Varn Vlog
Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Varn Vlog
Navigating Progressive Politics in Nevada with Zee Cohen-Sanchez
Note: This was recorded in September during the early parts of the Harris campaign, some characterizations now I don't agree with. Get ready to unpack the complexities of progressive politics in Nevada with grassroots organizer Zee Cohen-Sanchez. As we navigate this battleground state's unique blend of libertarian and progressive influences, Z shares insights on the challenges faced by working families and the pivotal role of organized labor, particularly the culinary union, in supporting progressive candidates. Discover why the disconnect between the Democratic Party and progressives could be addressed by local elections and ranked choice voting, paving the way for systemic change in rural and urban areas alike.
Our discussion takes a critical look at the strategic paths for progressives seeking meaningful reforms. From the potential of Medicare for All to the hurdles of healthcare professional shortages, Z sheds light on the need for incremental steps and unified messaging. Explore how models from New York City and California could inform national strategies, and consider the potential for political shifts in traditionally conservative states. The debate within the Democratic Socialists of America about balancing electoral system engagement and grassroots organizing is also on the table, as we advocate for realistic strategies to protect and advance progressive agendas.
Finally, we tackle the generational gap in political engagement and the Democratic Party's need to restructure its approach to empower younger voters. With a focus on the influence of consulting industries and the barriers faced by young, less affluent candidates, Z's insights reveal the importance of initiatives like New York City's matching funds program. We also highlight the value of grassroots strategies in building political power from the ground up, underscoring the significance of local election laws like ranked-choice voting. Listen in to learn how these elements contribute to a more inclusive and representative governance system.
Crew:
Host: C. Derick Varn
Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.
Intro Video Design: Jason Myles
Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn
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twitter: @varnvlog
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Hello and welcome to my blog. Today we're here with Z Cohen Sanchez, a grassroots organizer for various progressive campaigns. We are talking about the organizing space, to use a very loose term currently in 2024. I feel like progressives are often a little mixed about the landscape of possibility for them right now, so I wonder what you see on the ground and where exactly you're organizing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we are organizing all over the country nationwide, but me personally, I'm in Nevada, so I am in a battleground state and battleground town. But yeah, no, I think that in terms of organizing, I mean, we know that it starts from the bottom up, so we focus a lot on local level races, city council, the legislature, places like that the legislature.
Speaker 1:places like that, and Nevada seems particularly fraught these days. I was recently there. It's an interesting state in that it's a Western state, that is, a battleground state. It shares that with New Mexico, but its culture is very libertarian. So how do progressive causes go over there and what is your angle for grassroots organizing in such a state?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Nevada is a really interesting state, I think, because I'm not sure how many people are familiar with our history of the Democratic Party out here, but during the 2016 movement for Bernie, our Democratic Party here locally was actually taken over by the progressive wing of the party, so that happened. We have very stark differences, I think, in terms of outsiders to the party here in Nevada, so a lot of Trump support, a lot of support of candidates like Bernie Sanders, and not a whole lot of the in between, which means that you know, I think that that's the biggest reason why Nevada has struggled so much in terms of like being one way or the other.
Speaker 1:So what conditions in Nevada would lead to, say, a lot of support for very progressive causes in what would culturally and industry-wise seem like a pretty red state. I know it isn't, but yeah, well, I mean.
Speaker 2:so I think like it's again. It's really about like the inside and the outside of the party here and you know people and like, as you mentioned, very libertarian right, which is always interesting to me because I feel like Trump is like so opposite of a libertarian candidate. But there is that populist message I think that people sometimes mix up with, like limited government. Some of the more progressive causes here that I think people like champion are things like abortion we are definitely a sanctuary state and like that has never been really brought up as like something that Republicans want to take away from women. You know issues like that where there's more so like limited government.
Speaker 1:Why would Bernie Sanders be popular in that or not? That he has regressive views on abortion or anything, but it still seems hard to square.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I I really just think that people here are sort of sick of the status quo. Right Like the establishment Democratic Party is not something that people really gravitate to out here. A big part of that, I think, is that we do have a lot of migration from California and typically people that are moving to Nevada are not people necessarily that believe in. You know that California is a great state, so we do get a lot of those people that come over here looking for quote unquote more limited forms of government.
Speaker 1:So can we talk about, say, wealth patterns in Nevada, and the West Nevada seems particularly interesting. I mean, I was recently in Vegas for a wedding and costs there are and costs there are dramatically different than, say, costs in Utah, which are expensive but consistently so, whereas in Nevada it's actually very hard to predict prices, even well off the tourist areas in the strip. So what kind of concerns are working families having out there right now?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean definitely cost of living is one of them. I mean, even though, like, yeah, like Utah is, I would say, certainly less expensive. Well, depending on where you are right. But Nevada has definitely gone up significantly, particularly in our city. So, like Las Vegas, we've had a massive increase in housing cost over the last five, six years. Um, so much so that in a lot of places it's even doubled, which is really big, you know, hurt working families.
Speaker 2:Um, our, certainly our food cost has gone up because of the cost of import and export. Um, as everybody knows, nevada is not exactly like the best place to grow food. It is a desert, essentially. So, but what you do see in like places like Las Vegas, and why I believe Las Vegas and places like Reno have stayed blue, are really the tourist industry, and how many people work in the tourist industry. So we have a lot of folks that are very, very much working class and relying on tips and relying on, you know, tourists to come in and enjoy our state, and so I think that that really has driven places like Las Vegas and Reno blue.
Speaker 1:So what is organized labor like in Nevada? I actually am surprised, being a union guy myself, that I don't know, but I don't.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's very strong, Like our culinary union is extraordinarily strong, and that was a big piece of why Bernie Sanders did so well. Was that, like the culinary union had endorsed like fairly early and really got out the vote for him in a really strong way. I think that there were definitely, like other reasons why Barney did extraordinarily well here, but certainly the culinary union had a big piece to do with it.
Speaker 1:So in your experience, would you find that moderating towards the center probably doesn't actually help Democrats and progressives or any kind of leftist at all in a place like Nevada and I know that's kind of a leading question, but you could just tell me no but does the centrist politics have a lot of appeal, particularly considering the reputation of California?
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, it's, I think, like on the federal level, yes, but I think locally less so, and I think it really obviously depends very much on, like where you're running, because there are definitely places in Nevada that I think the establishment message works a lot better than in other places, but I think, primarily, it hasn't it just we haven't. We only just got hit, I think, with, like the MAGA train fairly recently in terms of losing a lot of our seats. So, like now we have Sam Brown, who's running for US Senate, who's like extraordinarily MAGA Trump loyalist, and we have others too here, particularly like our governor, as, as most people know. So, yeah, no, I think that it really depends on, like, where you're running in Nevada, but I think, generally speaking, the progressive message versus the not even the progressive message the anti-establishment message does very, very well out here.
Speaker 1:Right. So we see moderation on the national level but not at the local level, both on both sides. The local level, both on both sides probably. Well, I ask because it seems like a lot of people's instincts is to moderate on the state level, on all levels in purplish states. But looking at what I've seen even and I'm originally from the South and I live in Utah now I'm originally from the South and I live in Utah now but that that does not necessarily seem to be a good strategy for candidates and I don't really know if it's a good strategy for advocacy groups. So that's why I'm asking. I often think that we do not take the particularities of the region, states and even municipalities that we're in, you know, seriously enough, because most of our news cycle is national.
Speaker 2:now, Do you find the national news cycle have so many issues in progressive organizing? I think it's definitely a symptom or one of the things that doesn't help, but I don't think it's like the core reason, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess that leads me to the next question. What do you think is the core reason? If that makes sense? Yeah, yeah, well, I guess that leads me to the next question.
Speaker 2:What do you think is the core reason? I mean, there are quite a few things, but I think like, well, first things first is that we have a habit of eating our own, and that's been a problem in the progressive movement. I would think really like almost since the beginning, or at least like in the modern beginning right, and like when I say like modern beginning, I'm talking like at least the last 10 years, that has been a big issue. It's like we have a lot of folks that are super far left, that don't even believe in electoral politics. Then we have people that are extremely far right of the party, and finding a middle ground there can be very, very difficult. I'm not denying that the right is a lot better at that. The right is a lot better at coalescing around a message, coalescing around a candidate. Of course, like with Trumpism, there are certainly people that have left the party. There's no doubt about it, but they've left the party right, like there isn't this sort of like lingering. I mean, well, I guess there was during the speaker incident, but it seems like, at least at this point, they have decided to get behind Trump.
Speaker 2:We don't, we don't do that as well as the Republicans do so. I think that that that's the main cause of of our struggles. We also don't use fear as a messaging tactic, and so it can be really, really tough when you are trying to fight against that message. You know, when you're trying to fight the big boogeyman of the illegal immigrant coming and taking all your jobs, and we turn around and we say facts, and you know this is a fact and that's a fact, and illegal immigrants aren't. And you know this is a fact and that's a fact, and illegal immigrants aren't. Actually, you know that the facts don't work as well as the fear tactics do, and so we will always going to be behind just because of that.
Speaker 1:We have noticed a change in national level signaling from the Democratic Party in the last couple months, where they have been relying on fear tactics, but I don't know if it's a difference in the nature of the base or what, and I do take psychological profiling as something we should seriously consider on the left, profiling as something we should seriously consider on the left, but it does seem like we've moved away from the fear of democracy, which seems to be not as effective as a fear like not a fear-mongering but, but it doesn't seem to work.
Speaker 1:Um, or yeah, people agree that it's a threat, but they don't even on the left, they don't agree with why it is a threat like, or what particular thing is going to be beyond Trump himself as a kind of nebulous demagogue figure the particular threat. So we've seen a lot of talk about the politics of joy. I have my critique of that, but I do think it does seem to have struck a chord with at least Democratic activists from progressive to slightly left of center. What do you think that is, given that we also know that the fear tactics seem to work for conservatives?
Speaker 2:You know this is. So I think that one of the biggest issues here and this is no shade on Kamala's campaign at all I think she's running a fantastic campaign, considering the situation that she's in. Like, how many people end up in this situation over the course of history? Not very many, if any right. So I give her so much credit for that and for her team and everything that they're doing to. I mean, she has risen in the polls and that was her job and she's done that successfully.
Speaker 2:However, I think this whole issue with the disconnect between the Democratic Party and more progressive folks, particularly those that are, you know, not wanting to vote for Kamala, maybe because of her position on Palestine, or not wanting to vote for her for her position on the police, and I think that this message of joy, I think particularly angers that group of people because it just continues to show them that they don't matter in that discourse necessarily. Now should they change that message? I'm not sure, because, honestly, progressives don't vote for the most part, so like and I've tried to make videos on TikTok about this when progressives are trying to hold their vote as a protest vote. As somebody that has worked both inside and the outside of the establishment that doesn't do anything because they are not target voters. So, essentially, like you're holding your vote as hostage for something that is not, it just doesn't make sense, as if you're not a target person to them like, why is withholding your vote going to do anything, essentially? So I mean, that's I think that's the state of it Like, should they change the message at this point?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think it's too late. But I can understand from the progressive person's perspective that they might feel sort of annoyed by that message, given that they don't feel joy, even though we do, because a lot of us have been working inside the system and this is a huge jump from where we were and we need to acknowledge that there's been that big jump and, in a sense, like reward the Democratic Party for doing this, because the alternative was extraordinarily bad. The alternative was that they would have kept Joe Biden and we were going to lose the presidency. So the fact that they at least listened even though it was just the donors at the end of the day, but the donors were listening to the people because the people had said they're not voting for Joe Biden so I think that that's still it's a step forward.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's a lot of potential perils for the Harris campaign, but they're doing a messaging they're doing rather well and we can't really speak about anything beyond messaging. Yet the question that I have, maybe a little bit that you hit on and one that as a person who is not an anti-electoralist I'm not, otherwise we wouldn't be talking but I am somewhat skeptical of progressives trying to use electoral politics as their means to build their base, for the reason why you said, from a game, theoretical perspective, there's nowhere for them to go. Either they're not going to vote, so they're going to hold a protest vote, or they are going to vote. And who are they going to vote for?
Speaker 1:Right, and running third party candidates, particularly after state level reforms post Ross Perot, is stupid and I know a lot of people would not expect me to say that, but it's. Also it has the theory of political change kind of backwards. It's a very, you know, weirdly for people who are grassroots oriented, it's actually a very top down view of how politics works. Like if we just change the head of the snake, the entire snake will change Right, and Even with the GOP and Trump that wasn't immediately true. That's been an eight-year-plus process. So if you are progressive right now, of any stripe, where would you tell people to devote their energy to building a longer view of systemic change, energy to building a longer view of systemic change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good. So I mean, really like, what we have to do is we have to change the way in which we vote. So we have to, we have to champion ranked choice voting and start voting in states, because when we do that, that's when we start to see actually real primaries right. And this has been a big complaint amongst I mean not just progressives, to be honest, like amongst more than just progressives, I mean even folks that work in the establishment have been frustrated with this about how there's always this idea of like fake choice right and then, like, for example, we already knew going into this presidential election that Joe Biden was not liked, that was very clear. Could we have had a primary with more than just like unserious third party style candidates? Of course we could have had a legitimate primary and we could have championed that person that won, and then we would have been in a much better situation.
Speaker 2:And what we've seen time and time again is that we have these like sort of what we call like show primaries right, like they don't really matter. The party picks somebody and that's the person they're going to champion, whether they win the primary or not. But when you start changing that at the local level. When you start having ranked choice voting, it's no longer the party's decision. At that point, right, like? Ranked choice voting really changes the game, and so sure are there ways that they could disrupt that. I mean, of course, I think like of course, right, but like coming seeing the way that this has been adapted by cities. We have a lot more working class electeds getting getting elected to office now than we ever have before, and so that's something that I highly encourage any anyone who is frustrated with the system to do is to get involved in passing those measures.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing I've always thought about, about movement conservatism in a way, is that they tend to go where the barriers to entry are low School board seats, rural districts, where you don't need a million dollars to run for city council. Progressives, by and large, don't seem to do that. Why do you think?
Speaker 2:a big part of it.
Speaker 2:But also, I think that there sort of becomes this like disillusion with the system, and I think that this happens with everyone, not just progressives, but I think more so with progressives that you know we start to look at the system as well.
Speaker 2:It only matters what happens at the presidency level, or it only matters what happens at the US Senate level, and that's just not true.
Speaker 2:I mean and that's something that we really have to get through to people is that so much of our decisions and so much of our community happens at the school board level and so many of these seats never go challenged? Right, as you said, like there are seats that we have we haven't had a Democratic challenger for in 30 plus years. Right, like and you know it's not that these areas are too red to win Like, you can flip any red district with the right strategy, the right money and the right message, but people don't even try. And then they're really and that's what I don't understand is that there's so many people so frustrated with the system but yet not willing to run for school board, yet not willing to pass a ballot measure. Yet not willing to pass a ballot measure, yet not willing to do anything that's actually going to make the system better, other than just withholding their vote, as if that's going to do something All right.
Speaker 1:So let's say you are progressive in a rural area and you get voted to, I don't know, like um, the chamber of commerce or the, the port authority or something small. Um, I have known people that do this and succeed uh, even independents, not just Democrats, but often, even if they're Democrats, what they discover is there's no, um, they don't know how to do the job. Basically, they got elected to something and they don't entirely understand what they got into and there's not a lot of support for them. So where would you point for people to find support or to build those support networks?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's a big issue that we have with Democratic Party, I think, as a whole is that there are big gaps in infrastructure to even be able to support people. So I think a lot of people like I hear a lot of people complaining when they're running for office that they don't have the structure for the Democratic Party, but then, like they've never volunteered or they don't know anybody that's ever volunteered, and a lot of these chapters do not have money. It's not like they're flooded with money with full time staffers. Most of these Democratic chapters, especially in rural areas, some of them don't even have a chapter. Others, like, have, like part time, unpaid, volunteer folks that are running them and so there's not that infrastructure already set up, folks that are running them, and so there's not that infrastructure already set up.
Speaker 2:So what I would encourage folks to do is to reach out to first find out if you even have a Democratic Party infrastructure in the first place and if you don't like, start a working group to get something started. If you don't have that kind of time and you are passionate for running for office, and there are other organizations that can help you do that. Like our organization, we put on a lot of free seminars and webinars for first time candidates to help them to get to know the process. There are other organizations to like emerge, which is fantastic If you're a woman candidate. They have great training programs Emily's list for sure especially if you're running for federal office and you're a woman. Um, latinas represent I mean. There's so many of them and I actually have a link tree in my bio on my tiktok if anybody's interested in going to find those resources.
Speaker 1:So to put a little heat on it a little bit, one one talking point for the democratic party for the past I don don't know, 15 years, since Barack Obama is a demographics as destiny argument that the diversification of the United States would automatically lead to them being kind of in a semi-permanent majority in most of the country. That talking point has kind of been dropped recently because it's just not entirely happening. And while there has been overstatement, I think, about how conservative, say, latin voters are, there does seem to be some real movement there in directions that should make progressives a little bit concerned. Make progressives a little bit concerned. How would you stem that tide? And you know what, do you think?
Speaker 2:communities of color in Nevada like are really concerned about. Well, I mean, certainly the cost of living is a huge issue and I mean, yeah, the reality is is that it's been a long time since the Democratic Party has had meaningful conversations with really all people of color in this country, across all different states, and I think that I think where we're going to see that change over time and this is why it's so important to get involved locally is that the younger people that are rising up in the Democratic Party now are very much aware of this right, as opposed to what we call like the old guard that has maybe been aware of it but, honestly, hasn't really cared, to be perfectly frank. So I think that we're going to gradually see that change, but, again, if we're going to see it at the pace in which we need to see it, we need to have more people involved that are younger and that are willing to climb the top of the inside to be able to make that change.
Speaker 1:I guess one thing I would ask is while clearly you focus a lot on electoral campaigns and I do think that's important, even as a fire-breathing radical myself I would say that there's a couple of things that I think that we should probably zoom in on the cost of living and stuff like the health care crisis, which is now kind of been exacerbated on two fronts. We have the old health care crisis and it costs too damn much money for everybody, including the government, um, but we have a new health care crisis on top of that, which is we don't have enough people to run the system, and tons, of tons of money now is going into just maintaining the coding and this and not into hiring doctors, nurses, compensating for declining Medicare payouts, et cetera, et cetera. How would you know, in your ideal world, what would you be organizing to do to help that situation and how do you think that would help prospects for everyone?
Speaker 2:So you mean like sort of like trying to change over more so to like a Medicare for all system.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I would love a Medicare for all system tomorrow, but that's not like. Like, I am of the opinion you're going to have to take a couple baby steps there. You know, again, even as a fire-breathing radical I don't. I saw how quickly people caved on that, and if, like you, don't have enough doctors and nurses, then Medicare for All doesn't actually necessarily fix all that. So what kind of things are we looking at? What kind of things could we be looking at, you know, advocating for and what would, what would be popular with your constituency?
Speaker 2:Well, I think obviously definitely depends on where you're running, but I do think that, like making sure that we have people that are able to get into education that is more affordable helps this crisis. Right and this has been a big crisis for a long time is college affordability, and not even just college affordability, but like also like two year programs right. Like there's a lot of, I don't believe like to be a registered nurse, but like techs and things like that, like being able to go to two year colleges. A lot of that has been unaffordable for people and I think, as we're seeing the rising cost of living, that becomes even more unaffordable for people. So I think if we work towards like a system like they have in New York City now, where if you're a New York City resident, you can prove that you've lived there, I think that's like for five years, you get free college tuition at CUNY, the City University of New York, and those are really good schools. I see these are not like bottom of the barrel type schools at all. I mean, they're very highly accredited, amazing universities. So I think that we can work towards a system like that in every state.
Speaker 2:I think New York is, honestly, with all the problems that it has. I think we can really look to it as like a place for us to move forward from, because so much has been able to be changed at the local level in New York that we're seeing these systems like we have. Essentially, we have a Medicaid, a Medicare for all style system in New York City. Um, yes, it's based on your income, but, like very few people don't have health care because we're able to, I think it's like sixty thousand dollars or something is like the what you have to like. If you make over that like per person, then you have to like contribute, but essentially, like we've done so much with rank choice voting there, with free college tuition if you're a resident, and we need to start moving this like at a national scale from state to state.
Speaker 1:Do you think it would be easier to move to a national scale if more state parties adopted such platforms?
Speaker 1:I mean yes, a hundred percent A hundred percent, Not to put our West coast uh democratic friends on blast. But um, one thing I have noticed is that the New England Democrats, because of a history going back to the early 20th century, at least the mid 20th century, even before the bankruptcy of New York City, there is, you know, to use economic, technical periodization, a kind of Fordist infrastructure that the West Coast does not have. Like you do not see the same infrastructure in California, even when you see similar policies being attempted, Like you know. And I've been a little worried myself when progressives start talking about using California as a model, for two reasons One, it's vastly unpopular in this country, just that state itself. Two, fair or unfair, I mean, I'm not going to get into that. And two, there is a technically neoliberal undergird to a lot of they do, where they have public-private partnerships that actually end up being very expensive and they don't have the results that New York does without as many public-private partnerships.
Speaker 1:That seems a little bit fine-grained for progressives today. Like when I talk about that, a lot of people kind of their eyes glaive over. But I'm like you really need to study municipal public policy when you're, when you're talking about these things are state level public policy because they are different. Um, uh, and we have seen in the case of new york, there is an attempt by conservative states to break it under the guise of immigration. So one of the reasons why they've been shepherding illegally a lot of migrants to northern cities is, you know, to share the cost. But also it's had the effect of trying to break, or at least make unpopular, effective public sector, you know, protections that are municipal or state level. How do we combat that in messaging? Because that does seem to be a serious problem and even someone, like I said, as radical as me does not want to see those things dismantled.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that, well, one of the issues that we have is that we're not all aligned, I think, on the progressive side, on a shared message. There so many people that don't want to work within the current system, whether it's municipal or otherwise, and so I think it's really hard to. I don't know if we're, like, at the point where we can make the case yet, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:OK, so you're working on a lot of grassroots networking and you're working in Nevada. You obviously have some background in New York, and if you were to say to start building both through the Democratic Party and outside of the Democratic Party and I am I have my deep critiques of the donor system of the Democratic Party, but I do realize that if you're going to even make reforms and make more radical politics possible, you're going to have to work with some of these institutions. There's no way around that no-transcript in what used to be a purple state not anymore, but well, it could be, though. I mean, that's the thing. Is you actually? We can look at the number of liberal and left-leaning people in Florida. It should not be as crazily red as it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah it should not be. Yeah, they elected the smartest person ever to Congress and they say Miami-Dade County could turn blue for Kamala, so it's definitely making strides.
Speaker 1:Right. So it does seem that you kind of in a I think progressives are in a bind, and I want to get you to talk about that bind because, on one hand, you're absolutely right, we attack each other way too much. We attack each other on the far left way too much. We just attack each other way too much Often because, let's be quite frank, I think a lot of our frustrations are aimed at people that we can't get at, but the people right next to us we can. But I do think, like we're going to have to think about how to work on strategic things with people we disagree with on a wide variety of of other issues. And how would you go about instantiating that culture? Because, like I said, you're working in Nevada. You obviously are going to have to work with people who might agree with you on like 70% of your worldview, but that 30% they don't, they really don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I think that, like, I think a big part of sort of renovating that culture is that we need to work with young people that don't know anything about this, essentially right, that are just coming into the fold now, folks that are turning 18. Essentially right, that are just coming into the fold now, folks that are turning 18. But also, like, I think that, like this whole, I think that I see at least a lot more joy in the young generation in terms of their hope for the future, right now at least. So I feel very hopeful that we can change that structure with them.
Speaker 2:But if we're going to do that, we have to take responsibility as the Democratic Party, because really, when I say the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is not just the establishment.
Speaker 2:The Democratic Party, like we've mentioned, are a lot of times in these rural areas, like every working class people who are just volunteering their time because they care about their community.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about the Democratic Party, I think it's important to mention that it's not just Nancy Pelosi, like, yeah, she's calling the shots at the top, whatever you want to think, it's probably true, but at the end of the day, like that does not make up nearly what the whole Democratic Party really is. So I think that getting those younger people to continue that, to continue that hope, is really important beyond this presidential race, whether Kamala wins or loses. But then giving them the tools that they need to get involved, because that's been a big issue that we've had again because of a lack of infrastructure, but we haven't told people how to do that. So a lot of the times when I'm making content, I think it's really basic, like everybody should know this information, like how to sign up to run for office, how to start your fundraising journey, like to me it feels very simple, but a lot of people don't know this.
Speaker 2:A lot of people, even that like work within the structure of the Democratic Party, don't know this, so I think it's important for more operatives to give that information for free.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the only way we change it. Why don't more operatives give it away for free? Well, that's a deep, dark question. I mean.
Speaker 2:You know, I think the consulting industry I mean, if we want to get into the consulting industry there are a lot of issues with the consulting industry. The number one issue is that is primarily almost entirely all men. A lot since 2018, we've seen a slight shift in that, so there are definitely more women that are entering the consultancy space, and entering not just in I don't like to use the word just consultancy, because I think that, like, for example, I think what we do is not consult. We're not consulting somebody really. I mean, we're actually staffing their entire race. So I think that there have definitely been more women that have joined, but there's certainly a massive deficit and also the age skews extraordinarily old, like the average consultant in this industry and I don't have the stats for this, but like, at least from my own anecdotal experience is that most consultants are over the age of 60.
Speaker 2:So that really, you know, it doesn't help to expand this knowledge base, because I mean, why would they give away this information for free if they've always made a shit ton of money doing it? Excuse my French. But it's true, right Like, why like? Why would they um? Also like they're consistently rewarded by um, essentially like it's become a boys club at the top. So, essentially, like, the more people that you know in this industry, the more well connected you are, which usually takes money. Age being white usually is very helpful. You know that it really sort of narrows down that we it's harder to get people to make money when they enter the space right. So that's why we don't have a lot of people offering this information for free, because if the barrier to entry was easy, then we'd have a lot more women, I think, doing this work.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm just thinking about the Democratic Party of you know somebody who would have been 20 and 1980. And you would have still had the Southern Democratic machines being largely Dixie-Crat. You would have had, you know, highly conservative Democrats holding a whole lot of the Southeast. You would have had very old machine politics which, outside of a very few states, is not really around anymore. Um, so, on one hand, yeah, I could see why they'd hoard the exes for their own monetary gain. On the other hand, um, I also don't know what they would know about the upcoming electorate, because, while, yes, baby boomers, uh, do vote more than any other group, as the elderly tend to, and Gen X is getting of age, where it's also going to vote, and Gen X is more conservative than the baby boomers, despite what people think, the polls are pretty clear on that.
Speaker 1:Um, it does seem like, well, for example, at the current moment, the largest generation in the United States, I think, as of like two years ago, definitely post-COVID is millennials. I mean, there's more millennials than boomers for the first time in well, ever. Yeah, so, and I find it interesting that that's you know, and millennials are, if I'm going to use a generational cohort generalization, that's probably a little bit unsound, but, but they are more politically engaged than Gen Xers. Maybe they're more politically engaged than boomers, where it's a little bit of a harder thing to say. I don't even know how you measure that, but they're definitely more than Gen Xers. Maybe they're more politically engaged than boomers, where that's a little bit of a harder thing to say.
Speaker 2:I don't even know how you measure that.
Speaker 1:But, they're definitely more than Gen Xers and yet they are still kind of dramatically underrepresented, even at state level politics. Why do you think that is? Is it just this old boy network? Is it weird political habits? Is it extended adolescence? Is it all of it? Like you know what's going on here.
Speaker 2:I think less people run that don't have money, you know, I think that that's like a big issue and the boomers are holding the wealth, whether we like it or not. So I think it's a lot easier to say you know, I'm going to run for Congress and take two years off when, like you, don't even really have a job, like you know, versus like millennials who sometimes have two, three jobs, kids that are very young, you know, I mean the demands of running for office, which, again, this could all be changed like this, doesn't it doesn't have to be this way. Office, which, again, this could all be changed Like this, doesn't it doesn't have to be this way. If we get enough people elected where somehow in the future we're able to overturn Citizens United, this could really change a lot of things. But again, at the city level, one of the reasons why we see so many young people in local New York City politics is because of the city match. So in New York City now, as of, I think, two cycles ago, so I think it's been four years or so you get for every.
Speaker 2:Well, there are a lot of rules to entry, right, but the rules to entry are fairly not easy, but I mean, if you work hard at your race, you can achieve it. Right, I think you need something like you need a couple thousand donations of like five dollars or more in your district, right, um? And if you get that within a certain period of time which I mean pretty much most 90 percent of people do if you're working decently hard, um, then you get a for every one dollar that you raise. You get nine dollars from the city, so your twenty thousand dollars turns into two hundred thousand dollars for a local election, which that is a game changer, right, like. And that's why we saw a huge wave of new people, young people, getting elected to these seats that we've never seen before.
Speaker 2:Like people like you know Chiawse I think that's how you say his name, I'm sorry if I mispronounced his name who's a city councilor in a Brooklyn district that had never, I believe, like. He was one of the first people of color and the youngest person ever elected to the city council. He was like 22 or 23 when he got elected. People like Tiffany Caban, who was able to run for city council one her seat as well. Young, queer, latina woman. That's the type of representation you get when you have an easier barrier to entry like this Okay, so we?
Speaker 1:I mean there's two strategies that we can kind of see now. One is building up more municipal power to, because there's also the money to fund these things in the cities. Frankly, it's a little bit harder if you're in Alabama of people working more remote jobs with operating in rural districts, where they might be a very low barrier to entry and they could link up to more urban politicians if they framed it right. That's going to be a big if, but you could, because one thing that is a real problem for both the Democrats in general, in any form of leftist in specific, is the federalization of the United States and the fact that, while probably the great majority of people have center left-ish well, I don't know, probably it's actually poll after poll kind of verifies this center leftist orientation we, in a increasingly uh, not representative federalized system, um, where you know a senator from a place that basically has a prison in it and that population may or may not count for their uh, their pop, their population numbers, um, but they can't vote, uh, there's a common thing in south um makes it really unbalanced, particularly in like state legislatures.
Speaker 1:Uh, I mean, I live in utah where, like the legislature, would you? You would think it was. I mean 60-40, not 85-15. And a lot of that is because there just isn't anybody running in these rural counties who even can test these seats. They're just kind of safely held, and I think that's something for people to look at. And if people are very frustrated with the Democratic Party and I'm pretty sympathetic to that it seems like they would at least start looking at not so much Bernie's national campaign but what he did in Vermont.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly One vote at a time, by 10 votes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what was at the time a very red state for New England, and I do think that, like, there's a lot of not looking at that strategy and if those two strategies were paired together, you could actually probably do a lot more than you do, and then progressives would have more to bargain with with these centrists and leftists would have more to bargain with with progressives, which we currently, right now, kind of don't, because, you're right, we're, we're targeted, but we're not a targeted demographic because we're effectively captured. There's no like, if I don't like Joe Biden, what am I going to do? I'm going to stay home, right, well, but I'm not going to probably throw my vote to anyone else who's a threat to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? I don't know. Mansion fans can flip parties and they're thus actually not captured, and I don't really. You know when I tell people about that. You really can't deal with that without changing local election laws. Like there's no way to do that. So rank choice voting what else would we? What other, like local initiatives should people be pushing for?
Speaker 2:Well, there's like. I mean there's so many, just depending on what state you're in. I mean, every single time we have an election, we always have measures on the ballot and most of them are extraordinarily important, whether they go one way or the other Right. So I would I encourage everybody to look at their state specifically here in Nevada, the most important that we have right now is yes on three, which is going to be again great choice voting and open primaries, which is going to really change the game out here in terms of. I think it's going to be what will eventually turn us blue, which is crazy to say after what we've just been through in Nevada. But I do. I do believe we're on that trajectory if we're able to pass that.
Speaker 2:But you know what's really interesting about Bernie Sanders, because I know that what was I mean? Bernie, at least at the federal level right, was able to bring in these progressives like nobody else ever had done before, and so I think looking to him as a model for where we get to eventually is really important. But I think a lot of what people don't know about Bernie is that one, he started extremely local and he moved his way up. Two was that there's a whole article on this. I highly encourage people to go read. I believe it was in the New York Times. It was released, I think, six or seven years ago, but it talks about how Bernie started his organizing journey before he even had even a thought to run for office and what he did was that he hung out in in, basically in you know, project building.
Speaker 2:So like public housing, in their laundry room. Because people in the laundry room of public housing don't usually leave their laundry unattended, right? So like people have a long time to sit there and like not really do anything. And this was long before like the time of cell phones, right? So like he used to just go into these housing projects and just talk with people and figure out what was on their minds. Doing stuff like that is free, like there you can. You can community organize at that level and I encourage that for people to do that, because I think like just automatically getting up and running for office without really understanding your community is also not the best way to go about it. You need to understand your community and if you're not a person that's involved and you really hate the system so much while I always encourage people to attend their city council meetings. Maybe that's not your vibe, maybe the vibe is what Bernie Sanders did right, but there's always some way that you can get involved, to know your community. That is both inside and outside of that framework.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's very important and, just you know, like I said, vibrating radically here, but also a union organizer, and I work with people in very, very conservative teachers unions and very, very conservative district and I'm often surprised at how much progressive stuff I can do if not, if I just frame it right.
Speaker 1:But if I explain what I'm aiming for and then listen to their needs and you do have to sometimes be like, okay, course, trade this. Yeah, we realize that we're not going to agree on this because of certain cultural issues, but there's this and this and this we can agree on and then we can kind of stay at each other's business on these other things. And that seems antithetical to a lot of of radicals and and a lot of progressives too. And I worry about that because the other tendency and I'm going to almost I'm going to lose my fire breathingbreathing radical cred here but the other tendency that worries me is media feedback loops and people who are used to only listening to people who have similar views of the world as themselves, because it is fed back to them in the form of an algorithm and often those views are completely disconnected from their local community, like if I was to judge.
Speaker 1:Like you know, if I was to judge what people wanted as a union rep from I don't know what X or Facebook feeds me, I'd probably, like I don't know, be peddling something kind of absurd or maybe even red flag waving. I know that that would not go over well here, even though progressive and even socialist ideas, if pitched at the right level, are not necessarily unpopular, even in rural districts. So it does. Now I think people can go too far with this and think it's just about framing, and I don't really think that. But framing really does matter, and you can't know the frame if your view of the world is from a, from an algorithm niche. So what other things would you tell people to do to kind of break out of that, to bring their ideas to larger groups of people?
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I do that I recommend other people do as well, is that I have a dummy TikTok account, that I only interact with Trump content and it's a scary place down there, let me tell you but it really does help to open my eyes to what people actually believe on the other side and that's really important. Obviously, that's not going to help you at the local level. I think, honestly, the only way that you can really get to understand your community locally is to go out there and have conversations. But if you are in this like progressive echo chamber or you are in this conservative echo chamber, I really highly encourage having a separate account where you curate the other side so that way you can really start to see, you know what, what the other side is thinking, and that will really help you to understand your to help you understand, like, how to speak to that community. If you want to speak to that community, you need to know what they're saying and how they're saying it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's a vital thing and I always, you know, I tell people that you know, just like you expect your students I'm a teacher to code switch, you should also probably expect yourself to code switch when you're talking to different groups of people and that you not assume that everyone on the other side is necessarily out to kill you. Some of them are. I mean, I'm not going to say that none of them are, some of them are and there's some scary stuff you see in that world, but you also can't, unless you engage with that world. Pretty significantly, you can't tell who's the real danger and who's like caught up in the moment and there are tales, so it's. I think these are things that people really need to learn and unfortunately, our current media landscape makes it a little bit harder to do.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm really thinking about your example in New York. One of the things I'm interested in New York is New York is one of these places where the DSA has an actual caucus and actually does real stuff, as opposed to places like most of this country. And on one hand so my audience knows I do realize that some of that has a de-radicalizing effect. I don't always think de-radicalizing on everything is good, but on the other hand, they do actually have to make policy and deal with policymakers there in a way that like different, progressive and democratic don't. That's a big problem.
Speaker 1:But I think you've actually given me something to think about that. I haven't thought about why that might be the case, and some of it might be that they have been in a dialogue with the city, going on back in the 1980s, when the DSA was very small and building this more inclusive electoral structure of which they could actually have some influence, whereas, like I don't know, if you try to do that here in Salt Lake City, you'd just be laughed out of the room, but you could build that here slowly. I think you know how like I guess this might be my last question, but like how do you encourage people to have a strategy of patience and organize it?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a tough question Because I think all of us at some point get frustrated and I think, like frustration is natural progress, I I don't believe that anything is worth doing if it doesn't frustrate you at some level, or challenge you, even if it's not frustrate you at some level. But I think to continually recognize and understand that the goal should not be a purity test. The goal should be how do we support the people that are 90% with us? And this has been my biggest issue with certain chapters of the DSA, not the whole organization. I'm a card carrying member of the DSA but there has always been this sort of fight in a lot of places over whether we should have an electoral system or not, essentially, whether we should work within the system or not.
Speaker 2:And I think that having those conversations in organizing doesn't help us, because you know when people are attacking AOC because she's not, you know, in the middle of like Nancy Pelosi's office protesting for like a ceasefire, for example, even though her voting record is so incredibly progressive, is not helpful, right. Like organizing against somebody like AOC is honestly ridiculous. Like I hate to tell people, like I hate to say that, but it is right, and like there are other people too. I mean, you know, organizing against like anybody that's in the squad or anybody that's even close to being in the squad is ridiculous, because it doesn't help our movement get any further. If you are using purity tests on people like AOC, I hate to say it, but you're helping the Joe Mansions out there, you're helping the Kristen Sinemas, because what ends up happening is that everybody turns their attention to that and then you have these people making decisions in the dead of night that ruin our movement. So I think frustration is normal, but I don't think that, like, organizing against progressives that are 90% with us is normal.
Speaker 1:So I have a theory about that, and one of the things that I always hear from even the more combative end of the DSA is that we need to hold our electives accountable, and my response has been and this cuts in a lot of directions but you also have to be able to protect them and right now you can't. You don't have enough people and you don't have enough money, and you need one or the other. And 52 to 100,000, however many people are in the dsa this week, uh, uh people. While that's a lot for a progressive or socialist group, historically it's a pretty large number. Um, maybe one of the largest far-ish left groups in american history actually. Um, at least going all the way back to, like the 1910s. The converse of that is that you're in a country of 320 million.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the DSA right now seems very turned in on the DSAs on internal problems, and I have always been like okay, you don't like some of what AOC? Does you disagree with her being soft on Palestine, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And maybe you have I mean, I'm not saying maybe maybe you do have legitimate reasons to be angry about the palestinian stuff. Um, what are you going to? How you? You know how could you possibly protect her for taking better votes? I don't get a lot of answers for that and so, um, I guess what I, what I would challenge these people to do, is how and I'm, I'm, I'm, I get.
Speaker 1:I said it was the last question, but this is actually the last question how would we build up a infrastructure to be able to protect AOC if she took better stances?
Speaker 1:Because we saw, we've seen what, we've seen what's happened. We had four squad members to there's, you know, summerhill, that's good, but then we lost Bowman and Corey Bush. Yeah, apac ran against them, but I pointed out to people that APAC couldn't do anything about Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar because of the nature of the districts they're in. So, and that's what I mean by protecting, if you can protect them in their district and you have the people to do that, then there's space for them to take positions that are closer to what you want, or more radical, or more progressive or whatever to what you want or more radical or more progressive or whatever, whereas if you have any weakness at all in terms of numbers, another advocacy group with a lot more money which AVEC has plenty of money could come in and sweep in and just run you into the ground, particularly if you've shown any weakness any other place.
Speaker 1:So how would we build up systems to do that? And I know that's a big, that's a long-term goal. We're not going to do it in four years.
Speaker 2:But like what? What kind of steps could we do? So I mean, I really think it starts locally right, like I believe that the ground was set for these squad members locally first. Right, I know that, like the narrative of like it was a huge upset and it was right for a lot of these folks, but what they don't acknowledge was the local work that happened before them, right, I'm not saying that the electeds don't they do, but I mean I think, like the average person that sort of sees, like the AOC story or the Ilhan Omar story, like don't really think about all the organizing that happened, you know, city council seat by city council seat, to be able to switch people's minds, to make a reality like that happen. So I do think, like again, getting involved locally is so important.
Speaker 2:But also, like, really like sitting back and I agree with everything you said around, how can we expect our elected officials to make more progressive decisions when we don't support, when they don't have support to be able to do that right?
Speaker 2:Like when the average person of the party is Nancy Pelosi and you're so infuriated because AOC won't go out there and, frankly, make a fool of herself screaming about Palestine, like you have to be realistic about where people are at in the party right now and that would honestly destroy her. Maybe even her chances of getting reelected could affect, like her relationships within the party to be able to pass progressive legislation that she wants to pass. So I mean my whole point here is like hate the hate, the play the play. I mean hate the game, not the player. Right, like all she's doing is trying to push our country forward and to do that she also has to speak to her constituents that aren't as progressive uh, which the bronx is not a big part of her district is not very progressive, and she needs to speak to those people too well, I mean, this is, this is the.
Speaker 1:The challenge for a lot of people is like you have to make progressivism popular beyond, frankly, college educated, mostly white people, and um, uh. I've seen the pew data on uh, on progressives, and uh, uh, we have progressive views on race, but, uh, we're also wider than the general population as far as, like, uh, who who holds these positions? Um and uh. I also think we're gonna have to deal with the fact that uh, uh, we, we'd be college students. So depending on college educated people in the immediate run is uh going to be a losing proposition. Um, uh, so, uh, learning how to talk to people who are not culturally the same as you is going to be really vital, and finding people to work with in those communities and what they need is going to be really vital. And I don't care how radical you are, you know, and, like I said, I'm pretty, pretty radical, it's it's it's something you have to do and thank you. Where can people find your information? I'm very interested in people looking up this information you're making me feel free to play these, definitely, um.
Speaker 2:You can look me up at zc sanchez on tiktok. I post content every day on there. Um, and then we also have our soul strategies pages.
Speaker 1:So we're on instagram soul strategies, like the soul of your shoe, and we are also on Facebook as well.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to introduce a new topic now, but I am thinking about the fact that we there is this turn against localism and the aughts which I think made some sense for people only focusing on like local stuff in the nineties, but I think it like maybe people learned the wrong direction, like the wrong lesson there, and kind of just ignore local stuff, and then there's media incentives for that, as I explained to people like like uh, but I have a pretty large not a huge, but a pretty large worldwide audience, but my audience in my own city is like 50 people um and you know, whereas my audience, like you know, I have more listeners in Europe than I do in Salt Lake and my biggest market is actually New York, and so one of the things I tell people is like podcasting and X, and even though I do it and I do think you have to do it, but like that's about building networks, it is not about doing your local work.
Speaker 1:You can't really do your local work through these diffused international media. You know things because they're just being thrown out to the ether and yet tons of people might be inspired by them. But if I was to say like, show up at this point in Salt Lake city by listening to my show, like five people would show up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's just something to think about and I think that I think people's engagement on TikTok and stuff and I think, oh, that's good. I don't want to take people like, oh, don't do the internet, I'm not one of those people but like I also wouldn't make any sense for my show. But it is important that people remember that this is a way of networking or doing education or building allegiances. It is not the same and cannot be the same as being involved in the ground in your own city and your own state.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much and I hope people check her out and I will put those links in the show notes. Have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Appreciate it.
