Government Is the Prize: Working-Class Solidarity Wins Democracy, with Maurice Mitchell

[00:00:00] Sound on Tape: This podcast is presented by Convergence, a magazine for radical insights.

[00:00:07] Maurice Mitchell: To me, understanding that, Oh, we’re in one of those flare up moments when the appeals of, of white identity are very pronounced, very sticky, and it’s not by chance it’s, It has everything to do with hundreds of years of colonialism, and everything to do with more than 40 years of neoliberalism, and everything to do with the four years of Trump, and everything to do with eight years of Obama.

[00:00:33] It’s the both and of all those things that created the conditions, um, to make this happen. Those sets of politics, very, very attractive to so many people.

[00:00:58] Scot Nakagawa: Welcome to the Anti Authoritarian Podcast, a project of the 22nd Century Initiative. I’m Scott Nakagawa, one of your hosts. 

[00:01:06] Sue Hyde: Hello, friends. I’m co host Sue Hyde. Scott and I first joined forces about 30 years ago to help defeat anti LGBTQ ballot measures proposed by Christian authoritarian groups. 

[00:01:19] Scot Nakagawa: It was as true then as it is now that those of us who believe in democracy make up a supermajority of people in this country.

[00:01:26] The challenge is, how do we go from being the majority to acting like the majority? 

[00:01:31] Sue Hyde: We dig into strategy questions like these and prescriptions for change. We talk with expert guests and commentators whose scholarship, political activism, and organizing Define the cutting edge of anti authoritarian resistance.

[00:01:47] Thank you for joining us.

[00:01:53] Maurice Mitchell is the National Director of the Working Families Party. Maurice is a nationally recognized social movement strategist, a visionary leader in the movement for black lives, And a community organizer for racial, social, and economic justice. Born and raised in New York to Caribbean working class parents, Maurice began organizing as a teenager and has never stopped.

[00:02:19] As a high school student, Maurice served as the student leader for the Long Island Student Coalition for Peace and Justice. At Howard University, after a classmate was killed by police officers, Maurice led organizing efforts against police brutality and for divestment from private prisons. 

[00:02:38] Scot Nakagawa: Maurice went on to work as an organizer for the Long Island Progressive Coalition, Downstate Organizing Director for Citizen Action of New York, and Director of the New York State Civic Engagement Table.

[00:02:50] In 2018, Maurice took the helm of the Working Families Party as National Director. He is applying his passion and experience to make the Working Families Party the political home for the multiracial working class movement. Welcome, Maurice. What should we call you? Should we call you Maurice or Mo? 

[00:03:07] Maurice Mitchell: Well, it’s good to be here.

[00:03:08] I use both interchangeably. People have called me both since I was a child, and I’m friendly to both, so. You, you choose. Whatever, whatever moves you, that’s fine. 

[00:03:18] Scot Nakagawa: Okay. Well, we like friendly, so we’ll call you Mo. 

[00:03:22] Maurice Mitchell: Sounds good. 

[00:03:23] Scot Nakagawa: All right. So Mo, tell us more about the Working Families Party and briefly why you joined.

[00:03:28] Maurice Mitchell: Right. Well, the Working Families Party was started 25 years ago during the Clinton era. And that was a time when the Democratic Party really lurched decidedly towards Wall, attempted to do this sort of triangulation where The Democratic Party sought to kind of disaggregate social rights and economic rights and lay out a pretty robust neoliberal economic strategy, you know, so I’m talking about free trade and NAFTA, I’m talking about, um, from welfare to workfare, right?

[00:04:08] Uh, these were ideas that were sort of right wing Republican economic ideas that, um, The Clintons really owned. I’m talking about the crime bill, right? The 94 crime bill. This, the suite of, of pretty intense neoliberal reforms matched with some of the, the social reforms that sought to organize the various, um, identity groups of the Democratic Party around the Democratic Party without the economic agenda.

[00:04:38] There were a lot of folks in labor unions and grassroots organizations, a lot of folks on the left that really. Felt a deep rebuke to those policies and some of those folks came together to build the working families party. It started in New York 25 years ago. We now operate in 20 around 20 states and growing across the country.

[00:04:57] Um, in Philadelphia, last year in October, we held our first national convention to, to honor those past 25 years. And looking into the future, we seek to build a third force in American politics that is around the interest of working people. the interest of labor unions, the interest of, uh, social movements, and to build a party around that third force.

[00:05:22] That’s the work of, of the next 25 years. And to put it simply, we believe that in a democracy, everyday people should govern. And we do a number of things, but everything we do is towards that North Star of creating the conditions that working people can govern. We believe that that will resolve many of the challenges, the structural challenges that working people are facing every single day.

[00:05:44] Scot Nakagawa: Well, as I understand that period of history you refer to, you know, it seemed as though the Clinton administration basically adapted, right, the Democratic Party base to, um, Reaganism. And um, so workers really didn’t have a party, not in the way they had, um, or at least white workers. And so, um, you know, as somebody from a working family, um, I thank you.

[00:06:08] Maurice Mitchell: Thank you. And, you know, what I would say is, it’s really important that we study. The past 40 years, and we studied that moment to help us understand why so many everyday working people, um, have sort of migrated away from politics in general because of a sense that politics no longer worked for them, or have shifted to the right wing and to MAGA politics, right?

[00:06:32] And the reason why I’m doing party organizing right now and building the Working Families Party is because You know, in 2014, I’m one of a number of people around the country, after Michael Brown was murdered, who felt compelled to go and support the organizing that was taking place there. I embedded with an organization called the Organization for Black Struggle in St.

[00:06:52] Louis. And worked with many of the people, including a lot of young working class folks who left their service industry jobs to hit the protest lines. And, um, I started a project called Blackbird that helped to catalyze the Movement for Black Lives to become an international movement. And one of the things that I really learned from that experience is how social movements like the Movement for Black Lives can surface contradictions that have just sort of laid dormant in our imaginations but have existed.

[00:07:22] in our society, like the fact that black people face state violence at an alarming race rate, really surface that so everybody has to answer to that, and pose questions that everybody in society, especially the political class, have to answer to. The other thing I observed is that social social movements are really powerful in that ability, but there are limitations to that power.

[00:07:47] So Social movements pose questions, surface contradictions, but aren’t necessarily positioned to answer the questions and to resolve the contradictions. So I, I always recall how we were posing these deep questions that have its roots. in hundreds of years of, of, uh, settler colonialism and slavery and Jim Crow and hyper policing and over incarceration.

[00:08:13] And, uh, Taser International, the corporation, had an answer, a product, body cameras. And now we live in a world where body cameras are pretty standard issue for various police forces. But the underlying problem and contradiction has not been resolved. The underlying issue has not been answered in any meaningful way, at least from the perspective of the movement.

[00:08:38] But what I learned was that when crises emerge, the most organized forces are able to leverage and take advantage of those crises. And generally, the most organized force in our society is organized capital. So you have these corporations answering the call of the urgent call from the street and that led me to want to Figure out well, what can we as everyday people?

[00:09:06] What other force can we develop outside of the movement force to be able to answer the questions that the social movements are? Raising and that led me to to think very critically and to be really curious about what governing can look like. Because inasmuch as we have some form of a democracy, it means that there are strategies that everyday people without significant means can take in order to be able to claim or reclaim government.

[00:09:34] And government does have significant capacity. Government has the capacity to be able to, under the control of people, to be able to answer the questions that social movements and to resolve the contradictions that social movements surface. Uh, but we need to be in control. And that means we can’t simply be protest movement.

[00:09:56] We can’t simply be in the perennial posture of protest. Protest is essential, but the, the act of protesting or the act of civil disobedience is a tactic that needs to be nested into a long term strategy. And I would argue a strategy that ultimately has as its North Star, governance. And so that’s really what brought me, based on my experience, brought me to the Working Families Party.

[00:10:19] So I could begin to experiment and practice what it looks like to be in a posture of governing and to create the conditions where the Working Families Party could be seen as a governing partner, as the electoral expression of social movements, and as a governing partner and an electoral expression of working people in labor unions.

[00:10:41] Sue Hyde: Mo, that’s a beautiful articulation of what we often say, uh, government is not the enemy, it’s the prize. That’s correct. 

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[00:11:52] Sue Hyde: So, um, one of the, one of the big projects of, of Working Families Party is to build a stronger and more multiracial Working class political entity.

[00:12:08] I almost said the word movement, but I thought no, it’s a political entity. Uh, and yet, uh, some, some Latinx and African American folks and immigrant folks, workers. are being swayed by the false promises coming from the authoritarian MAGA movement. How do you think we move these folks back into the pro democracy majority?

[00:12:33] Maurice Mitchell: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, right? Because what’s happening with working people and the appeal to the right wing and the appeal to right wing populism is not unique to the United States. Right? And so something is happening that’s global and structural, and we are at the tail end of 40 years of neoliberalism, and that is true globally, and neoliberalism has been the main vehicle that has led to this sort of consensus around Free trade around sort of the shareholder supremacy, um, around this magical religious belief in markets as being all powerful and being somehow just infallible and has resulted in a significant amount of the commons, things that we all share, capacities that we all share, migrating from our shared stewardship To being part of the marketplace and being owned by private entities and shareholders.

[00:13:41] And the defunding of those commons, the common spaces, of, of common infrastructure like in the United States. There was more mental health infrastructure that was state owned. And there’s less of that, right? Um, our educational system is becoming privatized, right? And, uh, public education has been defunded in a lot of ways, even as jails, prisons, and police forces have been invested in.

[00:14:10] And then also, like I mentioned NAFTA, also the, the, uh, the offshoring of millions of good paying, um, industrial jobs that were often union jobs, It meant that millions of people, millions of everyday people across race, both lack the ability to be able to support their families in a very dignified way because the, the economic base for that has been, has been defunded due to these, these patterns that are informed by this philosophy.

[00:14:41] But then also there’s, there’s less of a safety net to be able to support our communities. And so people naturally are feeling a sense of alienation. A sense of loss and longing, a sense of stolen dignity, um, people naturally in this country and all around the world, everyday working people, are feeling as though, I mean it’s not just a feeling, there’s a material basis to this, that they’re working hard or harder than they worked before and are not able to make ends meet as they were able to do before or as their parents were able to do before.

[00:15:18] And the right wing populist movements, you know, in this country, it’s MAGA and Trump, you know, it in Brazil, it’s Bolsonaro and, you know, in Hungary, it’s Orban. They take on different sort of features based on the conditions, but they’re all telling a similar story, right? They’re they’re telling a story that is, I think, pretty compelling.

[00:15:41] A story that says, yes, if you’re feeling that sense of alienation, that sense of loss, believe your eyes and ears. It’s real. And if you’re feeling that something has been stolen from you, if that your dignity or your Wages have been stolen. You’re right. They have been. By these elites. They’ve been stolen from you by these elites and they, and these elites both steal from you and give to the other.

[00:16:03] Give to migrants. Give to black folks. Give to the undeserving. Give to fill in the gap of the other. And work with me. Work with me and my movement so that I could position you so that you can reclaim your dignity. So that you could defend your family. And if pro democracy forces Um, are interested or curious about how we can engage in mass organizing to be able to meet our people where they’re at.

[00:16:32] Um, then we have to tell a more compelling story that starts, at least, with believing our folks when they say, They feel like they’ve been taken advantage of. They feel that the system has been rigged. They feel that they’ve been robbed of their dignity. What’s the, the asymmetry that we’re noticing is that the right wing authoritarians and right wing populism are led by the ultra right.

[00:16:58] The ultra, in this country, the MAGA forces are white Christian nationalists, right? A lot of the MAGA forces. But the pro democracy forces, it’s a big tent, it’s a big united front, but they’re often led by a center left, center right faction. And so the pro democracy forces, the leading force in that, in that coalition generally are status quo forces.

[00:17:21] So they generally say something to the effect of, things aren’t as bad as it might look, Things are getting better. Have patience. We’re marginally improving. Here’s the evidence for it. So it’s, it’s directly countering people’s, many, many people’s lived experience. Um, and it doesn’t stop and say, you, your experience is correct.

[00:17:40] Your feeling of longing is actually what’s happening. legitimate and real. And it doesn’t tell a story about the structures of power and the fact that, yes, we actually have been robbed from, and there are a set of elite actors who have done this because the center left, center right faction that tends to lead these big united fronts are peopled by some of the people who participated in that.

[00:18:03] So they have an inability to be able to articulate that as clearly as some of the right wing populist forces is. are. And so I think it’s really important that there’s an independent, um, labor poll left that could speak the truth and say, yes, your experience is real. Yes, you’re, we’re not, you’re not making this up.

[00:18:26] It’s real. I could validate your emotions, your experience, your alienation, your longing. And yes, you, you have been stolen from yes, these ideas and philosophies and policies were in play and particular individuals. led them and they benefited from them. And the answer now is instead of looking up towards the billionaire class and towards elites who have sort of told this lie of, of sort of elite, the unique ability for elites, economic elites and cultural leads to be able to manage our economy and our, and our, and our government.

[00:19:04] It’s, it’s time for us to, instead of giving them the ball, because every time they’ve taken the ball, they’ve taken it, taken us into collapse. It’s, you know, the mortgage collapse, mortgage crisis, or, uh, climate collapse. What would it look like instead of casting our gaze towards them, we casted our gaze towards one another?

[00:19:23] And we found solidarity in one another. So it’s a, it’s a story ultimately about solidarity, not by othering other working people, but finding common cause with other working people, and disrupting the narrative that says that we could find common cause, cause with a billionaire class, be it like, a right wing populist sort of elite billionaire class or a neoliberal elite billionaire class, right?

[00:19:49] And so we kind of challenge, we interrupt that, um, and talk about what it looks like when we find power in one another. 

[00:19:56] Sue Hyde: That is beautiful. 

[00:19:58] Scot Nakagawa: Well, um, Mo, that made my head explode. Um, there is just so much there.

[00:20:09] This podcast is presented by the 22nd Century Initiative, a hub for strategy and action for frontline activists, national leaders, and people like you. 

[00:20:19] Sue Hyde: At 22ci. org, you can sign up for our newsletter. You can learn from our anti authoritarian playbook, which includes resources. On how to block rising authoritarianism bridge across the multiracial majority, and build an inclusive pro-democracy movement in your community.

[00:20:44] Scot Nakagawa: I have a couple of different questions. So first of all, um, you talk about these centrist factions Center right center. Basically, um, trying to, um, sell an idea that things could get worse or that they are getting better, um, while, um, facing off with a MAGA faction that basically is a grievance faction that’s speaking directly to how people feel about the economy and about life in America today, um, at a time when, um, people are living in deeper and deeper precarity.

[00:21:12] And so, um, What do we do about that? How do we speak to those people who are actually looking around them and saying, Yeah, maybe I didn’t have a job last year and I have one this year, but will I have it next year? And what does that mean? 

[00:21:24] Maurice Mitchell: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s, you know, it, we talked about government not being the problem, but being the prize, right?

[00:21:32] I think it’s important to actually take the time to talk people through how we got here. Right? It’s not magic, right? Like, there were decisions that were made that led to this. And so, and here’s the thing that multiple things could be true at the same time, right? So, unemployment could be below 4%. And, um, inflation could be below 4%, and job creation could be month after month consistently high, and people could be feeling a sense that things aren’t getting better, and I think there’s multiple reasons for that, right?

[00:22:11] So, one of the ways that people are able to inform how they feel is in community, right? And over several decades, we’ve watched how labor unions, which have been The main vehicle for everyday people to be organized en masse, how they’ve been degraded over time. So workers have less of, less venues to be able to make meaning of what’s going on, right?

[00:22:39] And so that’s number one. At a time when the way that people are, are able to learn, uh, the information environment in which people are able to pick up the news and make sense of things is more and more in disarray and We’re learning, uh, based on, based on the algorithm, which leans towards misinformation, disinformation, and, um, which leans towards, sort of, information that fulfills already your, your world view.

[00:23:10] So if you have a world view that tilts conservative, you’re going to get conservative news, et cetera, et cetera. So that’s taking place. And then, like I said before, the commons. Right have been defunded. So yeah, you might have a job, but you know, like I live in New York So there was a time a few decades ago when you could go to you could go to college for free at a CUNY school That’s just not true anymore, right?

[00:23:35] So Things are just a lot more Expensive. And, and interacting in society is a lot more costly, and when the commons are defunded, there are real costs. So, you know, 40 years of neoliberalism and defunding of all these things means like, yeah, I have a job, but more of my actual wages go to the fundamental things that I think I need in order to get a leg up.

[00:23:58] And, you know, in order to go to college, a four year college, uh, for a lot of folks, as a way to get a leg up in the economy, I’m now saddled with debt. Right? So, it’s, it’s a complicated, and then also the last thing is like the housing market, right? It’s like, housing is, is gro the, the cost of housing is, is outstripping, um, our wages, right?

[00:24:19] And so, so, when we understand that, we can understand why people are feeling this, this sense of despair. And the, and, and the, the last piece is like, the neoliberal lie that there is no society, there’s only individuals, it has done a number on us. And so, a lot of our alienation is because we’re, we’re Even though we’re more networked through social media, we’re more disconnected than ever.

[00:24:44] Um, and so, it’s important that we don’t, like again, tell no lies. That we tell an accurate story to everyday people, so that people aren’t feeling that there’s something wrong with them. Because that’s ultimately what’s happening. The other lie of neoliberalism is that, um, if you’re poor, if you feel the sense of alienation, if your wages because you’re not hustling enough.

[00:25:08] You’re not grinding enough. You’re not doing enough. You are all, it’s ultimately a, um, a statement on your personal responsibility, right? It’s important that we, we take the time and we have the patience and compassion and show curiosity when people are sharing this, and that we help provide the context so people could reason, okay, sure, personal responsibility is always an element of anybody’s journey on the planet, and some things outside of me were done to lead to these consequences, and I’m actually, like, working really hard, and no matter how hard I work, if the government and if corporations and if the uber wealthy are all positioned to take advantage of me.

[00:25:54] Well, then my hard work alone can’t solve for this. You’re not gonna get there unless there’s some organizing done to make that happen. And also there’s a story about government, right? So, yes, a corporately captured government will be used against you. But government is a tool, right? And what would it look like if we came together to reclaim the government and put government to work for us?

[00:26:19] And then we could have a very different relationship to government if it actually was. recaptured by the people. You could begin to have that conversation when you talk about things like NAFTA. Well, that was federal policy, right? What could federal policy look like in the opposite direction? And we have examples, right?

[00:26:36] We shouldn’t hide the fact that our movements defeated Donald Trump in 2020, created a governing opportunity in 2021 that led to more than 4 trillion of resources going to state and local governments and directly into the pockets of everyday people. It wasn’t perfect. Not at all. You can’t expect a hundred percent of the outcomes, uh, when you don’t have a hundred percent of the power.

[00:26:58] But it was the, the leveraging of our organizing that led to the good things that were inside of the Inflation Reduction Act. The good thing that was, good things that were inside of the bipartisan, uh, infrastructure bill, right? The fact that inside the bipartisan infrastructure bill had, had, enough resources to redo every single, um, lead pipe, right?

[00:27:18] We talk about the, the horrible environmental racism that’s evidenced in Flint, right? Well, inside of the, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is a, a wholesale solution to that, to make sure that every single lead pipe is replaced. How did that get in there, right? We, instead of simply looking at it as like a disconnected Sort of a governmental solution.

[00:27:44] We could also look at it as a response to mass movements, social movements, organizing, creating pressure, involving ourselves in elections, defeating Trump, creating a governing opportunity, and leveraging that in order to make sure some very, very good things came out in policy. When we pretend that those things don’t happen, we rob ourselves of the victories that we, we actually leveraged.

[00:28:07] Scot Nakagawa: So, if we have just two parties, you know, what people sometimes refer to as a duopoly, not a monopoly, but a duopoly, you know, just two parties. And, um, both of them appear to be to the right of workers in terms of their economic interests and, um, you know, the way that they understand what is necessary in order to have a wholesome and robust, um, stable life.

[00:28:30] What do we do about that? 

[00:28:32] Maurice Mitchell: Sure. This is the world I live in, right? So, the WFP, we say we’re a non delusional third party. What does that mean? That means, so, that means we understand and we perceive that today, we live in a world where there’s a rigid, two party system in the United States. And the first past the post electoral system in the United States, the winner takes all first past the post electoral system and the rigid two party system, which makes it really hard to operate independent of the Democratic or Republican party.

[00:29:05] Um, really hard, but not impossible. And so we do a number of things in order to both in the short term and in the long term to answer to this, because we believe, we believe that the, There are four features of the main sort of struggle in America. One of them being the rigid two party system, the other being what we mentioned the, the, you know, what in political science they call the, the sort of disconnect between, between class and, and party.

[00:29:33] The class de alignment rather, the class de alignment that’s been taking place cycle after cycle. So that’s number one and number two. We also think that the corporate capture of our politics in general is a feature that creates a, that kind of creates a lot of the cynicism that people feel. And then lastly, the MAGA takeover of the Republican party.

[00:29:52] Those four things we think when, when, um, understood, collectively helps us understand the broader conditions that we’re in. And our solution is to build independent political power outside of the Democratic Party that is aligned with, with labor unions, grassroots organizations, and independent progressive entities.

[00:30:14] And so everything we do cycle after cycle is designed to build independent political infrastructure to be able to surface everyday people. And generally we use opportunistically, we use the Democratic Party primary. As a, as a site of struggle. Because the Democratic Party is the only party that is actually wrestling with, in a very serious way, with policy solutions for the needs of Americans.

[00:30:40] The Republican Party is living in, uh, Some form of MAGA, you know, conspiracy theory land. And they, it isn’t a serious governing party. Like, even when they have governing power, like, when they took over the house, they couldn’t bring themselves to actually deliver anything that would resemble any serious policy, right?

[00:30:59] Because, They’ve been taken over by a political cult. So, inside the Democratic Party, there’s actually, like, debate. There is debate about taxation. There is debate about policing, right? There’s a wing of the Democratic Party that believes in investing in everyday people. There’s a wing of the Democratic Party that believes in sort of the traditional, you know, If you want to deal with public safety, you need more beat cops on the street.

[00:31:22] That’s the debate taking place. And so, we surface activists, labor unionists, and other folks into Democratic primaries in order to have that debate. Number two, in places where you could actually run a third party candidate, we do. Like in Philadelphia, where we ran independent third party WFP candidates for at large city council, Nicholas O’Rourke and Kendra Brooks.

[00:31:44] And they prevailed, and they defeated the Republicans on the city council. So in a city like Philadelphia, it’s a two party city, Democrats, working families party. And then, the other thing that we do is, we build this, the conditions where where outside of elections, people understand and people begin to associate the brand that there is a third force, a third way of being politically outside of Democrats and Republicans.

[00:32:10] And when I, when I talk about party, I’m not talking about a organization. I’m talking about shared political commitment, that millions of voters, that thousands of, of people, candidates and elected officials that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of activists that labor unions, that grassroots organizations can align around a shared political commitment for shared governance that, um, a constituency ecosystem of various forces can align around.

[00:32:40] And so in and around the Democratic Party, there are think tanks and activists and various folks in and around the Republican Party and the center of gravity being MAGA. There are all types of vehicles and there are hardcore activists that show up in front of and tailgate in front of the, you know, Donald Trump’s, um, rallies and all those folks.

[00:33:03] We’re seeking to build a third force, um, in order to counterbalance those, those other forces. And recognize, because we tell no lies, recognizing that you. Under the current system, it’s very, very hard to express ourselves as a third party, which is why we also are committed to things like fusion voting and other electoral reforms that create more space for third parties to operate.

[00:33:25] Sue Hyde: So, Mo, I want to get involved with Working Families Party. How do I do it? What do I do? 

[00:33:33] Maurice Mitchell: All right, the simplest thing you could do is if you have a cell phone, you could text WFP, for Working Families Party, to 30403, and then you’re connected to us from there. You could actually just text us like you want to get involved and we will follow up with you.

[00:33:51] You can find us on the web at workingfamilies. org. You can find me at, um, at MauriceWFP on all social media. And, um, yeah. And depending on where you are, like if you’re in a place where there’s a state chapter, we could plug you in with our state chapter. If there isn’t a state chapter, we could get you involved virtually.

[00:34:08] There are activists and members of Working Families Party in every one of the 50 states and territories. And, um, we’re building the Working Families Party from a chapter in more than a dozen states, um, in every region of the country. And if you’re, if you’re hearing this and you’re thinking, you know, I want to run for office, local offices are bread and butter.

[00:34:30] So, We’re in a presidential election year, so a lot of the conversation is on the presidency. But, you know, we endorse close to a thousand people every cycle, on the municipal level and on the state level, because we understand, just like the far right understood decades ago, that you have to build a bench.

[00:34:47] Um, and so, if you’re interested, Um, we’re happy to work with you to figure out if you could run on the local level, um, or on the, on the state level, or on a school board level, in order to feel what it’s like to actually govern. We think that, um, You know, working people should govern, uh, without any apologies, and we have the tools in order to support you in doing that.

[00:35:10] Um, if you want to get involved behind the scenes and learn how to run a campaign, if you want to be an activist and join forces with a candidacy, that’s up and running. Or defend one of our champions, for example. You know, champions like Summer Lee and Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman, who took the stand for a ceasefire and now are facing the backlash of like, uh, you know, tens of millions of dollars of money, right wing money being funneled into AIPAC.

[00:35:35] Uh, there’s opportunities to get involved and we’re excited to see you. We want to create the lowest bar of entry for everyday folks to, to join and be part of their politics and to be a, uh, compassionate accompaniment to you wherever you’re at in your political journey. 

[00:35:54] Sue Hyde: Thank you. 

[00:35:56] Scot Nakagawa: So, Mo, I have just one more question for you that I can’t help but ask.

[00:36:01] I’ve been watching the news and looking at the polls and it looks like among voters who are likely to turn out in the 2024 election, um, that they’re pretty much split between Biden and Trump. So given the. differences between them. What do you think this tells us about who we are today in America, and particularly around race, class, and gender?

[00:36:25] Maurice Mitchell: Sure. I mean, I could say a lot about that. I mean, the one thing I’ll say is, like, I like to live in both ends, right? So sometimes when I say, oh, the Republican Party has been captured by MAGA, has been captured by this white Christian nationalist faction, sometimes people are like, well, the Republicans have been racist for years.

[00:36:46] I’m like, well, both and, right? That, for generations, not always. Like, I like to remind people that, you know, there was a time when the Republican Party was considered the Left Party. Right? And, uh, I remind people that because I want people to understand that our politics are not static. That even parties can move.

[00:37:07] Right? There’s forces that, that can shift things in all different types of directions. But when I say that, I say that to say that, yes, there’s an undercurrent because our country was started with European settlers that came to this country and dispossessed, uh, the native inhabitants of this, of this country, of this land, of their land, and, uh, sparked a genocide and then stole the bodies and labor of African people.

[00:37:37] That is at the genesis of. Of our country, so there’s a, that’s woven into the DNA, so yes, that is a current that has existed for hundreds of years. And, it’s almost like a chronic illness, that sometimes can be exacerbated. And so sometimes our country has these flare ups of, of, of white identity. And I think we’re in the midst of a flare up, right?

[00:38:00] The Civil War was a flare up, uh, Jim Crow was a flare up. Because we’re in this flare up, and because whiteness, And, and white identity, sometimes we, we talk about it like, oh, it’s a hate movement, but in some ways it’s a solidarity movement, and the solidarity of whiteness continues to be very, very sticky, and continues to be, uh, very, very attractive.

[00:38:22] And one of the things that MAGA, and if you listen to Steve Bannon, he talks about this very explicitly, he’s attempting to develop a form of White nationalism that is sort of multiracial in its, in its nature, right? 

[00:38:40] Sound on Tape: Mm hmm. 

[00:38:42] Maurice Mitchell: And I think that’s what we’re witnessing that could help explain the appeal of Donald Trump and MAGA despite What we lived through in the Trump years, and despite his, um, indictments, and despite his rhetoric and everything else, to me, understanding that, oh, we’re in one of those flare up moments when the appeals of white identity are very pronounced, very sticky, um, and it’s not by chance, it’s, it has everything to do with, you know, hundreds of years of colonialism, and everything to do with more than 40 years of neoliberalism, and everything to do with the four years of Trump, and everything to do with eight years of Obama.

[00:39:25] It’s, it’s the both and of all those things that created the conditions to make those sets of politics very, very attractive to so many people. And then on the other side, you have Joe Biden, who’s not a movement president, who isn’t a movement president like Trump or Obama was. Right. It, it’s incumbent on us people who are pro-democracy folks who are outside of government to fill that gap.

[00:39:52] That is our mandate, that is our job. Um, and that’s what I’m organizing around to tell a story that makes everyday people, the, the political protagonist, not the two people that are on the top of the ticket. 

[00:40:05] Scot Nakagawa: Well, I often tell people that everyday people need to start to organize themselves as if they’re a third party, but you seem to be doing that, so congratulations.

[00:40:16] Sue Hyde: And thank you for your work, Mo. 

[00:40:19] Maurice Mitchell: Thank you both. It’s been a real honor to talk to both of you, and looking forward to talking more.

[00:40:36] Sue Hyde: Hey, thanks again for listening. Find more episodes of the Anti Authoritarian Podcast on all of your favorite platforms and also at 22ci. org and convergencemag. org. Direct links to these and other resources referenced in this episode are in the show notes.

[00:41:02] Sound on Tape: The Anti Authoritarian Podcast is created by the 22nd Century Initiative and published by Conversions Magazine. Our theme music is After the Revolution by Carsey Blanton and is licensed under Creative Commons. The show is hosted by Scott Nakagawa and Sue Hyde. Executive producers are James Momm and Tony Esprich.

[00:41:20] Our producer is Josh Elstro, and Yong Chan Miller is our production assistant.