Across the United States. We will speak to members of the Standing Rock sioux and Navajo Nation and go to north dakota, which has the highest covid19 death rate of any state or country in the world. Then democracy now cohost Juan Gonzalez looks at how the Corporate Media missed the real story about latinx voter turnout in the 2020 election. Juan the main story is that in an election which saw historic tnout, people of color, and especially latinos, had an unprecedented increase in voting. And they, not white voters, represented the bulk of that increase. Amy plus, we will speak to antiracist activist bree newsome bass and princeton professor eddie glaude about the election of joe biden and Kamala Harris. We have to get about the work of responding to the problems we face as a nation at scale and not returning back to some sense of normalcy, which in some ways laid the foundation for the disaster that was and is trumpism. Amy a that d more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the quarantineeport. Im amy goodman. Today in this special broadcast, we look at this years historic election and the devastating covid19 pandemic. Begin in north dakota, which has the highest covid19 death rate of any state or country in the world, with one in every thousand residents dead from the virus. South dakotas death rate is nearly as bad, after both republican governors spent months downplaying the crisis. As covid19 ravages the dakotas, we turn to look at how thrapid spread of covid19 is affecting native american communities. We begin with two guests, Jodi Archambault is a citizen of the Standing Rock sioux tribe and the former special assistant to president obama for native American Affairs for the white house domestic policy council. She is ibismarck, the capital of north dakota. And in farmington, new mexico, were joined by allie young, a citizen of Navajo Nation, founder of protect the sacred. She lives in arizona. I began by asking Jodi Archambault to talk about the pandemics devastating effect on native americans. This has been a tough several months, just hoping that the government takes action. The state government, the way that they behave and the way that they react affects our people directly, stly because we have some of the highest rates of the underlying conditions that make covid19 a deadly disease. And so were having a lot of people rish. Were having a lot of death, a lot of hospitalizations. And its affecting us in ways at is nowidely known by the rest of america. We have very few years we have about maybe a decade, maybe 15 years, where we have to save our language, our lakota language, our dakota language. We also have other tribes in north dakota, like the arikara, the mandan, and the hidatsa. There are most of the speakers of our languas are over the age of 70. And we dont have very much time to spend with them and learn and protect and revitalize our languages. And vid19 h put on an additional layer of risk that is just putng us into a very difficult time. Juan and Jodi Archambault, how did it get to this stage, especially in the native communities of the state . How did the pandemic spread so rapidly in your community . It didnt spread very rapidly at first. As you know, the covid19 hit the cities first and hit seattle and new york city. In north dakota and south dakota, we shut down the businesses and took a lot of precautions early on, until about may. And north and south dakota were the first states to open their doors to business usual restaurants. People were shy at first. But at this point, theres a lot of people who have followed the line of thinking that covid19 is a hoax, or its some kind of democrat conspiracy. And a lot of people refuse to wear masks, even with a mask mandate. This has all accelerated on the reservations. Reservations or tribal nations, such as eagle butte, the Cheyenne River sioux tribe, and the ogla sioux tribe, the sisseton, wahpeton, rosebud, theyve all installed roadblocks. Theyve all implemented roadblocks to op traffic and outsiders from coming on the reservation. And the response to their action to protect tribal members, elrs, and the like was for the governor, noem, to torture them and hold them hostage with funding. She has coordinated with the Trump Administration to make it difficult to receive the federal resources that are allocated to the tribal government and have used that as a stick for them to try to force them to take the roadblocks down. And rather than supporting them and anking them for trying to address the lack of Health Services available on the reservation, she s made it more and more difficult for people, for our tribes, to protect ourselves. Amy north dakota governor can you talk about his originally saying that people who are healthcare workers who test positive for covid should remain working if they are asymptomatic and treat covid19 patients, and governor burgum then being forced to back down after the outcry, saying no to a mask mandate, then saying yes . I will just tell you that from we dont have its really hard to speak up in north dakota. The news sources out here dont cover an alternate perspective. But i will say thathe nurses association, andvocacy group, did issua press lease after governor burgum said that they could go back to work while they were testing covidpositive. That was last week on wednesday. D withinours, there was a pushback from the nurses association. None of the hospitals have taken him up on the offer. And its ridiculous that the leaderships response to being the worst covid rates in the world would be to allow nurses to infect other nurses, other doctors, and other patients by coming to work with covid. Its the most preposterous type of Government Action that ive ever heard of. So the business is the business of the hospital is asking for this kind of, i guess, allowance to allowick people without symptoms to come and spread . But tually, this has always the situation that wre talking about is the lack of compassion for those elders, not just native elders, but all elders, all people with Underlying Health conditions like cancer. It is an absolute choice, a clear choice, tohoose prof over people. So the governor isnt putting people first, hes putting profit first. And the same with governor noem down in south dakota. They have been she has been tively aing people to come to south dakota, come to the hottest spot secondhottest spot in the world and have your vacation, because we dont care if you wear a mask or not. Thats what her response is, and to increase the risk that tribal governments by forcing them to te down their barriers, or trying to force them down they havent taken them down. Its remarkable that theyre able to stick to that governance decision, that is saving lives on the reservations. Its still spreading. Its still spreading on the reservations because there is active commerce between reservations and cities. And so its getting in. Juan yeah, id like to bring in allie young to the conversation, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and founder of protect the sacred. Allie, welco to democracy now could you talk about the situation in Navajo Nation in terms of covid . And also, maybe comment on the fact that not all native areas have gaming, but quite a significant percentage do, and often its the gaming revenues that help provide Health Services or social services. Could you talk about the impact of the shutdowns on the ability of native peoples to provide Health Services, as well . Yeah. Yaateeh, hello, everyone. Thank you for having me. Yeah, right now we are seeing another surge in Navajo Nation, as we excted. We, as you all know, were the number one hot spot in the country per capita in the spring. And we worked hard to flatten the curve, and we were able to. There was a day where we had zero reported cases. But recently, because of the spikes across the country, what weve been seeing throughout the nation, with some of the rallies i mean, you know, some of our border towns around here are trump territory, and so there were rallies that i witnessed. And a lot of our people come into these border towns to do their shopping, because on Navajo Nation, you know, we have like 13 grocery stores. So we have to travel to these territories where theyre not thinking about theyre not wearing masks, and theyre not thinking about their neighbors who have been impacted. And then, to your point about the gaming industry in native communities, at Navajo Nation we have some casinos and hotels, as well, and theyve all been shut down. And it has impacted us economically, financially. And as far as healthcare, weve had to you know, i worked on a psa through protect the sacred that called out for medical volunteers. And thats the state that we were in, that we had to make that call out for ppe supplies, medical volunteers, because we just lack all of those resources and funding in our tribal communities, when were supposed to be guaranteed quality healthcare through our treaties with the federal government. Amy and, allie young, youve talked about feeling that so many native elders are suffering as a result of the decades of uranium mining, particularly of pulmonary and respiratory diseases, making them even more vulnerable. Were talking Something Like over 600 people just on the navajo reservation have died as of this weekend of covid. Yes. And that is something that am trying to connect e dots to anyone i speak to, lets not forget about how the federal government greenlit these companies coming in to extract our minerals on tribal reservations. In Navajo Nation, for 30plus years, we had peabody up in the Northwestern Region of Navajo Nation, which was our hot spot within the nation. And a lot of our people up there the waters and our lands are contaminated by uranium. And our elders had to work through and even my own uncles you know, they just shut down last year, in 2019. So a lot of our people have worked through those unsafe environments and certainly have those preexisting and underlying conditions that we need to consider in why were so lnerable to this virus. Amy Jodi Archambault, can, at least increase in native american turnout, not noted in the Mainstream Media . Sure. I just want to say that, despite the risk of being exposed to covid, the numbers were incredible, and i think that this is something often overlooked by Mainstream Media, only because Mainstream Media has a tendency to leave out the full picture when it comes to native americans. Inact, cnn did an info graphic and did a breakdown of all the different people who voted in the election, and for native americans, they called us Something Else amy e have that actual graphic right here. It says latino. It says black. It says white. And then Something Else. And then asian. Yeah, yeah. And social media, our resiliency is through our humor, so it just took off. Everybody kept saying, like, custer said, gosh, they are sure Something Else, custer, from the last couple centuries ago. And a lot of people taking it as a call to try to bring attention to the people at the cnn, to the people at the mainstream, who just continuousl do not see us. They do not see us, and it is intentional because we are a reminder of the bloodshed that it took to make this country. We are not congruent with the american dream, and were still here. We are actually leading the way how to handle pandemics because we have been through so many of them, and it is so much ingrained in our communities, that we are not victims in this, we are actually ready to fight. We are ready to push back into what we can to protect ourselves because it is the only way we have made it this far, and we know that people in america do not see us so we have to do it for ourselves. Amy still with us in arizona is allie young, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and founder of protect the sacred. Allie, if you could start off by talking about what you did in the arizona talk about the horseback ride that you took. I work with my father who lives in rough rock, arizona, and we work together, and i ha always voted in arizona, reded with my father, and we have always done trail rides. That is our bonding thing. And we have done them throughout Navajo Nation. In this year when we were thinking about the election, he wanted to do a bidenharris trail ride. And when i called him back and thought about the significance of a trail ride and the respect that our people have for the horses, and as we call it, horse medicine, and rse medicine is when you are in rhythm with the horse and almost in sync and you are reconnected d refocused. As you ride in our homelands and are reminded of exec that what our ancestors have fght just reminded of exactly what our ancestors have fought for, our lands still in our helands and our cultures and also our right to vote. So i went back to my father and said, what is happening with the trail right . He said, i dont know, i do not think we are going to do it. But i said i think we should do it, but with protect the sacred, have to be nonpartisan, so it is more like getting folks out to the post so they can cast their ballots. I was hearing on the ground that they were not feeling very motivated to participate in the selection, as a lot of other communities of color. Because why continue participating in system that has never worked for us, is not working for us . I find that are native youths, we are more educated than ever, and that is why the resistance, because we know our history and what has happened to us historically. Also, we are more connected to technology and information than ever, and were more eager to reconnect to our cultures and that respect for our ancestors and elders. So i wanted to strategize and use that and say, ok, lets find something that will excite our native youth, that is rooted in our culture and will help us reclaim arizona. I keep saying arizonas indigenous dna is not republican dna, which i heard on the news when i was watching about a month before we decided to do ride to the polls. And that is what really motivated me, because arizona has this deep history of many tribal communities, and it is not just a place where white conservatives go to retire. And this is our homelands, and i called on my people, lets show up, lets show them that were still here, lets be represented, lets make sure that we have a seat at the table and that our voices are heard. So that is what it was so important, and i am so happy that a lot of young people did come out. It did excite them. I got so many positive messages from our effort. It was an exciting turnout. Juan what were the results or have you been able to tell . The exit polls to factor in or count native american what have been results in the actual vote totals you have been able to see so far . Well, i believe around 60somethingthousand navajos in Navajo Nation. Pocono county, and the the unty where i did all my work and i vote, navajo county, and apac county, they all overlap the Navajo Nation, and in those areas, navajo people turned out to vote, i think, 84 of those restered turned out to vote. And 97 of those who cast their ballot voted for joe biden. Anthat is just incredible, just shows the contribution of the native vote in key swing states, not only the Navajo Nation but there is a map that compar tribal communities, and all of those tribal communities voted blue. So we came out strong. I think we did do a great job in reclaiming arizona, saying that were still here, that we have always been here, and that now were going to keep working to hold this new administration accountable, as well. Amy what kind of message do you have for what is the most effective way to get firsttime voters involved, to make them feel they really are making a difference when it is you know, they have not done this before . My strategy was all around, you know, you have to think about what we are working with, and with young people, we are very tuned into social media. Definitely, it is a powerful tool. So connecting with them that way. Had a huge social media strategy. Also, layering in the cultural revitalization, particularly with native youth. But also i think with a lot of other youths across other communities of color. I think we are in this amazing moment where our communities of color are reconnecting tour cultures and really proud of who we are and where we come from. So using that and saying lets show up in that way, lets use social media in fighting for our representation. That takes work, and we have to you know, were not just going to automatically be talked about in the media. We have to show up. Juan allie, quickly, what are your main expectations of a new Biden Administration and policies towards native American People . Well, were definitel going to be making sure that we are represented, especially when it comes to climate change. We do want a seat at the table. We want to be in the conversation, because we have st Incredible Knowledge about the ways that we respect mother earth, that we honor mother earth, and those are things that will end up saving mother earth. And so learning from us and collaborating with us and also on issues still on covid19, still severely impacting our tribal communities. We are expecting them to work with us anhelping us to bring the funding and the aid that we need, because a billion dollars was not enough in the initial stimulus package. Amy navajo activist allie young, the founder of p