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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls about your disorientation or that of people around you that you're experiencing or anticipating, after losing Trump as a figure to fight against apparently any day now. Don in Hampton, Virginia, you're on WNYC. Hi, Don, thanks for calling in again.
Don: Hi, Brian. Thanks for remembering me. I tell all my friends about you. Disoriented, if you got to use that word, I would say yes, the Trump presidency has left me disoriented, lost in the woods and not sure how to find my way to the roadside. Yes, but the election, I feel it has redirected me. The election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has given me a sense of direction.
Brian: Almost the opposite of disorientation.
Don: Yes, I can't honestly say that the election has-- I feel like I have a better sense of what to tune into. Now, Trump has controlled the news cycle, and I am now an official addict of news, but now the focus is instead of being told what to be in tune to, I have to decide what's really important that I should be in tune to.
Brian: That’s right. Because the centerpiece of opposition is gone. Let me move on to some other calls, except very briefly, have you kind of found an immediate focus for that?
Don: I'm starting with my local school board, because I’m a teacher, and with my city council.
Brian: That's good. That's what a lot of the activists and the people who really take a step back and look at effective activism say is, start really local like that. Don, thank you and keep calling us. Nancy, on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nancy.
Nancy: Hi, good morning, love your show.
Brian: Thank you.
Nancy: I've been a Democrat, raised as a Democrat my whole life. We lived in Brooklyn, now we're in Staten Island, which is a red city. We're very careful about how we talk about how incredibly relieved and happy we are that Trump is out. I worry about mostly all the things that he has shut down, the EPA shuttered, all the damage he has done, and what roadblocks Mitch McConnell and his buddies are going to throw in the way of this new presidency. That's what I'm worried about.
I had a year of terrible personal injury on my knee, and add to that, the psychic and anxiety levels were just through the roof with this president, and how could he keep on doing this, how could people still support him.
Brian: You're experiencing the relief with the anticipation that he's going to be gone, but then still worrying about the other people who will have the power to block anything that you see as good?
Nancy: Absolutely, absolutely. So many millions and millions of people, we just don't get it. It just seems like they're evil, and they don't care about the people. They just care about their own power. Mitch McConnell specifically, what a nasty person. Oh, my gosh, Obama will be loved.
Brian: Nancy, thank you very much. Of course, other people see evil in other political places, but yes, from a Democratic Party standpoint, if you're going back to pre-Trump normal, pre-Trump normal had everything to do with Obama being president and Mitch McConnell in charge of the Senate, blocking anything that Obama wanted to do legislatively. Of course, we have yet to see who does control the Senate at the end of the Georgia runoffs, but that's one prospect for what the new normal will look like, and how it would resemble the old normal. Larysa in Fair Lawn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Larysa.
Larysa: Hi, Brian, how are you? Thank you so much for taking my call, and thank you so much for all you do. You just mentioned the pre-Trump normal, and unfortunately, the pre-Trump normal was always the rampant gun-violence epidemic that America has faced for so many years. I'm with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America here in New Jersey, and we're a nationwide movement. The 40,000 deaths that we have almost every year in America preceded Trump.
Certainly, Moms was founded in 2012, after the Sandy Hook tragedy, and we have so many allies who have been fighting before Moms even. That's something that we'll continue to fight for. Even if we get federal legislation, that comprehensively addresses gun violence prevention, there's still about 400 million guns in the United States. It's a fight that we're going to have to keep fighting.
Brian: Is the prospect of "no more Trump" liberating in the sense that, we all had to spend so much time talking about Trump as a threat to truth, Trump as a threat to democracy, Trump as a threat of violence in his particular ways, that you can now go back to a more focused effort on gun control that you would like to see and hope that that it gets more attention again?
Larysa: Yes, I certainly think that having him removed gives us a little bit more wiggle room, but with Mitch McConnell still blocking federal legislation, it's liberating, but it's far from over.
Brian: There's that again. Larysa, thank you so much. Drennan in Kingston, you're on WNYC. That's Kingston, New York, not Kingston, Jamaica. Right?
Drennan: That is correct. Yes. Hi, Brian, my name is Drennan, and I'm a longtime listener, first-time caller.
Brian: Great.
Drennan: My father and I have been pretty diametric politically, for a long time. The last four years has found us side by side arguing with our family members and his friends and whatnot.
Brian: Now what? Once Trump is gone, what happens between you and your father?
Drennan: I think he's much more of the John Kasich win of the Democratic Party. I'm much more on the other end of it. I think it's back to fighting.
Brian: Drennan, thank you very much. John Kasich is a Republican, but I get what you were getting at with that. Sandra in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sandra.
Sandra: Hey, I'm part of the [inaudible 00:08:28] Sirens Women's Motorcycle Club, and real multicultural. We started it as a game of the Lesbian Motorcycle Club, and now we have all kinds of women. When the Black Lives Matter protests started, my sisters came out in masks, even though it's the majority white club. Then, as a natural offshoot, we did four caravans to campaign for Biden.
I think that it's changed the nature of the club, it’s going to be a little bit more political, hopefully. It's a club of about 60 women, [unintelligible 00:09:04] different directions, but I'm just so inspired. Actually, since Trump was such a negative entity, he really [unintelligible 00:09:13] for me to really love my club more than ever. There's a lot of work to do for motorcycle rights anyway, so hopefully, we'll be a little bit more political. He's been inspiring.
Brian: That's so interesting that he's been inspiring, brought you and your club together. Around him is a common enemy.
Sandra: One more thing.
Brian: What do you do next?
Sandra: There was a couple of Facebook sites called Bikers Against Trump, because everybody thought bikers the big Trump votes. I felt like it made me love the motorcycling community, though the image for Long Island, and there's more older white men on Harley's. Those old white men are no trumpsters. It was really inspiring, I feel much more connected to the motorcycling community, much more connected.
Brian: Sandra, thank you. Please call us again. That's definitely the first call we ever got on the show from somebody representing a women's motorcycle club. Liz in Suffolk County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Liz.
Liz: Hey, how are you? Wait. Let me take you off the speaker phone, right?
Brian: Yes, that would be great.
Liz: Hey. I have called so many times and I've never gotten through and I'm so happy today. Thank you for your show. I love it.
Brian: Thank you.
Liz: It's a really disconcerting moment because on one hand, the potential for him to be gone exists, but not quite. Over the four years, I have not been able to tear myself away from the news, and it's like I said to the screener, "It's kind of like watching an accident. You cannot carry your eyes away." You know it's really bad and you just can't. I live in Suffolk County and that is also-- I'm pretty liberal, left-leaning, a little bit hippie. I'm 65-years-old and--
Brian: We're going to run out of time in a minute, but the degree that you found the news compelling, even I think you used the word entertaining to our screener, even though in a horrifying way-
Liz: In a horrifying way, yes.
Brian: -what do you go to next without Trump there to rivet you?
Liz: What I go to next is being much more active than I have ever been, writing letters, making phone calls, which I have been doing, demonstrating, which I have been doing. Yes, those things. That's what I'm going to do, and I'm probably going to bring my 30-year-old son along with me because he's actually very motivated this year too, so, yes.
Brian: Liz, thank you very much and you get the last word today. Thanks for all your calls on how you're thinking about what to focus on now if you spent the last four years obsessing about getting President Donald Trump out of office and the disorientation that this moment might be bringing. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croke, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna and Carl Boisrond, Zach Gottehrer-Cohen, works on our daily podcast. That's Liora Noam-Kravitz at the audio controls today. I'm Brian Lehrer.
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