Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News and how it knowingly and willingly spread lies about the 2020 Presidential election. They also talk about Senator John Fetterman seeking treatment for depression. Then, Jared sits down with Whitney Marris, who is the Director of Trauma Informed Practice and System Transformation at the Campaign For Trauma Informed Policy and Practice.
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Alright everybody, welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Jared Danes.
Nice to have you here with Nick Halsman.
How we doing, buddy?
We're doing good.
We're doing good.
Luckily, none of my private texts have been leaked to the public.
You know, every day that I wake up and I'm not involved in a $1.6 billion defamation suit that I am caught dead to rights on is a good day for me.
Yeah, I mean, that happens so often, but today didn't, so thank goodness.
I'm dodging those things like Neo dodging the bullets, you know, that just won $1.6 billion defamation suit.
Well, everybody, we got to talk about these revelations that Fox News obviously knows that they're peddling lies and conspiracy theories.
We also have to talk about Senator John Fetterman checking himself into Walter Reed for mental health purposes.
And on that note, I'm going to have a conversation with Whitney Maris, who is the Director of Practice and System Transformation at the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice.
That is a conversation that you're not going to want to miss.
But first things first, Nick.
To get everybody up to speed in the Dominion Voting System's $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News, there have been an absolute trove of text messages that have been turned over as evidence from basically every member of the Fox News staff, from producers to the host, all the way up to Rupert Murdoch, and they've been caught dead to rights
Admitting on their own time and of their own volition that they knew that Donald Trump and all of his cronies claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
They have been caught absolutely dead to rights knowing that this wasn't a real thing.
It is an incredible look inside of the apparatus of Fox News.
Can you picture those day traders maybe like back around the you know in 2000 happened and they were just they literally just stood at their computers staring at the numbers and looking at their you know profits going up and down?
Imagine that but a hundred times worse with Fox News because they just do that with the ratings.
It's really really crazy because I know people we can talk all about what we're gonna say as far as what they believe or didn't but The inside glimpse I got was how obsessed they are with the ratings, but then also how it completely and utterly shapes the content.
Which is a real problem if we're going to talk about, what's that word again?
Journalism.
Yes, that's a problem if you're going to talk about ratings generated from revenue of the viewers.
Well, we talked about this in the wake of the 2020 election.
You know, one of the shows that we did after that, we had a long discussion about what came next from Fox News.
Because one of the things that happened on election night is that Fox News told its viewers that Donald Trump had lost the election of 2020.
And they realized very quickly that that wasn't going to be popular.
We told everybody that there were going to be challengers, including OAN and Newsmax, which gained on Fox News as Republicans in Trump's circle kept saying that Fox News had been won over by the woke left.
And now we're looking at these text messages, and we're seeing from everybody from Rupert Murdoch, who called it quote-unquote, really crazy stuff, which is the understatement of this new and early century, that he worried over losing viewers to OAN and Newsmax.
He thought about pushing back, but said he was, quote, worried about pissing off the viewers.
Fox News President Jay Wallace said, quote, we are on a war footing.
The entire purpose of all of this was to state that they knew that the only way to keep their viewership, their only way to keep their position of influence within the Republican Party and within the conservative authoritarian movement was to go ahead and repeat a lie that they knew full and well was absolutely a lie.
I mean, absolutely.
And what's frustrating about this is that this wouldn't have come up in the absence of two different platforms.
One was Newsmax and one was OAN.
And you see in these texts how they're monitoring what's happening there.
And it's a real threat for the first week after the election, after the Arizona debacle, at least they consider a debacle.
Of calling the Arizona for Biden, that they were so concerned so instantly.
I suppose maybe that's how fragile the ecosystem is of the audience for news.
But like within a day, they were already so panicked that they had lost the trust of the viewers and they were all flooding to Newsmax and OAN.
But that's what's also interesting is that they consider it trust.
They want to maintain the trust of the viewers by lying to them, right?
This is the solution.
And that is what is so crazy about where we are right now, is that it's like they have to tailor what they're doing so they can keep the viewers going.
And it's like they probably would argue this, that we're just trying to be the trustworthy source because that's what they believe is happening and we need to give them that.
Well, let's let's be very clear about this.
Fox News is not news.
It has never been a news station.
And for that matter, I mean, cable news, of course, you know, breaks news or whatever.
But for the most part, that's never been what this has been about.
It's been about making breaking events and current events entertainment.
That's what it's always been.
It's shiny graphics that you watch, you get nervous about.
Maybe you need to, you know, kill a couple of minutes at the airport or, you know, while you're waiting in a waiting room for your car's oil to get changed.
And on top of that, like, Fox News recognized that there was an opening in this country to go ahead and create propaganda for the Republican Party while also making an incredible amount of money selling people gold and catheters.
I mean, that's basically what that entire channel was about.
It was about, you know, continually airing New World Order conspiracy theories 24 hours a day, while also making sure that the Republican Party would never possibly be held accountable like it was during the age of Nixon.
Well, what did it end up becoming?
The entire purpose of this is it became just another alternate reality that is offered to people that they can live within.
It's basically just a channel that people can go on.
Their worst suspicions about what's going on in culture and politics and the world around them is completely and utterly, you know, given back to them.
They're told that their worst fears are absolutely true.
And by the way, unless they go ahead and hand over power to people like Donald Trump or, you know, whoever comes next, that it's going to get even worse.
And meanwhile, they have turned into a vehicle for selling Mike Lindell's pillows.
Like, that's literally what it has become at this point, and what we see here is they had a choice, which was they had to change themselves, they had to go even further right, or they risked becoming obsolete.
They had to make a business decision, and it just so happens that this business decision also put democracy itself in the United States of America in danger.
So the solution is just to make all news controlled by the government, right, Jared?
Well, I will say, and I don't know what you have to say about this, I think there's a very good chance that Dominion possibly wins this lawsuit.
Unfortunately, that will not put Fox News out of business.
I am also not the type of person, and you've heard this before, everyone says, oh, I wish Jeff Bezos would just buy Fox News and do us all a favor.
I hear that, but I'm not in the habit of wanting more oligarchs to have more control over the news.
I happen to think that the answer is very obvious, which is, first of all, they have shown that they are a dangerous entity that regulation should be brought in to deal with.
And I'm sorry, I know that's not going to be popular.
I know that will, you know, lead to all kinds of New World Order conspiracy theories, but it's true.
Also, this wouldn't exist if we hadn't deregulated telecommunications in the 1990s.
That's what laid the foundation for Fox News to come online, as well as the fairness doctrine, of course, that Ronald Reagan absolutely gutted.
It's time to get serious about this stuff, and this right here is a damning case that you can make for the ever-thinning middle of America, that independent America.
You're not going to get Fox News viewers, but this right here, this is damning enough that it could make a little bit of a dent while you're saying, hey, this is why we're going after these people.
Right, right.
Because, you know, Fox has, I think, $15 billion of cash on hand.
So $1.5 billion doesn't really hurt them necessarily.
But, you know, Murdoch would be upset, I suppose, for losing.
But, yeah, it's really kind of gross.
We need to have a hermetic seal between the editorial and, like, the corporate.
And that is always... We used to sort of believe that's how it existed.
We covered network before.
We saw, even in the 70s, that was already being blurred at that point, way before.
the doctrine was changed in the 90s.
So I think if you're gonna do a for profit business, I don't see how you could ever have news be fair and balanced anyway.
Just to put another bow on this one is, Steve Bannon pops up in these texts as well. - No. - Yeah, because they're all talking to each other.
They all are in groups.
This is horrible.
And what he told, he texts Maria Bartiromo.
And it's funny because Bartiromo was not on Fox originally, right?
She was like some very normal, you know, anchor on...
I don't know.
Maybe it's CNN, whatever the other one is.
She was very normal at some point.
And then I bring this up because, again, there is a grifting to this where they realize how much money has to be made.
You have angry people, right?
Disaffected people in this country.
They don't like the results.
So, of course, they're going to flock anywhere that someone gives them any other kind of hope.
That's the power of this.
But what Bannon says, and this also gives you another level of what this whole thing is about, is he wrote, 71 million voters will never accept Biden.
This process, what they're doing to talk about Dominion, is to destroy his presidency before it even starts.
If it even starts, we either close on Trump's victory, Or delegitimize Biden, all caps, the plan.
And that's what he texted to her.
So this was always part of the plan, too, was simply to delegitimize Biden right off the get it.
So it's completely political and nothing to do with reality or what really happened to the voting booth.
Yeah, and by the way, that goes back, you know, we had these conversations again, which, you know, this is why people should listen to this show.
We had these conversations, like, going on three years ago.
The entire plan all along was to create a fake Pope narrative, an anti-Pope narrative, which is the idea that, oh, no, I know that that person is in a place of power.
But they're not the rightful person of power.
I mean, this is why every time that someone talks about Donald Trump and the Republican Party, they put a little stink on President Trump, you know, and they always say, my president or whatever.
The entire purpose behind this all along was to basically create a situation where it didn't matter if he lost the election and they would be able to continue grifting people and continue rolling this whole thing along.
And what you notice here is that this is almost like a seven layer, like taco dip of grifting.
You know, Steve Bannon is not afraid to go ahead and, you know, wet his beak a little bit whenever he's getting money to build that wall.
Well, look at all these people involved.
Tucker Carlson admitted openly that he knew Sidney Powell was lying, said that Trump could, quote, easily destroy us if we play it wrong.
He knew all along that he had to massage this story, which is why Tucker Carlson doesn't talk about Trump at all.
He doesn't bring him up at all.
He knows that the whole thing is full of shit.
He's known that all of this was untrue, but he has gone ahead and benefited from it.
I mean, he's making millions of dollars a year simply because he knows how, again, which spots to touch and which spots not to touch.
He knows top to bottom.
What is bullshit and what isn't?
I mean, this is a vaccinated person who knows full and well that the coronavirus was what it was, said one thing when he was on TV and another thing when he was off the TV.
These people, top to bottom, are grifting and doing this for profit, and they know full and well that they're doing it wrong.
We simply are waiting on someone to come along and, here's the key always, hold them responsible.
That's the thing!
It's like, nothing here, like, everything here shows that they have done this in bad faith, that they have aired lies, that they have used their platforms not only irresponsibly, but malevolently.
Like, we know now what is happening.
It's now time to go ahead and put something into motion.
Right, and the argument could very well be FCC takes away their license, which is really probably what should happen because they don't deserve to have a news broadcasting license.
You know, I like what you said about Tucker because I think the way he sleeps at night, do you think he sleeps at night?
Oh, I think he sleeps like an angel on a cloud.
Upside down attached to the ceiling, right?
So anyway, he says here, you know, someone fact-checked him from Fox News themselves.
Somebody who worked at Fox News on Twitter, right?
And he freaks out about it that they had sent this tweet out that's going to fact-check whether or not there wasn't anything compromised with the voting.
And he wants her fired.
He goes, please get her fired.
This is to Hannity.
So I guess maybe Tucker and Hannity, why would he go to Hannity?
It's weird.
I guess Hannity controls everything at Fox.
I don't know.
Please get her fired.
Seriously, what the F?
Actually shocked it needs to stop immediately like tonight.
It's measurably hurting the company.
Okay, but the next line he says is the stock price is down.
Not a joke.
So he's probably got a lot of stock in Fox News and he just cares about that.
You know that of all the things that are happening and how they're lying to the public and how they're going to breed a whole new level of distrust or you know in the voting process from directly from what they're doing.
He's just talking about the stock price.
That's what that's what this is about.
Yeah, it is.
And by the way, that sort of literally reacting to stock prices is actually going to be one of the reasons that Fox News ultimately is going to have a demise.
It has reached a point where Fox News has no ideology in the exact same way as the Republican Party.
It just so happens that the Republican Party keeps chugging along because they don't have to produce 24 hours of content a day.
You know what I mean?
Fox News has reached the point where, surprise, surprise, they killed off a large chunk of their viewers.
You know, they have created, like, they have continued to chase this ghost that they know isn't true, which, by the way, goes back to 2010, in which they handed over their network and their viewing and content to the Tea Party, and then eventually capitalized off of that with things like Glenn Beck.
I mean, there is no forward movement in this, within this entire group.
There's no actual vision for the future.
Outside, by the way, Tucker Carlson is a little bit different in that because he's all wrapped up in national conservatism.
But I gotta tell you, I think this is kind of a big story.
I don't know if this is going to get talked about in all the places it needs to get talked about.
Heaven forbid the Democrats actually get aggressive about something for once on Or I don't know, you know, frog march some of these people up in front of the Senate and ask them some questions.
Like, I don't know if that's what's going to happen, but it feels like these cracks, you know, and by the way, good on Dominion Voting Systems for going after them.
They deserve this defamation suit.
Like, it feels like this is moving in a certain direction.
I don't know, you know, if Fox News is simply going to be like a test pattern in the next couple of weeks.
But this feels like there is movement in some type of direction that Fox News is eventually going to reach some sort of a crossroads one way or another.
Oh, I agree.
And you know what?
The thing about how they do, you're supposed to do news, it's supposed to be sort of a sacrosanct notion of, you know, you don't let anybody come on your show who doesn't have evidence, who's not reputable, who's not an authority in what they're speaking.
There's always supposed to be a gateway.
You can't just wander into a news studio and just start talking.
And that's exactly what Sidney Powell did, and forgive me for having to utter those two words on the show, but we have to talk about some horrible stuff.
And you know, Sidney Powell even understood that what she was peddling wasn't true.
We know that they all are admitting in these texts that there was never any evidence that she was going to present to them, and yet they continually let her come on, and a lot of her stuff was based On some email from some wackadoodle, that's how the person who wrote the email described themselves, talking about how Scalia was killed on a hunting expedition on purpose and all sorts of crazy stuff.
And that's what's so frustrating because they were so aware of what she was saying.
And then the weirdest thing was, do you remember that Donald Trump disavows Powell at some point in the middle of all this?
And it was really, really strange, right?
She was the only one pretty much backing him up and trying to keep him in the White House.
Well, it looks to me, if you look at what we see in this brief, that Tucker Carlson did that.
He went to the White House and said, she's crazy, and we see him talking about how crazy he thinks she is and lying, and somehow that convinced Trump to disavow her.
I mean, that to me blew my mind when I saw that on the page.
Well, and you know with the Sidney Powell thing, Sidney Powell recognized, and this is, literally when we look at this, we're looking at this gaggle of grifters who, they all recognize their openings.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, they all know where to shoot their shot.
Like, Sidney Powell was the person who went ahead and put forward a legal theory that was completely going to fall apart.
There was no way possible.
I mean, her and Giuliani took it in front of every judge basically in the country, and every judge is like, hey, I think maybe your legal license needs to be revoked.
I mean, that's how bad all this was.
But again, Donald Trump knows the fine art of using people and going ahead and throwing them away like so much Kleenex.
And what happened here was that PAL provided a narrative in the exact same way, by the way, Tucker Carlson does this all the time with everyone from Alex Jones to people who show up on like Zero Hedge, you know, like these just absolutely outlier, maddening sites that, you know, have even been linked to like, you know, Russian Agipop.
Like, this type of stuff is like them recognizing what they can use, how they can use it, and just sort of floating it out there as a test balloon, and they're masters at it.
And Sidney Powell, I mean, was invaluable in all of this.
She was more than happy to go out in front of this and say these things and offer this alternate reality.
Do you know what the Fox News people call the fact-checking department in there?
You don't know the name of it?
It's called the Brain Room.
And do you realize that in September of 2020, which was, yeah, that's kind of close to the election, wouldn't you say?
September 2020, they fired a huge chunk of people from the brain room who were supposed to be fact-checking and oversight of what was going on in the news.
Interesting, right, that that happened.
And so there was nobody there to have any teeth in the company in those early days in November when they kept blasting this stuff out.
And then also, once they were informed by Dominion that they needed to stop lying like this, It was 20 times that they had said that they had documented when they were lies, the 20, maybe 20 different lies.
And 19 of them come after they were officially notified by Dominion to stop doing this.
And you have to imagine that the fact that they fired everybody or almost everybody in the brain room, and then this was happening over and over again, there was no there was no control.
It's incredible.
I mean, Dominion told them to knock this stuff off, and they had every chance to do so.
It's really something.
Let me ask you this real quick.
You know how Newsmax and OANN are kicked off of DirecTV now?
This is conspiracy, but wouldn't you think that Fox News is the one that did it?
I have no idea on that front.
All I know is that there was consumer pressure constantly, and I think eventually, at some point, DirecTV finally was like, no.
I mean, literally, though, I gotta tell you, when it comes to satellite providers and cable providers, that stuff is as cutthroat as a U.S.
election.
I mean, it really is the way that that happens, yeah.
I just, it just grabbed me.
I'm like thinking, you know what?
The one person that really needs them off the air or make it hard to watch would be Fox News.
And so, to me, I'll look into it.
Maybe there's somebody who's reporting on it, but I don't think so.
You go digging into that.
I'll muckrake a little around there.
Yeah, muckrake around on that one.
Another story that we need to touch on very, very quickly before I go talk to Whitney Maris.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has checked himself into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment for clinical depression.
Of course, Fetterman had a stroke in May of last year.
This, apparently, he's had problems with depression for a while, but this has sort of reached a point where it needed taking care of.
First things first, most important thing, we wish him the absolute best and a full recovery.
We hope you feel better, Senator Fetterman.
But I think there's something important about this that we need to talk about.
First things first, Nick, I think it's incredible that he was able to do this and admit what it was for.
This isn't something that usually happens in American politics.
It feels a little bit like a sea change in terms of how we deal with mental health in politics.
But there's also a lot to unpack about what this is going to mean going forward.
What are your initial thoughts on this?
Well, you know, people yelled at me on Twitter when I responded to this, but like, you know, his health is more important than anything else.
He should just step down.
The Democratic governor can appoint somebody else.
There's no question in my mind, and I don't think anybody would argue very vehemently that, you know, his stroke and depression are probably very closely linked, and he never did take enough time to recover from that stroke.
And that is, you know, we were, we put on a brave face and he was a hero to do what he did and actually finish the campaign.
But I don't know, I don't see why you want to screw around with this at all.
He should take the time he needs.
And that would probably, to me, in my mind, would be long enough where he should just either step down and get healthy.
That's more important to me than anything else.
Well, I'll go ahead.
I'll push back on that a little bit because I'd give him some time to see if he can get this thing under control.
You know, if everybody who is depressed resigned from their jobs, we wouldn't have anybody working.
You know, I mean, like, this is the type of thing where you're absolutely right.
Take all the time that you need.
Take care of yourself.
You know, over time, if he decides to step away, I think, you know, that that's up for him and his family to decide.
You know, as somebody who's suffered from depression, I mean, let's go ahead and pull the curtain back.
Like, you know, I've suffered from mental health problems in the past.
Like, I gotta tell you, I have always been afraid to admit that.
Like, when I'm having trouble, that's an incredible thing.
You know, when you suffer or when you're sort of having an issue, Oftentimes the instinct is to push people away and not talk about it.
I think this is really inspirational.
I don't know that Fetterman necessarily wanted to sort of be the avatar or the face of dealing with both, you know, something like a stroke and also mental health problems.
But I gotta tell you, I think this is incredibly brave.
I think within the Democratic Party, I think the way that the party sort of, you know, sort of gestures at things like this, I think that he can still have a long and plentiful career.
I think we're a long ways away from, Nick, and you know this as well as I do, the most high-profile mental health situation or scandal that basically we've ever had was Thomas Eagleton, who in 1972 was the VP choice for McGovern.
And it came out, of course, that Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy for his own depression, which, by the way, was something that happened at the time.
It was just a procedure that people underwent, which was a huge debacle and caused a huge problem for McGovern after he had to step down and was replaced by... Do you know who replaced him?
There's a little trivia.
Oh, McGovern on the ticket?
Oh, gosh.
Do you know?
Tell me.
Oh, no.
Tell me.
Sergeant Shriver, the former ambassador to France and the father of Maria Shriver, ended up replacing Thomas Eagleton.
That led, of course, to a massive landslide.
And, by the way, while we're on the subject of it, led to a massive shakeup within the Democratic Party.
McGovern was, you know, sort of a leftist within the party who was pushing it further and further in that direction, particularly through a populist movement, anti-war movement, all this stuff.
And the landslide defeat that he had pushed the party towards the center, eventually, by the way, leading to Jimmy Carter, of course, getting elected.
And also, you know, I think I speak for you when I say best wishes to Jimmy Carter as he enters hospice care.
But yeah, I think we've moved far away from the Eagleton incident where all of a sudden Fetterman can't serve or won't be respected or whatever, but I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Just to put another historical bow on that, the reason why we knew about the electroshock therapy, which by the way we do today, and they have a much better understanding of why it works and it's actually effective, but the reason why we know that happened was because of these dirty tricks that Nixon was playing to try and dig up dirt on anybody they could find.
And they also tried to smear him by lying about other things that he did that made him seem like he was crazy.
That directly leads to, you know, Watergate, because they didn't get caught on that and they continue to do that.
And then that leads to guess what?
Fox News, because Watergate was so bad for Nixon, they didn't have a network that would protect him.
And that's why Ailes launched it.
So these things are all connected in some interesting way.
I will probably, let me revise what I was saying, because I agree with what you're saying about Fetterman.
I just think that, I suppose the answer then is he just needs to take a break.
They need to let him be away for as long as he needs because it's one thing to suffer from depression and you're able to, you don't have to resign your job.
But it's another thing if you have to check into the hospital because it's that serious.
And then it's another thing if you've just had a major stroke within six months of that.
So that's the thing I'd say.
It's like these are piling on in a way that he needs to be able to get away from the stress that happens from this job for enough time till he can recover.
And I don't know how long that's going to take.
I want to also say something real fast along these lines.
You know, the Democratic Party often faints towards these things or makes these gestures towards understanding.
If Fetterman does, you know, come back and continues his term as senator, it will be really, really fascinating to see how his colleagues treat him.
Is he going to be on any of these bills?
Is he going to have any of these partnerships that define a term in the Senate?
Or is it going to be a thing where the people around him, particularly, and this is no secret, a lot of the Democratic Party is very old.
They were around for stuff like the Eagleton affair, and they come from a time where You're not supposed to air, like, we know this, right?
It's like, in the past, if you were going to be, like, hospitalized for depression or mental health issues, you'd float something else.
You know, the senator needs to get his back, you know, get back surgery or something along those lines.
It'll be really interesting to see if he is greeted back as a working colleague or if people distance themselves from him.
Again, though, I think Fetterman, unwillingly, obviously, has really become a very fascinating figure in all of this.
I mean, the fact that he was elected after that stroke and after the consequences of the stroke is, you know, the problems he had with hearing and these issues he had with communicating.
Really, really brave.
I think Fetterman is a really, really brave politician, and yeah, I just salute this.
All right, everybody.
On that note, I'm going to go have a conversation with Whitney Maris, who is the Director of Practice and System Transformation at the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice.
Believe me, you're going to want to hear this.
We'll be back.
All right, everybody.
As promised, we're here with Whitney Maris, who is a licensed social worker and at the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice is the Director of Trauma-Informed Practice and System Transformation.
Whitney, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
One of the things that I really admire about your work is your willingness to tackle tough topics in a way that is very much of service to a functional democracy and healthier society, and I'm really jazzed to be here with you today.
Oh, well, flattery will get you everywhere.
Thank you so much.
So, OK, let's go ahead and let's set the table here, because one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation, you know, I've said in this new year, I've spent the last, my God, six, seven years diagnosing what's happening, right?
Like what the problem is, what the consequences are, what the threats are.
We're starting to shift more in terms of maybe some things that we can start to do both on a personal level, a societal level, political level, all of that.
Can you go ahead and just let people know what trauma-informed means so we can start having that conversation?
Absolutely.
And I think to be able to do that, I also want to speak to what trauma really even is, because there are so many different conceptualizations of that.
And, you know, trauma is this incredibly individualized experience that is not contingent just upon what events occur, but also on how those events are experienced and the lasting effects that they can have.
And, you know, if we want to get nerdy about it, the etymology for trauma, the Greek, right, meaning wound.
And so I really like the conceptualization of trauma as an injury of the soul or a soul wound, which really comes from Indigenous communities.
And when we're talking about trauma here, it's important to recognize that both individual and collective experiences can contribute to human needs being left unmet.
or otherwise contribute to this sense of overwhelm and powerlessness.
And so, absolutely, trauma-informed really is about switching from what's wrong with to what happened to.
And it's essential so we don't just react to harms that have occurred, But also look to get to the root of why people and groups may act the ways that they do when confronted with a perceived crisis.
Because so many of these interrelated and seemingly intractable issues we see popping up that tend to be addressed piecemeal, the health harming behaviors that contribute to challenges in being Healthy and self-actualizing across our lifespan are symptoms of our society and really don't get to the root cause.
So we believe that this trauma-informed approach tells us trauma experiences are the root cause of those issues, and that to be able to get real about addressing them in a way that will actually create sustainable change, we need to look at the why, the what happened here.
Yeah, and I want to talk about that because, you know, since I've started looking at the idea of trauma and its implications in politics and society, for me, it felt like what it must have felt like for Robert Hooke to finally look into a microscope and see a cell, right?
And understand that there was a world beyond the world that people understood, and suddenly it explained other things, right?
So before we understood the molecular level, we thought that diseases were curses from above, right?
That idea between what's wrong with versus what happened to, I feel like is a similarly revolutionary idea.
And in the past, let's just go ahead and take it back to 2016, you know, with the rise of Donald Trump, what I refer to as growing authoritarianism and this movement of what I believe is also a growing mental unwellness in this country and around the world.
You know, a lot of people looked up and they said, oh my god, something has gone wrong, right?
Something has suddenly cropped up as opposed to there are larger systemic problems that have reached some sort of a boil.
Can you talk a little bit about what that is in terms of feeling that something isn't right and that somehow or another the system or the society as we know it is not well?
Absolutely.
I think you make beautiful points, right?
Because people do what they can to cope and adapt and survive on an individual level in a system that, as you just beautifully put, itself is just deeply unhealthy.
And really, being quote-unquote well-adjusted in what is a profoundly unhealthy and dysregulated and traumatized society that itself is both perpetuating trauma and in trauma is not exactly a thing we're looking for more of, right?
And so I think you make beautiful points.
Some of this is really getting radically honest about, yes, some of these things have been proliferating differently, more visibly, but this is how it always has been.
We need to get honest about the status quo and how our systems are doing exactly what they're designed to do, right?
How power is preserved and how things operate in ways that Keep us in that part of our brains that's all about survival mode.
Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, faint, right?
The ways that people in power generate thud, fear, uncertainty, doubt among the populace, which is itself their own trauma response, right?
To this idea of, God forbid, having to cede some of their own power that they've come to integrate as an essential part of their own identity and how they move about the world.
And so we live in this culture that really has amplified contempt and manufactures fear.
And so this behavior, based on self-interest and othering, has been normalized over time and encouraged, and in more recent times, I'd argue, maybe even more incentivized.
And we see this in action, right?
Because people are separating and segregating themselves from one another because of that relentless fear and anxiety about what's happening both around and to them.
And so we become, I would say, untethered to our core beliefs and from each other.
And so they say dissent is the highest form of patriotism, right?
And yet we have to heal from trauma in order to actually even see that this is happening and to push back and resist.
And that's really tough because, of course, there's going to be ambivalence when we challenge, you know, everything we've ever known and when it's being reinforced by our leaders as they leveraged trauma for their ill-gotten gains.
Yeah, and that's the thing, because I want to talk about the personal in a minute, but really quickly, what you just brought up, when you really take a look at what we now consider common sense or what the incentives of, I don't know, let's say a capitalist market, you know, when you were literally learning how to be a manager in certain schools and in certain vocations, You're literally being trained in how to make people feel precarity, in how to make people feel uncomfortable, how to make people distrustful of one another.
I mean, union busting in and of itself is literally the practice, science, and art of making people distrust one another.
And to feel like their own wealth, their own profit, those types of things cannot work with another person's well-being.
Dr. Sandra Bloom, who we had on the show earlier and who is one of the pioneers in this field, talks about the psychopathy, the type of incentives that are in the system.
Like, if we were having a different conversation with different people, that would be common sense.
That would be good management.
That would be just how the system works.
And as a result, it actually promotes in people not just unhealthy behaviors toward others, but also their own personal unwellness, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think you make really beautiful points.
And you know, I'm thinking of Chomsky where it's sort of like, I think he said something to the effect that propaganda is to a democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
So there's this idea, right, that of course we've learned these things along the way.
We're trained to see these things.
It is deeply embedded in our society and the conversations people have are going to be different based on that.
And we've continued to really see, I think, this play out in the ways that are absolutely understandable responses.
And I appreciate the way you framed that, because of course people are going to believe that.
They've adapted to this.
Things have been pathologized along the way.
This narrative of blame and shame has become normal.
And it's all about power and compliance and control, right?
It's designed for us not to question it.
So you have these figureheads profiting off of making themselves more powerful through stoking the fears, not changing systems and institutions to be different than what you just described, and making bad faith arguments about why that's the right way to be.
And the thing is, they know how to make those fears proliferate, right?
So breaking through the barriers of what has been normalized that you just captured is really challenging.
We're basing these conclusions on something that usually has a seed of truthfulness to it that can be exploited.
And it creates this secondary emotion that I've noticed of anger, right?
That can become really toxic in the face of a lack of control when someone is confronted with An idea that maybe we could do things a little bit differently.
And I think we've seen that expressed in ways that are really not constructive.
I think the constructive use of anger there would really entail holding accountable those who have actually perpetrated harm and contributed to that chronic stress that each of us lives with.
But it's safer to find spaces that offer that sense of control and understanding in a world It feels so uncertain and chaotic, right?
It's part of what makes conspiracy theories so compelling, and it's part of what keeps us in this pattern of trauma.
Yeah, and I mean, like, at the base root of, like, a conspiracy theory is the idea that, oh my God, they're after me, right?
I mean, it really is a paranoid feeling of that you've been put into the center of a conspiracy against yourself.
And we basically have, and this is the thing, I think Donald Trump did us an invaluable service.
You know, this is like a cartoonish buffoon who was the president of the United States for four years, and people would look at him and they would say, oh, this person's not well.
You know, like this thing is not great.
And the entire sort of appeal that he had was that he would tell his followers, his supporters, listen, the problem's not you.
The problem is everybody else.
You don't have to worry when people are telling you, like, you need to do better, you need to treat people better.
I mean, all of the backlashes, of course, that we had against misogyny, white supremacy, you know, you name it.
It felt like it was an aggressive, reactionary movement against the idea that we can be better, that we should be better, and more importantly, I think, we have to be better.
Yeah.
Yeah, you capture that well, because we can look to this paradigm shift, right, to give us all a lens to better understand how those past influences have shaped the way we engage in the present and to question those ideas that, you know, it's, oh, it's just, it's everybody else.
It's certainly not me.
And to create space for us to really get curious about why those fault lines develop, even in families and in friendships and communities, to sow division and doubt and tribalism and all of these things that we're seeing in our world as these crises pile up and go, what I'd say, unprocessed and unintegrated.
And so, yeah, absolutely, how wonderful that we have this example to look to, to say like, oh, well, that's not right.
And yet at the same time, there's also this aspect of, okay, so how do we understand what to actually do about that?
Because that has resonated with a lot of people.
It's touched on a lot of things that people have been paying attention to and worried about.
Well, and so one of the things that I wanted to talk about here is, so when people talk about psychology or they talk about therapy, they talk about these theories.
For the longest time, it feels like it's been buttonholed into personal health, right?
Like it's the idea, and I think we both know this, but there are different types of therapy, There are different theories when it comes to psychology.
For instance, in a capitalistic world, a lot of it is coaching or making sure that you can be more productive or that you can maximize your earnings.
The problem is with the individual, not with the society itself.
You need to figure out how to be a productive member of the larger society.
What we're talking about here is a larger, I would say more revolutionary, more impactful idea, which is that, yes, we need to work on ourselves, right?
Because we do have trauma and we have things that we need to heal from and grow from.
But also that there is a larger, more unhealthy thing taking place here, and that it behooves us to actually try and make that society better.
Is that succinct enough?
Absolutely.
You capture it well, right?
There's this aspect where, yes, there's an inside-out component of this in the sense of we need to be able to hold space to feel discomfort so we can be in community and conversation with people.
And also, it's not just about us.
We need to be able to join together and have constructive conversations about what we can actually do.
And to bridge those divides, it can't just be a one person doing the work thing.
It needs to be collective.
Yeah, and we live in a society, I mean, I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
This is, it's not funded, necessarily.
There have been aggressive movements to take away any sort of support for therapy or, you know, communal building.
On top of that, like, there's been an aggressive pushback against the idea that we should be talking about these things or that we should heal.
Can you talk about what the potential is for this?
Because I think that's the larger thing.
This isn't just It's not, you know, what do we do for people who are mentally unwell, which is, you know, like one aspect of it, but like, what is the potential for this thing to actually shape and change society and take care of some of the problems that we have right now at this moment of crisis?
That's a great question.
I think it starts by acknowledging that so many people feel like they're in rooms without doors, right?
There's no way out.
Everything is distressing and disorienting and destabilizing and uncertain and scary.
And so that instinctive survival response comes out in ways that block the progress that you just spoke to that we really could access.
And it's through this paradigm shift that we can help others not just build doors for themselves, but also to give themselves permission to go through those doors, to be able to see things differently, to be able to want to understand the meaning of behavior, not just recognize that all behavior has meaning, but to want to dig in.
And that's not easy, right?
Because in those moments that we Um, may have to confront the ways that we aren't really acting in alignment with our deeply held values.
To think about how we can do things differently can be a painful experience.
And yet we know from anti-oppressive frameworks and research that supporting a collective consciousness, as we were just sort of speaking to, of these things is integral if we expect people to be able to think about and do things differently.
So it starts there, but then it proliferates out, right?
Because we know that these problems are connected to people who are living in pain and don't feel that they have a way to do things differently.
And so this doesn't just speak to mental health.
This speaks to creating space for us to be thinking about constructive solutions together, for justice, for community-based programming, for mutual aid, the ways that we can come together in our communities to work together to do things differently, to put Put pressure on the people who are in power to do things differently.
And so it's really about directly challenging the ways that we've been thinking in order to create this new way of being, thinking, doing, and relating that allows us to think about solutions that aren't just individualizing folks, that we're looking at everything different.
And I think that's probably the most important takeaway of all of this.
It's not a checklist, right?
It's an ongoing digestive process.
It's a way of thinking, being, doing, and relating.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I want to talk about some of those solutions, and actually, we are talking about revolutionary ideas here, is what we're actually doing.
And if you look at revolutionary societies, how people have pushed back, it always begins with groups of people forming solidarity and disabusing themselves of trauma that has been heaped upon them by people who have oppressed them, or hurt them, or intentionally traumatized them.
Can you talk about, in practice, can you talk a little bit and introduce the audience to this CTIP organization?
What are you doing?
What is the purpose?
What is the focus?
Where is this going?
Absolutely.
So, in terms of the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice, what we are doing is we're really working in a two-pronged way.
We're working to build capacity among advocates to be able to have the tools that they need to be able to tackle the tough issues in their communities.
As well as at a federal level.
So we're trying to get people in touch with their policymakers.
We're helping people learn the language.
Helping people educate their policymakers about this.
Helping people recognize that they actually do have power as constituents.
And if they hold people's feet to the fire at a local, state, and federal level, they'll be able to create more change than if they are just sort of spinning in this trauma response of feeling helplessness and powerless.
So we think of ourselves as educators and connectors rather than the people who are actually doing the work, so to speak, right?
But in that work, what we do is we also help people understand the values and principles of a trauma-informed approach.
And that's how I would say any of what we're talking about becomes not so abstract and is actually operationalized.
And those are what we have found in the research to be effective to help people move past those feelings of trauma, To be able to be more constructive, to get out of that fight-flight-freeze-fawn-paint mode, and to get into their logical brain.
And so that is safety, trustworthiness and transparency, voice choice and empowerment, peer support, collaboration and mutuality.
And then being attentive to cultural, gender, and historical issues.
And so, when I say this is a way of thinking, being, doing, and relating, that means integrating all of those principles with intentionality into how we approach our dailiness, how we do our work in our lives.
How we talk to our families and our friends and maybe the people who are not our friends.
It's really, again, embodying these values to affect a large scale change.
Because what we know is when you meet people with compassion and curiosity, they're less likely to sort of double down.
And there is a neuroscientist named Bruce Perry.
He talks about this sequence of engagement.
He says it is regulate, relate and reason.
But what we've done in society is just get to the reasoning part.
But what we know about the neurobiology of trauma, as I just said, we can't get to the thinking part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, when we're in survival mode.
We can't make choices.
We can't weigh the options for critical thinking.
And we can't necessarily hear other people's perspectives.
And so the first step is to regulate ourselves.
And that means that if I am regulated, I have a better chance of regulating you.
So that also means owning your own stuff.
Being able to know what, like, for instance, I know what issues are a little harder for me to go to what happened to than what's wrong with, right?
Like, I know that about myself.
That helps me show up in a more compassionate, open, and empathic way to create space so someone else feels a sense of belonging, even if we are not aligned.
And from there, we can get to that reasoning place and get to constructive solutions that really will make change.
Yeah, and I want to go ahead and say, I mean, this is important in all of this.
I do believe that this is a solution or a possible solution to the crisis that we're in.
When you start looking through the trauma lens, I think it becomes apparent what happens in moments of crisis.
We reach a point where, I had mentioned before we started recording, it's a very trench warfare situation.
You have two groups of people on two sides that feel like that they are in an existential battle.
Right?
So, for instance, you know, you cannot find compromise and you cannot communicate with someone if you truly believe that they are satanically evil and sacrificing babies, right?
Totally.
You can't do that.
You also can't have a conversation about how to move a country forward unless you're having a conversation on a logical level, which, you know, when we look through this lens, like, it takes work to get there.
This is a difficult thing.
I mean, this is not, you know, and I think there might be some pushback on some of this, like, with people who think, oh, this is a, let's all hold hands and take care of this.
This is hard work.
Like, and if people are looking for things that they can do in order to help with this, I think this is where the personal becomes societal.
And it always has been.
It just becomes clearer after moments like the pandemic or with rising authoritarianism, the idea that we are interdependent.
And if we are interdependent, and I have to believe that the people who listen to this show and subscribe to a lot of what we talk about, if you truly believe we are interdependent, then when you work on this, then that affects other people.
And I think that what we're talking about is a larger self-led and also community-led revolution that this is how things get done.
I love it.
Absolutely.
You're very much speaking to the trauma-informed core value of mutuality and collaboration, so that's beautiful to hear.
Because beyond formal structural change, leveraging those democratic tools and pulling on policy levers, we really need more accessible spaces for that authentic, open exchange about these processes and experiences.
And it's not enlightened centrism, hold hands, compromise all your values in the name of compromise for peace or whatever, right?
This is about being able to recognize what has happened here, where people are coming from, see our common humanity, and help democracy become a more tangible experience where we don't feel so powerless by using one another to tell stories, to be witnessed, to hear stories.
And after that point, that's when we can embody whatever it is that we need to embody to strengthen trust and cohesion and motivation to actually make positive changes.
And it's okay if we don't agree.
What we can agree on is that many of us have been subject to harm and that we want to make change that helps us and our future generations from having to endure that same harm.
Yeah, and we're not having rational conversations.
And to take this on a personal level, this is something I think a lot of people can relate to.
There are moments where you have interpersonal conflict, and you're not having rational conversations about what's wrong, you're screaming about other things that represent the thing that's actually taking place here.
So what you just said about centrism, it's not about saying, well, maybe we should listen to these people when they say trans people shouldn't have rights.
What we're actually talking about is what is actually being said in this?
What is actually being put forward?
What insecurities?
What terror?
All of that.
Because what we're dealing with here is weaponized terror.
It's weaponized precarity.
It's weaponized anxiety.
Almost to a campaign, it is making sure that people stay absolutely terrified, feeling like they're in that fight-or-flight situation, and as a result, you can't even begin to have a conversation about the issue, whether it's gas stoves or, you know, what a public school should do when it comes to, you know, gay and trans kids, right?
Absolutely, yeah.
And because division is, and polarization, are fundamentally about sociopolitical and psychological conditions like that fear and anxiety, and that feeling of a lack of empathy and belonging, as you just captured, it's really important that we acknowledge that healing happens in relationship, as you just mentioned.
And that's evidenced in those exact movements that keep us actually separate, right?
People want to be seen.
People want to feel accepted and as if they have something meaningful to contribute.
They want to feel like they're a part of something.
We all want to know that in some way we matter.
And when we look to the science of belonging, We can see the ways that these fractures formed and continue.
And one of the most powerful ways to actually evoke a sense of belonging that is more constructive is to be witnessed and to witness someone.
And by that I mean to really recognize and acknowledge the personal and collective realities that they bring to us as legitimate and understandable.
Not saying we need to tacitly agree or cosign what they're saying, But to understand where it's coming from.
And it doesn't only have to happen in those echo chambers, even though the personal is political, right?
We don't need to jump to conclusions about someone's moral compass or worth as a human being based on how they've responded to this unending inundation of information that they've been absorbing and acting based upon their entire lives.
And so we all can contribute to creating a society where everyone can feel like they belong without having to isolate themselves to feel safe.
And again, we don't need to agree to do that.
And in fact, when we have a sense of belonging, the science tells us that when we're met with that compassion and curiosity rather than judgment and animosity, We can be more courageous, to be honest, about some of the ways that maybe these don't actually make sense, and we can admit and take accountability for the parts that we might have contributed to.
And we also can sit with dissent and discomfort without coming to this stalemate where we just sort of throw our hands up, say we'll never get anywhere, and the cycle continues ad infinitum, right?
I think you're absolutely right.
So here's what I'm going to do.
With all the power invested in me as a leftist podcast host, I am going to create... And by the way, I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we don't have a cabinet level position for mental health.
I think that's actually a shame.
When you really think about it, it's...
It's actually really horrific, you know.
We can do it for everything else but for that.
So you've just been raised up and you suddenly have the ability to start charting a course in terms of an agenda.
What does a trauma-informed, healthier society look like?
What are some of the highlights?
What are some of the things that on a societal or political level that would actually make a difference or even turn the temperature down a little bit or move us toward a better and a healthier society?
Yeah, man, it's so hard to envision, right?
Because it is so contingent on so many different things, but I think the most critical thing in all of this that I can think of anchoring in is to be able to provide folks with safe passage to realistic, authentic hope for something different, continual, ongoing self-reflection, continual, radical honesty about what's happening, And it will look different depending on what's actually evolving and emerging, right?
It might look different today than it will look like in five years.
But what it really is about is getting together, having those conversations, creating transformational space for healing and building resilience on individual and collective levels.
And the trauma-informed approach is sort of subversive and countercultural to the mental models that we've come to know and believe to be objective truth over time.
So this large-scale paradigm shift requires commitment and values-based action.
So what that looks like to me when I'm visualizing it is people being able to have the support that they need, to have the connections that they need, to feel whole, to be able to be self-aware.
To be able to access whatever resources to get their basic needs met, but also to self-actualize and sort of move up on that hierarchy of needs so they have the space to think about future consequences rather than operating in, well, I have to feed my family today, or this is the only thing that I have on my mind because it only impacts me and I am in survival mode.
And so when I think about that too, I also think that I envision it starting from community.
And that's why that answer isn't wishy-washy, right?
It's because communities all have different needs and that can proliferate out from there.
We like to illuminate how powerful the work to put us on a healthier and more hopeful course can be when it does start by meeting those local needs, by getting back to the basics, by Seeing your neighbor as a human being, by being able to not forget our common humanity, because this is more visible.
We remember the human when we have more connection.
So I don't have the perfect vision of what these systems working together looks like, but what I do know is that there's collaboration, we're remembering our humanity, we're anchoring in empathy and compassion and openness and curiosity.
And we're moving away from that idea of competition-based scarcity mindsets that keep us in this trauma.
Yeah, and you know what's more about it?
I'm glad you used the phrase wishy-washy, because this isn't pie-in-the-sky stuff.
Like, what we actually find, whether it's how long people live, what kind of lives that they have, or even how we're handling criminal justice or law enforcement, when you actually take a look at these things scientifically, this is what gets results.
A lot of the other stuff, whether or not it's throwing money towards law enforcement or towards military-industrial complexes, I don't know, just to name a couple off the top of my head, Those things don't actually get the results that they purport to.
What we're actually talking about is a logical, fundamental approach to this as opposed to, I don't know, continuing to act in the way that we always have and continuing to perpetuate the systems that created the problem in the first place.
Yeah.
Bingo.
I think you targeted it really beautifully.
And you know, it's through this process that we get to share our stories and hold space for others to do the same, because then we can better tolerate difference.
And that's how those new responses that you're mentioning and seeing new possibilities actually arise.
And in CTIP, we've been able to see this happen in facilitated conversations, right?
We have to work on a bipartisan scale, we have to work with people in rural communities, we have to work with people all around.
And so that collective and honest exploration from people with different and diverse views and experiences, bringing people together, about how their inner states have impacted their reactions and what their thinking is needed.
Really, R.I.S.S.
has reduced defensiveness in our experience and has replaced withdrawal and that tendency to isolate, to protect ourselves with, you know, by not engaging.
It's replaced that with something that's more meaningful.
That connective piece is so important because that is how those solutions that you mentioned get Get actually implemented by people coming together, talking about what actually works, contributing to trust, making more social cohesion, more capacity to participate.
It's about civic engagement.
It's not about the actual checkbox of we got this policy passed.
It's about civic engagement, working together and getting honest about what needs to be done.
I'm so glad you put it that way.
I mean, you know, one of the things that we do constantly when we talk about an election, we talk about states casting their votes and which state is obviously going to go in this direction, which then you write that state off the red state, blue state paradigm.
And by the way, all it does is continue to push the divisions further and further.
I mean, yeah, the idea of a bipartisan and I would actually go ahead and say that, like, You know, I don't think that any of this, what we're actually talking about, is red or blue or any of it.
It is actually the connective tissue.
We're actually dealing with stuff that everybody has to deal with.
I don't care who you voted for.
I don't care what political beliefs you have.
You're affected by trauma.
Like, that is just straight up the truth.
Like, you are on a similar level, and you're right.
Like, we have people, we have states, we have groups that feel like they have been completely forgotten, that they've been trod upon, and that there hasn't been the ability to have conversation.
So it does feel like that this is, like, one of the answers that actually starts to repair that divide, at least begins to.
I love the way you say it, because from our perspective, open dialogue and conversation is a cornerstone of democracy that has on purpose been quashed, right, and chilled.
And as these crises pile on top of each other and views on Ukraine, the pandemic, the climate crisis, many other things, for example, right, diverge and become Seemingly more irreconcilable, that mutual understanding and meaning-making process that helps us individually and collectively act in the interest of making positive advancements has become way more challenging to access because of that divide.
And it's illusory, because as you said, this is a part of the human experience now.
We know from research that trauma has always been more normative than not, and yet in the last few years, of course, we all have experienced individual and collective trauma in a lot of ways.
And there's really evolving research on concepts related to post-traumatic growth that I think that are coming to my mind right now.
And that's including that these experiences that we all know we've had, and that shift to the way we think and how we relate to ourselves, others in the world around us, with the right connections and repair work, we can actually emerge with a new appreciation and gratitude for life.
A different outlook on the importance of relationships, a sense of personal strength, spiritual and philosophical change, and a vision that now includes new possibilities that we may not have ever even seen because of those fake divides.
Brand new thoughts, right?
Things we've never considered before.
And that's what this paradigm shift hopes to unlock for us individually and collectively in the end of the day.
Yeah, it's pretty incredible, right?
Because when trauma particularly takes hold, it feels like nothing could ever possibly change, right?
Totally.
There's no better future.
Tomorrow's going to feel as bad as today has felt.
And it does.
It not only knocks down innovation, it knocks down the ability to imagine a better future or a better life.
Absolutely.
I think you put it really, really well.
And, you know, this is also how those, again, those abstract concepts of democracy and fairness and justice come together, not just as some thing out there, and it instead becomes this internalized experience where we can personally, emotionally, and situationally really position ourselves within these concepts by challenging what we may have previously believed.
To recognize like, oh, that's something that happened to me.
That wasn't me being dysfunctional in the world.
It was actually me trying to be just me trying to be functional in a totally dysfunctional world.
And that's where we can actualize our role in creating something different based upon the wisdom and experience we've gained.
Right.
This is not about shame, blame.
This is not about, oh, I was traumatized and there's no hope for me.
This is about, wow, honestly, this really impacted me and changed the way that I saw the world.
And now I get to make the choice to do things different the next time.
Well, Whitney Maris, thank you so much for coming on the show.
I think you're fantastic.
I hope we get to have more conversations about this in the future.
I think our audience is going to be really interested in learning more.
Where can they find out more about your work, more about C-TIP, more about trauma-informed ideas?
Absolutely.
Go to ctipp.org to find more information.
We have a whole vision.
So I did get to write the vision in terms of what a trauma-informed policy sort of schematic would look like.
So there is some of that information there if you really need more meat on what we talked about today.
And also there's educational modules if you want to start taking action.
If you're like, what does advocacy in a trauma-informed world look like?
Lots of resources there for you.
All right.
Thank you so much, Whitney.
Thank you.
All right, everybody.
That was Whitney Maris.
I hope you enjoyed that conversation as we're continuing to start addressing the idea of what trauma-informed change and awareness can do for our politics and hopefully move us forward.
Yeah, Nick, again, just to reiterate, we're going to have a live show this Thursday, February 23rd at 8 p.m.
Eastern.
We're going to put up a link asking for your questions.
These are always good times.
I have to assume you feel the same way.
These are great.
Absolutely.
It's the best time for us to be able to interact directly with the audience and the questions are always awesome and really make you think about, you know, what we're doing here.
And so I cannot wait to tackle them.
Yeah, I can't either.
And like, it's always sort of the breadth of things that we always talk about.
You know, there are things that the audience wants to hear our opinions on that oftentimes when we're programming this show, like it's stuff that, you know, maybe caught our eyes or even sometimes they'll bring up stuff that I hadn't even considered before.
Like, I think these are great shows.
And again, that's this Thursday, February 23rd at 8 p.m.
Eastern.
We hope you'll join us.
If you want to, and if you want to watch any of these live shows, and obviously get the week under episodes, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
We need your help to stay editorially independent, ad-free, and yeah, just rolling along and growing.
All right, if you need us before then, you can find Nick at CanYouHearMeSMH.
