California’s Medi-Cal Benefits Are Under Attack

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

[00:00:00] Cayden Mak: Hello everybody and welcome to Block and Build a podcast from Convergence Magazine. I’m Caden Mock your host and the publisher of Convergence. And on this show we are building a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the impacts of rising authoritarianism. While building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win.

I’m excited to give a shout out this week to Burke in Seattle for joining our subscriber program at the Movement builder level. Thank you so much for supporting Movement Media Burke. You can check out the show notes to find out how you can join Burke and keep all of our shows on the air. This week on the show, we’re gonna take a look at how organizers at the state level are defending vital services like Medicaid, Medicare, public education, social security, that are under attack by the Trump administration, and in some cases.

Their own state governments. We are starting here in my home state of California where the coalition we are California has been demanding protection of our Medi-Cal program. Joining me to discuss this work is one of the leaders of We are California, the Vice President of Operations for Power Pack, Christopher Wilson.

We, do wanna be spending some more time on this show highlighting state level organizing being done to protect our fragile social safety net. If you are seeing effective organizing in your state. Date to protect healthcare, education, other public services. We would love to talk with the folks who are leading that charge.

You can send us an email about what’s going on in your state and your community at mailbag, at convergence mag.com, or you can find Convergence Magazine on Instagram and send us a dm. But for now, these headlines. Following up on our main story last week, Wisconsin voters resoundingly elected Susan Crawford over Brad Shimel with a spread of 10 points.

As we discussed on the show last week, this special election was very much a referendum on Elon Musk’s unofficial role as our second president. In spite of his $25 million infusion of cash into the election and attempts to literally buy votes in a million dollar lottery, these efforts may have done more harm than good to sour voters on shimel.

While this is indeed good news for Wisconsinites whose Supreme Court will probably be making some big decisions on things like apportion rights and gerrymandering in the near future, there is a wider glimmer of hope here. Such a massive rejection of Musk’s influence. After his two months of absolutely ransacking, the federal government suggests that Trump’s mandate across the country may not be as strong as they’d have us believe.

Furthermore, it suggests that Mag, the MAGA movement’s bench is just simply not that deep in a movement so heavily dependent on its cult of personality. Musk is by far the biggest personality waiting in the wings behind its Messiah figure. Trump, I dare you to tell me that somebody like JD Vance could possibly command a movement the way that Trump does without laughing.

This massive electoral swing in a state that Trump narrowly won only four months ago really suggests to me that people are feeling the pinch and looking for something new. But it also suggests that without Trump’s hypnotic charisma, voters might snap outta the sm the spell and see just how aggravating and full of shit these people are.

We are in a critical moment to build a movement that will have an answer to MAGA and a political home for these kinds of folks. As more and more people wake up to see that MAGA promises that Trump alone can fix the many crises of neoliberalism are completely hollow. Big shout outs to the folks on the ground in Wisconsin who made this happen, including working families, party Vera action, and many more.

There’s clearly a template here that we can follow. And in other good election news, this one from a red state last week, voters in Louisiana resoundingly defeated a package of four proposed state constitutional amendments that would’ve eroded voters’ power when it comes to state courts and much more.

These ballot initiatives that were championed loudly by extreme Republican conspiracist Governor Jeff Landry, would’ve allowed the state to set up special jurisdiction courts try more juveniles as adults. Make some weird, mysterious alterations to the State’s tax code and rush judicial special elections, making it harder for voters to participate in them.

And while many world governments are dejectedly trudging towards authoritarianism, there are consistently pockets of coherency abroad. South Koreans today are celebrating the successful impeachment and removal of their own coup attempting president. You may remember that we covered the story on this program.

Back in December, president Yon declared martial law and the result was a mass mobilization of Peaceful street protest, which resulted in his successful impeachment process. A guy can dream. 

[00:04:40] Sound on Tape: Hello, I’m Marcy Ryan and I’m the print editor for Convergence. If you’re enjoying this show like I am, I hope you consider subscribing to Convergence.

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[00:05:39] Cayden Mak: Alright, now we turn to politics a lot closer to home. Today on the show, I am joined by Christopher Wilson, who is one of the leaders of We Are California, a statewide alliance of progressive organizations. They’re fighting against authoritarianism here at the state level. He’s also the vice president of operations at Power pac, which is a nonprofit advocacy and political organization dedicated to building political power within communities of color and supporting progressive candidates of color.

Chris, thanks so much for making the time to join me today. 

[00:06:05] Christopher Wilson: I’m so happy to be here today with you, Caden. 

[00:06:09] Cayden Mak: First off, can you tell me a little bit about your work with we are California and Power Pack and the kinds of candidates and campaigns that you have some experience working on? 

[00:06:18] Christopher Wilson: Yeah I’ll talk about Power Pack first.

’cause I wanna make sure Power Pack’s a multi entity organization, meaning we have. A spectrum of organizations that allow us to be very nimble and versatile in the political field. So we have a C3 foundation. We have a C4 organization, which is allowed to do political advocacy. And we have a super pac.

And we also have a LLC and provide consulting services in the political world. I’m working with, we are California through our foundation work. The power packs an organization that was founded in the Obama era actually to help, get Obama elected to president in 2008. And from there we’ve grown to a national political organization that helps build the base and ensures that progressive.

Candidates with progressive values can make it through to the finish line in elections. And also support grassroots organizations who are doing the advocacy and base building work to ensure that people of color, poor people, immigrants, aren’t left behind in our political equation. And I’m really happy to doing that work.

Organizing in.

For a long was a very red County governor. Prop 180 7 Fame and other very conservative leaders who went on to national fame. We managed to, in organizing in San Diego, we managed to flip San Diego and we’re proudly a blue county now and ensuring that our most vulnerable populations and communities are cared for.

In doing that work, we became a statewide and national player on several fronts around immigration and education prior to me leaving to join power. 

[00:08:09] Cayden Mak: Right on. And yeah, and I think also for our national audience, just like putting out San Diego County is a border county I think a lot of people don’t realize that.

Like how close to the border you all are. 

[00:08:20] Christopher Wilson: Yeah. We’re just like El Paso people know El Paso as a border city, and national meeting place and San Diego is bigger and more of an international media. A crazy number, like 30 40% of our trade from the South passes through the San Diego border.

Wow. And so it’s a huge international zone and hugely important to us trade and also hugely important to people seeking, a better life and freedom and all the things that have made America great. And are now being put at risk. 

[00:09:00] Cayden Mak: Sure. Could you tell me a little bit then about the origins of We are California what sort of brought folks together, who’s in the coalition?

What kind of work have you all been engaging in? 

[00:09:11] Christopher Wilson: Yeah we are California really started, about 12 weeks out from the 2024 election, a group of statewide leaders. Got together just for, a board meeting of an organization. And, we went through a scenario planning exercise.

And at the end of that scenario planning exercise, we were, we entered into a stark reality that no matter who won that election, progressives would be fighting for a seat at the table or fighting for our lives. And the lives of the communities we serve. About 12 weeks out we started planning for the worst case scenario and the best case scenario.

And as we know, we ended up with the worst case scenario. And we created, we are California. In order to be a defensive force and a protective force and, to be a visionary organization who. While fighting a defensive and protective fight, also be offering, offensive solutions that would guarantee the safety and wellbeing of our most vulnerable communities.

We wanted to resist a Trump administration. We wanted to assist Harris, administration. And so that group came together. To form a strategic collaboration of over 70 organizations and represent hundreds of thousands of Californians in California. Build a political identity and a political home, and be a place to capture the mass base.

Of people who need to win for their families and for their communities. And to create a larger political identity to stand up and say, we are California. We represent California and the California values. And we are not going to be put down, shut down, or shut out. 

[00:11:04] Cayden Mak: Right on. Let’s also, let’s then turn to this fight around Medicare.

And the threats that the sort of like national fight pose to folks working at the state level. Why do you think Medicare is such a central fight right now? 

[00:11:21] Christopher Wilson: I think, Medicare, which is a entitlement program for seniors and people who have either disabilities or health challenges is one of the largest entitlement programs in the country.

It’s a huge part of our national budget. And it is, what also is the most vulnerable, two, folks who wanna supposedly cut our deficit and cut deficit spending. And it’s it’s the most widespread government program that there is. Meaning it helps millions of Americans across the country.

It’s not just focused in one area or one people. It helps millions of folks. And so it’s a big entitlement. It’s a big part of our budget and it is easily a target because it also has the smallest amount of advocacy in our national government.

[00:12:17] Cayden Mak: That makes a lot of sense. I feel like a lot of the attacks on publicly funded healthcare, they go along with this sort of eugenic almost logic that is coming from the administration right now too, that people who are poor, people who are vulnerable are like a sacrifice population for the, this oligarchic regime.

What is the threat to state programs like Medi-Cal and why is Medi-Cal in particular so important? 

[00:12:45] Christopher Wilson: Yeah, med so. Program that provides health benefits to low income folks and folks with health and disability challenges who, may be working but can’t afford the healthcare. And it’s a huge program in our state because we also have a huge population of folks undocumented.

It’s necessary. We need to make sure, in a country with the greatest economy or maybe formerly greatest economy in the world. Look, I’m just talking realtime statistics, right? We, healthcare should be a human right. Nobody in an advance, a country advance as the United States should have to go without healthcare.

And Medi-Cal ensures that is possible in California. It is funded by Medicaid at the federal level. In large part. And that is what makes it a target because it’s a a grantee of federal, dollars. And because we also serve immigrant populations through Mecal, it makes Californias, program a target of the federal government and people who are opposed to us, anything.

[00:14:11] Cayden Mak: Yeah. It seems like, one of the challenges of being in such a big, prominent blue state is that like we do sometimes become a political football like this definitely happened in the first Trump administration, right? That like they, yeah, they like to hammer on us in particular because of progressive values.

[00:14:31] Christopher Wilson: Why we California.

What California represents this country is like the liberal homeland the progressive homeland. And that if an authoritarian bully like Trump was going to be successful in, carrying forward his agenda across the country, California would have to be focus and we. To we formed 12 weeks out to get a head start on planning and bringing in members and partners and forming our message.

Because we knew we had to hit the ground running day one. And that was actually the name of our formation before the election day, we caught ourselves the day one.

California and our values from what we call the bigots, bullies and billionaires of the authoritarian mindset. 

[00:15:35] Cayden Mak: Right on. Yeah. And I think that the other thing is as much as in the like national imaginary, like California is this bastion of progressive values that like, there are also folks in our state government who are not, who are very much on board with the authoritarian playbook and.

Interested in advancing that agenda in our state. So could you talk a little bit about, I guess the nuances and challenges of fighting for programs like Medi-Cal at the state level right now? 

[00:16:05] Christopher Wilson: Yeah. We’re, we are San Diego, we just elected one of the, most MAGA people in California.

When I say we, I don’t mean me necessarily, but San Diego County, just not the most personally MAGA folks in California to the assembly. His name, Carl De May. And he stands for and represents everything that we’re fighting against in the Trump administration. And, I think there are still people who in our government who believe that, we should be.

A government of compromise, but how do you compromise with somebody who is trying to literally kill your community, literally erase your existence. There’s no compromise in that. And we are, California is saying we’re willing. People who wanna work with us, but the biggest bullies and billionaires of the MAGA breed, they don’t wanna work with us.

They wanna erase us. And so for us, it’s a fight for our lives. It’s a fight for our families. It’s a fight for our communities existence and in inside government. We have to make people understand that’s what we’re fighting. We still have to convince people on the left that this is real and that there is physical danger to vulnerable members of our community not just, a battle of ideas.

This is people will go hungry, people will lose healthcare. People will lose their place to live. It’ll become harder to live in the most expensive regions of our state. And people will have to move either out of state or to lesser develop parts of the states. And it will be harder to work.

And so there are things that we need to protect in California that come down to a fight for our lives. Everybody should be able to live a life that is thriving, not just surviving. And that’s what.

[00:18:06] Cayden Mak: Right on. Let’s talk a little bit about what you all have been up to lately over these past couple weeks. ’cause I know that there have been protests across the state, all kinds of stuff. Who all are you working with? What, who, what is the strategy behind some of these mobilizations? And what have, what has the response been like?

[00:18:24] Christopher Wilson: Yeah we’re in a couple of campaigns right now. We’re in what we’re calling hands off our healthcare, and we’re joining with partners from Labor and Advocacy organizations and folks who, work with legislators to craft bills and laws. We’re building a broader coalition.

In the past, most coalitions been formed around issues.

That brings all of the people fighting for something under attempt to maximize the power of the movement. And it’s been attractive. We’ve been moving forward every week, gaining members, organizing communities, pulling in the people who are angry but don’t have a political home.

And that, that’s really important. I’m glad you picked up. That’s really important because so many people sit at home and watch TV and they’re angry and they don’t know what to do. We have to have a way to pull those people in and engage them and activate them because one of our tactics is to put pressure on our elected leaders to stand up, to speak out, to move legislation that preserves and protects.

The benefits to our most vulnerable communities. We have a safety net program in California that we need to protect it. We have one of the best safety net programs for, benefits for food and nutrition, healthcare. Our unemployment is one of the best unemployment programs in the country country.

And we need to protect those things. We need to preserve people’s ability to survive when they’re in trouble. Trouble or when they hit hard times and then move to thriving and bounce back from those hard times that they may hit. And so we’re trying to engage our elected officials who represent us in DC to stand up 

[00:20:18] Sound on Tape: To 

[00:20:19] Christopher Wilson: stand strong and not give in to the pressure that the biggest billionaires and bullies are putting on them to cave. One of the things that, that we didn’t do very well on the left is support people. Once we elect them, when we elect a leader, we tend to say, okay, we did that onto the next fight.

What we’re trying to do when we’re in California is provide a base of support that echoes what our elected but also provide background, excuse me, information. 

[00:20:57] Sound on Tape: And 

[00:20:57] Christopher Wilson: a place of a home for the people who wanna be that supportive base for the people who wanna be that voice in the fight. So that our elected leaders aren’t standing up by themselves and becoming a target with nobody to stand up with them.

[00:21:15] Cayden Mak: Yeah. This is something we talk a lot about on this show is that there is a big disconnect between. Are electeds and then what the base wants, and that there needs to be some kind of interstitial organizing that like helps people take courageous stances. That those stances don’t come from nowhere and that courage is contagious.

And also electeds are people just like us oh man they can catch courage from their constituents for sure. 

[00:21:42] Christopher Wilson: Yeah. And it makes it easier for them to stand up. Speak truth to power. What Corey Booker did the other day, while it wasn’t around any certain legislation, what he did was represent what it means to stand up to power, to stand up to bullies, to stand up to the billionaire oligarchs who have, beat a trail, a pathway to this maga ideology in support of the president, and what he talked about there wasn’t based on winning, it wasn’t based on being right. It was based on what we used to hold as American values, which seemed to be less important. Now with this MAGA trend and this

we’re seeing. To mean less. And when we have leaders like Booker stand up and try to refocus us on values, we, California says that’s exactly what it’s about. We need to make sure we are making decisions and that we are funding based on our values. Do we believe in the right people to exist?

Do we believe in education? Do we believe in wages? Because if we believe that people have a right to thrive, then we have to move laws, legislation, policies in that direction, and that is not what we’re seeing outta this Trump administration. We’re seeing attacks on the poor. We’re seeing attacks on workers.

We’re seeing attacks on leaders. We’re seeing attacks on advocacy organizations. We’re, and we’re even seeing attacks on the judiciary, which, 

[00:23:30] Sound on Tape: yeah, in 

[00:23:30] Christopher Wilson: all honesty is our last line of defense against an authoritarian regime, right? If you can tear down the judiciary that’s our last line of defense.

That’s our last line of protection. And then, it’s pretty much every state for itself.

[00:23:51] Cayden Mak: No, that makes a lot of sense to me. Last week, like I said we dug into the Wisconsin State Supreme Court election and how important that race was. And I think that like the, for me, it really pointed up the way that like at one, at the state level, like we have a lot more influence over the systems that govern our lives and also that like we can be creating ball warks.

One of the interesting things about that conversation too was, I think a lot of the sort of like fear that MAGA relies on around like. The sort of like law and order idea that we need to return to some kind of like more orderly past is that they successfully bypass some of the like, progressive value propositions that you’re talking about the right of people to live their lives about, what genuine safety actually means, right? That the some of the folks working in Wisconsin were like trying to understand and come up with ways of, in some ways short circuiting the MAGA law and Order, frankly. Frankly, a lot of it’s bullshit, right? A lot of, see, I.

Yeah. No,

you can. Absolutely. Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about, what some of the specific proposals are to cut Medi-Cal. I know one of the big things that I’ve been reading a lot about is the work requirement, right? What is, what are these proposals to, to these cuts and or to, to the, what are the cut proposals and what are the sort of policy changes that are, they’re trying to push through that would reshape programs like Medi-Cal?

[00:25:37] Christopher Wilson: Yeah, I think you named the biggest one the work requirement. We’ve seen the work requirement in California, implemented in a number of different ways over the last 20 years. And, I think, there’s room for compromise in some of these things, but what’s, what we won’t compromise is that people who need help get help.

The work requirement, is a shortcut to ending people’s benefit. How do you make a work requirement in an economy where we’re losing jobs? How do you create a work requirement in an economy where a college degree is required, for most jobs and you’re cutting education, these things are diametrically opposed to progress, right?

And so I have a hard time putting a lot of faith that the people recommending these, what I would call adjustment. To benefit I’m our safety net programs. I have a hard time believing that they’re genuine. Like they, they don’t really want what they say they want. What they ultimately want is to do away with the program.

And so how do you negotiate or compromise with somebody when you know that their ultimate goal is to do away with a benefit or do away with.

And so when you hear people opposed to work requirement, what you’re hearing is, we’re opposed to ending this program because we know you’re not serious. Because if you were serious, you’d fund more education. You’d make college free. If you’re serious about people working, you’d make sure we had a good economy that could employ people.

You’d make sure that there was help for people to find jobs. You do a number of different things, but everything we’re.

There’s not a lot of hope that you can compromise with somebody from that perspective. Again, I go back to what I said earlier. It’s a fight for our lives, right? And when you compromise on this over here, are you actually creating space to end or kill something over there? Yeah. And so it is a very difficult fight.

[00:27:50] Cayden Mak: Yeah. It also strikes me that a lot of requirements like this are created to make these like like pit traps for people to fall into that. Yeah, people who, one of, one of certainly my experience supporting friends who’ve had to go on disability and stuff like that, that like a lot of the.

Complex requirements for these kinds of safety net programs are designed to make it so fewer people qualify for them ultimately. Exactly. Which exactly then justifies the cuts. It’s like the, you are projecting the, like end goal, as you’re saying, through the implementation, which is, it’s pretty sick if you think about it.

[00:28:31] Christopher Wilson: It’s, one of our organizations, alliance. Has a program called Start With Dignity. And when you look at what folks are trying to do, there’s no dignity in it. Regardless of where somebody comes from or how they got here. They were born with dignity and we have a chance to amplify each person’s individual dignity and the dignity of the communities I live in.

And instead, folks are making these cuts and they’re treating people, as though they’re not human and they’re treating them as though they have no dignity. And I remember a time when, even, you know, conservatives who I disagree with, like Ronald Reagan, still treated humans with dignity.

Still treated, still said there was something value about helping people when they’re down. We’re not in that time anymore. And folks, on the right, I think have no sense of what it means to help people when they’re down. And you know what, we see the biggest bullies and billionaires in that light.

They don’t wanna help. As if these folks got to where they’re at, single handedly with that, pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality. And it’s moving so far away from American values that, I don’t know what it’s gonna look like for my kids when they grow up. 

[00:29:55] Cayden Mak: Yeah. No, it’s, I think that one of the things that is so important about this fight around the social safety net is that like the.

The long-term effects of these kinds of cuts are non-trivial. And that building stuff back up to where it was, is much I think the folks who are proposing these cuts know how challenging that ta that task will be. I think about that with the cuts of the federal workforce and that kind of thing that like they know what they’re doing. They know and that like it’s part of a, they know it’s part of something Very, yeah, very intentional. 

[00:30:32] Christopher Wilson: They fully know what they’re doing and they’re okay with what it means 10, 15, 20 years from now. And I think when they don’t care how they get it and they don’t care what comes after because they won’t be.

[00:30:51] Cayden Mak: I also am curious one of the things that occurs to me too, talking about this specific thing and their the challenge of building a program like this back up is what is the impact that you see of the massive income inequality in our state? On this fight. Is that a part of the way that y’all have been talking about it with people and are people connecting that, those dots in your experience around like how, I live in the Bay Area, which is like one of the most crazy intense places for income inequality in this state.

But yeah. Do you see the impact of that in the organizing work that y’all have been doing? I.

[00:31:33] Christopher Wilson: Yes, I think we, I think I see it differently. I think, income inequality is, one of the factors in the overall progressive fight for to build a better society for everyone. In California we’re fortunate, a little more fortunate than in, we have allies who, are, members of the upper, income level who also see it and are, doing what they can to not just help build a better society, but also bringing their peers along in the fight.

That doesn’t happen, that’s not happening in every state. But income inequality, you. Low union membership, you have labor unions losing members, in other words, and you have job loss at the lower lower income points. It’s creating more and more massive income inequality and that equates to poverty.

And so are we mo you know, why would we want why would we want to increase poverty? Poverty is a drag on everything, right? We, it, it creates a bigger need for safety net services when we should be creating more good paying jobs. We should create, increasing the wages at the lower levels.

That pushes everything up for everybody. And so we do need to, have income inequality as, at least as one of the tax in our fight that we can utilize to galvanize people, but also pass legislation to to shift. Why does, I don’t understand the need for massive income.

I don’t understand the need for massive wealth. I don’t know what it does for people. I don’t know what it does for our society to build personal massive wealth, more money than you can spend in 10 life. And would hear, honestly, from somebody how that is, why that is their goal, like 

I think that, is what drives the income inequality is, the need for wealth. And, I don’t get it. I personally don’t get it and, have been organizing for, better wages and better benefits and, better safety net services because I don’t see the need for massive wealth.

I don’t know how it, 

[00:34:08] Cayden Mak: yeah I’m with you on that one. I just, I like it’s perplexing to me. And at the same time the point that you made about like increases in income and things like that. The bottom tier of. Makes such an outsized difference in the experience of kids growing up when they have parents who are making more salaries, things like that, that like those things are potentially transformative to like large numbers of people.

[00:34:35] Christopher Wilson: Yeah. Better health outcomes. ’cause you can, afford to buy better quality food. And again, our situation in California so vastly different than other states, for these things in California nonetheless. But, I get to travel all over the country and I get to see, what poverty means in different regions.

And I can’t even imagine what it needs to look like in a, in Michigan or in a Detroit or m.

School, the massive dropouts and things of that nature. We have dropout at rates here. We have, unemployment here, but our levels are so much lower than other states that we need to take this fight and it needs to be a national fight. We need to join with other states, and that’s one things California is working on, is to join with other states and have a blue state alignment that can bring more pressure on Washington and the representation, our representative government in Washington to do more.

Because the suffering is national. It’s not just ca suffering.

And we need to have that blue state alignment because if it’s just California fighting, it’s easy to ignore California. California office, the home of the liberals. And but when it’s California, Wisconsin and Michigan and, New Jersey and New York and Ohio and Illinois, when it’s, when there’s a blue state a.

It magnifies our message. It increases our base, and hopefully it increase the pressure on folks.

[00:36:32] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah, I think I’m excited to hear about that too. I think that, again, also to our listeners that if you all are working in different states on fights like this one, we absolutely wanna hear from you. So we can. Cover more of what is happening at the state level. ’cause it’s, I think it’s at this level that things start to become a little more like graspable.

And like this is the level at which I think people can start building those kinds of coherent political homes that you’re talking about. Chris? Yeah. Are there other we could also get into prop 13 and the whole like third rail, I feel like a whole, that’s a whole other episode.

And we wanna talk about how education is funded in California. Yeah, I think 

[00:37:13] Christopher Wilson: get into Prop 13 discussion especially with what’s happening at the national level, right? When we see the Department of Education being gutted, we can also expect that funding for education to the states is gonna be gutted, right?

Sure. He said he’s doing this to give the states power. He’s doing this to cut the budget. He’s doing this to cut education, the Department of Education’s budget, right? And use that to reinforce tax cuts to the rich. So we talk about Prop 13 and talking about, corporations, at least the corporations paying their fair share.

We’ve been behind the curve on corporate taxes for 40 years, at least in California, right? And it’s time to, they talk about a rising tide lift all boats. Right now, the boat’s being lifted by middle class earners and it’s time for us to rightsize that and get corporations to pay their fair share so we can have the revenue for our safety net programs so we can have the revenue for our education budget here in California so we can get back to making community college free.

So we will have the most technological advanced workforce in the world. When we look at how California became what it is, the juggernaut economy that we have, the technological economy, we have the bio industry, we have here. It was started back in the sixties when college was essentially free in California, and we educated our population to a very high level and created the.

Technological advances that move the country. And if we wanna get back to that, then we will have to figure out a way to get the revenue back into our government. And, corporations while providing a jobs and, economical impacts also need to pay their fair share in taxes. So that we can have the things we need to remain to hold our place as a sixth, fifth, or sixth largest economy in the.

[00:39:29] Cayden Mak: In spite of what Silicon Valley says about all of their innovation, so much of the stuff that was built on was paid for with public dollars. Like a lot of the basic science research, that a lot of that stuff is based on is paid for with public dollars subsidized by, so it only makes funding.

Exactly. Exactly. It only makes sense that they should put back in some of what they make. 

[00:39:51] Christopher Wilson: Yeah. And we are, California will have a front in that fight as well. We wanna be the umbrella that ties again the fight, the movements fight against bigots, billionaires and bullies together.

And so there’s room, we’re a big tent and we have to start working together because if.

That nobody’s listening, but if we can build a big tent we can get the attention and the power we need to make the change we want. 

[00:40:26] Cayden Mak: Right on. One, one last big question for you and that is why do you think it’s helpful for folks across the country and other states to be tracking what’s going on here in California?

What are the lessons that you think folks can learn about the work that you all have been doing? 

[00:40:42] Christopher Wilson: Like I said, we know California’s not the only state under attack. We know California safety net is not the only safety net under attack. And I think, California can be a model for how different factors in the movement come together and start to work together and show up for each other to model what we’re saying about the.

We wanna protect a community is a lot of people in one area working together to benefit the whole. That’s what we are. California is, it’s a bunch of organizations and advocates and activists working together to benefit California to make sure California remains a great state, that it’s California are protected.

From the harms that are coming. And if we can do it in California with all the different things that have been keeping us apart, if we can overcome those things, then we can be a model for how other states build it, build their big tent to stand up to the biggest bullies and billionaires that are coming.

We, we certainly don’t have all.

And how we prioritize the fights and who the targets are. Some of our targets are gonna be friends of some of our friends, right? And so how do we make adjustments? How do we move them to help us move their friends? We come to fight to comment in. All those are the difficult questions, and what resources are we bringing to the fight and who’s bringing those resources and who’s in need of resources?

Those are all the tough questions that we’re California is wrestling with. And who’s missing in our formation? Who do we need in our formation? Who do we want in our formation to? To that level of power that we need to shift things. Those are all the questions we’re wrestling with, and once we wrestle with those questions, we get to a successful place.

We can share that with people, with other states, with other organizers, with other formations. But it is, those are difficult questions to wrestle with committed to. 

[00:43:02] Cayden Mak: Right on. Where can listeners learn more about your work and plug into upcoming campaigns and projects y’all are working on?

[00:43:10] Christopher Wilson: We are, california.org is our, is a website, California. And you can go to that website, you can sign up for our newsletter. You can go to that website. We have a mobilized link that has all the actions across the state. All of our partners are listed there in the regions that they exist in. And so if you’re in San Diego and you wanna get connected, it tells you the organizations that are part of Weir, California, if you’re in Bay Area and you wanna be connected.

It shows in all the, it shows all the organizations that are there. You can find it by issue, you can find it by region or locale. But you have to get activated. You have to get activated. And if you don’t wanna go through a region, we can sign up directly on where California to be part of this movement.

We make, we’re trying to make it easy. We want people. 

[00:44:00] Cayden Mak: Excellent. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat, Chris. It was really good to hear about all the good work that’s happening and I am very grateful for the fact that you all are organizing, really thinking about how we work at the state level to impact stuff at the federal level.

Thinking about how we build our power in this difficult time that like, block and Build is the name of the show, but it’s also the description of our politic and it sounds like that’s exactly what’s been on all of your minds too. 

[00:44:28] Christopher Wilson: It is. And I had a great time being here. This is. So informative and helpful and really appreciate having a conversation with you Kaden.

[00:44:37] Cayden Mak: Right on. My thanks again to Chris Wilson for joining me today from We Are California. This show is published by Convergence, a magazine for radical insights. I’m Kaden Mock, and our producer is Josh Stro. Kimie David Design our cover art. If you have something to say, please do drop me a line. You can send me an email that we’ll consider running in an upcoming mailbag episode at [email protected].

And if you would like to support the work that we do at Convergence, bringing our movements together to strategize, struggle, and win in this crucial historical moment. You can become a [email protected] slash donate. Even a few bucks a month goes a long way to making sure that our independent small team can continue to build a map for our movements.

I hope this 

helps.