Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. We're on vacation this week, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we don't have an amazing show for you
Speaker 1: Today the Washington Post Metropolis blog Gillian Brackau talk to
Speaker 1: us about the.
Speaker 2: History of strikes.
Speaker 1: But first we have Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting
Speaker 1: survivor David Hogg on his new organization, which is dedicated
Speaker 1: to electing more people to state legislature and Congress. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics, David Hog. Thank you for having me
Speaker 1: so talk to us about what you're working on.
Speaker 3: I just graduated college and as my next step, I'm
Speaker 3: working on launching a pack and super pac called Leaders
Speaker 3: We Deserve, dedicated to helping elect young people across the country,
Speaker 3: especially in state legislatures, to help turn the tide on
Speaker 3: the far right agenda by investing in the future. We're
Speaker 3: focused on electing candidates under the age of thirty to
Speaker 3: state legislatures and under.
Speaker 2: Thirty five to Congress.
Speaker 3: But really most of our focus is on state legislatures,
Speaker 3: especially in states like Florida and Texas that are not
Speaker 3: going to flip in the next cycle or two, but
Speaker 3: have a chance of doing so in the next decade
Speaker 3: or so.
Speaker 1: That is pretty interesting because you've come from Florida, right,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about, you know, the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party in Florida. One of the reasons why DeSantis won
Speaker 1: by so many points and why he really did well
Speaker 1: there was because Democratic Party sort of imploded in Florida.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that and how you're how what you're doing dovetails there.
Speaker 3: I've been involved since I was seventeen years old, which was,
Speaker 3: you know, just basically five five and a half years ago.
Speaker 3: So I can't talk to the specifics of the internal
Speaker 3: politics that happened pre twenty eighteen within the Florida Party obviously,
Speaker 3: but I do not regardless of whatever is going on,
Speaker 3: no matter how strong or weak a party is in
Speaker 3: any state, the best solution all around, I would believe,
Speaker 3: is investing in the future with some of these really young,
Speaker 3: charismatic young people across the state in Florida, people like
Speaker 3: the leaders against the Don't Say Gay Bill, other young
Speaker 3: people that are standing up and fighting for what's right.
Speaker 3: As we've seen is common in Florida after twenty eighteen year.
Speaker 3: It's common in the media to talk about how DeSantis
Speaker 3: is just getting win after win after win. But what's
Speaker 3: not talked about a lot of the time is the
Speaker 3: fact that Florida consistently passes progressive ballot measures. But because
Speaker 3: of the way that a lot of the districts are drawn,
Speaker 3: it has trended towards Republicans in the rout in the
Speaker 3: past decade. But I don't think that that's necessarily something
Speaker 3: that's going to last forever. I think what's part of
Speaker 3: DeSantis's wins are the fact that there is an aging
Speaker 3: population that is retiring and moving to Florida that even
Speaker 3: when they were my age, we're already more conservative than
Speaker 3: my generation is, and they only since they've gotten older,
Speaker 3: and my generation has the greatest asset that you can
Speaker 3: have on your side in politics, perhaps even more than
Speaker 3: billions of dollars, which is time, because not even the
Speaker 3: coke breathers can buy more of that. And that's what
Speaker 3: we see this as you know, we might not be
Speaker 3: able to flip the state legislature this election or the
Speaker 3: next win, but we're laying the groundwork so that in
Speaker 3: ten years, when you know, in seven or so years,
Speaker 3: when redistricting happens, we have a better chance at cutting
Speaker 3: off the supermajority and making some gains there and giving
Speaker 3: young people hope that it doesn't have to be this way,
Speaker 3: that there are people, you know, imagine that justin Jones,
Speaker 3: but in Florida right well, that can show them that
Speaker 3: it's not all hope is lost. There are people that
Speaker 3: look like you and think like you in the state
Speaker 3: legislature and that your voice matters. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: what we see this as as a way of investing
Speaker 3: in the future and taking from the recent movements of
Speaker 3: the past five years. You know, for every year of
Speaker 3: Trump's presidency, he was so incompetent that there was a
Speaker 3: new chapter of several social movements that was born, for
Speaker 3: the Women's movement, to March for Our Lives, to the
Speaker 3: Sunrise Movement, to the Movement for Black Lives. Right. What
Speaker 3: we're trying to do here is take some of the
Speaker 3: most charismatic and impressive young people from those movements and
Speaker 3: help raise them up to run for office and other
Speaker 3: young people with different backgrounds too, that have experienced in
Speaker 3: areas such as artificial intelligence and others to show them that,
Speaker 3: you know, our generation is stepping up and we're not
Speaker 3: just yelling from the outside. We're working to changes on
Speaker 3: the inside if we can't get them to do the
Speaker 3: right thing. Because it's not just enough to have a
Speaker 3: movement on the outside to hold politicians accountable. We need
Speaker 3: better politicians to begin with, right, and we've had amazing
Speaker 3: politicians before, but there have been far too few of them,
Speaker 3: as evidence by what my generation is currently going through.
Speaker 2: Right as we.
Speaker 1: Look at Florida and we look at this idea of
Speaker 1: a kind of more progressive state leaders, what kind of
Speaker 1: races are you looking at?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the races that we're targeting, I want to
Speaker 3: be very clear, we're not here to challenge incumbent democrats
Speaker 3: by any means whatsoever. That those are not the races
Speaker 3: we're targeting. We're going after open blue seat primaries, and
Speaker 3: our main focus is going to be helping to elect
Speaker 3: young people in those seats because they often don't have
Speaker 3: that much investment. But part of our theory of change
Speaker 3: here is if we can help elect more young people
Speaker 3: that understand what it's like to have the anxiety of
Speaker 3: not knowing, if you're going to survive math class. We
Speaker 3: can more young people turn out across the state right
Speaker 3: because they see that their values, their voice is being reflected,
Speaker 3: and that helps candidates up and down the ballot. And
Speaker 3: this isn't to say that we don't need older people
Speaker 3: in politics. We absolutely do. We need seasoned professionals that
Speaker 3: have done this work for decades. I think it's important
Speaker 3: to point out though, that you know, with somebody like
Speaker 3: Joe Biden, the reason he's effective is because he's been
Speaker 3: around for so long. He was first collected with twenty
Speaker 3: nine years old, if I remember correctly, to the Senate.
Speaker 3: It's because he has all of that experience on the
Speaker 3: hill that he's able to do things like work to
Speaker 3: get the IRA passed. And obviously the movements on the
Speaker 3: outside help with that too, but there's nothing quite like
Speaker 3: gaining that experience from a young age, being part of
Speaker 3: that system that enables you to get things done. And
Speaker 3: I see that as what we're kind of trying to
Speaker 3: do here is to invest in these young people that
Speaker 3: understand that anxiety because I look back at what older
Speaker 3: generations went through that's similar to school shooter drills, and
Speaker 3: I think of nuclear bomb drills. Right, The generation that
Speaker 3: went through nuclear boom drills went on to pass some
Speaker 3: of the most actually the most comprehensive arms reduction treaties
Speaker 3: in human history. And I believe it's going to take
Speaker 3: our generation coming into politics that understands that anxiety to
Speaker 3: do a similar thing, working hand in hand with the
Speaker 3: older leaders, to be mentored and learn from them.
Speaker 1: There was some good gun legislation past after Marjorie Stone Douglas.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So after the shooting at my high school, Marjorie
Speaker 3: from in Douglas High School. You know, a lot of
Speaker 3: people said, it's great you young people care, but this
Speaker 3: is Florida. Nothing's going to change her. It doesn't matter
Speaker 3: how angry you are, it doesn't matter how tragic what
Speaker 3: happened is. It's not going to change. And I think it,
Speaker 3: honestly is a consequence of just us, frankly, not knowing
Speaker 3: that much about the real political climate in Florida at
Speaker 3: the time. We just didn't care. We said whatever, We're
Speaker 3: still going to try, and we showed up working with
Speaker 3: our younger state legislators like Lauren Brook, Carlos Diarra Smith
Speaker 3: and ask Amani and so many others well, Anna I
Speaker 3: was elected in twenty eighteen, but many others at the
Speaker 3: time that worked with young people after park then to
Speaker 3: give us a voice in Tallahassee that we were able
Speaker 3: to change lots because young people showed up in Tallahassee
Speaker 3: demanding action, and older people showed up with us, but
Speaker 3: obviously centering the power of those young people and the
Speaker 3: innocence that they represent, I think helped to push the
Speaker 3: Florida state legislature. And although they didn't ban assault, which
Speaker 3: is a major part of what we wanted, they did
Speaker 3: raise the age to buy a gun in the state
Speaker 3: of Florida to twenty one, and they also passed a
Speaker 3: law that would enable somebody who is a risk to
Speaker 3: themselves for others to be disarmed, which has been used
Speaker 3: over six thousand times since Parkland. And mind you, a
Speaker 3: Republican state legislature passed that, right, it shows the power
Speaker 3: of these young people to show up.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that Republicans they don't see this coming, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about you know, I'm a little
Speaker 1: older than you are, sadly for me and I didn't
Speaker 1: have lockdown drills growing up, but your generation is clearly
Speaker 1: so traumatized by these lockdown drills.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean my generation is very traumatized by these
Speaker 3: lockdown drills. I mean we have the daily anxiety of
Speaker 3: going to school, and high schoolers every day wonder whether
Speaker 3: or not they're going to survive methods. But it's also
Speaker 3: elementary schoolers, you know, that are asking when they're told
Speaker 3: that there's going to be they come up with different
Speaker 3: ways from what I've heard of describing to elementary schoolers
Speaker 3: when they go through an active shooter drill, they'll say
Speaker 3: it's something like a scary bear or a monster that
Speaker 3: they're trying to hide from, to try to make it
Speaker 3: less scary to the children. But eventually they end up
Speaker 3: growing up and as they get older, they learn what
Speaker 3: that is, and it's an incredible amount of anxiety. When
Speaker 3: I talk to John del Bolope, who's one of the
Speaker 3: leading youth bolsters who works at Harvard, he's one of
Speaker 3: the lead bolsters in the country too, and I ask him,
Speaker 3: you know, I've known him for almost basically since right
Speaker 3: after Parkland, and I asked him, you know, what is
Speaker 3: the difference between our generation and many generations that have
Speaker 3: come before us in terms of our attitudes toward politics
Speaker 3: and our view of the world. One of the craziest
Speaker 3: things that he said to me is that young people
Speaker 3: have described to him in these focus groups. High schoolers
Speaker 3: have said the anxiety that adults feel every day, probably
Speaker 3: by paying taxes or paying bills or whatever it is,
Speaker 3: how it's just lingering the back of your mind, like
Speaker 3: it's always there that you're thinking about it.
Speaker 2: That's what it's like for.
Speaker 3: Young people to think about school shooter potential school shooters
Speaker 3: coming into their school. It is a constant thought every
Speaker 3: single day and anxiety that they have. And it's not
Speaker 3: like they're of course they're very scared, but it's obviously
Speaker 3: not an immediate thread to them because they know that
Speaker 3: it's likely not going to happen at their school statistically speaking,
Speaker 3: but it's still an anxiety that they have every day.
Speaker 3: It's also about the long term fear that young people
Speaker 3: have of the future. I mean, we live on any
Speaker 3: this is going to be the coolest summer for the
Speaker 3: rest of our lives. That is bringing anxiety to our generation.
Speaker 3: Not to mention the economic pressure that we're under still
Speaker 3: as a result of the failure to fully recover after
Speaker 3: the two thousand and eight recession and student debt and
Speaker 3: so many other factors that stress out our generation. And
Speaker 3: it's not to say other generations haven't been through incredibly
Speaker 3: stressful things.
Speaker 2: They have.
Speaker 3: Thankfully, my generation is not going through the Cold War
Speaker 3: right now like many others for us did, but we're
Speaker 3: living through a time with nonetheless major challenges ahead. But
Speaker 3: what makes me hopeful is knowing that over the past
Speaker 3: four years of studying history in college, that great generations
Speaker 3: are not born. Great generations are made by the moments
Speaker 3: that make them.
Speaker 2: I just want to stop you for a minute.
Speaker 1: It's good to hear you, and I agree with you,
Speaker 1: but I just think about what the gun crisis. If
Speaker 1: the people during the nineteen fifties could have ended the
Speaker 1: Cold War, they would have. I mean, the gun crisis
Speaker 1: is not like the Cold War, because the Cold War was.
Speaker 1: I mean it was ultimately there are larger causes. But
Speaker 1: with the gun grass like legislators tomorrow could just end it, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is really a you know, it's something
Speaker 1: where it is your own politicians targeting you. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like the perversity of it is not something
Speaker 1: we talk about absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's certainly, thankfully not as challenging as ending
Speaker 3: the Cold War, but it is challenging, and that we
Speaker 3: have a cycle whereas more shootings happen, more Americans buy
Speaker 3: guns because the gun industry fearmongers, right, then they're able
Speaker 3: to pump more of that money into politics, which then
Speaker 3: actually loosens gun laws by passing things like permitless carry,
Speaker 3: which then casts people to want to arm themselves more.
Speaker 3: And it's a positive feedback loop where these gun companies
Speaker 3: are making billions of dollars every year and then they're
Speaker 3: pumping a lot of that into politics to make sure
Speaker 3: that they're empowering these politicians who then gerrymander their way
Speaker 3: into power and make us and create a system where
Speaker 3: voters aren't picking their politicians, but politicians are picking their voters.
Speaker 3: So it's obviously not the same, but it's still challenged nonetheless,
Speaker 3: because there is that profit motive there in the first place.
Speaker 3: And I think part of what we're going to have
Speaker 3: to do as a generation is show that we're not
Speaker 3: just on the outside right demanding change, that if you
Speaker 3: stand in our way, we're an existential threat to your
Speaker 3: power and we will replace you.
Speaker 2: Right, talk to me about candidates you're excited about.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously, candidate's similar to Maxwell Froster are some of
Speaker 3: the ones that we're excited about. But I think one
Speaker 3: important point that I forgot to mention earlier is that
Speaker 3: although we're our main focus is going to be on
Speaker 3: these open blue seat primaries after the primary election in
Speaker 3: these states where there are young people that are running,
Speaker 3: such as Jay Schuster, for example, who's a young man,
Speaker 3: an attorney that is an expert on artificial intelligence who's
Speaker 3: running in a very competitive district in South Florida. Candidate's
Speaker 3: like him are the ones that we're excited about. But
Speaker 3: also looking at, you know, other young people in these
Speaker 3: social movements that can run for office that don't even
Speaker 3: know that it's a possibility, or if they do, they
Speaker 3: think that they have to run for Congress, but and
Speaker 3: that state legislature isn't an option for them. The other
Speaker 3: thing is that I look at candidates like Nobilisieed who
Speaker 3: have been elected right to state legislatures. She's one of
Speaker 3: the youngest state legislators in Illinois, and the work that
Speaker 3: they've done, you know, she's done work to make sure
Speaker 3: that students that have IEPs to make sure that like
Speaker 3: the registered to vote. That matters to me because I
Speaker 3: had an IP growing up, because I have dyslexia.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to explain to our listeners, and IEP
Speaker 1: is something when you have a learning disability and you're
Speaker 1: in public school, you get given an IEP and that
Speaker 1: you're able to use to navigate the system. It's just
Speaker 1: a number, but it means you have either ADHD or dyslexia.
Speaker 1: I'm dyslexic too.
Speaker 2: Anyway, go on, welcome to the club.
Speaker 3: Right now, Molly, the main focus that we have is
Speaker 3: getting it set up and making sure that we really
Speaker 3: going to go out there and find the best candidates
Speaker 3: that we can. So when we launch this, we're not
Speaker 3: launching with endorsements right out of the bat because we
Speaker 3: have to do the right amount of research and we
Speaker 3: have to make sure that we have just the best
Speaker 3: candidates that we can in the first place. We'll be
Speaker 3: announcing our announcements in the coming.
Speaker 1: Months, so part of it will be these legislators and
Speaker 1: focusing on these races that are so important but get
Speaker 1: a little less attention, like these state house races.
Speaker 2: State can grow you know those level races. De Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a vast minority.
Speaker 1: And then also there's a certain amount of focus on
Speaker 1: youth turnout too, which does seem like a really important point.
Speaker 1: So John Delivolpi, who we're both friends with, who is
Speaker 1: a gen Z Are you guys gen z or whatever?
Speaker 1: The youngest generation whisper Is had these incredible polls which
Speaker 1: showed basically that your generation things Republicans are just morons.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that.
Speaker 3: I mean, our generation has clearly been I think we're
Speaker 3: just fed up and we're tired of the bullshit. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like MS or X set in their speech after
Speaker 3: Parkland that we call the yes as a generation, we're
Speaker 3: tired of the failed policies that are getting us killed
Speaker 3: in our schools. And there's no amount of spinning that
Speaker 3: you can do that's going. You know, you can't just
Speaker 3: keep talking about funding more mental health programs to stop
Speaker 3: school shootings and do nothing about it and school shootings
Speaker 3: can continue and just act like there's some amount of
Speaker 3: spinning or framing that you can do politically, or a
Speaker 3: number of consultants you can talk to that is somehow
Speaker 3: going to make young people not feel the anxiety that
Speaker 3: they're feeling because school shootings are continuing. It's also it's
Speaker 3: a similar case with climate chain. It can't just keep
Speaker 3: talking about it and gas lighting an entire series of
Speaker 3: generations of Americans when every summer it's getting hotter. So
Speaker 3: for our generation, we're basically seeing the I feel like
Speaker 3: we're there. We're really the first generation to see it
Speaker 3: as a whole. The amount of stuff that has been
Speaker 3: swept under the rug constantly by Republicans that now there's
Speaker 3: so much of they can't keep hiding it over and over.
Speaker 3: So it's blatantly obvious for us. And an important point
Speaker 3: about that is too. In twenty twenty two, young people
Speaker 3: voted again at one of the highest rates in American history,
Speaker 3: especially in comarison in twenty fourteen, not only in comparison.
Speaker 3: I talked about this with John devil Ope. In two thousand,
Speaker 3: young people eighteen to twenty nine voted about fifty to
Speaker 3: fifty for Bush and Gore in your average congressional election.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty two, you young people voted not only
Speaker 3: at one of the highest rates in American history, but
Speaker 3: plus twenty points for Democrats. That is a critical part
Speaker 3: of the Democratic coalition now that they have to negotiate
Speaker 3: that the White House has to listen to that anybody
Speaker 3: who wants to be elected as a Democrat is going
Speaker 3: to have to listen to just as much as they
Speaker 3: have to listen to a lot of the other factors
Speaker 3: within our coalition. Because we've made our voice heard and
Speaker 3: we haven't gone away. And what makes me excited about
Speaker 3: that is even when we had both the House, the
Speaker 3: Senate and the presidency, what we saw a deal to filibuster.
Speaker 3: But even when we had those three young people still
Speaker 3: turned out. And what that's evidence of is we're not
Speaker 3: just voting again something we're voting for or something. We're
Speaker 3: voting for a better future where kids are protected in
Speaker 3: their schools. Right, We're voting for a future with an
Speaker 3: inhabitable planet and for morey just leaders that work to
Speaker 3: ensure that the interests of the future of the United
Speaker 3: States are protected and not the short term interests of
Speaker 3: the NRA are protected in the first place.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, David. I hope you'll come back,
Speaker 2: of course. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Gillian Brockel, writes the Metropolis blog for The Washington Post.
Speaker 2: Welcome too Fast Politics, Gillian, Thank you, Balie, longtime listener.
Speaker 2: Firstian callinter.
Speaker 1: So you write a blog for the Washington Post. You
Speaker 1: also write for the Washington Post, but the blog is
Speaker 1: called Metropolis.
Speaker 2: Explain to us a little bit about what it is. Basically,
Speaker 2: it's the history block of the Washington Post. It's where
Speaker 2: you're going to get your historical contexts for news of
Speaker 2: the day and you know, learn different and perhaps more
Speaker 2: realistic and authentic versials of the history that you were
Speaker 2: taught when you were younger.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the strike, because right now there's a
Speaker 1: massive WGA SAG, which is SAG Screen Actors Guild.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a massive strike.
Speaker 1: The director's Mabel Doo whatever, right, But you know, actors
Speaker 1: can't promote movies. They can't write. You know, writers are
Speaker 1: not writing. Nothing is happening in Hollywood. Tell us about
Speaker 1: the last time this happened. I was hoping you could
Speaker 1: talk to us about the one in the sixties.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in nineteen sixty there was another double strike with
Speaker 2: the actors and writers. And if he was really similar,
Speaker 2: it was about residuals for a new technology. So at
Speaker 2: the time, playing reruns of movies on television was this
Speaker 2: brand new thing that was just starting to happen, and
Speaker 2: there was no contract for that with the Screen Actors
Speaker 2: Skill to pay the movie actors when their movies played
Speaker 2: on TV. Previously, there had already been a contract for
Speaker 2: TV reruns playing on TV, but not movie rerunds, and
Speaker 2: so this was a new thing. And it was the
Speaker 2: same with the writers. The writers wanted residuals for movies
Speaker 2: running on TV, and they struck first, and then the
Speaker 2: actors joined them, and like in nineteen sixty, the writers
Speaker 2: struck I think a total of twenty one weeks and
Speaker 2: the actors for five weeks. At the time, though it
Speaker 2: wasn't quite as strict as the terms are for the
Speaker 2: striking workers now, they were still allowed to promote movies
Speaker 2: and go to award shows. So actually the nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: Oscars were held in the middle of this strike, and
Speaker 2: all of the actors were there and all of their
Speaker 2: glamorous finery, and Bob Hope, who was a member of SAG,
Speaker 2: was the host, and the first thing he said, you
Speaker 2: can watch it on YouTube. The first thing he said
Speaker 2: when he walked out is he said, welcome to Hollywood's
Speaker 2: most glamorous strike meeting, and let's talk about Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: was involved in that. Yeah. So Robald Reagan had been
Speaker 2: the president of SAG from nineteen forty seven to nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty two. He was brought in again in late nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine and in nineteen sixty. You know, it's sort
Speaker 2: of a ringer. He had negotiated the contract earlier for
Speaker 2: TV actors to get residuals on reruns, so he was
Speaker 2: brought back in to serve a shorter term as president
Speaker 2: of STAG again to negotiate with the producers at this
Speaker 2: time and be involved in this strike. What's weird, and
Speaker 2: what you know, nobody knew at the time was that
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan was also a producer at that point. He
Speaker 2: had producer credits and really shouldn't have been representing the
Speaker 2: actors for anything because there was a conflict of interest there.
Speaker 2: But he just kind of kept through a secret, didn't
Speaker 2: tell anybody, and they were like, okay.
Speaker 1: That's very strange. We also Ronald Reagan, this is going
Speaker 1: to get people crazy. But Ronald Reagan, it really is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wanted to join the Communist Party.
Speaker 2: According to your grandfather, Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: According to my grandfather, Ronald Reagan wanted to join the
Speaker 1: Communist Party discuss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in nineteen thirty eight, this is Howard Facts,
Speaker 2: your grandfather's story that in nineteen thirty eight, young Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan was new in town in Hollywood, and he did
Speaker 2: use to describe himself for a long time as a
Speaker 2: new deal liberal. According to Howard Facts, he also wanted
Speaker 2: to become a commititist and was not let in because
Speaker 2: the cognitist thought he was too stupid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't imagine that's true. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: my grandfather, I can't imagine that. I mean, I'm sure that, Mike,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they did think Ronald Reagan was stupid. But
Speaker 1: that may be where it ends. It's quite interesting to
Speaker 1: talk about the sort of what happened, because you know,
Speaker 1: when we think about this strike, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: talk of AI and things that aren't necessarily relevant to
Speaker 1: this sort of history and this. Actually they really were
Speaker 1: striking about a lot of the same stuff. Residuals, who
Speaker 1: makes money, who owns things.
Speaker 2: It's residuals for a new platform for previously made work.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really the same thing. And it was
Speaker 2: the same thing that in the beginning the producers said,
Speaker 2: you get nothing the actors and writers will negotiate, and
Speaker 2: in the beginning the producers said, we say, you get nothing.
Speaker 2: In the end, the strikers were successful. They if somewhat,
Speaker 2: they got residuals for movie reruns for movies made after
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty so after the stern they also wanted residuals
Speaker 2: for movies made before nineteen forty eight. They did not
Speaker 2: get that, but they did get the start of a
Speaker 2: pension plan for SAG and so that was a big concession.
Speaker 2: Some people were not happy about the contract that ended
Speaker 2: the strike that Reagan negotiated. One of those that you
Speaker 2: know said to be Bob Hope was not happy about it.
Speaker 2: And then later James Garter, you know, the famous actor.
Speaker 2: She wrote in his memoir that he was vice president
Speaker 2: of the Screen Actors Guild at the time, and he said,
Speaker 2: the only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had
Speaker 2: an original thought and that we had to tell him
Speaker 2: what to say. That's no way to run a union,
Speaker 2: let alone a state or country.
Speaker 1: But the history of workers' rights, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: what really this strike is about, is how are writers
Speaker 1: going to be compensated? Our actors going to be compensated?
Speaker 1: Are you know, what does that compensation look like. The
Speaker 1: fight for labor has been really an American you know,
Speaker 1: it's been something Americans have been doing for a long time.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that. Yeah, I mean since the
Speaker 2: Industrial Revolution, you have, you know, the start of unions
Speaker 2: and striking workers and anybody who wants to get read
Speaker 2: in on the history of labor in the United States,
Speaker 2: I can't recommend. And that Kim Kelly book Fight Like Hell,
Speaker 2: which came out last year, and it's just terrific and
Speaker 2: you know, really just goes over that. I mean, the
Speaker 2: reason that we have all of these things that we
Speaker 2: think of as givens today, like fire eving sits for
Speaker 2: the buildings that we work on, and having the exits
Speaker 2: be unlocked and not padlocked shut, you know, the eight
Speaker 2: hour workday, everything, all of that comes from the labor movement.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people in my generation I'm
Speaker 2: like an X and an annual X annual. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't know that just because we
Speaker 2: grew up when labor was at its weakest. Gen Z
Speaker 2: seems to be really a part of the sort of
Speaker 2: revival of labor unions that's been happening in the last
Speaker 2: few years where you're seeing people looking at actors not
Speaker 2: just as these you know, glamorous, spoiled prima donnas, but
Speaker 2: saying no, this is a worker who is offering a
Speaker 2: service that the producers can't do and therefore should be
Speaker 2: getting a piece of the profits like any other labor right.
Speaker 1: I think that I'd love to talk to you a
Speaker 1: little more about what's happening with labor in this country,
Speaker 1: because we're seeing from Amazon to Starbucks to the larger
Speaker 1: ways in which unions were able to fight against wealth inequity. Well.
Speaker 2: One criticism that people have had of the labor movement,
Speaker 2: particularly in the United States versus other countries, is that
Speaker 2: Americans don't have a sense of solidarity the way they
Speaker 2: might and say the UK as workers, because we see
Speaker 2: ourselves as sort of temporarily moor or you know, as
Speaker 2: like my big break's going to come tomorrow. The idea
Speaker 2: that you are a worker, that you are, you know,
Speaker 2: a member of the working class, we don't have that.
Speaker 2: We you know, sort of fed this like American dream
Speaker 2: you can make it big, it's just how hard you
Speaker 2: work sort of thing, and that has really crushed a
Speaker 2: lot of the class solidarity in the United States throughout history,
Speaker 2: and that includes racism and dividing workers by saying, well,
Speaker 2: you you white. For white workers, you can have it
Speaker 2: slightly better at least for black workers. Just don't side
Speaker 2: with the black workers too. And that the you know,
Speaker 2: inherent racism in US history that's threatened throughout US history
Speaker 2: has really been used to benefit people who would seek
Speaker 2: to crush the labor movement. You know, in the last
Speaker 2: few years, that's really broken away. And that's happened in
Speaker 2: journalism too. You see all of these newer media places
Speaker 2: like Fox and everywhere else becoming unionized. And that's happened
Speaker 2: at the Washington Post, which has been reported on a
Speaker 2: little bit this year. We have, you know, the highest
Speaker 2: union membership ever in our news room right now and
Speaker 2: we are negotiating a contract. And happened for a year.
Speaker 1: Will you talk to us about an interesting piece you wrote,
Speaker 1: So your historical quote turned out to be fake, was
Speaker 1: a problem that many of us have had in our lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the story of a January sixth defendant who had a
Speaker 1: quote that he used during his federal trial. When governments
Speaker 1: fear the people, there is liberty when the people feel
Speaker 1: the government there is tyranny, and he attributed to Thomas Jefferson, right, And.
Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson didn't say that. And actually Monticello keeps a
Speaker 2: really good database of things that Thomas Jefferson did and
Speaker 2: did not say, So that is actually one of the
Speaker 2: easier quotes of historical quotes. Two fact checks. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's a pretty common thing. People are always
Speaker 2: you know, something I said with the sand this book
Speaker 2: piece that I wrote a few months ago is that
Speaker 2: a lot of people think that doing history is quoting
Speaker 2: people and sort of like manipulating the quotes into whatever
Speaker 2: you want them to be. And there's that kind of
Speaker 2: misuse of quotes, and then there's just like the full
Speaker 2: stop made up quotes.
Speaker 1: Take for example, rapper and former presidential candidate Kanye West.
Speaker 1: He told TMZ that four hundred years of slavery was
Speaker 1: a choice, later citing Harriet Tubman saying I freed a
Speaker 1: thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if
Speaker 1: only they knew they were slaves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Harriet Tubman did not say that. I don't know
Speaker 2: what say. Harry Tubman did not say that. Yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So back to talk about Reagan. So by the time
Speaker 2: Regan miss president, he had you know, gone totally conservative,
Speaker 2: and as people would remember, ended up being one of
Speaker 2: the more anti union presidents we've had. Everyone remembers the
Speaker 2: air traffic controllers strike in nineteen eighty one, and you know,
Speaker 2: his argument there was that these were federal workers and
Speaker 2: that federal workers are not allowed to strike. It is
Speaker 2: illegal for a federal worker to strike. And so she,
Speaker 2: rather than negotiate, gave them forty eight hours to go
Speaker 2: back to their jobs, and the ones that didn't were fired.
Speaker 2: It was tens of thousands of air traffic controllers. She
Speaker 2: took a tough stands there, but not all presidents have
Speaker 2: done that. So there was the biggest illegal wildcat strike
Speaker 2: and American history was in nineteen seventy. It was the
Speaker 2: Postal Service. More than two hundred and ten thousand postal
Speaker 2: workers struck for about eight days. I mean, it completely
Speaker 2: brought everything in the United States to a standstill.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Eventually the Possessor General gave them an immediate raise. They
Speaker 2: ended the strike. Soon Congress passed another race, and no
Speaker 2: one who struck was ever punished, even though that was
Speaker 2: both an illegal strike and a wildcat strike. They did
Speaker 2: not have the permission of their union leadership to strike,
Speaker 2: and they just did it anyway because they said conditions
Speaker 2: were so bad and they were paid so poorly. And
Speaker 2: Nixon was president then and he didn't do anything about it,
Speaker 2: he didn't hurt them in any I.
Speaker 1: Mean, there is always this like liberal fantasy that Nixon
Speaker 1: wasn't as bad as Nixon actually was.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that, but yes, the postal workers who
Speaker 2: did this illegal wild cat strike were not puttishing anyway,
Speaker 2: and they were completely successful in getting what they were
Speaker 2: asking for. Good for those postal workers. And then Reagan,
Speaker 2: you know, a decade later, says, well, federal workers aren't
Speaker 2: allowed to strike, therefore they're all fired.
Speaker 1: I mean that was sort of a seminal moment in union, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I mean it fits with ultimately a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff that Reagan did. Though again, like he did
Speaker 1: sign this no fault divorce when he was governor. That
Speaker 1: was the first date to approve no fault divorce, and
Speaker 1: no fault divorce led to greater freedom for women and
Speaker 1: less domestic violence. And like it's such a small thing
Speaker 1: that we don't think of as being as seminal as
Speaker 1: it was. But I am curious if you would do
Speaker 1: two seconds on Eugene Debs because you wrote a piece
Speaker 1: and again this we're back to can a person run
Speaker 1: for president from a jail cell? Not that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is going to jail, though.
Speaker 2: He probably if he were a normal person, might be.
Speaker 2: But yes, continue, yeah, I mean Trump and Duds's politics
Speaker 2: cand of not be any more different. Dubs was a
Speaker 2: union leader and a socialist. But he is the reason
Speaker 2: that we know that it is legal for someone to
Speaker 2: run for president a while being indicted for a crime,
Speaker 2: be in jail. So Eugene V. Deves was jailed in
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty for speaking out against World War One and
Speaker 2: continued to run for president from jail and got something
Speaker 2: I can't remember. He ran for president eight times and
Speaker 2: so I don't remember it was that election. R now
Speaker 2: they were election, but at one point he got almost
Speaker 2: a million votes. It was a good percentage of the vote.
Speaker 2: You can run for president from jail. Yes, nobody knows
Speaker 2: if you can be president from jail, but hopefully we
Speaker 2: won't have to find out. You know, people say that
Speaker 2: history repeats itself, and a lot of historians disagree. There
Speaker 2: and right now, this is something for which there is
Speaker 2: no historical president. What happens if you elected president who's
Speaker 2: in jail. I think the chances of the trials happening
Speaker 2: before the election our stand. But that's something we may
Speaker 2: have to confront that has never been confronted in history.
Speaker 1: Gillian, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
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