Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

Released Tuesday, 7th January 2025
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Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

Strategies for the Resistance 2.0 with Leah Greenberg

Tuesday, 7th January 2025
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1:08

And if there's anything we know about successful

1:10

movements to defeat autocracies around the world,

1:12

right? Successful movements to take down dictatorships

1:14

is that they build broad coalitions is that

1:16

the coalition may not be united by

1:18

anything other than their opposition to what

1:20

is currently happening and that is what is

1:22

That is actually a precondition for success

1:24

in many cases. And a so for of

1:26

what we're gonna have to do during

1:28

this time is recognize that some people

1:30

will be with us on some issues

1:32

that we care about and they won't

1:34

be with us on other issues or

1:36

other policies that we care about. about, and

1:38

we still need them as part of that broad

1:40

front for democracy. need them as

1:42

part of that broad

1:45

front for democracy.

1:47

and welcome to Why Is This Happening with me, your

1:49

host Chris Hayes. Happening with Me,

1:51

your host, Chris Hayes. Well,

1:53

as I speak to you,

1:55

the As I speak

1:58

to you, the

2:00

country is preparing

2:02

for the second.

2:04

of Donald Trump and the Democratic

2:06

Party and the broader, let's say,

2:08

central left, the broad coalition of

2:10

folks on the center left, ranging

2:13

from, you know, Noam Chomsky to

2:15

Liz Cheney, is trying to figure

2:17

out how they are going to

2:19

deal with, work against, maybe compromise

2:21

with this new Trump administration. And

2:23

there's been a pretty notable different

2:25

tune being sung by a lot of prominent...

2:27

Democratic politicians about Trump. I think in 2016,

2:30

to generalize, Democrats generally thought it was a

2:32

fluke. He had lost the popular vote by

2:34

three million votes, which is like not an

2:36

insignificant amount actually, and in fact, it's a

2:38

larger amount than he wanted by this time.

2:40

And that He was an aberration and needed

2:43

to be resisted from day one. And we

2:45

saw that with the woman's march that happens

2:47

the day after inauguration. We saw it. Democrats

2:49

skipping his inauguration. And generally this, you know,

2:51

this notion of resistance, which became a kind

2:53

of watchword. This time around, you have a

2:55

lot of prominent Democrats saying, we have to

2:58

take a different tack. We have to work

3:00

with Donald Trump on areas of shared agreement.

3:02

You even have Bernie Sanders, obviously, who's sort

3:04

of to the left of the Democratic caucus,

3:06

saying, I look forward to working with Trump

3:08

on capping credit card fees at 10%, which

3:10

is some policy that Trump, in his sort

3:13

of inimitable way, threw out at some campaign

3:15

stop, which don't hold your breath for that

3:17

to happen. You've got Tom Swazzy who's a

3:19

kind of centrist moderate Democrat in the Long

3:21

Island district that Donald Trump won, running op-ed

3:23

this weekend saying, we can't just resist, we

3:26

have to look for areas of agreement, you

3:28

have Rokana who's a progressive from California member

3:30

of Congress saying the same thing. And so

3:32

there's an interesting debate happening about, okay, what

3:34

do Democrats, progressives, liberals, people on the left,

3:36

that whole spectrum of folks, what do they

3:38

do this time around with Trump? Should there

3:41

be lessons learned? Is there evidence that the

3:43

previous approach didn't work because he got elected?

3:45

Does that mean new approaches have to be

3:47

tried? Should there be more? treating him

3:49

like a quote unquote normal Should

3:51

there be more should there

3:53

be more cooperation or for areas

3:56

of shared agreement? And

3:58

this is something that

4:00

I've been thinking about

4:02

too, not so much

4:04

about too those terms, but

4:06

even how we cover

4:09

him and how we

4:11

do it. you know, this

4:13

time as opposed to know time. as And so I

4:15

thought it'd be good to talk to someone who's

4:17

sort of been in the trenches of this who's

4:19

2016. in the trenches after Donald Trump. after

4:21

Donald was elected, there was this

4:23

group called itself Indivisible that that

4:25

this kind of manual. was

4:27

from former Capitol Hill staffers Hill

4:29

like, here's how to think about

4:32

here's how to think about in real terms, terms,

4:34

how to resist Donald Trump in

4:36

politics. And Indivisible became this

4:38

mass organization. It's very distributed. There's

4:40

thousands of local groups. And

4:42

they've remained very active. They played

4:44

a really key part in

4:46

defeating the attempt to repeal the

4:48

Affordable Care Act. Care Act. And they've

4:50

done a whole bunch of stuff since

4:52

They were very were on child separation.

4:54

They've been activated in the election, and

4:56

they're still around. election Leah Greenberg is one

4:58

of the folks that is

5:00

co of the folks back in 2016. And

5:03

she's the co -executive director there the

5:06

And I thought it would be good to kind

5:08

of check in with her about how Indivisible,

5:10

which is one of the biggest groups that kind

5:12

of came about in response to Trump 1 .0,

5:14

about how they're thinking about Trump 2 .0. So,

5:16

1.0 about how to the program. Great to be

5:18

here. 2. So Leah Greenberg. Will you

5:21

tell me first

5:23

a little bit me

5:25

first a little bit about your background and

5:27

how Indivisible came about the first time. time?

5:29

Absolutely. I'm a former congressional staffer, as you

5:31

mentioned, you and I had spent a lot

5:33

of my career before Trump was elected

5:35

working in the field of human trafficking. in the

5:37

field of human trafficking. So congressional staffers to talk to

5:39

advocates from the human trafficking field about

5:41

how to understand and how to move policy. And

5:43

after And after Donald Trump was elected, like

5:45

a lot of people, I was looking

5:47

at the work that I had done, and

5:49

I was looking at at. what was at

5:51

stake Donald Donald Trump was preparing to come

5:53

in. And I was very, very alarmed and

5:55

felt like we needed to move from

5:57

the policy work that I had been doing to

5:59

organizing. to build power to stop Trump and

6:02

what was happening. And my husband Ezra

6:04

Levin, who's my co-founder, co-executive director, had

6:06

worked on poverty policy before that. He

6:09

had the same set of reactions. And

6:11

we were looking around, we were seeing

6:13

this massive wave of people who were

6:16

organizing, right? Regular people who were out

6:18

there all over the country who were

6:20

suddenly looking for answers on how they

6:22

were going to push back and stop

6:25

Donald Trump. And so we took all

6:27

the lessons that we had learned when

6:29

we had learned. And so we took

6:32

all the lessons that we had learned

6:34

when we met the Tea Party in

6:36

our own congressional careers, a very, very

6:39

effective local organizing force that organized, that

6:41

focused on their own elected officials. We

6:43

figured our friends would read it, they'd

6:46

share it with their families, maybe somebody

6:48

would let us know in six months

6:50

that they had read it, and they'd

6:52

used it at a town hall, and

6:55

we would be super proud of ourselves.

6:57

That's not what happened. Instead, thousands of

6:59

people picked it up, they started organizing,

7:02

they started running, they started running with

7:04

it, they started organizing, they started running

7:06

with it, and suddenly we had catapulted

7:09

ourselves into this point. but a really

7:11

important one, which is it really matters

7:13

if you can get a bunch of

7:16

people. It doesn't have to be a

7:18

huge amount, 20, 25, 30, 100, who

7:20

are represented by an actual member of

7:22

Congress to contact that person or to

7:25

organize together and say, come meet with

7:27

us, to say, these are our priorities.

7:29

Like that. I guess at some level it's obvious, but

7:31

it's amazing how a-hard it is to do that and be how

7:34

often it isn't done by non-professional groups. There's all kinds of groups

7:36

that are, you know, creating this kind of agitation or lobbying from

7:38

a sort of top-down professional way, but actual grassroots, hey, me and

7:40

25 of my fellow members of your district are really angry about

7:42

this thing, and we want to hear what you have to say

7:44

about it, and we want to meet with you and talk with

7:46

you about it. That's right, and that is the core of our

7:48

theory of change of change, right. is that if

7:51

you organize locally you push with you push

7:53

with your elected officials, you can

7:55

either get them to listen to

7:57

you or you can often exact

7:59

some political consequences if they do

8:01

not listen to you and they

8:03

do not do what you're asking

8:05

them to do. them to effect is

8:07

true in in and it can it

8:10

be even more true on the

8:12

very local level. If you get

8:14

right? If people to show up to

8:16

a county commissioner meeting, that is

8:18

a is alarm for that county

8:20

commissioner. commissioner, right? And so. this kind local organizing,

8:22

if you know what you're talking

8:24

about, if you come in armed

8:26

with an if you puts you pretty

8:29

much automatically puts you top much of in

8:31

like the top 1% of your day. In

8:33

fact, what's funny is that

8:35

that basic lever is you can lever,

8:37

right, that you can kind of get a kind of 10x,

8:39

100x power response from showing up used

8:41

to often used to terrible ends.

8:43

of, you know, The problem with this with

8:46

this big debate we're having about

8:48

the inability to build housing the

8:50

that sort of nimby versus yimby versus yimby.

8:52

postures towards it. A lot of times just a a

8:54

few people show up to the planning meeting

8:56

people that are the people that are motivated to

8:58

come the meeting or people that people the new

9:00

affordable housing housing development. and so if there's five

9:02

of them there and they're like we don't

9:04

want this that like, we don't power that's outsized of the

9:06

insights I think for your group is that

9:08

that Progressives can use that to their advantage if

9:10

they could also get get or 10 people to

9:12

show to show up. 100% 100% you be a really You can

9:14

be a really outsized influence in your elected

9:16

are simply organized and you you are simply organized and you

9:19

are prepared and you show up to you you

9:21

use the tools available to you, whether that

9:23

is local press, whether that is social media,

9:25

whether that is organizing your friends, or whether

9:27

that's just calling into their office on a

9:29

regular basis and checking in on the status

9:31

of the thing you care about. on a

9:33

regular So when you think about, in on the

9:36

status of the this of viral moment. You

9:38

said you weren't, you were anticipating sort

9:40

of put it out there, maybe people

9:42

will use it, and then it became

9:44

this sort of the move on of

9:46

its generation in some ways. mean, it

9:48

was similar in some ways to move on,

9:50

which also kind of virally took off,

9:52

was distributed, have local groups, move on move

9:54

on obviously much exists much much a very effective

9:56

much a very This was organization. This was 2016. What

9:58

do do you think you look back on those

10:00

four years. What are the kind of successes

10:02

and failures? What are the winds losses? What

10:05

do you think? Oh yeah, we really nailed

10:07

that. Okay, we didn't nail that and I

10:09

want to take some lessons from it. Well,

10:11

I would start at the beginning because I

10:13

do think that we're a little bit memory-holing,

10:15

just how deeply uncertain the immediate period after

10:17

Donald Trump was elected back in 2016 was,

10:19

right? You had Democrats, including Democrats like Chuck

10:22

Schumer, who were talking about, well... you know

10:24

we lost an election is an election they

10:26

have consequences maybe we'll work together on infrastructure

10:28

that's actually a big part of why we

10:30

wrote the indivisible guide because we were really

10:32

disappointed and frustrated with the lack of leadership

10:34

that was coming from a lot of Democrats

10:37

in Washington in Washington in November and December

10:39

and we were thinking the thing that's going

10:41

to shake them out of this torpor is

10:43

having a big bunch of their constituents show

10:45

up and get mad and that is exactly

10:47

what happened right. Chuck Schumer had daily and

10:49

weekly and weekly protests outside his house, outside

10:51

of all his congressional districts. He had this

10:54

massive wave of constituent protests from Indivisible, but

10:56

from a lot of folks across New York,

10:58

that got him in shape and got him

11:00

moving back into a resistance posture. This happened

11:02

with a bunch of Democrats. I think that

11:04

we can forget a little bit, we can

11:06

sort of look back and think that it

11:09

started with the women's march, which was obviously

11:11

like a huge and enormous moment, but there

11:13

was a lot of people kind of running

11:15

around in circles for the first few months.

11:17

And so the actual fact that we were

11:19

able to organize, not just to save the

11:21

Affordable Care Act, but the first step in

11:23

saving the Affordable Care Act, which was getting

11:26

all of the Democrats in line, getting them

11:28

consistent and united so that it was a

11:30

fight between Republicans about trying to get to

11:32

the number necessary to pass it. That set

11:34

of achievements, I think, is the first and

11:36

very significant success that we need to focus

11:38

in right now on. That complicates a little

11:41

bit of the very quick history I gave

11:43

at the top of the show, which is

11:45

what you're saying is actually more similarity between

11:47

the initial reaction 2016 and now, which is,

11:49

and I think this is almost like, deep

11:51

into the DNA of

11:53

Democrats, which is which is

11:55

like, we got our

11:58

butts kicked. Let's work

12:00

together work together of first

12:02

instinct, right? Not the

12:04

instinct of Republicans at

12:06

all. Obviously, at quite famously

12:08

not Mitch McConnell, you

12:10

know, coming out after

12:12

Obama won this enormous

12:15

victory. enormous seats and

12:17

saying, Senate seats in saying, yeah, them, screw

12:19

them all. them all. So what you're saying you're saying is

12:21

that there was a lot of that

12:23

impulse early in in reaction to Trump's election and

12:25

that part of the the posture

12:27

was the product of

12:29

organizing that the grassroots the to not,

12:31

you know, to not. core you

12:33

know, compromise on these core things. and think

12:36

that's a big factor say there generally I would

12:38

say there are in fact a lot

12:40

of similarities now. about Again, we talk about

12:42

the first kind of big active resistance as

12:44

the March, but actually the first big active

12:46

resistance was a ton of people getting

12:48

organized to show up to somebody's house house.

12:50

week or the week, the after the election and have

12:52

a community meeting, right? People went and

12:55

showed up to their neighbors. right? They had

12:57

meetings in churches or synagogues. They got together

12:59

in local libraries, synagogues, they A lot of

13:01

the reason why Indivisible was able to take

13:03

off is because people had already started

13:05

to work. why on a hyper -local level in

13:07

early 2016, and so they were able

13:09

to pick up the indivisible guide was able what

13:11

they had already started trying to do

13:14

and called themselves to take and we were off

13:16

to the races. But that to already happened.

13:18

And we actually have seen that able to,

13:20

this cycle. We had We had a joint movement

13:22

call with about 100 organizations from across

13:24

the progressive ecosystem immediately after the election. This

13:26

was Thursday This was the election on Tuesday. We

13:29

on 140 ,000 people on that call.

13:31

out of that call, call our main

13:33

for people, you know, you know, we we

13:35

cried, we laughed, cried, tried we we to hold We tried

13:37

to hold space for each other's grief, but

13:39

our mean ask for people was to host a

13:41

meeting for your friends, for your neighbors, for

13:43

your community. Get folks together to process

13:45

in person. This is not a healthy moment

13:47

to be doom -scrolling on the internet. It's the the

13:49

of time you need to get face -to -face

13:51

with other people. people. And we have seen over

13:53

a thousand meetings come out of that process.

13:56

Those folks continue to be activated. Those

13:58

communities continue to be activated. all come into

14:00

us and asking what's next. So what

14:02

I would say is that there are

14:04

actually a lot of similarities on the

14:06

ground level in what is happening right

14:08

now to what was happening in 2017

14:10

at this point. That's interesting you say

14:12

that because I think there's a broad

14:15

sense that it's very different that it's

14:17

very different that people have checked out

14:19

that they're kind of like and that

14:21

and I do think I don't know

14:23

if you feel this way that like

14:25

the fact that he lost the popular

14:27

vote the first time and one at

14:29

this time has some profound psychological psychological

14:31

in 2016, it's like the country didn't

14:33

actually choose this guy. Like a quirk

14:35

of a constitutional system that is just

14:37

a terrible wiring in the walls of

14:39

our country basically glitched and we got

14:41

them. This time, you know, there's a

14:43

lot more of kind of, I don't

14:45

know, resignation, depression or like, well, I

14:47

guess this is what America wants. What

14:49

are you going to do? And what

14:51

I'm hearing from you is you don't,

14:53

at the grassroots level in terms of

14:55

the folks that you're in contact with.

14:57

You don't feel like there's resignation. You

14:59

don't feel like there's checking out. Oh

15:02

no, but what I would qualify there

15:04

is, I think that at... For the

15:06

lack of a better term, I'm going

15:08

to say elite stakeholder levels. There is

15:10

a ton of resignation, right? When I

15:12

am thinking about people who run institutions

15:14

that are kind of battening the hatches

15:16

and, you know, hunkering down and trying

15:18

to avoid attracting the Trump administration's tension

15:20

when I'm thinking about corporations that are

15:22

sending their CEOs to Maralago to try

15:24

and reach a detente when I'm thinking

15:26

about, you know, media institutions like ABC

15:28

coming to a major settlement agreement with

15:30

Donald Trump. who are thinking about how

15:32

do they protect themselves, there is a

15:34

ton of resignation going on. But if

15:36

you are looking at actual regular people

15:38

whose values did not change just because

15:40

we lost an election by 1.5 percent,

15:42

right? It is true that we lost

15:44

the popular vote this time. That doesn't

15:46

mean it's 1984. That doesn't mean it's

15:49

a landslide. Sometimes you lose elections. We

15:51

got a lot of people out there

15:53

who are still incredibly frustrated, incredibly concerned

15:55

and looking for answers on how do

15:57

they push back. Okay. so

15:59

that's one one

16:01

lesson was that

16:03

this posture resistance wasn't. organic,

16:06

that it had to be actually mobilized

16:08

and organized from the bottom up.

16:11

What are other things that you think were

16:13

successes of the model, of the indivisible model

16:15

and the sort of broader resistance model in

16:17

the first term? Yeah. What I

16:19

would say was challenging as time went on

16:21

in the first Trump term was that

16:23

the tactics, a lot of the tactics started

16:26

to stay the same and started to

16:28

get stale even as our targets were evolving,

16:30

right? So some of those Republicans who

16:32

were squishy early on and who were maybe

16:34

movable during 2017, during 2018, they were

16:36

a little scared. They did not know the

16:38

size of the wave that was coming

16:40

at them. They could see that something was

16:42

genuinely happening in reaction to Trump and

16:44

they weren't yet sure whether that was a

16:46

wave that was big enough to take

16:48

them down. in their Trump plus five or

16:50

Trump plus 10 district. Over the next couple

16:52

of years, they got a little bit

16:54

of a handle on what they were facing

16:56

and most of them reached an assessment

16:58

if they were in a safe Republican district

17:00

in particular that they were going to

17:02

be in more danger from a primary challenge

17:04

than they were going to be in

17:06

danger from us, from any kind of other

17:09

organized constituent opposition and that they had

17:11

more to gain from representing the far right

17:13

of their party than they did their

17:15

median constituent. So that's one thing that changed

17:17

was, the Republicans became a more aligned,

17:19

more consolidated force. Trump critics were pushed out.

17:21

Trump enablers were promoted within the party. There

17:23

was just less of the room for

17:25

actual constituency advocacy designed to change people's minds

17:27

as opposed to constituent advocacy that was

17:29

designed to share a political message that could

17:32

bring people to our side. And so

17:34

I think we were slow to recognize that

17:36

as that was changing, we needed to

17:38

think about our tactics less in terms of

17:40

how are we going to actually flip

17:42

these guys and more in terms of how

17:44

are we designing and telling the political

17:46

story that is necessary to build the broad...

17:49

our coalition to get these folks out. Let's

17:51

stay that because there are ways in which

17:53

Trump 2 .0 I think represents a larger

17:55

threat and is scarier in certain ways,

17:57

just in terms of what it means for

17:59

American democracy. and also the the

18:01

risk of of mismanaging the federal government,

18:03

whether that's terrorism, pandemics, et

18:05

cetera. But etc. thing

18:07

that's pretty striking is on

18:09

this narrow question of mobilizing

18:11

constituents around legislative fights, which

18:14

is the origin of what

18:16

you and Ezra were writing

18:18

about. about in that original document.

18:20

This is one of the

18:22

narrowest congressional majorities we've ever seen.

18:24

we've ever It's going to to be... 220,

18:27

215, and -15, and then 219, -19, 2

18:29

-15, they'll get a few seats

18:31

Stefanic know, at least DeFonic and

18:33

Mike Walls get confirmed and

18:35

they, you know, presumably they run

18:37

special elections, although, you know, we've seen

18:39

seen Democrats outperform in special elections

18:41

at insane at so nothing is - so

18:43

nothing is, nothing's a Those will actually

18:46

be really interesting early fights interesting are

18:48

worth contesting for sure because those

18:50

will be real messages. will be real messages.

18:52

But even if it is, know, know,

18:54

whatever it's gonna be. to be. That is going to

18:56

let's say. sledding is

18:59

gonna be a tough. to

19:01

sort of Mike Johnson, and

19:03

the ability to sort of

19:05

more available in the wheels of this. and progressive

19:08

activists than it to Democrats

19:10

and progressive activists than it was in

19:12

an years ago. Trump in

19:14

an election that Trump actually

19:16

won this time with a

19:18

narrower Well, majority. goes to that goes to

19:21

a basic point, right? He does not have

19:23

a mandate. a He One on on the basis of

19:25

himself from himself from the Project 2025 which he

19:27

is absolutely then going to try and put

19:29

into office. office, One of the constant challenges

19:31

that we heard from people who are running

19:33

focus groups, who are doing testing around groups, who

19:35

you doing testing around locked in message on Trump, But a

19:37

lot of these folks that we lost to

19:39

him, they simply didn't believe some of the

19:41

stuff that he said he was going to

19:44

do, right? That is not a stable coalition

19:46

once you're actually trying to enact your promises,

19:48

even if you do have a big to majority

19:50

when we stopped the first attempt to

19:52

repeal the Affordable Care Act in the

19:54

house They had Act in the They had a

19:56

They had a majority. Wow. I forgot it

19:58

was that big. Yeah, exactly So You

22:48

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22:50

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22:52

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22:54

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22:56

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Apple Podcasts. George

26:08

W. Bush, were you were organizing about

26:10

Mitt Romney. And Mitt Romney wanted

26:12

some big, big, you know, he's the Ryan budget,

26:14

right? Let's say budget, right? Let's say he he

26:16

gets inaugurated and they're gonna institute

26:18

the Ryan budget. It's gonna be big

26:21

cuts, basically the privatization of Medicare. cuts,

26:23

basically the you know, you would mobilize

26:25

against, you could use the against, right?

26:27

use the individual true playbook

26:29

for. legislative attempts.

26:31

I think the I think the

26:33

worry people have is, is is

26:35

the toolkit for mobilizing against?

26:38

politics. politics. at

26:40

the FBI at the FBI. homes

26:43

of raiding the homes of

26:45

political opponents, a special -

26:47

appointed by being appointed by

26:49

the General of the United States,

26:51

who starts an opens the investigation

26:54

into all the members of

26:56

the January 6 committee. 6th Committee. There

26:58

it just and I'm just saying

27:00

this for myself myself like what is

27:02

the the toolkit there? Once you once you

27:04

sort of slip off the known world

27:07

of democratic democratic politics where you're involved

27:09

in the sort of constituent action

27:11

that might be able to kill

27:13

a bad bill. to kill a bad bill

27:16

Yeah, well I would I would take a

27:18

step back. So we we titled updated invisible guide,

27:20

indivisible, a practical Guide to Democracy on the

27:22

Brink. And the thinking there was

27:24

that we should be really clear about

27:26

the moment we're in, the is that

27:28

we still have a have a a a

27:30

tattered torn democracy, but some set of

27:32

institutions that are functioning some of

27:34

the time. the We still have people

27:36

who represent us at the local, the

27:38

state, the federal level. level. We will

27:40

still have some form of elections

27:42

in two years. do Things we do

27:44

over the next couple of years will

27:46

determine. the the conditions under which those elections

27:48

take place and the the extent to which they

27:50

are free and fair, right? With all with caveats

27:52

about how free and fair our elections have

27:54

been to this point. elections have been to this

27:56

still are of working within a

27:58

basic theory of. of What do we need

28:01

to do to get to a 2026 that's

28:03

going to be the test point for the

28:05

ability to hold elections in the future? And

28:07

2026, we identified as this crucial hinge moment,

28:10

right? Because fundamentally that's the first time we're

28:12

having national elections and we're able to test

28:14

the ability to have national elections. That is

28:16

our first opportunity to deliver a very significant

28:19

rebuke to Republicans on the national level to

28:21

demonstrate. how deeply unpopular their agenda has become,

28:23

which we're going to do some work on

28:25

making it that unpopular in the meantime. And

28:27

it's also the place at which, you know,

28:30

the folks who have, the folks who win

28:32

in 2026 are going to be the folks

28:34

who manage the election in 2028. So if

28:36

they are people who are invested in liberal

28:39

democracy continuing, then we are in okay shape

28:41

for 2028. If they are mega election deniers,

28:43

then we are in very bad shape, right?

28:45

I think basically we have to start from

28:48

this fundamental question of what is going to

28:50

set us up best and what set of

28:52

messages, what set of stories are we telling

28:54

heading into 2026 that give us the strongest

28:57

ability to win and in doing so to

28:59

gain the power to make it to 2028.

29:01

It's kind of a game of what do

29:03

we need to do to make it to

29:05

the next step? Within that, I think we

29:08

have to be really thoughtful about how do

29:10

we organize against these kind of extra democratic

29:12

efforts, right? I think we absolutely have to

29:14

continue telling that story. I think we absolutely

29:17

have to be very visibly and vocally opposed

29:19

and united behind whoever those political targets are,

29:21

right? Is Liz Cheney my favorite person? No,

29:23

she is not my favorite person. And also,

29:26

that does not my favorite person. And also,

29:28

that does not matter, right? Because fundamentally, this

29:30

is a game of, you know, knock one

29:32

person out, see how the reaction goes, and

29:35

if it's not very visible, right? where we

29:37

know there will be very very intensive repression

29:39

is when we're looking at the pro- Palestine

29:41

movement, right? That was actually the target of

29:44

the most recent bill that Congress attempted to

29:46

move on a bipartisan basis earlier this year,

29:48

the nonprofit H.R. 9495. which was a bill

29:50

that would have given the Treasury Secretary the

29:52

ability to designate specific non-profits as supporting terrorism,

29:55

revoke their tax status. That was pitched and

29:57

targeted at the Palestine justice movement, but it

29:59

could easily have been used against all of

30:01

us. And so we are going to have

30:04

to as a movement collectively defend all edges

30:06

of that coalition because This is fundamentally the

30:08

way that they're gonna come for us is

30:10

they're gonna pick off people and they're gonna

30:13

watch for the reaction and then they're gonna

30:15

go for more. That is a really important

30:17

point. Let's stay on this because you guys

30:19

did some really important mobilizing around that bill,

30:22

which was kind of snuck in a little

30:24

bit. I don't think that many people had

30:26

eyes on it. And yeah, the idea of

30:28

like. from the sort of pro- Palestine, Palestine,

30:30

solidarity movement to Liz Cheney as the sort

30:33

of edges of this of this coalition, those

30:35

are, you know, very, very different worldviews, indirect

30:37

conflict with each other on the central questions,

30:39

right, the war in Gaza, American foreign policy,

30:42

etc. Tell me a little bit about the

30:44

mobilization around that because I thought that was

30:46

a great example of organizers, putting the spotlight

30:48

on something, telling a story, we did it

30:51

on the show, I think partly because you

30:53

guys had spotlighted it, and I was like,

30:55

oh wait, this is nuts. And other journalists

30:57

did too. I want to, you know, there's

31:00

a lot of people that were on top

31:02

of it. Tell that story because that was

31:04

a useful little test case, I think. you

31:06

know, as we head into this era. Absolutely.

31:08

Well, first, I would say a lot of

31:11

credit goes to the ACLU, who had been

31:13

begging the drum on this for a really

31:15

long time, including before the election, when it

31:17

was a lot harder to make the case

31:20

for a lot of audiences, right? Part of

31:22

the story here is that this was a

31:24

bill that had moved forward with pretty widespread

31:26

bipartisan support up until the election. this was

31:29

coming back up again in the house, and

31:31

there was a collective realization across the ecosystem

31:33

that this was handing an enormously dangerous tool

31:35

to a future Trump administration, that this would

31:38

have been a bad bill and indeed we

31:40

opposed this bill. before. It's not an appropriate

31:42

thing to hand to a Democratic administration either,

31:44

but it was enormously dangerous under an incoming

31:47

Trump administration with, you know, everything that we

31:49

know about what they're going to do and

31:51

how they're going to do and how they're

31:53

going to act. And so, you know, our

31:55

version of raising the alarm was really focusing

31:58

in on how many Democrats have voted for

32:00

this, how many can we knock off the

32:02

next time that it's coming up under suspension?

32:04

we were able to stop it because that

32:07

required two-thirds vote of two-thirds to go forward.

32:09

The second time they brought it up it

32:11

required a simple majority. We were never going

32:13

to be able to stop it even by

32:16

holding the entire Democratic caucus united. But what

32:18

we were able to do was drastically take

32:20

down the number of Democrats voting for it.

32:22

It went from, I think, 45 Democrats voting

32:25

for it in the first vote in the

32:27

House to 10 Democrats voting for it in

32:29

the second vote in the House. And so

32:31

in the process of doing that, we turned

32:33

it from something that had pretty broad bipartisan

32:36

support and was perceived as not particularly controversial

32:38

to something that was understood as a tool

32:40

for the Trump administration and that Democrats as

32:42

a broad coalition could oppose. be comfortably in

32:45

the mainstream in doing so within their party.

32:47

And now, as we are heading into the

32:49

next year, as we are heading into a

32:51

Republican Congress, it is totally true that they

32:54

may pass it in the House, and it

32:56

is truly will try to pass it in

32:58

the Senate. But now that we have turned

33:00

it into something that the entire Democratic caucus

33:03

or overwhelmingly the Democratic caucus opposes, we have

33:05

a lot of hope that we're able to

33:07

hold together the votes to prevent them to

33:09

getting that 60 vote threshold that's necessary to

33:11

pass. Yeah, the provision would have allowed the

33:14

U.S. Treasury Secretary to essentially, without real process,

33:16

deem any nonprofit a tax-deductable organization a supporter

33:18

of terrorism and thereby withdraw their tax-deductable status,

33:20

which is essentially the death penalty for a

33:23

nonprofit. I mean, you can't. That is in

33:25

some ways the sort of essential legal core

33:27

of what it is to be a nonprofit

33:29

is this tax status. And it was a...

33:32

bad for a million

33:34

reasons. mean, if anyone's

33:36

actually if laws to deal

33:38

with there's laws to deal with

33:41

supporting terrorism, there's tons

33:43

of them in the

33:45

federal code. It's not

33:47

like this is them don't

33:50

have the ability to

33:52

do that. Also the

33:54

sort of lack of

33:56

process and review to do

33:58

then the power that

34:01

it would give the

34:03

Trump administration to do

34:05

this, but or any

34:07

administration. and And I

34:10

think that was a

34:12

place the Trump it and

34:14

also kind of keeping

34:16

the but together. mean, to

34:19

your point about Liz

34:21

And I think that key is

34:23

to get people to

34:25

vote on these basic

34:28

principles of democracy right,

34:30

independent of their views on the

34:32

war in Gaza, for instance, you know, you

34:35

know, Israel's conduct of that war, that war, right, that,

34:37

or whether Liz Cheney is like a good

34:39

person or you would want to hang out

34:41

with her, want to get people to think

34:43

in terms of, people to

34:45

on the standing defend

34:47

basic process, democratic

34:49

norms, norms. the

34:51

rule of law of

34:54

whether the of whether the group you're defending

34:56

or the group you're defending is

34:58

one that you with. agree with. we, right.

35:00

anything anything we know about successful movements

35:02

to defeat autocracies around the world,

35:04

right, successful movements to take down dictatorships

35:06

is that they build broad coalitions. broad

35:08

And the coalition may not be

35:10

united by anything other than their opposition

35:12

to what is currently happening. And

35:14

that is that is That is actually a

35:16

precondition for success in many cases.

35:18

And so And so. of what we're going

35:20

to have to do during this

35:22

time is recognize that some people will

35:24

be with us on some issues

35:26

that we care about, and they won't

35:28

be with us on other issues won't

35:30

be with us on we care about or we still

35:32

need them as part of that broad front for

35:34

democracy. need them And one of the things,

35:36

too, I think to think about is

35:38

that public opinion is going to be

35:41

important, I think. I'm a real believer

35:43

that public opinion is a real thing.

35:45

to be It's not simple and exogenous. It's

35:47

not just like people feel a certain

35:49

way. It is completely constituted by all

35:51

kinds of different factors, things that are

35:53

happening in the world, the the information

35:55

sources people have, their peer groups, a a million

35:58

a million different things what we call

36:00

it. public opinion. But one of the things

36:02

I found encouraging was the Washington Post ran,

36:04

you know, pulled a bunch of stuff, it

36:06

was probably two or three weeks ago before

36:08

the holiday break, and they asked people about

36:11

like, do you approve or disapprove of, you

36:13

know, Donald Trump prosecuting political opponents, you know,

36:15

or prosecuting reporters? And, you know, huge majorities,

36:18

like, the worst, most anti-democratic stuff, huge majorities

36:20

of people, if you ask them, are like,

36:22

no, I don't like that. And that is

36:24

something to work with, you know? I mean,

36:27

we would be on what much worse shape

36:29

if big majorities were like, yes, that's good.

36:31

Right, right. Well, and I think I think

36:33

that sometimes we can be a little reductionist

36:36

in analyzing what is success and not success

36:38

with something like this, right? The administration has

36:40

a lot of power. They will be able

36:43

to do a lot of things unilaterally. Success

36:45

is sometimes going to look like stopping that.

36:47

It's going to look like, And the reality

36:49

is we're not going to be able to

36:52

stop everything, but consistently if we have a

36:54

story that we're telling to people about how

36:56

the Trump administration is out of control, how

36:58

it is corrupt, how it is chaotic, how

37:01

it is delivering for billionaires and corporations, but

37:03

not for you. how it is inflicting cruelty

37:05

on people around the country. These are the

37:08

kinds of stories that we're going to activate

37:10

people heading into the midterms around. And so

37:12

it's not necessarily are we going to be

37:14

able to stop everything that they're going to

37:17

do. It is, are we going to be

37:19

able to make sure that they, and specifically

37:21

Republicans in swing districts, Republicans in swing states,

37:23

pay a price for it. We'll be right

37:26

back after we take this quick break. You

37:35

know know you've got a in you. you.

37:37

When you take the next step,

37:39

you're going to make it count it

37:42

your career, for your family, for your

37:44

life. You can You can earn a

37:46

degree you're proud of with Purdue Purdue

37:48

Purdue Global is backed by Purdue University,

37:50

one of the nation's most respected

37:52

and innovative public universities. This is your

37:54

chance. is This is your opportunity. This

37:57

is your comeback. Purdue Global,

37:59

produce online university for

38:01

working adults. Start your comeback

38:03

today at today .edu. really

42:10

funny to bring up funny you there's

42:12

an because there's an that I always

42:14

think about I always think appeared some point

42:16

during 2004. was It was stunned by competent

42:18

political And I always think about

42:20

that line because it so perfectly

42:22

captures this thing, which is that this

42:24

can run a very effective political

42:26

operation and be really bad at

42:28

governing. and be really doesn't mean those

42:30

things don't actually correlate to each

42:32

other. correlate to joke. that joke I think think about

42:34

because there's a little bit of this of

42:37

this people are doing of people doing of like Donald Trump

42:39

for you know, as strange as he is and

42:41

as weirdly chaotic as it all was, they ran

42:43

an all political campaign, they really did, he was

42:45

an effective candidate, they ran an effective campaign,

42:47

and they won an election. A lot

42:49

of that, I think, was produced by

42:51

the macro conditions that you just referred

42:53

to. It doesn't mean that they're suddenly

42:55

figured out how to be good at

42:57

governing. was produced there's a lot of weird

42:59

sliding between those two things that people

43:01

have, you know, decided that like, oh,

43:03

he's gonna be good at governing this

43:05

time. this time. other thing people think

43:08

people are not... that that people are

43:10

for granted, and it's because no one

43:12

has experienced this in America. in America in

43:14

living memory, not since the late 19th century,

43:16

is that that when he's inaugurated on

43:18

January 20th, he immediately becomes a lame

43:20

duck. a lame duck. And this has not happened in not happened

43:22

in our lifetime. It's not happened in the

43:25

last century. Grover Cleveland in the

43:27

late 19th century is the last

43:29

time this happened. this happened. He ended up

43:31

being absolutely swallowed up by the

43:33

financial crisis of 1893, of which basically

43:35

destroyed his second term and he was

43:37

basically forgotten. Even though he was

43:39

seen at that, when he had started

43:41

his political you when big turning point

43:43

for post -Civil War, post as this politics. point

43:45

for post-civil war, post-civil

43:47

war, I actually think the lame duckness matters. So

43:49

I I wonder if you do too. I think people

43:51

lame very quick to be like, oh, he's I ignore

43:53

the if you do run again, yada, yada, I don't know

43:55

if that's true. He's also super old. I would be

43:58

more worried about that if he were 50. were 50. But

44:00

there is a gravity that pulls on

44:02

lame duck presidents that's different than first-term

44:04

presidents. I absolutely think it matters. And

44:06

I think it's a really important factor

44:08

in how we develop strategy, right? Because

44:10

fundamentally what happens with a lame duck,

44:12

what's different than in 2016, when you

44:14

had Democrats who were already looking towards

44:16

2020 and saying who's going to be

44:18

the leader of our party, but you

44:20

had Donald Trump who was definitely going

44:22

to be the candidate for Republicans. This

44:25

year, it's actually... a leadership vacuum on

44:27

both sides to some extent or there

44:29

is a there's a contest for power

44:31

on both sides for the future of

44:33

the party and this pains me because

44:35

I have done my fair share of

44:37

JD Vance jokes but I think we

44:39

have to take JD Vance very seriously

44:41

as a political force and as an

44:43

avatar of a broader set of actors

44:45

you know Silicon Valley folks like Peter

44:47

Thiel like Elon Musk people who believe

44:49

that they have invested in and bought

44:51

out this Republican Party and are intending

44:53

to use the power that they have

44:55

bought, right? So I think that we

44:57

have to be really intentional about how

44:59

much are we telling a story about

45:01

Donald Trump, how much are we telling

45:03

a story about Donald Trump, how much

45:06

are we telling a story about Donald

45:08

Trump and Republicans, how much are we

45:10

telling a story and linking JD Vance

45:12

explicitly to some of the biggest and

45:14

most damaging parts of what is going

45:16

to happen, you know, the laws and

45:18

put himself on the ballot again, but

45:20

much more likely we are running against

45:22

somebody who has been shaped and molded

45:24

by the post or the Trump Republican

45:26

Party and by this period and who

45:28

was doing it after a couple of

45:30

years of the factions contesting for power

45:32

amongst themselves. Yeah, the Vance point is

45:34

important. I also think the Musk aspect

45:36

of this is just a complete, a

45:38

totally new factor. Totally new. I've been

45:40

pretty obsessed with it. Maybe just out

45:42

of a desire for novelty. To be

45:44

totally honest, I've been covering this guy

45:47

for nine years and it's like, well,

45:49

this is a similar. I haven't seen

45:51

this one before. I mean, a lot

45:53

of things Trump does, you have seen

45:55

before, you know, and there's so much

45:57

of it is, he's just doing what

45:59

he does. I am personally shocked. genuinely

46:01

by how quickly the Musk thing went

46:03

zero to 100 miles an hour. Like

46:05

from, and not in terms of his

46:07

own politics, which I think were clear

46:09

for a while, but from sort of

46:11

playing with the idea of endorsing him

46:13

to, you know, to endorsing him to

46:15

putting a quarter of a billion dollars

46:17

in, to never leasing his side, to

46:19

being essentially a kind of co-president figure.

46:21

to the extent that when Mike Johnson's

46:23

negotiating a bill, he is telling reporters,

46:25

yes, I've spoke to Donald Trump and

46:27

I spoke to Elon Musk. These are

46:30

my two bosses and I've spoken to

46:32

both of them. And I think it's

46:34

in some ways ominous because when you

46:36

look at places like Hungary, where Victor

46:38

Orban has these very wealthy oligarchs, they're

46:40

aligned with him and they use their

46:42

power in private markets and their money

46:44

to do things like purchase opposition media

46:46

outlets. And it's very, it's ominous in

46:48

that respect. But it's also kind

46:50

of promising in the sense that I don't

46:52

think Musk is the same political appeal and

46:55

talents that Trump does. And I also think

46:57

his ideological vision is actually wildly unpopular and

46:59

is now seems much more of the driver's

47:01

seat than I would have even guessed two

47:04

months ago. I think all of that is

47:06

absolutely true. I think that, well, first of

47:08

all to say I resent how much of

47:10

my time I'm now having to spend trying

47:12

to psychoanalyize these. to absolutely maladapted humans. But

47:15

this is an incredibly complicated and weird alliance

47:17

that has developed, right, between two people who

47:19

are used to being each the center of

47:21

the universe. There's one set of questions around

47:24

how long can that kind of arrangement be

47:26

stable, even if it is suiting their interests

47:28

between two people who are this egotistical, this

47:30

egomaniacal. There's another set of questions around what

47:32

political opportunity does this open up for the

47:35

rest of us, right? You know, Americans may

47:37

have voted for Donald Trump, but they didn't

47:39

actually vote for a South African billionaire who

47:41

has a record of, you know, walking into

47:44

organizations and smashing them up to come in

47:46

and do that to the federal government, right?

47:48

mean organization. This is weird stuff. It is

47:50

not what people expected. It is not what

47:52

they voted for. Again, I do think this

47:55

goes to can we hold and deliver a

47:57

clear opposition message or are we validating some

47:59

of this stuff? There's, you know, there's limited

48:01

public pulling around kind of how popular Elon

48:04

Musk is and who he resonates with, but

48:06

I think he's broadly perceived to be more

48:08

popular than he actually is, if you actually

48:10

dig into it. He is not a person

48:12

who is actually that well liked across a

48:15

broad swath of places. He's also somebody who

48:17

is new to politics and thinks he knows

48:19

more than he does. Right? And I think

48:21

you saw that with some of the, I

48:24

think you've seen that sometimes with his political

48:26

quotes to date, right? He is. freely talking

48:28

about going after entitlements, after stuff that, you

48:30

know, most Republicans who've been in office for

48:32

a long time understand to be a third

48:35

rail. He is blowing up a budget deal

48:37

and, you know, trying to get what he

48:39

can out of it. In this case, in

48:41

the most recent case, he was successful in

48:43

doing so, right? Like a lot of the

48:46

aftermath and a lot of the analysis was

48:48

that Donald Trump did not get what he

48:50

wanted, which was a debt ceiling, you know,

48:52

at the cost of blowing up a bunch

48:55

of political capital before they've even taken office,

48:57

right, and demonstrating the weakness and the dysfunction

48:59

of the Republican majority, and frankly giving Democrats

49:01

an object lesson in what's possible if they

49:03

all hang together. So I think it's an

49:06

incredibly weird dynamic. I think it's one that

49:08

if we are thoughtful about how do we

49:10

how do we maintain our own discipline, we

49:12

can exploit. You know, one thing I keep

49:15

thinking about when I think about resistance and,

49:17

you know, Certain things happen in American politics

49:19

sort of cyclically. There's this notion of thermostatic

49:21

public opinion. So when, you know, a pro-immigration

49:23

leader is elected, the public gets more skeptical

49:26

of immigration. When an anti-immigrant leader gets elected,

49:28

they get more supportive of immigration. We see

49:30

this on a whole bunch of different things,

49:32

right? So there's cyclical trends. There's things that

49:35

are in response to macroeconomic, people don't like

49:37

inflation. We saw this across the world. But

49:39

then there's more secular trends, things that persist

49:41

election to election. And the biggest one we've

49:43

seen is rural areas moving to the right.

49:46

Election after election. Doesn't matter even if the

49:48

rest of the electorate is sort of pinging

49:50

back and forth thermostatically. Rural America is moving

49:52

further and further to the right. Election after

49:55

election. We saw it in 2018, where Republicans

49:57

actually picked up Senate seats because of the

49:59

nature of those states that they were running

50:01

in. And we're seeing this class realignment, working

50:03

class voters. increasingly not just white working class

50:06

voters moving towards the right. And I wonder

50:08

if you think about that in terms of

50:10

indivisibles organizing. And I know you guys have

50:12

groups everywhere. I think it's very easy to

50:15

kind of stereotype. It's like, oh, these are

50:17

all people in metro areas with college degrees

50:19

and, you know, resistance lives, whatever. But how

50:21

much you think about this huge problem for

50:23

the coalition, which is losing support among these

50:26

huge parts of the American electorate. Yeah, well,

50:28

I'm glad you asked that because it gives

50:30

me the chance to share one of my

50:32

favorite kind of underknown statistics about indivisible, which

50:35

is that we've actually got a really large

50:37

rural caucus and a very significant rural organizing

50:39

footprint. And if you think about it a

50:41

little bit, it's actually for some pretty clear

50:43

reasons, right? Because if you are in a,

50:46

if you're in a metropolitan area, you probably

50:48

know a lot of other liberals and progressives.

50:50

If you're in a rural area, if you're

50:52

in a pretty red area, the indivisible group

50:55

might be your social, it might be your

50:57

only social outlet, right, for people who think

50:59

like you do. And so. Some of the

51:01

groups that I'm actually really the proudest of

51:03

are the folks who are kind of holding

51:06

up the banner for progressive causes or for,

51:08

you know, even just center left causes in

51:10

really rural areas, you know, they might not

51:12

be doing organizing that we even think of

51:15

as super partisan, but they'll be doing a

51:17

campaign on why is the local hospital closing

51:19

or they will be running the townsgate pride

51:21

parade. They'll be holding up some kind of,

51:23

you know, stand for liberal values even in

51:26

places that are that are pretty hostile to

51:28

them. I do think it's a problem and

51:30

I think it's a problem of significant underinvestment

51:32

for the Democratic Party. from a lot of

51:35

our own institutions from a broad sense of

51:37

we need to do what is necessary to

51:39

get to the electoral math for this cycle

51:41

as opposed to we need to do what

51:43

is necessary to invest for the long term.

51:46

Recognizing that in a lot of these places,

51:48

are we need to do what is necessary

51:50

to invest for the long term. Recognizing that

51:52

in a lot of these places, are we

51:55

going to win in the next cycle even

51:57

with a real investment? No. But actually it

51:59

matters a lot if we're losing by 20

52:01

points or if we're losing by 20 points

52:03

or if we're losing by 30 points or

52:06

if we're losing by 30 points or if

52:08

we're losing by 30 points or if we're

52:10

losing by 30 points or if we're losing

52:12

by 30 points or if we're losing by

52:15

30 points or if we're losing by 30

52:17

points or if we're losing by 30 points

52:19

or if we're losing by 30 points or

52:21

if we're losing by 30 points or if

52:23

we're losing by 30 points or if we're

52:26

losing by 30 points or if we're losing

52:28

by 30 points or if Holding those margins

52:30

down doesn't matter a lot to winning locally,

52:32

but it matters a ton to the rest

52:35

of the state and to whether we're actually

52:37

able to get someone like Aruban Diego into

52:39

office. And so I do think there is

52:41

a long-term underinvestment problem. I also think that,

52:43

you know, we should be real that it's

52:46

not just about. is money being put into

52:48

organizing in these places. It's also about the

52:50

media ecosystem. It's also about the information environment

52:52

that these folks are exposed to. The closure

52:55

of local papers, the shift to algorithm-driven social

52:57

media, you know, the dominance of Fox News

52:59

in a lot of these places. It's not

53:01

just about in person, it's also about the

53:03

actual information that people are getting exposed to

53:06

and how they're processing it. Yeah, and the

53:08

one thing I would add to that is

53:10

like they are also genuine grievance and resentments

53:12

that are not crazy, which is to say

53:15

if you survey the commanding heights of American

53:17

politics, finance, and culture and say it's all

53:19

run by people in large metro areas with

53:21

college degrees, you're not wrong at all to

53:23

come to that conclusion. That actually is true.

53:26

that it actually is all run by and

53:28

if you feel like I am not that

53:30

I that and those people don't know me

53:32

that's not that is not a at all

53:35

the crazy grievance there's other grievances there there's

53:37

some uglier stuff too mixed in but that's

53:39

central thing which is not even about the

53:41

information environment it's not even about politics it's

53:43

just like yeah like everyone who is power

53:46

in this country at the biggest level at

53:48

the top of the pyramid are people that

53:50

live in big metro areas and have four-year

53:52

college degrees or advanced degrees, that's not a

53:55

crazy thing to think. because it's

53:57

true and also to

53:59

feel like some some

54:01

about that. that. Yeah, I I absolutely

54:03

think that this is a place where

54:05

there is some real tension the the ways

54:07

in which our systems and our institutions

54:10

work work and what we end up representing

54:12

to people. If you think about what

54:14

it takes to run for takes to for

54:16

example, if you think about Congress as

54:18

an institution, a place where as an 98

54:20

% of Democrats Democrats are currently holding office

54:22

have college degrees. And you think about

54:24

what it takes to run for Congress,

54:26

which if you do not have $200

54:28

,000, you will not be taken seriously

54:30

by the Democratic by the Democratic congressional campaign committee. Think about

54:32

how much of a barrier that is to

54:34

a nurse, to a teacher, to the

54:36

shop steward at a union where in an

54:39

area where you've got a compelling local leader

54:41

but they absolutely do not have the

54:43

social network. They absolutely do not have the

54:45

personal wealth that's gonna get them into

54:47

office. And so if we think so if we

54:49

think -bottom, what are the ways

54:51

in which our own institutions are,

54:53

you know, are, enacting systematic barriers to

54:55

people who are are working class seeing

54:57

themselves as represented in office, in office?

54:59

it's a pretty massive set of

55:01

questions. It's a great, great, great point. is a Leah

55:04

Greenberg is the co -founder and director director at

55:06

to It's a movement of thousands of local

55:08

groups to resist the GOP GOP agenda. elect

55:10

local champions, and fight for progressive policies. If

55:12

people want to learn more about Indivisible Indivisible

55:14

or this conversation, they want to sign up,

55:16

like where should they go? up like can

55:18

go to can go to .org. If you would like

55:20

to join or start a group, we will

55:22

be happy to connect you locally to make

55:24

sure that you find your in -person group so that

55:26

you can organize to resist the Trump Trump agenda

55:28

to build a better democracy. All right Leah

55:30

thanks so much, that was great. much that was great. Thanks.

55:38

Once again, great. thanks to to Leah Greenberg. got

55:40

a lot of that conversation. If

55:42

you want to find out more about

55:44

the about the organization you can go to can go

55:46

to .org. also You can also contact us. us

55:49

You can email us@gmail.com..com. We've gotten

55:51

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55:55

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