Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hi friends. Dick Flex.
Join with Daraka Larimer hall for another episode of Talking Strategy, Making History, our regular podcast. And we started Diraca with this podcast with the idea that we were going to focus on electoral strategies for progressives, for the progressive side, for the left side of politics, specifically focused on the Democratic Party where at the time we started, you were a state official of the party.
And if there's ever been a moment where maybe both our experiences, yours as a leader within the party in California in recent years, he is a 60 year long new left starting kind of guy. And written thought a lot about this. Maybe we have something to say to people in the midst of what everyone's calling the mess of the gubernatorial race here. And what I I really think my goal is to actually make a case that it's a mess, but there is hope in it, within it perhaps. So anyway, let's talk about this.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Well, I would say, I would just add that, you know, for listeners who are not Californians or, you know, even United Statesians, you know, the stakes here in this mess of a gubernatorial election is, you know, what happens in states and regions that are very dominantly Democratic and what happens within Democratic politics to decide who leads in what direction and how bold a Democratic agenda is going to be. And that, of course, has massive implications for national politics and then international politics. I think what goes on here is a similar thing or a similar bellwether to like what's happening in, you know, strong labor strongholds in Britain or social Democratic strongholds on the continent, et cetera. Yeah. So here we are.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: I should have added that you've done your own dissertation research on the left wing and the Democratic Party's history.
My I was very active in the mid-70s with Tom Hayden and others to try to put together a statewide progression oppressive coalition. So what we can hopefully get to today is why is it so hard for those coalitions to build and sustain themselves and make a difference and what possibilities are there now for that? Which is the whole theme we've been doing for almost 60 of these episodes of the podcast. But this really is a focusing moment. I feel for this both you and I maybe spend more time than we should on Facebook.
Part of what made me call you to do this today was because you've been making some really good and thoughtful statements on Facebook about the governor's race, which I sure has had some impact on the many people who follow you there. So that's all.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. Well, I think it has the same the impact that most of my rants do, which is like, you know, unifying the center left, the responsible left with some talking points and then like infuriating everyone else and making more enemies. But hey, that's what God put me on the earth to do, I think.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: I guess he did. So what's the elevator speech, so to speak, you could make to summarize the point you're trying to get across or points in those spaces? Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Well, it's just like a plea for, for realism and against the tendency that we have in all primary fights, you know, when factional differences and philosophical differences and then also agendas for representation from the various groups that make up the Democratic coalition. Like all of those things get subsumed into bullshit arguments that people feel like they have to make or that are really cynically designed to like tear down a rival and so forth. So instead of people just coming out and saying like, hey, I want a Latino governor. That's who I trust right now with everything going on or with just the history of anti Latino racism and segregation and repression in California. That's what I want to see. So I'm willing to overlook or, or even, you know, a responsible thing to say is like, and so there's the positions that Becerra has taken that are. That I don't like and let's push him on it, something like that. That's just like intellectually and politically honest. I don't have any problem with same with supporters of Porter and same with supporters of Tom Steyer. So instead what we have is like a lot of gaslighting and people sort of making really disingenuous and hypocritical arguments. You know, a lot of focus, for example, focused on the fact that Tom Stier's you know, job, life, job up until fairly recently was that he was a hedge fund finance guy, so did all kinds of evil shit to make money and has amassed more money than any human being has any right to. And all of that is true. And he's also like running the most left wing campaign and explicitly progressive policy commitments, not just rhetoric on a whole range of issues, you know, of the leading Democrats and Capital sees that and is why, like, if you look at, you know, corporate spending in this election, a lot of it at this point is geared towards electing Becerra and attacking Steyer. And then there's like the like super speculative tech barren money that's behind Mahan, the mayor of, of San Jose, which who's only a spoiler at this point. So anyway, point is the you know, a bunch of environmental groups, a lot of unions, a lot of left wing membership organizations, progressive groups and, and so forth, are consolidating, have consolidated around Tom Steyer. And they're not dummies and they're not naive and they don't think that billionaires should be able to buy elections and so forth. But they've made a calculation that him running on a really strong progressive reform platform is a better place to start with, with someone who doesn't have an electoral record than someone whose electoral record is really spotty and mediocre and who's getting a lot of support from oil and real estate and other really reactionary vested interests in California.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: You know, that's the thing. Yeah. So the, the, let's focus on Steyer because I'm strongly leaning to voting for him. I mean, the, the argument you and others are making is we should not vote right away. We should make sure that the candidate, that at least one Democrat is in this final two, that will be up for the November election. And that has to do with the weird open primary system we, we're stuck with here right now in California, which is that we could have two very unpopular Republicans winning because the Democratic vote would be so split that the two Republicans would be the leading candidates, even though neither would get even a third of the total vote of the state. Polls right now are important part of the, of people's calculation based on that kind of thinking.
And the polls are showing Becero slightly in the lead and Steyer second in tie with the leading Republican candidate, Hilton.
So the danger may be changing of the fact that the. Because initially the two leading candidates in the polls was Republican. So that one danger is that there are false phony polls being reported all the time on Facebook that are engineered to discredit Steyer and make Becerra seem to be the strong leader. And those polls don't.
They're not coming from legitimate sources. But the one that everyone's now quoting today is the Emerson College poll, which says what I just said, everyone has small, you know, there's like one quarter at least of the people who are polled have not yet made up their mind. That's part of why there's a mess. Right. Because if Kamala Harris had just said she's running for governor, none of this would happen. And we have, she'd be the candidate, she'd get that support. None of these other people probably would run. And not that that's a great, that's not a great outcome, but that would look Less like a mess. So maybe, maybe the mess is a good thing because now we're seeing what's missing in the dynamics of politics that really is important.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Well, it all depends on what you think of as a mess. Like from a standpoint, from just a 100% pure partisan standpoint of we gotta make sure there's a Democrat in this office, then a mess is just like any thing that complicates that. And, but that's it's California. Like we'd have to. Only circumstances that have a Republican winning are ones that are just gigantic self owns on our side. So that's the thing. The first context is that there's no electability argument here that makes any sense. All of the Democratic front runners, plus a ton of the ones that never broke 2% or, and have already dropped out or should. None of those people are defeatable by a Republican in the state in this year. Like it's just so anything, any argument that's like, oh, but our candidate is best to go up against the Republic. That's all bullshit. So, so that's the first thing to remember about it all.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: So.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: And then secondly, I'm willing to say at this point in May 15th that the chances of a two Republican general election are very, very, very low and like really shouldn't be a big factor in people's decision making at this point. And I, you know, one of the major reasons for that is as soon as Trump endorsed Hilton over the Sheriff Arpaio wannabe that we have here from Riverside county, like Republican support started to consolidate around Hilton. And so in a sense they Trump screwed them out of an opportunity to like guarantee a Republican. Right. You know, so between that and the Swallow and Swalwell's fall and all of that, it just started to you know, create a more rational and representative like spread in the polls. I think you're, you're right that the, just the, the law of political campaign strategy is that when it was clear that a lot of voters were waiting to see the polls that then political consultants were like, all right, then we'll show them polls. So there are all these push polls and bullshit that was sent out there. But I think that Emerson poll that has Becerra at the top and then just two, three points down, a tie between Hilton and Steyer is probably as active like that. I believe that that's reasonable.
You know, so then it's a question, I think Democrats then with 25% undecided with like, you know, a few percentage points still spread among Democratic also Rans with Katie Porter's support being, you know, a significant chunk. And I don't.
That may collapse over as things get tighter. For all of those reasons, I think it's perfectly reasonable from a pure partisan standpoint to vote for either Steyer or Becerra. So then the question is a political one of like which one do we think is that?
[00:11:33] Speaker A: I wanted to get back to Steyer because there's something I wanted to say that I haven't seen anyone say. People legitimately say this is a good challenge to stire. He's saying all the right things from a progressive point of view. I don't think anyone has had a chance to be governor with such a progressive platform in California history.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: Maybe, maybe Jerry Brown won like for his first time.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Yeah, but he didn't. He didn't. He wasn't running as a clear cut progressive. But here's the point I want. It's not just that he's saying these things. So people say, how can we support a billionaire? I agree. Billionaire ship should be outlawed.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: It should actually be or engineered away at least.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Well, Steyer seems to, he says he agrees with that. He became a billionaire, as you said, through his financial dealings 20 years ago. And he's been trying to unload that, use that money strategically and politically to do away with the situation where he could, someone like him could do this. That's his own personal account.
So that's a very high standard for him to be challenged all the time. He has to be constantly held to that set of principles. But here's the point.
Taxing the rich, taxing the billionaire class is essential for the future of this country. We've got to have that. And it's impossible politically to do it. Except what if a billionaire became governor of California with the intention of doing that? Wouldn't that be an important strategic moment? So there's the argument. How can we, the populist and pro labor and working class people, depend on a billionaire? Well, we depend not on a billionaire, but on a real split in the upper class, in the capitalist class that would allow that kind of radical reform to take place. And I just feeling now this might be a moment for this because he's been so consistently and coherently articulating this point of view and the second point, so strong on climate issues more than any other national politician has been in the last few years. So that's, that's my little rant. But I, I don't think I'm kidding myself. I think it's an important set of Points for people to consider. And it's, it's true, it does look bad. A guy has spent close to $200 million to. According to.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's over 200 million.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah. For his, for his own campaign.
But you know, one argument about that is so he's not at all dependent on the interests that usually by elections.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: So let me. Can I jump in there?
[00:14:21] Speaker A: I'll stop.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Who am I? Just. That is, I think that's not a great argument. And, and it may be functionally true in a way. If independence, if we rely on individual wealth for independence from the capitalist class. Right. Yeah. I mean, we're in trouble in many ways. And that's why I also would, would hold. I, I wouldn't go so far as to say that, you know, having a billionaire who's for taxing the billionaires is necessary or having a split in the capitalist class. Like. Yeah, a true split in the capitalist class can be very helpful. Like, you know, and that has happened in a lot of ways to push policy. But like individual finance billionaires is, is not a split in the class. It's just a couple of outlier individuals. All of that is to say, I think that outlier individuals amongst that class are totally possible and they exist and they happen. So because I think precisely because you take someone like Steyer, he, his parents were like middle class, maybe a little upper middle class, but they were professionals.
And so that's his class background, is the kind of guy in our totally irrational, crazy system, you know, fucking casino capitalist system, that he could become a multi billionaire by playing games with money and making it, do, you know, evil shit? As I said, none of that is great. None of that is good for the economy or, or the society. But can somebody emerge in that and then like have an epiphany, a change of heart about things, change their mind, and then be like, wow, now I need to spend that money in a way that also like, keeps me important and rectifies or does something better or fixes the damage I've done. I think that's a completely believable narrative of a human being in America. And there's been other examples of it.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: And he's a traitor to his class is one way to frame it.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. But, but the, but that doesn't, but what's troubling to me is people who are, you know, they sound like they want to guillotine all the rich people when they talk about Steyer and how it's just wrong for someone to have that much money. And we can't trust him because maybe he'll just act like a billionaire and do things for other billionaires because he's a billionaire. It is. That's just such a simplistic, dangerously simplistic understanding of how class works. It's sort of making class into an identity politics question, the same as race or gender or sexuality. That, and, and whereas the way that class actually works is that, that corporations and institutions that systematically push the interests of rich people, the capitalist class, the investor class, et cetera, they spread their money around to influence all politicians or most politicians. And that's the danger. That's why our politics is so fucked up. And, and, and the other thing that like this focus on the sort of outlier gazillionaire is like most of our politicians are millionaires, which I think has a bigger effect on having them be out of touch with the struggles of working families than, again, yeah, like one white savior billionaire coming in on a horse every once in a while or something.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Just to reinforce what you're saying. I'm not saying that the strategy of progressives is always to look for the savior. No. I'm saying this is a rare opportunity that I didn't take seriously until very recently when, you know, Jane Fonda, who's someone I know, she was one of the first leadership type people in the climate movement who announced she was for Steyer. And I thought, well, she's not going to just do that lightly. She must have a sense of something real here. And that turned out.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Bill McKibben.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And all those people.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah, real serious people, that made me
[00:18:29] Speaker A: really pay much closer attention to what he was about. And, you know, his record really is what McKibben and others have said. For 20 years, he's been trying to strategically do things on a large scale with his money to support ballot initiatives. Several in California that were successful created a public nonprofit bank to support various kinds of things. And I don't even, you know, maybe to his credit, he doesn't boast a lot about this. He'll, he'll point these things out when he's challenged. So it's not even a question of trusting him. No politician should be trusted. That trust.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Right. Amen. Exactly.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And so he, but he's letting himself be open to real challenge by making similar in a way to what Mamdani has done in New York. Mamdani said, here's what I claim I can accomplish, here's what I want to do. It will be challenged from major interests, but I want to see if we can do these things. And Stire is saying the same thing. So that's what he has to be held accountable for if he were in fact to be elected. So I know I'm getting more excited than I should because I don't really.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: That's why we love you.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
When I appreciate. Because I really am not trying to say this is the great moment of truth for that will save the world. I'm just saying it's an opportunity that people should, should be aware of, you know, should take seriously.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: So can I give, can I jump in and give it like a concrete policy contra between Steyer and Becerra that is pretty freaking decisive for me and that's on AI.
So both candidates have come out with a series of on AI policy. And Becerra's is just a pathetic lump of shit. It's so bad, it's like fast track building the data centers, you know, let her rip. And then this completely industry written rhetoric, nonsense about pushing AI literacy in schools, teaching kids, bringing AI into schools to teach them how to do it better and know the difference between AI and reality and blah, blah, blah. All of which is just straight out of the same playbook that corporations have been using to indemnify themselves from the environmental and social, psychological, cultural damage that their products cause by shifting it on to consumers. Hey, no, the problem, like it's not a problem to flood our communities with guns. The problem is like, people don't know how to use them safely. So let's push gun safety, like all of this, here's how to smoke more healthily. Vape. Don't smoke. Like it's all the same shit. There's no safe use of AI in elementary schools. Just stop. And Becerra is just completely industry brained about it. And, and then like wants to use government money to track AI job killing. Like results. Like let's, let's just count the numbers and keep track of it. Conversely, Steyer says tax the actual computational activity of LLMs, of, of generative AI. Tax it and put that money into a fund that will directly go into hiring people that are fired by AI, you know, in the name of AI progress, like backed up with an actual like, guarantee of jobs. He also, you know, wants to keep it out of schools, out of higher ed and make it easier for unions and other workplace organizations to have power over the deployment of new technologies, et cetera. It's just, it's like somebody serious about AI policy who knows the damage that it's causing throughout the economy and our education system and our culture. Like advised Tom Steyer and gave him a kind of like almost maximalist like checklist of what is like gold standard policy, a lot of which would be very, very, very hard to actually pass. But if there's somewhere we could do it, it would be California. Like Becerra clearly was like, gave it to AI Tech Bros. And said, write me a thing that's like palatable. I mean, it's so on that alone.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: And it's not alone because the same thing is my big issue is always housing lately. And the same kind of thing can be said. I don't know too much about what Becerra is saying, but the whole pitch of, so to speak, the wing of the Democratic Party leadership that he's lied to and is supporting him is to incentivize private development of more housing. And that's been Newsom's big deal and that's been the state legislation leadership in the legislature. Steyer has been very clear we need public subsidy for affordable housing. That has to be direct. That's such an obvious point that no one other than he is articulating to the degree that he's doing. And so, you know, I, I mean, what's. What impresses me he's upfront that corporate power has to be challenged and constrained and redirected and redistributed. And that's not something that even the sort of liberal Democrat, left wing, center left Democrats don't usually say that even now. And so I, I don't know. Anyway, I don't want to keep pushing this part of the story. The thing I think we can, you and I can fruitfully contribute as well is something about what in the history of progressive or left efforts to influence the Democratic Party accounts for can. Can be brought to bear as to why there's a problem now, what is the. Maybe I'll frame it this way.
I was telling you that I've been looking through my old files and I come across something that I was very much involved in 50 years ago in Santa Barbara.
Mickey, my wife and I and some others here helped organize this statewide conference in February of 1977 that was strongly influenced by Tom Hayden. He had run for Senate for the Democratic nomination for Senate. He got over a million votes in 1976 and he decided to put together a permanent statewide organization that would be the left wing of the Democratic Party. And Santa Barbara conference had a thousand people from around the state representing many different activists and, you know, elected officials as well as activists across the state they adopted the idea of moving forward with this coalition. And the headline of this thing I found is Movement for Economic Democracy Born New Progressive Coalition Aims at Taking power. So in 1977 it was possible to get that kind of collectivity of people.
Isar Chavez spoke, Ron Dellum spoke. Arif Hungisto had been recently elected in San Francisco. He was very left wing guy elected in the city of San Francisco. He spoke and a number of other people like that were.
I'm now feeling there weren't that many labor union representations at that conference, but a lot of other interests were there and that organization was formed without getting into all the details of why Hayden's leadership really did not succeed in producing what they were claiming to do. There seems to be a deeper problem than just that episode. Right. Why right now there doesn't seem to be any effort to create a statewide labor or progressive.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Au contraire. Au contraire.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Well, tell us.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: As, as often the case, it's not that there's none, it's that there's too many.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: Okay, well tell us about. Yeah, you know much more about it than me.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean the, so the campaign for economic democracy as we were sort of chatting about before this is of really understudied and under examined, you know, attempt we love in the, you know, in the left it's always about sort of like going back and studying glorious failures and trying to learn from them. But this one that, yeah, I think we should pay a lot more attention to at least, at least in California, at least in talking about California politics. But it was also like the, it was, it arose at the, at a time in which another previous more long standing and more successful effort, similar effort, the California Democratic Council was starting to wane. So it stepped into a, not quite a vacuum but like a space that was opening up or where the, the exact value added of the California Democratic Council was up in the air. And so I think today, the situation today is that we have the Democratic Socialists of America, we have the Working Families Party, we have the State Federation of Labor and then you know, within that various networks of unions that are more or less philosophically aligned and then like the federations of the sort of sub federations of labor unions, like the building trades and, and then within the Working Families Party orbit at this point is a statewide coalition of electorally active community based organizations like CAUSE on the Central coast here.
So taken all together, that's the left wing of the Democratic Party, right? That is, and it's statewide and it overlaps Both organically and structurally with unions, it encompasses your like, urban, youngish, left, you know, socially progressive types and community, you know, deep community of color based advocacy groups. And then unions, it's it. And, and then, then there's the environmental networks and so forth that yes, some of which are more or less integrated into those other circles, it's all there, but it doesn't convene and coordinate and think of itself as the left wing of the Democratic Party. Each of, each of them think of themselves as their own sort of specific project.
And that's, I think that's the problem today. This is the problem here in California, it's the problem nationally is a, an inability for organizations that are objectively functioning as the left wing of the Democratic Party to accept that that is what they are and that's their role. Yeah, that's my analysis at this point. So looking back, the most successful example of what we're talking about, the California Democratic Council, its success was that they, it. It was that explicitly and that it created an electorally based organizing model that like fit into the political realities of California and was strategically smart about electing more liberals and having a mechanism to hold them accountable.
So then when you look to the c, to the, to Hayden's outfit, the Campaign for Economic Democracy, Ed, I think the, the problem there was that it was too tied to Tom Hayden's political career in particular as opposed to other like, like a lot of people's political careers and so forth. And it never evolved beyond that. As you, you warned, we can't get, shouldn't get too far into the weeds because there's a whole bunch of reasons why that was happening. And I think Jerry Brown and the way that Jerry Brown operated politically had a big role in that. And, and I'd say that like a coda to the CED kind of fizzling out. Though it did have some really, I think, really good and positive impacts on California politics. But it was that there was a kind of play for control of the Democratic Party itself from the left that had a lot of the same players and characters and coalitions going on that was, yeah, that was successful, but then became tied up in the personal political career of Jerry Brown. And so to me, the lesson is you have to be more electoral and more, you know, focused on electing candidates and developing leaders and so forth than our current, like our, the current coalition that's kind of not coming together, not taking that leadership right now. You gotta be more, you know, more, yeah, more, more candidate focused than that, but not so Much that a single one or even just a couple of them can subsume your whole agenda into their.
Yeah. Their career choices and so forth. So you gotta hit that sweet spot. We haven't found it.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean what seems to be working nationally and in California for the left is the primarying of corporate oriented or centrist or do nothing Democrats incumbents, often with dynamic progressive candidates in the.
This is quite amazing, you might say. And in fact, so today and on Facebook there's reports that this organization called Third Way, which is very corporate dominated operation, has announced or declared its intention to oppose this very thing that I'm talking about. They want to expose and defeat the influence of the Democratic socialists in the party. This at a moment when across the country candidates with that kind of orientation are being successful politically. And that's presumably why Third Way wants to kill this even though they claim these candidates are dangerous for the Democratic Party. So I don't know if what is Third Way? What do you, what do you know about that?
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Third Way is like a, is a new iteration of the same operation of some of the same people, the same project as the Democratic Leadership Council which emerged out of the defeats of the national party at least at the presidential level in the, in the 70s and 80s. So you know, and then it's the operation or the wing or the factional group within and the party that gave us Bill Clinton and others and was very successful at strategically moving the orientation of like the whole party to the right and not just on economic issues which was their kind of biggest success, but also crime and your criminal justice, foreign policy, a whole bunch of things. Yeah. So it's like the new. It's, it's one of the big groups on the right wing of the party. And like.
And what an irony it is that this group is like, we gotta kick DSA out of the Democratic Party. But like the National Political Committee of dsa, the majority of them don't think they're in the Democratic Party. Right. So it's like. Yeah, anyway, I think it's two, I think a couple things about it. One is, I think it's a good sign that like it's because DSA matters. It's because the candidates they're electing are being successful because more people are going to run like that. It's having an impact on the party and people who don't want that to happen are going to mobilize against it. And that's the second point I would make about it is like we kind of got to get used to this and stop sort of, I don't know, catastrophizing it. If we do our jobs, we will have enemies in the Democratic Party doing it right. And like they're going to try to push their shit and we're going to push our shit because let's be real, it's not like if, if people in DSA or Working Families party or any of these networks of left wing, you know, Democratic elected officials and supporters and so forth. Like if they had their way, all of the darlings of the third way in the Democratic Party would be primary that booted out and third way wouldn't have any power. So this is politics, this is just it.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:34:20] Speaker B: And I love, I think this is great. This is what we need is like a healthy intra party competition.
That's not where neither side frankly can get away with this like Manichean language of, you know, like we have to eliminate everyone different than us or the whole party will die. When in truth, you know, we, in order to get to 50% plus one, there definitely are districts where there's going to be third way kind of candidates who would do better than our candidates will. Like you have to be able to think in both levels.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And in fact that's, that's a principle that I'm sure you would apply in Europe as well as in this country that all of these labor based, labor type parties, the Social Democratic parties, in building a majority have to acknowledge this kind of diversity within and without. In a parliamentary and without. Yeah. And appeal to constituencies in order to keep a majority. And that's the kind of, you know, how to maneuver between majority majoritarian politics and principled, forward looking, visionary kinds of perspectives. That's the left's problem. I mean but it's a creative, it's the problem I love we would have to have instead of simply fighting fascism.
And so maybe part of what's an opportunity right at this moment is the utter unpopularity of what has happened in the Republican Party in MAGA gives this chance and we'll see the results this fall of whether they materialize of having a real wave that allows all different factions of the Democratic Party to get victories and build the party as a majority party in on the national level and build it back.
And so you have these candidates like Plantner in Maine who is hated by apparently the Democratic establishment but looks very promising and as well as Steyer in California, you've got, and you know, those are just two examples of many.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: So I mean we've got some real interesting, you know, primary level battles happening here in California, different in for Congress in the Central Valley and then the Bay Area. There are, you know, real clear matchups between moderate Democrats supported by corporate interests and ideological fellow moderates in the party, et cetera and you know, progressives that have come in via social movements or new forms of political engagement. And this is what we need more of. This is what we need to continue.
And what I, yeah, I'd love to. So to get back to the California. I think the, the loop here is that if we had this in California maybe our choices wouldn't be a gazillionaire self funding candidate or guy that was elected to Congress when I was in high school before I could vote and has just been a middle, milquetoast, middle of the road dem for that long. It's just so sad that this is, this is where we're at and we're, we're there because I think there's not a statewide platform to like consolidate around a better candidate in a gubernatorial race like this and strategic and man there were better options there. There were better options.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Well, one of the, one of the examples of the failure is the, the, the state labor federation endorse four candidates for governor. I mean what, what good is that? I mean that's really a sign, you
[00:37:51] Speaker B: know, and, and I'll say if there's anyone out there from the Fed listening and so forth, I mean I will say yeah. Cause I do think that's, it's humiliating, what a disaster. But I think by the time it's at the Fed, like by the time you're trying to figure it out at a convention and so forth that it's, everyone's so split and it had already endorsed different people and so forth. Like I don't know, I'm not saying that was the only or best option, but I do understand like it was already fucking broke before it got to that level. If, if that's where unions are that spread apart. And also like some unions are supporting candidates who have built their career on crushing other unions. And that's the thing that is people need to go and have fucking sit down and think about.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: I just noticed just, just as a footnote that the carpenters have endorsed Steyer Carpenter's union. And that's interesting and that is very interesting because the leading union for him I think has been the N Nurses union, which is not a surprise. They are the most forward looking in terms of progressive electoral strategies and, and alliance so to speak between the nurses and the carpenters that's That's a good sign. Maybe. Maybe that's something to take some.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: It's a sign. It's something. Yeah. It's interesting because the tr, The Building Trades as a federation are supporting Antonio Via Ragosa.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: And then they're in terms of the affiliates, like the parts of the Construction Union Coalition are all over the place. So in terms of different candidates and so say, yeah, but yeah. And the Carpenters are, I think, I believe, still not affiliated to the state Fed. Are very independent and not. Oh, and independent not being a compliment coming from me, if you know me.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: So.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's interesting. You know.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So look, I think we made a contribution here. At least I clarified some ideas and maybe we can get this out to people as soon as possible. Send it to all your thousands of followers on Facebook that. This link because people are hungry. I think people really want to know what they should do with their ballot, let alone how to think about what's going on. So maybe I wish I could.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: I wish I could send it to my thousands of followers on Facebook. But as you know, the way Facebook works is that in between my thousands of followers and what I say is this proprietary algorithm that's designed to only send it to people, that it'll make them continue to watch their Facebook. And this is where we're at. And this is where we're at because we have politicians who, like, are not going to stand up to big tech. That's my final thought.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Well, I'll accept that as a final thought. My final thought is keep hope alive. We always end with a musical piece. And what we're going to end with today is something very moving. It's a recording, not recent, of a children's choir in Selma, Alabama. They're singing a song called Someone Died for Me. And it's a song about what is said in the song, the precious right to vote.
Someone died for me. These children are singing so I could vote. We must defend the precious right to vote. And I'm playing this because it's so apropos of this attack on the voting, destruction of the voting rights achievement, which was one of the great achievements of my life. This song, if anything, if any song has ever inspired one to keep fighting that. This is an example. So we'll close with that. Thanks, Daraka, for sharing the mic with me. This has been therapeutic for me and I hope helpful to at least a couple of other folks who are listening. Talking strategy, making history.
Patreon.com TSMH is where you can subscribe which if you like what you just heard some of you might and you are not a subscriber. Why don't you go there and just do that so we can build up our core base of support and we'll be back again next time. Thanks a lot for listening.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:41:57] Speaker C: Someone praise wait for me
[00:42:04] Speaker A: someone
[00:42:07] Speaker C: sung for me someone they marched for me someone suffered and died for me and they didn't even know no they didn't even know never because they didn't even know they didn't even know me.
If you don't use it his precious fight for it you surely will lose this precious right to vote so if you don't use this precious right you may look around one day and it'll be a sign someone raised someone some for me someone they march for me someone suffered and died for me and they didn't live I know never know.
They didn't even know.
