October 19, 2020 • 14 mins
If you want to change, preserve, or build a better America, there’s one easy way to make your voice heard: Vote. This year, iHeartRadio is teaming up with over 20 incredible celebrities (plus a handful of our most popular podcasters) to get the country excited to go vote, broadcasting the personal, emotional and heartfelt stories behind why showing up to the ballot box means so much-- not just as individuals, but for our entire nation.
Thank you to our partners AXE, DoveMen+Care, Knorr®, Seventh Generation, Levi’s and Facebook
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production of I Heart Radio. Listen.
You already know this, but it's an election year. You
might already be tired of hearing about it. But here's
the thing. Democracy doesn't work without you. I'm Holly Frying,
and I'm sitting down with many of my fellow podcasters,
from Will Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as other
(00:26):
luminaries to find out about their relationships with the ballot
box and ultimately just to find out why they vote.
I hope you're exercising your right to vote, and if
you're not, I hope that their stories inspire you. Welcome
to Why I'm Voting Today. I have the honor, privilege
(00:49):
and delight of being joined by comedian, writer, director, and producer.
It's a long list of jobs, and she does it
with these. Alana Glazer, who gained mainstream recognition with the
show of course, broad City, which is how she became
very regular visitor in My House, which she also co created,
and now she has turned her talents and her intellect
to a new web series called cheat Sheet for the
(01:11):
Voting Booth, which you can find along with resources to
get registered to vote and to make a plan to
vote at the website cheat sheet for the Voting Booth
dot com. Alanna, thank you so much for being with
me today. Thanks Holly. That was a really generous, kind
and empowering intro. I appreciate it very much. My great pleasure,
I assure you. So the first thing I want to
know is when you learned about voting. Was this like
(01:33):
an elementary school situation. Were you older when you actually
realized I have the power to cast a vote and
that matters, or some other time. First of all, I
think when I was a kid, voting seemed like the
way the world works democracy. So maybe that's when I
was a little kid. Wow, voting, Yeah, America, America is
the greatest, and the whole world votes and is aiming
(01:55):
at democracy. It's this big idea up in the clouds.
And then as I got older and became a voter myself,
I remember also in high school, I couldn't vote when
John Kerry lost. I remember I was devastated. And I
grew up on Long Island, in this very socially conservative
town and which is a lot of suburbs and a
(02:16):
lot of Long Island, and I remember my teacher and
I were he was like progressive, and we were both
devastated when Carry lost in Bush one, and I was
so sad and angry that I couldn't vote. So then
as I started voting, I started like realizing in my
in practice and in bringing my body to the polls
(02:37):
and going and doing it, I realized, not everywhere as
a democracy, and this is a privilege. And now as
I get older, like in my later twenties and early thirties,
I'm thirty three, I'm like, oh my god, democracy is
not afforded to everyone in this country. It since the beginning,
(02:58):
it has been designed for are the wealthiest of white men,
and it has and and white people. I mean, you know,
we are celebrating the hundredth year of women's right to vote,
but really that means white women. And it took decades
for black women to be allowed. I mean, I want
to say earned, but it's like they were earning it
and doing the work that whole time, so I don't
(03:18):
that's not quite quite the right word. But until they
were granted by the state. And Indigenous women, I mean,
the indigenous community has been kept down, I mean, you know,
genocided since the beginning. So really that that that is
what is just gripping my heart and hurting me. It
should just be an app. We have apps for everything else,
(03:39):
for for sex, for food, for pictures. We should all
just be able to vote on our phones. Yeah. I
have an app for the liquor store. It's all easy
peas for your local liquor store, so you order ahead
of time and then you just pick it right up,
pick it right up. They know me my name at
this I know you mentioned like it's a little blurry.
(04:00):
In terms of remembering your first voting experience, do you
remember what it felt like the first time or a
few times you voted, Like, did you come out of
that experience being like, I did my thing, I feel
good about it. What was that like? I always liked
the community feeling and actually, oh my gosh, I remember
when a vote was set up in fifth grade at
my elementary school, and I think my mom volunteered at
(04:21):
the polls. There's just an exciting feeling around it. The
other community thing. I grew up with Hebrew school and synagogue,
and that was always such a nice community feeling. And
I grew up not with a lot of Jews, so
I would see like people and their church community. And
sometimes I joined my friends to go to church, and
that was another version of community. And like I was
(04:41):
really into art as a kid, dancing and all that.
But like that's not the same as community, the feeling
of you know, synagogue or church or voting. To see
your community members in that light, in that context, you
step into that space and it's it's different. It's like
it's sweet, it's tender. You're taking care of each other.
(05:01):
You're all seeing each other taking care of each other,
stepping up and engaging civically. I love the feeling of voting.
I love the feeling voting. And this year, you know,
it's it's always these older people volunteering at the polls,
and in New York City it's often older brown and
black folks volunteering for the polls. Just want to shout
(05:22):
out power to the polls dot org, which is now
a way to volunteer, to sign up since it's COVID times.
If you're young, if you're young and white, sign up
and volunteer to woman the polls because it will extend
the early voting time. But you know, to see, like
older folks running is so dope, and I'm like Yeah,
(05:43):
that's like the most respectful thing. I mean, they're working
for the community, but it just is a time at
which you like have reverence for your elders and it's just, um,
I feel really lucky when I vote to be able
to vote, and it's you know, they set up all
these obstacle to vote. It's not easy to make a
voting plan, but once you're there, once you're in the room,
(06:05):
it's easy. Yeah, I too. I love seeing everybody from
my community that I don't always see. It does it
gives you a sense of like, I'm not just voting
for me in my future, but these people are also
in this boat with me. Let's do it for each other.
Because I know you are very active in you because
you have this new project in the works that helps
people get information about voting. I am presuming you're very
(06:26):
active in your local elections as well as the big
every four year events. What is your research process like
for that? How do you make sure that you're getting
aligned with the candidates that you feel like best represent
you and and best help all those people in the
community that you see and you want to make sure
you're taken care of. Holly, it ain't easy. It's never easy, dude.
(06:47):
That's like why I started Generator because I'm like, this
is hard. Generator is my nonprofit that I one of
my co founders is Glennys mahar and we founded it
in to gather talk about politics without feeling stupid. That's it.
There's different iterations of it, these Jenny Socials, voter empowerment,
dance parties, Generator Lives, and interview series. This online movement
(07:09):
to lower to make it easier just to use your
Instagram to talk about politics and government without getting to
partisan or whatever. It's hard. So what I do is
I mean, Generator is kind of my platform now to
gather the best tools that I've found. We're not experts.
We aggregate the experts. And I don't know every single election,
(07:31):
I'm looking up what's my district, congressional, what, Senate what?
And I always forget from the last time. Every time
I find out from like real full time activists, I
want to shout out Indivisible, one of my favorite organizations,
which is a network of grassroots organizers like three at
(07:52):
least three million members across the nation in like every reps,
in every district. I make friends with Indivisibles and d
M them. So just indivisible. Go to indivisible dot org.
Type in your zip code, just find the Instagram group
of your local Indivisible chapter and just DM them. Be like,
(08:13):
you know, be like, I'm interested, Do you have a
protest coming up? Or I don't want to do full time?
But who would you say I vote for? And I
asked them for cheat sheets, which is why my web
series cheat sheet for the voting booth came up. Because
at these Jenny socials, these voter empowerment dance parties that
we throw, we create cheat sheets because it is hard.
It's like, you know, cheat off the smartest kind kid
(08:36):
in your class and we all win. There was a
great example of of something in New York. Jamal Bowman
was the winner of this primary in I think in
Queens and New York and you think, or I think,
like an idiot Democrats, So Democrats just democrat down the ballot.
But no, that he beat this incumbent who was just
entrenched in the establishment, you know, not not making change.
(08:59):
Indivisible thought really hard behind this guy, Jamal Bowman and
other organizations, but they're the ones I know, and that's
how I do it. I honestly, I DM or text
leat O Lanik, one of the co presidents of my
my local Indivisible chapter. That's how I do it. That's
how I do it. And what I try to do
with Generator is like to release the shame of it.
And it's like, it's better that you vote correctly and
(09:22):
well than become this full time, amazing, perfect, flawless activist
or not do it at all. But I think that's
the key, right, people are so worried about looking stupid
that they're afraid to ask questions. None of us roll
out of the womb with all the information. We absolutely
all need assistance. So this year is strange because we're
going to have to do a lot more mail in
(09:43):
voting and there's a lot of fear around that. But normally,
if this were a regular election year, and I think
I might know because you talked about your love of
elections specifically on the day, would you normally go day
of or do you go early these days? Or do
you mail in? Being an entertainer, I know shifts this
all around, right, right, So I've done mail in because
I'm somewhere else, not at home. Absentine mail in are
(10:05):
the same thing. Don't get it twisted. But what I
love to do is go in early in person. That's
what I did in the June primary during COVID. Did
it carefully. In New York there's no lines, So I
just did. One of the cheat sheet webisodes is with
a friend of generator ari Berman, a voter suppression expert.
(10:26):
So here's the tea that I got from him. If
you want a mail in your ballot, just do it early,
do it correctly, don't have a meltdown. This is also
what ari Berman said at ari Berman. Well, if you
can go in person and go early, the point is
not to overwhelm the election board. That is what I'm
(10:47):
gonna do. That is what my close friends are gonna do.
My partner, We're going to go in early in person.
And that's it fabulous. So on the day of what
does that day look like for you? Do you say
you to the news all day or do you try
to get some headspace away from it or some mix
of the two, Mix a cocktail and pretend you live
in another country. How does it work? So I planned
(11:11):
a little trip just out of this city, just whatever,
just a little trip out of the city for like
the weekend after. I'm like losing sleep revved up for this.
I'm like struggling honestly with like self care right now.
And democracy is cool, you know what I mean. Gen
Z and Millennials are the new adults and it's our
time and we know what's up. We talk on Twitter,
(11:32):
we talk on Instagram, and the kids all up on TikTok.
We prefer human rights over stealing human rights. This is
the first time that gen Z and Millennials make up
the biggest voting block ever in American history. You're very
cavalier and casual about it. You have no interest or passion. Yeah,
my heart is so full I got the last time
(11:53):
I couldn't sleep, my heart was racing. So what I'm
going to try to do is on election day be
talking to friends but not watching the news. The news
is just like a type of crap that we don't need.
And I'll check in and I will be so nervous,
but I need to focus on self care that day.
I'm very I'm already waning in the self care mode.
(12:15):
And also November three is not going to be how
we get our answers, as you said, like we're gonna
need a lot of people to turn out. Everyone should
be out there doing their part to add to this
and vote. If there's somebody that you encounter in your
day to day life who's like me, I mean, I'm registered,
but I don't know that I'm gonna go, what do
you tell them to try to make sure that they
understand the gravity of being part of a democratic process
(12:37):
and that it's on them to participate. I would say this,
you know, in the past, like I mean, so much
of democracy in America so far has been about maintaining
white supremacy. I agree, but it's also about breaking down
white supremacy. While elections in the past have been less important,
I mean, I think they're all important, but this is
(12:59):
about life or death, truly life or death. Our country
has lost one seventy thousand people unnecessarily disproportionately killed black
and brown people. This is an election about the life
or death of Americans, the life or death of the planet.
We are running out of time to heal the wounds
(13:22):
we've caused on this planet. This is not this is
not an optional election. It is the coolest thing that
my vote counts as much as Donald Trump's vote. Your vote,
Holly counts as much as Jeff bays us his vote.
I laugh at that. That makes me laugh. That delights me,
go and enjoy that. Um Alana, thank you so much
(13:43):
for hanging out with me and talking about voting. Thank you, Holly,
you can sell It's burning from my Hey, are you
not registered to vote yet but you think it's something
you want to do? You may still have time. Voter
registration deadlines vary by date, so to find out the
scoop for where you are, check out a nonpartisan registration
(14:04):
voting site like head count dot org or fair vote
dot org. Why I'm Voting is an I Heart Radio production.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production of I Heart Radio. Listen.
You already know this, but it's an election year. You
might already be tired of hearing about it. But here's
the thing. Democracy doesn't work without you. I'm Holly Frying,
and I'm sitting down with many of my fellow podcasters,
from Will Ferrell to Stephanie Rule, as well as other
(00:26):
luminaries to find out about their relationships with the ballot
box and ultimately just to find out why they vote.
I hope you're exercising your right to vote, and if
you're not, I hope that their stories inspire you. Welcome
to Why I'm Voting Today. I have the honor, privilege
(00:49):
and delight of being joined by comedian, writer, director, and producer.
It's a long list of jobs, and she does it
with these. Alana Glazer, who gained mainstream recognition with the
show of course, broad City, which is how she became
very regular visitor in My House, which she also co created,
and now she has turned her talents and her intellect
to a new web series called cheat Sheet for the
(01:11):
Voting Booth, which you can find along with resources to
get registered to vote and to make a plan to
vote at the website cheat sheet for the Voting Booth
dot com. Alanna, thank you so much for being with
me today. Thanks Holly. That was a really generous, kind
and empowering intro. I appreciate it very much. My great pleasure,
I assure you. So the first thing I want to
know is when you learned about voting. Was this like
(01:33):
an elementary school situation. Were you older when you actually
realized I have the power to cast a vote and
that matters, or some other time. First of all, I
think when I was a kid, voting seemed like the
way the world works democracy. So maybe that's when I
was a little kid. Wow, voting, Yeah, America, America is
the greatest, and the whole world votes and is aiming
(01:55):
at democracy. It's this big idea up in the clouds.
And then as I got older and became a voter myself,
I remember also in high school, I couldn't vote when
John Kerry lost. I remember I was devastated. And I
grew up on Long Island, in this very socially conservative
town and which is a lot of suburbs and a
(02:16):
lot of Long Island, and I remember my teacher and
I were he was like progressive, and we were both
devastated when Carry lost in Bush one, and I was
so sad and angry that I couldn't vote. So then
as I started voting, I started like realizing in my
in practice and in bringing my body to the polls
(02:37):
and going and doing it, I realized, not everywhere as
a democracy, and this is a privilege. And now as
I get older, like in my later twenties and early thirties,
I'm thirty three, I'm like, oh my god, democracy is
not afforded to everyone in this country. It since the beginning,
(02:58):
it has been designed for are the wealthiest of white men,
and it has and and white people. I mean, you know,
we are celebrating the hundredth year of women's right to vote,
but really that means white women. And it took decades
for black women to be allowed. I mean, I want
to say earned, but it's like they were earning it
and doing the work that whole time, so I don't
(03:18):
that's not quite quite the right word. But until they
were granted by the state. And Indigenous women, I mean,
the indigenous community has been kept down, I mean, you know,
genocided since the beginning. So really that that that is
what is just gripping my heart and hurting me. It
should just be an app. We have apps for everything else,
(03:39):
for for sex, for food, for pictures. We should all
just be able to vote on our phones. Yeah. I
have an app for the liquor store. It's all easy
peas for your local liquor store, so you order ahead
of time and then you just pick it right up,
pick it right up. They know me my name at
this I know you mentioned like it's a little blurry.
(04:00):
In terms of remembering your first voting experience, do you
remember what it felt like the first time or a
few times you voted, Like, did you come out of
that experience being like, I did my thing, I feel
good about it. What was that like? I always liked
the community feeling and actually, oh my gosh, I remember
when a vote was set up in fifth grade at
my elementary school, and I think my mom volunteered at
(04:21):
the polls. There's just an exciting feeling around it. The
other community thing. I grew up with Hebrew school and synagogue,
and that was always such a nice community feeling. And
I grew up not with a lot of Jews, so
I would see like people and their church community. And
sometimes I joined my friends to go to church, and
that was another version of community. And like I was
(04:41):
really into art as a kid, dancing and all that.
But like that's not the same as community, the feeling
of you know, synagogue or church or voting. To see
your community members in that light, in that context, you
step into that space and it's it's different. It's like
it's sweet, it's tender. You're taking care of each other.
(05:01):
You're all seeing each other taking care of each other,
stepping up and engaging civically. I love the feeling of voting.
I love the feeling voting. And this year, you know,
it's it's always these older people volunteering at the polls,
and in New York City it's often older brown and
black folks volunteering for the polls. Just want to shout
(05:22):
out power to the polls dot org, which is now
a way to volunteer, to sign up since it's COVID times.
If you're young, if you're young and white, sign up
and volunteer to woman the polls because it will extend
the early voting time. But you know, to see, like
older folks running is so dope, and I'm like Yeah,
(05:43):
that's like the most respectful thing. I mean, they're working
for the community, but it just is a time at
which you like have reverence for your elders and it's just, um,
I feel really lucky when I vote to be able
to vote, and it's you know, they set up all
these obstacle to vote. It's not easy to make a
voting plan, but once you're there, once you're in the room,
(06:05):
it's easy. Yeah, I too. I love seeing everybody from
my community that I don't always see. It does it
gives you a sense of like, I'm not just voting
for me in my future, but these people are also
in this boat with me. Let's do it for each other.
Because I know you are very active in you because
you have this new project in the works that helps
people get information about voting. I am presuming you're very
(06:26):
active in your local elections as well as the big
every four year events. What is your research process like
for that? How do you make sure that you're getting
aligned with the candidates that you feel like best represent
you and and best help all those people in the
community that you see and you want to make sure
you're taken care of. Holly, it ain't easy. It's never easy, dude.
(06:47):
That's like why I started Generator because I'm like, this
is hard. Generator is my nonprofit that I one of
my co founders is Glennys mahar and we founded it
in to gather talk about politics without feeling stupid. That's it.
There's different iterations of it, these Jenny Socials, voter empowerment,
dance parties, Generator Lives, and interview series. This online movement
(07:09):
to lower to make it easier just to use your
Instagram to talk about politics and government without getting to
partisan or whatever. It's hard. So what I do is
I mean, Generator is kind of my platform now to
gather the best tools that I've found. We're not experts.
We aggregate the experts. And I don't know every single election,
(07:31):
I'm looking up what's my district, congressional, what, Senate what?
And I always forget from the last time. Every time
I find out from like real full time activists, I
want to shout out Indivisible, one of my favorite organizations,
which is a network of grassroots organizers like three at
(07:52):
least three million members across the nation in like every reps,
in every district. I make friends with Indivisibles and d
M them. So just indivisible. Go to indivisible dot org.
Type in your zip code, just find the Instagram group
of your local Indivisible chapter and just DM them. Be like,
(08:13):
you know, be like, I'm interested, Do you have a
protest coming up? Or I don't want to do full time?
But who would you say I vote for? And I
asked them for cheat sheets, which is why my web
series cheat sheet for the voting booth came up. Because
at these Jenny socials, these voter empowerment dance parties that
we throw, we create cheat sheets because it is hard.
It's like, you know, cheat off the smartest kind kid
(08:36):
in your class and we all win. There was a
great example of of something in New York. Jamal Bowman
was the winner of this primary in I think in
Queens and New York and you think, or I think,
like an idiot Democrats, So Democrats just democrat down the ballot.
But no, that he beat this incumbent who was just
entrenched in the establishment, you know, not not making change.
(08:59):
Indivisible thought really hard behind this guy, Jamal Bowman and
other organizations, but they're the ones I know, and that's
how I do it. I honestly, I DM or text
leat O Lanik, one of the co presidents of my
my local Indivisible chapter. That's how I do it. That's
how I do it. And what I try to do
with Generator is like to release the shame of it.
And it's like, it's better that you vote correctly and
(09:22):
well than become this full time, amazing, perfect, flawless activist
or not do it at all. But I think that's
the key, right, people are so worried about looking stupid
that they're afraid to ask questions. None of us roll
out of the womb with all the information. We absolutely
all need assistance. So this year is strange because we're
going to have to do a lot more mail in
(09:43):
voting and there's a lot of fear around that. But normally,
if this were a regular election year, and I think
I might know because you talked about your love of
elections specifically on the day, would you normally go day
of or do you go early these days? Or do
you mail in? Being an entertainer, I know shifts this
all around, right, right, So I've done mail in because
I'm somewhere else, not at home. Absentine mail in are
(10:05):
the same thing. Don't get it twisted. But what I
love to do is go in early in person. That's
what I did in the June primary during COVID. Did
it carefully. In New York there's no lines, So I
just did. One of the cheat sheet webisodes is with
a friend of generator ari Berman, a voter suppression expert.
(10:26):
So here's the tea that I got from him. If
you want a mail in your ballot, just do it early,
do it correctly, don't have a meltdown. This is also
what ari Berman said at ari Berman. Well, if you
can go in person and go early, the point is
not to overwhelm the election board. That is what I'm
(10:47):
gonna do. That is what my close friends are gonna do.
My partner, We're going to go in early in person.
And that's it fabulous. So on the day of what
does that day look like for you? Do you say
you to the news all day or do you try
to get some headspace away from it or some mix
of the two, Mix a cocktail and pretend you live
in another country. How does it work? So I planned
(11:11):
a little trip just out of this city, just whatever,
just a little trip out of the city for like
the weekend after. I'm like losing sleep revved up for this.
I'm like struggling honestly with like self care right now.
And democracy is cool, you know what I mean. Gen
Z and Millennials are the new adults and it's our
time and we know what's up. We talk on Twitter,
(11:32):
we talk on Instagram, and the kids all up on TikTok.
We prefer human rights over stealing human rights. This is
the first time that gen Z and Millennials make up
the biggest voting block ever in American history. You're very
cavalier and casual about it. You have no interest or passion. Yeah,
my heart is so full I got the last time
(11:53):
I couldn't sleep, my heart was racing. So what I'm
going to try to do is on election day be
talking to friends but not watching the news. The news
is just like a type of crap that we don't need.
And I'll check in and I will be so nervous,
but I need to focus on self care that day.
I'm very I'm already waning in the self care mode.
(12:15):
And also November three is not going to be how
we get our answers, as you said, like we're gonna
need a lot of people to turn out. Everyone should
be out there doing their part to add to this
and vote. If there's somebody that you encounter in your
day to day life who's like me, I mean, I'm registered,
but I don't know that I'm gonna go, what do
you tell them to try to make sure that they
understand the gravity of being part of a democratic process
(12:37):
and that it's on them to participate. I would say this,
you know, in the past, like I mean, so much
of democracy in America so far has been about maintaining
white supremacy. I agree, but it's also about breaking down
white supremacy. While elections in the past have been less important,
I mean, I think they're all important, but this is
(12:59):
about life or death, truly life or death. Our country
has lost one seventy thousand people unnecessarily disproportionately killed black
and brown people. This is an election about the life
or death of Americans, the life or death of the planet.
We are running out of time to heal the wounds
(13:22):
we've caused on this planet. This is not this is
not an optional election. It is the coolest thing that
my vote counts as much as Donald Trump's vote. Your vote,
Holly counts as much as Jeff bays us his vote.
I laugh at that. That makes me laugh. That delights me,
go and enjoy that. Um Alana, thank you so much
(13:43):
for hanging out with me and talking about voting. Thank you, Holly,
you can sell It's burning from my Hey, are you
not registered to vote yet but you think it's something
you want to do? You may still have time. Voter
registration deadlines vary by date, so to find out the
scoop for where you are, check out a nonpartisan registration
(14:04):
voting site like head count dot org or fair vote
dot org. Why I'm Voting is an I Heart Radio production.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is you
listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.