August 30, 2025 • 22 mins
Bobby Nichols is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's chapter chair and current member. He is the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. Additionally, Bobby Nichols works for the Office of the Arizona Attorney General as a state attorney representing Arizona's Departments of Child Safety and Economic Security in Superior and Administrative Court cases involving the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of minor children and vulnerable adults.
In the second half of the show, we discuss the implementation of socialist ideas in local communities, how to get involved in local politics, and we discuss Bobby’s own campaign for City Council.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
the balance and defend the discourse from the hip hop
weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am still
your host Rams's job. Big shout out to my man
q Ward who is out in the City of Angels
making a difference that we will all one day be
able to appreciate. If you miss him like I do,
and you need to hear his voice, please check out
(00:21):
our show the QR code. You can find it wherever
you find your current shows. Doesn't matter what shows they are,
you can find us there. But have no fear in
the studio with us today is a former and current guest,
Bobby Nichols, and I hope to be the future guest
who love these conversations absolutely. For those who don't know,
Bobby Nichols is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's
(00:41):
Chapter chair and current member. He's the founder of Arizona
Works Together, a pro union political action committee operating at
the state level. Additionally, Bobby Nichols works for the Office
of the Arizona Attorney General as a state attorney representing
Arizona's Departments of Child Safety and Economic Security. He is
not here speaking as a representative of the Attorney General
General's office, but he is currently campaigning for the city
(01:01):
council for Tempee, Arizona. And we're going to get to
that in just a second. But before we get there,
it is time to baba, become a better alli baba,
and today's baba, we are sending you back to DSAUSA
dot org. All right, I'm gonna say it again, dsausa
dot org. If you like the conversation we're having today,
check out dsausa dot org. I'm going to share from
(01:22):
their website. The Democratic Socialist of America is the largest
socialist organization in the United States, with over eighty thousand
members and chapters in all fifty states. I believe it's
hire now. We believe that working people should run both
the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not
to make profits or a few we Again, this is.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
From their website.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
We are a political and activist organization, not a party.
Through campus and community based chapters, d SA members use
a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action, to
fight for reforms that empower working people. A Democratic Socialist
of America is the largest socialist organization in the United
States because we're a member driven mass organization. We believe
that working people should run both the economy and civil society,
(02:03):
and we show our commitment to this principle by being
an organization of, by, and for the working class. We're
all in this together, the poor and working class. To
win a better world, we must care for our neighbors,
build community, and fight alongside each other. As a working
class organization, we are funding ourselves as workers. We are
in charge of our own liberation, and we have some
monumental tasks ahead of us. Fights we must win, and
(02:26):
we can't do it alone. Give today. We have a
world to win once again. That is DSA USA dot org.
And yeah again I this language here. I mean, if
you were to go to like the Republican, you know,
the National Republican, they talk about you know, values and
(02:46):
you know legacy and history and that sort of stuff,
and those are all really cool words, but these are
the worst that I think really matter. You know, we
need to care for each other, poor and working class.
These are the biblical principles that Republicans espouse on full.
I have no idea why you guys get attacked so
much by them, it's crazy. But all right, I want
to talk to you about you because you are sort
(03:10):
of the man of the hour.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Where you live.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
We've had conversations on this show about people trying to
make changes in their in their community and their immediate reality, right,
things that really matter. But you're actually doing that, and
you have received a lot of really important support. So
I want to talk to you about that, and I
would like, if possible, for you to be as detailed
(03:41):
as you can be, so that our listeners, if they
feel inspired, will know at least what framework that they
can adopt to try to get more active, as opposed
to just waking up reading their phone. Oh my god,
what did he do today?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So you know, in the first part of the show,
we talked about what DSA nationally, what they stand on,
what principles they stand on. Whether or not people are
members of the DSA. How can folks take those principles
that perhaps they appreciate and indeed espouse in their own
(04:19):
lives and affect real change in local spaces or at
least how have you done that?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And I think talking about my experience is going to
be the best way it's for me to sort of
hopefully give some other people a not necessarily a roadmap,
but some inspiration for what they could be doing in
there especial and I think my experience ranges across multiple
states obviously, but then also up into the national organization.
There are ways to be involved with progress and fighting
(04:48):
for a better world without being a member of DSA
or as a member of DSA on so many different levels.
So I first got involved with politics, and I would
call it politics when I started law.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
School in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I went to Golden Gate University, small school, but they
offered me a full ride scholarship, and I said, that's
the place I don't need this debt. And I showed
up in one of the programs that I was required
to work on as a condition of being a presidential
Merit scholar going to Golden Gate University was working in
the Homeless Advocacy Project and that result that was mostly
(05:24):
a tenant representation people who were facing unfair eviction by
slum lords in San Francisco. And so while I was
working in that space, I saw people who were paying
eight nine hundred dollars one thousand dollars a month to
live on the shower floor of a communal bathroom with
a mattress. I saw people who had been living in
(05:44):
the laundry room, or people who had six or seven
people in just a small studio apartment and calling it
an apartment is generous with black wall covered walls, walls
and sinks and toilets and whatnot. It was eye opening,
for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Also in San Francisco. Of course, there is a large
unhoused community and a large mutual aid effort going on
around the city to help take care of people. We
also had in San Francisco a mayor at the time
who was nominally progressive but had taken what we would
recognize in Arizona as very republican conservative stances against providing
(06:24):
services to the unhoused, providing support to mutual aid organizations,
or protecting tenants from unfair evictions. And I was lucky to,
at the end of law school work for the first
Democratic socialist elected to San Francisco City Hall in over
forty years. The man's name was Dean Preston. He is
still doing a lot of great workout in San Francisco.
(06:47):
He won his subsequent election, and then most recently he
was targeted by Elon Musk with several million dollars put
into the race specifically to beat him, and he was
still pretty close, but it was really really.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Difficult at that.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
We see right now San Francisco is having a significant
issue with another mayor that is even more to the
right of the last one, and Dean's idea is no
longer being sort of fought for. But as part of
that work, while I was in office with it, or
while I was working for him while he was in office,
I got to work on a few really cool bills.
One of them was a doubling of transfer taxes on
(07:23):
properties worth more than ten million dollars, so you could
call that a mansion tax or a skyscraper a tax,
and that money was designated to go towards social housing
and public housing programs. To date, it has raised over
it's confirmed to have raised over three hundred million dollars
for those projects, with another potential one hundred and fifty
(07:43):
million dollars it still needs to be confirmed by the
city recorder. And that money has has purchased several hundred
units of public permanent supportive housing, so that's available to
the unhouse people of San Francisco when they need a
place to live, or it's supposed to be the mayor
is sort of dragging his feet on implementing that. And
(08:04):
it also kept over ten thousand people in their homes
following COVID through debt relief and rent relief programs. And
when I came back to Arizona, I really wanted to
continue that work. I felt like that was important work
that I was doing, helping people get home, stay in
their homes, stay off the streets in terms of being homeless,
(08:24):
and uplifting the organizations that were working to serve the
unhoused population. So in Phoenix DSA at the time it
was at the time called Phoenix DSSA, we didn't really
have an electoral program. There had been a significant electoral
push surrounding the Bernie Sanders campaign in twenty twenty. But
once that sort of folded, the DSA organizers who had
(08:49):
been involved with our revolution, which was Bernie Sanders Pack
sort of took some reasonably needed mental health time. And
it was during that period that I sort of returned
to Arizona and I got involved with Phoenix DSSA, where
they weren't really doing any electoral work. So at the
time I founded our electoral committee, it was just as
easy as writing a resolution that said, we need a
(09:12):
electoral committee for this reason, and this is what I
think it should be and how it should run. Meeting
three other members of Phoenix DSA who you could get
in touch with, either over slack at the time or
now we're on signal and other organizational tools like that,
and getting all to sign up and sending it to
the Executive Committee for a vote at the next General
(09:34):
Chapter meeting. And that program has had its ups and downs,
but recently we worked on a few campaigns in Phoenix.
One was with a state House candidate named Tector Harramo.
He's a really nice guy, a family man, Democratic Socialist
Chapter member. And then the other one was for current
(09:55):
Phoenix City Council member Anna Hernandez, who also has done
a lot of great works around abolition work and divestment
from the police, which I think is something that she's
done a great work on, even if she's standing sort
of by herself a lot of the time, that has
been something I'm really really proud of, and I think
that work is something that is not really that difficult
(10:16):
to do.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It just took me sort of getting.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Involved and seeing what you could do and putting it
out needed to be done.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, so that's what I wanted to ask about next.
So you wanting to bring that same energy to Phoenix
has got to be special coming from a place like
San Francisco because the stakes are a lot higher for
folks that don't live in Arizona. For folks that have
never been, it is very easy to.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I have.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
In my time in Arizona have come across people who
have expired because they were outside and it was too
hot and it didn't have anywhere to go. It's a
real thing. It does happen. So when I say that,
like a quick story, again for people that don't live here,
you're not used to this. But I'm driving home this
(11:13):
past weekend. I was driving home. I wasn't alone, so
I had I have somebody that could confirm the story
driving home, and I saw it look like a lady
that had fallen over on the side of the ground.
Now I'm coming home from my nightclub. So it's two
thirty in the morning, and there's a walker and the
walkers sort of sideways on the sidewalk and there's a
(11:35):
gray haired I thought it was a gray haired woman
laying in the dirt where you would find grass, just
before the very curb of the street. And this is
on Central Avenue, so this is downtown, big buildings, all
that sort of stuff, and you know, those of us
who live out here who see this sort of thing happen,
I'm like, oh my god, I have to go and
see this, because you can't just leave a person if
(11:57):
they've that was the last moment of their life, you
can't leave him there. They deserve dignity. I pulled around
and put the car and park, jumped out and got
close enough. I'm like, okay, this person is still breathing.
Thank god. The amount of relief, because for people that
live here, you get it right. Yeah, it's it's the summer,
(12:17):
and it's you know, at the time, and the still.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Urgent because you might get third and yeah, serious burns.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Oh yeah, and two in the morning, it's it's still
one hundred and two degrees outside. So went to a circle,
k got some gatorade, brought it back, gave it to
it was a gambling on the ground. Turned out to
be woke them up, just with the cold bottle. Hey friend,
you're their friend. Gave him the bottle and he woke
up and he kind of grabbed it, and I was like, hey,
just checking on you, and I left him alone because again,
(12:43):
they deserved dignity. Don't know what his circumstances were they
caused him to be there, but hey.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Jesus was poor. It takes issue with me, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Whatever, So anyway, I say that to say that I
applaud the work that you've done. And I know that
there might be causes like this one or other causes
that people feel very strongly about things that they want
to change in their immediate community. So when we're talking
about city council step, what steps does a person who's
(13:14):
sitting at home listening to you talk right now do they?
What do they do first? When they listen to you
and they say, you know what, I'm inspired. Bobby Nichols
inspired me. He's doing something that's dope, and I want
to do something that's dope and I can do it too.
I just don't know what's step number one? Talk to
that person.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Step number one is getting out and going to your
city council meetings. You're going to see there, not just
you know, because the problems that we're talking about right now,
you can see that day to day, like it's apparent
in your face. We have a president right now who
is making it more and more apparent every single day
with the way that him and his administration view and
(13:55):
treat the unhoused people. And I'm talking specifically about using
unhoused populations has the sort of framing for this specific conversation.
If you are worried about unhoused people in your area,
you need to figure out whether anything is being done
about it first. So that means both going out to
city hall, getting into those meetings and asking very directly,
(14:16):
because most cities are required to give the public a
chance to speak at the beginning, saying what is being
done about the unhoused populations who are facing heat related
deaths in Arizona, or we recently had a giant storm
that blew through or that were made even more destitute
by having their belongings blown off in a storm or
(14:37):
swept away by the police and all their things were confiscated, Like,
what is being done to make sure these neighbors and
residents of our city are receiving the care that they
need and the support and the shelter that they need,
and you might find that there are some incredible things
being done. You'll likely find a lot of mutual aid
organizations doing great work. In Tempe, Arizona, which is where
(14:59):
I'm from, we have a group called the Airis Foundation.
We also have a group called the Tempe Really Really
Free Market, and those organizations have done just so much
incredible work. Another group is called Arizona Hugs, and you know,
they have fun names like this sometimes, but they do meaningful, powerful,
intense work with marginalized and exploited communities that have been
(15:22):
you know, they become the leftovers of capitalism who are
required in order to keep prices up. And so there
may be a lot of great work happening, but you
are likely going to find that your city council is
probably not doing everything they could be. And that has
a couple of different, you know, reasons for it. And
the main one that I have discovered is that it
(15:44):
really doesn't make donors, specifically corporate developers and corporate landlords
like Blackrock, very much money to invest in housing the
homeless or to invest in providing services to the homeless.
Even low cost housing, even low cost housing. And that's
because it's literally a threat to the rest of us
for unhoused people to be on the street. You know,
(16:06):
we need to be able to see that. The capitalists
and a lot of these large developers and whatnot want
you to think that that could be me. If I
don't pay the price, if I don't work hard enough,
if I don't like put my back end all of
this work and dedicate my life to making somebody else money,
I could be the one on the street. And that's
true right now. But I'm fighting for a world where
(16:26):
that can't be true anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I want to say that I've mentioned earlier that in
my notes, where it's said that capitalism requires there to
be some unemployment to keep wages low. Those notes are
in my instagram. They're either on the Civiccycer Instagram or
my rams' gi instagram. But anybody wants to go check
(16:48):
them out, they're there on display. It's one of those
tiles that gets saved, so you can check this out.
Because I'm not just making that part of capitalism is
it's built with the evil in it.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I don't like the framing of evil versus good and
you know, and yeah, but I think it's important to
acknowledge like this is just how that system is worth
and it's built to make people money. That's the main
driving thing.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
So let me talk to you about your candidacy specifically.
So you mentioned kind of why you're running for Tempee
City Council. What inspired the run? Can people support you
and why should they? What changes do you plan on
(17:33):
making and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Well, I'd say there's one other sort of narrative that
I'd like to establish in terms of why I'm running.
You know, I have lived in Tempe for twenty five years.
It's where my family lives. It's where my sister passed away,
It's where my friends are, It's where you know, I
have connections.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
They're going back.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And when I say the thing about my sister, it's
like I was very very close with her, and it'd
be very difficult for me to imagine being in another space.
I have a pretty solid job. Thank you for making
the description at the beginning. I really appreciate that I
get good benefits. I don't make an unreasonable amount of money,
but at this rate, I will never be able to
afford to own a home in Tempe unless my parents
(18:16):
pass away and leave me theirs, and that's not something
that is reasonable for me to have to depend on
to be able to develop the generational wealth that comes
with home ownership. And so I'm running to make Tempe
affordable for everyone that includes me, and it also includes
the unhoused people who are in Tempe. And affordable means
that you're able to access what you need to survive.
(18:38):
You need shelter, you need food, you need toiletries, you
need medicine, you need these basic human resources that are
denied to us under capitalist systems. And I would say
that the reason why I think that should resonate with
people is because there are people who are worse off
than me, and they're going to need this same opportunity.
(19:00):
I'm not asking that we all have the same outcomes,
but I am asking that we are all given the
same chance to succeed in this world. And I really
think that by putting in common sense tenant protections, by
creating new cooling centers for the un house, by building
publicly owned grocery stores, by investing in low cost and
no cost public transit, we can adopt, we can adopt
(19:22):
a lot of programs that lead to upward social mobility,
which allows for people to spend more time getting to
know the world around them, which historically leads more people
to get involved with socialist programs and socialist policies.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
If I may, this sounds surprisingly similar to the talking
points that we're coming out of New York. Is this
something that people would find commonplace in democratic socialist campaigns
being run on the local level around the country.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Absolutely, And I don't even think that there's not a
national dossier for how the local candidates need.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
To run their campaign.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Makes the most sense, but it makes sense like we
have food deserts in Arizona and they're not being filled
by the capitalist businesses, which means exactly, which means that
we need to have a public option. We need to
have a publicly owned grocery store to provide reasonably priced
healthy food for our families. We don't have housing that
would actually address the need in Tempe, and that means
(20:23):
we're going to need the city to step in and
make it happen.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, well, let's do this. Obviously, the people in and
around timp can support you. But Timpe is very small
relative to the amount.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Of reach that this show gets too.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
So if there are people who feel inspired by what
it is you're doing in Timpe, how can they support
maybe plug in social media anything like that, just so
that people can either watch the watch the growth, or
invest in better tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
For Yeah, so I want to learn more about about
me and my campaign. My website is www dot Bobby
four temp dot com. That's Bobby the Number four t
E m p E dot com. I'm on social media
at Bobby the Number four temp dot not dot com,
(21:19):
but yeah, Bobby four Temp on Instagram, TikTok uh, Facebook, Twitter,
those different platforms. I'm all over the place now. It's
becoming very difficult to manage all of it at the
same time. But it's a lot of fun. Like I
am legitimately having an incredible time, and I think I'm
able to do that because I don't have to go
scraping to the corporate landlord lobby.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
I don't have to go scrap into somebody else.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I have a movement for socialism and democratic socialism behind me,
and I'm really excited and I'm endorsed by the Phoenix
Chapter of the Democratic Socialist of America. As of today,
very exciting.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
The other thing I would say is there is likely
a DSA chapter in your area, and you should try
to go get involved, Like there are people there who
are fighting for these things, who are just regular working
class folks who want to see the change in the
world that you want to see, and you should absolutely
get out there and try and get involved.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
All right, Well, Bobby Nichols, Bobby Nickels, Sorry, I appreciate
you stopping by and talking to us again. You're always
welcome to come back. I love having these conversations with you.
One more time. Shout out your social media.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, that's Bobby. For t E.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
MPE that's Bobby four TEMP. And by the way, I
also want to talk next time I come back. We
need to talk about rap Park. That was a really
interesting piece.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Let's do it. And for those who want to hear
about that, you can check out again the QR code
at the QR code if you want to start that. Also,
want to shout out our becoming a Better ally that's
DSA USA dot org. If you want to find out
more how to support them, you can also find me
and q on all social media at Civic Cipher and
be sure to check us out next week. Y'all right
(22:56):
here on Civic Cipher piece
Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
the balance and defend the discourse from the hip hop
weekly studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I am still
your host Rams's job. Big shout out to my man
q Ward who is out in the City of Angels
making a difference that we will all one day be
able to appreciate. If you miss him like I do,
and you need to hear his voice, please check out
(00:21):
our show the QR code. You can find it wherever
you find your current shows. Doesn't matter what shows they are,
you can find us there. But have no fear in
the studio with us today is a former and current guest,
Bobby Nichols, and I hope to be the future guest
who love these conversations absolutely. For those who don't know,
Bobby Nichols is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's
(00:41):
Chapter chair and current member. He's the founder of Arizona
Works Together, a pro union political action committee operating at
the state level. Additionally, Bobby Nichols works for the Office
of the Arizona Attorney General as a state attorney representing
Arizona's Departments of Child Safety and Economic Security. He is
not here speaking as a representative of the Attorney General
General's office, but he is currently campaigning for the city
(01:01):
council for Tempee, Arizona. And we're going to get to
that in just a second. But before we get there,
it is time to baba, become a better alli baba,
and today's baba, we are sending you back to DSAUSA
dot org. All right, I'm gonna say it again, dsausa
dot org. If you like the conversation we're having today,
check out dsausa dot org. I'm going to share from
(01:22):
their website. The Democratic Socialist of America is the largest
socialist organization in the United States, with over eighty thousand
members and chapters in all fifty states. I believe it's
hire now. We believe that working people should run both
the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not
to make profits or a few we Again, this is.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
From their website.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
We are a political and activist organization, not a party.
Through campus and community based chapters, d SA members use
a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action, to
fight for reforms that empower working people. A Democratic Socialist
of America is the largest socialist organization in the United
States because we're a member driven mass organization. We believe
that working people should run both the economy and civil society,
(02:03):
and we show our commitment to this principle by being
an organization of, by, and for the working class. We're
all in this together, the poor and working class. To
win a better world, we must care for our neighbors,
build community, and fight alongside each other. As a working
class organization, we are funding ourselves as workers. We are
in charge of our own liberation, and we have some
monumental tasks ahead of us. Fights we must win, and
(02:26):
we can't do it alone. Give today. We have a
world to win once again. That is DSA USA dot org.
And yeah again I this language here. I mean, if
you were to go to like the Republican, you know,
the National Republican, they talk about you know, values and
(02:46):
you know legacy and history and that sort of stuff,
and those are all really cool words, but these are
the worst that I think really matter. You know, we
need to care for each other, poor and working class.
These are the biblical principles that Republicans espouse on full.
I have no idea why you guys get attacked so
much by them, it's crazy. But all right, I want
to talk to you about you because you are sort
(03:10):
of the man of the hour.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Where you live.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
We've had conversations on this show about people trying to
make changes in their in their community and their immediate reality, right,
things that really matter. But you're actually doing that, and
you have received a lot of really important support. So
I want to talk to you about that, and I
would like, if possible, for you to be as detailed
(03:41):
as you can be, so that our listeners, if they
feel inspired, will know at least what framework that they
can adopt to try to get more active, as opposed
to just waking up reading their phone. Oh my god,
what did he do today?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So you know, in the first part of the show,
we talked about what DSA nationally, what they stand on,
what principles they stand on. Whether or not people are
members of the DSA. How can folks take those principles
that perhaps they appreciate and indeed espouse in their own
(04:19):
lives and affect real change in local spaces or at
least how have you done that?
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And I think talking about my experience is going to
be the best way it's for me to sort of
hopefully give some other people a not necessarily a roadmap,
but some inspiration for what they could be doing in
there especial and I think my experience ranges across multiple
states obviously, but then also up into the national organization.
There are ways to be involved with progress and fighting
(04:48):
for a better world without being a member of DSA
or as a member of DSA on so many different levels.
So I first got involved with politics, and I would
call it politics when I started law.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
School in San Francisco.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I went to Golden Gate University, small school, but they
offered me a full ride scholarship, and I said, that's
the place I don't need this debt. And I showed
up in one of the programs that I was required
to work on as a condition of being a presidential
Merit scholar going to Golden Gate University was working in
the Homeless Advocacy Project and that result that was mostly
(05:24):
a tenant representation people who were facing unfair eviction by
slum lords in San Francisco. And so while I was
working in that space, I saw people who were paying
eight nine hundred dollars one thousand dollars a month to
live on the shower floor of a communal bathroom with
a mattress. I saw people who had been living in
(05:44):
the laundry room, or people who had six or seven
people in just a small studio apartment and calling it
an apartment is generous with black wall covered walls, walls
and sinks and toilets and whatnot. It was eye opening,
for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Also in San Francisco. Of course, there is a large
unhoused community and a large mutual aid effort going on
around the city to help take care of people. We
also had in San Francisco a mayor at the time
who was nominally progressive but had taken what we would
recognize in Arizona as very republican conservative stances against providing
(06:24):
services to the unhoused, providing support to mutual aid organizations,
or protecting tenants from unfair evictions. And I was lucky to,
at the end of law school work for the first
Democratic socialist elected to San Francisco City Hall in over
forty years. The man's name was Dean Preston. He is
still doing a lot of great workout in San Francisco.
(06:47):
He won his subsequent election, and then most recently he
was targeted by Elon Musk with several million dollars put
into the race specifically to beat him, and he was
still pretty close, but it was really really.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Difficult at that.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
We see right now San Francisco is having a significant
issue with another mayor that is even more to the
right of the last one, and Dean's idea is no
longer being sort of fought for. But as part of
that work, while I was in office with it, or
while I was working for him while he was in office,
I got to work on a few really cool bills.
One of them was a doubling of transfer taxes on
(07:23):
properties worth more than ten million dollars, so you could
call that a mansion tax or a skyscraper a tax,
and that money was designated to go towards social housing
and public housing programs. To date, it has raised over
it's confirmed to have raised over three hundred million dollars
for those projects, with another potential one hundred and fifty
(07:43):
million dollars it still needs to be confirmed by the
city recorder. And that money has has purchased several hundred
units of public permanent supportive housing, so that's available to
the unhouse people of San Francisco when they need a
place to live, or it's supposed to be the mayor
is sort of dragging his feet on implementing that. And
(08:04):
it also kept over ten thousand people in their homes
following COVID through debt relief and rent relief programs. And
when I came back to Arizona, I really wanted to
continue that work. I felt like that was important work
that I was doing, helping people get home, stay in
their homes, stay off the streets in terms of being homeless,
(08:24):
and uplifting the organizations that were working to serve the
unhoused population. So in Phoenix DSA at the time it
was at the time called Phoenix DSSA, we didn't really
have an electoral program. There had been a significant electoral
push surrounding the Bernie Sanders campaign in twenty twenty. But
once that sort of folded, the DSA organizers who had
(08:49):
been involved with our revolution, which was Bernie Sanders Pack
sort of took some reasonably needed mental health time. And
it was during that period that I sort of returned
to Arizona and I got involved with Phoenix DSSA, where
they weren't really doing any electoral work. So at the
time I founded our electoral committee, it was just as
easy as writing a resolution that said, we need a
(09:12):
electoral committee for this reason, and this is what I
think it should be and how it should run. Meeting
three other members of Phoenix DSA who you could get
in touch with, either over slack at the time or
now we're on signal and other organizational tools like that,
and getting all to sign up and sending it to
the Executive Committee for a vote at the next General
(09:34):
Chapter meeting. And that program has had its ups and downs,
but recently we worked on a few campaigns in Phoenix.
One was with a state House candidate named Tector Harramo.
He's a really nice guy, a family man, Democratic Socialist
Chapter member. And then the other one was for current
(09:55):
Phoenix City Council member Anna Hernandez, who also has done
a lot of great works around abolition work and divestment
from the police, which I think is something that she's
done a great work on, even if she's standing sort
of by herself a lot of the time, that has
been something I'm really really proud of, and I think
that work is something that is not really that difficult
(10:16):
to do.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It just took me sort of getting.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Involved and seeing what you could do and putting it
out needed to be done.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, so that's what I wanted to ask about next.
So you wanting to bring that same energy to Phoenix
has got to be special coming from a place like
San Francisco because the stakes are a lot higher for
folks that don't live in Arizona. For folks that have
never been, it is very easy to.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I have.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
In my time in Arizona have come across people who
have expired because they were outside and it was too
hot and it didn't have anywhere to go. It's a
real thing. It does happen. So when I say that,
like a quick story, again for people that don't live here,
you're not used to this. But I'm driving home this
(11:13):
past weekend. I was driving home. I wasn't alone, so
I had I have somebody that could confirm the story
driving home, and I saw it look like a lady
that had fallen over on the side of the ground.
Now I'm coming home from my nightclub. So it's two
thirty in the morning, and there's a walker and the
walkers sort of sideways on the sidewalk and there's a
(11:35):
gray haired I thought it was a gray haired woman
laying in the dirt where you would find grass, just
before the very curb of the street. And this is
on Central Avenue, so this is downtown, big buildings, all
that sort of stuff, and you know, those of us
who live out here who see this sort of thing happen,
I'm like, oh my god, I have to go and
see this, because you can't just leave a person if
(11:57):
they've that was the last moment of their life, you
can't leave him there. They deserve dignity. I pulled around
and put the car and park, jumped out and got
close enough. I'm like, okay, this person is still breathing.
Thank god. The amount of relief, because for people that
live here, you get it right. Yeah, it's it's the summer,
(12:17):
and it's you know, at the time, and the still.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Urgent because you might get third and yeah, serious burns.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Oh yeah, and two in the morning, it's it's still
one hundred and two degrees outside. So went to a circle,
k got some gatorade, brought it back, gave it to
it was a gambling on the ground. Turned out to
be woke them up, just with the cold bottle. Hey friend,
you're their friend. Gave him the bottle and he woke
up and he kind of grabbed it, and I was like, hey,
just checking on you, and I left him alone because again,
(12:43):
they deserved dignity. Don't know what his circumstances were they
caused him to be there, but hey.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Jesus was poor. It takes issue with me, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Whatever, So anyway, I say that to say that I
applaud the work that you've done. And I know that
there might be causes like this one or other causes
that people feel very strongly about things that they want
to change in their immediate community. So when we're talking
about city council step, what steps does a person who's
(13:14):
sitting at home listening to you talk right now do they?
What do they do first? When they listen to you
and they say, you know what, I'm inspired. Bobby Nichols
inspired me. He's doing something that's dope, and I want
to do something that's dope and I can do it too.
I just don't know what's step number one? Talk to
that person.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Step number one is getting out and going to your
city council meetings. You're going to see there, not just
you know, because the problems that we're talking about right now,
you can see that day to day, like it's apparent
in your face. We have a president right now who
is making it more and more apparent every single day
with the way that him and his administration view and
(13:55):
treat the unhoused people. And I'm talking specifically about using
unhoused populations has the sort of framing for this specific conversation.
If you are worried about unhoused people in your area,
you need to figure out whether anything is being done
about it first. So that means both going out to
city hall, getting into those meetings and asking very directly,
(14:16):
because most cities are required to give the public a
chance to speak at the beginning, saying what is being
done about the unhoused populations who are facing heat related
deaths in Arizona, or we recently had a giant storm
that blew through or that were made even more destitute
by having their belongings blown off in a storm or
(14:37):
swept away by the police and all their things were confiscated, Like,
what is being done to make sure these neighbors and
residents of our city are receiving the care that they
need and the support and the shelter that they need,
and you might find that there are some incredible things
being done. You'll likely find a lot of mutual aid
organizations doing great work. In Tempe, Arizona, which is where
(14:59):
I'm from, we have a group called the Airis Foundation.
We also have a group called the Tempe Really Really
Free Market, and those organizations have done just so much
incredible work. Another group is called Arizona Hugs, and you know,
they have fun names like this sometimes, but they do meaningful, powerful,
intense work with marginalized and exploited communities that have been
(15:22):
you know, they become the leftovers of capitalism who are
required in order to keep prices up. And so there
may be a lot of great work happening, but you
are likely going to find that your city council is
probably not doing everything they could be. And that has
a couple of different, you know, reasons for it. And
the main one that I have discovered is that it
(15:44):
really doesn't make donors, specifically corporate developers and corporate landlords
like Blackrock, very much money to invest in housing the
homeless or to invest in providing services to the homeless.
Even low cost housing, even low cost housing. And that's
because it's literally a threat to the rest of us
for unhoused people to be on the street. You know,
(16:06):
we need to be able to see that. The capitalists
and a lot of these large developers and whatnot want
you to think that that could be me. If I
don't pay the price, if I don't work hard enough,
if I don't like put my back end all of
this work and dedicate my life to making somebody else money,
I could be the one on the street. And that's
true right now. But I'm fighting for a world where
(16:26):
that can't be true anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I want to say that I've mentioned earlier that in
my notes, where it's said that capitalism requires there to
be some unemployment to keep wages low. Those notes are
in my instagram. They're either on the Civiccycer Instagram or
my rams' gi instagram. But anybody wants to go check
(16:48):
them out, they're there on display. It's one of those
tiles that gets saved, so you can check this out.
Because I'm not just making that part of capitalism is
it's built with the evil in it.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I don't like the framing of evil versus good and
you know, and yeah, but I think it's important to
acknowledge like this is just how that system is worth
and it's built to make people money. That's the main
driving thing.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
So let me talk to you about your candidacy specifically.
So you mentioned kind of why you're running for Tempee
City Council. What inspired the run? Can people support you
and why should they? What changes do you plan on
(17:33):
making and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Well, I'd say there's one other sort of narrative that
I'd like to establish in terms of why I'm running.
You know, I have lived in Tempe for twenty five years.
It's where my family lives. It's where my sister passed away,
It's where my friends are, It's where you know, I
have connections.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
They're going back.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And when I say the thing about my sister, it's
like I was very very close with her, and it'd
be very difficult for me to imagine being in another space.
I have a pretty solid job. Thank you for making
the description at the beginning. I really appreciate that I
get good benefits. I don't make an unreasonable amount of money,
but at this rate, I will never be able to
afford to own a home in Tempe unless my parents
(18:16):
pass away and leave me theirs, and that's not something
that is reasonable for me to have to depend on
to be able to develop the generational wealth that comes
with home ownership. And so I'm running to make Tempe
affordable for everyone that includes me, and it also includes
the unhoused people who are in Tempe. And affordable means
that you're able to access what you need to survive.
(18:38):
You need shelter, you need food, you need toiletries, you
need medicine, you need these basic human resources that are
denied to us under capitalist systems. And I would say
that the reason why I think that should resonate with
people is because there are people who are worse off
than me, and they're going to need this same opportunity.
(19:00):
I'm not asking that we all have the same outcomes,
but I am asking that we are all given the
same chance to succeed in this world. And I really
think that by putting in common sense tenant protections, by
creating new cooling centers for the un house, by building
publicly owned grocery stores, by investing in low cost and
no cost public transit, we can adopt, we can adopt
(19:22):
a lot of programs that lead to upward social mobility,
which allows for people to spend more time getting to
know the world around them, which historically leads more people
to get involved with socialist programs and socialist policies.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
If I may, this sounds surprisingly similar to the talking
points that we're coming out of New York. Is this
something that people would find commonplace in democratic socialist campaigns
being run on the local level around the country.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Absolutely, And I don't even think that there's not a
national dossier for how the local candidates need.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
To run their campaign.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Makes the most sense, but it makes sense like we
have food deserts in Arizona and they're not being filled
by the capitalist businesses, which means exactly, which means that
we need to have a public option. We need to
have a publicly owned grocery store to provide reasonably priced
healthy food for our families. We don't have housing that
would actually address the need in Tempe, and that means
(20:23):
we're going to need the city to step in and
make it happen.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, well, let's do this. Obviously, the people in and
around timp can support you. But Timpe is very small
relative to the amount.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Of reach that this show gets too.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
So if there are people who feel inspired by what
it is you're doing in Timpe, how can they support
maybe plug in social media anything like that, just so
that people can either watch the watch the growth, or
invest in better tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
For Yeah, so I want to learn more about about
me and my campaign. My website is www dot Bobby
four temp dot com. That's Bobby the Number four t
E m p E dot com. I'm on social media
at Bobby the Number four temp dot not dot com,
(21:19):
but yeah, Bobby four Temp on Instagram, TikTok uh, Facebook, Twitter,
those different platforms. I'm all over the place now. It's
becoming very difficult to manage all of it at the
same time. But it's a lot of fun. Like I
am legitimately having an incredible time, and I think I'm
able to do that because I don't have to go
scraping to the corporate landlord lobby.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
I don't have to go scrap into somebody else.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I have a movement for socialism and democratic socialism behind me,
and I'm really excited and I'm endorsed by the Phoenix
Chapter of the Democratic Socialist of America. As of today,
very exciting.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well, congratulations.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
The other thing I would say is there is likely
a DSA chapter in your area, and you should try
to go get involved, Like there are people there who
are fighting for these things, who are just regular working
class folks who want to see the change in the
world that you want to see, and you should absolutely
get out there and try and get involved.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
All right, Well, Bobby Nichols, Bobby Nickels, Sorry, I appreciate
you stopping by and talking to us again. You're always
welcome to come back. I love having these conversations with you.
One more time. Shout out your social media.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, that's Bobby. For t E.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
MPE that's Bobby four TEMP. And by the way, I
also want to talk next time I come back. We
need to talk about rap Park. That was a really
interesting piece.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Let's do it. And for those who want to hear
about that, you can check out again the QR code
at the QR code if you want to start that. Also,
want to shout out our becoming a Better ally that's
DSA USA dot org. If you want to find out
more how to support them, you can also find me
and q on all social media at Civic Cipher and
be sure to check us out next week. Y'all right
(22:56):
here on Civic Cipher piece
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