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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and Donald.

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Speaker 2: Trump told billionaires he'll keep their textes low at his

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Speaker 2: latest fundraising gala. We have such a great show today,

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Speaker 2: Run for Something, as Amanda Littman stops by to talk

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Speaker 2: to us about the local races to watch the selection

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Speaker 2: year that we'll talk to the director of Georgetown University

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Speaker 2: Center on Faith Injustice, Jim Wells about his new book,

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Speaker 2: The False White Gospel, Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith,

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Speaker 2: and Refounding Democracy. But first we have the host of

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Speaker 2: the Enemy's List, the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Rick Willson, Molly Jong Fast, A happy day to you.

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Speaker 1: It's a funny voice today here Fast Politics. Funny voices.

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Speaker 3: They're funny, Molly Jung Fast, not funny, very very very

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Speaker 3: not funny. And in the new Europe Trump administration, I'm

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Speaker 3: telling you.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, oh god, you're doing Alan Aldwin doing Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: We're going to end up all of us.

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Speaker 3: I'm so sorry again, We're all going to get about.

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Speaker 1: I was on this panel last week where the host

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Speaker 1: asked me about Trump's plan to jail his political enemies.

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Speaker 3: Yay, that's us.

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Speaker 1: And I was like talking about how cash Batel had

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Speaker 1: actually said he would also so like this was about

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Speaker 1: members of the January sixth committee, But of course cash

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Speaker 1: Batel had also was planning to reach out and grow

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Speaker 1: that thesis to include the mainstream media. I mean, how

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Speaker 1: are we living through this time? This is crazy?

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Speaker 3: Let me tell you how we're living through it badly.

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Speaker 3: We're not doing well. We're not really prospering in this

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Speaker 3: particular regard. And I'll tell you I have a pretty

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Speaker 3: strong sense that no matter what you've read so far

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Speaker 3: this week, when you finally get around to reading Isaac

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Speaker 3: Orangsdorf's new book, Finish what we started, you probably won't

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Speaker 3: sleep for a week.

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Speaker 1: Wait, so tell may.

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Speaker 3: I read it in one sitting last night.

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Speaker 1: Wait? Who is this again?

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Speaker 3: He's a Washington Post reporter and he's written a story,

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Speaker 3: a history of the post January sixth hyper radicalization of

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Speaker 3: the Republican Party and just how intentional they are about

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Speaker 3: what they're going to do to this country if Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump takes office again. Isaac Orangsdorf, I really recommend it.

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Speaker 3: These people are as they always do, telling you exactly

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Speaker 3: what they're going to do. They're telling you exactly what

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Speaker 3: they're going to do, and what they're going to do

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Speaker 3: is all of the horror shows that you hear Bannon

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Speaker 3: and Patel and Miller and others haha joking about with

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Speaker 3: reporters like I'm gonna put you in jail, you son

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Speaker 3: of a bitch.

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Speaker 4: Ha ha.

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Speaker 3: They mean it. They mean it. And here's the thing.

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Speaker 3: A lot of these reporters in the mainstream media who

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Speaker 3: go back to Steve Bannon over and over again because

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Speaker 3: he gives good quote, are like, well, no, that's just there.

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Speaker 3: They're just cosplay. They're just play acting. What the heck,

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Speaker 3: it's all just silly fun. No, y'all, it's not. It's

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Speaker 3: not They're not joking. They're not playing around with this.

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Speaker 3: This is now what they believe is the best way,

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Speaker 3: the best outcome for their version of America. And I

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Speaker 3: am sorry. We are not taking it as a country

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Speaker 3: seriously enough. We are not taking this seriously enough. We

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Speaker 3: are not treating this with the level of intensity and

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Speaker 3: crisis that it demands. And honestly, I'm profoundly concerned about it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, I mean I agree. And look,

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Speaker 1: I mean the reality is they keep telling us. You

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Speaker 1: remember that Fox interview with Sean Hannity where Sean Hannity

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Speaker 1: is like, just make everyone feel better. You're not going

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Speaker 1: to be dictator on day one.

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Speaker 3: Right, and Trump looks at him like, who the fuck

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Speaker 3: are you talking to, bro?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And by the way, the fake reason is he said,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna drill, baby, drill. We are the largest exporter

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Speaker 1: of natural gas.

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Speaker 3: We're the largest producer of all forms of hydrocarbon based

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Speaker 3: and fossil fuel based energy in the world, not only that,

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Speaker 3: but in the history of the world.

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Speaker 1: So that is why it's so fucking stupid that that

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Speaker 1: is his life.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna drill everywhere. And coal, no, you're not.

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Speaker 3: So there's a reason coal is out it. Coal miners

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Speaker 3: don't have jobs anymore. It's because it's a terrible business.

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Speaker 3: It's because natural gas is a zillion times cheaper and cleaner,

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Speaker 3: relatively speaking. And all of these things that Trump talks

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Speaker 3: to his audience about are echoes of a dead religion

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Speaker 3: in a distant past. This is not a country anymore.

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Speaker 3: And you can say this for better or for worse.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, because coal was so good for everyone. Just

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Speaker 1: coal was just a big winner.

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Speaker 3: You're gonna have a Houli lyrics.

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Speaker 1: Great, Yeah, I mean, like, what are we even doing here?

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Speaker 3: It is really a silly on the one hand, but

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Speaker 3: terrifying on the other spell that he casts on these people.

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Speaker 3: And what I worry about is this temptation for this

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Speaker 3: nostalgia that he talks about with his people, that it

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Speaker 3: takes them back into this world that doesn't exist anymore.

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Speaker 3: You know, mommy in the kitchen and no black people nearby,

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Speaker 3: and dad working down with the auto factory. That's over.

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Speaker 3: It's all gone. Whether you love it or hate it,

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Speaker 3: it's all gone. But he has this ability to sell

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Speaker 3: his people on it. And look, the President is as

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Speaker 3: big a guy about industrial American industrial might and industrial

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Speaker 3: policy as you could hope for. And he understands it

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Speaker 3: a lot better than Trump does. But he's realistic about it,

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Speaker 3: which is which is difficult because realism doesn't sell in

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Speaker 3: this country. Fantasy sells in this country, and so Trump

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Speaker 3: sells in this fantasy. And it's like, oh, the reason,

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Speaker 3: by the way, you don't have that great union job,

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Speaker 3: but the auto plan anymore is the black folk or

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Speaker 3: the brown folk or whoever scary person in blah blah blah.

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Speaker 1: But what's interesting, I mean, the reason we got here.

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Speaker 1: I always talked to Eddie gold about this.

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Speaker 3: I love Eddie Glod.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's amazing, And whenever I run into him, I'm

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Speaker 1: We're always talking about this because this is really the

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Speaker 1: theory of the case, right, is that this is this

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Speaker 1: post reconstruction, last gasp of American anti democracy, right racism.

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Speaker 1: This is the white races saying, you know, no, we

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Speaker 1: can't have a multi racial democracy. We have to continue

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Speaker 1: in this sort of you know, really untenable, not democratic system.

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Speaker 1: And and you know it's they can't get their head

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Speaker 1: around the idea that in fact it's over. That world

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Speaker 1: is gone, thank god. I mean it was not a

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Speaker 1: great world.

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Speaker 3: This country is poised to enter a new era of prosperity,

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Speaker 3: but it's not the one that involved turning wrenches on

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Speaker 3: an assembly line. And it's not the one that a

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Speaker 3: lot of people would love to go back to. In

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Speaker 3: part would love to go back to because some of

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Speaker 3: it now codes in their minds as the pre civil

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Speaker 3: rights era, the pre civil rights posture.

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Speaker 1: But some of it is just nostalgia. Is an illness.

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Speaker 1: I mean, nostalgia does not real ever.

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Speaker 3: No, nostalgia is a lovely and wonderful sort of ability

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Speaker 3: in people's minds to return to something they never had

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Speaker 3: to get back onto Trump for a second. And the

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Speaker 3: reason it works that I still think is a danger

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Speaker 3: in this campaign going forward is that a lot of

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Speaker 3: the people that are listening to it are not sophisticated people.

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Speaker 3: They are not people who understand that they're being played.

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Speaker 3: And I worry about those folks turning up again. I

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Speaker 3: worry about the fact that people will believe things that

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Speaker 3: are objectively not true. And I worry also that they're

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Speaker 3: being pregamed right now, very heavily. They're being told, oh, well,

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Speaker 3: they're going to steal the election from Trump again. They're

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Speaker 3: going to take it the deep state, liberals, Jews, immigrants, gays,

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Speaker 3: fill in the blank. They're telling the people right now

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Speaker 3: that the election is about to be stolen from Trump.

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Speaker 3: They are about to take it from him. They are

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Speaker 3: about to go and make your kids become you know, gay,

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Speaker 3: Sharia married, or whatever weird fantasy conglomeration in their head

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Speaker 3: cells for the fear mangers. I know, I sound a

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Speaker 3: little more serious than usual today. But I have been

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Speaker 3: really thinking about like the power of the delusions that

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Speaker 3: he's able to induce and his people.

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Speaker 1: But now we need to talk about something really important.

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Speaker 1: No labels has no candidates.

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Speaker 3: No candidate, no campaign, ain't got nothing. It's over. It's done.

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Speaker 3: Stick a fork in it, roll it around on the

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Speaker 3: grill for a while, wait until it reaches the correct

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Speaker 3: internal temperature. And that is that this is a moment

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Speaker 3: where nothing they said was going to happen happened. They

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Speaker 3: never had a path to two hundred and seventy electric

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Speaker 3: College votes. They never got on the number of states

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Speaker 3: they claimed they would get on.

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Speaker 1: But they did get on a lot of ballot.

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Speaker 3: They got on nineteen ballots, of which eleven are what

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Speaker 3: we call the easy states, the easy ballot states.

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Speaker 1: Okay, right, But they got on swingy states too, where

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Speaker 1: they really fucked up Biden.

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Speaker 3: They got in a few swing states, and they really

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Speaker 3: spent their money in a few of the swing states,

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Speaker 3: like Arizona, where they really wanted to be on the ballot,

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Speaker 3: because that's going to be a tight state. That's going

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Speaker 3: to be one of the tightest states in the race.

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Speaker 3: It's going to be so close there that they could

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Speaker 3: have split off enough votes from Biden to give Trump

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Speaker 3: the win, which is what they wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: Is RFK spoiler on that?

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Speaker 3: Listen, here's the thing about RFK. RFK is in a

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Speaker 3: posture right now where yes, he takes some votes from Biden,

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Speaker 3: but there's a rising sense of panic on the right.

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Speaker 3: Then he's also messaging about the January sixth protesters being activists,

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Speaker 3: talking about all this anti vax stuff and crypto stuff,

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Speaker 3: and you know, and basically doing the rounds of the

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Speaker 3: kind of messaging that appeals to Trump voters. And there's

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Speaker 3: a reason, you know that the Trump people are freaked

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Speaker 3: out about r He was on you know, All In,

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Speaker 3: and he was on all these other podcasts and all

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Speaker 3: these other shows on Fox and everywhere else when he

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Speaker 3: was in a position where he was running as a

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Speaker 3: Democratic primary opponent to Joe Biden. What happened, though, was

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Speaker 3: when he became a threat to Trump by taking up

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Speaker 3: Trump's messaging, That's when it all split. That's when they

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Speaker 3: stopped doing this, That's when they stopped, you know, covering him.

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Speaker 3: So what you're going to see here is he's going

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Speaker 3: to end up drawing some out of Trump some out

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Speaker 3: of Biden. I don't know what the final configuration of

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Speaker 3: that is, but I do know that with No Labels

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Speaker 3: off the radar screen, I have now plenty of extra

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Speaker 3: time to torture the living hell out of him. I

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Speaker 3: don't think I won't.

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Speaker 1: Will you tell us about no Label's last hell? Mary pass?

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Speaker 3: Oh my god? Look, they may have gone behind a

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Speaker 3: Greyhound bus station and tried to find some guy with

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Speaker 3: the shape drinking Sterno out of a sock. After this,

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Speaker 3: with their last big play was to go to Asa

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Speaker 3: Hutchison and say you're our last hope. And Asa just said, no,

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Speaker 3: I'm all passed. That'll be fine, thanks for playing. They

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Speaker 3: went to from what we know because for whatever reason,

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Speaker 3: we have the uncanny, weird ability to get people inside

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Speaker 3: organizations to talk to us. And so we had four

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Speaker 3: separate people inside the no Labels world at every different

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Speaker 3: level like okay, here, here's what's going on. This sense

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Speaker 3: among all of these people, these grassrootsy people that thought

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Speaker 3: no Labels was this where we're just do gooders. We're

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Speaker 3: moderate centrists who just want everybody to work together and

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Speaker 3: sing Kumbaya in the pale moonlight as we dance naked

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Speaker 3: before the idol of an ancient Assyrian god. Sorry about that.

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Speaker 3: The last parts of my parties, you've.

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Speaker 1: Really just moved on to that. I feel like you're

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Speaker 1: doing great. Just keep going, doing great, Wilson, doing great.

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Speaker 1: It's doing you going.

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Speaker 3: Those volunteers and those grassroots types, the people that became

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Speaker 3: the delegates to the No Labels convention, they are so disheartened,

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Speaker 3: they're so sad. They realized, you know, this is like

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Speaker 3: the guy who's wired his last ten thousand dollars to

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Speaker 3: the Nigerian prints hoping for the wire transfer to come in.

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Speaker 3: These poor people they just got their shit handed to

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Speaker 3: them and they don't understand why. They don't get it,

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Speaker 3: and it's really sad. It's really sad in a lot

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Speaker 3: of ways because look, there are people in the country

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Speaker 3: who would love for this world to be something different

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Speaker 3: than it is. But it's not right.

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Speaker 1: No, it's a good point. And now what will Nancy

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Speaker 1: Jacobson and Mark Penn do.

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Speaker 3: Well, Look, they're living in Miami most of the time now, Yami,

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Speaker 3: and they've had their house in DC it was on

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Speaker 3: the market. I think they're going to become naturally Florida residents.

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Speaker 3: Now Mark is going to go to Trump. Bet me

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Speaker 3: a dollar because you're going to see Mark Penn on

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Speaker 3: Fox any day now saying, well, there's no way that

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Speaker 3: Joe Biden can win working class voters in Pennsylvania. There's

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Speaker 3: no way Joe Biden because if you go back for

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Speaker 3: the last couple of years and watch any clip of

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Speaker 3: Mark Penn on Fox, he's like, yes, mister Trump, can

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Speaker 3: I wash your car a second?

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Speaker 4: Toe? H?

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Speaker 3: Would you like a foot massage? Mister Trump? It is

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Speaker 3: ridiculous how in the sack he is for Donald Trump?

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Speaker 3: And it is ridiculous how deeply delusional people are.

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Speaker 1: You know who else I think is very trumpy?

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Speaker 3: Blank fronts.

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Speaker 1: I was going to say that weird guy with the

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Speaker 1: pollster who pretends not to be trumpy but used to

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Speaker 1: live with Kevin McCarthy still does. Yeah, what's that guy's name?

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Speaker 3: Frank Luntz.

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Speaker 1: Frank Lunz, They're basically the same.

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Speaker 3: Well, listen, Frank will end up next with RFK Junior.

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Speaker 1: Oh really you think so?

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Speaker 3: He will? I listen. I've known Frank. I've known Frank

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Speaker 3: since the nineties. He will go wherever he can get,

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Speaker 3: Like I'm gonna be like I caught a classic guy.

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Speaker 3: I'm gonna be the one who tells you like it is,

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Speaker 3: and it always is. It's always the worst person you

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Speaker 3: can imagine, from Ross Parrot to RFK. It's a lovely arn't.

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Speaker 1: And here we are, Rick Wilson. Let's talk about Florida.

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Speaker 1: Big news out of Florida this week, really interesting ballad

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Speaker 1: initiative and also a very repressive abortion change.

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Speaker 3: So the Supreme Court upheld Rondasantis' six week abortion band,

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Speaker 3: which moved it from the unreasonable fifteen weeks to the

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Speaker 3: poison of six weeks. And by poison, folks, I mean

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Speaker 3: Ronda Santis's own polsters, whom I know were in a

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Speaker 3: room with him when he was going to sign the

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Speaker 3: six week bill begging him, big strong polsters with tears

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Speaker 3: in their eyes, begging him to not sign this effing bill,

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Speaker 3: begging him okay, because they knew that if he got

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Speaker 3: to the General by some weird miracle, this thing was

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Speaker 3: a kill shot against him. This thing was a radioactive

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Speaker 3: waste pile on top of a burning tire mountain. It

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Speaker 3: was every terrible potential political outcome. What they did was

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Speaker 3: to go into the Supreme Court. They approved that it

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Speaker 3: also triggered a horrible political pushback, and now we're going

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Speaker 3: to have a ballot initiative to unwind the six week band.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so here's my question for you. We all know

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Speaker 1: about the ballot initiative and two weeks. Really sorry, I

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Speaker 1: mean we know that it is. It changes the calculus,

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Speaker 1: It does a lot of things, and also ballot initiatives

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Speaker 1: tend to overperform the partisan lean. But what I want

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Speaker 1: to ask you about this is you grew up in Florida.

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Speaker 1: So Florida has historically always been a state where abortion

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Speaker 1: has sort of been okay, and it's been sort of

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Speaker 1: the one southern state that's allowed abortion. That's a real

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Speaker 1: sea change for the state. You live in.

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Speaker 3: Florida always had a kind of of vaguely libertarian stance

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Speaker 3: on abortion. It was always sort of like, yeah, you

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Speaker 3: know what, we're not going to get too deep into

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Speaker 3: the weeds on this. There were a few pieces that passed,

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Speaker 3: you know, over the years, on marginal things. You know,

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Speaker 3: some things about like regulating where doctors and had to

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Speaker 3: be certified, but it was all small ball. Okay, Desantus

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Speaker 3: comes along. They did the fifteen weeks. They moved the

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Speaker 3: fifteen weeks down to six. And what's happening right now

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Speaker 3: in Florida is that vaguely libertarian take on it has

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Speaker 3: now become one of the most restrictive in the country.

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Speaker 3: And this is different than Mississippi or Alabama. First off,

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Speaker 3: it's the third largest state in the country. This isn't

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Speaker 3: going to be four or five or ten women a

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Speaker 3: month that have an ectopic pregnancy that kills them or

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Speaker 3: a medical emergency because they can't get care. It's going

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Speaker 3: to be thousands. It's going to be thousands of women

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Speaker 3: the month. You are going to see a public health

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Speaker 3: consequence to this in Florida that you would not see

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Speaker 3: anywhere else. And DeSantis has decided he is going to

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Speaker 3: be waging a big public war over this, which actually

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Speaker 3: is kind of good for the initiative. It's kind of

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Speaker 3: good for it because Desas is like the polar opposite

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Speaker 3: of charisma.

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Speaker 1: Also, how is he polling well?

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Speaker 3: He is now upside down in his fave n faves,

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Speaker 3: where he was about sixty forty last year, he's now

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Speaker 3: about forty five fifty five with fifty five unfave. That's

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Speaker 3: headed south quickly, by the way. But look, I think

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Speaker 3: that you are going to see that this is replicating

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Speaker 3: a larger social moment in America on the question of abortion,

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Speaker 3: on the question of how much do you want to

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Speaker 3: have the white bro Republican dudes in Tallahassee or wherever

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Speaker 3: you live, deciding on what birth control you can use

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Speaker 3: or if you can have birth control at all, you know,

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Speaker 3: whether you can have IVF or not.

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Speaker 1: We've gone too far, Rick Wilson yet again, once again,

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Speaker 1: Too damn far.

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Speaker 3: That's the name of my a hit new show, Too

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Speaker 3: Far with Rick Wilson.

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Speaker 1: Spring is here and I bet you are trying to

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Speaker 1: look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all

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Speaker 1: new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store

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Speaker 1: with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,

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Speaker 1: and top bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com.

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Speaker 3: Amanda Littman is the co founder of Run for Something.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back, too Fast Politics, one of my favorite on

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Speaker 1: the ground activists bringing democracy, really bringing democracy back to

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Speaker 1: some red states and doing like really cool stuff. That

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Speaker 1: really is where democracy starts.

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Speaker 4: Amanda Lipman, thanks for having me, Molly So Amanda.

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Speaker 1: You you have an organization called Run for Something and

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Speaker 1: many listeners on this podcast have heard about Run for Something,

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Speaker 1: but I'm wondering if you could just give us like

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Speaker 1: a quick TLDR on.

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Speaker 4: It, I would be delighted. So Run for Something recruits

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Speaker 4: and supports young, diverse progressives running for local office all

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Speaker 4: across the country. We launched back in twenty seventeen and

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Speaker 4: since then have identified more than one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 4: thousand young people who raise their hands to say yeah,

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Speaker 4: think about running for something like school board or city

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Speaker 4: council or state legislature. And we've helped a lot more

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Speaker 4: than a thousand of them across nearly every state, mostly women,

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Speaker 4: mostly people of color, who are remarkable and are doing real,

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Speaker 4: meaningful stuff to make things better for people.

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Speaker 1: We just had a bunch of primaries. Talk to me

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Speaker 1: about where you are right now?

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Speaker 4: Yes, so just earlier this week it was election day

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Speaker 4: and a bunch of places. But for Run for Something,

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Speaker 4: we had candidates in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska and

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Speaker 4: we're still waiting for that Alaska race. To get college.

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Speaker 4: Other things are looking good for Carl Jacobs, our school

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Speaker 4: board candidate in Anchorage. But overall, we had fourteen folks

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Speaker 4: win their elections, which is a fifty eight percent win rate.

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Speaker 1: For the day.

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Speaker 4: And these winners are amazing. So do you want to

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Speaker 4: hear about a couple of them?

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Speaker 1: Yes, talk about the candidates, but then also talk about

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Speaker 1: your larger theory of the case and why a school

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Speaker 1: board and Anchorage leads to a congressional seat, leads to

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Speaker 1: a Senate seat, leads to flipping a state, or leads

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Speaker 1: to change at a at a grassroots level.

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Speaker 4: Well, our school board candidate in Angridge, Carl Jacobs, is

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Speaker 4: actually running against a mom's for Liberty candidate. His race

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Speaker 4: really matters for the community of Anchorage. And we've seen

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Speaker 4: this over and over again. You know, in Wisconsin this

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Speaker 4: week Kelly Leebold, who's a brain cancer survivor and a

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Speaker 4: community leader and a young woman who really saw the

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Speaker 4: need for youth representation on the Lacrosse County Board one

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Speaker 4: against a guy who was the former and I believe

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Speaker 4: still a party officer, the former Republican County Party chair

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Speaker 4: who was a fake Trump elector one of the people

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Speaker 4: who like try to submit his pledge to the Electoral

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Speaker 4: College fraudulently. He was literally forced by a lawsuit to

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Speaker 4: acknowledge that Biden won the election. She beat him in

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Speaker 4: a really critical role for help that helps oversee the

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Speaker 4: county and in some ways plays the role in administering

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Speaker 4: the election. Also in Wisconsin, Stephanie nez want a seat

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Speaker 4: on the Kenosha County Board. She's a college professor of chemistry.

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Speaker 4: I believe she's been a fierce advocate for inclusion in

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Speaker 4: the classroom. This is particularly important in Kenosha, where the

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Speaker 4: county board was trying to make public libraries literally ban

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Speaker 4: people under the age of eighteen from adult collections, which

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Speaker 4: includes things like classics and research books and a whole

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Speaker 4: ton of things that especially high school students should absolutely

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Speaker 4: have access to.

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Speaker 1: It really matters research, folks. I mean, I shouldn't laugh

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Speaker 1: because the stakes are actually real fucking high, but it

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Speaker 1: is insane how much these people are just like not

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Speaker 1: very smart.

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Speaker 4: No, they're really not. And I think it's compelling. You know,

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Speaker 4: when we run, we can beat them. We just need

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Speaker 4: to have kids on the ballot who can really make

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Speaker 4: the case. You know. We had Sabrina Landry want to

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Speaker 4: See on the Kenosha School Board. She was the one

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Speaker 4: of the top three finishers, which ensured that not a

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Speaker 4: single mom's for Liberty. Candidate won a seat in that office,

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Speaker 4: which is awesome.

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Speaker 1: Which means that if you have a kid in public

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Speaker 1: school in Kenosha, they are not going to be subjected

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Speaker 1: to don't say gay laws. They'll be able to like

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Speaker 1: just read normal books.

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Speaker 4: That's all we're asking for, just like keep it boring,

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Speaker 4: keep it boring. Down in Arizona, we work with Casey Clothes,

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Speaker 4: who's been a long time run for something. Candidate is

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Speaker 4: our third time running and she want to see on

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Speaker 4: the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, which

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Speaker 4: is a very long name for what is one of

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Speaker 4: the most powerful offices controlling one of the largest public

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Speaker 4: utilities in the country. So this is a big win

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Speaker 4: for climate change because when you're controlling look utility company.

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Speaker 4: One of the reasons that she ran is because she's

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Speaker 4: a climate scientist and activist. She knows stuff here and

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Speaker 4: one of the things they want to do is make

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Speaker 4: the public utility carbon free or at least carbon neutral.

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Speaker 4: That's really, really, really important. It's been so cool to

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Speaker 4: see these folks run and win and then know that

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Speaker 4: they're going to make a real difference for people.

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Speaker 1: One of the many reasons why I'm so obsessed with you.

436
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,880
Speaker 1: I'm so obsessed with run for something. Is because one

437
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,479
Speaker 1: of the things I've always felt like Democrats lack the

438
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: ability to do is the like tiny nitty grit and

439
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 1: it's not that tiny, right, Like these are actually big

440
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: consequential positions, But it's a question of like finding the

441
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:18,840
Speaker 1: right person who wants the job and is willing to

442
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:21,200
Speaker 1: run for it and then can also do the job

443
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 1: and is local and not you know, a carpetbager coming

444
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: in like all the Republican Senate candidates. I would love

445
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: you to talk about your theory, the case about why

446
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:33,879
Speaker 1: having normal people on a school board helps the up

447
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: ballot races.

448
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 4: Yes, we've done a bunch of research on this. No.

449
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 4: Back in twenty twenty, we looked at state legislative racism

450
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:42,359
Speaker 4: in particular, because they're the easiest to measure, sort of

451
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 4: apples to apples. We found that simply having a candidate

452
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 4: on the ballot can increase turnout for the entire ticket,

453
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 4: especially the top of the ticket, by anywhere from zero

454
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:55,400
Speaker 4: point three to two point three percent. That's a meaningful

455
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 4: margin of victory for Joe Biden or in twenty twenty

456
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,359
Speaker 4: for the Georgia set race in particular, we found it

457
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 4: was instrumental, and we actually did a little bit more

458
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,479
Speaker 4: research this year, especially knowing some of the challenges that

459
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:09,879
Speaker 4: President Biden has with younger voters, especially younger voters of color,

460
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 4: and we asked them, you know, eighteen to twenty nine

461
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 4: year olds in battleground states, if there was a young

462
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:18,119
Speaker 4: progressive running for state or local office in your community,

463
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 4: how would that change your likelihood to vote? Sixty one

464
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 4: percent of young Democrats told us that having a young

465
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 4: progressive on the ballot would make them more likely to

466
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 4: vote this fall.

467
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: Right, those are crazy high numbers, But I also think

468
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 1: it's a question of like, do you have agency right?

469
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that we have trouble getting young

470
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:39,479
Speaker 1: people to turn out is because they don't feel they

471
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: have agency right.

472
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 4: Totally right, and like they're looking at a federal government

473
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 4: in Washington that is not or seems like it's not

474
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 4: doing shit to make their lives better. And one of

475
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 4: the things I think is the most obvious, the issue

476
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 4: where it's often the most clear is housing, where it

477
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 4: is such a revitalized issue and the experience of an

478
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 4: eighteen to twenty nine year old or a thirty to

479
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 4: forty year old in the housing market right now is

480
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 4: wildly different from that of a fifty or sixty year old.

481
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 4: It's almost incomprehensible.

482
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: To you know.

483
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 4: I think about like my grandma to understand what it

484
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 4: was like when I was trying to find a you know,

485
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 4: a room in a house on Craigslist. But we've seen

486
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 4: run for something along in California and Ohio and New

487
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 4: York and Massachusetts and Arizona and Rhode Island and Michigan,

488
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 4: you know, all across the country, just in the last

489
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,919
Speaker 4: couple of weeks, take really concrete steps to fight for

490
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 4: affordable housing, to make it easier for renters, to increase

491
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:33,360
Speaker 4: ten of protections, to make it harder to get evicted,

492
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 4: to rezone communities. All of this makes people who like

493
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:40,439
Speaker 4: engage in these races feel the impact of them. It's like,

494
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 4: you get to move into the apartment that the elected

495
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 4: official you helped elect and made possible. You get to

496
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 4: ride on the bike lane, you get to go to

497
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 4: the restaurant, you get to send your kids to the school.

498
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 4: It's so specific and personal, and it like makes government

499
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 4: feel like a net good, which I think is really,

500
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 4: really important for especially for young voters who feel creative,

501
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 4: disillusioned by the whole things.

502
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: Like I think so much about in Florida, where you

503
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: have a convergence of like ballad initiatives, you have young people,

504
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 1: you have a state party that is not killing it.

505
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: You know, the Democratic State Party in Florida has not

506
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: been great for a long time, but you have Nikki

507
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: Friedez now is now running it, so that's new. And

508
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 1: then you have some really great young progressives coming out

509
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: of that state, like Maxwell Frost who's a member of Congress,

510
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 1: and Anna Escimani, right, who's a state rep. So talk

511
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 1: to me about that Florida.

512
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Florida is a really good example of

513
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 4: how young people are leading the charge there. An Escamani's

514
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 4: a run for something alone. In Indo Ventries, Driscol who's

515
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 4: the minority leader in the state House, has a run

516
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 4: for something alone. Even we have an alum who's running

517
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 4: for Congress down in Miami. She was previously on the

518
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 4: Miami Dade school Board. She was one of the fiercest

519
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 4: advocates against some of the anti LGBTQ stuff that the

520
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,239
Speaker 4: DeSantis Master and we're trying to pass there and in

521
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,239
Speaker 4: some cases, did the leaders that you want I actually do.

522
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 4: I say, for Florida, it is not too late to

523
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 4: get on the ballot in Florida into a twenty four.

524
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 4: The filing of the line is coming up, but it's

525
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 4: not too late. So if you want to be on

526
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,320
Speaker 4: the ballot, especially in a moment where abortion is quite

527
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 4: literally there and until his amendment passes, there is a

528
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 4: six week band that goes into effect next month, which

529
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 4: I think is devastating for people seeking care in the state.

530
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 4: Legal weed will be on the ballot. Good thing. And

531
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 4: we know the same theory behind the case of like

532
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 4: why do these ballot initiatives seem to drive turnout time

533
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 4: to bring people out? Same is true with local candidates.

534
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 4: They can connect with voters on a different issue in

535
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 4: a different way that maybe the top of the ticket

536
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 4: just can't or doesn't be local folks, and these local

537
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 4: issues really can And in Florida, there's an incredible opportunity

538
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 4: this year to really further the case.

539
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really so impressed with the way that these

540
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: down ballot races do actually change things in states. I'm

541
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: wondering if you could talk a little bit one of

542
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: the things that Moms for Liberty did was that it

543
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 1: really showed us how important school boards were. Right, school

544
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,880
Speaker 1: boards had never been like a topic of like mainstream

545
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 1: media focus, and all of a sudden, school boards are battlegrounds.

546
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: And in Florida they really did. They were able to

547
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: take over some of these schools. And you do find,

548
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: you know, librarians quitting and teachers with bookshelves with red

549
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: tape on them you know you can't, you know, and

550
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: books removed. So I'm wondering, what are there of these

551
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 1: sort of smaller down ballot races do you think are

552
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: important and where you'd like to see more people running

553
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 1: or you'd like to see more attention.

554
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 4: I think it's you know, worth naming. There's no office

555
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 4: that's unimportant, but there's some that I think are really underrated.

556
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: As we're sleeper offices, We'll say.

557
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 4: You know, in a lot of places you can get

558
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 4: a library board. A lot of New York City I've

559
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 4: looked into it. I was really love what in other

560
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 4: places that you can run for a library board. And

561
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 4: that's a position that often oversees the library budget and

562
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 4: the community services that they offer, and libraries are often

563
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 4: the primary only place people really the government. They are

564
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 4: like a community hub and often the keeper of what

565
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 4: it means to live in that place. It's really beautiful

566
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 4: and it's really important. And boy do Republicans love taking

567
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 4: over libraries and underfunding them, destroying them and the like.

568
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 4: So librares around foreigner is another one that's sort of

569
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 4: under discussed.

570
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: Did you just say coroner? Sure did, I'm glad we've

571
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 1: gotten to the coroner part of the interview.

572
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 4: Now. This is something really came up during COVID, especially

573
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 4: when people who were anti vaccine anti trying to be

574
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 4: like deceptive about the numbers. You would see corner candidates

575
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 4: and corner like elected to try and undercount some of

576
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 4: the numbers there. We also have seen this in particular

577
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,239
Speaker 4: with things like homicide stats around trans people, which are

578
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 4: unfortunately like disproportionately present in those kinds of numbers, trying

579
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 4: to misgender people after death. All of this is abot

580
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:53,719
Speaker 4: a place where progressive values can really come to light

581
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 4: if we allot people who really care. The third thing

582
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 4: I think is really important that we don't talk about enough,

583
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 4: especially as it relates to democracy, is these municipal offices.

584
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 4: You know, elections are actually shared on the local level. This

585
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 4: is a program run for something's been running for a

586
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 4: couple of years now. We call it our clerk work

587
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 4: Clerk with an E, work with an media. If you're

588
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 4: feeling sassy, the idea of being met local election administrators,

589
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:18,240
Speaker 4: people like county clerks, town trustees. In some places, it's

590
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 4: even things like tax assessor or unfortunately sheriff as a

591
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 4: holdover from when property taxes helped shape whether or not

592
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 4: you could or could not vote, have a role to

593
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 4: play in administering the election. And we have seen the

594
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 4: Republican Party and sort of the mag extremists over the

595
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 4: last couple of years try and weasel their way into

596
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 4: these positions to undermine democracy. No, we've helped been able

597
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 4: to stop them in a number of places, but I

598
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 4: think especially in twenty twenty four, you know it's going

599
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,720
Speaker 4: to be really really important to have pro democracy folks

600
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 4: in these positions. Even if they win this November, some

601
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,000
Speaker 4: of them are going to take office like December. First

602
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 4: presidential and other races are probably not going to be

603
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 4: done by them. So you don't want to leave any

604
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 4: opening for a malicious actor or an incompetent one, or

605
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 4: a combination of the two to jump in and try

606
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 4: and undermine the life.

607
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: It's so scary. Let's go further on that and talk

608
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: a little bit about like, aren't there some elected positions

609
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 1: that are involved with elections totally?

610
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 4: You know, elections are administered in some places on the

611
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 4: town level and some places over the county level. In

612
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 4: other places it's by party, So it's a little bit

613
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 4: messy depending on where you are. But we've been really

614
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 4: intentional about recruiting pro democracy candidates for these offices, especially

615
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 4: in places where we know the election is likely to

616
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,479
Speaker 4: be really close. And so for exactly we did a

617
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 4: ton of this work in Pennsylvania, where the county commissions

618
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 4: actually oversee the elections budgets. One of my favorites isn't

619
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 4: in Dauphin County, which is like around Harrisburg. We worked

620
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 4: with a guy named Justin Douglas who's this incredible leader.

621
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 4: He was a pastor, He worked with the homeless community there.

622
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 4: He actually got fired from his congregation for being too

623
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 4: welcoming to LGBTQ worshippers people who wanted to come be

624
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 4: a part of there. We sent out a whole bunch

625
00:31:57,600 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 4: of text mesterses, and calls to folks in the area

626
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 4: being like, Hey, do you want to run for office.

627
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 4: Here's a county commission race. It's really important for democracy.

628
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 4: And he was like, Eh, I don't know. Let we

629
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 4: have a conversation. Maybe I know someone, And we talked

630
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 4: to him into running and got on the ballot. He

631
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 4: was outspent something like ten to one. He was knocking doors,

632
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 4: talking to voters, reminding them about the stakes of this race.

633
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 4: Also talking really focused about the crisis and the jail

634
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 4: system in the county which had let prisoners die out

635
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 4: of neglect. In a way it was really heartbreaking. He

636
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 4: was able to win his race, but I think ultimately

637
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 4: the margin was about one hundred and forty one hundred

638
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 4: and fifty votes. He helped flip the county Commission for

639
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 4: the first time in over one hundred years. And one

640
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 4: of the people he'd beat, or the person he beat,

641
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 4: had been a really active fighter against things like making

642
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 4: it easier for people to drop off their ballots, hearing

643
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 4: ballots after election day, even certifying the election. So his

644
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 4: presence on the Dauphin County Commission in Pennsylvania and election

645
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 4: we won in twenty twenty three is going to make

646
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 4: it easier for us to win the big elections in

647
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four.

648
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: I mean, local is really how you a get people

649
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: into politics and be how you get voters engaged, and

650
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: also how you get young people engaged.

651
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 4: Right absolutely. I mean we've heard this anecdotally from people

652
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 4: doing youth organizing four years. You know, they think about

653
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 4: local politics as the gateway. Maybe if someone doesn't give

654
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 4: a shit about who's their member of Congress or the

655
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 4: president presidential candidates, they're never going to meet them, They're

656
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 4: never going to hear from them. The issues they talk

657
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 4: about feel really abstract. But their city council candidate or

658
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 4: their school board or candidate is someone they know, someone

659
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 4: they meet, someone maybe they play basketball with at the

660
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,719
Speaker 4: gym where they see a school drop offline, or they

661
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 4: went to college with, or work with at the local

662
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 4: retail place, at the restaurant. It's someone they know. I

663
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 4: think that is a really powerful driver. In fact, political

664
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 4: science research has shown the strongest indicator that someone's going

665
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 4: to show up to the polls is a personal relationship

666
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 4: between candidate and voter. Everything else about it is meant

667
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 4: to replicate that, try to recreate that intimacy but a

668
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 4: personal relationship between candidate and voter is so powerful, and

669
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 4: that's what local candidates can do in a way that's

670
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 4: really genuine and authentic that the top of the ticket

671
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 4: just can't, at least not the same way.

672
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: When you say this, it does sound like the Biden

673
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: campaign is opening hundreds of field offices in these swingy districts.

674
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that be a way for the top of the

675
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: ticket to try to connect locally.

676
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it, And

677
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 4: a lot of our local candidates work out of those

678
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 4: field offices, and many places they'll be coordinated campaign offices.

679
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 4: And our local candidates have already been knocking doors in

680
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 4: many places for the last six months to a year

681
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 4: to longer. I get report outs from our states team

682
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 4: and our campaigns team every week, and they'll talk about,

683
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,879
Speaker 4: you know, Katerina has been out knocking. She's not ten

684
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 4: thousand doors. She's going through her universe three or four times.

685
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 4: You know, Jose has been knocking doors since last summer.

686
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 4: These are people who have really built relationships, So I

687
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 4: think it all helps. No election exists in a vacuum.

688
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 4: The doors that our school board candidates knock and our

689
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 4: state legislative candidate's knock also help Biden and the ads

690
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 4: that the Biden theme runs. The organizing they're doing also

691
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 4: helps these local races. The I think sort of thing

692
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 4: that sometimes people forget but is the places that the

693
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:03,720
Speaker 4: Biden campaign is going to focus, which as they should

694
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 4: strategically based on where they need to win, and the

695
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 4: places where some of the most dangerous Republican local candidates

696
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 4: are running are not always the same.

697
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: Right right, No, No, really important important point.

698
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 4: On like a very practical level. You know, it's going

699
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 4: to be incumbent on the Biden campaign to for example,

700
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 4: really engage voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and in some

701
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 4: really targeted suburbs, and some of the worst Republicans in

702
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 4: Pennsylvania are running in places that are just not going

703
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 4: to make sense for the Biden campaign to focus as

704
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 4: much any resources or energy. The same is true in

705
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 4: so many states across the country. And you know, especially

706
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 4: when you think about some of the other races on

707
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 4: the ballot like Shared Brown and Ohio and John Tester

708
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 4: in Montana, it's going to be really really helpful that

709
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 4: they have city council and school board candidates in those

710
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 4: states knocking doors because it's just not where the national

711
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 4: campaign is likely to be at all or as much

712
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 4: as they need to be to help the rest of

713
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,399
Speaker 4: those candidates. So all that's to say, you know, you

714
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:02,720
Speaker 4: invest in these small races, you can win the big

715
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,359
Speaker 4: ones and also make a difference in people's lives. It's

716
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 4: such a win win win in terms of your investment.

717
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: Amanda, Thank you run for something. I hopefully will have

718
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: you back a lot before the selection anytime.

719
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 3: Jim Wallace is.

720
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 2: The director of Georgetown University Center on Faith Injustice and

721
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 2: the author of The False White Gospel, Rejecting Christian Nationalism,

722
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 2: Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.

723
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: Welcome Too Fast Politics.

724
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:35,319
Speaker 5: Jim Wallace, it's a blessing to be here for me.

725
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 3: Thank you.

726
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: Explain to us a little bit about this book you wrote,

727
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: and I would love it if you could even it's

728
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: called False White Gospel, but even before that, if you

729
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: could just explain to us a little bit about your

730
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: personal trajectory.

731
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 5: Well, I am at Georgetown now. I was a founder

732
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 5: of Sojournals and for fifty years now I'm named after

733
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 5: my mentor. I'm the our Bishop Desmond Tutu, Chair of

734
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 5: Faith and justice a Jewish set, which is a wonderful

735
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 5: name for my friend and mentor of Desmond Tutu. And

736
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 5: we do faith and justice. That's what we talk about.

737
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 5: And so this book is saying we have a test

738
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 5: before us. It's a clear test, certainly a test of democracy,

739
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 5: as Molly you say so well and so often. It's

740
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 5: also a test of faith, a test of our faith

741
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 5: communities and whether they will stand up and speak the

742
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 5: truth here. And it's talking about this white Christian nationalism,

743
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 5: which the name spells the problem. First, the most welcoming

744
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 5: inclusive gospel message in history is made white. But secondly

745
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 5: it's Christian. But if they don't mean love and sacrifice

746
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 5: and service, I mean domination, control for power, and finally nationalism,

747
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 5: I mean Jesus gave a great commission to his disciples

748
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 5: go into all the world, making disciples of every nation,

749
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:02,239
Speaker 5: teaching them to go or whatever I have commanded you.

750
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:07,760
Speaker 5: So the book is about six iconic biblical texts, ancient texts.

751
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 5: I rephrase and reframe them that can apply to people,

752
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,760
Speaker 5: whether Christian or religious or not. I like Jesus saying

753
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 5: you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

754
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:20,479
Speaker 5: In John's Gospel. That means the opposite of truth isn't

755
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 5: just less lying, it's captivity. And so truth and freedom

756
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 5: are indivisible. So people are captive. So many people are

757
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 5: captive to this increasingly religious talking, this false messiah. Now

758
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 5: it's quite incredible of Donald Trump. And so I'm trying

759
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,800
Speaker 5: to let Jesus do the talking here and let's get

760
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 5: back to these things that we say we believe and

761
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 5: not just say what's wrong, but say here's a way forward.

762
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,760
Speaker 5: A lot of people are hungry for a better, different

763
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 5: conversation and what I call the faith factor. In twenty twenty.

764
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,720
Speaker 1: Four, I mean, I really do think a lot about

765
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: how former Vice President pens really did give evangelicals a

766
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: permission structure to support Trump. Wasn't he sort of like

767
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,319
Speaker 1: a critical part of this whole organization.

768
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, A naming hands gave assurance to a lot of

769
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 5: evangelicals that this was it was okay, and then Pence

770
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 5: broke with them at that constitutional moment and now is

771
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 5: in supporting them or endorsing him. So it's very interesting

772
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 5: how this choice we're making now is a faith choice

773
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 5: and not just This isn't just politics, isn't democratic republican

774
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 5: left or right. It's really about what kind of country,

775
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 5: what kind of people, what kind of nation do we

776
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 5: want to be. So one of the texts that I

777
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 5: have in this book that I love is imagine, while

778
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 5: you and I are surrounded by political noise, the fact

779
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 5: it's our vocation to listen to the noise and offer perspective.

780
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 3: Right, you and I?

781
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: Right, yes, it is. It happens to be in fact.

782
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 5: So the first chapter, first book of the Bible, Genesis

783
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 5: one twenty six says, in the middle of illinoise, I

784
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 5: like to think. Then God said, like me, quiet noise.

785
00:40:08,440 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 5: And then I said, let us create human kind, all

786
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 5: of human kind after our own image and likeness. So

787
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 5: right there is the foundation for all of our earthly

788
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 5: talk of human rights and voting rights is a theological

789
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 5: foundation that divinely created equality between all of us. So

790
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:30,879
Speaker 5: in the beginning, you might say God created all of us,

791
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:35,839
Speaker 5: all God's children, with God's image and dignity. And then

792
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 5: beginning of the United States. However, it was a doctrine

793
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:43,720
Speaker 5: of discovery that led to the obliterating and the stealing

794
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 5: of lands from indigenous people, then the kidnapping of Africans

795
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 5: for slavery, So we were a slave holding republic. Now

796
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 5: I didn't say democracy, and that is there, Molly. I

797
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 5: think all that's coming to a crescendo now, a culmination

798
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 5: what I call America's original sin is coming on the nation.

799
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 5: They're fighting this. This is their their last fight, and

800
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 5: they'll use any means necessary, any means. The trajectory of

801
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 5: politics of fear and hate in violence, that's their trajectory.

802
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 5: So we have to counter that, not just with partisan

803
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 5: politics or our own our own hawking points. This is

804
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 5: going to be confronted at a deep level with this

805
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 5: is let's call it idolatry. That's a word that some

806
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 5: of your listening quite know what it means. It means

807
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 5: false worship, means working the nation and not worshiping God.

808
00:41:36,719 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 5: He has a Bible he's selling for sixty bucks to

809
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 5: pay his legal fees for his trials about a porn star,

810
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 5: and on the front of the Bible says you bless

811
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 5: Usa Bible in the front of the Bible. So and

812
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 5: it's also heresy. Now that's a big word people will

813
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 5: get scared by. Heresy is anything that draws us away

814
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 5: from Christ. For Christians, draws us away well, this is

815
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:04,839
Speaker 5: his vision. His values are literally anti christ and that

816
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 5: must be said. There are black evangelicals who are pretty different.

817
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:13,439
Speaker 5: For white evangelicals. The word white evangelical, the real word

818
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 5: they're the big word is not evangelical. It's white. White

819
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,799
Speaker 5: dominates the phrase white Christian. So that's what we have

820
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,720
Speaker 5: to change and be transformed by, because people are captive.

821
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I'm struck by is this sort of like

822
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:34,800
Speaker 1: white evangelicals. Even though Mike Pence did break with Trump

823
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:39,760
Speaker 1: eventually and is saying he won't support Trump or not endorsed,

824
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: which strikes me as a big deal, evangelicals are not

825
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: breaking with Trump.

826
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 5: But again, let's let's clarify white evangelical right exactly. I

827
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 5: was asking, why can Christians talk about race? I said, well,

828
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 5: they they do. Black Christians do all the time. White

829
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,479
Speaker 5: Christians don't want to talk about that's so we've got

830
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 5: to Really I'm from that evangelic tradition. I was raised

831
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 5: in that, and I defined evangelical by Jesus opening Sermon

832
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,879
Speaker 5: at Nazareth, which I call is Nazareth Manifesto. He quoted

833
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 5: Isaiah and he said, the spirit of the Lord is

834
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 5: upon me because he has annoyed me to bring good

835
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 5: news and the word for good news. There is evangel

836
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 5: in the Greek good news to the poor. So any

837
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 5: gospel that isn't good news to the poor is not

838
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 5: the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's just period. That's a fact.

839
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,400
Speaker 5: So in the book I talked about how when Jesus

840
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 5: says I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked,

841
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 5: I was a stranger. The word means immigrant there in scriptures.

842
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 5: I was sick, I was in prison. And what you

843
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:42,879
Speaker 5: do to the least of these, he says, you've done

844
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,400
Speaker 5: to me. He's saying it was me that Matthew twenty

845
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 5: five Gospel test with was my conversion text out of

846
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 5: the student movement back in the day that brought me

847
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 5: to faith. And that is the economics of Jesus, which

848
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,200
Speaker 5: turns our politics literally upside down. So I want to

849
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 5: talk about what the real Jesus is saying and doing.

850
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 5: Jesus suffered identity theft on January sixth, with islands storming.

851
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 5: Attackers lifted his flag and she like alongside a Confederate flag,

852
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 5: and when they got to taking over the Senate, they

853
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 5: shouted Jesus name in prayer. That's something that I, as

854
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,399
Speaker 5: a Christian, am not going to just accept that that's

855
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 5: going to be directly fundamentally challenged. And so this book

856
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 5: is an interrogation Molly of fate at a crisis time.

857
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 5: It's interrogation of faith. So what I'm finding is there

858
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:38,959
Speaker 5: real hunger out there, you know, a hunger out there

859
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 5: for a different kind of faith factor, a different kind

860
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 5: of faith narrative in the middle of this critical twenty

861
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 5: twenty four election season.

862
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: So one of the things I've heard do you say

863
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: when you're interviewed, is that this is actually a book

864
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: for pastors. Will you talk to me a little bit

865
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 1: about what that means.

866
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 5: It's for pastors and all their congregants, and it's also

867
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 5: for at George and I Love my classes and their

868
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 5: students who usually they're in the none of the above category.

869
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 5: They signal out for religious hiliation, they don't know about

870
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 5: their faith, they're struggling. It's for all the people outside

871
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 5: the church who are struggling with these things too. But

872
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 5: pastors are facing literally molly. Pastors who want to say

873
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 5: what they know is true are facing death threats, even

874
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 5: from people in their own congregations.

875
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 3: This is amazing and.

876
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 5: Outdiede and others have totally politicized their gospel to be

877
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 5: a Trump religion. So there's a battle going on. And

878
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:44,720
Speaker 5: the book hopefully provides for pastors or other congregational leaders,

879
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,720
Speaker 5: or just ordinary people in their small groups or Bible

880
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 5: studies or community groups. Here are some texts, here is

881
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 5: some language. Here is some way to apply ancient biblical texts,

882
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 5: whether we're believers or not through this moment. And I

883
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 5: want to take them on with the texts, and I

884
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:04,239
Speaker 5: don't want to just take them on with alternative media

885
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 5: or something. So the title of the book was going

886
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 5: to be do we believe this or not? There's been

887
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 5: a political taco of the white evangelical world, not the

888
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 5: black churches, but the white evangelical world.

889
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things that Trump did was Trump

890
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: gave white evangelicals a permission structure for being significantly sort

891
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: of their worst instincts in a way that you probably

892
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:35,000
Speaker 1: wouldn't have that permission structure for white evangelicals otherwise. Do

893
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 1: you think that there's any way to sort of put

894
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: that genie back in the bottle?

895
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 5: You've said now this word permission structure twice, So let's

896
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,799
Speaker 5: unpack at bit. It goes again deep riven politics. Every nation,

897
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 5: every nation, Bullius, you know, has its better angels and

898
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 5: its worst teamons. And Trump isn't just He's a marketer,

899
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 5: not a leader. He's a market He's marketing not only

900
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 5: racial grievance. I would say Trump is marketing our worst demons.

901
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 5: And those demons run very deep. And so what's at

902
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 5: stake here is the integrity of faith communities, whether our

903
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 5: demons in this nation will take them over, which is happening.

904
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 5: And I call them mega mega churches, which are the

905
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,759
Speaker 5: big churches that are going for Trump. It's all politics now,

906
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 5: it's all been politicized. So I want to challenge a

907
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 5: lot of those Trumps surrogus to debates about the Bible.

908
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 5: What does the Bible say. There's a lot of younger leaders,

909
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 5: even white evangelically younger ones who are really unsettled. They're

910
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 5: sometimes appalled by what's going on and the book. I

911
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:46,760
Speaker 5: talk about maybe a new what I'm calling remnant church,

912
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 5: which would be white believers, parchic younger ones who want

913
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 5: to join with black and brown church leaders to create

914
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 5: really literally a new American church in this country. Now,

915
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 5: how many of those Evangelicals will break with Trump. I

916
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 5: don't know, but it's not these angelicals as mainline Protestants,

917
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 5: as Catholics. The issue is whiteness, right white, and when

918
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 5: whiteness has taken over, and that's literally an idolatry. So

919
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 5: I want it, you know, as Jesus is saying about freedom,

920
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:25,360
Speaker 5: set people free from their captivity. As I've said that,

921
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 5: you've heard me say, every every movement has to decide

922
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 5: who they can persuade, but also who they must defeat,

923
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 5: and I mean violently, I mean the ballot box. But

924
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 5: this book says that'll be a controversial lie in his

925
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 5: book because I want to persuade people, and some can

926
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,919
Speaker 5: be persuaded, so I think, But I want to give

927
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 5: people the tools to defeat these people, to feed them

928
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 5: at the ballot box. The religious political power people who

929
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,399
Speaker 5: are just going for power and using religion. To use

930
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:59,360
Speaker 5: religion to go for power is blasphemous, to use a

931
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 5: religious world.

932
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 1: So interesting, and also I would say, like so important

933
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: what you're doing. One of the things that my husband,

934
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: you know, we're both reform Jews. I grew up a Unitarian.

935
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,319
Speaker 1: My stepmom's a Unitarian minister. But you know, we raise

936
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 1: our children reform jew but very liberal. We love our Rabbi.

937
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 1: My daughter loves her so much because she did this

938
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 1: whole asserment about how she doesn't believe everything happens for

939
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:30,359
Speaker 1: a reason. Very progressive and groovy. But one of the

940
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:33,439
Speaker 1: things that we often talk about is how the right

941
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: has gotten very like if you look at the Supreme Court,

942
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: they put Catholics on the court and not Protestants on

943
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 1: the court because I think a lot of the thinking

944
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: in the republican federalist society world is that Catholics are

945
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: more open to this very regressive legislation when it comes

946
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 1: to a lot of the rights and I'm thinking reproductive

947
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: rights that we in this country have had taken for

948
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 1: granted for so long. Do you do you think that

949
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: Protestants have kind of gotten squeezed out of this Well.

950
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,399
Speaker 5: That's interesting. I think people are put there for their

951
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 5: it's sorry to say, for their political ideology the federal level,

952
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 5: and religion can come along with that. But you know,

953
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:21,280
Speaker 5: Pope Francis continues to encourage and inspire me. He doesn't

954
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 5: even in the single issue politics, a worship being the

955
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 5: only issue he talks about. A consistent ethic of life,

956
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 5: where the death penalty is a life issue, and poverty

957
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 5: is a life issue, and supporting families is a life issue.

958
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 5: Nuclear weapons is a life issue. Has broader view which

959
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 5: Renstance embodies is being narrowed and politicized in this country

960
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 5: in some Catholic churches and some bishops. Some bishops are

961
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,440
Speaker 5: saying really powerful frances like things, and others are not.

962
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 5: So the way they use ideology put together with religion.

963
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 5: It's almost like the ideology of the America's original sin

964
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 5: we've had for a very long time, and yet now

965
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 5: there's a theology underneath that's a false theology. And so

966
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 5: that's ideology and heresy go together at the same time.

967
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 5: So that's being put together. So how can we some

968
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 5: you know people you and I know some feel that

969
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 5: the best answer to bad religion is no religion. I

970
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 5: understand that certainly in some days he says with trump

971
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 5: Bibles and all the rest. But I think the answer

972
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 5: to bad religion is better religion, or good faith or

973
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 5: true faith. The subtitle is the book is you know,

974
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 5: it's rejecting Christian nationalism, reclaiming true faith, and refounding democracy.

975
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 5: So I want to bring good faith, true faith into

976
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 5: this and confront the bad faith on religious grounds and say, no,

977
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 5: you got it wrong. Here's what Jesus said, Here's what

978
00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 5: the first book in the Bible, in Genesis says. Here's

979
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 5: what the apostle Paul says in Galatians three twenty eight

980
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:00,720
Speaker 5: about breaking down barriers of race and class and gender

981
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,560
Speaker 5: which are always there. And this Galatians text was a

982
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 5: baptismal formula in the early Church in Christ. There's no

983
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 5: ge or gentile, bonder, free male or female. They read

984
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,920
Speaker 5: that at every baptism. They were saying, literally, we're followers

985
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:21,359
Speaker 5: in the side tenor at brownskin Palestinian rabbi who has

986
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 5: us that we have to overcome these pillars, these divisive

987
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 5: factors which are always there, as you know so well,

988
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 5: always race, class, and gender.

989
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 3: And they're saying, we're not.

990
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 5: Perfect, but it's our vocation to overcome those things, not

991
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:39,319
Speaker 5: extracurricular or volunteer time. So they were saying, so, if

992
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 5: you don't want to be hoarded that kind of community,

993
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 5: you better go somewhere else. Now imagine if American churches

994
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 5: we're using that Galicians text in all their baptisms. That

995
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 5: text by the way I learned in my research here

996
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 5: was Galatians three twenty eight was banned taken out of

997
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 5: all the white slaveholder Bibles.

998
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: We're out of time. I hope you'll come back, though.

999
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: It's such a rich topic and I feel like we

1000
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:07,240
Speaker 1: didn't even really scratch the service.

1001
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:07,879
Speaker 3: Well.

1002
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 5: I like your voice when I see you personally, so

1003
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 5: I'm happy to come back. And I think I'm hoping

1004
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 5: this what can be a tool to use to the

1005
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 5: persuadables and even those who we have to confront and

1006
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:27,320
Speaker 5: really defeat them in the narrative about what good faith

1007
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:37,280
Speaker 5: really means. No moment o fuck, Rick Wilson, Molly Jong fasts.

1008
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 3: Would you like a moment of fuckery?

1009
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: Yes, I.

1010
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:48,760
Speaker 3: I've got one. I go Virginia. Republicans eat a giant

1011
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 3: sack of ass. You are not renaming Dulles International Airport

1012
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:57,040
Speaker 3: after Donald Trump. Listen, if you want to name something

1013
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 3: after Donald Trump, it's going to be the laundry facility

1014
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 3: at the Florence ad X Supermax prison. It's gonna be

1015
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 3: it's gonna be a goddamn railyard in bumfuck as Crack, Oklahoma.

1016
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 3: You're not naming a goddamn international airport where people come

1017
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:15,879
Speaker 3: from around the world after the worst president in the

1018
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 3: history of the United States. I will burn my own

1019
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 3: ass down before I see this happen. It is unbelievable, Molly.

1020
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 3: Can you imagine like people will be like, I'm flying

1021
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 3: the Trump Trump, Where are you flying it to Washington? Oh? Oh? National?

1022
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 3: Now it would be humiliating for this country.

1023
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, Dulles is humiliating for this country. And it's

1024
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:40,520
Speaker 1: also like two hours out of Washington. Honestly, I can't

1025
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: speak to Dallas because I've never flown through it.

1026
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:44,240
Speaker 3: Dullas is a very lovely airport.

1027
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:48,959
Speaker 1: You're welcome Dulles, and it's it's located somewhere near Washington, DC.

1028
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:51,640
Speaker 3: It is located somewhere in the DC metroplex.

1029
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: Yes, I metroplex.

1030
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 3: By the way.

1031
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: Listen, you want to name an airport that no one

1032
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,800
Speaker 1: goes to for Donald Trump? Maybe that's a good plan.

1033
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:03,279
Speaker 3: Anyway, Listen, a lot of people go there though it's

1034
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 3: a big international HUBY fly in and out of there

1035
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 3: all the time.

1036
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 1: Yes, it is our moment of fuckery.

1037
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:11,800
Speaker 3: I'm sorry if people don't find this moment of fuckery

1038
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 3: as exciting as other moments of fuckery. But honestly, I

1039
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 3: mean they renamed fucking highway in Florida after Donald Trump.

1040
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 3: I won't drive on it. Fuck them not do it?

1041
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: All right, Well, and that is our moment of fuckery.

1042
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:27,359
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

1043
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:30,640
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds

1044
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:33,880
Speaker 1: in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you

1045
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend

1046
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:40,280
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.