American Voices

AMERICAN VOICES 2026

Oct. 13, 2026

MALE NEWSREADER:

The countdown to the midterm elections is on.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

At stake: control of Congress.

NARRATOR:

On the eve of the midterm elections, a deeply divided country.

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Trump is hoping to give Republicans a boost.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Can Democrats flip the House and Senate?

NARRATOR:

Over the past six years, a team of filmmakers across the United States has been documenting the views and experiences of Americans.

PASTOR CARY GORDON, Sioux City, IA:

When they step outside their jurisdiction—

PROTESTERS:

Renee Good!

MARK CURTIS, Construction co. owner:

What is your take on all this stuff going on?

BRYANT MOORE, Barber:

Power!

NARRATOR:

From the earliest days of the pandemic—

MAYRA RAMIREZ, Former COVID patient:

I love you so much.

NARRATOR:

—to a summer of protest—

ROYCE WHITE, MN Senate candidate:

We’re the free people of America.

CARRAN LEWIS, Retiree:

As long as they catch one dirty cop at a time, I’m happy. One at a time.

NARRATOR:

—and economic woes.

BRYANT MOORE:

Groceries are skyrocketing. Healthcare is out the roof.

NARRATOR:

The hopes and fears about the last elections—

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

I want the values to be what the people are voting for, not the person.

NARRATOR:

—and the current one.

CARRAN LEWIS:

The state of this country now is messy. People are angry. I think I am, too.

NARRATOR:

Now, a FRONTLINE special presentation: American Voices 2026.

BRYANT MOORE, Barber:

How can I love America? I can’t. I don’t think I can love America. I can’t put that into words.

MARK CURTIS, Construction co. owner:

Are we any more safe now than we were before?

CARRAN LEWIS, Retiree:

The cost of living, it’s gone up.

TAYO DANIEL:

I’m fearful that people will forget how to work with people that you don’t agree with.

NARRATOR:

These are the voices of Americans—

TAYO DANIEL:

People are getting angrier and angrier.

MALE VOICE:

I want to be in charge of my own life!

NARRATOR:

—gathered from across a divided nation.

PASTOR CARY GORDON:

If America doesn’t repent, America will be doomed.

NARRATOR:

In this film, Americans reflect on the past six tumultuous years.

MALE CREW MEMBER:

Can someone clap once for me?

BRYANT MOORE:

This ain’t the American dream I thought about when I was in middle school.

FEMALE VOICE:

I wish there wasn’t as much hate in this world as what we have.

TAYO DANIEL:

The midterms are definitely going to be very polarizing.

NARRATOR:

A pastor, a barber, an aspiring politician, an activist, a mother, a retiree, the owners of a nail salon and of a construction company. A doctor and a patient.

Each experiencing changes happening in the country—and in their own lives.

ST. JOSEPH, MO

AMY GARNER:

So we’re new to Missouri. I’m seeing all the signs about “no on four and five,” you know? Do you have an opinion on this?

MALE NEIGHBOR:

Um, not enough to be able to speak one way or another. Yeah, that’s a—

AMY GARNER:

It’s tomorrow.

MALE NEIGHBOR:

Is it tomorrow?

AMY GARNER:

Yeah. [Laughs]

MALE NEIGHBOR:

All right, well—

AMY GARNER:

Go and take a look, but I will too. It’s good to be informed.

MALE NEIGHBOR:

Have fun.

AMY GARNER:

Awesome, thank you.

I’m trying to talk to locals about the issues that are on the ballot, but so far, nobody near me knows what they even are.

OK, so look there. Objective versus subjective.

My kids sometimes will just blurt something out that they got from a meme. I would be like, OK, why do you feel that way? What are the facts? And they can’t even explain it.

Opinions versus facts. And this is why I hate the mainstream news now.

My name is Amy Garner. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I’m a mom of six kids.

I don’t trust any news source. All these people are getting a lot of money from advertisers. I would never say that I blindly or fully trust any of them.

LEANDER, TX

SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER:

“Go bag” is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a backpack or a duffel bag designed to have everything you need so in case of an emergency you can easily and quickly grab it—

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

My name is Dr. Christine Edy Mann. I am a family practice physician in the central Texas area.

Politics in 2020, COVID in 2020. Kamala Harris in 2024. It has led to me more thinking, take care of myself, take care of my friends, take of my family.

This is our solar crank radio, so if the grid goes down, you can use solar or you can crank it. Sewing kit, antibiotic ointment.

This kind of prepping makes me have to think about the idea that some of my fears could come to fruition.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN

ROYCE WHITE:

Our men have been emasculated. American men are soft. I mean, honestly, if we do not hold the line in 2026 and 2028, Minnesota is going to be ground zero for rounding some of you people up.

My name is Royce White. I didn’t get into politics for it to be a job. I only got into politics to speak a truth that I thought wouldn’t be spoken unless I got into politics. Our political reality in this country is, the future of this nation rests upon the edge of a blade.

Good to see you guys.

NORTH CHESTERFIELD, VA

CARRAN LEWIS:

I don’t even look at the news anymore because I don’t want to see him. I’m just so tired of seeing the president.

TV GAME SHOW PARTICIPANT:

OK, I have the answer. And it is Frank Sinatra.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Ha! I got it right! Tell you, I get lucky every now and then.

My name is Carran Lewis, I live in North Chesterfield, Virginia. I’m retired, and I’m a homeowner.

[Singing] Praising my savior all the day long. Amen!

My pastor even said, he said, even if we’re not happy with the person running the country, we still have to love him.

MALE CHURCHGOER:

Say it, say it.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I guess I still have a lot more spiritual guidance to have to do, because I’m not there.

BEAVERDAM, VA

MARK CURTIS:

My name is Mark Curtis. I’m a father. I’m also a business owner. I own a construction company.

My political leanings today are very much conservative libertarian.

As an American that has no ties to Israel, and I don’t mean for this to come across as being insensitive, but I don’t like how much money or the involvement America has in the foreign war.

What is your take on all this stuff going on? Because I don’t feel like I have educated a true, full sense of what’s happening.

MALE NEIGHBOR:

Oct. 7 and the fact that we had people that invaded, the images, and—

MARK CURTIS:

Coming from Palestine.

MALE NEIGHBOR:

—coming from Gaza, yeah. But then—

MARK CURTIS:

Yeah, which is horrible.

MALE NEIGHBOR:

—and Israel had to stabilize itself.

MARK CURTIS:

I am not sure how everything shifted from being “America first” and our economics improving to needing to support a foreign nation.

SIOUX CITY, IA

PASTOR CARY GORDON:

Tough times are coming. The next few years might be rough. There’s going to be ups and downs. There’s going to be turmoil.

Our culture has drifted so far away from Christian ethics.

But he will hold me fast. And he will hold you fast.

You got two choices in American politics: You can have bad, or you can have worse. Republicans are bad, Democrats are worse. You get evil or you get more evil.

My name is Cary Gordon. I am the senior pastor of Cornerstone World Outreach.

I’ve told my kids at home that this world is cruel. You have to maintain compassion for other people and want to help other people, and at the same time, keep a defensive posture so that you can survive it.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN

YOUNG MAN [rapping]:

TAYO DANIEL:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you got bars, man, you can rap. Just make sure you mean what you’re saying, you know? Music and like art and stuff like that is just self-reflection. And if you’re mad at the time, get it out on the music. If you feel heartbroke at the time, get it on the music.

My name is Tayo Daniel, I’m from South Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am a human first and a community member. I don’t really like to get into politics even though politics gets into all of us, right?

All right, my man? All right for sure. Y’all be smooth, man.

I’m contributing as much as I can to the people that I love and the community I love.

OAKLAND, CA

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

When I was in high school, I always tell my friend, “Later on in life, I’m going to do some kind of business. I’m going to open a business.” I don’t know what it is, but something. Something.

My name is Jamie Denh.

JASON TOLENTINO:

My name is Jason Tolentino.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

When I tell Jason I’m going to get a nail salon, and then he was like, “Oh, my God, you know how much you have to pay for rent, insurance, and then how many pedicure you have do?” I was like, “Jason, I don’t know, but I know that I have to get that.”

The government have their job to do, and me, I’m just a follower. We work hard to keep the life that we are right now.

PORTLAND, OR

BRYANT MOORE:

Just don’t seem like something in the air.

MALE CUSTOMER:

This is a year with a whole lot wrong to it.

BRYANT MOORE:

My name is Bryant Moore. I’m a barber from Portland, Oregon.

Gotcha, you can have a seat and we’ll be right with you. Peter, you are on the wait list as well.

My business, it’s not like it used to be. There’s not really regulars anymore, and that’s why I chose to do a part-time position at a franchise. I keep reiterating to myself that it’s going to get better because the economy’s going to get better, it’s going to go back to where it should be. I don’t think we’re coming out of this. I don’t think that we’re going to come out of this one unscathed.

AMY GARNER:

If you asked me in 2020 if any of these things would’ve happened, I would’ve not believed you.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

I guess I am very different than I was back then.

ROYCE WHITE:

There’s been a lot of things that changed from 2020, but I don’t think nearly enough has changed.

TAYO DANIEL:

My heart hasn’t changed, but my political views have changed.

MARK CURTIS:

How did we get to this point?

CHAPTER ONE

LOCKDOWN 2020

SIOUX CITY, IA

MALE NEWSREADER:

The CDC says there are now more than 4,200 cases of coronavirus.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—mass gatherings are restricted to less than 10 people.

CARY GORDON:

All the people, the nations and the languages fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

My father pioneered this church in 1982. This is my 25th year of pastoring myself.

How do I water-baptize someone in a virtual service? How do I bury the dead? How do I have a wedding? How are people supposed to have me lay my hands upon them and anoint them with oil and pray over them to be healed in the midst of a pandemic when I’m told that I can’t have physical contact?

They’ve said the church is not essential. In a time of crisis with imminent death and a pandemic, the church is not essential. It’s offensive.

PORTLAND, OR

BRYANT MOORE:

[Singing] Back and forth, and in and out, and back and forth again. For we are strong people and we will come out of this and be on top again, I do believe.

The bills keep stacking up, with no money coming in.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

I’ve got to get my hair done. He’s got to get his money. Got to go back looking fly.

BRYANT MOORE:

I’m just looking for the future. I’m not going to stop doing what I’m doing because I’m a provider, so my mind is set on what I have to do. Be a grandpa, you know. Be a dad. Be a uncle.

AMERICAN FORK, UT

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The coronavirus pandemic is putting an end to the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We are going into a global recession.

AMY GARNER:

There we go, that’s looking nice. You look so happy about it. Turn around so I can see the back. [Laughs] Look as grumpy as you possibly can.

Mental health is important to me. I lost my brother to suicide just three years ago.

When we say economy, sometimes we just think of finances as a whole of society. But instead, I see my brother, his business was going down. That triggered the stress, which triggered his health issues, which triggered his mental health issues, and he was gone in 60 days.

That’s my brother Brian. Yeah. [Sighs]

I wanted to save other families from going through what we went through. Sorry. So that’s why I became so passionate about not shutting things down. Letting people choose.

MALE PROTESTER:

Are we sheep, or are we people?

CROWD:

People!

MALE PROTESTER:

Let’s go to work!

AMY GARNER:

You take away people’s connections, their hobbies, their friends, their worship, their work, and everyone’s going to be depressed! [Laughs] And I am so blessed to have a family of children and a husband. But what about the people who don’t? It’s heartbreaking.

PROTESTERS:

[Singing] God bless America, my home sweet home.

NORTH CHESTERFIELD, VA

CARRAN LEWIS:

Yeah, good morning, Second Baptist. Praise the Lord, everybody.

MALE PASTOR [streaming on mobile device]:

Our seniors, amen, because of COVID-19 should not be out and about like some of us are.

CARRAN LEWIS:

That’s right.

My immune system is weakened, so I have learnt to love being alone. I have learnt to be pretty darn comfortable.

[singing] —and ever, for all you’ve done for me.

I’m one of these people that still walks around wondering, “Do I have COVID?” One person that passed, I knew her very, very, very, very, very, very well, and she was healthy as she could be. Words just can’t describe how this makes me feel.

MALE PASTOR [streaming on mobile device]:

—repentance and real reconciliation, because they did this—

RICHMOND, VA

MARK CURTIS:

Ammo, head to ammo. Back right. Do you want one of those targets?

MARK’S SON:

Sure.

MARK CURTIS:

We’re going to shoot later today.

MARK’S SON:

Can we get those targets?

MARK CURTIS:

[Laughs] No, we’re not getting that target. How about each of you get to pick one target.

Here, let’s check out here. See if we can.

MARK’S WIFE:

I don’t need a mask, ma’am. Thanks. I already said it twice.

MARK CURTIS:

Who was that?

MARK’S WIFE:

That lady, she mentioned masks when she walked by me, and then she just mentioned masks again as we walked by her.

MARK CURTIS:

An employee?

MARK’S WIFE:

No, a customer.

MARK CURTIS:

I want my kids to start looking at the facts across the board, and let them make their own decisions, even starting at a young age.

I think overall freedoms are majorly at risk. We should all have the right to make our own decisions for ourselves.

A good firm grip. Squeeze the trigger.

OAKLAND, CA

JASON TOLENTINO:

OK, I really hope this internet thing works.

Hey, Irene, can you hear us?

MINISTER [streaming on computer]:

Yeah.

JASON TOLENTINO:

The frigging cat jumped right in the middle! [Laughs]

I saw her picture on MySpace. I don’t know, we just started talking from there.

All right, one second. We’ve got to turn the table.

MINISTER [streaming on computer]:

So welcome, Jason. Welcome, Young Chiet. We’re going to be sharing in the joy and the celebration of a very special occasion.

JASON TOLENTINO:

When I proposed, I asked her if she was going to marry me, and then she slapped me. [Laughs]

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

You know, I always think, like, “Oh, if somebody proposed to me I would slap him in the face, just to make sure that he know what he’s doing.” And then he got kind of scared a little bit, and then I was like, “Oh, yes.” [Laughs]

MINISTER [streaming on computer]:

—and just look into each other’s eyes. Please welcome your marriage with a kiss. You can remove your masks if you want.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

I’m hoping that this whole pandemic, it goes away, then we’ll be able to open up a shop normally again, and maybe we’ll get a kid. [Laughs]

CEDAR PARK, TX

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we were left without any guidance. Doctors like me, we kind of all had to make it up on the fly.

My hands are sweaty. I can’t get the gloves on.

It took weeks looking at studies and data from other countries to figure out the processes to manage patients.

This takes between one and three days to get a result. Sorry.

Man, this is annoying.

We’re suffering much worse than we would have had we had a competent, science-based head of state.

CHICAGO, IL

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The number of deaths in the United States has now reached a stunning 50,000.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—had at least one underlying health issue.

MALE NEWSREADER:

A new effort to keep Chicagoans safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Come on, guys.

You’re wearing your mask wrong, cover your nose.

In early April was when I started feeling lightheaded, dizzy. I was coughing. I lost my sense of taste and smell. One day I woke up, I was so weak I just fell over. I was like, “OK, I really need to go to the emergency room.”

They immediately put me in a room. Didn’t even ask me my name or anything.

I remember a doctor came in and told me, “We’re pretty sure we’re going to have to intubate you. Do you have someone that can make medical decisions for you?”

Then—it’s just kind of a blur what happened after I got intubated.

IVAN CASTANEDA, Mayra’s brother:

The day they told us that Mayra—it was her last day, we were all in the trampoline, just—my mom was crying. My sisters, all my aunts were there. They were crying. They didn’t know what to do. And we were just planning to go pick up a corpse. I was trying to avoid it.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I love you so much. Uh-oh. [Laughs]

My name is Mayra Ramirez. I’m 28 years old, and I am the first double lung transplant patient due to COVID-19 in the U.S.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The attempted arrest was caught on camera. The video of last night’s confrontation shows a white police officer with his knee pinning down the neck of the suspect.

MALE NEWSREADER:

His name was George Floyd. He’s on video saying, “Please, please, I can’t breathe,” as a Minneapolis police officer holds him down for minutes.

CHAPTER TWO

PROTEST

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

No justice, no peace! Prosecute the police!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The outrage began with a video showing an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

MAN WITH MICROPHONE:

How many times have we watched police officers murder people?

MALE NEWSREADER:

Crowds of protesters facing off with officers in riot gear.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Overnight protests left parts of downtown in ruins.

MALE PROTESTER:

If just one of these oppressive pillars were to crack, the entire system will crumble.

TAYO DANIEL:

We’re already fighting a common terror, which is COVID, and now this now? You know, people are just pissed off. This is just ridiculous. How can you kill this man?

The fact that it happened in my neighborhood was what really pulled me into it.

As far as the volunteering efforts go, so far you’re our go-to volunteer coordinator, right? So we really have to get her engaged with—

ROYCE WHITE:

Them.

TAYO DANIEL:

—them.

A lot of guys from the neighborhood decided to get together and create the 10K Foundation. We wanted to show that we could have a peaceful protest.

ROYCE WHITE:

10K is about mobilizing 10,000 people and the power in that, the sovereignty in being able to mobilize 10,000 people.

I grew up here in the Twin Cities. I felt ashamed that this had happened in Minnesota. All at once I started to see the state as a real tyrannical entity, with corporations and state government and the police. I was like, oh, these—it’s us versus them.

This is kind of going to be like our pillars for 10K right now. Safety. It’s really police and prisons.

TAYO DANIEL:

Public health, we have the prison system.

ROYCE WHITE:

Prisons. You have policing.

TAYO DANIEL:

I made a lot of bad decisions when I was younger—getting in fights, had an assault charge, things like that.

There was a moment where some guys broke into my house and tried to rob me, and they ended up shooting me. I got shot three times—twice in my stomach, one in my back. And I remember sitting there waiting for the ambulance to come. I’m sitting there bleeding out. It still hits me to this day, thinking about that kind of stuff. Yeah, I’m getting teary-eyed a little bit thinking about it.

Every single day, I’ve been waiting for this moment, a time where we can stand up for what is right. And for so long, many of us were always waiting for somebody else to do it. People, the time is right now. Can everybody say that one time? On the count of three, say, “The time is now.” One, two, three.

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

Say it again!

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

Louder!

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

The time is right now!

ROYCE WHITE:

If you think about the historical context of Black men, Black people in this country in general, when we wake up in the morning, there’s no good reason for us to have any faith in the state.

Let’s start the die-in right now. Forty-six seconds.

RICHMOND, VA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Protesters have been on the streets of Richmond for several weeks now.

MALE NEWSREADER:

One-time capital of the Confederacy is in the throes of change as statues commemorating Confederate leaders come down.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I’m going in from over here. You know, they really did these streets. [Laughs]

I’m deadly afraid of COVID. But I decided one Sunday and said, you know what? I’m stepping out on faith. I’m going down to see what it’s about.

[Talking on phone] I’m at the monument right now as we speak. Having big fun, man.

Each experience I had out here has been different. I come early, and I leave before it gets too late.

PROTESTERS:

Get the f— out of here! F— motherf—–!

MALE PROTESTER:

Relax, relax. Relax.

CARRAN LEWIS:

One evening, I didn’t understand what was happening when I saw like 14 police cars coming up in front of the area. And I just begged them to allow me to go to my car and leave.

I just want to go home, please. I just want to go home. My car—how am I going to drive? I can’t get over here.

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

You can go wait in your car. We’ll be out of here in just a second. We’ll be out of here in just a second. You can go wait in your car.

CARRAN LEWIS:

OK, OK.

And they were very kind. They even helped me get out, and I was gone. Caucasian people, white people that I’ve known for years are very decent people on the surface. I don’t understand why they can’t see what we’re seeing.

LAKE ANNA, VA

MARK CURTIS:

If anybody had told us this was going to end up happening, nobody would have believed it.

MARK’S FRIEND:

No. Like I say, racism out there, that’s what it is. S—, I got more Black friends than I could ever imagine. I got one Black friend that I specifically tell people that that’s my brother, and we talk about it all the time. It’s ridiculous, man.

MARK CURTIS:

People that are doing all this are just out just to wreck stuff.

MARK’S FRIEND:

My same buddy that I call my brother, he said, “Man, it’s crazy, ’cause they say it’s a Black Lives Matter thing, but yet they’re going in and destroying old Black people’s businesses that live in Richmond.” You know what I mean?

MARK CURTIS:

I don’t know how everything got so race-oriented all of a sudden here within the past year, honestly. That kind of blows my mind. So as far as the platform or the cause that the Black Lives Matter rallies are for, I think raising awareness for police brutality, sure. If you want to focus on any aspect of it that could have a positive effect on the American people, you could bring up that one aspect of it. But it doesn’t just happen to Black folks. It happens to white folks. It happens to Asian folks. It happens across all walks of life, no matter what color you are, no matter what race you are. We all need to work together on a common cause to defend our freedoms, not to fight against each other and empower more regulation against us.

PORTLAND, OR

MALE PROTEST LEADER:

Black power!

CROWD:

Black power!

MALE PROTEST LEADER:

Black power!

CROWD:

Black power!

MALE PROTEST LEADER:

All power to the people!

BRYANT MOORE:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST LEADER:

All power to the people!

BRYANT MOORE:

All power to the people!

The fight is real. But it’s always been here. Now it’s to the surface in 2020. Now where do we go from here?

OAKLAND, CA

JASON TOLENTINO:

It’s mainly just for insurance purposes, if it did get vandalized or looted. It’s not fair for someone like me who is trying to make this community better, and next thing you know, someone just takes it away and ruins the whole business itself.

There is still racism in America, and at the moment I think it’s just getting worse.

There’s nothing wrong with protesting. You can protest all you want—we live in America. But when you start vandalizing small businesses, that part is wrong.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Overnight, chaos in the streets of Chicago. Looting taking place around the city. Store windows broken. Intense police presence and fires. Officers now asking for the public to take a step back and work with police before more people get hurt.

CHICAGO, IL

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

When I first woke up from my lung transplant, I was a vegetable. I couldn’t move a finger, I couldn’t—I could barely wiggle my toes. I couldn’t talk. I was really disoriented at the time. I didn’t realize that I was intubated, sedated, for six weeks.

The TV would be on and they would talk about all these riots that were happening and George Floyd and protest. The world was so ugly.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Millions of people all across America are casting their votes.

CHAPTER THREE

ELECTION 2020

MALE NEWSREADER:

It has been a campaign year unlike any other, and now 100 million people have voted.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Record-breaking early voting continues.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I have someone else’s lungs and it’d be like a slap in the face if I didn’t try my hardest.

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

You’re here to vote?

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Mm-hmm.

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

OK, so you’re going to go through the revolving door.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

My number one topic of interest during this election is healthcare reform.

I started working one month after my lung transplant.

You know, I shouldn’t have to have felt obligated to do so because, you know, just because I needed my health insurance to recover.

CARY GORDON:

I’m going to have to put this on now.

You’re supposed to find people that represent you. Donald Trump cannot represent me; he does not represent my beliefs. Of course, I can’t vote for Joe Biden for the very same reason.

FEMALE POLL WORKER:

Thank you for voting. Have a good evening.

CARY GORDON:

I will sleep good tonight because someday, as a Christian, I believe Christ will return and all wrongs will be righted and justice will prevail. And my job is to keep speaking the truth as a minister.

JASON TOLENTINO:

You have a pen? You’ve got to put your address—It literally says on the top it’s going to invalidate if you don’t sign it.

I would rather not say who I voted for. I just want everything to come back to normal. That’s all I’m praying for, really.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

I just vote for myself, or I vote for the lady. No, I vote for the lady!

JASON TOLENTINO:

She voted for that lady. We don’t know her name.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

I don’t know who she is, but it seems like she’s the only lady, so I vote for the lady. I vote for the woman!

JASON TOLENTINO:

Well, you have a right to do that.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Joe Biden now in the lead in Pennsylvania, in the lead in Georgia—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Putting him over the 270 electoral votes he needs.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Joe Biden has been elected the 46th president of the United States.

JOE BIDEN:

The people of this nation have spoken. They’ve delivered us a clear victory, a convincing victory.

TAYO DANIEL:

Hey!

I was relieved to the point where it’s like, “OK, this step has been handled. Now what’s the next step?” It’s not over; this is just the beginning.

What do you guys think of the election?

FEMALE PASSERSBY:

Oh, yeah! We’re good, we’re good!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Meantime, the Trump campaign is promising a new round of lawsuits today.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Trump tonight again falsely claiming victory.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—still fueling his supporters, pledging, “It isn’t over yet.”

MALE NEWSREADER:

Across the country, pro-Trump protesters gathering at state capitals.

AMY GARNER:

I really was just so sick of politics I wanted to write in “Jesus.” [Laughs] But that doesn’t do anything. So I was surprised—I felt prompted to vote for Trump.

PROUD BOY PROTESTER:

No, we’re not standing down. We’re here, we’re going to stand—we’re going to stand fast. We’re going to wait for orders. And when those orders come down—

MARK CURTIS:

I have no regrets about voting for the Libertarian candidate. I’m tired of people voting for the lesser of two evils.

Wouldn’t really matter who got into office, I feel like they’re one and the same. I think our culture is going stay divided. The division that has been created here recently is something that we’ve regressed to that’s going to take generations to recover. I think our culture is going to be horribly scarred by this.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

Our country is deeply divided. We have class divisions. We have racial divisions. It’s like there’s two completely different realities.

Anyone who thinks that the election getting called is the end of the work that needs to be done—

All right, this is a nasal swab.

—is mistaken.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Kenny, look at me.

I had to undergo this other procedure.

Oh, and this is what it looked like after.

Sometimes before when I used to feel so bad, I would have these fevers and these night chills and I’d just feel so bad. And I’m like, “What if I don’t wake up in the morning?”

I’m grateful that I have my family, but I also want to have some sort of quality of life. I don’t want to live a life where it hurts to laugh. There’s just so much I want to do.

MAYRA’S FAMILY:

[Singing] Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.

Mayra Ramirez never fully recovered from her third lung transplant.

She died in May 2022.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The White House says 1 million people have now died from COVID-19 here in the U.S.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The death toll is more than the number of American deaths from World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building.

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

We need backup!

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:

—that I will faithfully execute—

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS:

—the office of president of the United States.

JOE BIDEN:

—the office of president of the United States.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—that a federal grand jury has voted to indict the former president.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Second impeachment trial is set to start tomorrow.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Derek Chauvin, guilty of all three counts.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The state of Virginia—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—bringing down the symbols of a hateful past.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Gen. Robert E. Lee.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Roe v. Wade is overruled.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Thousands of people today turned out to take a stand for abortion rights.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The end of 472 days of COVID restrictions.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—warning, however, that the virus is here to stay.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Rising costs and recession fears—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Small businesses struggling to stay afloat.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza continue.

MALE NEWSREADER:

It’s another wedge in America’s political divide.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Donald Trump will be running for president again in 2024.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Shots have apparently been fired.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—failed assassination attempt at former President Donald Trump.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

President Biden takes himself out of the run for the White House.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Kamala Harris became the first woman of color to accept the presidential nomination.

CHAPTER FOUR

2024

BRYANT MOORE:

Has our America gotten better? You decide, because I know it hasn’t been better.

MALE CUSTOMER:

Portland was good to me, man. I paid my dues, and all that s—.

BRYANT MOORE:

Right.

MALE CUSTOMER:

I paid more taxes than Trump paid up here, man. [Laughter]

BRYANT MOORE:

So where does that tax really go to?

MALE CUSTOMER:

I guess the city—

BRYANT MOORE:

City? OK.

MALE CUSTOMER:

—and the city for to keep the roads repaired.

BRYANT MOORE:

Well, the roads ain’t been repaired around here. S—, so many potholes and stuff around here.

CUSTOMER:

Yup.

MARK CURTIS:

All right. You coat it everywhere?

I think it’s very likely that Hudson will end up in the military.

MARK’S WIFE:

I think he’s taller than you.

MARK CURTIS:

Because he’s wearing heels.

There’s a bit of inner turmoil with Hudson being in the JROTC program as well as my distrust in the government.

MARK’S WIFE:

You’re so much shorter, Mark.

MARK CURTIS:

That’s awesome.

I want to continue encouraging, not discouraging. But there might be things that we don’t agree with.

AMY GARNER:

Must you?

AMY’S HUSBAND:

Must I what?

AMY GARNER:

Make it all obvious out in here? You folded flags just fine back in your office.

AMY’S HUSBAND:

I usually fold them in here.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump—

KAMALA HARRIS:

I accept your nomination to be president of the United States.

TAYO DANIEL:

Maybe some of you guys know me, some of you don’t. I’m Tayo Daniel, one of the founders of this organization, Smart North. And one of the reasons why really I’m passionate about—

How can you add value to your community? Once you figure that out, it doesn’t matter who’s in office, you’re always going to be successful, because you yourself are valuable and you’re adding value to your community.

She’s in the VR space right now doing her thing.

FEMALE STUDENT:

Yeah, I can’t see anything in the real world right now.

TAYO DANIEL:

One of my solutions was creating a nonprofit to help inner-city youth.

The 10K Foundation had its time and it ran its course and we went our separate ways. I was more forward on helping the youth. I believe Royce was more on political moves.

FEMALE VOCALIST:

[Singing] —and the home of the brave.

ROYCE WHITE:

Good morning. Good afternoon. It’s good to see everybody out here. It’s always good to see some Trump supporters. I’m one myself. Yeah, good.

We don’t like socialists. We don’t like communists. We don’t like Marxists. It’s an unacceptable and incompatible form of government and ideology. We got to protect our borders first. We can’t defend everybody else’s borders.

I’m running for United States Senate here in the state of Minnesota against Amy Klobuchar, and I’m the Republican Party nominee.

The mainstream media says, “Royce White represents a dangerous evolution and movement of the Republican Party nationally.” So a lot of people who just read those headlines would think, “Yeah, Royce has nothing important to say or nothing of value to say, even though we love Black men, we want to protect them, their lives matter, but this Black man doesn’t have anything important to say.”

The Second Amendment?

MALE RALLY ATTENDEE 1:

Yes.

ROYCE WHITE:

I’m an absolutist.

MALE RALLY ATTENDEE 1:

Absolutist?

ROYCE WHITE:

Yep. No Second Amendment laws. AR-15s, you should have them.

MALE RALLY ATTENDEE 2:

Nice to meet you. You got my vote.

ROYCE WHITE:

Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you.

TAYO DANIEL:

I was, uh—I was not surprised, you know, that he would decide to pursue office. I was kind of shocked that he went so hard on the Republican side because, you know, a lot of the Republicans are against whatever we were protesting about.

MALE RALLY ATTENDEE 3:

These are patriots here, man.

ROYCE WHITE:

I love it. I love it.

MALE RALLY ATTENDEE 3:

Drinking beer, rock and roll music, and cooking food.

ROYCE WHITE:

I love it. I love it.

MALE RALLY ATTENDEE 3:

That’s America right here, man.

ROYCE WHITE:

That’s right.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

For the Kamala Harris campaign, I got involved right away.

Are you planning on voting for Kamala Harris and Colin Allred all the way down the ticket?

FEMALE VOTER 1:

Yes. Yes, I am.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

All right, perfect.

Can we count on you to vote for Democrats all the way down the ticket?

FEMALE VOTER 2:

Yes, you can count on me for that. Yes. [Laughs]

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

Amazing. Amazing.

We have the opportunity to elect a progressive Black woman as the first female president of the United States. It’s a dream come true for me.

You can see right across here, all the Trump signs.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In what is going to be the biggest political phoenix from the ashes story.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Former President Donald Trump has won the 2024 election.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

This is a huge historic moment.

KAMALA HARRIS:

We will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Republicans will pull off a political trifecta.

MALE NEWSREADER:

And now we prepare for the second coming, if you will, of a Trump administration.

DONALD TRUMP:

America has a chance to seize this opportunity like never before.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Trump administration’s beginning mass layoffs of federal workers.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

A record number of executive orders.

MALE NEWSREADER:

He’s raising tariffs on some Canadian goods by another 10%.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The administration wants up to $175 billion to arrest, detain and remove more people.

CHAPTER FIVE

AFTERMATH

LEANDER, TX

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

This is a grapefruit tree, lemon tree and lime tree. These are both for fun and for our health post-apocalypse. There is really a thing called scurvy. It really does happen to people. So having citrus is super important to that.

I’m still the same person who always wanted to be there and help, but I’m much more cynical about my ability to do those things.

There was a time where I was very hopeful that we could continue a path towards justice for everybody. That part of me is pretty beaten down.

BEAVERDAM, VA

MARK CURTIS:

No muddy boots. What’d you see?

MARK’S SON:

I shot it, but I didn’t get it.

MARK CURTIS:

Really, you shot at it? Good. I mean, is your gun open? Open chamber?

MARK’S SON:

Yeah.

MARK CURTIS:

All right.

You don’t have your finger on that trigger, do you?

MARK’S SON:

No.

MARK CURTIS:

Ada, how did school go?

ADA, Mark’s daughter:

Good. Pops took us to school.

MARK CURTIS:

[Laughs] What was that face for?

ADA:

Dad, you know how he is. He’s a liberal and he knows that we’re Republicans.

MARK CURTIS:

Not Republicans. We’re—we are just conservative-minded.

As far as my liking for Trump since he’s been elected for the second term, I’d say for the first six months, eight months, he really came in, stayed focused on policy, with DOGE coming in, trying to actually clean up government waste. I’m like, this is actually really cool.

ELON MUSK:

Chainsaw for bureaucracy!

MALE NEWSREADER:

Barreling into vast swaths of the federal government and promising to divide and conquer what he sees as “the deep state.”

MARK CURTIS:

To have an actual efficient government is the goal.

OAKLAND, CA

JASON TOLENTINO:

All right, everybody. Take card or cash? Cash?

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Have a good night.

JASON TOLENTINO:

Yeah, you too. All right.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

OK. Jason, you want to get your nails done? Yeah?

JASON TOLENTINO:

All right.

Our supplies got expensive. But what we did was we bought extra supplies before we knew the tariffs were going to go up. I mean, everything went up 20, 30, 40%. The suppliers were just like, well, we don’t care how much the actual tariffs is. It just went up.

Yeah, we’re just trying not to raise any prices.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

Because our client usually are, most of them are senior, so they on their retirement. The bigger nail shop, they say that their customer is stop spending money on like stuff like this.

JASON TOLENTINO:

Short-term, it’s not a good move, because everything just goes up overnight. Long-term, it’s supposed to help with American manufacturing. It’s supposed to improve local economies. But what we don’t know if—will it actually work?

ST. JOSEPH, MO

AMY GARNER:

Are you going towards the trunk, like we talked about? OK. OK.

OK, you put it on so we can see how far we need it to reach.

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Wait, why is there pine cones?

AMY GARNER:

Do not fall.

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Because it’s a tree.

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Julia, it’s on wave.

AMY GARNER:

And then does it just cycle through the colors?

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Yeah.

AMY GARNER:

Oh, my goodness. How are we doing with rationing the frosting? Do we have enough?

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Yeah.

AMY GARNER:

OK.

Around this time last year, I started the process of leaving my husband. And that involved moving a couple of times. I had no clue what our long-term situation was going to be. And then a very kind family rented really cheap to us month to month until we ended up here at a home.

Oh, OK. He’s here!

Do you have everything you need?

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Yeah, I think.

AMY GARNER:

I love you. And I’ll see you Sunday.

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

See you.

AMY GARNER:

I got married one day after I turned 19. And so I was married more of my life than not married. I basically went from obeying my parents to obeying or submitting to a husband. People hate those words now, they’re like trigger words, but, you know, just being the wife that I thought I was supposed to be. And I did not get to experience what life is like as an independent adult.

NORTH CHESTERFIELD, VA

CARRAN LEWIS:

Everything seems to be falling apart. I’ve been battling the house issue for a few years.

All of this what you’re seeing now is mold, so all of that has to be replaced. This is a result of a leaky roof. Water got in the attic, and once it dried, this is where it came out at, at the other end. And now the consequences are very, very, very expensive. [Sighs]

My parents always stressed independence is home ownership. My mother, she said, “I don’t care if it’s a box with one bedroom.” She said, “It’s something that’s yours.”

I’m slowly getting on top of it, but it’s definitely not easy.

You get down and out and you feel like the walls are closing in on you. It’s a quick thought, and you just shake it off and keep it moving.

It’s rough out here. It breaks my heart that people that genuinely need the help, they can’t even get the help.

PORTLAND, OR

BRYANT MOORE:

What high school do you go to?

MALE CUSTOMER:

I dropped out of high school.

BRYANT MOORE:

You mind me asking why?

MALE CUSTOMER:

Drugs and alcohol.

BRYANT MOORE:

You said drugs and alcohol?

MALE CUSTOMER:

Yeah.

BRYANT MOORE:

My son’s on—I don’t—he’s, I guess meth.

I hadn’t heard from him in a couple weeks.

Last time I seen him I was right here. Gave him some food.

Lytrell! Lytrell!

MALE PASSERBY 1:

I told you I didn’t want to talk with you.

MALE PASSERBY 2:

You’re trying to shove that in my—

MALE PASSERBY 1:

Because he’s telling—

MALE PASSERBY 2:

I don’t have to say anything to you!

BRYANT MOORE:

Not going to get into that.

You know Lytrell? I’m looking for my son.

And I’m not going to give up. But it is awfully hard to know that my kid is down here.

You know Lytrell? Huh? He ain’t been around here? I’m his dad.

MAN ON STREET:

If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.

BRYANT MOORE:

OK. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

This is what my grandkids have to look forward to? Groceries are skyrocketing. Healthcare is out the roof.

You got to be supportive! You got to be supportive! Yes! Yes! I support you!

Everybody deserves a good life, you know?

MINNEAPOLIS, MN

TAYO DANIEL:

My community center has taken a big hit. There’s youth that has reached out to me and said, “I’m scared to come there,” because some of their parents may have a problem with immigration statuses. It’s just been a lot of divisiveness, and I think that type of trauma just makes a whole community unsure and feel unsafe.

STEVE BANNON:

What about mass deportations? Are they—Is anybody considering mass deportation? And do you believe that has to happen in Minneapolis?

ROYCE WHITE:

One thousand percent, with no equivocations. Now, I shouldn’t even be able to say that because I’m running for U.S. Senate.

MALE NEWSREADER:

This is Royce White’s second time running for U.S. Senate.

MALE NEWSREADER:

White was the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in 2024 as well, losing that election to Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

ROYCE WHITE:

I’m going to run until I die. Because it would be dishonest if I didn’t give the American people this message and this option when they go to cast their ballot.

REPUBLICAN TOWN HALL

MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER:

You gave an interview with Steve Bannon and you said Somalis must be—you’re in support of mass deportation of Somalis.

ROYCE WHITE:

Yeah, I think the deportations must begin. What the MAGA movement is saying is we don’t trust the process by which Somalians have immigrated to this country. We don’t trust the paperwork. We don’t trust the legitimacy of the process because we can’t even trust our own elections.

MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER:

But that’s all allegations, though!

ROYCE WHITE:

You’re triggered. No, you’re triggered because when you hear the word “Somalian,” it does something to you personally. And I get that, and all of us will have those things that we feel personal about, but it doesn’t change the facts: If you’re here illegally, you’re going the f— back. Bottom line. That’s it.

[Laughs] That was classic. Holy cow.

JANUARY 2026

TAYO DANIEL:

My stepmother called me, and I’m on the phone and she’s like, “Tayo.” She’s Nigerian, so she has this accent, you know. “Tayo, be careful, be careful.” I’m like, “What’s going on?” She’s like, “They just killed somebody. They just killed a woman. They just killed a woman.” I’m like, “Who?” She’s like, “ICE.”

VIDEO OF RENEE GOOD SHOOTING:

No! No! F—! F—! Oh my f—— God. What the f—? What the f—? You just f——. What the f— did you do?

TAYO DANIEL:

Minneapolis is about to go crazy. Here we go again.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Say her name! Renee Goode! Say her name! Renee Goode!

MALE NEWSREADER:

There are currently about 2,000 ICE agents in the Minneapolis area.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Get ICE off our streets.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The Trump administration says it’s sending an additional 100 to the region this weekend.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Get the f— out.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Shame. Shame. Shame.

MALE ICE AGENT:

Get the f— out of here!

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Whose street? Our street! Whose street? Our street! Whose street? Our street! Whose street? Our street!

TAYO DANIEL:

My community center’s actually right around the corner from where Renee Goode was killed.

Probably should have brought some flowers. Next time I’ll bring some.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Renee Goode! Renee Goode. Renee Goode! Renee Goode. What’s her name? Renee Good!

TAYO DANIEL:

My dad came from the slums, man. He was born in Nigeria. He came over here for the same reason everybody else is trying to come over here, for opportunity and a better life for his future children.

I was born here in America. Otherwise, I might be in one of those trucks right now.

This is like a wake-up call because everybody thought, you know, it started to die down and the whole George Floyd situation. It’s sad, man.

WOMAN ON STREET:

It’s exhausting.

CARY GORDON:

All right, so your table leader has got specific questions that they’re going to ask. There’s actually a biblical principle, and we want to talk about that. And it’s called the natural law of jurisdiction.

ELLA GORDON, Cary Gordon’s daughter:

How is the idea of jurisdiction connected to the issue of legitimate authority? Think about in our world, legitimate authority that has been misused.

TEENAGER IN DISCUSSION:

When the government tried to shut down churches during COVID.

ELLA GORDON:

Exactly, Jana. They did not have the authority to do that, did they?

I don’t know a ton about politics. I don’t care that much. I mean, it’s important. It’s very important, but it’s not my forte. It’s my dad’s thing.

CARY GORDON:

Just a few days ago, the president of the United States ordered a combination of law enforcement and military to strike, in an act of war, the nation of Venezuela. Missiles were launched, rockets exploded. Between 80 and 100 people died. And then our soldiers, in combination with law enforcement, apparently went in and they captured the president and his wife. And you have to think about that. You have to know how to tell when someone is using authority in a righteous and legitimate way, but when someone misuses authority, and some authority is going outside their jurisdiction, and when they step outside their jurisdictions, you have to say, “OK, hold on a minute. All due respect, I’m not going to be doing that.”

This brings us to the concept of a big fancy word called imperialism. You stop respecting the boundaries and jurisdictions of all other nations, and you start forcing the world to comply with your national will. And it’s wrong. And when you flip the table, and have that happen to your city, in your nation, you say, “Hey, this is America. You don’t have a right to—” We would call that a what? An act of war.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The United States has unleashed Operation Epic Fury on several targets in Iran.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Tonight, Israeli and American missile strikes lighting up the skies over Iran for a ninth straight day.

MARK CURTIS:

When you go into the Air Force, obviously you want to go in and fly.

HUDSON CURTIS, Mark’s son:

Yeah.

MARK CURTIS:

Everybody that’s going into the Air Force wants to fly. Have you given it any thought to what your backup thing would be?

HUDSON CURTIS:

Mmm, not necessarily. I mean, flying is really fun to do. It’s something peaceful, especially on the simulator, it’s very peaceful to do, and you get to go out—

MARK CURTIS:

Hmm. Will it be that peaceful if you’re being shot at while you’re flying?

HUDSON CURTIS:

It’s just more adrenaline.

MARK CURTIS:

[Laughs] So now you’re just an adrenaline junkie.

HUDSON CURTIS:

Mm-hmm.

MARK CURTIS:

My wife and I have talked about this. We’ve talked about it with him. We don’t like the idea of him going to fight a war as a political pawn, for what gain?

Let’s just say you get sent to war tomorrow, in Iran, and you’re tasked with something that maybe you don’t necessarily agree with. There’s been stories about bombs being dropped on schools. Known civilian targets that are wiping out masses of kids. And I don’t care on what side, I’m just saying in general.

HUDSON CURTIS:

Yeah, I’ve never really thought about that. Yeah.

For me, going into military, it’s more about the experience and what I can get from it. I want to know that I can be there for my parents and my family.

Now, most of the times, all the guys that I see, they’re scrawny, honestly. They look like they couldn’t put up a fight, and I feel like if you’re going to be a man of a house one day, that is not how you should be. Being masculine is taking your own path and following in what you believe is right and what you want to do. Yes.

MARK CURTIS:

I love seeing him proud. My boy looks good all dressed up in a uniform, you know? He’s confident. I mean, he’s—I’m proud of him. I’m very proud. And I’m not going to tell him he can’t do something, but I also want him to be fully informed.

MEXICO CITY

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

We’re going to get dropped off at 9:18. Is that going to give you enough—?

CHRISTINE’S HUSBAND:

That’s fine. That’s fine.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

OK, I’m going to message the guy that we’re meeting. Edmundo? Hi. Christine. OK.

Right now, my husband and I are pursuing residency in Mexico.

OK, bye. Good luck.

We need a place to go if things just don’t go the way we want them to go. We are constantly looking and reassessing and watching and want to be ready should that time come.

Yay! Where’s your card?

CHRISTINE’S HUSBAND:

It’s in my pocket.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

OK. Awesome. So excited.

AMY KELLY:

Dear Heavenly Father, please be with the kids while they are away, that they will be protected and have a good time and feel thy love and guidance.

I have totally new compassion and understanding for the people I’ve spoke with that say they stop going to church because they’ve lost trust in institutions. I sought help from religious leaders in regards to struggles in my marriage. And there was a lot of pain and bitterness involved when I was processing, um—sorry. Just looking back at how much I was suffering and hurting. And it was minimized and not fully understood. So when we talk about faith, I don’t think about religion. Religion has failed me.

Are you excited? You know where we’re going?

My former spouse, he hated dogs, so I love having a dog in the house. [Laughs] I wanted one ever since I was a kid.

I’m going to school. I now have a degree in mind that I want to get having to do with family services, to help families that are going through tough times.

OK, do you want me to throw it? Go get it!

I’m now Amy Kelly and officially divorced. Mom of six kids. Loving life. [Laughs]

ELLA GORDON:

Good morning.

FEMALE CHURCH EMPLOYEE:

How are you?

ELLA GORDON:

I’m good.

My dad hired me to oversee our educational operations at our church.

CARY GORDON:

Class begins on Friday, Nov. 6, and then I’m going to hit OK.

ELLA GORDON:

I love sitting with my dad and getting to learn from him. He’s so wise in so many areas.

I don’t have a lot of experience with this, but what needs to be done needs to be done.

I had wanted to be a doctor when I graduated. At the end of the day, I would rather be in the will of God than be selfish and do what I would prefer. ’Cause I would really be miserable if I was just only doing what I wanted. So—

CARY GORDON:

Ella exhibits leadership and courage and confidence. I think she would make a wonderful pastor’s wife, and I think that probably that’s going to be her role.

ELLA GORDON:

[Singing] Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found. I was blind, but now I see.

I’m supposed to serve my dad, and I think I’m supposed to marry a pastor, and that is an honorable role. I don’t see that as lesser in any way.

BRYANT MOORE:

Look at this.

My granddaughter, Coriel, I want to be able to spend time with her and do ice cream.

CORIEL, Brant’s granddaughter:

OK. I go run. I go get—

BRYANT MOORE:

OK. Go put on some socks and some sneakers.

It’s just hard, man. I never thought that life would be hard, but it really is. And the people that think it’s not, they got given some stuff. They got a head start. I got a second job [laughs] just to be able to be in position to help.

I’m praying for a break.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Yeah, there it is.

MARK CURTIS:

But at least it didn’t get down—go back to this photo. It doesn’t look like it—like all that black mold on the ceiling? It doesn’t look like it came down into the walls.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Yeah.

MARK CURTIS:

Look at all the mold and the insulation.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I saw a gentleman named Mark on the film.

MARK CURTIS:

My name is Mark Curtis. I own a construction company.

CARRAN LEWIS:

And then I’ve discovered that he was from the outskirts of Richmond.

MARK CURTIS:

Oh, yeah. Look at this all washed out over here.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That washed out before.

MARK CURTIS:

Oh, good grief.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Huh?

MARK CURTIS:

That’s bad.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Yeah.

MARK CURTIS:

You want to have stairs rebuilt in this thing?

CARRAN LEWIS:

What you think?

MARK CURTIS:

I mean, it’d probably be nice if you’re trying to come down in the yard from up there.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I say yes, then. I saw you in the interview.

MARK CURTIS:

Which one?

CARRAN LEWIS:

I don’t know what one I saw, but we don’t agree on a lot of things. [Laughs]

MARK CURTIS:

It don’t matter.

CARRAN LEWIS:

But at the end of the day—

MARK CURTIS:

It’s human nature.

CARRAN LEWIS:

At the end of the day, life is life.

I just personally have this mindset that anybody really wants Trump, wants America white again. I said, but trust me, it ain’t going to never be white again.

MARK CURTIS:

Yeah. See, I don’t—and I don’t see that, and I don’t think that that’s the case. I choose—

CARRAN LEWIS:

It’s an undertone message sent to the white folks, saying—

MARK CURTIS:

You think so?

CARRAN LEWIS:

I clearly do. “Make America great again” is clearly that.

I clearly, strongly believe, and I didn’t budge from it, that “make America great again,” it’s make it white again. We didn’t agree.

My father served this country and the best job he could get was a janitor. It was that era where Black people just couldn’t—you know, we weren’t on the spectrum to be much more than what they wanted us to be.

MARK CURTIS:

I think that still happens today. I think so many—

CARRAN LEWIS:

Oh, hell, yeah, it happens.

MARK CURTIS:

No, no, I’m just talking about our service members, our service members. I don’t care, white, Black, indifferent, whatever. I think so many people—

CARRAN LEWIS:

We agreed that race relations is a problem, and it’s been existing for a long time. At least I agree to that, that it was.

MARK CURTIS:

Well, it was supposed to be about controlling our border, getting fuel prices lowered, getting our interest rates down. That’s how he advertised it.

CARRAN LEWIS:

That’s how he fed us.

MARK CURTIS:

Yes. That’s how he advertised it. Well, where has that gone now? How much does it cost you to fill up your car now?

CARRAN LEWIS:

S—.

MARK CURTIS:

I drive—

CARRAN LEWIS:

$60, $70, it depends.

MARK CURTIS:

It took me over an hour to drive here this morning. Talk about the fuel I’m using up every day.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Yeah. Yeah.

MARK CURTIS:

All right, Miss Lewis, I’m going. I’m off to my next appointment. I’ll see you.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Bye.

MARK CURTIS:

Bye.

I would say, I am surprised at how devoted she is, I guess you could say, to the racial divide. Perhaps she has a very different perspective of that, just based on her experience, and people who do have differing opinions should be able to talk and listen, not just talk. So I thought it was a good meeting.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

One hundred days until the midterm elections.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—redistricting could bolster Republicans.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Democrats are pursuing five extra seats.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Rising support for democratic socialism.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Americans no longer trust the very industries and institutions that keep the country afloat.

CHAPTER SIX

MIDTERMS

AMY KELLY:

I’m weighing out Republican, Democrat and Libertarian because those are the three options for the primaries and going to select them according to which individual I feel is best, not the label.

Almost couldn’t find it today. [Laughs]

Our founding fathers built this country on independence, and they didn’t just want independence as far as they agreed. They wanted everybody to have their own beliefs, opinions and thoughts.

Freedom means being able to think, act, speak, wish, dream, breathe, anything as you want, uninhibited.

Thank you.

JASON TOLENTINO:

Uh-oh. I think you caught the whole—Oh, they’re all coming for us now.

I haven’t really paid attention to the midterms really because we have a lot of stuff going on.

Mmm. Thanks, Evie. Mmm.

Evie, come here.

But hopefully there’s some sort of change that you can actually see. Just a little bit of help here and there would help the middle class, really.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

First in the beginning, all the parents first come here, they having a hard life. But then when the kid grow up, and their life, it’s going to get easier. I want to give birth to a child that have an easy life because I work hard.

Over the time, everything will be better.

MARK CURTIS:

I don’t want government handouts for anything. I want to know who is truly going to look out for the best interest of—of not just my family, but it should be all families. How can I best take care of my family?

TAYO DANIEL:

M-I-T-A-Y-O.

All right, let’s do it. We’re going to trade. I’ve got some hot commodity for you.

All right, here we go. [Laughs] Thank you guys.

I watched my family work very hard, not only for their citizenship, but to acclimate in this country. And I want people to represent that. I want the people who understand that and who support that to be the ones that are in office.

I did not vote for Royce White this time around. I wish him the best of luck and I wish him nothing but success, but I definitely disagree with many of his views.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The Republican Party of Minnesota calling on U.S. Senate candidate Royce White, one of their own, to suspend his campaign.

MALE NEWSREADER:

A Minnesota judge ruled there were credible evidence of threats of harm toward his ex-wife and his son.

MALE NEWSREADER:

White has since gone on the offensive today, sounding off in several social media posts denying the accusations.

ROYCE WHITE:

No, I mean, it’s a farce. Asking me to step down from the campaign has nothing to do with the case. It’s something they wanted anyway, which is that they’re irrelevant anyway. Minnesota Republican Party’s irrelevant.

Royce White ended up losing the primary with 11% of the vote.

DR. CHRISTINE MANN:

The biggest thing that’s coming up that has my attention is the midterm elections. It’s going to tell us a lot about what the next steps are and what the direction is going to be.

[Speaking Spanish] Good morning!

[Speaking English] I’m still in the “wait and see” phase in terms of whether or not I want to leave the United States permanently. It’s slower here. I just have to make that conscious choice to turn the TV off, put my phone down and breathe.

TAYO DANIEL:

It might be my PTSD speaking a little bit, but, you know, it’s almost inevitable in these times not to have some form of hurt and pain and struggle that people go through, regardless of your socioeconomic status.

I think I figured it out. I’m going to paint the lips with some of the smile open, so it’s going to be a smile like this and these white words will be like the teeth. [Laughs]

One day I’m going to make a piece that somebody else will feel those feelings, and it’ll do something for them and it can live far beyond me. You’ve seen artwork throughout history used for all different type of activism, freedom of expression. It’s the pulse of the community. Just like a human body can have emotions.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot!

TAYO DANIEL:

I feel that a body of people can have emotions. I feel like people forget how to be neighbors by somebody who may not have the same background as you, and people are forgetting how to love somebody that may not love you. I think sometimes we look too much on a larger level, and we forget about the little things.

AMERICAN VOICES 2024

Oct. 29, 2024 MALE VOICE 1:

How can I love America? I can’t. I don’t think I can love America. I can’t put that into words.

MALE VOICE 2:

We don’t know when it’s going to pass.

MALE VOICE 3:

I feel a revolution coming. It’s getting closer every day.

FEMALE VOICE 1:

I have learnt to love being alone.

NARRATOR:

These are the voices of Americans—

MALE VOICE 4:

People are getting angrier and angrier.

MALE VOICE 5:

I want to be in charge of my own life!

NARRATOR:

—gathered from across a divided nation.

MALE VOICE 3:

We’re just going too far in opposite directions.

NARRATOR:

In this film, Americans reflect on the past four tumultuous years.

MALE FILM CREW MEMBER:

Can I get a clap, please.

MALE VOICE 1:

This ain’t the American dream I thought about when I was in middle school.

FEMALE VOICE 2:

I wish there wasn’t as much hate in this world as what we have.

FEMALE VOICE 3:

I absolutely doubted the integrity of the final count.

MALE VOICE 5:

I don’t have enough faith in any of them.

NARRATOR:

A pastor, a barber, a pair of activists, a mother, a retiree, the owners of a nail salon and of a construction company and a flower shop. A doctor and patient. Their stories begin in March 2020, as COVID was spreading and the country was shutting down.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The CDC says there are now more than 4,200 cases of coronavirus.

Chapter One

Lockdown 2020

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds has recommended schools—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Mass gatherings are restricted to less than 10 people. Senior citizen centers and adult daycare—

Sioux City, IA

PASTOR CARY K. GORDON:

“Whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. All the people, the nations, and the languages fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.”

My name is Cary Gordon. I am the senior pastor of Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, Iowa.

How do I water baptize someone in a virtual service? How do I bury the dead? How do I have a wedding? How are people supposed to have me lay my hands upon them and anoint them with oil and pray over them to be healed in the midst of a pandemic when I’m told that I can’t have physical contact?

Last Sunday morning I drove past Menards. Menards is a lumberyard. Hundreds of cars. And only a quarter-mile away, my church, in contrast, I know is empty because they’ve said, “The church is not essential.” The church is not essential. In a time of crisis, with imminent death and a pandemic, the church is not essential, but Menards can stay open. Someone might need to buy a screwdriver. It’s offensive.

Portland, OR

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

New numbers show the damage the coronavirus has inflicted upon Oregon’s economy: 166,000 Oregonians are without a job.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Unemployment is at a record high in Oregon.

BRYANT MOORE:

People are spooked because of COVID. They’re scared to death of this thing, and nobody wants to die going out the house getting a haircut.

My name is Bryant Moore. I’m a barber from Portland, Oregon.

The bills keep stacking up, with no money coming in. Scared to look at the bills from our business because I can’t pay.

So I’ll survive by just doing what I have to do to make it. If I would go to a senior’s house or go to a bus stop, I couldn’t do anything else. I had to make do.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

So I’m having a get-together at my house. So I escaped, came here. I got to get my hair done, he got to get his money. Going to go back looking fly.

BRYANT MOORE:

My business is one of those things where it makes you feel good, which we really all need to be feeling good right now. It’s just a common human thing to do; it’s human to make people feel good.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Oh, yeah. Go for a queen, that part.

MALE CUSTOMER:

I’m hopeful. This may be the right thing to stop all this fighting among each other. Democrat, Republican, independent, Black, white, yellow, whatever. So this might be the right thing. Because what I’ve been seeing is folks been sticking together. It doesn’t matter what color they are. I mean, seeing it in person.

BRYANT MOORE:

[Sings] Back and forth, and in and out, and back and forth again. For we are strong people and we will come out of this and be on top again, I do believe.

Cool, CA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The coronavirus pandemic is putting an end to the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We are going into a global recession.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Entire parts of the U.S. economy are at a complete standstill.

ROSIE BORBA:

People are afraid to go out. People are afraid even to call and have something delivered. It’s just a total different—

ROD BORBA:

Half the businesses are broke or they’re out of business.

ROSIE BORBA:

When I started my flower shop, I started with two used cooler boxes and a piece of plyboard across the top of the boxes in our yard. That’s how I started.

Do you need a receipt?

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Um, sure.

ROSIE BORBA:

Thank you so much! Keep me posted on that wedding.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

I will for sure.

ROSIE BORBA:

All right. Bye-bye!

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Bye!

ROSIE BORBA:

I’ve been here in this one probably 24 years in this one spot. So I’m kind of a staple here.

But it’s kind of sad to only see this many orders on my board, because normally should be about 50 to 60 orders on my board for Easter. And I have one, two, three, four, five, six. So I better do a pray dance tonight. [Laughs] Oh, I don’t know. It is what it is. It is what it is.

OK, it’s done.

ROD BORBA:

Which one’s this?

ROSIE BORBA:

This is your last one to Auburn.

ROD BORBA:

Where’s Sharon’s?

ROSIE BORBA:

I haven’t done it yet, but it’s too early to take hers.

ROD BORBA:

Oh, I thought you said I was going to take it now.

ROSIE BORBA:

No.

ROD BORBA:

I didn’t see you had this one done.

ROSIE BORBA:

My husband does my deliveries, as much as he can do. We’re just a two-man team, just trying to survive.

ROD BORBA:

We got married when we were 18. We dated in high school. From the first time we met we were each other’s best friends, because everybody knows Rosie. She’s a pretty special woman.

I personally have a problem with the mask at times. Because of my congestive heart failure there’s times I’m fighting for air.

Hello! Delivery for Pat.

But you don’t want to wear a mask because it’s not going to save you. Well, no, it’s not going to save you, but you might save somebody else’s life.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Gov. Ralph Northam and his COVID-19 response—

Richmond, VA

MALE NEWSREADER:

—see another spike in cases.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—appeal the state’s stay-at-home order.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Social distancing guidelines are going to be with us for months to come.

CARRAN LEWIS:

My immune system is weakened, so I have learnt to love being alone. I have learnt to be pretty darn comfortable.

Oh, Lord, technology. Just not my thing.

My name is Carran Lewis. I live in North Chesterfield, Virginia.

Yeah, good morning, Second Baptist. Praise the Lord, everybody.

I drive close to an hour from my home to church. I got a heavy foot, but if I followed the law, it would be clearly an hour drive.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

Welcome to the Second Baptist Church of South Richmond, a caring and sharing church bringing you the word of God.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I have enjoyed the comfort of waking up and listening to it online.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

We’re now going to have a virtual universal message—

CARRAN LEWIS:

I miss the environment of the building, but that is what it is, a building. Because the people, we are the church. The physical human beings are the church.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

What’s going on in the White House, or the state house, or the mayor’s house oftentimes is not based on what’s good—

CARRAN LEWIS:

I’ve still helped people, even in this virus. I’ve picked up groceries for a couple of friends, older people that could not go out, didn’t have the means to go out. They know my number.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

Our seniors, amen, because of COVID-19 should not be out and about like some of us are—

CARRAN LEWIS:

That’s right.

That’s part of what God wants you to do. Just help people.

[Sings] For all you’ve done for me—

This is the part that’s scary. I think some people are getting too comfortable being at home watching the service. [Laughs]

[Sings] They all belong to you. Thank you, Jesus, for blessing me.

American Fork, UT

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Trump appears to be stoking unrest in states around the U.S. where—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—long-term damage from a shuttered economy—

April 2020

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—public signs urging leaders to reopen Utah.

AMY GARNER:

You can’t do one-size-fits-all. You can’t shut everybody in. You can’t make healthy people wear masks.

Oh, that’s looking nice. You look so happy about it.

I am Amy Garner and I am a mom of six kids.

OK, where did you want to go?

We say “economy,” sometimes we just think of finances as a whole of society. But instead I see my brother. His business was going down. That triggered the stress, which triggered his health issues, which triggered his mental health issues, and he was gone in 60 days. Three years ago he took his life.

That’s my brother Brian. Yeah.

I wanted to save other families from going through what we went through. Sorry. So that’s why I became so passionate about not shutting things down. Letting people choose.

MALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN SPEAKER 1:

Are we sheep or are we people?

CROWD:

People!

MALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN PROTESTER:

Let’s go to work!

AMY GARNER:

That doesn’t mean that we don’t believe there are people at extra risk or that we don’t love them or accept their concerns.

Mine says, “My—our definition—” oh, “Your definition of essential is not the same as mine.” So they really are missing out on the hard-working people who can’t earn money for their families. I think the rate of suicide is going to go way higher. You take away people’s connections, their hobbies, their friends, their worship, their work, and everyone’s going to be depressed. [Laughs] And I am so blessed to have a family of children and a husband. But what about the people who don’t? It’s heartbreaking.

MALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN SPEAKER 2:

Small business is the lifeblood of this country and we cannot kill it any longer. We are open for business today!

FEMALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN SPEAKER:

This is my first rally, so I’m really happy to be here with all of you guys, all of you patriots, all of you activists!

AMY GARNER:

I really hope people will let go of what we’re stuck in, what we’re stressed out about right now, and take into consideration the long-term impact of what’s going on.

CROWD [singing]:

God bless America, my home sweet home. [Cheering]

MALE NEWSREADER:

Mr. Trump is now insisting the states have to step up their testing.

Cedar Park, TX

MALE NEWSREADER:

Fewer than 1% of all Texans have been tested.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Testing will be a big factor in making sure Texans are healthy enough to fully reopen the economy.

CHRISTINE MANN, M.D.:

Clearly we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and we’re suffering much worse than we would have had we had a competent, science-based head of state.

My name is Dr. Christine Eady Mann. I am a family practice doctor in Cedar Park.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we were left without any guidance. Individual clinics like mine, doctors like me, weren’t really given any information about how to manage the pandemic, and so we kind of all had to make it up on the fly. We didn’t know the processes that we needed to use to be able to manage patients as they came in.

It takes between one and three days to get a result. Sorry.

I’m one of the COVID-19 testers at my workplace.

This is a deep nasal swab, it’s very uncomfortable. Pull your mask down. I think you had this before, so you know what’s coming.

We didn’t have equipment, we didn’t have test kits, and it was very stressful. It was just a mess for months and months and months.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—the number of death in the United States has now reached a stunning 50,000.

Chicago, IL

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—had at least one underlying health issue—

MALE NEWSREADER:

A new effort to keep Chicagoans safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

In early April is when I started feeling lightheaded, dizzy. I was coughing. I lost my sense of taste and smell. Because I have an underlying condition, I thought my symptoms were related to that.

You’re wearing your mask wrong. You have to cover your nose.

My name is Mayra Ramirez. I’m 28 years old.

One day I woke up, I was so weak I just fell over. Everything was dark. And I remember calling out for my boyfriend, I was like, “George, George,” and he would run and help me and I was like, “OK, I really need to go to the emergency room.”

So they immediately put me in a room. Didn’t even ask me my name or anything.

I remember a doctor came in and told me, “We’re pretty sure we’re going to have to intubate you. Do you have someone that can make medical decisions for you?” Then—It’s just kind of a blur what happened after I got intubated.

IVAN CASTANEDA, Mayra’s brother:

The day they told us that Mayra—it was her last day, we were all in the trampoline, just—My mom was crying. My sisters, all my aunts were there. They were crying. They didn’t know what to do. And we were just planning to go pick up a corpse. I was trying to avoid it.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I love you so much. Uh-oh. [Laughs]

Sioux City, IA

CARY K. GORDON:

Medical people are wonderful people, they’re heroes, but they’re not omniscient and they make mistakes and they contradict one another.

Everyone’s going to die at some point. As a Christian, we believe that we’re set free from the fear of death.

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 1:

Do you have any hand sanitizer?

MALE CHURCH USHER:

We do.

CARY K. GORDON:

We’re spiritual beings and we require fellowship.

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 1:

Oh, it’s a beautiful day!

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 2:

I know, it’s gorgeous!

CARY K. GORDON:

And if it’s OK to take a risk and go to stores, I think it’s OK to take a risk and go to church.

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 2:

Ninety- nine six.

FEMALE PARISHIONER:

Whew!

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 1:

Try to keep families together, OK?

CARY K. GORDON:

Welcome back into the church building! [Laughs] Woo-hoo! Praise the Lord. We’re going to teach you a new song this morning as we reenter the church. You can stand with us. [Sings] Oh, Christ be magnified! Just let his prayers arise. Christ be magnified in me, yeah. Hallelujah! I said hallelujah!

Chapter Two

Protest

Minneapolis, MN

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The attempted arrest was caught on camera, and the video of last night’s confrontation shows a white police officer with his knee pinning down the neck of the suspect.

May 2020

MALE NEWSREADER:

His name was George Floyd. He’s on video saying, “Please, please, I can’t breathe,” as a Minneapolis police officer holds his head for a minute—

TAYO DANIEL:

We’re just like, man, this is crazy. We’re already fighting a common terror, which is COVID. And now this now? People were just pissed off—like, this is just ridiculous. How can you kill this man?

CROWD [chanting]:

No justice, no peace, prosecute the police!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The outrage began with a video showing an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Many people have gathered in front of the Third Precinct—

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 1:

Sitting here in front of officers who are complicit in the murder of George Floyd.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Thousands packed the area.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—protesting the death of George Floyd.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

How many times have we watched police officers murder people?

TAYO DANIEL:

You’re numb to it after so many of them. It’s been happening for so long.

CROWD [chanting]:

Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up!

TAYO DANIEL:

Then it’s a little different. You’re like, wow, that just happened right here on 38th. The fact that it happened in my neighborhood was what really pulled me into it. People are getting angrier and angrier and angrier, and then, hold up. We have a whole bunch of police with helmets right in front of us.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Crowds of protesters facing off with officers in riot gear.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Make way, make way!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—protest turned violent last night.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Overnight protests left parts of downtown in ruins.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Multiple fires were set, windows smashed and stores looted.

TAYO DANIEL:

As far as the volunteering efforts go, so far you’re our go-to volunteer coordinator, right?

FEMALE SPEAKER:

Yes.

TAYO DANIEL:

So we really have to get her engaged with—

ROYCE WHITE:

Them.

TAYO DANIEL:

—them.

My name is Tayo Daniel. I’m from South Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-founder of 10K. We were listening to the news and the narrative that they’re spreading was like, “All these looters and rioters, people from Minneapolis just burning down their own city,” and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, “Man, I’m from here and I know everybody that lives here, and we’re not like that.” So a lot of guys from the neighborhood decided to get together and create the 10K Foundation. And we wanted to show that we could have a peaceful protest.

ROYCE WHITE:

10K is about mobilizing 10,000 people and the power in that, the sovereignty in being able to mobilize 10,000 people.

I’m Royce White. I grew up here in the Twin Cities. I was an athlete, was drafted to the NBA back in 2013 and had a huge fight with the NBA regarding mental health policy.

When all the protests broke out, my first thought was, “I’m headed down there.”

I’m not going to claim to have a crystal ball as to what’s going to happen. I really have no clue. I’m just going off of pure opinion. The four officers were arrested, and temporarily that’s enough justice until we wait and see what happens with the court process. I know people are still very unhappy. They’re not in the uproar that they were in, obviously, when the city was burning down or even a few days ago when we marched. Every day we get away from it, that energy is going to go down a bit. I think it’s spiking up in other places around the country. I want the goal of this march to be, “How can we re-grab some of that energy?”

July 4, 2020

TAYO DANIEL:

The reason why we’re here is because the history has been misconstrued. Because every 4th of July I used to go out and party, and I used to just really scream “independence,” not realizing that my ancestors with the same color skin as mine were not independent. They were in chains. They were being whipped. They were being tortured. People, the time is right now. Can everybody say that one time? On the count of three say, “The time is now.” 1, 2, 3—

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

Say it again!

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

Louder!

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

The time is right now!

ROYCE WHITE:

Look, we did our best to think through how the protest would put people at risk for COVID-19 transmission. But at the end of the day there’s no way that we could allow the state to tell us, “Hey, we’re going to kill Black men out on the streets. And also, stay in your house because we also—because of COVID-19.”

If you think about the historical context of Black men, Black people in this country in general, we have no reason to trust the state. In general, when we wake up in the morning, there’s no good reason for us to have any faith in the state. And maybe in times where there needs to be a trust, it falls through. Yeah, maybe Black people should have more trust in the state when it comes to COVID-19, but it’s a tough sell.

TAYO DANIEL:

The reason why we’re doing this silent march is because when you take a moment of silence, you’re taking a moment of silence for the dead. For the Eric Garners, for the Breonna Taylors, for the George Floyds.

ROYCE WHITE:

Hey, it is what it is. This is a war. This is a war. And so the only other option is to board up in your house and wait for the next George Floyd to be murdered. I mean, that’s just the reality.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Protesters have been on the streets of Richmond for several weeks now.

Richmond, VA

MALE NEWSREADER:

—one-time capital of the Confederacy is in the throes of change as statues commemorating Confederate leaders come down.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I am grateful to this generation of Black youth and white youth that are not rioting, they’re protesting, and they’re smart and they’re doing it right.

I’m going in from over here.

I decided one Sunday and said, “You know what? I’m stepping out on faith. I’m going down to see what it’s about.”

FEMALE PROTESTERS:

Black lives matter!

CARRAN LEWIS:

I kept seeing it on the news and I just did not believe the way media was portraying it, that it was that bad.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 1:

—you understand, you are a spirit being that lives in a body! Your body will die, but the soul and spirit is either going to heaven or it’s going to hell!

CARRAN LEWIS:

Understand, I’m 63. I’m deadly afraid of COVID, but it’s worth it to come out and show my support.

MALE PROTESTER:

Black lives matter. May all lives matter. I’mma stand for something.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I met some terrific people, had great conversations with people. The diversity is what makes me feel good about it.

The Black and the whites are coming out here, and long as they catch one dirty cop at a time, one dirty racist, dirty politician, dirty lawyer, I’m happy. One at a time. ‘Cause this is 400 years of this s—.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

We are out here because of systematic racism. We are out here to defund the police.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I grew up in rural Virginia. The closest town was Bowling Green. There were some whites that we talked with, but I didn’t play with any. It was no white kids up the street that I played with or anything. They didn’t do—We didn’t do that in my era.

That’s where I grew up as a child. Yes!

I’m at the monument right now as we speak. Having big fun, man.

Each experience I had out here has been different.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I come early and I leave before it gets too late.

One evening, I didn’t understand what was happening when I saw like 14 police cars coming up in front of the area. And I just begged them to allow me to go to my car and leave.

I just want to go home, please. I just want to go home. My car—How am I going to drive? I can’t get over here.

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

You can go wait in your car. We’ll be out of here in just a second.

CARRAN LEWIS:

But how can I—

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

We’ll be out of here in just a second. You can go wait in your car.

CARRAN LEWIS:

OK, OK.

And they were very kind. They even helped me get out, and I was gone.

Caucasian people, white people that I’ve known for years are very decent people on the surface. I don’t understand why they can’t see what we’re seeing. All I can do is just shake my head.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Another intense night here in the city of Richmond as protesters took to the streets.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

A peaceful protest in Virginia also turned violent on Saturday night. People in Richmond marched during an event called—

MARK CURTIS:

I don’t think our country could be any more divided than we are right now. The country is horribly divided right now. And more divided than we ever have been. And for what? For what gain?

My name is Mark Curtis. I’m a father of four young kids. I’m also a business owner. I own a construction company.

I’m a huge rights activist. I believe in our Constitution. I believe in the way our Constitution was intended to be read and not interpreted.

If anybody had told us this was going to end up happening, nobody would have believed it.

MALE SPEAKER:

No. Like I say, racism is out there. That’s what it is. I got more Black friends than I could ever imagine. I got one Black friend that I specifically tell people that that’s my brother. [Laughs] We talk about it all the time. It’s ridiculous, man.

MARK CURTIS:

The people that are doing all of this are just out just to wreck stuff.

MALE SPEAKER 1:

My same buddy that I call my brother, he said, “Man, it’s crazy because they say it’s a ‘Black Lives Matter’ thing, but yet they’re going in and destroying old Black people’s businesses that live in Richmond.” Do you know what I mean?

MARK CURTIS:

I don’t know how everything got so race-oriented all of a sudden here within the past year, honestly. That kind of blows my mind.

So as far as the platform or the cause that the Black Lives Matter rallies are for, I think raising awareness for police brutality, sure. If you want to focus on any aspect of it that could have a positive effect on the American people, you could bring up that one aspect of it. But it doesn’t just happen to Black folks. It happens to white folks. It happens to Asian folks. It happens across all walks of life, no matter what color you are, no matter what race you are.

MALE SPEAKER 2:

Are we jumping?

MARK CURTIS:

We all need to work together in a common cause to defend our freedoms, not to fight against each other and empower more regulation against us.

Cedar Park, TX

MALE NEWSREADER:

Two crises have converged: protests over the death of George Floyd and the pandemic. U.S. death toll now topping 104,000, the most in any country—

CHRISTINE MANN:

Right now we have a situation where Black Americans die out of proportion to any kind of parameter that you can think of.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

All lives do matter, but they won’t until Black lives matter first. Sometimes when you have a specific type of community that’s hurting, it is OK to focus on them for a little while until things get better, and then when they do get better, then all lives will matter.

CHRISTINE MANN:

When the George Floyd murder occurred, it was in the middle of this pandemic. And so for me, as a health care provider, I really felt that it was my responsibility to not expose myself to the potential for getting the disease and spreading on to my patients. But I was happy that so many people were coming out of their homes and out of their workplaces to be involved in those protests.

CROWD [chanting]:

Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

CHRISTINE MANN:

We were there in solidarity.

We have a very long history of systemic racism in this country that persists today. You have to look at the lives that are most at risk in our country, the ones that are being lost out of proportion to every other category of American.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Black lives matter!

CROWD:

Black lives matter!

Oakland, CA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—protest turned violent after demonstrators clashed with Oakland police officers—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

There was significant property damage to businesses in the downtown area of Oakland after these protests last night.

JASON TOLENTINO:

My understanding is it’s actually a good movement, in my opinion, but there’s just a bunch of other protesters, a small percentage of it, that are giving it a bad name.

My name is Jason Tolentino, and I own a nail salon.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

Well, actually, I’m the one who wanted to open a shop.

My name is Jaime. I’m from Vietnam.

JASON TOLENTINO:

No way! Really? It’s pretty much all closed.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

I told myself, before I’m 30 I will own something. So when I’m 28, just took all the money for our wedding just to go buy a shop and start a business.

JASON TOLENTINO:

We’ve been open for about three years, and so far, everything’s great. Besides this, of course.

The pandemic has taken a huge toll. We’re just trying to get by doing whatever we can to survive. Then now when we have this going on, which made it even worse.

It’s mainly just for insurance purposes, if it did get vandalized or looted.

It’s not fair for someone like me who’s trying to make this community better and next thing you know, someone just takes it away and ruins the whole business itself.

There is the racism in America. And at the moment, I think it’s just getting worse. African Americans, they just want to not be harassed by the law. There’s nothing wrong with protest. You can protest all you want, we live in America. But when you start vandalizing small businesses, that part is wrong.

Chicago, IL

MALE NEWSREADER:

Now amidst all this chaos and turmoil in the country right now, it could be easy to forget that we are still in a pandemic. But the threat of this virus—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

One of the first-known American COVID-19 survivors to receive a double lung transplant is now recovering. Twenty-eight-year-old Mayra Ramirez received the lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

When I first woke up from my lung transplant, I was a vegetable. I couldn’t move a finger, I couldn’t—I could barely wiggle my toes. I couldn’t talk. I was in a lot of pain, I was uncomfortable. I was really disoriented at the time. I felt like I had only been there for like three days or so; I didn’t realize that I was intubated, sedated for six weeks.

The TV would be on and they would talk about all these riots that were happening and George Floyd and protest. And I was like, “Can I just go back to being sedated? Can I wake up when this is over?” The world was so ugly. Literally cities are burning. I just couldn’t take it.

Cool, CA

MALE COMMENTATOR:

The radical Dems are pushing as many left-wing activists and anarchists as they can into the streets of America. I understand the president is on the phone now.

DONALD TRUMP [on phone]:

Well, maybe the point of great success. You know, we were at that point—

ROSIE BORBA:

My feelings with the Black Lives Matter is “all lives matter.” Not just Black, not pink, white or purple. It’s not just one race.

I think it’s wrong, basically, what the officer did. I think he should pay a price for what he did. But I look back in history. I had a great-great-grandfather that helped with the slaves. He helped run the Underground Railroad. He was ambushed by white people who felt the slaves should stay slaves. So when they sit there and say every white person is racist or bad, I’m not racist. I’m not bad. I’m a human being. I respect them, I expect to be respected back.

Portland, OR

MALE NEWSREADER:

George Floyd’s name is on a list now. A very long list. A centuries-old history—

MALE REPORTER:

People told me that these protests had become about more than George Floyd. That they’re about this long history of police brutality.

BRYANT MOORE:

All you have to do is look at history. If you flip the pages back from history, it speaks for itself.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

There is another vigil for George Floyd that is getting underway right now at Peninsula Park.

BRYANT MOORE:

I just keep seeing African American people get killed by cops all across the nation and nothing’s happening. You look at American history, and it’s ugly. People are hurt. People are tired of—We’re tired of being tired.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 1:

And where were the men that swore to protect this country against enemies—

BRYANT MOORE:

When I look at history, we protest. Nothing changed. We protest now. Nothing’s really changing. And that’s hurtful.

FEMALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

From day one, America has been based off of the subjugation of Black and indigenous people!

BRYANT MOORE:

Yes! Yes! Speak it, sister girl!

How can I love America? I can’t. I don’t think I can love America. America hasn’t loved me, that’s for damn sure.

CROWD:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

Power to the people!

CROWD:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

Black power!

CROWD:

Black power!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

Black power!

CROWD:

Black power!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

All power to the people!

BRYANT MOORE:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

All power to the people!

BRYANT MOORE:

All power to the people!

The fight is real. But it’s always been here. Now it’s to the surface in 2020. Now where do we go from here?

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

You need to get off your damn phones and recording s— and start getting active!

Chapter Three

Election 2020

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—how millions of people all across America are casting their votes on who they want to lead the country for the next—

MALE NEWSREADER:

It has been a campaign year unlike any other.

MALE NEWSREADER:

More than 90 million ballots have been cast, and that number—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Record-breaking early voting continues. Massive early vote total includes more than 7 million Californians who have already returned their mail-in ballots.

ROSIE BORBA:

I wish there wasn’t as much hate in this world as what we have. I don’t care if you’re a Dem. I don’t care if you’re Republican. I don’t care if you’re in the middle. There’s so much hate.

I hope President Trump wins. Vice President Biden, I feel, is—and I hate to say the age thing, because he’s probably my age, maybe? Or my years? I don’t know how old he is. I think he’s too old. I think he’s too feeble in his mind. I just wish it was over.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Illinois election officials reporting seeing early voting numbers they have not seen in prior elections.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Recovery is pretty slow and really hard. I have someone else’s lungs and it would be like a slap in the face if I didn’t try my hardest.

MALE POLL WORKER:

Are you here to vote?

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Mm-hmm.

MALE POLL WORKER:

OK, so you’re going to go through the revolving doors.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I avoid going anywhere, so I requested the mail-in ballot, but it never arrived.

Hi.

MALE POLL WORKER 2:

Hello.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I’m Mayra Ramirez.

I saw one person who didn’t have their mask on properly, and that upset me a little bit. My number one topic of interest during this election is health care reform.

I think this is the first time that during an election that we’ve actually expected riots and violence and protests. Regardless of how the results go, I think we’re all still expecting it.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

So far this election is on track to set a record.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

California’s top election official assuring folks there are safe ways to vote during a pandemic. All ballots will be protected.

JASON TOLENTINO:

All right, everything’s—

JAIME TOLENTINO:

Did I put my name here?

JASON TOLENTINO:

Did you sign? No! You’ve got sign—Sheesh. Well, I’ve got no pen. Now we’ve got to walk back out again. Do you have a pen? You’ve got to put your address—It literally says on the top that it’s going to invalidate if you don’t sign it.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

Oh! [Laughs]

JASON TOLENTINO:

I would rather not say who I voted for. I just want everything to come back to normal, that’s all I’m praying for, really. People will be surprised, but I don’t want to say who I voted for.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

I just vote for myself. Or I vote for the lady. No, I vote for the lady!

JASON TOLENTINO:

You voted for that lady, huh? You don’t even know her name.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

I don’t know who she is, but it seems like she’s the only lady, so I vote for the lady. I vote for the woman!

JASON TOLENTINO:

[Laughs] Well, you have a right to do that.

TAYO DANIEL:

It’s been a while since I voted, you know, due to my situation.

Here at the polling station. I’m here with my dad, the OG.

I made a lot of bad decisions when I was younger—getting in fights, had an assault charge, things like that.

Trying to do the right thing. It’s never too late to do the right thing. That’s for sure.

I made a vow to myself that I’ll never do nothing illegal again. I’ll never go to jail again.

I need to register.

FEMALE POLL WORKER 1:

Do you have an ID with your—

TAYO DANIEL:

So I just felt privileged to be able to get out and vote.

FEMALE POLL WORKER 2:

Here’s your ballot.

TAYO DANIEL:

There’s a lot of people that are not allowed to vote or who can’t vote, so it’s important that the people who have the privilege of voting take that step and make that initiative.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The polls in Iowa are open until 9 o’clock tonight for anyone who chooses to vote in person. Across the state there are about 1,200 locations—

CARY K. GORDON:

I have to put this on now.

You’re supposed to find people that represent you. Donald Trump cannot represent me; he does not represent my beliefs. Of course, I can’t vote for Joe Biden for the very same reason.

FEMALE POLL WORKER:

Thank you for voting. Have a good evening.

MALE POLL WORKER:

Everything was recorded, Cary.

CARY K. GORDON:

Thank you very much.

I will sleep good tonight because someday, as a Christian, I believe Christ will return and all wrongs will be righted and justice will prevail. And my job is to keep speaking the truth as a minister.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Big race, big electoral vote fight tonight. Too early to call.

MALE NEWSREADER:

But we will be getting some results, actually, we think, this hour from Kentucky, from Indiana. All the polls not closed there—

CHRISTINE MANN:

I’m equally excited and nervous. I’ve been thinking about how four years ago, I didn’t think I was going to make it four years. Joe Biden was not my first choice. My first choice was Kamala Harris, who thankfully is the vice presidential candidate, soon to be the vice president.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In the commonwealth of Massachusetts—

CHRISTINE MANN:

Yay, Joe Biden wins Massachusetts!

MALE NEWSREADER:

—Joe Biden the projected winner tonight.

CHRISTINE MANN:

My gut is telling me Biden’s going to win. But I’m so nervous about the possibility of a contested election. But I think that it’s unlikely. I think that we’re going to have a good win tonight.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We are still in the thick of a very heated contest.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Right. It is closer than Democrats wanted it to be. It is closer than any Democrat is comfortable with right now. We’ll have to wait and see how that comes in.

BRYANT MOORE:

I anticipate some very uneasy people on either or both sides angry about not getting their way. Whoever wins, which I hope it is not Trump, we should come together.

CROWD [chanting]:

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!

BRYANT MOORE:

This week I felt kind of like a sigh of relief. I was feeling like things are changing, things are—They’re shifting in a different direction.

CROWD [chanting]:

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!

FEMALE PROTEST LEADER:

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!

BRYANT MOORE:

It was an invigorating space to see. A lot of people that not necessarily look like me but wanted the same types of things that I want in America.

November 7, 2020

MALE NEWSREADER:

Vice President Joe Biden will win Pennsylvania and Nevada, putting him over the 270 electoral votes—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Across the country, pro-Trump protesters gathering at state capitals, echoing the president that the election was stolen.

AMY GARNER:

Because I really was just so sick of politics I wanted to write in “Jesus.” [Laughs] But that doesn’t do anything. So I was surprised—I felt prompted to vote for Trump.

PROUD BOY PROTEST SPEAKER:

We are very much in a spiritual battle right now. We are invoking Christ because Christ is the way, and Christ is the only way that we are going to triumph over evil. We have tried time and time again—

AMY GARNER:

I really hope representatives will get the voice of the people and that there will be a middle ground. Biden probably can’t accomplish everything he wants, but a part of me feels devastated because I feel like it’s taking society in a completely different direction.

PROUD BOY PROTEST SPEAKER:

Stand by, stand down. No, we’re not standing down. We’re here, we’re going to stand—We’re going to stand fast. We’re going to wait for orders.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—cheers and saw celebrations in the streets of Minneapolis.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Celebrations by Joe Biden supporters have been going on all day, including here in the Metro.

TAYO DANIEL:

Hey!

I’m just excited that overall that more people got involved in the voting process, because that way, we’re going to be able to hold these elected officials more accountable. So I think a lot of people are going to be looking at Joe Biden like, “OK, you were talking that talk, now how are you going to walk the walk?”

What do you guys think of the election?

FEMALE PASSERSBY:

Oh, yeah! We’re good, we’re good!

TAYO DANIEL:

I was relieved to the point where it’s like, “OK, this step has been handled. Now what’s the next step?” It’s not over; this is just the beginning. That’s just one man. The president doesn’t make the world a better place; the people make the world a better place, the people living in it.

MALE NEWSREADER:

So let’s talk about what exactly happened and what this vote says about the country. Joe Biden got a record number of votes—

ROD BORBA:

We have half a nation that believes that we had an unfair election. We have another half of the nation that thinks everything’s just great and wonderful. I hope it’s wrong, but I see too many comments by too many people. I feel a revolution coming. It’s getting closer every day. Somebody’s going to be dumb enough to fire the first shot and we’re going to have some serious problems. I hope I’m wrong.

ROSIE BORBA:

I hope you’re wrong, too.

ROD BORBA:

And I hope I’m not here to see it.

FEMALE VOICE:

I’m ready for you, doctor.

CHRISTINE MANN:

OK, I’ll be right there.

I think the immediate future holds turmoil and fear and concern about where we go next.

We are ready to do some COVID testing now.

I actually fear that people are going to say, “Whew, Joe Biden won, we’re done. We can go back to doing and living our normal lives.”

All right, this is a nasal swab, both sides of your nose.

Anyone who thinks that the election getting called is the end of the work that needs to be done is mistaken.

And we’ll have results for you within 24 hours.

MARK CURTIS:

I have no regrets about voting for the Libertarian candidate. I’m tired of people voting for the lesser of two evils—voting Democrat because it’s not Trump or voting Republican because it’s not Biden.

Wouldn’t really matter who got into office, I feel like they’re one and the same. I think our culture’s going to stay divided. The division that has been created here recently is something that we’ve regressed to that’s going to take generations to recover. I think our culture is going to be horribly scarred by this. And I don’t know what it’s going to be blamed on in the end or how it’s going to be spun, but I think that our culture on the whole has gone down a deep, dark hole.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Woo-hoo! President Biden! Yay! That was for you.

We have a president.

[Sings] Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.

He can’t fix this mess overnight. He can’t fix it in a week, a month. But it’s over. Thank goodness, it’s over.

[Sings] Let peace begin with me. Let this be the moment now.

But now we worry about what’s going to happen next.

Let there be peace.

TRUMP SUPPORTERS [chanting]:

Stop the steal! Stop the steal!

MALE NEWSREADER:

Thousands of supporters of President Trump storm the U.S. Capitol building.

POLICE OFFICER [on radio]:

We need backup!

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN:

The will of the people has been heard.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—that a federal grand jury has voted to indict the former president—

FEMALE REPORTER:

—second impeachment trial is set to start tomorrow.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Derek Chauvin guilty on all three counts.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The state of Virginia—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—bringing down the symbols of a hateful past—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—General Robert E. Lee.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Horrific mass shooting at an elementary school—

MALE REPORTER:

Mass shootings are becoming as American as apple pie.

MALE REPORTER:

Roe v. Wade is overruled.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Thousands of people today turned out to take a stand for abortion rights.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The end of 472 days of COVID restrictions.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—warning, however, that the virus is here to stay.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Rising costs and recession fears—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—small businesses struggling to stay afloat.

FEMALE REPORTER:

A bus filled with migrants—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—migrants dropped off outside the vice president’s D.C. residence.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Donald Trump will be running again in 2024.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza continue.

MALE NEWSREADER:

It’s another wedge in America’s political divide.

CROWD [chanting]:

Guilty! Guilty!

MALE REPORTER:

Shots have apparently been fired—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

President Biden takes himself out of the run for the White House.

KAMALA HARRIS:

I accept your nomination—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Kamala Harris became the first woman of color to accept the presidential nomination.

MALE VOICE 1:

A lot of negative things happening.

MALE VOICE 2:

Tough times right now with all that’s going on in the world.

MALE VOICE 3:

Am I hopeful or optimistic? It all depends on who wins the election.

Chapter Four

2024

Ruther Glen, VA

CARRAN LEWIS:

I don’t think the country has improved in the last four years. It’s become more divided than ever. There’s a saying in a lot of Black Baptist churches: “A church is nothing but a hospital for the sick.” It revives you. It’s your vitamins to give you the strength to make it one more week.

Good to be in the house of the Lord one more time. I missed everyone last weekend. That old COVID hit me and put me down for a few days, so the love I have for everybody, I wasn’t coming last Sunday because I was afraid if anybody got sick, I gave it to them. [Laughs] And so I feel great now.

I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, so I’m down 49 pounds now. I work with the election now, local and presidential.

Now we’re going to have announcements—

My life has improved because I got off of my you-know-what and went to work. That’s why my life has improved.

[Singing] Welcome to the Mount—

The little improvements that I get is from my blood, sweat and tears.

[Singing] We welcome you to Mount Oni.

Beaverdam, VA

MARK CURTIS:

My faith in the government has grown further and further apart. I honestly have withdrawn myself from paying as much attention to our politics and policies and things that are trying to be pushed through government just because I’m sick of it. Honestly, I’m sick of it. I don’t have enough faith in any of them to do what they say or to support my values or the beliefs of others that are going to be beneficial to myself or my family.

Yep, 66, all right, keep going.

Like your whole belt, just because it looks floppy. Scoot this thing around.

Hudson, we’ve got to get pictures of you this morning. This is your first time wearing it. How do you feel?

HUDSON CURTIS:

I don’t know.

KELLI CURTIS:

He’s taller than you.

MARK CURTIS:

That’s because he’s wearing heels.

KELLI CURTIS:

He’s wearing heels.

HUDSON:

These belts.

MARK CURTIS:

I know. It’s aggravating.

HUDSON CURTIS:

[Laughter] Will you just take the photo?

KELLI CURTIS:

He is so much taller. One, two, three. You’re so much shorter, Mark.

MARK CURTIS:

That’s awesome.

There’s a bit of inner turmoil with Hudson being in the JROTC program as well as my distrust in the government. I love the values that he’s going to learn going through this program, as well as the values that he could be taught in the military. I think he wants to follow in the footsteps of people who’ve done great things for our country, for our freedoms. I very much worry that he has great potential of being in the military and being pulled into a endless war that cost American lives, cost billions of American dollars, and to what gain?

Minneapolis, MN

TAYO DANIEL:

Maybe some of you guys know me, some of you don’t. I’m Tayo Daniel, one of the founders of this organization, Smart North. When I was growing up, I didn’t have access to all these different types of cool technology and things like that. I learned it more recently than ever. So I just keep thinking to myself, what if I would’ve learned this stuff when I was younger? Where could I be?

I kind of wanted to get away from all that political stuff. Especially when there’s so much division and polarization. It affects us all. Especially people at the bottom the most.

SMART NORTH INSTRUCTOR:

The purpose of all this is that we’re trying to figure out what are the things in the neighborhood, what do we have within this community, within this neighborhood that’s worth putting on a map?

TAYO DANIEL:

The system will chew you up and spit you out. Especially being a Black man. If you’re not confident in yourself, and if you’re not self-determined as a young Black man, this system will eat you up alive.

She’s in the VR space right now, doing her thing.

SMART NORTH STUDENT:

Yeah, I can’t see anything in the real world right now.

TAYO DANIEL:

Whether that means getting extra training and figuring out your talents and your skills and how to apply that to a business you want to start, or to a career that you want to walk down that path, who are the people that you’re hanging out with? And the most important of all is how can you add value to your community? Once you figure that out, it doesn’t matter who’s in office, you’re always going to be successful because you yourself are valuable and you’re adding value to your community.

Kataya won these Nike Dunks. So give her a round of applause. Here you go.

Rock Port, MO

AMY GARNER:

In 2021, my family moved a thousand miles away to the country, to northwest Missouri.

ERICA GARNER:

Hey, can we play the game?

MATTHEW GARNER:

Jump, Erica!

AMY GARNER:

You just chilling?

AMY’S DAUGHTER:

Mm-hmm.

AMY GARNER:

It looks like you figured it out.

One of the biggest reasons we moved out here is the freedom to choose to do what we want without affecting others.

Did you girls see the yellow coming up on these trees?

JULIA GARNER:

Yep.

ERICA GARNER:

I can’t wait till it’s fall.

JULIA GARNER:

It’s also yellow.

AMY GARNER:

It is fall. Doesn’t it feel like fall?

Living out here, it does allow me to check out when I want and not be bombarded by all the noise that’s in the city of the billboards and the signs and people knocking on your door about candidates. It’s not like I want to check out and be disconnected and not involved or even apathetic. But it is nice to constantly not have higher blood pressure and be completely occupied all the time. We still need to live life. So I do like going out and petting a goat and forgetting the cares of the world now and then.

Portland, OR

BRYANT MOORE:

Hard work pays off. Promotions. Promotions. Promotions.

Well, I’ve worked seven days a week for 14 years.

Independent business.

During our pandemic, I was losing it. I was coming unglued because the future was very grim. I had to just keep myself motivated, to be positive. When you look at the past four years up to this present, has our America gotten better? You decide, because I know it hasn’t been better.

I pay my bill for my chair. It’s a weekly bill. Booth rent.

I just accumulated a sciatic nerve in my back. Usually when you get in this industry of barbering, you do it until you can’t do it anymore.

How you been?

OLDER MALE CUSTOMER:

Pretty good.

BRYANT MOORE:

It’s hard on your back. It’s hard on your knees. But I just find so much joy in making people smile.

OLDER MALE CUSTOMER:

Portland was good to me, man, you know? I paid my dues and all that s—. I paid more taxes than Trump paid up here, man.

BRYANT MOORE:

[Laughs] So where’s the tax money go to?

OLDER MALE CUSTOMER:

I guess the city. And the city’s supposed to keep the road repaired and—

BRYANT MOORE:

Well, the roads ain’t been repaired around here. S—, so many potholes and stuff around here.

I love the barbershop. We get all those great old stories. And there’s no filter when you communicate, because what goes on at the barbershop stays at the barbershop. Then they go out there and just go fight the world again.

Thank you. Have a good day. All right, thank you.

Sioux City, IA

PASTOR CARY K. GORDON:

You are worthy of our praise. Hallelujah. I said hallelujah. God is good. Hallelujah. Welcome to homecoming. Shake hands with somebody.

Homecoming is our biggest event that we have as a church every year.

The Constitution limits government. It tells government what they cannot do. And if you’re a utopian Marxist, that’s a problem, because government ought to be able to do everything.

We bring all the leaders together from around the nation and talk about what we’re all facing.

MALE SPEAKER 1:

Don’t diminish the voice that you have. Don’t be overwhelmed in your thinking. We give our voice, God gives it the amplifier.

CARY K. GORDON:

And we come together once a year for that fellowship, helping each other and getting an education and learning how to do things and how to approach the new obstacles that we’re dealing with now. Where does the jurisdiction of the state end and my self-government begin? And who gets to draw that line?

MALE SPEAKER 2:

We’re going to talk about a girl today who had a backbone to fight. Esther.

CARY K. GORDON:

Our instinct is “just leave me alone.” I just want to be left alone. I want to raise my children. I want to live in my home. I want to be a Christian. I want to be able to attend my church, and I don’t want the government to interfere with anything that I’m doing. Just leave me alone.

The philosophy of “leave me alone” ironically requires that we not leave the government alone. That’s the reality.

MALE SPEAKER 1:

Use the voice that God has given you, in whatever measure. And it does make a difference to call, to write—

CARY K. GORDON:

So a Christian living in modern America does not have an option to not be involved in politics because politics has invaded our jurisdiction and forced itself upon us.

Hayward, CA

JASON TOLENTINO:

2020s was more of a blur. Before 2020, we knew our customers. We had our regulars. But after COVID, it’s like we went—We had this whole new set of different customers who were new.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

One thing that was harder to find: employees.

JASON TOLENTINO:

She is right on that one. We can’t find good people.

JAIME TOLENTINO:

We can’t find anyone at all. Nobody wants to work.

JASON TOLENTINO:

And it’s also not about the pay. No one’s just applying. [Laughter] That is the thing. We don’t—even for them to come in or even respond to an ad. See, that’s crazy. That’s crazy to me.

A lot of the problems that I’ve seen here is it’s not the actual business that the person’s running. It’s more the crime. We got broken into. Some guy, he broke the window, stole a credit card machine and left. That was it, and caused I think it was $2,500 worth of damage. And all he stole was the credit card machine. Which is a hassle.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

In a big surprise, delegates overwhelmingly endorsed Royce White.

MALE NEWSREADER:

White won the party’s endorsement for Senate and supports former President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

White has quickly become a controversial figure.

North Branch, MN

MALE NEWSREADER:

White considers longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as close friends of his.

ROYCE WHITE:

Can you hear me? Can you hear me? All right. Good, good. Good morning. Good afternoon. It’s good to see everybody out here. It’s always good to see some Trump supporters. I’m one myself.

If I win, I’ll be the youngest United States senator in the Senate, and I’ll be the first one born in the 1990s.

We don’t like socialists. We don’t like communists. We don’t like Marxists. It’s an unacceptable and incompatible form of government and ideology.

The mainstream media says, “Royce White represents a dangerous evolution and movement of the Republican Party nationally.” So a lot of people who just read those headlines would think, “Yeah, Royce has nothing important to say or nothing of value to say, even though we love Black men, we want to protect them, their lives matter, but this Black man doesn’t have anything important to say.”

MALE SPEAKER:

These are patriots here, man.

ROYCE WHITE:

I love it. I love it.

MALE SPEAKER:

People that like drinking beer, rock and roll music and cooking food.

ROYCE WHITE:

I love it. I love it.

MALE SPEAKER:

That’s America right there, man.

ROYCE WHITE:

That’s right.

Cedar Park, TX

GPS VOICE:

The destination is on your left. You have arrived.

CHRISTINE MANN, M.D.:

So yeah, see, you can see right across here, all the Trump signs.

Block walking involves going and knocking on doors and talking face-to-face with people. And not a lot of people want to do it because it can be uncomfortable. That, and it’s been a hundred degrees in Texas.

OK, so that way. I’ve got to go down a couple of houses and start down there.

But I decided that that is my role. That I need to be the one doing that hard work.

Hi, I’m Christine. I’m with the Williamson County Democratic Party, out talking to voters today. Are you planning on voting for Kamala Harris and Colin Allred, all the way down the ticket?

FEMALE RESIDENT:

Yes, I am.

CHRISTINE MANN:

All right, perfect.

The fall of Roe v. Wade was devastating. We already had very restricted access to abortion care in Texas. When the ban came down, everyone was scrambling to try and decide what to do to help women who were going to be in trouble.

Hi there. Is your mom here? Thanks.

Chapter Five

Election 2024

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

We’re just eight weeks away from Election Day, and tonight—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Tomorrow, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will face off on the debate stage.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Polling suggests this race is as close as ever.

Debate Night

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The stakes here are incredibly high.

Minneapolis, MN

TAYO DANIEL:

Can I move this couch over here?

Donald Trump and Kamala are about to debate each other. My cousin brought a bunch of food. Can I make this table right here?

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

And I really learned this from my dad. My dad didn’t never hold a meeting and not have food. Because really, that’s African culture.

Round Rock, TX

CHRISTINE MANN:

Hello, hello! Hi!

FEMALE GUEST:

How are you doing?

CHRISTINE MANN:

Good, how are you?

FEMALE GUEST:

I’m all right.

Hayward, CA

JASON TOLENTINO:

This is straight-up meat.

Beaverdam, VA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Kamala Harris is doing better than President Trump with Latino voters.

KELLI CURTIS:

Hazel said that Kennedy should dress up like Trump, and then they would let him on stage. [Laughter]

MARK CURTIS:

That’s a good idea, Hazel. Hurry up, because I want y’all to be a part of this. Hudson, you realize that the next time there’s a presidential election, you’ll be 18 years old and you’ll be voting in it.

Sioux City, IA

CARY K. GORDON:

Here it comes. Get ready to be annoyed.

DAVID MUIR, ABC News anchor:

Thank you for joining us for tonight’s—

CARY K. GORDON:

In my opinion, presidential debates don’t determine who’s going to be the next president. I already know that I’m not going to be able to support major parties on the ticket, so I kind of just endure the political process.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS:

My plan is to give a $50,000 tax deduction to startups, small businesses, knowing they are part of the backbone of America’s economy.

MARK CURTIS:

So we’re giving away more money.

KELLI CURTIS:

$6,000 credit, $50,000 small business credit.

MARK CURTIS:

When do I get that $50,000 for having a small business?

KELLI CURTIS:

Never.

DONALD TRUMP:

Why don’t you ask her that question? That’s the problem. Because under Roe v. Wade you could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month and probably after birth.

CHRISTINE MANN:

Why is he such a liar?

DONALD TRUMP:

Just look at the former governor of Virginia. The governor of Virginia—

Rock Port, MO

KAMALA HARRIS:

—that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.

MATTHEW GARNER:

[Laughs] That’s rich for her to say that.

AMY GARNER:

Because people leave her rallies early?

MATTHEW GARNER:

The only reason they show up to hers is because of the concerts.

DONALD TRUMP:

They’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the pets. They’re eating—They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.

TAYO DANIEL:

Now that’s bulls—. [Laughter]

DONALD TRUMP:

This is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame, as—

MALE DEBATE WATCHER:

[Laughs] What the hell.

DONALD TRUMP:

She’s destroying this country. And if she becomes president—

JASON TOLENTINO:

I just can’t believe he said that thing about the dogs. [Laughs] They’re eating dogs. I don’t know what to believe, honestly, on that one.

DAVID MUIR, ABC News anchor:

How would you deport 11 million undocumented immigrants? I know you believe that number is much higher.

JASON TOLENTINO:

Whew, 11 million. I think every American would agree with me on this that we should control what’s happening on the border. I think that’s a big thing.

DAVID MUIR:

Take us through this. What does this look like?

JAIME TOLENTINO:

You know, my auntie, she has her paperwork. My mom’s sister. She waited 18 years already.

JASON TOLENTINO:

She’s still not here.

KAMALA HARRIS:

We all have the same dreams and aspirations and want a president who invests in those, not in hate and division.

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

See, I disagree with that. We don’t, though.

TAYO DANIEL:

We don’t what?

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

We don’t have the same aspirations and dreams.

TAYO DANIEL:

Who doesn’t?

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

All American people.

TAYO DANIEL:

No, I’m saying, what she—what I think she’s saying is that—

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

I’m saying, I disagree.

TAYO DANIEL:

You could find people in every race that have the same dreams and aspirations.

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

But that’s not what she’s saying. She says, “we all,” not “there are some in every group.” “We all.” And I’m saying we all don’t.

TAYO DANIEL:

We can’t sit there and look at Republican or Democratic. We’ve got to look at ourselves—

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

Agreed.

TAYO DANIEL:

—and be like, “What are we doing in our community, in our internal community?” And support those people who are starting a Black Builders Foundation—

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

Agreed, absolutely, 100%.

TAYO DANIEL:

—a Smart North, and all that kind of stuff. And then from there—

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

And fight for them.

TAYO DANIEL:

Yeah, and fight for them.

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

Right.

TAYO DANIEL:

Right. So—

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

Whichever color.

TAYO DANIEL:

Whichever color. Yeah, I agree with that.

ZACHARY BABINGTON:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Portland, OR

BRYANT MOORE:

Well, I know for the last four years nothing’s changed. It’s gotten downhill.

BARBERSHOP PATRON:

And who was running the show?

DONALD TRUMP [on TV]:

She did things that nobody—

BRYANT MOORE:

It’s still been downhill. It’s the lesser of both evils. I would rather have her as president than him. We know what he’s going to do.

DONALD TRUMP [on TV]:

This is a radical—

BARBERSHOP PATRON:

You just said it. I’m glad you said it on record. You’ve been downhill for the last four years.

BRYANT MOORE:

Shut up, listen to your guy.

BARBERSHOP PATRON:

No, she was in the White House.

BRYANT MOORE:

She wasn’t president.

DONALD TRUMP [on TV]:

Fracking in Pennsylvania—

BARBERSHOP PATRON:

She was part of the whole cabinet.

BRYANT MOORE:

I said, she wasn’t president.

DAVID MUIR:

Thank you for watching here in the U.S. and all over the world and from all of us here.

KELLI CURTIS:

I hope the world wasn’t watching.

AMY GARNER:

Must you?

MATTHEW GARNER:

Must I what?

AMY GARNER:

Make it all obvious out in here? You folded flags just fine back in your office.

MATTHEW GARNER:

I usually fold them in here.

AMY GARNER:

Mm-hmm.

When I look at the choices that I feel Kamala versus Trump would make, I do feel like the choices Trump would make are more aligned with the hope that I have of America, the hope that I have in my children’s future living in this country. That’s why I’m leaning more towards Trump.

CHRISTINE MANN:

Hello, how are you? On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to vote?

FEMALE RESIDENT:

Ten.

CHRISTINE MANN:

Perfect.

The idea that we have the opportunity to elect a progressive Black woman as the first female president in the United States is a dream come true for me.

Lionheart Drive. Here we go.

I’m really hopeful that in five years from now, we will have reversed this and create a constitutional right that is not ambiguous, that gives women a right to abortion. I’ve already taken days off after the election because I want to be able to mourn or celebrate whichever way it goes.

ROYCE WHITE:

I’m going to walk straight through the crowd. Running for U.S. Senate. Royce White. Royce White. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

Everything’s at stake in this election: freedom. The idea of America, what it is, fundamentally.

Yes, sir. Go Vikings. Go Vikings. Yes, sir. Running for U.S. Senate. Vikings doing well, beautiful day. Can’t complain.

Running as an America First or MAGA candidate supporting Donald Trump has not caused me any significant change in my personal relationships.

What’s your name? Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. Thank you. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the game.

In fact, if anything, I’ve found out how many people agree with some of the things that I otherwise wouldn’t have known that they thought.

Hello. Hello. -White. Nice to meet you, man. Thank you. Enjoy the game, man. How’re you doing?

TAYO DANIEL:

So this is the community garden.

I’m a firm believer of funding and community centers, so usually politicians that align with that, I’m all for. Because it takes a village to raise a child, so a lot of my politics are more about how do we help the youth.

FEMALE SPEAKER:

Our green beans I don’t think are going to come in.

TAYO DANIEL:

This is the green beans right here, right? Oh, here go some tomatoes over here.

I’d also like to see a Black woman become president, too. [Laughs] I’d like to see that milestone, too.

CARY K. GORDON:

Father, we just love you. We thank you for the fellowship that we have, for all of these godly men and women that are leading in their communities.

Here’s the thing. I can’t vote in good conscience for Donald Trump, and I can’t vote in good conscience for Kamala Harris. So what am I going to do? I’ll probably pick a third-party candidate. Probably won’t win, but at least I will have stayed true to what I believe.

Yeah, tough times are coming. Tough times are coming. The next few years might be rough. There’s going to be ups and downs. There’s going to be turmoil. But he will hold me fast. And he will hold you fast. And if we get a chance, we’ll hold each other fast. Glory to God.

BRYANT MOORE:

Overall, I’ve had a good life in Portland. My old neighborhood, very gentrified. There was a house right here, and now it’s a square building. As I get older, I wonder about the American dream and “from rags to riches.” I haven’t seen anybody in my neighborhood come from rags to riches.

FEMALE VOICE:

Your call has been forwarded to voicemail.

BRYANT MOORE:

This is Grandpa. I was wondering if I could get to see my grandbaby for a little bit today. Please call me back. Thank you.

What does America have in store for my grandkids and my great-grand?

Ready?

BRYANT’S GRANDDAUGHTER:

No!

BRYANT MOORE:

Let’s stay you up, and down. Up, down, up. Keep going.

Kamala Harris has been there. She’s a minority woman and she’s been in the trenches with her own people. And all we need to do is go out there and vote.

You know I love you?

BRYANT’S GRANDDAUGHTER:

No!

BRYANT MOORE:

You don’t know I love you? Oh, that’s a secret? Like nobody knows? You want to go on the swing, or what?

MARK CURTIS:

It’s not going to be long before you’re going to be voting.

People should not let the outcome of this election rule their life. I should hope that we can find the good in whoever does win. I should hope that we can have civil conversation over the things that we don’t agree with and continue living life. Accept it. Move on.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I do believe that statue of Robert E. Lee was sitting right here in this area. And it’s gone now. So I’m glad.

Too many ancestors of mine put their lives on the line for me to have the right to vote. My mother personally, Marion Bryant Lewis, when we became of age, she took us to say, “You will be registered and you will vote. I will not tell you who to vote for, but you do your homework and learn and make a decision, because you’re going to the polls the next election.”

Looking back on 2020 when they were burning and tearing down things, I have a few pictures specifically where a young man is painting the sidewalk, and he was a Caucasian young man, and he was painting on the sidewalk “Black Lives Matter.” So I think our future youth, I think they made a big impact.

What matters is that you go out there and make your voice be heard, and voting is one way you do that.

[Sings] Whether I’m right, or whether I’m wrong.

Whether I find a place in this world, or never belong.

I’ve got to be me, I’ve got to be me.

Rod Borba died in 2023.

Rosie sold her flower shop and was unable to return for an interview.

Mayra Ramirez underwent another lung transplant.

She died of complications in 2022.

AMERICAN VOICES: A NATION IN TURMOIL

Nov. 17, 2020 MALE VOICE 1:

How can I love America? I can’t. I don’t think I can love America. I can’t put that into words.

MALE VOICE 2:

We don’t know when it’s going to pass.

MALE VOICE 3:

I feel a revolution coming. It’s getting closer every day.

FEMALE VOICE:

I have learnt to love being alone.

NARRATOR:

These are the voices of Americans—

MALE VOICE 4:

People are getting angrier and angrier.

MALE VOICE 5:

I want to be in charge of my own life!

NARRATOR:

—gathered from across a divided nation.

MALE VOICE 3:

We’re just going too far in opposite directions.

MALE FILM CREW MEMBER:

Just set the scene for me. How are you feeling? Give us a clap, please.

NARRATOR:

In this film, Americans reflect on a year of turmoil.

MALE VOICE 6:

It’s never going to be the same after this.

FEMALE VOICE 2:

I wish there wasn’t as much hate in this world as what we have.

MALE VOICE 1:

They’re scared to death of this thing, and nobody wants to die.

MALE VOICE 7:

We have no reason to trust the state.

MALE VOICE 8:

I’m not going to tolerate somebody telling me how I need to live my life.

NARRATOR:

A pastor, a barber, an activist, a mother, a retiree, the owners of a nail salon and of a construction company and a flower shop. A doctor and patient. Their stories begin in March 2020, as COVID was spreading and the country was shutting down.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The CDC says there are now more than 4,200 cases of coronavirus.

CHAPTER ONE

LOCKDOWN

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds has recommended schools—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Mass gatherings are restricted to less than 10 people—

SIOUX CITY, IOWA

CARY GORDON:

“Whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. All the people, the nations, and the languages fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.”

My name is Cary Gordon. I am the senior pastor of Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, Iowa.

How do I water baptize someone in a virtual service? How do I bury the dead? How do I have a wedding? How are people supposed to have me lay my hands upon them and anoint them with oil and pray over them to be healed in the midst of a pandemic when I’m told that I can’t have physical contact?

Last Sunday morning I drove past Menards. Menards is a lumberyard. Hundreds of cars. And only a quarter-mile away, my church, in contrast, I know is empty because they’ve said, “The church is not essential.” The church is not essential. In a time of crisis with imminent death and a pandemic, the church is not essential, but Menards can stay open, someone might need to buy a screwdriver. It’s offensive.

PORTLAND, OR

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

New numbers show the damage the coronavirus has inflicted upon Oregon’s economy: 266,000 Oregonians are without a job.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Unemployment is at a record high in Oregon.

BRYANT MOORE:

People are spooked because of COVID. They’re scared to death of this thing, and nobody wants to die going out the house getting a haircut.

My name is Bryant Moore. I’m a barber from Portland, Oregon.

Bills keep stacking up, with no money coming in. Scared to look at the bills from our business because I can’t pay.

So I’ll survive by just doing what I have to do to make it. If I would go to a senior’s house or go to a bus stop, I couldn’t do anything else. I had to make do.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

So I’m having a get-together at my house. So I escaped, came here. I got to get my hair done, he got to get his money. Going to go back looking fly.

BRYANT MOORE:

My business is one of those things where it makes you feel good, which we really all need to be feeling good right now. It’s just a common human thing to do; it’s human to make people feel good.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Oh, yeah. Go for a queen, that part.

MALE CUSTOMER:

I’m hopeful. This may be the right thing to stop all this fighting among each other. Democrat, Republican, independent, Black, white, yellow, whatever. So this might be the right thing. Because what I’ve been seeing is folks been sticking together. It doesn’t matter what color they are. I mean, seeing it in person.

BRYANT MOORE:

[sings] Back and forth, and in and out, and back and forth again. For we are strong people and we will come out of this and be on top again, I do believe.

COOL, CA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The coronavirus pandemic is putting an end to the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We are going into a global recession.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Entire parts of the U.S. economy are at a complete standstill.

ROD AND ROSIE BORBA

ROSIE BORBA:

People are afraid to go out. People are afraid even to call and have something delivered. It’s just a total different—

ROD BORBA:

Half the businesses are broke or they’re out of business.

ROSIE BORBA:

When I started my flower shop, I started with two used cooler boxes and a piece of plyboard across the top of the boxes in our yard. That’s how I started.

Do you need a receipt?

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Um, sure.

ROSIE BORBA:

Thank you so much! Keep me posted on that wedding.

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

I will for sure.

ROSIE BORBA:

All right. Bye-bye!

FEMALE CUSTOMER:

Bye!

ROSIE BORBA:

I’ve been here in this one probably 24 years in this one spot, so I’m kind of a staple here.

But it’s kind of sad to only see this many orders on my board, because normally should be about 50 to 60 orders on my board for Easter. And I have one, two, three, four, five, six. So I better do a pray dance tonight. [laughs] Oh, I don’t know. It is what it is. It is what it is.

OK, it’s done.

ROD BORBA:

Which one’s this?

ROSIE BORBA:

This is your last one to Auburn.

ROD BORBA:

Where’s Sharon’s?

ROSIE BORBA:

I haven’t done it yet, but it’s too early to take hers.

ROD BORBA:

Oh, I thought you said I was going to take it now.

ROSIE BORBA:

No.

ROD BORBA:

I didn’t see you had this one done.

ROSIE BORBA:

My husband does my deliveries, as much as he can do. We’re just a two-man team just trying to survive.

ROD BORBA:

We got married when we were 18. We dated in high school. From the first time we met we were each other’s best friends, because everybody knows Rosie. She’s a pretty special woman.

I personally have a problem with the mask at times. Because of my congestive heart failure there’s times I’m fighting for air.

Hello! Delivery for Pat.

But you don’t want to wear a mask because it’s not going to save you. Well, no, it’s not going to save you, but you might save somebody else’s life.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Gov. Ralph Northam and his COVID-19 response—

RICHMOND, VA

MALE NEWSREADER:

—see another spike in cases.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—appeal the state’s stay-at-home order.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Social distancing guidelines are going to be with us for months to come.

CARRAN LEWIS:

My immune system is weakened, so I have learnt to love being alone. I have learnt to be pretty darn comfortable.

Oh, Lord, technology. Just not my thing.

My name is Carran Lewis. I live in North Chesterfield, Virginia.

Yeah, good morning, Second Baptist. Praise the Lord, everybody.

I drive close to an hour from my home to church. I got a heavy foot, but if I followed the law, it would be clearly an hour drive.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

Welcome to the Second Baptist Church of South Richmond, a caring and sharing church bringing you the word of God.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I have enjoyed the comfort of waking up and listening to it online.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

We’re now going to have a virtual universal message—

CARRAN LEWIS:

I miss the environment of the building, but that is what it is, a building. Because the people, we are the church. The physical human beings are the church.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

I pray for this country, God. There are so many challenges going on. We’re in election time. And God, I ask you—

CARRAN LEWIS:

I’ve still helped people, even in this virus. I’ve picked up groceries for a couple of friends, older people that could not go out, didn’t have the means to go out. They know my number.

MALE VOICE ON COMPUTER:

Our seniors, amen, because of COVID-19 should not be out and about like some of us are—

CARRAN LEWIS:

That’s right.

That’s part of what God wants you to do. Just help people.

[sings] For all you’ve done for me—

This is the part that’s scary. I think some people are getting too comfortable being at home watching the service. [laughs]

[sings] They all belong to you. Thank you Jesus for blessing me.

AMERICAN FORK, UT

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Trump appears to be stoking unrest in states around the U.S. where—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—long-term damage from a shuttered economy—

APRIL 2020

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—public signs urging leaders to reopen Utah.

AMY GARNER:

You can’t do one-size-fits-all. You can’t shut everybody in. You can’t make healthy people wear masks.

Oh, that’s looking nice. You look so happy about it.

I am Amy Garner and I am a mom of six kids.

OK, where did you want to go?

We say “economy,” sometimes we just think of finances as a whole of society. But instead I see my brother. His business was going down. That triggered the stress, which triggered his health issues, which triggered his mental health issues, and he was gone in 60 days. Three years ago he took his life.

That’s my brother Brian. Yeah. [sighs]

I wanted to save other families from going through what we went through. Sorry. So that’s why I became so passionate about not shutting things down. Letting people choose.

MALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN SPEAKER 1:

Are we sheep or are we people?

CROWD:

People!

MALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN PROTESTER:

Let’s go to work!

AMY GARNER:

That doesn’t mean that we don’t believe there are people at extra risk or that we don’t love them or accept their concerns.

Mine says, “My—our definition—” oh, “Your definition of essential is not the same as mine.” So they really are missing out on the hard-working people who can’t earn money for their families. I think the rate of suicide is going to go way higher. You take away people’s connections, their hobbies, their friends, their worship, their work, and everyone’s going to be depressed! [laughs] And I am so blessed to have a family of children and a husband. But what about the people who don’t? It’s heartbreaking.

MALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN SPEAKER 2:

Small business is the lifeblood of this country and we cannot kill it any longer. We are open for business today!

FEMALE ANTI-LOCKDOWN SPEAKER:

This is my first rally, so I’m really happy to be here with all of you guys, all of you patriots, all of you activists!

AMY GARNER:

I really hope people will let go of what we’re stuck in, what we’re stressed out about right now, and take into consideration the long-term impact of what’s going on.

CROWD [singing]:

God bless America, my home sweet home. [cheering]

MALE NEWSREADER:

Mr. Trump is now insisting the states have to step up their testing.

CEDAR PARK, TX

MALE NEWSREADER:

Fewer than 1% of all Texans have been tested.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Testing will be a big factor in making sure Texans are healthy enough to fully reopen the economy.

CHRISTINE MANN:

Clearly we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and we’re suffering much worse than we would have had we had a competent, science-based head of state.

My name is Dr. Christine Eady Mann. I am a family practice doctor in Cedar Park.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we were left without any guidance. Individual clinics like mine, doctors like me, weren’t really given any information about how to manage the pandemic, and so we kind of all had to make it up on the fly. We didn’t know the processes that we needed to use to be able to manage patients as they came in.

It takes between one and three days to get a result. Sorry.

I’m one of the COVID-19 testers at my workplace.

This is a deep nasal swab, it’s very uncomfortable. Pull your mask down. I think you had this before, so you know what’s coming.

We didn’t have equipment, we didn’t have test kits, and it was very stressful. It was just a mess for months and months and months.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—the number of death in the United States has now reached a stunning 50,000.

CHICAGO, IL

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—had at least one underlying health issue—

MALE NEWSREADER:

A new effort to keep Chicagoans safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

In early April was when I started feeling lightheaded, dizzy, I was coughing, I lost my sense of taste and smell. Because I have an underlying condition, I thought my symptoms were related to that.

You’re wearing your mask wrong. You have to cover your nose.

My name is Mayra Ramirez. I’m 28 years old.

One day I woke up, I was so weak I just fell over. Everything was dark. And I remember calling out for my boyfriend, I was like, “George, George,” and he would run and help me and I was like, “OK, I really need to go to the emergency room.”

So they immediately put me in a room. Didn’t even ask me my name or anything.

I remember a doctor came in and told me, “We’re pretty sure we’re going to have to intubate you. Do you have someone that can make medical decisions for you?” Then—it’s just kind of a blur what happened after I got intubated.

IVAN CASTANDEA, Mayra’s brother:

The day they told us that Mayra—it was her last day, we were all in the trampoline, just—my mom was crying. My sisters, all my aunts were there, they were crying. They didn’t know what to do. And we were just planning to go pick up a corpse. I was trying to avoid it.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I love you so much. Uh-oh. [laughs]

SIOUX CITY, IA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Developing news that effects everyone living in Iowa. Gov. Kim Reynolds signing a new proclamation—

MALE NEWSREADER:

—lifts the restrictions on religious and spiritual gatherings.

PASTOR CARY K. GORDON

CARY GORDON:

Medical people are wonderful people, they’re heroes, but they’re not omniscient and they make mistakes and they contradict one another.

Everyone’s going to die at some point. As a Christian, we believe that we’re set free from the fear of death.

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 1:

Do you have any hand sanitizer?

MALE CHURCH USHER:

We do.

CARY GORDON:

We’re spiritual beings and we require fellowship.

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 1:

Oh, it’s a beautiful day!

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 2:

I know, it’s gorgeous!

CARY GORDON:

And if it’s OK to take a risk and go to stores, I think it’s OK to take a risk and go to church.

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 2:

Ninety- nine six.

FEMALE PARISHIONER:

Whew!

FEMALE CHURCH USHER 1:

Try to keep families together, OK?

CARY GORDON:

Welcome back into the church building! [laughs] Woo-hoo! Praise the Lord. We’re going to teach you a new song this morning as we reenter the church. You can stand with us. [sings] Oh, Christ be magnified! Just let his prayers arise. Christ be magnified in me, yeah. Hallelujah! I said hallelujah!

CHAPTER TWO

PROTEST

MINNEAPOLIS, MN

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The attempted arrest was caught on camera, and the video of last night’s confrontation shows a white police officer with his knee pinning down the neck of the suspect.

MAY 2020

MALE NEWSREADER:

His name was George Floyd. He’s on video saying, “Please, please, I can’t breathe,” as a Minneapolis police officer holds his head for a minute—

TAYO DANIEL

TAYO DANIEL:

We’re just like, man, this is crazy. We’re already fighting a common terror, which is COVID. And now this now? People were just pissed off—like, this is just ridiculous. How can you kill this man?

CROWD [chanting]:

No justice no peace, prosecute the police!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The outrage began with a video showing an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Many people have gathered in front of the Third Precinct—

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 1:

Sitting here in front of officers who are complicit in the murder of George Floyd.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Thousands packed the area.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—protesting the death of George Floyd.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

How many times have we watched police officers murder people?

TAYO DANIEL:

You’re numb to it after so many of them. It’s been happening for so long.

CROWD [chanting]:

Don’t shoot! Hands up! Don’t shoot! Hands up!

TAYO DANIEL:

Then it’s a little different. You’re like, wow, that just happened right here on 38th. The fact that it happened in my neighborhood was what really pulled me into it. People are getting angrier and angrier and angrier, and then, hold up. We have a whole bunch of police with helmets right in front of us.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Crowds of protesters facing off with officers in riot gear.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Make way, make way!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—protest turned violent last night.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Overnight protests left parts of downtown in ruins.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Multiple fires were set, windows smashed and stores looted.

TAYO DANIEL:

As far as the volunteering efforts go, so far you’re our go-to volunteer coordinator, right?

FEMALE SPEAKER:

Yes.

TAYO DANIEL:

So we really have to get her engaged with—

ROYCE WHITE:

Them.

TAYO DANIEL:

—them.

My name is Tayo Daniel. I’m from South Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-founder of 10K. We were listening to the news and the narrative that they’re spreading was like, “All these looters and rioters, people from Minneapolis just burning down their own city,” and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, “Man, I’m from here and I know everybody that lives here, and we’re not like that.” So a lot of guys from the neighborhood decided to get together and create the 10K Foundation. And we wanted to show that we could have a peaceful protest.

ROYCE WHITE:

10K is about mobilizing 10,000 people and the power in that, the sovereignty in being able to mobilize 10,000 people.

I’m Royce White. I grew up here in the Twin Cities. I was an athlete, was drafted to the NBA back in 2013 and had a huge fight with the NBA regarding mental health policy.

When all the protests broke out, my first thought was, “I’m headed down there.”

I’m not going to claim to have a crystal ball as to what’s going to happen. I really have no clue. I’m just going off of pure opinion. The four officers were arrested, and temporarily that’s enough justice until we wait and see what happens with the court process. I know people are still very unhappy. They’re not in the uproar that they were in, obviously, when the city was burning down or even a few days ago when we marched. Every day we get away from it, that energy is going to go down a bit. I think it’s spiking up in other places around the country. I want the goal of this march to be, “How can we re-grab some of that energy?”

JULY 4

TAYO DANIEL:

The reason why we’re here is because the history has been misconstrued. Because every 4th of July I used to go out and party, and I used to just really scream independence, not realizing that my ancestors with the same color skin as mine were not independent. They were in chains, they were being whipped, they were being tortured. People, the time is right now. Can everybody say that one time? On the count of three say, “The time is now.” 1, 2, 3—

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

Say it again!

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

Louder!

CROWD:

The time is now!

TAYO DANIEL:

The time is right now!

ROYCE WHITE:

Look, we did our best to think through how the protest would put people at risk for COVID-19 transmission. But at the end of the day there’s no way that we could allow the state to tell us, “Hey, we’re going to kill Black men out on the streets. And also, stay in your house because we also—because of COVID-19.”

ROYCE WHITE:

If you think about the historical context of Black men, Black people in this country in general, we have no reason to trust the state. In general, when we wake up in the morning, there’s no good reason for us to have any faith in the state. And maybe in times where there needs to be a trust, it falls through. Yeah, maybe Black people should have more trust in the state when it comes to COVID-19, but it’s a tough sell.

TAYO DANIEL:

The reason why we’re doing this silent march is because when you take a moment of silence, you’re taking a moment of silence for the dead. For the Eric Garners, for the Breonna Taylors, for the George Floyds.

ROYCE WHITE:

Hey, it is what it is. This is a war. This is a war. And so the only other option is to board up in your house and wait for the next George Floyd to be murdered. I mean, that’s just the reality.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Protesters have been on the streets of Richmond for several weeks now.

RICHMOND, VA

MALE NEWSREADER:

—one-time capital of the Confederacy is in the throes of change as statues commemorating Confederate leaders come down.

CARRAN LEWIS

CARRAN LEWIS:

I am grateful to this generation of Black youth and white youth that are not rioting, they’re protesting, and they’re smart and they’re doing it right.

I’m going in from over here.

I decided one Sunday and said, “You know what? I’m stepping out on faith. I’m going down to see what it’s about.”

FEMALE PROTESTERS:

Black lives matter! Whoo!

CARRAN LEWIS:

I kept seeing it on the news and I just did not believe the way media was portraying it, that it was that bad.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 1:

—you understand, you are a spirit being that lives in a body! Your body will die, but the soul and spirit is either going to heaven or it’s going to hell!

CARRAN LEWIS:

Understand, I’m 63, I’m deadly afraid of COVID, but it’s worth it to come out and show my support.

MALE PROTESTER:

Black lives matter. May all lives matter. I’mma stand for something.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I met some terrific people, had great conversations with people. The diversity is what makes me feel good about it.

The Black and the whites are coming out here, and long as they catch one dirty cop at a time, one dirty racist, dirty politician, dirty lawyer, I’m happy. One at a time. ‘Cause this is 400 years of this s—.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

We are out here because of systematic racism. We are out here to defund the police.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I grew up in rural Virginia. The closest town was Bowling Green. There were some whites that we talked with, but I didn’t play with any. It was no white kids up the street that I played with or anything, they didn’t do—we didn’t do that in my era.

That’s where I grew up as a child. Yes!

I’m at the monument right now as we speak. Having big fun, man.

Each experience I had out here has been different.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history.

CARRAN LEWIS:

I come early and I leave before it gets too late.

One evening, I didn’t understand what was happening when I saw like 14 police cars coming up in front of the area. And I just begged them to allow me to go to my car and leave.

I just want to go home, please. I just want to go home. My car—how am I going to drive, I can’t get over here.

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

You can go wait in your car. We’ll be out of here in just a second.

CARRAN LEWIS:

But how can I—

MALE POLICE OFFICER:

We’ll be out of here in just a second. You can go wait in your car.

CARRAN LEWIS:

OK, OK.

And they were very kind. They even helped me get out, and I was gone.

Caucasian people, white people that I’ve known for years are very decent people on the surface. I don’t understand why they can’t see what we’re seeing. All I can do is just shake my head.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Another intense night here in the city of Richmond as protesters took to the streets for a second time.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

A peaceful protest in Virginia also turned violent on Saturday night. People in Richmond marched during an event called—

MARK CURTIS:

I don’t think our country could be any more divided than we are right now. The country is horribly divided right now. And more divided than we ever have been. And for what? For what gain?

My name is Mark Curtis. I’m a father of four young kids. I’m also a business owner. I own a construction company.

I’m a huge rights activist. I believe in our Constitution. I believe in the way our Constitution was intended to be read and not interpreted.

If anybody had told us this was going to end up happening, nobody would have believed it.

MALE SPEAKER:

No. Like I say, racism is out there. That’s what it is. I got more Black friends than I could ever imagine. I got one Black friend that I specifically tell people that that’s my brother. [laughs] We talk about it all the time. It’s ridiculous, man.

MARK CURTIS:

The people that are doing all of this are just out just to wreck stuff.

MALE SPEAKER 1:

My same buddy that I call my brother, he said, “Man, it’s crazy because they say it’s a ‘Black Lives Matter’ thing, but yet they’re going in and destroying old Black people’s businesses that live in Richmond.” Do you know what I mean?

MARK CURTIS:

I don’t know how everything got so race-oriented all of a sudden here within the past year, honestly. That kind of blows my mind.

So as far as the platform or the cause that the Black Lives Matter rallies are for, I think raising awareness for police brutality, sure. If you want to focus on any aspect of it that could have a positive effect on the American people, you could bring up that one aspect of it. But it doesn’t just happen to Black folks. It happens to white folks. It happens to Asian folks. It happens across all walks of life, no matter what color you are, no matter what race you are.

MALE SPEAKER 2:

Are we jumping?

MARK CURTIS:

We all need to work together in a common cause to defend our freedoms, not to fight against each other and empower more regulation against us.

CEDAR PARK, TX

MALE NEWSREADER:

Two crises have converged: protests over the death of George Floyd and the pandemic. U.S. death toll now topping 104,000, the most in any country—

CHRISTINE MANN, M.D.

CHRISTINE MANN:

Right now we have a situation where Black Americans die out of proportion to any kind of parameter that you can think of.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

All lives do matter, but they won’t until Black lives matter first. Sometimes when you have a specific type of community that’s hurting, it is OK to focus on them for a little while until things get better, and then when they do get better, then all lives will matter.

CHRISTINE MANN:

When the George Floyd murder occurred, it was in the middle of this pandemic. And so for me, as a health care provider, I really felt that it was my responsibility to not expose myself to the potential for getting the disease and spreading on to my patients. But I was happy that so many people were coming out of their homes and out of their workplaces to be involved in those protests.

CROWD [chanting]:

Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

CHRISTINE MANN:

We were there in solidarity.

We have a very long history of systemic racism in this country that persists today. You have to look at the lives that are most at risk in our country, the ones that are being lost out of proportion to every other category of American.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Black lives matter!

CROWD:

Black lives matter!

OAKLAND, CA

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—protest turned violent after demonstrators clashed with Oakland police officers—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Police say that there was significant property damage to businesses in the downtown area of Oakland after these protests last night.

JASON TOLENTINO:

My understanding is it’s actually a good movement, in my opinion, but there’s just a bunch of other protesters, a small percentage of it, that are giving it a bad name.

My name is Jason Tolentino, and I own a nail salon.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

Well, actually, I’m the one who wanted to open a shop.

My name is Jamie. I’m from Vietnam.

JASON TOLENTINO:

No way! Really? It’s pretty much all closed.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

I told myself, before I’m 30 I will own something. So when I’m 28, just took all the money for our wedding just to go buy a shop and start a business.

JASON TOLENTINO:

We’ve been open for about three years, and so far, everything’s great. Besides this, of course. The pandemic has taken a huge toll. We’re just trying to get by doing whatever we can to survive. Then now when we have this going on, which made it even worse.

It’s mainly just for insurance purposes, if it did get vandalized or looted.

It’s not fair for someone like me who’s trying to make this community better and next thing you know, someone just takes it away and ruins the whole business itself.

There is the racism in America. And at the moment, I think it’s just getting worse. African Americans, they just want to not be harassed by the law. There’s nothing wrong with protest. You can protest all you want, we live in America. But when you start vandalizing small businesses, that part is wrong.

CHICAGO, IL

MALE NEWSREADER:

Now amidst all this chaos and turmoil in the country right now it could be easy to forget that we are still in a pandemic. But the threat of this virus—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

One of the first known American COVID-19 survivors to receive a double lung transplant is now recovering. Twenty-eight-year-old Mayra Ramirez received the lung transplant at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

When I first woke up from my lung transplant, I was a vegetable. I couldn’t move a finger, I couldn’t—I could barely wiggle my toes, I couldn’t talk. I was in a lot of pain, I was uncomfortable. I was really disoriented at the time. I felt like I had only been there for like three days or so; I didn’t realize that I was intubated, sedated for six weeks.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

The TV would be on and they would talk about all these riots that were happening and George Floyd and protest. And I was like, “Can I just go back to being sedated? Can I wake up when this is over?” The world was so ugly. Literally cities are burning. I just couldn’t take it.

COOL, CA

MALE COMMENTATOR:

The radical Dems are pushing as many left-wing activists and anarchists as they can into the streets of America. I understand the president is on the phone now.

DONALD TRUMP [on phone]:

Well maybe the point of great success. You know, we were at that point—

ROSIE BORBA:

My feelings with the Black Lives Matter is “all lives matter.” Not just Black, not pink, white or purple. It’s not just one race.

ROD AND ROSIE BORBA

ROSIE BORBA:

I think it’s wrong, basically, what the officer did. I think he should pay a price for what he did. But I look back in history. I had a great-great-grandfather that helped with the slaves. He helped run the underground railroad. He was ambushed by white people who felt the slaves should stay slaves. So when they sit there and say every white person is racist or bad, I’m not racist, I’m not bad. I’m a human being. I respect them, I expect to be respected back.

PORTLAND, OR

MALE NEWSREADER:

George Floyd’s name is on a list now. A very long list. A centuries-old history—

MALE NEWSREADER:

People told me that these protests had become about more than George Floyd. That they’re about this long history of police brutality.

BRYANT MOORE:

All you have to do is look at history. If you flip the pages back from history, it speaks for itself.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

There is another vigil for George Floyd that is getting underway right now at Peninsula Park.

BRYANT MOORE:

I just keep seeing African American people get killed by cops all across the nation and nothing’s happening. You look at American history and it’s ugly. People are hurt. People are tired of—we’re tired of being tired.

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 1:

And where were the men that swore to protect this country against enemies—

BRYANT MOORE:

When I look at history, we protest. Nothing changed. We protest now. Nothing’s really changing. And that’s hurtful.

FEMALE PROTEST SPEAKER:

From Day One, America has been based off of the subjugation of Black and indigenous people!

BRYANT MOORE:

Yes! Yes! Speak it, sister girl!

How can I love America? I can’t. I don’t think I can love America. America hasn’t loved me, that’s for damn sure.

CROWD:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

Power to the people!

CROWD:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

Black power!

CROWD:

Black power!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

Black power!

CROWD:

Black power!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

All power to the people!

BRYANT MOORE:

Power to the people!

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

All power to the people!

BRYANT MOORE:

All power to the people!

The fight is real. But it’s always been here. Now it’s to the surface in 2020. Now where do we go from here?

MALE PROTEST SPEAKER 2:

You need to get off your damn phones and recording s— and start getting active!

CHAPTER THREE

ELECTION

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

—how millions of people all across America are casting their votes on who they want to lead the country for the next—

MALE NEWSREADER:

It has been a campaign year unlike any other.

LATE OCTOBER

MALE NEWSREADER:

More than 90 million ballots have been cast, and that number—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Record-breaking early voting continues. Massive early vote total includes more than 7 million Californians who have already returned their mail-in ballots.

ROSIE BORBA:

I wish there wasn’t as much hate in this world as what we have. I don’t care if you’re a Dem, I don’t care if you’re Republican, I don’t care if you’re in the middle. There’s so much hate.

I hope President Trump wins. Vice President Biden, I feel, is—and I hate to say the age thing, because he’s probably my age, maybe? Or my years? I don’t know how old he is. I think he’s too old. I think he’s too feeble in his mind. I just wish it was over.

Yay! [laughs]

MALE NEWSREADER:

Illinois election officials reporting seeing early voting numbers they have not seen in prior elections.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Recovery is pretty slow and really hard. I have someone else’s lungs and it would be like a slap in the face if I didn’t try my hardest.

MALE POLL WORKER:

Are you here to vote?

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

Mmm hmm.

MALE POLL WORKER:

OK, so you’re going to go through the revolving doors.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I avoid going anywhere, so I requested the mail-in ballot, but it never arrived.

Hi.

MALE POLL WORKER 2:

Hello.

MAYRA RAMIREZ:

I’m Mayra Ramirez.

I saw one person who didn’t have their mask on properly, and that upset me a little bit. My No. 1 topic of interest during this election is health care reform.

I think this is the first time that during an election that we’ve actually expected riots and violence and protests. Regardless of how the results go, I think we’re all still expecting it.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

So far this election is on track to set a record.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

California’s top election official assuring folks there are safe ways to vote during a pandemic. All ballots will be protected.

JASON TOLENTINO:

All right, everything’s—

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

Did I put my name here?

JASON TOLENTINO:

Did you sign? No! You’ve got sign— [sighs] Sheesh. Well, I’ve got no pen. Now we’ve got to walk back out again. Do you have a pen? You’ve got to put your address—it literally says on the top that it’s going to invalidate if you don’t sign it.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

Oh! [laughs]

JASON TOLENTINO:

I would rather not say who I voted for. I just want everything to come back to normal, that’s all I’m praying for, really. People will be surprised, but I don’t want to say who I voted for.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

I just vote for myself, or I vote for the lady. No, I vote for the lady!

JASON TOLENTINO:

You voted for that lady, huh? You don’t even know her name.

JAMIE TOLENTINO:

I don’t know who she is, but it seems like she’s the only lady, so I vote for the lady. I vote for the woman!

JASON TOLENTINO:

[laughs] Well, you have a right to do that.

ELECTION DAY

TAYO DANIEL:

It’s been a while since I voted, you know, due to my situation.

Here at the polling station. I’m here with my dad, the OG.

I made a lot of bad decisions when I was younger—getting in fights, had an assault charge, things like that.

Trying to do the right thing. It’s never too late to do the right thing. That’s for sure.

I made a vow to myself that I’ll never do nothing illegal again. I’ll never go to jail again.

I need to register.

FEMALE POLL WORKER 1:

Do you have an ID with your—

TAYO DANIEL:

So I just felt privileged to be able to get out and vote.

FEMALE POLL WORKER 2:

Here’s your ballot.

TAYO DANIEL:

There’s a lot of people that are not allowed to vote or who can’t vote, so it’s important that the people who have the privilege of voting take that step and make that initiative.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The polls in Iowa are open until 9 o’clock tonight for anyone who chooses to vote in person. Across the state there are about 1,200 locations—

CARY GORDON:

I have to put this on now.

You’re supposed to find people that represent you. Donald Trump cannot represent me; he does not represent my beliefs. Of course, I can’t vote for Joe Biden for the very same reason.

FEMALE POLL WORKER:

Thank you for voting. Have a good evening.

MALE POLL WORKER:

Everything was recorded, Cary.

CARY GORDON:

Thank you very much.

I will sleep good tonight because someday, as a Christian, I believe Christ will return and all wrongs will be righted and justice will prevail. And my job is to keep speaking the truth as a minister.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, big race, big electoral vote fight tonight. Too early to call.

MALE NEWSREADER:

But we will be getting some results, actually, we think, this hour from Kentucky.

CHRISTINE MANN:

I’m equally excited and nervous. I’ve been thinking about how four years ago, I didn’t think I was going to make it four years. Joe Biden was not my first choice. My first choice was Kamala Harris, who thankfully is the vice presidential candidate, soon to be the vice president.

MALE NEWSREADER:

In the commonwealth of Massachusetts—

CHRISTINE MANN:

Yay, Joe Biden wins Massachusetts!

MALE NEWSREADER:

—Joe Biden the projected winner tonight.

CHRISTINE MANN:

My gut is telling me Biden’s going to win. But I’m so nervous about the possibility of a contested election. But I think that it’s unlikely. I think that we’re going to have a good win tonight.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We are still in the thick of a very heated contest.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Right. It is closer than Democrats wanted it to be. It is closer than any Democrat is comfortable with right now. We’ll have to wait and see how that comes in.

BRYANT MOORE:

I anticipate some very uneasy people on either or both sides angry about not getting their way. Whoever wins, which I hope it is not Trump, we should come together.

CROWD [chanting]:

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!

BRYANT MOORE:

This week I felt kind of like a sigh of relief. I was feeling like things are changing, things are—they’re shifting in a different direction.

CROWD [chanting]:

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!

FEMALE PROTEST LEADER:

Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!

BRYANT MOORE:

It was an invigorating space to see. A lot of people that not necessarily look like me but wanted the same types of things that I want in America.

NOVEMBER 7, 2020

MALE NEWSREADER:

Vice President Joe Biden will win Pennsylvania and Nevada, putting him over the 270 electoral votes—

MALE NEWSREADER:

Across the country, pro-Trump protesters gathering at state capitals, echoing the president that the election was stolen.

AMY GARNER:

Because I really was just so sick of politics I wanted to write in “Jesus.” [laughs] But that doesn’t do anything. So I was surprised—I felt prompted to vote for Trump.

PROUD BOY PROTEST SPEAKER:

We are very much in a spiritual battle right now. We are invoking Christ because Christ is the way, and Christ is the only way that we are going to triumph over evil. We have tried time and time again—

AMY GARNER:

I really hope representatives will get the voice of the people and that there will be a middle ground. Biden probably can’t accomplish everything he wants, but a part of me feels devastated because I feel like it’s taking society in a completely different direction.

PROUD BOY PROTEST SPEAKER:

Stand by, stand down. No, we’re not standing down. We’re here, we’re going to stand—we’re going to stand fast. We’re going to wait for orders.

MALE NEWSREADER:

—cheers and saw celebrations in the streets of Minneapolis.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Celebrations by Joe Biden supporters have been going on all day, including here in the Metro.

TAYO DANIEL:

Hey!

I’m just excited that overall that more people got involved in the voting process, because that way, we’re going to be able to hold these elected officials more accountable.

So I think a lot of people are going to be looking at Joe Biden like, “OK, you were talking that talk, now how are you going to walk the walk?”

What do you guys think of the election?

FEMALE PASSERSBY:

Oh, yeah! We’re good, we’re good!

TAYO DANIEL:

I was relieved to the point where it’s like, “OK, this step has been handled. Now what’s the next step?” It’s not over; this is just the beginning. That’s just one man. The president doesn’t make the world a better place; the people make the world a better place, the people living in it.

MALE NEWSREADER:

So let’s talk about what exactly happened and what this vote says about the country. Joe Biden got a record number of votes—

ROD BORBA:

We have half a nation that believes that we had an unfair election. We have another half of the nation that thinks everything’s just great and wonderful. I hope it’s wrong, but I see too many comments by too many people. I feel a revolution coming. It’s getting closer every day. Somebody’s going to be dumb enough to fire the first shot and we’re going to have some serious problems. I hope I’m wrong.

ROSIE BORBA:

I hope you’re wrong, too.

ROD BORBA:

And I hope I’m not here to see it.

FEMALE VOICE:

I’m ready for you, doctor.

CHRISTINE MANN:

OK, I’ll be right there.

I think the immediate future holds turmoil and fear and concern about where we go next.

We are ready to do some COVID testing now.

I actually fear that people are going to say, “Whew, Joe Biden won, we’re done, we can go back to doing and living our normal lives.”

All right, this is a nasal swab, both sides of your nose.

Anyone who thinks that the election getting called is the end of the work that needs to be done is mistaken.

And we’ll have results for you within 24 hours.

MARK CURTIS:

I have no regrets about voting for the Libertarian candidate. I’m tired of people voting for the lesser of two evils—voting Democrat because it’s not Trump or voting Republican because it’s not Biden.

Wouldn’t really matter who got into office, I feel like they’re one and the same. I think our culture’s going to stay divided. The division that has been created here recently is something that we’ve regressed to that’s going to take generations to recover. I think our culture is going to be horribly scarred by this. And I don’t know what it’s going to be blamed on in the end or how it’s going to be spun, but I think that our culture on the whole has gone down a deep, dark hole.

CARRAN LEWIS:

Woo-hoo! President Biden! Yay! That was for you.

We have a president. [sings] Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.

He can’t fix this mess overnight. He can’t fix it in a week, a month. But it’s over. Thank goodness, it’s over.

[sings] Let peace begin with me. Let this be the moment now.

But now we worry about what’s going to happen next.

Let there be peace.

AMERICAN VOICES 2026

Oct. 13, 2026

DIRECTED BY Mike Shum

WRITTEN BY Hillary Bachelder & Mike Shum

PRODUCED BY Tarryn Mento Mike Shum

SENIOR PRODUCERS Callie T. Wiser Frank Koughan

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ARCHIVE PRODUCERS Mandi Robinson Kaelin McDonald

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NARRATED BY Will Lyman

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AMERICAN VOICES 2024

Oct. 29, 2024

DIRECTED BY Mike Shum

WRITTEN BY Mike Shum and Qinling Li

PRODUCED BY Qinling Li Arthur Nazaryan Mike Shum Blair Woodbury Michaela Ternasky-Holland

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ADDITIONAL CAMERA Hillary Bachelder Oscar Collazos Taylor Galmiche Adja Gildersleve Georgia Fort Michael Hennings Andrew Hinton Brian Hollars Patrick M. Hoy Fraser Jones Emily Kinskey Mike Kozlenko David Lackey Kate McMahon Edythe McNamee Hanna Miller Ashley O’Shay Brock Shank Colby Shelton Andrew Stefanik Shuling Yong Timothy Wolfer

ARCHIVE PRODUCERS Megan Robertson Johanna Sims

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ADDITIONAL EDITING Miles Alvord

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AMERICAN VOICES: A NATION IN TURMOIL

Nov. 17, 2020

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Mike Shum

PRODUCED BY Mike Shum Blair Woodbury Arthur Nazaryan Michaela Ternasky-Holland

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ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS Georgia Fort Trevor May Katie Nelson

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SENIOR EDITOR AT LARGE Louis Wiley Jr

FOUNDER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AT LARGE David Fanning

SPECIAL COUNSEL Dale Cohen

SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR Philip Bennett

SENIOR EDITOR Lauren Ezell Kinlaw

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL VIDEO Carla Borras

SENIOR PRODUCERS Dan Edge Frank Koughan

SENIOR EDITOR & DIRECTOR OF LOCAL PROJECTS Sarah Childress

MANAGING EDITOR Andrew Metz

MANAGING DIRECTOR Jim Bracciale

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Raney Aronson-Rath

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