July 22, 2025 • 49 mins
What does protest mean in 2025—and does it still work?
In this powerful episode, we sit down with Julie Cohen—acclaimed filmmaker behind RBG and Julia—and her neighbor Liz Figenshu, a dedicated volunteer advocate. In the wake of growing political unrest, they found themselves walking the streets of Bloomfield, NJ, not just to clear their heads but to find a way forward. What emerged was organizing a weekly protest that has lasted over 21 consecutive Sundays.
However, this conversation extends far beyond one town or gathering. Together we explore what it means to protest in the modern era and whether the tactics of past movements—such as marches, signs, and physical presence—still hold power in today’s fragmented, digital, and deeply polarized world.
Julie and Liz discuss how authoritarian regimes thrive on chaos and isolation, and why their rallying cry, “You Are Not Alone” (YANA), is both a comfort and a call to action. We speak candidly about our doubts: Do small, local protests really change anything? Are we shouting into the void? Julie and Liz share the surprising joy that has emerged—friendship bracelets, multi-generational connections, laughter in the rain—as they’ve cultivated resistance rooted in community.
We discuss the long arc of protest history, from civil rights marches to the Women’s March, and ask: How do you keep showing up? What does resilience look like when news cycles move on, but injustice remains?
If you're wondering how to channel your concern into action, or wrestling with whether standing on a street corner with a sign still matters—this conversation offers honesty, perspective, and “micro hope.”
Because protest isn't just about the moment—it's about the momentum.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome everyone to Lost in Jersey.
It's so nice to have you backon, julie.
We had a great episode with youbefore and Liz, welcome to you.
Thank you, julie.
Tell people a little bit aboutyourself.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Sure, I'm Julie.
I live in Bloomfield, newJersey.
I am a documentary filmmaker inmy sort of normal person
persona, but since November I'vealso been a pretty busy I would
say anti-Trump activist in myneighborhood and perhaps beyond.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
What documentaries would people know you from, sure
?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
The docs people would probably know best is RBG,
which I directed and producedalong with filmmaking partner
Betsy West, and other filmsinclude Everybody.
My Name is Polly Murray andJulia about Julia Child, and you
know I've seen all of them andthey're all incredible.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So if anybody needs to, you know, spend a weekend
watching great documentariesthat have some important
messages behind them andeducational messages.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Watch all of.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Julie's Watch all of your documentaries and I know
that we had lunch recently andyou told me you have some
interesting things coming up.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
So everybody keep an eye out for what you're working
on, liz, so tell us a little bitabout you, well first, I would
like to concur about Julie'sfilms, and you left out the
Gabby Giffords one which Ipersonally find very close to my
heart.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So also that one.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
So my name is Liz and I am Julie's next door neighbor
in Bloomfield, New Jersey, andI am a mother of three boys who
are all teenagers and all tallerthan me.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Ah, this is pretty tall to start with.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Mostly, I've focused on being a mom for the last 20
years, but also I've had manydifferent jobs.
Most recently, I'm very proudto volunteer for an organization
in Essex County called SAVE.
We support survivors of sexualassault and violence.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's an amazing organization.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
This interview is focused around the work that you
two have joined together to do,which is to bring awareness,
through the democratic cause,primarily of how many causes
there's so many.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What is your specific ?
What would you say is themission statement?
If you will, it would just begood for our listeners to
understand how you guys gottogether, what was the motive
and the mission, and then we cango from there.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
So, julie, and I have been walking as a form of
exercise, a way to hang out andcatch up, for quite some time
and as the election drew closerin November, more and more and
more and more conversations werepolitical.
We both have very strongfeelings about the election and
both did work ahead of time totry to help Kamala get the
(02:51):
victory.
And after the election was over, we were in shock.
And then, once January came andhe was inaugurated, it so
quickly went downhill in a waythat I was expecting.
But the reality of it hitdifferent than what I could have
imagined, and Julie and I wereboth just appalled at the speed
(03:13):
and the chaos and the harm thatwas coming to people.
And when we would walk, wewould just be talking about
talking, about talking about itand wanting something to do.
And we would look around at ourcommunity here in Bloomfield,
montclair, and we live in apretty progressive community,
very diverse community, andthat's part of the reason we
love it.
And all of a sudden we werelike, where is everybody?
(03:35):
You know, aren't the peoplethat we love and care about in
our community?
Scared right now, and, and gosh, I'd love to get out there and
say something and show somesupport.
So we decided on one of ourwalks that we just couldn't be
quiet and we weren't going towait for somebody else to start
something.
So we decided to show up everySunday from three to four on the
corner of Church Street inMontclair and Bloomfield Avenue.
(03:56):
Historically that's a protestsite that people know, so we
weren't looking to reinvent thewheel there and we decided the
two of us would show up everysingle Sunday for an hour and
we've let our friends know andsee if anybody else wanted to
join in, but that even if nobodyelse came, we could make our
voices heard, make some signs,get out there, make some noise.
And the turnout was incredible.
The first week we had 17 peopleand the second week how many
(04:20):
was it?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Julie, it was around 100 the second week.
We've been surprised, I think,by the consistency, like there's
new people every week but thenthere are really regulars.
And you know, I think thethought we had going in like a
lot of people I know friendsthat live in different places.
A lot of people were saying inthose early days after the
inauguration where are theprotesters?
(04:40):
Like, are people on the streetsso that we can join them?
And then it just sort ofoccurred to me and Liz like no,
they are we.
Why are we saying, why aren'tother people protesting?
Why don't we just start doingit?
And then people can join us.
And our instinct felt like itreally turned out to be true
People, as Liz said, that firstweek was not very many people,
(05:04):
but yet it felt like somethingwas happening.
The people that drove past andthe people that walked past
seemed and this been out thereand it's now been 21 weeks.
There are people that cry whenthey see us.
(05:28):
Wow, a good acronym that one ofour protesters, an elderly guy
named Bob, shared with us fromsomething that he had read was
Yana, you are not alone, andthat's kind of the feeling that
a protest causes.
You can feel very isolated inyour opposition to a powerful
regime, which I think is what wehave going now.
(05:50):
And if you look at and read andlisten up about the history of
authoritarian takeovers invarious countries, you'll see
that probably the number onetool of authoritarian leaders is
a feeling of isolation anddisempowerment among just
ordinary citizens.
People feel alone and isolated.
People, maybe in their homes atdinner, are saying like oh,
(06:12):
this doesn't seem right.
I don't really like people beinggrabbed off the streets by
masked people who don't identifythemselves and then put into a
vehicle without due process andtaken to detention.
Why isn't anyone sayinganything?
So you feel really isolated inthat personal reaction.
But when you see, like no,actually many people in my
(06:33):
community feel this way.
Hey, look, there's 100 peopleon the street every week who are
saying that and listen, peoplethat drive by.
Half of them are honkingextremely enthusiastically,
sometimes taking pictures orvideotaping the fact that
protesters they are putting themup on social media saying I'm
glad to see that my neighbors,that my fellow humans also don't
(06:55):
want to just stand by and letthis all happen.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I think the you are not alone is really exactly it.
I mean, just from the protestsI've been to with alone, or with
my family or with friends overthe many, many years of protests
, there is a wonderful feelingof a collective feeling of
community.
When you're marching down, youknow either in Washington or
wherever you are withlike-minded people.
(07:21):
I think that's a reallyimportant point to make.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
One of the unique pieces of this moment is that
we're out there and I think thecommon thread is the Trump
administration is what we'reprotesting against, but within
that there are so many facets ofthings that people are wanting
to protest and so everybody hasthe different thing that puts
them over the line and says likeno, I need to get out there, I
(07:46):
need to speak up, but wecoalesce around the Trump
administration being the mainproblem.
But it's interesting because,like you were saying
individually those pieces, youcould feel alone in any of those
pieces.
If one issue is like reallyyour issue, but we come together
, you is like really your issue,but we come together.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Well, we've had a lot of discussion, rachel and I,
leading up to this, and it'shard to articulate everything
that we're thinking because Ifeel like we're coming from an
average person that comes from aDemocratic background.
That also was out there at thevery beginning in 2016, at the
Women's Movement March, and justwere blown away with the
(08:26):
turnout and the amount of peoplethat showed up, continued to
protest into the next one andthen the next one also went to
the Black Lives Matter protestand started getting a little
disillusioned with some of theprotests that were starting to
happen.
That seemed to be almost someof the protests that I went to.
That seemed to be almost someof the protests that I went to.
(08:46):
I actually told Rachel that Iwish I did not participate in in
retrospect that they felt likethey went too far in some things
.
It's been 10 years almost ofprotesting for various issues.
As you are saying that peopleare now just coalescing under
like one big, you know I havemany different things that
you're upset about Now justcoalescing under like one big.
You know I have many differentthings that you're upset about
and the thing that's frustratingin looking back at all of these
(09:08):
protests is that thelegislative output from them has
been primarily negative for thecause that you are out there in
the street for.
And the question is are theyworking?
Is our protest working in thenew environment that we're in in
the way that we need them?
We know that we want to notfeel that we're alone and in the
(09:30):
past it seems that protestswere working.
That they had, you know, we'veseen.
We can look at the civil rightsmovement, the Vietnam War and
also some countries that havehad protests that have led to
change.
The question is am I just notwilling to play the long game of
10?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
plus years.
I have to fight back against.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Please.
We want to have a conversation.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And I think the American civil rights movement
is probably the quintessentialone to look at because it's
history that's so familiar to somany of us.
But that history gets reallycrunched when you look at it in
hindsight.
Not like Martin Luther King,and people went out there one
(10:14):
day and then the next day theywere like, hey, let's do a
Voting Rights Act, let's do aCivil Rights Act.
No, this is years and years ofhard work, sustained action
which seemed for a long timelike it wasn't going to make a
difference, and then until itdid make a difference I mean to
use a protest movement fromanother country.
I think the great Nelson Mandelaquote is like things always
(10:35):
seem impossible until they'redone, until they happen.
But there's like there was alot.
If you look at any movement inthis country or others where
people have fought back and madechange and that fighting has
included people going to thestreets, there is a long, long
period of it seeming like, oh,this isn't working then then
(11:01):
civil rights movement would havenever had the great successes
that it had.
Not that everything changed forthe better, and certainly not
that everything changed forever,because some of those things
are starting to erode even rightnow under the Trump situation.
Yeah, when you, when you lookback on movements, you look at a
few iconic moments and youthink like, oh, look, they did
that.
Look what a big difference itmade.
(11:22):
I mean when, when Martin LutherKing in August of 1963 went to
Washington and did the I have aDream speech, he had already
been doing sustained, organized,often very small protests all
around the country for more thana decade.
At that point I think the CivilRights Act was 64 and the
(11:43):
Voting Rights Act was 65.
So there's still another coupleof years before the big
legislative victories happened.
But like that big, very visible, everybody notices it.
President John F Kennedy, aftertrying to make it not happen,
sort of flipped around and like,oh yay, this is good civil
rights.
That did not come out ofnowhere.
That came out of small,community-based, issue-based
(12:05):
movements all over the country,including with the national
leadership pushing and fightingand trying to make it happen for
years and years and years.
It's only in hindsight that wethink like, oh look they
protested and it worked.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, I have a question, then.
There are many layers togetting rid of a government or
getting people to vote adifferent way.
So, if you're looking at it,then protest is one way that has
to go with all these othermodules.
I'm hearing you and I amdefinitely seeing like, yes,
you're right.
Looking back in hindsight, it'shard because of that time
(12:38):
crunch, which we wanted to askyou about too how that's changed
.
Protesting and movements, allthe other things that need to be
in play in order to get thechange to happen.
So what are those other thingsthat you would encourage people
to do besides or along withbeing out there vocally
protesting, so that the rest ofthe world sees that we're not
(13:01):
complacent?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
One of the parts of what we do every week is we send
out an email on Mondays tothank everybody who was able to
show up and also to offer somesuggestions about what they
might be able to participate inthat week if they were
interested in some additionalactivist activities, and
obviously those include thingslike calling your
(13:22):
representatives, and those callsdo matter.
When Cory Booker did his speechthat was 20, however many hours
he specifically said myconstituents pushed me to go
outside of the normal and comeup with a creative way to make
(13:42):
my voice heard, and I wascalling every single day, still
am and so I think he spokedirectly to us to say like yes,
keep this up, keep this up.
So, and while that one speechin and of itself obviously
didn't, you know, solveeverything, but these are all
steps, they're all buildingblocks on which we are building
(14:02):
the resistance and the abilityto, as you're saying, finally
change leadership.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think we're all have the same ultimate goal.
We all are upset with whatwe're seeing happening on many
different levels theauthoritative grasp of power
that is happening now.
That seems inevitable.
Happening now.
That seems inevitable.
And I feel like for justspeaking on behalf of someone
who was going to protests andwas actively there, that there's
(14:30):
.
I would say I need a moment andI was texting this, rachel, I'm
afraid of taking the moment torest and say I have to get some
clarity of what's going on.
Why is it that the Republicans,who are not known to protest,
they did have one tragic protestof January 6th which almost
took them down.
I mean, so many people wereagainst that protest, but what
(14:53):
did they so cleverly do to beable to gen back up their
support from that tragic protest, tragic protest.
And I'm just taking this minuteto say what exactly do we need
to do?
And I'm afraid of that minutebecause, as you know, when
you're in an authoritative place, you don't protest for fear of
(15:13):
something being taken from you.
It's like the only people thatcan protest now haven't checked
that box, hasn't that they mayget in trouble.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, you know, first of all, I think it gets
complicated.
It's funny that you've used theword democratic a number of
times and I'm never sure whetheryou mean little D democratic or
big D like the Democratic Party.
I mean, I actually feel likemore like the big D Democratic.
Party A fair amount of whatwe've done is kind of in both
those directions.
We are registered Democrats but, like to me, the big issue
(15:43):
right now is the little dDemocrat issue, and trying to
get as broad a tent as possiblethat stands behind some of the
kind of key principles in ournation is a really valid point,
and I think Liz and I both spentsome time early on in the new
(16:08):
world that we live in with theTrump second presidency, which
both of us viewed as muchscarier than the first time
around.
Yes, there seemed to be.
As truthfully, the big DDemocrats warned like there were
going to be fewer guardrailsthis time around because they
plan for it.
That's absolutely true.
I wasn't protesting all thetime and the first thing I went
to the march with the pink hatsthe first time and then I went
(16:30):
on with my life.
This seemed different, but onething that we did from reading
up, I mean, and a good examplethat a lot of people have read
and I'm among them is theTimothy Snyder on tyranny book,
which is a good short littlebook about how citizens respond
to authoritarians and fascists,and one of the things that he's
(16:50):
got like 20 points that he laysout of what you should do, and
one of them is be as brave asyou can, and I really like that
sentence because it acknowledgesthat different people have
different levels of risk andthat we should all act
accordingly.
I guess, for something like this, I will speak only for myself
(17:11):
personally, but, like Iunderstand that I have a certain
amount of privilege in Americansociety which puts me not at
zero risk because I actuallythink everyone's at risk right
now when they speak out, butlike at maybe less risk than
some other people, certainlybecause I'm a US born, us
citizen and some other things.
Like I'm not saying I would begoing out on the streets if I
(17:32):
felt like I was more vulnerablein certain ways, but because I'm
a little bit less vulnerable, Ikind of feel like it behooves
me to be speaking up on behalfof people who might be more
moderately or even highlyvulnerable.
There's different risks andalso the risk is going to change
over time.
If I'm not being brave now, Idon't know how I'm going to be
(17:54):
brave a year from now, whenthere is situations where
they're starting to arrestpeople just for speaking out
against Trump, which I do thinkis going to happen.
If you can, you can go arrestor, god forbid, beat up like 10
people.
Once there's 100 people, I see,yeah, and less risky, like all
(18:25):
of our actions are.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, I do believe that protests are helpful to
find the you are not alone typeof feeling, but I also worry
that protests in a social mediaenvironment are being used as
content to be misrepresented andused to push policies that
(18:48):
promote the Republican machineof some sort.
That they are able to take smallpieces and just misrepresent it
or represent it accurately, butprojected upon a whole entire
you know them versus us type ofsituation.
I don't know exactly what'sgoing on with the big D
(19:10):
Democratic Party.
I do know that I had never inmy life said that I would leave
the Democratic Party, but atthis point I'm starting to move
inching to independent, which II'm shocked to say that I never
thought I would.
Liz, also, I want to ask youropinion on this stuff because I
feel like I'm bringing uppressure points about this topic
(19:31):
and I'd like to be pushed backon and help me have hope.
You know that, yes, I shouldget out there, I should try, I
should do these things, but I'mat a point right now I'm like
they're doing something and wegot to figure out what they're
doing.
It's not this, and maybe it'snot nice whatever it is they're
doing, but we got to do it.
I feel like we're being tooit's not the word Pollyanna, but
(19:53):
too virtuous.
I'll stop there.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
No, I'm so glad you just shared all that thought
process.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I have so many friends who feel the way you do
and hear these kinds of theseconcerns and thoughts all the
time, and I don't think eitherJulie or I would say we have the
answer.
But I would say that by doingsomething is important.
Nobody can do not one personcan do everything, but everybody
can do something, and so maybeprotesting is not your thing,
(20:23):
but I would say part of how weended up in this situation in my
personal opinion this isspeaking for me is that civic
engagement is just so low in ourcountry and we have taken for
granted the rights that we havein this country, and I think
that at this moment there's aslide into our authoritarianism,
and it's a process.
(20:43):
The further to your point,every day gets worse, right, and
so the further we get down thisslide, the harder it's going to
be to get ourselves back up,and so it's now.
We need to act now, andprotesting is a small part of it
.
But you know, amanda Littman,run for something.
People need to get out thereand get involved in their local
government, you know, and runfor a local office.
(21:06):
People don't think about howimportant those local offices
are, and when it comes toelections, those happen on a
local and state level, so thoseare the people who are going to
be very important in 2026 whenit's time to count the votes and
are these elections fair?
And there's building blocksthat have, I think, been taken
(21:27):
for granted, and we, as citizensof the United States, have
gotten to a point where we thinkour freedoms are free, but no,
we need to pay for them, and weneed to pay for them through
work and diligence and gettinginvolved and engagement yeah,
and 100% engagement, and thething, too, is the Supreme Court
(21:50):
and courts in general.
The Supreme Court, though, willtake up cases based on what
they see as people really wantto be dealt with.
You know they can't take up allthe cases, so they choose which
cases they're going to see itaffects them when they see
people out in the streets abouta certain issue, oh, that's one
that's like something reallyimportant.
And you know, at this moment,the Supreme Court.
(22:10):
You know I'm not a fan, butsome of the decisions they're
making, but I do think thatoverall, the Republicans are
using in their dirty games.
They're always going to find away to do that.
(22:31):
Whether if we protest, they'regoing to frame it in a different
way and say whatever.
Or if we sit at home, thenthey're going to say nobody
cares.
There is no way to avoid theirplaybook and the way that they
want to handle things.
I don't think it's beingPollyanna of us to use
nonviolence and to use ourvoices and to use the rights
that they want to handle things.
I don't think it's beingPollyanna of us to use
nonviolence and to use ourvoices and to use the rights
(22:52):
that we still have, while westill have them, to get out
there and make our voices heard.
And I 100% agree with Julie.
I think at some point,protesting and using our First
Amendment rights is going tocome under a new level of
scrutiny and maybe even be madeillegal.
The word terrorist has beenthrown around, with people who
speak out against the governmentas, like Trump was trying it
(23:12):
out, and I feel very much likemy privilege.
I am a white lady.
I have an hour in the middle ofthe day to sit here and talk to
you fine people, because I'mnot out working for jobs to feed
my family.
I feel like it is on me to beout there and be the front lines
.
If they're going to say thatI'm a terrorist one day, I want
it to be say that I'm aterrorist, because I think what
(23:34):
has been scared into peopleabout oh, terrorists and
whatever that's not.
This is not what they picture.
So I will.
I'm happy to be out there onthe front line and saying I'm a
concerned citizen.
If you want to call me aterrorist, you can, but you're
not going to be able to get awaywith your othering of people in
the way that you have in thepast because of their skin color
, because of their religion,because of whatever.
(23:56):
If I'm there in the front withall of my privilege and saying
this is a problem and we allagree here, and I do think it's
also important that we do risksomething.
I understand the desire to notwanna speak out, to not wanna
ruffle feathers.
I have certain things that Idon't feel comfortable sharing
(24:16):
or whatever, but the fact thatwe have to risk something this
doesn't come for free andputting my own, I'm willing to
put my body on the line and beout there.
I'm willing to put my body onthe line and be out there.
I'm willing to put my face onthe line, and that's me.
Other people will do otherthings.
Julie, for example I don't knowif you know this, but she with
Columbia, she did an incrediblybrave thing and it had a
(24:37):
cascading effect.
And because she stepped up andspoke out and decided that she
was not willing to be a part ofsomething that was happening,
that was not okay.
Other people followed herbecause guess what they maybe
wouldn't have if she didn't atfirst.
But because she stepped up, itdoes have an effect.
If you speak out, then somebodyelse feels more comfortable,
(24:58):
and for me personally too, Ifeel so that our weekly protests
are important because we'reflexing that muscle.
We are using that muscle everyweek to get out there and engage
civically.
And also I think that there's alot of people who protesting
sounds scary or it sounds likesomething that they would never
do, but when they see us outthere every single week.
(25:18):
And let me tell you, when we'reout there for one hour we
actually have fun and it'sbizarre to think it's a horrible
reason we're out there, but wemake it fun and I think we're
sort of making it slightly lessstigmatized.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I read the article about you guys in the Montclair
Local and I liked how you saidyou know if you're uncomfortable
talking to someone at the otherend of the phone when you call,
call before the office opensand leave a message.
I've been in shock watchingwhat is happening, thinking how
can it get worse, and then alsotrying to manage my own family
and taking care of kids andtrying to not be so negative
(25:56):
about all the issues that I careabout, that are unraveling and
that I've preached to my kidsare so important.
It's hard when you feel justdespair is hard and how to feel
like okay, if I just startpicking up again, just a little
at a time, just start makingcalls again.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
It is the antidote to despair, I assure you, and
every single week we feel it.
We hear it from everybody whocomes.
Everybody who comes tells ushow grateful they are to just
have that hour.
It's almost like we refill ourtanks for the week.
We've seen people come by theprotest, like Julie said in
tears.
Last week a kind man saw us allout there sweating and he
brought a case of water andbrought it around to everyone
(26:37):
and offered water and he saidI'm from Colombia and when I see
you here it fills my heart andhe started crying.
I think it just brings a levelof hope and it spurs people to
feel like, okay, I can do this,I can go stand there.
Okay, I can do this, I can makea call.
Okay, I can do this, maybe Ican run, maybe I can volunteer.
In this way, I can step up.
In this way, I can go to courtfor an immigrant who's going to
(27:00):
court and be there as anobserver for them.
There's a million differentways to get involved.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
You know, I'm listening to all of this and I
have so much hope thatprotesting can be grow into
something that would actuallycreate a change.
And my question is I heard yousay earlier that people pay
attention when there's noise oryou know there's.
We live in an attention society.
It's all about gettingattention and you know who's got
(27:26):
the attention and it shifts.
All about getting attention andyou know who's got the
attention and it shifts veryfast, of course you know.
So you said earlier that whenpeople see people protesting,
that the Supreme Court or thecourts pay attention.
So I definitely agree with that.
You know that.
I do think that there beingattention on a topic definitely
causes interest.
However, the topic has become30, 40 different topics.
(27:51):
What is the overarching?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
topic.
Jeanette, you've referred acouple of times in this
conversation to sort of theperplexing horridness of the
right-wing tactics right now,and one of their main ones is
the so-called flood, the zone.
Like do so many bad things allat once, everyone's thrown back
thinking like, oh my God, how dowe defend against all of this?
(28:12):
But, like, I think one answeris that just because you can't
actually defend againsteverything doesn't mean that you
should do nothing.
I mean, that's what they'retrying to do with their flood,
the zone tactics.
They're trying to make it sohard to you know, there's so
many things to fight backagainst that, yes, you can't
fight back against everything,but first of all, you can create
(28:34):
a general atmosphere offighting back, which is part of
what protests are doing, whetherthey're small, I think,
particularly sustained, regularones like the ones that we're
doing, or these sort of largerprotests that have been
happening every month or so.
So it creates a feeling amongjust regular citizens that are
going past like, oh, actuallypeople are saying something,
people are standing up, butthere's also picking some
(28:58):
targeted things to do, standingup for the people who are most
vulnerable.
I mentioned Timothy Snyder's ontyranny before, and another one
of his 20 is protect the firsttargets.
And there's all kinds ofreasons for that, like when a
new regime that's trying tocreate a whole new system where
they have much more power at thetop than has ever been before
(29:20):
in the country they're in, likewhat we're experiencing right
now with Trump too.
Right now with Trump too, oneof the things they do is like
let's go after really vulnerablepeople who a lot of people
don't like anyway, and we'llattack them and we'll see how
far we can go.
We'll see if anyone stands upfor them.
If they don't, then we'll go,we'll broaden it and do it to
the next group.
So one reason to protect, andin this case, just to be
(29:42):
specific, like when I first readthat book in November, we
weren't sure who were going tobe the first targets.
I think it's turned out that thefirst targets are immigrants to
this country.
I don't even want to sayundocumented, because they're
also going after people who werein this country legally, but
then they strip away the legalprotections.
(30:02):
So immigrants to this countryis one and the other, which is
sort of a.
It seems like a really oddgroup to pick, just because the
small percentage wise istransgender people.
So the administration's gonnadecide it goes after these
people, thinking like, yeah,well, no, people always are
negative towards them anyway.
Like overall, like our pollingshows that people the polling
(30:23):
last fall was like oh, peopleare really concerned about
people in this country illegally.
Fall was like, oh, people arereally concerned about people in
this country illegally.
I know because I did a lot ofdoor-to-door canvassing for the
Harris campaign in Pennsylvaniaand I will tell you that issue
came up more than any other by amile.
Yeah, people saying they wereconcerned and it's not actually
clear to me how much people inPennsylvania illegally were
(30:44):
actually causing problems forthe citizens in Pennsylvania,
but they had it in their headthat it was a problem.
They'd seen a lot of stuff onTikTok that told them it was a
problem, so they thought it wasa problem.
And same thing with the transsports issues.
Honestly, whether a transperson in high school can play
on the sports team, that is notthe gender they were assigned.
(31:06):
Is this really like a majornational issue?
Is this really?
How many people's lives is thisimpacted?
But they got people very firedup about it and I think there is
a an interesting dilemma thathits people who are trying to
protest of the saying like Idon't necessarily want to stand
up for trans people or forimmigrants to this country
because, like they're not thatpopular and we're trying to like
(31:29):
, we're trying to have like abig 10 and we're trying to win
over for the democrats in thenext, you know, in the midterms
or whatever.
When I hear that argument all Ican think is you know, I'm
jewish.
Hitler went off the jewsbecause a lot of people didn't
like jews.
That's like anti-semitism.
When I made a poster for ourfirst protest that said trans
rights are human rights, it wasbecause I was thinking like if
(31:52):
someone was trying to argueagainst Hitler in the 30s, I
hope they wouldn't say like,except, I don't really care
about the Jews that much becausepeople don't really like them.
One reason is to protect theindividual groups that are being
attacked, but another is toprotect against this erosion of
a plan to just broaden.
Like you know, he's seeing whathe can get away with.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Right.
I mean, I think you brought upso many good points in that.
Answer is also when you're like, because I also spoke to people
that were like, well, I'mreally afraid of you know, the
immigration and or the illegals.
They're, you know, violent andthat sort of messaging that MAGA
does to get to people whoaren't affected by any of this
at all, but then they feel like,oh, I should be terrified.
(32:33):
This is my number one concern.
Same with the trans stuff.
It's like, well then, should weas a collective be broadcasting
the normality of thesebeautiful immigrants and
documented or undocumented transand just sort of.
(32:53):
I don't know if radical empathyis the right term and I don't
know that's also been like everyterm that comes up gets
co-opted in a terrible way, butlike it is empathy, it is saying
, hey, we just all want freedomsfor everybody.
End of story, have a good day.
Like how can we present in anational level our values in a
(33:14):
simple way that could possiblyaffect people to see, oh wait,
this doesn't affect me.
Like that, it's not affectingme at all.
I want them to have a good life.
I want to have a good life.
I don't know where that'sgetting lost.
Why is that not all over socialmedia?
It can't just be that we'readdicted to rage as a culture,
but it feels like that.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Well, I just want to answer that from being a
Southerner also, I know thatthere are bigoted, homophobic,
racist people everywhere, right,but I also, just from having
experienced growing up in a veryconservative, religious town,
(33:55):
that those people are not all ofthat.
They may have somemisunderstandings about certain
things, they may have some slipof like saying some sort of some
not PC thing, but in generalpeople are really good, you know
, and they're wonderful people.
They may be Republican, theymay not support the same things
(34:18):
that I support, they may notbelieve in some of the things
that I believe in, but all inall they're going to help you
when you need your help andthey're going to help everyone,
no matter what it is.
But when we we've gotten to aculture where we're othering and
I'm doing it, I do it as well.
You know that we othering, it'sjust like a default.
Now it's them.
Why are there not values?
(34:39):
Why isn't everybody values likemy values?
I don't think that theRepublican party in the big R or
far right want us to be anauthoritarian.
They don't want us to lose ourfreedom of speech.
They don't want any of thisstuff that we're also afraid of,
and I'm just wanting us tosomehow find a way that we can
all come together and say look,we want this country to be free
(35:01):
and we don't, you know, stop allthis like scaring of people,
scaring people of immigrants.
Yes, I feel like things needreform in all areas we need some
things are a little broken andsome things are a lot broken.
I think that I do love that youare taking a positive way
forward of all of this, and Iwant to be part of it too.
(35:21):
I don't know what to do anymore,but I feel like something is
broken and I guess that whatyou're saying is the only thing
that you can do is go out thereand be a beacon of light, a
beacon of hope to people thatare scared.
I feel like there's no powerbehind the Democratic Party that
we're screaming, we'redemonstrating into like the wind
(35:41):
.
I'm sorry.
You're hearing my frustrationin the way that I'm exhibiting
it.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to tryto channel it into what you're
doing and I'll stop there.
Julie, your take.
Can you close this out on whatyou think that has come from
this crazy?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
conversation.
Yes, I think we're going toconsider Liz and I are going to
consider this conversation asuccess when we see the two of
you at our protest, even asobservers, if nothing else
because I think a lot ofconcerns that you've raised I
mean a lot of them arefascinating and valid, but a lot
(36:18):
of them also might becompletely eased and you might
find a little bit ofillumination and even
hopefulness in watching the vibeof people from and people
actually come from differentareas around.
We didn't expect that.
Maybe we thought everyone wasgoing to be from like a two mile
radius, but no people havetraveled to our protest because
(36:39):
they've heard about kind of thevibe of it.
I mean we've actually hadUkrainian people who don't speak
any English, who we can onlycommunicate with through Google
Translate, and seeing how peoplesort of come together and
almost are standing up for oneanother in this environment that
we've created.
I mean, Liz makes amazingfriendship bracelets, so there's
a new one every week and we geta new theme every week and
(37:02):
people are like so happy just tobe getting something, like to
getting a message, and everyonesays they wear.
They picked out two or three ofthem to wear every day, and
then that leads them to havingconversations with people they
meet about what the braceletmeans and like there's a word
I've been using is like microhope.
Things are so bad right nowthat it's actually hard to build
(37:22):
.
Hope is micro hope.
I like that Every Sunday atthree o'clock at the corner of
Bloomfield Avenue and ChurchStreet in Moncler.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
A question has anyone brought a sign that you're like
?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
no, you can't use that.
Okay, that's good.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
There was a young guy who was like screaming with the
F word in front of every and hewas there before.
He didn't know really about ourprotest.
He was just there before itstarted and a lot of our
protesters are elderly so we'relike how's this going to go?
But it was like beautiful, this20 year old kid who's screaming
like F this F that.
(38:03):
And his sign said F this F that.
Starts talking to like some 85year olds who were explaining to
him what, how they felt andwhat some of their signs said
when they were protestingagainst the Vietnam War.
Okay, he said you know what I'mreally angry and I'm really
scared, and everyone's like youknow what.
I can understand that.
And then there was this reallymeaningful multi generational
conversation.
That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
When you were talking , Julie and Liz, I want to get
to your closing thoughts too.
Is that I really had thismoment of an epiphany in this
conversation?
Is that I think I'm correlatingso much protest with a result,
Right, and with a tangibleresult?
(38:40):
I want to see it and all I'vebeen seeing is, you know, like
bad stuff happening, Right?
I just realized that it's maybejust part being part of
something that is authenticallycaring and it's like you're,
you're okay, You're not alone,that you not everybody is like
happy with what's going down.
(39:01):
I appreciate that takeaway Ihave gotten, so you actually
might see me.
Hey, Liz, what are yourthoughts.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Well, one thing I want to say.
This is the Lost in Jerseypodcast, and I grew up in Jersey
.
I am a Jersey girl through andthrough.
I actually grew up in SouthJersey, not too far from the
beach, and so I've had manydifferent Jersey experiences
more rural, I've lived in UnionCity.
More urban, now I'm in thesuburbs and I love New Jersey.
(39:29):
New Jersey gets a bad rap in away that I think is hilarious,
and I think now it's moved on toOhio, I think they get the bad
rap now.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Do they?
No, we passed the baton.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
We need to move to Ohio and do a Lost in Ohio.
Now Help them out.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
My kids told me that Ohio is the butt of all the
jokes.
Now I'm like okay, but I'm sureit's lovely there, it'll just
pass on.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, it'll pass it along.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
But I feel so strongly that New Jersey brings
together so many different kindsof people red and blue,
immigrants and people who'vebeen here forever and so many
different kinds of people withso many different ideas.
And there's artists, there'sbusiness people, like you know,
and I know those things existeverywhere, but in New Jersey, I
(40:15):
think partially because we'resuch a densely populated state,
that you feel it, I feel it, andI do think that there's ways
that we live in a bubble becausewe have been protected from so
much.
When we see what's going on inLA, that feels so foreign,
because I don't think that couldhappen here in Jersey yet.
And so I do want to utilizethis time that we have and
(40:40):
hopefully our rights will not betaken from us in that way.
But I feel like it's soimportant for us to be leaders
out there, like I literally amtalking to New Jersey
legislators about.
You know what can we do, youknow the different things that
we can do to step up our gameand and be a leader within the
country, and I know that.
You see, jeanette, all the newsis terrible.
(41:02):
Every day, every week, everyday, more and more and more.
There are so many wins that youdon't hear about because
they're not as clickbaity, butthere are so many wins behind
the scenes of people doingthings that are so courageous
and so important and standing up.
And the more people can do thatand the more we can tune into
that, the more we can build uponwhat we're doing here.
(41:26):
And Erica Chenoweth is, you know, the 3.5 rule.
She says that you know, theauthoritarian regime cannot
stand if 3.5 people, percent ofthe population, are actively
engaged in fighting back.
And so what we believe is thatour weekly protests are we are
building that muscle of engagingpeople and it's one form of
(41:47):
engagement and the more peoplewe can get in, the faster we can
get to that 3.5 number.
And you know, julie and I areso proud that people in other
parts of the country havestarted weekly protests because
they heard about ours.
And so we are building thisthing slowly but surely.
And you know the bracelets I'ma Swifty, but that's where it
started.
But actually these bracelets,people tell us all the time
(42:07):
they're conversation startersand they end up talking to
people about it and like, ohgood trouble, why are you
wearing that?
What's that about?
And then they talk about it andit slowly is building and
building and building, and youknow, if you guys do actually
come, I mean, I think, when youcome I, as a Swifty, I went to
the heiress tour twice.
I wish I could have gone.
(42:28):
It's my biggest regret.
The vibe in that room wassomething so special.
When there's tens of thousandsof people and everyone in there,
it's just like love and supportand we're all on the same team
and we all want.
We all want good for everyone,and I feel like our protests are
the closest thing to that thatI've had since then.
And I just think it's soimportant to take the positive
(42:49):
message and build on that,because it's so easy to get down
and fear and hear all the badnews and go to the place where
you end up feeling incapacitatedand you can't do anything
because it's all too much.
But the truth is that's themwinning.
They want you to feel like youcan't do anything.
That is one of the main tenetsof how they're going to win, and
(43:10):
so the more people we canconvince that like no, actually
come on out, we can do ittogether.
We're here, you're not alone.
We're going to be in thistogether and we're going to have
joy in their face.
We're going to have joy intheir face.
We're going to show them and Itruly believe that we can do
this.
It's going to take a long timeand it's going to take a lot of
(43:31):
hard work and it's going to takeconsistency, but we need
everyone.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I love how you just my epiphany might have just
happened, jeanette Like maybe Iwas intellectualizing just too
much because I'm reading and butI'm not connecting it to the
emotions that I actually reallydo have about all of this
happening, and maybe I just needto tune in a little bit more to
the actual feelings I have andgo out there to express that in
(43:57):
a group which then can help leadto action, rather than just
thinking about it and readingall the stats and data and
despair.
It's like okay, that's one partis your brain, but maybe we
need to lift the other part upand have that take over for a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
And being in community.
I really think community isanother.
It's another antidote to all ofthis is they want us to be
siloed.
They want us to not see eachother, see the humanity in each
other.
And when we're out there and weare watching people drive by
and have tears in their eyes andhonk, and sometimes we get
somebody to give us the bird,and you know what?
I always we give them the peacesign and I always think too,
(44:34):
we're out here fighting for yourrights too.
We want you to be able toexpress your feelings, even when
they're in disagreement to ours, like I respect your right to
give me that bird and I'm goingto keep fighting for that right.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Well, it's been.
Really it's been helpful totalk this out, because it is a
conversation that people arehaving quietly at home and
they're not speaking out for avariety of reasons, because they
do.
They do support what they'reseeing, but they're also
starting to question it as well,and also people are tired, the
(45:07):
fatigue.
I think that we are all in someway doing what we can, like
having this conversation isdoing what we can to try to get
that voice out.
And with asking you aboutsomething, your favorite thing
that you love about New Jersey.
Now, liz, let's get yours.
Or or what?
No, no, go ahead, rachel, didyou have something else you
(45:29):
wanted?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
to pose.
I was going to just say what isone thing you love about the
United States of America.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
That's a great question.
I think that's a really goodquestion.
Julie, you want to do that.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
As much as I just despairing and afraid, related
to things that are happening now.
Like I loved growing up in theUS, what's better than that and
I mean truthfully the right tospeak out and express yourself,
which is such an American thingis one of the things that I
(46:03):
value most about this country.
I've used it, it's been part ofmy life in all kinds of ways,
including, for you know, workingas a journalist for a long time
and now as a documentaryfilmmaker.
And in the current environmentthat's sort of found a different
kind of expression in joiningwith my fellow New Jerseyans to
protest and it feels deeply,deeply, deeply American.
(46:28):
I still love this country.
I feel like that's kind of thebase motivation for why I want
to take part in protests and I'mnot giving up on what America
can be.
I'm just like will not.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
Liz.
I think for me it's theopportunity to engage.
I was a politics major incollege and I have always been
politically minded, but I thinkI did take for granted that that
was an opportunity andsomething that I could do as
just an ordinary citizen.
And I think that this is a goodwake up call and a reminder
that we are lucky and peoplehave fought so hard to get us
(47:09):
where we are.
And the United States is notperfect and it never will be.
That's just not possible.
It's run by humans.
Humans are not perfect, but Ithink that we have an ideal that
we're striving for that.
Maybe we've lost our way alittle bit, but I think there's
so many of us who are onlyhaving that ideal.
Come back and focus now in away that we need to be able to
(47:31):
move forward and take a stepcloser to it.
If we can make it to the otherside of this, I am so hopeful
that we can do a better job ofputting things back together.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
And it is hopeful, and I do hope that we do make it
to another presidentialelection.
I really appreciate both of younot giving up and continuing
the spreading of hope andhelping people who are feeling
lost and don't know what to do,to come out, and when is your
next protest?
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Every single Sunday, sunday three to four found one
hour is.
Is is the right amount of time,because we all do have busy
lives and things going on, butit's a way that you can engage.
Some people come for 20 minutesand that's amazing, and so you,
you come, you do what you canand then at four o'clock we're
pretty good about like all right, guys, see you next week,
because everybody has things toget to and um, and we want to
(48:19):
make sure we all have full livesoutside of our activist work as
well.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Thank you so much, both of you joining us.
It was a very importantconversation, I would say.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Absolutely.
Thank you both for beingvulnerable and sharing with us
your thoughts on it.
It's not easy to talk about noit's not.
It's important that you wereable to share that, and I know
you're not alone in other peoplehaving those same thoughts, so
good for you for getting it outthere.
Thank you, thanks, thank you,thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,itunes and Buzzsprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
Welcome everyone to Lost in Jersey.
It's so nice to have you backon, julie.
We had a great episode with youbefore and Liz, welcome to you.
Thank you, julie.
Tell people a little bit aboutyourself.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Sure, I'm Julie.
I live in Bloomfield, newJersey.
I am a documentary filmmaker inmy sort of normal person
persona, but since November I'vealso been a pretty busy I would
say anti-Trump activist in myneighborhood and perhaps beyond.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
What documentaries would people know you from, sure
?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
The docs people would probably know best is RBG,
which I directed and producedalong with filmmaking partner
Betsy West, and other filmsinclude Everybody.
My Name is Polly Murray andJulia about Julia Child, and you
know I've seen all of them andthey're all incredible.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So if anybody needs to, you know, spend a weekend
watching great documentariesthat have some important
messages behind them andeducational messages.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Watch all of.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Julie's Watch all of your documentaries and I know
that we had lunch recently andyou told me you have some
interesting things coming up.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
So everybody keep an eye out for what you're working
on, liz, so tell us a little bitabout you, well first, I would
like to concur about Julie'sfilms, and you left out the
Gabby Giffords one which Ipersonally find very close to my
heart.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So also that one.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
So my name is Liz and I am Julie's next door neighbor
in Bloomfield, New Jersey, andI am a mother of three boys who
are all teenagers and all tallerthan me.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Ah, this is pretty tall to start with.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Mostly, I've focused on being a mom for the last 20
years, but also I've had manydifferent jobs.
Most recently, I'm very proudto volunteer for an organization
in Essex County called SAVE.
We support survivors of sexualassault and violence.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's an amazing organization.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
This interview is focused around the work that you
two have joined together to do,which is to bring awareness,
through the democratic cause,primarily of how many causes
there's so many.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What is your specific ?
What would you say is themission statement?
If you will, it would just begood for our listeners to
understand how you guys gottogether, what was the motive
and the mission, and then we cango from there.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
So, julie, and I have been walking as a form of
exercise, a way to hang out andcatch up, for quite some time
and as the election drew closerin November, more and more and
more and more conversations werepolitical.
We both have very strongfeelings about the election and
both did work ahead of time totry to help Kamala get the
(02:51):
victory.
And after the election was over, we were in shock.
And then, once January came andhe was inaugurated, it so
quickly went downhill in a waythat I was expecting.
But the reality of it hitdifferent than what I could have
imagined, and Julie and I wereboth just appalled at the speed
(03:13):
and the chaos and the harm thatwas coming to people.
And when we would walk, wewould just be talking about
talking, about talking about itand wanting something to do.
And we would look around at ourcommunity here in Bloomfield,
montclair, and we live in apretty progressive community,
very diverse community, andthat's part of the reason we
love it.
And all of a sudden we werelike, where is everybody?
(03:35):
You know, aren't the peoplethat we love and care about in
our community?
Scared right now, and, and gosh, I'd love to get out there and
say something and show somesupport.
So we decided on one of ourwalks that we just couldn't be
quiet and we weren't going towait for somebody else to start
something.
So we decided to show up everySunday from three to four on the
corner of Church Street inMontclair and Bloomfield Avenue.
(03:56):
Historically that's a protestsite that people know, so we
weren't looking to reinvent thewheel there and we decided the
two of us would show up everysingle Sunday for an hour and
we've let our friends know andsee if anybody else wanted to
join in, but that even if nobodyelse came, we could make our
voices heard, make some signs,get out there, make some noise.
And the turnout was incredible.
The first week we had 17 peopleand the second week how many
(04:20):
was it?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Julie, it was around 100 the second week.
We've been surprised, I think,by the consistency, like there's
new people every week but thenthere are really regulars.
And you know, I think thethought we had going in like a
lot of people I know friendsthat live in different places.
A lot of people were saying inthose early days after the
inauguration where are theprotesters?
(04:40):
Like, are people on the streetsso that we can join them?
And then it just sort ofoccurred to me and Liz like no,
they are we.
Why are we saying, why aren'tother people protesting?
Why don't we just start doingit?
And then people can join us.
And our instinct felt like itreally turned out to be true
People, as Liz said, that firstweek was not very many people,
(05:04):
but yet it felt like somethingwas happening.
The people that drove past andthe people that walked past
seemed and this been out thereand it's now been 21 weeks.
There are people that cry whenthey see us.
(05:28):
Wow, a good acronym that one ofour protesters, an elderly guy
named Bob, shared with us fromsomething that he had read was
Yana, you are not alone, andthat's kind of the feeling that
a protest causes.
You can feel very isolated inyour opposition to a powerful
regime, which I think is what wehave going now.
(05:50):
And if you look at and read andlisten up about the history of
authoritarian takeovers invarious countries, you'll see
that probably the number onetool of authoritarian leaders is
a feeling of isolation anddisempowerment among just
ordinary citizens.
People feel alone and isolated.
People, maybe in their homes atdinner, are saying like oh,
(06:12):
this doesn't seem right.
I don't really like people beinggrabbed off the streets by
masked people who don't identifythemselves and then put into a
vehicle without due process andtaken to detention.
Why isn't anyone sayinganything?
So you feel really isolated inthat personal reaction.
But when you see, like no,actually many people in my
(06:33):
community feel this way.
Hey, look, there's 100 peopleon the street every week who are
saying that and listen, peoplethat drive by.
Half of them are honkingextremely enthusiastically,
sometimes taking pictures orvideotaping the fact that
protesters they are putting themup on social media saying I'm
glad to see that my neighbors,that my fellow humans also don't
(06:55):
want to just stand by and letthis all happen.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I think the you are not alone is really exactly it.
I mean, just from the protestsI've been to with alone, or with
my family or with friends overthe many, many years of protests
, there is a wonderful feelingof a collective feeling of
community.
When you're marching down, youknow either in Washington or
wherever you are withlike-minded people.
(07:21):
I think that's a reallyimportant point to make.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
One of the unique pieces of this moment is that
we're out there and I think thecommon thread is the Trump
administration is what we'reprotesting against, but within
that there are so many facets ofthings that people are wanting
to protest and so everybody hasthe different thing that puts
them over the line and says likeno, I need to get out there, I
(07:46):
need to speak up, but wecoalesce around the Trump
administration being the mainproblem.
But it's interesting because,like you were saying
individually those pieces, youcould feel alone in any of those
pieces.
If one issue is like reallyyour issue, but we come together
, you is like really your issue,but we come together.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Well, we've had a lot of discussion, rachel and I,
leading up to this, and it'shard to articulate everything
that we're thinking because Ifeel like we're coming from an
average person that comes from aDemocratic background.
That also was out there at thevery beginning in 2016, at the
Women's Movement March, and justwere blown away with the
(08:26):
turnout and the amount of peoplethat showed up, continued to
protest into the next one andthen the next one also went to
the Black Lives Matter protestand started getting a little
disillusioned with some of theprotests that were starting to
happen.
That seemed to be almost someof the protests that I went to.
That seemed to be almost someof the protests that I went to.
(08:46):
I actually told Rachel that Iwish I did not participate in in
retrospect that they felt likethey went too far in some things
.
It's been 10 years almost ofprotesting for various issues.
As you are saying that peopleare now just coalescing under
like one big, you know I havemany different things that
you're upset about Now justcoalescing under like one big.
You know I have many differentthings that you're upset about
and the thing that's frustratingin looking back at all of these
(09:08):
protests is that thelegislative output from them has
been primarily negative for thecause that you are out there in
the street for.
And the question is are theyworking?
Is our protest working in thenew environment that we're in in
the way that we need them?
We know that we want to notfeel that we're alone and in the
(09:30):
past it seems that protestswere working.
That they had, you know, we'veseen.
We can look at the civil rightsmovement, the Vietnam War and
also some countries that havehad protests that have led to
change.
The question is am I just notwilling to play the long game of
10?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
plus years.
I have to fight back against.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Please.
We want to have a conversation.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And I think the American civil rights movement
is probably the quintessentialone to look at because it's
history that's so familiar to somany of us.
But that history gets reallycrunched when you look at it in
hindsight.
Not like Martin Luther King,and people went out there one
(10:14):
day and then the next day theywere like, hey, let's do a
Voting Rights Act, let's do aCivil Rights Act.
No, this is years and years ofhard work, sustained action
which seemed for a long timelike it wasn't going to make a
difference, and then until itdid make a difference I mean to
use a protest movement fromanother country.
I think the great Nelson Mandelaquote is like things always
(10:35):
seem impossible until they'redone, until they happen.
But there's like there was alot.
If you look at any movement inthis country or others where
people have fought back and madechange and that fighting has
included people going to thestreets, there is a long, long
period of it seeming like, oh,this isn't working then then
(11:01):
civil rights movement would havenever had the great successes
that it had.
Not that everything changed forthe better, and certainly not
that everything changed forever,because some of those things
are starting to erode even rightnow under the Trump situation.
Yeah, when you, when you lookback on movements, you look at a
few iconic moments and youthink like, oh, look, they did
that.
Look what a big difference itmade.
(11:22):
I mean when, when Martin LutherKing in August of 1963 went to
Washington and did the I have aDream speech, he had already
been doing sustained, organized,often very small protests all
around the country for more thana decade.
At that point I think the CivilRights Act was 64 and the
(11:43):
Voting Rights Act was 65.
So there's still another coupleof years before the big
legislative victories happened.
But like that big, very visible, everybody notices it.
President John F Kennedy, aftertrying to make it not happen,
sort of flipped around and like,oh yay, this is good civil
rights.
That did not come out ofnowhere.
That came out of small,community-based, issue-based
(12:05):
movements all over the country,including with the national
leadership pushing and fightingand trying to make it happen for
years and years and years.
It's only in hindsight that wethink like, oh look they
protested and it worked.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Well, I have a question, then.
There are many layers togetting rid of a government or
getting people to vote adifferent way.
So, if you're looking at it,then protest is one way that has
to go with all these othermodules.
I'm hearing you and I amdefinitely seeing like, yes,
you're right.
Looking back in hindsight, it'shard because of that time
(12:38):
crunch, which we wanted to askyou about too how that's changed
.
Protesting and movements, allthe other things that need to be
in play in order to get thechange to happen.
So what are those other thingsthat you would encourage people
to do besides or along withbeing out there vocally
protesting, so that the rest ofthe world sees that we're not
(13:01):
complacent?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
One of the parts of what we do every week is we send
out an email on Mondays tothank everybody who was able to
show up and also to offer somesuggestions about what they
might be able to participate inthat week if they were
interested in some additionalactivist activities, and
obviously those include thingslike calling your
(13:22):
representatives, and those callsdo matter.
When Cory Booker did his speechthat was 20, however many hours
he specifically said myconstituents pushed me to go
outside of the normal and comeup with a creative way to make
(13:42):
my voice heard, and I wascalling every single day, still
am and so I think he spokedirectly to us to say like yes,
keep this up, keep this up.
So, and while that one speechin and of itself obviously
didn't, you know, solveeverything, but these are all
steps, they're all buildingblocks on which we are building
(14:02):
the resistance and the abilityto, as you're saying, finally
change leadership.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I think we're all have the same ultimate goal.
We all are upset with whatwe're seeing happening on many
different levels theauthoritative grasp of power
that is happening now.
That seems inevitable.
Happening now.
That seems inevitable.
And I feel like for justspeaking on behalf of someone
who was going to protests andwas actively there, that there's
(14:30):
.
I would say I need a moment andI was texting this, rachel, I'm
afraid of taking the moment torest and say I have to get some
clarity of what's going on.
Why is it that the Republicans,who are not known to protest,
they did have one tragic protestof January 6th which almost
took them down.
I mean, so many people wereagainst that protest, but what
(14:53):
did they so cleverly do to beable to gen back up their
support from that tragic protest, tragic protest.
And I'm just taking this minuteto say what exactly do we need
to do?
And I'm afraid of that minutebecause, as you know, when
you're in an authoritative place, you don't protest for fear of
(15:13):
something being taken from you.
It's like the only people thatcan protest now haven't checked
that box, hasn't that they mayget in trouble.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, you know, first of all, I think it gets
complicated.
It's funny that you've used theword democratic a number of
times and I'm never sure whetheryou mean little D democratic or
big D like the Democratic Party.
I mean, I actually feel likemore like the big D Democratic.
Party A fair amount of whatwe've done is kind of in both
those directions.
We are registered Democrats but, like to me, the big issue
(15:43):
right now is the little dDemocrat issue, and trying to
get as broad a tent as possiblethat stands behind some of the
kind of key principles in ournation is a really valid point,
and I think Liz and I both spentsome time early on in the new
(16:08):
world that we live in with theTrump second presidency, which
both of us viewed as muchscarier than the first time
around.
Yes, there seemed to be.
As truthfully, the big DDemocrats warned like there were
going to be fewer guardrailsthis time around because they
plan for it.
That's absolutely true.
I wasn't protesting all thetime and the first thing I went
to the march with the pink hatsthe first time and then I went
(16:30):
on with my life.
This seemed different, but onething that we did from reading
up, I mean, and a good examplethat a lot of people have read
and I'm among them is theTimothy Snyder on tyranny book,
which is a good short littlebook about how citizens respond
to authoritarians and fascists,and one of the things that he's
(16:50):
got like 20 points that he laysout of what you should do, and
one of them is be as brave asyou can, and I really like that
sentence because it acknowledgesthat different people have
different levels of risk andthat we should all act
accordingly.
I guess, for something like this, I will speak only for myself
(17:11):
personally, but, like Iunderstand that I have a certain
amount of privilege in Americansociety which puts me not at
zero risk because I actuallythink everyone's at risk right
now when they speak out, butlike at maybe less risk than
some other people, certainlybecause I'm a US born, us
citizen and some other things.
Like I'm not saying I would begoing out on the streets if I
(17:32):
felt like I was more vulnerablein certain ways, but because I'm
a little bit less vulnerable, Ikind of feel like it behooves
me to be speaking up on behalfof people who might be more
moderately or even highlyvulnerable.
There's different risks andalso the risk is going to change
over time.
If I'm not being brave now, Idon't know how I'm going to be
(17:54):
brave a year from now, whenthere is situations where
they're starting to arrestpeople just for speaking out
against Trump, which I do thinkis going to happen.
If you can, you can go arrestor, god forbid, beat up like 10
people.
Once there's 100 people, I see,yeah, and less risky, like all
(18:25):
of our actions are.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, I do believe that protests are helpful to
find the you are not alone typeof feeling, but I also worry
that protests in a social mediaenvironment are being used as
content to be misrepresented andused to push policies that
(18:48):
promote the Republican machineof some sort.
That they are able to take smallpieces and just misrepresent it
or represent it accurately, butprojected upon a whole entire
you know them versus us type ofsituation.
I don't know exactly what'sgoing on with the big D
(19:10):
Democratic Party.
I do know that I had never inmy life said that I would leave
the Democratic Party, but atthis point I'm starting to move
inching to independent, which II'm shocked to say that I never
thought I would.
Liz, also, I want to ask youropinion on this stuff because I
feel like I'm bringing uppressure points about this topic
(19:31):
and I'd like to be pushed backon and help me have hope.
You know that, yes, I shouldget out there, I should try, I
should do these things, but I'mat a point right now I'm like
they're doing something and wegot to figure out what they're
doing.
It's not this, and maybe it'snot nice whatever it is they're
doing, but we got to do it.
I feel like we're being tooit's not the word Pollyanna, but
(19:53):
too virtuous.
I'll stop there.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
No, I'm so glad you just shared all that thought
process.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I have so many friends who feel the way you do
and hear these kinds of theseconcerns and thoughts all the
time, and I don't think eitherJulie or I would say we have the
answer.
But I would say that by doingsomething is important.
Nobody can do not one personcan do everything, but everybody
can do something, and so maybeprotesting is not your thing,
(20:23):
but I would say part of how weended up in this situation in my
personal opinion this isspeaking for me is that civic
engagement is just so low in ourcountry and we have taken for
granted the rights that we havein this country, and I think
that at this moment there's aslide into our authoritarianism,
and it's a process.
(20:43):
The further to your point,every day gets worse, right, and
so the further we get down thisslide, the harder it's going to
be to get ourselves back up,and so it's now.
We need to act now, andprotesting is a small part of it
.
But you know, amanda Littman,run for something.
People need to get out thereand get involved in their local
government, you know, and runfor a local office.
(21:06):
People don't think about howimportant those local offices
are, and when it comes toelections, those happen on a
local and state level, so thoseare the people who are going to
be very important in 2026 whenit's time to count the votes and
are these elections fair?
And there's building blocksthat have, I think, been taken
(21:27):
for granted, and we, as citizensof the United States, have
gotten to a point where we thinkour freedoms are free, but no,
we need to pay for them, and weneed to pay for them through
work and diligence and gettinginvolved and engagement yeah,
and 100% engagement, and thething, too, is the Supreme Court
(21:50):
and courts in general.
The Supreme Court, though, willtake up cases based on what
they see as people really wantto be dealt with.
You know they can't take up allthe cases, so they choose which
cases they're going to see itaffects them when they see
people out in the streets abouta certain issue, oh, that's one
that's like something reallyimportant.
And you know, at this moment,the Supreme Court.
(22:10):
You know I'm not a fan, butsome of the decisions they're
making, but I do think thatoverall, the Republicans are
using in their dirty games.
They're always going to find away to do that.
(22:31):
Whether if we protest, they'regoing to frame it in a different
way and say whatever.
Or if we sit at home, thenthey're going to say nobody
cares.
There is no way to avoid theirplaybook and the way that they
want to handle things.
I don't think it's beingPollyanna of us to use
nonviolence and to use ourvoices and to use the rights
that they want to handle things.
I don't think it's beingPollyanna of us to use
nonviolence and to use ourvoices and to use the rights
(22:52):
that we still have, while westill have them, to get out
there and make our voices heard.
And I 100% agree with Julie.
I think at some point,protesting and using our First
Amendment rights is going tocome under a new level of
scrutiny and maybe even be madeillegal.
The word terrorist has beenthrown around, with people who
speak out against the governmentas, like Trump was trying it
(23:12):
out, and I feel very much likemy privilege.
I am a white lady.
I have an hour in the middle ofthe day to sit here and talk to
you fine people, because I'mnot out working for jobs to feed
my family.
I feel like it is on me to beout there and be the front lines
.
If they're going to say thatI'm a terrorist one day, I want
it to be say that I'm aterrorist, because I think what
(23:34):
has been scared into peopleabout oh, terrorists and
whatever that's not.
This is not what they picture.
So I will.
I'm happy to be out there onthe front line and saying I'm a
concerned citizen.
If you want to call me aterrorist, you can, but you're
not going to be able to get awaywith your othering of people in
the way that you have in thepast because of their skin color
, because of their religion,because of whatever.
(23:56):
If I'm there in the front withall of my privilege and saying
this is a problem and we allagree here, and I do think it's
also important that we do risksomething.
I understand the desire to notwanna speak out, to not wanna
ruffle feathers.
I have certain things that Idon't feel comfortable sharing
(24:16):
or whatever, but the fact thatwe have to risk something this
doesn't come for free andputting my own, I'm willing to
put my body on the line and beout there.
I'm willing to put my body onthe line and be out there.
I'm willing to put my face onthe line, and that's me.
Other people will do otherthings.
Julie, for example I don't knowif you know this, but she with
Columbia, she did an incrediblybrave thing and it had a
(24:37):
cascading effect.
And because she stepped up andspoke out and decided that she
was not willing to be a part ofsomething that was happening,
that was not okay.
Other people followed herbecause guess what they maybe
wouldn't have if she didn't atfirst.
But because she stepped up, itdoes have an effect.
If you speak out, then somebodyelse feels more comfortable,
(24:58):
and for me personally too, Ifeel so that our weekly protests
are important because we'reflexing that muscle.
We are using that muscle everyweek to get out there and engage
civically.
And also I think that there's alot of people who protesting
sounds scary or it sounds likesomething that they would never
do, but when they see us outthere every single week.
(25:18):
And let me tell you, when we'reout there for one hour we
actually have fun and it'sbizarre to think it's a horrible
reason we're out there, but wemake it fun and I think we're
sort of making it slightly lessstigmatized.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I read the article about you guys in the Montclair
Local and I liked how you saidyou know if you're uncomfortable
talking to someone at the otherend of the phone when you call,
call before the office opensand leave a message.
I've been in shock watchingwhat is happening, thinking how
can it get worse, and then alsotrying to manage my own family
and taking care of kids andtrying to not be so negative
(25:56):
about all the issues that I careabout, that are unraveling and
that I've preached to my kidsare so important.
It's hard when you feel justdespair is hard and how to feel
like okay, if I just startpicking up again, just a little
at a time, just start makingcalls again.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
It is the antidote to despair, I assure you, and
every single week we feel it.
We hear it from everybody whocomes.
Everybody who comes tells ushow grateful they are to just
have that hour.
It's almost like we refill ourtanks for the week.
We've seen people come by theprotest, like Julie said in
tears.
Last week a kind man saw us allout there sweating and he
brought a case of water andbrought it around to everyone
(26:37):
and offered water and he saidI'm from Colombia and when I see
you here it fills my heart andhe started crying.
I think it just brings a levelof hope and it spurs people to
feel like, okay, I can do this,I can go stand there.
Okay, I can do this, I can makea call.
Okay, I can do this, maybe Ican run, maybe I can volunteer.
In this way, I can step up.
In this way, I can go to courtfor an immigrant who's going to
(27:00):
court and be there as anobserver for them.
There's a million differentways to get involved.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
You know, I'm listening to all of this and I
have so much hope thatprotesting can be grow into
something that would actuallycreate a change.
And my question is I heard yousay earlier that people pay
attention when there's noise oryou know there's.
We live in an attention society.
It's all about gettingattention and you know who's got
(27:26):
the attention and it shifts.
All about getting attention andyou know who's got the
attention and it shifts veryfast, of course you know.
So you said earlier that whenpeople see people protesting,
that the Supreme Court or thecourts pay attention.
So I definitely agree with that.
You know that.
I do think that there beingattention on a topic definitely
causes interest.
However, the topic has become30, 40 different topics.
(27:51):
What is the overarching?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
topic.
Jeanette, you've referred acouple of times in this
conversation to sort of theperplexing horridness of the
right-wing tactics right now,and one of their main ones is
the so-called flood, the zone.
Like do so many bad things allat once, everyone's thrown back
thinking like, oh my God, how dowe defend against all of this?
(28:12):
But, like, I think one answeris that just because you can't
actually defend againsteverything doesn't mean that you
should do nothing.
I mean, that's what they'retrying to do with their flood,
the zone tactics.
They're trying to make it sohard to you know, there's so
many things to fight backagainst that, yes, you can't
fight back against everything,but first of all, you can create
(28:34):
a general atmosphere offighting back, which is part of
what protests are doing, whetherthey're small, I think,
particularly sustained, regularones like the ones that we're
doing, or these sort of largerprotests that have been
happening every month or so.
So it creates a feeling amongjust regular citizens that are
going past like, oh, actuallypeople are saying something,
people are standing up, butthere's also picking some
(28:58):
targeted things to do, standingup for the people who are most
vulnerable.
I mentioned Timothy Snyder's ontyranny before, and another one
of his 20 is protect the firsttargets.
And there's all kinds ofreasons for that, like when a
new regime that's trying tocreate a whole new system where
they have much more power at thetop than has ever been before
(29:20):
in the country they're in, likewhat we're experiencing right
now with Trump too.
Right now with Trump too, oneof the things they do is like
let's go after really vulnerablepeople who a lot of people
don't like anyway, and we'llattack them and we'll see how
far we can go.
We'll see if anyone stands upfor them.
If they don't, then we'll go,we'll broaden it and do it to
the next group.
So one reason to protect, andin this case, just to be
(29:42):
specific, like when I first readthat book in November, we
weren't sure who were going tobe the first targets.
I think it's turned out that thefirst targets are immigrants to
this country.
I don't even want to sayundocumented, because they're
also going after people who werein this country legally, but
then they strip away the legalprotections.
(30:02):
So immigrants to this countryis one and the other, which is
sort of a.
It seems like a really oddgroup to pick, just because the
small percentage wise istransgender people.
So the administration's gonnadecide it goes after these
people, thinking like, yeah,well, no, people always are
negative towards them anyway.
Like overall, like our pollingshows that people the polling
(30:23):
last fall was like oh, peopleare really concerned about
people in this country illegally.
Fall was like, oh, people arereally concerned about people in
this country illegally.
I know because I did a lot ofdoor-to-door canvassing for the
Harris campaign in Pennsylvaniaand I will tell you that issue
came up more than any other by amile.
Yeah, people saying they wereconcerned and it's not actually
clear to me how much people inPennsylvania illegally were
(30:44):
actually causing problems forthe citizens in Pennsylvania,
but they had it in their headthat it was a problem.
They'd seen a lot of stuff onTikTok that told them it was a
problem, so they thought it wasa problem.
And same thing with the transsports issues.
Honestly, whether a transperson in high school can play
on the sports team, that is notthe gender they were assigned.
(31:06):
Is this really like a majornational issue?
Is this really?
How many people's lives is thisimpacted?
But they got people very firedup about it and I think there is
a an interesting dilemma thathits people who are trying to
protest of the saying like Idon't necessarily want to stand
up for trans people or forimmigrants to this country
because, like they're not thatpopular and we're trying to like
(31:29):
, we're trying to have like abig 10 and we're trying to win
over for the democrats in thenext, you know, in the midterms
or whatever.
When I hear that argument all Ican think is you know, I'm
jewish.
Hitler went off the jewsbecause a lot of people didn't
like jews.
That's like anti-semitism.
When I made a poster for ourfirst protest that said trans
rights are human rights, it wasbecause I was thinking like if
(31:52):
someone was trying to argueagainst Hitler in the 30s, I
hope they wouldn't say like,except, I don't really care
about the Jews that much becausepeople don't really like them.
One reason is to protect theindividual groups that are being
attacked, but another is toprotect against this erosion of
a plan to just broaden.
Like you know, he's seeing whathe can get away with.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Right.
I mean, I think you brought upso many good points in that.
Answer is also when you're like, because I also spoke to people
that were like, well, I'mreally afraid of you know, the
immigration and or the illegals.
They're, you know, violent andthat sort of messaging that MAGA
does to get to people whoaren't affected by any of this
at all, but then they feel like,oh, I should be terrified.
(32:33):
This is my number one concern.
Same with the trans stuff.
It's like, well then, should weas a collective be broadcasting
the normality of thesebeautiful immigrants and
documented or undocumented transand just sort of.
(32:53):
I don't know if radical empathyis the right term and I don't
know that's also been like everyterm that comes up gets
co-opted in a terrible way, butlike it is empathy, it is saying
, hey, we just all want freedomsfor everybody.
End of story, have a good day.
Like how can we present in anational level our values in a
(33:14):
simple way that could possiblyaffect people to see, oh wait,
this doesn't affect me.
Like that, it's not affectingme at all.
I want them to have a good life.
I want to have a good life.
I don't know where that'sgetting lost.
Why is that not all over socialmedia?
It can't just be that we'readdicted to rage as a culture,
but it feels like that.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Well, I just want to answer that from being a
Southerner also, I know thatthere are bigoted, homophobic,
racist people everywhere, right,but I also, just from having
experienced growing up in a veryconservative, religious town,
(33:55):
that those people are not all ofthat.
They may have somemisunderstandings about certain
things, they may have some slipof like saying some sort of some
not PC thing, but in generalpeople are really good, you know
, and they're wonderful people.
They may be Republican, theymay not support the same things
(34:18):
that I support, they may notbelieve in some of the things
that I believe in, but all inall they're going to help you
when you need your help andthey're going to help everyone,
no matter what it is.
But when we we've gotten to aculture where we're othering and
I'm doing it, I do it as well.
You know that we othering, it'sjust like a default.
Now it's them.
Why are there not values?
(34:39):
Why isn't everybody values likemy values?
I don't think that theRepublican party in the big R or
far right want us to be anauthoritarian.
They don't want us to lose ourfreedom of speech.
They don't want any of thisstuff that we're also afraid of,
and I'm just wanting us tosomehow find a way that we can
all come together and say look,we want this country to be free
(35:01):
and we don't, you know, stop allthis like scaring of people,
scaring people of immigrants.
Yes, I feel like things needreform in all areas we need some
things are a little broken andsome things are a lot broken.
I think that I do love that youare taking a positive way
forward of all of this, and Iwant to be part of it too.
(35:21):
I don't know what to do anymore,but I feel like something is
broken and I guess that whatyou're saying is the only thing
that you can do is go out thereand be a beacon of light, a
beacon of hope to people thatare scared.
I feel like there's no powerbehind the Democratic Party that
we're screaming, we'redemonstrating into like the wind
(35:41):
.
I'm sorry.
You're hearing my frustrationin the way that I'm exhibiting
it.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to tryto channel it into what you're
doing and I'll stop there.
Julie, your take.
Can you close this out on whatyou think that has come from
this crazy?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
conversation.
Yes, I think we're going toconsider Liz and I are going to
consider this conversation asuccess when we see the two of
you at our protest, even asobservers, if nothing else
because I think a lot ofconcerns that you've raised I
mean a lot of them arefascinating and valid, but a lot
(36:18):
of them also might becompletely eased and you might
find a little bit ofillumination and even
hopefulness in watching the vibeof people from and people
actually come from differentareas around.
We didn't expect that.
Maybe we thought everyone wasgoing to be from like a two mile
radius, but no people havetraveled to our protest because
(36:39):
they've heard about kind of thevibe of it.
I mean we've actually hadUkrainian people who don't speak
any English, who we can onlycommunicate with through Google
Translate, and seeing how peoplesort of come together and
almost are standing up for oneanother in this environment that
we've created.
I mean, Liz makes amazingfriendship bracelets, so there's
a new one every week and we geta new theme every week and
(37:02):
people are like so happy just tobe getting something, like to
getting a message, and everyonesays they wear.
They picked out two or three ofthem to wear every day, and
then that leads them to havingconversations with people they
meet about what the braceletmeans and like there's a word
I've been using is like microhope.
Things are so bad right nowthat it's actually hard to build
(37:22):
.
Hope is micro hope.
I like that Every Sunday atthree o'clock at the corner of
Bloomfield Avenue and ChurchStreet in Moncler.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
A question has anyone brought a sign that you're like
?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
no, you can't use that.
Okay, that's good.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
There was a young guy who was like screaming with the
F word in front of every and hewas there before.
He didn't know really about ourprotest.
He was just there before itstarted and a lot of our
protesters are elderly so we'relike how's this going to go?
But it was like beautiful, this20 year old kid who's screaming
like F this F that.
(38:03):
And his sign said F this F that.
Starts talking to like some 85year olds who were explaining to
him what, how they felt andwhat some of their signs said
when they were protestingagainst the Vietnam War.
Okay, he said you know what I'mreally angry and I'm really
scared, and everyone's like youknow what.
I can understand that.
And then there was this reallymeaningful multi generational
conversation.
That's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
When you were talking , Julie and Liz, I want to get
to your closing thoughts too.
Is that I really had thismoment of an epiphany in this
conversation?
Is that I think I'm correlatingso much protest with a result,
Right, and with a tangibleresult?
(38:40):
I want to see it and all I'vebeen seeing is, you know, like
bad stuff happening, Right?
I just realized that it's maybejust part being part of
something that is authenticallycaring and it's like you're,
you're okay, You're not alone,that you not everybody is like
happy with what's going down.
(39:01):
I appreciate that takeaway Ihave gotten, so you actually
might see me.
Hey, Liz, what are yourthoughts.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Well, one thing I want to say.
This is the Lost in Jerseypodcast, and I grew up in Jersey
.
I am a Jersey girl through andthrough.
I actually grew up in SouthJersey, not too far from the
beach, and so I've had manydifferent Jersey experiences
more rural, I've lived in UnionCity.
More urban, now I'm in thesuburbs and I love New Jersey.
(39:29):
New Jersey gets a bad rap in away that I think is hilarious,
and I think now it's moved on toOhio, I think they get the bad
rap now.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Do they?
No, we passed the baton.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
We need to move to Ohio and do a Lost in Ohio.
Now Help them out.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
My kids told me that Ohio is the butt of all the
jokes.
Now I'm like okay, but I'm sureit's lovely there, it'll just
pass on.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah, it'll pass it along.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
But I feel so strongly that New Jersey brings
together so many different kindsof people red and blue,
immigrants and people who'vebeen here forever and so many
different kinds of people withso many different ideas.
And there's artists, there'sbusiness people, like you know,
and I know those things existeverywhere, but in New Jersey, I
(40:15):
think partially because we'resuch a densely populated state,
that you feel it, I feel it, andI do think that there's ways
that we live in a bubble becausewe have been protected from so
much.
When we see what's going on inLA, that feels so foreign,
because I don't think that couldhappen here in Jersey yet.
And so I do want to utilizethis time that we have and
(40:40):
hopefully our rights will not betaken from us in that way.
But I feel like it's soimportant for us to be leaders
out there, like I literally amtalking to New Jersey
legislators about.
You know what can we do, youknow the different things that
we can do to step up our gameand and be a leader within the
country, and I know that.
You see, jeanette, all the newsis terrible.
(41:02):
Every day, every week, everyday, more and more and more.
There are so many wins that youdon't hear about because
they're not as clickbaity, butthere are so many wins behind
the scenes of people doingthings that are so courageous
and so important and standing up.
And the more people can do thatand the more we can tune into
that, the more we can build uponwhat we're doing here.
(41:26):
And Erica Chenoweth is, you know, the 3.5 rule.
She says that you know, theauthoritarian regime cannot
stand if 3.5 people, percent ofthe population, are actively
engaged in fighting back.
And so what we believe is thatour weekly protests are we are
building that muscle of engagingpeople and it's one form of
(41:47):
engagement and the more peoplewe can get in, the faster we can
get to that 3.5 number.
And you know, julie and I areso proud that people in other
parts of the country havestarted weekly protests because
they heard about ours.
And so we are building thisthing slowly but surely.
And you know the bracelets I'ma Swifty, but that's where it
started.
But actually these bracelets,people tell us all the time
(42:07):
they're conversation startersand they end up talking to
people about it and like, ohgood trouble, why are you
wearing that?
What's that about?
And then they talk about it andit slowly is building and
building and building, and youknow, if you guys do actually
come, I mean, I think, when youcome I, as a Swifty, I went to
the heiress tour twice.
I wish I could have gone.
(42:28):
It's my biggest regret.
The vibe in that room wassomething so special.
When there's tens of thousandsof people and everyone in there,
it's just like love and supportand we're all on the same team
and we all want.
We all want good for everyone,and I feel like our protests are
the closest thing to that thatI've had since then.
And I just think it's soimportant to take the positive
(42:49):
message and build on that,because it's so easy to get down
and fear and hear all the badnews and go to the place where
you end up feeling incapacitatedand you can't do anything
because it's all too much.
But the truth is that's themwinning.
They want you to feel like youcan't do anything.
That is one of the main tenetsof how they're going to win, and
(43:10):
so the more people we canconvince that like no, actually
come on out, we can do ittogether.
We're here, you're not alone.
We're going to be in thistogether and we're going to have
joy in their face.
We're going to have joy intheir face.
We're going to show them and Itruly believe that we can do
this.
It's going to take a long timeand it's going to take a lot of
(43:31):
hard work and it's going to takeconsistency, but we need
everyone.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I love how you just my epiphany might have just
happened, jeanette Like maybe Iwas intellectualizing just too
much because I'm reading and butI'm not connecting it to the
emotions that I actually reallydo have about all of this
happening, and maybe I just needto tune in a little bit more to
the actual feelings I have andgo out there to express that in
(43:57):
a group which then can help leadto action, rather than just
thinking about it and readingall the stats and data and
despair.
It's like okay, that's one partis your brain, but maybe we
need to lift the other part upand have that take over for a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
And being in community.
I really think community isanother.
It's another antidote to all ofthis is they want us to be
siloed.
They want us to not see eachother, see the humanity in each
other.
And when we're out there and weare watching people drive by
and have tears in their eyes andhonk, and sometimes we get
somebody to give us the bird,and you know what?
I always we give them the peacesign and I always think too,
(44:34):
we're out here fighting for yourrights too.
We want you to be able toexpress your feelings, even when
they're in disagreement to ours, like I respect your right to
give me that bird and I'm goingto keep fighting for that right.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Well, it's been.
Really it's been helpful totalk this out, because it is a
conversation that people arehaving quietly at home and
they're not speaking out for avariety of reasons, because they
do.
They do support what they'reseeing, but they're also
starting to question it as well,and also people are tired, the
(45:07):
fatigue.
I think that we are all in someway doing what we can, like
having this conversation isdoing what we can to try to get
that voice out.
And with asking you aboutsomething, your favorite thing
that you love about New Jersey.
Now, liz, let's get yours.
Or or what?
No, no, go ahead, rachel, didyou have something else you
(45:29):
wanted?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
to pose.
I was going to just say what isone thing you love about the
United States of America.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
That's a great question.
I think that's a really goodquestion.
Julie, you want to do that.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
As much as I just despairing and afraid, related
to things that are happening now.
Like I loved growing up in theUS, what's better than that and
I mean truthfully the right tospeak out and express yourself,
which is such an American thingis one of the things that I
(46:03):
value most about this country.
I've used it, it's been part ofmy life in all kinds of ways,
including, for you know, workingas a journalist for a long time
and now as a documentaryfilmmaker.
And in the current environmentthat's sort of found a different
kind of expression in joiningwith my fellow New Jerseyans to
protest and it feels deeply,deeply, deeply American.
(46:28):
I still love this country.
I feel like that's kind of thebase motivation for why I want
to take part in protests and I'mnot giving up on what America
can be.
I'm just like will not.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
Liz.
I think for me it's theopportunity to engage.
I was a politics major incollege and I have always been
politically minded, but I thinkI did take for granted that that
was an opportunity andsomething that I could do as
just an ordinary citizen.
And I think that this is a goodwake up call and a reminder
that we are lucky and peoplehave fought so hard to get us
(47:09):
where we are.
And the United States is notperfect and it never will be.
That's just not possible.
It's run by humans.
Humans are not perfect, but Ithink that we have an ideal that
we're striving for that.
Maybe we've lost our way alittle bit, but I think there's
so many of us who are onlyhaving that ideal.
Come back and focus now in away that we need to be able to
(47:31):
move forward and take a stepcloser to it.
If we can make it to the otherside of this, I am so hopeful
that we can do a better job ofputting things back together.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
And it is hopeful, and I do hope that we do make it
to another presidentialelection.
I really appreciate both of younot giving up and continuing
the spreading of hope andhelping people who are feeling
lost and don't know what to do,to come out, and when is your
next protest?
Speaker 4 (47:57):
Every single Sunday, sunday three to four found one
hour is.
Is is the right amount of time,because we all do have busy
lives and things going on, butit's a way that you can engage.
Some people come for 20 minutesand that's amazing, and so you,
you come, you do what you canand then at four o'clock we're
pretty good about like all right, guys, see you next week,
because everybody has things toget to and um, and we want to
(48:19):
make sure we all have full livesoutside of our activist work as
well.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Thank you so much, both of you joining us.
It was a very importantconversation, I would say.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Absolutely.
Thank you both for beingvulnerable and sharing with us
your thoughts on it.
It's not easy to talk about noit's not.
It's important that you wereable to share that, and I know
you're not alone in other peoplehaving those same thoughts, so
good for you for getting it outthere.
Thank you, thanks, thank you,thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
This podcast was produced by Rachel Martens and
Jeanette Afsharian.
You can find us on Spotify,itunes and Buzzsprout.
Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
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