WEBVTT - Zerlina Maxwell 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:15.280 Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. High 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.919 whip Smarties. Today we are joined by one of my 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.920 smartest friends and someone that I look up to in 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.680 every single way, both from the way she lives her 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.120 life and runs her career to who she is as 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.640 a person. Today, I'm sitting down with Serlina Maxwell, who 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.840 you likely know as an incredible American cable television host, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.760 political analyst, commentator, speaker, and author. She writes and speaks 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:47.040 about everything politics, culture, gender inequity, sexual consent, racism, and 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:51.680 so many other topics that affect all of us. She 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.720 is a survivor and an activist. She holds a degree 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.280 from Rutgers Law School. Started out as a field organizer 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.240 in two thousand and eight on the Obama campaign and then 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:04.800 was the director of Progressive Media for the Hillary Clinton 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:09.000 campaign in twenty sixteen. She is a director of Programming 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.640 at SiriusXM, now hosts her weekly show on Sirius called 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:17.240 Signal Boost and her daily show Mornings with Zerlina on 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.280 SERRIOUSXM Channel one twenty seven. And as if that wasn't enough, 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.040 she wrote an incredible book called The End of Wait Politics, 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.080 which we're kind of having to reanalyze now because a 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.520 lot of fear mongering decided the last election. I'm going 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.520 to talk to her today about the way that she 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.800 sees the current state of things, how she's figuring out 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:44.960 how to communicate that the political is actually everywhere around 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.200 us and is so deeply personal with her audience with 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.840 people who agree with her and people who don't. And 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.200 she's going to give us a little preview in her 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.120 next project, she is launching a new substack called the 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:01.480 Inner Work Dispatch on Monday mornings because she realized, like 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.480 many of us, that she needs to do a little 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.720 more work on her mental health care and on her 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.440 own wellness. She tries to ensure the wellness of the world. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.519 I cannot wait to dive in today. Let's hear from Serlina. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:29.640 I how where are you? 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.760 I'm okay. I actually I just moved. 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.679 I don't know if you saw on the thread or 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.920 if they told you that, or if I mentioned that 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.919 I was moving to Sicily, and so I just literally 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.760 to Sunday, I moved to Sicily. So it's been a 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:47.280 little bit crazy this week, just like because you have 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.240 to like do all this stuff, like when you first 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.480 move in terms of like your resident your permit to stay, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.600 and so getting a Italian phone number. Like, there's just 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:01.360 a lot going on. But why I'm able to like 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:02.840 do my show from. 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:04.920 Me, I was gonna ask, how does that work? 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.680 Yeah, well, it looks it works out for me pretty 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:09.760 well because the show's at seven o'clock in the morning, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:10.640 so here it's not. 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:11.760 Seven o'clock in the morning. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:13.080 Yeah. 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.040 But uh, and and it just like gives me a 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.200 different quality of life. You know, I can I live 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.880 by the water, I can, you know, go from my 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:25.240 run or walk by the water. 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.440 And I just I don't know. I was here. 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.600 I was in Italy in Rome for like five months 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.200 of twenty twenty four, and then I spent the last 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.640 month ironically the I spent the election day and day 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:45.640 weeks after here in Palermo. And I I feel like 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:47.920 it was meant to be that way, because I was 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.040 like obviously stunned, just like everybody else, but I was 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.200 also in like I felt removed from it, so my 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:55.120 head was. 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.720 Clear, Yeah, you had a little distance. 0:03:58.480 --> 0:03:59.240 Yeah, and. 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.600 I was able to like form thoughts about it in 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.000 a way that I didn't I after in twenty sixteen. 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.080 I was just like couldn't speak, you know, like it 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:17.240 was different than that. Yeah, and so yeah, I'm here 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:18.240 for at least a year. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.599 That's what the visas for. So we'll just we'll see. 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.920 That's so exciting. I spent some time near the end 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.000 of twenty twenty three in Italy with my mom's family, 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.400 and it was so special and I definitely had sort 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.119 of thoughts of maybe this is what I do, Maybe 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.599 this is where I go, maybe I start over. 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.159 There's something special about Italy. I think a lot of people. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.280 I mean, obviously it's a popular place for people to 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.719 go on vacation, but I quickly learned and just talking 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:53.800 to people, first of all, I mean it depends where 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:58.480 you are obviously in Italy, but in southern Italy and 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.440 in Sicily, the people their warmth is real, Like that's real, 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.799 and they I don't know, there's the way they are 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.119 is different, and it's actually very I learn a lot 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.640 about like being present and you know, when I go out, 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.039 not having my phone out, and talking to people face 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.680 to face and having like face to face interactions and 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.960 like connecting with people in a way that I just 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:24.640 wasn't doing. 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:27.400 I lived in Washington, d C. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:32.120 Before I started my trips to Italy, and I was 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.600 the most I mean, my mother died at the end 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.200 of twenty twenty two, so I was like in a 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.560 period of grief and like all of that, but like 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.080 also in Washington, d C. I was the most sad 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:48.920 I've been since I was like maybe nineteen, and I 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.359 was like, I have to get out of here. My 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.039 therapist like, you can move, you were remotely. 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.400 So do you think that's sadness? I mean, of course, 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.120 losing your mom is like, what a deep wall of 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.640 grief to have to fall into. But do you think 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:11.320 some of that larger sadness geographically was coming from a 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:17.400 sensitivity to just how crazy things have gotten in our system? 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.160 I mean, you know, we we're all old enough to remember, 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:25.480 you know, policy fights and debates about legislation and budgets 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:30.960 and priorities and things. But the Pandora's box that the 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:38.040 first not even election, I would say, the first Trump campaign, yeah, 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.280 opened right, you know in twenty fifteen leading into twenty sixteen. 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:48.800 I I like, you can't believe we're back here. I 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.280 was so shocked and also not at all surprised, which 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:56.960 is a sort of heartbreak that I had to wrestle 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.400 with for a few months. You know, the experience of 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.800 I believe we're better than this. I guess we're just not. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:07.120 No. 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.400 I literally, well, my book is about how we are 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.080 better than this. I thought I thought we would be 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.920 in a very different place. I did not allow my 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:19.080 brain to think that she may not win. I knew 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:23.000 obviously that it was going to be really hard, right, 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.560 and also she's a woman, and she's a black woman, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.840 and she onlyan one hundred days, like yeah, one hundred 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.840 and seven, So all those things. I just didn't allow 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.800 my brain to even go there. So when it happened, 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.600 I was like, this is not happening. I don't I 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.720 just sat there for a second and I was like, Okay, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.360 thank god I'm here because I can go and run 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:48.440 and listen to loud Regie music and just like get 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.320 that out of my body. Because I was like, it 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.920 was like a primal screen almost like yeah. 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.080 And I think, what's hard to you know, and now 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:58.680 that we're in it, let's be in it. I think 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.920 what's hard for me is to see the level of 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.640 destruction and the sort of shock that a lot of 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.680 people are in that he's actually doing what he said 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.920 he would do, right, And many of us are like, 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:11.360 he told you the whole time he was going to 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:13.400 do this, Like what are you what are you talking about? 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:14.880 Yeah, and. 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.840 It's odd. It's been odd for me. You know. There's 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.080 another woman kind of who is in our long time 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:29.080 sphere of political activists who I just kind of caught 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:31.480 online the other day and I was like, oh, you're 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.040 you're a traitor, got it. You You thought that by 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:39.960 demonizing trans folks in America it might protect you. But 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.880 you you're a woman, and by the way, you're not 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.000 even a white woman. And this, this, this is not 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.760 good for women like me, let alone for any other woman, Like, like, 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.120 everybody has a target on their back unless they're you know, 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.960 a billionaire. And I think it's hard for me to 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:07.600 watch the swiftness and the cruelty. And also I think 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:09.720 it's why so many of us have been saying, listen 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.480 to the historians who are warning you about one hundred 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.120 year cycles, like this shit is not new. We can 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.079 tell you exactly where it starts, and we can tell 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.720 you exactly where it goes. And by the way, you know, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.960 Hitler didn't start with Jews. He started with trans people, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:26.400 That's where he started. 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:27.000 Yeah. 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.120 So literally, people who are like, what do you mean, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:31.719 I'm like, this is why they've been banning books and 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.800 attacking the American education system for forty years, Like Mitch 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:39.560 McConnell's forty year plan is literally bearing fruit. I think 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.160 it can be tough when you've dedicated so much of 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:49.240 your life to understanding both history, potential and politics and 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.880 how it's actually in everything to figure out how to 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.360 communicate when you have a large platform like I do, 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.600 or you do with folks who just don't have as 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.880 many political touch points, who haven't been as in the 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.760 weeds for so long. And I guess before we get 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:09.280 into where you are, I just want everybody listening to 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.600 understand your background. We've done a lot of shows together, 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:13.680 so I don't want to ask you questions we've already 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.160 gone through. But I do want for somebody who maybe 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.200 this is their first time hearing us talk on my 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.640 show or yours, I want people to understand your background. 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.640 You know, like what first sparked your passion for politics? 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.920 When did you know that you wanted? And I don't 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:29.960 even want to call it political commentary. I think about 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.920 it as like political communication, like it's translation of a 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.040 system into words most of us can understand. When did 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.960 you know that you wanted that to be your life, 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:40.600 your career. 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.040 I feel like I knew that during the administration of 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:44.560 George W. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:45.239 Bush. 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.719 And I've always been somebody who's been obsessed with politics 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:50.000 since I was a little kid. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:51.680 I remember vividly. 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.120 I was eight and I was outside of school and 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:56.839 we were lined up to like go in. I think 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.679 I was in second or third grade back then, and 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:01.560 it was the election. 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.000 With George H. W. Bush and Michael Ducaccus. 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:09.200 And I remember like doing a little speech in front 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:13.560 of the school in elementary school telling the kids to 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:17.040 tell their parents to vote for Michael Ducaccus. 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:18.800 Now, no one told me to do this. 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.680 My parents, both of my parents, like I think my 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.400 mom was mostly a Democratic voter when I was growing up. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.640 My dad actually was voted for a few Republicans there. 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.240 So nobody told me to do this. This was just like. 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.240 Completely me sitting in front of the TV as a little kid, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.760 deciding I agree with those people and not those people 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.480 like that. It was a very like visceral thing for 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.960 me as a little kid, So fast forward to George W. 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:51.280 Bush's administration. I was literally obsessed, in part because at 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.280 the time I thought that was the worst we could do, 0:11:54.000 --> 0:12:00.400 and I just couldn't imagine not trying to prevent his 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.440 you know, Republicans from continuing down this pass. So I 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.360 ended up on the Obama campaign in two thousand and 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:13.439 eight because I was like, if I don't do something well. One, 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:17.160 I felt like I couldn't complain if it didn't if 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:18.080 it didn't go well. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.360 But also I was like, I have I need skin 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:20.880 in the game. 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.960 And I lived in New Jersey at the time, and 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.439 I decided I was like, well, New Jersey's not a 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.960 battleground state. So I think it was Chuck Todd in 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.720 his map, and I picked a yellow state, two yellow 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.480 states to apply it to Virginia and Pennsylvania. I got 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.520 jobs in both, but then decided to go to Virginia, 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.160 a state that I'm very closely connected to my family now. 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.000 My parents retired in Virginia, so Virginia is like a 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.840 state I know they're politics well, and I've been in 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.160 that state for many, many years. But I moved down 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.360 to Virginia. I worked for the Obama campaign as a 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.120 field organizer. This is before even my career in political 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:03.200 communications took time off law school went down. Was a 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.000 field organizer, knock on doors, and I really just learned 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.480 what organizing is all about. I mean, I think everybody 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.480 who starts in campaigns as a field organizer, that's like, 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.040 that's the grunt work. But it's the best work because 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.080 it teaches you all the different aspects of what's going 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.280 on in a campaign because people are coming in and 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:22.400 out of your field office. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.640 But also you learn how to talk to people. 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.600 You learn how to communicate with people about what they 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.199 care about. Right, all kinds of people are coming into 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.640 your field office every day, mostly for yard signs, but 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:39.720 sometimes with other types of questions. And they really just 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.920 taught me that there's people of all ages and all backgrounds, 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.520 and you know, with so many different concerns, I mean, 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:51.480 and politics is one way to address those concerns. When 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.080 I first got that job in two thousand and eight 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.880 and all the organizers stood up and they were asked like, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:58.720 why are you here, we went around the realm of 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.040 hundreds of people, and ninety five percent of the people 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.000 said health insurance. Healthcare was the reason why they were there, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.599 So they had been impacted directly because parent, her grandparent, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.960 and for me, I think that was a really emotional 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.920 experience because I realized that it's not just politics, right, 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.080 it's I mean a lot of people think politics is 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.440 a thing that doesn't affect them because they're not paying 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:26.320 attention to it. Right. It's, oh, well, that's that's politics, 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.360 that's Democrats and Republicans. No, it's it affects you every 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.680 single day, whether you know it or not. So I 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.080 think I learned in that in the grassroots way, how 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.800 politics intimately affects people, and I learned how to organize 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.640 on that campaign. The second campaign I worked was Hillary 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.080 Clinton in twenty sixteen. In between, I became a writer 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.440 and sort of had a profile as a writer and 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.040 a media personality and ended up on Hillary's campaign in 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.800 twenty sixteen based on that experience and what I learned 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:01.760 were on that campaign, I mean, it was a really 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:06.200 different job. I was a community communication staffer working on messaging. 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.880 I think that's how we started. 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.400 Communicating with each other because at the time Jess McIntosh, 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.560 my partner in feminism, as I like to describe her, 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.720 we were messaging to influencers, which no one knew what 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.480 that meant. Bay twenty sixteen, they were like, what what 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.360 is influencers? And we're like, we're doing influencer messaging and 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:28.320 they were like, yeah. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:29.360 What does that mean? 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.040 But I think in twenty sixteen, what I learned in 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:38.840 that experience is that you really have to hit people 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:39.360 in the heart. 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:41.600 You know. There's something that. 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.960 We and I've been thinking about this idea all year 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:54.320 because there's something that is disconnected between what policies democrats 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.080 are talking about and what people are feeling, even if those. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:15:59.320 Policies would would help with that. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.160 I think, long story short, to bring it back around, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.480 I think my experience both in two thousand and eight 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.200 and twenty sixteen taught me from different perspectives how to 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:17.520 actually reach people, right what do people care about, and 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.560 how to talk to them so they feel like you 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.440 hear them. And the things that you're talking about as 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:29.200 it relates to politics, which affects everybody, are all things 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:31.400 that they're like, oh, okay, I see how that can 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:36.080 help me, and they're not so defensive right away. 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.720 Yeah, we'll be back in just a minute. But here's 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:46.040 a word from our sponsors. There's a few things that 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.320 kind of come up for me, and I'm curious about 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.400 your lens, you know, much like you. The Oait election 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.680 for President Obama was that was my first it's a 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.840 political volunteer, and you know, by the time we all 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:02.480 got onto Hillary's campaign in twenty sixteen, I think we 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:05.280 were like, oh, we know what we're doing. We know 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.800 how to do this. Part of the reason storytellers are 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.399 so effective is because we can remind people take it 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.000 out of the policy specific language and talk about how 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.919 policy is personal. And one of the things that I 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.439 see now is and we knew this right. We know 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.280 a lie travels sixteen hundred times faster online than the truth. 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.800 We know that soundbites float around and complex conversation doesn't. 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.000 We know that the black and white is something that 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.480 causes reactivity and nuance, which is required to run a 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.919 country of this size, and also to understand all the 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:45.159 people in it often doesn't translate or become clickbait. What 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.920 I think I struggle with now is knowing not only 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:53.520 those facts, but knowing how effective fear and othering are 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:58.040 as a message, and to know that for our current administration, 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.639 the cruelty is the point. And one of the things 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.920 that I think we have failed at assuming we've had 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.719 all these wins, we've had all this progress. You know, 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.280 we were all born when a woman could get a 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:14.800 credit card without her husband signing for it. We were 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.359 born when a woman could rent an apartment without a man. 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.119 Some of our elders, you know, the women that we 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:27.080 look up to, were not. They remember the difference. And 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:33.400 what I think we have failed at is communicating well 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:39.760 that progress requires time and destruction is relatively immediate. If 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.840 you drop a beautiful piece of pottery, it shatters the 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.320 second it hits the floor. To make that pot on 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:52.160 a wheel took time and clay and water and shaping 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.639 and attempts and might have failed, and then begin again, 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:57.960 and then it gets fired, and then it gets glazed, 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.159 and then it gets fired again. Political progress or requires 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.520 an investment of time and patience. But it's why we 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.800 have these systems that seem to simply exist, and we 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.680 haven't explained how they exist. The fact that we both 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.840 have power in our homes is politics. The fact that 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.359 we can turn on a faucet and drink water that 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.639 hopefully won't kill us is politics. The fact that we 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.600 have roads to drive on politics. When you bitch about 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.720 the pothole in your neighborhood. Bad politics, Like people have 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.560 forgotten that schools and clean air and water and electricity 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:40.119 and a grocery store, all of it is politics. And 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.000 so now politics has become these people who want to 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.800 give your stuff away versus these mean people who'll do 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.560 anything to give it back, And like that just ain't it? Like, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.920 it's not how it works. And when you think about 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:04.040 you know, your show, your right, your activism, your political organizing, 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:12.240 how do you begin to make the political personal? Because 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.439 that difference between what we know and what we feel like, 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.160 that's the gap. I think, So how do we help 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:25.399 people understand how personal every single political decision is. 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.280 I've been thinking about this for the last three weeks 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.840 because one of the things that folks call my show, 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.800 and they call from all over the country, they're like. 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.639 What can we do? What can Democrats do? You know, 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:38.520 how do we stop this? 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:43.480 And it's in part I think there is a disconnect 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.399 between some Democrats and what they say and some of 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:52.360 the democratic messaging and what really resonates with people emotionally. 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:52.960 Right. 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:58.040 I think that is why Trump succeeds in communicating to 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.520 his base of support, because he taps in to them emotionally. 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:03.480 Even though he's lying. 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:08.040 To that, right, right, Like, that's what makes me crazy, 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.760 you know me too, Me just. 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:14.400 Lies and people go, yep, that's it. 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.840 Right, And and unfortunately there are some people who want 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.120 to be lied to, so some people do. They They 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.720 may even if you got them, you know, in a 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.000 corner and you were like, you know, that's not true, 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.600 and they probably you probably could get them to admit that. 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:31.800 But but I do think that one of the things 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:36.760 that we sometimes miss on the left, and I hate 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.480 even doing like right left, like on my show, I 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:43.680 feel like we're humans, We're trying to survive, we're trying 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:45.600 to be happy. We're all like have sort of the 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.800 same goals here, and he's hurting everybody. It doesn't matter 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:52.040 what side of the spectrum you fall on. He's he's 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.600 firing government employees that voted for. 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:58.280 Him, right, I mean, just gutted the VA. 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:01.640 Exactly, literally veterans losing their And one of the things 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:03.240 I've been thinking about in the last couple of weeks 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:05.760 is the way in which Democrats can start talking about 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.880 what's happening with Doggie. I don't even call it dose 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.480 because Jess McIntosh and I just call it doggy. 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:12.160 Because it sounds funny. 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:18.760 What stories we can start telling about what's happening, right, 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.119 It's not you know, there have been twenty thousand people 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.199 who have been laid off. It's let's go talk to 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:28.000 those people who are they it's a mom. It's probably 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.320 a mom of three who worked for the federal government, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.040 maybe in a health agency, maybe in the Consumer Financial 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.439 Protection Bureau making sure that people aren't getting scammed by 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:41.440 credit card companies, and they're not. They're going to miss 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:44.359 the payment for their mortgage, They're not going to be 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.320 able to pay their their bills, they're not going to 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.560 be able to pay tuition for their child. There you know, 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:51.280 they may not be able to put gas in the car, 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.760 much less afford eggs that have not gone down in price. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.560 So I think that the storytelling element that you that 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:01.720 you referenced is the key, right. And I think sometimes 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:05.240 we can get caught up in statistics and numbers as 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.560 opposed to really talk to people's hearts, not their heads. 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:12.080