Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams

Episode: America’s Unaffordability Crisis, and ICE Protests (with Jelani Cobb)
Date: January 20, 2026
Host: Stacey Abrams
Guest: Jelani Cobb (Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Dean, Columbia Journalism School; Author)

Episode Overview

This episode of Assembly Required brings together Stacey Abrams and noted journalist-historian Jelani Cobb to dissect America’s ongoing “unaffordability crisis” and its connections to democracy, recent ICE protests, immigrant rights, and ongoing threats to pluralism. Abrams opens with a scathing critique of the current Republican administration’s policies on health care, affordability, and democracy. Together, Abrams and Cobb trace the lineage of American movements, analyze authoritarianism’s expansion, and discuss the entwined fates of economic justice, racial equity, voting rights, and press freedom.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Unaffordability Crisis as a Threat to Democracy (02:00–10:50)

• Abrams critiques the administration’s suggestion that Americans can “simply” eat less or make do, highlighting how piecemeal solutions ignore rising costs, stagnant wages, and housing crisis.
• The GOP’s rollback of ACA subsidies, cuts to childcare, and social safety nets leave millions uninsured or at risk.
• Affordability is reframed as a core democratic issue:
  “Solving the affordability crisis is about saving American families and saving democracy all at the same time.” (09:40, Stacey Abrams)
• Poverty is called “immoral, economically inefficient, and solvable,” and the route to change runs through participatory democracy.
• Warning against economic populism in the hands of “charlatans and authoritarians,” Abrams links current American trends to historical dangers in Germany, Venezuela, and “Trump’s regime.”

2. Democracy’s Historical Threads, Race, and Mass Movements (11:20–14:10)

• Book Discussion—Three or More Is a Riot:
  • Cobb recounts the origins of the title, drawn from South Carolina’s 1739 Stono Revolt and laws that criminalized gatherings of enslaved Black people.
  • He traces a continuum from colonial-era anxieties to modern-day fears about demographic shifts and the suppression of Black power and agency.

“The first immigration restriction law was also a voter suppression law. Like those two things have been wed since the outset.”
— Jelani Cobb (25:40)

3. ICE Protests, Insurrection Act, & Race as a Predicate (18:54–25:30)

• Abrams highlights the current administration’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to protests, targeting immigrants, especially Somali-Americans.
• Cobb draws a contrast between the true insurrection on January 6 and nonviolent present-day protests being labeled as insurrection, emphasizing the weaponization of state power.
• Republican rhetoric now casts civil rights protections as a grievance for white Americans. Cobb situates this logic in the history of civil rights resistance and discrimination by reframing equal protections as unfair advantages.

“It’s almost like saying, we’ve called an ambulance, this person’s been hit by a car, but we haven’t called any ambulances for the people who haven’t been hit by cars. So that constitutes discrimination, by my understanding of it.”
— Jelani Cobb (21:48)

• Historical throughlines: From the Alien Act of 1798 to the Voting Rights Act expansions of the 1970s, voter suppression and anti-immigrant sentiment have been tightly linked strategies to curate the U.S. polity.

4. Democracy, Immigration, and Movements (28:47–34:45)

• Abrams and Cobb connect language access on ballots, immigrant rights, and protests against ICE raids to the imperatives of democracy as lived values.
• Black Lives Matter is discussed as a movement that changed the conversation on police violence, with contemporary backlash and regression acting as threats to democratic ideals.
• Cobb: “If democracy requires that you move in a direction that will leave you far out on an island until people can catch up with you, you actually might have to do that.” (35:03)

5. Policing, ICE, and the Legacy of State Violence (36:51–41:05)

• Cobb draws a direct line from the Fugitive Slave Acts to current ICE practices—federal institutions deployed to police, remove, and endanger marginalized communities.
• The “vital unit of civics is neighbor,” says Cobb—democratic outrage arises when neighbors are threatened, whether by slavecatchers or ICE.

6. Authoritarianism, National Humiliation, and the Allure of Fascism (41:05–47:07)

• Abrams notes Cobb’s early warnings about Trump and the rise of American authoritarianism, rooted in a sense of grievance and national humiliation.
• Cobb points to Birth of a Nation as evidence of “cementing” northern and southern white identity through shared antiblack sentiment—a dynamic replayed in Trump’s coalition.

“Battles over the past are never about the past. They are always about the present.”
— Jelani Cobb (58:14)

7. Press Freedom and Journalism’s Role in Democracy (47:39–53:49)

• Abrams lays out Step Six of her “10 Steps: Defending Democracy” campaign: the attack on the media.
• Cobb stresses journalistic humility, learning from peers under authoritarian regimes, and an urgent need to draw hard boundaries around the ethical practice of journalism.
• Critiques “business as usual” approaches, advocating for collective press action in the face of ejections and censorship.
• “Journalism fundamentally is at odds with any political administration ... It is an oppositional position.” (52:41, Cobb)

8. DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) as Democracy (53:49–56:19)

• DEI is under attack, scapegoated for every social problem by the Republican regime.
• Cobb reframes DEI not as a luxury but as “the institutional version of pluralistic democracy.”

“If you want the opposite of DEI, you want exclusivity, you want exclusion, you want inequity. And if that’s what you want, then you should just say that.”
— Jelani Cobb (55:09)

9. The Fight for History and Public Memory (56:19–61:03)

• Abrams and Cobb warn about systematic erasure and revisionism—changing the language and public record to suit authoritarian aims.
• Cobb cites Carter G. Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois to show the centrality of history as a site of struggle over the present.

10. Hope, Resistance, and a Call to Action (61:03–end)

• Cobb draws hope from the historical record: meaningful change is almost always achieved by people acting under far longer odds than today.
• The arc of progress is slow, but past generations have succeeded through adversity.

“They were fighting against longer odds than the ones they’re fighting against now. And it’s always important to remember that though we have suffered grievous, difficult setbacks, the momentum has generally fallen in our favor.”
— Jelani Cobb (63:27)

• Abrams closes by highlighting actionable steps:
  • Support journalism and truth-telling (Check out COobb’s book)
  • Help organizations like Cycling X Solidarity and The Trevor Project
  • Participate in the 10 Steps campaign

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the innate link between democracy and affordability:
  “It is not affordability or democracy. It is affordability and democracy. That’s how we win, and that’s how we save America.”
  — Stacey Abrams (10:31)

• On state violence and neighborly solidarity:
  “In a democracy, the fundamental civic unit is neighbor.”
  — Jelani Cobb (39:46)

• On historical struggle and collective memory:
  “Battles over the past are never about the past. They are always about the present.”
  — Jelani Cobb (58:14)

• On DEI and pluralism:
  “The battle around this is fundamentally a question. The DEI is the institutional version of pluralistic democracy. Do we want a pluralistic democracy in which everyone is included, or do we not?” — Jelani Cobb (56:09)

• On authoritarian temptations:
  “Some element of national humiliation and decline predisposes nations towards fascism. … Many Trump voters experienced [Obama’s election] as an American humiliation ritual.”
  — Jelani Cobb, recalling his 2016 piece (41:25)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 02:00–10:50 — Abrams’ overview: Affordability crisis, democracy, and resistance
• 11:20–14:10 — Jelani Cobb on Three or More Is a Riot and historical roots
• 18:54–25:30 — ICE protests, Insurrection Act, and civil rights lineage
• 28:47–34:45 — Language, immigration, Black Lives Matter, and democracy
• 36:51–41:05 — Policing, ICE, the Fugitive Slave Acts, and neighborliness
• 41:05–47:07 — National humiliation, the roots of American authoritarianism
• 47:39–53:49 — Journalism under siege and the role of the fourth estate
• 53:49–56:19 — DEI as democracy; resisting scapegoating and erasure
• 56:19–61:03 — The battle for public memory and history’s lessons
• 61:03–end — Hope, calls to action, and closing thoughts

Homework & Action Items

• Be Curious: Read Jelani Cobb’s Three or More Is a Riot.
• Solve Problems: Support groups like Cycling X Solidarity, which creatively reduce risks for undocumented workers.
• Do Good: Support organizations defending LGBTQ rights, such as The Trevor Project.
• Stay Informed: Participate in the 10 Steps campaign to resist authoritarianism in America.

This summary captures the core arguments and emotional urgency of Stacey Abrams and Jelani Cobb, spotlighting how affordability, democracy, race, and pluralism are connected and worth fighting for.