2:00

emotions deeply. Moving

2:02

ourselves enables us to step

2:04

forward while acknowledging everything that

2:06

happens inside. I create

2:09

to make things move inside,

2:11

outside of me. We'll

2:13

post a link to Boosh on our social

2:15

media feeds and in the show notes for

2:17

this episode on our Patreon page. You

2:20

can find more music by Marine Futon

2:22

on all streaming platforms or

2:24

at Marine Futon that's

2:27

m-a-r-i-n-e-f-u-t-i-n.com. Thanks

2:31

for sharing your work with us,

2:33

Marine. Merci beaucoup. And

2:35

we are celebrating solidarity because

2:37

that is the only way

2:39

we win is by joining

2:41

together, turning ancient enemies into

2:43

allies and friends and

2:45

building coalitions. Ukrainians knew it in

2:48

Euromaidan. It was a diverse coalition

2:50

from people from all across society

2:52

that joined on that square to

2:54

drive Kremlin puppet Yanukovych

2:56

out of town and into Russia

2:59

where remains in exile to this

3:01

day. And that's the only way

3:03

we win is by building solidarity

3:06

coalitions to drive the other Russian

3:08

asset, Russian puppet Donald Trump, out

3:10

of America and into exile into

3:12

Russia where he belongs. But how

3:15

do we build solidarity with everything

3:17

so polarized? Well, we're

3:19

gonna have that discussion in this

3:22

week's show featuring the wonderful experts

3:24

on building social movements and sustaining

3:26

them. And they're here to talk

3:28

about their book, Solidarity, the past,

3:31

present, and future of a world-changing

3:33

idea. And their names are Leah

3:35

Hunt Hendricks and Astra Taylor. Leah

3:37

Hunt Hendricks was born and raised

3:39

in New York City. She has

3:42

a PhD in religion, ethics, and

3:44

politics from Princeton University where she

3:46

wrote her dissertation on the ethics

3:48

of solidarity. Leah has founded multiple

3:51

organizations that have impacted the American

3:53

political landscape. In 2012 she co-founded

3:56

Solidare, a national network of

3:59

philanthropists that dedicated to funding

4:01

progressive movements. And in 2017,

4:03

she co-founded Way2Win, a

4:06

network with a similar structure,

4:08

this time dedicated to electoral

4:10

strategy. Both organizations are grounded

4:13

in building solidarity between major

4:15

donors and grassroots organizing. Astra

4:17

Taylor is co-founder of The Debt

4:20

Collective, a union of debtors. She

4:22

is the director of numerous documentaries

4:24

and the author of The Age

4:26

of Insecurity, coming together as things

4:28

fall apart. Democracy may not

4:30

exist, but we'll miss it when it's gone. And

4:33

The People's Platform, winner of an American

4:35

Book Award, among other works.

4:38

Her writing has appeared in periodicals, including The

4:40

New Yorker, The New York Times, and Plus

4:42

One and The Baffler. She is an advisor

4:44

to Lux Magazine and is on the editorial

4:46

board of Hammer and Hope. She was the

4:48

2023 CBC Massey

4:50

Lecturer. And before I

4:53

get to the interview, I went in the

4:55

spirit of solidarity. I would like to thank

4:57

the French for their help

4:59

with the American Revolution. The Continental

5:01

Army, especially under a beleaguered General

5:03

George Washington, was a disaster, a

5:05

ragtag group, where so many people

5:08

had to sacrifice their lives because

5:10

it was just, we were so

5:12

outgunned. I live in Brooklyn, right

5:14

where the Battle of Brooklyn took

5:16

place. It was an absolute bloodbath

5:19

by the British Empire. New

5:21

York Harbor looked like all of London had

5:23

descended on it, with the British naval power

5:25

coming in to clamp down on this little

5:27

uprising. And the French came in being the

5:29

French and be like, you know what? We're

5:33

gonna fix this. The French

5:35

provided supplies, arms, ammunition, uniforms,

5:37

and most importantly, troops and

5:39

naval power. They were

5:41

instrumental in finally getting the

5:43

British to surrender at Yorktown

5:45

in 1781. We

5:48

could not have had the American

5:50

Revolution without our French allies. And

5:53

say what you will about America. It's an

5:55

experiment that is ongoing. We're always trying to

5:57

improve it. And the French saw it. the

5:59

vision in it, but they're also probably really

6:01

petty. And we need to get back at

6:03

the British, let's be real here. And

6:05

every time I see the Statue

6:08

of Lafayette, the great revolutionary French

6:10

hero who then went on

6:12

to be one of many, countless many swept

6:14

up and arrested during the terror of the

6:16

French Revolution, that man lived an extraordinary life.

6:18

When I see his statue in Prospect Park

6:21

here in Brooklyn, it's a wonderful reminder that

6:23

none of us can get through this alone.

6:25

We need our allies, we need our coalitions,

6:27

we need our solidarity, and we have to

6:30

build that. Despite our differences,

6:32

despite how the different languages

6:34

we speak, even politically, despite our different

6:36

upbringings, we have to find a common

6:38

cause. And that common cause is that

6:40

the oligarchs, the fascist oligarchs are up

6:42

against. They're coming for everybody. They're coming

6:45

for all of us. We all have

6:47

to unite, unite or die. We're all

6:49

in this together. Happy Independence

6:51

Day, everyone. I've

7:03

been looking forward to this for so long because

7:05

you two met at Occupy Wall Street. Tell me

7:07

about that because I have a lot to say

7:09

about that. Occupy Wall Street, that is not about

7:12

your meet cute, but please tell me, how did you

7:14

two meet? So I went down

7:16

to Occupy Wall Street. I was working on

7:18

my PhD actually at the time and living

7:22

in New York and while writing my

7:24

dissertation from Brooklyn while I was doing

7:26

my PhD at Princeton. And Occupy

7:28

started and I was really interested in social

7:31

movements. And so I was

7:33

like, we have a social movement happening right in

7:35

front of us. So I went to check it

7:37

out and just started hanging

7:39

around and sussing out how things were happening

7:41

and who was doing what. And there were

7:43

lots of different working groups. And over the

7:46

course of some time, I found

7:48

a strike debt, I think. I

7:51

think that it had already started at

7:53

that point, kind of a couple months in.

7:55

And sorry, for our audience that doesn't know

7:58

what is strike debt. It was debt for

8:00

So Occupy was full of

8:02

these working groups and these projects. And so

8:04

we were a working group

8:06

focused on the fact that we were all in

8:08

debt. Almost everyone who was at Occupy was in

8:10

debt. And Astra at the time

8:13

was starting to organize a telethon where

8:15

they were going to raise money for

8:17

the rolling jubilee. So

8:19

I remember I think she gave me a

8:21

call and was like, do you want to

8:23

help out with this telethon? We're trying to

8:25

raise some money that we'll then use to

8:27

cancel, to buy up

8:29

debt on the secondary market and cancel it. And

8:32

I think that was our first real

8:35

conversation. And then we had

8:37

a lunch and we just

8:39

realized we had a lot in

8:41

common and have stayed good friends ever since. I

8:44

sometimes wish we had a story of meeting on the

8:47

barricades or something though. It would be great. But

8:49

it kind of was the barricades. Like I think

8:51

it was the barricades. It's

8:55

just in our

8:57

21st century world

8:59

where telethons are

9:02

the new uprising tactic. So I have been

9:05

in an immense, I don't know how to say

9:07

it, just

9:10

the ticking clock of

9:13

the oligarchy. They have

9:15

pushed us too far, way

9:18

too far. And I've been researching a

9:20

lot of the French Revolution and be

9:22

like, hmm, let's see

9:24

how we fix this. But the reality

9:27

of the French Revolution is the same

9:29

lesson of genocides. You

9:31

can't make your enemy go away by mass murdering

9:33

them because what ended up happening, they beheaded, Marie

9:35

Antoinette and all her friends. But

9:38

then Napoleon's wife Josephine came in

9:41

and spent even more of the

9:44

stolen taxpayer money on her dresses and

9:46

things and so on. And

9:49

France was just stuck with

9:51

the elites for so, so,

9:53

so long, just enriching themselves off

9:55

the people. So what I'm saying is the

9:58

guillotine is not the solution here. And

10:01

this year, 2024, has

10:04

been the largest

10:06

number of layoffs in media,

10:08

and that includes filmmaking since

10:10

the 2008 global economic crash.

10:12

The conversations I'm having with

10:14

friends across media, across filmmaking

10:16

is absolutely devastating. Like we're

10:18

talking about all moving in

10:20

together, like they did in

10:22

the Soviet Union. My family

10:24

back in the Soviet Union

10:26

and my friends who got

10:28

the hell out of the

10:30

Soviet Union and came here, they

10:32

would talk about living like all these families crammed

10:35

into an apartment. And we're having

10:37

those conversations today because of hyper

10:39

capitalism in America. And

10:41

you just see it in New York

10:43

City, like the idiots on Fox News,

10:46

like Russian state TV Fox News want

10:48

to blame crime. They

10:50

want to blame non-white people. No,

10:53

it's the tax dodging. It's all

10:55

these legalized sophisticated schemes to avoid

10:57

paying taxes and so on and

10:59

so on with all these vulnerable

11:02

people falling through the cracks of that

11:04

and our schools and libraries being squeezed.

11:06

So I live with absolute fury and

11:08

anxiety that my family does not need

11:11

over just how deeply increasingly vulnerable

11:13

we are. And the Democrats,

11:15

the establishment Dems are bought off by the same

11:17

people as the Republicans and they get in these

11:19

fights with each other to distract us

11:21

and create these little culture wars and

11:23

these Twitter clapbacks so people aren't really

11:26

focused on what's really going on, our

11:28

collective good. And your book Solidarity is

11:30

all about that. It's like, no, we

11:32

don't have to like each other. We don't have to

11:34

vacation with each other. But we do

11:36

need to focus on our shared goals and our

11:38

common grounds. I know this is a lot I'm

11:40

throwing at you and I know I promised you

11:42

a therapy session and this is very much what this

11:44

is. But could you just please like

11:47

walk us through this moment of time and where

11:49

are we supposed to go from here? Here

11:51

is the hope to get us out

11:53

of this immense crushing crisis. I mean,

11:56

the problem of oligarchy is as old

11:58

as the potential. in

12:00

possibility of democracy. It makes me think

12:02

of the ancient Greeks who didn't invent

12:05

the process or the habit of democracy, but

12:07

gave us that word, which is Deimos, the

12:09

people plus Kratos, power. They also gave us

12:12

the word oligarchy, which is ruled by a

12:14

few. And so these have

12:16

always been in intention. And what

12:18

that shows us is from the very

12:20

beginning, people were aware that the concentration

12:22

of wealth was anathema to

12:25

the democratic project, to the project

12:27

of sharing power broadly. And

12:31

that's why Leah and I went to

12:33

Occupy Wall Street, really, it was like

12:35

such a relief to hear a group

12:37

of people saying that, saying

12:41

the banks got bailed out, we got

12:43

sold out, we don't have a representative

12:45

system, our political system is captured, and

12:47

that we want democracy. And that word

12:49

democracy is what united all of the

12:51

different movements across the world at that

12:53

time, from the Arab Spring to the

12:55

movement of the squares. So

12:58

democracy, I think is

13:00

certainly under threat. What Leah and I

13:02

are saying is that before we can

13:04

have democracy, which is collective

13:07

self-rule, self-government, we actually have to

13:09

have solidarity. That solidarity is actually

13:11

a precursor to democracy. If we

13:13

don't see our lives as

13:16

interlinked, if we don't have social

13:18

bonds that are robust enough, if

13:20

we don't have communities that transcend

13:23

our identities, but that connect us

13:25

to other groups, other individuals, and

13:28

other communities, then we actually can't

13:30

salvage the democratic project. And

13:33

so we think solidarity is something

13:35

that, it's actually

13:37

really essential, it's more than just a

13:39

slogan. And the French Revolution was problematic,

13:42

as you said, but they

13:44

were aware of this, they

13:46

kind of set the stage for

13:48

the concept of solidarity with their

13:50

tripartite model, equality, freedom, and fraternity.

13:54

And the fraternity was this relational concept that

13:56

eventually evolved into solidarity. That's one of the

13:58

things we trace in the book. We're

14:01

living still with the hangover

14:04

of the Reagan revolution with

14:06

astronomical levels of income and equality,

14:09

and that wealth and power

14:11

just exponentially grows, that

14:13

it seems impossible to come out from under

14:16

this. Look at the richest man in the

14:18

world, or if he was as

14:20

recently, Elon Musk, taking over a town

14:22

square of Twitter and turning it into

14:24

a Nazi Viper den. So

14:26

what hope do you see in this

14:29

current moment of time for

14:31

us to rebuild from

14:33

here and strengthen the

14:35

social safety net, build greater

14:38

economic fairness in

14:40

the system, and strengthen our democracy

14:43

in the process? What hope do you have right

14:45

now? Yeah. I

14:47

know it might seem weird to be

14:50

so hopeful, given that so much

14:52

seems like it's falling apart, but

14:54

our book really is hopeful and

14:57

not optimistic in the sense that we just

14:59

think things are going to turn out okay.

15:01

But hopeful in that deeper sense of

15:04

we still need to do a lot of

15:06

really hard work, but there are reasons to

15:08

keep going. And I see a lot of

15:10

reasons, actually. The past

15:12

15 years, since Astra and I

15:15

met 14 years ago, I

15:17

guess, in 2011, we've seen so many

15:20

social movements develop, and

15:22

from the climate movement and the

15:25

movement for Black Lives, immigration rights

15:27

movements. And yes, we have

15:29

seen a lot of backlash, and it's been

15:31

really, really hard. But you

15:33

can't deny that people are striving together.

15:36

They're coming together. They're finding each other.

15:38

They're building. They're organizing. And

15:41

we will always ... There'll always be

15:44

obstacles, and backlash is something we

15:46

really have to begin

15:48

to understand more deeply and really contend

15:50

with and kind of factor into our

15:52

strategies. But right now,

15:54

I think we're in the midst of seeing

15:57

a real labor revival. And what's exciting is

15:59

that I'm saying ... in this moment a

16:01

revival in the labor movement

16:03

that incorporates a lot of the

16:06

racial justice and gender justice and

16:08

environmental justice elements of the past

16:10

decade into this kind of

16:13

new moment where, you know,

16:15

the UAW is coming out for

16:17

a ceasefire and organizing battery

16:19

plants and, you know, standing up

16:21

for climate change in a way

16:24

that, you know, the auto industry

16:26

wasn't always for or actively

16:28

organized against. And I think coming back

16:30

to the concept of solidarity, I

16:33

believe that we have a desire

16:35

for belonging. Like one of the

16:37

fundamental aspects of being human is

16:40

the desire to belong with others,

16:42

to a community, to be held

16:45

in community and seen and understood. And

16:47

that's not going to go away, you

16:49

know, even in the face of the

16:51

rising oligarchy, people will still continue to

16:53

crave that and will continue to fight

16:56

for that. And things just

16:58

change, you know, like I

17:01

had a kid recently and one thing everyone

17:03

said was, nothing stays

17:05

the same. Like whatever problem you're facing

17:07

right now around not sleeping or teething

17:09

or whatever, it's going to be a,

17:12

that problem is going to go away and a

17:14

different problem will arise, but things will change. And

17:16

so I think that we just have to keep

17:19

in the fight, keep struggling. And just

17:22

the one thing we really have to avoid

17:24

is a sense of nihilism,

17:26

a sense of powerlessness. And

17:28

I know these are hard things to

17:30

avoid because they are kind of pressed

17:33

on us from all sides. But that's,

17:36

I think our biggest task is to

17:38

avoid that sense of despair and just

17:40

stay in the struggle. And how do

17:42

you sustain that, especially when it just

17:46

feels like so

17:48

much of the corruption that we're up

17:50

against in America is legalized corruption, you

17:53

know, these shell companies and dark

17:55

money groups, the Russians

17:57

are basically able to use all

18:00

of our own weaknesses against us in bringing Trump

18:02

to power in 2016. I

18:05

was just reminded of that reading an old interview

18:07

that we did here on the show with Craig

18:09

Unger who wrote this great book, House of Trump,

18:11

House of Putin. And

18:13

it's true. You know, America,

18:15

one of the most powerful economic engines in

18:17

the world, and yet you have so many

18:20

people slipping through the cracks. I know I'm

18:22

repeating myself now at this point, but it's

18:24

just, I can't tolerate this anymore. I feel

18:26

like we've become so numb to it and

18:29

going about our business and just tolerating

18:31

what should be intolerable. So

18:33

what concrete steps would you

18:35

recommend for us to

18:38

take our economic power back, and

18:40

especially from a democratic establishment that

18:42

just seems increasingly out of touch?

18:45

I think it is good

18:47

to take an honest look at the terrains,

18:49

a part of why we feel so powerless

18:51

and part of why

18:53

the powers of oligarchy have gained

18:56

steam is that people are disorganized

18:59

and we've been actively disorganized. I

19:01

mean, over the last years, unions

19:03

have been purposefully decimated.

19:06

Community groups have been replaced with

19:09

sort of professional nonprofit advocacy groups.

19:12

We have a culture of

19:14

individualism and consumerism that encourages

19:17

us to think of ourselves

19:19

as lone actors. I've

19:22

written in the past about the difference between

19:24

activism and organizing. You can be an activist

19:26

on your own, raising your voice, raising

19:29

awareness, but organizing

19:31

is something that you actually have to do

19:33

with other people. You actually can't be an

19:36

organizer on your own. And so Leah and

19:38

I have often said that our book ultimately

19:40

is a kind of manifesto for organizing, and

19:43

that's what solidarity enables us

19:45

to do. Solidarity

19:47

again is about the

19:49

relationships between people. It's about

19:52

the bonds between us. And we see it

19:54

as both a means and an end. So

19:56

solidarity is a means of building organizational power.

20:00

a way of describing the world we want to

20:02

build and want to see. We want to see

20:04

a solid touristic society where people don't fall through

20:06

the cracks, where corruption

20:09

isn't legalized. There are

20:11

many books out there that provide diagnoses that

20:14

lay out the problems, and then there's a chapter at

20:16

the end that's like, here's all the policies that could

20:18

hypothetically fix things. Ungerry

20:21

Mander, we should reform

20:24

campaign finance, etc. Solidarity

20:27

is the middle step. How do you get

20:29

from the diagnosis to solution? We do it

20:31

through the hard work of organizing. For me,

20:33

I see hope as a discipline. I

20:36

say hopeful by trying to build

20:39

collective power. I think the importance

20:41

of rebuilding organized labor can't be

20:43

overstated. There are groups like Indivisible,

20:45

there are your local Democratic Socialists

20:47

of America chapters, there are local

20:49

tenants unions. Anything you

20:52

can do with others in an organized fashion

20:54

that's trying to build sustained small-d

20:56

democratic power, I think is really critical.

20:59

I write a bit in our book about

21:01

my role with the Debt Collective, which is

21:03

an experimental union of debtors. We're modeled on

21:05

the labor union. The idea is that many

21:07

of us are in debt today. We have

21:10

to debt finance things like education and healthcare

21:12

and housing. Our

21:14

debts are actually, they can be a

21:16

form of economic leverage if we get organized.

21:19

We've been pushing the Democratic Party to

21:22

cancel student debt as a pilot project

21:24

for this theory of change. It's

21:27

been working and now we have a movement

21:29

of tens of thousands of debtors who feel

21:31

less alone and less alienated. Even

21:33

when there are setbacks, I think people

21:36

still feel that disciplined, realistic

21:38

kind of hope because we know that

21:40

this is the only way. It's the

21:42

slow, sometimes tedious, I'll

21:45

admit it, work of getting

21:47

folks together with a shared agenda. That's

21:50

what we have to do. But I

21:52

think there can be real political benefits

21:54

from that. But I actually think it's

21:56

how by doing the work, you

21:58

create a feedback loop. And that to

22:00

me is where hope comes from. It's credible

22:03

hope, the hope of doing

22:05

the work of organizing in community. I

22:08

really agree with all that. The last chapter

22:10

of our book is called Solidarity and the Sacred.

22:12

And we think about that even in a kind

22:15

of secular sense. But the

22:17

idea is to build your

22:19

life intentionally around the things

22:21

that you think are important

22:23

and that are sacred to you

22:25

and to develop practices and rituals

22:28

and organizing maybe one of those

22:30

rituals, time and nature. You know, I think

22:32

it is important to kind of to just

22:34

be intentional about nourishing yourself

22:36

and reminding yourself of what's

22:39

important, not getting into the doom

22:41

scroll and kind of the negative

22:43

feedback loops, but finding ways to

22:46

build in, create routines, build

22:48

in habits that bring

22:50

you into positive contact

22:52

with other people into

22:55

projects that feel constructive. You

22:58

know, starting local is always it's almost

23:00

trite to say, but it's I think

23:02

it's really important is to just start

23:04

small, find something where you feel like

23:06

you can have an impact and or

23:08

a small group of people that you can do

23:11

a project with. And like Astra said, it's just

23:13

sort of in that work. There's a lot of

23:15

there can be a lot of nourishment. And and

23:18

we also talk about sort of the virtues of

23:20

solidarity. And when I was back

23:22

in graduate school, one of my

23:24

favorite philosophers was Aristotle. And he

23:26

writes about the virtues of a

23:29

just person, you know, to create a just

23:31

city. You need just people, which is actually

23:33

an idea that we've sort of abandoned. We've

23:35

kind of tried to construct a world where

23:38

you can have justice with without

23:40

regard for the character of of

23:42

who we are as as individual

23:44

people. But we actually kind

23:46

of want to reclaim the idea

23:48

that thinking about our own individual

23:50

character is really important to

23:52

the broader project of creating a more

23:55

just society. And so some of

23:57

the virtues, you know, in addition to keeping up hope.

24:00

We talk about courage

24:02

and humility, hospitality, justice,

24:05

and other aspects that we think

24:08

it's important to kind of cultivate

24:11

in ourselves. And

24:13

I do think hope is one of those. We've just

24:15

gotta hold onto it. Yeah,

24:18

as Harvey Milk said, the ultimate

24:20

community organizer, Harvey Milk, you've got to give them

24:23

hope. And so what I love about

24:25

your book, Solidarity is how

24:27

you trace the history of solidarity

24:29

and give all these concrete examples

24:31

of people power, all these different

24:34

factions coming together to build coalitions.

24:36

And I've talked about that on the

24:39

show for years, that there's no other

24:41

way than through coalition building. Nobody

24:44

gets into heaven alone. We all need each other.

24:46

For you, what were some of the

24:49

most inspiring examples from history that

24:51

really stay with you in your work? Well,

24:54

one that I've liked recently

24:57

since we all kind of hate Elon

24:59

Musk is the organizing around

25:02

Tesla that's been happening in Denmark,

25:05

Norway, Sweden. I think it

25:07

was Swedish factory

25:09

mechanics went on strike

25:12

and then the postal service

25:15

stopped delivering the Tesla license

25:17

plates and then the trash

25:20

stopped collecting trash from the

25:22

Tesla factory. And then the

25:24

Danish pension fund divested and

25:26

it was just really

25:28

amazing. My facts might be

25:30

a little fuzzy at this point, but really

25:33

amazing solidarity that actually is

25:36

in the United States solidarity

25:38

strikes like that are illegal,

25:41

which is horrible and devastating. Our labor

25:43

law is so bad. But

25:45

I think that that's an example

25:47

of just the kind of ripple

25:49

effect of ways that different

25:51

kinds of industries can organize together towards a

25:54

common end. Yeah, and related to

25:56

that, I think one thing I sort of knew, but

25:58

we really... try to bring it out in the book.

26:00

And I think it's really important is that so

26:03

many of the categories that we think

26:05

with today, even the example

26:07

Leah just gave of working class people standing

26:09

together against Tesla, like the idea of the

26:12

working class is something that had to be

26:14

invented. And so we linger

26:16

on that history of how as

26:19

the Industrial Revolution unfolded, working

26:22

individuals who were then in

26:24

guilds, who saw themselves as

26:26

craftsmen, as painters, as potters,

26:28

as iron smiths, or

26:31

what have you, began to see

26:33

as the economy changed, that they

26:35

had something more fundamental in common,

26:37

that they were workers whose labor

26:39

was being exploited. And

26:42

the idea of worker as a general

26:44

category came into view and the idea

26:46

of the working class. And those are

26:48

now just categories we think of, we

26:50

just think with them and in them

26:52

without recognizing how they were inventions and

26:54

how they're actually still evolving. We also

26:56

trace the development of the disability rights

26:59

movement. Disability rights activists

27:01

in the 60s and 70s were

27:03

inspired by the civil rights activists of the

27:05

period and said, hey, wow, we're facing related

27:08

challenges in our lives. We're also

27:11

subject to discrimination and we're

27:14

also marginalized. But disabled

27:16

people had to do intense amounts of

27:18

work. And this was really recent. These

27:20

people, a lot of them are still

27:22

with us today, saying, I might have

27:24

a physical disability, you might have something

27:28

that's very different than me, but we have

27:30

something in common. You have cerebral policy. I

27:33

have Arthur DeRosa, you are an

27:37

amputee, but we're disabled and we

27:39

are part of a community that

27:42

can have solidarity and fight for structural

27:44

changes. And thanks to those efforts, we

27:46

now have the ADA in this country,

27:48

the American with Disabilities Act, which provides

27:50

a baseline of

27:54

protection and accessibility that has improved people's lives.

27:56

Of course, we can do more. Those

27:59

stories are part of what by Leah

28:01

and I are hopeful because we've seen

28:03

people organized under really arduous conditions, and

28:05

we've seen the way that these collisions

28:07

are built, and then become part of

28:10

the way that we understand the world.

28:13

And so for us, new solidarity is,

28:15

it's not identity. It invites

28:17

us actually to transcend our identities, to

28:20

invent new ones, to invent new communities, instead

28:22

of being sort of trapped in

28:25

our inherited self conceptions. And I think

28:27

that that's really important. So

28:29

we emphasize the word transformation in the book.

28:31

We talk about what we call transformative solidarity,

28:33

and we contrast that with what we call

28:35

reactionary solidarity, because there are all sorts of

28:38

negative authoritarian, for example, white supremacists

28:40

or ethno-nationalist forms of solidarity. For

28:42

us, transformative solidarity is a kind

28:45

of solidarity that rather than shrinking

28:47

the circle of inclusion, aims to

28:49

expand it, to bust this

28:52

out of the frameworks that

28:55

are closing us down and turning us inwards.

28:58

And that process of building transformative solidarity

29:00

changes us in the process, and it

29:02

can also change our political system. You

29:05

had mentioned, Leah, and this is a

29:07

question for both of you, of course,

29:09

that the US has laws that

29:13

make it illegal to have

29:15

solidarity protests, right? I think

29:17

that's what you said, an example from Denmark,

29:19

where we couldn't do that in the US,

29:21

because solidarity strikes are illegal.

29:24

What are some other examples

29:27

here in the US of

29:29

how our establishment tries to

29:31

undermine and prevent our

29:34

solidarity? What are some examples of other

29:36

laws and systems in place? It

29:39

is important to understand the

29:41

kind of active campaign on against

29:43

solidarity, so that we recognize that

29:46

it's not like Americans just don't

29:48

have it, but that it's actually

29:50

being actively, intentionally undermined,

29:52

which means that's something we

29:54

can fight back against. So

29:57

I think another reason for hope, but it

29:59

is... to when you start

30:01

to think about all the ways it's being undermined. So,

30:04

for example, people have probably

30:06

been following Cop City. And

30:08

in Atlanta, the protests around the

30:11

new police encampment. And

30:13

in Georgia, they've made

30:15

the Solidarity Fund that

30:18

supported protesters. They've

30:20

called that money laundering and basically

30:24

made it illegal to help

30:27

get protesters out of jail, to provide

30:29

bail. So there's this

30:32

real attack on protests, on

30:34

protesters, on people's rights. I

30:36

mean, obviously, we've seen this

30:38

with the student encampments

30:41

around Gaza. So

30:43

we'll crack down on people's right

30:46

to assemble and protest. There

30:48

are also just a lot of divide and

30:50

conquer strategies to kind

30:53

of pull communities apart. This

30:55

is not necessarily legal strategies,

30:58

but narrative strategies that point

31:00

to particular communities being

31:02

at fault for the larger economic

31:06

conditions that we're all living in. Astrid,

31:10

remind me, we have a whole list,

31:12

but maybe you can fill in. Yeah,

31:14

I mean, we have a list

31:17

of the ways solidarity is criminalized. I

31:19

mean, as Leah says, from the structure

31:21

of our labor laws to, you

31:23

can really see it. We write about

31:26

it, but it's only intensified with the

31:28

crackdowns on peaceful protests. I mean, we

31:32

see some states passing laws that

31:34

are creating incredible penalties for things

31:36

like blocking sidewalks, ratcheting

31:40

them up to felonies or worse. Also,

31:43

some states are legalizing violence

31:45

against protesters by saying that

31:47

people can drive their

31:49

vehicles into protest with impunity. We

31:53

also argue that anti-trans legislation

31:55

is a way of breaking solidarity,

31:57

certainly the criminalization of abortion, which

31:59

puts abortion providers or

32:02

anyone seeking to facilitate an

32:04

individual who needs reproductive health

32:06

care, sometimes with offering

32:08

bounties for them. You know, we see that as

32:11

a way of breaking solidarity, creating an atmosphere of

32:13

fear and distrust. And

32:15

this is all because solidarity is really

32:17

threatening to the status quo. I

32:19

mean, that's why these laws are being

32:21

passed and that's why there has been

32:24

a longstanding campaign against

32:27

solidarity. And I

32:29

think it's really important for us to be

32:31

aware of this, especially as we face the

32:33

prospect of another Trump presidency. He's made it

32:36

very clear that, you know, he

32:38

wants to invoke the Insurrection Acts,

32:40

you know, which is this archaic

32:42

law that would essentially and

32:44

criminalize anyone protesting it. I don't know his

32:48

inauguration or what have

32:50

you. And so I think these

32:52

laws are, they're dangerous, they're intensifying and

32:55

we need to name them for what they are, which

32:58

is, you know, they're not really about people not protesting

33:00

the right way. They're not

33:02

only about abortion, they're not only about

33:04

trans health care. They really are about

33:06

keeping us afraid, about dividing us, about

33:09

conquering us. We need to understand

33:11

them as part of a broader pattern. Absolutely.

33:15

Could you speak a little bit

33:17

specifically about the trans issue? Because

33:19

here you have children, trans people

33:22

who are being deliberately

33:24

terrorized and deliberately used

33:26

by the far right to

33:29

create a culture war, to divide and conquer.

33:31

And unfortunately, it's also dividing

33:34

many on the left who are now

33:36

chiming in with their own opinions because

33:38

the scare tactics are working. It's

33:41

such a deeply

33:43

divisive culture war that

33:45

loses sight of the very innocent people

33:48

and their families, their loved ones that

33:50

are targets of it. And

33:52

I hear about this from our listeners across

33:54

the country. Some of them in some of

33:56

the reddest of so-called red states. And

33:59

unfortunately, even heard from members of our

34:01

community who have fallen

34:03

victim to that disinformation and

34:07

the fear campaigns and scapegoating. What

34:09

is your advice there to our

34:12

community, to Americans right

34:14

now especially, who are being

34:16

mind hacked over

34:18

this horrible issue, this horrible deliberately engineered

34:20

culture war? What advice do you have

34:22

for them to focus on

34:25

what's essential here, focus on human rights

34:27

and equity and focus on

34:29

solidarity? How do we build solidarity from

34:32

this? It's important to

34:34

step back and look at the

34:36

strategy and the larger dynamic that's

34:39

at play. Every couple

34:42

years, Republicans choose a

34:44

different population to target to

34:47

kind of pinpoint as a

34:49

threat, whether it's migrants, whether

34:51

it's women, whether it's gay people,

34:55

now it's trans people. Essentially,

34:58

I feel like

35:00

lure Democrats into this game of

35:02

will you or will you not

35:04

throw this community under the bus?

35:07

Too often, Democrats fall for

35:09

it. Every cycle, the

35:11

political establishment is basically like, which community

35:13

or coalition can we throw under the

35:15

bus and get away with that? I

35:18

think that's what we really have to understand

35:21

that these are strategies of the right to

35:23

divide us and to make

35:25

some people feel superior to others,

35:27

to make people feel scared about

35:29

change, about difference. It is

35:32

our task for those of us

35:34

who believe in the possibility of

35:37

a more inclusive open society, it's

35:40

our task to resist that, to recognize it

35:42

for what it is, and to

35:45

just keep standing together. I think

35:47

there are often actually positive political

35:49

consequences when we do that. Remind

35:51

me if I'm wrong, but in

35:54

North Carolina, the effort to create

35:56

those bathroom bills backfired.

36:00

it can backfire and Republicans can

36:02

back off when we show that

36:05

we're not moving and that we're going to hang together.

36:08

The thing is, the strategy of throwing coalition

36:10

members under the bus, I mean, it's so

36:12

disheartening. It's very disheartening as someone

36:15

who leans towards the Democratic side of the

36:17

political spectrum to feel like when Trump's in

36:19

power, everybody has their signs in their lawn

36:22

saying, you know, no one's illegal. But

36:24

right now Biden is boasting about

36:27

this executive order, which is,

36:29

you know, making it difficult for

36:31

people to apply for asylum, which is a

36:33

core part of domestic and international law and

36:36

then, you know, liberals are silent. So I think solidarity

36:39

is a framework that transcends the partisan, right?

36:41

I mean, we're in this partisan polarization where

36:43

it's like what the Democrats do, the Republicans

36:46

boo, what the Republicans do, the Democrats boo, even

36:49

as they kind of lock our arms

36:51

on certain issues. So we

36:53

need ways of talking and organizing that break

36:56

us out of that dynamic. They keep a

36:58

kind of moral position, I think, front and

37:01

center, which is, you know, this position of

37:03

inclusivity that we're actually, we need to build

37:05

a multiracial inclusive

37:08

democracy and

37:10

that to have a real democracy, again, we need

37:12

to tackle the concentration of wealth and the concentration

37:14

of the power that wealth buys. We

37:17

cite the work of a scholar named

37:19

Ian Haney Lopez, and I think it's

37:21

worth mentioning his work, which

37:23

Leah knows more about, but he does something

37:26

called the race class narrative, and

37:28

it's a way of talking to people about these

37:30

issues and to essentially put front

37:32

and center the way that race is

37:35

wielded by people

37:37

empowered by economic and political elites

37:39

to divide us. And

37:42

when you phrase things that way, his

37:44

research just, it really opens people's minds

37:46

up. Instead of seeing race

37:48

as just this kind of essentialist thing and

37:50

this like long standing battle between

37:53

black people and white people in the zero sum game, he

37:56

shows the way that it

37:58

is wielded to

38:00

undermine solidarity. And so I think

38:03

it would be wonderful if the Democrats were leaning into

38:05

that kind of framework and leading

38:08

with a kind of inclusive populism that

38:10

calls out the special interests who want

38:12

us to be divided and conquered instead

38:14

of trying to steal from the rights

38:16

playbook, which they just can't out-compete the

38:18

Republicans on hating immigrants and hating minorities.

38:20

It's not gonna happen. Bous

40:30

j'endre, t'endre, t'endre, t'endre, t'endre Le

40:33

move de n'ce vivant pour faire

40:35

S'ir que les l'ères, l'herre de

40:37

réagéoîre Le color de chacre, t'endre,

40:40

t'endre, t'endre, t'endre, t'endre Le

40:43

move de n'ce t'endre, t'endre, t'endre

40:45

Sous vous t'éposir, l'herre, t'endre Fuere

40:48

moutie, r'emuté, s'est His

41:00

Duke was This

42:00

election is here and it's

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happening. And

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it's bigger than Biden. We

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have the chance to hack away

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at corruption at the root by

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life issues from voting rights to

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environmental protections to LGBTQ plus rights

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and more are decided. Karl

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Rove ran the same strategy for

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the GOP during the Obama years,

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laying the groundwork for Trump to come to power

42:42

in 2016. Now

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we're reversing this dangerous trend, securing

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Our associate producer is Karlyn Dagle.

48:52

Our episodes are edited by Nicolas

48:55

Torres. And our Patreon exclusive content

48:57

is edited by Taj Easton and

48:59

Karlyn Dagle. And a

49:01

big warm welcome to Ganslit Nation's first

49:04

ever artist in residence who will be

49:06

with us through the summer of 2024,

49:09

getting us ready for victory on November 5th. A

49:12

big Ganslit Nation welcome to

49:15

Jerika Miguel, the wonderful singer-songwriter.

49:17

You can find her work

49:20

at Jerika Miguel. It's j-e-r-r-i-k-a-m-i-g-h-e-l-l-e.com.

49:22

Her music is incredibly haunting.

49:24

You heard it on the

49:27

show at the very end

49:29

of May. You'll hear it

49:32

again, getting us ready for

49:34

the election. If you

49:36

like what we do, leave us a review

49:38

on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners.

49:41

And check out our Patreon. It keeps us

49:43

going. Our original music

49:45

in Ganslit Nation is produced by David

49:47

Whitehead, Martin Wissenberg, Nick Farr, Damian Arayaga,

49:50

and Karlyn Dagle. Our logo design was

49:52

donated to us by Hamish Zweigt of

49:54

the New York-based firm Order. Thank you

49:57

so much, Hamish. Ganslit Nation

49:59

would like to thank supporters at the producer

50:01

level on Patreon and higher. Work

50:03

for better, prep for trouble,

50:05

that's right. Lily Wachowski, John

50:08

Schoenthaller, Ellen McGirt, Larry

50:11

Gasson, Dee Scott, Ann

50:14

Bertino, David East, Joseph Mara

50:16

Jr., Mark Mark, Sean

50:19

Berg, Kristen Puster, Kevin

50:21

Gannon, Sondra Collins, Katie

50:24

Masouris, James D.

50:26

Leonard, Leo Chalupa, Carol

50:28

Goldstad, Marcus J. Trent,

50:31

Joe Darcy, Ann Marshall,

50:33

D'Al Singfield, Nicole Spear,

50:36

Abbey Road, Yans Alstraup

50:38

Rasmussen, Sarah Gray, Diana

50:41

Gallagher, Leah Campbell, Jared

50:43

Lombardo, Jared

50:46

Lombardo, Ann Marshall, Tanya Chalupa.

50:48

Thank you all for your support of

50:50

the show, we could not make Gaslight

50:52

Nation without you.