Rev Left Radio - The Failures And The Future Of The Democratic Party

Episode Date: June 2, 2017

Chelsey Gentry-Tipton is the Nebraska Democratic Party Black Caucus Chair and Anthony Walraven is an activist from Peoria, Illinois who recently ran for City Council in his city. They sit down with Brett to discuss the modern history of the Democratic Party, Bill Clinton's Third Way strategy, the Hillary vs. Bernie primary, the role of race and class in the party, the limitations of the Democratic Party, lessons learned from the humiliating loss to Trump in the 2016 presidential election, the future of the party, and much more.    Follow us on: Facebook Twitter @RevLeftRadio or contact the dudes at Revolutionary Left Radio via Email   Please take the time to rate and leave a review on iTunes! This will help expand our overall reach.   Thank You for your support and feedback!

We're educated, we've been given a certain set of tools, but then we're throwing right back into the working class. Well, good luck with that, because more and more of us are waking the fuck up. So we have a tendency to what we have, we have earned, right? And what we don't have, we are going to earn. We unintentionally, I think, oftentimes kind of frame our lives as though we are, you know, the predestined. People want to be guilt-free. Like, I didn't do it. This is not my fault, and I think that's part of the distancing from people who don't want to admit that there's privilege.

When the main function of a protect and serve, supposedly group is actually revenue generation, they don't protect and serve. It's simply illogical to say that the things that affect all of us that can result in us losing our house, that can result in us not having clean drinking water, why should those be in anybody else's hands? They should be in the people's hands who are affected by those institutions. People are engaged in to overcome oppression, to fight back, and to identify those systems and structures that are oppressing them. God, those communists are amazing. Welcome to Revolutionary Left Radio. I am your host and comrade Brett O'Shea. And today we're going to discuss the failures of the Democratic Party.

We're going to talk about a little bit about the history of the Democratic Party, what they've done wrong. and maybe ways we can improve it in the future. So I have two very special guests with me today, and would you guys like to introduce yourselves and say a little bit about your background? My name is Chelsea Gentry Tipton, and I am currently the Nebraska Democratic Party Black Caucus Chair for another year.

My name is Anthony Walraven. I'm from Illinois. I'm from a town called Peoria. I am a committeeman for my county's Democratic Party. I've been a candidate for office for a very brief period of time. Yeah, well, awesome. Thank you guys so much for coming on. I'm really excited about this.

I guess we should start with maybe just a little history of the Democratic Party because I think it goes a long way in explaining where the Democrats are now and where they've been in the past. You can go all the way back to FDR and the New Deal sort of Democratic Party or what would eventually become the Democratic Party. But then during the Clinton era, there was really a turn to the right, a sort of scramble to the center in the wake of Reaganism. If you guys maybe wanted to touch on the history there

and exactly what Bill Clinton did to move the party and what we would consider to the wrong direction. Well, I mean, I feel like that's like its own show. Right. It's like, how long do you have? But, I mean, as a representative of the black community, I can tell you what he did was in prison an entire generation of black men and women. the street three strikes laws the mandatory minimums the you know school to prison prison pipeline all of those things were really implemented when Clinton was in office and we're still paying the

price but in our community we have you know an entire generation of children and women who are struggling and abandoned really because of you know simple drug stops arrests you know traffic stops, things that really shouldn't be an issue, things that you shouldn't be jailed for for an indefinite period of time. And then here in the state of Nebraska, we have a whole other issue with voting rights. So, you know, we disenfranchise people in many ways. And Clinton really was supposedly the first black president who had our backs while he was, you know, shoving us in prison so yeah and that's kind of the you know the the irony of it is that he was heralded as you know tongue in cheek but still kind of meaningful the first black president um he did

a lot of outreach you know when he played the saxophone on tv and everybody kind of went crazy you know he knew how to check and jive yeah yeah um i think that people really especially since we're so far away from that time um the information is not really very correct um and people are, it's really easy to find misinformation. If you look at some numbers, it'll tell you, okay, black people did better under the Clinton administration. What they're not counting in those numbers really are the people that were imprisoned during that time.

So, yes, you know, we may have risen employment, all the rest of it, but that doesn't include all the people that were in jail. And if we include those people, you know, there was nothing good that happened for us. And so it's disappointing that we still haven't. done anything to really combat that or stop it, we were just kind of letting it go and expecting support from people all around. And that's why we don't have it. All right. Absolutely. Anthony, would you like to touch on maybe the aspect of unionism that was left behind during the Clinton era? Yeah. And I think it actually ties into exactly

what was just said, which is that in addition to whatever its intent was, the result of it, was the massive disenfranchisement of African Americans and imprisonment of African Americans, you also had a complete cut in the very minimal safety net that existed for working class people in the United States. You know, welfare reform drove people into poverty. And that's part of, like, the whole third way. I mean, it went on across the entirety of like the Western world, so to speak, but it was this idea that the free market will somehow create the conditions that we need to have a more progressive society. And, you know, Bill Clinton, in addition to the criminal justice horrors he inflicted on the United States, also was the one who

deregulated Wall Street. He is the, he's directly responsible and the policies that were passed while he was president for the banking crash of 2008. He was the person that melded the Democratic Party to Wall Street and by doing that and by selling out it the traditional Democratic base of the working class it created the conditions for Donald Trump absolutely it created conditions where working class people no longer saw the Democratic Party as at least the person that was going to stick up for them because over the last 16 you know 20 years there's not been a lot of evidence of that there's been a lot of evidence of that there's been a lot of evidence of

selling out the interest of working people there's been a lot of instances of supporting the interest of the Wall Street and the money classes and people realize that people realize that you know Hillary Clinton for a lot of people in this country was not going to really do anything for them it shows up you know unions were traditionally the base of the Democratic Party and that meant that the base of the Democratic Party and the people that were listened to were working class people you know they still are but they're just not run by working class people you're right exactly

i would agree they're you know it's all about the union still but the unions are not really working for the people no and that's that's a that's an excellent point i mean there are a number of unions in this country that are very good and they're very supportive of working class interests and there are unions in this country that are i mean the old phrase labor aristocracy you know they solely are concerned with keeping their members employed. And they don't realize that a rising tide would raise all of those boats. A real rising tide, not the, you know, platitude that Reagan put forward of giving money to the ultra rich, and then that trickles down and raises on the tide, you know.

Well, I mean, in the unions, there's, you know, there's a genuine effort to keep people of color out of unions. And that, to me, is, you know, a huge red flag. anytime you're trying to keep any sort of disenfranchised group of people out of an organization that's supposed to help the disenfranchised, I mean, obviously you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Exactly. And unions, yeah, unions are the main vehicle that working class people can use to get their interests served by the government. And when that vehicle is way too white and exclusive, you know, to minorities, then that vehicle is

immediately going to be, you know, problematic and not all inclusive and be extremely limited and what it can do. What role do you think NAFTA played in this? Because NAFTA was a big element of the Trump v. Clinton campaign this time around Trump kind of grandstanded on the fact that he opposed NAFTA, although it's worth noting he's done nothing except help the billionaires and the capitalist class since he's been in office. So that was mostly just broken campaign promises and, you know, just opportunistic rhetoric. But if you guys could touch on NAFTA and how that was used to further weaken the working class

and help the shift towards, you know, the professional class for the Democratic Party. There's a growing consensus that free trade may raise the GDP of individual countries, but that doesn't necessarily translate into better living conditions for people in those countries. Some of the arguments about free trade are accurate. They do improve living conditions in third world countries. They do. But they almost, but they definitely. contribute to increase living conditions for multinational corporations.

I don't think it's a binary thing of no, of either we have free trade or we have protectionism. I think it's more of a holistic way that you approach free trade to say that in addition to, you know, there's going to be no taxes. If you're an American company and you open a factory in Malaysia, you're going to be held to the same kind of working conditions and wages and And, you know, paying someone that you would make 10 cents an hour, 25 cents an hour, while mathematically that may have doubled their salary, they're still making 25 cents an hour. Like, but by economic standards, their GDP has gone up 200%.

And it's, that's why, and I do think NAFTA, if you look at the places that Donald Trump won, and I'm actually from a town, I'm from the town, it's the headquarters of Caterpillar, which is like the big earth moving company. And what's the town? Peoria, Illinois. So when I was born, Peoria had about 30, 35,000 members of its UAW local. It was one of the largest UAW locals in the country. There's about 5,500, 6,000 members now.

And I can tell you that those 25,000 extra jobs in my hometown were not replaced by 25,000 people that were learning how to code. Right. They were replaced by people that took $10 and $12 an hour and jobs who still had the same amount of money that they had to meet every month at a time when the amount of assistance provided to those people for those situations actually was cut so there are a lot of people where I live who do not see the benefits to globalism they don't see the benefits to free trade agreements and for the Democratic Party to just you know Hillary Clinton may have been against the TPP but it was literally well she changed her mind about 25 seconds

after Bernie Sanders said that he was running for president. So we didn't really get like a definitive, yes, I'm against it and I won't move on it. I mean, yeah, I mean, you are right. Yeah. She left that door open. All right. Yeah, and that was a door that, you know, Trump took advantage of because she was wishy-washy on it. And I would also point out that with the NAFTA legislation or the free trade agreement that was NAFTA,

when it's heavily corporate, you know, influenced, there weren't working class people at the table to help structure that free trade agreement. And so so much of free trade agreements is not a black and white issue of either it's holy good or holy bad, as you say. But it really depends on who has a seat at the table when these things are being drafted. And what it did in effect became a disciplinary tool of capital to where I could say if you're trying to unionize this factory or this store or whatever, we can just move to Mexico. And so that puts the workers at a disadvantage and gives all the advantage to capital.

And they did use that disciplinary tool when it came to it, and they took a lot of jobs overseas. So the working class people here are hurt by that. And then the working class people in developing countries are brutally exploited and dominated by that, you know, 25 cent, you know, wage thing that you touched on earlier. Well, and not only that, but it allows the corporations to actually, not only do they use that threat on workers, they use that threat on governments. What happened in Indiana when Trump made that big deal about how he saved 200 jobs at a carrier air conditioning plant, that was a $9 million giveaway to carrier that kept those jobs there. And then they were going to obviously end up, they just announced that most of those are actually going to be going to Mexico. I wonder if Fox News covered that part of this. No, they were too busy covering their multiple sexual harassment scandals and murder conspiracies.

But no, I mean, it works. both ways, you know, like the way that free trade agreements are set up now, and I, and this is the thing. I think a lot of people, I think more people realize this than maybe like every other argument on the left, but they do have an instinctive thing that, wait a second, these things are written by corporate lawyers. You know, in the case of the TPP, corporations were literally held, you know, unaccountable to states because of the third party arbitration process that was set up. You already have right now countries, very poor, third world countries being sued by corporations.

For example, I think it was, I don't know what country it was in Southeast Asia. I think it might have been Thailand. They're getting sued because they raise their minimum wage. And these corporations can go before these third-party panels and say, well, that's actually going to cost us money. It's going to affect our bottom line. So the government of Thailand, and it may not be Thailand,

but I'm pretty sure it is, has to pay us for that. Wow. And that's completely legal. Well, yeah, that's just mind-blowing. and so clearly dark and immoral, but it's allowed to occur. Chelsea, I would like to touch base with Obama's presidency. In what ways was he able to mobilize so many people to vote for him in two elections, but in also what ways did he perpetuate the same sort of problematic policy crafting

that Bill Clinton spearheaded and started? Yeah, I mean, I think Obama's really a perfect, example of what happens when you um put a black person up you know to run for office black people vote um we will vote for people that look like us um in all honesty we've been seen in our local races that will vote for people that look like us even if they're saying crazy things um just because it's nice to see somebody up there who represents us um gives us a little bit of hope so i think in all honesty when people say which you hear all the time that they would have voted for Obama third time, they would have, regardless of all of the things that he's done, like deport more

people than any president in history. I personally, you know, we all have a love, hate relationship with him, I think especially within the black community, because we really do love him. He's a symbol of everything that we have worked so hard for and everything that we've struggled for. And even to see him every day still be treated like the same old, you know, house slave is very real for all of us because it's a testament to no matter how high you get in this world, you're still black. And in America, that still puts you at the bottom. You can still be the president and be at the bottom. And here we are even when he's not our president and they're still pushing him down to the bottom. So despite all of that, you know, I have so.

some serious issues with Obama. I am completely against any kind of bombing, any kind of war. I think, especially as a child of somebody in the military, my father was a commander at the Pentagon for years. I understand what it really means to bomb somebody and to actually release that amount of fire, you know, in the world. and we are not just doing this to people who are aggressors. We're doing this to innocent people.

It's disturbing to me that there wasn't more done really to push any advances for the black community here in our country. I feel like Obama did not really exercise his executive power like he should have because he was being Democratic night. like we're supposed to be. You know, and here we have Trump in office who's just signing away and it doesn't really matter what's going on. He's not worried at all about the repercussions. So, yeah, personally, I mean,

I'm thankful, especially because I have kids who, you know, were alive all throughout Obama. And for them, he's a huge symbol of what black people stand for and who we are. But he also wasn't everything that we needed. It was a little disappointing. I think that Biden really kind of saved him in a lot of ways because Biden is such an awesome,

lovable person who really, you know, you could leave it to Biden to kind of spill the stuff, you know. So, yeah, I think for me, you know, at this point, I would happily take him back. In a second, I look forward to the day where I don't have to wake up stressed out and having to have, you know, 20 different protests I'm supposed to go to everything, you know.

Um, but yeah, I think, uh, you know, as far as the black community goes, he really didn't do a whole lot for us. Um, and here we are, you know, eight years later and literally being attacked in open streets. Um, and really I think it's just because, you know, people are upset that they had a black man in charge. Yeah. And that's, that's what I wanted. Yeah. I wanted to ask you that. I was going to ask you as a woman of color, were you surprised at that Trump one? And do you see it as a backlash to the. eight years of Obama. And also, it's worth noting the fact that Donald Trump led the hyper-racist birther movement. And so that you can't disconnect his racist, you know, movement on that front. And then his also his campaign run, the same people that believed in that absurd conspiracy were large, you know, to large degree the people that voted for Trump. So were you surprised by that as a woman of color? Are you kind of used to this horrific system producing horrific results? Yeah. I mean, no, I knew that he was going to win. And I think I had mentioned it maybe to a couple of my close friends.

Like I think he's going to win way beforehand. And part of that was really my personal experience working for the Hillary campaign and seeing how the campaign was being run and the people that were being targeted, you know, for outreach in that campaign. And also just knowing that talking to people on the streets and knowing how I felt as a voter and knowing how everybody around me felt and kind of the vitriol that was spilled

and continues to be said about Bernie and all of the ideals that came with him and the targeted attack against those of us who supported Bernie I knew that most people unlike myself who are not bound by the party and you know need to vote with the party

and all the rest of it were either not going to vote or we're going to have a spiteful vote instead um and it's it's it's upsetting to me because you know as a black person like this is stuff that we're used to um we knew exactly what was going to happen when he won and I feel like those of us who supported Bernie and especially people of color were kind of screaming from the rafters like this is what's going to happen and um nobody listened and in return we're kind of all thrown under the us. I think that's entirely accurate. I mean, I can say from my own experience with working for Sanders in a party kind of construct, you know, there is a resentment at the left of the party as if

the fault of Hillary Clinton's coronation not coming to pass was the left of the party. but look at who the Clinton campaign targeted in her general election campaign. So after she wins the primary, she's not targeting the people on the left. She's targeting moderate Republicans. She's targeting people that live in like John Alsaw's district in Georgia, suburban white Republicans who are maybe more socially liberal, but I mean, they're still to the right. And when you're given an opportunity to vote for a pretend of what you believe in or the real thing, you'll always vote for the real thing.

So those people still voted for Trump. But meanwhile, everyone that voted on the left wasn't really, it was just assumed that you're not going to vote for Trump. And I don't think that it ever entered into the mind of the Clinton campaign that maybe those people just wouldn't vote at all. Or they would vote for a third party. And I think that it showed to me at least anyway what that, you know, that. The particular part of the Democratic Party that is maybe more corporatist will always, if they have their choice, want to court people to the right of them.

And that means that when they get elected into office, they will want to court people to the right of them. And what will happen for the last 30 years will just continue to happen, whereas Bernie Sanders at least, at the very least, offered an opportunity to end that rightward drift of the district. Democratic Party and solidly plant the party with its base and not with the people that fund it and as Bernie Sanders proved the people can also fund it right and that's the thing that I think is the game changer about that what what happened in 2016 if you're a leftist and you want to think that there's a future with the Democratic Party is that left-wing candidates can fund themselves right from people who actually believe in what they're saying and so you don't

need to have Wall Street donors and you don't need to have, you don't even necessarily need to have the money of anyone other than people that want to kick in $30, $40 at a time on the internet. And there are millions of those people. He was the first candidate I ever donated to. Right. Yeah. Because he made explicit that model and I said that's an important model to have some weight behind.

So I guess the big question is, and it's become kind of a meme on the internet, but in both of your opinions, because I've heard from people like my dad and my grandparents who ultimately went for Trump, that they would have voted for Bernie, that they liked his message, but that they just couldn't stand Hillary, and so they would rather do Trump? So would Bernie have won if he had the full support of the DNC and the Democratic Party and was the general campaign? And then why? Yeah. For that very reason, because the climate of this election really was anti-establishment. And that's the whole reason why Trump won. We put up, we coronated, as you said, an establishment candidate, you know, she was, I mean, you can't get much more establishment

than there he is. And ignored the fact that we had an anti-establishment candidate who, you know, we were literally screaming for people to pay attention to. And even when they didn't pay attention to him, he was still winning. So to ignore that really is our own fault. And that's, we have to acknowledge that first off, because we ignored the fact that people were going to vote for somebody who was anti-established regardless of him. The reason why they voted for Trump was because he was not part of anything. He was outside of everything. They weren't necessarily happy with any of the racist stuff that he's saying or any of, any of the terrible things, any of his awful standpoints, any of these things.

But they were willing to vote for him because they hated Hillary that much and they did not want the establishment. You know, they would have voted for Bernie because he was basically the flip side of that coin. He was saying the same sorts of things. but he wasn't alienated, you know, alienating the entire country while he was doing it. I think it's really disappointing that they chose not to listen to the people because they literally cost us the country. Yes. You know, and there's, the biggest problem we have right now is the refusal to acknowledge

that that's what's happened. And I strongly believe, like, we need to deal with everything because we can't move on and learn from it unless we have. It's like a pathological refusal to admit their own fault. To me, that's the most infuriating part of this entire thing that's happened in the Democratic Party, is that the people responsible for it are literally blaming the people who tried to stop it. And so, like, my analogy of what happened in the election is basically this. There are a bunch of Americans who think they have cancer, and they go to a Dr. Clinton, and they go to a Dr. Trump.

Dr. Clinton tells them there is no cancer. It's all in their head go away. Dr. Trump says, you do have cancer. So he gets the diagnosis right. So now you have a Dr. Sanders and a Dr. Trump. And they both tell you have cancer, except Donald Trump tells you the diagnosis is smoke eight packs of cigarettes a day. And Dr. Sanders' solution is quit smoking and we'll do chemo.

So there were a lot of people that were listening to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and one of them was saying, you're getting screwed. And one of them was saying America is already great. And they immediately turned out the person who said America is already great. They may not have voted for Trump. But they were never going to vote for Clinton because they didn't get the basic problem right, which is that a growing number of Americans do feel that we have lost control of our country to corporate interests, that the media does not do a good job of informing us of what's going on in the world,

that we aren't making more money even though we're working harder, that the bosses seem to get richer every single year, even when they make bad decisions. In the town I live in, in Peoria, Caterpillar's CEO bought a mining company six years ago, at the height of the mining, like boom, like globally. And then as the, as like the global economy kind of shrank a little bit, countries weren't mining as many things, and Caterpillar stock dropped. And he laid off thousands of workers,

but he kept paying himself as $30 million bonus every year. And more and more people realize that the, the center, left, center right consensus about the way the world is, the way that neoliberalism tells them the world is, a lot more people are waiting into the idea that that's not really the case. And so, yeah, if you have someone saying that I agree with you, it's not the case, you're not even going to listen to the other part of it from the person who says everything's fine. And I think that, yeah, Bernie would have won.

And I think that the Democratic Party would have won. I think that we would have control of the Senate. We would have control of the House of Representatives. What all of these people are kind of thinking is going to happen in, you know in 2018 could have already have happened and it's infuriating that the people that are the cause of that are the ones that think that none of it was their fault and yeah and that exactly right and that goes into my next question um in the in the wake of their humiliating loss um what have they done like the what have they done to rectify it or to double down what's your

opinion on that, Chelsea? I mean, I think some people have attempted to rectify and some people where I disagree with them within the party on politics are willing to admit, you know, what went wrong. But for the most part, they double down. And even just within our local races, it shows that they've doubled down because we're continuing to do the same thing. it's frustrating for those of us who have not stopped fighting them and I would say for me it's definitely like a you know internal fight I'm constantly pushing for candidates on the left trying to find candidates on the left doing what I can within the party but also within the other nonpartisan groups that I work with to make sure that that support is there and

that those people are aware that there's people that will be out and running unfortunately, you know, if the party is not willing to acknowledge that, then we'll be in the same position that we are in right now. And so I'm choosing to be proactive about what we're doing. So even within the caucus, we're working very hard to find our own candidates. And with or without, you know, support of the party, whatever it comes down to, we will make sure that they're funded and they're able to run. In your opinion, Anthony, What role did the Russians play as a scapegoat and an out for the Democratic Party in the wake of their loss? And see, to me, this question is kind of delicate because I do not think at all that the Russian government caused Hillary Clinton to lose the presidential election.

I mean, it's absurd. But on the same hand, do I find the allegations that Trump has had dealings with the Russians to be a legitimate one? like I do. Like I, and what I would also say, that's not the thing that most worries me about Trump, but it is something that, I think it's a legitimate concern. But the idea that the Russian government, I know, I'll make the very good point that's often made about the DNC leaks. The Clinton campaign didn't deny the veracity of anything that was leaked.

They admitted that everything they said was true. Their issue was that people found out about it. Right. So the intra-party. collusion against Bernie Sanders, the intra-party, their conversations about building Trump up because they thought that they could just destroy him in the general election, they admit that all of those things are accurate. So if that did cost you the election, maybe it deserved to. It showed people how disingenuous you were. And so I could concede that maybe that did

have a, that was a reason why she lost. But if that was a reason why she lost, it's because it showed that she and her campaign had colluded to basically subvert the Democratic election, the Democratic Party's own election. So maybe that did have an effect on people, but if it did, it was well deserved, in my opinion. Yeah, and one of the things that the WikiLeaks of the DNC emails revealed, and I kind of want to shift to this point, was the attempt by the Clinton campaign to use race and gender against Bernie Sanders. You had back in 2009, when Hillary was running against Obama in the primary election, there was a phrase, it's kind of forgotten now. It's not brought up a lot, but the Hillary campaign called Obama supporters Obama boys.

Yeah. And then now she calls the Bernie supporters Bernie Bros. And this is an attempt to make the opposition to Hillary look like a fundamentally white male opposition. So I think that speaks to the role that minorities play in the party. and what would you say, Chelsea, about that sort of strategy and how the Democratic Party interacts with race generally? Well, the Democratic Party, I think, is still kind of running in circles with race. There's really no change, although there's the appearance of change.

There really isn't much change. And especially in Omaha, in LD-11, it's the highest concentration of Democratic. in the state. So in North Omaha, LD11, typically it's like a 25, 30% turnout when it's high. I mean, if they got 80% of those votes, we would win every election. We're not getting those votes because we're not putting up candidates that represent us. And when they are up there, we're not supporting them. And we're really not talking to these people at all. Working for the Hillary campaign, we went and knocked on doors in North Omaha. I was organizing for LD. But all the doors we knocked on were registered Democrats who voted.

There was no knocking on every door. There was no knocking on people's doors that hadn't voted in a couple years. It was same old, same old, let's knock on everybody who voted for Obama. And so the big problem is that you're really just pandering to the same people. You can't expect to the grow to the party if you don't. actually attempt to grow the party and bring in new people. You can't just expect for people to turn 18 and join the party. You have to actually talk to them.

We were talking the other day about how when you register to vote for the first time, you know, your choice is Democrat, Republican, independent. And a lot of people go with independent because why wouldn't you want to be independent? You know, it sounds a whole lot better than anything else. Right. And I can't blame them because we're still really not doing what we should for the black community. And so I've, you know, representing the black community and working with the black community has been really fruitful but also difficult because since we've been so ignored, people don't really understand the importance of their vote. I kind of constantly tell people and explain to people that it's really down to numbers.

It's literally just math. If there's 100 people in a room and we have 51 people that will vote with us, then we win. The way to change the party, really, is to infiltrate and take over the party. I definitely understand the desire to create new parties and to try and start something new and move us left. But there's something to be said for having the structure and the backing already there and to be able to come in and say, we're not doing this anymore. This is how we're going to do it. And we now have the numbers to tell you that this is how we're going to do it. also with politics it's slow going

it doesn't really seem to pay off very quickly all of this protesting all of this you know all this running and everything you know candidates that are announcing now for 2018 they've been being vetted for years now you know they've been doing this for a couple years and so you know it's hard to really see the importance of taking time off work to go and vote

or caring about going to a protest or a rally when, you know, what is it really going to do for your everyday life? Like, what am I going to see? What does this change for me tomorrow? Yeah. So, yeah, I think the party really needs to continue to try harder. And I'm going to continue to take them to task, really. Yeah, and Anthony, with the whole Bernie bro aspect of it,

there was this, what I feel is a false dichotomy between identity and class. Hillary used identity as a bludgeon against Bernie saying that he folks. focused too much on class and that in effect, although she didn't use this language, was a class reductionist. And that, you know, had some success, at least on the internet, would people would be like, if you don't vote for Hillary, you're privileged and sort of that sort of talk. So is there a dichotomy between identity and class or do those things go together and by addressing one, you inherently need to or should or do address the other? I don't necessarily think that identity and class go hand in hand, but

I do think that policies that benefit the entirety of the working class will disproportionately affect minorities. Like statistically speaking, that's true. And... Well, they were built to disproportionately affect minorities. No, no, but that's what I'm saying. So the policies that brought down the working class were also primarily motivated by race. And so policies that bring up the entirety of the working class will

predominantly affect the working class. Now, the last time the Democratic Party was this way in the 30s and the 40s, unfortunately it had a half of its party that were Democratic because of white supremacy. Every Democrat in the South, almost every Democrat in the South voted against the Civil Rights Act, for example. Those people are now rightly in the Republican Party where they belong. So any kind of Democratic Party that's built on the principle now of raising the tide of the working class, it won't slip by or it shouldn't slip by minorities. And that's why it is important that minorities occupy spots of power throughout the Democratic

Party and far too infrequently, do they? If you look at the city of Chicago, I'm from Illinois. Chicago has had one African-American mayor in its history, and that was Harold Washington. And Harold Washington spent the first two and a half years of his city council or of his administration unable to pass legislation because a majority of the democratically elected Democratic city council members in Chicago would not pass any of his legislation. They were also all white Irish guys. They were the leftovers of like the daily machine.

So way too often the Democratic Party hasn't served the needs of the minority community. And that the only guarantee that that won't continue to happen is if minorities are represented at all levels of the Democratic Party. It's absolutely important. The same thing with younger people. If you wanted to go to any average county Democratic Party in a non-big city, so it wasn't pure, it's not a big city, you'll find 30 people that are all above 50 years old who it's like a hobby for them, a lot of them. Are you talking about the Douglas County? Oh, is that the same? Okay, so I see, we share notes.

Okay. And the thing is, though, I, people I know that were elected precinct commitment, in other words, the board members of my county Democratic Party, and they got 10 votes. That's how few people vote in these things. I won by nine votes in my election. Wow. It was nine to eight in my election.

Wow, landslide. Right. Yeah, that's crazy. But that's the thing, is that you can live in Omaha. Nebraska, Peoria, Illinois, you can get 12 of your friends and when you get one of you elected to a committeeman spot in a Democratic Party in a bigger city in Omaha. So it is in my mind. And you can call me naive and you can call me a liberal, whatever you want to call me. I'm not. But I would much rather try to take over the thing that's already there than build up a new thing.

It's already there and it can be taken over very, very, doesn't require a lot of people. So why don't try that first? Now, if that doesn't ever succeed if we get to a point where we're just literally beating our heads against the wall, then yeah, but I don't think we've reached that point yet.

No. We just started to try to do this. I think some people have reached that point and that's the people who are really splitting off and creating these other groups. But they don't really realize that not everybody else has been there with them this whole time.

Like other people are just coming on board and you kind of have to wait for the wave. You know, like when I was elected, we elected actually a lot of Bernie supporters to positions in our state party including our chair and it was it's still frustrating because we still fight a lot

and argue about sentences and you know policy and procedure but we know that come 2018 we'll have a whole other wave of Bernie supporters that are here to help and take over so just like we were talking about it takes a while You know, it's going to take, you know, 10 years really for us to change the party.

But it can be done. It's not a question. It can be done. We just have to do it. Yeah. And my perspective as somebody who embraces the notion of diversity of tactics is that every tactic is valid and viable. And people that are dedicated like you to getting inside the Democratic Party and pushing it in a more progressive direction, that can't be anything but good. And that's, that is the most ultimate point that I think should be literally emblazing.

on the head of any person that identifies as a leftist. I think the ultimate society that you and I, and we've talked about this before, the ultimate society that you and I would live in would look exactly the same. You are contributing in your way towards that, and so am I. And I 100% support you in your efforts.

And you support me in mine because politics, a working class party, a party that upholds to the principle that there's enough in society so that no one should suffer will only exist with a mass popular movement behind it and there are many different ways to get to that same goal and I think the thing that we do I don't I don't hold with unity with everyone in the Democratic Party but I do hold with unity with everyone in the left right and one of the things that that that I just just, I don't say I hate it, but it just, it kind of breaks my heart is when people that

agree on almost everything just argue about the best way to get there. Right. Like, let's just get there. Well, that's what we actually talk about. Like our chair mentioned at the meeting the other day is a difference between Democrats and Republicans in these meetings is that Republicans sit down and they actually do work. Yeah. And they get it done. And they create policy no matter how awful and terrible it is and they push it and they get it out there and everybody votes. Democrats, we sit there and we argue about what work we're going to create and we don't actually do anything and that's literally that's all we do and so until we get to the point where we can get along with each other enough to say okay who cares can we just get this past can we

make a decision here it was really frustrating for us within our state party because right before we had one meeting left before they were going to make the Dackle decision and we attempted to pass a resolution, you know, to announce that we were against Apple. And they put it down. They voted against it because they wanted it to go to committee first. And, you know, this is a time sensitive resolution that we all agree on. Nobody in the party here in Nebraska, especially because, you know, we are the last state for Keystone and all the rest of it. Nobody wants these pipelines. And we all agree on it. But for whatever reason, they felt that it needed to go through the procedure, which meant that we weren't able to take a position on it.

before the decision was made. Sure. And then so anyone thinking, well, what was the state party stance on DAPO would see that you had none? Right. And because of our, it's our own fault.

Because, you know. No. Yes. And that's sort of infighting within the Democratic Party is reflective of the sort of infighting on the folks to the further to the left. That sort of sectarianism infighting

and you feel like you can't move forward because you're bogged down in this minutia of sectarianism. Right. It's a problem all over the board. important that we've really, regardless of how much we disagree with somebody, we find whatever points we agree on and run with those. A lot of neoliberals in the party, you know, I fight with and argue with on a daily basis. But when it comes down to certain things that we agree on,

I am more than willing to work with them because we agree on it and we need to make sure that it happens, really. So I think we all need to make sure that we're open to working with people as much as we can but stay true to what you believe in and the policy that you want to push and who you want to represent you. It's disappointing to me really

to see all these people that we really fought with for Bernie. A lot of Bernie delegates, a lot of people that we really worked with that we thought were super progressive that under the attention of the party and for whatever reason have flipped and within the local races

are not holding candidates to the same level that they held Hillary to. And so it's frustrating. It does feel like beating your head against the wall sometimes, but I don't think we're there yet either. And I think, you know, it's a nice or an important historical anecdote, I think, to this, is that the 1948 election, the whole, like, you know,

Truman beat or Dewey beat Truman, but he, like, where he holds up the headline. In the newspaper was misprinted. Yeah, the newspaper was misprinted. It was the Chicago Tribune, actually. And after that election, the heads of the major unions in the United States, so the UAW, A. Philip Randolph, who was the head of the International Brotherhood of Sleeping Carporters, they met.

They had a conference after the election, and they were like, Tatt Hartley had just passed. And they were like, the Democratic Party, at least that southern wing of it, prevents us from doing anything we need to do. Maybe we should look into forming a third party. And this is at the height of Labor's power. This is labor having millions of members all across the country, a much more left wing than they are now, run by actual leftists like Walter Reuther and John L. Lewis. They all got together and they're like, no, it's not viable. And that was in 1948 when those social, you know, union is somewhat of a social movement in addition to, we're at their height.

They were the most powerful they've ever been in the history of the country. And they did it, the math, and said, no, this isn't, this isn't viable. We already have our place in this party. Let's just work to take it over more. And so I just I look across the scene of that and I don't necessarily doubt that it would be better. I doubt that it would be effective.

I doubt that are we going to be able to do this or is it just easier to continue to try to take over this? It's like the ageable question. And I guess I'm just at the point still where I'm not there yet. But I also think that it is like you said, beating your head against the wall sometimes. We had in my

area Illinois has non-partisan municipal elections but everyone knows who's a Republican and a Democrat yeah my yeah yeah oh is Nebraska that way as well the R and the D are still there okay all right but um

we have a non-partisan unicam okay yeah I did know that yeah yeah yeah just Nebraska in Maine right only two states that have that yeah yeah but it you know they still vote party lines yeah so um in my hometown I'm

from the town, from the mayor that arrested the guy who made fun of him on Twitter. Like, if you Google Twitter, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my mayor in the town I live in. Obviously not a Democrat, but was endorsed by every single local democratically elected official. Like state reps, U.S. congressmen, Peoria, is represented by two congressional districts. So the Democratic member of the 17th district, Sherry Bustos, endorsed this guy. And that does make me want to, like, beat my head against a brick, wall like until I pass out where's the money though is the question well and and the thing is is

that if you look at the fundraising of it they're there he's very effective at donating money to people and he has the backing of every single trade union because how Peoria works is that they pay money to like large real estate developers to build these giant buildings that don't make any money for the city and then all the trade unions work on those buildings and so they're constantly employed so they love it and and in my in my county the democratic party is run by the by the building trade unions it's not even like the teachers and the firefighters it's just the building trade unions so i'm in the same party as those people and yeah that it does make one want to beat their head against yeah i mean i always think that um

I always wonder, I always ask where the money is, really. Where's the money? Where is it going? And I think that everybody should really be checking out the accountability and disclosure information that's available online because candidates really have to put all that information up there. And if there's something that you feel like is not kosher, there's always a trail to be followed. But really, and that's something with the bill that we worked on LB75 out here, we experienced with our governor, We originally, with the first three votes, really had 27 senators. Bill passed.

Ricketts vetoed it. We ended up with 29 senators unofficially before the override vote. And when the override vote came, we were short 12 senators. And it was because Ricketts had called all of these senators and told them that he was going to fund their opponents when their races came up. Sure. So, you know, what these senators don't understand is that they've sealed their. own fate by doing that because although he's going to fund their opponents we could have funded them just like we were talking about the people can fund these candidates sure they need to stop being

afraid of the money and understand that we actually have the money and we have the power and even without the money look at ernie chambers he doesn't spend a dime on his race and hasn't and he's the longest serving senator in the state i just went and saw him for his birthday you know he's 80 years old and this man has his last election he didn't spend a dime and you cannot run against 30 chambers. You will not win. Oh, man. If you don't live in Nebraska, you just go Google Ernie Chambers and see the history because he is a rogue and he is a fighter in a very conservative state legislature. He is my senator and he serves as well. And as somebody who has voted for him for, you know, 10 years now, I could tell you that I don't care if he was 150. I would

still vote for him and we would will him in there in a wheelchair. And he's a badass. I love that. So speaking of money in politics, which is one of the things, that Bernie was really hammering on getting money out of politics, just precisely because of the way that it skews things, as we just talked about. That was one of the big things he pushed for. And I think it is important. And he showed by leading with example that we can fund it from a grassroots level, and we don't need this top-down funding paradigm. But I do want to talk, before we move to the future of the party and where things might go from here, I want to hit on one more topic about the Bernie Sanders campaign. He openly identified as a Democratic

socialist. So my question to you guys was, how does that term strike you? Do you like it? Does it have a future in the Democratic Party if that party is still a vehicle that some section of us are going to use to try to push a progressive politic in this country? Is it limiting? Did he

destigmatize it? Those issues, I'd like to get your guys' opinions on that. I mean, I think he definitely destigmatized socialism a little bit for those of us who understood what he was talking about. um for those who don't and for those who ended up voting for trump i think they really got the opposite impression from him um i think it's important to understand that you know eventually really

all forms um of you know communism capitalism capitalism um capitalism leads to uh basically communism to show socialism in the end so we're going to end up there one day um because of the historical unfolding. Exactly. I mean, it's a bubble that's going to pop. It's just a matter of when it happens and whether or not we're here to enjoy it or not. I think that in our community especially, I know I talk about the black community a lot, but within the black community, we don't really know so much what's going on in politics.

And when you say that somebody's a socialist, it's a big turnoff because socialism, most bad and that's what we've been taught. And because we are working very hard to just survive a lot of times, we don't really have the time or the means or even the desire to find out what's actually happening and really educate ourselves. But I can tell you that a lot of black people loved Bernie. We all loved him. Bernie spoke to everybody.

And when you're up there and you're saying, I want to fight for free health care, for education, to extend education out, you know, four years for people. it resonates with people. I wish that he had focused more on people of color and really tried to touch on that a little bit more. But I think that, you know, I mean, I don't know. I think that it's, for me, it's not scary. But I think that definitely to any Republican,

if you tell them that you're a Democratic socialist, they're going to say, okay, you're trying to destroy the world and you want me to share everything with you and you want free everything. And that's not what it's about. This is about making sure that everybody has an equal chance. All right. And I think that when, and this has been proven in studies,

when the ideas of socialism are presented to the average person, like free health care, educational things, they totally love it. The term itself because of a century of Cold War propaganda. And in Nebraska, most Republicans are really Democrats. Socially, they're just fiscally Republicans, and that's the difference. When you talk to them about it, they don't even understand that fiscally,

they might actually be more democratic than they are. Well, and that's, that's, to even talk about socialism in the context of actual American politics, it's hard. But if you look at people, the first cohort of Americans that did not grow up in the Cold War, like even my, I mean, I was born in 84. So even with my generation, there's still a little bit of a residue of it. Socialism doesn't have negative connotations. It's just another form of government.

And I don't necessarily. necessarily think socialism is inevitable because I think capitalism has proved better at adapting than Marx maybe would have thought yeah um I do think he underestimated I think a little bit I mean you know it might so happen but I mean I don't think he would have foreseen the ways that it worked you know um I I think that when yeah I agree I think when you present when you present the excesses or if you present what socialist politics would do to the United States in terms of, like, the power of money, the power of corporations,

what we feel like we're all owed as members of society. People absolutely believe in that. And that's why, to me, like, it requires persuasion. Like, to say that you're a democratic socialist, it requires persuasion. And I think that sometimes we find it hard to pursue. persuade people of things that we already think should just be. Oh, I see. And that we don't necessarily, you know, I think there should be universal health care.

Well, I don't. Well, you're a monster. Right. You might end up being a monster, but maybe you, like, because I, you know, a common complaint is like, well, my taxes would go up, but you wouldn't have insurance premiums. Right. So, like, do the math. Like, oh.

I told somebody that the other day, do you want to pay 100, hundreds of dollars? every month or do you want a 1.5% increase in your tax? Absolutely. And when you frame the argument that way, then people agree with it. There's a moral, there's a moral justification for socialism, but in many, many, many, many cases, all cases really. There's an economic justification for it. And I think far too often we focus on the moral justification for it, which is very important, but we also don't realize that some people won't be persuaded by that. And that sucks. But I don't care how the mouse trap catches the mouse. If you want a universal healthcare system because you're convinced it's cheaper and not because

you think it's morally right that all Americans have access to it, it doesn't matter to me as long as you support it. Right. Great point. And I do use that economic. I do try to tinge my arguments based on who I'm talking to and I think that's something we should all try to do. Of course.

Yeah. All right. Well, looking forward, looking at the future of the party, we talked about millennials, we just talked about socialism, that study that's been going around online of when millennials are polled, a majority of them prefer socialism over capitalism. That's very interesting. I was born in 89, and I... And I'm like, way old.

Well, I came to the workforce, you know, 18, 19 years old, right as the recession of 2007, 2008 hit. And a lot of this generation, you know, had to deal with that. And so we've seen firsthand the failures of capitalism, needless to talk about student loan dead and all the other things that we have to deal with. So there's something, there's cause for optimism in, you know, this generation coming up, I think, in terms of pushing just society in a more progressive direction. So what role will millennials play in altering the political landscape in the U.S.

as the agent of power? And does that make you optimistic? Well, yeah, I mean, I've spent a good amount of time registering voters in high schools and stuff this year. and it does make me optimistic because, in all honesty, Bernie really fired them up. They're very excited. He spoke to them, and they understand what he's saying because they're living it, because they're on the other end of, you know, the bubble. I grew up in San Francisco, and it was during the big Silicon Valley boom,

and we were displaced because of it, and I remember we lived in a house for 14 years. I grew up in it, and we went from having it. a nice little house to being homeless for years and you know my hope is that we don't ever get back to that point where families are completely displaced after you know never knowing a life like this and forced out on the streets unable to take care of themselves people who are unable to pay medical bills you know we need to be moving farther away from these things not closer to them and unfortunately we are right now. So as far as the party goes, I really would like for the party to take a hard

stance on all of these things. I would like more representation for people of color. It's great that we now have two black senators in our legislature and we now have our first Latino senator. But you know, it's 2017. Why do we only have two black senators and one Latino senator when the majority of the voters in the state that are Democratic are black? And so I want to see more expansion into communities. I want to see more work for the people. I think that unless that begins to happen, then really we're not going anywhere. And whatever third party groups may come up, in all honesty,

really are probably still not going to stand much of a chance because, you know, the Democratic Party has not only the Democratic Party name, but the money, and they have a lot of power. And they have bipartisan laws that they've created to suppress third parties. As long, yeah, I was going to say, as long as the ballot access in the United States is so draconian, they'll never be a third party. So you want to run for Parliament in Great Britain. There's 650 seats in the House of Commons. To run, you get 10 people to sign a petition. You get 500 pounds as a deposit that you get back if you get 5% of the vote.

That's all it takes. If you want to run as a third party candidate in my congressional district, the 17th in Illinois, 50,000 signatures. And when you do, if you happen to get those signatures, which you already have to have money to finance that, because that's a lot more than like what I did when I ran for the city council, you get that money just strictly to get on the ballot.

And then immediately both parties sue you. So then you spend the entire general election spending any money that you have and time you have on just staying on the ballot. I'm not saying that that system's right. I'm just saying I don't have a lot of confidence that the Democratic and Republican parties as they presently stand are ever going to allow those to change.

But a Democratic party that was taken over by the left might, would, would change that. But look at the Republican Party was taken over by the right. I mean, they've been taken over by the Tea Party, you know, so it's not like it can't be done. No, and that's, and again, that's the point is that half of the reason the Republican Party has drifted to the right is because there are people that are on the Republican Party that believe those things. But the ones, for example, the people that made Trump care happen were voted the way they did because they feared a primary challenge and someone given a bunch of money to the guy with the primary challenge. Very real threats to their position in life. If there are democratic legislatures at the state, city, national level that fear a left primary challenge, they may not be with us in spirit, but they'll do it just out of the fear of that. That's how you change the dynamics of the Democratic Party.

But to get there, it has to be more engaged in the progressive community locally, at the state level, at the national level. The Democratic Party should be the natural ally of anyone that seeks economic justice or, you know, any feminist, any person on the progressive left or even farther than that should see the Democratic Party as someone that's at least willing to work with them. towards a common goal. And I think far too often we don't see that. You know, every Democratic, if a, if like the Democratic Socialists of America are organizing a $15 an hour minimum wage rally, the Democratic Party should be behind that.

Absolutely. They should be there saying, we also agree with this. That's the only way that you're going to build a broad-based coalition that you're going to need to take over these seats and raise this kind of money. That's what Bernie Sanders did.

Bernie Sanders brought in a lot of people into the Democratic Party who had never had a Democratic politician speak to them about issues in a way that they also agreed with. And I think it's absolutely necessary that going forward you keep that up. Yeah. When I can tell you here in this state, we are working on a coalition with many grassroots organizations, but it's hard because we are the party. And so to get people to trust us and to want to work with us. And honestly, even for us to relinquish enough power to give them the power to work with us has been tough but you know we're working on it we acknowledge that it's something that

needs to be done i know i work with a lot of different groups um and so i feel like the party is trying to move forward but it's kind of like two steps forward you know one step back type thing right yeah and i think i have a lot of listeners that are all in the the revolutionary radical left that immediately dismiss the idea that the democratic party is anything but completely non-viable for a vehicle. And I hope for those people that do feel that way, really listen to these arguments and really think about diversity of tactics and keep an open mind. Don't be hyper-sectarian about it because the ultimate goal that we all share, which you touched on earlier, is we all want a more just, a more equitable, a more moral society, a less bloodthirsty society, a less

imperial society. We're all working at that same goal. We're all just doing it from different angles. And I think it's important to support one another and to keep an open mind about strategies that you might not intuitively agree with off the top. But have your mind open because we need all hands on deck. And I wouldn't even disagree that those people that think that haven't been given ample reason to think that. No, they have. I mean, they absolutely have. It's not an unjustified concern. I'm elected to the party and I still feel that. Yeah, I do, too. And so I think, like, again, if you're a member of the IWW or you're a member of the DSA or you're a member of a local co-op, I'm pretty sure that I probably agree with you about 90 to 95% of where we want to go. I just belong to a different organization.

I belong to the organization that I hope I'm keeping my fingers crossed affords the best way of reaching that society. if at any point I thought one of those other organizations would I would work through them I totally would I would in a heartbeat so yeah I think yeah I and I would tell people that maybe would view the radical left

or the revolutionary left is like you know Bolsheviks on the barricades that like there are many different ways to getting to the same goal and you know if you choose to go down one route your goal is to still be like the comrade

of the person who went down the other route. I mean, if you absolutely have to, I mean, there are certain things you can't negotiate on. But I mean, like, that should be a pretty narrow thing, I think, on the left. I don't think it should be, I think we should, like, recognize the number of things we have in common versus the number of things maybe we don't. And like I said, I think all three of us from different backgrounds, you know, have taken different ways of getting here or want the same society. And we can only hurt that effort by, like, fighting amongst each other.

I, that's just what I personally think. When I really wish that people would follow really the Bernie mode of doing things, you know, Bernie's an independent and he joined the party because he recognized that the power of the party is monumental, really, regardless of how much within, you know, how within the party you actually are. All these people on the left that are part of other groups, DSA, I mean, I would like for all of these people to run for office. Absolutely. Down for the most leftist person to run as possible because we'll still. support you. And you have to join the party for the Black Caucus to support you and for the

party to support you. But it's literally just a letter behind your name. It doesn't change anything about who you are. It really just means that you now are able, you've opened up an entire new world of support that we can now throw at you. And unfortunately for people like myself, no matter how much I may love you as a candidate and want you to run, if you don't have that D behind your name, there's nothing that I can do to help you. Because your resources and stuff were tied to the party. My resources, my allegiance, all of these things, are tied to the party.

You know, we, with it's within our bylaws that we can't actively work for candidates outside of the party. That goes right down to signing a petition for somebody to rent and for office. That's, yeah. And so, you know, there's plenty of people, you know, Jill signed, or, you know,

I agreed with her. Like, I understood what she was saying to a certain extent. I might have voted for her if she had been a Democrat, you know. But there's nothing I can do. So for me, I think everybody needs to be more like Bernie. And when it's time for you to join, join so that we can help you.

And that's the thing is that I understand, I absolutely understand all the criticisms of the Democratic Party. And I wouldn't even say that many of them are wrong. Yep. But again, I think it just goes down to effectiveness. Bernie Sanders has proven that you, with the right message, you can raise money from the populace without having to go to big donors or go to the state or go to anyone else. So I want to, let me see a viable third party.

let me see like a DSA that that runs competitively in elections and things like that it's like a chicken or egg thing right but Bernie Sanders two and a half three years ago was an independent senator from Vermont that most people couldn't have picked out of a lineup he now is one of the most powerful people in the Democratic Party I mean they they understand that he is too and right and and so to try and use him as one and so the more people that do that, there's going to be more Bernie, I'm not Bernie, but there's going to be more people like that at every level of the Democratic Party.

And, you know, the Revolutionary Left understands mechanisms of power really, really well, you only gain control of a political party when you control the political party. Look, I mean, if you want to go to a revolutionary example, look at the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. I mean, that was not, that was taken over by Lenin. It, with the very, I mean, it's a way different example, but it was party electoral politics. And revolutionaries have understood that concept. And I have a huge problem with calling people to go to the barricades and die and have working class people die when we haven't exhausted every other option that might be on the table.

And I don't think we're anywhere near there yet. and if you can't organize taking over a political party how on earth are you going to organize taking over the country and overthrow the government and you know I don't if you can't do this small thing I'm certainly not confident of your ability to do this larger thing so that's why to my end I suppose I would say that I couldn't embrace that kind of politics completely agree with the same aims but I can't I can't say yet that we're at that level. I don't, and I think we're pretty far away from that. But if we can't accomplish this, we're screwed for anything else. That's an extremely, extremely good point, and I hope people engage with these ideas. We're winding up here. Thank you guys so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Before we head out, is there any recommendations you like to make, books, articles, films, anything that you think that people who are interested in this topic, want to learn more about this topic, can go to educate themselves further?

I would say for sure watch 13th there's a lot to be said about that powerful yeah I'm just started a new book actually I have a brother who sent me a bunch of books I'm reading this black liberation from Black Lives Matter to Black liberation which I just started today so I'm excited about that but I have seen that. I've heard a lot about it. And what was the title of that book? It's from Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation. Awesome.

Yeah. Anthony? I guess I can't think of a particular book off the top of my head because there's been a lot of them. But I would really read histories of the Democratic Party in the 1960s and 70s, especially like the George McGovern election in 72, because it really really, highlights when the Democratic Party started to break off from being the New Deal Coalition and I think that you know in general I would also say I'm guess I'm talking more from like the Union maybe side of where the Democrats went

wrong I would read magazines like in these times you know try to try to keep yourself educated about like the history of like labor unions because it really mirrors the issues that we're talking about here with the Democratic Party and I think with like society at large so that's that's what I would say I wish I should have thought of some books I think those are good yeah and for my part I would recommend a people's history yeah Howard's in I mean that's just good for just understanding American history generally but at the end of the book he touches on the Clinton administration and highlights a lot of what we discussed earlier in this episode

but also Jacobin magazine has two two magazines they put out One is called The Party We Need, I think, and the other one is called Up From Liberalism. Both of those magazines do a really good job of tracing just what the Democratic Party, what it's been, where it went wrong, third way, Clintonism, and all of that, and really highlights, and it taught me a lot, the background of what went wrong in the Democratic Party, and so I think it's really worth looking into. There's a really good article in the Up From Liberalism about George Meaney, who was the president of the AFL-CIO. in the 50s and 60s and who basically

was very almost active in opposing the civil rights movement. The UAW actually left the AFLCIO during that time because it supported, so it was very active in supporting the civil rights movement. But it's a good way of illustrating where exactly, like in that post-war era,

the trajectory towards what we all thought would have been a more socially democratic society kind of started to skit off the rails a little bit. Yeah, awesome. Thank you guys. Go check all that stuff out. Thank you both for coming on really great discussion very honored

to have both you here so thank you yeah thank you and to the listeners we'll talk to you next time time You know, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.