Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wika F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Brooklyn Bunker. Folks.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for today's guest. I have been a
Speaker 1: fan girl. I'm not a fan girl of a lot
Speaker 1: of people, but Annan Giri Dadas is definitely one of them.
Speaker 1: And I would say, if you're not following him on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you should. But I know many of you deleted your
Speaker 1: Twitter accounts as I'm about to. But he wrote an
Speaker 1: incredibly poignant and thoughtful book called The Persuaders at the
Speaker 1: front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds and Democracy,
Speaker 1: and in it he interviews a past Woke F guest,
Speaker 1: not a Sario Schenker, who we did a two part
Speaker 1: show with to discuss messaging right and why Democrats continue
Speaker 1: to get messaging wrong, and in a nonced book, he
Speaker 1: really gets to the core of the core of why
Speaker 1: we need as Democrats to be persuaders and to not
Speaker 1: be above this idea that we need to convince people.
Speaker 1: And in order to convince people to do anything, you
Speaker 1: actually need to understand people. You need to go where
Speaker 1: the people are instead of thinking that the people are
Speaker 1: going to come where you are. And for too long,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, the Democratic establishment has been immovable right
Speaker 1: with the same voices, the same people in the same place,
Speaker 1: talking about the same shit in the same way. Now,
Speaker 1: at the time of this recording, we have no idea
Speaker 1: what the outcome of the election is. But regardless of
Speaker 1: the election and its results, a non provide such clear
Speaker 1: focus of where we need to go, why we need
Speaker 1: to continue to have hope and that the work begins
Speaker 1: the day after election day and every single day following.
Speaker 1: And so, folks, I hope not only that you go
Speaker 1: out and buy this book and buy it for yourselves,
Speaker 1: buy it as this holiday season begins to start, buy
Speaker 1: it for everybody that you know, right, because we all
Speaker 1: need to get on the same page to be a
Speaker 1: part of the movement for freedom. Right And what does
Speaker 1: that mean. It means about learning people, understanding them, developing
Speaker 1: and flexing your emotional intelligence so that we can meet
Speaker 1: people where they are instead of thinking that they are
Speaker 1: going to come to us. So, coming up next, dear friends,
Speaker 1: my in depth conversation with Anon giridadas the author of
Speaker 1: The Persuaders at the front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds,
Speaker 1: and Democracy. Folks, I am very excited to welcome to
Speaker 1: woke F I believe for the very first time, although
Speaker 1: we did have a meeting at one time when people
Speaker 1: still went into green rooms at MSNBC. I am welcoming
Speaker 1: to woke F Daily for the very first time. Anon
Speaker 1: garridadas the author of The Persuaders at the front Lines
Speaker 1: of the Fight for Hearts, Minds and Democracy, and also
Speaker 1: the author of another book which I think was also brilliant,
Speaker 1: Winners Take All the elite charade of changing the world.
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to talk to you as am. I.
Speaker 1: I remember meeting you in the green room at MSNBC.
Speaker 1: This is pre COVID, so at least sixty seven years ago. Yea,
Speaker 1: and my hair was black, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: see to you it was. It was largely black. A
Speaker 1: lot's happened since then, and you have been and continue
Speaker 1: to be an absolute force on Twitter just speaking truth
Speaker 1: to power about our democracy. And so I want to
Speaker 1: jump in with the first question, you know, with regard
Speaker 1: to persuaders, is look for me. Forty three million people
Speaker 1: were persuaded to believe Donald Trump Trump is m and
Speaker 1: his lies. Seventy five million people voted for him. Thirty
Speaker 1: three percent of the country still believes that the election
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty was stolen. What is it that you
Speaker 1: believe that the far right is able to persuade, use lies,
Speaker 1: disinformation in order to persuade their base to agree with
Speaker 1: some of the most cruel, oppressive, and disgusting policies that
Speaker 1: I think that we've ever seen in this country versus
Speaker 1: the Democrats inability to really to persuade anybody, except to
Speaker 1: continue to have in fighting in a way that we
Speaker 1: have seen has damaged our ability to really spread our
Speaker 1: message in the way that it needs to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that question because you're getting at a very
Speaker 1: crucial truth, which is that on the democratic side, the
Speaker 1: political left general, you often hear this thing that like,
Speaker 1: people's minds can't be changed, people can't be persuaded, you know,
Speaker 1: And the right loves it when we say this, because
Speaker 1: they believe in persuasion. As you just very eloquently laid out,
Speaker 1: the right believes that people's minds can be moved. Did
Speaker 1: anybody know what QAnon was ten years ago? No, because
Speaker 1: it didn't exist. Forty three million Americans have been persuaded
Speaker 1: into an entirely new belief system QAnon. You know in
Speaker 1: the time that my hair has turned gray. You know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump took the Republican Party from a free trade
Speaker 1: platform to an anti trade platform, from you know, a
Speaker 1: kind of like business first thing to a kind of
Speaker 1: like white nationalist first orientation in its rhetoric and messaging
Speaker 1: and strategy, like the right believes you can move people,
Speaker 1: you can summon people to a new different set of ideas.
Speaker 1: And I think we on left often are just like,
Speaker 1: you know, this kind of like French philosophers cigarette shrug pose,
Speaker 1: just like, oh, they'll never change their minds and they'll
Speaker 1: never change their ways. And it is empirically false, ye,
Speaker 1: empirically false. Witness for eg, the remarkable revolution, attitudes to
Speaker 1: gain lesbian people in our lifetime, right and you're my lifetime,
Speaker 1: Like Barack Obama was not for gay marriage when he
Speaker 1: ran for president, right, like the sea change that we
Speaker 1: have lived through on that issue and many other issues
Speaker 1: in our time, on the status of women, women see themselves,
Speaker 1: how men see themselves and men see women. Like, we're
Speaker 1: not there on any of these things. We're not there
Speaker 1: yet to answer the kids in the backseat, but we
Speaker 1: are people change all the time, right, And often I
Speaker 1: think on the political left we've, in our sadness and
Speaker 1: despair what's gone on, we've gone too far in making
Speaker 1: this bogus claim that people are unchangeable, while the right
Speaker 1: is all up in the grill of changing people. And second,
Speaker 1: it's just a self defeating attitude in addition to being false,
Speaker 1: that basically concedes that democracy isn't a thing that can work.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't believe that you can go
Speaker 1: into the arena and say certain things frame certain things
Speaker 1: offer a certain material benefit, it's the people, policies for
Speaker 1: people and move them. Then like, what are you engaged
Speaker 1: in democracy for? And I think often what I perceive
Speaker 1: is that many of us on the political left who
Speaker 1: are making claims about the impossibility of persuasion are actually
Speaker 1: just narrating our own impotence. We're not talking like we
Speaker 1: think we're making a claim about these other people who
Speaker 1: can't be one. But what we're really telling you is
Speaker 1: that we ain't that good at doing it. And if
Speaker 1: you're not that great doing it, step aside for people
Speaker 1: who are, because there are amazing organizers, activists, cognitive scientists, others.
Speaker 1: I studied for this book, who know how to persuade,
Speaker 1: who know how to move minds, who know how to
Speaker 1: do the kind of base building work for the long haul,
Speaker 1: to build deeper, long term support from multiracial democracy. And
Speaker 1: I think we need kind of wholesale changes of leadership
Speaker 1: in communication on the democratic side, on organizing, on any
Speaker 1: number of things, certainly the fundraising emails. We need the
Speaker 1: movement to be led by people who know how to
Speaker 1: change minds, who are willing to do the work, and
Speaker 1: who are showing success at doing so. There are those people,
Speaker 1: and I wrote the book to try to highlight them
Speaker 1: and elevate them and uplift them in the hope that
Speaker 1: they will be the dominant forces and voices on the
Speaker 1: kind of pro democracy, pro freedom side. Do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean, I you know I can impact so much
Speaker 1: in the answer that you just provided. And you know
Speaker 1: a not who you gave a chapter two She did
Speaker 1: a two part episode on will gay app as well
Speaker 1: as democracy? Ish Okay, I only get a one part.
Speaker 1: We don't know yet it could go for two, We
Speaker 1: could go for do um. But you know she gave
Speaker 1: such I mean it was like nothing was earth shattering,
Speaker 1: And I'm like why do they make it seem so hard?
Speaker 1: What you're offering makes sense, right, But do we lead?
Speaker 1: Like are we too good? And that this is kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm distilling from what you said. Our Democrats
Speaker 1: too good to believe in persuasion, Like DoD They just
Speaker 1: want people to be born with the with the ideas
Speaker 1: of what is right in their head. Like they believe
Speaker 1: that if I persuade you, then somehow I'm out here
Speaker 1: doing the devil's work, as opposed to I think you're again,
Speaker 1: like in your trademark, while you're hitting on like the
Speaker 1: very deep cores of this thing. So there's a couple
Speaker 1: very deep cores of this that you're absolutely right about.
Speaker 1: I think one is I had it's interesting conversation about
Speaker 1: my book with Noam Chomsky a few weeks ago, right
Speaker 1: before the book came out, and he said, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I have an interesting relationship paraphrasing, he's like
Speaker 1: an interesting relationship to your book because I want all
Speaker 1: the people in your book to win, and like they're
Speaker 1: the people I think should win. But he's like, when
Speaker 1: you frame it as persuasion, he's like for him, Noam Chomsky,
Speaker 1: he's thinking of like advertising and propaganda, and like pr
Speaker 1: he's thinking of all the things that basically he hates
Speaker 1: and thinks undermine progress and undergird like capital, a manic
Speaker 1: kind of hyper capitalism. And so I think his book,
Speaker 1: my book was like complicated for him because he was like, wait,
Speaker 1: should Bernie Sanders be like telling more personal stories and
Speaker 1: building a more human you know, appeal? Or is that
Speaker 1: like the Coca Cola isation of Bernie Sanders? Now? I so, So,
Speaker 1: I think that's one thing I think on the left,
Speaker 1: there is an aversion to a certain kind of persuasion
Speaker 1: that reads to people as like madmen or or or
Speaker 1: like you know, I personally say, I think that's misguided.
Speaker 1: Like I think it matters whether you're selling Coca Cola
Speaker 1: or Bernie Sanders. Like I think if Bernie Sanders, if
Speaker 1: the advice, you know, for for example, that I would
Speaker 1: get is that Bernie Sanders should tell a lot more
Speaker 1: people that a crappy healthcare system killed his mom when
Speaker 1: he was eighteen or nine teen years old, and no
Speaker 1: one knows that, and it's his signature domestic issue. And
Speaker 1: my mom didn't love Bernie Sanders. In the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: or twenty twenty runs, But I can tell you she
Speaker 1: would have related a lot to Bernie Sanders telling you
Speaker 1: he spent the next fifty something years of his life
Speaker 1: avenging his mother's death by trying to make healthcare available
Speaker 1: for everybody. My mom might have listened to that part, right,
Speaker 1: even if she didn't like the policy, if that's you know,
Speaker 1: if that's cheap, like I don't, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be not cheap. You know, that to me is you know,
Speaker 1: is politics. And so I think part of the interesting,
Speaker 1: like beautiful conversation I had with Chomsky about this gets
Speaker 1: at this notion of, you know, our Democrats and the
Speaker 1: left for generally too high minded in their view of
Speaker 1: who people are, you know, just like who we are, Like,
Speaker 1: how do we have a good grounded sense of how
Speaker 1: people are actually forming opinions? And I think if you
Speaker 1: have an excessively high minded view, you think of it
Speaker 1: as a cerebral process. People are you know, you, Danielle,
Speaker 1: are like finishing this podcast and you're going sitting that
Speaker 1: couch picking up some of those books on the shelf,
Speaker 1: and you're formulating your view on you know, policies, and
Speaker 1: then you're going to like vote, you know, you already
Speaker 1: voted obviously from your sticker, And I just don't think
Speaker 1: that's how I don't think that's how it is for
Speaker 1: me and you, and we are highly educated, like engaged
Speaker 1: people politically. It is definitely not how ninety percent of
Speaker 1: people who are maybe less engaged politically than us form opinions.
Speaker 1: Like one of the people in the book says to me,
Speaker 1: political opinion formation is primarily an emotional process. Now, I
Speaker 1: think not would agree with that. I think I agree
Speaker 1: with that. You sound like you agree with that. I
Speaker 1: don't think the establishment of the Democratic Party believes that.
Speaker 1: And if they did, they're either engaging in like woeful
Speaker 1: malpractice or they just you know, have no idea what
Speaker 1: they're doing. If you start to say, okay, let me
Speaker 1: not start with like policies or bullet point plans or whatever.
Speaker 1: Let me start with like what are people like, what
Speaker 1: is going on with people? What in general? How do
Speaker 1: people form opinions? Also, what's going on to people now?
Speaker 1: What are people afraid of now? Right? And then let
Speaker 1: me let me try to like back my policies into
Speaker 1: where people are now, yes, right, human center, like anyone
Speaker 1: selling anything like people people don't take this diet coke
Speaker 1: and again like this is going to that like commercial place,
Speaker 1: which is I think what freaks some people out on
Speaker 1: the left. But like people are not like you know,
Speaker 1: like this tastes like caramel mix with people are like
Speaker 1: what do people want? People want to like have fun
Speaker 1: with their friends, People want to feel young again. People right,
Speaker 1: and then they somehow like hook diet coke into rude
Speaker 1: understanding of like what you want, where you are, and
Speaker 1: where you want to go. Now, if I were to
Speaker 1: take Medicare for all, I don't I think it's cheap
Speaker 1: or tacky to say, don't just say healthcare as a
Speaker 1: human right. That that's like centering the thing. It's not
Speaker 1: centering you, right, Like here's here's a different way to
Speaker 1: talk about Medicare for all, which is you and me.
Speaker 1: And you know, half the people in this country have
Speaker 1: a business idea that is like kicking around our head
Speaker 1: or that we like bend our friend's ears about at
Speaker 1: the bar, right and for like I would say ninety
Speaker 1: percent of Americans I've ever talked to at a business idea,
Speaker 1: there is number one reason they can't go pursue it
Speaker 1: is they can't leave their current employer based healthcare right
Speaker 1: to go to the business idea. If you have kids
Speaker 1: or you have a spouse, you'd literally be like jeopardizing
Speaker 1: your child. Ninety percent of Americans would have to jeopardize
Speaker 1: their child's life to start a business idea. Okay, so
Speaker 1: is that capitalism? Is that called capitalism when you can't?
Speaker 1: Nine percent of business ideas just are never activated because
Speaker 1: you'd be endangering your child's life to quit your job
Speaker 1: and do the business idea, even if you have a
Speaker 1: plan and a potential investors. So what would it look
Speaker 1: like to advocate for medicare for all? Starting with that
Speaker 1: kind of understanding of that aspiration that so many millions
Speaker 1: of Americans have, You might you might be able to
Speaker 1: tap into all kinds of people who are not drawn
Speaker 1: to a healthcare as a human right argument or a
Speaker 1: moral frame, or who don't know what medicare is and
Speaker 1: not sure why you want to now make it for all,
Speaker 1: but you know, you might call it freedom care. You
Speaker 1: might explain how it ties into the real, lived desire
Speaker 1: for liberation that people have without you having to explain
Speaker 1: it to them. And so that's just one example I
Speaker 1: think of what it would look like for the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party and the left generally to have a kind of
Speaker 1: user centered politics. Start with who people are, what's going
Speaker 1: on with them? Yeah, and proceed from there. One hundred
Speaker 1: percent agree. And I have often said that I believe
Speaker 1: that Democrats think that people are better than they are,
Speaker 1: and I believe that Republicans actually know who people are, right,
Speaker 1: which is that people are easily persuadable. If you give
Speaker 1: them the same talking point over and over again, from
Speaker 1: Fox to qan on to Newsmax to wherever that they'll go,
Speaker 1: it becomes that that earworm right, And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's now popping up in all of their
Speaker 1: social media feeds because our phones and our computers and
Speaker 1: everything listens to everything that we're doing, so everything becomes reinforced.
Speaker 1: And it's this idea that we think that people have
Speaker 1: more time and are better than they are, right, that
Speaker 1: Democrats are just like, no, no, no, We're going to
Speaker 1: take the high road. I had a great issue. I
Speaker 1: love Michelle Obama. I think that Michelle Obama is literally
Speaker 1: the salt of the earth. But when she said that
Speaker 1: when they go low, we go high, I said, no, no,
Speaker 1: because you can't fight a seward game on horseback. Right,
Speaker 1: like you have to actually be down in the mud.
Speaker 1: And so I think that democrats do believe that they
Speaker 1: are better than and they want people to And that's
Speaker 1: where the elitist attitude comes from, that the right places
Speaker 1: on top of us is that, oh, you're just elitist.
Speaker 1: And it's just like, no, I fundamentally know that I'm
Speaker 1: a better person than somebody who believes that gay people, Muslims,
Speaker 1: you know, trans people and what have you don't deserve
Speaker 1: space and place in this universe. Like, I definitely know
Speaker 1: I'm better than those people, But if I'm actually trying
Speaker 1: to get them to recognize to your point that yeah,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to be tied to my job like
Speaker 1: some indentured servant because I need health insurance. Like if
Speaker 1: this country is built on everyone pulling themselves up from
Speaker 1: their bootstraps, then shouldn't I be able to become the
Speaker 1: next egomaniac billionaire? Right, Like, shouldn't that right be afforded
Speaker 1: to me? So I wonder, like, what do you I
Speaker 1: kind of just pause you on that it was such
Speaker 1: a great like what you just said, right, what Like
Speaker 1: why haven't we reframed the current healthcare system as indentured servitude. Right,
Speaker 1: that's exactly like you just came up with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like talking right, they spend millions of dollars in markets
Speaker 1: they'd never come up with that, you know, like maybe
Speaker 1: they could hire you, but like that's exactly and so
Speaker 1: what what you when you when you said that, suddenly
Speaker 1: the issue in my mind, I just like felt my
Speaker 1: own brain go like, oh, it's not like I'm trying
Speaker 1: to like sell people in some crazy new healthcare idea
Speaker 1: like our current things indentured servitude are Are you for that?
Speaker 1: Or who's for indentured servitude healthcare? Right? It's just reflipping it,
Speaker 1: like and and the fact that we hear so little
Speaker 1: of that ever done those kind of reframings, whereas the
Speaker 1: right is doing that every damn day with partial birth,
Speaker 1: abortion and death tax and they're just right death panels
Speaker 1: like it's it. It's literally the case that our healthcare
Speaker 1: system creates indentured servitude. Yes, and we have never been
Speaker 1: able to frame it in those kinds of ways. I
Speaker 1: mean when you say to me, I can't I have
Speaker 1: a great idea, I have a great aspiration, and I
Speaker 1: can't leave my job and go ahead and forge this
Speaker 1: idea of the American dream because I'm shackled to a job.
Speaker 1: What else would you call that? Correct? And I would
Speaker 1: have once you opened that then by like Bernie had
Speaker 1: a problem in communities of color in particular, right and
Speaker 1: with older voters, and you know there was that he had.
Speaker 1: He was pushing up against certain limits in the coalition, right,
Speaker 1: could you imagine and these, by the way, the most
Speaker 1: marginalized communities of the communities were the aspiration to build
Speaker 1: a business is strong because you may not be able
Speaker 1: to get that job at that big company that is
Speaker 1: still discriminatory whatever, but the idea of creating your own
Speaker 1: thing is is a big aspiration. By the way, I
Speaker 1: think it's why Republicans are winning a bunch of black
Speaker 1: and Hispanic men because there's a lay bage of aspiration
Speaker 1: and commercial like you know that they feel put off
Speaker 1: by Democratic Party. That's a whole other conversation. Imagine if
Speaker 1: Bernie had done events in communities of color asking everybody
Speaker 1: to come up and share their business idea, like fucking
Speaker 1: Bernie Shark Tank, come up and share your business idea,
Speaker 1: but also talk about your current healthcare thing situation, talk
Speaker 1: about how you actually can't do that, and then Bernie
Speaker 1: would like explain to you how you could like right, like,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of you know, some of the
Speaker 1: more diehard socialist elements in his campaign Britain, like why
Speaker 1: would you do an event around people's business aspirations? Right?
Speaker 1: But just like that, to me is the kind of
Speaker 1: politics that I'm interested in. The optics and the substance
Speaker 1: of Bernie Sanders sitting with a bunch of like black
Speaker 1: and Hispanic and Asian American entrepreneurs with dreams saying we're
Speaker 1: the party of aspiration. Also, we want you to go
Speaker 1: from your one store to five stores and queens or whatever.
Speaker 1: And here's why having health care for all is going
Speaker 1: to make that happen for you, right it. Just imagine
Speaker 1: the amount of reframe there, Imagine the additional scope of
Speaker 1: people who might be interested with that kind of pitch,
Speaker 1: and I think you can go issue by issue and
Speaker 1: think about persuasion in that way. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: for me, I will tell you that the tagline blah
Speaker 1: blah blah for all is problematic. And why do I
Speaker 1: think that it's problematic? Because White America works from a
Speaker 1: scarcity model. It is not an abundant place America does
Speaker 1: not have enough for you over there that I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I don't like. I don't like how you pray,
Speaker 1: I don't like how you love. I don't like how
Speaker 1: you look. So all of a sudden, when you start
Speaker 1: talking about blah blah blah for all, what they hear
Speaker 1: is that I have to give something up. I have
Speaker 1: to give something up in order for all to be
Speaker 1: able to have it. And it's so easy for the
Speaker 1: right to reframe. And so when you just look at
Speaker 1: these things and you say, okay, well, instead of it
Speaker 1: being for all, even though that's what we want, that's
Speaker 1: our value as democrats. But how I'm going to frame
Speaker 1: it is about freedom. How I'm going to frame it
Speaker 1: is about what you are owed because of the work
Speaker 1: that you have put in, and you make it about
Speaker 1: them instead of everybody. That's the problem that democrats, I believe,
Speaker 1: have is that they want they want to believe that
Speaker 1: people have this you know, lofty idea of wanting to
Speaker 1: be empaths and give to everyone around them, which I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the Republicans have proved is that yeah, capitalism and
Speaker 1: inflation and all of these things have made us greedy
Speaker 1: as fuck right, so like there isn't more than enough.
Speaker 1: Obama was the last one that had us believe that,
Speaker 1: oh my god, the wealth of this nation can provide
Speaker 1: for all. And we believed in because the message was that,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, just combative, combative to that rhetoric on
Speaker 1: the right. And I wonder like, is it the two
Speaker 1: on top of having the right messenger and the right message?
Speaker 1: Is it wrong for us on the left to continue
Speaker 1: chasing certain candidates and personalities rather than what the right
Speaker 1: has done, which is like, no, you all just need
Speaker 1: to get on board with white supremacy because then you'll
Speaker 1: remain on top. Right, Like they're not just chasing a
Speaker 1: person now, they're chasing like this broader idea. Well, I
Speaker 1: actually think I was thinking about this today when I voted,
Speaker 1: and I'm fascinated in particular by you know, by the
Speaker 1: time people listen to this, like they'll know the results.
Speaker 1: But there's this dead heat for the governorship of New
Speaker 1: York that should not exist, I know. And the thing
Speaker 1: is like, tell me if my assumption here is wrong,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think you or I know a single
Speaker 1: person who feels anything in their heart for the current
Speaker 1: democratic governor of New York, Kathy Hochel or like like
Speaker 1: a young person in this state who feels motivated about
Speaker 1: her or anything, And then you have this like improbable
Speaker 1: thing of a Republican doing surprisingly well. But is it
Speaker 1: that improbable if you don't even like this is New
Speaker 1: York State. This is the most interesting collection of human
Speaker 1: beings ever assembled under the sun anywhere on planet Earth,
Speaker 1: Like the greatest collection, like you and I live because
Speaker 1: a great like there's no lack of interesting people who
Speaker 1: are smart, politically engaged. So we considered everyone, and Kathy
Speaker 1: Hochel is someone who excites nobody. Is our idea of
Speaker 1: someone who should be the number one, the chief executive
Speaker 1: of this state with the greatest collection of people in
Speaker 1: human history. Well, I don't know why we're surprised when
Speaker 1: we lose. We're not trying to excite people, we're not
Speaker 1: trying to inspire, but we're not trying to build a movement.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it is it is playing with fire
Speaker 1: when you're fighting fascism. So like, think of the gall
Speaker 1: to knowingly run people who literally make no one feel anything.
Speaker 1: What is your assessment of the situation? The right again,
Speaker 1: like the right understands feelings as you say, the right
Speaker 1: inside people as they are right. So, like, is your
Speaker 1: assessment really that it does not matter that the gubernatorial
Speaker 1: candidate on the Democratic side for New York is the
Speaker 1: view of the Democratic Party that it doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: she makes no one feel anything. M is that their assessment, Like,
Speaker 1: I would love for someone to put that in writing.
Speaker 1: I would marvel at that. If that is your assessment.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I don't understand politics. It seems
Speaker 1: quite daring to base an entire candidacy on the view
Speaker 1: that it doesn't matter if people feel like anything for
Speaker 1: a candidate. It doesn't matter if she has any kind
Speaker 1: of movement or not. It doesn't matter if like no
Speaker 1: one I have seen in New York City has worn
Speaker 1: any of her merch. It doesn't matter. None of these
Speaker 1: things matter. Apparently they clearly don't matter. Just all that
Speaker 1: matters is like just telling your voters that shit's dangerous.
Speaker 1: Please give them five dollars and vote for the people
Speaker 1: they're telling you too. I mean, it is such a
Speaker 1: as you said, just unrealistic view of people that it's
Speaker 1: not to me bad political stretches. Like I think what
Speaker 1: we're you and I are talking about it is like
Speaker 1: actually really core and we don't talk about enough, which
Speaker 1: is like prior to politics. Like I think we're dealing
Speaker 1: with a bunch of people in the Democratic Party establishment
Speaker 1: leadership and around it that like are not that smart
Speaker 1: about people. Yeah, not great EQ, just not like really
Speaker 1: good at spreadsheets, right, like really good ass and data analysis,
Speaker 1: you see it, right, Just like, but there's just like
Speaker 1: other people in all of our lives who are just
Speaker 1: like really smart about people. They just like get people.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure those people are in charge right now.
Speaker 1: They don't seem to be. You know what, It's funny
Speaker 1: because I'm so glad that you brought up emotional intelligence
Speaker 1: and EQ because I have to tell you that this
Speaker 1: is a thing that has been completely and totally absent.
Speaker 1: That's it is that Republicans, for as horrible as they are,
Speaker 1: have their finger on the pulse of their people. They
Speaker 1: know how to move them, they know how to sway them,
Speaker 1: They know how to make them angry, they know how
Speaker 1: to make them sad. They know how to make them
Speaker 1: cheer at the very idea of violence. Right, they cheered
Speaker 1: for a hammer going into the head of an eighty
Speaker 1: two year old man right. Ten years ago, five years ago,
Speaker 1: those people would look at themselves and they would say
Speaker 1: not in this country, right, because we hold up other
Speaker 1: nations and say, oh, that's what they do. And so
Speaker 1: here they are cheering about the very idea of violence
Speaker 1: because the Republicans have their finger on the pulse. And
Speaker 1: I think again, Democrats are more concerned with focus groups
Speaker 1: and poles rather than the people behind them, rather than
Speaker 1: really going where the people are. I was told the
Speaker 1: other day that I needed to, like a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, Danielle, you should be on TikTok, and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do dumb dances. I get on
Speaker 1: Twitter and I get on Instagram and I rage against
Speaker 1: the machine. How does how does that work with TikTok?
Speaker 1: And they're like, because that's where the people are. You.
Speaker 1: If your goal is to change people, to shift people,
Speaker 1: to move them, then you have to go where they are.
Speaker 1: And so I think that it's it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: that Democrats stay put. Essentially, Democrats stay put and think
Speaker 1: that the people are going to come to them. So
Speaker 1: like with the final minutes that we have just you know,
Speaker 1: because your book is also hopeful, right, and we are
Speaker 1: at a time that it is in a loss for hope.
Speaker 1: I tell people all the time I am ye of
Speaker 1: little faith, but clearly I do because I have multiple
Speaker 1: fucking podcasts trying to wake people up. If I didn't
Speaker 1: have faith, then I would just shut the fuck up.
Speaker 1: So what is it that gives you hope? And what
Speaker 1: do you believe that people should be holding onto again?
Speaker 1: By the time that they listen to this, will know
Speaker 1: the results. But should the results in and of themselves matter?
Speaker 1: What should move people? Whether tonight Tuesday of election day
Speaker 1: is a blowout for Democrats, a mediocre result, a surprising,
Speaker 1: you know, surprisingly good night for Democrats, regard hardless of
Speaker 1: that outcome. An enormous project of rebuilding begins Wednesday morning.
Speaker 1: It has to. And there's no scenario tonight that wouldn't
Speaker 1: you know, that would not necessitate a major project of rebuilding.
Speaker 1: Here's the bottom line for me, amid a fascist up
Speaker 1: swell in this country. We do not currently possess a
Speaker 1: pro freedom protomocracy movement capable of burying it and beating
Speaker 1: it durably and consistently. We have a movement that can
Speaker 1: like eke out fifty one forty nine victories sometimes and
Speaker 1: lose you know, minor victories other times, or big, you know,
Speaker 1: lose a big contest other times. But we don't have
Speaker 1: a protomocracy movement that can consistently win in a way
Speaker 1: that is going to keep you and me and our
Speaker 1: you know, like community safe, or anyone frankly safe. So
Speaker 1: we need to build that. We need to build a
Speaker 1: new and improved freedom movement in this country of the
Speaker 1: likes of which we've never seen. I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think that the task right now, the organizing challenge
Speaker 1: right now is immense. And here's what gives me hope.
Speaker 1: I think what we sometimes fail to do is properly
Speaker 1: tell the story of why this is happening and the
Speaker 1: trajectory right to me these I want to be very
Speaker 1: clear Trumpism, Ronda Santis, that this whole movement that is
Speaker 1: increasingly a fascistic right wing movement, they live in my world,
Speaker 1: in your world. You and I don't live in their world.
Speaker 1: You and I are not reactionaries to their brilliant, interesting
Speaker 1: ideas for the future. You and I are living in
Speaker 1: a future that is quite different from what this country
Speaker 1: was thirty fifty seventy years ago. You and I are
Speaker 1: living in it and through our voices trying to push
Speaker 1: it even further in the direction that it's been going in.
Speaker 1: And they're living in reaction to us. They are reactionaries
Speaker 1: to us. And I think it's very important to just
Speaker 1: distinguish between whether you and I are living in their
Speaker 1: world or they're living in ours. And one test of
Speaker 1: this is you and I would still be advocating for
Speaker 1: the things we believe in whether or not they existed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump disappeared, there's you and I would still be.
Speaker 1: The kind of healthcare policies you would want, I think
Speaker 1: would be the same as what you want right now.
Speaker 1: The kind of schools you'd want, what I think be
Speaker 1: the same as what the schools you want right now.
Speaker 1: The kind of foreign policy right could you say the
Speaker 1: same about them? Their entire agenda is to stop people
Speaker 1: like you and me from being you know, full citizens
Speaker 1: of this country. It's to stop it. It is purely parasitic,
Speaker 1: their agenda, their cause on the thing we are trying
Speaker 1: to do. There is no them without us, but there
Speaker 1: isn't us without of them. That is what it means
Speaker 1: to be a reactionary. So they are, as I always say,
Speaker 1: they're barnacles on our progress. They can't exist without the
Speaker 1: progress that has been happening. And so let's actually take
Speaker 1: a moment. Because they know about the progress we've been making,
Speaker 1: that's how they exist. We often don't talk about the
Speaker 1: progress we've made. It is really different to be any
Speaker 1: number of groups in this country than it was fifty
Speaker 1: or one hundred years ago. Right, we get caught up
Speaker 1: in the moment to moment and all the unfinished business.
Speaker 1: We don't pat ourselves on the back for real shifts
Speaker 1: we have made. Right Like my children are in a
Speaker 1: world of children, where the levels of awareness of the
Speaker 1: different experiences of being a human being, the different types
Speaker 1: of people in their midst that need to be seen
Speaker 1: and recognized and treated properly. It puts all of our
Speaker 1: ancestors to shame. I mean, we treat it all of
Speaker 1: our ancestors lovely, as they may have been treated a
Speaker 1: vast swath of the human species terribly for all kinds
Speaker 1: of reasons. Too bad, you're a woman, you're of the
Speaker 1: darker persuasion, your trans You're right if you add it
Speaker 1: all up, we weren't good to most people, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we're not there yet, But it's really different now than
Speaker 1: it was before. You go to campuses, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have this experience, Like the way these young people just
Speaker 1: like intuitively live in an egalitarian world, the way they
Speaker 1: think about their roles and their relationship, it's just really
Speaker 1: really different than anything else in the history of the world.
Speaker 1: Like we're doing a lot. We've done a lot, We've
Speaker 1: built a lot of progress. And there's something in progressives
Speaker 1: that makes us, i think, unwilling to just like say
Speaker 1: that out loud, because the orientation is toward all that's
Speaker 1: not done, and the psyche is about like losing in
Speaker 1: some ways, and like it's worth saying, like we've changed
Speaker 1: a ton a ton of stuff. We have redefined the
Speaker 1: way we live in so many ways. And this progress
Speaker 1: has inspired as it did after Reconstruction, as it has
Speaker 1: so many times in American history, It's inspired a backlash.
Speaker 1: It's inspired these barnacles, and like we got to deal
Speaker 1: with it, and after Reconstruction it was a long, long,
Speaker 1: long period of backlash. Those backlashes can be years, they
Speaker 1: can be decades, they can be short, they can be long.
Speaker 1: That's what's at stake. Now. There's no question to me
Speaker 1: that this is a backlash, and that we will beat
Speaker 1: it the way we beat the same type of people being,
Speaker 1: you know, against the abolition of slavery and against labor
Speaker 1: reform and against the New Deal and against integration and
Speaker 1: against gay rights. Like they lose every time. In the end,
Speaker 1: the question is how long does their backlash get to
Speaker 1: be and how influential does it get to be, and
Speaker 1: how painful does it get to be for everyone? And
Speaker 1: I think I have hope because i know what we're
Speaker 1: trying to do, and I'm very focused on the in
Speaker 1: a way awesome project of trying to build a multiracial democracy.
Speaker 1: That is the cause of a lot of our pain
Speaker 1: right now. We are in pain because we're trying to
Speaker 1: These are birth pangs. We are trying to do a
Speaker 1: great thing, and we so seldom remind ourselves that we're
Speaker 1: trying to do a great thing that we depress ourselves.
Speaker 1: So I would say the hope comes from the noble goal,
Speaker 1: the awesome goal, the worthy goal, and then remembering that
Speaker 1: these smallhearted, cynical people have always lost in the long run,
Speaker 1: and they will lose again, and freedom will win again,
Speaker 1: and if we want it to happen fast, we better
Speaker 1: buck up, shake off the despair and change our ways.
Speaker 1: You are a delight and I am so absolutely grateful
Speaker 1: for the time that you have spent on wok af
Speaker 1: today and on and just what you were putting out
Speaker 1: into the world, into the universe. And I really hope, folks,
Speaker 1: that you are listening to this and that it holds
Speaker 1: you and you create space for it, because this is
Speaker 1: the journey that we're on. And Anon, I just I
Speaker 1: appreciate you so very much. Folks. The book is the
Speaker 1: persuaders at the front lines of the fight for hearts,
Speaker 1: minds and our democracy. Get it now. Get it as
Speaker 1: a gift. It is the time of Thanksgiving and holidays
Speaker 1: and all of that jazz. Get it for people, and
Speaker 1: get it for yourselves. I hope that you come back again.
Speaker 1: I will come back anytime I want to. I want
Speaker 1: to do a three part series to beat a NATS record. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love that is it for me today, dear friends,
Speaker 1: on Woke a f as always. Power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.