Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 410: The Family Agenda (w/ special guests Olivia Katbi and Mitch Green)

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

This week we're taking a break from recent news to hear from Olivia Katbi, co-chair of Portland DSA, and Mitch Green, Councilor on the Portland City Council, to talk about their organizing in the City of Roses: their strategies and tactics, their successes and failures, and the issues facing many Portlanders in the early 21st century Portland DSA: https://portlanddsa.org/ Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

All right. Welcome to the show this week, everybody. We are joined by two very special guests from the great city of Port. A city I've never visited, although I did live in Austin, Texas for a while, and it's, I don't know, a good surrogate. It's a surrogate, yeah. Portland, Nashville, Austin, Asheville, they're all sister cities in a way, I think. But, yes, we're joined by Olivia Capby and Mitch Green from Portland DSA. And also, Mitch, you're on the, is it city council? a commissioner or a counselor? I'm a counselor, yes.

I'm like one of the inaugural 12 of the new system that we have now. So one of the four socialists on city counseling, in fact. Right. Damn, the reds really are taking over. That's right.

Olivia sent me a good article in, I don't know, maybe it's W. Week, but I just kept reading it as Will Week. I don't know if it's... Williamette Week. Okay. um it seems like people are really scared that you guys are coordinated it's like they're coordinated

and that's scary um yeah which makes sense because not a lot of people are coordinated anymore so if you could just get coordinated like you know you've already won half the battle that's right essentially organizing gets the goods that's right that's right um all right well we wanted to have you guys on to talk a little bit about what you've been doing at the level of the city council. And, you know, primarily because there is currently a debate on the left, I think, about, you know, what we can achieve in this electoral space. You know, obviously we've got Zora and Mamdani running in New York. But, you know, part of this article that Olivia had sent me was kind of teasing at the notion that you guys were operating as a party. And I think that's

kind of an interesting framework to view this from so yeah let's talk a little bit about that but before we get into any of that can you just maybe give me a little brief overview of Portland like what's its political economy what are some of the major

issues that Portlanders have to face I hope that's what you guys are called by the way Portlanders well yeah but I like the landers I like the emphasis on Portlanders yeah it's fun to land it is we're not seafaring folk out here that's for sure yeah no i mean Portland's a really cool

spot it's got an interesting history um for like most of its kind of working class history it was kind of a site of extraction like raw resource extraction which may be a little bit familiar to folks in your neck of the woods um like timber harvest fish harvest kind of mining but then like in the last couple of decades, you know, it's become sort of like a place where it's like, oh, this is where the apparel industry is. This is where kind of like high value added manufacturing Silicon Valley, like Silicon Forest exists. So it's like intels out here. You've got Nike, those kind of places. And like kind of the tech boom that happened in the 90s and 2000s. So it's been an interesting place where it's like when I grew up here, I mean, you could buy a

house for $30,000 and you would like easily be in a sharehouse for the couple of couple people like each paying like a hundred bucks a month for rent and live in a pretty decent life. Jobs weren't that great, but at least you could afford to live here. And then over the last couple of decades, it's become one of the most expensive places to live. And yet the wages have not really increased commensurately. And so we very much have this situation where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. And if you're trying to enter the so-called middle class and you know you you meet that person that you like and then you you know you have a child maybe a couple kids and then you say well i can't afford to raise a family here anymore so then you

leave and so that's been the issue that we've been facing here we want portland to be like the best place in america to raise a family so that's what we're trying to work on yeah um you know i something that was interesting in that article was this notion that so i mean you know we can get into the specific policies that you guys are proposing, but a lot of the policies they kept asking this question in this article, like, who's going to pay for it? And it seemed like there was this narrative that millionaires are fleeing Portland. It seems like maybe Mitch that you've found that to not be true, maybe actually rich people are actually coming to Portland. Yeah, it couldn't be more false. Like, one of the things that caused me to run in the first place was I was

tired of seeing that lazy assertion made by the press where you just take as a matter of fact whatever some rich guy tells you it's like it's like Portland's like three rich guys in a trench coat by the way and then it's like the rest of us and so they just say oh well you know if you raise any kind of attacks people will leave and people and then the you know the very wise man and the press go yes good that must be true but if you actually look at the data which we do in my office my I'm a I'm a trained economist I have a I have a person on who's also a PhD economist, we know how to do that. We just go read what other, like, scholars have said.

And guess what? People don't leave when you tax them, particularly not millionaires. You know, and millionaires in Portland are kind of entrenched. I mean, this is where they made their money. This is where their elite social circles are. And so it takes a lot to make a person leave. And oftentimes when they do leave, it's because of reasons other than a marginal tax. And so we actually, we've been dealing with this, like,

full court press from not only the business community, but also like state Democratic Party leaders, like the governor, Governor Kotech has been like, oh, rich people will leave if you have a preschool for all program, which is just, and it's a, it's a tiny, tiny little tax, like 1.25% on people who make above $125,000, you know, like I pay that. That's a couple hundred bucks a year. No problem. If you're a millionaire, you have no problem paying that either. And so we've just have this tension where it's like we're we're like a we're like a sort of blue no matter who city. We're a progressive city. But then as soon as anyone talks about the public good and paying taxes, everyone's fucking Reaganite, frankly, overnight.

So that's kind of like that's kind of the vibe out here. And just to back up a little bit, this is all kind of coming to head around our preschool for all policy, which was a ballot measure. it's like one of our biggest wins as the DSA chapter. We passed this ballot measure in 2020 to grant free preschool to all three and four-year-olds in the county, regardless of income. And it was paid for by, like Mitch mentioned, a tax on the wealthiest residents of the county. And the county overwhelmingly voted in support of that. And the rollout has been kind of slow, slower than we wanted it to be.

And yeah, the rich in the county and the state have taken that opportunity to say, oh, it's not working. The program's not working. Rich people are leaving because they don't want to pay the tax. And I think this is really where the party question comes in because we are a very blue state. We have a supermajority in the state legislature of Democrats. and the Democrats are like drawing a line on this where they're attacking this program and attacking DSA and we're having to hold the line and sort of mobilize unions and coalition and our whole coalition of community members to defend this program and ultimately it's becoming about so

much more than the preschool program it's like well if they can step in and sort of attack this program shut down this program that voters voted for, what else are they going to do? Are we going to be able to do anything in this county without the rich of the state coming in to shut it down? And so far, we have been able to defend it. There was a bill in the legislature to shut it down that went away for now. I think we can expect more in the legislature in the future. And then a county commissioner had a proposal to index the tax to inflation, which, which would have essentially bankrupted the program. That was killed for now.

But I think they're trying to use this program as an example. And we are also trying to use this program as an example of, like, look what we can do when we take away wealth from the rich that is rightfully ours as the working class and distribute it to everyone. And hopefully we win that battle. Yeah, it seems that in the article that you sit in, me, they had a quote, it said, the fight over preschool for all is the core of the split between

the DSA and the Democrats. I kind of just wanted to dig into that a little bit more. Like, why is it that the Democrats are fighting so hard on this issue? You would think that this would kind of be a pretty easy win. I mean, again, we keep coming back to this question of, like, who's going to pay for it? It's, you know, obvious to a person like me who would pay for it you've got rich people they've got money that they sit on that they don't use so obviously that can be taxed their assets can be taxed and whatnot why is the democratic party so entrenched on this why they so dug in on not letting a program like this come about yeah i mean i'll just put it pretty plainly our party in the state um does not like to govern from a position of power they're

afraid to do so. We like we always have super majorities. And if we don't technically have it, we have it by like sort of a kind of in effect status. We're like, okay, that that Republican's probably going to flip over that sort of deal. But we've always like have a governor who's a Democrat. We have the House that we have majorities in the House and we can pass whatever we want if people have a spine and a backbone. But I think what what the party does for the state as a whole is they're just really worried that if they do something cool, they're going going to get a phone call from Phil Knight, who's the Nike, you know, the Nike billionaire or some sort of tech executive or some sort of executive around the state or some sort of real

state mogul in the city of Portland and get a, get a tongue lashing. And then they won't win reelection, which is kind of sad because like this is a part-time legislature and you're paid like $30,000 a year. And those goes are the stakes for you, right? So it's about power. And it's about seizing and holding on to like this little tiny sliver of power that you have in the state, and rather than say, we've got this generational opportunity to build something for the working class, they're worried about their next seat and maybe trying to like climb this ladder up to somewhere, right, and empower, except for, you know, at the Labor Day picnic every year, they'll talk about the working class for sure. But in between, it's just, it's, I don't know,

it's cowardly is what it is. Yeah, it seems that also they, I mean, we've talked. about this a lot on the show, they are a kind of fundamentally anti-social party. They don't want to empower people. And obviously, like a big reason for why they exist is disorganizing the left and kind of keeping them at bay. I'm kind of just wondering, like, are we going to say something, Olivia? Yeah, just, you know, I think what we're doing in Portland DSA is something that I would like to see other DSA chapters doing where we're sort of like exposing those contradictions. And we're able to do that because we have been very selective about who we have run and endorsed for office. Like Mitch was our chapter treasurer at one point,

cadre member, and very much in line with, you know, all of our principles. I know some other DSA chapters approach electoral politics very differently and sort of just, you know, endorse whoever comes knocking on their door asking for support. And, you know, maybe they'll get some progressive legislation passed because of that. Maybe not. And I think, I don't think that's the right approach to take. I mean, I guess I can sit here and say that here in our liberal bubble in Portland where, you know, the stakes are not the same as they are in red states. And maybe I would feel differently if I was organizing in a red state. But I think here in Portland, because of the way that our city seats are structured, they're nonpartisan. So we don't have to run on a party line. So we are

acting in effect as a party, even though we're not a political party, because those seats are nonpartisan, because we have this block in city hall. We do also have a Democrat in the state legislature, but her role there is very much like to expose those contradictions in the party. And yeah, it's just something I've been thinking about, you know, because the left and DSA has been talking about, you know, debating Zoran Mamdani's strategy and New York City DSA and, you know, all of the winds that we're seeing across the country. And I would like to see more of the left and DSA sort of exposing those contradictions in the Democratic Party and building something independent of that rather than trying to change it from within. So you're saying that this article I just read in the Atlantic, the real reason American socialists don't win, that it's because we don't engage.

I didn't read the entire article. I'm assuming it's basically saying it's socialists don't engage with electoral politics or that there's some morality or purity politics at work. But like it seems to me that the thesis of that article and others that I've seen since the convention of a few, I mean we're recording this at the beginning of September since the convention a few weeks ago. Is that like socialists aren't engaging in like electoral politics enough? Is that I mean, I don't know. Basically you're saying that like electoral politics is a space. in which you can sort of force these contradictions to a sort of confrontation of a sort of a sort of a sort of a sort of yeah yeah like that yeah like that that article was i think it wants kind of predictable every time there's a big convention like somebody writes an article about like what they saw at the convention is like and does some vibes based analysis um but but also just like expected and and what i would say is like like each

of these chapters in DSA is a little bit different and there are conditions on the ground that structure away our chapters organize themselves like Portland DSA itself has gone through some historical moments where you know at times we were less focused on electoral strategy right now we're very focused on electoral strategy but like it's not in either or situation not very materialist to engage in that way to be honest with you so like what you might see at convention from someone from the outside looking in in, it might look, oh, well, these people are not serious, but it's like, well, we just want a third of the city council in the city of Portland. And that's pretty serious. And we're

about to have the mayor of New York City be a DSA member and an open socialist. That's pretty serious. So I think, like, I don't know. I'm not really, those articles are a little like, I don't know at this point. What are we doing here? And I don't know that we would have had as much electoral success in Portland DSA, had we not already done all this other work in the community where people know us and trust us and, you know, see us on the picket line and know that we were fighting for universal preschool and know that we've done all this stuff on Palestine and eco-socialism and just handing out masks when there are wildfires. Like everyone knows us in the community. And I think that is a factor in then seeing, you know, DSA endorsed candidates running for office

and thinking, oh, I know them, I trust them, I'm going to vote for them. Yeah. I mean, we've talked a lot about on this show over the last year or so specifically about, like, development and housing and economic development. I kind of just wanted to talk a little bit about, Mitch, like, I know this is kind of like your area of expertise. Before you guys hopped on, I was reading into Prosper Portland a little bit. I found a very interesting fellow that calls himself the Silicon Florist.

I'm sure that you're familiar with him. He's like a small business incubator guy in Portland, who's kind of a booster for prosper Portland. I want to talk about, like, you know, your position on the city council. Like, what are some of the issues that you're facing from, like, the economic development angle? Because I know that, like, if you're in city governance at any, really at any city in America, like you're going to enter this world where you're,

you're, you know, you're engaging with real estate developers. You're engaging with, like, housing experts, with abundance types, this kind of stuff. So, like, just like, what are you facing on that front? And how do you navigate it? Oh, boy. All right. So that's a big one. So I'm a co-chair of the Arts and Economy Committee here in Portland.

We've got these committees now. And economic development and prosper Portland. and which, you know, by any other name would be the kind of urban renewal agency of a city. Like, that's in my portfolio of things to care about. But, you know, on the one hand, I'm a city counselor. But on the other hand, like, Prosper Portland as our development agency is like this quasi-independent entity, which is sort of beyond accountability. And, you know, we saw that in the budget cycle this first time that, you know,

we passed a budget as a new council. you know, we had a massive shortfall in revenue and the Parks Department was facing somewhere around $10 million in total cuts. And I thought that was unacceptable. Meanwhile, we were giving $13 million to this redevelopment agency that had like a $50 million fund for whatever they want to do. And I was like, maybe just on a one-time basis only, we can claw back that $13 million. million and why don't you use your 50 to do your, you know, whatever good work you're doing.

I mean, they do great work in some areas, but the whole point being is like, but we've got these like unionized parks workers who are about to be laid off and their livelihoods are at line. And also our families in Portland like to use these parks. And so let's share the load and the sort of organized response that we got from like prosper Portland's leadership that then sort of like mobilize all their previous donors, or loan recipients and grant recipients to like do this pressure campaign against me and me and this other counselor who kind of brought that amendment forward was significant. And so that just, that shows you a little bit of the power that kind of real estate developments and economic development interests in any major city

have. So those are kind of the stakes. But I think what's interesting is there's a, like there's two views on how to do this. Like one is we can we can go forward in time the way that previous city councils in Portland or wherever have done done business, which is to sort of be a rubber stamp for the plans of lobbyists and developers who have their idea of what it means to do development, which is usually just making themselves rich and whatever public benefits happen are kind of ancillary to the question. Or there's this other question where it's just like, well, maybe the public sector should be in the driver's seat and maybe like a democratic worker-based, kind of like community-based approach to development can prevail.

And why don't we chart a future? So what I've been working on is this thing called social housing, which you guys may know a little bit about. But to me, if we're going to spend public money building housing or doing development, like let's build publicly owned social housing where the building or the development has like a preschool in it that's paid for by a tax on the rich. And then you've got like world-class parks, you've got great transit. That's the vision that I have for Portland.

And I know we can pay for it because we're already paying for this other stuff that's not really providing those benefits except for a small select few. So that's kind of like what the big broad strokes are for sure. Yeah, that conversation was just like really frustrating to me because I think the business lobby in Oregon has really learned to like appropriate woke language and be like, you're going to bankrupt POC small businesses and this black craft fair and, like, naming specific, you know, minority-owned businesses, like, and pitting that against these other things that we're trying to win. And the parks conversation also was really refreshing because it's not just about, like, green space,

which in itself is great, and Portland has amazing parks, but the community centers are part of that funding. And when we had the budget hearings, I just saw families and teachers who like send their kids to after school care there and like rely on that as single parents or working parents crying and asking please don't cut these programs. While we have fucking Prosper Portland over here sitting on $50 million, refusing to tap into the money they already have and using this fucking language that we're going to like bankrupt all the POC in our city, it's maddening. Well, and also it was a lie because like the specific amendment that we brought forward actually restored like almost two million, two, almost three million dollars in cuts to those organizations. So we're like, we're going to go ahead and roll back a small cut that the mayor put forward and Prosper Portland put forward that would have taken money directly off the tables of these like PLC organizations, these community base like BiPoc organizations and make you whole this year. So you actually would have increased the funding to them. And we would just, we want you to pay for it with a different pot of money, which is like in surplus when the rest of us are in deficit.

So it was really disingenuous. Well, I mean, you talk about like budget and like trying to do a lot like what gets what, like what agency, what institution, what project or initiative gets what. Could you talk a little bit about like what are some of your accomplishments so far? Like, because you talked about the parks. I also kind of wanted to like bring in the conversation about police funding. what are some of the accomplishments you've, you know, achieved so far and what are some of the obstacles you've run up against? Yeah, so, I mean, first of all, I'm not doing anything on my own.

It's this block of organized sort of like socialist or progressive, broadly defined colleagues that I have, like six of us in total, and we're able to kind of get organized and get coordinated around getting wins in the budget. And so one of the ones that I think we're really proud of is we were able to take $2 million from the Portland Police budget, which isn't a lot, but it is a meaningful amount of money that was sort of extra. It was like cream on the top of what they even asked for, but the mayor was like, let's just

sprinkle a little extra on top. And we're like, nope, we're going to go ahead and plow that right back into parks. And we did that through just like command of like Robert's Rules of Order because like some of us have been in a socialist organization for a long time and know how that works. And as kind of like, as displeasurable that experience can be when you're in like a long general meeting and you're dealing with Robert's rules tricks. But we use those tools and we got that, we got that win. And then the business lobby freaked out and then they tried to bring sort of an 11th hour

amendment to restore that. And I introduced an amendment once again to say, nope, if you're going to get two million back because the police found like two million lying in their. couch cushions what i was going to say in the article it was like oh they wind up finding the two million in their own budgets okay they did yeah which was like i was kind of like i know it's just it's just in there and somewhere like they don't need it um so rather than like have it go back into their budget next year i was like we're going to scoop that up and put it in this like public safety set aside that can be available for the non-arm response units it can be available

for firefighters you can be available for like you know office of violence prevention some of that kind of broader public safety stuff. And so at the end of the day, public safety was made whole, but it was very important to me that it wasn't just validating this idea that the Portland Police Bureau is the first and final say on our budget.

And I think that's a big win. It's a small amount of money, but it is a big win. And like we're able to do this because we have this proportional representation system now where like there's four districts and it's ranked choice vote.

and you have three counselors per district, which means that you're going to get your counselor who who's aligned with your values and your politics. And so like I'm in probably one of the most conservative districts. I'm in one of the wealthier districts in the city. But like there's always a good third of people in this district who are poor, who are renters, who are immigrants, who are like unionists, who are lefties. And where's their representation in the old system? They didn't have it. But now they do. And so I don't have to like appeal to the, I don't have to run to the center ever.

I don't have to appeal to some sort of like amorphous middle. I can just be like very loudly and very clearly a leftist. And that's my constituency. And so I don't really, it doesn't matter like if the business press gets mad at me. Because the more mad at me they are, the better I'm doing by my constituents, for sure. And for us, like as a DSA chapter, I think in general, most people don't usually pay that much attention. to like the budget conversation in their cities. But this year, when we have

four socialists on council, six progressives in the Progressive Caucus, people were watching it like it was a sport. Like it was an 11-hour marathon budget hearing and everyone was watching it and like posting about it. And for us, we're really trying to seize on that to use like the budget crisis because there's a budget crisis every year.

We're trying to use that as a vehicle to sort of like advance. class consciousness and advanced our messaging and force people to sort of ask the question, why does this happen every single year? Why are we in a budget crisis every single year? Every single year, they're trying to pit these programs against each other and saying, we're going to have to cut this, we're going to have to cut that. And yet the rich have never been richer. We have more billionaires than ever. The number of high-income households in our county has nearly doubled since 2020. Trump's tax cuts, the big beautiful bill,

largest tax cut in history, the rich have never been richer, and yet we have more people sleeping on the streets than ever before. We are, you know, seeing cuts to Medicaid and just programs that working class people rely on. So our city leaders and our state leaders cannot sit there and say, you know, Trump's tax cuts, Trump's cuts are not going far enough. We got to cut even more. That's what they're saying. And I think we're using the sort of nitty-gritty budget details to kind of tie all that together and say we can fight for more. We can have everything we want and more. We have never been richer. The money is here. We have to take it. Well, yeah, and it's confrontational too. I think that's the main takeaway I'm getting is that like the Democrats, they hate confrontation,

obviously. But like I've noticed this for years looking at a person like Tim Walt who's like managed to, in some ways, carve out some, you know, public works programs, public benefits programs for the people, but it's often done in coordination with the business leaders of the state. And it's like, well, you're going to have to actually be confrontational with the business leaders. Like, it's not like asking for handouts. It's basically going to them and demanding, like, you know, we, you know, we deserve these things. Like, we live here. We deserve.

We have rights. know what I mean like we we deserve housing health care all these other things um let's like I kind of want to dig into like the DSA though in your relationship with the city council like like you know in the in the article it mentions that y'all's chapter has this family agenda um it sounds sinister sounds very evil family agenda yeah um focus on the family but from the left um um What is the family agenda? Like, what is, you know, how did you come up with it? What are the finer points?

And how are you operating on that at the city level? Yeah, this came up. Actually, we were really inspired by Zoran Mamdani. When he first launched his campaign for mayor, he was talking about running on a family agenda for New York City. And that included free child care and baby boxes for all new parents. Of course, as soon as he came out with that, Eric Adams was like, oh, we're going to do baby boxes for all new parents. Like, he already won that.

But we were really inspired by that, especially, like, just given the conditions that we're organizing under, under Trump, we're having to, like, fight against so much. We have to be against genocide, against deportations, against all these cuts. But what are we fighting for? And we really wanted to, like, have some sort of framework to articulate a positive vision. Like these are the things we want to fight for. These are things that hopefully I think resonate with a lot of working class people. And especially as we're talking about like the budget stuff because these are programs that families rely on. And that's, you know, where we have the most power right now is the city level.

And yeah, like we mentioned in Portland DSA, one of our biggest wins was that universal preschool ballot measure. And that also had a wage floor for preschool teachers to. to increase the wages for preschool teachers. So it was sort of like a way to tie in, you know, materially improving people's lives, taxing the rich, and, you know, organizing workers. So we really wanted to build on that success and put forward like a united message around just families and children.

And I think the right wing has had a monopoly on that for so long where they are claiming to be, the party of family, and we want to take that back and have it not be fascist or pro-natalist, but just, you know, we are actually the people who are supporting families in all their forums, not the right wing. So that's kind of what we're sort of putting forward now, especially through our city councilors at the city level. Yeah, and I'll say that one of the things that's like both an opportunity to challenge is like, well, you know, what is the family agenda like is it one specific policy or is it a whole sort of is it a frame is it like a is it a

lens through which we we approach the priorities that we have at city council and i'll just give you an example like you know we're yes we're working on social housing um and my intention is to bring forward an ordinance that that establishes that in this city but that's going to take minute you know that that's not an immediate fix to our problems that's like that's changing our our direction over time but like there's stuff we can do every single day that that makes a difference for families like like i had mentioned like when we were kind of getting set up this morning that like i started my day at a school doing crosswalk duty for some parents who were walking their kids to school and this school is is interesting because like we had to move it in like five weeks

because it was like right next to an ice facility um and they were tear gassing to school on a nightly basis which was like untenable and so if we want to be yeah like if we want to be like carrying this banner for for like a good life for families in Portland from all the all the domains of public policy life and like like getting it like intervening in those kind of areas and saying this is unacceptable for children let's let's use the power that we have in our office to make a change that's what we're going to do um like I put in some crosswalks at another elementary school in my district who've been asking the city for cross us for like a decade and they're like no you don't need them it's like pretty sure you do because there's kids

trying to cross this weird intersection and we don't want to wait until a kid gets run over. So let's just go ahead and do it now. And by the way, it's not that expensive. And so like little things like that build wins. And then families say, wow, there's this socialist on city council who's not scary is actually looking out for the safety and welfare of my family, my children. Like, I want to know more. And so we're trying to, I think, build this sort of mandate that we can't wait any longer

to throw all our eggs in this family. agenda basket is kind of what I'm trying to do and the frame that I'm hoping to bring. And I think in DSA more broadly, I've heard this term before, the missing middle is like parents of young children. I think in DSA, we've got a lot of younger, single people who don't have kids. And then we've got a lot of older people, retirees, maybe their kids are grown. We don't have a lot of parents of young children, parents of school age children involved in DSA. And part of that is, course because it takes a lot of time and when you have a kid you don't have a lot of time but part of it is also because we're not really speaking directly to those people and you know when you have a kid

that's like that's the main thing you're worrying about all the time is your kid and the things that help your kid and your family and i think the more messaging we do to reach those people um i think it'll help really really build our movement in a way that we you know have not been able to do yet Yeah, it seems like the Democrats messaging on this, if you were to like press me on it, I don't even really know what their position on it is. I mean, I guess you get like a child income tax credit if you live in a zip code with greater than $250,000 median income. You know, I don't know. It's like they've got these weird means-tested things.

It's not really their family agenda is not really that discernible. The right-wing's family agenda is like, obviously. the most you know horror show thing you can imagine like we're going to kill everybody and also but the kids need to be white and you know what I mean it's just like really uh grotesque um basically what you're outlining is just like a very sensible uh humane platform I think for them to frame it as pejorative is kind of weird just then you know family agenda like to put like some sort of sinister undertone to that no it's really funny I I saw like a right-wing account on Twitter being like, we know all about Mitch Green and his family agenda.

And like that's sort of, that's kind of what we were going for also is like it's really hard to attack. Like it makes you sound a little crazy when you're like, they've got an agenda for families. It's very hard to attack a pro family platform. Well, yeah, I mean, but you guys didn't get the memo. Like in this country, like we're trying. to kill everybody. So if it's humane, then it's sinister. So, you know, everything is backwards, pretty much.

Yeah. I got expelled from the death cult for not paying my dues on time. Right. Well, wait. So, okay, so talk about, like, DSA, talk about, like, Zoron, you talk about, like, the city councilors. What is the mechanism by which I'm, you know, I don't participate in DSA conversations, at the moment, have in the past, plan to in the future. At this current moment, though, am not really that plugged in.

What is the current thinking on how to actually exact a kind of accountability or a mechanism of accountability on elected officials? So, for example, if Zoran wins, what is the current thinking right now on how to actually exact accountability. Like, does it look like what you guys are doing in Portland? And if so, how do you do this? Yeah, I think, you know, we're in an interesting position because that's not the top of our list

when we're thinking about our, like, elected officials. We don't think about how do we hold them accountable because they are us. Like, it's DSA in office. There's no difference. Right. Right, exactly. And we have a monthly, a standing monthly meeting,

our Socialist and Office Committee, where we have people who are elected on behalf of the chapter to meet with our electeds and sort of share, you know, what our chapter's priorities are, questions, and then our electeds share with us what their priorities are going to be, what they're working on, what we should be mobilizing for. And I think, you know, in there we maybe sometimes have, like, sort of disagreements, debates and then sort of come to consensus on, like, what we think we should do. But overall, like, there's no, there's, right now, there has not been a conversation of like we have to hold our electives accountable to our positions because there's not been

any veering from that and that's like intentional on the part of our chapter where we have like I said we've been very selective with the electives that we send to office for that reason because we don't want there to be some sort of push-pull thing where we're having to constantly like rein them in and because they're acting on a line with our principles and I think um other DSA chapters would do well to consider that also. And I think, you know, it made sense in some regard before DSA had the popularity that it has now. But I think we are in a position now where, I mean, Angelita was not a member until after she got elected to office and then she joined. We're in a position now where we have enough power and momentum that we don't have to

compromise when it comes to our elected officials. and who we're sending to office. Like, we can send people who actually embody our values. And so, I mean, with the Zauron thing, I am hopeful that because he came out of DSA, he will also, you know, sort of embody DSA's values in office. The mayoral office of New York City is a whole different beast, though. And, like, he's going to have to be in charge of the police and just navigate a lot of things that are elected in Portland are not really having to navigate in that way. So I think it'll be

tricky. I think the rhetoric I've seen coming out of his campaign has tried really hard to walk that line of like, okay, I want to uphold the principles of DSA, but I'm also sort of veering more towards the mainstream in some regards to sort of disavow like certain messaging. and I think it remains to be seen whether that's just like a tactic for campaigning and what actually happens when he's in office. I am optimistic that he is a cadre candidate and will uphold DSA's values once he's in office, but we'll see. Yeah, my question for Mitch is, do you condemn the phrase globalize the intifada?

That's the question here. Have you been asked that? Have you been asked to, uh, no, no, fortunately I haven't. Um, my, my controversies are far less interesting, uh, than that, for sure. Uh, no, I, I want to say like with, um, you know, Zoran had this one speech that I, that I really resonated with me and I don't remember where it was, but it was pretty moving where he was talking about his relationship with DSA and this whole electoral project. and he had said something, it's like, I'm not just a DSA elected candidate or candidate for elected office.

Like, I am a member of an organization, and that's DSA. And so when I talk about it in those terms, I stress that I'm part of an organization. I came from this organization. I wouldn't have run for office had I not been an organizing socialist with the Democratic Socialists for years. And so that sort of roots my politics. And when I stood through the endorsement, and I was asked these kind of tough questions, it was like, well, how are we going to make sure that you're going to be on the up and up? And it's like, you guys are all my friends.

Like, my entire base of politics is this organization and like, and it's sort of like affinity groups that are like in coalition with DSA. And like, I just know that if I get a little sideways, I'm going to have a path forward and back to the back to the fold, so to speak, in a way that's like this kind of like, generative membership-based thing. It's not like this external, like, disciplining thing, in my view. Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's not like, I mean, I'm sure some chapters do have the problem of, like, sort of volunteerist people or opportunists running and then maybe trying to cynically use. I mean, I guess maybe that's kind of what AOC was. I don't really know the finer details of that. I don't want to, like, slander her without really knowing. But that maybe seems like maybe what she was kind of doing.

But I don't know. I guess like, you know, as we come in towards the end of the interview here, I kind of just want to like maybe get your all's thoughts on. So, for example, it definitely seems like there is a debate fueled very much by people like AOC and Bernie over is electoral politics even worth engaging in. Like, is that an arena in which we win? or can seat or can, you know, claw back any ground. And so, you know, obviously we can have a debate about what the alternatives might be,

everything from tenant organizing to labor organizing to throwing Molotop cocktails through cop cars, all of which I endorse. But what is, like, what is your argument there? Like, why, in your view, why is it worthwhile to pursue this as a path as well? Yeah, I mean, I've, my own personal journey, I've, I've kind of waxed and waned on electoral strategy. When I've been outside of office and when I've been organized, my focus has almost exclusively been on like anti-imperialists, like direct action work. That's how I got involved in this chapter to begin with. I'm a, I'm a veteran. I'm like an anti-war veteran.

But then I, but then you, when you look at what the possibilities are in front of you in a city, Portland where you have a very popular base of support for leftist politics it seems wild to me to just completely cede that away to opportunism to uh to you know to kind of liberals or um conservatives who maybe even call themselves liberals in a town like this and when it's like if you if we can just be together on a program then we can be in office and we can actually do quite a lot I mean, I was in office for like a month, maybe two months, and I managed to get the Portland City Club to drop the partnership with Chevron, which was a major BDS target for a long period of time. And all it took was an email. And so there's like things that you can do that you can organize for a long period of time and not get done just by having the pen in this office.

So I think that the left absolutely needs to be doing an electoral project. how we do it's going to depend upon the municipalities and the local governments that we have particular conditions around. But I think what's important is that we don't pretend that once we've elected those people that democracy stops at voting. Like it's an ongoing participatory activity for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think our elected in office would not be able to win things if it weren't for us as a base supporting them there. And yeah, I mean, I think I just, I go back to just over the summer. I have a child and it's really hard to be involved in politics when you have a young child. And we were hanging out at the pool and I was

like, this is just the only thing I want to be doing. I want to be at the pool of my daughter. I don't want to go to a DSA meeting. And then, I think about that statement for one second and it's like this pool wouldn't even be open if we hadn't mobilized at the city to stop them from slashing the parks budgets and I think that just like it gets back to the core fact which is every part of our lives is touched by someone's political decisions someone is making a decision that affects your life and the question is do you want to have a say in that or not. And what DSA is doing in Portland is saying, yes, we can all have a say in how our city is run. And we can all have a say in what happens in our workplace and in our

neighborhoods and in our schools. And we are doing that through organizing a broad base, a socialist organization, and putting a few of those people in positions of power. Well, and it seems like what you've started to articulate here is maybe the germ or the seed of a larger party structure or organizational structure? Is that the end goal here? Are we talking about, like, you know, eventually getting to a point where we have a of a party that's basically nationally, you know, distributed and coordinated? I think yes.

I mean, that's always been my position that it's not possible to take over the Democratic Party. And I think I'm more flexible now than I used to be in terms of, like, using the ballot line. I think we do need to use the Democratic Party ballot line in a lot of instances, but it's always with the end goal of eventually rupturing with the Democratic Party. And in situations where we have to be in the party to be in office, we are using that to expose those contradictions and bring people into DSA. And I think using these nonpartisan seats as an example of like, we are the party here. it's DSA versus the Democrats.

We're a different thing and we're building something bigger and something that actually represents working people. Awesome. Well, I don't want to take you up too much more of y'all's time. I know that you've got a meeting, you've got to get too much. But any final thoughts on that question? I mean, I think I'm in 100% agreement with you, Olivia.

I think that that's what I would like to see as well. Especially in this current moment, it seems like there's no possible way we're going to get the Democrats, for example, to change their position on Israel. And that, to me, is the paramount question of our time. They just voted down in arms embargo at the DNC, like two years into a genocide. Yeah. And so it's, go ahead, Mitch.

Well, I was just going to say that I agree with everything that Olivia said. And I know that, like, it feels really. daunting right now because every every day you look at your phone and you see some new horror that's same as a last but just adding on from you know a child getting blown to bits by U.S. weapons in Gaza you know that that's untenable and and then there's there's domestic issues that are untenable there's thousands of people in in my city sleeping on the streets there's a veteran who lives in like a low-income housing who's about to be evicted because of like a matter of hundred dollars over several months and like it all of this stuff is just like it's untenable but

but but it's solvable it's solvable because we have people power and so I think it's going to take some time to build that party structure and I look forward to someday running for an office that is partisan where I can like openly and proudly run on that line as a socialist um that that day is is not is not you know today but it's worth building toward um and if you're if you're listening to this show and you're like wondering, okay, all right, maybe I'm like electoral curious, then this is a good time to be interested in these questions. I have to run for re-election like now because my seat's like a two-year seat this time around. So when I run, I'm going to be running on the same things I ran last time, but just being very, very loud about what's continue to build the winds

by being unabashed, open and loud leftists and socialists. Yeah. I mean, I will say I have seen a lot of changes in the last really since the pandemic. But if we're talking about since 2016 when this kind of event horizon opened up, not only are the distinctions between us and the Democrats more apparent, but like the way that it's articulated in practice is much different now than it was. It's much more obvious and clear now than it was 10 years ago. And so that's a good sign. Obviously, it's not, you know, going at the speed that we would like it. But that is, you know, even more of an incentive for us. to continue organizing and plugging into these things. So Mitch and Olivia, thank you so much for coming on the show this week. And if you have anything to plug, if you'd like to plug anything,

what would you like the audience to know about? Join DSA. Yeah, join DSA. And also, I would not be a good candidate for office if I didn't say, check out my website, Mitch for Portland, number four Portland.com, and throw a few bucks towards my campaign. I really appreciate it.

Awesome. Please do that. And if you're listening to this on the main feed, throw a few bucks towards our Patreon. The link is in the show notes. So we'll see you all next time. Thanks for being on the show, y'all. We'll talk to you later.

Thanks for having us. See you. I'm going to be I'm going to be. So, you know, You know, I'm going to do.

Thank you.