Latest / Pod Save America / “Juneteenth.”

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“Juneteenth.” · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: On today's pod, Dan talks to Reverend William Barber about
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the Poor People's Campaign and the Moral March on Washington
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: this weekend. Before that, we are very fortunate to have
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a guest host with us today who you may have
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: heard before on this pod and on The Wilderness. She's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: currently working on a book called The Sum of Us,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: She's the chair of the Board of Directors of Color
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of Change. Heather McGee is here. Heather, welcome back to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Hey, I'm so glad to be here.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: It's great to have you. So we're gonna cover the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: latest on police reform between Trump's executive order, the Republican
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: bill that was introduced Wednesday, and the proposals from Joe
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Biden and the Democrats. But we also thought that after
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a few weeks of protests and with Juneteenth tomorrow, we
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: could take a step back today, talk about some of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the ways to make sure that this moment becomes a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: more durable, transformational political movement, which I know is a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: topic we can knock out in about an hour. But first,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a few quick housekeeping notes. Check out this week's Pod
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Save the World, where Tommy and Ben talk about eroding
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: press freedoms in the Philippines, Trump's failure to get any
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: concessions from North Korea two years after his Singapore summit,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and how the protests against police brutality and systemic racism
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: are playing out in France. Also, Dan, you have something
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to tell us about a new Pod Save America miniseries.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, I am joining forces with all of our best friend,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Alyssa Mastromonaco, for a three-part series to help explain the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: process by which presidential candidates pick their vice presidential nominee,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: how they do it, why they do it, and why
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: it matters. It is a three-part Pod Save America miniseries
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: that you will get on this feed that will start
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: on Friday, June 26th.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Excellent.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm excited for that. And then you guys are
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: going to be able to tell us who he's going
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to pick by the end of that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: No, this is, to be very clear, this is not
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: about who we think Joe Biden should pick because we
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: are not in the prediction game. It's sort of, in
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: all seriousness, inspired a lot by the series that Tommy
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: did on Iowa to help take this.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Very important often behind the scenes process and explain to
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: people what it means in a level of detail that
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: we just simply can't do on a normal positive America show.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Excellent.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm excited. All right.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Let's start with what's happening with police reform in Washington
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: right now. Senate Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday that
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: they want to start debating next week, basically creates new
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: incentives for police departments to meet higher standards and and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: new reporting requirements on the use of deadly force and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: no-knock warrants. But it doesn't ban chokeholds. It doesn't ban
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: no-knock warrants. It doesn't in any way limit the ability
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of police officers to use excessive force. And it doesn't
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: touch qualified immunity, which protects police officers from being held
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: accountable if they use excessive force. Donald Trump announced a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: similar set of fairly toothless reforms via executive order on
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Tuesday in a speech where he made no mention of
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: racism at all, repeatedly praised police and said this. Americans
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: want law and order. They demand law and order.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: They may not say it.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: They may not be talking about it, but that's what
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: they want. Some of them don't even know that's what
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: they want, but that's what they want.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Some of them, they don't even know they want it.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: They want it.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: They know they don't want it, but they want it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: But they want it. Yeah. Heather, it seems to me
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that both Trump's executive orders and Tim Scott's Senate bill
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: are giving Republicans an opportunity to say they're doing something
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: while actually doing as little as possible to reform policing.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: But I did see Van Jones on CNN, who's done
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of work on criminal justice issues, say that
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Trump's EO is a good thing because it raises the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: floor on reform. What do you think?
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Listen, I think this shows that the movement for Black
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Lives is winning. I think you know that, you know,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: first they fight you, then they ridicule you, and then
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: they join you. And that's obviously what's happening, right? They're
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: trying very hard to say, we've done something, we hear it,
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: just as they did on criminal justice reform, because you've
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: now got a multiracial, bipartisan, majoritarian desire to get something done.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: What is important for us as progressives and for movement
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: leaders is to continue to signal to the same people
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: who are outraged right now exactly what the solution looks like.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Because Washington's going to do what Washington's going to do.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: You know, Washington's going to Washington this, which is, you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: create a database that doesn't ever get filled up. They're
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: going to, you know, do an executive order that has
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: no teeth. they're going to have some Black people in
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: the Rose Garden, and it may even be some victims'
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: family members, and that will be hard. But ultimately, the
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: change is going to happen at the state and local level.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: And that's where you're really starting to see some more
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: meaningful reform, and that's where it's really important just to
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: keep up the pressure.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Dan, why do you think Trump continues to amp up
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: his rhetoric around law and order and his silent majority tweets,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: which he's been... tweeting up a storm about lately, when
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: there is no evidence so far in any of the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: polling from the last several weeks that this is working
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: for him.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Well, John, I know it's not working. You know, it's
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: not working. Heather knows it's not working. But I'm not
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: sure Trump knows it's not working, right? Like he does
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: not believe the polls. He went and hired a person
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: known specifically as America's worst political pollster to explain to
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: him why the CNN poll didn't work. And so I
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: think part of this is he always thinks he's right.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So he can't understand a world where his strategy is
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: not working. But it's also, this is who Trump is.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I was struck in that speech by how Trump, as
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: someone who doesn't release his tax returns, doesn't respond to subpoenas,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: doesn't respond to Congress, is sort of the most transparent
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: president in American history. Because when he was reading the
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: parts about George Floyd and other African-Americans who were killed
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: by cops, And there was no emotion, right? He could
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: have been reading a recipe for beef stew. But when
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: he got to the law and order part, you could
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: feel the enthusiasm. Like, this is who he is. This
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: is always who he's been. We've known this since the
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Central Park Five. And so he's just sort of being
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: his authentic self. And I don't think we should read
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of political strategy into it.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: I think he also knows he has a six to one,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: I think. fundraising advantage in his own coffers, not to mention,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: you know, the gap between the Republican party and the
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: democratic party and all the different super PACs. And he
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: knows that, you know, nine out of the top 10
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: most active news slash activism, propaganda outlets on Facebook are conservative.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I think he feels like this is going to be
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: a slow burn. Like if I just keep up with
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: the messaging and, the white American middle is going to
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: tire of this. We're going to be able to define
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: this issue in the end. And so I agree with
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: you that, you know, this is who he is, but
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I also think he, he has a lot of faith
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: in his ability to control the narrative and the message.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And American history is on his side, right?
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: And so I think, I think that is right. If
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: you were to pick what given to the propositions currently
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and what, the strategy, as morally repugnant as it is,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: that would have the best chance of success for him,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: it's probably the one he is choosing.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: And he's having it both ways, right? He can point
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: to this executive order and say, I did something and
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Van Jones liked it. And then he can say, but
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: my rhetoric is just the same.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I also think he knows it's his only play, right?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Like he, I mean, being the culture warrior and, you know,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: going with white identity politics is really it's worked for
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: him so far. It's all he really knows how to do.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: He knows that trying to appeal to any kind of
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: moderate voters, to voters of color, to people in the suburbs, it's,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it's going to come off as inauthentic. He sort of
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: gets that because that's like Dan said, that's not who
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: he is fundamentally. And so he feels like I'm just
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: going to go with what got me here. And he
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't really know of another strategy. Um, Back to the Senate,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: McConnell now is basically daring Democrats to block the Republican
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Senate bill, asking if they want to make a law
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: or just make a point. And they think that they have,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: you know, they have a talking point here that if
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Democrats block police reform in the Senate, then that's somehow
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a win for Republicans to say they tried, but Democrats
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: blocked it. Do you think, Heather, that Democrats should negotiate
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: to get something passed or should they just reject this
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: as a stunt?
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: So if the Republican plan was going to save lives,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: I would say maybe you should negotiate and do something.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: That said, it's not going to. It's not going to
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: change fundamentally the amount or tenor of the police presence
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: in Black and Brown neighborhoods. It's not going to take
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: funding away from the police and orient it towards The
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: kind of quality of life investments that, you know, white
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: folks in the suburbs have been able to depend on
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: to have their own safety and quality.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Of life.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: And it's not going to hold bad, repeat offender, excessive
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: force using white supremacist cops, of which there's some in
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: every state, I am sure, accountable and let families hold
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: them accountable. So for that reason, I don't think you
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: squander what is a watershed historical moment of multiracial bipartisan
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: uprising in every state in the country from, you know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: Tuscaloosa to Salt Lake City on something that is not
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: going to change the game. And I think that You know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: what we have to spend our energy on is defining
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: the win in ways that will actually change people's lives
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: and save people's lives and save people's futures and then
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: fighting like hell for it.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think? What would you do?
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I think the test that Heather puts on this is
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: exactly right, which is if there was a deal that
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: could save lives, then regardless of how close we are
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: to the election, Democrats have a vocation to try to
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: achieve that. But that is not what's on the table here.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: And I think this is certainly a conversation that should
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: be led by, and the Democratic leaders should listen to,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the activists who've been in the street and those who've
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: been working on this long before the mobilization of the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: last few weeks. I think that the way this will
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: play out, regardless of what Democrats do, is let's say
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: they decide they take They listen to Pod Save America,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: they listen to Heather, and they say, we're going to
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: reject this outright. We're not going to readily accept the
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: invitation to play a lead role in Mitch McConnell's Kabuki theater.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: And they'll block it, right? And then what will happen
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: is the Mitch McConnell staff will spin a lot of
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: credulous Capitol Hill reporters about how brilliant Mitch McConnell is
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: and that he has checkmated Democrats by forcing them to
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: object to something that happens in the well of the
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Senate when no one is watching. And that won't matter, right?
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I don't think that there is some play on the
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: floor of the Senate that is going to absolve a
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: party that has enabled a racist president and, you know,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: run on explicitly white nationalist agenda that is going to
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: somehow make them look less culpable for the situation we
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: are in. Just because Brian Schatz blocked a motion to
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: proceed to a Tim Scott bill. Like that does not
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: seem like something that's gonna have real impact politically.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: And I think what will have real impact politically is
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: the stuff that we can control, which is what the
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Democrats do and what Joe Biden does. And this week,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: 50 liberal groups sent a letter to the Biden campaign.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: This was anchored by folks like Dream Defenders, Mi Gente,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: and Our Revolution and the Working Families Party saying, we
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: need you to stop talking about community policing because, I mean,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: just think about it, you know, community policing is not
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: what the suburbs have, you know, or the wealthy suburbs have.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: They just have a good quality of life and enough
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: money to meet their needs, right? They have housing and
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: good schools and safe streets with, you know, lights and
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: good infrastructure. And so there's a real push for Biden
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: to change his response to this moment and stop trumpeting.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, basically what he said was we need to
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: fully fund the program that we put out in the
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: crime bill under the Clinton White House. And, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: community policing is not something that anybody in over-policed communities
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: really wants. People want a total shift in the priorities of,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: you know, the local and state government spending in their communities.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: And so it's really important, I think, for organizations that
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: are representing, you know, working class brown and black folks
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: to be able to have some influence on our standard bearer,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: given how much the Biden campaign needs our vote.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I wanted to talk about that. So, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: clearly Biden has moved to a better place on policing
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and criminal justice reform. than he was throughout most of
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: his career, even throughout most of the primary, right? So
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: he's embraced some reforms. He's called for national use of
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: force standard, more diverse police departments. He's probably, he's embraced
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: much of the Democrats bill, been on chokeholds, no knock warrants,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: reform qualified immunity. But like you said, he's got this
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: calling for funding for community policing. He has explicitly come
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: out against defunding the police. So, I mean, how much
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: should activists sort of expect to get him somewhere better
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: by November? And from the Biden perspective, what I wonder is,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you know, he's not going to wake up tomorrow or
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: maybe any time between now and November and say, OK,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: now I'm for defunding the police. But what could he
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: embrace that would meet the moment, but also be authentic
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to or at least realistic about who he is?
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean. you know, one of the key things
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: to remember is that the police union really wrote, you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden's crime bill. And that's a really helpful sort of,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: when you think about all of these provisions in local
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: police union contracts that give such immunity and lack of
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: accountability to police officers, you know, and make that sort
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: of code of silence you know, that's who was really
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: at the table. And oftentimes we like for labor unions
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: to be at the table, you know, writing bills about workers,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: but not when those workers have guns. And so, you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: the question now is what can Biden do? I do
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: think that Joe Biden is a weather vane and he
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: does recognize that the weather has shifted. And I think
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: it is, I always believe, you know, that the left
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: has less power than we think we do. And, you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: if our goals are important enough, then they're going to
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: be hard to accomplish, right? And so I think it's
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: incumbent upon the movement to do the work between now
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: and November to use this incredible amount of attention that
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: these issues have to educate the public and keep moving
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: the needle. People are open who have never thought about
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: something like defunding the police to like, okay, what would
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: that look like? And there are examples, right? The city
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: of Camden, New Jersey, you know, disbanded its police department.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: The country of Georgia disbanded its police department because it
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: was just so corrupt and started from the ground up.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: You know, we're about to see what's going to happen
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: in Minneapolis. And so I think it's really important for them,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: it's incumbent upon the movement and democratic leadership, actually, to
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: keep up the education of the public about how much
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: we spend on police departments. I mean, in New York City,
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: it is $ 6 billion with a B dollars a year.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: It's just like an astronomical figure. And we've got to
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: educate people so that Joe Biden, who's always going to
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: want to seek a compromise, who's always going to want
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: to be somewhere slightly left of center, is going to
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: find that political train totally shifted under his feet by
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: the time it comes to really legislate, hopefully with the
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Democratic majority in January.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think? You know how the Biden
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: campaign goes. Can be. They are, especially right now, they're probably,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you know, they're looking at their lead. It's probably making
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: them a bit more cautious. They're probably thinking to themselves, well,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: he has moved a bit from where he was. They like,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: as Heather was saying, he sort of always likes to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: be in the center of where the party is. And
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: so he will move based on that. But what do
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you think we can sort of hope from Joe Biden
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: on this?
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think all of that assessment is right.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And I think it is the right of these groups
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: to continue to put pressure on Joe Biden and every
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Democratic leader, right? Joe Biden would not be a Democratic
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: nominee without Black voters, and he will not be president
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: of the United States without Black voters. And these groups
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: should make sure that their agenda gets a hearing. And
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: it would not be realistic to think that Joe Biden
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: is going to adopt everything in that letter. But Can
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: they move him on some things? And I think potentially
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the community policing part may be the easiest place to
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: move him, even though that is a program that Joe
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Biden has been very closely associated with. It is a very,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: very reasonable and rational request that is actually consistent with
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: some of the other positions that Joe Biden has adopted
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to not put more money into police departments at this moment.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: And so I think they can and should push that.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: The thing that I would hope would be that Biden
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: would sit down with these people and have a conversation.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And I think that like that, like, because like, we
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: should think about this, like, we have a lot of
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: work to do to win this election. But if I
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: was Joe Biden, I would think about this as the
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: beginning of a governing partnership. Let's have these conversations now,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: because we are going to have to work together to
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: solve these problems come January. And like, they're very, you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: the first group on that list is Black Voters Matter.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: And That is Latasha Brown, who is very familiar to
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: people in this podcast, who is as reasonable and rational
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: a person as there is. She just talked about a
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: lot of these issues with us a couple of weeks ago.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And that would be a good conversation for Joe Biden
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: to have. So I hope they have that. And it's
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: not simply like this either doesn't get ignored or is
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: an exchange of letters. I think he himself has potential
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: to be very, very good in that conversation and explain
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: his point of view. And I think he will listen
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to them, which is the thing Elizabeth Warren always says
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: about Joe Biden is he listens.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I was thinking what you said, Heather, about sort of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the obligation of Democratic leaders and activists to sort of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: do a lot of education on this, too. Because, you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, the polling is moving around all over the place,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: which we're going to talk about in a second. But,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: you know, when you ask people about defunding the police
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: or cutting police funding, you know, it's not that popular yet.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: when you, you know, Data for Progress, we talked about
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: this a couple weeks ago, polled, would you support an
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: alternative to policing where sort of unarmed folks went and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: responded to mental health calls and things like that? And
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: it was like 58% of people supported that, you know?
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: And some of this, I wonder if it's about sort
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: of framing this in a way that is at least
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: gets majority support within the party or within the American public.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And then you, at least then you can go to
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: someone like Joe Biden and say, you should be for this.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Most people are for this.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I mean, I think,
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: you know, at this moment when Americans watched the, you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: slow motion execution of a defenseless man for eight minutes
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: and 46 seconds and Rightly so corporate America, white Americans,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: you know, most people of color who are not black
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: are sort of saying, okay, you know what? We get it.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: We're listening. Tell us. And like, there's a moment right
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: now where George Floyd's murder is making people who weren't listening, listen.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: And so that moment of conversation that's happening, that's putting
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: people books about racism on the bestseller list that's making
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: everyone from Pepsi-Cola to Vaseline to Tampax donate to the NAACP.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: It's an important moment for education. And so putting something
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: out there that smashes through the Overton window, something like
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: defunding the police, which is really focusing just on what
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: we don't want, it's not focusing on what we do want,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: is a powerful intervention. But I completely agree that the
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: question needs to be, what do we want instead? And fundamentally,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: it's a question of housing affordability, the foster care system,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: which often leads back to housing affordability because parents can't
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: afford to keep a roof over their children and so
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: end up losing them. It's about food insecurity. It's about wages.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: It's about social workers, yes, but it's also about just
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: having the the dignity and the resilience and the strength
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: because you have enough money and enough resources to just
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: take care of your family. And it's also about getting
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: cops out of schools where you're constantly criminalizing kids for
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: what would have just been a detention. I really do
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: think that focusing on what we do want, there's an
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: ad that the Republicans have already started running that's like
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: a white woman running around in her house because there's
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: a home invasion, which is, of course, like, you know,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: the single scariest thing, right? And it really was a
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: huge part of the NRA kind of surge after Ferguson
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: was this idea that there were going to be more
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: home invasions after riots. It was like immigrants, undocumented immigrants, and,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: you know, thugs on the street are going to invade
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: your home. So that's why you need to buy all
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: these guns for protection, not for hunting. And, you know,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: the Republican ad says Democrats want to defund the police.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: So there's no 911. Like she calls 911, there's no
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: one there. And I do think we need our own
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: ads that are like, here are the reasons why people
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: call 911 and just show what would happen instead, right?
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I'm calling 911 because I hear somebody fighting next door
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: and it's worrying me, right? That kind of welfare check
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: is actually one of the huge things that happens. Instead,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: you get someone who doesn't have a gun. You get
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: someone who's a social worker. You're worried about your neighbor's kid.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: You know, you have someone who comes and gets them
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: connected to food aid. You know, you're worried about your
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: own safety. You actually are able to get someone who
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: can just get you out of the situation and get
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: you into stable housing. These are the kinds of things
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: we need to see as a totally different version that's
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: not gutted out social services and a gutted out family
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: economic security that doesn't depend on the police to oppress
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: people whose only crime is, you know, often being working class, poor,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: black and brown, and indigenous.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: You touched on some of these sort of broader issues
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: that I want to talk about. I mean, George Floyd's
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: murder was the spark for these protests and this reckoning
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that's taking place right now. And a lot of the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: focus has rightly been on police and criminal justice reform.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: It's also opened up this bigger conversation about how to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: address systemic racism. Friday is Juneteenth, which is the day
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: 155 years ago when the last enslaved Americans were freed.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: And I think these last few weeks have made it
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: painfully obvious that we still haven't grappled with that legacy.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: From a policy perspective, obviously a lot of this is
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: about prioritization, especially when we're talking about government. If in
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: November we have a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: where would you begin?
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: So I think first we need to recognize that part
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: of the reason we haven't made more progress on racism
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: in this country is because we have always had a
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: well-funded economically, politically, and socially powerful minority that has never
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: wanted to change the racial order. And they have been
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: organized since our founding. And certainly I think even with
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: more money and tools to influence our democracy, since the
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: civil rights movement. And now, you know, they're known as,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of the Koch network and they have
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: all of these other things that they espouse, whether it's,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: you know, attacks on government, the desire not to regulate,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: but fundamentally they want the racial and economic status quo.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: And part of the tools that they have used has
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: been to fund a dominant story. And we see it
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: all over right-wing media We see it all over the
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: right-wing social media, but we also see it in our classrooms.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: It just minimizes racism and blames people of color for
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: racial inequality and racial disparities. And so we've never actually
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: been on the same page about the extent of racism
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: and why we are in this place that we are today.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: So that's why I think it's really important for us
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: to do what 40 other societies that have had the
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: kinds of trauma that we have had to recognize that
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: we need a truth commission in this country. And I'm
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: not saying like shunt it off to a commission. I mean,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: something that has, where you can do it in every
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: single community in the country. Right now there's a template
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: called the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Effort that is
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: happening in 20 campuses and 14 states and cities. I
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: was just visiting with the one in Dallas. And you
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: just have to rewrite your racial history. A friend of
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: mine put it this way. She said, You know, I
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: always thought that we were a country with racist people
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: in it. I didn't realize that we were a racist country.
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: And if you don't really believe that a country that
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: was founded on a belief in racial hierarchy and founded
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: on stolen land and stolen labor and only had a
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: majority of white people believing that Blacks and whites should
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: marry in the 80s, is not a racist country and
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: that most of our laws and programs were created at
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: a time where it was government policy to segregate and discriminate.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And we've had some tweaks around the edges, but we
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: haven't fully uprooted them. And as soon as we did
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: start to do that in the 1960s, the Supreme Court
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: spent about 10 years in that business and then the
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Supreme Court changed and they've actually been the ones to
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: stop racial progress time and time again, use the Equal
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Protection Clause, to defend corporations and to defend white people
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: from affirmative action and voluntary school integration and other such evils.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: So we've actually not had a sustained period of all
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: hands on deck, let's solve this. And so I do
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: think we need something like a truth and racial healing
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: and reconciliation, whatever you want to call it, commission that
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: gets us all on the same page so we can
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: begin to turn it. And I do think that we
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: need to recognize that your success as a family, so
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: much of it depends on your inherited wealth. Even if
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: it's like your aunt's $ 10, 000 savings bond or like a
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: little bit of stock from your grandmother. Black people were
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: officially denied that with every single, in every single way
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: that the government created white wealth. from the Homestead Act
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: to the affordable mortgages, to the VA, to the GI Bill,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: to the subsidization of the suburbs, every single one of
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: those moves explicitly denied that to Black people. And so
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: we have to have some kind of reparations, not even
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: for slavery in my mind, but more for the inequalities
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: in wealth building that happened in the 20th century. And frankly,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: well into the current decade with the financial crisis that
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: could have been stopped and resulted in a loss of
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: wealth for Black families of about 50% in the course
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: of a handful of years.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Dan, could you see President Biden leading something like this
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: in early days in office?
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would hope so. I think it's a
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: very powerful idea, and I think it requires a shift
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: in how all of us, from Joe Biden to us
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: to Democratic Party leaders, think about institutional and structural racism.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I've thought a lot about this in, you know,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: like John, you and I, you know, primary experience in
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: politics was helping the first African-American president get elected and
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: then working in that White House for some number of years.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: And I think about how in 2011, when Donald Trump
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: was doing his birther, And Obama finally responded, and we
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: sort of launched a full response to it. Never once
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: did Barack Obama or any one of us explicitly say
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: what he was doing was racist. It obviously was, but
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: we did not say that.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: No, we were all scared of saying that. He was
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: scared of saying that.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and because of the double standard and tremendous expectations
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and burdens that were put on him as– an African-American,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: what he could get away with compared to a white
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: male president, just like what a white male president could
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: get away with that a Hillary Clinton as presidential candidate
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: could not get away with, dictated the corners of what
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: was acceptable. And since Trump was elected, Democrats politically and
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: people around the country are more willing to explicitly call
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: out racists, racist things people say. But what I think
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: that masks is it creates this narrative about racism that
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: if we can just get the racist out of office,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: we're going to solve the problem. When the problem isn't racist,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: it's racism. And it is institutional, and it is structural,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: and it embodies every part of our life and our
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: economic history. And that is really the conversation that I
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: hope we're having today that Biden has, which is, What
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: does a politics and policy that truly attempts to grapple
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: with institutional and structural racism looks like, right? Because it
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: is so much bigger than Donald Trump. Donald Trump is
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: president because we have a whole bunch of institutions in
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: this country that are designed to disproportionately reward white people
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: with power. He did not get the most votes. He
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: won because we have electoral college, which gives massive amounts
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: of political power to people in the whitest states in
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: this country. And there's a policy agenda. There's a political strategy.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: There is structural reform. There is thinking about the cultural
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: forces that we are up against. And it's just thinking
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: about the conversation around the police and why that ad
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: that Heather mentioned is so powerful is because we have
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: a hundred years of popular culture that glorifies police and
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: even bad police. Like that's been the theme of the
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: last 20 years is the, the crooked cop who saves
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: the day. You know, they call her outside the lines. And,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: you know, and like, we're like pushing up against all
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: of that. Like what we're taught in schools, like Arnie
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Duncan tweeted, you know, our former education secretary this other day,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: how many of you learned about Tulsa in school? And
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: the answer is almost no one.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Our history– the history of– as taught in schools of
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: race in America is slavery, civil war, Jim Crow, civil
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: rights legislation, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama gets elected.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: That's it, right?
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Like there is no discussion of the legacy of that,
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: how it impacts things now. And like that's all a
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: part of this bigger conversation or commission, as Heather talked about,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: that we need to have.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I sort of see this as, you know, there's, I
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: think there's a real opportunity right now. And then there's
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: a challenge with sort of the coalition that the Democratic
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Party has right now and sort of where public opinion is.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Opinion on issues like race, the police, the Black Lives
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Matter movement has moved dramatically over the last few years,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: even the last few weeks. There was just a Quinnipiac
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: poll out today that shows voters now support the removal
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of Confederate statues by 52 to 44% when they opposed
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: it 39 to 50% just three years ago after Charlottesville.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: So you have these attitudes changing. We have a coalition
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: in the party now that has many more college educated
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: people in the party. White attitudes have shifted. The challenge
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: as I see it is I sometimes worry that the
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: response to this becomes individualized or is limited to Changing
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: personal behavior or influencers posting or brands donating or corporations donating.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it's harder to get people to focus on.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: I know, Heather, this is your life's work. sort of
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the larger economic structural issues at stake, right? Because you
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: can feel good about donating, but the federal government can
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: move trillions of dollars around and we have schools, districts
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: that are still segregated. Affordable housing isn't built in our
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: richest neighborhoods with a bunch of white liberals who are
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: very well-meaning, right? There are these sort of big structural
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: policies and challenges that we don't take on. And I
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: wonder sort of how we get everyone oriented around the
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: idea that sort of that's the ultimate challenge here when
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: we're talking about systemic racism.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent. I mean, I think two things need
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: to happen. One, this is a moment where a lot
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: of white folks are educating themselves. And that is super
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: important because they're unlearning a lot of the crap that
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: we've been taught in schools. A lot of the, you know,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: terrible narratives from the media, Color of Change, the organization
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: where I'm a co-chair has a, a series of reports
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: about how much the police procedurals and the crime procedurals
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: have undergirded the mass incarceration system, exactly what Dan was
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: talking about. And I think that's important, right? Like, read
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein to really understand
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: how much the government segregated Americans. You know, read The
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Warmth of Other Suns. Go ahead and read White Fragility.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Read The New Jim Crow. Read How to Be an Antiracist.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: And then though, don't stop with having educated yourself, right?
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Like that is a very individualistic, which is a trap,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: which is a trap of white American culture in many ways.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: It's sort of one of the dominant stories that we're
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: told is like, it's just us on our own when
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: we don't see the sort of invisible help that we've
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: been given. So you educate yourself, but don't stop because
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: no enduring change has ever happened in this country without
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: collective action. And that's where you just, you need to
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: get involved. And I think, you know, so many of
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: your listeners have seen that happen with electoral politics over
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: the past three years, you know, and have seen that
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: actually when I get involved in a campaign and I
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: knock on doors and I make phone calls and texts,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: I'm actually doing something collectively to change the structures of power.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Imagine doing all of that on, candidates, campaigns, ideas, organizations
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: that are fighting against structural racism. That's what we need.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: That's 100% what we need. And then I'd say the
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: other part of it is really incumbent upon the democratic leadership,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: which is still overwhelmingly white, from the donors to the
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: electives to the consultants, to really, really give people better options.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: And this is where, you know, fundamentally, like, Policy gets
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: set and, you know, you can have a completely woke
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: electorate that wants really big things. And if, you know,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: the elected officials just don't put it on the table,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: it doesn't really matter. And so actually the biggest education
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: needs to happen in Congress and among the consultant class
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: and the donor class. And it just needs to be,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: you know, a broader set of agenda items because I
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: do think that people will follow. something that is bigger
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: than the kind of piecemeal stuff that, you know, we've
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: gotten from Democrats for the past 20 years.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Well, and part of it is sort of the message
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and the story that we tell as Democrats too. I mean,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Trump has sort of perfected, you know, a brand of
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: white identity politics that Republicans have been practicing since the
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: late sixties. They scare white Americans into thinking that progress
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: for black Americans can only come at their expense and,
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: And I think because this has worked for Trump and
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: for Republicans, especially in swing states that have a greater
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: share of white voters without a college degree, you get
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of Democratic politicians who've been hesitant to take
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: on systemic racism. And this is even sort of what
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Dan was talking about just a few minutes ago. You've
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: done a lot of work, Heather, on how Democrats should
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: think about this from a messaging perspective. Yeah. in some
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: work on the race class narrative. Can you talk a
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: little bit about that and sort of how that fits
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: with the moment?
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I mean, what we found was that you know, there's
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: sort of three categories of voters. The, you know, our base,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: our opposition or their base, and then, you know, over
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: 60% of folks are persuadable, which means not that they're like,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: you know, completely moderate and in the middle. It means
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: that they hold a the progressive story on race and
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: the economy and government in their minds. And they also
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: hold the conservative story. It's like, we've heard both stories.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Sometimes the person who tells me the conservative story is compelling.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: And sometimes the person who tells me the progressive story
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: is compelling. It's really weird for people like us who
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: are like, you know, really see the world with our
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: own story, but it's true. And it's the majority of people.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: And so what we found was that those, that 60%
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: of persuadables are, was actually really supportive of policies to
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: address systemic racism if they had a broader description and
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: story of what racism was, who was selling it, who
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: was benefiting from it, than the normal, you know, I'm
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: a racist person, so I do something bad to someone. Rather,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: if we could tell the story of racism as something
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: that is a political and economic weapon that is wielded
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: by a few self-interested, sold and marketed to a broader public,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: but ultimately that doesn't benefit that broader public. Ultimately, these
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: rules of white supremacy, these rules that support the fallacy
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: of white supremacy are the kinds of rules that keep
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: our tax code totally upside down, the kinds of rules
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: that keep public education underfunded and in the category of
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: things that people have to mortgage their entire futures just
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: to get a decent shot at. It keeps college affordability
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: out of reach for the middle class who needs it
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: the most. It keeps our public purse spending more money
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: on war and warrior cops than it does on clean
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: water and bridges that don't fall and dams that don't break.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's not working for our country. The coronavirus
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: pandemic is just laid so bare that we are acting
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: like a fifth rate country. And so much of it
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: is because we have prioritized all the wrong things. We
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: have let self-interested, greedy and racist and sexist people kind
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: of loot the country and not invested in all of
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: us because of this view that there are some groups
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: of people that are just better than others. And so
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: who's really benefiting from it? Is a white working class
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: who can't get in, guy who can't get into a
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: union because unions have been busted with a lot of
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: racist fear mongering politics, is that guy really benefiting from racism?
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: I wanna look at who's selling racism for their own
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: profit more than who's desperate enough to buy it. And
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I think when we start asking that question, we will
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: see that the Republican Party and the people who feed
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: the Republican Party in its current iteration are selling white
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Americans a bill of goods that has worked. The majority
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: of white Americans have voted for a Republican for president
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. It is
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: a white party with a white identity politics white leadership
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: and a white base. And yet it is screwing the country,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: gutting it and stripping it for parts.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Dan, what do you think about this? Because, you know,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you can see how a lot of democratic politicians could
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: sort of fall into the trap of embracing an almost
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: colorblind economic populism, because we've sat in how many meetings
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: with consultants and seen how many polls where the policies
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that poll the best are taxing the rich and, you know,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: investing in this and everything that is sort of economically
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: populist in nature. And then maybe they'd want to sort
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of shy away from more direct discussions about race because
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that's not how you win over those swing voters. Um,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: but I think, you know, Heather makes the point very
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: well from a ton of research that actually naming the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: people who are doing the dividing that are dividing us
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: against each other, um, white, Brown, black voters, um, so
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: that they can like loot the rest of the country.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: That's a much more powerful argument for a lot of
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: these voters.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I understand why democratic politicians and democratic consultants have made
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: the decisions they have in the past. It is based
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: on an outdated view of politics. And it's also based
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: on this idea that racism is a binary choice between
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: white supremacists and woke, and there's nothing in the middle.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't accept what Heather's research very clearly shows,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: which is people have very confusing, complicated, and often conflicting
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: views about race. You know, and I have followed the
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: work that Heather has done on this very, very closely,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: and it really sort of blows me away. And I
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: have this YouTube series where we look at political ads
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: where I talk to Anat Shankar, sorry, a collaborator on
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: this work that'll be out next week. And what I
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: think is a way to think about it is, Republicans
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: are running a very explicit, racially divisive messaging and political strategy.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: And Democrats have tried to run an implicit racial unity strategy.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: And I think what is very compelling about what Heather
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: is talking about is that you cannot elide the conversation.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: In a world where there is fear-mongering from a very, very,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: very powerful set of messengers on the right, You have
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: to take that on and explain why it's wrong, who
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: is funding it, and who it serves. And I think
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: that's very, very important.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: And I also think that movements matter and movements work
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: and movements shift opinion. I mean, you know, it's just,
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: it's not just Donald Trump. It's not just the public
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: execution of George Floyd. It's also six years of a
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Black Lives Matter movement that has been shaping consciousness. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: and shaping the consciousness of Black people, all right? I mean,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: you know, from Barack Obama to many, many others, you know,
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: this particular level of consciousness around Black identity and reclaiming,
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: you know, Blackness and reclaiming our history and being willing
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: to be, you know, unapologetically Black is actually.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: New, right?
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, our generation of kind of older millennials or
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: younger Gen X or, We grew up in that colorblind
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: era as well. And so, right, Black Lives Matter has
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: changed the world without a doubt.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I also think this narrative sort of, it speaks to
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: a longing that a lot of, I think, Americans have
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: right now, which is people don't want to be divided
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: by race, right? People don't want that, of all races.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: And the opposite of that is they don't necessarily want
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: some sort of, happy unity that like papers over all
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: the real differences and struggles, but there's sort of a
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: longing for a solidarity that you can empathize with other
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: people's struggles. And I don't think we've had sort of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: leaders who can really call on that desire that people
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: have to sort of stand in solidarity with one another. Yeah.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: I don't think there's any more important word in America
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: right now than solidarity. And I think it's, It means
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: exactly that, that sense of having each other's back. It's
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: not like a kumbaya, we're kind of all the same, right?
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: It's not that. It's saying actually our struggles are different,
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: but you know what, we're going to support each other
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: through them, right? people are very scared for good reason.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: The planet's melting and our institutions are collapsing. I mean,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: everyone gets it, right? Like on a fundamental level, people
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: are very, very scared. And so the idea that someone
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: has their back is extremely powerful. And I think that
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: the protests and the demonstrations and the uprisings in, again,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: all 50 states and just smashing through stereotypes of who
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: actually goes out to protest So much of that was
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: primed by this precious moment of solidarity, of national solidarity
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: that we had at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: where we showed that we were all willing for a
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: few weeks to freeze our lives and do things that
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: we never thought we would do in order to be
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: a part of a shared national effort to save ourselves,
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: to save our neighbors, to save our friends, save our families,
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: to save the country. And we did it, right? Like
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: essential workers did it and parents did it. And in
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: many cases, local officials did it and teachers did it
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: and childcare workers did it. Washington really didn't do it, right?
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: We had leadership that was really unwilling to sort of
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: stand and have our backs. But there was this moment
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: of real sense of vulnerability and fear and also I'm
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: actually willing to do something for my neighbor. And I'm
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: feeling a shared sense of struggle with my neighbor, even
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: though obviously it laid bare all these inequalities. I think
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: the impulse that Americans had and just seeing each other
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: and seeing the whole country do the same thing, which,
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: you know, it's just so far from our individualized kind
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: of consumer marketplace culture. It just really, I think, primed
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: us for showing up for Black Lives in the wake
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: of George Floyd's death.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Well, hopefully we can turn that into something more lasting
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: and durable than just a fleeting moment here. And I
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: hope we will. Heather, thank you so much for joining us.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: This was a lot of fun.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, my pleasure. It's always good to be with you. And,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: you know, folks who are listening should read up, you know,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: do all the education you can, black, brown, and white
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: folks and everybody in between. Learn about our history, the
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: stuff that we've been lied to about, but also take
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: action and join up. And there are so many organizations
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: out there that are great and nothing feels better than
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: moving in action in solidarity with your fellow Americans.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: Just along those lines, I would highly recommend Heather's TED
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Talk on this very topic, which is very, very powerful
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: and very compelling.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And please come back so we can, I think
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: we should keep having these conversations because it's important.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: Sounds great. Happy to.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: When we come back, we will have Dan's conversation with
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Reverend William Barber.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: He's the co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign and the
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach. Reverend Dr.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: William Barber, welcome back to Pod Save America.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for allowing us to be on.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: It's always good to be with you.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Well, we are so grateful to have you. You revived
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: the Poor People's Campaign in 2018, but this weekend you're
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: starting a new push with new demands. What has or
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: hasn't happened since 2018 that makes this such a critical
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: moment for your campaign?
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: Well, along with Reverend Dr. Leo Harris and now with
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: 45 state coordinating committees, we revived in 2018, but we
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: were just beginning. And we knew that the first thing
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: we had to do was audit America. So we did
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: an audit of America, some of the best economists and
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: others in the world, and to actually get a handle
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: on what was going on. And we found out, we
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: hear 39 million people in poverty, but it's actually 140
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: million people, poverty and low wealth, 43% of the country,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: just to give you one of the glaring numbers. And
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: 700 people were dying a day from poverty, a quarter
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: million a year. The next thing we wanted to do
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: is we wanted to launch the campaign. We did six
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: weeks of launching in 41 state capitals and the District
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: of Columbia, putting our demands in place. And one of
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: the things that has done, it has pushed the issue
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: of poverty and our five interlocking justices, systemic racism, systemic poverty,
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: ecological devastation, the health, denial of health care, the war economy,
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: and this false modernity of religious nationalism into the public
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: square more and more and more. And people are organizing
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: at a very deep level. As I said, we now
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: have 45 state coordinating committees, poor people, moral leaders, and advocates.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: We have 19 major religious denominations of every different religion
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: in the country who are connected now. We have over
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: 150 partners now that have connected. And we have somewhere
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 unions that have
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: connected with And people are really starting to see how
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: we have to deal with these five interlocking evils, interlocking injustices.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: And then in 2019, we had a big Congress, and
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: we actually proposed a budget. We found the money, we
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: took on the lie of scarcity, and we actually presented
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: that budget to the House of Representatives of the United
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: States Congress at their budget committee. The first time ever
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: that poor people, white, black, undocumented people, native had actually
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: gone to the Congress and said, here's how we can
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: fix these problems. Here's what needs to be done. And
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: since that time, we've been doing a, we must do
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: more mobilizing, organizing, registering people, what's called mobilizing, organizing, registering,
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: educating people for the movement who vote. We did another
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: study because we want our things based in reality. And
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: one of the things we found out is from Columbia
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: University study that if you just register 15% of unregistered
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: poor and low wealth people in this country, you could
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: fundamentally shift the politics. And so we began a tour
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: to do that, register people across the country in a
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: very targeted way with the goal of changing the narrative
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: and building power And we were headed to D.C. for
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: June 2020 on Pennsylvania Avenue when COVID hit right in
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: the middle of it. And when COVID hit and exposed
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: the level of poverty and the level of racism in
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: this country and how the pandemic exported those, it drove
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: more and more of our issues right into the heart
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: of the political dialogue that poverty and racism and And
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: the other things we have mentioned are actually threats to
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: our very national security, threats to who we are as
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: a society. And now we are headed toward this massive
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: Four Peoples Assembly, Moral March on Washington, the largest most
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: historic gathering of four and lower people and their allies,
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: a digital gathering. And it's happening on the same day
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: that the Trump administration is in Tulsa insulting the history
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: there and the ugly racism of bombing and rioting and
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: destroying a Black community. And we're going to be the
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: contrast that day with hundreds of thousands of people online
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: of every race, creed, color, sexuality saying that we need
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: to be about the business of addressing these issues and
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: bringing people together to change society rather than bringing people
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: together to continue to divide society.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: The Poor People's Campaign is a nonpartisan organization, but much
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: of what you call for in your budget and in
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: your activities is generally considered to be progressive legislation. When
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: you were out there making the case for your agenda,
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: how do you make it to folks who do not
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: necessarily identify with the Democratic Party or with progressivism?
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't define progressivism quite the same way. Teddy
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: Roosevelt was a Republican and he talked a lot about
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: progressive ideas back in the area. I think too often
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: that's exactly the mistake we've made. We see the issues
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: we talk about as constitutional issues and moral issues. You know,
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: in our deepest religious faith, it tells us that how
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: we treat poor people and the immigrant and the sick
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: are moral issues. They're not left and right or progressive
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: versus conservative. Our Constitution says establish justice. That isn't a
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: progressive or conservative. It could be both. If you're going
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: to be a constitutionalist, then you want to conserve what's
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: in the Constitution. And one of the things you want
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: to conserve is the establishment of justice and providing for
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: the common defense. But you would also want to be
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: progressive in those things in order to make sure that
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: you're constantly examining the areas of your society that are
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: not just and being progressively active toward changing that. And
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: so I think you, first of all, don't get tied
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: up in the language of division. We have too much
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: puny language, left versus right, Democrat versus Republican, conservative versus liberal.
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: It just gets tired. And people are hurting, fixing, going
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: into communities like Appalachia where coal miners don't have health care,
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: but they have black lung disease, they don't want to
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: hear about these little terms that we get caught up in,
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: you know, talking heads. They want to know, how is
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: it that I can get health care? How is it
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: that we can get living wages? How is it that
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: we get clean water? And if you can show them
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: that the very people, for instance, that are pushing voter
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: suppression laws. And when they get elected through voter suppression laws,
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: it's targeted at Black people. Once they get elected, they
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: use their power to block health care that hurts coal miners,
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: to block corporations from poisoning their communities that hurt Black, white,
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: and Asian and Latino and First Nation people, people began
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: to see something. They began to see that they actually
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: should be together. And so what we do is we
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: just go to the people and we teach the truth.
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: We show people that there's a connection between that poor
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: person at the Delta of Mississippi and that poor farmer
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: out in Kansas. Both of them need healthcare. Both of
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: them are struggling with wages. Both of them find themselves
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: are being constantly undermined by the corporate interests of this country.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: We can find people that are willing to have grown-up
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: conversations about how systemic racism, whether it's against Black people,
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: Latino people, or Indigenous people, Systemic racism is not just
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: against those people. It's targeted at them, but it's against
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: the democracy. It holds us back. And we found that
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: there's a whole lot of people that are ready to
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: get away from the labels and start dealing with what
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: affects life. You know, what we do is we show
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: people that poverty kills. It has a death measurement. Quarter
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: million people a year die and don't have to die
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: if we address the issue of poverty. Denial of healthcare kills.
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: There's a death measurement. We know that thousands of people
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: die for every 500,000 people that do not have healthcare.
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: the South that all of the southern states that denied
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: health care or the Affordable Care Act, the majority of
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: the people that would have been impacted by receiving that
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: health care are white. But most of the reasons why
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: the governors and the legislatures denied it is because they
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: hate a black man who happened to be a president
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: named Obama. We have to have grown up conversations. And
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: when you do that, you get around a lot of
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: these labels. When you use moral fusion movements, not labels,
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: not party, you begin to talk about what's right and wrong,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: not what's left and right. It is amazing how that
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: changes the whole conversation and pulls people together.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: You know, you have been marching and organizing and having
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: registering voters and talking to people face to face. But
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: now we're existing in a pandemic that's going to make
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of those traditional forms of organizing less frequent
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: or perhaps too dangerous for people to do. Beyond having
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: a march transitioned into a digital gathering, what else are
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: you thinking about how you're going to do your work
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: amidst this pandemic?
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, it's not a march. It's a
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: poor people's assembly, moral march on Washington. And I think
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: it's important for us to describe that. We never intended
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: to just have a march. We intended to bring together
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: poor and low wealth people because who will gather on
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: Pennsylvania Avenue, now they're going to gather digitally. They will,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: in fact, first of all, tell their stories and the
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: pain that's being caused by these five interlocking injustices. And
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: it'll be a counterintuitive presentation. As I said, you'll have
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: a Latino from California standing with a fast food worker
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: from the Carolinas. You'll have a farmer from Kansas standing
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: with coal miners from Kentucky standing with poor and low-income
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: people from Mississippi counterintuitively and saying, look at us. Look
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: at us. We are America. Look at how these things
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: are hurting us and destroying our lives. Listen to the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: 140 million people. How do you ignore 43% of the nation?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: Then they will change the narrative by changing the faces
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: and presenting this to America and to the world. And
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: then we are committing to be a power, but we
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: are also presenting a demand list, because the demands are
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: not— we don't believe you should just thirst the darkness, but
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: have demands. Now, we started using social media long ago
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: in this movement. We used it when we organized in
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: the Six Weeks of Action movement. We've used it in
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: our mass meetings that we've had throughout the country. We've
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: used it in our training. We've built a massive following
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: on social media. So we always had planned to use it.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: The pandemic is forcing us to use it. Even if
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: we were on Pennsylvania Avenue, we were also going to
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: be using massive social media. But because of our advisors,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: PhD epidemiologists, who said it would not be responsible to
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: put people on planes and trains and buses and cars
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: and bring them to D.C., we're utilizing this format. We
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: have now over 200 Facebook accounts that are going to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: be streaming with us. MSNBC is giving us their platform. ABC,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: their social media platform, will be utilized. We are using
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: every tool, every tool available. social media tool known to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: humankind to pull people together. And we believe that the
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: movement has to use all of the tools. We see
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: it happening with many other groups. We need to continue
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: to do that. I often say, you know, Harriet Tubman
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: got 700 people out of slavery. She never had Google.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: She never had Instagram. She never had Gmail. She never
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: had a cell phone. She had moss on the north
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: side of the tree, a north star in the sky,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: and a. 38 pistol in her pocket. And that was
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: to protect herself as she was rescued and saved. But
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: the fact, no matter what, if she had had all
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: of the tools we have, and what we say is
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: we cannot see people in the past who did less
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: with more, and we don't do more with more. We
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: have more than they ever had. We cannot do less
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: than they did. And so we're using every form of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: social media. We've also created a newspaper to reach out
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: to people who may not have social media and who
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: may be homeless and otherwise, because we really are building
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: a movement from the bottom up.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Here at Crooked Media, we have a program called Adopt
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: a State where we're encouraging our listeners to pick one
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: of the six battleground states to digitally volunteer, donate money,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: try to help push those over the finish line. One
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: of our six states is North Carolina. That's the state
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: I'm on. You have been organizing and working in North
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: Carolina for a very long time. What advice would you
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: have for our listeners who have adopted North Carolina as
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: to how you build political power in that state?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: Well, in North Carolina in 2012, we had a very,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: very bad election that was determined by the 2010 redistricting
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: that was has been proven to be unconstitutional and racist,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: but it was allowed to go through by the Justice
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: Department at that time. We disagreed with it. We took
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: him on in court, but it took us six years
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: to win. And because of that, we had more people
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: vote in a more forward-thinking way, but the redistricting created
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: a supermajority General Assembly, and it was a supermajority extremist Republican.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: I don't even call them Republicans. It was something other
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: than Republican, maybe Tea Party or something. And in the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: first 50 days, they went after, took, blocked health care,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: blocked living wages, blocked increasing unemployment, cut a billion dollars
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: from public education, went after women, went after gay people,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: went after Latino people. And then in April of that year,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: they even decided they were going to go after voting rights.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: They passed a bill, held on to it until after
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: June 25th, the day that the Shelby decision was decided
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: and gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. And
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: then they passed the worst voting rights, voter suppression bill
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: we had seen since Jim Crow. We fought them in
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: Mall Monday for four years. Over 1,200 people were arrested.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: We registered people to vote. We took them to court.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: And in 2016 and 2017, and even as late as
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: this year, we won every battle we took on against
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: massive voter suppression. And now the lines, the redistricting lines
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: have been drawn. The voter suppression tactics to end same-day registration,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: early voting have been stopped. Voter ID efforts have been stopped.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: The courts have called it, called what they did surgical racism.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: In 2016, when we had just won a few things,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: we were the only state that beat Donald Trump down tickets.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: We won the governor's race. We won the AG. We
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: transitioned the Supreme Court to be one of the most
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: progressive Supreme Courts in the South ever. More Black women
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: on the Supreme Court than ever. More African Americans than ever.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: And now we have a chance in this election to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: fundamentally shift it. There's an opportunity now to unseat Tom Tillis,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: who was the architect of voter suppression in the state.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: as well as turn out in a massive way. There
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: are 4 million poor and low-income people in North Carolina.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: If poor and low-income people registered to vote, we could
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: fundamentally shift that state. I think Trump may have won
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: by about 160,000 votes, but some 500,000 African-Americans alone that
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: were already registered didn't vote, and tens of thousands of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: other people who did not vote. So where would you invest?
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: In massive GOTV efforts. I know we're going to be
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: doing efforts like that with the repairs of the breach
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: and the poor people's campaign and others. This right now,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: the biggest focus for North Carolina is massive voter registration,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: voter protection, voter mobilization. And it doesn't even have to
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: be partisan. If people know what has happened, I believe
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: people in our state are very concerned. bothered by the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: fact that we have a general assembly that even in
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: the midst of a pandemic would still not expand Medicaid,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: would still not increase unemployment. They are regressive. They are extremists.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: They're mean-spirited. We've seen it. As I said, they cost $ 1, 200
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: million to get arrested in this campaign, and people have
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: been waiting and waiting and waiting. And now, In 2020,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: we'll beat back the suppression laws, and it's time to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: use those victories and do massive, massive voter turnout. That's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: what we're going to be doing. That's where I believe
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: people should be invested. North Carolina is a battleground, not
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: only for the presidency, but for the United States Senate,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: and to turn around a Southern General Assembly and make
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: it what it ought to be, a representative of the people.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: Reverend Barber, thank you so much for The work you're doing,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: you are an inspiration to all of us. Thank you
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: for joining us here on Positive America. I encourage everyone
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: to go to www.June2020.org to sign up for your assembly.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: And thank you so much for being with us.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Join us, everybody. And don't ever forget, no
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: matter what, forward together, not one step back. Take care.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Heather McGee and thanks to the Reverend William Barber, John,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: John and Tommy. We'll be back on Monday and I'll
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: see everyone next week.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: Pod Save America is a product of Cricket Media. The
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: our sound engineer. Thanks to Tanya Somanator, Katie Long, Roman Papadimitriou,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: Caroline Reston, and Elisa Gutierrez for production support. And to
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, Yale Freed, and
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Milo Kim, who film and upload these episodes as videos
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: every week.