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SMNTY Interviews: Mila Atmos · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: And today, we are so excited to have journalist, writer,
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: executive editor, and fellow podcaster, Mila Atmos.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on the show with.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Us, Mila. Thank you so much for having me. It's
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: really a pleasure to be here. What an honor. Thank you.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: So this show, I already know, is going to be
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: cram-packed with so much information and just good tidbits. So
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: before we start, can you introduce yourself to our listeners?
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Sure. I'm Mila Atmos, and I host a podcast called
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Future Hindsight. I'm the executive editor, and that means that
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: I get to decide who we should have on and
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: who we shouldn't have on. And Our tagline is that
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: we take the big ideas in civic life and democracy
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: and turn them into action items for you and me.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: And what that also means concretely is that we curate
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: what we think are interesting ideas for our time to
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: consider in our American democracy. And we hope that this
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: will make our democracy stronger. We hope to be educational,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: inform our listeners what they should be thinking about or
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: how they can think about things. You know, I never
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: want to tell people how to think, but the idea
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: is to share more information to enrich everybody's lives and
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: hopefully to make people into active citizens.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: So I will say again, very excited because I feel
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: like there's so much crossover with your podcast and with ours.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: as we're trying to navigate how to fight for equality
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: and equity for everyone. But with that, can you tell us,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: before we get into all that, how you got into podcasting? Sure.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: So it actually, I wanted to write a book after
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: the 2016 election. So I have this theory that our
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: democracy would be better if we had more citizens who
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: are engaged. And I thought that, you know, civic engagement,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: civic action, would be the cure to fix our democratic
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: discontent after the 2016 election. And I don't know whether
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: people remember this, but at the time, and it's now
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: 10 years ago, which sounds crazy, 2016. But at the time,
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: people were like, oh, you know, now I've voted and
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: I guess that didn't work. So I'm going to run
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: for office. And I thought that, you know, That's a
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: big lift. Running for office is not, first of all,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: running for office is not for everybody, but also that
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: is a really big undertaking. And so I wanted to
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: explore what everyday people can do beyond voting, but short
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: of running for office. And in that discovery, figure out,
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: you know, how we can get everyday people to get engaged.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: And so I... interviewed somebody at the end of 2017,
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: you know, I really got, I would say, energized after
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: watching the inauguration. And I thought, what is this weird
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: speech from the newly elected president? And I thought, you know,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: this is only going to get worse. And we need
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: to get ready. And I wanted to have a conversation
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: with everyday people about how we can make our our
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: democracy work better for everyone. And so I had this
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: idea that I would write a book. I spoke to
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  Speaker 4: a friend of mine who said, right, that's a great idea.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: I talked to her in the summer of 2017. And
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  Speaker 4: she goes, by the way, if you write this book
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  Speaker 4: and everything goes on time, this will be published in
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  Speaker 4: two years. And I thought, oh, wait, no, we don't
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: have two years. And so I said, you know what,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: let me see if I can do this as a podcast.
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  Speaker 4: I was so innocent. And I thought, oh, I can
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: just do this. And so, well, so I did. And
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: so here we are, almost eight years, more than eight
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: years later. So my first interview was at the end
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: of 2017. And then we were live in January of 2018.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: That was our first episode. But I interviewed it in 2017.
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  Speaker 4: It took me like two months to edit that. And
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  Speaker 4: of course, I no longer take two months to edit anything.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: But it was quite an adventure. And I thought, you
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: know what? I'm just going to try it. I'm just
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  Speaker 4: going to do this because why not?
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  Speaker 2: Good on you.
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  Speaker 3: But I love how you said you are so innocent
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  Speaker 3: at the beginning of your podcast, because it really does
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  Speaker 3: feel that way.
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  Speaker 2: You're like, I had no idea. I had no idea
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  Speaker 2: this is where it was going to go.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, I had no idea. And also, I had no
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  Speaker 4: idea how much work it is.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: I feel vindicated.
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  Speaker 4: I know.
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  Speaker 3: Annie has done this for beginning with how stuff works.
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  Speaker 3: So she's been in the business for a long while.
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  Speaker 3: She's younger than me for sure, but she's been in
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: this business for so long.
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  Speaker 2: She's like, that's right. It does take that.
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  Speaker 4: So much work, so much work. But you know what?
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  Speaker 4: It's good work. It's good to be engaged here.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and we're very glad you're doing it. One of
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  Speaker 1: the other things that is interesting is is that when
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you have spoken about how you got here, how this happened,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you've spoken about the impact of events like 9-11. Can
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: you talk about that?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Sure.
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  Speaker 4: So I used to work on a trading desk. And
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: on 9-11, we were all sitting on our trading desks. And,
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: you know, CNBC is always live on a trading floor.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: So we were watching it. And actually, my colleague who
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: was sitting next to me was on the phone with
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: somebody working in the World Trade Center. And she heard
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: a loud bang. And I said, oh, you know, because
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: 2011 was not so far from 93. That sounds wrong also.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: But in 93, if people remember, there was a bombing
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: in the parking lot downstairs of the World Trade Center.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: And I still remember those pictures on the front page
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: of the New York Times. And I said to my colleague,
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: I said, tell her to get out. It's probably a bomb,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: you know. And so we were then looking on our
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: screens for news. You know, we would basically scroll through
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: Reuters and scroll through Bloomberg, and we didn't see anything.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: And then suddenly on CNBC, we saw the image of
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: one of the towers on fire. And obviously at this point,
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: everybody watched the TV. Nothing was happening. It was before
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: the open. And so we were waiting for the market
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: to open and it never opened, of course. And I
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: remember thinking, you know, we were all looking in the
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: same direction at the television screens. And when the second
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  Speaker 4: tower was hit by the plane, I think we just
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  Speaker 4: all gasped. We just couldn't comprehend really anything. what was
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: happening and also the scale, you know, when you watched
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: it on TV at the time, the plane looked so tiny,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: you know, it didn't look like a proper, you know,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: commercial plane. So in the beginning we were like, is
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  Speaker 4: that some lost person in a little plane, in a
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: personal plane, you know? And so there were all these
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: things that were going through my head. And then as
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: it became clear that the plane had been hijacked and
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: all this, I thought, you know, what am I doing here?
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: I need to be in public service. This is the
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: wrong place. And so I worked until the end of
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: the year and I left to go to graduate school.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: I went to the School of International Public Affairs and
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: I have a degree in international affairs. And I thought
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: that I would really, really enjoy being in public service
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: and serve in some capacity. And so today I think
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: about the podcast as my public service because when I
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: was in graduate school, I got pregnant. So then I
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: did not get a job after I had the baby
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  Speaker 4: and after I graduated, which is not really the way
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  Speaker 4: I thought life was going to turn out, but it did.
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  Speaker 2: So it's all good. And here you are.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly. And here I am now today, eight years later,
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  Speaker 4: still doing a civic engagement podcast, you know, and still
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  Speaker 4: in my mind, you know, helping everyday people. I hope
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  Speaker 4: that people listen to Future Hindsight. And, you know, get
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  Speaker 4: inspired to take civic action and make, you know, civic
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  Speaker 4: action part of their decision tree every day as they
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: go through their lives, even if they don't necessarily take action,
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  Speaker 4: but have it in their mind.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, speaking of Future Hindsight, can you just explain
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: more about the show?
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 4: So Future Hindsight is a mission-driven podcast. And as I
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: mentioned before, we take the big ideas in civic life.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: And democracy and then turn them into action items. And
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  Speaker 4: so what that means is I talk to a lot
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: of people. It's an interview show. I talk to people
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  Speaker 4: who are engaged. And so one of the things that
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  Speaker 4: we love to do, one of our favorite things, is
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  Speaker 4: to interview people who we call citizen changemakers. So they're
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  Speaker 4: everyday people who have gotten engaged for whatever reason and
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: have really made a difference in their communities. And one
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  Speaker 4: of my early interviews was with a retired firefighter who
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  Speaker 4: worked downtown in the financial district. And he lived in
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  Speaker 4: Far Rockaway in Queens near JFK. And he had been
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: advocating for a ferry service from Far Rockaway to downtown
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  Speaker 4: Manhattan to Wall Street. And he worked on this for
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  Speaker 4: many years. and he finally pulled it off because he attended,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: you know, on his own dime, insurance conferences on real
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: estate and ferries and public transportation. And it was the
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  Speaker 4: kind of thing where I thought, wow. And the reason
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  Speaker 4: why he did it is because he noticed that the
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  Speaker 4: people who arrived by ferry were much calmer than the
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: people who arrived by subway. And he said, you know,
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  Speaker 4: if you take the subway from Far Rockaway, it takes
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  Speaker 4: an hour on the A train. It takes forever because
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  Speaker 4: it's far and has many stops. And the ferry that
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  Speaker 4: is now in effect takes 45 minutes, has a bathroom,
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  Speaker 4: is clean. And has only one stop at the Brooklyn
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  Speaker 4: Army Terminal, BAT, before it hits Wall Street. And so
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: he said, it's so nice. It's so safe. And, you know,
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  Speaker 4: everybody should commute this way. And I just think, you know,
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  Speaker 4: it's a terrific example of somebody who was like, you
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  Speaker 4: know what, I'm going to make a difference in this space.
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  Speaker 4: And nobody's going to stop me. And I think a
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: lot of people, a lot of people can do that.
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  Speaker 4: We also talked to a lot of academics who have
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: written terrific books about about their ideas. We talk to advocates, activists,
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: you know, people who are organizers. And sometimes we talk
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: to politicians. Not very much, because politicians are running for office, right?
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: So the podcast wants to show you what you can
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: do short of running for office. But every once in
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: a while, we have some politicians and learn about why
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: they decided to, you know, climb that big mountain and
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: go for it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: I definitely listen to, I believe, Al Sayed. that you
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: had on the podcast. And we know he's, especially right now,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: he's being targeted very heavily for just his belief system,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: which is a whole different conversation in itself. So I
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: absolutely know when you're bringing in politicians, it's not necessarily
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: for politicians' sake. It's for that bigger, broader conversation. So
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: we definitely understand that and appreciate that level. And speaking
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: of episodes, I feel like, again, many of these episodes
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: align with what we've been talking about oftentimes when it
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: comes to intersectionality and the movements today. And one of
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the conversations you had was about disinformation and misinformation, which
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: we talk about a lot on our podcast. And really, like,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: a term that I don't think I've really ever heard,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, okay, was the infodemic or the infodemiology,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: which I was like, okay, well, now that.
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  Speaker 2: Puts me in a rabbit hole because I had to
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: go research. I was like, what is this?
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  Speaker 3: And you really opened up this conversation of the overwhelming
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: narratives we are hearing and seeing today and how it's
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: brought about an even bigger divide and how it's even
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: brought even more dangerous consequences. What is something that you think,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: because specific to that, you think a lot of people
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: seem to get wrong when it comes to navigating today's
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: infodemic misinformation and disinformation?
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: What do they get wrong? Wow, where to begin? So
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: there's so much that people get wrong. But, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: it's not their fault, I want to say. Because one
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: of the things that I discovered in doing this podcast
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: is that the mainstream media likes to write about issues
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: as if there are clean solutions on the, quote, left
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and the right. Or that if there's a problem, if
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: you think of it as a circle, that possible solutions lie,
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: you know, on opposing ends. But that's actually not true.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: In general, the solutions are often very close to each other.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: You know, there are variations of the same solution, but
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: not radically different. And so they exist more or less
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: in the same area, in the same quadrant, if you will.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: And so there are nuances to what one solution is
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: or the other. So it misrepresents the problem. And then
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: also misrepresents the solutions, the possible solutions.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: And so I think we take on information like that
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: and we think, oh, I understand this. But actually, you don't,
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: you know, because problems that ail society are complex. And
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: even the people who we often talk to who are
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: people who've been, you know, working on this or thinking
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: about this problem for 20 years, let's say, still things
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: are not always super obvious. Although there are some things
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: that are super obvious.
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  Speaker 1: But, you know, sometimes it's like.
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  Speaker 2: You would think.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you would think.
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  Speaker 4: But, you know, even if you think about health care,
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: for example, you know, people really... really differ on opinions.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: And I think it's because they don't understand the difference
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: between health care and health insurance. So, for example, the
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: ACA is health insurance reform. It is not health care reform.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: And so therefore, people continue to think that the ACA
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: should drive down costs. Well, it will never do that
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: because it was designed to make health insurance accessible to people.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: it did not make healthcare accessible to people, which is
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: to say, to see doctors or see specialists in whatever
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: disease you might be having, you know, so those are
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: totally different things. But because of the way things are presented,
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: I think it's very confusing. And so people don't understand
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: the difference and they keep wanting to fix this one
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: thing that will not actually fix the other thing.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's so much to that.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Like, I feel like when you start dissecting specific information,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: specifically like healthcare and such, you're like, oh my how
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: do we even start in this level? But something that
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I really admire with your podcast and what you're doing
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: is you know how to pick really great guests. Like,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, how did she even find this person?
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: How did you even see, like, again, about the infodemic
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: and you had her coming on and talking about her
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: special day.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I was like, how did you even find this?
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: And for us as podcasters as well, like, we're not
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: necessarily interview-based, but sometimes I'm like, oh, man, I wish
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: we had had them on our podcast.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: We've been a little jealous over here. How do you
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: go about that? How are you finding such amazing people
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: to come through?
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: And how are you able to connect so well with
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: these people that you're interviewing?
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Thank you. That's so kind. Well, we do a mixture
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: of things. So first of all, you can always interview...
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: Pauline also, you can interview the infodemic, the infodemiologist. So yeah, we're.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Just going to come through and poach all your guests.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: We're going to take this one and this one. Happy
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: to make any introductions, truly.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: So we do a combination of pitching people, other people
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: pitching us. And also, you know, sometimes I go to
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: a lecture or see somebody interesting out in the wild,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: so to speak. And it's like, wow, this is really good.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Let's invite them on the podcast. So so we do
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: we do, you know, everything. Wherever we have an opportunity,
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: we invite people or like I said, people also pitch us,
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: especially people who have written books, because one of the
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: things that I do that I think most other people
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: in media don't do is I actually if somebody reads
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: has written a book, I will, in fact, read the book. Which,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: you know, makes for a more interesting interview if you
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: ask me, because otherwise you're leaving all the good questions
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: on the table. So I aspire not to do that.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: And I read the book and I hope to really
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: illuminate their work to the listener.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: You know, you say that and because we're always shocked
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: because when we have someone who maybe had done a
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: book or something and they come on and they realize
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: we actually read the book, they're like, oh, wow. Like, wait,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: what shows are you going on today? You haven't actually
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: read what you sent them. This is an odd way
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: to go.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: But you're right. I guess it's more unusual than you
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: would think.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: Yes, it's more unusual than you would think. I think
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: that's why when they pitch you, they actually give you
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: the questions. And I'm like, I'm not going to ask
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: those questions. But it's always good to know what it
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: is that they want to highlight.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: It's true. That's what we say, too. We're like, bring
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: it in. But I love the way your format goes.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: And I was just thinking specifically with, because we're going
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: to jump into your other series in Within Forge Your Hindsight.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: But in all of this, have you had a moment
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: with any of your podcast episodes or with your guests
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: that kind of like shook you a little bit that
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: like maybe was the answer or the way they responded?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Had you had any kind of moments or like, like
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: really like gave you the, oh, like that moment of like, oh, wow, clarity, clarity.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: Oh, there are so many, so many moments of clarity
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: where I'm like, oh, right, I misunderstood this all along. So,
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: for example, a while back now, I had a conversation
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: about the filibuster. And most people, including myself, at least
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: I used to believe this, but I don't anymore. Most
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: people think that the filibuster is about people not voting
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: for certain legislation. And therefore, if you don't have 60 votes,
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: then you cannot pass the legislation. But that's actually not true.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: The filibuster is about preventing legislation to be voted on.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: So if there are— it depends on which legislation, of course.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Some bills, nobody cares. They hit the floor. They get
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: a vote up or down. And some bills, they're so
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: contentious before they hit the floor. That's where you have
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: the filibuster issue. And if you don't have 60 senators
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: who want this to hit the floor, it will not,
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: and therefore will not be voted on. And that's the filibuster.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: And so I didn't know that that's an important distinction.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: So I remember reading an article about gun legislation, and
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: because of the filibuster, it did not reach the floor,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: the Senate floor. But in the article, it noted that
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: they thought If it had passed the filibuster and been
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: on the floor to vote on, it would have narrowly passed,
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: maybe 53, 47, something like this, you know, as opposed
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: to not passing, as opposed to zero, nothing, not even,
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: you know, so. now I understand when people say, oh,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: this legislation deserves, you know, a vote up or down.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: And the filibuster prevents that. And I've discovered many other things. So,
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: for example, another thing that I discovered literally only this
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: year is that a lot of members of Congress have
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: something called a leadership PAC, a Leadership Political Action Committee.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: And so many people are anti-PACs, and for good reason.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: And the leadership PAC, basically, if you are a member
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: of Congress who has extra money, you can support other races.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: But essentially, this is a way of currying favor with
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: other people. So that when you yourself are up for,
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know, some kind of leadership position on a committee,
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: you know, That goes a long ways to have helped
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: one of your colleagues, you know, with the election dollars. Yes.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: I was like, I mean, it was like, oh, the
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: scales are falling off my eyes. You know, I've had
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: so many of these kinds of instances. And these are
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: the two that are just coming, you know, on the
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: top of my head here. Yeah.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Well, you also created a special six-part series called Occupy,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: An Unfinished Uprising, about the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about that movement
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and the series?
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: Sure. So the movement was a response to the 2008
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: financial crash. And as you may remember... Not long after that,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: the Tea Party was born. And I would say that
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: this is like the delayed reaction. So instead of, you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: instead of the Tea Party, they had Occupy. And the
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: idea was to occupy a park near Wall Street and
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: build an anti-capitalist village and build essentially an alternative world
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: where people were taken care of. So You had free housing,
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: which is to say you slept for free in the park.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: You had free food, you know. You had free medical care.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: There was a medical tent that was staffed by some
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: volunteer nurses. And it was the kind of thing where
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: they said, you know, we're going to practice this, you know.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: And also they had something called direct democracy and a
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: people's mic. And this is maybe the most important part,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: that everybody there had a voice through the people's mic.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: And then basically they made decisions through deliberation, through direct
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: deliberation in the camp. And it was incredibly inspiring. And
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people felt like, right, this
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: is it. We want to do this. And I would
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: say in terms of the long-term legacy is that it
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: made critique of capitalism, I don't want to say possible
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: or mainstream, but it made it normal. It normalized critique.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: of capitalism, you know, in a sense that, you know,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: we can talk about it today, but I think in
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: the 80s or in the 90s, certainly after the crash
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: and things started to pick up again after the 87
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: crash and people, you know, and the economy started booming,
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: people thought that, you know, capitalism is the solution and
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: there is no way that we could critique it. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: I think I think Occupy really changed that narrative, you know,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: was really powerful in terms of achieving narrative change about
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: how capitalism should be practiced in this country. Which is
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: not to say that it has changed how we do it,
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: but it has changed the way we talk about it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Right. I think it definitely changed some mindsets. Listening to
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: the episodes really brought me back to that moment, like
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: that movement in itself. And my naive self really didn't
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: understand the impact of this movement. I will say my
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: father did soon after go to a couple of Tea
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Party meetings, and I was very concerned.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I was like, what is happening? What is happening? Why
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: did you do this?
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: And part of that was because of that crash. And
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: he had been greatly, my father specifically, had been greatly affected.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So he was like, well, I'm Republican, so this is
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: where I go for any extremist movement, right? But hearing
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: the people you interviewed who were there, as well as
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: some of the old clips from them, gave me a
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: It gave me chills. I was like, oh my gosh,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: because it really did take me back. What is it
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: about this specific movement that you thought was something that
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: we needed to be or needed to be revisited?
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: I would say that what was really powerful about this
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: movement is that it's really about taking collective action. And
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: I really believe that we can only get out of
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: whatever we're in right now, however you want to describe it,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: through collective action. We can only do it together. And
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: it is not going to happen from the top down.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: It just isn't. And so I think, you know, what's
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: really exciting about that, about Occupy is that these people
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: decided to band together. And despite the odds, their idealism
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: and their, you know, optimism, you know, informed their civic action.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: And I really think you need to have some discipline
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: of hope that you continue to show up and take action.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: Because otherwise, you know, I mean, right now things are
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: so dire, you know, you just want to never read
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: the news and not know what's going on in the world.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: But it's really up to us. I think this cannot
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: be stressed enough. And the fact that we have, you know,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: conversations about capitalism today, that we even had a campaign
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: to finally increased the minimum wage, which has met, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: it's a mixed bag in some states that was successful
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: and other states not. But nonetheless, of course, even though
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: it's changed in some states, the federal minimum wage is
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: still $ 7. 25, which is totally crazy.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And I think.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: The other part of it, the narrative change part of
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: it actually is so, so powerful. I think, you know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: the the saying of the 99% versus the 1%, it's
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: so immediate in a way that is different, I think,
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: than trying to say, oh, oligarchs, you know, oligarchs, you
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: can say that too, but I think 99%, first of all,
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: I think what that does, it centers you as opposed
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: to centering the people who are making gobs of money.
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: I think that's really important. And I think also what
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: it has done is it's given a roadmap for progressive
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: candidates So even though Bernie Sanders didn't win the election
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: in 2016, wasn't the Democratic Party nominee, I do think
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: that the candidates who are progressive today come directly from
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: under the Bernie tent and from the Occupy movement.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: No, I definitely agree with you. I mean, I'm very
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: jealous of Mamdani in New York right now, but... whatever,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: we're just going to bypass before my jealousy seeds out.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: But you also mentioned that this was kind of the
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: beginning of social media. How do you think that played
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: into this movement and the movement and protests since then?
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: I think that social media has really changed over time.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: At the time, you know, it was new and people
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: used Facebook and used Twitter to find what's happening, to
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: find out what's happening on the grounds at Occupy. And
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: there was a live streamer who literally you know, ran
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: around with like cables. And today we would do it
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: with a phone. But I think it was really like
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: a signal, you know, in a sense that it was
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: sort of like you were sending out your bat signal
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: if you were Batman. But today it's not like that. Today, basically,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: it's used as a tool of surveillance in some sense.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: It's actually, it's been upended in the way that it
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: has been used. That's what I would argue that, you know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: now that everybody can find your phone, they know where
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: you are. They can ping you and they can pinpoint
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: exactly where Samantha or Annie, where either one of you
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: might be sitting, you know, and doing some untoward stuff,
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: quote unquote.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Me?
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: Never.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: How dare you?
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: No, it is interesting because one of the first, I
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: was talking about your podcast with my partner. And the
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: first thing he said was, it was, you start by cops. Like,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: that's the first thing he was like, oh, yeah, it
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: went well. And you mentioned that. And I actually had that.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: the cop on the podcast? Like, was he absolutely willing
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: to be on the podcast? Or did you like have
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: to kind of talk him into this? Because I was
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: kind of surprised that he had him come and talk
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: openly about what was happening.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: So I can't talk about his motivations as to why
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: he agreed to be on the podcast. But, you know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: judging from the tape, I think he really wanted to
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: present things as the way that he experienced them. And
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: I thought that was really helpful, you know, to hear
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: firsthand as opposed to putting, you know, words into people's mouths.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: It's always good to hear their perspective and their experiences.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: I think that's one of the things that we can
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: always do today when it comes to social media, for example.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: You know, you really want to understand where people are
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: coming from directly as opposed to, you know, for example,
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: if you read an article, it'll say, and, you know,
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Representative Samantha said X, Y, and Z, and then they
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: interpret it in the article. But actually, the best thing
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: to do is say, oh, this representative, she gave a speech.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: Let's see the transcript or let's watch the video. and,
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: you know, take it in raw, so to speak. And
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: I think that that was probably part of his decision
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: tree that he wanted to be on the record.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So you've been talking about the lasting impact of this
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: movement and some of the very fascinating ways that I
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: don't think I had ever pieced together that it's impacted
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: our politics. But other than things you've already mentioned, are
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: there some things relevant from this movement for today?
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I think the most important thing is the collective
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: action bit. And, you know, we are a country where
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: voter turnout is really low. And I keep thinking these people,
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: you know, they slept in a park because they believed
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: in something. And maybe that's the other thing I would
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: say for this moment, is that people don't really believe
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: in anything anymore. I mean, that's not fully accurate. I'm
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: overstating it. But it's the kind of thing where people
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: have become so much more cynical than they were then.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: You know, and rightfully so. I mean, you can't blame them.
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: But I think that's why a lot of these progressive
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: candidates are having so much purchase is because they're speaking
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: in ways that is inspiring. They're not saying we're going
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: to be just, you know, when I think of centrist Democrats,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: I think what the way that they sound to me
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: is like, we're just going to be a little bit
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: better than the other guys. And that's that's not interesting.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't know why people who have two
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: jobs are going to, you know, drop everything and make
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: sure they arrange their day so they can go and vote.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: Although I will say in a lot of states where
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: you have early voting, you should always early vote because
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: there's almost never a line.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I love some early voting.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Although I will say I think maybe in Decatur and
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Atlanta area, they've gotten really good at trying to get
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: it together because they're always ready for the Republican pushback.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: So it seems thus far. And I say this thus
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: far because we're about to get midterms and it's going
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: to be interesting. Um, just out of curiosity, because obviously
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: your six part series is different from your regular podcast.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: What made you choose to do this different type of format, uh,
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: for this specific series?
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: So Louisa, the producer on, on the, on the narrative series,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: she actually brought this project to me and she had
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: had already some tape and she wanted to work on this, uh,
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: on another, on another podcast and that fell through. And
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: I thought, you know, it could be interesting to do
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: this with a civic action lens, with a future hindsight
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: democracy lens, as opposed to being a straight history podcast.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: You know, like, this is what happened, et cetera, et cetera,
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: you know, and then this and then that. And I thought,
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: you know, this could be a nice new thing for
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: future hindsight to do and to approach. And I just
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: thought it was an exciting idea. And it was, you know,
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: it was brought to me kind of half done.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: So then.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: we could finish the work and make it relevant for
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: this time. That was really important to me, that it
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: would be relevant to this time.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And also very historical. Like the blend was perfect. I
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: am like, I binged the thing.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: And just to not to, you know, I guess to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: peek behind the curtains as podcaster, sometimes I'm like, yeah,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: I'm not listening to podcasts.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm just like, oh.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, I know.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: All the podcasts, there's so many.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: But this one had me, like, I will say, as
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: I listened to it, I was like, I'm going to
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: listen to the episodes and we're going to, you know,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: thinking that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: It was just work.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: But, like, I was excited to listen to the next episode,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: to the next episode. So kudos to you and your
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: producers because it was fabulously done, well edited, good storytelling,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: great interviews.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Loved it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: Thank you. That means so much.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: It is. So listeners, if y'all get a chance, you
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: definitely should be listening. But on top of that, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you did this on purpose or
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: it just happened to be coincidental, but obviously as a
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: very feminist-leaning podcast, I did notice that a chunk of
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: the people you interviewed were women.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Was that on purpose or was that just coincidental?
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: We had a lot of other voices, of course. And
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: so when you have so much tape, you have to
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: decide what you really want to focus on and the
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: story you want to tell. And it kind of worked
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: out this way, not on purpose, but I'm really glad because,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: you know, we did a number of table reads and
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: these were the voices that were so clear and so compelling,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: you know, that we were like, we want more of
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: her and we want more of her, you know, and
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: it was the kind of thing where then you had
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: to make room because you know, you can't have a
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: two-hour podcast. That's just, who's going to listen to that?
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: So it was really an editorial decision, both for clarity
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: and for, you know, for the narrative to flow.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: I will say, and y'all are willing to talk about
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: the harder subjects, especially as like the fizzling out of
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: the movement. And you understood sometimes when you don't have
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: that structure and things get to the wayside, such as
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: a sexual assault and things that were happening, at that time,
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: the fact that the police were able to infiltrate and
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: understood how to dismantle a not-led organization. Like, the ideals
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: are so good, but sometimes it does break apart. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: there are things to learn from that. Was there a
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: moment where you hesitated in bringing those bad, the dark
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: side of that movement?
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: No, I never hesitated. But I did want to make
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: sure that it was done in a way that wasn't Again,
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: victimizing the victim, because that's a really easy trap to
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: fall into. Absolutely. You know, I really wanted it to
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: talk about how this is the problem in our society overall.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: You know, so this idea that we have this utopian
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: village that also has the problems that plague us on
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: the outside of this utopian village. That's how it should be, right?
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Because we didn't do any work to actually make the
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: utopian village a utopia. You know, like, it's not going
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: to happen just because we have idealistic people sleeping in
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: a park. But I actually, I don't know what it
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: would take to no longer have a society that's like this,
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: you know, where sexual assault is, frankly, commonplace. And so...
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: I thought that was a really good example of something
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: where we can see that being idealistic alone is not
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: going to cut it, basically. And that's a little bit disappointing, right? Right. Right.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, you could tell the people you were interviewing,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: the individuals who had worked so hard and had so
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: much heart in this movement, how severely disappointed They were,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: and I will say for the most part, it seemed
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: like they weren't completely disillusioned because most of them went
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: on to continue in different routes to work in their
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: activism and understanding what this movement was about and understanding
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: the basis of why this movement was important. But it also, yeah,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: it did take a look about like, okay, this is
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: sometimes what happens with the failures. There could be bad
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: players and you have to recognize that. You have to
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: recognize calling out your own And I think like we've
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: talked about that with like the Black Lives Matter protests,
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: any of the all kings, the women's protests as well,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: like all of these things had good intent. But when
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: you leave out intersectionality, when you leave out some of
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: the voices and they tried not to, but and then
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: there are bad players. And if you aren't quick to
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: recognize that, how fast it can fall apart. And it
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: was an interesting conversation because it was like such a
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: big bang beginning. And then the fizzle was also quick,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: but also like a fizzle. Like it was such an
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: interesting way of looking at this movement from the beginning
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: to the end. When you finished with this specific series
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: and in this research, was there something that you came
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: out with like, oh, this is the big lesson outside
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: of like, obviously, capitalism is bad. And yes, they were
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: at the beginning of that. But was there something like
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: you're like, oh, this is the big narrative in this.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Series?
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: Well, I really think that the big lesson is that
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: nobody's coming to save us. You know, I mean, I
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: think we have heard this from other people as well. It's,
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying something that you haven't heard before. Yeah,
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: if you want change, then you have to go and
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: agitate for it. You have to organize for it. It's
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: not going to happen even by just electing people. You
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: need an inside-outside strategy. You need, you know, people to
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: demand from the outside that things are different. And then
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: you need to work with legislators to change the laws.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: There's one thing, if there's one thing I've really learned,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've learned so many things, but one of
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: the important things I learned is is that actually you
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: can change society by changing laws. This is totally underappreciated.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: This is what Congress does. It passes laws. And we
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: need Congress to once again work for the American people
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: and pass laws and stand for the Constitution, you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: and get accountability from the people who are bad actors,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: who are defrauding us right now and stealing our money. Yes.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: And all of this can be very discouraging. I do
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: think that the conversation has changed about what civic engagement
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: looks like. But one of the great things about your podcast,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Future Hindsight, is that you end your episodes with tips
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: on how to engage. So what is some advice you
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: would give our listeners who might be feeling that discouragement
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: to continue to engage?
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: One is that I think the only way out is
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: to have incremental change. This is totally unsexy and uninteresting.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: And so how do we get incremental change? It's by
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: being engaged on a daily basis. And that could be
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: joining a club. Like, for example, if you care about
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: the climate, join a climate club or organization. And then
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: the other thing, the very, very bare minimum absolutely everybody
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: must do is vote. It sounds... Like, you know, it
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: sounds kind of lame, frankly, also, and uninspiring to say
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: you need to vote. It's like, really? That's it? Yes,
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: that's it. Do that, at the very least. If you
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: look at elections across the country, you know, in New
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: York City, I don't know about the data in the
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: state of Georgia, but in New York City, for mayoral elections,
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: which are on off cycles, off years, the turnout is
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: between 20 and 25%. And I think with Mamdani, it
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: was close to 30 or around 30. But in a
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: presidential election, it's 65. And 65 even, frankly, is too low.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: We should have close to 90%, you know, voter participation.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Don't think that people don't vote because they're being, you know,
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: gerrymandered out. And I think sometimes that all of the
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: coverage about the upcoming election being potentially tampered with or
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: gerrymandering or any of the electioneering bad coverage actually discourages
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: people from voting because they think, ah, you see, I
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: told you all along, my vote doesn't matter. You know,
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: they're rigging it anyway. What's the point? And I actually
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: think we should, I mean, we should know what's happening.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: So I don't know how to do this better. I
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: want to be honest about that. But I do think
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: that it's not helping. It's not helping people have confidence
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: that they should go out and vote. But really what
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: we need to do is vote in huge numbers, just
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: in droves and droves, because then you can really make
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: a big dent in having different kinds of people in
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: Congress who will write the laws that are good for
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: everyday people. And I think podcasts like yours is really
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: helping with that narrative because the last couple of elections
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: thus far, I've been a little more hopeful because they've
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: been some amazing new candidates popping up. And it's like,
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, us in our 40s and such,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: we're seeing the younger ones really understanding, oh, no, yeah,
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: the system is bad.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: We just need to uproot the system. Let's bring in
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: people who think like us. And that's a really reassuring level.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: of seeing these types of turnouts and the new candidates
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: who do understand something is wrong with what we have
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: So we need to disrupt that.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: Which is so.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Important.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: And also about your podcast, I love in your episodes
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: how you have brought in new people and new ways
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: of thinking about politics and civic engagement. What is something
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: that you have learned? Because you've talked about the fact
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: that you're coming back from we're all coming back from
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: the old school 2016, 2017 to today and meeting these
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: new people with the new ideals. What are some things
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: that you have learned that you wish everybody knew right now?
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: That you are more powerful than you think you are.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: You have more power than you think you do. You
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: really do. Most people don't exercise it. Most people don't vote, right?
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: If you think about even the New York City mayoral election,
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: the fact that 30% Turned out, 70% didn't. Right? So
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: most people don't vote.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: Or even if they do vote, they vote only sporadically.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: And they think it matters, quote unquote. Well, it matters
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: every time. And if you're not voting, then you're not
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: using your power. Yes.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: And like doing the bare minimum of research on who
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: you're voting for, too, is important, I would say.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes, yes. We've had two, of course, yes.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: That goes without saying. But yes, it should be articulated.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: We should say that part out loud. You must do
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: the research. Please vote for the person who actually aligns
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: with your values. You know, that's actually not always easy.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: That's not always easy to find out in truth. Yes. Yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why I say it is because I think
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of local elections, if you don't have a
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: big name that you already know, people are just, I
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: don't really know who to vote for anyway. And I can't, Honestly,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I'm a big proponent we should have a whole day.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: No one would probably use it, but that the whole
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: day is just research who to vote for because I
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: get it. People are busy. There's all these pulls on
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: your time and some local elections here in Atlanta, I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: have tried my hardest to find out about the candidates
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: and I can't find anything about them. And so then
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, do I want to roll the dice, take
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a risk or just write somebody in knowing that nothing
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: will happen? But yeah, going in anyway, I think you
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: can get a general idea, even without doing too much research,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: in these local elections, in these non-presidential elections that are so,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: so important that you can at least have an idea of, okay,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I think this is the best choice for me.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: I think it's the demise of local media that has
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: really made that so... hard to do, to find out
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: what your local electeds stand for, you know, when they
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: have press conferences, what legislation that they back. And I
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: think this is actually the genius of Mayor Mamdani. He
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: is constantly in the media because he is, you know,
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: finding people where they are. They're no longer reading local media, right?
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: So they're on social. They're on Instagram, they're on Twitter,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: on Blue Sky or Substack, wherever it is. And he
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: finds them there And I think he's even on YouTube.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: I think everything that he does on video is on
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: a YouTube channel. So it's the kind of thing where
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: I feel like that's it. You know, the politician of
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: today has to be out there and talking about the
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: things that matter to the politician. And I know a
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: lot of people won't do that, but I think that's
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: one of the reasons Mamdani is so successful, because we
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: can see what he stands for and what he's.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Done about it.
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and one of the episodes that I'm thinking about
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: where you talk about small elections specifically was about the
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: library and her talking about the judges and the local
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: judges who are elected and why that is so important.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: And it really just hit.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's true, because we've talked so
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: much about the book banning issue and what we're looking
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: at in free speech and understanding how the library and
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: innocent librarians are being attacked today because of these mis-
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: disinformation in general when it comes to public libraries and
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: what they're reading and what they're allowing it.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: To be read. And she did.
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: She talked about the fact that a lot of her
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: problems in her community, not her problems, but in general,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: was the fact that the judges were not taking into
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: account the actual ruling, but what the people wanted. And
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: because they were elected and then a lot of people
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: are just elected by default. And I was like, oh,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: I didn't even think about connecting that type of election to.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: The bigger conversations that we're having.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, local elections matter.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: And I was like, libraries are being affected, y'all. Which
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: we've talked about, but.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: We love libraries.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Yes. So I love that episode, obviously. I was like, oh, well,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: I definitely have to listen to this one, too. Thank
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: you for listening to so much. I'm so excited that
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: you did.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Look. I got in there and I couldn't stop because
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: it was so good. Oh, thank you.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, it's good news for us, at least, because
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: after the release of Occupy, you've got new episodes of
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Future Hindsight. Are there any other projects that you have
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: coming up in the future?
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: So I don't have a specific project yet. coming up.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: I have some ideas of what we might want to
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: do next as another narrative series, but those are really,
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: you know, in like small, they're small ideas right now.
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: So this is not the time to share them because
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: they may never happen. So it's totally irrelevant. But on
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: Future Hindsight this fall, before the elections, we are having
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: some interesting conversations with people about electioneering and about getting
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: money out of politics. We're going to be speaking to
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: a Harvard Law School professor, Larry Lessig, and he thinks
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: there's a way to end superstition. PACs without passing a
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: constitutional amendment or overturning Citizens United. So I'm going to
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: be all ears about that. So that's coming up right
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: after Labor Day. And then we're having two economists on.
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: One of them, this will be interesting because he is older.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: He's a retired economist. economist at Stanford, and he argues
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: that free market capitalism and democracy are not compatible. And
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: for somebody like him, basically, he has changed his mind,
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: which is fascinating. And so I love to have conversations
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: with people who have, you know, evolved and changed their thinking.
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: And then we also have a woman, also an economist,
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: who wrote a book about anti-fascist economics in defense of affordability, dignity,
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: and democracy. And then we have a bunch of other
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: people on elections leading up to the midterms. And if
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: I can throw one more in, we're having Amy Westerfeld on,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: who has an amazing podcast called Drilled. She is a
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: climate reporter. She's really excellent, has done amazing work. And
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: she has a new book out. So we'll have her
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: on the podcast. It's called Brought to You By How
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Corporations Warped the Truth Conned the Public and Broke Democracy.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: So that should be a really good conversation.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Well, that was a title.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Dang.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: And yeah, with that, you also ask your guests what
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: makes them hopeful. So we want to ask you, what
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: is it that makes you hopeful for the future?
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: Well, what makes me hopeful is that I think we've
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: hit the bottom in terms of civic engagement. I think
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: that we are on an uptick. So that gives me
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of hope. Yes. I also, I'm hopeful about
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: the progressive candidates and whether they win or not. I
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: think they're changing the conversation. I think that makes me hopeful. And,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: you know, my own learning on the podcast, the things
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: that I'm learning all the time, that makes me hopeful too. That,
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: you know, if I can learn something new, other people
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: can too.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love that.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: Something we ask our guests, especially in a field like this,
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: where we have to, you know, sometimes look at the
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: dark side or, Or see things that make us feel
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: a little tired and really just want to give up.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: But we do ask, how do you take a break
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: for yourself? Or what is something that you do to
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: do self-care, as we will call it? I know that
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: word has become not so great. But in general, what
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: do you do to take a step back and just
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: take a moment for yourself?
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: So there are a bunch of things I like to do.
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: One of the things I love to do is play golf. Okay.
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: That sounds wrong. People love to make fun of me
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: for enjoying golf, but I really enjoy being on the
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: golf course.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: And just being outside and, you know, focusing on one
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: shot at a time, as my golf coach likes to
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: tell me. And so it's, you know, some people, you know, quote,
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: practice yoga and I practice golf.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Hey, if that brings you healing, we love it.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: That's something that I don't know how to do, and
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I would frustrate everybody around me if
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: I were to try.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: But.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: I love seeing it because I'm like, people who could
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: actually do well, they're always impressed.
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: Well, I enjoy it immensely. It gives me a lot
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: of joy. And I really like that basically when I'm
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: playing golf, I don't check my phone. I just check out.
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: I'm really present. And that's really, I think, a big
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: part of why I enjoy it so much. And plus,
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: I like to eat. I like to eat out. And,
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: you know, one of my sons is a big foodie.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: And so we love to hang out and eat. And
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: that's a lot of fun.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Give me a recommendation. We're going to be up in
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: New York soon. Where do I need to go? We
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: ate all the things.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: What kind of food do you like? All of it.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: Whatever is quintessential to New York City is what, like,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: Like, I'm like, I got to try that.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know. I think the quintessential New York things,
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: I would not recommend you do that.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: Like, don't eat pizza, you know, don't eat a papaya
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: grease hot dog. Yeah, don't.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, then where else do I need to go?
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: So, I love.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: One of my favorite Italian restaurants is Torisi. It's in Soho.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: There's a delicious Chinese restaurant I love called Pinch Chinese.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: There are a lot of Mexican restaurants that I really like.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: There's one in my neighborhood called Fonda, which I really enjoy.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: I think the one that people like to go to
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: that has good tacos is something called Number One. Something, something,
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: Number One. I know what it looks like, but I
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: don't know the name of the restaurant. This is a
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: terrible recommendation. You might want to cut that out. But
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: all this to say, it's really good, and people stand
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: in line for that.
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: Well, I have a feeling, and people might be like,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: our listeners are going to be like, oh, I know
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: what she's talking about.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: It's this one. So, yes, that's a clue enough. Okay,
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: clue enough.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I think those are fantastic recommendations. It's this place. It
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: might become this. There's a mystery involved.
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: There's a mystery involved. Yes, yes. Well, anyway, if you're
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: coming to New York, please let me know. Allow me
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: to take you to the taco place, the number one place.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: Whatever it's called. Whatever it's called.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: Maybe it's called Tacos Number One.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: That would be amazing if that's the name of it.
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, we are always down for delicious food and
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: meeting up IRL with people we have on the podcast.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: Yes. Same, same here.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, thank you so much for being here. Even
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: though you had a bit of a cough, you really
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: pulled through and answered all of our questions. Thank you.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. Where can the good listeners find you?
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: So please look up Future Hindsight wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: We are now also discoverable on the NPR One app.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: So go there, go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: else you like to listen. So on Instagram, please follow
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: us on Future Hindsight Pod. And on Twitter, we are
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: future underscore hindsight without an E. So it's F-U-T-U-R underscore hindsight.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Well, listeners, certainly go do that if you haven't already.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. Now we're going
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: to hang out in New York and it's going.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: To be great.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: That's awesome.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: You're welcome back anytime as well.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, please.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's so generous. Thank you so much. It was
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: really a pleasure to be on your show. Thank you
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: for having me.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Well, listeners, if you would like to contact us, you can.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: You can email us at hello at stuffwe'renevertoldyou.com. You can
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: find us on BlueSky at MomStuffPodcast or on Instagram and
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: TikTok at stuffwe'renevertoldyou. We're also on YouTube. We have some
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: merchandise at Comp Bureau and we have a book. You
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: to our super producer, Rima, and our executive producer, Maya.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: You is a production by HeartRadio. For more podcasts from HeartRadio,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: you can check out the HeartRadio app, a podcast where
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: we listen to your favorite shows.