April 17, 2024 • 50 mins
Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall examines the redemption arcs MAGA figures can have to get back in Trump’s good graces. Professor Eddie Glaude examines his new book 'We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For.' Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition’s Anna Hochkammer details her efforts to pass Florida’s Amendment Four.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Of today's best minds. And Tom Cotton.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Has encouraged people to quote unquote take matters into their
own hands when it comes to protesters. I think we
all know what that means. We have such a great
show for you today. Professor Eddie Glad stops by to
talk to us about his new book, We Are the
Leaders we have been looking for. Then we'll talk to
Anna Hockhammer about her heroic efforts to pass a Florida
(00:35):
abortion amendment. But first we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall,
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Such a weird, fucked up time in American life. I
was sitting there yesterday thinking about Karen McDougall and her
alleged one year relationship with Donald Trump and the catch
and kill scheme that brought Dave vid Pecker into all
of our lives, and I realized that I had forgotten
all of these characters from season one.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, it's funny because you know, multi season or reality TV,
you sort of bring people back for another run. And
I guess One of the things is, you know, people
do like in soap operas, they do heel turns and stuff.
And you know, one of the things in the Trump
shows people come back as you know, they switch teams.
And I mean, I think that Michael Cohen still blocks
(01:28):
me on Twitter from when he was Michael Cohen. I
almost feel like ringing him up, like in his office
at MSNBC now and saying, hey, why am I still blocked?
Isn't that outdated? We certainly have a precedent that there
are people who they will testify but they still love
Trump in their heart right. And then you've got people
(01:48):
like Michael Cohen who, like you're probably going to do
a book party for his next book, right, you guys
must be tight now.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
His entire ethos is anti Trump.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Now, yeah, and what is it? You know, the woman
who was Milania's press secretary or Comm's person and then
was briefly Trump's Comm's person or whatever. Everybody in Trump
world lives at high volume and in only primary colors.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yes, Stephanie Grisham.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Stephanie Grisham, Right, so you're not going to go back
to being like I was hardcore for Trump, but now
I'm just sort of providing some subtle commentary from the margins.
You're just going to go mud wrestle once, mud wrestle forever, right,
I mean for a lot of them, you got to
be all in whatever team you're on.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, no, I agree, and I guess that's true. But
it also like there are a few people from Trump
world who have stayed in Trump world, right, people I'm
thinking of Kelly ann or the really sort of the
political people Walt Nada has provided. You know, he could
probably be a very good witness, but you know he
(02:53):
has a family lawyer, one of Trump's people.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Right, Well, the kind of it's a protection scheme that
they have, that is true. But the ones that are
most interesting to me are you have people like Corey Lewandowski, Bannon,
who they go through these cycles where maybe even you know,
Roger ston't kind of there's a number of people who
like they get sent into exile, but they're always going
(03:17):
to come back. They do something bad, or they upset Trump.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's even just too bad for Trump, which again I
think we should take a moment.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Someone will rape someone and even Trump gets a little upset, right,
or I may get caught raping.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Someone they'll have alleged yes.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well I'm not talking about that person talking about hypothetical
sexual malfeasance, or other times it's just Trump's shooting finger
just gets itchy, right, and that's enough. But those people
go into exile, but they always come back. There's that
kind of person too, which is you know, Bannon's kind
of like that. He got canned at the White House
and then he's been on the outs a few times.
(03:55):
But you definitely have some people who they keep at
it from another direction.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
But I do think that fealty to Trump is the
crucial not of this situation. For example, Trump decided he
liked Michael Aavanatti last week because Michael Aavanati said the
case wasn't a good case. Like I always think about,
like if Trump wins again and sends me to Gimo,
like how many tweets would it take to get off
(04:21):
the Gitmo transport. Well, Trump did have some very good
ideas when it came to I can't lie.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I mean, there's nothing to say.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You have a very different arc. Your arc is something happens,
and you've had too much of being part of the
woke mob, where woke has gotten too much for you.
And you sort of play that out and then you're
you know, I used to be woke, but I understand
I got it with Trump. So you need to have
a you need a you know, in Spy World Day,
(04:52):
someone has a legend that's their fictitious backstory, and you
need sort of a to create a legend to cure
yourself up for this switch.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And it's called Naomi wolfing it. That is the verb.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
You've Naomi wolfed your way from normal to Tucker Carlson
having you as a regular.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, that seems organic to me.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It's not quite as craven.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
But I want to talk to you as we're looking
at this casta characters. The House is in chaos, right
the House Republicans one, you know, they have a one
person majority motion to vacate.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Now Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Luckily, Marjorie Taylor Green was able to find someone as
crazy as she was in everybody's favorite, Thomas Massey.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So now that crew.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Together, they have more than a one person motion to vacate.
We got this foreign aid that is really has not
you know, Ukraine has not gotten any money since Democrats
laws the House. You know, there's Taiwan, Israel, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And appliance.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
We has been postponed another week, So how can any
of us live?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I don't know. I am curious to see what they
will do with this, because it does seem like Johnson
wants to move past this, and you know that's why
he went down Tomar a Lago to sort of get
the you know, laying on of hands and everything, or
you know, the pallium or whatever. I do think it's
possible that if obviously there is one constellation of people
(06:26):
and both parties I mean a ton of people, but
obviously not everybody who wants to move this Israel thing.
And there's a very different and on the Democratic side,
much more intense desire to move on the Ukraine stuff.
So I do think that you could get some Democrats,
probably with the permission of the leadership, to say, let's
(06:47):
do this and we will cover you for that vote.
The problem is that you can't as low an impression
as I may have of Marjorie Taylor Green, she's not
so dumb that she doesn't know she can't wait to
wak can do it again? And Democrats don't become a
permanent backstop for him. Johnson is a complete freak. Democrats
just who cares, you know, for me, it's like Trump's
(07:09):
social stock going down, right, it's probably every day for me. Right.
But having said that, the Ukraine stuff especially is so important.
It's obviously important for Ukraine. It's very important.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
For Poland, which would like to not be annext.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
It's very important for the whole North Atlantic alliance. It's
important in the context of the macro contest in the
world today between civic democracies and authoritarian regime. So that
is just a big deal. And the Israel stuff is complicated,
but you know, Israel has an army. They're not kind
of using rubber bands at the moment, and Ukraine is
(07:47):
using a rubber bands. So that's just absolutely critical. And
to the sen I had any input on it, Yeah,
throw them a bone. If you can get this done,
that would be my take.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I mean it is interesting though to see this Republican party,
you know, they really want to keep the house. There's
a reason that Trump has spent one hundred million dollars
on legal fees is because ultimately he really did not
want to be tried. And you know, he's sitting in
a criminal court. He's going to be there now, the judges,
he has to go every day. There's so many things
(08:17):
I want to talk about when it comes to this.
One is like the geop smear that, like the lie
that he can't go to Baron's graduation though even though
the judge told him he could actually go to Baron's
graduation and he never went to any of the other
kids graduations, Like that wasn't amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Baron's like the son he never had except for Don
and Eric.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, and right, it's that fifth kid. But I mean
I also think that, like he needs to be in
court now, and we spend so much time being told
that this was the quote unquote weakest case. I'm sitting
there and the guy looks terrified when he's not asleep.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
They're drudging up all this salacious stuff from his past.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, it's ben Ghazi on steroids, And some how
I'm supposed to believe that this is not as good
a case as the documents case. Like I have to say,
like this seems like actually, if you're going through like
permeating the news membrane, this seems like a much more
salacious case than taking home some documents.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It's definitely sexier, I mean, except for the fact that
of Trump getting involved right than the documents. But I
do think what it also reminds us is that no
felony indictment is fun. Even when you didn't try to
overthrow the government, it still kind of sucks. You are
kind of in the hands of the judicial system. It
(09:37):
reminds us, you know how they say, you know, even
bad sex is okay, every trial is bad, even the
less important felonies really suck. And we're seeing that there
are just the atmospherics to being tried by the people
of New York or the state or whatever. Trump is
a man of dominance, and when you are bound over
(10:00):
by the state to answer felony charges that you might
lose your liberty for if you are convicted, you are
not dominant. You are being dominated. And there is a
reality to that that you can't spin. And I think
that that is why, in addition to not wanting to
maybe go to prison, that is why he has resisted
(10:22):
this because it is again his whole world is there
are dominated and dominating, and everybody is in one bucket,
and most of us live in a much more fluid
world where you know, we actually have some relationships that
are on par you're dominated or you're dominating, and he's
being dominated here, and I think you just you see
(10:44):
it when you see him there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean I would also add that like Trump is
being treated I mean, except for the fact that he
doesn't get thrown in jail when he violates the gag order,
but he.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Is being treated much more like a normal person.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I mean. One of the things that Trump has managed
to do because he grew up affluent and white and male,
though probably female.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Too, he would have had this advantage.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
But as an affluent white person, he has really managed
to evade responsibility for almost anything, and then having this
political component has really helped him. I mean, you know,
I think about like the valuation stuff, the fraud, Like
I know someone who went to jail for that, a
fancy real estate person.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I mean, you can go to jail for that, and
you can.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Go to jail for cheating on your taxes, which Trump
has also, you know done. I mean, Trump has done
a lot of stuff that a normal person would have
gone to jail for.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And so I do.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Think the idea here that he has to sit in
a courtroom on Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays,
even though it's golf season. You know, the other thing
that I think is a really interesting thing is that
he's not out on the trail like he wasn't out
on the trail before, and now you know this is
going to prevent him from getting on the trail.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, you know, this is almost the part where the
one place I'm almost vaguely sympathetic to him is he
can say, we all knew I was invulnerable. We had
a deal. Of course, I'm not responsible for anything. I've
been doing ridiculous stuff my whole life. We had an understanding,
and suddenly you've broken the understanding, and the reality is
we kind of did have an understanding. In the New
(12:22):
York real Estate Trump fantasy world, he's a notorious con
man and just shark and kind of comical figure, and
everybody just kind of laughed. Again. In a certain sense,
I almost think he's right in the sense that someone
changed the rules on him. You know, it's funny that
I had a tax question and I was talking to
(12:44):
our accountant. It reminded me that, you know, I have
always been with a relentlessly honest accountant, but in addition
to that, I have always been just sort of like,
do whatever it is that is squeaky clean, right, I
wanted to squeak And part of that, I think is
because I'm an honest person, but also like I'm in
(13:05):
a controversial business and I can't be screwing around. Most
people don't cheat on their taxes and all that kind
of stuff, and as you say, Trump has just always
done that. The weirdest thing with this, you know, the
basic argument, Hey, I had an affair, Like you know,
covering up your affair is almost part of having the affair.
What are we talking about here? But like Michael Cohen
(13:25):
already served time in prison over this, and don't tell
me this is a joke. When someone else literally didn't
go to jail for something like this, he went to
jail for this.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I mean, I too overpay my taxes because of anxiety
and also because I just figure it's better to overpay
than to not as well we should. But I do
think that Trump avoiding responsibility and sort of living in
this complete fantasy land where you just get to do
(13:56):
what you want to do because you don't want to
upset his people is completely crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And I will add that.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
A friend of mine who is a straight reporter, was like,
when you know, it's kind of maybe they shouldn't have
brought these charges because the president's hide affairs.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And I was like, no, you can't do this.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
You can't once you you know, the idea that if
your president, you can just do whatever the fuck you
want is how democracies die.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Democracies die in this.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well, and look, this is not because he had an
affair or whatever you want to call the stormy thing, right,
I mean, that's like how we call that an affair.
I mean an affair has to at least lasts longer
than five minutes.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Right, Well, also had a girlfriend at that time.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Right, right, he's double stepping out. But yeah, look, is
falsifying documents up there with trying to overthrow the government
or jacking a few tons worth of classified No it's not.
But you actually just can't do that. And this is
one of the weird things the of the Trump reality
distortion vortex is that you don't get to falsify documents.
(15:02):
There are cases where the underlying substance of what you
are falsifying isn't earthshaking, but you still can't falsify them.
But what you also can't do is should we bring it?
Because what are the optics of? Like, no, that's just
what are you talking about? But it really is an example.
When Trump gets into the mix, people just start thinking
weird things, just strange things like what are you talking about?
(15:26):
Or like should we bring this because we're already bringing
three other ones and this one's weaker. So maybe when
you average them out, the average will become weaker. And
you just have to whoever's saying they have to look
at them and say, dude, what are you talking about?
Like what the average? Like you committed a bunch of crime?
You think about that? I mean, one of the big
reasons I don't cheat on my texts is it'd be
(15:47):
too terrifying to me to be like in Trump's position.
So I just I just go in and say, just I,
let's not screw around because Josh is fraid.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yes, Josh Marshall, I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I would love to come back as always much.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Fun spring us here, and I bet you are trying
to look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable
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Speaker 2 (16:25):
Eddie Glode is the James S.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
McDonald Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of
We Are the Leaders We have been looking for the
web Dubois Lectures. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Eddie.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Well, it's such a delight to be with you and
to have witnessed, Mollie, the way in which you are
in so many ways helping you know, the nation understand
the stakes of this moment. You're writing at Vanity Fair
and across the various platforms. It's just I've learned so
much from you every single day, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well, I'm a very big fan of yours.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I'm a big fan of your work, but I'm also
a big fan of the kind of thinker you are
and sort of more importantly, the people you know, the
historical figures that you've brought back into the discourse. So
we're going to talk about your book, but first I
want you to talk a little bit about some of
the really I think important ways you've brought Because you
(17:26):
are an academic and a historian, a history back into
the forefront, and I'm actually thinking about James Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I was really surprised by the successive beginning. Again, I
knew Baldwin was in circulation among activists. I saw quotations
from his work all over the place during Black Lives Matter.
And I've been teaching Baldwin for so long and writing
with him and about him for so long that I
(17:53):
thought it was time for me to try to think
with him about our current moment. And so I was
just so delighted to see how people responded to my
particular reading of him. And here we are on the
eve of his one hundredth birthday in August second, and
it's wonderful to witness people taking his thinking seriously, not
(18:14):
just his presence, his fiction, but to really see how
he's thinking about democracy. You know, I think he's the
inheritor of Emerson. And so what I've tried to do
over the course of my time in the broader public domain,
Molly is to try to bring the full weight of
my bibliography to bear on these pressing issues, to think
carefully in public with others, and not to lose sight
(18:37):
of you know, my specific skill set. You know, sometimes
when academics make the transition into the broader public discourse,
they think they need to leave themselves behind. What I've
tried to do is to figure out how to think
carefully within the limits and confines of a SoundBite. And
oftentimes that means bringing in tow all of these people
(18:58):
who mean so much to me, like Jay Balden.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, yeah, I read a lot of like Baldwin and
Gorbadal and people who are you know, the sort of
like great writers of the you know, they're different generation.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
They're not the same generation, I think, but the people.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Who sort of wrote really beautiful lyrical work I'm thinking of.
And Baldwin was one of those writers who just had
an incredible voice.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Oh yeah on the page.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
You know.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
He comes out of the church, so he's a childhood preacher.
So there's this sense in which the way the language.
You know, he's a student of you know, the King
James Bible. He's a student of Henry James. He's sitting
in Shakespeare, even if it's a kind of vexed relationship.
He you know, he's reading you know, a Proost and
Emerson and Whitman. He's listening to the blues. So there's this,
(19:50):
There's a unique timbre to his voice and the delicate
balance he he strikes on the page between rage and love,
you know, gives his a sense of urgency and also
a kind of It reveals a deep seated care about
the reader, about us, and I think it takes a
special artist to make that happen. And just think he
(20:12):
grew up poor in Harlem and willed himself into becoming
one of the world's greatest writers. So I'm just delighted,
to be honest with you, to see us catch up with.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Him in the decision to move to Paris. Yeah, I
think that had I been in his circumstances, I probably
would have done the same thing, because to be able
to live somewhere that wasn't so racist must have been
very interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
But then he decides he has to come back.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah, you know, I think he leaves in nineteen forty eight,
and you know, he's not trading the American fantasy for
the French one. He realizes that he needed the space
to breathe. I mean, he didn't have to deal with
America's assumptions about him, but he saw what was happening
to the Algerians in France and Paris and many of
his friends. So I think, you know, not having facility
(20:58):
with the language in those early days, not having a
lot of money, so he really turned inward, and in
turning inward, admit that he had to turn to the
United States, which was always his subject. You know, America
was always his subject. You need that space sometimes to
breathe so that you can think more clearly, so you're
not just out here fighting these people, right.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I don't know, you know, his struggle it feels so
much like my grandfather's struggle in certain ways, even though
they were fighting different things. So we are the leaders
we have been looking for. Talk to us about this book,
lecture series and how it came about, and anything else
you want to tell me.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Yeah, you know, I calivered these lectures about two, you know,
in twenty eleven, and it took me all these years
to return to them, to see the kind of seeds
of all of the subsequent work in some ways begin
again is in this text. Democracy in Black is in
these lectures. And you know, so much has happened since
that twenty eleven and now you know, Michael Brown was
(21:57):
still alive Sandra Bland was still alive. To mere Rice
was still alive. When I get delivered these lectures, you know,
we were dealing with the Obama era and in some
ways not the illusion of being post racial, but you know,
the beginnings of the spike of the betrayal, as it were.
And so what I wanted to do is to kind
of think about this need for us to take responsibility
(22:19):
for democracy right. We've been outsourcing it for too long
to people who claim to be prophetic or claim to
be heroes. We have to understand that democracy's well being
rests in our hands, and that requires of us right
to understand our role. And so I wanted to write
(22:39):
about that. So I wanted to think about that again,
and so I had to figure out me in relation
to all of this, And so the book is this
deeply introspective work about the need for every ordinary people
to take up the responsibility of democracy in this moment
and to do so for me, say this really quickly, Molly,
(23:01):
to do so within the context of African American politics
means that we have to resist the narrow understanding of
what the prophetic is. We have to resist this idea
of heroes that force us into postures of supplication and
understand the power that democracy is and has when we
need are its most vital expression, when everyday ordinated people
(23:24):
are its most vital expression. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, I wish you could say a little more about
that idea of you know, sort of what that means,
the kind of next steps towards a multi racial democracy,
which is the dream.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, now you know.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
I mean, I take up three particular figures in the book.
I look at Martin Luther King Junior, I look at
Malcolm X, and I end with Ella Baker. These three
figures are so important in my own life for how
I think about democracy, and all three of them have
cast these enormous shadows over how I understand myself and
in so many ways, the book is, as I've said,
it is about me coming of age as a thinker
(24:02):
in relation to these people who are so important to me.
But Miss Baker's understanding of what I call following the
theorist Sheldon Wolan, a politics of tending, a kind of
attention to the everyday lives of folk close to the ground,
building a sense of community that affirms the capacity and
dignity of everyday ordinary folk, expressing our values in our
(24:24):
social and political arrangements, electing people who reflect those commitments,
and understanding that those elections are just simply one moment
in the work that democracy requires of us, cultivating the
attitudes personal individual attitudes that are necessary for democratic flourishing.
You know what I mean. Part of what I mean
by that, Molly, is that, you know, we got to
(24:45):
become better people. If we're going to become the leaders
that we're looking for, right, We've got to be better people.
And that means we have to build the relationships with
others and with ourselves so that we can release ourselves
from the burden of all of these noxious ideas that
have got and in the way of building a really
truly and vibrant democratic life in the country. So we
(25:05):
are the leaders we've been looking for. Aims to explore that,
And you know, it's a different kind of book, Molly,
in the sense that I'm not a historian. In the book,
I'm more of a philosopher. You know, I'm trained as
a philosopher of religion, but in the public domain, I'm
often read as a historian. And so this is me
in a different kind of voice. I'm kind of nervous
about it. But we'll see how folks, how folks respond.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I'm sure that you don't need to be nervous, but
that is a really important point.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Why did you pick those three figures?
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Oh yeah, I mean King means everything to me. You know,
as a young child and as a young student in
the eighth grade, I remember being in Miss Mitchell's history
class and on the coast of Mississippi and memorizing the
eye have a dream speech.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Back then, you know, I didn't have a tape player.
I had to borrow the album from the library, and
I remember starting it over and over and over again,
picking up the needle and rising that speech and being
transformed by transfigured and transformed. And then of course I
went to Morehouse College, King's alma Mahuter and they are
kind of baptized in his thinking. And so King cast
(26:12):
this amazing shadow over me. And then as I was
trying to find my own voice, and this is part
of the pain of the second chapter of the book,
Malcolm X became this hero of mine. You know, I
have my goatee as an honor to him. It's my
first conversion experience, right because I grew up with all
of this, you know, with this vexed relationship with my father.
And I opened the book with this, you know, this
(26:33):
horrific moment that he probably doesn't remember. I'm down the
street Molly playing hopscotch with coocious fifth grader named Angel Houston,
and I'm messing up on purpose because I liked her
and I wanted her to show me how to play
every single to show, you know, every time I messed up,
she would have to show me again, you know. And
my dad saw me playing hopscotch with this girl, and
(26:55):
he screams for me to come home. I run home
because I know the sound and tone that voice. And
in that moment, when I stepped into the fourier of
my father's house, he questioned my sexuality. He said, what
are you at? F something? And he did it in
front of my uncle. It's like I was experiencing this
ritual that they both went through or something. And he said,
in that moment, with this vexed relationship with the most
(27:17):
responsible man I've ever known, that I started to look
for heroes, people who could help me become the man
as I imagined myself that I was supposed to be.
And Malcolm became this figure, this hero that I was
looking for, and I began to lose myself in the
imitation of him at Morehouse. And so what I wanted
to do is to kind of think through him and
(27:37):
to put aside the hero and to figure out what
his life actually represents for me. Right, and I moved
from the hero to the representative figure, reading Emerson and
the like, and what does it mean to think of
Malcolm as a fallible, finite, fragile, vulnerable man as opposed
to this shining black prince. That's why he was so important.
And then Ellen Baker is my model for democracy. She's
(27:59):
born in Norfolk, Virginia, December thirteenth, nineteen o three. She
dies December thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, on the same day
she was born. She's at the center of black politics
in the twentieth century. She's a field secretary in the
nineteen forties for the NAACP, organizing NAACP chaptors in the South.
She's the first executive secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
(28:20):
so she actually builds the infrastructure of that organization. And
of course she played a central role Molly in organizing
helping organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee after the Student
Citizens of the nineteen sixth early nineteen sixty right, and
at Shaw University, she helped organize a conference on April first,
which led to the formation of SNICK. And she used
(28:41):
to tell the SNICK of organizers Molly, as they went
into the south, shut up and listen. You might learn
something from these I mean, she was an amazing figure
in so many ways.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Is Shaw one of the women HBCUs.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yes, it's not just women, Yeah, but one of.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Was it at that time? Gender or separate? Are now?
Speaker 4 (29:00):
I don't think so? Oh okay, But she's this amazing
figure on so many levels. You know, she refused to become,
you know, a teacher and became an organizer, and I
was just blown away by her. You know, she has
a what we call a few centered politics as opposed
to a pulpit centered politics.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
What does that mean.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
She's more interested in the people than she is in
the preacher.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Oh wow, that's really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I mean it just seems like these three are such
really good examples of totally different ways of trying to
enact chate the same change.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Right right, And I think there are examples of what
we can find in ourselves. Right, We don't need prophets
who are anointed from on high, who come in with
that authority to tell us what we should do and
that we should follow them. We are the profits because
we can imagine the world as being otherwise. We can
imagine in that which is possible and use that as
the basis to critique the world. All of us have
(30:01):
the capacity to exercise prophetic imagination. We're the profits. We
don't need heroes. You know, we're in this age, Molly
where we're looking to you know, the Marvel heroes of
Iron Man and you know, the Hulk and Thor and
you know, I'm showing my nerdiness. We don't need those heroes.
Emerson made this, you know, wrote this wonderful eye. Great
(30:22):
men and women are here for the purpose of even
greater men and women. You know. That's a pair of phraise.
And so when we encounter our heroes, they are revealing
what we are in fact capable of if we're courageous
enough to step into it. We're the heroes we need.
And then, of course, democracy at its best right is
when everyday ordinary people assume the responsibility for its safety
(30:45):
and security for its flourishing. So you know, although I
invoke the names of Martin and Malcolm and Ella, they're
all in the service of me, calling each of us,
you and me and everyday ordinary people to the task
in front of us, and that saving, salvaging, reimagining democracy
as such.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh God, I'm so worried. You are interacting with students,
Maybe not this semester, but often does it give you hope? Yes?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Good, okay, good, It's a blue soap hope though, because yeah,
our students are so burdened. They are coming of age
in a broken world and they're trying to figure it out.
You know, we can't put it all on their shoulders.
Some of them, because they understand that it's broken, Molly,
they're reaching for languages of order. They're attracted to the autocratic,
(31:39):
the fascistic, dictatorial currents in our politics at this moment.
So and then there are others who are just growthing
for new languages altogether. You know, they don't want to
find comfort in nineteenth century ideologies. You know, they're longing
for for some sense of stability and certainty and safety,
(32:00):
and they're willing to risk, you know, because you know,
there's no guarantee, so I'm hopeful, but I'm prayerful at
the same time. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yes it does, Eddie. Thank you so much. I hope
you will come back.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Thank you, Mollie so much for having me. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Anna Hockhammer is the executive director of the Florida Women's
Freedom Coalition.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Anna.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
Thank you for having me. Mollie.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
We're delighted to have you tell us a little bit
about how you got to be the person who got
involved in this nonpartisan super pass. Just explain what it
is and how you got involved with it.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
In my non working on amendment for in Florida life.
I am a local elected official down here in Pinecrest, Florida,
or one of the interring suburbs of Miami. I've always
been a Democrat. I've always been active in local politics
down here and ran in twenty sixteen, ran again in
twenty twenty. Always been paying attention. But my meaning potatoes
has always been local issues, right. I do police and
(33:09):
hootholes and parks and tree trimming. I help people when
their garbage doesn't get picked up and their neighbors are
sprinkling when they're not supposed to. But I also read
the newspaper and I pay attention to the stuff that's
going on in Florida. And so when Florida started passing
these abortion bands, I started calling around and saying, I'd
heard rumors that somebody we're going to try and do
a constitutional amendment. What's going on? And long story short,
(33:31):
I found my way to Floridians Protecting Freedom, and Floridan's
Protecting Freedom is the umbrella organization that's the official sponsor
of the constitutional amendment. It's made up of stix organizations
right Now, Land Parenthood, the ACLU, FCIU eleven ninety nine,
Florida Rising, a small group out of Sarasota called Florida Voices,
(33:53):
and I ended up creating, with our chair Dona Schalela,
and a really couple of smart consultants, an independent path
called Florida Women's Freedom Coalition, because we knew that we
were going to have to get a pretty broad and
diverse coalition of voters to support amendment, for there's just
no way to get to sixty percent without it, and
(34:14):
we knew that we needed to create some platform within
Chlorines Protecting Freedom. That was single issue that was only
working on Amendment four that was bipartisan as opposed to nonpartisan,
and I really got out of my way emphasizing with
people that there's a significant difference between being bipartisan and
being nonpartisan in this space, and there was need for
(34:37):
bipartisan action that was independent of every other group and
independent of any other group in this space in order
to create a Florida coalition that would get us into
the end zone. And so Florida Women's Freedom Coalition has
made up of a lot of current and former elected
officials of both parties, including people with no party affiliation,
(34:57):
who believe in Amendment four, believe in access to abortion,
and leave all the rest to get at the door
all of the other civil rights, human rights, and partisan
issues out there so that we can all focus on
one thing and win it together. And so I ended
up being the executive director and that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So first, talk about the sixty percent threshold that Florida
has for amendments.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Talk about that first, and then I have a follow
up question on this.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
So the sixty percent threshold, and then the Florida Constitution
is not new, It's been around over a decade, and
so you know that was part of the rules of
the game going into this thing. Didn't take anybody by surprise.
So Florida has passed some fairly progressive referendo over the
last decade or so at the sixty percent threshold, including
their districts. In order to try and deal with some
(35:46):
of the gerimandering restoring voting rights to felons, we passed
a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. And sometimes these things
blow through the sixty percent threshold. There is a certain
schizophrenia in Florida that everybody has to acknowledge of passing
these fairly capressive referenda and simultaneously voting for candidates who
(36:06):
have absolutely no intention of enacting these challasis.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Right, And in fact, that was my next question, which was,
you guys have passed referenda like restoring voting rights to felons,
and then your government has been like yeah, Now.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
I want to be clear here that they didn't say yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
They said yeah, but it's going to cost you.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
They said yeah, but you guys left the whole fines
and piece thing on the table, and so we're going
to use it and manipulate it. I understand that, and
I think anybody here in Florida understands that you're going
to pass and then you're going to have the fight
of the implementing legislation. And I also ignor a little
bit when I hear people get hot and bothered about that,
because anybody who thinks that politics is one and done
(36:46):
is living at fancasy Land. There is no such thing
as one and done on any issue, whether it's abortion, access,
voting rights, or any of the other major themes of
modern American politics. I certainly do not operate, and I
don't think anybody and the coalition operates under the misconception that,
you know, we're all going to win in November and
then everybody's just going to go home eat because the
(37:07):
problem's been solved.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Right, good point.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
Yeah, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work
that way in politics, right. And I think one of
the reasons why we're in this fix across America is
because you know, everybody said, well, Roby ways, the law
of the land wonn't done right, right, But for twenty
five years they've been telling us exactly what they intended
to do, and nobody wanted to believe right it's.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
A really good point.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
But I also think what's important about what you just
said is that it's really about how the amendments are written,
and that's something that you have actually spent a good
deal of time focusing on right, a.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Lot of time focusing on the amendment that we propose
is forty nine words. It's two sentences every now and
every verb was tested, was argued over, was focus group
was pulled, and it turned out that the simplest, most
straightforward language was actually the language that hold the best
every single time. And unlike most constitutional amendments in Florida,
(38:05):
which oftentimes seem to be written in order to confuse
the electorate, there's a real fence that these amendments are
a bait and switch game. Ours is unique in its simplicity.
And that's why the language that was on the actual
petition form that people filled out is identical to the
language that's going to be on the ballot that they're
going to see in front of them in November. It's
one of our strengths, I think.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
So I'm hoping you could explain to us how you
sort of get to the sixty percent threshold in Florida
and what that would look.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Like the math is super straightforward, and I mean there
are a couple of assumptions that you make going into it.
The first is that you're going to have historically high
voter turnout. And I think that that's a pretty safe bet.
That voter turnout in twenty twenty was off the charts.
Voter turnout in my own community was about eighty seven
percent in twenty twenty. So Floridians take their November presidential
(38:58):
elections pretty darn seriously and tend to show up for that.
I don't think given the repeat of the Biden Trump
presidential race that we're about to live through, that we
should assume that that's not going to happen again. And
we need about eighty five percent of the Democrats who
vote to vote yes on Amendment four. We need a
majority of the no party affiliation voters, which is what
(39:21):
Floridians call independent voters.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And that's a pretty big group in Florida, right.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
It's a very big group in Florida, and it's the
fastest growing group in Florida. And I think as we
see people registering to vote in the run up of
the primaries and then into because we have some pretty
significant August elections here in Florida as well. In the
run up to the August and in the run up
to the November elections, we're going to see that NPA
group grow again. And we need thirty five to forty
(39:47):
percent of the Republicans to vote yes on Amendment four,
which I think is completely within reach. The polling is
outstanding and over sixty percent of Republicans support Amendment four.
And we've even got data that shows that about fifty
seve percent of the Trump voters in Florida support Amntent four.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
So this is ours to win.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
When you're sort of talking to vote because you're in Florida,
you're in my Pine Crest is near Miami. Miami is
very swingy in a lot of ways. So you're talking
to voters on the right and the left. Is there
a feeling that DeSantis, like you guys have had a
real problem with inflation in a way that I don't
think anyone sort of saw. I mean, I think the
(40:27):
environmental stuff, yes, but the insurance stuff has really spiraled
out of control. And I'm wondering if do you see
that on the ground affecting voters, or do voters are
they sort of do they not tie the insurance issues,
the flooding issues, the climate change issues with their political votes.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
That's a really good setup. I mean, I will have
an interesting sort of lived experience because I represent a
city that's voter registration is about a third a third third.
I was at the door for a November twenty signorance.
I was at the door for a November twenty twenty race.
As they say, the local politicians are as close as
you can get to the constituents because if you do
the wrong thing, you hear about it while you're waiting
(41:07):
in line at CBS. So I talk to a lot
of people about real stuff all the time. I think
the financial concerns are very strong in South Florida. We've
been the place with basically the highest inflation rate in
the entire nation. We've been running several percent above the
rest of the nation for a very long time. People
(41:27):
feel the crunch insurance is a major problem. Most people
understand that it's a statewide problem, but most people frankly
don't understand which government agency provides which service to them.
They just know that government, right, the big g government
somehow has failed them, and so They're willing to blame
almost anybody who comes to the door for their problems
(41:48):
because things are perceived as being complicated, and you know,
the regular Joe is perceived as always ending up on
the losing side. So I think that these economic motivators
are extremely strong. But in my personal experience, people are
willing to vote for candidates who agree with them on
policies that affect their real lives, their daily lives. And
(42:12):
as much as we like to paint thirty ends is
completely ideological, I think, like most Americans, they just want
to vote for somebody who they think is listening to
them and responding to their problems. And abortion access is
one of those things that you know, knocks on everybody's
doors and door later because we're all making families and
we're all having babies, even if you're not carrying the
baby yourself, you know, you know, and what somebody who is.
(42:34):
So I don't believe that this is an issue that's
going to pack very hard on the partisan level. I
think it's a matter of right. You know, I'm creating
a very open tent and allowing people to talk to
their own communities and language that makes sense to them,
and in real ways, and as long as we have
a multiplicity of voices in this space, Amendment four is
going to way.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Historically, your state has been a very pro choice state,
largely because of the sort of swinginess of it and
also the libertarian leanings of the right in the state.
Now you're at this six week ban, which is taking
into a fact, and now it's in fact, or it's
about to be put into a fact.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
The Supreme Court decision.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
I think the Florida Supreme Court decision was interesting because, like,
you had the signatures to get on the ballot, the
fact that the judges were still like, maybe we won't
let it be on the ballot.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Isn't that a bit odd?
Speaker 5 (43:28):
No, I don't think it's odd. I mean Florida is
odd in many ways that are very unique components of
the process of getting on the ballot. In Florida. We
are the only state that requires Supreme Court scrutiny of
the ballot language before the election. We're the only state
that has that. That rule is not so brand new
that we didn't understand that we were going to have
(43:49):
to get through the Florida Supreme Court, and we knew
exactly who had appointed them, and you know, obviously we're
paying attention to the legal philosophy of the individual justices
on the court. And again back in early twenty twenty three,
when we were writing this language, we were writing it
knowing that we were going to have to get through
the Florida Supreme Court, and given the fact that the
(44:10):
vast majority of those justices are extremely unsupportive of abortion
access as a general rule. The fact that we got through,
I think speaks to how well crafted the language is.
We knew exactly what we needed to do in order
to get through a hostile court, and we did it.
It's a tremendous achievement. I think it speaks to the
(44:31):
expertise as the working groups that put that language together
and how data driven this initiative. Haspent, I mean, Molly,
I cannot tell you how dubious the entire universe was
about our ability to get on the ballot here. I mean,
people thought we were just downright crazy, that Florida had
turned bright red, that the entire state had suddenly become
(44:54):
hostile to abortion access, that we were never going to
be able to raise the money. We ended up raising
almost eight million dollars just in order to fund the
petition phase. We had over two hundred grassroots groups across
this massive state, with thousands and thousands of volunteers. We
managed to collect about one point four or five million petitions,
(45:14):
that's about ten percent of all of the registered voters
in the state of Florida right in less than six months.
And we did it so quickly that we finally had
to have some tough conversations with our volunteer networks, telling
them ordering them to stand down. In December, we weren't
going to collect any more petitions because we were lapping
in the field. We feel like we were wasting money
(45:34):
in that kind of environment where everybody thought we were
downright crazy.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Right to continue to.
Speaker 5 (45:40):
Hear this narrative of but but but it is a
little bit frustrating because what we've done every single time
is we've been told there's a really hard, high bar,
you're not going to be able to do it, but
you're welcome to try and flame out. And what this
coalition has done time and time again is meet that
bar and exceed it over and over again. And I
have trom as confidence that when given the opportunity to
(46:02):
write up vote on Amendment for Lordians are not only
going to get through that sixty percent, they're going to
blow through the sixty percent. This is not a state
that has a lot of trust in meddling and interfering government.
This is not a state that has a lot of
tolerance for people telling them what to do. This is
not a state that has a lot of tolerance for
the government telling them what they can and cannot provide
(46:24):
to their children. And the six week abortion ban, with
almost no exceptions for rape or incest, is such a
profound violation of Gridian's own sense of independence. You know,
the good old free state of Florida, that this was
a real moment of just not reading the room, and
they went so far, they revealed their ultimate intentions so
(46:47):
nakedly that I think Florida voters are just going to
clap back, and clap back hard.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Now the six week ban is, in a fact, floud
is an enormous state. So we're going to see the
kind of stories that we been seeing out of Texas
out of Florida, right, and guaranteed it's good affect the
way obgyn's practice in the state.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
This is a problem that's been getting worse and worse
and worse ever since they passed the fifteen week ban.
So you've got issues with the practice of medicine. We've
now rolled it back to the six week ban, right
when most women have no idea that they're even pregnant.
You're going to see cases like you know, that horrific
case out of Ohio where you had a ten year
old had been raped and couldn't get abortion access and
(47:29):
her lawyer had to drive her out of state, and
then everybody involved was, you know, subject to possible prosecution
for felonies for you know, helping a ten year old rape.
That is going to be what happens in Florida. You've
got to remember the sixth week ban has language in
it that makes anybody who quote participates in an abortion
(47:50):
subject to arrest and conviction for a felony. Well, it
does not define what participating in an abortion is. If
that dispensing pills, is that a pharmacist, is that a doctor?
Is that a husband who drives his wife to an
appointment with her obgyn? Are we all about to be
rounded up and prosecuted simply helping our family members who
(48:12):
have a medical need. It's really intimidating. It's written to
be intimidating. And on top of that, Florida the third
largest state of the nation four million women and girls
of reproductive age, a quarter million live bursts every single year,
the number two provider of abortion services in the nation,
right after California. About eighty five thousand abortions are performed
(48:34):
here every single year, the vast majority of them for
Floridian women's It's not that people are coming here in
such great numbers. We're a big state, and we can't
even properly train our doctors in our medical schools right now.
Our surgical interns have to be flown up to New
Jersey and New York in order to be properly trained
in accredited programs because you can't even teach doctors how
(48:56):
to serve patients in this state anymore.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
It's just such an insane place to be. But here
we are. Thank you so much, Anna.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
Look, thank you for having me. I'm happy to talk
about Florida anytime. My great love and obsession.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
No more perfectly Jesse Cannon by junk Fast. One of
my favorite things in our business is when Republicans' ultra
stupid strategy leaks. When even if it didn't leak, it
would be stupid anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
So we're talking about the GOP leaders in Arizona. You'll
remember that Arizona has enacted this eighteen sixty. They haven't
enacted it yet, but they passed in eighteen sixties Civil
War era abortion Man. The Democrats in the Arizona State
House tried to repeal it, and the Republicans made sure
(49:49):
that it stayed the law. Now they're on break for
a week, but they accidentally sent the Democrats their plan
to try to defeat the ballot initiative, the pro choice
ballot initiative that Arizonians are trying to put on the ballot.
The details were revealed in a PowerPoint presentation that was
(50:10):
supposed to be circulated among Republicans only, but was accidentally
sent to Democratic lawmakers. Thank god, Arizona Republicans are stupid
and that, my friends, is our moment.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Of fuck Gray.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Of today's best minds. And Tom Cotton.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Has encouraged people to quote unquote take matters into their
own hands when it comes to protesters. I think we
all know what that means. We have such a great
show for you today. Professor Eddie Glad stops by to
talk to us about his new book, We Are the
Leaders we have been looking for. Then we'll talk to
Anna Hockhammer about her heroic efforts to pass a Florida
(00:35):
abortion amendment. But first we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall,
Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Such a weird, fucked up time in American life. I
was sitting there yesterday thinking about Karen McDougall and her
alleged one year relationship with Donald Trump and the catch
and kill scheme that brought Dave vid Pecker into all
of our lives, and I realized that I had forgotten
all of these characters from season one.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, it's funny because you know, multi season or reality TV,
you sort of bring people back for another run. And
I guess One of the things is, you know, people
do like in soap operas, they do heel turns and stuff.
And you know, one of the things in the Trump
shows people come back as you know, they switch teams.
And I mean, I think that Michael Cohen still blocks
(01:28):
me on Twitter from when he was Michael Cohen. I
almost feel like ringing him up, like in his office
at MSNBC now and saying, hey, why am I still blocked?
Isn't that outdated? We certainly have a precedent that there
are people who they will testify but they still love
Trump in their heart right. And then you've got people
(01:48):
like Michael Cohen who, like you're probably going to do
a book party for his next book, right, you guys
must be tight now.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
His entire ethos is anti Trump.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Now, yeah, and what is it? You know, the woman
who was Milania's press secretary or Comm's person and then
was briefly Trump's Comm's person or whatever. Everybody in Trump
world lives at high volume and in only primary colors.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yes, Stephanie Grisham.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Stephanie Grisham, Right, so you're not going to go back
to being like I was hardcore for Trump, but now
I'm just sort of providing some subtle commentary from the margins.
You're just going to go mud wrestle once, mud wrestle forever, right,
I mean for a lot of them, you got to
be all in whatever team you're on.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, no, I agree, and I guess that's true. But
it also like there are a few people from Trump
world who have stayed in Trump world, right, people I'm
thinking of Kelly ann or the really sort of the
political people Walt Nada has provided. You know, he could
probably be a very good witness, but you know he
(02:53):
has a family lawyer, one of Trump's people.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Right, Well, the kind of it's a protection scheme that
they have, that is true. But the ones that are
most interesting to me are you have people like Corey Lewandowski, Bannon,
who they go through these cycles where maybe even you know,
Roger ston't kind of there's a number of people who
like they get sent into exile, but they're always going
(03:17):
to come back. They do something bad, or they upset Trump.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's even just too bad for Trump, which again I
think we should take a moment.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Someone will rape someone and even Trump gets a little upset, right,
or I may get caught raping.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Someone they'll have alleged yes.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well I'm not talking about that person talking about hypothetical
sexual malfeasance, or other times it's just Trump's shooting finger
just gets itchy, right, and that's enough. But those people
go into exile, but they always come back. There's that
kind of person too, which is you know, Bannon's kind
of like that. He got canned at the White House
and then he's been on the outs a few times.
(03:55):
But you definitely have some people who they keep at
it from another direction.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
But I do think that fealty to Trump is the
crucial not of this situation. For example, Trump decided he
liked Michael Aavanatti last week because Michael Aavanati said the
case wasn't a good case. Like I always think about,
like if Trump wins again and sends me to Gimo,
like how many tweets would it take to get off
(04:21):
the Gitmo transport. Well, Trump did have some very good
ideas when it came to I can't lie.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I mean, there's nothing to say.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You have a very different arc. Your arc is something happens,
and you've had too much of being part of the
woke mob, where woke has gotten too much for you.
And you sort of play that out and then you're
you know, I used to be woke, but I understand
I got it with Trump. So you need to have
a you need a you know, in Spy World Day,
(04:52):
someone has a legend that's their fictitious backstory, and you
need sort of a to create a legend to cure
yourself up for this switch.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
And it's called Naomi wolfing it. That is the verb.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
You've Naomi wolfed your way from normal to Tucker Carlson
having you as a regular.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, that seems organic to me.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
It's not quite as craven.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
But I want to talk to you as we're looking
at this casta characters. The House is in chaos, right
the House Republicans one, you know, they have a one
person majority motion to vacate.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Now Marjorie Taylor Green.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Luckily, Marjorie Taylor Green was able to find someone as
crazy as she was in everybody's favorite, Thomas Massey.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So now that crew.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Together, they have more than a one person motion to vacate.
We got this foreign aid that is really has not
you know, Ukraine has not gotten any money since Democrats
laws the House. You know, there's Taiwan, Israel, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And appliance.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
We has been postponed another week, So how can any
of us live?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I don't know. I am curious to see what they
will do with this, because it does seem like Johnson
wants to move past this, and you know that's why
he went down Tomar a Lago to sort of get
the you know, laying on of hands and everything, or
you know, the pallium or whatever. I do think it's
possible that if obviously there is one constellation of people
(06:26):
and both parties I mean a ton of people, but
obviously not everybody who wants to move this Israel thing.
And there's a very different and on the Democratic side,
much more intense desire to move on the Ukraine stuff.
So I do think that you could get some Democrats,
probably with the permission of the leadership, to say, let's
(06:47):
do this and we will cover you for that vote.
The problem is that you can't as low an impression
as I may have of Marjorie Taylor Green, she's not
so dumb that she doesn't know she can't wait to
wak can do it again? And Democrats don't become a
permanent backstop for him. Johnson is a complete freak. Democrats
just who cares, you know, for me, it's like Trump's
(07:09):
social stock going down, right, it's probably every day for me. Right.
But having said that, the Ukraine stuff especially is so important.
It's obviously important for Ukraine. It's very important.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
For Poland, which would like to not be annext.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
It's very important for the whole North Atlantic alliance. It's
important in the context of the macro contest in the
world today between civic democracies and authoritarian regime. So that
is just a big deal. And the Israel stuff is complicated,
but you know, Israel has an army. They're not kind
of using rubber bands at the moment, and Ukraine is
(07:47):
using a rubber bands. So that's just absolutely critical. And
to the sen I had any input on it, Yeah,
throw them a bone. If you can get this done,
that would be my take.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I mean it is interesting though to see this Republican party,
you know, they really want to keep the house. There's
a reason that Trump has spent one hundred million dollars
on legal fees is because ultimately he really did not
want to be tried. And you know, he's sitting in
a criminal court. He's going to be there now, the judges,
he has to go every day. There's so many things
(08:17):
I want to talk about when it comes to this.
One is like the geop smear that, like the lie
that he can't go to Baron's graduation though even though
the judge told him he could actually go to Baron's
graduation and he never went to any of the other
kids graduations, Like that wasn't amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Baron's like the son he never had except for Don
and Eric.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah, and right, it's that fifth kid. But I mean
I also think that, like he needs to be in
court now, and we spend so much time being told
that this was the quote unquote weakest case. I'm sitting
there and the guy looks terrified when he's not asleep.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
They're drudging up all this salacious stuff from his past.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You know, it's ben Ghazi on steroids, And some how
I'm supposed to believe that this is not as good
a case as the documents case. Like I have to say,
like this seems like actually, if you're going through like
permeating the news membrane, this seems like a much more
salacious case than taking home some documents.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It's definitely sexier, I mean, except for the fact that
of Trump getting involved right than the documents. But I
do think what it also reminds us is that no
felony indictment is fun. Even when you didn't try to
overthrow the government, it still kind of sucks. You are
kind of in the hands of the judicial system. It
(09:37):
reminds us, you know how they say, you know, even
bad sex is okay, every trial is bad, even the
less important felonies really suck. And we're seeing that there
are just the atmospherics to being tried by the people
of New York or the state or whatever. Trump is
a man of dominance, and when you are bound over
(10:00):
by the state to answer felony charges that you might
lose your liberty for if you are convicted, you are
not dominant. You are being dominated. And there is a
reality to that that you can't spin. And I think
that that is why, in addition to not wanting to
maybe go to prison, that is why he has resisted
(10:22):
this because it is again his whole world is there
are dominated and dominating, and everybody is in one bucket,
and most of us live in a much more fluid
world where you know, we actually have some relationships that
are on par you're dominated or you're dominating, and he's
being dominated here, and I think you just you see
(10:44):
it when you see him there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean I would also add that like Trump is
being treated I mean, except for the fact that he
doesn't get thrown in jail when he violates the gag order,
but he.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Is being treated much more like a normal person.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
I mean. One of the things that Trump has managed
to do because he grew up affluent and white and male,
though probably female.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Too, he would have had this advantage.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
But as an affluent white person, he has really managed
to evade responsibility for almost anything, and then having this
political component has really helped him. I mean, you know,
I think about like the valuation stuff, the fraud, Like
I know someone who went to jail for that, a
fancy real estate person.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I mean, you can go to jail for that, and
you can.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Go to jail for cheating on your taxes, which Trump
has also, you know done. I mean, Trump has done
a lot of stuff that a normal person would have
gone to jail for.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And so I do.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Think the idea here that he has to sit in
a courtroom on Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays,
even though it's golf season. You know, the other thing
that I think is a really interesting thing is that
he's not out on the trail like he wasn't out
on the trail before, and now you know this is
going to prevent him from getting on the trail.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, you know, this is almost the part where the
one place I'm almost vaguely sympathetic to him is he
can say, we all knew I was invulnerable. We had
a deal. Of course, I'm not responsible for anything. I've
been doing ridiculous stuff my whole life. We had an understanding,
and suddenly you've broken the understanding, and the reality is
we kind of did have an understanding. In the New
(12:22):
York real Estate Trump fantasy world, he's a notorious con
man and just shark and kind of comical figure, and
everybody just kind of laughed. Again. In a certain sense,
I almost think he's right in the sense that someone
changed the rules on him. You know, it's funny that
I had a tax question and I was talking to
(12:44):
our accountant. It reminded me that, you know, I have
always been with a relentlessly honest accountant, but in addition
to that, I have always been just sort of like,
do whatever it is that is squeaky clean, right, I
wanted to squeak And part of that, I think is
because I'm an honest person, but also like I'm in
(13:05):
a controversial business and I can't be screwing around. Most
people don't cheat on their taxes and all that kind
of stuff, and as you say, Trump has just always
done that. The weirdest thing with this, you know, the
basic argument, Hey, I had an affair, Like you know,
covering up your affair is almost part of having the affair.
What are we talking about here? But like Michael Cohen
(13:25):
already served time in prison over this, and don't tell
me this is a joke. When someone else literally didn't
go to jail for something like this, he went to
jail for this.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I mean, I too overpay my taxes because of anxiety
and also because I just figure it's better to overpay
than to not as well we should. But I do
think that Trump avoiding responsibility and sort of living in
this complete fantasy land where you just get to do
(13:56):
what you want to do because you don't want to
upset his people is completely crazy.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And I will add that.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
A friend of mine who is a straight reporter, was like,
when you know, it's kind of maybe they shouldn't have
brought these charges because the president's hide affairs.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And I was like, no, you can't do this.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
You can't once you you know, the idea that if
your president, you can just do whatever the fuck you
want is how democracies die.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Democracies die in this.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well, and look, this is not because he had an
affair or whatever you want to call the stormy thing, right,
I mean, that's like how we call that an affair.
I mean an affair has to at least lasts longer
than five minutes.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Right, Well, also had a girlfriend at that time.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Right, right, he's double stepping out. But yeah, look, is
falsifying documents up there with trying to overthrow the government
or jacking a few tons worth of classified No it's not.
But you actually just can't do that. And this is
one of the weird things the of the Trump reality
distortion vortex is that you don't get to falsify documents.
(15:02):
There are cases where the underlying substance of what you
are falsifying isn't earthshaking, but you still can't falsify them.
But what you also can't do is should we bring it?
Because what are the optics of? Like, no, that's just
what are you talking about? But it really is an example.
When Trump gets into the mix, people just start thinking
weird things, just strange things like what are you talking about?
(15:26):
Or like should we bring this because we're already bringing
three other ones and this one's weaker. So maybe when
you average them out, the average will become weaker. And
you just have to whoever's saying they have to look
at them and say, dude, what are you talking about?
Like what the average? Like you committed a bunch of crime?
You think about that? I mean, one of the big
reasons I don't cheat on my texts is it'd be
(15:47):
too terrifying to me to be like in Trump's position.
So I just I just go in and say, just I,
let's not screw around because Josh is fraid.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yes, Josh Marshall, I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I would love to come back as always much.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Fun spring us here, and I bet you are trying
to look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable
all new fast politics merchandise we just opened a news
store with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
and top bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Eddie Glode is the James S.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
McDonald Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of
We Are the Leaders We have been looking for the
web Dubois Lectures. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Eddie.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Well, it's such a delight to be with you and
to have witnessed, Mollie, the way in which you are
in so many ways helping you know, the nation understand
the stakes of this moment. You're writing at Vanity Fair
and across the various platforms. It's just I've learned so
much from you every single day, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Well, I'm a very big fan of yours.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I'm a big fan of your work, but I'm also
a big fan of the kind of thinker you are
and sort of more importantly, the people you know, the
historical figures that you've brought back into the discourse. So
we're going to talk about your book, but first I
want you to talk a little bit about some of
the really I think important ways you've brought Because you
(17:26):
are an academic and a historian, a history back into
the forefront, and I'm actually thinking about James Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I was really surprised by the successive beginning. Again, I
knew Baldwin was in circulation among activists. I saw quotations
from his work all over the place during Black Lives Matter.
And I've been teaching Baldwin for so long and writing
with him and about him for so long that I
(17:53):
thought it was time for me to try to think
with him about our current moment. And so I was
just so delighted to see how people responded to my
particular reading of him. And here we are on the
eve of his one hundredth birthday in August second, and
it's wonderful to witness people taking his thinking seriously, not
(18:14):
just his presence, his fiction, but to really see how
he's thinking about democracy. You know, I think he's the
inheritor of Emerson. And so what I've tried to do
over the course of my time in the broader public domain,
Molly is to try to bring the full weight of
my bibliography to bear on these pressing issues, to think
carefully in public with others, and not to lose sight
(18:37):
of you know, my specific skill set. You know, sometimes
when academics make the transition into the broader public discourse,
they think they need to leave themselves behind. What I've
tried to do is to figure out how to think
carefully within the limits and confines of a SoundBite. And
oftentimes that means bringing in tow all of these people
(18:58):
who mean so much to me, like Jay Balden.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, yeah, I read a lot of like Baldwin and
Gorbadal and people who are you know, the sort of
like great writers of the you know, they're different generation.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
They're not the same generation, I think, but the people.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Who sort of wrote really beautiful lyrical work I'm thinking of.
And Baldwin was one of those writers who just had
an incredible voice.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Oh yeah on the page.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
You know.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
He comes out of the church, so he's a childhood preacher.
So there's this sense in which the way the language.
You know, he's a student of you know, the King
James Bible. He's a student of Henry James. He's sitting
in Shakespeare, even if it's a kind of vexed relationship.
He you know, he's reading you know, a Proost and
Emerson and Whitman. He's listening to the blues. So there's this,
(19:50):
There's a unique timbre to his voice and the delicate
balance he he strikes on the page between rage and love,
you know, gives his a sense of urgency and also
a kind of It reveals a deep seated care about
the reader, about us, and I think it takes a
special artist to make that happen. And just think he
(20:12):
grew up poor in Harlem and willed himself into becoming
one of the world's greatest writers. So I'm just delighted,
to be honest with you, to see us catch up with.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Him in the decision to move to Paris. Yeah, I
think that had I been in his circumstances, I probably
would have done the same thing, because to be able
to live somewhere that wasn't so racist must have been
very interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
But then he decides he has to come back.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah, you know, I think he leaves in nineteen forty eight,
and you know, he's not trading the American fantasy for
the French one. He realizes that he needed the space
to breathe. I mean, he didn't have to deal with
America's assumptions about him, but he saw what was happening
to the Algerians in France and Paris and many of
his friends. So I think, you know, not having facility
(20:58):
with the language in those early days, not having a
lot of money, so he really turned inward, and in
turning inward, admit that he had to turn to the
United States, which was always his subject. You know, America
was always his subject. You need that space sometimes to
breathe so that you can think more clearly, so you're
not just out here fighting these people, right.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I don't know, you know, his struggle it feels so
much like my grandfather's struggle in certain ways, even though
they were fighting different things. So we are the leaders
we have been looking for. Talk to us about this book,
lecture series and how it came about, and anything else
you want to tell me.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Yeah, you know, I calivered these lectures about two, you know,
in twenty eleven, and it took me all these years
to return to them, to see the kind of seeds
of all of the subsequent work in some ways begin
again is in this text. Democracy in Black is in
these lectures. And you know, so much has happened since
that twenty eleven and now you know, Michael Brown was
(21:57):
still alive Sandra Bland was still alive. To mere Rice
was still alive. When I get delivered these lectures, you know,
we were dealing with the Obama era and in some
ways not the illusion of being post racial, but you know,
the beginnings of the spike of the betrayal, as it were.
And so what I wanted to do is to kind
of think about this need for us to take responsibility
(22:19):
for democracy right. We've been outsourcing it for too long
to people who claim to be prophetic or claim to
be heroes. We have to understand that democracy's well being
rests in our hands, and that requires of us right
to understand our role. And so I wanted to write
(22:39):
about that. So I wanted to think about that again,
and so I had to figure out me in relation
to all of this, And so the book is this
deeply introspective work about the need for every ordinary people
to take up the responsibility of democracy in this moment
and to do so for me, say this really quickly, Molly,
(23:01):
to do so within the context of African American politics
means that we have to resist the narrow understanding of
what the prophetic is. We have to resist this idea
of heroes that force us into postures of supplication and
understand the power that democracy is and has when we
need are its most vital expression, when everyday ordinated people
(23:24):
are its most vital expression. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, I wish you could say a little more about
that idea of you know, sort of what that means,
the kind of next steps towards a multi racial democracy,
which is the dream.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, now you know.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
I mean, I take up three particular figures in the book.
I look at Martin Luther King Junior, I look at
Malcolm X, and I end with Ella Baker. These three
figures are so important in my own life for how
I think about democracy, and all three of them have
cast these enormous shadows over how I understand myself and
in so many ways, the book is, as I've said,
it is about me coming of age as a thinker
(24:02):
in relation to these people who are so important to me.
But Miss Baker's understanding of what I call following the
theorist Sheldon Wolan, a politics of tending, a kind of
attention to the everyday lives of folk close to the ground,
building a sense of community that affirms the capacity and
dignity of everyday ordinary folk, expressing our values in our
(24:24):
social and political arrangements, electing people who reflect those commitments,
and understanding that those elections are just simply one moment
in the work that democracy requires of us, cultivating the
attitudes personal individual attitudes that are necessary for democratic flourishing.
You know what I mean. Part of what I mean
by that, Molly, is that, you know, we got to
(24:45):
become better people. If we're going to become the leaders
that we're looking for, right, We've got to be better people.
And that means we have to build the relationships with
others and with ourselves so that we can release ourselves
from the burden of all of these noxious ideas that
have got and in the way of building a really
truly and vibrant democratic life in the country. So we
(25:05):
are the leaders we've been looking for. Aims to explore that,
And you know, it's a different kind of book, Molly,
in the sense that I'm not a historian. In the book,
I'm more of a philosopher. You know, I'm trained as
a philosopher of religion, but in the public domain, I'm
often read as a historian. And so this is me
in a different kind of voice. I'm kind of nervous
about it. But we'll see how folks, how folks respond.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I'm sure that you don't need to be nervous, but
that is a really important point.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Why did you pick those three figures?
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Oh yeah, I mean King means everything to me. You know,
as a young child and as a young student in
the eighth grade, I remember being in Miss Mitchell's history
class and on the coast of Mississippi and memorizing the
eye have a dream speech.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Back then, you know, I didn't have a tape player.
I had to borrow the album from the library, and
I remember starting it over and over and over again,
picking up the needle and rising that speech and being
transformed by transfigured and transformed. And then of course I
went to Morehouse College, King's alma Mahuter and they are
kind of baptized in his thinking. And so King cast
(26:12):
this amazing shadow over me. And then as I was
trying to find my own voice, and this is part
of the pain of the second chapter of the book,
Malcolm X became this hero of mine. You know, I
have my goatee as an honor to him. It's my
first conversion experience, right because I grew up with all
of this, you know, with this vexed relationship with my father.
And I opened the book with this, you know, this
(26:33):
horrific moment that he probably doesn't remember. I'm down the
street Molly playing hopscotch with coocious fifth grader named Angel Houston,
and I'm messing up on purpose because I liked her
and I wanted her to show me how to play
every single to show, you know, every time I messed up,
she would have to show me again, you know. And
my dad saw me playing hopscotch with this girl, and
(26:55):
he screams for me to come home. I run home
because I know the sound and tone that voice. And
in that moment, when I stepped into the fourier of
my father's house, he questioned my sexuality. He said, what
are you at? F something? And he did it in
front of my uncle. It's like I was experiencing this
ritual that they both went through or something. And he said,
in that moment, with this vexed relationship with the most
(27:17):
responsible man I've ever known, that I started to look
for heroes, people who could help me become the man
as I imagined myself that I was supposed to be.
And Malcolm became this figure, this hero that I was
looking for, and I began to lose myself in the
imitation of him at Morehouse. And so what I wanted
to do is to kind of think through him and
(27:37):
to put aside the hero and to figure out what
his life actually represents for me. Right, and I moved
from the hero to the representative figure, reading Emerson and
the like, and what does it mean to think of
Malcolm as a fallible, finite, fragile, vulnerable man as opposed
to this shining black prince. That's why he was so important.
And then Ellen Baker is my model for democracy. She's
(27:59):
born in Norfolk, Virginia, December thirteenth, nineteen o three. She
dies December thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, on the same day
she was born. She's at the center of black politics
in the twentieth century. She's a field secretary in the
nineteen forties for the NAACP, organizing NAACP chaptors in the South.
She's the first executive secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
(28:20):
so she actually builds the infrastructure of that organization. And
of course she played a central role Molly in organizing
helping organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee after the Student
Citizens of the nineteen sixth early nineteen sixty right, and
at Shaw University, she helped organize a conference on April first,
which led to the formation of SNICK. And she used
(28:41):
to tell the SNICK of organizers Molly, as they went
into the south, shut up and listen. You might learn
something from these I mean, she was an amazing figure
in so many ways.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Is Shaw one of the women HBCUs.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yes, it's not just women, Yeah, but one of.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Was it at that time? Gender or separate? Are now?
Speaker 4 (29:00):
I don't think so? Oh okay, But she's this amazing
figure on so many levels. You know, she refused to become,
you know, a teacher and became an organizer, and I
was just blown away by her. You know, she has
a what we call a few centered politics as opposed
to a pulpit centered politics.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
What does that mean.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
She's more interested in the people than she is in
the preacher.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Oh wow, that's really cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I mean it just seems like these three are such
really good examples of totally different ways of trying to
enact chate the same change.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Right right, And I think there are examples of what
we can find in ourselves. Right, We don't need prophets
who are anointed from on high, who come in with
that authority to tell us what we should do and
that we should follow them. We are the profits because
we can imagine the world as being otherwise. We can
imagine in that which is possible and use that as
the basis to critique the world. All of us have
(30:01):
the capacity to exercise prophetic imagination. We're the profits. We
don't need heroes. You know, we're in this age, Molly
where we're looking to you know, the Marvel heroes of
Iron Man and you know, the Hulk and Thor and
you know, I'm showing my nerdiness. We don't need those heroes.
Emerson made this, you know, wrote this wonderful eye. Great
(30:22):
men and women are here for the purpose of even
greater men and women. You know. That's a pair of phraise.
And so when we encounter our heroes, they are revealing
what we are in fact capable of if we're courageous
enough to step into it. We're the heroes we need.
And then, of course, democracy at its best right is
when everyday ordinary people assume the responsibility for its safety
(30:45):
and security for its flourishing. So you know, although I
invoke the names of Martin and Malcolm and Ella, they're
all in the service of me, calling each of us,
you and me and everyday ordinary people to the task
in front of us, and that saving, salvaging, reimagining democracy
as such.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh God, I'm so worried. You are interacting with students,
Maybe not this semester, but often does it give you hope? Yes?
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Good, okay, good, It's a blue soap hope though, because yeah,
our students are so burdened. They are coming of age
in a broken world and they're trying to figure it out.
You know, we can't put it all on their shoulders.
Some of them, because they understand that it's broken, Molly,
they're reaching for languages of order. They're attracted to the autocratic,
(31:39):
the fascistic, dictatorial currents in our politics at this moment.
So and then there are others who are just growthing
for new languages altogether. You know, they don't want to
find comfort in nineteenth century ideologies. You know, they're longing
for for some sense of stability and certainty and safety,
(32:00):
and they're willing to risk, you know, because you know,
there's no guarantee, so I'm hopeful, but I'm prayerful at
the same time. If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yes it does, Eddie. Thank you so much. I hope
you will come back.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
Thank you, Mollie so much for having me. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Anna Hockhammer is the executive director of the Florida Women's
Freedom Coalition.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Anna.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
Thank you for having me. Mollie.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
We're delighted to have you tell us a little bit
about how you got to be the person who got
involved in this nonpartisan super pass. Just explain what it
is and how you got involved with it.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
In my non working on amendment for in Florida life.
I am a local elected official down here in Pinecrest, Florida,
or one of the interring suburbs of Miami. I've always
been a Democrat. I've always been active in local politics
down here and ran in twenty sixteen, ran again in
twenty twenty. Always been paying attention. But my meaning potatoes
has always been local issues, right. I do police and
(33:09):
hootholes and parks and tree trimming. I help people when
their garbage doesn't get picked up and their neighbors are
sprinkling when they're not supposed to. But I also read
the newspaper and I pay attention to the stuff that's
going on in Florida. And so when Florida started passing
these abortion bands, I started calling around and saying, I'd
heard rumors that somebody we're going to try and do
a constitutional amendment. What's going on? And long story short,
(33:31):
I found my way to Floridians Protecting Freedom, and Floridan's
Protecting Freedom is the umbrella organization that's the official sponsor
of the constitutional amendment. It's made up of stix organizations
right Now, Land Parenthood, the ACLU, FCIU eleven ninety nine,
Florida Rising, a small group out of Sarasota called Florida Voices,
(33:53):
and I ended up creating, with our chair Dona Schalela,
and a really couple of smart consultants, an independent path
called Florida Women's Freedom Coalition, because we knew that we
were going to have to get a pretty broad and
diverse coalition of voters to support amendment, for there's just
no way to get to sixty percent without it, and
(34:14):
we knew that we needed to create some platform within
Chlorines Protecting Freedom. That was single issue that was only
working on Amendment four that was bipartisan as opposed to nonpartisan,
and I really got out of my way emphasizing with
people that there's a significant difference between being bipartisan and
being nonpartisan in this space, and there was need for
(34:37):
bipartisan action that was independent of every other group and
independent of any other group in this space in order
to create a Florida coalition that would get us into
the end zone. And so Florida Women's Freedom Coalition has
made up of a lot of current and former elected
officials of both parties, including people with no party affiliation,
(34:57):
who believe in Amendment four, believe in access to abortion,
and leave all the rest to get at the door
all of the other civil rights, human rights, and partisan
issues out there so that we can all focus on
one thing and win it together. And so I ended
up being the executive director and that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
So first, talk about the sixty percent threshold that Florida
has for amendments.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Talk about that first, and then I have a follow
up question on this.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
So the sixty percent threshold, and then the Florida Constitution
is not new, It's been around over a decade, and
so you know that was part of the rules of
the game going into this thing. Didn't take anybody by surprise.
So Florida has passed some fairly progressive referendo over the
last decade or so at the sixty percent threshold, including
their districts. In order to try and deal with some
(35:46):
of the gerimandering restoring voting rights to felons, we passed
a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. And sometimes these things
blow through the sixty percent threshold. There is a certain
schizophrenia in Florida that everybody has to acknowledge of passing
these fairly capressive referenda and simultaneously voting for candidates who
(36:06):
have absolutely no intention of enacting these challasis.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Right, And in fact, that was my next question, which was,
you guys have passed referenda like restoring voting rights to felons,
and then your government has been like yeah, Now.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
I want to be clear here that they didn't say yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
They said yeah, but it's going to cost you.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
They said yeah, but you guys left the whole fines
and piece thing on the table, and so we're going
to use it and manipulate it. I understand that, and
I think anybody here in Florida understands that you're going
to pass and then you're going to have the fight
of the implementing legislation. And I also ignor a little
bit when I hear people get hot and bothered about that,
because anybody who thinks that politics is one and done
(36:46):
is living at fancasy Land. There is no such thing
as one and done on any issue, whether it's abortion, access,
voting rights, or any of the other major themes of
modern American politics. I certainly do not operate, and I
don't think anybody and the coalition operates under the misconception that,
you know, we're all going to win in November and
then everybody's just going to go home eat because the
(37:07):
problem's been solved.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Right, good point.
Speaker 5 (37:10):
Yeah, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work
that way in politics, right. And I think one of
the reasons why we're in this fix across America is
because you know, everybody said, well, Roby ways, the law
of the land wonn't done right, right, But for twenty
five years they've been telling us exactly what they intended
to do, and nobody wanted to believe right it's.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
A really good point.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
But I also think what's important about what you just
said is that it's really about how the amendments are written,
and that's something that you have actually spent a good
deal of time focusing on right, a.
Speaker 5 (37:42):
Lot of time focusing on the amendment that we propose
is forty nine words. It's two sentences every now and
every verb was tested, was argued over, was focus group
was pulled, and it turned out that the simplest, most
straightforward language was actually the language that hold the best
every single time. And unlike most constitutional amendments in Florida,
(38:05):
which oftentimes seem to be written in order to confuse
the electorate, there's a real fence that these amendments are
a bait and switch game. Ours is unique in its simplicity.
And that's why the language that was on the actual
petition form that people filled out is identical to the
language that's going to be on the ballot that they're
going to see in front of them in November. It's
one of our strengths, I think.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
So I'm hoping you could explain to us how you
sort of get to the sixty percent threshold in Florida
and what that would look.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Like the math is super straightforward, and I mean there
are a couple of assumptions that you make going into it.
The first is that you're going to have historically high
voter turnout. And I think that that's a pretty safe bet.
That voter turnout in twenty twenty was off the charts.
Voter turnout in my own community was about eighty seven
percent in twenty twenty. So Floridians take their November presidential
(38:58):
elections pretty darn seriously and tend to show up for that.
I don't think given the repeat of the Biden Trump
presidential race that we're about to live through, that we
should assume that that's not going to happen again. And
we need about eighty five percent of the Democrats who
vote to vote yes on Amendment four. We need a
majority of the no party affiliation voters, which is what
(39:21):
Floridians call independent voters.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
And that's a pretty big group in Florida, right.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
It's a very big group in Florida, and it's the
fastest growing group in Florida. And I think as we
see people registering to vote in the run up of
the primaries and then into because we have some pretty
significant August elections here in Florida as well. In the
run up to the August and in the run up
to the November elections, we're going to see that NPA
group grow again. And we need thirty five to forty
(39:47):
percent of the Republicans to vote yes on Amendment four,
which I think is completely within reach. The polling is
outstanding and over sixty percent of Republicans support Amendment four.
And we've even got data that shows that about fifty
seve percent of the Trump voters in Florida support Amntent four.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
So this is ours to win.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
When you're sort of talking to vote because you're in Florida,
you're in my Pine Crest is near Miami. Miami is
very swingy in a lot of ways. So you're talking
to voters on the right and the left. Is there
a feeling that DeSantis, like you guys have had a
real problem with inflation in a way that I don't
think anyone sort of saw. I mean, I think the
(40:27):
environmental stuff, yes, but the insurance stuff has really spiraled
out of control. And I'm wondering if do you see
that on the ground affecting voters, or do voters are
they sort of do they not tie the insurance issues,
the flooding issues, the climate change issues with their political votes.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
That's a really good setup. I mean, I will have
an interesting sort of lived experience because I represent a
city that's voter registration is about a third a third third.
I was at the door for a November twenty signorance.
I was at the door for a November twenty twenty race.
As they say, the local politicians are as close as
you can get to the constituents because if you do
the wrong thing, you hear about it while you're waiting
(41:07):
in line at CBS. So I talk to a lot
of people about real stuff all the time. I think
the financial concerns are very strong in South Florida. We've
been the place with basically the highest inflation rate in
the entire nation. We've been running several percent above the
rest of the nation for a very long time. People
(41:27):
feel the crunch insurance is a major problem. Most people
understand that it's a statewide problem, but most people frankly
don't understand which government agency provides which service to them.
They just know that government, right, the big g government
somehow has failed them, and so They're willing to blame
almost anybody who comes to the door for their problems
(41:48):
because things are perceived as being complicated, and you know,
the regular Joe is perceived as always ending up on
the losing side. So I think that these economic motivators
are extremely strong. But in my personal experience, people are
willing to vote for candidates who agree with them on
policies that affect their real lives, their daily lives. And
(42:12):
as much as we like to paint thirty ends is
completely ideological, I think, like most Americans, they just want
to vote for somebody who they think is listening to
them and responding to their problems. And abortion access is
one of those things that you know, knocks on everybody's
doors and door later because we're all making families and
we're all having babies, even if you're not carrying the
baby yourself, you know, you know, and what somebody who is.
(42:34):
So I don't believe that this is an issue that's
going to pack very hard on the partisan level. I
think it's a matter of right. You know, I'm creating
a very open tent and allowing people to talk to
their own communities and language that makes sense to them,
and in real ways, and as long as we have
a multiplicity of voices in this space, Amendment four is
going to way.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Historically, your state has been a very pro choice state,
largely because of the sort of swinginess of it and
also the libertarian leanings of the right in the state.
Now you're at this six week ban, which is taking
into a fact, and now it's in fact, or it's
about to be put into a fact.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
The Supreme Court decision.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
I think the Florida Supreme Court decision was interesting because, like,
you had the signatures to get on the ballot, the
fact that the judges were still like, maybe we won't
let it be on the ballot.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Isn't that a bit odd?
Speaker 5 (43:28):
No, I don't think it's odd. I mean Florida is
odd in many ways that are very unique components of
the process of getting on the ballot. In Florida. We
are the only state that requires Supreme Court scrutiny of
the ballot language before the election. We're the only state
that has that. That rule is not so brand new
that we didn't understand that we were going to have
(43:49):
to get through the Florida Supreme Court, and we knew
exactly who had appointed them, and you know, obviously we're
paying attention to the legal philosophy of the individual justices
on the court. And again back in early twenty twenty three,
when we were writing this language, we were writing it
knowing that we were going to have to get through
the Florida Supreme Court, and given the fact that the
(44:10):
vast majority of those justices are extremely unsupportive of abortion
access as a general rule. The fact that we got through,
I think speaks to how well crafted the language is.
We knew exactly what we needed to do in order
to get through a hostile court, and we did it.
It's a tremendous achievement. I think it speaks to the
(44:31):
expertise as the working groups that put that language together
and how data driven this initiative. Haspent, I mean, Molly,
I cannot tell you how dubious the entire universe was
about our ability to get on the ballot here. I mean,
people thought we were just downright crazy, that Florida had
turned bright red, that the entire state had suddenly become
(44:54):
hostile to abortion access, that we were never going to
be able to raise the money. We ended up raising
almost eight million dollars just in order to fund the
petition phase. We had over two hundred grassroots groups across
this massive state, with thousands and thousands of volunteers. We
managed to collect about one point four or five million petitions,
(45:14):
that's about ten percent of all of the registered voters
in the state of Florida right in less than six months.
And we did it so quickly that we finally had
to have some tough conversations with our volunteer networks, telling
them ordering them to stand down. In December, we weren't
going to collect any more petitions because we were lapping
in the field. We feel like we were wasting money
(45:34):
in that kind of environment where everybody thought we were
downright crazy.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Right to continue to.
Speaker 5 (45:40):
Hear this narrative of but but but it is a
little bit frustrating because what we've done every single time
is we've been told there's a really hard, high bar,
you're not going to be able to do it, but
you're welcome to try and flame out. And what this
coalition has done time and time again is meet that
bar and exceed it over and over again. And I
have trom as confidence that when given the opportunity to
(46:02):
write up vote on Amendment for Lordians are not only
going to get through that sixty percent, they're going to
blow through the sixty percent. This is not a state
that has a lot of trust in meddling and interfering government.
This is not a state that has a lot of
tolerance for people telling them what to do. This is
not a state that has a lot of tolerance for
the government telling them what they can and cannot provide
(46:24):
to their children. And the six week abortion ban, with
almost no exceptions for rape or incest, is such a
profound violation of Gridian's own sense of independence. You know,
the good old free state of Florida, that this was
a real moment of just not reading the room, and
they went so far, they revealed their ultimate intentions so
(46:47):
nakedly that I think Florida voters are just going to
clap back, and clap back hard.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Now the six week ban is, in a fact, floud
is an enormous state. So we're going to see the
kind of stories that we been seeing out of Texas
out of Florida, right, and guaranteed it's good affect the
way obgyn's practice in the state.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
This is a problem that's been getting worse and worse
and worse ever since they passed the fifteen week ban.
So you've got issues with the practice of medicine. We've
now rolled it back to the six week ban, right
when most women have no idea that they're even pregnant.
You're going to see cases like you know, that horrific
case out of Ohio where you had a ten year
old had been raped and couldn't get abortion access and
(47:29):
her lawyer had to drive her out of state, and
then everybody involved was, you know, subject to possible prosecution
for felonies for you know, helping a ten year old rape.
That is going to be what happens in Florida. You've
got to remember the sixth week ban has language in
it that makes anybody who quote participates in an abortion
(47:50):
subject to arrest and conviction for a felony. Well, it
does not define what participating in an abortion is. If
that dispensing pills, is that a pharmacist, is that a doctor?
Is that a husband who drives his wife to an
appointment with her obgyn? Are we all about to be
rounded up and prosecuted simply helping our family members who
(48:12):
have a medical need. It's really intimidating. It's written to
be intimidating. And on top of that, Florida the third
largest state of the nation four million women and girls
of reproductive age, a quarter million live bursts every single year,
the number two provider of abortion services in the nation,
right after California. About eighty five thousand abortions are performed
(48:34):
here every single year, the vast majority of them for
Floridian women's It's not that people are coming here in
such great numbers. We're a big state, and we can't
even properly train our doctors in our medical schools right now.
Our surgical interns have to be flown up to New
Jersey and New York in order to be properly trained
in accredited programs because you can't even teach doctors how
(48:56):
to serve patients in this state anymore.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
It's just such an insane place to be. But here
we are. Thank you so much, Anna.
Speaker 5 (49:05):
Look, thank you for having me. I'm happy to talk
about Florida anytime. My great love and obsession.
Speaker 6 (49:12):
No more perfectly Jesse Cannon by junk Fast. One of
my favorite things in our business is when Republicans' ultra
stupid strategy leaks. When even if it didn't leak, it
would be stupid anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
So we're talking about the GOP leaders in Arizona. You'll
remember that Arizona has enacted this eighteen sixty. They haven't
enacted it yet, but they passed in eighteen sixties Civil
War era abortion Man. The Democrats in the Arizona State
House tried to repeal it, and the Republicans made sure
(49:49):
that it stayed the law. Now they're on break for
a week, but they accidentally sent the Democrats their plan
to try to defeat the ballot initiative, the pro choice
ballot initiative that Arizonians are trying to put on the ballot.
The details were revealed in a PowerPoint presentation that was
(50:10):
supposed to be circulated among Republicans only, but was accidentally
sent to Democratic lawmakers. Thank god, Arizona Republicans are stupid
and that, my friends, is our moment.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Of fuck Gray.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,
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