SMNTY Interviews: Mila Atmos

Journalist, writer, executive editor and fellow podcaster Mila Atmos joins us to talk about her podcast Future Hindsight, civic engagement and finding hope.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
And Samantha.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
And today, we are so excited to have journalist, writer,
executive editor, and fellow podcaster, Mila Atmos.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you so much for being on the show with.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
Us, Mila. Thank you so much for having me. It's
really a pleasure to be here. What an honor. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
So this show, I already know, is going to be
cram-packed with so much information and just good tidbits. So
before we start, can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Sure. I'm Mila Atmos, and I host a podcast called
Future Hindsight. I'm the executive editor, and that means that
I get to decide who we should have on and
who we shouldn't have on. And Our tagline is that
we take the big ideas in civic life and democracy
and turn them into action items for you and me.

(01:06):
And what that also means concretely is that we curate
what we think are interesting ideas for our time to
consider in our American democracy. And we hope that this
will make our democracy stronger. We hope to be educational,
inform our listeners what they should be thinking about or

(01:26):
how they can think about things. You know, I never
want to tell people how to think, but the idea
is to share more information to enrich everybody's lives and
hopefully to make people into active citizens.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
So I will say again, very excited because I feel
like there's so much crossover with your podcast and with ours.
as we're trying to navigate how to fight for equality
and equity for everyone. But with that, can you tell us,
before we get into all that, how you got into podcasting? Sure.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
So it actually, I wanted to write a book after
the 2016 election. So I have this theory that our
democracy would be better if we had more citizens who
are engaged. And I thought that, you know, civic engagement,
civic action, would be the cure to fix our democratic

(02:25):
discontent after the 2016 election. And I don't know whether
people remember this, but at the time, and it's now
10 years ago, which sounds crazy, 2016. But at the time,
people were like, oh, you know, now I've voted and
I guess that didn't work. So I'm going to run
for office. And I thought that, you know, That's a

(02:45):
big lift. Running for office is not, first of all,
running for office is not for everybody, but also that
is a really big undertaking. And so I wanted to
explore what everyday people can do beyond voting, but short
of running for office. And in that discovery, figure out,

(03:06):
you know, how we can get everyday people to get engaged.
And so I... interviewed somebody at the end of 2017,
you know, I really got, I would say, energized after
watching the inauguration. And I thought, what is this weird
speech from the newly elected president? And I thought, you know,

(03:28):
this is only going to get worse. And we need
to get ready. And I wanted to have a conversation
with everyday people about how we can make our our
democracy work better for everyone. And so I had this
idea that I would write a book. I spoke to
a friend of mine who said, right, that's a great idea.
I talked to her in the summer of 2017. And

(03:49):
she goes, by the way, if you write this book
and everything goes on time, this will be published in
two years. And I thought, oh, wait, no, we don't
have two years. And so I said, you know what,
let me see if I can do this as a podcast.
I was so innocent. And I thought, oh, I can
just do this. And so, well, so I did. And
so here we are, almost eight years, more than eight

(04:11):
years later. So my first interview was at the end
of 2017. And then we were live in January of 2018.
That was our first episode. But I interviewed it in 2017.
It took me like two months to edit that. And
of course, I no longer take two months to edit anything.
But it was quite an adventure. And I thought, you

(04:32):
know what? I'm just going to try it. I'm just
going to do this because why not?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Good on you.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
But I love how you said you are so innocent
at the beginning of your podcast, because it really does
feel that way.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
You're like, I had no idea. I had no idea
this is where it was going to go.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yes, I had no idea. And also, I had no
idea how much work it is.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
I feel vindicated.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
I know.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Annie has done this for beginning with how stuff works.
So she's been in the business for a long while.
She's younger than me for sure, but she's been in
this business for so long.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
She's like, that's right. It does take that.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
So much work, so much work. But you know what?
It's good work. It's good to be engaged here.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yes, and we're very glad you're doing it. One of
the other things that is interesting is is that when
you have spoken about how you got here, how this happened,
you've spoken about the impact of events like 9-11. Can
you talk about that?

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
So I used to work on a trading desk. And
on 9-11, we were all sitting on our trading desks. And,
you know, CNBC is always live on a trading floor.
So we were watching it. And actually, my colleague who
was sitting next to me was on the phone with

(05:54):
somebody working in the World Trade Center. And she heard
a loud bang. And I said, oh, you know, because
2011 was not so far from 93. That sounds wrong also.
But in 93, if people remember, there was a bombing
in the parking lot downstairs of the World Trade Center.
And I still remember those pictures on the front page

(06:15):
of the New York Times. And I said to my colleague,
I said, tell her to get out. It's probably a bomb,
you know. And so we were then looking on our
screens for news. You know, we would basically scroll through
Reuters and scroll through Bloomberg, and we didn't see anything.
And then suddenly on CNBC, we saw the image of

(06:38):
one of the towers on fire. And obviously at this point,
everybody watched the TV. Nothing was happening. It was before
the open. And so we were waiting for the market
to open and it never opened, of course. And I
remember thinking, you know, we were all looking in the
same direction at the television screens. And when the second

(07:02):
tower was hit by the plane, I think we just
all gasped. We just couldn't comprehend really anything. what was
happening and also the scale, you know, when you watched
it on TV at the time, the plane looked so tiny,
you know, it didn't look like a proper, you know,
commercial plane. So in the beginning we were like, is

(07:24):
that some lost person in a little plane, in a
personal plane, you know? And so there were all these
things that were going through my head. And then as
it became clear that the plane had been hijacked and
all this, I thought, you know, what am I doing here?
I need to be in public service. This is the
wrong place. And so I worked until the end of

(07:46):
the year and I left to go to graduate school.
I went to the School of International Public Affairs and
I have a degree in international affairs. And I thought
that I would really, really enjoy being in public service
and serve in some capacity. And so today I think

(08:06):
about the podcast as my public service because when I
was in graduate school, I got pregnant. So then I
did not get a job after I had the baby
and after I graduated, which is not really the way
I thought life was going to turn out, but it did.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
So it's all good. And here you are.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
Exactly. And here I am now today, eight years later,
still doing a civic engagement podcast, you know, and still
in my mind, you know, helping everyday people. I hope
that people listen to Future Hindsight. And, you know, get
inspired to take civic action and make, you know, civic
action part of their decision tree every day as they
go through their lives, even if they don't necessarily take action,

(08:47):
but have it in their mind.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Absolutely. Well, speaking of Future Hindsight, can you just explain
more about the show?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
So Future Hindsight is a mission-driven podcast. And as I
mentioned before, we take the big ideas in civic life.
And democracy and then turn them into action items. And
so what that means is I talk to a lot
of people. It's an interview show. I talk to people
who are engaged. And so one of the things that
we love to do, one of our favorite things, is

(09:17):
to interview people who we call citizen changemakers. So they're
everyday people who have gotten engaged for whatever reason and
have really made a difference in their communities. And one
of my early interviews was with a retired firefighter who
worked downtown in the financial district. And he lived in

(09:43):
Far Rockaway in Queens near JFK. And he had been
advocating for a ferry service from Far Rockaway to downtown
Manhattan to Wall Street. And he worked on this for
many years. and he finally pulled it off because he attended,

(10:04):
you know, on his own dime, insurance conferences on real
estate and ferries and public transportation. And it was the
kind of thing where I thought, wow. And the reason
why he did it is because he noticed that the
people who arrived by ferry were much calmer than the
people who arrived by subway. And he said, you know,
if you take the subway from Far Rockaway, it takes
an hour on the A train. It takes forever because

(10:27):
it's far and has many stops. And the ferry that
is now in effect takes 45 minutes, has a bathroom,
is clean. And has only one stop at the Brooklyn
Army Terminal, BAT, before it hits Wall Street. And so
he said, it's so nice. It's so safe. And, you know,
everybody should commute this way. And I just think, you know,

(10:48):
it's a terrific example of somebody who was like, you
know what, I'm going to make a difference in this space.
And nobody's going to stop me. And I think a
lot of people, a lot of people can do that.
We also talked to a lot of academics who have
written terrific books about about their ideas. We talk to advocates, activists,
you know, people who are organizers. And sometimes we talk

(11:10):
to politicians. Not very much, because politicians are running for office, right?
So the podcast wants to show you what you can
do short of running for office. But every once in
a while, we have some politicians and learn about why
they decided to, you know, climb that big mountain and
go for it.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
I definitely listen to, I believe, Al Sayed. that you
had on the podcast. And we know he's, especially right now,
he's being targeted very heavily for just his belief system,
which is a whole different conversation in itself. So I
absolutely know when you're bringing in politicians, it's not necessarily
for politicians' sake. It's for that bigger, broader conversation. So

(11:51):
we definitely understand that and appreciate that level. And speaking
of episodes, I feel like, again, many of these episodes
align with what we've been talking about oftentimes when it
comes to intersectionality and the movements today. And one of
the conversations you had was about disinformation and misinformation, which

(12:11):
we talk about a lot on our podcast. And really, like,
a term that I don't think I've really ever heard,
and I'm like, okay, was the infodemic or the infodemiology,
which I was like, okay, well, now that.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Puts me in a rabbit hole because I had to
go research. I was like, what is this?

Speaker 3 (12:27):
And you really opened up this conversation of the overwhelming
narratives we are hearing and seeing today and how it's
brought about an even bigger divide and how it's even
brought even more dangerous consequences. What is something that you think,
because specific to that, you think a lot of people
seem to get wrong when it comes to navigating today's
infodemic misinformation and disinformation?

Speaker 4 (12:48):
What do they get wrong? Wow, where to begin? So
there's so much that people get wrong. But, you know,
it's not their fault, I want to say. Because one
of the things that I discovered in doing this podcast
is that the mainstream media likes to write about issues
as if there are clean solutions on the, quote, left

(13:09):
and the right. Or that if there's a problem, if
you think of it as a circle, that possible solutions lie,
you know, on opposing ends. But that's actually not true.
In general, the solutions are often very close to each other.
You know, there are variations of the same solution, but
not radically different. And so they exist more or less

(13:30):
in the same area, in the same quadrant, if you will.
And so there are nuances to what one solution is
or the other. So it misrepresents the problem. And then
also misrepresents the solutions, the possible solutions.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Right.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
And so I think we take on information like that
and we think, oh, I understand this. But actually, you don't,
you know, because problems that ail society are complex. And
even the people who we often talk to who are
people who've been, you know, working on this or thinking
about this problem for 20 years, let's say, still things
are not always super obvious. Although there are some things

(14:07):
that are super obvious.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
But, you know, sometimes it's like.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
You would think.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, you would think.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
But, you know, even if you think about health care,
for example, you know, people really... really differ on opinions.
And I think it's because they don't understand the difference
between health care and health insurance. So, for example, the
ACA is health insurance reform. It is not health care reform.

(14:31):
And so therefore, people continue to think that the ACA
should drive down costs. Well, it will never do that
because it was designed to make health insurance accessible to people.
it did not make healthcare accessible to people, which is
to say, to see doctors or see specialists in whatever

(14:51):
disease you might be having, you know, so those are
totally different things. But because of the way things are presented,
I think it's very confusing. And so people don't understand
the difference and they keep wanting to fix this one
thing that will not actually fix the other thing.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh, there's so much to that.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Like, I feel like when you start dissecting specific information,
specifically like healthcare and such, you're like, oh my how
do we even start in this level? But something that
I really admire with your podcast and what you're doing
is you know how to pick really great guests. Like,
I'm like, oh, how did she even find this person?
How did you even see, like, again, about the infodemic

(15:30):
and you had her coming on and talking about her
special day.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
I was like, how did you even find this?

Speaker 3 (15:34):
And for us as podcasters as well, like, we're not
necessarily interview-based, but sometimes I'm like, oh, man, I wish
we had had them on our podcast.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
We've been a little jealous over here. How do you
go about that? How are you finding such amazing people
to come through?

Speaker 3 (15:49):
And how are you able to connect so well with
these people that you're interviewing?

Speaker 4 (15:53):
Thank you. That's so kind. Well, we do a mixture
of things. So first of all, you can always interview...
Pauline also, you can interview the infodemic, the infodemiologist. So yeah, we're.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Just going to come through and poach all your guests.
We're going to take this one and this one. Happy
to make any introductions, truly.

Speaker 4 (16:11):
So we do a combination of pitching people, other people
pitching us. And also, you know, sometimes I go to
a lecture or see somebody interesting out in the wild,
so to speak. And it's like, wow, this is really good.
Let's invite them on the podcast. So so we do
we do, you know, everything. Wherever we have an opportunity,

(16:33):
we invite people or like I said, people also pitch us,
especially people who have written books, because one of the
things that I do that I think most other people
in media don't do is I actually if somebody reads
has written a book, I will, in fact, read the book. Which,
you know, makes for a more interesting interview if you

(16:54):
ask me, because otherwise you're leaving all the good questions
on the table. So I aspire not to do that.
And I read the book and I hope to really
illuminate their work to the listener.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
You know, you say that and because we're always shocked
because when we have someone who maybe had done a
book or something and they come on and they realize
we actually read the book, they're like, oh, wow. Like, wait,
what shows are you going on today? You haven't actually
read what you sent them. This is an odd way
to go.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
But you're right. I guess it's more unusual than you
would think.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, it's more unusual than you would think. I think
that's why when they pitch you, they actually give you
the questions. And I'm like, I'm not going to ask
those questions. But it's always good to know what it
is that they want to highlight.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
It's true.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
It's true. That's what we say, too. We're like, bring
it in. But I love the way your format goes.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
And I was just thinking specifically with, because we're going
to jump into your other series in Within Forge Your Hindsight.
But in all of this, have you had a moment
with any of your podcast episodes or with your guests
that kind of like shook you a little bit that
like maybe was the answer or the way they responded?
Had you had any kind of moments or like, like

(18:05):
really like gave you the, oh, like that moment of like, oh, wow, clarity, clarity.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
Oh, there are so many, so many moments of clarity
where I'm like, oh, right, I misunderstood this all along. So,
for example, a while back now, I had a conversation
about the filibuster. And most people, including myself, at least
I used to believe this, but I don't anymore. Most

(18:32):
people think that the filibuster is about people not voting
for certain legislation. And therefore, if you don't have 60 votes,
then you cannot pass the legislation. But that's actually not true.
The filibuster is about preventing legislation to be voted on.
So if there are— it depends on which legislation, of course.

(18:57):
Some bills, nobody cares. They hit the floor. They get
a vote up or down. And some bills, they're so
contentious before they hit the floor. That's where you have
the filibuster issue. And if you don't have 60 senators
who want this to hit the floor, it will not,
and therefore will not be voted on. And that's the filibuster.
And so I didn't know that that's an important distinction.

(19:21):
So I remember reading an article about gun legislation, and
because of the filibuster, it did not reach the floor,
the Senate floor. But in the article, it noted that
they thought If it had passed the filibuster and been
on the floor to vote on, it would have narrowly passed,

(19:42):
maybe 53, 47, something like this, you know, as opposed
to not passing, as opposed to zero, nothing, not even,
you know, so. now I understand when people say, oh,
this legislation deserves, you know, a vote up or down.
And the filibuster prevents that. And I've discovered many other things. So,

(20:02):
for example, another thing that I discovered literally only this
year is that a lot of members of Congress have
something called a leadership PAC, a Leadership Political Action Committee.
And so many people are anti-PACs, and for good reason.
And the leadership PAC, basically, if you are a member

(20:23):
of Congress who has extra money, you can support other races.
But essentially, this is a way of currying favor with
other people. So that when you yourself are up for,
I don't know, some kind of leadership position on a committee,
you know, That goes a long ways to have helped
one of your colleagues, you know, with the election dollars. Yes.

(20:47):
I was like, I mean, it was like, oh, the
scales are falling off my eyes. You know, I've had
so many of these kinds of instances. And these are
the two that are just coming, you know, on the
top of my head here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Well, you also created a special six-part series called Occupy,
An Unfinished Uprising, about the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.
Can you tell us a little bit about that movement
and the series?

Speaker 4 (21:25):
Sure. So the movement was a response to the 2008
financial crash. And as you may remember... Not long after that,
the Tea Party was born. And I would say that
this is like the delayed reaction. So instead of, you know,

(21:45):
instead of the Tea Party, they had Occupy. And the
idea was to occupy a park near Wall Street and
build an anti-capitalist village and build essentially an alternative world
where people were taken care of. So You had free housing,

(22:06):
which is to say you slept for free in the park.
You had free food, you know. You had free medical care.
There was a medical tent that was staffed by some
volunteer nurses. And it was the kind of thing where
they said, you know, we're going to practice this, you know.
And also they had something called direct democracy and a
people's mic. And this is maybe the most important part,

(22:29):
that everybody there had a voice through the people's mic.
And then basically they made decisions through deliberation, through direct
deliberation in the camp. And it was incredibly inspiring. And
I think a lot of people felt like, right, this
is it. We want to do this. And I would
say in terms of the long-term legacy is that it

(22:52):
made critique of capitalism, I don't want to say possible
or mainstream, but it made it normal. It normalized critique.
of capitalism, you know, in a sense that, you know,
we can talk about it today, but I think in
the 80s or in the 90s, certainly after the crash
and things started to pick up again after the 87

(23:13):
crash and people, you know, and the economy started booming,
people thought that, you know, capitalism is the solution and
there is no way that we could critique it. And
I think I think Occupy really changed that narrative, you know,
was really powerful in terms of achieving narrative change about
how capitalism should be practiced in this country. Which is

(23:37):
not to say that it has changed how we do it,
but it has changed the way we talk about it.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Right. I think it definitely changed some mindsets. Listening to
the episodes really brought me back to that moment, like
that movement in itself. And my naive self really didn't
understand the impact of this movement. I will say my
father did soon after go to a couple of Tea
Party meetings, and I was very concerned.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
I was like, what is happening? What is happening? Why
did you do this?

Speaker 3 (24:03):
And part of that was because of that crash. And
he had been greatly, my father specifically, had been greatly affected.
So he was like, well, I'm Republican, so this is
where I go for any extremist movement, right? But hearing
the people you interviewed who were there, as well as
some of the old clips from them, gave me a
It gave me chills. I was like, oh my gosh,
because it really did take me back. What is it

(24:25):
about this specific movement that you thought was something that
we needed to be or needed to be revisited?

Speaker 4 (24:30):
I would say that what was really powerful about this
movement is that it's really about taking collective action. And
I really believe that we can only get out of
whatever we're in right now, however you want to describe it,
through collective action. We can only do it together. And
it is not going to happen from the top down.

(24:51):
It just isn't. And so I think, you know, what's
really exciting about that, about Occupy is that these people
decided to band together. And despite the odds, their idealism
and their, you know, optimism, you know, informed their civic action.
And I really think you need to have some discipline

(25:12):
of hope that you continue to show up and take action.
Because otherwise, you know, I mean, right now things are
so dire, you know, you just want to never read
the news and not know what's going on in the world.
But it's really up to us. I think this cannot
be stressed enough. And the fact that we have, you know,

(25:39):
conversations about capitalism today, that we even had a campaign
to finally increased the minimum wage, which has met, you know,
it's a mixed bag in some states that was successful
and other states not. But nonetheless, of course, even though
it's changed in some states, the federal minimum wage is
still $ 7. 25, which is totally crazy.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
And I think.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
The other part of it, the narrative change part of
it actually is so, so powerful. I think, you know,
the the saying of the 99% versus the 1%, it's
so immediate in a way that is different, I think,
than trying to say, oh, oligarchs, you know, oligarchs, you
can say that too, but I think 99%, first of all,

(26:26):
I think what that does, it centers you as opposed
to centering the people who are making gobs of money.
I think that's really important. And I think also what
it has done is it's given a roadmap for progressive
candidates So even though Bernie Sanders didn't win the election

(26:47):
in 2016, wasn't the Democratic Party nominee, I do think
that the candidates who are progressive today come directly from
under the Bernie tent and from the Occupy movement.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
No, I definitely agree with you. I mean, I'm very
jealous of Mamdani in New York right now, but... whatever,
we're just going to bypass before my jealousy seeds out.
But you also mentioned that this was kind of the
beginning of social media. How do you think that played
into this movement and the movement and protests since then?

Speaker 4 (27:22):
I think that social media has really changed over time.
At the time, you know, it was new and people
used Facebook and used Twitter to find what's happening, to
find out what's happening on the grounds at Occupy. And
there was a live streamer who literally you know, ran
around with like cables. And today we would do it
with a phone. But I think it was really like

(27:45):
a signal, you know, in a sense that it was
sort of like you were sending out your bat signal
if you were Batman. But today it's not like that. Today, basically,
it's used as a tool of surveillance in some sense.
It's actually, it's been upended in the way that it
has been used. That's what I would argue that, you know,
now that everybody can find your phone, they know where

(28:05):
you are. They can ping you and they can pinpoint
exactly where Samantha or Annie, where either one of you
might be sitting, you know, and doing some untoward stuff,
quote unquote.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Me?

Speaker 4 (28:20):
Never.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
How dare you?

Speaker 3 (28:22):
No, it is interesting because one of the first, I
was talking about your podcast with my partner. And the
first thing he said was, it was, you start by cops. Like,
that's the first thing he was like, oh, yeah, it
went well. And you mentioned that. And I actually had that.
the cop on the podcast? Like, was he absolutely willing
to be on the podcast? Or did you like have

(28:43):
to kind of talk him into this? Because I was
kind of surprised that he had him come and talk
openly about what was happening.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
So I can't talk about his motivations as to why
he agreed to be on the podcast. But, you know,
judging from the tape, I think he really wanted to
present things as the way that he experienced them. And
I thought that was really helpful, you know, to hear
firsthand as opposed to putting, you know, words into people's mouths.
It's always good to hear their perspective and their experiences.

(29:11):
I think that's one of the things that we can
always do today when it comes to social media, for example.
You know, you really want to understand where people are
coming from directly as opposed to, you know, for example,
if you read an article, it'll say, and, you know,
Representative Samantha said X, Y, and Z, and then they
interpret it in the article. But actually, the best thing

(29:33):
to do is say, oh, this representative, she gave a speech.
Let's see the transcript or let's watch the video. and,
you know, take it in raw, so to speak. And
I think that that was probably part of his decision
tree that he wanted to be on the record.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
So you've been talking about the lasting impact of this
movement and some of the very fascinating ways that I
don't think I had ever pieced together that it's impacted
our politics. But other than things you've already mentioned, are
there some things relevant from this movement for today?

Speaker 4 (30:25):
Well, I think the most important thing is the collective
action bit. And, you know, we are a country where
voter turnout is really low. And I keep thinking these people,
you know, they slept in a park because they believed
in something. And maybe that's the other thing I would
say for this moment, is that people don't really believe
in anything anymore. I mean, that's not fully accurate. I'm

(30:48):
overstating it. But it's the kind of thing where people
have become so much more cynical than they were then.
You know, and rightfully so. I mean, you can't blame them.
But I think that's why a lot of these progressive
candidates are having so much purchase is because they're speaking
in ways that is inspiring. They're not saying we're going
to be just, you know, when I think of centrist Democrats,

(31:11):
I think what the way that they sound to me
is like, we're just going to be a little bit
better than the other guys. And that's that's not interesting.
You know, I don't know why people who have two
jobs are going to, you know, drop everything and make
sure they arrange their day so they can go and vote.
Although I will say in a lot of states where
you have early voting, you should always early vote because

(31:33):
there's almost never a line.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
I love some early voting.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Although I will say I think maybe in Decatur and
Atlanta area, they've gotten really good at trying to get
it together because they're always ready for the Republican pushback.
So it seems thus far. And I say this thus
far because we're about to get midterms and it's going
to be interesting. Um, just out of curiosity, because obviously

(32:01):
your six part series is different from your regular podcast.
What made you choose to do this different type of format, uh,
for this specific series?

Speaker 4 (32:11):
So Louisa, the producer on, on the, on the narrative series,
she actually brought this project to me and she had
had already some tape and she wanted to work on this, uh,
on another, on another podcast and that fell through. And
I thought, you know, it could be interesting to do
this with a civic action lens, with a future hindsight

(32:33):
democracy lens, as opposed to being a straight history podcast.
You know, like, this is what happened, et cetera, et cetera,
you know, and then this and then that. And I thought,
you know, this could be a nice new thing for
future hindsight to do and to approach. And I just
thought it was an exciting idea. And it was, you know,
it was brought to me kind of half done.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
So then.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
we could finish the work and make it relevant for
this time. That was really important to me, that it
would be relevant to this time.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, and it is.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
And also very historical. Like the blend was perfect. I
am like, I binged the thing.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
And just to not to, you know, I guess to
peek behind the curtains as podcaster, sometimes I'm like, yeah,
I'm not listening to podcasts.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Sometimes I'm just like, oh.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
Yes, I know.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
All the podcasts, there's so many.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
But this one had me, like, I will say, as
I listened to it, I was like, I'm going to
listen to the episodes and we're going to, you know,
thinking that.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
It was just work.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
But, like, I was excited to listen to the next episode,
to the next episode. So kudos to you and your
producers because it was fabulously done, well edited, good storytelling,
great interviews.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Loved it.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
Thank you. That means so much.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
It is. So listeners, if y'all get a chance, you
definitely should be listening. But on top of that, and
I don't know if you did this on purpose or
it just happened to be coincidental, but obviously as a
very feminist-leaning podcast, I did notice that a chunk of
the people you interviewed were women.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Was that on purpose or was that just coincidental?

Speaker 4 (34:06):
We had a lot of other voices, of course. And
so when you have so much tape, you have to
decide what you really want to focus on and the
story you want to tell. And it kind of worked
out this way, not on purpose, but I'm really glad because,

(34:28):
you know, we did a number of table reads and
these were the voices that were so clear and so compelling,
you know, that we were like, we want more of
her and we want more of her, you know, and
it was the kind of thing where then you had
to make room because you know, you can't have a
two-hour podcast. That's just, who's going to listen to that?

(34:50):
So it was really an editorial decision, both for clarity
and for, you know, for the narrative to flow.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
I will say, and y'all are willing to talk about
the harder subjects, especially as like the fizzling out of
the movement. And you understood sometimes when you don't have
that structure and things get to the wayside, such as
a sexual assault and things that were happening, at that time,
the fact that the police were able to infiltrate and
understood how to dismantle a not-led organization. Like, the ideals

(35:25):
are so good, but sometimes it does break apart. And
there are things to learn from that. Was there a
moment where you hesitated in bringing those bad, the dark
side of that movement?

Speaker 4 (35:37):
No, I never hesitated. But I did want to make
sure that it was done in a way that wasn't Again,
victimizing the victim, because that's a really easy trap to
fall into. Absolutely. You know, I really wanted it to
talk about how this is the problem in our society overall.

(35:59):
You know, so this idea that we have this utopian
village that also has the problems that plague us on
the outside of this utopian village. That's how it should be, right?
Because we didn't do any work to actually make the
utopian village a utopia. You know, like, it's not going
to happen just because we have idealistic people sleeping in

(36:26):
a park. But I actually, I don't know what it
would take to no longer have a society that's like this,
you know, where sexual assault is, frankly, commonplace. And so...
I thought that was a really good example of something
where we can see that being idealistic alone is not

(36:51):
going to cut it, basically. And that's a little bit disappointing, right? Right. Right.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
I mean, you could tell the people you were interviewing,
the individuals who had worked so hard and had so
much heart in this movement, how severely disappointed They were,
and I will say for the most part, it seemed
like they weren't completely disillusioned because most of them went
on to continue in different routes to work in their
activism and understanding what this movement was about and understanding

(37:22):
the basis of why this movement was important. But it also, yeah,
it did take a look about like, okay, this is
sometimes what happens with the failures. There could be bad
players and you have to recognize that. You have to
recognize calling out your own And I think like we've
talked about that with like the Black Lives Matter protests,
any of the all kings, the women's protests as well,

(37:45):
like all of these things had good intent. But when
you leave out intersectionality, when you leave out some of
the voices and they tried not to, but and then
there are bad players. And if you aren't quick to
recognize that, how fast it can fall apart. And it
was an interesting conversation because it was like such a
big bang beginning. And then the fizzle was also quick,

(38:07):
but also like a fizzle. Like it was such an
interesting way of looking at this movement from the beginning
to the end. When you finished with this specific series
and in this research, was there something that you came
out with like, oh, this is the big lesson outside
of like, obviously, capitalism is bad. And yes, they were

(38:28):
at the beginning of that. But was there something like
you're like, oh, this is the big narrative in this.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Series?

Speaker 4 (38:35):
Well, I really think that the big lesson is that
nobody's coming to save us. You know, I mean, I
think we have heard this from other people as well. It's,
I'm not saying something that you haven't heard before. Yeah,
if you want change, then you have to go and
agitate for it. You have to organize for it. It's
not going to happen even by just electing people. You

(38:57):
need an inside-outside strategy. You need, you know, people to
demand from the outside that things are different. And then
you need to work with legislators to change the laws.
There's one thing, if there's one thing I've really learned,
I mean, I've learned so many things, but one of
the important things I learned is is that actually you
can change society by changing laws. This is totally underappreciated.

(39:21):
This is what Congress does. It passes laws. And we
need Congress to once again work for the American people
and pass laws and stand for the Constitution, you know,
and get accountability from the people who are bad actors,
who are defrauding us right now and stealing our money. Yes.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
And all of this can be very discouraging. I do
think that the conversation has changed about what civic engagement
looks like. But one of the great things about your podcast,
Future Hindsight, is that you end your episodes with tips

(40:07):
on how to engage. So what is some advice you
would give our listeners who might be feeling that discouragement
to continue to engage?

Speaker 4 (40:19):
One is that I think the only way out is
to have incremental change. This is totally unsexy and uninteresting.
And so how do we get incremental change? It's by
being engaged on a daily basis. And that could be
joining a club. Like, for example, if you care about
the climate, join a climate club or organization. And then

(40:43):
the other thing, the very, very bare minimum absolutely everybody
must do is vote. It sounds... Like, you know, it
sounds kind of lame, frankly, also, and uninspiring to say
you need to vote. It's like, really? That's it? Yes,
that's it. Do that, at the very least. If you
look at elections across the country, you know, in New

(41:05):
York City, I don't know about the data in the
state of Georgia, but in New York City, for mayoral elections,
which are on off cycles, off years, the turnout is
between 20 and 25%. And I think with Mamdani, it
was close to 30 or around 30. But in a
presidential election, it's 65. And 65 even, frankly, is too low.

(41:31):
We should have close to 90%, you know, voter participation.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
And I.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Don't think that people don't vote because they're being, you know,
gerrymandered out. And I think sometimes that all of the
coverage about the upcoming election being potentially tampered with or
gerrymandering or any of the electioneering bad coverage actually discourages

(42:05):
people from voting because they think, ah, you see, I
told you all along, my vote doesn't matter. You know,
they're rigging it anyway. What's the point? And I actually
think we should, I mean, we should know what's happening.
So I don't know how to do this better. I
want to be honest about that. But I do think
that it's not helping. It's not helping people have confidence

(42:26):
that they should go out and vote. But really what
we need to do is vote in huge numbers, just
in droves and droves, because then you can really make
a big dent in having different kinds of people in
Congress who will write the laws that are good for
everyday people. And I think podcasts like yours is really
helping with that narrative because the last couple of elections

(42:47):
thus far, I've been a little more hopeful because they've
been some amazing new candidates popping up. And it's like,
I think, you know, us in our 40s and such,
we're seeing the younger ones really understanding, oh, no, yeah,
the system is bad.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
We just need to uproot the system. Let's bring in
people who think like us. And that's a really reassuring level.
of seeing these types of turnouts and the new candidates
who do understand something is wrong with what we have
right now.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
So we need to disrupt that.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Which is so.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Important.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
And also about your podcast, I love in your episodes
how you have brought in new people and new ways
of thinking about politics and civic engagement. What is something
that you have learned? Because you've talked about the fact
that you're coming back from we're all coming back from
the old school 2016, 2017 to today and meeting these

(43:47):
new people with the new ideals. What are some things
that you have learned that you wish everybody knew right now?

Speaker 4 (43:55):
That you are more powerful than you think you are.
You have more power than you think you do. You
really do. Most people don't exercise it. Most people don't vote, right?
If you think about even the New York City mayoral election,
the fact that 30% Turned out, 70% didn't. Right? So
most people don't vote.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Right.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
Or even if they do vote, they vote only sporadically.
And they think it matters, quote unquote. Well, it matters
every time. And if you're not voting, then you're not
using your power. Yes.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
And like doing the bare minimum of research on who
you're voting for, too, is important, I would say.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
Oh, yes, yes. We've had two, of course, yes.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
That goes without saying. But yes, it should be articulated.
We should say that part out loud. You must do
the research. Please vote for the person who actually aligns
with your values. You know, that's actually not always easy.
That's not always easy to find out in truth. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Well, that's why I say it is because I think
a lot of local elections, if you don't have a
big name that you already know, people are just, I
don't really know who to vote for anyway. And I can't, Honestly,
I'm a big proponent we should have a whole day.
No one would probably use it, but that the whole
day is just research who to vote for because I

(45:15):
get it. People are busy. There's all these pulls on
your time and some local elections here in Atlanta, I
have tried my hardest to find out about the candidates
and I can't find anything about them. And so then
I'm like, do I want to roll the dice, take
a risk or just write somebody in knowing that nothing

(45:36):
will happen? But yeah, going in anyway, I think you
can get a general idea, even without doing too much research,
in these local elections, in these non-presidential elections that are so,
so important that you can at least have an idea of, okay,

(45:57):
I think this is the best choice for me.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Totally.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
I think it's the demise of local media that has
really made that so... hard to do, to find out
what your local electeds stand for, you know, when they
have press conferences, what legislation that they back. And I
think this is actually the genius of Mayor Mamdani. He
is constantly in the media because he is, you know,

(46:20):
finding people where they are. They're no longer reading local media, right?
So they're on social. They're on Instagram, they're on Twitter,
on Blue Sky or Substack, wherever it is. And he
finds them there And I think he's even on YouTube.
I think everything that he does on video is on
a YouTube channel. So it's the kind of thing where
I feel like that's it. You know, the politician of

(46:44):
today has to be out there and talking about the
things that matter to the politician. And I know a
lot of people won't do that, but I think that's
one of the reasons Mamdani is so successful, because we
can see what he stands for and what he's.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Done about it.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Right.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yeah, and one of the episodes that I'm thinking about
where you talk about small elections specifically was about the
library and her talking about the judges and the local
judges who are elected and why that is so important.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
And it really just hit.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
I was like, oh, it's true, because we've talked so
much about the book banning issue and what we're looking
at in free speech and understanding how the library and
innocent librarians are being attacked today because of these mis-
disinformation in general when it comes to public libraries and
what they're reading and what they're allowing it.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
To be read. And she did.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
She talked about the fact that a lot of her
problems in her community, not her problems, but in general,
was the fact that the judges were not taking into
account the actual ruling, but what the people wanted. And
because they were elected and then a lot of people
are just elected by default. And I was like, oh,
I didn't even think about connecting that type of election to.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
The bigger conversations that we're having.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
Yes, local elections matter.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Man.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
And I was like, libraries are being affected, y'all. Which
we've talked about, but.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
We love libraries.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Yes. So I love that episode, obviously. I was like, oh, well,
I definitely have to listen to this one, too. Thank
you for listening to so much. I'm so excited that
you did.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Look. I got in there and I couldn't stop because
it was so good. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 4 (48:24):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yes, well, it's good news for us, at least, because
after the release of Occupy, you've got new episodes of
Future Hindsight. Are there any other projects that you have
coming up in the future?

Speaker 4 (48:40):
So I don't have a specific project yet. coming up.
I have some ideas of what we might want to
do next as another narrative series, but those are really,
you know, in like small, they're small ideas right now.
So this is not the time to share them because
they may never happen. So it's totally irrelevant. But on

(49:01):
Future Hindsight this fall, before the elections, we are having
some interesting conversations with people about electioneering and about getting
money out of politics. We're going to be speaking to
a Harvard Law School professor, Larry Lessig, and he thinks
there's a way to end superstition. PACs without passing a

(49:22):
constitutional amendment or overturning Citizens United. So I'm going to
be all ears about that. So that's coming up right
after Labor Day. And then we're having two economists on.
One of them, this will be interesting because he is older.
He's a retired economist. economist at Stanford, and he argues

(49:42):
that free market capitalism and democracy are not compatible. And
for somebody like him, basically, he has changed his mind,
which is fascinating. And so I love to have conversations
with people who have, you know, evolved and changed their thinking.
And then we also have a woman, also an economist,
who wrote a book about anti-fascist economics in defense of affordability, dignity,

(50:07):
and democracy. And then we have a bunch of other
people on elections leading up to the midterms. And if
I can throw one more in, we're having Amy Westerfeld on,
who has an amazing podcast called Drilled. She is a
climate reporter. She's really excellent, has done amazing work. And

(50:27):
she has a new book out. So we'll have her
on the podcast. It's called Brought to You By How
Corporations Warped the Truth Conned the Public and Broke Democracy.
So that should be a really good conversation.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Well, that was a title.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Dang.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
And yeah, with that, you also ask your guests what
makes them hopeful. So we want to ask you, what
is it that makes you hopeful for the future?

Speaker 4 (50:56):
Well, what makes me hopeful is that I think we've
hit the bottom in terms of civic engagement. I think
that we are on an uptick. So that gives me
a lot of hope. Yes. I also, I'm hopeful about
the progressive candidates and whether they win or not. I
think they're changing the conversation. I think that makes me hopeful. And,
you know, my own learning on the podcast, the things

(51:17):
that I'm learning all the time, that makes me hopeful too. That,
you know, if I can learn something new, other people
can too.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
I love that. I love that.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Something we ask our guests, especially in a field like this,
where we have to, you know, sometimes look at the
dark side or, Or see things that make us feel
a little tired and really just want to give up.
But we do ask, how do you take a break
for yourself? Or what is something that you do to
do self-care, as we will call it? I know that
word has become not so great. But in general, what

(51:48):
do you do to take a step back and just
take a moment for yourself?

Speaker 4 (51:53):
So there are a bunch of things I like to do.
One of the things I love to do is play golf. Okay.
That sounds wrong. People love to make fun of me
for enjoying golf, but I really enjoy being on the
golf course.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (52:05):
And just being outside and, you know, focusing on one
shot at a time, as my golf coach likes to
tell me. And so it's, you know, some people, you know, quote,
practice yoga and I practice golf.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Hey, if that brings you healing, we love it.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
That's something that I don't know how to do, and
I'm pretty sure I would frustrate everybody around me if
I were to try.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
But.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
I love seeing it because I'm like, people who could
actually do well, they're always impressed.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
Well, I enjoy it immensely. It gives me a lot
of joy. And I really like that basically when I'm
playing golf, I don't check my phone. I just check out.
I'm really present. And that's really, I think, a big
part of why I enjoy it so much. And plus,
I like to eat. I like to eat out. And,
you know, one of my sons is a big foodie.
And so we love to hang out and eat. And

(52:53):
that's a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Give me a recommendation. We're going to be up in
New York soon. Where do I need to go? We
ate all the things.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
What kind of food do you like? All of it.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Whatever is quintessential to New York City is what, like,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Like, I'm like, I got to try that.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
I see.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
Well, I don't know. I think the quintessential New York things,
I would not recommend you do that.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
Like, don't eat pizza, you know, don't eat a papaya
grease hot dog. Yeah, don't.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Okay, then where else do I need to go?

Speaker 4 (53:20):
So, I love.
One of my favorite Italian restaurants is Torisi. It's in Soho.
There's a delicious Chinese restaurant I love called Pinch Chinese.
There are a lot of Mexican restaurants that I really like.
There's one in my neighborhood called Fonda, which I really enjoy.

(53:43):
I think the one that people like to go to
that has good tacos is something called Number One. Something, something,
Number One. I know what it looks like, but I
don't know the name of the restaurant. This is a
terrible recommendation. You might want to cut that out. But
all this to say, it's really good, and people stand
in line for that.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Well, I have a feeling, and people might be like,
our listeners are going to be like, oh, I know
what she's talking about.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
It's this one. So, yes, that's a clue enough. Okay,
clue enough.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I think those are fantastic recommendations. It's this place. It
might become this. There's a mystery involved.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
There's a mystery involved. Yes, yes. Well, anyway, if you're
coming to New York, please let me know. Allow me
to take you to the taco place, the number one place.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Whatever it's called. Whatever it's called.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Maybe it's called Tacos Number One.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
That would be amazing if that's the name of it.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
I mean, we are always down for delicious food and
meeting up IRL with people we have on the podcast.

Speaker 4 (54:45):
Yes. Same, same here.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yes, well, thank you so much for being here. Even
though you had a bit of a cough, you really
pulled through and answered all of our questions. Thank you.
We really appreciate it. Where can the good listeners find you?

Speaker 4 (55:03):
So please look up Future Hindsight wherever you listen to podcasts.
We are now also discoverable on the NPR One app.
So go there, go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
else you like to listen. So on Instagram, please follow
us on Future Hindsight Pod. And on Twitter, we are
future underscore hindsight without an E. So it's F-U-T-U-R underscore hindsight.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Well, listeners, certainly go do that if you haven't already.
Thank you so much for being here. Now we're going
to hang out in New York and it's going.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
To be great.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
You're welcome back anytime as well.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Yes, please.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
Oh, that's so generous. Thank you so much. It was
really a pleasure to be on your show. Thank you
for having me.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Well, listeners, if you would like to contact us, you can.
You can email us at hello at stuffwe'renevertoldyou.com. You can
find us on BlueSky at MomStuffPodcast or on Instagram and
TikTok at stuffwe'renevertoldyou. We're also on YouTube. We have some
merchandise at Comp Bureau and we have a book. You
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
to our super producer, Rima, and our executive producer, Maya.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
You is a production by HeartRadio. For more podcasts from HeartRadio,
you can check out the HeartRadio app, a podcast where
we listen to your favorite shows.