Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to bokayf Daily with Meet
Speaker 1: your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: Often on this show we talk about democracy and the
Speaker 1: fact that, regardless of whether or not we stop the
Speaker 1: actual physical insurrection that happened on January six, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: that there is a continuing coup that has been unfolding
Speaker 1: at the state and local and national level since then,
Speaker 1: and if not before that, we have watched as regular
Speaker 1: citizens have been co opted into the Magadum and QAnon
Speaker 1: belief system that has led them to believe that they
Speaker 1: can no longer trust their government, that they can no
Speaker 1: longer trust their boat, that they can no longer trust
Speaker 1: their voice. And frankly, if you were to dare to
Speaker 1: decide that you wanted to volunteer your time to be
Speaker 1: a public servant, to volunteer on a campaign, to run
Speaker 1: for school board or city council, to work at a pole, well,
Speaker 1: basically in this current political climate, you're putting your fucking
Speaker 1: life in your hands. Because we have seen as the
Speaker 1: rise in political violence has taken shape, that good people
Speaker 1: have been driven underground, lost their normal day to day
Speaker 1: lives because of terrorism. Let's call it what it is,
Speaker 1: because we love to use euphemisms in mainstream media where
Speaker 1: they'll say harassment. But you all have listened to the
Speaker 1: conversations that I've had with Jennifer Jenkins, who is a
Speaker 1: school board member in Brevard County, who detail painstakingly the
Speaker 1: kind of violent terrorism that she was faced with for
Speaker 1: having the audacity to run for school board in her town. Right,
Speaker 1: we saw what happened to the poll workers in Georgia
Speaker 1: who had the audacity to decide that they wanted to
Speaker 1: volunteer in their community and help their fellow neighbors get
Speaker 1: to the polls, and what happened to them because of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's targeting. So on today's show, I am very
Speaker 1: excited to welcome Miila Atmost and Mila is the producer
Speaker 1: and host of Future Hindsight, a show that is weekly
Speaker 1: a weekly podcast that is aimed at sparking civic engagement
Speaker 1: through in depth conversations with different civic leaders and change makers.
Speaker 1: Mila is about trying to activate people to realize their
Speaker 1: power and their voice. We talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1: No one would be trying to steal your vote or
Speaker 1: suppress your vote. If your vote did not matter, no
Speaker 1: one would be trying to funnel the airwaves and social
Speaker 1: media with disinformation If an informed citizenury is one that
Speaker 1: representatives had to actually be responsible to. The goal is
Speaker 1: to gaslight, as Miriam Webster pointed out as their word
Speaker 1: of the year in twenty twenty two. Their goal the
Speaker 1: Republican cult Party, it's to make you feel like you
Speaker 1: have no power, no voice, and frankly, no choice but
Speaker 1: to live a life that is filled with fear and
Speaker 1: hatred of the other. This is how they win. This
Speaker 1: has been a tactic that they have used for decades,
Speaker 1: and now they have the ability, with technology and social
Speaker 1: media and the likes of Elon Musk to be able
Speaker 1: to spread as much hate and disinformation as possible, making
Speaker 1: us believe that there is more of them than there
Speaker 1: are of us. But we know that that's not true.
Speaker 1: They just exist inside of an echo chamber. We were
Speaker 1: able to fight back in the twenty twenty election, to
Speaker 1: fight back again in this past midterm election, to continue
Speaker 1: saying that no, you will not take my democracy from me.
Speaker 1: So coming up next, my conversation with Mila is about
Speaker 1: you know, how we are feeling right as people who
Speaker 1: have used our platform and our voice to try and
Speaker 1: create a conscious and woke citizenry in this country, and
Speaker 1: what our hopes are and our worries are as we
Speaker 1: transition into twenty twenty three, which will all for all
Speaker 1: intensive purposes, be the run up to the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four election. Democracy has been saved not once, but twice.
Speaker 1: Will we have the ability to do it again? Coming
Speaker 1: up next, my conversation with host and produce sir A
Speaker 1: Future Hindsight Mila at Most. Folks, I am very excited
Speaker 1: to welcome to Woke f Daily for the first time
Speaker 1: fellow podcaster Mila Atmost, a global citizen based in New
Speaker 1: York City and the producer and series host A Future Hindsight,
Speaker 1: a weekly podcast that aims to spark civic engagement through
Speaker 1: in depth conversations with citizen change makers. Mila, it's wonderful
Speaker 1: to see you love your show, because I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of people they want to listen, but they
Speaker 1: want to feel like they can do something about their democracy.
Speaker 1: They want to listen to understand and get great analysis,
Speaker 1: but then it's like what do I do with that information?
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to give you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk about why you started the pod and and maybe
Speaker 1: how it's evolved over the time that you've started it
Speaker 1: to kind of this very critical moment in our politics
Speaker 1: and our democracy that we're in. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for having me on. Really, I really enjoy
Speaker 1: your show as well, and I listened to it on
Speaker 1: the regular, So thank you for sharing of all your
Speaker 1: knowledge and your guests with us. So I started the
Speaker 1: pod because after Trump was elected, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: what's ailing our country is that not enough people are involved,
Speaker 1: not enough people care to vote, not enough people care
Speaker 1: to be engaged in their communities. And a lot of
Speaker 1: people I spoke to the time, you know, they were
Speaker 1: so desponded, and they said, you know, I voted, but
Speaker 1: it just didn't work out, Like what else can I
Speaker 1: be doing? You know, because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people think that the next step after voting, if you
Speaker 1: want to get engaged is to run for office, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, that just can't be true. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't all be running for office. And so one
Speaker 1: of my guiding principles in the show is to figure
Speaker 1: out what can everyday people do that's beyond voting. Because
Speaker 1: for sure, at the very least we should be voting.
Speaker 1: So beyond voting, but shorter running for office. And as
Speaker 1: it turns out, there are a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you could be doing. So in the beginning, I really
Speaker 1: wanted to showcase the things that you could be doing
Speaker 1: and also share with you the people who are already
Speaker 1: doing it. So that's why we call them citizen change makers.
Speaker 1: So we really want to showcase to people that, look,
Speaker 1: you're not alone. Other people are doing this and some people,
Speaker 1: of course, the people that we interview normally have done
Speaker 1: something that's exemplaries, so they can, you know, inspire you
Speaker 1: to take action. And then over time, I would say,
Speaker 1: what is really changed with the podcast as I've learned
Speaker 1: more and more about how people are engaged about what
Speaker 1: people can do, is well, I would say to backtrack,
Speaker 1: I would say I discovered first and foremost that people
Speaker 1: have a lot of power. We just don't don't know it.
Speaker 1: We don't understand how to wield our own power. We
Speaker 1: don't know how we can make change in our communities,
Speaker 1: whether that's on the local or state level, or even
Speaker 1: on a national level. And I think as as I
Speaker 1: have learned more and more I'm understanding better that there
Speaker 1: are parties who want to obstruct your ability to wield power,
Speaker 1: and that I didn't fully understand when I set out
Speaker 1: in the beginning, and I appreciate that so much more today.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, what's funny. I think that when you
Speaker 1: started out, we started our pots roughly around the same time,
Speaker 1: kind of in response to the Trump presidency, or at
Speaker 1: least the potential of the Trump presidency, which would become
Speaker 1: the Trump presidency. And you know, I think that at
Speaker 1: that time we weren't we were watching the rise of
Speaker 1: the Tea Party, but it wasn't the rise of anti
Speaker 1: democrat cradicum sentiments, right, Like there were things with regard
Speaker 1: to President Obama and with regard to him not being
Speaker 1: a citizen, and you know, for for people of color
Speaker 1: and particularly black people, that's just like that's just racism,
Speaker 1: par for the course, right, Like, you know, we get that.
Speaker 1: And I think that what has happened over the last
Speaker 1: seven plus years, right is this embrace of anti democratic
Speaker 1: sentiment sentiments in such a way that you don't need
Speaker 1: to be a political science scholar. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be um, someone who who went to school like you know, uh,
Speaker 1: to study this work to understand what's going on. It's
Speaker 1: very clear, and I think for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: because it has become so clear, so apparent, it's also
Speaker 1: become quite scary. Um. You know. One of the things
Speaker 1: when I when I think about your show, You've had
Speaker 1: some of my friends on, uh, like like Rebecca co
Speaker 1: who who I endure so much, has been on the
Speaker 1: forefront of disability advocacy in this country. And you know,
Speaker 1: is this idea that civic engagement used to be something
Speaker 1: that gives us pride? Mila? As you have seen again
Speaker 1: this rise in political rhetoric and violence, do you find
Speaker 1: that your listeners, while they want to get engaged, are
Speaker 1: they more fearful of what that kind of civic engagement
Speaker 1: could mean for their day to day lives. I don't
Speaker 1: know if my guests are more fearful, but for sure
Speaker 1: I would say I am more fearful. You know sometimes
Speaker 1: when I'm in situations and I feel like, well, did
Speaker 1: you really say that just now? I went to a
Speaker 1: wedding recently and I sat next to somebody, the cousin
Speaker 1: of the groom, and he didn't say that he was
Speaker 1: a Qann believer, but it was pretty clear that he
Speaker 1: was viewing in that direction, and it was the kind
Speaker 1: of thing where I was so thrown. You know, we
Speaker 1: were talking about gun legislation. Somehow I never do that
Speaker 1: at what was happening, I don't know. We were talking
Speaker 1: about Trump. He was telling me he doesn't like Trump anymore,
Speaker 1: And this was my missed opportunity. I should have asked
Speaker 1: him why don't you like Trump anymore? Even though he
Speaker 1: had voted for him twice. And then he basically said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't really matter if we vote or not,
Speaker 1: because you know, they just install whoever they want. And
Speaker 1: I was like, who's day? You know? They right? And
Speaker 1: so in any case, I said, well, you know, Biden
Speaker 1: isn't perfect, but he's gotten a lot of really good
Speaker 1: things done, for example, gun safety legislation. And then he
Speaker 1: tried to put words in my mouth about taking guns away,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, no, I didn't say that. I
Speaker 1: didn't say any of those things. And then he says, well,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the mass shootings are false
Speaker 1: flag operations anyway, and I thought what so I was like,
Speaker 1: which was and so he said, well a lot of them,
Speaker 1: And so he couldn't pinpoint of course any of them.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we kept on going down this road,
Speaker 1: and finally I said, wait, are you just saying this
Speaker 1: to egg me on or do you really believe this?
Speaker 1: Like at some point I thought, I'm in the twilight
Speaker 1: zone here, and maybe he's just saying this because you know,
Speaker 1: he clearly knows from what I was saying that I'm
Speaker 1: progressive and he maybe just as poking at me. And
Speaker 1: I think he was thrown when I said that that
Speaker 1: I assumed that maybe he's not serious. It was really strange,
Speaker 1: and it was the kind of thing where actually, in
Speaker 1: that moment, I felt incredibly unsafe. I mean, I knew
Speaker 1: I was at a wedding, nothing was going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I was like, oh, I need to get out
Speaker 1: of this conversation, and maybe I should get up from
Speaker 1: the table and hit the dance floor because this feels
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable, right, And so these are the kind of
Speaker 1: things you don't want to have. You don't want to
Speaker 1: have these kind of conversations because it's you don't feel safe.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: have these conversations because if you don't, then they never
Speaker 1: hear that there's this other world out there where people
Speaker 1: don't believe what he believes. You know. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: because I want to dig in a little bit. When
Speaker 1: you say that you felt unsafe. Is it because of
Speaker 1: what we know that people who believe in this q
Speaker 1: Andon line of thinking are capable of or was there
Speaker 1: something that happened during the conversation, an escalation that made
Speaker 1: you actually feel unsafe. I think it's the former. But also,
Speaker 1: you know, because they you know, because we were talking
Speaker 1: about gun legislation. So I thought to myself, Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: this guy came to the wedding with a gun, you
Speaker 1: know that. I mean, I don't think that he did,
Speaker 1: but it was the kind of thing was right, wait,
Speaker 1: you know what you know, like for example, if I'm
Speaker 1: in Texas, I don't want to do anything, you know,
Speaker 1: silly because people can open carry. I want to talk
Speaker 1: me a lot for a minute about the way that
Speaker 1: the media has been presenting these conspiracy theorists. They still
Speaker 1: present them as if it is logical, as if it
Speaker 1: is just a different ideology than the rest of us.
Speaker 1: We're existing on Earth one saying no, no one's installing people.
Speaker 1: This is still not yet a banana republic. It's not
Speaker 1: a dictatorship regime. But when I turn on CNN, when
Speaker 1: I turn on MSNBC, when I am listening to these folks,
Speaker 1: they're like, well, Marsh retailer Green thinks blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, as if it's a normal line of thinking.
Speaker 1: And I think that the reason why we're in this
Speaker 1: place is because outside of podcasts, outside of progressives where
Speaker 1: people are getting their mainstream news, are presenting these both
Speaker 1: sides as if they're normal. We're still talking about bipartisanship
Speaker 1: is if it's something that is readily accessible, as if
Speaker 1: one party hasn't become a cult. And so I'm curious
Speaker 1: as to what you have thought about the progression or
Speaker 1: I guess devolving of our political conversations. And then how
Speaker 1: you can be sitting at a wedding talking to a
Speaker 1: guest where you're thinking, probably at this wedding most people
Speaker 1: are probably you know, think like me, you know, voted
Speaker 1: like me because of who your friends are, the family,
Speaker 1: what have you. And then you realize, oh, no, this
Speaker 1: is actually your first thing. Maybe it was your first encounter.
Speaker 1: I've never had an encounter yet with I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like the raccoon. I saw it side my window
Speaker 1: just now. Like I've never had an encounter with a
Speaker 1: Q non person, it still seems like mythical in its thinking.
Speaker 1: But what do you think about the way it has
Speaker 1: been encapsulated in conversation as if it's normal. Yeah, I mean, first, yes,
Speaker 1: this is the first encounter and hopefully my last encounter
Speaker 1: in the wild with a Q and On supporter. But
Speaker 1: but in terms of the media, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: the mainstream media is really doing us a disservice. And
Speaker 1: I think this is one of the reasons that Trump
Speaker 1: was elected in the first place. It's because you know, basically,
Speaker 1: they covered Trump every day, every day of the week,
Speaker 1: several times a day, and over everything, every single outlandish
Speaker 1: thing he said or did, and it basically normalized this
Speaker 1: person being in the media, and then it normalized the
Speaker 1: views that he espoused. And I think people just became
Speaker 1: inured and just was like, oh, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: what it is, and you move on, or you try
Speaker 1: not to think about it because it's just too depressing
Speaker 1: if you think about it too much, right, or if
Speaker 1: you're an everyday person. And then I think the other
Speaker 1: thing about the media, like you said they they I
Speaker 1: mean I think that they are just you know, their
Speaker 1: their profit motive is I think not considered in the
Speaker 1: long term. You know, we talked about this separately before.
Speaker 1: Where look if something, if a regime like the Trump
Speaker 1: regime really comes into being full on, if fascism succeeds
Speaker 1: in the United States, there will be no free press.
Speaker 1: You know, CNN will have zero profits and there will
Speaker 1: be one state press and it will be like nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four. But I think people don't don't think through
Speaker 1: the logical conclusion, and that's really a bummer. And I
Speaker 1: think that this idea that you know, we have a
Speaker 1: free press here, I think there is a misconception of
Speaker 1: what that really means because I think, or at least
Speaker 1: this is my own, this is maybe my own interpretation.
Speaker 1: I feel like the free press, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: their job. I don't think that the free press means
Speaker 1: you can just lie about a lot of things all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, death can't be you know, if you
Speaker 1: have libel lawsuits, you know, we should be suing CNN
Speaker 1: for Liabel. Right, Why are you telling us straight up
Speaker 1: about Q and on conspiracies as if they're real? You
Speaker 1: know that you know, and I'm so glad that you
Speaker 1: said that, because I have written about this so many
Speaker 1: times where I'm asking I'm not a lawyer, but I
Speaker 1: asked the question as to why the FCC, which is
Speaker 1: supposed to regulate right communications, national broadcasts, all of these things,
Speaker 1: find people for the slightest things. Why aren't these outlets
Speaker 1: being fined significant that it would be significant enough right
Speaker 1: for them to stop. There is no there's no reason
Speaker 1: other than your own soul searching as a television executive
Speaker 1: to say, oh, maybe we shouldn't put that out right,
Speaker 1: like it isn't free speech when you are poisoning the pool,
Speaker 1: whether it is about COVID, right, which I again think
Speaker 1: that there should have been and still should be, massive
Speaker 1: lawsuits against those who then caught COVID, who lost family members,
Speaker 1: loved ones because they were listening to Fox News and
Speaker 1: deciding that they weren't going to wear a mask, that
Speaker 1: it was their freedom and liberty to walk around massless
Speaker 1: at the height of our global health pandemic. But why
Speaker 1: were they doing that? Well, because they were being spoon
Speaker 1: fed lies and nobody's been held accountable for it. And
Speaker 1: it says if you know you can do whatever you
Speaker 1: want in media, on radio, you can say whatever it
Speaker 1: is you want. And I thought that we had regulatory
Speaker 1: bodies that were supposed to oversee, right what the public
Speaker 1: is supposed to know, and ingest totally yeah, totally agree,
Speaker 1: Please go ahead. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think,
Speaker 1: why hasn't anyone been held accountable? And like, look at
Speaker 1: these text messages that came out yesterday with Mark Meadows.
Speaker 1: How come these people are not under arrest for you know,
Speaker 1: for treason. I don't really understand, like, you know, these
Speaker 1: congressmen and congressmen are still in office and they're walking
Speaker 1: around freely. I don't really I don't get it. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good question. And I feel like, why don't
Speaker 1: we have the answers? You know? And so we see
Speaker 1: there were I'm so glad you brought up the Mark
Speaker 1: Meadows text messages. Close to twenty five hundred text messages
Speaker 1: are now released, ones that we haven't seen before, the
Speaker 1: public has not seen before. Thirty four members thirty four
Speaker 1: Republican members of Congress calling for martial law, calling for
Speaker 1: a way to disrupt a free, fair, transparent election in
Speaker 1: order to install Donald Trump, saying things like we need
Speaker 1: to save our democracy. These are supposed to be representatives
Speaker 1: that know better. So what does it say, like, what
Speaker 1: what does it say to the American public again, who
Speaker 1: is still working on restoring their belief right in our government,
Speaker 1: that they see these trolls of text messages with elected
Speaker 1: officials calling for their votes to be null envoying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's really fascinating. This is again where the
Speaker 1: media could have helped us a lot, especially in the beginning.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that we did not talk about
Speaker 1: enough in twenty twenty what an amazing feat be pulled
Speaker 1: off as the American people turned out in droves to vote,
Speaker 1: and that most all the states really facilitated voting in
Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic, and that this is the
Speaker 1: most audited, most watched election in our lifetimes, and it
Speaker 1: was safe and secure, you know, and it was the
Speaker 1: kind of thing where I feel like all the press
Speaker 1: did was talk about, you know, Trump's shenatigans to deny
Speaker 1: the election results, as opposed to saying this was a
Speaker 1: historic election. We the American people turned out in droves
Speaker 1: and look, democracy is alive and well in this country.
Speaker 1: I think those things would have helped so much in
Speaker 1: order to frame the things that have come out subsequently,
Speaker 1: and even to frame the January sixth thing. You know,
Speaker 1: if they had just said that since November, I would
Speaker 1: think that January sixth would have been perceived totally differently.
Speaker 1: You know. Maybe I don't want to say it would
Speaker 1: have prevented that that sounds that sounds very unlikely, but
Speaker 1: at least it would have really made the American public
Speaker 1: more shocked, Whereas I think a lot of people shrugged
Speaker 1: their shoulders and they were like, oh, those crazies, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, But I think that collectively on that day,
Speaker 1: as we all watched, whether you were watching on television,
Speaker 1: you were watching streaming on your phone, you were following
Speaker 1: it unfold on Twitter, were absolutely stunned. We have never
Speaker 1: seen anything like this in our entire lives. There's a
Speaker 1: reason why Marian Webster adopted the word gas lighting as
Speaker 1: their word of the year, because then following that, after
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of weeks of outrage, then it was
Speaker 1: back to business as usual. This is as if attacking
Speaker 1: the capital and threatening to hang the vice president of
Speaker 1: the United States is just par for the political course
Speaker 1: in America, and it's not. And here we are coming
Speaker 1: up on the two year anniversary of this extraordinarily devastating
Speaker 1: event in our country's history, and the architects upset event
Speaker 1: have been walking around free have been walking around, you know,
Speaker 1: still tenning at maur Lago. And so I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: what do you think as we're heading into twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the presidential cycle is going to rev up. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has already announced that he is running again, despite the
Speaker 1: myriad of lawsuits that he has against him, actually because
Speaker 1: of the myriad of lawsuits that he has against him.
Speaker 1: Where do you feel that like the people are and
Speaker 1: where are you in terms of feeling like are we
Speaker 1: going to be able to thwart fascism again? Or was
Speaker 1: twenty twenty like lightning in a bottle? You know, I
Speaker 1: wish I had a crystal ball. I don't know if
Speaker 1: we will, but high what a turnout is always encouraging.
Speaker 1: I think this is the work that we have to
Speaker 1: engage in between now and twenty twenty four. You know,
Speaker 1: I was really invested in the race in Texas for governor,
Speaker 1: and when I looked at the numbers, you know, post
Speaker 1: fact after the election, it was something like forty two
Speaker 1: percent of Democrats registered Democrats in Texas turned out to vote,
Speaker 1: and I thought forty two percent. Really, you know, nine
Speaker 1: point six million registered voters in Texas did not vote,
Speaker 1: and in fact, both the Republicans and the Democrats in
Speaker 1: Texas thought two million more people would vote than actually did.
Speaker 1: And so it's the kind of thing where I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, people don't understand you know, I saw this
Speaker 1: on Twitter, somebody had in this bio. People don't understand
Speaker 1: this that Democrats who don't vote elect Republicans. So just
Speaker 1: because you're not voting doesn't mean you're not actually making
Speaker 1: your voice heard. You know. It's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: where like people need to understand that in order to
Speaker 1: actually get the people that they want elected, they actually
Speaker 1: have to show up and vote. And so I think
Speaker 1: if we can invest now in turning people out, it
Speaker 1: will pay off in twenty twenty four. So we need
Speaker 1: even more people to vote than in twenty twenty, even
Speaker 1: more people than in twenty twenty two. And then I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, the referendum, the ballot measure in
Speaker 1: Kansas and the summer that was like in August, where
Speaker 1: people don't vote. People are you know, kids are not
Speaker 1: in school, and that was nearly presidential year turnout just
Speaker 1: to vote for the abortion measure. I thought, oh wow,
Speaker 1: you know this is really encouraging. You know, you were
Speaker 1: saying that we need historic, historic turnouts. I think that
Speaker 1: the numbers that you said in Texas are just I mean,
Speaker 1: that's devastating. Right if those if those two million people
Speaker 1: had come out to vote, if those nine million people
Speaker 1: that were registered came out to vote. You're talking about
Speaker 1: the difference between a governor who you know, allowed his
Speaker 1: constituents to freeze right during a winter storm. Um, and
Speaker 1: with thinks it's more important to attack transgender children than
Speaker 1: it is to do anything about protecting their housing costs,
Speaker 1: protecting you know, uh, their their health and well being.
Speaker 1: You're talking about that difference, right, And our races are
Speaker 1: so close these days that it matters. Every vote actually matters.
Speaker 1: I know that we've been saying it for for what
Speaker 1: feels like eons, but now it's it's it's true or
Speaker 1: than ever before. So you know what, what final question
Speaker 1: for you, Mila is what message you know, what keeps you?
Speaker 1: And I think that you asked me this on your show. Um,
Speaker 1: what keeps you hopeful? Um? As we are dealing with
Speaker 1: and living through these incredibly precarious times. Well, the first
Speaker 1: thing is that there are more and more people voting,
Speaker 1: with the exception of Texas, but you know, I think
Speaker 1: these the trend is that more people vote. I think
Speaker 1: that's incredibly encouraging. And I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: the ballot measures that we saw pass in this last
Speaker 1: cycle in the midterms are also encouraging. All the abortion
Speaker 1: measures passed, you know, the ballot measures to expand medicaid
Speaker 1: also passed South Dakota notably, and I think that's incredibly encouraging.
Speaker 1: That means people are paying attention. People know that there's
Speaker 1: something like this on the ballot beyond you know, just
Speaker 1: the politicians, and I think that's strong evidence that people
Speaker 1: know what's at stake. I would say also that when
Speaker 1: it comes to voters, I do think that in the
Speaker 1: twenty two midterms, voters did know that democracy was on
Speaker 1: the ballot. I don't think that passed them by yep.
Speaker 1: And I think that keeps people engaged, people keep paying attention.
Speaker 1: The fact that you know, with um the House, that
Speaker 1: Congress really only barely became Republican, I think that's also
Speaker 1: incredibly encouraging. I think, you know, people are disappointed. Democrats
Speaker 1: are disappointed we didn't keep the house. But I think
Speaker 1: because it was so close, I think people get it.
Speaker 1: They're like, we just have to keep going, you know,
Speaker 1: because we know that the people who are Republicans in
Speaker 1: Congress are the sedition people. I don't think people don't
Speaker 1: know that. I think people know. So I think people
Speaker 1: will redouble their efforts in twenty four. That's my hope,
Speaker 1: and I think I think they will. I you know,
Speaker 1: I know that we don't have magic eight balls and
Speaker 1: can't read tea leaves, but you know, I hear is
Speaker 1: hoping that you are correct. Folks. Um the podcast is
Speaker 1: future a future Hindsight with Mila at most. Make sure
Speaker 1: or to check it out weekly. You get change makers,
Speaker 1: civic engagement, and just an understanding about how you can
Speaker 1: become a responsible, activated citizen in this country. Mila, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for making the time to join Woke app.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you. Thank you so much for having
Speaker 1: me on. That is it for me today, Dear friends
Speaker 1: on woke app as always, power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck.