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She Helps Grassroots Candidates Win Without PAC Money · Breaking The Meta

• Breaking The Meta: Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Winson. Today we are sitting down with Jen Johansen. She works with candidates around the country, specifically around 80 candidates, people who running for ⁓ Congress and Senate and things like that, helping them to get the word out about themselves and help them just run better campaigns. So excited to sit down and talk with you. Hey Jen, how are you doing today? Jen Johannsen: Doing great. Thank you so much for having me here. Breaking The Meta: Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. ⁓ So one of the reasons, because for everyone listening, Jen and I have been talking for a while and we're just like, we both kind of ⁓ do the same thing, just in a different way. I just sit here and talk. Jen actually like, like, helps plan things for people, which is important, because I'm not I'm not good at planning at all. But what the reason that we wanted to do this was, ⁓ I think having the discussion about why what we're doing, both of us are doing, is so important, why helping grassroots candidates especially is important, ⁓ regardless of the danger of the loss of our democracy and all the other things about why we need to make change. But even more than that, what people can do, what we as people that may be watching this right now can do going forward and helping helping these candidates because they need help. And I think that's something important that we can talk about. ⁓ But first, could you just give like a tiny bit of background on who you are and why you are doing what you're doing? Jen Johannsen: Sure. ⁓ So I am a dentist and I share that upfront because it is, I think, more important than ever to know that even if this isn't your background, there's something that your skill set can probably do right now that you've maybe never even thought of. But I am also from upstate New York and have spent the last decade in the Bible Belt. So navigating the Bible Belt as an outsider in Trump's America has been an enormous learning curve. ⁓ The anger that I had for many years, especially after January 6th, Breaking The Meta: Mm. Jen Johannsen: turned into lot of learning and attempting to have real conversations in my community. ⁓ In terms of my profession, I had been trying to leave dentistry for a long time. ⁓ I really didn't like it. I had been scaling back to do business coaching for solo entrepreneurs online. So I originally started my platform for that alongside interviewing candidates. Last summer, I kept having grassroots progressive candidates for the House and Senate pop up on my feed. Very specific. Breaking The Meta: No. Jen Johannsen: So I kept interviewing them and after the Charlie Kirk assassination, was just a big turning point for me. I couldn't bring myself to be excited about anything entrepreneurship related. And every part of me said, use these skills to help candidates. And I was hired from dentistry in December and I've let this kind of evolve. But yes, I run a program, a community with about 90 candidates, 80 inactive racists from both the US House and the Senate with intentional creators and amplifiers like you. And I do some private consulting work on the side. Well, to have an income, but most of what I do. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jen Johannsen: and why I do not get paid for it. That's something I'm very privileged to be able to do. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. So one of the things that I think would be good is as you've talked with with a bunch of candidates, what what have what are the common things that that come up as you're interacting with them that they need help from you with that they that that's a struggle for them in comparison to say, you know, what would be considered a normal candidate in today's politics? Jen Johannsen: that question so much. So I wasn't particularly aware of the role of how campaigns are funded and how that translates to how that person can or cannot vote once they get elected before this last year. ⁓ I think, unfortunately, I think the public awareness of this is growing too, but a lot of these candidates, well, nobody in our program is taking corporate PAC or special or foreign interest money. So money that makes it so that they cannot put people first. Now, because putting people first is the through line of ⁓ these candidates, like everybody's extremely supportive of the LGBTQ plus community and women's rights and immigrants' rights, all of these different things. ⁓ But the money and politics thing is incredibly tricky because the way our system is set up, from what I've learned doing this work now, is a lot of the people who give endorsements and the organizations who give endorsements don't even look at candidates who fall below a certain level. And ⁓ below a certain level, a lot of people in communities also aren't taking candidates seriously to know who to donate to and that kind of thing. it takes a lot of ingenuity to get a campaign off the ground. Momentum builds on itself. So I find that when people can get to a certain place of momentum, either with their social media growth, their volunteer base or their fundraising, it starts the other parts that they're missing start to pile on. And that's I've been able to step in and kind of crowdsource what's working. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Jen Johannsen: ⁓ But a lot of folks, especially before this cycle, because they were doing it kind of in isolation, now there's so many of them, but they're below that wave of momentum the whole time. They're not taking the money because they're not taking the money. Other people aren't taking them seriously. And then it's hard to get off the ground to have the kind of people we want to have who are unbought and relentlessly people first elected. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. So that brings a question to my mind. I think I know the answer, but I figure we'd ask it. What does that mean for the average voter? What are the kind of things that we can do to counter that issue? Because we all, the progressive spaces at least, have talked about the fact that we want to take money out of politics. Unfortunately, the only way you take money out of politics is by putting people in office that are willing to take money out of politics, which usually means they're not taking money in the first place. So it feels counterintuitive and we're just spinning. So exactly. what is that step that we're missing or that we need to start doing more or better of in regards to that? Jen Johannsen: which makes it impossible to get them elected in our current system. I see. So I'm gonna start by giving a bird's eye view of campaign funding in terms of numbers and quantity, because I think that's a helpful starting point. A typical congressional campaign, from what I've observed, that's taking the traditional sources of money that affect how they vote. Their donations land somewhere between $200,000 and $2 million, so that they can pay their staff and do TV commercials and probably pay people to door knock, et cetera. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: These folks by and large have raised under $50,000. Some have raised like two to $300,000. Some have raised under $10,000. And yet they have momentum because they've built these incredible volunteer bases. So in terms of what people can do, first is just being aware. think that just like the simple knowledge that like, wow, there might be somebody in my district running who way more aligns with my values and excites me as a person. Because I've had so many people run in my own district who I've just been like, you know, even with a D next to their name, I'm like, you know, versus someone who take all the candidates that you and I have met, like I did Mike Crowley's interview today, and I'm just so consistently impressed by and excited about these people for a number of reasons. So just the knowledge to look and see if there's someone like that running, because they might not have the funds yet to have the name recognition where you would have just heard of them. And second is to find ways to get involved. One of the biggest ways, you know, fundraising, generally speaking, Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: is to go toward things to get people's name out there and to pay their staff if they don't have volunteer staff. A lot of these folks do. When people can build a large army of volunteers and supporters in their district to do things like door knocking, and it can be a fun thing, it be a thing people do together on the weekends, it replaces the need for some of that paid amplification with something that's real and human. Breaking The Meta: It's interesting because you and I are a chat together. I'm in your chat with a bunch of candidates. some of the things that have surprised me the most are how some states run their elections ⁓ so up. And one of the states, for those of you listening, if you think it's just red states that are doing some whacked out things to make sure that their people stay in, it's not. Connecticut has one of the most whacked out systems I have ever witnessed when it comes to getting people on the ballot. I just sit here and I listen to it and I go, how do we fix something like that when the state isn't even, cause that would involve a change and complete change in how states do an election process. Jen Johannsen: No, it's wild. And I was hoping that Connecticut was the state you were gonna mention. ⁓ So I'll touch on Connecticut in a minute, but there's also this wild variation in timeline and how to get on the ballot in the first place. Like Illinois, one of the first candidates I got to know was Dylan Blaha. And he had to come to signatures around Halloween and they already had the primary. ⁓ Whereas in Connecticut, they can't start getting signatures until June. And in Maryland, you need... Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: like zero signatures and $100 or something crazy to get on the ballot. Like it's almost nothing. So like Harry Jarin, who's running in Maryland's fifth has somewhere between 15 and 20 primary opponents. Joseph Perez Caputo was the first ⁓ Connecticut candidate I connected with and that was back in probably September. He's become a very dear friend, the kind of person that like when one of us is having just an awful day, like we can call each other up type of thing. And we've gotten to meet in person several times now. And then Andrew Rice is another one. ⁓ So Joseph is running in Connecticut's fourth, Andrew Rice is running in Connecticut's second, and Kyle Gauck is running in the third. Did I say that right? I think so, two, three, and four. So the three of them are the three Connecticut candidates I've built relationships with over time. No one has ever gotten on the ballot as a primary challenger in the state of Connecticut ever. And the reason is because they have 42 days, I think the first day is June 8th, to gather signatures. And they need Breaking The Meta: I so. I think so. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: something like 4,000, but whatever the requirement is, they need more than that because a bunch are going to be tossed. And the person has to, there's all these other things too. think the person has to give like the last four of their social and you've got to get the four motorized. There's all these extra things. Nobody's ever done it. Nobody's ever done it ever. So what we've worked on building out alongside creators and organizers, like mama wears dad jeans who's Detroit based, but she's very like networked. Breaking The Meta: Wow. Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: Felice, Queen with a Crooked Crown, who's in Connecticut and is very, you know, networked with organizers. We've worked on building out a volunteer infrastructure and taking what we've learned from, unfortunately, several races where we've missed getting people on the ballot by like 100 signatures, which is infuriating, but they get tossed. It feels intentional. It's really hard. So, I mean, unless these candidates are getting like two or three times. what the requirement says, they're often not making it because of technicalities, which is crazy. But. Breaking The Meta: Right. Yeah. I mean, I was talking with someone who's getting signatures. I think some people, this is another thing that I think people don't realize. If your state has a lot of independence, it's actually even harder because if you are trying to run as a Democrat, you can only get people that are registered as Democrats to sign. So if you have a third of your state that is independent, You can't sign someone's ballot to get on the ballot, even if you love them and you would vote for them. And that's a whole, that's a whole different problem. Jen Johannsen: for sure. Yeah. And voter apathy is such a big problem right now because people feel like it's hopeless. But my hope and my plan and the folks in Connecticut who work together, the way, Joe and Andrew ⁓ and Kyle have become friends. They've met up for breakfast. Connecticut's not a big state. Geographically, they don't have a huge area. And there might be someone who lives in one district but works in another type of thing. together, ⁓ from what I understand, Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: the conversations we've had behind the scenes, they've worked on how to set up a structure so that when that date starts, they have someone like at a mall, someone at a park and someone at, and they have these stations that are like manned in public. And it is a whole lot faster from what I've found. ⁓ You know, I was helping with Chris Fields' Senate campaign in New Jersey and he missed getting on the ballot by like a hundred signatures, probably more because probably more would have been tossed. ⁓ But he had been trying to gather signatures by going to... democratic events and he would get there and there would be some rule that was slid in concerning Cory Booker that would make it so he can get signatures there or sometimes people try to take voter data and like go to the specific houses of like registered Democrats. I find it works better to just be in public and make the ask like have something set up have a clipboard make the ask. ⁓ So we shifted gears with his campaign the first time I talked to him it was about 10 days out from his. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: and had been just hitting walls right and left with just like the logistics of getting signatures. It was not lack of effort. And the on the ground, like boots on the ground version, he went from having like 150 signatures to like 2,300 in 10 days. He needed probably, he needed 2,500 minimum, but probably more like 4,000 because of what would have been tossed. But we're still like, one thing that I bring up over and over is frustrating as these things are, we're figuring out how to do things differently in a way that's moving the needle. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do it. Jen Johannsen: And that's important. And I'd love to talk about Kaia Creek more for a minute, if that's OK. So Kaia is 24 years old. He was running in North Carolina's Fifth District, which is currently Virginia Fox's district. She's 82, 83 years old. She's been there for a super long time. David Clayton was also running as an independent in that district. Kaia was one of the first 10 or so candidates I met back in the fall. We had some, this was like the early days of me trying to figure out how to show up and be resourceful and take skills I had learned from other things, especially business coaching and advising type of thing to campaigns, which is different, but there's some similarities. And he called me one day and he said, do you have a minute? I have this thing that came up. I don't know what to do. I'm being blocked by the establishment from going to events. And we kind of talked through some options and. ⁓ he spoke at Remove the Regime, I helped organize a press conference with Citizens Impeachment, but I, it was, he was so himself and yet able to receive feedback and like, up his social medias and up different things about just like, you know, when you're 24 and you're running for office, you kind of almost have to age yourself up because people unfortunately register physical, you know, we had to Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: have him look a little bit older and he just did such a good job with it all and then David dropped out David endorsed him and David has a huge following which obviously helped and Kaya put in the work. He's incredible at speaking in person he energized a lot of people who probably would have been apathetic and just frustrated in other in other race in other years but Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: The only person he ended up running against was a man named Chuck Hubbard, who was the only Democrat who ran last time, had name recognition, raised about $225,000. Kaya raised $9,000 and got 43 % of the total vote, almost 20,000 votes as a 24-year-old running for Congress for the first time. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Wow. Wow. Jen Johannsen: I hope he runs again and I'm very optimistic about what will happen if he does. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah, that is something that I've also noticed a lot in my interviews is there's a lot of people that are running second, third time ⁓ because they know it takes time to, especially in some of these red districts that haven't had Democrats running at all in order to get just kind of break down that barrier in people's minds about what it means to even be a Democrat because most of them probably haven't interacted with anybody that they even knew was a Democrat, let alone. all the crazy things they think about all of us, which reminds me, make sure after we get off of this that you remember I interviewed someone who is in the first district of Connecticut that I don't know if you've interacted with at all, but yeah. Jen Johannsen: Is that Ruth? She just reached out to me in DMs the other day. I think she scheduled an interview. I haven't gotten to know her yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. Breaking The Meta: Okay, yeah, I interviewed her. haven't I just haven't posted it yet because I'm posting I'm posting so many interviews Jen Johannsen: because you have like dozens of people waiting to go, which is amazing. Breaking The Meta: And everyone keeps messaging me and goes, when's mine going up? I'm like, I know you want it to go up, and I want to put it. I wish I could put it up right now if I would, if I could. I've got to, I can't put it, I can't put 50 up at once. The algorithm would destroy me. the real and we've talked about this a little bit. Jen Johannsen: Yeah. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: before in other places too. think what this, the thing that I am noticing more and more is as much as as important as as federal positions are, especially when you have someone like this administration in power, which by the way, at the time of this recording, Pam Bondi is gone. Goodbye. Good riddance. ⁓ I hope you have a good lawyer. ⁓ Jen Johannsen: I don't. Breaking The Meta: You're going to need a good lawyer. ⁓ being said, as important as federal candidates are, especially in times like this, if we want change, you need to know who your state rep is. You need to be paying attention to your state positions because probably 2 thirds of the change that we want, especially if we want it to not be able to be overthrown like Roe V. Wade did, Jen Johannsen: you Breaking The Meta: needs state legislatures to go along with it. Like you if you want money to really be out of politics, if you want, if you want the Electoral College ever to be gone, if you want, like, anything if you want to make it so there's we're not a two party system, it's all going to require states as well as federal to make it happen. That's just a reality. I understand it's frustrating. all, when it's bad like this, we want to push forward really fast and make the change really fast because to us it feels obvious. But right now we don't have enough state anything to make any changes, which is really one of the amazing things that I have found is there are lots of states that are really like Democrats are coming out in storm. in the state level. Like I've interviewed probably five or six state candidates in Indiana, probably interviewed eight or nine in Iowa. I've interviewed tons in Georgia. it's the amount of people that are come, Texas for the first time ever has like someone running as a Democrat in every seat, state and federal as a Democrat. So it's really, it's Jen Johannsen: You didn't ⁓ Breaking The Meta: I think a lot of people see the importance. I just hope a lot of voters actually pay attention. Jen Johannsen: One of the things that I want to learn more about, because I'm not as educated on the logistics of running a state level race, just because that's not the lane I'm in right now. But I didn't know this until I listened to the Joe Rogan, James Tallarico interview in its entirety last summer. And I didn't know that some of these state rep positions, you don't make a living. He got paid like $7,200 for the year for something that's... Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah. Jen Johannsen: in many ways, I think a full-time job. ⁓ somebody had asked me, I did an interview recently and they were like, why don't, why do you think it's all like Congress, Congress, people, you know, it's needed at the state level? And I said, honestly, like, you know, I watched Demi Palachuk do her campaign and she did an incredible job. It is just as much work to run a state level campaign and assist to run a federal level campaign. And from a practicality standpoint, you don't necessarily have a livable income at the Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: of it. ⁓ So from a sheer point of practicality, if I was ever to run for office, it would be the House of Representatives. ⁓ Because, and even at that, I mean, Breaking The Meta: Arguably that's not even... Jen Johannsen: Because you're maintaining, there's no stipend for having like two living, you know, I'm a dentist, I did very well and very privileged to have the income that I did. ⁓ for a lot of folks who are in the private sector who, you know, that's going to be an increase in income for a lot of people, don't get me wrong, but there are a lot of people who, especially in healthcare. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: I would love to seek it into office. But like, if somebody had the amount of student loans that I had coming out, they wouldn't be able to do that. They'd need to have a hiring contract. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: I mean, can you imagine living in Montana or South or North Dakota and you see that number and you think, that's a lot. And then you walk in and you see how much your rent is at a place in DC. It's like there goes most of the money you make. Jen Johannsen: And I think a lot of them have very simple studio apartments or even shared living spaces in DC. But when you take out the amount of travel, which from what I understand, the travel itself is covered. I don't know if things like, I mean, you're still like, there's still always, what I'm getting at is there's always extras when you travel. There's always extras. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. And a lot of depending, especially if you are, if you are running, because I remember the whole thing with, ⁓ Maxwell Frost when he ran, because he wasn't expected to win. So he got no support from the democratic party. He got no support from anybody. He took out loans to pay for his, to pay for his, ⁓ his campaign. And when he got to a point of having to get a place in Washington, he pretty much had horrible credit. Jen Johannsen: Mm. Hmmmm Breaking The Meta: because of all the loans he took out to run his campaign. He's like, can't find anything. So I don't know what ended up happening. Obviously, he's surviving. still, that's a whole different problem. But yeah, I know in North Carolina, one of the biggest problems is if you are a state legislature, you can pay like 12 grand a year. And so what ends up happening is the only people that Jen Johannsen: you Breaking The Meta: that end up getting the position are ones that don't need the money. Not to mention, most of the people that that potentially even do need some money end up becoming crooked as hell, which is why North Carolina's legislature is one of the is one of the worst when it comes to which, again, I want to say this, if you think your vote doesn't matter. Look at North Carolina, because if you didn't pay attention to the news, the guy who was basically the head of the state Senate, I think, in North Carolina, lost by 23 votes. And he was the most corrupt state official that we've ever had. The man, like, got his family all jobs everywhere and things. Like, it was bad. Like, he is a bad person. And this, this ⁓ sheriff from that district who just he's MAGA too, but he's like, this guy is whore. Like, this guy's worth The guy in there is worse than MAGA when MAGA needs to come in and feel like they need to get him out. ⁓ But he lost by 20. Yeah. But he lost by 23 votes. that's a different issue is when most people vote, they'll vote in federal and they'll just skip the rest of the ballots. so that's a whole different problem is we just need to get Jen Johannsen: There's more of clarity in the situation. Yeah, that's bad. Just skip. Breaking The Meta: people to care again. Jen Johannsen: So can I talk about one of our candidates who I think is doing a super good job about that? And I've ended up sharing. So this is my favorite thing to do with this group. One of my favorite things to do is to pick up, like, OK, this person's figured out grassroots fundraising. This person's figured out how to build a volunteer coalition. This person's figured out social media. Here's what is working. But Jeremy Whelan, who's running in Massachusetts' first district, yes, he is running against an incumbent Democrat who's Breaking The Meta: Yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: been there for a long time. Richie Neal, the exact kind of establishment Democrat that frustrates a lot of us. believe he's like one of the ones who voted to thank ICE and you can go down the list is not calling to abolish ICE. All the things takes APEC money. But anyway, Jeremy's a high school teacher. I think he taught something related to like technology and video. I'm gonna botch this. He also has like an Emmy award or something random, just like great person, humble person, ⁓ super involved in his community. And the way I understand it, he started to just get on a, you know, a mic or whatever at events as all this started to unfold. And I believe it was last March decided to run for Congress and he is a teacher. So when his school year ended, he was able to devote his time to this full time. And he's taking like a year of leave of absence this year. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jen Johannsen: ⁓ he is very warm and charismatic. He's like human golden retriever vibes. but anyway, in September, ⁓ he started doing, ⁓ I hope I'm sharing this correctly. I think I am. made a document about it, but every Saturday it's a group of volunteers together to, to canvas and canvassing for anyone who's listening to this. just means like knocking doors in a neighborhood, which can seem like a job that's like, ⁓ you know, like it doesn't sound that exciting. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jen Johannsen: to go knock doors and talk about politics with strangers, understandably. But what he's done is whenever somebody signs up to be a volunteer, which they have a link for, very streamlined, he calls them personally the same day and makes a connection and they have his cell phone number. Because accessibility is really important to him. It's one of the topics I got into with Mike Crowley from Tennessee today on our interview is accessibility and how that's so, God, the bar is so low among our current elected officials. So, you know, Jeremy calls the person on his own. ⁓ They have his number. He finds that this massive team of volunteers he's built, don't abuse having a cell phone number, but it does. It builds a real relationship and it builds trust. It builds friendship. builds community. And then he has a team that helps organize the door knocking. He has three volunteers that do the coordination. ⁓ It's from what I understand, every Saturday at the same time, they pick a different area to meet in. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: People do not have to knock doors. They can hold signs, they can hit at donuts, they can play an instrument, they can walk their dog. It's like a no pressure, we're gonna be here doing things. You can participate to any level you'd like. Genius. I think when people have a no pressure type of approach, it's easy to be like, I don't know that I wanna do this, but I'm going to come and feel it out. ⁓ And then they use data to know who the most likely voters are in primary. democratic elections and Jeremy goes to those houses and he might talk to, you know, 10 specific people, but it's intentional. And then they all meet at like a brewery. So there's a built in social community building event that nobody has to plan. His team orders pizza. He takes pictures and videos of the volunteers and shares it himself. social media that night. So it's not like, ⁓ hey, I'm the candidate. Look what I did today. It's like, look at our community and look at how amazing this is. And he's still, it's dozens of people sometimes they come out. It's like 60 people, which is huge. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Mm hmm. It. It's wow, that's crazy. It there's always been, especially since COVID, a problem of a lack of third spaces and the ability to just community as a whole has disappeared in a lot of in a lot of the country. And I think that's one of the cool things that I'm seeing is a lot of these campaigns, these candidates are Jen Johannsen: Yeah. Breaking The Meta: almost using their platforms to try and bring back community in a way that this country has has just given up on. ⁓ I know ⁓ Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs this, what is it? Two days from now, Saturday, I was gonna go and then I realized it was right before Easter and I couldn't, there's no way I was gonna make it up there but she's doing a fireside. chat with the neighborhood and just saying, people come to my house. Let's sit around the fire and have s'mores and talk. Jen Johannsen: It's so simple and the simplicity of it and the fact that it's built on connection, not fanfare, is something people, at least I find myself deeply craving being in those environments. think that's part of, you know, I was sharing this with a friend I got to talk to on the phone this morning. A lot of this work for me arose. Well, I was doing business coaching. couldn't bring myself to do that after the Charlie Kirk assassination because I just wanted to use these skills for candidates. I didn't know how. I didn't know what. So I started to run this chat sort of like I had run group business coaching programs in the past. But then the other thing that was formative in this for me was when I was at Remove the Regime in the fall, I was in a karaoke room with Monty Maider, Jelly Good Ginger, Elise from Queen with a Crooked Crown, Carlos, who's a super Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: active organizer, he has an organization called American Opposition, and Brie Woodson, who's one of our candidates and a content creator. And Brie and Monty were singing a Lady Gaga song, and it was one of those moments in life where you're just like, if this exists, it has to be okay. It has to work out okay. And I had this moment of, this is what I deeply need, this kind of community where I'm not having to... Breaking The Meta: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: I'll be honest, I struggle hanging out with friends who might vote like I do, but they're just not in it right now. And I completely understand that not everybody can be. I'm very privileged to be in it the way that I am. But from a social standpoint, it's not super relaxing right now. If I'm in that kind of like, ugh, having to explain or whatever. So being in rooms like that feel great. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: But then I was like, how do I create this? Or how can we create this over and over so that those of us who are super engaged in this, whether it's through media, through running for office ourselves, through organizing, ⁓ can be in shared spaces over and over. And that's where the Chicago event, the idea for that came from, which ended up being a lot of things. was a success in many ways. was an enormous stress in many ways. And I hate event planning. I'm good at getting people in a room and excited. I hate event planning. But what that's turned into is when I'm going to be in a place anyway, Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Jen Johannsen: I figure out who's kind of in that area and we build off of that. So nobody's having to plan a thing. I'm going to be in Connecticut next week. So I'll be at my parents' house in New York for my kids' spring break. And Joe Caputo and Andrew Rice and Felice and Matt Gordon, who lives in New York, USMC angry veteran, have a group of like eight of us that are going to just hang out. And then I'm going to California in a few weeks. I'm speaking at an event in DC in a few weeks. And like, as I've kind of started to put those things together, I've just invited people like, come, come, come to it. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: And it's a lot less stress and it builds real relationships where we can mutually amplify these folks and get them along. Breaking The Meta: And I think in a way that's what can finally A, bring trust back to the government is no one feels like they've got a relationship with anyone in Congress or in their state houses. ⁓ No one even knows who their representatives are. They're names on a ballot. They're people they never see. They never talk to. They never anything. ⁓ it the only time, as you said sort of earlier, the only time they ever they ever interact with them is when they're being asked for money. That's it. There's no there's no there's no connection whatsoever. And I think that's the huge thing. That's why people like Graham Platner as much as I mean, there there are obviously issues in Graham Platner's past that that we can all agree on and I know why there are people that are nervous about him. can understand it, but you can see what him making him going around like he has and make he has he has made relationships with people in a way like mom, Donnie did in New York. People that have never met these people feel like they know them in a way that never Jen Johannsen: Hmm. Breaking The Meta: never existed. And it's not because they're just hearing what they want. That was the weird thing. Like with Trump, was people just heard what they wanted. Or they were, or they were also super wealthy, too. And they just wanted to keep the money. But in the end, Trump was just saying what people wanted to hear. And they're going, Yes, that's what I want. Where, where with people like Graham Platner, or, or, or Andrew, or, you know, or Jen Johannsen: ⁓ my gosh. Abdul Al Sayed ⁓ Breaking The Meta: or yeah, so what happens is these people talk and you go, I am that person. Like these people are not, it almost surprises me that grassroots candidates have not started working their way through earlier. Like I'm glad it's finally starting to happen, but I'm almost surprised because like, Nothing speaks to someone louder than really seeing people like feeling like the person understands you, right? And somehow, for some reason, everyone thought Trump understood them, which was wild. But now, at least, there are people that are like, Graham Planner is a small business owner. And he's a veteran. All the things that he is talking about, he has been dealing with his entire life as well. Jen Johannsen: Mm-hmm. Breaking The Meta: And those are the kind of things I think that people really are connecting with in a way that they weren't even four years ago, even two years ago, which is crazy. Jen Johannsen: And two years ago. And, you know, I like to think that things happen in tipping points. Like things can be really, really slow to gain momentum. And then all of a sudden they can kind of become a phenomenon. think Bob Doddy's campaign is an example of that. You know, he was pulling really low. I think it's easy for us now to be like, oh my gosh, he had all these things pre-planned and figured out and he had years of experience in this state. I think it was the state legislature, like he knew New York City, he knew the issues. I don't mean to discredit his experience at all. Right. But like the way his campaign took off was ⁓ something that from what I can tell, it was really hard. It was a grind for a long time. And then there was this huge, and then like once things were at a tipping point, they have their own natural momentum. And I think we're just now getting to the point where these candidates being on people's radars. Breaking The Meta: Yeah, he was a city planner or something like that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: is a thing that has its own momentum. And it's been a huge relief for me because in the fall, like I would talk to friends that were on podcasts, I would talk to who hosts all these different people, like, this is the time to amplify the Illinois folks. Can we get them on your podcast like now? Like, yeah, that seems like really far away. And like none of them except Demi, who's running for her state seat, made it. Kevin Ryan didn't make it. Dylan didn't make it. Matt Conroy didn't make it. Rachel Walter didn't make it. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Annabelle Mendoza didn't make it. Jen Johannsen: Yeah, exactly. Jemade, who I didn't get to know, but like I was following his social media, like didn't make it. I thought the number of them that were so values aligned running in ⁓ Illinois that one of them would would make it through. ⁓ Ashley Bell in North Carolina has been the only person in the chat so far that's won her primary. There's been her win. You did? ⁓ that's amazing. Breaking The Meta: I interviewed her. This is so fun. ⁓ yeah. I was proud. was like, yes, one of the people that I interviewed made it. Jen Johannsen: Yes, what the feeble. ⁓ She spoke at Remove the Regime. She was one of the candidates that we had speak. One of the 10. Kevin Ryan was one of the 10. Dylan Demme. ⁓ Ross Cleveland from Montana, who's been one of my favorite candidates from the start. ⁓ I've known him for a super long time. I got to meet him in person, obviously, that week. ⁓ He's, I could. go on and on about these people's stories, but he lost his oldest daughter to leukemia and almost lost his daughter to another rare condition and she survived. But he decided to run for Congress when pediatric cancer funding was cut. And he's a veteran and he has the leadership skills from other parts of his life and he's doing an incredible job with this campaign. ⁓ But ⁓ yeah, Ashley, and then I consider Kaia's race to be an enormous success, even though it didn't. And then Etienne Rosas is a similar race to Kaia's where he Breaking The Meta: Mmm. Hmm. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: He was running against only one primary challenger, but that primary challenger was a sitting member of Congress. Rare Democratic seat in Texas. And he was challenging, the only person challenging that person ⁓ as a purely grassroots unknown name. And he started last summer and he raised somewhere in like 50 to $60,000 range and got almost 40 % of the total vote. Built a huge volunteer coalition. He's probably gonna run it. ⁓ So we're having successes. Like I think. Breaking The Meta: Hmm. Wow. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: I haven't decided yet what my next step will be because ⁓ I didn't intend to do this. This evolved as this year evolved. But I can see this chat staying open because a lot of these folks, I think they're going to start again in like January. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Same. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think the other thing that we need to do, and I think, again, part of the problem is there's such a feel... I think the one thing that is good that will come, like, because I look at, like, Reed and Annabel's district in District 7, had 12 people in their district running. And arguably Reed and Annabel, except for a few obvious differences because of background in terms of what they stood for, exactly the same. Jen Johannsen: Yeah. Yes. Breaking The Meta: They were, they were, they were ⁓ as, and I think you're seeing that in a lot of places right now, because I think, so I think one of the good things is coming is I think a lot of people are waking up and a lot of people are running that, that probably would have never considered running before. I think the next step for us as a country is, is at least as progressives in the country is to, to start communicating a little better. And through that communication, say, okay, let's, you know, we help who wants to run. And, and, okay, well, we all want to run. Let's let's what, you know, I don't know, I just feel like I sit back and I go, who, and again, I like to read and Annabelle equally, like, they were both great. I just sit here and go, Okay, what, what would have been the outcome if instead of 12 people ran? two or three people ran. Because Reed, Annabelle, a lot of them got like five, six, seven percent of the vote. And if you take seven of those people, eight of those people, and you take them out and you put them all together, I mean, the person who won got 30 % of the vote. Jen Johannsen: Cat lost by like 4%. There were three-ish people on the ballot with very similar platforms to hers, and they all got around 3 to 5%. And I don't know the answer to that. I've gotten to know Virginia's first district, which is Elizabeth's district, is the one that's frustrated me the most from the get-go on that. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: for that reason, because Slombody was one of the first interviews I did, and I just really hit it off with him. He's not in the chat anymore, and I'm thinking it just a bandwidth thing. I haven't talked to him in a while, but think very highly of him. Collect with him in a friendship level right away. He's a, I ⁓ think, human rights or immigration-related attorney, and just one of those people who gets it on a tactical level, but they're also so human, and he was the child of, I think, Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Jen Johannsen: refugees, immigrants, and he also grew up in a lower socioeconomic status family. He's lived a lot of it and understands. then Elizabeth is a veteran and a mom and has two biological children and two foster children. They're running in the same district and then there's two other people. And Tim, who I don't know yet, and Erica. Yeah, I haven't gotten to know them yet. I think Erica might be in my chat. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yeah. And Tim says wins says winsky and and Erica Knopp. Yep. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: Tim, or at least Erica is coming to an event in my city in a few weeks, so I'll get to meet her. But like, and then Adam Dunnigan, he will probably get redistricted. Well, hopefully it'll probably go to seven, but there's a. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yeah, he might go to seven. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: Person named Moe who I got to know through Amanda Lippman, her org run for something is ⁓ established at its state and local level races and so needed. And I've learned so much from her, but she put me in touch with Moe because he's an alum of her program and now running for Congress, which her program isn't involved. I mean, they'll post about candidates sometimes, but they're not involved in federal races. And he seems great too. And he and Adam right now are in same district. yeah, it's. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's the crazy thing. And at least, and I can't speak for all of them, but I'm friends with both Tim and Elizabeth, and they are really good friends. I don't know if you've seen it, but those two and Adam put out a thing that they're doing on April 30th. They made a video about this thing going on April 30th. But the video was hilarious. Jen Johannsen: Yeah. And Richmond. It was great. Breaking The Meta: It was hilarious because there was one part where Tim was walking and and Elizabeth walks in and goes and sometimes you're running against your you're running against the and she just like shows and it was hilarious and that but that's their relationship. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: Yeah! Your buddies and brother-sister energy, like the healthy, like your cousin energy, like that's what I thought of. I know exactly what you mean because I texted them right away, Elizabeth and Adam, and I was like, I'm currently going to be out of town every weekend in April, but I might have to add another weekend and just bring my kids with me this time or something like that because it's not rich with a lot high five for me. Breaking The Meta: Yeah, I wish I could. I saw that I was like, ⁓ there a way I can get there? But there's can I have I have something going on that I literally can't get away from. But ⁓ yeah, it's it's one of those things where as we talk, you see that it's happening. But again, the problem is, is everybody is scared to death. And for good reason. Everyone is scared to death. Look at what this administration is doing on a regular basis. Yesterday, they were in the Supreme Court trying to, you know, hearing arguments on getting rid of birthright citizenship. You got the SAVE Act that they keep trying to push through. There's just so much. again, it's one of those, it's nice to see that people are finally waking up to the point that people that would never consider running before. Jen Johannsen: . Breaking The Meta: are running, but in the same respect. We also need to start communicating in a way that we've, and almost. The way I've always said with communicating is like a good conversation, good communication involves having the same fundamentals, always being willing to be wrong, being willing to listen and being willing to change. None of that is easy. It's all painful. It's all uncomfortable. And that is something we are horrible at as a whole. And I don't think anyone is actively doing that in their in their races, but I think we're just focusing on the change part and we need to start talking a little bit more. Jen Johannsen: Yeah. I do, I want to be careful with how I say this because I don't like to assume, but I do think we're learning. mean, we're so new and having all of these people around that we haven't had a very long time to like learn yet. And I certainly can't speak for candidates who are on the inside trying to make those decisions and all that feels like, cause like Kevin Ryan is probably one of the ones I knew the best who was in a race like that. And I'm glad he didn't drop out. He got. Breaking The Meta: Sure. Exactly. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: 5 % of the vote or so. And there was pressure to drop out and support either Robin Kelly or Julianna Stratton ⁓ so that Rajna Krishnamoorthy, I'm not sure if I'm say his name correctly, wouldn't win. But ⁓ what Kevin built, ⁓ are you familiar with his story and the bus? Good, okay, yeah. ⁓ He was also something I connected with really early on. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yes, I have interviewed Kevin. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: It wasn't until I interviewed him, which is probably October, that I really like got it. Like what he was doing that was so different with getting on the ground and talking to people with the bus. And then when we went to Chicago, he turned his bus into like a airport shuttle slash sober ride system slash party bus. And like, he bought that bus by selling a book he wrote about Malort. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. I didn't know he got I knew he bought the boss. I didn't know he did it by selling a book about my lord Jen Johannsen: That's how he paid for it. So he always has Malort on the bus. And the only thing I had done my interview, he and I both did interviews with him. Disgusting. It's like it has like cleanser in it. It's disgusting. But Carlos Gomez from the Coconut Justice Podcast had just interviewed Kevin and then interviewed me. And then the trip was like a week later. And I distinctly remember Breaking The Meta: Malort is the most disgusting thing on the planet, by the way. Yeah. Jen Johannsen: Carlos being like, malorts just, you just, you won't know it until you try it. You might shit your pants, but you're gonna have a good time. The whole time I was there, was like, I don't know if I'm gonna go, and I ended up doing a shot of malort. I did not shit my pants. It worked out okay, but it did not taste good. Breaking The Meta: No, ⁓ I've never tried it, but I have heard from plenty of people how bad it is. ⁓ Jen Johannsen: He compared it to White Castle. It's an acquired taste niche audience. And was like, that's also not super reassuring, but. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Mm. No, I mean, I don't like White Castle either, ⁓ I, you know, I think we're gonna, I mean, I know we're gonna have plenty of conversations about this after, but we'll probably end up doing more, especially as we get closer to election season. But for anyone listening that wants to follow you and watch your amazing interviews, especially ⁓ on Instagram, where can they find? Jen Johannsen: Yeah. Instagram is the best place to find me. It's my name, Jen Johansen. My last name is J-O-H-A-N-N-S-E-N. Breaking The Meta: And for everyone that has listened this far, please subscribe, hit all those buttons below. Thank you so, so very much. It makes it possible for me to keep doing what I'm doing, which is interviewing amazing candidates and amazing people like Jen here. ⁓ We need you guys to watch and share these candidates. As we said, our grassroots candidates, these people we're talking to, they don't take PAC money. They don't take ⁓ corporate money. They don't take APAC money. They want to be held accountable. They want to make these changes. They need your help. So please watch these videos, the videos that we point put out, but also their own content. ⁓ They just, this is how we fix it. This is just, this is how we fix it. It's really easy. It's just sometimes annoying. It almost feels too easy, but really viewing views help more than you possibly can know. So please do that. Jen, thank you for sitting down and talking with me. I really do appreciate it. And for everyone else, we'll see you next time. I'm breaking the meta. Bye guys.