America Who Hurt You - Episode 5
[00:00:00] Maurice Mitchell: when you talk about these candidates, it’s not about how much I like this person or dislike this person or trust this person, because we don’t have individual relationships with these people. right,
Your vote is not a Valentine, it’s a chess move. you’re voting for a particular long term strategy. And so if you’re voting, I always ask people, what strategy are you voting for?
[00:00:33] Sarah Jones:: Hi everyone, and welcome to America Who Hurt You, the pod where we talk in many voices about politics, our trauma, and how we can heal them both. I’m your host, Sarah Jones, and I’m here with my co hosts, Rashid, Yeah, peace fam.
[00:00:52] Sarah Jones: Nereida,
Nereida: Hi, everybody.
Sarah Jones:Lorraine,
[00:00:54] Lorraine: Hello there.
[00:00:56] Sarah Jones: and Bella.
[00:00:57] Bella: Hi.
[00:00:58] Sarah Jones: And by now, you know, [00:01:00] they’re not co hosts, they’re my characters from my one person shows and my movie, Sell By Date. And this week, we all get to talk to Maurice Mitchell, the director of the Working Families Party. Now, I know, third party politics are
[00:01:14] Lorraine: Third party? Oh my god. Poo poo poo. This election isn’t stressful enough? Now you want to bring a third party spoiler on the show?
[00:01:22] Bella: Rude. Lorraine, he’s our guest. Plus, the Working Families Party is not running a candidate in the presidential election. Are they?
[00:01:29] Sarah Jones: No, of course not.
[00:01:31] Rashid: I’m sayin my dude Maurice is just here to help us decipher about this broken two party system. We all know this shit is mad problematic.
[00:01:38] Nereida: Yes, but is now really the time to talk about third parties when KHive is out here trying to save democracy?
[00:01:44] Bella: Totally. Like, Rashid, you know normally I’d be here for it, but like, as Megan said, it’s hotties for Kamala, and who am I to challenge the stallion?
[00:01:54] Rashid: See, y’all illustrating the problem right there. We say we want better options, but if everybody only gets [00:02:00] mad focused on who’s running these races every four years
[00:02:02] Lorraine: The Olympics were very compelling.
[00:02:04] Rashid: Nah, Lorraine, I mean the election. Listen, y’all, I know it’s mad important, but the way y’all keep saying third party now is not the time. When is it ever gonna be time? For some of us, things be getting worse no matter who’s the president. We need to build something better.
[00:02:17] Bella: Yeah, I mean, I guess it can’t hurt to, like, keep our minds open about, like, the whole third party sitch.
[00:02:23] Nereida: All right, RFK Jr. See, Sarah, you’re already confusing people. Mama, you might have lost me with this one.
[00:02:28] Sarah Jones: Okay, okay, everybody, a lot of people have the same fears and frustrations that you do. Rashid, I know it’s exhausting when every election cycle it feels like nothing gets better. And Narita, of course, no one wants to risk our whole democracy. But with only 66 percent of eligible Americans voting last election, and that was a record breaking high, we’re already risking losing our democracy to apathy and voter suppression, even when there is excitement about history making candidates.
So, [00:03:00] what if it’s not only a black or white choice, pun intended? What if there’s even more we can do on top of voting for the best of the two viable candidates? That’s the kind of question I want to ask Maurice Mitchell. As director of the Working Families Party, he makes the case for a non delusional approach to building a third party.
And if you don’t believe me, he was even selected by Democrats to open a major campaign event for the Democratic nominee. So, yes, even if you disagree with the idea of a third party, it might be worth hearing him out, since a lot of us have been begging for a better political system for decades.
[00:03:46] Maurice Mitchell:
[00:03:48] Sarah Jones: Good to see you!
[00:03:50] Maurice Mitchell: It’s so good to be here,
[00:03:51] Sarah Jones: So Maurice Mitchell, is the leader, the visionary director of the Working Families [00:04:00] Party. And first of all, I want folks to just get to know what that even means. Like give us the, the, if you have no idea, the working who.
[00:04:09] Maurice Mitchell: Okay. The Working Families Party. We are a national political party that if you have to remember anything about us is that we believe in this crazy idea that in a democracy, everyday people should govern, not just the wealthy, not just corporations, right? And when people hear third party, they’re like, wait, what, spoiler?
What does that mean? What do you do? And, and we are a non delusional party, right?
[00:04:35] Sarah Jones: You are the party of the non delusional.
[00:04:37] Maurice Mitchell: We live in the world that everybody else lives in. We live in the world where there’s a rigid two party system, where there’s a first past the post electoral system, where there’s this spoiler dilemma, which is not, it isn’t a myth, it’s arithmetic.
Unfortunately, the way that the system has been developed is like, if you are a third party, and you try to run, the way that this, this electoral system works, that [00:05:00] your votes usually end up failing. leading to the candidate that you have the least common with winning. It’s a horrible system.
And the way that we overcome that is by building a third party from the ground up, the Working Families Party started because the Democratic party under Bill Clinton really lurched in this direction of corporate America. They did this thing called triangulation where they were like, oh, we’re gonna take Republican ideas. We’re gonna pass the crime bill. We’re gonna pass, quote unquote welfare reform. We’re, we’re gonna pass nafta, we’re gonna do all of you know, and.
[00:05:33] Sarah Jones: Really destructive policies that
[00:05:35] Maurice Mitchell: Really, really, yeah, destructive policies that to this day have really hurt communities. And so at that time, people in labor organizations and grassroots organizations were like, we need our own party.
And the Working Families Party was built, we’re 25 years old. And today, we endorse more than 1000 candidates up and down the ballot. And we believe in cooking what you have in the kitchen. [00:06:00] So for example, In New York, in Connecticut, and in Oregon where they have this thing called fusion voting,
Sarah Jones: And just to clarify, Fusion Voting basically allows more than one party to nominate the same candidate. So the democractic part could nominate Kamala Harris AND the Working Families Party could nominate Kamala Harris and in those states you mentioned, they would both show up on the ballot.
Maurice Mitchell: Yes, you could vote on the Working Families party line and the way that we’re able to overcome the spoiler dilemma is that at the top of the ticket, when, when the binary choice is like it was in 2020, Joe Biden and uh, and Trump, we were able to say, as the Working Families Party, we wanna be clear in this binary choice.
Joe Biden is the better candidate. Trump is, voting for Trump is voting for the forces of evil. However, vote on our line because when you vote on our line, those hundreds of thousands of votes, symbolized to Biden and Kamala Harris [00:07:00] if they get into office is a vote for the interest of labor unions, is a vote for the interest of everyday working people, a vote for the interest of, you know, working immigrants, like my, my mother who came here as an immigrant and worked as a, as a registered nurse in Far Rockaway for many years, right? ?
So that’s the, the fusion strategy that we employ in New York, in Connecticut, in Oregon, we want fusion in more states, but in other places. Like I said, we cook, we cook what we have in the kitchen in Philly, where I’m calling from Philly right now,
there is the minority party set aside, which historically has gone to Republicans in Democratic cities like Philly.
[00:07:37] Sarah Jones: Okay. this idea of a two party set aside. What does that mean for people who don’t?
[00:07:43] Maurice Mitchell: so in Philadelphia and other cities, just not, there are a few cities like this where in city council, there are set aside seats for the minority party. Right? And so, in places like Philly that are really, really democratic. The minority party has [00:08:00] historically been the Republican Party, the party that gets the least votes.
[00:08:02] Sarah Jones: Right.
[00:08:04] Maurice Mitchell: So, the party that gets the least votes still gets representation. That’s what the law is designed for. And what it meant is, historically, for generations, a Republican, You know, basically a sentient sandwich that that is, you
[00:08:17] Sarah Jones: Not a sentient sandwich…
[00:08:19] Maurice Mitchell: right, the art next to their name could get into city council. Right. And we were like, this is undemocratic.
Republicans could sign up and they get like two seats in Philly City Council. After a while, we were like, We think that there’s actually more working families voters in Philly than there are Republicans. We’re going to test out this theory and see if we could take the minority party status.
Today, Philly is a two party city, Democrats and Working Families Party. And Kendra Brooke is the minority leader as a Working Families Party minority leader. Uh, a black mother and activist from Nice Town in Philly, Nicholas O’Rourke is the minority whip, a working families party minority whip, another [00:09:00] organizer and pastor, and so we do that in Philly, and then all around the country, like I said, we endorse it.
Thank you. Post 1000 candidates. We recruit everyday people, people like activists and educators and union organizers, Our bread and butter is the hyper local level. This is how we make the change
school board city council. state legislature. These are the races that most people aren’t always focused on.
The Working Families Party is focused on these races, and all the way up. So we’re building that pipeline. And they are now using the Democratic Party as a vehicle for our issues, because they are either primarying corporate Democrats, because the D next to your name just tells you that I’m not a complete fascist, but it doesn’t tell you enough information to know if you’re on the freedom side,
[00:09:47] Sarah Jones: Can you say that again? I just want to, cause this is, this took me a while to get a D next to your name.
[00:09:52] Maurice Mitchell: It means I’m not a complete fascist, right? Because I want to be clear. The current Republican party has been [00:10:00] captured by MAGA. So at this point, R really does mean I’m aligned with MAGA, right? D just means I’m not aligned with that. I’m not a complete fascist. I believe that there should be a democracy.
And we think we want to know more about a candidate.
[00:10:14] Sarah Jones: That’s a low bar, y’all. That’s a low
[00:10:17] Maurice Mitchell: a low bar, so we think that there’s plenty more progressives and independents and working people that want to be represented Let’s test it out.
[00:10:26] Sarah Jones: and it worked. You’ve now you’ve got, now you’ve got this power. So I think, you know, sometimes my friends pop in, uh, to say what’s up.
[00:10:34] Bella: Um, so hi, Mo. Um, it’s me, Bella. I just want to say like, I love everything you’re doing.
And at the same time, like, even as you’re talking, right, like progressive or like. You know, like, words, right? People get really squirrely. Like, I, you know, if people hear words like, oh, progressive, they’re like, oh, but I, I don’t like to label myself. Or like, you know, liberal, like, what, what do these words even mean, number one?
And number two, like, people get so freaked out about third party, like, [00:11:00] literally, I think I had an easier time trying to, like, explain the Kendrick Lamar, Drake beef from, like, the spring than, like, helping my parents wrap their minds around, like, the idea of third party, right?
So, like, how do we help people see, like, even if you can’t understand all the sophisticated language that Mo is speaking this is the most like, these are the good people and you don’t to lose the best, candidate for president, just because you also want to do both at the same time.
Okay. Okay. Let me, let me break it down. So let’s just put all those labels aside.
[00:11:33] Maurice Mitchell: Right. when I talk to people, I talked to a lot of people. I was in Pittsburgh talking to a group of black men in the neighborhood.about life, about mental health, about, you know, stuff that usually, because unfortunately we get talked about, but we don’t often get to talk to one another, or people don’t often want to hear what we’re saying.
Um, and what I hear from so many people is that our politics are broken.
And that we [00:12:00] could do so much better. People know that, right? if you identify as a progressive, or an independent, or you lean a little right, or you don’t identify as anything. And more and more people don’t, don’t fit into the two parties.
More and more people are like a pox on both of their
houses. But all of those people agree that we could do better.
All of those big majority of those people believe that, for example, the criminal legal system is not working.
That’s not just something that people on the quote unquote left believe or like most people believe that unfortunately, very, very wealthy people and corporations have way, way, way too much control over how things happen.
And, and people have the sneaky feeling that they’re being hoodwinked.
Right.
And so we’re trying to build a movement, a grassroots movement that doesn’t necessarily force people to choose sides from the left or the right.
We’re pointing to a North Star. That’s what we’re trying to do. And that North Star is about being humane, [00:13:00] about in this very limited time that we have on this planet, right? Um, being able to use government as a tool to expand our compassion,
[00:13:11] Sarah Jones: Right. Make things better. It’s a radical idea. I know as you’re talking, I’m, I’m even thinking like, you know, we have this opportunity, like you share this, we all have shared values, like Republican, right, left, most people believe, right. We deserve healthcare. We deserve an environment that’s not like on fire or like flooding or
people deserve a living wage for the work they do. People deserve to not be abandoned. And, you know, when they’re. Disabled whatever there’s so many and I wanted to mention actually my friend wanted to say So,
[00:13:43] Lorraine: hi there, Maurice, very quickly. Hi, sweetheart. I know you’re not supposed say sweetheart, and that reminds me, you know, part of what I know you’re doing is trying to help people see, even if your language isn’t perfect, or you don’t know all the, the different, uh, politics, [00:14:00] you still know who you are.
You, like you’re saying, we know something’s broken, and I just want to Working families Some people, I hate to say it, my daughter, my grandkids, they don’t remember working in that way. They went to nice schools and they have nice jobs and nice homes. And I have to remind them, in my day, one third of America was union workers.
We had good jobs. We had all the things that we’re talking about. Healthcare and your kids could, you know, uh, Feel like they had a future and they took that all away. And I want to hear from you two things. One, how do you get people they don’t say working class anymore. We were proud to be workers.
How do you get people to identify and want to participate? And also, how did, you know, we had all that power. Somebody took it away. And I know you talk about how it took them a long time to, to actively attack these people’s, uh, [00:15:00] kind of more power.
[00:15:01] Maurice Mitchell: Um, yeah, there’s so much to say about that. So, um. When people try to understand what’s going on and people feel frustrated because they feel that the rights have been taken away from them, or that they’re working harder than ever. But they can’t get ahead, or it seems like the generation before we’re able to do more with less.
That is actually by design,
right? There were actual people who developed philosophies and past policies over four decades
that made these conditions that we’re living under happen, right? This like, there’s like this background feeling of sort of disconnection and alienation that we’re all feeling and we kind of blame ourselves.
[00:15:52] Sarah Jones: It’s like, I can’t, like you said, we can’t buy houses anymore. We can’t, like, we work our asses off. We’re in worse debt. The more we go to school, like, what, make it [00:16:00] make sense.
[00:16:00] Maurice Mitchell: Yeah, so over the past 40 plus years. Um, we’ve been under this one philosophy for how the government works, for how democracy works, for how our, our, our economy works. And it’s also a philosophy on how to think about everything where the market, right, the drives everything.
[00:16:21] Sarah Jones: So like capitalism is the magic solution to everything.
[00:16:25] Maurice Mitchell: Yeah, yeah, that somehow capitalism could just resolve all of our problems. So it’s this idea of market supremacy, like the market is God, right? This, this idea that, um, we need to shrink the things that we, we have, have in common from things like, our libraries, to, To like the fire force, thank God for them to our, our public schools to what we don’t realize is that the reasons why so many of those things are under attack.
The reason why, you know, a generation ago, there was actually like, mental health infrastructure that that [00:17:00] existed that the state or the local government supported
[00:17:04] Sarah Jones: It was imperfect and very problematic, but it existed. Right.
[00:17:09] Maurice Mitchell: It existed, um, the fact that not too long ago, depending on where you lived, You didn’t incur a whole lot of debt if you wanted to go to college.
And if you went to state or city college, there were places where that was free
or very, very affordable. Right? So the fact like, we didn’t just magically get here, there were decisions made in order to do that. the fact that we defunded all those things, but put a lot of money into jails and prisons and police.
There was a logic behind it.
Right? And so here we are. And then the fact that, for example, There’s less and less organized labor that, that, that the percentage of Of people of, of workers are, are less and less protected by a labor union that those were decisions made as well. There were decisions made on the local on the, on the state level on the federal level, [00:18:00] uh, in directly trying to challenge labor units.
[00:18:04] Sarah Jones: I remember learning that Ronald Reagan was like a union busting president. And what’s so funny is I want to be like, dude, you were an actor before you were president. You were in my union.
Hollywood has unions, you know, teachers have unions. But if you think about it, these, we need those protections or everything we see where we land when we don’t have protections.
[00:18:22] Maurice Mitchell: absolutely right? And then, and then part of that is this logic that we’ve all kind of absorbed without thinking about it. That is like, all right, if the market is king, it’s my job to hustle myself out of these problems that were created by these policies. And like, if you go online and, and, you know, this, I see all of this stuff targeting a lot of men and a lot of young men where it’s all about like, all right, what’s your morning routine?
You can’t morning routine your way out of problems that were created by these, these like nefarious capitalists that believe that the market is more important than like, Human life and happiness Right? And [00:19:00] so to me, the like upside is that anything that was developed by policies and developed with a plan could be undone with policies and could be undone with the
[00:19:09] Sarah Jones: Yes, and then we can enjoy our morning routine instead of pretending that it can solve the cruelest capitalism Like and can I just quickly say too? It’s not that capital, you know, it’s not that earning money and innovation Those are not problems. It’s the like deep exploitation of masses of people so that only a few people can get rich you know doing nothing or like Selling, you know, ties and stakes.
I know, you know who I’m talking about. I’m gonna stop saying, but I also, I also want to say this unions aren’t perfect, right? Like I think whenever people want to argue, like, but that doesn’t work. That doesn’t work. It’s like, no, no, no. But it works better if we, anyway. So that’s why you’re here, please.
[00:19:48] Maurice Mitchell: mean, 100 percent so earning money. There’s nothing wrong with earning money. There’s nothing wrong with making a profit. There’s nothing wrong with innovation. There’s nothing wrong with building businesses. There’s nothing wrong with competition.
Like, [00:20:00] any economy will have those things. There’s something wrong, I think, with exploitation.
[00:20:05] Sarah Jones: Oof, say that.
[00:20:07] Maurice Mitchell: there’s, there’s something I think wrong with the idea of unlimited growth ina limited reality.
[00:20:16] Sarah Jones: It’s so funny. Even when you said that I felt a voice that was like, what do you mean? We can, I mean, it’s Rashid I’m gonna let him.
[00:20:23] Rashid: Yeah. I’m just real quick, Moe. I gotta let you know, just seeing another black man talking about, you know, I gotta be on my grind, stay on my grind, unlimited growth.
I grew up with that idea. You know what I’m saying? Sky’s the limit. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. you pose a compete, you pose, you don’t even get to be a person. Son, you’d feel like you were robot. You just pose it like, you know, like you said, pull yourself up.
And then Some of us, we get caught up in systems that’s designed to hurt people like you and me, it ends up hurting everybody else, I guess my question is. I got a lot of people, they don’t want to vote. They don’t want to know nothing about no party, no nothing.
How you going to [00:21:00] convince them or what would you say?
[00:21:01] Maurice Mitchell: Yeah, so people need a plan, right? And people and Rashid, thank you. bro We need We need to build because there’s a lot of things I want to unpack
[00:21:09] Sarah Jones: Saying I’m here for it.
[00:21:11] Maurice Mitchell: And I think, unfortunately, in our politics, um, our political system treats our politics almost like it’s a reality TV show,
right?
[00:21:23] Sarah Jones: I mean, it’s too close to the bone, son. It’s too close to the
[00:21:26] Maurice Mitchell: bone. so I’m here and the Working Families Party is hereWe’re here to level with people. We’re here to tell people the truth.
And we believe that when people come together, that there is almost unmeasurable power. When we’re working towards a plan. I think that that gives people a lot of hope. I know that gives people a lot of hope because I see it all the time in my organizing
Um, I mean, to me, that’s historically how we’ve gotten anything in this country or in this world is when everyday people, instead of looking for saviors, looking up to the billionaires or [00:22:00] believing that there’s going to be some political savior, when we decide to link arms with one another,
that’s how we push up against this idea that it’s all our fault. Right. And that’s one of the things that I could offer people through this beautiful work that is or organizing. I can’t necessarily offer guaranteed victories because there are no guarantees, we will only get what we’re willing to organize for.
But what I can certainly offer. Is a deeper, richer experience and a way to make meaning of this chaotic world that you as just an individual watching and scrolling online or watching Fox News or watching MSNBC or CNN could seem so set against you and could lead to despair and cynicism. I get it. But when you’re with others, it helps make meaning of all these things.
[00:22:53] Sarah Jones: Right…and i feel like that’s what we need especially for the people who, you know, [00:23:00] they hear third party and even with fusion voting, they’re still afraid. So really, can we reach those people and help them see. That’s not, we’re not, you know, out there, you know, we’re in these streets talking about the reality in these streets and it is pragmatic to diversify.
[00:23:17] Maurice Mitchell: yes. Let me, and this is one of my philosophies. I, there’s very few binary either ors that I subscribe to. I I, live in a both and universe. And this is true as it relates to politics. We could do both. We could, with our full chest, say that yes, in November, it will be a binary choice.
I know that depending on what state you’re in, there might be other people on the ballot, but we know that. numerically, practically, we know that it’s our duty To tell our, our people, our friends, the truth about that matter. And we believe that that is a choice. There are distinctions, real distinctions. Just read Project 2025, and it’s not, [00:24:00] you know, it’s not just the demagoguery and the, and the messages, right? They are laying out very detailed plans of
[00:24:07] Sarah Jones: have a morning routine. Let’s just
[00:24:09] Maurice Mitchell: They have a morning. It is the it is the morning routine for authoritarianism, right?
And it’s very clear. and it won’t just impact us, it’ll impact the entire world, because the United States is a huge empire, and it’ll affect everybody around the world.
And we can’t, we can’t both sides things and suggest that, oh, there’s one side and the other. No, there’s something really, really special happening over here And we can say that that anybody, like, if you want to put on a jersey, don’t put on the jersey of like, the Democratic Party or put on the jersey of– put on the jersey of democracy.
That
[00:24:46] Sarah Jones: Saving the planet. Put on the jersey of we would like to still be here.
[00:24:50] Maurice Mitchell: We would like to have a choice if we could organize for democracy because part of project 2025 is detailed instructions about how they want to [00:25:00] use the military to come for people like me, people like you, right and and actually shut down our organizations and our ability to protest and all types of things right so we could say that, and we could say that’s insufficient, simply agreeing that we should have a democracy is the floor. We agree with the floor!
[00:25:17] Sarah Jones: It’s the sub basement.
[00:25:19] Maurice Mitchell: It’s the sub basement, and we, we agreed that we should have a sub basement, but we also got more, we got more levels to this, right? There’s levels to this game. And so, it’s a blocking the bad stuff and building the something else.
Block and build.
[00:25:33] Sarah Jones: That’s the short term right now for people who are at home like, what’s your short term right now vision for them?
[00:25:41] Maurice Mitchell: Yes, go and vote in numbers, bring your friends, bring your grandma, bring your cousin, go do that. And I will explain every single way why I think that’s important, especially if you live in a swing state. Yeah,
[00:25:52] Sarah Jones: Right. And then the long term.
[00:25:54] Maurice Mitchell: long term, what are we building?
Long term, we’re building the conditions [00:26:00] so that one day, One day, we could have a movement candidate for president, for example, that we, we could feel so proud of because they are aligning with all of our values.
running on abolishing poverty and having the chops to actually make it happen, running on the idea that in the wealthiest country in the history of countries, we all adults across race, class, gender, uh, from urban communities to rural communities, decide that there should be no child in this country that goes to bed hungry.
Right. We could actually, we have enough resources
make that happen. And we know that that’s not going to happen overnight, just like the right wing took five decades, and I think we could do it in less than five
[00:26:47] Sarah Jones: We’re faster than them.
[00:26:48] Maurice Mitchell: Right, right. We could build the grassroots infrastructure to make that happen.
[00:26:53] Sarah Jones: And you know that actually this was such a great point. That someone shared with me, they took, you know, [00:27:00] 50 years in part because they’re ramming something that people don’t want down their throats, right? They’re trying to sneak it in. They’re giving a sneaky language. Oh, life pro life. You’re not pro life.
You are anti humanity, right? Whereas we get to go faster because we’re offering people what they already want anyway, no matter how they label themselves,
[00:27:19] Maurice Mitchell: And we’re the majority, which is great. They’re, they’re minority rule,
right?
So the reason why, like, they, their strategies are all based on the fact that, like, nobody likes our ideas. Nobody likes–
[00:27:29] Sarah Jones: Nobody likes us. We have to carve up the country into little pieces of, if we just go around, let’s cut out this whole, Puerto Rico, no. DC, no. Y’all can’t vote. Anybody brown? Yeah. Okay. Let me calm down. Yes.
[00:27:42] Maurice Mitchell: I mean, there’s so many hacks that they have to put in place in order to push what is push back what the majority is saying, which is like, yes, we do want universal health care. Yes, um, we, we actually think that the wealthiest country in the history of country should have, um, [00:28:00] universal child care, right?
And the care economy. Absolutely. Those are popular issues. Like, the majority of people believe that corporations should be taxed,
that the uber wealthy should be taxed, and that money should be spent on not just adequate, but excellent education for everybody, that there shouldn’t be educational apartheid.
I’m in Philly. Philly is Is a city where in a state that has the greatest separation between wealthy school districts and poor school districts, we should be scandalized
And so there is a majority in this country that wants these things to happen. And the, the distance between making that majorities aspirations real, and where we are today lie in what we’re willing to organize and elections happen.
State by state and county by county. And so we’re building the county by county infrastructure of everyday people that are putting their politics in their hands.
If we work a plan, people who [00:29:00] work their plan and plan to work politically, they’re able to manifest their vision. What they have. They had a vision, they had a plan. We have the people.
If we can merge our people with the plan, there is nothing stopping us. And I think over the next decade. we’ll have working families governors, have work, you know, where state by state, we’ll be able to govern with the people, and then eventually, we’ll have a working families president, who, look, if Andrew Yang could run on hashtag math. I believe, don’t you believe, that we deserve and can have a candidate that truly, like, we’re, like, we’ll wear that t shirt.
[00:29:43] Sarah Jones: runs on hashtag humanity,
[00:29:45] Maurice Mitchell: yes, hashtag humanity. And here’s the thing, the problem with the tribal binary politics, it’s all about, it’s like a team sports sort of way of approaching
politics.
[00:29:58] Sarah Jones: against them. [00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Maurice Mitchell: We’re, spectators right, in the theater of political battle. And all I need to know is what team I’m repping. And if I’m repping this team, then I’m against that team, right? So it’s either the spectator or it’s the consumer, right? I’m going to take my vote, like my little chip, and I’m going to place it on this person or that person. And it’s almost as though when you talk about these candidates, right, that’s another thing.
It’s like, I’m going to give them a Valentine because I like them and I trust them, or I’m going to give them a Valentine. Your vote is not a Valentine, it’s a chess move. you’re voting for a particular long term strategy. And so if you’re voting, I always ask people, what strategy are you voting for?
I’m not concerned with the person, What’s the strategy? And sometimes people scratch their heads and I say, that’s why you need a party. That’s why you need an organization. That’s why you need a union. Because one of the things that unions did is informed union members, we’re voting for this candidate, not because we like them
It’s because. They align with the [00:31:00] interest of our union. That’s the strategy that we’re voting towards. it’s not about how much I like this person or dislike this person or trust this person, because we don’t have individual relationships with these people. It’s about what strategy will allow me what choice it’s a binary choice will allow me to have space to organize that vision of a world where You Yeah, we’re everyday people could be more whole.
Is it under MAGA? Is it under? Do we think that if we give Donald Trump a second chance, there’ll be more room for people that look like me and you,
[00:31:36] Sarah Jones: or or anyone,
[00:31:38] Maurice Mitchell: or everyday
[00:31:40] Sarah Jones: just most human beings in
[00:31:42] Maurice Mitchell: Oh, I mean, here’s the thing that I that I say, right? Even The working class people who have adhered to the MAGA philosophy, they’re not going to get a better break under MAGA.
The biggest thing that Donald Trump did, he said a lot of crazy things. He tried to do a lot of crazy things, but what he [00:32:00] made sure was those corporate tax cuts and the tax cuts for the wealthy went through. Right.
[00:32:05] Sarah Jones: That’s his vision. That’s his strategy. Really? Ultimately. Yeah.
[00:32:09] Maurice Mitchell: So it wasn’t everyday people that benefited. That’s a whole different game. And so I want folks
[00:32:14] Sarah Jones: I think it’s called Hunger Game. Isn’t it copyrighted? I feel like it’s the Hunger Game.
[00:32:21] Maurice Mitchell: And so I really want people to think about. About the the long term path to victory and Our strategy is to me the most practical strategy, right? To get us out of every election. We’re just voting for whether or not we’re going to be a democracy or whether or not we’re going to play footsie with authoritarianism.
That isn’t
[00:32:42] Sarah Jones: play footsie with authoritarianism. I need that on a t shirt. Okay, now speaking of, and I want to, this is, I feel more hopeful and I know we’ve only scratched the surface.
Here’s the thing. We’re in a time when we can get so caught up and I don’t want to be dismissive about any of this, right? We can [00:33:00] get so caught up in people saying yes, but. You know, I want to be aligned with, you know, these humanitarian politics, but people are misgendering people and people are not understanding, you know, racial issues at the level they need to and people are, you know, all white men are still being sexist, you know, in the Democratic Party.
What do you do when it feels like Two things. One, those breakdowns, those nuances, like we’re so nuanced, right? The right is like,
They know their party line. They follow their party line. With us, we’re like, well, my party line is more of like a cashmere, whereas you’re more like angora, like I don’t know if we can do this and I just, I leave, I’m leaving.
And so how do we, sorry that that was Bella’s voice, but how do we not let infighting and our, talent for nuance turn into a shit show Where we’re like at each other’s throats and losing the bigger vision because we’re so tangled up.
my god, we need another
[00:34:00] We go do part duh. We
[00:34:02] Maurice Mitchell: we need part deux please!, okay? So, this is what I’ll say. Again, I want to go back to both and. I want to go back to both and, right? Everything that you said is true. We do live in a system of patriarchy and homophobia and transphobia and capital and, and it is appropriate for us to feel the feelings that we feel around those things and to push back on
[00:34:33] Sarah Jones: hold people accountable.
[00:34:35] Maurice Mitchell: And to hold people accountable, and those things are not only appropriate, they’re necessary. They’re requirements for us to move our society forward for us to make our organizations and the spaces that we’re in healthy and, um, aligning with the values that we profess. Absolutely. And there is a fight out in the world that we talked about [00:35:00] right where. Project 2025 that could be enacted as soon as January of next
year. Right. And so, so we could do both. We could say the main struggle. The main struggle is our collective fight against authoritarianism around the world. And that is the venue
[00:35:23] Sarah Jones: Like, do we want to be a Marvel movie in January? Like, do we? You know what I mean? Right.
[00:35:29] Maurice Mitchell: And we could say that with our chest.
That’s the main struggle. And, and when we come together and fight the main struggle, we’re, humans are going to human.
We’re going to hit up against each other. Your whiteness is going to hit up against my blackness. My maleness is going to hit up against your femaleness. Your, you know, your transness is going to hit up against my sister.
Like all that stuff is going to happen. There’ll be conflict. There’ll be ics. There’ll be funny feelings. We could actually hold those tensions [00:36:00] inside of our shared commitment to that North Star.
And that gives us a reason to hold those tensions. That gives us a reason, for the guy that, that may misgender you.
To wanna, wanna be better and learn and lean in and listen and not get discouraged when you challenge him.
That’ll give you the reason to not be silent and be like, I’m actually going to challenge you as my comrade, right? Because tomorrow we’re going to be in this struggle together. And I’m going to be by your side.
And what you said, let me explain to you why that was problematic, right? It gives us the reason to insist on one another as we go through that North Star. And so it isn’t an either or. It isn’t like shut up and stick around for the ride because we need to fight fascism. It’s like, we need to fight fascism.
And that is the container in which we’re going to work out our struggles. And you know what? We’re never going to figure them all out. [00:37:00] That’s the journey we’re going to be on for the rest of our lives. That’s what solidarity looks like. It’s messy. It’s complicated, right? It’s, it’s human, right? And it gives us the space.
to make mistakes with one another and still choose one another. That’s available to us. If we are part of a greater mission with one another. If there’s no greater mission, then yeah, I might as well blow up on you because of something that you said that, that disturbed me.
Why, why struggle with you? That’s hard.
Struggle across difference. It’s so hard. It’s so messy.
it’s imperfect, but life is just better when you’re in a union. and you’re struggling with other people, when you’re in an organization that is deeply concerned with the issues of your community, or the issues of other people who look like you, or talk like you, or have the same dreams like you.
And that’s why I do this work. Of course, I want to win. And I believe that we will win.
[00:37:55] Sarah Jones: Mm,
[00:37:56] Maurice Mitchell: I don’t know how, I don’t know when, I don’t know if I will always see that [00:38:00] victory.
But in the meantime, I get to choose. I get to choose who I’m with. Which means when we lose, I get to choose Who I comfort and who comforts me and when we win, I get to choose who I celebrate with and who, who I get to, to, to pop bottles with. And that’s a beautiful thing in this life.
Sarah Jones: This is so, and people can learn more. There’s an article that you wrote, uh, building resilient organizations that like went viral. And so for people who want to do a deeper dive, I hope they go look into that. Um, also where do people find you? Like, how can we get more? Mo, more Maurice, in our lives.
[00:38:39] Maurice Mitchell: So, uh, they could find me on social media. I am at Maurice WFP on all the things, right? Um, they could text Moe, my name, M O E to 30403 and boom, I’m on your phone.
Um, yeah, and then if you happen to live in any of the 20 places that we’re organizing, right?
And you can [00:39:00] go to WorkingFamilies. org to see where we’re organized. See the list, then you could talk to one of our organizers, you could plug into the work that we’re doing in New York or in, in, uh, in Philly or in Milwaukee or in Atlanta.
And I mean, we are, we are organizing up a storm and again it’s not just about, um, let’s make a dent on November and then we’re not going to talk to you until we want you to
[00:39:25] Sarah Jones: Right. We’ll see you in four years or two years. It’s not…
[00:39:28] Maurice Mitchell: It’s about what is like, what is the practical steps between where we are now, and we could all agree it’s not where we want to be, and this big, juicy, exciting dream of a world that actually like works for us.
That is what we’re building at the Working Families Party. And we invite anybody that’s listening to come join us. The water is fine here. It is fun. It is joyous. It is cool. It is all those things. We are irresistible. Come.
Amazing. So grateful. The listeners will get to hopefully dive in and learn [00:40:00] more.
Maurice Mitchell: Beautiful. Can’t wait.
[00:40:02] Rashid: I so like, I don’t want to say I told you so, but, uh.
[00:40:09] Lorraine: It’s not very becoming when you gloat, Rashid.
[00:40:12] Rashid: I know I’m just playing with you, but I could tell you was feeling it. When you asked him about the working class part.
[00:40:18] Lorraine: Listen, in my generation, people who worked hard, like he said, we used to be able to make it in this country, not just get by.
[00:40:27] Nereida: I get that and I really liked what he had to say, but part of me is still like some of us have so little power It’s scary to risk losing even more by investing what we do have in like i’m sorry, but like a faraway dream
[00:40:41] Rashid: But see, that’s how they get you. We out here tolerating crumbs cause we too scared to come together and take our power back. It’s like Maurice said, it’s both and. We get to be practical and build that dream. You feel me?
[00:40:53] Lorraine: I, I do feel you. I feel you, Rashid.
[00:40:58] Rashid: Aight Lorraine, [00:41:00] but why it sound kind of disturbing when you say it though?
[00:41:03] Bella: Yeah, I mean, it is still, like, supes chaotic, like, not knowing how this election is gonna turn out, but Democrats switching out Biden for Harris? I did not think that was possible. And it hasn’t immediately blown up in our faces. So, I mean, like Mo said, maybe we can’t guarantee, like, victories, but regardless, right now the vibes are like, things are possible.
[00:41:28] Sarah Jones: Bella, I think the feeling you’re describing is hope, and you’re not alone in feeling it. I might even be having some too. Which is not to say we’re out of the woods yet. In fact, just hanging on to hope can feel messy and complicated right now. So, for today’s prompt, I want us to try something I’ve heard called utopian thinking. Not to bypass reality, but to practice imagining a more just society. The democracy we know we deserve. Now, in imagining this, I want you to take that dream that might feel far away [00:42:00] and bring it closer to the local level, as Maurice might put it.
[00:42:05] Sarah Jones: How can you turn your hope into some practical actions you can actually take with other people who share your vision? And if it sounds like I’m speaking in vague generalities How about some specifics, like what if you knew your tax dollars were going toward true public safety and justice reform, great childcare that enables you to go to a well paid, meaningful job and have medical care so you won’t go bankrupt if you get sick.
As you live in an eco friendly community filled with homes and schools that support and affirm all of our identities and cultures, Ooh, it sounds so good. And by the way, bonus, if you end up journaling what a day in this life might feel like, or maybe try drawing it. Even on a napkin at your [00:43:00] current job.
I would actually love to hear what comes up for you. If you try this and what your grounded utopia looks like. Lastly, I’m not telling you to join any particular organization, but as Mo said, we can go a lot further, faster together. So don’t just share about this with us. Take your vision out into your community.
And link up with the people who share that vision. Then let us know who you find. Hopefully we’ll meet you on the other side.
America, who hurt you was created by Sarah Jones and sell by date LLC. Don’t forget to follow rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can keep up with the pod and share your prompt responses at yes. I’m Sarah Jones on Instagram and tick tock and all the social places. America Who [00:44:00] Hurt You is a collaboration of Foment Productions and The Meteor, made possible in part by the Pop Culture Collaborative.
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