Is the Democratic Tent Too Big? | MiniPod

wanted to have that conversation with you all today. Angela, this is something that came to us from a viewer question, and you thought it was important enough for us to talk about in a larger capacity.

and thereby leaving its base. Those folks don't feel seen or heard either by the party allegedly, right like when we look at the math, which a math and from the most recent election, hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to court Nikki Haley voters, then Lizen Dick Cheney voters, then Never trumpers, all of these folks, and it looks like, I know, Tip, you said that we shouldn't rely on this data yet, but based on the data that we do have at this point, I doubt it'll change that much.

Certainly won't get over into double digits. Four percent right of Republicans voted for Kamala Harris in this last selection. So to me, I just don't understand. I'm not, you know, the best business person in the world, not the best business mind, but I don't understand that ROI that return investment doesn't seem sufficient. And then when I consider my own needs, my family has always voted for the Democratic Party. I can't think of a time where my parents didn't support the Democratic Party.

he recently is Jay Ensley. And when you look at the contracting dollars right of black folks who are in business in the state and the number of contracts that they actually gain from the state, it is ridiculous. We're talking about like point zero zero one percent of contracting dollars going to very qualified black businesses. So I guess what I'm saying is I don't know where we really fit because some of the things that we are actually fighting for as a people should not be partisan either.

So I don't think that whether or not a black business is qualified and gets contracting opportunities should be partisan.

be a debatable but for whatever reason, it is. But I also want to figure out, like in our has those hierarchy of needs, can we align on what our value systems are and like what party, if there's a party, can support those things. I know I just talked to in the circles by bad y'all.

this position. I've got to be against DEI and equity and inclusion and making sure we have the work reverse workforces, because I got a whole group of people sitting over here in my back frame who are counting on me to keep this workplace white. And so I don't even know that. I think you would find that the people within the party structure who would say these are kind of natural and frankly human rights, and that I'll not be divisive by and large, But that's not what we're

getting these days. What really alarms me. First of all, I was visualizing Eddie Rye is standing up to Jay Insley and jay z better fall back. But in all seriousness, what I'm most concerned about as it relates to the

party system two things. One Already, for instance, in the state of Florida, the largest political identity is Republican by a million votes over Democrats, but then they're being closed in on by independents, so we almost have a third a third, a third where folks are choosing no party. Now there is a consequence to this in my state,

we have closed primaries. It as exists in almost the majority of states around the country, where if you don't belong to a political party, you may not vote to select who gets to become the nominee of that party

for governor, for US Senate, for really important seats. And that is troubling to me because it's just now at the point where black people can choose nominees of their choices in a lot of states, where younger people in coalition with the black and brown community can choose candidates of their choice, and right at that very moment, we're now seeing defections from the party and into an independent structure who don't who don't have a voice in that process.

So that aloarns me at one level. The second thing that alarns me as we think about takeaways from this last election is just the same theme of the independence and their performance have outperformed Democrats, meaning more people who were non party registrants and the registratives independents. They showed out the second highest of all groupings of voters by party,

including over the Democrats. And what is that saying? And I think the complexity the problem that the Democratic Party faces, which I consider myself a member of and have had at various times leadership in and have been my state

party's standard bearer. When I was a nominee for governor of Florida, and I took that as a real serious responsibility to speak to the needs of the people in our state who had basically withdrawn themselves from the process, their belief in and their faith in the process, because after all the sky is falling, and after all the promises of what I'm going to do when you put us there, these folks still buying laws were finding themselves

in the same unchanged political and social and living environments.

And so I worry that if we aren't very strategic about where we decide to place ourselves, not only on the spectrum of identity in politics, but also for the purposes of gaining political power, so that we are at the negotiating table deciding what goes where into whom I feel that we negotiate ourselves into irrelevance, and I think it has to be balanced by a real strategy of building power and then with that power, negotiating better positionality

for ourselves, because I can't think of a more generous people, a more inclusive people of people who are so attached to the trauma that we've experienced over the course of our lives that we identify with any community who is experiencing trauma. We go to the defense, to the aid of and then once those communities find themselves in positions

of power, they negotiate us out of the table. They negotiate us away from power and away from positionality in a way from getting what we need to serve ourselves, our families and our communities. I don't know the answer, Tiff and Angela, but I do know that whatever that answer is, strategy lays at the center of it. And I think the strategy has to center our community and our community's needs, and everything else is subjugated to that.

Not around a personality, not around a person, not around a part of a state or a state, but around our needs. And if you comport to that, if you can perform on that and for us on that, then we can talk. But outside of that, I can't do. I receive what y'all were saying earlier around we're not in the I can't be doing the coalition stuff right now,

and I'm not all the way there. But I will tell you that my coalition is going to begin with the folks who I care about the most and who sit at the intersection of the greatest degree of harm and impact from this society. That's who's at the center of my coalition.

especially for that presidential election in four years. Yeah, we don't have a rough road to hole, but it is what it is now. But what can we be doing right now? What do we do at the ground roots level? How do we organize at this point? What can someone like me who does not live in a swing state do to affect the overall the country. I just want us to have a goal and something in mind and motivate us for these next few years as we deal with what we're going to deal with. But any ideas

you asked Ham will be most appreciated. Thank you for all you do and welcome home.

like I always say. You though you're not in a swing state, Maryland is solid blue, but I'm sure you have friends outside of Maryland who might be in swing states, who might not be as engaged in the process, who might be frustrated like we all feel, who might be ready to tune out and kick back and just throwing up their hands like epic, because I know I feel that way on some days. And you could be talking to those people, checking in, letting them know. There are

no off year elections. There are still those local elections that matter. If you're a parent, show up to those school board meetings, encourage your other friends to do the same. The state elections that matter, the state legislatures Republicans that made big gains there as well. So if your friends are in other places where that matters, pay attention to what's happening there, even in Maryland, pay attention to what's happening there, and just don't tune out, don't give up.

I think that's keenly the most important thing. And consider yourself an organizer, you know, if you even But I think it's also something important to say, even if it's not a swing state, right, even though Maryland is blue, there is still a party infrastructure there. I don't I'm not a member of the Democratic Party. I just vote mostly are always a vote Democrat. But there's still a

party infrastructure there that needs to be disrupted. You can still get involved on that level and make sure your issues as a black man are heard, that you're represented, because that's what we have to start convincing our people. What does this democracy look like if you get to shape it. And I think why we saw people stay home a lot last cycle is they gave up on that, on that part of the dream. They let America capture

their imagination in the wrong way. So even if you're just tapping into the imagination of your group chat, your college friends, your voids at the barber, whatever it is, I hope you can be a voice to lead the people to a righteous belief in what America owes us. And as always I would encourage you to tell your friends to tap in the native lampid where we keep it a buck and we talk about things in a very plain, digestible way to make people feel very welcome and knowledgeable.

public office. So if there was a thing that I would recommend, it would be I would get together with those friends who are concerned and are interested and are a little bit displaced by what's happening at the federal level, and I would decide on some targets. How are those school board members performing for you? Are they out there banning books? Are they embracing curriculums that are inclusive of others?

How those city commission races are they appropriating money and your part of the community and in parts of the community that need investments the most. How those judges doing those judges that like to be sleepy around election season so you don't notice them, but when it's not an

election season, they are ruling against our people. Not giving us chances, not seeing us as human in those courtrooms, I would start to interrogate right where you live whether or not the people are there and acting in your interests, the people who are there if they are acting in

your interests, and if they are not. The beauty, but also the disappointment about our process is is in midterm elections and in local elections, the drop off of voters is spectacular, and I don't mean that in a good way. It is huge. The opportunity moment that that creates is that you get to frankly, if you can organize a few of your friends and hit some doors, you can pretty much elect the candidates of your choice to these

local municipal offices. Make your targets. Now, decide who's up, and determine whether or not they are in service to you or not being of service to you. And then amongst you all, you figure out who you all are going to run. And I don't mean just this question or I'm talking for all of us. That's power that we can command. And then once those folks are in those positions, we can then elevate them to state legislature, into congressional seats, into US Senate seats and so on

and so forth. I think y'all get the picture. But this democracy is going to be saved by each and every one of us acting right where we are. Swing state, no state, no electoral vote. I'm not worried about that. I'm talking about how we rescue this place is by putting ourselves in position so that when the opportunity creates yourself, we got folks who are right, they're ready to move into it.

high hope. Nineteen eighty eight, Reverend Jackson, you know, I was listening to his speech this morning. Roland sends it periodically to a group chat that we all have, and I was like, I just want to hear about the importance of the Rainbow Coalition to get so I don't lose hope in it. And I also think about two thousand and eight, you know, crying with some of our elder statesmen, some of our elder states women about the importance of supporting President Obama for office. And I think

about your race, Andrew. It meant the world to me to see you as a governor elect. I believed, you know, who happened to be black, but spoke to the needs of so many people. You were not myopic. But I also think that some of these candidates are once in a lifetime candidates they really are. I felt like I might be potentially seen if Kamala Harris would have won, And I felt a little seen when Katanji Brown Jackson and Kamala Harris were named right by President Biden.

Valterea rallies all over the city. We're doing voter rallies in places where we're trying to stimulate a particular vote to vote a particular way to achieve a particular win, and I would.

it is our job to keep it. And if that means I'm going to harm myself, but my alignment and proximity to the people who are at the top of that chain is so close that I'll benefit from it, then I'll make that sacrifice. So their job is easier.

Ours is harder. And the other thing about our job is we think that everybody in that coalition shares our belief system along the spectrum of policies, and some folks are just there because the other side won't make a home for them, the other side will not be in coalition with them, and so they're here in this shared space. But quite frankly, they ain't standing with us on black lives, then I going to stand next to you on issue X, Y and Z, and so the listening part is going

to be important. But then also some hard decisions are going to have to be made if this is only cozy for you for this reason, hey, we can't rock.

you think we should move forward. So thanks for tuning into this mini pod. Remember our minipods drop every single Monday. You can catch them on YouTube. You can also get them anywhere you hear your podcast and be sure to tune in and we'll see you next week on our main episode.