WEBVTT - Climate Crisis, Meet Democracy Crisis 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:15.440 Welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy Westervelt, and today to 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.400 kick off the new year, we're talking to longtime progressive 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:25.920 organizer Max Berger about two really big questions for climate 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.120 how do you build an effective movement? And what do 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:35.320 we do about the unraveling of democracy in America. I 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.239 wanted to talk to Berger in particular about these questions 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.040 because he's been involved with some of the most effective 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:46.000 social movements in recent history, the Sunrise Movement and Occupy 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.239 Wall Street. And he's also worked in politics for a 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.000 wide range of folks, including Howard Dean, Corey Bush, and 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:58.480 Elizabeth Warren. Today, Berger works with More Perfect Union, an 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.080 advocacy group that helps working people be seen and heard 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:06.479 in media coverage. We spoke back in November twenty twenty 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.800 one for a wrap up episode of Seen on Radio's 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.920 Climate season, focused on what needs to be done now 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.959 to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:20.840 I'll link to that episode in the show notes. It's 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.200 well worth a listen. But I also wanted to bring 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.640 folks this longer conversation because I think it's just so 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.880 relevant to the task at hand as we start a 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.399 new year. Hope you enjoy the conversation. It's coming up 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:42.760 right after this quick break. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.000 So I was hoping maybe you could start with just 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.480 a little bit of your own personal background. I knowe 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:11.280 you've been an organizer in progressive spaces for a really 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:11.840 long time. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.240 Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure to 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:19.120 be on. Yeah. So I have been doing progressive and 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.880 left politics for what now, it turns out to be 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.360 quite a long time. I first started when I was 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.680 in high school actually doing organizing against the war in Iraq, 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.760 and I started a little group called Freedom Not Empire, 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.160 which I'm still very proud of the branding. And it 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.760 was actually a pretty formative experience for me because I 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.040 grew up in a small town in central Massachusetts that 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.520 was pretty evenly split politically and about as normal as 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.440 could be. And it really helped me, I think, understand 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.800 how to try to take what could be considered radical 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.480 ideas and try to make them very approachable in mainstream, 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.440 which I think I've tried to do and everything that 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.720 I've subsequently done. After that, I was actually at an 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.040 anti war protest and somebody gave me a fly this 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:09.800 flyer for Howard Dean's presidential campaign, and I thought to myself, Okay, 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.280 that's a plausible that's a plausible theory of change, that 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.120 if that guy won, we could actually end the war. 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:18.800 And so I went and I worked for his campaign 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.240 as an intern in Burlington, And so that kind of 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.560 set up the two main threads of my career, I 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.320 guess is sort of social movement stuff more in the streets, 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.360 and kind of left of the democratic part and trying 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.640 to bring some of those same values and ideas into 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.600 mainstream politics. I sometimes joke I've I've worked for every 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.160 tea Party of the left organization that has ever existed, 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.000 even like putting like all these deep cuts that like 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.160 no one's ever really heard of before. But you know, 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.400 so I worked for Rebuild the Dream, which was a 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.240 move On spinoff that was supposed to kind of be 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.560 the counterweight to the Tea Party that was started by 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.800 Van Jones. I worked for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.000 which is one of the first organizations I claimed to 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.160 be doing what a lot of the groups on the 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:09.040 right do around elections. And then eventually most I tried 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.560 to start with myself in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen with 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:13.640 a bunch of people who have since gone on to 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.960 do a lot of really cool and interesting things. And 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.159 then that group, which was called All of Us, we 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.200 ended up merging with Justice Democrats. So I was around 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.720 when Justice Democrats was first kind of getting started, and 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:26.640 I had a chance to meet some of the folks 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.520 there and work with Corey Bush in twenty eighteen, and so, yeah, 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:35.120 it was early to that organization. And then on the 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.520 social movement side, I could tell this chronologically, but I 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.359 sort of story is kind of bouncing back and forth 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.360 between these two kind of bodies of work. 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:44.799 Yeah. No, that's great. 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.039 On the social movement side, so while I was at 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.039 Rebuild the Dream, they were like, can you go help 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.640 start a social movement against austerity? This was in like 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.839 twenty ten, after the Tea Party took over. They're like, 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:01.520 can you start a youth move movement against austerity? And 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:03.960 I was I remember thinking myself, I know, I don't 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.520 know how to do that. That is really hard, but 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.000 I agree that that's needed. And that was my job. 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.240 When Occupy Wall Street broke out, and I was living 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.720 in New York at the time, and I went down 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.120 the first week and I remember thinking myself, Okay, like 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.560 here these guys did it. I'm just gonna jump on 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.280 this thing. So I threw down pretty hard with Occupy, 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:26.599 and I think I was one of the first kind 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:31.280 of NGO connected folks who had been working in politics. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.479 So I ended up helping, I think, bring some of 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.640 those types into the movement and planning some of the 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.440 big mobilizations that we did, the big days of mobilization, 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.840 and after Occupy, you know, my mind was kind of 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.520 blown because I very clearly saw both how this random 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:54.200 ragtag group of folks had started this global movement that 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.800 was so bigger and more powerful than anything that the 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.400 NGOs that I had worked for had ever been able 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.520 to come up. But also, as anybody who was part 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.400 of Occupy Wall Street could tell you, it was an 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.640 absolute shit show, disaster shambles in its own right. And 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.599 so I spent some time thinking about what it would 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.000 take to create a social movement that had more structure 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:21.240 and strategy and had a chance to actually win the 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.599 things that I was fighting for. And through some of 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.000 the things I was exploring at the time, I ended 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.320 up getting connected with Carlos Savadra and Paul and who 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.799 were students of Yvonne Maravich, who was one of the 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:40.000 lead organizers of the Serbian Revolution that overthrew Slovanan Loosovich 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.560 and Paul and carlos are you know, Americans who had 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:48.159 a lot of movement experience and were studying Yvon's ideas 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.719 about movement building, and I sort of agitated them, and 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.200 together the three of us ended up starting with a 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.760 lot of other folks an organization called the Momentum Training 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:00.360 Organization that has a theory of organizing or or teach 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.640 us some practices around organizing that help folks think through 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.240 how to have more structure and strategy so that you 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.480 can have highly autonomous movement where people can operate without 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.320 central command or organization, while at the same time having 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.480 clarity around what the goals are and how to achieve 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.840 those things. Together and the Momentum Organization ended up training 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.320 a lot of people. After we started Momentum, the Warren 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.240 Gaza broke out, so I kind of took the ideas 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.800 that we had been starting to cook in Momentum and 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.920 applied that to the sort of nascent Jewish left, where 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.080 I helped start If Not Now, which is a Jewish 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.800 American movement against the occupation in Palestine and learned a 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.640 lot about how different it is to apply a theory 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.520 than it is to come up with one, But very 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.760 proud of the young people who created that, who really 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.840 led that movement. And then I think when we were 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.120 doing all of us, I wish I referred to previously. 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.360 It's a very small group of people at that time 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.640 who were taking this momentum stuff seriously. A lot of 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.480 the people who I was personally most invested in were 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.760 these kids who ran the Divestment Student Network, which you know, 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.280 I thought was the coolest climate organizing happening at the time. 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:19.120 And I remember Varsh came to me in twenty sixteen, 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.920 twenty seventeen. I was like, hey, we want to do 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:23.800 we want to front load, we want to plan a 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.880 movement coming out of DSN. And we were hoping that 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.240 like the folks from if Not Now could train us 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.000 and how to do that really absolutely, like let us 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:34.679 know what we can do, do anything to help you guys. 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.400 And that movement became Sunrise. And so I feel I 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.440 sometimes joke, like with the Sunrise kids that I'm like 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.160 the uncle that's like prouder of the movement than like 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:50.240 even the parents or like the kids themselves like, no, 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:53.520 I will not hear you talk badly about yourself. Okay, 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.760 I don't want to hear. I worked on the Warren 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:00.520 campaign in twenty twenty doing progressive outreach, and after that 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.280 I helped start with Fazshakir, who is the campaign manager 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.760 for Bernie's campaign. I helped start an organization called More 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:13.160 Perfect Union, which is a media advocacy organization that builds 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.360 power for working people. And that's why I work now 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:16.840 as the editorial director. 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.559 Can I help you define front loading also for people 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:22.720 that don't know that term. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.800 Yeah, frontloading, it's this term of art that we came 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.000 up with in momentum. It essentially just means planning, but 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:35.240 it specifically means planning for a movement that you hope 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:40.000 will decentralize. So if you look at movements like Occupy 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.040 in Black Lives Matter that broke out spontaneously or somewhat spontaneously, 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.120 you know, they may have a group that really helped 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.800 kick them off and get them started, but it basically 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.880 went viral without a plan to operate at scale. And 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.200 so what ends up happening, in my experience is those 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:02.560 kinds of decohere very rapidly because there's not really especially 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.120 when you're talking about the actual institution of the movement, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.000 there's very little holding it together because it wasn't really 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:10.240 planning to get as big as it got. And so 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.560 basically front loading is just a process by which you 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.679 spend time thinking about what do we do if this 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.200 gets huge? Right, And so as people are entering into 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.439 the movement, you can arm them with the knowledge and 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.400 the frameworks that they need to operate as part of it, 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.800 even if it gets really big. And I think that's 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.240 something that has served Sunrise really well in that they 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.400 had a pretty not that you don't have to answer 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.040 a million different questions, and it's not like this just 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.960 kind of like unfolding protein that just then, you know, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:43.920 collapses into the shape that it needs to be. But 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.080 it certainly allows you to It guides your decision making 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.120 once the movement is unfolding in a way that I 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.680 think it can be really helpful both for leaders and 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.200 for even new people coming in the front door to understand, Okay, 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:58.840 if I sign up for the movement, this is what 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.200 I'm signing up for. This is why they believe what 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.000 they believe, this is what we're fighting for, This is 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:05.400 how we're going to fight for it. And so it 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.640 allows you to then take leadership in your local community 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.600 and be make decisions that make sense for your local 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.800 context while still being part of something much much larger 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:16.560 and more coherent. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.400 The thing that has always struck me about Sunrise too 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.760 is that that it does have this this way of 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.120 I don't know, just of flattening hierarchy in a way 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.640 like there are leaders, and there are people who take 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.680 on that mantle, like like Varshnie and whatnot. But but 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.080 then that have this ability to kind of step back 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:43.240 and just be part of the movement again. And I 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.320 wonder if that's a planned thing, like if that's something 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.160 that you I don't know, that that gets sort of 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:49.640 set up up top. 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:54.080 That's sort of the that's always the goal. I think 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.560 it's not. I mean, we could spend the whole hour 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.960 just on the kind of organizational theory stuff. So I'm 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.480 this is less my strong suit when it comes to 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.480 different areas of the movement. But you know, the folks 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.199 who help come up with these ideas spend a lot 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.360 of time studying different organizational structures, reading about Honestly, one 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.520 of the biggest inspirations is the Evangelical Church and the 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.880 way that they can create these kind of small groups 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.160 that really foster leadership and create tiers of engagement for 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.800 people to move up that give people a ton of 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.920 agency and autonomy, but within a structure so that as 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:33.200 you're going about your journey that you are you're part 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.880 of something bigger and it's kind of laid out. So 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.319 the goal is not necessarily to completely do away with hierarchies. 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.320 It's not a kind of anarchist like flattening of all difference, 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.880 but to allow for the hierarchies to emerge in ways 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:52.600 that serve the movement and that allow people still to 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.760 have a lot of choice and freedom in kind of 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.840 like how they want to participate in what that means. 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.760 And I think especially that helps create a culture in 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.360 which there's a lot of accountability and the people at 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:10.560 the top are understanding their role as kind of servant 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.360 leaders in fostering fostering a movement that people actually want 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.800 to be a part of and that feels good to 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:18.720 be a part of. And I think that's one of 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.640 Sunrise as many great successes, is in taking the culture 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:28.040 aspect of that really seriously and wanting to invite people 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.600 in and to make it feel friendly, and the Left, 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.880 I think doesn't always do that, and I think, more importantly, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:36.000 doesn't even really try a lot of the time. And 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.480 I think Sunrise has. The folks who helped start it 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.640 have been a part of the left enough to know 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.080 that that doesn't work, right, Like, if you don't create 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.679 a welcoming space for people that folks actually want to 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:49.800 be a part of, then they'll go home, because there's 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:51.400 a million other things that they could do, and this 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.760 stuff is really hard. I think that they took that 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.720 seriously in a way that a very few other groups 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.319 do and have, and I think it's a significant part 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.000 of their success. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.600 I have been hearing a lot of people recently talking 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.400 about systems change, but talking about it in this way 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.560 of like making tweaks to the existing system. 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.960 Rather than sort of a more like an actual change 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.080 of the system or a replacement of the current system. 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:21.840 And I've seen you at least tweeting a. 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.880 Few things recently like the it might not be possible 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.480 to just improve the system that we have, that there 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.160 might actually be a need for what some would call revolution, 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:35.840 And I'd love to just I don't know hear you 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:37.800 expand on that, Yeah. 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.520 It's a great question. I'll be honest that my answer 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.160 here is going to be very preliminary. I think I'm 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.400 in the process of trying to figure out what it 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.840 would look like to engage with these questions more serious 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.560 as is for the broader momentum community. And I would 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.240 not claim I'd say in the same way that like 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.040 eighteen months out, Sunrise was kind of like, Yeah, we 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.240 like want to start a new movement that's not just 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.600 about ending the fossil fuel industry, but that has a 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.240 sort of positive vision of what we're trying to fight for, 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.040 and we want to frontload it, and we want it 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:10.760 to be big, and we want it to be political 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.120 and not just a social movement, but we don't really 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.080 know what it is yet. That I'm sort of in 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.440 that kind of a place with this conversation. So with 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.720 that caveat that I'm still early in trying to figure 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:23.400 out how to talk about and think about this stuff, 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.080 I would say I think, well, first, let's like define 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:32.440 the problem, right, because I think my intuition, hypothesis sense 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.360 of where this is going is that essentially it's not 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:42.360 really so much a question of should we keep the 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.560 current system that we have, or should we throw it 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.600 aside and get a totally new system. Unfortunately, I think 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.000 this decision has some already been made for us, and 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.920 that I don't think that this current system will can 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.240 sustain itself through the course of the decade. Because what's 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:04.640 fundamentally happening here is the United States is a country 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.560 we like to think of ourselves and historically have you know, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:10.920 really been very different from a lot of other countries 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.120 and sort of the pre eminent whatever American exceptionalism. But 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.320 if you just were to step back and look at 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.160 the US as a country, it would be very clear 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:23.000 the current constitutional arrangement is not long for this world. 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.960 You have a significant subset of the population, particularly the 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:33.760 white population, although not only that, is really terrified about 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:40.640 the transition away from a white majority population to a 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:45.320 multi racial majority. And that's happening in the context of 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.560 world historic inequality. Right, So, you really do have the 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:57.120 conditions for ethno nationalist authoritarian politics right like call it 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:02.080 fascists call it ethno nationalist authoritarian white supremacist politics, in 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.919 which there is a significant number of people that are 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.399 willing to use violence and do not really subscribe to 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.800 the beliefs that are required of participating in a democracy 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.520 because they're afraid of losing power within that democracy to 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.399 other ethnic groups. That's the kind of beginning of my 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.400 analysis here. And if you take that as a kind 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:31.080 of skeleton key for what's going on, you're a lot 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.960 becomes more clear in that that group of people, that 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.840 kind of white supremacist plurality, is not big enough to 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:39.720 govern the country, but it is big enough to take 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.840 over the Republican part as Trump showed, and through their 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.560 control of the Republican Party, are able to take control 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.400 of state and federal governments because we have a very 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:55.080 anti democratic political system, because our political system is the 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:59.760 result of a compromise with slaveholders and so vastly over 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.679 represents small rural states that white people have more power, 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:10.359 and so that white supremacist plurality can take over the 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:16.680 federal government, state governments with a minority of votes, and 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.080 because of other aspects of our anti democratic political system, 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.720 the Senate, as we're seeing now, the electoral college, as 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.720 we are kind of threatened with every four years that 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.439 there's going to be another instance in which the winner 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:31.639 of the popular vote does not become president that has 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.480 happened recently in a number of times, and the two 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.920 party system which allows for that, let's say, twenty five 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:41.120 to forty percent of the population to govern, we are 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:47.360 not We're not going to see the multi racial majority 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.199 have an opportunity to turn its will into law in 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.199 the next ten to fifteen years. And I think the 0:18:55.280 --> 0:19:00.280 amount of tension that that will generate will break the 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:04.600 political system. I don't think that. I don't think that 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:10.800 the amount of friction that will be created in the 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:13.840 in the in the popular will of being steymied in 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:18.520 that way, particularly when the people in power are taking 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:23.320 active steps to move us away from competitive elections and 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:27.160 limit people's rights, I cannot imagine a situation in which 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.960 the multiracial majority takes that lying down. And I also 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:37.720 don't think that the white nationalist plurality is going to 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:43.479 become less vociferous in their opposition to multiracial democracy. So, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:46.560 and if you were to talk about this with a 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.600 comparative political scientist, they would tell you, if you have 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:56.080 this kind of demographic transition happening, the worst case scenario, 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.520 our political system is basically designed as poorly as possible 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.000 to manage that kind of a demographic transition because the 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:09.199 two party system collapses all divisions in society into a 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:14.840 zero sum, all or nothing competitive existential conflict, and when 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:20.240 that gets racialized or ethnicized, it can become dangerous very quickly. 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.720 We're as polarized as any time since before the Civil War, 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:28.600 and in addition, with the separately elected presidency and a 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:32.240 bi cameral system, we have what a political scientists referred 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.480 to as a profusion of veto points right. So it's very, 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.680 very difficult for bills to become law, as we see 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.440 with anything. But the example I always use is gun control, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:47.280 and after name a massacre, people always ask, if this 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.119 stuff is eighty five percent approval rating, why can't it pass? 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:52.680 And the truth of the matter is that very little 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.240 can pass, very little, very few laws make it through 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:59.880 the our system. And there's a stat that I think 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:01.840 is not bode well. I tweeted this the other day 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.080 and people thought I was saying not in jest, but 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.399 you know, there's there's a stat that the United States 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.800 is the only system that has a separately elected executive 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.080 branch that is not at some point collapsed into dictators 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:18.280 because in presidential systems, systems with a separate, separately elected executive. 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.840 What happens is there's a conflict between the president and 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.600 the Congress and there's some external crisis that requires action, 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:32.160 and the Congress is incapable of or unwilling to respond, 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:36.040 and then the executive takes the authority to do so 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:41.800 without the approval of the legislature. And once that is broken, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.639 it's very hard to take back. And I think some 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.359 version of that is more or less inevitable in the 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.520 next five years. 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:52.359 So I. 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:56.200 The way I say it is like, look, we're going 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.679 to get a new political system. The question is does 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.960 it happen before authorityitarian authoritarianism, and civil war or after? 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.199 And I would love for it to be before. As 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.120 an American, I would love to not have to experience 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.399 those things, but I don't. I don't think we're going to. 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.960 So I think we're looking more at a post dictatorship, 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.800 post conflict situation and less at like how do we 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:25.200 organize a political revolution before? But it's not so neat 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:28.720 and tidy as that, right, Like I it's there's probably 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:30.719 a little bit more overlap in those scenarios than I'm 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:31.399 given credit for. 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.120 Well, it's interesting that you say that because I feel 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:37.919 like people. 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:43.600 Are seemed to be actually increasingly calling for Biden to 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.600 do that, you know. 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.159 To just just use executive power to do X y Z. 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.119 And I think out of this frustration with the fact 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.639 that votes are being suppressed and then even when you know, 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.320 you do kind of elect someone that you think is 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:01.960 going to pass different palsy. Not that I mean I'm 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:06.360 under no, I was not, like I was not excited 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:09.359 to vote for, but like that, it's it's difficult to 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:14.719 get any kind of significant change past, right, and then 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.160 that there's this sense of, oh, well, who knows if 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.320 this will stick, because in three years time someone else 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:23.800 will come in and change it back. I think people 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:24.960 are yeah, I just. 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:25.920 I just yeah. 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:33.080 I don't really see how that continues without some kind 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:38.359 of boiling point and then restructuring of some kind. 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.040