Georgia's Blue Part Two

for now the good guys one. We made Georgia blue and Republicans mad the shortest suit and we can't rest on our laurels now because there's more to do, because we got to senate in the House to tell Mitch McConnell not a word out his motherfucking mouth. They don't like democracy to go in another route. So in about two years, yeah, we gotta shut them out. But now we stopped with the preaching the choir. Then go Biden by the arms, hold his feet to the five war knock.

Did this thing something we should have mind? But y'all get primaried. If you see you would lie, you will need to retire. You receiving the ire we was calling the truth because the situation was dire. You was thinking of sweet and that's something really yush out. They said, y'all radical I want to see what they're talking about. Hey, my name's Dope Knife Franca and we are waiting on reparations. So we won. Yeah, okay, it was a little bit

of background on like the last couple of days for me. Um, Monday night, myself and Paul will be joining us later a little later on the show. I met up in Atlanta and got in the car and proceeded to drive around the state of Georgia for twelve hours putting up yard signs and then like five different countries and so and then I went we went back to Atlanta and

I had just like a normal work day. Um, I'm completely dead signed very excited that Mitch McConnell is going to be sen minority leader and that we have two senators elect here in Georgia that we will be able to push towards things like universal health care and ending the world on drugs by ending betteral funding for UM narcotic task forces and things like that. Well, I was just about toside, So I just want to make that clear from the top. Well, I was about to ask

you about that. Don't worry, We're gonna We're gonna take it easy on you today because like one of the whole things about this episode is like shining a light on some of the work that you've been doing. You know, I'm getting sworn into my second term as commissioner at four thirty today, so it's just like, see, see your

girl is out there working hard jobs. So okay, well, I mean today we're gonna be you know, just getting some insight from Mariah with on the work that she did in this campaign, some of her feelings about how it's turned out, and by campaign, you know, for you know, just for the sake of due diligence. I'm talking about the recent Senate elections as well. We're also going to be talking to the deputy campaign manager for Daniel Blackman,

who was running for public service public service commissioner. Yeah, the yeah, candidate for Public Service commissioner. Candidate for Public Service commissioner. We're gonna be just getting little inside in how that campaign went and everything like that. But um, with this win for Warnock and us, of the apparent win for us of if I don't want to jump the horse, what does that mean for Democrats and like

how can progressives eventually leverage that? Well, what it means for Democrats is they don't have any excuses for not getting anything done. As you know, they tried to under Obama when they you know, in his first two years, had the House, in the Senate and the Executive and like all we got was like the A C. A. When we could have been tackling climate change like ten years ago. Uh, you know, could have done so many things and didn't because no one was paying attention. But

now we are. And so, um it means that the sky is theoretically a little bit. I think this is where social movements then come in to create a clear mandate, like for what the people need. Um, and uh, making it clearer that we were watching. Um. It is exciting that we have senators elect that we can actually hold accountable like Kelly Left. I wasn't accountable to ship like David Purdue. Are you kidding? Um? And so I'm very

very very very excited to fight the Democrats and other Republicans. Finally, So, um, I mean it means to you know, two thousand checks. Hopefully that is now the floor. We can make that recurring and retroactive to last March. Um, things like marijuana legalization. Um. Yeah, there's no excuse for them to not just go ahead and get these don then, in fact, it would behoove them to do so, because treading lightly when you have such a narrow margin of victory as these gentlemen had,

is it easy way to lose? I think, Um, who see it is? It is up in like two years? I think it's a yeah. So like if they sit around and do nothing for two years, like he's gone, it's gone, and so like it's it, behooves the go ahead and get done. You know, double the minimum wage, legalize it, um uh, you know, close private prisons, like let's really do this, Like sure they might not be even for better care for all, but let's go ahead and get steps towards expanding, protecting the a C A UM,

getting a public option. Just like, go ahead, do that this year to set the stage for truly universal health care and years to come, so that in four or whatever, I don't know, I don't know what year it is, I don't know what year be. Um. So when you come back around after everybody's votes again, you can tell give them clear like, yo, we did it, and we couldn't because you know, inter mcconnwell or anything. There's no

reason why there's no reason why they could. Can't you gotta have like tangible benefits, you know what I mean, and and changes to their lives for all the work that is, get the Party of Working people fucking show us like doing and if you don't, and if you don't, fine, if you really don't, too fine, But like that's the end.

I mean, primary motherfucker's or you know, get ring choice voting passed in places like Georgia, where Republicans now see the dangers of a runoff challenging their you know, uh they're lies like grip on our government structures. And I just thought about popping like, yeah, let's do this. So now after the presidential election and then these Senate elections, like Georgia is like officially blue now, so I mean,

we still have a Republican control legislature. Um. I would also, I mean, to me, the local is very important, and so I would also look at the makeup of our county commissions. It's not like you know, l A or Detroit or Chicago where it's like democratic controlled like local governing bodies either U And so like that's really important for things like well, since that's what you're like, I know, that's that's something that you really care about. Like what

can be done to like to make that the case? Like, how can we start getting people more engaged for you know, in the elections that aren't having five hundred million dollars spent on them, to outside of elections that have half

a billion dollars spent on them? Yeah, Like what what what can we do to get people more engaged in their local and to care about the local makeup, you know, because I mean if people were a little if people were burnt out after the presidential election and we had to like get on people's asses and you know, you were out there doing the work that we're about to get into to like get people to to actually be engaged with the smaller election in this this past center election,

than it's like, how do we get people even further engaged and less burnt out to where they're being involved in their local politics and stuff? Yeah? Well, I mean I believe Charline Caruthers put it that, uh, you know, good leaders in good movements create new leaders. That's the goal.

And so through my work, which I'll talk a little bit more about in the second but like my general principle for like the way I moved through the political world is that like you bring people in at the ground level to teach them the mechanics of organizing such that they learn how they learn how to work, like how to get to build coalition, to build support for ideas, to learn to talk about ideas, and then learn how to talk about process such that they then have the

tools themselves to run for something like county commission, um, to run for statehouse or to you know, to go from being just a canvas where we're paying to knock on doors this time around, to being a field manager for someone statehouse campaign or congressional campaign and so um, I think that a lot of people that like might vote reliably democratic previously, but like, given the fervor around this election cycle, might have hit the pavement for the

stime knocking down doors or text banking or you know, whatever forms of get out the vote they participant in. Like, now they know how to do that, and now they can be the one that's leading that effort and bringing new folks, and now they get are the ones that can be putting that expertise to work in winning running and winning their own campaign. So that's at least my hope for like the broader win out of all of this, um, as well as just like what I try to do

all time. Word. Okay, so we're gonna get into the specific work that you were doing after the bump. Alright, So Mariah, so just pretend that somebody is listening to the show for the first time and they don't know exactly what it is you do other than host this podcast, Like explain to then what is your position in the city of Athens, Georgia, and then how did that extend into the work that you were doing for the elections this past few months. Yeah, I am Athens, Georgia's scariest

radical liberal. Uh. I can't wait for the day that I ran for some runs for something bigger and they like make my skin look darker in the in the attack ads like they did like left warded for warnock um. But no, like someone kind commissioner have been since to

thousand eighteen UM. But outside of that, like, uh, I you know I got my start in uh politics, I am I hold office now because someone tapped me to run their campaign and I learned how to um do that and talk about policies such that I was like, oh I can do this like I'm gonna run dropics. What's up? And so the idea behind this project I've been working on for the last like six weeks Athens

Progressive Canvasing Corps. Mary's the need for that sort of entry level experience building among just folks that are underrepresented in politics. UM, understanding of just like what wins elections, which is just face to face voter contact and it's

easiest to reach people at their homes. Um. And the fact that people are fucking broke right now because they gave us a hundred dollars like eight months ago, when we're like, good luck with your eviction and stuff, and so wanting to pay people a living wage to do this work because as local elected officials, our hands have been very tied by state statutes preventing us from providing

direct relief to our constituents. So it's like, all right, I can't just cut you a thousand dollar check if I can pay you a thousand dollars if you are out of work, and I want to just like walk around your neighborhood and talk to people about uh, you know, where they can go vote. And so we recruited a bunch of people, very diverse coalition of like students, like working class folks of color UM, some season organizers, some that were very very new to this had no idea

what canvasing even was when they started. UM folks you know on the brink of eviction, experience in food and security, like got kids at home that just like needed needed work to do and needed it before the pandemic, that

thing like needed it before all of this. UM. And so like bringing those folks in because they're probably not paying attention to what's going on in the County Commission, not because they're dumb, but because like there were then trying to you know, teach their fourth grader math at like ten o'clock at night, like I wouldn't either. So UM, so we hired on a team. I think it's about ended up being about twenty like core canvassers UM to go out into their own neighborhoods and knock on nors

and talk to people about the importance of this election. UM. We raised about twenty five dollars UM big shout out of the proggressive Campaign Change colition. They ran a fundraiser for US and raised about for US in addition to what we were able to get through our own campaign networks hour being myself to other county commissioners are mayor

and our Statehouse representative Spencer Fry and so um. Over the course of the last six weeks, we went out and knocked on about thirty two doors all around Athens, which is interesting because thirty thousand is almost exactly the number of votes that war knock us off and black men were able to get out of our city. Well, you don't win an election this close without those margins actually mattering. You know what I'm saying. It's it's not like this is a blow at or anything. So every

bit of it matters. I mean, do you look back at it now. I mean, obviously they won, so it's a success in that way, but do you see it as something that like you can break out again for

more elections? Yeah? Now, I know Hobby, who is the you know Oberlin student who was home from Athens, born and raised here, would never participated in electoral politics before, who knows how to talk policy at the door and knows how to work the minivan app and like knows who her commissioners are, and so like next time around, when like a commission race comes up in her disc like we got somebody on the ground that can train

new volunteers to do this work. Um uh, we got you know, James and Elena and Eric who were in the fresh out of high school, born and raised in Athens that knocked on I think when I saw them on one day, it was like one day at two pm, and they knocked on two doors that morning, a bunch of like seventeen and eighteen year olds. Like what they're gonna be doing in ten years? Like think about that?

So like and so that to me, like like it's important that everyone to get two thousand dollar checks and like hopefully we can like get if not a green new deal, like a substantial infrastructure slash climate like plan out of these people. But um, but we don't get there if we don't train new people to like be a part of the of like continuous sustaining pressure of helping build additional power through other offices that like help

support that work, you know. So I don't know, Like it's great that we won, but it's not about that for me to be comple on us. I organized pretty hyper locally in the grand scheme of state. Uh here in Athens, but there's a lot of great work being done by folks who go everywhere, who go to the places like where know that everyone counts out UM to like help build organizing infrastructure there, to help elevate organizers into candidates and who have been doing the work for

far longer than I have. And so I'm really stoked to have one of those people with us today. Uh Paul Glaize, deputy campaign manager for the Daniel Blackman campaign for a Public Service Commissioner UM, to talk a little bit about what he did both in this race before and shout out some of our colleagues within the Georgia political ecossystem UM that we got to hang out with last night as we watched the results come in. So yeah, we'd love to get your take. Thanks for being here.

I'm okay, I'm I'm it's it's it's a very there's a lot of emotions today and I think that honestly, I'm just really happy that Georgia showed up. I'm really happy we do have uh, I guess control of the Senate, I think is the best way to say that. UM. And it was after having just spent so you gotta understand that, like this is my fifth election night this year. Like, if you count this little bit of the end of UM.

I worked three different campaigns and two of them had runoffs. UM. And when you do a statewide race, you get to organized with so many people. I was like me and I was just mentioning. UH. And it's really one of the gifts that electoral politics can give you as an organizer. UM. It's the ability to go to a lot of different communities UM and meet the people who care UM and who are fighting fighting for stuff. UM. So right now

that network has been strengthened a lot. So I think even if we had lost a lot of people on the ground, but actually still feel pretty good about this cycle. UM. Definitely. Yeah. I mean like because and then and that's a real thing. Sometimes whole cycles go by and no good Like it's it's this one period of time where all of your actions get a lot higher return on investment, and so

you have an ethical responsibility to use that intentionally. UM. And there's whole cycles where people don't even care enough to try. So like the regardless we did that successfully, everyone feels pretty good about it. UM. Daniel. However, UM is still in the throes of wondering when we're going to find out the results. UM. Right now, Bubba McDonald is ahead, UM. And in fact, he has more votes than both of the Republican Senate candidates, UM, and all

of UM. I'm pretty sure, maybe not Warnock. I can look that up real fast. UM, but he has I think the most votes of anyone. Oh no, yeah, no, he beat out everyone except for Warnock. So how why did he overperform the other Republicans? That is the million dollar question? And I actually that you know that he didn't hitch his wagon to Trump, and so for some that have become disolution with the new direction of the party, like he seemed like a you know, a solid Republican

to get behind. Uh. Sexism, you know, people who voted for Purdue and McDonald but not Kelly Leffler because they hate women, which I whoops, I don't know. I don't know for sure, but like, I think these things are interesting and probably work together. I don't think I think we can roll out the Trump theory M because about

what McDonald was co chair of Donald Trump's campaign. UM, so of the people that pay And now that being said, there's a whole subset I think of Trump's voting populace, UM that really don't pay attention like they're they're they're they've had an emotional draw he's gotten them. He like, he's they are an audience for him now for his brand. UM. But they're not necessarily political people, which is really normal.

We we you know, kind of derisively refer sometimes to like, uh, certain types of soccer moms UM that you know, gung ho for democrats, UM will wave the flag, will you know, get out there and put their sign their yard proudly, um, and yet still harbord deep resentment towards people of other races, you know, Like that's a that's a phenomenon that we

know on our side, uh exists. And so I do think maybe that group of people you're thinking, like disaffected white guy is like mid thirties trying to grapple with the fact that he has no opportunities in his town and feels like he can't ever achieve his life dream. Like that set of people, I can definitely see um, you know, being you know, being drawn to that. But the people that pay attention would all know that this guy literally co chaired the campaign for Georgia. UM. So

we still have a problem. We still have a problem there. UM. I do think that there's a lot of people that really are inspired more by a UM, you know, a local candidate that's talking to the scale of the actual issues. UM, someone that they are familiar with, someone who has spent years coming to their community, and how as local community members to vouch for them. UM. You know, when we look at these numbers, it's pretty easy to you know,

it's it's easy to get down to yourself about a loss. UM. But as of right now, Daniel has just under votes less than David Purdue. So when you think about the money that Daniel spent and you think about the money that was spent on David Purdue, the fact that those

have parody proves a lot about the strength of organizing here. UM. But you know, it's hard sometimes to know if there's like analogous situations on the Republican side, UM, because by and large, we you know, we're we're a party if you like, if you're looking at Democrats, we are the party where the vast majority of people of color are.

And simple, this is kind of the and it's gross to say, like we sometimes it used to be like a couple of years ago, you would bring this up even if you've got you know, tiptoed towards it, people would, um would start to get offended. But this is the literal structural and Democrats are not involved in rural hit communities, Like this is what it looks like once the impact happens, and you don't have to prioritize them. But if you're not even in them credibility, then you don't really know

what's going on. So now we're you know, now we have to have this whole conversation trying to piece out I mean, this is gonna be a question for the next four months. People right now are being paid mountains of money to answer that question. Um, it really and like honestly, I feel like just us sitting here talking are gonna get closer to the truth. And typically that

has proven right in my in my organizing. And then it always frustrates people that spend lots of money on on other people, um, that they could have just had good conversations and probably gotten pretty close to there. Um. So I don't know that that might have been a rambling answer to your what we were talking about, But I do think we can rule the Trump one out,

There's there's a lot of stuff there though. I'm definitely with Mariah on UM We're about to see a wave of white feminist organizing around the issue of uh, sexist Republican men who wouldn't vote for Leffler. It's gonna be a conversation under the like under you know, conversations like this that don't like, you know, like don't always like have the have the virtue of being on a podcast

on I heart media, you know. And I guess with the vote still, I mean with the counts still, you know, out what is what do you envision like your next few days looking like? UM, mostly I'm trying to do the normal things, which is um, like make sure my people are paid, make sure you know all bills that need to be paid, you know, I mean, like just like the normal business side of things. UM, that's all got to get handled. And UM, I like to try and be the person that does that because it gives

people who are incredibly tired a moment. I wanted to breathe. UM. For many people, including our campaign manager Ian. We've been doing this straight all year, like and for years, I mean like all year in terms of like on these particular projects. But like it also because the only way you can keep doing it is if you just commit to making it a significant portion of your life and structuring your life around it. Um. Like you have to.

It's the only way because in so many way it's such a time commitment and so much of your thought goes into it, um, trying to be good at it because you know, for good reasons, you want to represent yourself well. Um, and even if you don't want to

represent your community, you always represent your community. There's not that's not a There are so many people that do politics that don't have a sense of community that like you can get it's easy to get caught up in kind of like playing living your life in a way that makes sense dealing with them. Um. But the truth is that everyone else, whether you're you know, we moved around so much when I was a kid, Like I never really got to have like like a hometown until uh,

I don't know, like preteen years. Like before that, we lived in like five or six different places. Um, And I love all those places. Um. But you know, you gotta, you gotta The older you get, the more you appreciate how short of time you know five or ten years is um and it means something. I don't know if

this is going to be a working segway. There's also piggybacking off of like when you asked me earlier, Mac, like what I do and so and I also wanted to talk about last night, so um, you know, we were rolled up with the black Man campaign to this bar in on Beifford Highway in Atlanta, UM to celebrate what we're looking like hopeful returns with some organizers that we know from all around the state who would come

together to watch the results come in. And so hanging out with come not click that's he lives in Athens, clead, what's luck? Could he last name? Oh? Wait? No, oh, I'm thinking okay, sorry, but click Comeau who's been heading up our revel Lucian's efforts here in in in Marina, a little bits out of Atlanta, UM. Michelle Sanchez, who has done a lot of organizing in North Georgia and done a lot of work around uh Latina's mobilization for

this electionated campaigns director for it. Yeah, and I just want to talk about this particular moment that I think is like very like speaks very much like my brand of politics and like what I think like the future

needs to look like of politics. So like we were all of this bar and like most people were watching like a football game, and then like the TV right above our heads was tuned in the CNN and watching the election results come in, and when it flipped, when it when Warnock took the lead, when as Off was tied with pur New, our little section of the bar, everybody started like cheering and like dancing and hugging, and like all the other people in the bar kind of

like looked over, like what's going on and all started cheering too. They're like oh cool, yeah, like they didn't give a ship, but like first they saw that we were really excited, and they got really excited. And I think that is like very emblematic of what the work is like, like when you get wins and people get

excited and want to try more. And also when you make politics fun, when you make it like a party, when you make an average people like hanging out eating wings and drinking like uh cocktails, um at a bar on Buford Highway, like people find an easy entry into it and so um, Like I think that that is also what I do and a lot of what you know, a lot of what Michelle was doing with like Sada to the polls, getting like d days out and like food and like just kind of like block party vibes

um is like really essential to this work. But I don't know, Paul, if you wanted to speak more about your relationship with these folks and the work that they've been doing in the state over the last couple of years, because it has been a long time coming, and I think in this moment there's certain faces that are rising to the top of our like liberal media um narratives that like they did a lot of work, but like there's so many other people that also get zero shined

because uh, the work we do is so thankless and like menial seeming at times of just like actually going and knocking on the doors and like st no blade and driving around the state putting up the signs, etcetera. So I just wanted to give you a chance to like chatlet's folks. I'll talk a little bit about how you know that what they do. Yeah, thank you so much. And also I uh really grateful to that bar because it was it was a great environment um obviously for

those of you who don't um live in Atlanta. Um, Bufford Highway has the best um like food of every culture. Like it's a it's a very long road and pretty much if you want the best Cambonian food, Thai food, Indian food, um, uh food from any of the Latin countries, I am sure like Central and South America. Um, you go there. Um and it's and it's important. So when our revolution wanted an election night live stream, UM, that goes you know, that's that's one thing that goes on

their Facebook page. That's like but you know usually there's like five people watching and their Facebook pages five people. So we need people like Mariah in office. Um, we need people uh like you dope knife to step up because we lookn't know, just for the listeners, his face got like like his eyebrows crunched all the way down to his nose when that we don't get them one day though, we don't get them in there. Um yeah, I don't think. I don't think i'd let you have

the hook on that. Yeah. I'm I'm now your Jewish mother in politics, I'm constantly going to be questioning your ambitions, um, and whether or not they're high enough, but it wasn't. You know, it's important to us to make sure that whenever we have resources whenever, so like, let's an easy resources like our revolution letting us to a live stream on their Facebook and sitting out an email to tell people to tune in. That's a huge opportunity. So our

people are the people that ran the Coordinated Campaign's Latino outreach. UM. That's Maria do Rosario Palacios, who is the person who got me into community organizing. UM when I was in college. UM, I don't need to talk for people listening like that way forever ago because that wasn't UM. But when I was like twenty, UM, Maria and I were in college, UM at Gainesville State College, home of the Fighting Geese.

That was actually our mascot. But luckily we were so small and for we didn't have a football team, so no one had to honk and stands as their you know, as their school spirit. UM. But basically, the Dreamer generation, the Decca kids of Gainesville came of age and it was very important to them on a basic honorable level to be civically engaged. They felt a very strong, they still feel a very strong UM commitment to that this is what their parents, this is what their parents earned,

and they needed to validate that. UM. And we had a multicultural student affairs office in the college that needed that wanted a media person, and I was in school for theater and film. I was in a film class department. Sent down an email like, hey, there's this there's this opportunity for team fifty an hour, fifteen dollars an hour, um, which you know, to a college kids, you're sitting there going like, hell, yeah, fifteen dollars an hour, and they

get to like help people, great, sign me up. UM. And I get over there and this woman, I swear to guy that I take almost every opportunity I can to lionize this woman because it is mind blowing, uh to see the amount of work she does. Um. This woman will keep working, honestly until it could like potentially start to hurt her. And then you have to like like but tell her like, hey, it's it's good. You know you've done enough. Um. But basically, Maria Um was

a working mother of a young kid in school. Twins on the way and the act of kids have to pay out of state tuition, which makes even this community college cost prohibitive, but these kids felt honor bound and so they all took two three jobs over they had to do. UM. And while she's doing that and organizing with the students, like Maria and I basically created a student activism UM environment at our school. One had not existed.

Every once in a while, this one club would do something. UM. But we managed to get that going UM an even like wildly successful. I mean like for like for what it was. UM. We actually got our school on Bill Maher once UM where he said new rule, Uh, the University of North Georgia has to change its name to Cracker State and the home of applying the mullets. And it was our it was our night Hawk with with

Joe Dirt mullet UM, and they sold hoodie. UM. So those are the people that got me in the community organizing. We've our town has at large voting, so everybody can vote for everybody in the city. UM. So literally like they segregate the entire black community into one district. Black community puts up a candidate. Magically, some teacher is convinced to run, and all the white people vote for that candidate, so that candidate wins. UM. And that's how it's always been.

And that's the fight that I was. I don't know that I was like born into UM and from and so she is actually now honestly, there are multiple organizations that a lot of their ship uh to to Maria doing things. UM. Anybody else you want to shut up? Yeah, of course. Uh. Michelle Sanchez is a friend of ours. She was the first Latina to run in South Hall County. UM. She ran the Progressive Turnout Project operations for the general election UM and is now well, I guess until whenever

this is certified, whenever this campaign has done. She is the coordinated campaign, which is the Cynic Campaign's Latin X outreach director. UM. And Maria backs her up on that. UM. And then obviously Councilman Collead Um who is the head of Our Revolution Georgia UM their efforts here UM for the runoff. UM he and I you know went to them and said, no, you really need to hire local organizers. UM, we don't, you know, we shouldn't be bringing other people in.

Y'all don't know the ship like which is a case it has to be made and then like finally someone will come in and really get it. And then they they're like, okay, thank you, and I'm like, I promise you it will It'll be good. Trust us. UM. And Khaled's running from mayor of South Fulton, which I am lately obligated to say is the blackest city in America. UM. And we're gonna have cleed honestly. And we've got an interview with him like three in the morning one time

to send around somewhere. Kaled is one of the o g s. Kaled is one of the people that showed that you could be authentically progressive and run for office in Georgia. UM. And I have in terms of this what this newer definition of progressive is. And I don't want to exclude the work of all the people that have been doing this for decades. UM, but it's it's incredible. So I'm excited for that. One organizing extends into the realm of the arts earlier, not earlier this year. Last year,

you co founded the Atlanta Artists Relief Fund. Yeah. My backgrounds mostly in the theater community with some of the film community. UM. And it's really nice because between Daniel and myself, UM, then we like have credibility with a majority of the community. UM. Daniel with music UM, and then me from the like acting performers side um technicians. UM. I would like I've never been like a roadie, but

that is one of my jobs. Um. And we when COVID hit, we found it an organization to start obvious, a mutual aid effort um. And then at a certain point people didn't want to do all the administrative work and it was we weren't able to keep scaling in any way. And when you have a moment like that with COVID, that's an organizing opportunity. There's a window of opportunity there to get in with authenticity and credibility and do good work while people are paying attention, because they'll

stop paying attention. They always do. There's always a new crisis UM. So you only have that window of time to get what every funding you can and give it to the people that are best suited to do it. UM. So we got in there. The entire Theory community was pretty much just like paralyzed. We were all looking at all of our shops closing down. UM. I don't know why I say our shops like it's a like I owned a theater. By that all the theaters are are

in a lot of trouble all the stuff. I mean, y'all know all the performing are performing halls and you know everyone's hurt. Um, So we did a COVID relief effort. UM. A woman named Bridget McCarthy who was another one of us artist organizers that did some electoral politics. UM. She's a writer and uh, there's a lot of work um with incarcerated folks. UM. And she runs that organization. Now, UM almost flipped an R plus ten house district in Connecticut.

UM and turned down going to run the second campaign to go take it, you know, for real, Um, to stay here and do work in Atlanta, because there's a lot of good organizing that happens in Georgia. And she was just excited to be in that in that space. How can progressives like leverage the situation because out you know, I mean, theoretically, if it's a lot, it's a lot better of a situation. I would imagine to have to fight against liberals than to fight against republicans and fascists

and authoritarians and stuff. So now that we can actually have a debate theoretically, because you know what I mean, the d n C do be on some flex too, I said it, But like theoretically we can, you know, at least have these debates. It's not like we're bringing these high progressive ideals to fucking the doorstep of Trump and Mitch McConnell anymore. So what can we do in this in these next few years to actually take advantage

of that as progressive? Okay, on some real ship. I've always believed that it is morally acceptable as progressives to work with what would be considering, you know what, the the establishment, moderates, whatever. But I think I think everyone knows we're talking about, and I think it is import to make a distinction between moderates and uh power. Um, it's okay to work with power to a degree in places like Georgia where the stakes are high, you know,

like democrats here are functionally very weak. Um. Like the way the ship is supposed to work is like what Mariah and Tim and Russell and Mayor Gertz did here. And I'm sorry I just left someone out, didn't I Maria Spencer and Spencer, Um it's supposed to work like that. You have people that have built independent networks that agree to come literally combine their networks to raise money to go do some good ship that we all collectively agree on, and you earn the trust in the way you go

about the negotiations. It's okay to do that here for the most part, that that conversation changes entirely once this is a blue state at that point. If we do not have the only way to do this is that over the next two and a half three years, we're all swirling in the current together and that wagon is circling, and as we're circling, we decide who we're going to

join hands with. We need to have our independent power structures in place by that time so that whoever the person is that grabs and holds you know, holds on with the other people um, doesn't have to rely on them if the other person let's go. So we need

it by that time. If you don't have it by that time, there will be just a not even need to talk about it, subconscious cultural um confusion, and they'll be blast ceiling and don't like there's not and there's not gonna be there's gonna be no record of it. There's gonna there's nothing like that. But you we just won't be able to get past a certain point in the tears going up, we just it's just gonna stop.

And that's the way that ship works. So like we have to have our structures in place no later than And when we talk about someone that's progressive having the responsibility to run for office, whatever that office may be, what we are talking about is that, hey, we have this window of time. If you agree that we have this window of time, if that's what the timeline feels like in your soul, then someone has to do it. And if there is like, if you can find someone

else and support them, cool, absolutely do that. If you can't find someone else, then you have a responsibility. That's how we get most people to run for office. That has to happen um at the same time, though, during these next two years, Stacey Arams is coming for the governor's mansion and to be yeah, and to be clear on what that means, because people seem to not I don't know how dumb everyone else in the country must be.

But if you don't know this, if Stacy Abrams is the governor of Georgia, Stacy Abrams functionally decides who the next two presidents are like in terms of political credibility, like as these Southern states go blue. The person whose opinion is gonna matter the most is not gonna be Jim Clyburne. And at that point in time, whoever, like, you're gonna have to have the Southern the Southern states and the Democratic primary to win the presidential primary, you're

gonna have to do it. Also, if we notice the last two presidential campaigns in the Democratic primary, that's what fucking happened. So like like with Bernie, I'm not mad at Bernie for for any for any ability or inability to not be himself. I'm that at Bernie because that was an undisputed fact and he did nothing to come and change that reality. Now, his pivot two, the first serious presidential level, respectable engagement and investment into organizing in

the Latin X community, is incredible. So this is not too there's there's actually a miner like political philosophical divide professionally in politics into the kind of party politics on that answer, and like that makes it sound sometimes like more than what it is, but ultimately, these people are the people to do the hiring of the firing. So they're like minute opinion about something that they only think

about for ten seconds. If that just gets calcified because I've never come back and think about it again later on. It does have real impact. UM, so you have to think about those things. So for the next two years. First off, this state just save the goddamn country. That's a fucking fact. And anybody who does not recognize that will not be allowed to come to work in Georgia. Why would we work with those people when they don't

even funk with us enough to respect us. That means people here have more value and can step up and do things. So, Paul, how can we keep up with your work and the work of folks that uh you work with? So in UM what so Councilman Colleede is running from mayor as I said South Fulton. UM, I pretty much wouldn't do much of anything if Kalid didn't funk with it. UM. You can find him at colleed Cares k H A l I d Cares dot com. UM.

Maria Dolasario Palacios runs an organization called Gainesville Familia Nidus. UM. You can look them up online. Michelle Sanchez, you can find all of us on so social media. UM. And if you want to get involved anything I'm doing. UM, this year is gonna be pretty North Georgia centric, so just be prepared to come up. As for me, I'm about to take a fucking break. The niggle like me is about to check out and not follow anything election related for at least like three or four days. I

just need to fucking break. As a matter of fact, next week, we're going to be doing an episode that I've been waiting for a long long time. But we're gonna talk about black people and comic book sci fi fantasy nerd shit. I don't even know what we're gonna call the episode yet. I'm thinking like blurred them or like um um black nerd them or like the Revenge of the Blurds. I don't know. We'll figure it out, but that's what we're gonna be doing next week. Yeah.

I'm excited to talk about some of the intersections between like black nerdum and like black like fantasy as like tied to after futurism and it's political implications um and so it should be really good episode next week. I too, am taking a weekend to sleep hard. Um. I can't wait to not answer my phone. Ah, No one's gonna hear from me. Everyone's gonna think I died. It's gonna be great. Um, but yeah, we'll see you all next week. I'm ling with Franca, I'm Dope Knife, and we are

waiting on reparations. See you next week. Waiting on Reparations as a production of I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.