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Papa Roach: The #Resistance’s Last Resort Plays The National Tonight

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Are you feeling suffocated by the Trump presidency? Does the thought of another two years of Alice in Wonderland political depravity leave you breathless?

Papa Roach may be the anodyne you’re looking for, more so since the nu-metal luminaries are kicking off a month-long tour starting tonight at The National in Richmond. 

What they might be best known for recently is their viral trolling of President Trump, which has been a welcome development for a band who’s career has been subject to intense scrutiny for the better part of two decades. Most notably, the band mimicked President Trump’s childish, all-caps threat against Iran using lyrics from their 2000 mega-hit “Last Resort.”

For those who are not hard-wired into the world of international relations, the U.S. has been in a tense stand off with the Islamic Republic since they over-ran the U.S. Embassy in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution. Therefore, Trump’s tweet rage should come as no surprise; this bumptious outburst was in response to a speech given by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in July, 2018. Rouhani was quoted as saying, “Do not play with the lion’s tail or else you will regret it,” referring to U.S. efforts to sanction crude oil exports after leaving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or simply “the Iran nuclear deal” – a signature landmark of Obama-era foreign policy. “Peace with Iran would be the mother of all peace, war with Iran would be the mother of all wars,” said Rouhani later in the speech. 

Irrespective of Trump tweets, the intricacies of diplomacy in the conflict-prone Middle East is always complex, leading Papa Roach to weigh with a nuanced response which was surely debated in the halls of each government (and possibly the U.N.); using “Last Resort” to make their point.

Genius.

Papa Roach also joined in the fun after a doctored New York Times article reimagined Paul Ryan listening to “Last Resort” in his SUV after a workout. The band later tweeted a photo of Paul Ryan lifting weights and wearing a Papa Roach shirt with caption, “#RoachGate,” after a joke tweet about Paul Ryan blasting “Last Resort” as he drove away once his healthcare bill failed. 

The cutting my life into pieces did not stop there, however, with the band re-tweeting Kavanaugh inspired memes.

The moral of this story? While Papa Roach might not be your bag, their epic trolling of the Republican establishment proves that even the nu-metal bands of the  90s and 00s can still get down with the movement. Bless.

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

 

“Scary Time” for Men, Scary Lifetime For Women

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When the 45th President of the United States says that it is a “very scary time for young men in America,” he is blatantly discounting the fact that it is always a very scary time for women – young and old – in America. I have more than 100 students in my anthropology classes this semester, and the reality is that nearly 25 percent of them will experience sexual violence before they graduate. 

In the general population, 1 out of every 6 women will survive rape or attempted rape. LGBTQ women experience sexual violence at an even higher rate; more than half of transgender women of color will survive sexual assault during a lifetime that will be, on average, only 35 years long. The RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) website reports in large, dominating letters that every 98 seconds, another American is sexually assaulted. 

In a culture where sexual violence against women is this pervasive (and embedded in places like the high schools of potential U.S. Supreme Court members), it doesn’t matter if these women are our daughters, sisters, or wives: it matters that being a woman – any woman – comes with a very real, very tangible risk. 

A risk that is not just “scary,” but one that shapes our lives.

Most of us don’t remember where or when we picked up certain tricks, but many of us carry our keys between our fingers in case we need to defend ourselves while walking to the car. We’ve learned somewhere along the way to look under our cars and in the back seats before we get in; we rarely, if ever, get in an elevator by ourselves with a man or group of men we don’t know. We have all, at some point, called a friend on a walk home so that someone knows where we are, and listens with us for danger as we walk alone. 

These are ways that, every day, every woman in America acknowledges and mitigates – as best we can – the risk of sexual violence we face simply for being women. 

Ways that men mitigate the risk of sexual violence? They don’t, because for the most part, they don’t have to. Scary, indeed. 

Years ago, when I first started teaching at VCU, one of my undergrads asked me to sign a pledge to Start by Believing. At the time, it didn’t seem all that profound to me: it seemed logical pledging to simply believe women when they reported surviving sexual violence. But since then, as students have come through my classes, I’ve found myself in more than one situation looking in tear-filled eyes and saying, before all other things, “I believe you.” And each time I say it, the reality becomes more stark: despite statistics that clearly show women in America are at risk, the default seems to be that when they report their experiences, they are questioned and ultimately doubted.

“What were you wearing? Were you drinking? Were you walking home in the dark by yourself?”

Patriarchy is a deep and profound thing. 

The net result of this doubt is that only 20 percent of undergraduate survivors report their assaults. For non-student survivors, nearly 2 out of every 3 assaults go unreported. Their reasons? Fear of retaliation from the perpetrator, and law enforcement’s disinterest or inability to help. 

And what we watched, as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judicial Committee, is this same tragedy playing out in a very national and public way.

For those who think college kids or millennials today aren’t engaged in a national conversation, I counter with this: students listened on their phones to Dr. Ford’s testimony in the hallway between classes, and asked me to finish lecturing early so we could watch together as a class. They gathered in a conference room on campus to watch the hearing with allies. They turned to each other, turned to me, and said, “I believe her.”

They witnessed, with the same gnawing fear and disquiet in their stomachs, as man after man on the committee told Dr. Ford some version of their doubt in her story. Doubt in her ability to remember, doubt in her ability to judge what makes assault assault. 

Her reasons for not coming forward were questioned by the leader of our country in a tweet on September 21: “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!” 

The resulting stories from survivors use the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport. They are swift, profound, and brutal. During her testimony and in the following days, RAINN saw a 338% increase in traffic on their sexual assault hotline. This is evidence, according to RAINN president Scott Berkowitz, that Dr. Ford’s “story has clearly resonated with survivors, and has led thousands to reach out for help for the first time.” 

The President would like us to focus on the fear of false accusations, or on criminalization of the “boys will be boys” mentality. But statistics tell us that of all assaults reported, only 2% are found to be false. The President – accused of sexual violence by more than a dozen women – has also mocked Dr. Ford and her testimony, which fuels the belief of women across the country that our experiences do not matter. It fuels the belief that, even in raising our voices to the most prominent leaders of our country, we will not be heard. 

Dr. Ford has likely spent her entire academic career being talked over by male colleagues, so in that sense, the hearing was nothing new. Having young women look to her as a role model is likely not new either. 

The conversation we are seeing on the national stage – of a smart, credible, accomplished woman being mocked by the president for reporting her sexual assault – is being heard by every woman in the country. 

It’s heard by women who may think to themselves, “If a professor of psychology isn’t believed, why would anyone believe me?” It’s heard by more women who have kept their assaults quiet for decades, and by women who do not remember all the details – and one result could be that all of these women see the writing on the wall, and simply continue to say nothing. 

Yet, by speaking out, Dr. Ford has done something for women in this country that we perhaps didn’t know we needed. In this moment, women are finding voices that they didn’t know they had, courage from places deeply buried. Another American will be sexually assaulted every 98 seconds until we, as a country, dismantle the power structure and language that believes the accused over the survivors. Starting, sadly, at the very top. 

I believe you. And if you are a survivor of sexual violence, I encourage you to call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. 

Southwest Virginians Need Healthcare, Not Scorn

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As a journalist, the Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise, VA, was an event teeming with stories and lives waiting to be uncovered. But as a sociologist, it was a textbook case of yet another rural community suffering from systemic disenfranchisement. Global and national forces have trapped the communities within Southwest Virginia in the cycle of poverty. Unemployment is high, wages are low, and medical care, education, and health lag behind the rest of the Commonwealth. The area has long been neglected by political representatives, and has become the subject of misunderstood stories that feed exploitative portrayals in media and entertainment.

Within sociology, I study access disparity, asking who, what, when, where, why, and how people are able to access the systems and concepts necessary to their well-being.

Setting out to Wise to cover the clinic with my reporting partner, Sarah Kerndt, we agreed that we wanted to tell the true stories of the community. Rather than exploit the residents and put them on display, we wanted to find out what they really needed, and share it in an informative, respectful manner. Understandably, we were met with skepticism and wariness. “Are you from the media?” Once, I was even seriously asked if I was part of the “crooked” media. What we found was a major disparity gap that drove these people to the fairgrounds for those three days, and personal experiences that have made them reserved when dealing with the media.

Rural Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and even more specifically, Wise, Virginia, have been grossly misrepresented by the media. The people who live in these communities are often seen as behind the times; backwards, toothless hicks that live in hollers. They are called desperate, which they often are, but are still spun as caricatures of rural America, as if they were the characters of the “Beverly Hillbillies” still stuck in their farmland homes.

These are inaccurate portrayals of the people of southwestern Virginia.

Photo by Sarah Kerndt

Policymaking often forgets those of low-populated, low-income areas. Although Wise isn’t as large as a metro area, I still struggle to find the logic behind forgetting a county that’s populated by more than 38,000 people. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, it is not the largest county by land area (Pittsylvania County) or population (Fairfax County) or by wealth (Loudoun County). But, no county is worth forgetting when it comes to baseline healthcare.

What is probably the largest misconception about the region is that the residents are all hateful, ignorant, and full of racist vitriol toward people of color, especially immigrants from Central and South America. While residents did want jobs to come back, they didn’t describe the loss as an immigration issue. “It’s ridiculous because people can’t get jobs because all of the coal mines are closing and everything, and what jobs that are there are pretty much gas stations and stores,” said Melody Austin, a resident of the area. She was standing in line waiting for general medical. “Everybody’s needing jobs, can’t get jobs, so you can’t get healthcare because you can’t pay for healthcare. It’s a cycle that feeds itself.”

While a lack of funding for schools and educational programs impacts people in rural communities, I came to find that this did not mean that people did not know how to take care of themselves. Sandra Schwaner, an RN from UVA, told me a story about an eye-opening experience she had during one of her first years volunteering for RAM. “From the dental perspective, dental care down here is horrible. I used to think it was because nobody brushed their teeth. Then somebody pointed out to me, “You know we’re not all idiots down here, don’t you? I do know how to take care of my teeth, but with all the fracking and coal mining runoff…”

 She said the contaminated water would collect in the wells, impacting dental health. Chewing on sediment and drinking poisonous water has taken a toll on the lives of these people.

Photo by Sarah Kerndt

People wonder why these folks just don’t get a better job or apply for health insurance, or even just move to a new area with better opportunities. For many, generations of their family have lived in this area. Additionally, the conditions they live in are not their fault.

“The folks that are here are mainly the folks that have fallen through the cracks of the expansion,” said RJ Briscione, regional vice president and Medicaid business development leader at Aetna. Aetna, a healthcare insurance company, was the local partner sponsor that year for RAM. “Most of the folks that you see here either don’t have or can’t get Medicaid or can’t afford other coverage.” As part of their analytics, Aetna partnered with US News and discovered that Wise has some of the worst healthcare coverage in the state. Falls Church was first on the list.

Just a few weeks before RAM, the Virginia legislature passed Medicaid expansion, granting necessary health insurance to nearly 400,000 low-income Virginians. According to the act, states are allowed to “to open their Medicaid rolls to people with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $16,643 for an individual. The federal government pledged to pay at least 90 percent of the cost, which in Virginia would amount to about $2 billion a year.” What has existed as a longstanding problem has been the lack of insurance for specialists, an often forgotten step in the role of healthcare. “A lot of the specialties and the subspecialties that you see here represented at all these different trucks…it’s really hard for people to find that kind of care,” said Briscione, gesturing to the different tents and trucks providing medical services at RAM. “We hope, in coming years, we wouldn’t see as many chronic cases here because the Medicaid expansion would help cover some of these folks.”

Chronic pain, in particular, has run rampant in southwest Virginia due to the looming yet decaying coal industry. On the drive down to Wise, you pass a behemoth of a coal plant run by Dominion. The cars leave with a thin layer of dust from the plant. “Southwest Virginia is kind of unique because we have a lot of coal mining industry workers, so we have a lot of chronic pain injury,” said Sarah Melton, professor of pharmacy practice at the Gatton College of Pharmacy at East Tennessee State University. She said this results in the abuse of opioids to treat their chronic or acute pain.

Photo by Sarah Kerndt

The dangerous field of coal mining leaves many with unbearable pain, work-related injuries, and black lung, which has been making a comeback since President Trump promised to bring back the coal industry. But as many have seen across the Appalachian Mountains, where many plants are located, his promise hasn’t brought back jobs. Nearly 20 percent of coal plants have closed since Trump took office, and coal consumption has fallen 2.4 percent, the lowest it’s been in 40 years.

What is hard to fully capture in this piece is how much passion the people of Wise hold. Their desire to work, to care, and to help is evident. As one woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told me, “All we want are jobs. A way of life.” Their sense of heart and pride was palpable. “The people are amazing. To a person, every single person here will [say] ‘thank you’ for volunteering. We don’t go 10, 15 minutes without somebody saying thank you even though they’ve got [to] sit and wait in the heat, which isn’t the best way to get healthcare,” said Briscione. Autumn, who drove all the way from North Carolina with her husband to seek care, was a former resident of Wise. “Everybody here would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. [They’re] willing to help each other [and are] friendly.”

I refuse to accept the rationale that because a certain group of people voted a certain way means they shouldn’t receive the same treatment as everyone else. For many, the promises that President Trump boasted during his campaign was a sign of hope for the people of Wise. You can’t blame them for clinging to the only hope they have. Many people from Richmond barely know where Wise is located, much less that it’s a county within our Commonwealth. It is about time that people on this side of the region gave a damn about the folks on the other side of the mountains who need care. With the expansion of Medicaid and the looming elections ahead, perhaps we will see changes that are truly needed to aid those in southwestern Virginia.

Social Distortion’s Mike Ness Fights Trump Supporter at Concert

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Video has just surfaced of Mike Ness, legendary frontman of California punk band Social Distortion, taking swings at a concertgoer over an on-stage disagreement about politics last month at the Ace of Spades club in Sacramento, California. The clip shows 56-year-old Ness making aggressive hand gestures towards someone in the audience before taking off his guitar and jumping into the crowd.

The man allegedly assaulted by Ness, Tim Hildebrand, claimed he suffered two black eyes, a busted lip, and a concussion. Reports also have Ness spitting in the direction of the man before the beating took place.

According to CBS 13, the fight was due to Hildebrand heckling the singer after he made some disparaging comments about President Trump at the show. Telling the network affiliate, Hildebrand said, “I pretty much said, I pay for your music, not your politics.” He also told reporters that he stood in silent protest for two songs with his middle finger held high.

Once jumping into the crowd, the video shows Ness throwing some blows while being egged on by the audience. At one point, a concertgoer yelled, “Fuck yeah, Mike.” Hildebrand is a Republican and a farmer from the nearby town of Galt. The Daily Mail has reported that after the scuffle, he was escorted out by police where a report was filed. James Mauldin, who was interviewed by CBS 13, said the incident was “…a little bit excessive.” The band at this time has not commented on the incident.

Punk’s not dead.

 

The One Year Anniversary of Unite the Right is Here. A lot Has Happened

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RVA Tank, Parkland Shooting, Democratic-nominee Spanberger, families separated at the border, KKK effigies, Governor Northam, punching Nazis, getting punched by Nazis.

It’s been a long year.

As we approach the one year anniversary of Unite the Right, the alt-right rally held in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 last year that ended with the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer, it’s hard to ignore the tension in the air. Whether that tension has increased or decreased, or the political dissension within our country is better or worse, Americans are certainly motivated. We’ve seen protest after protest, breaking news stories flying in each day with news of Russia, North Korea, Robert Mueller, Corey Stewart, and Jason Kessler.

The white nationalist movement has not slowed down, nor has it given up. Identity Evropa came to Richmond to pick up trash in hopes of normalizing their cause. The FBI has as many open cases concerning white supremacist propaganda online as they do for ISIS. And Unite the Right is happening again, but this time, its headed to Washington, D.C.

Here is a brief roundup of events from the past year to get you up to speed on the white nationalist movement in Virginia in preparation for this weekend’s latest appearance from our best-known racists (this list may not include every event related to white nationalism in Virginia):

August 2017: Jason Kessler, online blogger, and white nationalist, successfully organizes an alt-right rally called Unite the Right on Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, in the name of protecting the Confederate statues in two local parks. Several physical altercations occurred during the rally, and attendees were armed with bats, guns, or other weapons.

White Supremacists at Unite the Right

James Alex Fields, Jr., a white nationalist, drove his vehicle into a crowd of counter-protesters after the rally was deemed unlawful by police. His attack killed Heather Heyer and injured multiple others. Fields was part of Vanguard America, a white supremacist organization. He was placed in jail and denied bail.

President Trump suggested the blame for the violence rested with “many sides.”

September 2017: The Dreamers, young first-generation immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act, mobilized after Trump’s threat to end the program. Long marches between Charlottesville and Richmond as well as Charlottesville and Washington sprung up as September clung to summer temperatures. DACA was rescinded later that month by Trump, but at least temporarily upheld by the Supreme Court.

An activist group hung Ku Klux Klan effigies in Bryan Park.

The New Confederate States of America planned a rally in Richmond to support Confederate statues on Monument Avenue, claiming to be motivated by the Monument Avenue Historical Commission convened in June by Mayor Levar Stoney and tasked with providing recommendations for what to do with the statues. The rally took place on Sept. 16, attended by over 400 counter-protesters, a heavy police presence, and a small handful of CSA members who arrived in twos and threes. The CSA was severely outnumbered in what RVA Mag called a “win for Richmond,” as the protest ended peacefully.

Counter-Protestors in Richmond

Later that month, the FBI claimed white nationalists are just as dangerous as Islamic terrorists.

October 2017: At the beginning of the month, a circuit court judge in Charlottesville handed down a ruling signaling that the Commonwealth’s laws protecting war memorials could be retroactively applied to Virginia’s Confederate monuments.

The City of Charlottesville and several small businesses in the area filed a novel lawsuit to prevent future militia groups from entering their city again. This lawsuit is ongoing and continues to seek a verdict in August of 2018. Six defendants have settled since May 2018.

White nationalist Richard Spencer held a torch-lit rally in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, glorifying the Robert E. Lee monument and mimicking a similar torch-lit rally held on UVA’s campus the night before Unite the Right. Around two dozen white nationalists were present.

Jason Kessler began a new white nationalist group called New Byzantium following Unite the Right. It’s one of many new alt-right groups that continue to crop up to this day, largely spread through online forums.

November 2017: In a Democratic sweep, Ralph Northam became the new Governor of Virginia, joined by Justin Fairfax as Lt. Governor, and Mark Herring as Attorney General. It was a significant Democratic victory similar to the victory of then-Senator Obama when he won the presidency in 2008. The blue wave was accompanied by a new wave of female representatives in the General Assembly, the largest number of women to be elected to the GA in Virginia’s history. This included the first Latina women, the first Asian-American, and the first transgender woman to win a seat in the GA.

January 2018: Chris Cantwell, the notorious “Crying Nazi,” faced up to 20 years in jail for pepper-spraying counter-protesters at a torch-lit white supremacist rally on UVA’s campus the night before Unite the Right. At the beginning of the month, he attempted to sue anti-fascists, claiming that they discharged the pepper spray against themselves.

Thousands of women come to Richmond for the one-year anniversary of the Women’s March.

March 2018: Deandre Harris, a black man viciously beaten by white nationalists during the Unite the Right, was charged and then acquitted of assault by the District Court in Charlottesville. During Unite the Right, Harris was assaulted by six men with wooden pikes in the Market Street Parking Garage, eventually sustaining a spinal injury and receiving 10 staples in his head.

June 2018: Nathan Larson, a self-confessed pedophile and white supremacist, runs for Congress in Virginia. Previously an accountant in Charlottesville, Larson is running as an independent. Jason Allsup, another white nationalist who attended the Unite the Right rally, was elected as a Republican official in Washington state. This marked the beginning of many white supremacists and anti-Semitic candidates running on the Republican ticket in America ahead of midterm elections. This trend continued with Corey Stewart, Virginia’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. He appeared on CNN and struggled to answer questions about his past ties to white supremacists and anti-semites. He continues to be aggressive online and has not revoked his white nationalist ties.

Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for Virginia’s 7th District, wins a huge primary victory and will run against Dave Brat in the fall for the congressional seat.

Abigail Spanberger

President Trump begins his “zero tolerance” immigration policies and enacts legislation that separates immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. National and international outrage sparks protests throughout the Commonwealth, including one outside Dave Brat’s office, who publicly supported Trump’s decision.

The National Parks Service approved an application submitted by Jason Kessler for another alt-right rally to be held in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 11 and 12 this year. This will come to pass this weekend in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C.

Identity Evropa visited Richmond for a little community service by picking up trash around town in an attempt to normalize their organization and beliefs. In Lexington, local restaurant owner Stephanie Wilkinson refused to service White House Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at her restaurant, The Red Hen. It was followed by five days of protests against and for her restaurant. In one instance, someone threw chicken feces on their storefront window.

July 2018: The Monument Avenue Commission recommended that the Jefferson Davis monument be removed from Monument Avenue, with Mayor Stoney’s approval. Later in August, an unknown individual vandalized the Robert E. Lee monument with red paint, writing “BLM” (Black Lives Matter) on the statue’s base. This is only the latest act of vandalism concerning the statues over the past year.

Chris Cantwell, the aforementioned “crying Nazi,” was barred from entering the Commonwealth for the next five years. He plead guilty to assault and battery for spraying two anti-racist activists with pepper spray the night before Unite the Right.

August 2018:

Now that August approaches, we look to another year that will hopefully not result in death or injury. Jason Kessler will be in D.C. this Sunday, Aug. 12, in Lafayette Square to march and protest in the name of “white civil rights.” Regular faces like Kessler, Spencer and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke are said to appear and speak, although the movement has suffered serious divisions and other prominent white nationalists are disavowing Kessler.

A vigil will be held on Saturday, Aug. 11, in Charlottesville at 5 p.m. for Heather Heyer, in remembrance of her life, as well as an anti-racist march the next day in an attempt to heal from the events of last year.

Stay with RVA Mag on Instagram (@rvamag) and Twitter (@RVAmag)  for updates on these events this coming weekend.

Comedy in the Era of Trump: A Chat With David Cross

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Stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director – the list of David Cross’ talents are near endless. He’s done it all, from entertaining on stage with his unique brand of political comedy, to small screen portrayals of iconic characters like Tobias Fünke in the Emmy-award winning TV series Arrested Development. On the big screen, he’s recently been in Spielberg’s newest biopic, The Post, and appeared in his own independent film, Hits, which he wrote and directed.

Stand-up, however, is where Cross truly shines, and in this political climate, his humor and cynical observations are needed now more than ever. RVA Mag had the chance to catch up with Cross ahead of his show in Richmond next month as part of his “Oh Come On Tour,” his first since his 2016 tour, “Making America Great Again.“ Make sure t0 catch Cross at the Dominion Energy Center on Saturday, August 4.

This article originally appeared in RVA #33 Summer 2018, you can check out the issue here, or pick it up around Richmond now. 

RVA Mag: You’re coming back to the capital of the Confederacy. We’re looking at a statue of Jefferson Davis from our office window — how does that feel?

Cross: I [was excited to] come back and eat at that deli….please help me out with that. Perly’s? Oh man, it was the best. You are never really in a place for too long, if you can squeeze out two meals you are lucky.

RVA Mag: Has your comedy changed in the era of Trump?

Cross: You can’t craft a lot of bits about something Trump said or did because every outrageous moment is replaced by an increasingly outrageous moment within hours or days.  My take has been to talk less about him, and more about his fans and the people who love him.

I try not to do anything too specific and timely because two weeks later, I have to drop the bit.

RVA Mag: Is it harder to tell jokes?

Cross: I think comedy is harder in the overall sense that the helplessness and loss of feeling of any kind of anchor to normalcy, reality, or to what America was up until a couple years ago, has altered our ability to focus and enjoy things the way we did prior to that. There is a lot of stuff you can joke about that feels almost irresponsible and dismissive; like ‘why are you focusing on that’ because these awful things are happening to innocent people.

People are understandably upset, and feel that they are treading water trying to get air, asking, “What’s happening?” It is one horrifying thing after another – if you care about people other than yourselves. I should qualify this: If you are concerned with other groups of people, other than straight white Christians, then you are going to be upset. If not, things are going great.

Cross performing on his Oh Come On Tour. Photo Courtesy of Just For Laughs

RVA Mag: What’s a coping mechanism in this political climate?

Weed is the first answer. I don’t know how you cope with it. You try to fight it.

Cross: Do you worry that mocking Trump voters emboldens them?

I wouldn’t say I worry about it, but I am aware that that might be a response to what I am doing. But also, that ship has sailed a long, long, long time ago. I find this idea that gets picked up and pushed around as not having as much weight as the people that come up with those ideas [think]- this sounds like a David Brooks idea!

The things I’m saying or feeling, I would not pull back on or edit myself because I thought, “Oh no, what if I make Dan and Margaret from Bloomington upset.” I am not going to be the one that pushes them over the edge.

RVA Mag: On the flip side: Are you finding it challenging to play to a young liberal audience?

Cross: That is 100 percent true. I have experienced this on my last tour. One of the worst shows I had in a place I am not going back to was in Northampton, Massachusetts, which is a very liberal town. I have always had problems, even when I was opening for headliners and no one knew who I was. I really grew as a comic in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is also very liberal, and I go to San Francisco, and always had problems with that very attitude you are talking about, where you say a word and they just shut down.

They don’t listen to the bit, they don’t listen to what the context is; they just heard the word, concept, or phrase and then shut you down by saying you are a racist, homophobic, you are whatever they want to apply. It is definitely a much stronger presence now than there ever was.

How do I reconcile it? I don’t, really. I do my stuff. Most people, by far, 90 percent of people get the context. Funny is subjective, I can’t fault someone for going “that’s not funny.” But if they think it is offensive or shouldn’t be said, there are tons of stuff you can look at and cherry pick and say, “You said this word or you said that thing, and I don’t like the joke.”

RVA Mag: You’re headed for Europe on this tour. How does it feel to be an American ambassador in the era of Trump?

Cross: I went to Europe on the last tour, and we are very alien to them. Most people really like America and like Americans, but they are just perplexed and head-scratching. [They wonder], “You have most of the money in the world, but have one of the highest illiteracy and teen pregnancy rates; you allow automatic rifles to be sold to people who shoot people up and kill children and don’t do anything about it. You work really hard and don’t make that much money and you aren’t happy.”

[Europeans] are right. They’re like, “We don’t have the money you have, but we’re happy with our lives.” They have universal healthcare, no one goes broke if they get sick. They have three months of maternity leave, and are unionized, and have six times the vacation days as Americans. They get a month off with their families.

RVA Mag: Do Europeans understand the redneck character you sometimes play?

Cross: I think they see it as a caricature that is pretty common. It is an easily gettable person.

Interview By: Landon Shroder and David Streever. Photos by Daniel Bergeron