0:00

This podcast is not sponsored by . It

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does not reflect the views of the institutions

0:04

that employ us . It is solely our thoughts

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and ideas , based upon our professional training

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and study of the past ["The

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world"]

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.

0:40

Welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History . I'm

0:42

Gene Pruijs .

0:43

I'm Scott Sosby . I'm back this time , gene . I'm

0:45

sorry you know it wasn't there last time . It's too

0:47

hot in Ecuador , just that I'm melted Well that's

0:49

OK .

0:50

You know , scott , actually we

0:52

are celebrating one year

0:55

of doing .

0:56

Talking .

0:56

Texas History . Exactly so this is actually season

0:59

two , the first episode of season two

1:01

, that's right , yeah , dr Gunter

1:03

is first person on season

1:05

two .

1:05

There you go , I get to be the season premier

1:08

.

1:08

That's right . So let's introduce our

1:10

guest for season two , the

1:12

first guest of the new season , and

1:15

that is Rachel Gunter . And

1:18

Rachel , tell us a little bit about yourself

1:20

. Where

1:23

are you from ?

1:25

I am from Houston , texas , originally

1:28

. You know the area 45 south of the

1:30

Beltway it's about where I grew up . I

1:32

graduated high school year early because I was a bit bored

1:35

, and then I went to A&M Corpus Christi for two

1:37

years and then my

1:39

dad fell at work he worked at Minokey

1:41

and broke his hip , and so my

1:43

parents lost their house and couldn't pay

1:45

for school , and so I ended up moving

1:47

back home and waiting tables for a year helping

1:49

them out , and eventually I got a job as

1:52

a secretary at a maritime insurance

1:54

company and I realized I was right

1:56

down the road from the University of Houston , clear Lake

1:58

, and at the time 70% of

2:00

their classes were at night or online

2:02

. So I finished my bachelor's

2:04

that way , while working full time , and

2:06

my master's too . And then

2:09

I got into Texas A&M's

2:11

history PhD program and was

2:13

able to stop being a secretary and

2:15

go there and do my training .

2:18

So my so

2:20

you were like what we would consider a non-traditional

2:23

student , right ?

2:23

I was going to say , even though she's young , she's

2:26

non-traditional .

2:27

Right , yeah , I'm first-gen

2:29

. I think my mom tried to

2:31

take a community college class or two when she

2:33

was in her 40s and I was like

2:35

in fifth grade and my brother was in ninth

2:38

trying to help her with her math homework . She

2:41

eventually decided that

2:43

was too much . She didn't go back to school and

2:46

dad barely passed high

2:48

school , like he didn't know if he was going to graduate

2:50

until the week of graduation because

2:52

he slept in so much

2:54

and his mother thought that he

2:56

needed to sleep in and that was more important

2:59

. So , yeah , I come from

3:01

a pretty non-academic

3:03

background .

3:04

I get that First gen . We got to stick

3:06

together . My dad , he went through a semester

3:08

of college and then he went home to marry my mom . We

3:10

go through these various things . It's amazing that we make it

3:12

, but we do Gives us a special perspective

3:15

yeah . So tell us , won't you just tell us

3:17

about a little bit about your teaching philosophy ? Because

3:19

you teach at a two-year school , you have to teach a lot

3:21

of surveys and you get a lot of

3:23

students as we were just talking about from

3:25

a lot of different backgrounds .

3:27

Well , I started teaching at A&M , which is a bit different

3:29

. It has a lot of international students and

3:32

I was teaching History 13.01

3:34

, which for them is 105 , the first half US

3:36

History Survey . I had an international

3:38

student come up and asked me for some sources

3:40

on just the US government and Constitution

3:43

because there were things that weren't quite making sense

3:45

to him because he didn't have that background . So

3:48

I realized I needed to be teaching that as like

3:50

the intro to my classes . And

3:53

then that carried over when I moved to a community college

3:55

, because you can have students who were out

3:57

of school for several years or maybe their high

3:59

school wasn't the best . And so

4:02

I start with an overview of US

4:04

government in both classes , just

4:06

to kind of make sure we're all in the same page . And

4:08

I try really hard not to assume any

4:11

prior knowledge so

4:13

that whether you're just really interested in American

4:15

history or you have no background whatsoever

4:17

, you can get something

4:19

out of the class and pass it , which

4:21

is also very helpful . And

4:24

I try to kind of jump back and forth and different

4:26

media in class

4:28

. I'll have my PowerPoints

4:30

up and each PowerPoint will have maybe two or three

4:33

short video clips so they'll listen to me

4:35

lecture for seven or eight minutes and then they'll have

4:37

maybe a Smithsonian Channel clip or a PBS

4:40

clip for two or three minutes and then they hear me

4:42

again , and so they're constantly kind of jumping back

4:44

and forth , which works really

4:46

well for our students' attention spans

4:48

at the moment , kind of stick

4:51

with us because we're moving

4:53

about .

4:54

Do you find that your background

4:56

that you just told us about is

4:58

a real asset when you're teaching

5:00

, particularly at the two year schools , or I think it would

5:02

expand . Listen , what you just described is

5:04

not a whole lot different than where I teach , so

5:07

, and it's , you know so , the four year in the two years

5:09

not a whole lot different . So you think that background

5:11

helps you get .

5:13

Yeah , I explained to students

5:15

kind of that . I worked full time and I , when

5:18

I was going in school and I tried

5:20

to set up a class , that has some leniency

5:22

in it for that , because I took an online class

5:24

when I was working full time that the professor

5:27

gave out a survey of when do we want

5:29

it to take our exams and

5:31

the most popular and least popular

5:33

answer was the same one , and it

5:35

was nine to five pm on a work day

5:37

. Well , I worked eight , 30 to five . So

5:40

the only way I was able to pass that class is I had

5:42

a wonderful boss who offered to watch the

5:44

phones for me while I took that exam at

5:46

work , and I don't want my

5:48

students having to do that . So you

5:50

know things like having exams open for 48

5:52

hours , having grace periods and all my assignments

5:54

, so that if it's a rough

5:56

week and you can't get your work in this week by Friday

5:59

at midnight , well , you've got three extra days

6:01

. No questions asked , no points off

6:03

, just get it in .

6:05

I think , the way that you connect with your students

6:07

and with the public in general . And

6:10

this is our anniversary edition

6:12

of Talking Texas History

6:14

. You two have really used

6:17

social media as

6:19

an academic , as a professional historian

6:21

. So tell us how you

6:24

have kind of come into using

6:26

social media . What drove you to do this

6:29

and what have you done ? How does it help

6:31

you in the classroom ?

6:33

So the first kind of academic

6:35

social media thing I did was Twitter and

6:38

it was becoming a big thing right when I had applied

6:41

and gotten into grad school at A&M and

6:43

so I made my Twitter handle PhD Rachel

6:45

, which was aspirational because I just got into

6:48

grad school and I started

6:51

following a bunch of historians and

6:53

kind of having conversations with them and

6:55

it's a really great way to build a

6:57

community . And I ran across Jason

7:00

, who leads the historians at

7:02

the movies group over on what used

7:04

to be known as the Bird app , and

7:07

so historians all across the country every

7:09

Sunday night at 7 pm watch the same

7:11

movie and live tweet it and educate

7:13

the public about the things that we're watching

7:16

and how movies can kind of open

7:18

us up to different

7:20

historical events and understandings

7:23

and how movies are historical artifacts

7:25

and in different

7:27

times . It's been really

7:29

cool to see what comes out

7:31

of that . We changed our movie

7:34

to Black Panther

7:36

after its late actor passed away very suddenly

7:38

and we were tweeting

7:40

about Black Panther and I tweeted

7:43

out about the villain's

7:45

final kind of monologue

7:47

about how he wanted to die instead

7:49

of being imprisoned and he was calling

7:52

back to his ancestors in the transatlantic

7:54

slave trade , choosing to go overboard

7:56

and die instead . And so I

7:58

tweeted out a link to

8:01

American Yop's primary sources from

8:03

a lot of Equiano and

8:05

thousands of people

8:08

clicked on a link to go read a primary

8:10

source because they saw it on Twitter

8:12

, right , 10,000 people

8:14

clicked that link to go read the source . So

8:17

it's amazing the kind of reach it can have in

8:19

certain moments and the community we've built

8:22

there . And

8:24

then I started playing around on TikTok and

8:26

I started seeing what

8:28

claim to be historians accounts right

8:31

, or historical accounts , I should say

8:33

that have big followings and make

8:35

big claims but

8:37

left my historian Spidey

8:39

sense going . I want to see those sources

8:41

, I want to see where they're

8:43

getting that from . And

8:45

I eventually found some more academic historians

8:48

accounts that are always a little smaller than those massive

8:50

ones that are more click baby and

8:53

decided like I should be doing this

8:55

. Then I wasn't really sure what

8:57

I was going to start with , but

8:59

I had kind of made my account , was kind of watching

9:01

things and saving things , trying to figure it out

9:03

. And I woke up and it was MLK

9:06

day and I was on Twitter and

9:08

I saw all these posts from conservative politicians

9:11

who absolutely opposed civil rights legislation

9:13

. But we're praising Dr King right

9:15

, because his memory is not

9:18

. You know what Dr King was , and

9:21

so I made my first TikTok about Dr

9:24

King's approval ratings in his last

9:26

year of life and how he was actually less popular

9:28

than Colin Kaepernick at

9:31

the height of his kneeling protest

9:33

in the NFL and said , like

9:35

, basically , how you feel about Colin Kaepernick

9:38

is probably pretty close to how you would feel

9:40

about Dr King , and that was kind of the first video

9:42

and it did pretty well . And

9:44

then the other thing on TikTok is there are a lot

9:46

of K-12 teachers . Teacher

9:48

talk is a big thing , and

9:51

so I followed some of the big creators , but

9:53

I also wanted to be kind of the historian that

9:55

those creators come to when they're questioning

9:58

what they should be teaching or how

10:00

they should make this more interactive for their students . And

10:03

so the first kind of pedagogy thing I posted was

10:06

about the Sojourner Truth project . Sojourner

10:09

Truth very famous A&I woman's speech is not

10:11

actually her speech , right , it's the Francis

10:13

Gage version that's been interpreted

10:15

through a very white lens into a stereotypical

10:18

black southern accent for a woman who was

10:20

from upstate New York with an Afro-Dutch

10:22

accent , like she never said ain't

10:24

. That just didn't happen . And

10:27

so I pointed out there's this website I use in class

10:29

called the Sojourner Truth project . You can see

10:31

the more accurate version of the speech next to

10:33

the Francis Gage version and they highlight

10:36

the overlap and how little there is . And

10:39

then they also had women with Afro-Dutch accents

10:41

read the more accurate version so you can hear

10:43

as close as we can get to what it really

10:45

would have sounded like . And that

10:47

video took off and I got a bunch of teacher

10:49

followers and that was my first thousand

10:52

followers on TikTok was because of that video .

10:55

And how many are you up to now ?

10:57

I'm just over 10,000 . I'm

10:59

still a smaller account , but I'm picking

11:02

up . They send me a check every month , so I'll take it

11:04

.

11:04

You know what they're just big monetize these things

11:06

. That's real great . So what kind of feedback

11:08

do you get and how have you found out

11:11

about for

11:14

lack of a better word the trolls ? How do you deal

11:16

with them and how do you do with that kind of thing ?

11:19

So if I get a troll comment , the

11:21

first thing I'm going to do is respond

11:23

as if they're acting in good faith . And I'm

11:25

doing that not for them but because

11:27

somebody in good faith might read that comment

11:29

and think like , well , maybe they have a point , I

11:31

don't know what's the response to that , and

11:34

so they get one good faith response from

11:36

me and then I shut it down . There's

11:38

no point in the back and forth although

11:40

my followers will get into back and forth but it drives

11:43

up my views , which is fine by me . The

11:45

other thing I'll do is make

11:47

a video about that comment

11:50

and explaining what's right or wrong with

11:52

it . So I had one that was very lost-causing

11:54

and so I made a video and was

11:56

like , actually this is a great distillation of

11:58

the lost cause . Like let's talk about the big

12:01

features of the lost cause that are in this comment , and

12:03

we just kind of went through what the lost cause was

12:05

and educated people about

12:07

it . I wasn't responding to the person

12:09

who posted the comment , because they're

12:11

not listening to me , but to the larger

12:13

public who sees those comments and maybe doesn't

12:15

connect them to that larger history . I

12:18

think that's my job when

12:21

I'm dealing with trolls and if they have any

12:23

Nazi memorabilia , just block them .

12:25

That's right . The lost cause was very good . Is that your

12:27

most viewed episode ?

12:29

No , not even close . The

12:32

most viewed one is at

12:34

340,000 views

12:36

, which is by far , far

12:38

and above all my other videos , I think the other

12:40

ones that are maxed out are just over like 100K

12:42

. But this

12:45

one thing about TikTok you never know what's going to

12:47

hit and what's going to miss . And so

12:49

the most viewed video I was just sitting

12:52

on my patio porch scrolling

12:54

TikTok and saw this thing about the happy slave

12:56

myth and was like oh

12:58

, I've got something to say about this . And just off

13:01

the cuff recorded like a minute and a half video

13:03

and it is by far

13:05

the most popular video on my page

13:07

. And it was about being

13:10

in class and covering slavery and

13:12

getting to the Q&A . And I had a student who was

13:15

ignorant but was acting in good faith , he wasn't

13:17

trying to troll , and he said I

13:19

don't mean to defend slavery , but isn't it true

13:22

that the

13:24

slaves who were treated fine stayed

13:26

on the plantations and the slaves who were treated

13:28

bad ran away and left

13:30

slave accounts ? And that's why all the

13:32

accounts are so terrible ? You

13:35

have to teach your face . You

13:37

don't want to show them what was going through my brain

13:39

the moment he got to the word . But in that sentence I

13:42

don't mean to determine slavery , but please don't

13:44

, please don't . And

13:46

I just told them , like the worst accounts of slavery

13:48

we have aren't written by the enslaved , they're written by slave owners

13:51

and they're how to torture manuals . That's

13:54

what they are and I would not assign them

13:56

to a college freshman , like for the mental

13:59

damage they would do . And

14:01

that little video has 340,000

14:04

views and

14:07

an uncomfortable number of people asking me

14:09

for that particular how to torture

14:11

manual , which I've never responded to .

14:13

You're using social media

14:15

as a teaching platform

14:17

. What is some of the feedback you're getting from your

14:19

colleagues and our colleagues ?

14:23

Mostly they don't know how I edit

14:26

and do the things we can do on TikTok

14:28

, and

14:30

it's the same for recording online

14:32

lectures and stuff . I wasn't a

14:34

huge fan of teaching online

14:37

because I didn't want to record those videos and

14:39

have all of my material

14:41

out there if someone did act in bad

14:43

faith or wanted to cut it or wanted to complain

14:45

about it . But when COVID hit , we

14:48

had to teach online and I felt like

14:50

the best modality for my students was

14:52

to actually have them see me teach

14:54

. So I was recording

14:56

videos and we

14:58

all had that learning curve where I'm sure our first

15:01

videos were all terrible . We

15:03

got better over time . I

15:05

actually really liked watching the

15:07

Stephen Colbert show because at the time

15:09

he was recording by himself at his house

15:11

, like with his wife and kids recording

15:13

, and it was like , if he's that awkward

15:16

, it's okay that I'm awkward . If

15:18

professional comedians don't have this down

15:20

, it's okay that we're all struggling through this

15:22

, but you get better

15:25

at it and more comfortable with it and

15:27

it's going to be out there when we are the others , so

15:29

mine as well . I don't

15:31

tell my students about my social media . I'm sure

15:33

some of them will Google and find it , but

15:36

I don't advertise my stuff to students

15:38

, especially since I've gotten

15:41

an FU to be monetized on TikTok . It

15:43

just doesn't seem very ethical in that sense

15:45

. So they are kind of

15:47

two separate worlds for me . Well , that's interesting

15:50

.

15:50

I mean that you don't send your

15:52

students to it because they don't know about it

15:54

. So it really is essentially

15:56

public teaching .

15:58

Yeah , and one way that it's really

16:01

useful is I get to see kind of the historical

16:03

misinformation that my

16:05

students are exposed to , either

16:08

from history accounts I follow or things

16:10

that I'm tagged in . I have a whole

16:12

video on the three-fifths compromise because

16:14

I kept running into people on Twitter

16:16

and TikTok arguing that the three-fifths

16:19

compromise hurt the South and cost

16:21

them representation , when

16:24

in fact it's the exact opposite . So I

16:26

made a video explaining that . But that also meant

16:28

I went back into my lecture notes for my

16:30

history classes and added a deeper

16:32

explanation of the three-fifths compromise

16:35

, because I know my students are exposed to that

16:37

stuff and so it makes me

16:39

a better teacher because I know the myths

16:42

that are circulating that they've been exposed to

16:44

.

16:48

How long are your social

16:50

media presentations

16:52

?

16:54

On TikTok you're looking anywhere from 60 seconds

16:57

to three minutes . Three

16:59

minutes tends to be the max . Yeah

17:01

, Anything over 60 seconds

17:03

. I can get paid for those , so we'll

17:05

go to like 65 seconds just to do that .

17:08

Obviously , Gene is showing us to have to watch

17:10

. He's getting me up there .

17:13

Look , I do . Look , hey

17:15

, there's a really popular one on TSA

17:17

right now .

17:17

I'm just saying I used to think

17:19

I was cool and kept up with all the social media

17:22

and with all the technology , but

17:24

you know that ended

17:27

about Six , seven years ago

17:29

six or seven years ago .

17:30

You haven't been cool in 35 years . Change

17:32

, so I mean I .

17:39

So how do you , how

17:41

do you get like something on

17:43

the three fifths Compromise or

17:45

on sojourner truth into

17:47

60 seconds ?

17:51

So I think both of those are probably two

17:53

to three minutes , but sometimes

17:55

it's just realizing you're taking

17:57

too long and starting over again and cutting

18:00

something . You'll also hear me

18:02

talk very quickly on tiktok

18:04

, and there's even

18:06

a whole thing on tiktok about the millennial pause

18:08

that as old as millennials

18:11

on tiktok We'll often hit record

18:13

and then breathe before we start

18:15

. They call it the millennial pause and

18:18

a lot of Gen Z will scroll by if they see that

18:20

. So you have to like edit out that pause

18:22

and start talking right when it's because

18:24

they don't .

18:24

They don't breathe before they start talking , they just

18:26

talk .

18:27

There you go . Yeah

18:30

, it's . It's a lot of

18:32

like . That's interesting

18:34

in the middle of a lecture and thinking like

18:36

, oh , there's this really cool thing about Benjamin

18:39

Franklin I want to throw in here . That's not really in the class

18:41

, but it's one of those cool stories that will

18:43

like keep the class with you . It's those

18:45

stories and one to three minute bites .

18:49

Interesting . That's very good . Well , you

18:51

, all of us , we were professors and though

18:53

we do other things Tiktoks , great , and recording

18:55

and teaching all great but we also

18:58

are active historians and active researchers

19:00

. So tell our audience what

19:02

it is that you research , what you're working on

19:04

, what's about to come out , all those kind of good

19:06

things .

19:08

I had two big projects at the moment . One

19:10

is revising what was my dissertation into

19:12

a book manuscript , tentatively

19:15

titled Soldiers , suffragists

19:18

and immigrants , and it's all about drastic

19:20

changes to voting rights in the progressive era . I

19:23

think most of us know . Women's suffrage of course passes in 1920

19:26

, but

19:28

the idea that two-thirds of the country allowed

19:31

non-citizens to vote and that ends in the same era that soldiers

19:33

for the most part were not allowed to

19:35

vote throughout American history , and

19:40

really the first time we see a majority of states pushing for that

19:42

is World War one . So

19:44

you've got all these different changes

19:46

to voting rights budding up against Jim Crow In

19:50

the 19 teens and 20s , and so it's kind of a Road

19:53

map through what happens in Texas with that , but

19:57

also showing that Texas is spoiler alert , not exceptional , and

20:00

that these things are happening in all these

20:02

other states too . It just depends on which part of the country you're looking at . So

20:07

that is kind of the big thing at the moment

20:09

. And then Part

20:12

of doing the ticktocks , as I was contracted

20:15

, contacted by one dream slash the great courses to do a course

20:17

for them , and

20:21

it's a framing that historians do not

20:23

like . Forgotten moments in US history , overlooked moments , that kind of thing , and

20:26

yet I thought I was going to be a little bit more and

20:28

yet I thought I could do some fun stuff with it

20:30

. So three of those episodes are coming from

20:32

my research . One on immigrant

20:34

voting and how common it was

20:37

. You know the founding Congress

20:39

established non-citizen voting in the Northwest

20:41

territory , which would freak out

20:43

a lot of people today . There's

20:46

one on married women's dependent citizenship

20:48

, where women ceased to be Active

20:52

citizens when they got married . Their citizenship status

20:54

was determined entirely by their husband status

20:56

and so you could be

20:59

born in the US , never leave the US , be

21:01

in the 20th century and still not

21:03

be a citizen because you married an immigrant

21:06

. And then , of course , there's one

21:08

on soldier voting , which there's

21:10

a lot of civil war and World War one history

21:13

in there that I think people will find really interesting .

21:15

It's . It's a . It's a fascinating topic and not enough

21:18

people study it . The

21:20

great courses I'm gonna ask you the great courses

21:22

doing that is interesting . Actually , I actually helped

21:25

with one of those gosh . Now it's been so long

21:27

ago because and I took

21:29

it at that time , so I don't really want to do

21:31

this . I don't really think about the great courses , but I take up time

21:33

because I got paid for it . It

21:35

wasn't as much as I like , but it was on . It was a

21:37

Western class on history in the West that we did and

21:39

it turned out to be great Fun and I and

21:42

I really enjoyed it . But those are hard

21:44

to do . That takes a lot of work , doesn't it ?

21:47

It takes a lot of work to write the scripts . That's

21:50

the part I'm in right now . We've got eight

21:52

written in , four to go . The three , based

21:54

on my research , came super fast . But

21:58

the the other topics , like we're looking

22:01

at the history of Thanksgiving not

22:03

really being about Thanksgiving

22:06

. Right , that meal was not a holiday

22:08

like religious Thanksgiving , and

22:11

actually the first Recorded

22:13

event of a Thanksgiving meal

22:15

happening between Europeans and

22:17

indigenous people was in Texas . Exactly

22:20

, we predate the Virginia

22:22

version .

22:23

As we did , a podcast on correct us

22:26

. We did a podcast on that very

22:28

issue and , of course , texas had two .

22:30

Thanksgiving right , they didn't have chili

22:32

in it .

22:32

Yes , we will get into that the

22:35

Franks giving and

22:37

all of that which it didn't end up working out so

22:40

yeah and actually tying that one

22:42

into the lost cause , because we

22:45

don't really embrace that until about 1900

22:47

when the Indian Wars cease to be

22:49

and we can have this mythical friendly Indian

22:52

character . But also it's

22:54

very much a story of Protestant

22:56

Christians being like welcomed in

22:59

and it's something to focus on . That isn't

23:01

the Civil War , so

23:04

it kind of goes right with the lost cause

23:06

. But yeah , there's a lot of

23:08

episodes Eight are

23:10

done for in the works and our due

23:12

next month . I'll be very busy

23:14

, all the чемod .

23:16

Pearl prank forts trailer .

23:16

Because True

23:19

Deadlines with paychecks attached are also bad , exactly

23:21

. Then we did a rehearsal

23:24

where they had us read off

23:26

of a teleprompter , which I don't

23:28

normally use anything like

23:30

that , but when I record for

23:32

classes , my lectures , I've got my lecture

23:34

notes in the presenter view of PowerPoint

23:37

. I was reading what

23:39

I wrote off of this teleprompter and

23:41

they were shocked that I could read what I

23:43

wrote . I was very concerned

23:45

about academic reading levels

23:47

. If they were very surprised

23:50

, it's like well , I did write it Exactly

23:52

.

23:53

You were involved in a documentary , correct ? Also

23:55

?

23:57

I was a co-writer for Citizens at

23:59

Last , which is a suffrage documentary on

24:01

Texas which

24:03

gets a little bit into Latino

24:06

women and African-American women but a lot on

24:08

white Texans trying

24:10

to get suffrage in what was a southern

24:12

state . It is

24:14

still streaming on the PBS app , both

24:17

the TV cut and

24:19

the extended cut .

24:21

There you go , people , you can go watch that .

24:25

It's streaming for free . If you are teaching

24:28

Texas history or American history and want to

24:30

assign it , you can do so .

24:31

There we go . Good , I have graduate

24:34

class and we're doing something . Myth and memory in Texas

24:36

. I may have them do that . That's a good idea .

24:39

Rachel , give us if

24:41

somebody is looking for you on social media

24:43

, how are they going to find you ?

24:46

I'm PhD Rachel on all the socials

24:48

Twitter , tiktok , instagram . You

24:51

can find me on Facebook as Rachel Michelle

24:53

. Mostly that's just cross-posting from other

24:55

places , but if that's your social

24:58

media platform , you can still find me over there . Mostly

25:01

it's PhD Rachel . Then

25:04

my website is rmguntercom

25:06

.

25:10

Okay , we do like to ask

25:12

all of our guests a very important

25:14

question . That

25:16

is Rachel Gunter what do you

25:18

know ?

25:20

Voting is only a right

25:23

if preventing it

25:25

violates the 15th Amendment

25:27

, the 19th Amendment that very

25:29

specific bits of federal law , including

25:31

what's left of the Voting Rights Act . States

25:35

have the right to

25:37

disfranchise those that they want to , as

25:39

long as they don't step on those particular

25:41

federal laws . Of

25:44

course , if you do as we are seeing

25:46

with current indictments , you can still be charged

25:48

, but at an

25:50

individual level , legally

25:52

there really isn't a right to vote Not

25:56

a right and they don't change unless it's competitive

25:58

. All of this effort to

26:00

enfranchise or disfranchise

26:02

, that is because we are having competitive elections

26:05

and people in power are scared they're going

26:07

to lose . The same political

26:10

situation that

26:13

incentivizes it for politicians to disfranchise

26:16

incentivizes other politicians

26:18

to enfranchise . Keep

26:21

that in mind when you're hearing people talking about Puerto

26:23

Rico and DC and statehood

26:25

and voting and all of that . It's the

26:27

same political conditions that are leading the

26:30

other side to try to

26:32

take away people's votes .

26:33

That's absolutely right . I

26:37

took an offense . Actually I

26:39

was doing a thing with Texas Tribune , working

26:41

on some of these tech stuff , and one of the reporters had

26:44

written and they sent it the draft Timmy Scott's

26:46

involvement beforehand that Texas

26:48

is a deep red state . I said you're going to

26:50

have to change this because Texas is not a deep red

26:52

state . It's not even close to being a deep red state and the hinterlands

26:55

.

26:55

haven't you heard ? That's right .

26:56

And so they said well , and they went back forth

26:58

and I told them . I said , oh , I guess you're right . And so they

27:01

did change it Because

27:03

this is not a deep red state , it's not even close

27:05

to being a deep red state .

27:08

Yeah , drive through Mississippi , you'll get a different

27:10

view .

27:11

Exactly .

27:12

Right . So one

27:14

of the things that my political

27:16

science friends tell me is

27:19

that talking about

27:21

the issues isn't good for politicians

27:23

. What they want to talk about

27:25

are

27:28

what they think the public wants

27:31

to hear , and they

27:33

start talking about the issues and started debating

27:35

it . They're afraid people

27:37

aren't going to vote for them , so they

27:39

talk about the wedge issues . They talk

27:41

about , you know , the . What

27:44

are ? They called the wolf whistles

27:46

or the , I don't know .

27:48

Dog whistles . Right Dog whistles . What's

27:50

going to get people angry enough to go vote Right

27:52

? How are you going to scare people

27:54

or piss them off to

27:56

get them to the polling booth ?

27:59

Well , that's what we'll again . Thanks , Rachel . This has been

28:01

very good . We will see you soon . It's getting to be the

28:03

start of the semester . We'll all start seeing each other , See you soon

28:07

, thank you .

28:08

Yeah , thank you very much .