, Jackie Sherrill would have lost. She would have lost by a considerable margin, anywhere from 53 to 47 to 54 to 46 but when we take the diversity into account, Jackie Sherrill got over 90% of the black vote. She got close to 70% of the Latino vote. And she also got and this they they would, they had said that the the Asian vote had had in last past elections been trending conservative. She got 82% of the Asian vote. So it shows that there's a there's a resistance out there from a lot of people who have are seeing what's going on in the country, and those people who voted, and they followed Barack Obama's edict, you know, don't complain. Vote. There was a very high vote turnout, and Jackie Sherrill won by almost half a million votes, which is very impressive.
Blanca Pena 6:07
Yeah, I think it's great that people are coming out to vote, because, I mean, for so long, it's been the older white population that turns out the vote most, in comparison to all of the other demographics. So it's great that people are finally using their civic duty for, you know, what they believe in. And I think this says a lot about sort of the propaganda that the Republican Party has been trying to push for the last few weeks. I think they've been trying to demonize the Democratic Party, you know, over the government shutdown and over even with the mayoral race in New York City, the amount of racism that was coming out in opposition of him, right? Like, just even the fact that 911 just kept getting brought up over and over again and, like, it just seems like they have been grasping at straws the last few weeks to try and make it so the Democratic Party looks like they're the ones at fault for everything, and they're going to destroy the country. But from what we've seen, just seeing the fact that Democrats swept in all of these elections in the last week, it just goes to show that it's not working anymore, at least not enough for for the Democrats to have lost because they didn't. And I think it just goes to show that people realize that when they don't come out to vote, or they don't do what they can or do their part, bad things happen. And that's what we saw in 2024 and I think people are now regretting a lot of maybe what they didn't do of, or didn't do enough of, or anything like that. So I mean, it's great. And even with Mamdani now as mayor elect of New York City, it makes me really happy to know that, you know, it's not all bad, like you mentioned, Professor, we have been kind of on a bad news, sort of, yeah, as a sort of a bad news, like trail, these past few weeks of things just going wrong. And, I mean, they bad things are still happening, but at least we got a little bit of hope, which was great. Even his speech, mamdani's speech, when he won, it was very empowering for me as an immigrant too. It's like, yeah, New York was built by immigrants, and it's been ran on immigrants for so long. And now, you know, now he's coming in to empower them, and it's so refreshing to have someone coming in who is in their mid 30s, you know, who's someone who's not clearly demented or anything like that. You know, I really hope that this becomes a turning point for the future, and it's not just sort of an anomaly like I really do hope that this makes people not only realize that there's actually more good than bad, but realize that we are not here to tolerate what that man in office has to say. Yeah, because it's not that that couldn't be farther from the truth, at least with me and people in my circle and things like that.
Charles Stanton 8:59
Yeah. Well, I think two things struck me. One thing is, we are the change. We are the change, and we can make the change, and we can be the change, as long as we exercise our right to vote and get involved in those matters that we know are wrong and that needed to be corrected. The other thing that I find interesting as I as I was looking at the the results is, I think people are finally waking up and reacting to the fact that the country is in deep trouble, not just, not just in the pure political sense, but economically, there's been another delay, and this is, I think this, either the third or fourth month of the actual unemployment figures. So one can only imagine. Is with all the people who are laid off in the federal government, all the retrenching of the companies. Exactly what those two numbers are in addition to that, though, the one of the reasons why the man who's sitting in the White House got elected was he said, Oh, I'm going to bring the prices down. I'm going to make things more affordable. People are clearly seeing that that is completely untrue. People are completely seeing that it's it's gotten more and more unaffordable to do food shopping, to get basic necessities. And then you combine that, you combine that with the attack on the snap programs, the the the attempts to try to defund Medicaid, the attempts to try to defund Obamacare. And I think people now, regardless of ideology and maybe even how they voted in the past presidential election, are saying, Wow, this is, like, really scary, because, you know, the basic necessities we can't afford. We have children, and with the SNAP program being cut back, they're going to be impacted. And then, of course, the other thing that's going on is that people's jobs are very insecure now, so all those things combine, and I think that's an issue that the Democratic Party has to keep hitting on.
Blanca Pena 11:30
Yeah, agreed. I don't know if how much this has changed since I saw it, but I think Trump's approval rating is in the mid 30s, like 35 ish percent, or something like that. And we kind of touched on this a few weeks ago when we talked about Marjorie Taylor Greene about how people who were once Trump supporters are now realizing that maybe he wasn't as great as they thought he was going to be, and now they're turning around and regretting their decision, which I am glad that people are coming to realize what this man is meaning for the country, and how badly He's affecting everybody, a little too late, right? But I guess, I guess, you know, beggars can't be choosers at this point, I'm just, I really hope that the Democrats can continue to make people realize that Donald Trump is not everything that he said he was. And it just, I don't know if you saw the 60 Minutes interview when he was being asked about the health care and all he could really do is bad mouth Obamacare. But after 10 years since 2015 when he was first proposing a quote, unquote better health care plan, where is the plan? Like, it's still not in existence. I don't even think they have the blueprint for it, like, I just It's so disappointing to see the lack of accountability with him and even with the government shutdown, right? It's like they can point the finger elsewhere. But the truth is, people are are gonna starve. Unfortunately, people are losing their jobs. People are just being so negatively affected in their everyday lives. Yet he is concerned with funding the ballroom and his Halloween parties and ice and things like that. And it just, it's just so apparent that he doesn't care about the regular everyday people. He just cares about himself, his spotlight, his friends, and nothing else and nobody else. And I am waiting on the day that more and more people realize that he could not even care enough to help you off, if you like, help you up if you fall on the street or something like he'll probably just walk by you, point and laugh and then go into his buildings or casinos or whatever and pretend he never saw you.
Charles Stanton 13:48
Well. The truth of the matter is there is no plan. Yeah. The truth of the matter is that the people who support him, not, not, not, not, per se, the average person who votes, but the people who support him in industry, in big business, in Wall Street, have no feeling about any of these things. Yeah, they just want the money train to keep rolling. The stock market, keep rolling. Crypto keep rolling. And all the things that are going on to the vast majority of the people in the country are completely irrelevant to them. He got back into office. He got back into office, primarily from an enormous amount of money that was kicked into him, a lot of dark money, a lot of money that because the Citizens United, nobody even knows where the money came from. And I've said this about him, and I'll say it. Again. And I really believe this. I believe this man is a figurehead. Yes, he's the president. Yes, he has all this power and authority, but he's really a representative of all the people who put him there, all the people who are in in Wall Street, big business, the corporations, crypto and all this stuff, and he's he's there, he's their spokesperson, basically. And you can be guaranteed, if that's the case, then very little or nothing will be done for food programs or for medications or any of that stuff. And the reason behind that, and the reason behind that, and the reason behind those cuts was they want that money, that money would go directly to them with the with the tax bill that he wants to put through, the middle class support will get nothing, yeah, and that's the way they want it.
Blanca Pena 15:57
Yeah, no, I agree. It's, it's, it's not even shocking anymore. I mean, I don't even want to feed into any conspiracy theories, but it's so hard to believe that he actually won by by that margin. And, I mean, I don't know how true it was or how serious they were being, but when even Elon Musk had come out and said that he had rigged the election for him, or things like that. Like, it really does make you think, because there are more of us than they are of them, yet he still won. Yeah, and it's, it's shocking. I mean, I don't know. I think one of the things that they put out there, that I think put them on that pedestal, was they made everyone blame each other. You know what I mean? Like, they made people think that it was people out on the streets, that it's their fault, that, you know, we have these problems, or that it was the immigrant or that it was, you know, these other people, and because of them, you know, that's why you don't have more money coming in, or that's why you're struggling, or that's why your bills are so high. And that's not true. The people truly at fault is these billionaires. It's the CEOs. It's people who have been exploiting the working class for so long. And I think that's another reason why mamdani's campaign and his platform was very appealing to people, because he finally stood up and said, what other Democrats were afraid to say, right? Like it is because of these billionaires, we are going to tax them, and we are going to provide everyday people with things that would make their lives a lot easier, free busses and grocery stores ran by the New York government. It's like Republicans are so quick to just shut it down and be like, well, that's communism, and that's wrong, but I think a big reason why systems like socialism especially have not worked is because the US has put in so much money for the CIA to go and destroy these countries that are trying to make that work like the amount of money and effort that it's been taking for them to try and keep capitalism on the top has been primarily the reason why these other systems haven't worked, not because they are inherently, you know, faulty, which I'm sure there's faults with any kind of system. I mean, anything man made is going to have its own weaknesses. That's just what it is. But I truly like if my paycheck, if a portion of my paycheck, went to feed children and to work on our infrastructure and to make society better. I would love that. I would love to like share my income with the rest of humanity, because that's what we should be doing. I do not want my money to go to war. I do not want my money to go to tax breaks. I saw this. I was reading this article about how much in money, how much in taxes Tesla paid right in the last few years, and it was only about 390 million right. That is a the I don't even is it like 100 and billion, $100 billion that that company is like making and if Tesla were to be taxed like any other person at that 19% figure, they would actually have to be paying $19 billion in taxes, but they only paid 309 million. So why are people not paying their equal share that that's what gets me. It's their fault. It's not the everyday Joe Schmo that you see walking around in the street. And I think, I think now that people are struggling, now that people's, you know, flights are getting canceled, and people's Medicaid and other benefits are getting canceled, I think now people are starting to realize, like, it's got to be something else. And it
Charles Stanton 19:42
is, well, I think, I think that it by by memory. You know, thinking about this, I think the greed is more unvarnished. I don't think that greed is anything new. No, there's always been greed, right? But now I think it's like, just grab as much as you can, as fast as you can. It's just like, it's just like Elon Musk's compensation that he tells the company that he should be compensated in the amount of $1 trillion for what he for what he's done for them, whatever it is. But what's interesting, of course, is that to help society, to do something good, constructive, you know, people who are starving all the rest of those things, that's never a thought. It's never a thought to do anything to better society or feed people or do any of that stuff. It's about the individual. And that's why, when you see like the ex wife of Jeff Bezos, and this woman has given like, I mean, billions of dollars to different charities, at different institutions, and you say to yourself, well, she just stands out because they don't have any of those. They have no inclination to do it. It's, I think it's more. I think it's even more though that just agreed. It's the idea of superiority, the idea of entitlement, that I'm better than they are at you know, because I was able to be successful. Well, there's some deficiency in them, so they deserve to be poor, and they deserve to be hungry, and all the rest of the stuff, which is totally untrue, right? But, but it's, it's a kind of propaganda that they throw out there. And then when it comes to trying to help people with social programs and do things like that are constructive, they don't want to do it. I mean, you could take this city as a perfect example, where we have the problem with the homeless. We have the we have the resources to correct the homeless problem. We have the real estate, we have the space, we have the money, but we don't have the will. We're just not interested, basically. So, so the alternative is, well, let's arrest all these people. Arrest them for what? Arrest them for being poor, right? I never knew poverty was a crime, right? But this is, this is the mindset. That's what they did. It was interesting that you mentioned you about the last election and everything. I don't I would want to hope, I would want to hope that the election was was honest. I would hope. That's the, that's the hope that I have. But what I found interesting, what I found very interesting, which is not, which is not proof that it was dishonest, is the fact that in the number of states that he carried, the ticket was split and they voted for Democratic senators, which I thought was kind of odd, because if you were supporting him, you would want to be voting for the Republican senators, yeah, which was kind of odd. It just it doesn't
Blanca Pena 23:00
make sense. I don't want to feed into the conservative the conspiracy theory, right? Like I would hope that the systems we have in place are at least honest, but who knows? I mean, the system has just been, I was gonna, you know, go back and talk about the billionaires, because there's just so much rage with that. But it's like they are so malicious with with the way that they exist within the system. I was thinking about how, you know, people make the argument that we can't fully tax billionaires on their net worth, because technically, they don't have it in, like, liquid cash, right? And so it's like, okay, you know, you're trying to figure that out, and you're like, Okay, I guess that makes sense. It's only their net worth. It doesn't mean that they doesn't mean that they actually have all of that money in the bank. Okay, cool, whatever. And then you keep thinking about it, and it's like, but wait when they go and buy something like, when Elon Musk went and bought Twitter, he had to put, like, his property or his stocks and things like that up, what is that word collateral? Yes, up for collateral so he can get the money to buy Twitter. So it's like, I'm trying to figure it all in my head. And I'm like, so they have it to buy stuff, but we can't tax them because they don't have it. But when they need to have it, they do. And it's just like I go back and forth in my head on how that even works, and it all just goes down to the system enables them, like the system that was put in place benefits them, and it will continue to benefit them until someone goes in and changes it. But who's in power? A bit a billionaire right now is in power? Well,
Charles Stanton 24:43
I think, I think it has a lot to do, though, with the Congress. Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with that, not just the House of Representatives, but the Senate. To get elected to be in the Congress, you need an enormous amount. The money, yeah. Where does the money come from? The money comes from people whose interests are to continue the status quo, to keep the same group of people at the top of the food chain. So if you wanted to be, say, a senator, or something like that, you could, you could start out like, very, very idealistically, I want to make change. Okay, so let's just say to some you know, accident or miraculous occurrence, you get enough, you get nominated to be the senator, right? Okay? How's you compete against an incumbent? Where does the Buddy come to to to support your campaign. Do the radio ads? Do the television ads? Do all these things on the internet. Okay, there is nothing for free in this world. So you might start out and you might be extremely idealistic. You might want to do the right thing. You might want to make change help people with everything. Rare is the individual that does not succumb to those pressures. They get the money, and then they get into office, and all of a sudden there's 1000 IOUs from all these people that gave them different things. Now the idea which would solve that is public financing of elections. Everybody kicks in three, four or $5 from their tax return, and that's the pot, yeah, and you take out of that pot, and that's it, right? There's no more money, but because the Citizens United and and decisions like that. Oh, but I got to end, I got to end the program on a note before we sign off. And that is, that is they're, they're investigating now the New York Times, and the fact that the New York Times got in touch with a number of judges in the federal bench who talked openly about what the Supreme Court is not doing and what they should be doing, and now they want to try to get information from the times so they can bring charges against the individual federal district judges for telling the truth about what's going on.
Blanca Pena 27:20
Yeah, it's, it's crazy, the the upper hand that certain groups of people have it, you even see it on, like, a micro level too, like, I'm an adult, right? I'm 24 years old, but I live with my mom and my dad, and just the simple fact that, like, they pay for the rent, you know, like they get to still tell me what to do, because I don't want to lose my place where I sleep, right? It's like, it's such on a micro level and a macro level, where the person with the money had, you know, has all the power, and, you know, with family. I mean, thankfully my parents aren't horrible people, right? So I have autonomy and things like that. But when it comes to Congress and government and things like that, and all these like interests from the oil like companies and everything like that. It just gets super messy. And that's why we have situations where even the most like talented and experienced people, I think of like Bernie or betook her, or even Kamala Harris, right? People who seem to have the experience and the passion just got beat out by the incumbents and people with, you know, all of that power on their side, unfortunately, so, but hopefully, these last the elections last week, give us hope, and we'll just care, keep carrying on with that. Thank you all so much for listening, and we'll see you next week. Good
Charles Stanton 28:32
night. Thank you. Good night. God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai