How We Organize Against MAGA, with Bruna Bouhid and LJ Amsterdam

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

[00:00:00] Cayden Mak: I’ll see you next time. Welcome to Block and Build, a podcast from Convergence magazine. I’m your host and the publisher of Convergence, Caden Mock. 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.

[00:00:28] Before we get started, I want to invite [00:00:30] you to become a subscriber to Convergence. Convergence magazine is an independent publication that relies on the generosity of our readers and listeners to create the rigorous, thoughtful takes you’ve come to expect from us week in and week out. You can become a subscriber at convergencemag.

[00:00:44] com slash donate. Any amount helps either as a one time donation or recurring monthly or annual subscription. This week on the show, we are looking at how our strategies need to adapt in the coming months. First, I’m going to talk with Bruno Buhid from United With You. We dream about their vital [00:01:00] lame duck session advocacy, and then we’ll take a bit of a longer view with L.

[00:01:03] J. Amsterdam, whose soon to be published report about the changing nature and strategy behind direct action holds some key learnings for all of us who are preparing for next year. But first, let’s get started. Some headlines. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his nomination after material evidence came to light about suspicious payments to teenagers possibly related to rape allegations that were investigated by both the FBI as well as his colleagues in the House of Representatives.[00:01:30] 

[00:01:30] While there seems to be little love lost between many Republicans in Congress and Gaetz, I think the biggest factor that led to this outcome was actually the sustained public outcry about the abject Unsuitability of Gates for Attorney General. But of course, the nightmare blunt rotation continues.

[00:01:46] Trump loyalist Pam Bondi has been tapped as next in line. You might remember Bondi from such hits as representing Trump in his first impeachment trial, helping with the oversight of Trump’s endless attempts to file phony lawsuits, disputing the 2020 election results, [00:02:00] and turning out to show her support at his felony hush money trial that resulted in 34 convictions.

[00:02:06] Another update this week on the movement of H. R. 9495, the bill that would give presidential power to single handedly end non profit status for 501c3 is defined by a vague definition of being, quote, terrorist supporting, a. k. a. any organization sympathetic to innocent Palestinians. While it did pass the House this week, its Democratic Party support was at least whittled down from 52 yays to only 15 in the second [00:02:30] round of voting.

[00:02:31] Now is a great time to call your senators and tell them to vote this thing down. It’s clearly an authoritarian measure, and public outcry is why 37 Democratic members of Congress flipped their votes. We’ll put a call tool for you to do this easily in the show notes. And while I certainly understand the fears that many people have for the organizations that they might depend on, support, or work for, ourselves included, this feels like one of the instances where it’s really helpful to invoke one of the points that Daniel Hunter brought up in [00:03:00] Ten Ways to Be Prepared and Grounded Now that Trump Has Won.

[00:03:03] One of those ten items is do not obey in advance. It is still legal and moral to demand an end to Netanyahu’s genocide in Palestine. It is still legal and moral to demand a U. S. arms embargo. In fact, Senators Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey brought a vote to the Senate floor on Wednesday to embargo weapons sales.

[00:03:25] While the votes on the three different types of weapons are in support from only 19 senators, it’s still [00:03:30] important that they brought the vote to the floor. This is, and I cannot believe that I am saying this, in November of 2024, the first ever vote on any type of embargo of weapons to Israel in Congress.

[00:03:41] It didn’t yield the results that we want. It’s evidence of the needle moving on the issue domestically here in the U. S. Now, I’m really excited to welcome to the show Bruna Buhid who is the Senior Political Director at United We Dream. United We Dream has been fighting for the rights of undocumented young people for over 15 years.

[00:03:58] And this year, with the threats of the [00:04:00] second Trump administration looming, United We Dream has been super active. Now, with the dust settling around election outcomes, they’re continuing to lock in and advocate for significant changes that could be implemented now to protect undocumented immigrants and all our communities in the years to come.

[00:04:15] Welcome to Block and Build, Bruna. 

[00:04:17] Bruna Bouhid: Thanks so much, Caden. Has the dust settled? Has the dust settled? I 

[00:04:20] Cayden Mak: don’t know. Will the dust ever settle? It’s been three weeks for Yeah, I know. 

[00:04:23] Bruna Bouhid: It’s what is time the last few 

[00:04:25] Cayden Mak: I know I was just thinking about how I was on like a number of calls last week that feel [00:04:30] like they were a month ago.

[00:04:30] So yeah, I get it. I’m right there with you. Crazy. 

[00:04:35] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah, every week, I wake up and I was like, Oh, wait, that was real. That’s where we that this is where we are. We’re about because it feels like we’ve already entered. Yeah. Somewhat like the Trump era again based on the, like the constant, like things in the news, if you remember Trump first the first four years, the Friday night news dumps that we would get all the time.

[00:04:55] I was like, Oh my God, those are going to be a thing again. 

[00:04:58] Cayden Mak: Yeah, I know. I, and I [00:05:00] think, I started calling the like rogues gallery of his. Cabinet appointments, the nightmare bloat rotation, because it’s just it’s just designed to make us lose our minds. And so much of this, yeah, 

[00:05:10] Bruna Bouhid: like we don’t have power to, yeah.

[00:05:12] And I think that’s it’s this is that’s what’s interesting about this time right now. We’re getting all of these, this information, his cabinet picks, we’re getting more details about mass detention and deportation. And I do feel like a lot of people are like, what do I do about it? How much can I control?

[00:05:27] And I think to what you shared at the top, it’s like, the [00:05:30] first thing we need to do is know that we have a lot of power to stop a lot of these bad things. I think on immigration, the way Trump talks about it is like, they can do whatever they want because they want. And what we believe is they don’t have a mandate for mass detention and deportation.

[00:05:44] The American people yes, some of them may have voted for him, but when you, Do polling and when you ask the American people like a majority of them say they’re against it and so I do think these next few weeks are critical in how we respond to what we’re going to see on January [00:06:00] 20th in terms of immigrants being targets, how the progressive movement responds will be really key to set the tone for the entire resistance of another Trump administration.

[00:06:10] Cayden Mak: Yeah, I think that’s a really important top line that we do have an opening right now to pace that. And I think this is also really important with the HR 94 95 stuff that we know it’s going to come back with a Republican controlled Congress, but. Bye. Public outcry now sets the tone about showing them how unpopular this kind of stuff is.[00:06:30] 

[00:06:30] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah, and it builds the muscle. And I think, to be honest, for four years, It was, it was nice to have a president that was more quiet. It was nice to have a president that we didn’t constantly get a slew and look, we can talk about why we’re here and what else Biden administration could have done that we could spend hours doing that.

[00:06:48] But I do think it’s important to build that muscle on the progressive and the allies and like the phone calls work. Calling your members of Congress works, talking to people in your community, putting everyone on a zoom, having community [00:07:00] meetings, like the basic blocks of like grassroots organizing actually does work.

[00:07:05] And I think when we’re thinking about the lame duck, especially in immigration, What is happening right now is like they’re talking about mass detention and deportation, but Congress is about has a deadline, right? December is their deadline in terms of the budget. So they either need to pass a continued resolution Or they need to pass appropriation bills that will You know pass a budget for the next year.

[00:07:26] And so when people are talking about mass detention and deportation, the thing we’re [00:07:30] reminding people, it’s it costs billions of dollars in order to fund Trump’s deportation plans. And the power that Congress has right now is to not allocate that money and give Trump the money to do that. And obviously there’s work to do in terms of the Democrats and making sure that they are able to understand.

[00:07:50] power that they hold right now in the lame duck period, right? Which is the period between now and in January and for Republicans. And I think it’s [00:08:00] important for us to understand the economic costs of detention and deportation, which we’ve seen some movement on that. There’s been some comments from Rand Paul.

[00:08:07] There’s been some comments from other folks of Oh, actually, we’ve tried this before, and they actually hurt the economy. We shouldn’t go down this route. So I think this lame duck period is going to be really important to continue to put that pressure on all members of Congress, not just Democrats, but Republicans as well.

[00:08:22] Cayden Mak: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I’m curious, also about In general, I feel this lame duck [00:08:30] period that’s especially relevant for presidential cycles where there’s going to be a transfer of which party is in power. Are there other things about this period right now that are, like, uniquely fertile for the kind of advocacy that regular people can be doing to influence policy going forward?

[00:08:48] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah. There’s a lot right that we want Congress to do. So both making sure they, they’re not funding the deportation machine that Trump will get to use. I think judges are really important, right? Judge nominations and how many judges the [00:09:00] Biden administration can. We understand the impact that Trump has had, not only on the Supreme court, but just judges in general.

[00:09:06] There’s a reason why if folks know about the DACA program, right? It’s deferred action for childhood arrivals program. I’m a former DACA recipient. Yeah. It means that I was protected from deportation and had a work permit. It’s an Obama era program. And the reason it’s still around is because of progressive organizing is because of the immigrants rights movement fighting so hard against Trump, trying to end it.

[00:09:25] But there, for example, like they, There is a lot of different [00:09:30] things both Congress can do, but also the Biden administration can do to shore up as many protections as possible, right? And so judges are important because again, we’re fighting right now with DACA. Texas has been suing DACA for the last few years, and we went to the Fifth Circuit.

[00:09:45] The Fifth Circuit has a lot of conservative judges that were appointed by Trump. And that is like their preferred court when they’re trying to kill something good Biden did, or just things in general. And so over the Biden years, that’s [00:10:00] been a huge challenge for the progressive movement in general, when something like student loan forgiveness, when actually good things happen. And then we end up going to the court and the judges are conservative. The judges have been appointed by Trump. So making sure Biden appoints his judges, I think has an impact on all of our issues, all of the things we care about. And it serves as that like last sort of like tool we have to protect some of these things.

[00:10:25] So that’s really important too. And then there’s a bill called, maybe folks have heard of it. I think the alien [00:10:30] enemies act, which is a 1798 law that allows presidents to deport any non citizen. the U. S. Is at war with. It is a really scary law that really in the hands of someone like Trump will target black and Brown people in our country.

[00:10:46] And so I know some progressive organizations are looking at ways to revoke the aliens enemies act. I know some members of Congress, some champions have been outspoken about it. That’s another pressure point. It’s an uphill battle to try to revoke it. Let’s say, I don’t know if I [00:11:00] can be completely honest with the amount of time we have and everything that’s happening in Congress right now.

[00:11:04] But it’s an important thing to be talking about because we’re really going to see Trump test a lot of different things in order to accomplish his mass detention and deportation plans. And he may use existing laws. He may just do what he wants. And that’s the reality that we’re in. The country has elected a president that does not, that does things in a way that are not always lawful and [00:11:30] that hurt a lot of people.

[00:11:31] And so I think it’ll be important for the progressive movement to really understand not only how these things impact immigrants, which is of course important, but us citizens. And there, mass raids, sweeps of ICE and CBP, those will not only impact undocumented immigrants, those will impact American families across the country.

[00:11:50] And I think that’s key in the messaging too, to really talk about how this will impact communities, but also industries like from healthcare to construction. To farming, [00:12:00] all of the industries that immigrants are really keeping up and supporting, I think again, like messaging from the progressive side in the next few weeks is like, how are we all interconnected and how do these things all impact us and not just the immigrants rights movement or not just.

[00:12:16] The different issue areas. It impacts really us across the board. 

[00:12:20] Cayden Mak: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense to me. And it seems if the Democratic party is really serious about putting their money where their mouth is, that like now is a great opportunity to shore [00:12:30] some of this stuff up.

[00:12:31] It does occur to me also, are there things that you are all working on the state level also that are relevant in this time? 

[00:12:38] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah, actually I thought, I was like, I’m so glad we’re talking today. Cause there’s a great example out of LA. So this week there was a sanctuary city vote in LA, which is such an important thing to happen because we do know Trump has been talking about going after blue cities, right?

[00:12:52] Cities that he believes will get in the way of his mass attention and deportation plan. So cities like New York, Chicago, [00:13:00] LA where a lot of those state and local leaders have done. A really good job of welcoming immigrants and also ensuring that there’s a plan in terms of how we welcome those immigrants.

[00:13:11] So it’s beneficial to the entire community. And so LA passing that sanctuary city vote is so important. And I think it’s a good example of what other cities need to do. It’s a good first step, right? But with the threats we’re facing, there’s a lot more we need to do. There needs to be like a comprehensive plan to defend the civil and human rights [00:13:30] of everyone that will be impacted.

[00:13:32] And so obviously encouraging cities to do that, but I would say like knowing your rights and knowing your power. And those are a lot of trainings that we do in these moments of ensuring directly impacted folks know their rights when it comes to ice and CBP, but also that us citizens know their rights in terms of how can they, if there’s a rate in their community, what should they do?

[00:13:51] How should they respond? So I know those are trainings that a lot of organizations are doing. To ensure that these communities, these [00:14:00] cities are ready for what could happen January 20th and beyond. 

[00:14:04] Cayden Mak: Yeah, that’s super helpful. And I think that the reality of the importance of a lot of these more local things is going to 

[00:14:11] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah, that’s going to be, I think we saw this under the first year of Trump, right?

[00:14:14] We saw a lot of Democrats, a lot of state and local leaders, governors step up. We’ve heard from like the governor of New Jersey that. New Jersey will continue to be a place that welcomes immigrants. New Jersey will continue to be a place that has policies that support immigrants. Cause those are part of [00:14:30] the community in New Jersey.

[00:14:31] And so I think it will be really important for these leaders to be the face and to lead us, be leaders in the resistance of a lot of these things. Because then you have. The Texas governor basically saying we’ll give you land to build detention camps here, the Texas has created the infrastructure in order to detain and deport people.

[00:14:51] And we’ve been talking about this for years, not just election year, but Texas states like Oklahoma have been passing anti immigration laws. They’ve been building. [00:15:00] The infrastructure in order to carry out the tension and deportation. And this has been alarming for years, not just this year. And so I think those will be places to look at as well, because a lot of our people live in Texas, right?

[00:15:11] A lot of our people live in Florida. And so how the GOP also supports Trump, I think will be an important way for us to make sure we’re responding to that and the things that they’re doing to the people in their own states, their own constituents, their own residents. 

[00:15:26] Cayden Mak: That makes a lot of sense to me.

[00:15:28] I think that like [00:15:30] the it does also make me think about all those fights years ago against SB 10 70 in Arizona and like how there’s been a intentional effort to like, try this stuff in a the laboratory of a specific state. And thinking through like, how these things might be executed.

[00:15:53] I don’t know. It’s we know what some of the playbook is going to be on the plus side, on the minus side. It’s it’s [00:16:00] really, 

[00:16:00] Bruna Bouhid: it’s scary. Yeah. I think the thing that like, I really want the progressive movement to get right, is that, like you’re saying this, we’ve seen it in Arizona with Arpaio.

[00:16:09] We saw these anti immigrant bills that literally made. Industries close in Arizona, made people like live in the shadows because they were so afraid of what our pie was doing. We’ve lived through Obama who deported three to 4 million people. All of those are examples of things, those things not working.

[00:16:29] Like [00:16:30] those terrible immigration bills. Really hurting the states. We’ve even seen on the federal level, a president that was friendlier towards us still believe that this was the way to go in order to do something good, right? I think Obama’s strategy was like if I’m tough on this, then I can get that done.

[00:16:47] And obviously there’s great things that came out of the Obama administration, DACA, one of them. But again, like we’ve experienced mass detention and deportation as a country before, and we’ve seen the results of that family separation was something [00:17:00] on the Trump. We saw the results of that. We’re still, there’s still children who have never been reunited with their parents.

[00:17:05] So I think it’s like reminding yourselves that we’ve lived through it and we, many of us did survive and we fought back against it and we were successful. So it’s like, how do we do that again? But then also, how do we do it differently so that less people buy into this idea that this is the way to go?

[00:17:23] Too many people within our own communities bought Trump’s lies. And they voted for him. [00:17:30] And that’s, I think the reality of these last three to four weeks since the election, where we’ve been like grappling with the results. It’s like, why did the people believe these things? Why didn’t people believe things about Project 2025?

[00:17:44] Did we insulate ourselves about Project 2025? Did we only talk amongst ourselves about it? Because Project 2025 is scary. And when you talk to most people about it, they’re like, no, I don’t want that. But it’s you voted for the guy that’s going to implement that. So I do think as a progressive movement, we have to figure out how [00:18:00] to talk to people and their real fears, the challenges they’re going through and ensure that the answer is not to continue to scapegoat immigrants or continue to make immigrants the targets, but really move. As a true, tent and ensuring that we’re responding to this altogether as a progressive movement versus being stuck in our own like silos, I think that will be really important over the next few months.

[00:18:22] Cayden Mak: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think to that end, I’m curious, like what it’s been like building movement [00:18:30] relationships, building a coalition in this moment. And who, like what other organizations are you all working with? How is the like coalescing around some of these goals going?

[00:18:41] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah. So we’re a youth organization, right? United We Dream, RC3 and United We Dream Action, RC4. We’re a youth org. We’re organizing young people. So one of the really amazing things this year we did through RC4, United We Dream Action, was work with. Gen Z for change, sunrise and March for our lives. What our members have told us, and many of our members, yes, are immigrants or maybe [00:19:00] they’re children of immigrants, but they’ve grown up in this country.

[00:19:03] What they tell us is we live intersectional lives. Of course we care about immigration, but we care about climate change. We care about. being worried that we’re going to get gunned down in our schools. And so bringing the four youth orgs together, we put out a youth agenda, right? We were like, this is the things young people want to see.

[00:19:20] And we hope that work continues in 2025 so that we’re able to again, coalesce young people around the resistance to Trump. Young people during the first Trump years [00:19:30] were such a bright light. And huge factor in how the rest of the country responded. And there were some wins under Biden from the sunrise movement and climate change that are going to be, hopefully Trump doesn’t dismantle all of that, but.

[00:19:45] That are really important for the future that young people are inheriting. So I’m excited about that work. I’m excited about how young organizations, young people are going to come together to really show the Democrats also like, actually, this is what we want. And you keep not giving it [00:20:00] to us, but we keep telling you, even when it relates to ceasefire and the genocide, like young people have been so outspoken against that.

[00:20:08] And I think Democrats are really missing out on energizing. Young people in the way that we actually need in order for young people to show up Many young people did not vote this election and that’s just the truth, and we’re not here to talk down to them or to be mad at them about why they didn’t we need to figure Out what will actually plug them in and we really believe that it’s these key issues [00:20:30] That they’re worried about and that they’re locally organizing already And so I’m excited to work with those three organizations.

[00:20:36] I’m excited to update the youth agenda to speak to the moment we’re in, but I really think young people across the country are going to be just huge energy for what we need right now and what we’re going to face under Trump four years. 

[00:20:51] Cayden Mak: Yeah, thank you so much for that. As we wrap up I imagine a lot of our listeners are pretty fired up about some of this stuff and are curious about ways that they can plug in and [00:21:00] support you all’s work and leadership.

[00:21:02] So could you tell us a little bit about what’s on your calendar between now and inauguration day and how folks can get plugged into United We Dream’s work? 

[00:21:09] Bruna Bouhid: Yeah, for sure. We talked about lame duck, so we’re definitely going to be doing a lot of things in December. And we have something called the here to stay network and it’s our network of allies.

[00:21:18] We know that many allies care about immigrants. So folks can text here to stay to seven, seven, eight, seven, five, seven. So it’s here to stay seven, eight, seven, five, seven, and they’ll get plugged into [00:21:30] all of our resources and training. So I talked a little bit about. What should folks do right now? Know your rights and know your power.

[00:21:36] And be pushing on the state and local level, right? Again, those calls make all the difference pushing your mayor, your city council, your school board, your governor to be more outspoken about how they’re going to treat immigrants under a Trump administration. And so if you get connected to the here to stay network, you get plugged into all our trainings, you get ready and ready to go fired up on January 20th.

[00:21:58] Because that’s when a lot of the work will start. [00:22:00] And that’s, like I said, I think how we respond to what Trump does on day one is really gonna. Set the stage if y’all remember the muslim ban in 2017. You remember folks at the airports there was a lot of energy rightfully So what they were doing was outrageous and so I think reminding ourselves that we’ve been here before and we did it we fought back And preparing ourselves for what it’ll look like.

[00:22:22] I think will be really important. So we hope Folks will participate in the trainings and get their communities ready and just be good neighbors [00:22:30] Honestly, like we just need people to be good neighbors to each other over the next few years. And I believe it. Like I, I think the thing that’s keeping me like energized is that just a lot of people sat out on this election.

[00:22:43] It wasn’t like, this is the biggest turnout ever and Trump won, right? A lot less, I think 11 million less people voted than in 2020. And so I believe that we can re engage a lot of people. And I believe that. This next four years is only going to make our movement [00:23:00] stronger. 

[00:23:00] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Thank you so much for all that you do.

[00:23:03] And we’ll be, we’ll for sure link to this stuff in the show notes so that people can find ways to get educated on what they can do locally and how they can bring their voices to bear on what’s going on at every level of our government. Thanks for joining us. Of 

[00:23:18] Bruna Bouhid: course. Thanks so much, Caden.

[00:23:19] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Pleasure to see you. 

[00:23:20] Bruna Bouhid: You too. 

[00:23:22] Cayden Mak: Our next guest is L. J. Amsterdam and I’ll say that, so one topic of conversation that I’ve been seeing a lot floating around my internet circles is about [00:23:30] how we mobilize against this anticipated onslaught of policies from the incoming Trump administration.

[00:23:37] Under the last Trump administration, mass demonstration and also direct action played a really important role in the fight back, like all of us showing up at airports when the Muslim ban was announced. But even under the Biden administration, the capacity for direct action to influence decision makers in government roles seems to have diminished fairly significantly.

[00:23:56] I think we can point to Gaza as a really important example of this. [00:24:00] We know that we’re going to need to leverage every tool in the toolbox this time around to address the various interwoven issues that our movements are going to face going forward. That includes ending genocide in Gaza, defending immigrant communities, providing life saving abortion and gender affirming medical care, responding to climate disasters, any of a host.

[00:24:19] of other things that our movements are unfortunately staring down for the coming years, we have to use both our capacity and strategic ways to do whatever we can to make things work for as [00:24:30] many people as possible. So I’m really excited to have LJ Amsterdam join me today to talk about her forthcoming report, Hopeful Monsters.

[00:24:38] She’s written this based on years of research into movement strategy. And there are a lot of things that I can tell you about LJ’s various movement credentials but I know her first and foremost through the network of New York City based organizers who came together during and after Occupy Wall Street and who have continued to engage in social movements over the past 13 years.

[00:24:57] She was also previously a co director at the Ruckus Society, [00:25:00] a long time direct action training organization, and is now a senior fellow at Future Currents. Welcome to Block and Build, LJ. It’s good to see you. Thanks, Caden. Thanks for having me. Great. For our listeners who might not be as versed in direct action in particular, I’m interested in how you define direct action.

[00:25:19] This obviously can look a lot of ways, but what are the types of things that you’re examining in Hopeful Monsters? 

[00:25:25] LJ Amsterdam: Cool. Yeah. So direct action is a toolbox [00:25:30] of tactics that can be used to stop harm, accelerate decision making, or implement a solution. We talk about direct action as direct because you’re not asking permission, you’re not saying, Seeking mediation you’re acting from a place of righteousness and responsibility.

[00:25:47] So direct actions look like blockades, they look like marches, they look like major street parties that block traffic they can look many different ways. And I think now we use direct action as like a catch [00:26:00] all for different kinds of protest. And even though direct action is really a toolbox of tactics, it really is about.

[00:26:08] A strategy for change, right? The idea of protest is that when we register our dissent, the powers that be respond to us. And as you’ve mentioned, as Bruna mentioned, I think a lot of us are questioning that as a viable strategy right now. But nonetheless, protest is something that we do very organically.

[00:26:28] It’s something that I think is just [00:26:30] deep in our DNA that when something feels not right to us, that when something violates our sense of, Spiritual or emotional or collective safety or well being that there is a deep desire and reaction and us to stand up and fight against it. Even though it’s long been, I think this black sheep of organizing and.

[00:26:50] Direct action is very rarely considered as noble as knocking on doors or developing leaders, but direct action, I think, creates really profound [00:27:00] psychic and emotional shifts in people. And so in my report, I look at these 4 different dimensions of action. I look at narrative and the stories we tell through action.

[00:27:10] I look at solidarity and the relationships we forge through action. I look at strategy and the places and spaces where we take action and I look at power and how we use action to build leaders and movements. 

[00:27:24] Cayden Mak: Great. Yeah. I was very excited about you offering this framework because these are some of [00:27:30] the, some things that I’ve thought about a lot for a long time and in the sort of immediate, the sort of Occupy years, I was in, in grad school thinking about a lot of the questions specifically about place, space, and narrative, and like, how we, take up space through actions, like through a more like art and art history kind of lens.

[00:27:50] But I was like, very excited to dig into this again, I think in this newer context. And one of the things that you were thinking a lot about in this report that I think are very [00:28:00] important, and I think that there’s a thing about here for me about the sort of like, like special or separate space that is created through direct action.

[00:28:10] And so as a result, you also talk a lot about what you call the movement moment. And I’m would love you to talk a little bit about how you define the movement moment. And then also what you think we should be considering and preparing for now, especially as we anticipate, Inauguration Day and the months beyond because there’s one thing that I [00:28:30] know for sure is that they’re going to be hella movement moments for us in the coming months.

[00:28:36] LJ Amsterdam: Hella movement moments. Yeah, and they are really special moments. Even though a lot of times, most of the time they’re in response to really horrific. Really horrific deeds. And I was really happy to hear Bruna remind us of the Muslim ban and how everybody flocked to the airports. And there were organizers calling for people to come to the airports, but then it took on a life of its own.

[00:28:57] And I think really that’s the movement moment [00:29:00] is when there’s this eruption of energy. And these movement moments or these upsurges become these condensed periods of. protest. They punctuate history and sometimes almost overnight it feels like the common sense has been changed. Occupy Wall Street suddenly forced this intervention for into the mainstream discourse around class.

[00:29:23] Suddenly the 99 percent and the 1 percent defined how we understood economics in the country. So [00:29:30] these moments. Are quite special because we feel our power. We feel the energy of each other. And also we feel the potential to change quite quickly. And so I really, I love to think about these moments as hopeful monsters because there’s this potential for great change.

[00:29:48] There’s this iconoclast geneticist, Richard Goldschmidt, who talked about the potential for one species to change into an entirely new species. Species in a single generation. [00:30:00] And he called the, he called these new generations, hopeful monsters. And so I think that really what we need to do now is understand the potential of these movement moments to incite really dramatic change.

[00:30:14] Because change is often less continuous than we believe it to be. And I think that actually we learn about. the patience of the civil rights movement or we learn about the patience of women and that changes this long arc and [00:30:30] that’s quite a demobilizing narrative actually that we learn right that change takes time and people have to really be open to new ways and That’s not in step with the reality of people’s lives where rent or healthcare costs changed quite rapidly.

[00:30:47] And so I think actually embracing this idea that change can happen quite quickly is quite hopeful. And quite scary, a few minutes ago, Trump’s going to try a lot of shit [00:31:00] and, he’s going to test stuff out. And so I think we really need to be prepared, both logistically, there are things that our organizations and our movements can do to be prepared for upsurges, because we might not know that they’re when they’re coming, but they’re definitely coming. They’re going to be hella upsurges coming, whether it’s around mass deportations, or it’s about, infringements on.

[00:31:24] Trans rights, like we’re going to see upsurges so we can prepare logistically but also [00:31:30] I think we need to prepare to transform our protest into power and think about what protest can do for us when it doesn’t necessarily incite legislative changes, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:31:48] Cayden Mak: so I’m interested in that, that like the, I think that one of the longstanding sort of criticisms of protest in this more punctuated moment action [00:32:00] is this question of what is the relationship between protest and governing power?

[00:32:04] And I I certainly don’t think it’s linear or logical or always necessarily clear that there’s also like subtle things that happen through these processes. And I love how in the report you talk about some of those sort of like subtle personal transformations that may happen.

[00:32:19] But what are some of the things that you were like you saw through putting this report together about how organizers are linking a protest moment to [00:32:30] Building power. 

[00:32:32] LJ Amsterdam: Cool. Yeah. So the premise really of a lot of this exploration is that we might not be able to build the kind of power that we want to enact the legislation that we want, but what are the other ways in which we can consider power?

[00:32:46] And Mary hooks, an amazing organizer and actionista over the summer, we had a retreat that was dedicated specifically to understanding these upsurges and Mary hooks asked the room, it was really moving. [00:33:00] She said in these moments. We have the people turn out, the people come to the streets, the people come to us and how vain are we to diminish them?

[00:33:09] And we really need to think seriously about these moments and what we can learn from them. So I talked to a ton of organizers. I talked to a ton of people. Free radicals, the folks that were in Occupy and, bop around and help organize these upsurge moments. I talked to lots of actionistas and there are four things that I learned about [00:33:30] what people are thinking about in terms of how we can alchemize protests into power.

[00:33:34] And the first has to do with narrative and the stories that we tell. People are sick of being the, about being against this anti that, of course. People are sick of generalized dissent. They’re sick of always resisting, defending, protecting. People want to be about something. So the first recommendation is for us to demonstrate moral consensus, which is really [00:34:00] about acting with majoritarian and majoritarian ethos.

[00:34:05] And the example that I love that came up a lot of interviews with standing rock and how the mantra of standing rock was. Water is life and water is life is the most elegant movement slogan, really, that you can think of. It’s so elemental and in it is embedded an idea about the sacredness of land, about indigenous sovereignty, [00:34:30] about the relationship between spirituality and climate change, it’s encoded in this mantra is a sense of, An entire worldview.

[00:34:39] And so really, I think giving people something to opt into a worldview to opt into, we have the opportunity to really define ourselves what we’re about in the face of an onslaught of really atrocious changes that are about to happen. And, but we want to be about something and not [00:35:00] just against something.

[00:35:01] So that’s the first thing that we talk about is narrative. The second is in all the conversations that I’ve had over the past couple of years with organizers, people are really hungry to just show up for each other people. We’ve done a lot of actions over the years for media attention. A lot of a lot of actions, you want to get coverage so that you can create some leverage against your decision maker.

[00:35:25] All of that matters, but what matters right now to folks is being able to show up [00:35:30] for each other. And I think there’s a lot of juicy conversations happening about mutual aid and about abandoning this idea that service providing and organizing are somehow incompatible with each other. And I point to the Healing Justice Center, a project of the Dream Defenders in Miami that is a mobile crisis unit that is if we’re going to organize our people, we need to show up for them.

[00:35:55] And I think that is something that we can really take into the coming [00:36:00] years that we build power through our relationships with each other, right? That solidarity and there’s about to be a lot of suffering. And so I think that we need to really turn up for each other to take care of that suffering, even if we can’t necessarily enact the change as immediately as we want to on the legislative level.

[00:36:19] The third thing relatedly is that I’ve learned is people are real sick of screaming at the same channels over and over again, right? People [00:36:30] are, and we learned this also really over the past year that like, Biden was the target for the movement for Palestinian solidarity against the genocide.

[00:36:39] And we just kept shouting at Biden over and over again. And people want to find other. Channels to affect change. I like to call them the loading docks. Like instead of walking straight into the halls of power, where are the like little loading docks that you can sneak in? An [00:37:00] example that came up for us in interviews was pain.

[00:37:04] The group fan founded by Nan Bolton against the Sackler’s the Sackler family being the architects of the. Opioid crisis who made billions and billions of dollars on the opioid crisis. And instead of trying to tackle them in the corporate boardroom or in the FDA pain went through museums.

[00:37:28] The Sacklers had put their [00:37:30] name on every wing of every major art museum in the world, and that was very important to them, that kind of prestige, and also the ability to launder their reputation and pain was like, we’re not, we’re going to deny you that opportunity. And the leverage that they built through that campaign.

[00:37:48] Led to then, significant a significant reckoning for the Sackler family, but they didn’t do it through traditional channels. So 

[00:37:56] Cayden Mak: I feel like we’ve been seeing some of that happening around Palestine [00:38:00] too, with like people targeting weapons manufacturers and the ways that manufacturers like also manufacture consent through like higher education and for sure, things like that.

[00:38:08] Yeah. And I 

[00:38:09] LJ Amsterdam: think uncommitted also is a great example of changing the venue because they made voting. Like suddenly a direct action that they really actually kind of, inspired us to think about the act of voting differently. And that was, I think we’re going to have to get a bit creative.

[00:38:29] In our [00:38:30] cartography right now of where we can affect change and, just change the venue. I came up with that recommendation based on something Olufemi Taiwo said about how there’s been this overreaction away from local action and that the Black Panthers created the breakfast program because they needed to live in a world where they could affect change.

[00:38:52] And not just live in the world of powerlessness and live in the world of. white supremacy, but live in a world where they [00:39:00] could affect change in their community. Which leads me to the last recommendation, which is really about building our movement ecosystem. People want to live in an ecosystem, but That requires high levels of trust, diversity of specialization, and it requires us, I think, to really step into a diversity of functions and not all respond at the same time and not all try to build our email lists at the same time.

[00:39:29] But [00:39:30] maybe we’re like doing some different stuff and, I trained as a dancer and dancers train their bodies to. Train their muscles to be able to stabilize so that other muscles can release. And I think that’s a helpful way of thinking about the ecosystem that there, we need groups, we need institutions and organizations that can stabilize during these upsurge moments and we need other ones that can move quickly, be nimble, be swift footed.

[00:39:57] And I think there’s a lot of desire among the [00:40:00] left to live into this ecosystem with each other. It’s hard to organize the organizers. And this is our moment. This is our moment to get it together, to organize the organizers and to trust each other because we can’t all be doing the same thing.

[00:40:14] We don’t have that kind of time. And. Yeah, I think we can be building our ecosystem up in a way that enables us to live into a sense of shared functions, shared vision, and just showing up for [00:40:30] each other. 

[00:40:30] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t done a number of pretty high profile direct actions around weapons manufacturers here in the Bay.

[00:40:39] I feel like I’ve had a lot of conversations with folks about what we started calling direct action intimacy. Yeah, and the ways in which I think that, like, there’s a way that you just get tighter with people when you’re doing things that feel potentially physically very risky. Also, that’s like different from quote unquote real [00:41:00] life, right?

[00:41:00] Yeah. There’s something really special about that and that experience of pulling something off that also. Yeah. Yeah, something to your psyche, honestly, that’s very important. 

[00:41:13] LJ Amsterdam: We as organizers are asking people to take risks. We’re asking people to go on French strike. We’re asking people to, put their bodies on the line.

[00:41:22] We’re asking people to take all kinds of courageous action. That’s what organizing is. It’s creating the conditions for people to take action. And I think we [00:41:30] underestimate the kind of intimacy that action facilitates. Rachel Shregas, who has been the brains behind many of our like really iconic mobilizations in terms of the art, she’s an incredible artist, told me, nothing creates leaders like just sending a crew of folks out to do a banner drop.

[00:41:51] It could be over a highway overpass, but for people who are coming into movements, we need to be welcoming to them. And we [00:42:00] also need to like, prepare them for a sense of risk and leadership and sending people out to just drop a banner over a highway overpass. Requires that folks figure it out, go through it, start to finish.

[00:42:12] They’ve done something scary, a little bit risky. It seems like a big deal. And then they do it and boom, those relationships are locked in for life for real. And I’m sure that you have folks that you were in actions with years ago that you never talked to, but when you see each other, that intimacy is there.

[00:42:28] That depth is [00:42:30] there, cause cause we were in the streets together. And yeah, I really think that we can not underestimate. The the intimacy that actions create, I love that you said that the intimacy, that’s what it is. It’s trust. It’s vulnerability. It’s risk. It’s fear. It’s connection, and that’s really going to be the glue that holds us together.

[00:42:52] I think over the coming years. 

[00:42:54] Cayden Mak: Yeah. That’s really, I find that to be incredibly helpful in terms of thinking [00:43:00] about the actions that we take beyond the sort of like. Very focused micro timeline of the action itself and being able to take us out of that a little bit and look back at the big picture seems critically important for all of us right now.

[00:43:18] LJ Amsterdam: Yeah. And we were talking earlier just about the importance of intervening in the inertia and how action just. Doing something is better than doing nothing. [00:43:30] I think really just psychically, emotionally, it’s better than doing nothing. And we all know marches won’t save the world, but when you’re out there walking, With other people, it does feel like you at least are preparing yourself to change the world.

[00:43:46] And we have to, I think that it’s going to be so easy for us to do scroll our way through the next four years. And, we, we really need to just think about what are the ways that on a daily [00:44:00] basis. We can intervene in the inertia and the political melancholia and the overwhelm, Bruna talked about it as building the muscle, right?

[00:44:09] We need to work out our muscles. We need to be doing calisthenics, um, these like emotional calisthenics to keep ourselves fit and together. Yeah. 

[00:44:21] Cayden Mak: Yeah. And there’s one thing that I know as as a weightlifter is that the thing that you need to do is be consistent. It doesn’t matter how heavy you lift, like you get [00:44:30] gains when you are consistent.

[00:44:31] LJ Amsterdam: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Break it. Break a small law every day. Be consistent. Just a little one. Just a little one. Just stay in shape. Because there will come a time where you will be asked to be consistent. To break a law in a big way, right? There is going to be a moment where you’re going to be asked to stand on the right side of history in a big way.

[00:44:55] So maybe just break a little law every day, just stay consistent, keep those [00:45:00] gains up, yeah, 

[00:45:00] Cayden Mak: exactly. Exactly. I’m trying to formulate this joke about the like right wing influencers who talk about weightlifting and like how I’m trying to intervene on that right now. 

[00:45:12] LJ Amsterdam: Please intervene on that because I do not at all like that we have seated background, not say seated, but that like how much the right actually controls the, that the narratives around strength and power and bodies.

[00:45:29] [00:45:30] Yeah, 

[00:45:30] Cayden Mak: let’s get into it. Let’s get into it. I’m here for this conversation forever 

[00:45:36] LJ Amsterdam: 2017 I did try to start getting people together for like little protest II Inspired workouts where it was like, let’s run away from the cops or you know Let’s like, I don’t know, jump fences, but yeah, our bodies are, yeah, we need to be taking care of our bodies in a real way.

[00:45:58] Not just from a health [00:46:00] perspective, but really from an emotional perspective, I think that’s what action does for us. I think we take care of our bodies. I think not just we take care of our own bodies, but I think that when you’re in an action with somebody, when you’re locked arms with somebody, when you’re locked down with somebody, when you’re blocking a space or, um, you’re taking care of somebody else’s body.

[00:46:19] Cayden Mak: Yeah. You are, 

[00:46:20] LJ Amsterdam: and I think that’s really what we’re hungry for right now is to take care of each other. I think that’s really, that’s what I feel hungry for right now is just to tell [00:46:30] people, you’re not alone. We’re in it together. I got you. I hope you got me. And I think that we really want to take care of each other right now and show up for each other.

[00:46:40] Cayden Mak: That’s yeah, that’s fucking beautiful. I know that hopeful monsters is not published yet where can listeners find it and keep up? So hopefully 

[00:46:48] LJ Amsterdam: it’s dropping next month and future occurrence I like to think of us as like the engineers. We’re a bit behind the scenes folks can hit us up at info at future currents dot [00:47:00] org, and we’re going to send it out next month.

[00:47:02] The designs are really cool, really psyched on it. And yeah, it’s just, I think I hope it’s an offering to folks right now. who are really reckoning with the reality that protest is coming and also the reality that protest can feel futile. So I really hope that it’s just like an offering of alchemy.

[00:47:22] How can we alchemize our protest into something more 

[00:47:25] Cayden Mak: amazing? Thank you so much, LJ. It’s always a pleasure to talk to 

[00:47:28] LJ Amsterdam: you. Yeah. [00:47:30] 

[00:47:30] Cayden Mak: Thanks so much. Thanks ConvergenceMag for having me. Yeah, of course, any time. My thanks again to Bruna and LJ for joining me this week. We will stick links to their work in the show notes so you can keep up with them, find out more.

[00:47:45] We are planning to be off next week for the holiday week, but we will be back on Friday, December 6th. With another spicy, meaty conversation. I hope you all get some rest next week. We are in it for the long haul. Take your rest seriously, my friends. This show is [00:48:00] published by Convergence, a magazine for Radical Insights.

[00:48:02] I’m Caden Mock, and our producer is Josh Elstro. If you’ve got something to say, please drop me a line. You can send me an email that we’ll consider running on an upcoming Mailbag episode at mailbag at convergence. com. And if you’d 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 member at convergencemag.

[00:48:23] com slash donate. Even a few bucks a month goes a long way to making sure that our independent, small team can continue to [00:48:30] build this critical map for our movements. I hope this helps.