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Speaker 1: vary and rates may vary. So joining me now is
Speaker 1: a first time author. The book is called The Instigators
Speaker 1: And as you can see the author here, Attima Omara,
Speaker 1: she's even she's got merch. I love it like you
Speaker 1: know you got a with it there. I mean you
Speaker 1: are extraordinarily well prepared. What this book is about, It's
Speaker 1: essentially about the role that black women in particular, have
Speaker 1: played and are playing right now in American politics, and
Speaker 1: the influential role that younger Black women are playing these
Speaker 1: days in American politics. So this book is part analysis
Speaker 1: because she's in the advocacy space, political strategy space, but
Speaker 1: also historical because this is not a new thing. Black
Speaker 1: women in many ways have carried the banner for civil
Speaker 1: rights and for voting rights and for just rights in general.
Speaker 1: So Tima joins me. Now, Tima, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So. Obviously, one of the big pushbacks that your book
Speaker 1: is attempting to do, Rich is there's the general consensus
Speaker 1: that it's white swing voters, suburban moderates that decide actions.
Speaker 1: And in some ways this is an attempt to blow
Speaker 1: up that myth a little bit. And I think we
Speaker 1: all have realized that swing voters are not people that
Speaker 1: swing between h two sides to actually, most swing voters
Speaker 1: swing between voting and not voting as much as they
Speaker 1: swing actually between the two parties. Not saying that there
Speaker 1: aren't some voters that do this and they become incredibly
Speaker 1: decisive when the margins are super thin. But is that
Speaker 1: a fair is that? Is that a fair marker?
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: If it was one of the big MythBusters you wanted
Speaker 1: to do, was that, Yes, definitely.
Speaker 3: I wanted to challenge sort of a narrative that if
Speaker 3: we are are focusing on trying to get this way
Speaker 3: moderate swing voter, you know, trying to think of thinking
Speaker 3: of that particular guy, and you would know this from
Speaker 3: your coverage. I'm forgetting him. But he's like the guy
Speaker 3: and like the plumber. Well yeah, don't the plumber. He's one,
Speaker 3: and there's like another one where he's just like, I'm
Speaker 3: still deciding and everybody.
Speaker 1: Office park Dad, Right, we've got that one, right.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes you get like the Nascar mom or
Speaker 3: soccer mom who's just trying to make decisions, and I
Speaker 3: get that that is is fascinating sort of in coverage
Speaker 3: in media, but it's it's it's not great as the
Speaker 3: basis as the foundation of a political strategy for certainly
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Well, you start your book, you start with Virginia. So
Speaker 1: this is something I'm very familiar with, and certainly my
Speaker 1: listeners over the last few weeks have gotten very familiar.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about Virginia in general. But it's
Speaker 1: it's you start talking about the Ralph Northam scandal and
Speaker 1: his black face scandal and sort of the role. Walk
Speaker 1: me through the role you think black women played in that,
Speaker 1: and I guess it would be his political survival.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So you had elected officials, You had cabinet members
Speaker 3: of his as well as advocates who were like, all right,
Speaker 3: if you want to stay in political power, we are
Speaker 3: going to make you put in the work for it.
Speaker 3: So you had organizers like Chelsea Higgs Wise who had
Speaker 3: started ah, you know, marijuana advocacy organization that was grassroots
Speaker 3: to push for the legalization, like, forget the criminalization, We're
Speaker 3: just going to go the full legalization and organizing people
Speaker 3: around that young, you know, black single mother. And then
Speaker 3: you had a Don McClure. She's now a state House
Speaker 3: representative House of Delegates in Virginia, but was head of
Speaker 3: the Virginia Legacy of Black Caucus. That's use this to
Speaker 3: put together a very ambitious legislate of agenda. Maybe not
Speaker 3: everything's going to get passed on criminal justice reform, social
Speaker 3: safety and and such, but we are going to put
Speaker 3: it forth in this in the in this opportunity. And
Speaker 3: then you have a Voting Rights Act. We have our
Speaker 3: own state voting rights ac modeled off the sixty five
Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 2: Thanks to then states Er Jenna from McClellan.
Speaker 3: And then you had a lot of the initiatives just
Speaker 3: in state government and policy that were being pushed by
Speaker 3: cabinet secretaries at the time who were younger black women,
Speaker 3: and so you know, a lot of this happened as
Speaker 3: Northern was trying to figure out how to rebound and
Speaker 3: take advantage of trying to stay in place. And it
Speaker 3: came right into the spring of twenty twenty when George
Speaker 3: Floyd was murdered and now we're all inside and now
Speaker 3: it was really an additional captive audiences. They say in
Speaker 3: public policy, the Overton window had shifted traumatically, and they
Speaker 3: were poised to take all of that work and knowledge
Speaker 3: and strategy and push for a lot of the change
Speaker 3: that we now have in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Well, look, you had leverage over him. Yeah, he decided
Speaker 1: and it was I don't want to say it was
Speaker 1: accidental leverage, but it was it was almost leverage that
Speaker 1: was lost. I mean, not to get into the tragedy
Speaker 1: of the late now late lieutenant governor, but because he
Speaker 1: politically was essentially paralyzed at the moment then and unable
Speaker 1: to be seen as the as the alternative if there
Speaker 1: was a p if Northam decided to resign in the
Speaker 1: in this case, was it easier to get leverage on
Speaker 1: him or was it actually harder when he felt quote
Speaker 1: politically safer because his LG had separate political issues that
Speaker 1: made him a fraud potential replacement governor.
Speaker 3: And probably and I liuded to it there in the
Speaker 3: book that I think it made him feel like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I've got more room to try and assert that I stay.
Speaker 3: And that is where that sentiment that winter and going
Speaker 3: into spring of twenty twenty, where folks were like, all right,
Speaker 3: if you wist, say, we're going to make it work
Speaker 3: for it and how a lot of those policies, and
Speaker 3: you know, he made himself very amenable to that because
Speaker 3: I think you realize, certainly politically it was going to
Speaker 3: be hard their cabinet memberswil elected officials, we're going to
Speaker 3: resign or certainly make his political life not very uncomfortable
Speaker 3: if he had not been as amenable, so credit even
Speaker 3: being a minimal, but I also think he was put
Speaker 3: in a position where you know, he felt that he
Speaker 3: had to be a lot more to prove to folks
Speaker 3: that he was what he believed himself to be as
Speaker 3: a better changed person.
Speaker 1: How often do you think, I actually think sometimes interest
Speaker 1: groups don't take advantage of what I would call transactional
Speaker 1: leverage moments. Yeah, meaning you know where, look, this is
Speaker 1: not somebody that would normally be your ally, but they
Speaker 1: kind of need you more than you you know, and
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe we can extract some concessions out
Speaker 1: of here. And there's so much pressure these days, frankly,
Speaker 1: not to be seen as working with somebody who may
Speaker 1: was against your interests six months ago, six years ago.
Speaker 1: You know the you know what always invited, What always
Speaker 1: made to me what the most inviting thing of our
Speaker 1: democracy in general, is that even at its founding, it
Speaker 1: was intended to be a negotiation, right, that it was
Speaker 1: always a negotiation. So if we if you think of
Speaker 1: politics as a negotiation, it means you're going to actually
Speaker 1: make some common cause with people you don't normally agree with,
Speaker 1: because it's a quote negotiation. And yet I feel like
Speaker 1: that art has been lost in modern politics, more so
Speaker 1: in the democratic side of the eye. Am i am
Speaker 1: I being a little overly critical here, probably not.
Speaker 3: I mean there are moments where you know, listen, there
Speaker 3: are folks realizing, Okay, I voted for something three times
Speaker 3: that is now pretty terrible, And I'm not super interested
Speaker 3: in being buddies with these folks. However, if there is an.
Speaker 1: Operation, I don't want to be lectured at for supporting
Speaker 1: this entity for the lest right, right, Yeah, lecturing like
Speaker 1: telling me I was wrong, Okay, I was wrong.
Speaker 3: And for me it's like, okay, listen, like you're going
Speaker 3: to be on the same page and voting great, but
Speaker 3: you don't want to do this again. We don't want
Speaker 3: to have to go through this again. We are going
Speaker 3: to on the other side of this have to have
Speaker 3: a conversation about why you did what you did and
Speaker 3: why you thought that this made the most sense. So
Speaker 3: I'm one of those people where it's like I understand
Speaker 3: the point of coalitions where it's like, all right, let's
Speaker 3: just be in the room on this one point and win,
Speaker 3: so that we can at least have a conversation.
Speaker 2: On the other side about how we retain this victory.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about twenty four because in here you're pretty
Speaker 1: you're pretty tough on the Democrats walk me through it.
Speaker 1: What could have been was it was this an election
Speaker 1: that was lost on persuasion or mobilization.
Speaker 2: Very much mobilization.
Speaker 3: I think some of the things that have been leaking
Speaker 3: from the twenty twenty four Action reporter point.
Speaker 1: That we're never going to see you're ever going to
Speaker 1: see it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're never going to see. And you know, I've
Speaker 3: had an opportunity to get some insights into into what
Speaker 3: it was from some briefings that I.
Speaker 1: Who did it, who took in charge of this briefing
Speaker 1: of this autopsy, of this autopsy?
Speaker 3: I actually don't know there was like a whole committee formed,
Speaker 3: and I know that there's like a couple of strategists
Speaker 3: who did something.
Speaker 1: There probably just two or three people that did like
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the work the work, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there's like, yeah, so there's just generally
Speaker 3: this committee. And so we definitely lost it in mobilization.
Speaker 3: Not to say that racism and asocrapy didn't play a role,
Speaker 3: because there were certainly these people who were like, well,
Speaker 3: I remember distinctly Arizona, some young person and being interviewed
Speaker 3: and why, you know, who are you going to vote for? Trump?
Speaker 3: And why well, Amala didn't show up on the Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan podcast. I'm just like, Okay, I don't think that
Speaker 3: was the deciding factor.
Speaker 2: I feel like that was a good excuse.
Speaker 3: But okay, sure, so you had those, but when you
Speaker 3: have Trump didn't actually get as much as he was, Like,
Speaker 3: this was a landslide. It was small amounts of margins
Speaker 3: of votes in all the seven states. And when you
Speaker 3: looked at what happened in twenty twenty, where we were
Speaker 3: trying to make it more accessible to vote for folks,
Speaker 3: and obviously that rolled back, but then you also looked
Speaker 3: at Trump's margins, you didn't do that much better than
Speaker 3: twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: It was the Democratic turnout that was lower.
Speaker 3: And it's all be a combination of voter suppression and
Speaker 3: not having dealt with that, but also the mobilization there's
Speaker 3: now and I cited in the book lots of stories
Speaker 3: from black staffers who were trying to renegade just figure
Speaker 3: out how to do operational work on the ground and
Speaker 3: communities that we needed to vote, as well as you know,
Speaker 3: black consultants who weren't sort of getting the resources they
Speaker 3: needed and block led brown led organizations to turn out
Speaker 3: their communities that they got in twenty twenty by comparison.
Speaker 1: Well, to me, you know, I've always said that the
Speaker 1: damning part of this election on the mobilization front is
Speaker 1: not the seventh the results in the seven states, it's
Speaker 1: actually the results in the other forty three. Right when
Speaker 1: you look at the number of blue states that ended
Speaker 1: up single digits close to five points, like Illinois, New
Speaker 1: Jersey to me, or the probably the best examples, but
Speaker 1: this was across the board, right, It just felt like
Speaker 1: that there was somewhere, you know, I do think I
Speaker 1: go back to what I believe more so today than
Speaker 1: I even believed a decade ago, which is that swing
Speaker 1: voters are those that swing between voting and not voting,
Speaker 1: which means it is a mobilization tool. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you don't have persuasion. Right, Yeah, And this is
Speaker 1: why I hate saying, you know, and I did it
Speaker 1: to you, right, I said Pick one was a mobilization persuasion. Well,
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is you couldn't persuade those
Speaker 1: who normally are with you to go vote. So guess what,
Speaker 1: you had a mobilization problem that was also a persuasion problem.
Speaker 1: You know that is like, there just weren't people excited.
Speaker 1: Now we all have our theories. Were they not excited
Speaker 1: about her because she was trying to straddle the fence
Speaker 1: between sort of the old guard of the party and
Speaker 1: the progressive wing. Was it because she was saddled with
Speaker 1: an unpopular president, which is frankly, sometimes I look at
Speaker 1: things and it's like, let's stop being complicated. Hubert Humphrey
Speaker 1: didn't win, Al Gore didn't win, Kamala Harris didn't win.
Speaker 1: It's hard to succeed a president who is unpopular for
Speaker 1: one reason or the other, either personally or professionally. And
Speaker 1: my goodness, look how close she came. And yet and
Speaker 1: yes he was holding it right. So I'm still at
Speaker 1: the end of the day this on Biden that we
Speaker 1: could sit here and nitpick all we want. If Biden
Speaker 1: had been a more popular president, Kamala Harris would be president.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was. And yeah, there was a the fact
Speaker 3: that the margins were so tight, and then the fact
Speaker 3: that you had she had one hundred and seven days.
Speaker 3: And as somebody pointed out when they were talking about
Speaker 3: the election, I was going out and thought about it.
Speaker 3: But she's like a voting started basically after the convention,
Speaker 3: so she was already behind before she started. And so
Speaker 3: that is you know, that's where I sort of am
Speaker 3: as well in thinking there was not a lot that
Speaker 3: between his popularity and then the operation that was handed
Speaker 3: to her that set her up for success, and she
Speaker 3: closed that gap. Like the stories about him being under
Speaker 3: the water and then he couldn't have pulled it out
Speaker 3: were as we now know true, and she really didn't
Speaker 3: as much as she could to close the.
Speaker 1: Gap and came very She saved three or four Senate seats.
Speaker 1: I look at it, you know, I don't think people.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, let's Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada. What am
Speaker 1: I leaving out here? Is it Michigan? Yeah, it's Michigan. Right,
Speaker 1: four Senate seats Joe Biden would have lost. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: been the nominee, he'd lost all four of those Senate
Speaker 1: seats go down. I'm pretty convinced to that because he
Speaker 1: probably has something. He's probably performs two or three points
Speaker 1: lower than she does.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt that as well. That was the failing.
Speaker 3: Even just the energy on the ground and volunteer enthusiasm
Speaker 3: is completely shifted of people who were of the diehards
Speaker 3: wanted to get work done and volunteer shifted with her
Speaker 3: at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to black women voters, and
Speaker 1: it is more and more Democrats talk about that black
Speaker 1: women are the heart and soul, certainly in primary politics.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is nobody quite
Speaker 1: knows the answer to. And I see people in the
Speaker 1: media just as presume that black women are primary are
Speaker 1: super voters, so that must mean they're super lefty, and
Speaker 1: that's not the same. I think that that's always the
Speaker 1: biggest mistake most amateur analysts make with black voters. But
Speaker 1: walk me through sort of the ideological spectrum of black
Speaker 1: women and what works and what ideological arguments don't like.
Speaker 1: Why do some progressives have such a hard time convincing
Speaker 1: black voters to support them.
Speaker 3: I think oftentimes, and I'll say this from my own
Speaker 3: perspective and the conversations in my cohort, is that you're
Speaker 3: having conversations with people who are not having an analysis
Speaker 3: of an economic issue that takes into account the experiences
Speaker 3: of what it means to be black, brown, or woman
Speaker 3: in this country. You know, every single time I heard
Speaker 3: Bernie Sanders, all right, but it's about the economy, and
Speaker 3: I'm like abortion rights, and in response to abortion rights
Speaker 3: or anything that just wants.
Speaker 1: To donay it, he kept saying.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's downplaying it when every single, every single sort
Speaker 3: of study that has come out says that you know,
Speaker 3: the essentially the discussion around whether you grow a family
Speaker 3: or not. I know it's personally is based around how
Speaker 3: many children you have, whether whether you can feed that child,
Speaker 3: provide for that child, and with things, yes, costs or rising,
Speaker 3: but it is, it is if that's taken away, that's
Speaker 3: a big part of an economic discussion. So as an example,
Speaker 3: you know, talking about criminal justice reform and and not
Speaker 3: you not talking about it in a way that at
Speaker 3: all takes into account the humanity of black people, you know,
Speaker 3: not talking about the environment. What's happening right now in
Speaker 3: this country around you know, data center organizing, like anti
Speaker 3: data center organizing and not really realizing it's very much
Speaker 3: of an environmental justice.
Speaker 2: Issue.
Speaker 3: And you know that we have a great opportunity because
Speaker 3: it's like a multi racial now sort of organizing. It's
Speaker 3: happening in some of the redist areas to some of
Speaker 3: the more blue areas against this this sort of pushing
Speaker 3: of corporate stuff, but not really kind of capturing a
Speaker 3: lot of that energy or understanding or proposing policies that
Speaker 3: really take into account the experiences of what it means
Speaker 3: to be black or brown in the US.
Speaker 1: So so let me ask you this, do you describe
Speaker 1: a two track system of insiders and instigators? Are they?
Speaker 1: How much do those worlds trust each other? And how
Speaker 1: much are they just fundamentally intentioned.
Speaker 3: They don't. There's always been attention and there should be
Speaker 3: a sort of a natural attention to somebody who's like
Speaker 3: an elected official and government highest and you know, halls
Speaker 3: of power as it were, and those who are doing
Speaker 3: the activism. I do think that that has become even
Speaker 3: more tense in recent years, and there's like less respect
Speaker 3: really on either side.
Speaker 2: You know, certainly for the roles that everybody has to play.
Speaker 3: And that's sort of why.
Speaker 1: Is there less respect? What's your sense is it? Is
Speaker 1: it money has sort of clouded the picture for the groups,
Speaker 1: and the groups are just so driven by finances. What
Speaker 1: is it?
Speaker 3: I think on the elected official side, I think it's like,
Speaker 3: why don't you tust me to just get the work time?
Speaker 3: I think it's that their their feeling. And I think
Speaker 3: on the activist side, I think it's more so that
Speaker 3: because we don't see you doing a lot of that.
Speaker 3: We don't even see you trying to put together piecemeal
Speaker 3: reform in the direction of you know, making change, and
Speaker 3: so you're asking us to trust you based off of
Speaker 3: And a good example I think of is like right
Speaker 3: after twenty twenty get the Senate and granted manson a
Speaker 3: cinema were the hold up on why we couldn't get
Speaker 3: a lot of things through build back Better Voting Rights
Speaker 3: Act at least I guess what they call for the
Speaker 3: people is the legislation and and and so it's like, okay, literally,
Speaker 3: well you know, we can't get it through, and they're like,
Speaker 3: what do we just push to put you in power?
Speaker 1: For?
Speaker 3: What are the ways around? You know, what are alternative
Speaker 3: things that we can do to expand the right to vote?
Speaker 3: Because we're telling you like, if we don't, we're seeing
Speaker 3: a whole slew of voter suppress bill is gonna come,
Speaker 3: which they did. And so I think it's that that's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you're asking us to trust where there isn't something and
Speaker 3: officials are life. I need you to trust that we're
Speaker 3: gonna do the right thing, and there's got to be
Speaker 3: a little goob and take in that relationship. It's a dance,
Speaker 3: you know.
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Speaker 1: And yes, I too, am a customer. Do you think Democrats'
Speaker 1: in the Biden White House spot on enough?
Speaker 2: Not as much as they should have?
Speaker 1: No, No, what would that have looked like? I mean
Speaker 1: they certainly risked. Now, Pard, Look, I think you had
Speaker 1: President Biden has the heart of a legislator, not an executive.
Speaker 1: So we had more patients for sort of the Senate
Speaker 1: games been shipped, and perhaps other presidents would have. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think that that's if you want to
Speaker 1: know the real secret difference between a senator becoming president
Speaker 1: and a governor becoming president. It is probably that level
Speaker 1: of patience, right. Obama had more patience for the process,
Speaker 1: and maybe I remember a lot of people thought that
Speaker 1: he should. Biden had a lot more patience for the
Speaker 1: process because you know, they've been on the other side.
Speaker 1: You know, even if briefly they you know, they're too
Speaker 1: personally friendly with those But what would that have looked like?
Speaker 1: And what if the whole thing had blown up and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have gotten anything? And perhaps you just think,
Speaker 1: you know what, no, they would have you know, a
Speaker 1: little hardball wouldn't have hurt them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually don't think a little hardball would have
Speaker 3: hurt them.
Speaker 2: Think about because you.
Speaker 1: Know, channeling his inner LBJ, you know LBJ.
Speaker 3: Like one of my favorite stories I read about Olbi
Speaker 3: did It's like lesser known was he was trying to
Speaker 3: get the voting right Zach pass He did a whistle
Speaker 3: stop tour like and he had Lady Bird Johnson go
Speaker 3: through the South have teas with all the Southern senators.
Speaker 2: There was one senator in Virginia.
Speaker 3: If I am not mistaken, I believe that he was
Speaker 3: the father of one of our evangelical leaders Pat Robertson,
Speaker 3: I believe I think it was his father, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: And so he was like, absolutely, I am not meeting
Speaker 3: with her. I am not voting for this thing. J.
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, that's how you want to play ball.
Speaker 3: Found a primary opponent, groomed him and did an operation
Speaker 3: to essentially take out Senator Robinson. And I think about that, I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, wow, that is sounds like Donald Trump. By the way,
Speaker 1: when he doesn't get his way, what does he do?
Speaker 1: You always said, right, No, there's like parts of Trump
Speaker 1: that are a little LBJ and a little Teddy Roosevelt, right,
Speaker 1: you know which is you know, it's a little showmanship,
Speaker 1: but he's you know, it's always like you know, one
Speaker 1: of the worst mistakes that opponents of Donald Trump make
Speaker 1: is that they assume everything he says is wrong or
Speaker 1: everything he does is wrong. It's like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: some there's some things to learn from him. You know,
Speaker 1: he's won twice. Don't don't think he doesn't know what
Speaker 1: he's doing here. That doesn't mean you have to emulate him,
Speaker 1: but there is tactics you can learn from him, just
Speaker 1: like you would learn from your enemy in a war.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that was pretty smart. Well you ought to
Speaker 1: try that, you know, when it comes to drones or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And sort of what Trump shows is that the
Speaker 3: example of LBJ are the example of FDR even because
Speaker 3: there was like a point where he thought he was
Speaker 3: going to expand the.
Speaker 1: Supreme and he did primaries. He didn't mind me get
Speaker 1: out primary somebody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. And is that to push for what you.
Speaker 2: Believe in and what you want to get done?
Speaker 3: And most of our legislation that passed in this country
Speaker 3: was through very much not only the dogged persistence of activists,
Speaker 3: but then you know, when it came like slatively, these
Speaker 3: folks were like, all right, I'm going to make this happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I'm gonna make this happen.
Speaker 3: We're gonna find ways to do it, whether that's breaking
Speaker 3: up the bill, doing an executive.
Speaker 2: Order, what have you.
Speaker 3: And not surprising you, though, are some of our most popular,
Speaker 3: farm more fondly remembered presidents for their agendas too.
Speaker 1: What's a how does an act? I'm a little skeptical
Speaker 1: of advocacy advocacy groups these days that they don't have
Speaker 1: the influence they once had. And I sit there because
Speaker 1: I fear as if the only influence that matters now
Speaker 1: is money or votes in a primary. And maybe I'm
Speaker 1: being a tad cynical, but you know, how would you
Speaker 1: advise today's activist group to get more leverage in the
Speaker 1: non campaign seasons.
Speaker 3: I mean, first to just continue to do advocacy and
Speaker 3: organizing in need on campaign seasons as someone who you
Speaker 3: know does this work through you know, my own advocacy
Speaker 3: and consulting firm. I just I have, I have counseled often.
Speaker 3: All Right, you want folks to mobilize and come out
Speaker 3: around these issues as we are getting into the time
Speaker 3: of as you know, many folks call it late stage capitalism,
Speaker 3: where housing is more expensive, you're working more jobs, and
Speaker 3: need used to your distraction is kind of all over.
Speaker 2: The place with social media.
Speaker 3: You've got to find a way to break through and
Speaker 3: let people know, all right, some of these things that
Speaker 3: you're frustrated with you can do something about. And I
Speaker 3: know that there are some organizations that's just recently at
Speaker 3: the America Votes Conference who would love to spend more
Speaker 3: time on the doors and organizing and they're not getting
Speaker 3: the funding the levels they should. Something I talk about
Speaker 3: in the book and how that has led to sort
Speaker 3: of an erosion of this support in election years.
Speaker 2: It's like if somebody is not.
Speaker 3: Talking to the not politically engaged like you and I,
Speaker 3: you know, there is just more challenging.
Speaker 1: To do that. It is amazing to me how this
Speaker 1: has flipped within twenty years. Yeah, Democrats used to dominate
Speaker 1: the off year messaging, and it was Republicans that sort
Speaker 1: of just sort of campaign hunted, and now it's sort
Speaker 1: of you know, you know, basically since Obama, it has
Speaker 1: been you know, oh, it's election season. Let's you know,
Speaker 1: round up the usual suspects, round up the usual billionaires,
Speaker 1: let's fund what are we going to call the super
Speaker 1: pac this year future forward? Okay, we'll try that. Like
Speaker 1: it's just like redoing whatever they thought worked in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: right the last time it all kind of came together,
Speaker 1: and it's just a consistent attempt to replicate twelve. And
Speaker 1: they're almost thinking that these you know, and there's been
Speaker 1: something missing here. Right in the off year. What did
Speaker 1: the right do? Well? They used crypto to organize young
Speaker 1: men and that had a bigger impact, and I think
Speaker 1: I expected it also wasn't just young white men. It
Speaker 1: was young men of color, right. I think crypto has
Speaker 1: been you know, I think I've got a lot of
Speaker 1: skepticism about it. I got a lot of concerns about it.
Speaker 1: But politically it has been very effective for the right
Speaker 1: to woo young men under forty, regardless of race. Am
Speaker 1: I am not wrong about that?
Speaker 2: No, I mean they have taken the media.
Speaker 3: The growth of social media, the growth of podcasts is
Speaker 3: the reason they called twenty twenty four the podcast election.
Speaker 3: The matisphere is quite real. We see it now, even
Speaker 3: for those who might not be engaged in politics, seeing
Speaker 3: it in there. You know, I see it.
Speaker 1: My son's nineteen, My youngest iseteen, nineteen year old boy,
Speaker 1: young man. I'm sorry, he's nineteen now, and you know
Speaker 1: he's he's certainly he has knows what I do for
Speaker 1: a living, but so he keeps He lets me know,
Speaker 1: but he'll be down in one of his sports things
Speaker 1: or whatever, and it's like, man, it it gets political
Speaker 1: real quick, you know. And he's a little more aware
Speaker 1: of it because of what dad does for a living.
Speaker 1: But I see it. It is quite effective because you
Speaker 1: don't really know you're being given a political argument. You
Speaker 1: realize it yeah.
Speaker 3: They have moved into pop culture and fitness and healthcare
Speaker 3: and and we're still like, all right, let's have political podcasts.
Speaker 3: And it's like, Okay, that's great for you, and I'm.
Speaker 1: We're only talking to you and I I know you know.
Speaker 3: But that's not you know, there are amazing podcasts that
Speaker 3: I listened to with some very thoughtful people who are
Speaker 3: talking about like what's happening on reality TV? That that's
Speaker 3: a right audience.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, do you do you want to know what
Speaker 1: the what the politics of your hosts are for your
Speaker 1: non political podcast or do you fear finding out what
Speaker 1: the politics are of some of your favorites, Like I
Speaker 1: do this in the sports world and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: they they'll hint at something political, going well, we're not
Speaker 1: touching that because of this, And then I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: where are they coming down? Like I don't maybe I
Speaker 1: don't want to know. I enjoy this too much.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean it's funny.
Speaker 3: I have I have sort of discerned in some of
Speaker 3: the stuff that I listen to, and I think because
Speaker 3: I'm like my ear is like, oh, oh's.
Speaker 1: You look for the red coded or the blue coated?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and there are some who are who're
Speaker 3: talking about I mean, what's happening on Summerhouse right now.
Speaker 3: That's the topic of conversation pop culture, and they have
Speaker 3: very thoughtful takes on raise and gender analysis and easily.
Speaker 1: Just doing it through the prism of this TV show
Speaker 1: rather than Yeah m hm, So that's the space you
Speaker 1: think that that the left needs to get better at.
Speaker 1: What funny is that the right was convinced that the
Speaker 1: left was always better than them.
Speaker 3: At this Yeah, that's that's the irony, and maybe that
Speaker 3: paranoia gave you know, got them that funding and that
Speaker 3: energy to sort of you know, really take over podcasts
Speaker 3: and you know, influencers they pay that they compensate their
Speaker 3: influencers in a way that left wing influencers are not
Speaker 3: to be compensated. Yeah, they're just and that's a whole
Speaker 3: chapter in the book. It's just on on how that
Speaker 3: influence has allowed you know, very much of a of
Speaker 3: a perspective to thrive us kind of gone.
Speaker 2: Challenge in a lot of quarters.
Speaker 1: So it totally has. Let me ask you this about
Speaker 1: you think the two parties are going to sustain themselves
Speaker 1: as the two major parties in this country? For the
Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future, or do you think that our
Speaker 1: two party systems vulnerable right now?
Speaker 3: I always feel like, you know, the doot like love
Speaker 3: hate relationship with the duopoly is somebody who's like done
Speaker 3: a lot in the Democratic Party. But I approach to
Speaker 3: sort of with that pragmatic sense of things, all right,
Speaker 3: you know, the mechanisms of change, and I still for
Speaker 3: the foreseeable future see it that way because structurally, to build,
Speaker 3: you know, to have a country with multiple political parties
Speaker 3: requires some structural changes to electoral college and our districts.
Speaker 1: Just simply primary rules right at primaries perhaps or something
Speaker 1: like that. I mean that that's sort of my head
Speaker 1: is at I feel like, yeah, I do feel like
Speaker 1: we are a nation that is more diverse than the
Speaker 1: options we offer on our politics, right Like, Yeah, imagine
Speaker 1: going into a store or even go on a website
Speaker 1: and buying a couple of T shirts and the only
Speaker 1: sizes available were extra small and extra large, Right, that
Speaker 1: has a lot because it's usually the last two that
Speaker 1: sell right right there are the last two sizes itself. Well,
Speaker 1: that's essentially what we've done with our politics. We have
Speaker 1: two choices, you know. Good luck if you want a
Speaker 1: different you know, the vibe got a different size. Good
Speaker 1: luck with that. And I know we have a structural
Speaker 1: you know, there's no doubt the people have spoken about
Speaker 1: their dissatisfaction with the two parties. How do we know
Speaker 1: they're not registering in either one of them. It's a rejection,
Speaker 1: collective rejection. But we don't have a way. This group
Speaker 1: of voters is begging for something different, but we don't
Speaker 1: know how to offer it. And I say we, meaning
Speaker 1: the collective, we left and right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, wells. One of the things that I wanted to
Speaker 3: really address in the book is somebody who's just been inside,
Speaker 3: you know, all the way from local to national party
Speaker 3: politics and demograted party is that you know, in the
Speaker 3: entire time even that I've been involved in, Democratic Party
Speaker 3: has evolved in change. You couldn't talk about abortion at all,
Speaker 3: and people were like third rail. Now if you're not
Speaker 3: you know, uh, pro choice, that's a problem. And most
Speaker 3: pretty much most parts of the country as a Democrat
Speaker 3: now and that's because of folks who got involved in
Speaker 3: the party and were active and activists, and so you know,
Speaker 3: people look at the DNC and they think of it
Speaker 3: as an entity that cannot be moved and changed. And
Speaker 3: this party has evolved over time because of the people
Speaker 3: who got involved and moved.
Speaker 2: And changed it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I say that, you know you may
Speaker 3: even be frustrated with the structure of the party as
Speaker 3: it is now. For me, I found, you know, common
Speaker 3: cause of people who felt similar to me in what
Speaker 3: we were advocating for. You know, Working Families Party has
Speaker 3: become a good holding space for a lot of those
Speaker 3: folks who are pretty frustrated you can vote a certain
Speaker 3: line and not have to run a Democratic party in
Speaker 3: New York. They're building power in other places. But I
Speaker 3: you know, say, hey, Working Families Party exists primarily to
Speaker 3: organize people who agree on some of these issues around
Speaker 3: a multi racial democracy, as you know, a stronger social
Speaker 3: safety then all of that. And you know, use that
Speaker 3: community to sort of change your Democratic party in your
Speaker 3: area within whatever the structure that we have now.
Speaker 2: But I never like.
Speaker 3: To talk about our duopoly like we cannot in a
Speaker 3: democracy as a people moved to change it because there
Speaker 3: are many people who have made it a better on
Speaker 3: a lot of fronts as it is now.
Speaker 1: Well it's funny, it's both parties are coalitions, and they
Speaker 1: have been it's just you know, I think twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: actually gave us our most vivid version of this. We
Speaker 1: saw that both parties actually had pretty bright line divisions,
Speaker 1: you know. And if we had been a four party
Speaker 1: European sort of like the French, we would have had
Speaker 1: four finalists, you know, Bernie with the Greens, yeah, and
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton with the you know, labor, let's center labor,
Speaker 1: you know, and maybe Marco Rubio with the sort of
Speaker 1: center right party, and then the nationalists being Donald Trump right.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 1: That would have been your European break down. And who
Speaker 1: knows what that coalition would have looked like. It's possible
Speaker 1: Sanders and Trump would have been bound together in a
Speaker 1: run off situation, you know, or Rubio or Clinton or
Speaker 1: maybe not right, it could have been based on the
Speaker 1: cultural lines that are drawn. So it is. I do
Speaker 1: think Americans want that kind of flexibility in their politics.
Speaker 1: We just don't know how to deliver that system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I think that it will take electing
Speaker 3: people into office who are willing to push, you know,
Speaker 3: for those changes certainly, so that we have a system
Speaker 3: that it's better reflective.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of folks who are just not happy
Speaker 2: with the electoral.
Speaker 3: College for obvious and good reasons, right, and we haven't
Speaker 3: you know, organized the will around changing it.
Speaker 2: Maybe that will change.
Speaker 1: Well, I will tell you my obsession with dealing with
Speaker 1: the electoral college is to actually double the size of
Speaker 1: the House and then you actually make the numerator. The
Speaker 1: electoral college issue goes away. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: It just goes away if you raise the numerator, right,
Speaker 1: like that's been And oh, by the way, if we
Speaker 1: have more members of Congress, then you actually have more
Speaker 1: people with access to power, and you've opened the door,
Speaker 1: you've lowered the barrier to entry, and you may diversify
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways what Congress looks like. You
Speaker 1: know that for some reason, that's an easy reform to
Speaker 1: do without a constitutional amendment. And it's really hard to
Speaker 1: get people engaged in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's, uh, it'll be interesting. I'm
Speaker 3: I'm actually curious to see if some of the energy
Speaker 3: for those changes really kind of takes hold with a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot more folks as as they are
Speaker 3: realizing now you know every day folks that it's not
Speaker 3: working well.
Speaker 1: AI job fear of AI. Job displacement could be that trigger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah job a spliceman not be able to ford homes. Right,
Speaker 3: jobs just not paying what they used to. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Talk to me right now about what you think a
Speaker 1: winning democratic coalition looks like in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: Winning democratic coalition, Well, it's definitely going to have to
Speaker 3: be somebody who is very unapologetic about addressing the previous
Speaker 3: harms of the administration.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that people.
Speaker 1: Who and you do it without looking like you're looking backwards.
Speaker 1: You get my drift like, yeah, you got to right
Speaker 1: wrongs and I'm with you there, but you got to
Speaker 1: look like you're worried about the future. Right. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a tough it's a tough it's tougher
Speaker 1: than you think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, And it's one of those things where I
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, all science point to unless something
Speaker 3: goes really weird, Democrats will get the House. They will
Speaker 3: have an opportunity to attempt to pass legislation and draft
Speaker 3: legislation that speaks to the concerns of the American people, housing, economy,
Speaker 3: and a winning coalition looks like a lot of people
Speaker 3: at the table who it's diverse, it's racially diverse, it's
Speaker 3: people from all different walks of life. The base of
Speaker 3: the party might be very racially diverse. But those who
Speaker 3: have sort of made the decisions you said earlier about
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, and it seems like we're stuck on twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: And I would say that that is very much because
Speaker 3: a lot of the people who are still running it
Speaker 3: are some of the folks who were involved in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's Look, it happens to every generation of operatives.
Speaker 1: There's a moment where they become the geniuses, and then
Speaker 1: there's the moment when they're the past. And right, I
Speaker 1: think the geniuses of the Obama era haven't accepted the
Speaker 1: fact that they're no longer genius.
Speaker 3: They're no longer the geniuses and are not the future
Speaker 3: and it will be a hopefully a lot more.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to throw my gen xers
Speaker 2: completely out the window.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please, we never got our chance to lead. I am.
Speaker 1: I have this like you know, it is one of
Speaker 1: these like we're I fear that we're the generation that's
Speaker 1: just going to get skipped. All right. We've we like
Speaker 1: sucked up to the boomers for like my entire lifetime,
Speaker 1: and now we're going straight to millennials and Gen Z
Speaker 1: you know, as my generation screamed reality bites, right, So, yes,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: Where it is the next generation? You know, we have
Speaker 3: the gen Xers finally millennials and gen Zers who are
Speaker 3: are really and it's you know, Millennials and Z are
Speaker 3: much more racially diverse generation. But it's large and its
Speaker 3: large generation.
Speaker 1: Isn't it combined? Is that fifty percent of the population, right,
Speaker 1: just yeah, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, just about just about, if not by twenty
Speaker 3: eight for sure.
Speaker 2: So and especially voting.
Speaker 3: Vot voting popular, yeah yeah, and having a have folks
Speaker 3: have different walks of life because once they get struck
Speaker 3: me when I was really looking at data is not
Speaker 3: only these racially diverse generations, but also the different perspectives
Speaker 3: that you have as a result of it. You know,
Speaker 3: you're more likely to have grown up in household where
Speaker 3: parents are no longer together, you're blended families.
Speaker 2: You likely maybe have related to.
Speaker 3: Immigrant people, folks who came from somewhere else in the world.
Speaker 3: You know, you are likely to have, okay, counter economic strubles.
Speaker 3: You're likely to have been in debt.
Speaker 2: You know, these are people, you know.
Speaker 3: Ayana Presley says, the people who are closest to the
Speaker 3: pain should be closest to the power, and those are
Speaker 3: the definitely the folks who should be at the table.
Speaker 3: I mean one thing, even just to go back to
Speaker 3: sort of the David pluffs and Carville's Carville who's long
Speaker 3: since been eating out on his time.
Speaker 1: So he kind of admits like he will go out there, right,
Speaker 1: Remember he called out you got to give him credit
Speaker 1: for this. He goes. He called out and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to name names, but certain them consultants who are
Speaker 1: worried about their carried interest clients and not putting together
Speaker 1: a populous economic plan. So I hear you on James,
Speaker 1: but he's still a populist at heart, you know, I mean.
Speaker 3: At heart, But he has his moments. We're like it.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, sir, like we are getting to be
Speaker 3: a more diverse America. Let's let's start to sound like that.
Speaker 3: That populace is reflecting that the people. And you know,
Speaker 3: when you think back on sort of that, when you
Speaker 3: when you think of where this country could be if
Speaker 3: you have those people at the table making those decisions,
Speaker 3: that is that can be a coalition that wins.
Speaker 1: Let me throw I I've I've made this observation a
Speaker 1: few times and I think it It always lands awkwardly.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how, but I think we sometimes don't fully
Speaker 1: appreciate the fact that we still have a large chunk
Speaker 1: of voting Americans who grew up in segregated America. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm look. I started kindergarten nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: in Miami, I believe if I had started kindergarten eight
Speaker 1: years sooner, I'd have been in a segregated system. Right.
Speaker 1: And you know that when that generation, as I like
Speaker 1: to say, ages out of voting, that's like a big
Speaker 1: structural like I don't I sometimes think we don't fully appreciate,
Speaker 1: you know, how young are. Multi ethnic and multi racial
Speaker 1: democracy really is, right, it has only been around since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, and there's you know, a third of
Speaker 1: American of the American electorate lived in a in a
Speaker 1: pre multi racial society. It didn't mean it didn't exists,
Speaker 1: but one that we actually recognized.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I kind of allude to that. I think
Speaker 3: I say it very directly in the book, which is
Speaker 3: that you know, when you don't realize how good you
Speaker 3: had it because a lot of the freedom's joid, the
Speaker 3: rights that we've had has been because of sort of
Speaker 3: the work that came before. And you know, I think
Speaker 3: that the organizing muscle for a long time of keeping
Speaker 3: a democracy vibrant and pushing back against encroaching on sort
Speaker 3: of those rights kind of atrophy. Right, Like you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: everything's working.
Speaker 1: Look, we've equalized voting, Okay, Yes, you've equalized voting, but
Speaker 1: we didn't equalize opportunity, and you still have an equalized opportunity.
Speaker 1: We still have an equalized education attainment we got. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would argue that the single most underrated issue going
Speaker 1: into twenty eight is our fracturing public education system, and
Speaker 1: I think it is. I admire that Ram Emmanuel is
Speaker 1: one of the few talking about it on the Democratic side.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got my skepticism about Ram, whether Ram
Speaker 1: can shed the establishment baggage of his previous eras and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, But he's right about this topic. And
Speaker 1: I think the shattering of the public education system actually
Speaker 1: brings us apart as a society as well. Like I
Speaker 1: think this is a polarization issue. It's not just bad
Speaker 1: for education outcomes, it's actually bad for the culture. If
Speaker 1: we don't have a shared public education.
Speaker 3: System, we don't have a shared public education, we don't
Speaker 3: have a shared memory.
Speaker 1: And well that leads to that, like I think one
Speaker 1: leads to the other. That's why I think it's important.
Speaker 1: What was brilliant about our public education systems and in theory,
Speaker 1: and it didn't work this way everywhere. I'd like to
Speaker 1: argue that I just got a taste of it living
Speaker 1: where I lived, because Miami was its own little unique experiment.
Speaker 1: I always say, we're you know, Miami had this reputation
Speaker 1: of being where the city of the future, meaning, you know,
Speaker 1: tomorrow's problems are happening right now in Miami. And then
Speaker 1: we solved. We went through all this in the eighties,
Speaker 1: right then.
Speaker 3: And yet.
Speaker 1: Now it's you know, you don't have socioeconomically wealthy people
Speaker 1: and socioeconomically poor people in the same schools, and you
Speaker 1: don't it's not even a close call. That actually was
Speaker 1: a reality in the eighties. Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: More of that, and yeah, it's changing in ways that
Speaker 3: is intentional.
Speaker 1: And of course this voucher system, yes it is.
Speaker 4: It's all about yeah, in religion and you know the
Speaker 4: running joke you may have heard it, but you know
Speaker 4: a lot of folks it's like, all right, I mean
Speaker 4: Iraq and Afghanistan war is bad, but really no child
Speaker 4: left behind is legacy in you know.
Speaker 3: What what It sort of opened the door to which
Speaker 3: it's like the kind of this acceleration of you know,
Speaker 3: not a set of agreed to ways to make sure
Speaker 3: that everybody is getting sort of like a shared public education,
Speaker 3: because in the countries where they're all like on the
Speaker 3: same page about the Holocaust and what happened in Germany, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, you never mean something right, And it's the
Speaker 3: same where twenty twenty was interesting to me. I was
Speaker 3: luckily raised by people who made sure that I understood
Speaker 3: the history of this country and the contributions of many people.
Speaker 3: But when you have somebody who's like, I didn't know
Speaker 3: about Tulsa, like so many things, so many people like, wait,
Speaker 3: that happened, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and look, we had it similar in Florida. I'm
Speaker 1: taught Florida history. I wasn't taught about Axe Handle Sunday
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, right, you know. And that was one of
Speaker 1: those you realize you don't know what you haven't been taught.
Speaker 1: If it never gets introduced.
Speaker 3: It never gets introduced, right.
Speaker 2: And there is.
Speaker 3: An intention obviously behind that, because then if we're not
Speaker 3: exploring those things, then we're not trying to think of
Speaker 3: what led to that and how can we do better?
Speaker 3: Fascination and so you know, when I I one of
Speaker 3: the points I wanted to make about sort of pluff
Speaker 3: to some extent, car believe in though he's Southern, but
Speaker 3: many of the strategists from the Avamba universe are southers,
Speaker 3: and I think that and I think that has contributed
Speaker 3: to some.
Speaker 2: Of the issues we've had.
Speaker 3: Because our politics in a way at large, while it's
Speaker 3: like this American thing, but it's very much affected by
Speaker 3: the seg The.
Speaker 1: South is the mood music for our politics still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a lot of ways, and it's.
Speaker 1: Certainly the heart and soul of the Republican Party rights.
Speaker 1: Its cultural base is in the South, right.
Speaker 3: And if you don't understand it and you didn't grow
Speaker 3: up around it, which most black people have, and there's
Speaker 3: a chunk of white strategists to have that, they're not
Speaker 3: the one sort of of of leading that work. And
Speaker 3: then you're going to have some tone deaf responses like
Speaker 3: I remember as reclined at some point after you know,
Speaker 3: Kirk was murdered, where he said, you know, what is
Speaker 3: it like, what would it be if we like went
Speaker 3: into a church and argued about abortion rights and folks
Speaker 3: from like in the South and the Midwest are like,
Speaker 3: we'd be dead, Like, we don't, that's not how we
Speaker 3: organize here around that. So, yeah, that lack of understanding
Speaker 3: when we have people who are polsters and strategists and elected.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to stew in that a
Speaker 1: little bit more because I do think that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always been that joke about, you know, in the South,
Speaker 1: whites and blacks are more honest about race. In the North,
Speaker 1: everybody's more polite, but they're more dishonest about race. Do
Speaker 1: you still feel that in sense that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there is this belief that because oh, you know,
Speaker 3: we're the North, that we're not subject to the same
Speaker 3: you know ills the South.
Speaker 1: We're not the racist we're the Northerners. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: have a history.
Speaker 3: Right yet.
Speaker 2: When you could point to so many many.
Speaker 1: Different right yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, And it's it's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean somebody was like, I found Confederate
Speaker 3: flags in the hard parts of rural New York and
Speaker 3: I'm like, do you know what part of the country
Speaker 3: you're in? Like, yes, And I remember it was I
Speaker 3: think it was Trusty McMillan.
Speaker 2: Cottam heard or say, like, you know, has it was?
Speaker 3: It clicked for me when she was saying, like, you know,
Speaker 3: the culture of the South has very much migrated into
Speaker 3: other in other parts of the US and even other
Speaker 3: parts of the world. You can find Confederate flags and
Speaker 3: other parts of the world even no.
Speaker 1: I mean even just country music is more mainstream today
Speaker 1: in the Midwest than it was back in you know,
Speaker 1: back in even the eighties, seventies or eighties on that.
Speaker 1: You know, though, it's interesting you say that, I always
Speaker 1: thought that Barack Obama's superpower as a political victor was
Speaker 1: being from Illinois. You know, when you looked at the
Speaker 1: just the simple power of the states you know that
Speaker 1: were that touched Illinois were all important moments for him
Speaker 1: in the primary. First of all, there was Iowa Indiana
Speaker 1: late in the process, a statey loss, but almost one
Speaker 1: Missouri on Super Tuesday, one that he eked out. It
Speaker 1: was important to eke one out against her the power
Speaker 1: in general, and he did really well and basically anything
Speaker 1: that was touched in Illinois. But you know, because there's
Speaker 1: this assumption to does the swing vote does is the
Speaker 1: swing area of America still the Midwest or you know,
Speaker 1: is that the last time the Midwest sort of was
Speaker 1: the swing area and just everything is down south now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think I think you know biased
Speaker 3: here being in Virginian, but I think a lot of
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 1: Well, I took that Virginia seceded from the Confederacy sometime
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight. But yeah, right, you know that
Speaker 1: Bason Dixon line keeps moving, you know, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll be having a very different conversation if Georgia,
Speaker 3: North Carolina, Florida, and Texas were different electorally. There's a
Speaker 3: reason that most of the pushback to progress, some of
Speaker 3: the most horrific you know, voter suppression bills that you've seen,
Speaker 3: anti abortion and tyleeber all happen in the South.
Speaker 2: Some of it in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: Well, look at the National Party. They seem allergic to
Speaker 1: actually trying to work on the South outside of Georgia
Speaker 1: and North Carolina and that Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Mississippi and South Carolina are totally underfunded and have enough
Speaker 1: potential vote to be competitive. You just have to put
Speaker 1: a little elbow grease into it. And Texas and Florida
Speaker 1: arguably the same way. They're expensive, but there's this consistent well,
Speaker 1: the money will go further if we just lock down Michigan, right.
Speaker 3: And I think it's because of those are the areas
Speaker 3: in which they feel comfortable and goes back to saying
Speaker 3: oh okay, well, we don't have like Southern strategies, especially
Speaker 3: come brown organizers. You've had to navigate around all of
Speaker 3: these challenges if you're from Chicago and you go down
Speaker 3: to you know, the South. I mean when I think
Speaker 3: of sometimes the stories I would hear from like fellow,
Speaker 3: you know, folks in Virginia other parts of the South.
Speaker 3: Then they would get some buddy who mentioned the name
Speaker 3: of a street where it was and then said it
Speaker 3: incorrectly or didn't have sort of an understanding of a
Speaker 3: cultural nuance of why you refer to, you know, a
Speaker 3: black elder in a certain way, or the nuances of
Speaker 3: food or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I'll give you one that I ran into when I
Speaker 1: first joined NBC, which was like, well, we can't poll
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday night? Why can't you poll on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday night? And this was in South Carolina, like Wednesday
Speaker 1: night's church night. And if you don't know the culture
Speaker 1: of the South, you wouldn't know that you'd get a
Speaker 1: bad poll number on a Wednesday night. You know, just
Speaker 1: special eating, you know, because there's just all sorts of
Speaker 1: noise because and it's like just because people go to
Speaker 1: their church on Wednesday nights doesn't mean they're religious fervor.
Speaker 1: It might just simply be that's what the community does
Speaker 1: to get together on a Wednesday night, that's what.
Speaker 3: The community does. I have my first campaign, I remember
Speaker 3: he was in the deeper southern part of our district.
Speaker 3: It was a real southern district, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm not even a religious person, but I'm definitely putting
Speaker 3: up the sign on Sunday morning that says gone to
Speaker 3: church if anybody's coming by the campaign or whatever. And
Speaker 3: understanding the culture of the district. And so yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that that has absolutely presented challenges.
Speaker 2: And to the type of work that we can do.
Speaker 3: And one of the things I was going to say
Speaker 3: was that, you know, Obama's superpower to me was that
Speaker 3: he he at least I think, because he had grown
Speaker 3: up living around the world, had lived in a multiracial
Speaker 3: place like Hawaii, he kind of really early on understood
Speaker 3: how to talk to everyone.
Speaker 2: That was his talent.
Speaker 3: And you still see a lot of election no scar tissue.
Speaker 1: Scar tissue does everybody does what you get through, But
Speaker 1: he didn't have a lot of scar tissue in that.
Speaker 1: There's something freeing about that as a politician.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that that is having something. I mean,
Speaker 3: Jimmy Carter also had that talent too, Like I mean,
Speaker 3: you know his primary you know, he did well because
Speaker 3: he knew and was comfortable in the room with black people,
Speaker 3: like just soon how to deal with them, Unlike a
Speaker 3: lot of other folks he was you know, I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: other folks he was in the primary with at that time.
Speaker 1: All right, let me get you out of here on this.
Speaker 1: Give me four. Give me give me four people, one
Speaker 1: of you know, the four people in your head who
Speaker 1: think are most likely to be the actual Democratic nominee,
Speaker 1: not who you want right now, give me four. You know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like it's way early, but I'll give you.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm going to give you four of which
Speaker 1: one of whom you know you're you're just sort of like,
Speaker 1: it's like, look, this is my field, so narrow, this
Speaker 1: giant field of about forty mentionables these days. Who give
Speaker 1: me a quartet where you think, yeah, the VP or
Speaker 1: P is going to come out of this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I you know, I see Pritzker. I'd be
Speaker 3: interested in, especially if he kind of fashioned and self
Speaker 3: in a modern day sort of FDR that saying sort of.
Speaker 1: Fact I am. I was a skeptic until I saw
Speaker 1: him play party machinist in a very effective way, and
Speaker 1: during the primary you did for Juliana Stratton. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to dismiss him anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not dismiss him.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, that's kind of where I'm with him too.
Speaker 3: You know, he says no because I think I was
Speaker 3: the thing of the thing you say when you're running
Speaker 3: again for you a senate. But I see as off
Speaker 3: in the mix somehow, more.
Speaker 1: So than made Warnock too, right in that like a
Speaker 1: little bit of the only one can run.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, only one can run, and that is like
Speaker 3: war oxmbision. I wouldn't be surprised if it is. He's
Speaker 3: you know, preternaturally talented on stump and inlakable and gosh,
Speaker 3: I mean, I will see her in the mix, whether
Speaker 3: she is whether she's actually successful again in the nomination
Speaker 3: of No. But I could see the Vice President Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris back in the mix as well.
Speaker 1: She got a we're all in Washington underestimating her strength
Speaker 1: at the current elector in army.
Speaker 3: I feel so, I do, and I think she could
Speaker 3: be an interesting candidate again now that she's less tied
Speaker 3: to trying to essentially accommodate an administration that she's part of.
Speaker 1: I you know, I've been through this, and I hate
Speaker 1: I know they hate when people like me put them
Speaker 1: on the couch. I will go to my grave believing
Speaker 1: that she's yet to run a campaign that was her campaign,
Speaker 1: yet that she's always been running somebody else's race or
Speaker 1: somebody else's you know, suggestion. I found her primary campaign
Speaker 1: to be this attempt to be all things to all people.
Speaker 1: She was trying to straddle write the Medicare for All
Speaker 1: mindset sort of told you everything you needed to know.
Speaker 1: She was trying to be all things to all parts
Speaker 1: of the party. It felt very consultant driven her twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen race per Senate, without consultant driven her twenty ten campaign.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So she's alway he's had, I think, And so my
Speaker 1: guess is you're right, we will see a different version
Speaker 1: of her. And I'm very curious what it is, Yeah, Sam,
Speaker 1: very curious what it is. So that's three Pritzker, aesof
Speaker 1: and and common. Don't think I didn't keep count.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, all right, I'm not keen on it.
Speaker 3: But he gonna find some way into it.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, Yeah, I don't know what he's four.
Speaker 3: I don't know what he's four either.
Speaker 2: That's why I said I'm.
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, but I know what he's good at, which
Speaker 1: is being a resistance leader. Right. He knows how to
Speaker 1: do that. And that's what I think about Pritzker. I
Speaker 1: don't know what they're for, although there's a little bit
Speaker 1: more meat on the bones with Pritzker, right, I get that,
Speaker 1: I would say, ye, No, he's sort of He's in
Speaker 1: charge of the Illinois Democratic Party. Gavin Newsom is not
Speaker 1: in charge of the California Democratic Party. And you can
Speaker 1: feel that difference in their government styles and their campaigns.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And if I knew what Newsum is for, it's
Speaker 3: kind of interesting. I saw him when he was speak
Speaker 3: when he was an elected mayor. Is very different and
Speaker 3: you evolve in your politics. But I'm like, okay, was
Speaker 3: that for version? Real? This version?
Speaker 1: He's all sorts of talented. Yeah, there's no doubt, like
Speaker 1: he is a I used that. I like to use
Speaker 1: the expression political athlete. He's a really good political athlete.
Speaker 1: But you've got to have a specialty, right, you've got
Speaker 1: to be what are you fighting for? Right, It's got
Speaker 1: to be it's got to be a thing, not a
Speaker 1: not a not just winning that isn't the idea, you know,
Speaker 1: and we'll see. Look, this book's a great you know
Speaker 1: the instigator. Do you when do you think this translates
Speaker 1: to more black women getting elected on their own right statewide?
Speaker 1: Although I think we're finally starting to see that breakthrough.
Speaker 3: I think we for some of thereaton also Brooks. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm actually hopeful in this next couple of years, like
Speaker 3: twenty six and setting up for twenty eight, that we'll
Speaker 3: start to maybe finally get that, you know, black woman governor.
Speaker 3: So I haven't got one yet, you know.
Speaker 1: That could be Slant Bottoms is probably the best shot.
Speaker 3: This prob be shot this year, I think, yeah, this
Speaker 3: year for sure, but I do see an increase just great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well a team of this has been great to
Speaker 1: talk with you, great to meet you. I mean I'm
Speaker 1: sorry that we've not met before. Where are you in Virginia?
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up in Virginia?
Speaker 2: Northern? Well, actually I grew up in just outside of Richmond,
Speaker 2: and now.
Speaker 1: I love northern Virginia. Where does Northern Virginia end now.
Speaker 3: Fredericksburg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this blob that keeps growing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's bigger? Northern Virginia or the Atlanta suburbs. Right, it's
Speaker 1: almost it's a very similar thing.
Speaker 3: And yeah, no, I'm like when they say Atlanta suburbs
Speaker 3: and I'm like, that's not that's like an hour out
Speaker 3: and they're like, now still the suburbs.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know, right, It's like it's well, if we
Speaker 1: were all one state, we'd talk about Washington Baltimore as one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not true.
Speaker 1: Well what do you think about if we you know,
Speaker 1: if Trump had really been clever about this whole Arlington splitting,
Speaker 1: putting Arlington back to d C, you know what he
Speaker 1: really would have done, What is we're going to put
Speaker 1: give Arlington back to d C and advocate for DC statehood.
Speaker 1: Then if you really want to put pressure like that
Speaker 1: would be a fault line. Right, They're not that clever.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm like they're terrible at this, Like
Speaker 1: they could be much smarter about their policies. Like you
Speaker 1: want to drive a wedge, Yeah, offer offer to give
Speaker 1: Arlington back in exchange for statehood? You want state hub,
Speaker 1: You got to take Arlington.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, gosh, that would be kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm all, they're never that Like I said, they're never
Speaker 1: that clever. It's all a sledgehammer everything, you know, every
Speaker 1: problem is a nail, every hammer. Anyway, Well, the book is,
Speaker 1: it's terrific. It's a good especially I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of political nerds in a good way. I say that
Speaker 1: it's a compliment you know that listen that want to
Speaker 1: know more. And this has also got plenty of data
Speaker 1: in it too, So thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3: All right, thank you again for having me Jack.
Speaker 1: And I see you down the road. And I love
Speaker 1: the merch Well then thank you.
Speaker 2: You can order on the website as well. The Instigators book.
Speaker 3: Dot also.
Speaker 1: Well said, y E agree.
Speaker 3: Evening