There Actually Is a Plan: How Democrats Can Save Us and Keep Winning (w/ Ben Wikler)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "There Actually Is a Plan: How Democrats Can Save Us and Keep Winning"

Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams (Guest: Ben Wikler, Former Chair of Wisconsin Democratic Party)
Date: July 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on actionable hope and strategy for American democracy in the face of rising authoritarianism, using recent events in India and lessons from Wisconsin as case studies. Stacey Abrams and guest Ben Wikler discuss how real change is built from the ground up—by ordinary people joining together, holding systems accountable, and organizing for the long game. Drawing from Wikler’s new book, This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy, the conversation offers both compelling stories and practical guidance for reclaiming power and making democracy function as intended.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. Lessons from India: The Power and Precision of Protest

[00:08 - 17:21]

• Stacey Abrams opens by recounting the massive student protests in India after a leaked high-stakes exam, leading to the resignation of India's education minister.
• The students' demand was not to overthrow the government, but for accountability: honest testing and the removal of the officials responsible.
• Abrams draws parallels to the United States, observing that Americans have learned to accept state failures as unavoidable, rather than as failures that can and should be corrected through democratic action.
• Quote:

  "Democracy is an action... We grant the state enormous power ... and in exchange, the state is obligated to exercise that power competently and honestly on our behalf. When it fails, we get to fire somebody." — Stacey Abrams [13:15]

Action Steps Inspired by Indian Protesters

• Find the name of a public official responsible for a system that failed you.
• Show up, speak out, demand specific results—and return to hold them accountable.

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2. Post-Primary Unity & The Myth of a "Magic" Political Message

[17:23 - 28:27]

• Wikler describes Wisconsin’s political history, emphasizing that winning is always about relationships, not magic slogans.
• The party remains neutral in primaries to maintain an even playing field—and when the primary is over, all must unite to win.
• Trust—not just attention—is key: Most voters are not political junkies; they respond most to trusted friends or neighbors, not campaigns.

  Quote:
  "Building trust, not just getting attention, to me, is the essential work of organizing and of building a politics that reflects the kind of community that we all want." — Ben Wikler [21:49]

Curling as a Political Metaphor

• People who don't live and breathe politics are like most Americans watching curling during the Olympics: they don’t know or care about the “scandals” or jargon—so don't lecture, start by listening.

  Quote:
  "If you go to that voter's door and say, 'I need to talk to you about Broomgate,' you just sound like you're talking to them from another planet." — Ben Wikler [23:03]

• Organizing is fundamentally about bridge-building: canvassing means listening, not instructing.

No Miracle Bumper Sticker

• There’s no magic chant or message to win over swing voters or non-voters—relationship-building and engagement are required.

  Quote:
  "Politics is not a magic enchantment where if you know to say open sesame, then suddenly you get into the cave of wonders. It does not work that way with human brains."
  — Ben Wikler [25:57]

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3. The Organizing "Origin Story" and the Joy of Collective Action

[28:27 - 37:52]

• Wikler shares his own journey: Inspired by his godmother Ada Deer, the first American Indian woman to win a congressional primary, and his early high school organizing efforts.
• Organizing produces real effects—from fighting corporate influence in schools to advocating for better state education funding.

  Quote:
  "When you are part of something bigger than yourself, in service of your highest ideals, it is so fun. It is the most fun thing that you can do." — Ben Wikler [31:49]

• The key: long-term, joyful commitment with others, not just episodic crisis response.

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4. Local Power Is National Power: How the Grid Connects

[37:52 - 47:07]

• Local elections set the stage for national outcomes:
  • City councils and mayors shape elections administration.
  • A handful of local votes can tip state or even federal balance of power.
• Concrete example: A North Carolina Supreme Court race won by 401 votes led to Republicans controlling the U.S. House via gerrymandered districts.

  Quote:
  "It's like the power grid that lies underneath the surface—there are these substations in the power grid that, if you take them out, the lights turn out in a whole neighborhood." — Ben Wikler [40:24]

• The model is replicable: teams of friends and neighbors can change history starting at the hyperlocal level.

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5. Poll Workers as the Front Line of Democracy

[41:38 - 45:58]

• Administration is the new battleground: Ballots are cast and counted by local clerks and poll workers, not some distant authority.
  • Wisconsin has 1,850 municipal clerks.
  • Poll workers add credibility and instill confidence—especially when they are trusted community members.
• The Democratic Party of Wisconsin built a robust, year-round voter protection and poll worker recruitment operation, inspired by organizations like Fair Fight and Power the Polls.

  Quote:
  "It is sacred, we have to protect it with everything we can. But it only works when it is people-powered at every level of the election administration system." — Ben Wikler [45:52]

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6. Model and Homework for National Replication

[47:07 - 50:10]

• Replicate the Wisconsin model:
  • Build durable, joyful, local teams.
  • Do hyperlocal advocacy—solving problems as entry points to larger structural change.

  “Each of us can see ourselves in this… There is no one candidate who can save us—our system is built to not work that way. But once you understand how that system works, you can find ways to pour yourself in and work, year over year.” — Ben Wikler [49:09]

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7. Why Stay in the Fight—And Why Stay with the Democratic Party?

[54:06 - 57:24]

• Despite frustrations, there is no other organization as broad or able to scale democracy in every community.
• Democratic Party is a genuine big tent—if you don’t like something about it, joining and “bringing your people” is how you change it.

  Quote:
  "If you show up at the Democratic Party meeting and you start bringing a few friends, you can turn the party into the thing that you want it to be... it's the only thing that's everywhere." — Ben Wikler [56:23]

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8. Winning Isn’t Enough—Structural Reforms Are Required

[57:24 - 63:37]

• Winning elections is critical, but not sufficient—fixes must be made to avoid future meltdowns.

• Key reforms outlined:

  1. National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: To make Electoral College a formality and move to true “one person, one vote.”
     • Only 48 more electoral votes (as of this episode) required to cross the threshold.
  2. Supreme Court Term Limits: 18-year limits to depoliticize the Court.
  3. End the Filibuster: Enables real legislative action.
  4. D.C. Statehood & Puerto Rico Referendum: More representative government.
  5. Expand and Reform the House: Consider proportional representation and ranked choice voting.
  6. National Gerrymandering Ban: For fairer, more functional democracy.

  Quote:
  "We can reform the American system of government if we take action once we have the power to do so." — Ben Wikler [62:55]

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9. Homework for Listeners: Where to Start

[63:48 - 66:05]

• Wikler’s main assignment:
  • Set a calendar alert for tomorrow morning.
  • Identify one friend to join with you—democracy is much more powerful (and sustainable) in community.
  • Call or message them to make a plan to engage in organizing, advocacy, or attending a meeting together.

  Quote:
  "Democracy works better in groups... Think about the person who makes you feel great, and make a plan to ask that person to go do something together." — Ben Wikler [65:18]

Additional Calls to Action by Abrams [66:21+]

• Pick up Ben Wikler’s book This Is the Plan.
• Sign up to be a poll worker at powertothepolls.org.
• Support Operation Backpack at voa.org/operationbackpack2026.
• Ask five friends or neighbors to donate or volunteer.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the core demand in India:
  "They demanded that a test be administered honestly and that the man responsible for protecting their future...should lose his job. That's it. That's the entire ask." — Stacey Abrams [10:58]
• On building trust in organizing:
  "People have lives as rich and vivid as anybody's...They don't seek out political news; they trust people they trust for information." — Ben Wikler [20:42]
• On the joy and purpose of activism:
  "You meet people that are friends for life. My wife and I fell in love with each other as we put up posters for a protest when we were in college." — Ben Wikler [31:32]
• On why the Democratic Party matters:
  "Even if you are so mad at the Democratic Party... if you show up and start bringing a few friends, you can turn the party into the thing you want it to be." — Ben Wikler [56:23]
• On structural reform urgency:
  "We can solve all of those things...if we take action once we have the power to do so." — Ben Wikler [62:55]
• On organizing together:
  "Democracy works better in groups... you'll find out how joyful it is to take action as part of a community." — Ben Wikler [65:18]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:08 – 17:21 | India’s protest movement & lessons for US democracy
• 17:23 – 28:27 | Building trust, bridge-building organizing, & the “curling metaphor”
• 28:27 – 37:52 | Wikler’s organizing journey & the joy of collective action
• 37:52 – 47:07 | How hyperlocal action shapes national outcomes
• 41:38 – 45:58 | The critical role of poll workers & local clerks
• 47:07 – 50:10 | Wisconsin model & homework for organizing in other states
• 54:06 – 57:24 | Why stay in the Democratic Party and how to change it
• 57:24 – 63:37 | Winning isn’t enough: national reforms needed and the "big plan"
• 63:48 – 66:05 | Listener homework: find a friend, make a plan, organize

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Final Takeaways

This episode insists that the future of democracy is not in grand, sweeping gestures or magic slogans but in countless small-scale, persistent acts of organizing, accountability, and joyfully demanding better from our institutions. Both local and national victories matter—and everyone has a role to play, starting with reaching out to one person to begin the work.

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Transcript

[Ben Wickler]

Foreign.

[Stacey Abrams]

Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. I'm Stacey Abrams. Two brothers named Rishabh and Mohit, 23 and 22 years old, no family name because they don't have1. Traveled 50 miles this month by rickshaw, then train, then Metro to stand in the streets of New Delhi. Here is what Rishabh told npr. The papers are being leaked. The rich are paying for their children to pass and we poor people are being left behind. Where are we supposed to go? On Saturday, they got an answer. India's education minister resigned. Now here's how that happened and why. I think it's one of the most important political stories in the world right now, including for us here in America, even though we're still in the throes of primaries for the midterms. You see, on May 3, more than 2 million Indian students sat for the NEET, the National Medical Entrance Exam. It is the single pathway to middle class life for millions of families. It's bigger than the sat, the LSAT or the mcat. A test no one has seen before they start. But the questions leaked. Investigators confirmed it. The results were voided. And every One of those 2 million students was told they'd had to take it again. Now for thousands. The cost of the delay was money. They didn't have time they couldn't spare. Soul crushing stress that would stretch for another year. The Indian Express reported at least a dozen students died by suicide in the 37 days that followed. One of them was a young woman named Sheikh Sana. She died the day before the retest. Then, in the middle of all this, the Chief justice of India, Surya Kant, described unemployed young people as cockroaches and parasites of society. He later said he was misquoted. The young people of India decided to take him at his word. A 30 year old communication strategist named Abhijit Deepke founded something called the Cockroach Janta Party, the Cockroach people's party on May 16. Within days it had hundreds of thousands of signups and tens of millions of followers. By June, they were in the streets in Jantar Matar. By this month they were in more than a dozen cities. The authoritarian government ran an authoritarian playbook for their muddlesome protesters, though first it ignored them. Then the education minister. He called the student leaders the B team of terrorists. Then Modi friendly media floated the conspiracy theory that Pakistan was paying them. Does that sound familiar? When police forcibly removed a beloved educator from the protest site in the middle of a hunger strike and put him in a government hospital this action of silencing doubled the size of the protest. Finally came what authoritarians always do, and that's overt state violence, where police beat students marching on parliament, which doubled them in size again. And so on Saturday, a cabinet minister in the world's largest competitive authoritarian democracy handed in a two page resignation letter. He blamed anti national forces. He did not apologize for leaking the test. Now, the novelist Arundhati Roy wrote of these students, quote, just when hope seemed lost, they came. Young roaches riding in on the train, the progeny of the unholy union between a judge and a joke. Now, here is what I want us to learn from these students and their uprising. And I want to be precise about this, because the easy version of this story is a little bit wrong. You see, these students didn't march for an ideology. They didn't demand Modi's resignation. They did not call for a new constitution or a revolution. Instead, they demanded that a test be administered honestly and that the man responsible for protecting their future, the one who failed at his job and chose insult over apology, they decided he should lose his job. That's it. That's the entire ask. The cockroach Janta party showed us one of the most sophisticated understandings of democracy I have seen articulated anywhere in the past few years. You see, authoritarianism is about power. Seizing it from others, hoarding it among the few, and never being held responsible for abusing that stolen power, even when you are clearly wrong. Democracy, we like to believe, is the antidote. Shared power, leverage for the benefit of regular people, where accountability is expected and required. Why? Because democracy is an action. It's not a flag, it's not a word you put into a fundraising email. It is an action. And democracy is a transaction. We grant the state enormous power and to tax us, to police us, to grade us, to count us. And in exchange, the state is obligated to exercise that power competently and honestly on our behalf. When it fails, we get to fire somebody. Not eventually, and not only at the next election when they screw up badly enough that people die, that young people die. In a democracy, someone by name should lose their job. Americans, unfortunately, though, have largely stopped believing that the second half of the transaction exists. We have been trained to defend democracy in theory while accepting its failure in practice. We will argue ad nauseam about democratic norms for hours online and then shrug when the DMV loses our paperwork, when the unemployment system crashes, when the VA backlog stretches past a year, when the student loan servicer misapplies 6 months of payments When a precinct in a black neighborhood has a four hour line and three working machines on the day of an election, you see, we treat the first part as politics and the second part as the weather. It's not the weather. It's not random. It's all the same thing. And it matters if we want to save democracy. I want to tell you why this matters. Because for me, in 1991, I experienced the transaction. You see, I was 17 years old. I was a Georgia high school valedictorian invited to Georgia's governor's mansion. My parents were the working poor. We didn't have a car. So we, like the young men in the story, we took the MARTA bus. And when we walked up to the gate of the mansion, the guard, a state patrolman, looked at us and told us we couldn't come in. He never asked my name. He never checked his list. In fact, I remember him looking over my shoulder at the bus pulling away. The bus that he saw delivering working people in. In places they didn't belong. And the bus told him a story about who belonged in the governor's mansion that day. You see, I had passed the test. I had become the valedictorian. I had done my part. But he failed. And he faced no accountability. There were no repercussions, there were no problems. And he knew there wouldn't be because he had power and I didn't. Because democracy said I could come to the gates of the governor's mansion, but it never required that anyone allow me to come in. So when a 23 year old in New Delhi says the rich are paying for their children to pass a test, I know exactly what he's describing and so do you. It's the oldest scam in build a system that promises merit, then quietly sell the answers to people who can afford them. And when the people who studied and did their part ask why not them, you call them parasites instead of calling it failure. I spent a decade in the Georgia legislature and the better part of three decades in voting rights work. And I'll tell you what an election actually is. It's a test. It's an exam. It is a mass administered public test with a right answer, run by state employees, with rules about who may sit for it and where and for how long, and. And no one should get the answers in advance. And yet every tool of voter suppression I have ever challenged, purging the rolls, closing precincts, the exact match rule for registration, ballots thrown out on a technicality, all of these are versions of India's leaked test it happens every time the state fails to administer its own exam fairly and then insist that the problem is the students, the voters, the people, or the system itself. Indian teenagers understood that, and they shut down a dozen cities. We call it partisan disagreement and go back to sleep. But we can't miss the symbolism of it all. We can't miss what happened in India last week. You see, the word cockroach is not exotic. In fact, it's not even unusual to be used to describe people here in America. Because in November 2023, on Veterans Day, Donald Trump said that he would go after his unworthy opponents who live like vermin within the confines of our country. Same vocabulary, same purpose. The goal is to strip a person of their humanity and reduce them to an insect who for making a reasonable demand on a system they helped create. Immigrants and the poor and people of color and the disabled dismissed as infestations to be stamped out. Insults instead of results, sneers instead of accountability. India students took the mockery and put it on a flag. And so two of the ten steps to freedom and power apply in this exact moment. First, I need us to commit Pick the one system that has failed you or someone you love. Not the abstraction, the concrete thing, the benefits portal, the permitting office, the school district, the county elections board. Find out who runs it. There is always a name. Most Americans could not name the person responsible for any government function that touches their life. And that anonymity is is not an accident. It's the whole design. Power responds to money, peer pressure, and attention. So learn the name and then find out who is not doing their job. Number two, I need us to engage. Go where that person has to sit and make them listen to you. Board of elections meetings are public. School board meetings are public. University trustee meetings are public. City council public comment exists in nearly every municipality in this country and the rooms are usually half empty. So go with an actionable failure that hurt you or your community, and then pick a target date for when you expect to see progress. Make a direct ask. Not something vague like change, but something concrete and specific, like a private policy for my kids. Chromebook data. Always bring someone with you as company and as a witness. And when you've said your piece, put it on your calendar to come back next month and see if they've done their homework. The students of India did not win because they were eloquent. They won because they would not go home and because their demand was small enough to to be undeniable and specific enough to get ANSWERS. We are 250 years into this experiment, our very own ongoing national test. But somewhere along the way, we decided that asking our government to work for us is naive. We learned the lesson that we should take what we get and be grateful for the chance to be disappointed. But a generation of 20 year olds half a world away just. Just proved that we can demand better, and we should. They were called cockroaches by an authoritarian regime and then they got rid of a cabinet minister who had absolute power. What are we prepared to demand? And how soon will we take our demands to the people? Well, joining me today to discuss the future of the Democratic Party is Ben Wickler, former chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. And today we will unpack his new book, this Is the How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. And we'll discuss how we can be fierce, strategic and precise in the fight to win power everywhere. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by Strawberry Me. Let's be honest. Many of us don't grow up with a roadmap for our careers. As someone who has written a book on mentorship and with young friends in my life embarking on new careers, I know how challenging it can be to figure things out. We work hard and hope the next opportunity will come to us when we're ready. Sometimes it does, but a lot of the time we end up wondering, is this really where I'm supposed to be? One thing I've learned is that the people who seem to navigate their careers most successfully rarely do it alone. They have people they trust to ask hard questions, challenge their assumptions, and help them see possibilities they may have missed. That's what I like about Strawberry Me. 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Here's a question. Are you getting rewarded for paying your rent or mortgage right now? If the answer is no, you need to check out Bilt. Becoming a Bilt member means earning points on every housing payment, no matter where you live. And those Bilt points can be redeemed towards flights, hotels, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, future housing payments, fitness classes, and so much more. Personally, I'd probably put my points towards travel or a great meal at one of Bilt's restaurant partners. One feature I think is especially interesting is Bilt's neighborhood Concierge. We hear a lot about agentic AI these days, but this is a practical example of what that can actually look like. Instead of just giving you recommendations, the neighborhood concierge can help get things done. It can make a dinner reservation, book a fitness class, schedule a Lyft ride, and point you toward exclusive member benefits at restaurants and businesses around your neighborhood. Getting started is simple. First, download the Bilt app, then link any credit or debit card so purchases at your favorite local spots become even more rewarding. Finally, ask the neighborhood concierge just about anything and let it help take care of the details. And for the homeowners listening, Bilt works for mortgages too. If you're already making a housing payment every month, it's worth taking a look. Download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you [e-mail] assembly that's j o I n b I l t.com assembly use our link so they know we sent you. Ben Wickler welcome to Assembly Required.

[Ben Wickler]

Great to be with you Sezi.

[Stacey Abrams]

So we were together last week in Chicago celebrating your brand new book. This is the plan and I invited you here because Very well done. Thank you. You know, we all need to know what the plan is. So tell me where you are right now.

[Ben Wickler]

I am now at the Crooked Media Studios in Los Angeles. This is city nine or ten in my book tour. It's all a blur. I just did five cities in Wisconsin over the week and it was so fun to be with the folks who powered the comeback in Wisconsin at the grassroots level, sharing with them how their story can be an inspiration for people across the country. And now I'm on the west coast spreading the word out here.

[Stacey Abrams]

Well, let's stay in the Midwest for a second because Wisconsin has been top of mind. You guys have this little primary coming up and I know a lot of our listeners are occasionally persuaded to pay attention to politics. And the typical question I know that you get is what's going to happen in Wisconsin? But I don't want to ask that question. I want to talk about what happens the day after the Wisconsin primaries. And part of this is the conversation about who has the right solution to win America. Embedded in your book is I think, a very profound and simple idea which is that the people know and the rest of us, meaning that this idea that a consultant or a candidate or a party has some magic alchemy to decide who can win. I'd love for you to talk about from your vantage point, the history of how Wisconsin tells us that nobody knows the answer to this question, that we can make a solution come out anyway.

[Ben Wickler]

So Wisconsin is a state that has a history that in some ways mirrors the country. And I write in the book about the Gilded Era and the rise of the robber barons in the 19th century who were buying and selling politicians. And then in Wisconsin arose the Capital P Progressive movement. And it was we had the Republican Party started in Wisconsin as a radical anti slavery party, then the Progressive Party fighting Bob La Follette and all these folks got together across party and passed the first direct primary law in Wisconsin so that voters could actually choose who the nominee would be. Which is the reason why the Democratic Party of Wisconsin was kind of reformed as the standard bearer to carry the progressive movement's kind of legacy forward to fight Joe McCarthy who was a Republican senator from Wisconsin. We have a right wing tradition too. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin in its constitution says it'll be neutral in primaries. That to me is the right role for the party. There needs to be an even playing field for people to make their case. The day after the primary in Wisconsin, we have this governor's race. There are five candidates in the race at this moment. August 11, voters choose August 12, everyone unites and pours themself into the general election fight. And something I've been so delighted by is that all of the candidates in the primary have not only said they'll support the nominee, they've said they will do everything in their power to elect the nominee. And I've seen that actually play out over and over again in Wisconsin. We have experienced what it's like when an autocrat takes over. And there are lots of different Democrats with different views about the right policy solutions and the right way to message, right way to organize. But we also know there's a moral responsibility to win. And that means that after the. After voters have had their say and you have your nominee, we just dive in. And what that looks like on the ground is neighbors talking to neighbors, friends talking to friends, teams of people who've been organizing not just for this election, but for election after election after election. We've been building this team by team, neighborhood by neighborhood system, for close to a decade now. Those teams go into motion and say, hey, I have to talk to you about this guy, Tom Tiffany, the Republican who's running for governor, who has voted over and over to make your life more expensive and take away your power as a voter. And then there's this Democratic nominee, and let me tell you about that person. We have a lot of volunteers who knock on doors, and the person on the other side of the door will say, so who are we voting for now? Like, they have become a trusted source of that information. And what we know is that for people who aren't sure which party they'll vote for or whether they'll vote, they are much more likely to stay in surveys and certainly to tell us at the door that they don't seek out political news. They kind of let the news come to them. They trust people that they trust for information. So if you become that trusted person, you have a much bigger impact on the way that votes will unfold in your state. And that's why building trust, not just getting attention to me, is the essential work of organizing and of building a politics that reflects the kind of community that we all want to live in.

[Stacey Abrams]

I love the fact that you said that, because one of the things I tell people when they say, how do you get someone to register to vote? How do you get someone to turn out to vote? My admonition is, never start with a lecture. Never say, well, you should vote, because you should say, what's worrying you? What's hurting you? What problems do you have? And one of the reasons I think your book is so powerful and so effective and is embedded in an anecdote that I know you like that is in the book about curling. Can you explain why curling is the perfect metaphor for how we should not approach our politics in the US A million percent.

[Ben Wickler]

So I write in the book, and I recognize that people who listen to this podcast or read nonfiction political books like this Is the Plan, we generally have something in common, which is that we think a lot about politics. We find it interesting, we find it motivating. Maybe we're furious about it, we're trying to change it, but for folks that are on the fence, and this is true, by the way, both of people who might or might not vote, and of people who might vote for either party. And often in pundit land, people really distinguish between these two groups. Turnout versus persuasion. It's all persuasion, trying to invite someone to do something that they're not already definitely going to do. All those folks, they have something in common, which is that they do not put politics at the center of their lives. They have values just as deeply felt as ours. They have lives as rich and vivid as anybody else's. But they don't wake up and turn on a cable news channel to watch people pontificate about the political battle of the day. They have other things going on. And it could be an unimaginable variety of things. I say in the book, you have to start by assuming you know nothing about the person you're about to talk to if you're talking to an undecided voter. I say that for a lot of these voters, politics is, is sort of like the way that you and I think about the Olympic sport of curling, which is to say it's on TV for a couple weeks every four years. And, you know, maybe it's interesting at that point, but if you go to that voter's door and you say, hey, I need to talk to you about Broomgate. This is the scandal that rocked the world of curling where there was this huge battle over directional broom pads. When you're sliding the granite rock across the ice, should you be able to steer the rock thanks to the way that the broom head is configured, or should it be a more non directional broom head? Can you believe these people who think that the sacred tradition of curling should be corrupted by this new technology? You just sound like you're talking to them from another planet. And when you show up to a voter's door and start lecturing them about, you know, you should be outraged about this latest thing that happened in Washington D.C. it sounds exactly the same way. And I say this just to be clear, as someone who in high school did a few times curl, this is something that happens in Wisconsin, but, you know, for most voters, it is not. It is not the center of the story. That means you actually have to start by listening and asking questions exactly as you say, rather than by coming in, you know, insistent that they start paying attention to what you care about. In the Democratic party of Wisconsin, we call that kind of canvassing bridge building. And it is the thing we do when the elections are the furthest away. For months every year, we go out and do bridge building campuses with voters that we don't already have a close relationship with, to hear from them and learn from them and understand what's on their mind and that is the basis on which everything else is built.

[Stacey Abrams]

Well, Ben, part of the, I'd say one of the corollaries to what you've just said goes to a question I'm sure you get all the time, and I know I get it, which is, well, if Democrats just had a simple, straightforward message, if we did the same thing Republicans did, we wouldn't have to do bridge building people just vote the way we need them to vote. Can you please once and for all dispel the myth that there is some miracle bumper sticker that solves the challenges of convincing voters to vote first and foremost and secondly, to vote for Democrats?

[Ben Wickler]

Politics is not a magic enchantment where if you know to say open sesame, then suddenly you get into the cave of wonders. Does not work that way with human brains. And one way to think about this is to ask yourself, is there some message that Donald Trump could start using that would convert you, that would make you, Stacey Abrams, you listener to this podcast, decide you're gonna vote for MAGA in the midterms this year. We all know the answer to that is absolutely not. It doesn't work that way. And for folks who have seen all the politics of the last decade, last five decades go by and have not found anything so engaging that they decide I'm in this team or that team, often they're disgusted with both political parties and anything that any politician says is automatically suspect. And so the idea that this non trusted candidate could come up with the magic phrase that suddenly makes the voter say, hey, oh yeah, absolutely, I'm in. You know, give me a clipboard and tell me which door to knock on. No, not the way it works at all. That is the essence of why listening is so important. And listening at scale is something that you can only actually do with people involved. This is why I am so in love with organizing and so believe in organizing and have seen organizing work. When you have a lot of folks talking to a lot of folks, when you have trusted relationships with a lot of voters, with a lot of people in the communities in which you're trying to earn trust and be able to enlist votes, then you actually find out from people what's on their mind, how they're understanding current events, how they think about the fact that gas and groceries are so expensive right now, different stories about what's causing that and what could fix that. And unless you understand where people are coming from, you can't find common cause with them. The core of organizing is not to get someone to do something. It is to form an alliance with someone where you're doing something together based on a value that you hold in common. And that only happens when you find out what that person actually values and do the work. It's just like building a friendship. I used to go to coalition meetings when I was at MoveOn, organized by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. And the folks leading Wade Henderson, who led those meetings, used to always say, if you want a friend, be a friend. You actually have to be a friend first before you're gonna get someone to come do your thing with you. And that's, you know, great candidates and great campaigns and great parties. They have that quality. You can tell that they care about you because they're actually showing up for you. They're not just asking you to show up for them.

[Stacey Abrams]

Ben, one of the important parts of your book is how organizing works in practice. And you come at this very honestly. You are an organizer at heart. And so I'd love for you to tell a little bit of your origin story, because I think that ties to why you decided to write this is the plan at this moment. But let's start with your story.

[Ben Wickler]

All right, so I grew up in Wisconsin, which has this. This amazing century and a half long tradition of organizing of progressive change, and of contending with a far right wing movement. But the moment that flipped the light switch for me was when my godmother ran for Congress. I was 11 years old. My mom's best friend was a woman named Ada Deer, who had been this extraordinary organizer and activist in her own right. She was from the Menominee Indian Nation in Wisconsin, and her tribe had been terminated by the federal government. Federal recognition had been withdrawn and it plunged the Menominee Reservation into a spiral of poverty that the one hospital closed, the schools didn't have enough money and unemployment shot up. And she, in her 20s, organized folks both in the Menominee Nation and then around the country to get the federal government to pass a law reinstating recognition of her tribe. So she became the first woman to lead the Menominee Nation. And then she got involved in politics. So when I was 11 years old, she ran for Congress. She won the primary despite everyone thinking that she was a social worker. She was like so different in every respect from who people thought of as a typical candidate. She became the first American Indian woman to win a congressional primary in the country. And the night of her primary victory, she went up to the microphone and said, I've been waiting a long time to say this Me nominee, which was the perfect political joke. I just loved it. I was growing up reading the Onion, which was based at Madison, and then volunteering for Ada Dear, and I got hooked. And social work is a profession that has kind of, you know, the work for justice as a core component. And organizing is actually something that they teach. My mom and Ada Dear both taught it. And I got involved in high school organizing students to try to get my school district to withdraw from a marketing contract with Coca Cola, where the Coca Cola company was trying to get teachers to give students coupons for Coke products as an incentive to get good grades, which I thought was a ridiculous commercialization of education. And then organizing to get a student seat on our school board. And then realizing the reason why the school board had signed this contract was because the state was underfunding schools. So friends and I, who'd marched with our teachers union in its battles with the school district, we then went to the state capitol and we started advocating and lobbying to increase school funding statewide. And we had this experience of testifying at a state budget committee and then legislators telling us that the students testimony helped influence them to increase special education funding by $20 million. And it was this, holy smokes, we actually did something that affected real life moment. And the experience that I've had and that I try to share in the book, and I hope readers of the book will have and more and more people will have, is that when you're part of something bigger than yourself in service of your highest ideals, it is so fun. It is the most fun thing that you can do. I mean, you've experienced this many times in so many different ways. There's a rush, the sense of joy, of collective action creating this collective sense of the power that you can have to make things better for people. And also you meet people that are friends for life. My wife and I fell in love with each other as we put up posters for a protest when we were in college. And I've gone around the state of Wisconsin, I've gone around the country on my book tour and asked how many people in this room, whatever room I'm in, have met someone that you are close to now because you work together to try to change the world in some way. And hands go up like it is something that happens over and over and over because people feel their best and look their best when they're acting in service of their highest values. And so, as you know, depressing and sometimes horrifying as politics can be, it can actually also be the source of great joy and purpose and meaning in people's lives. When when you do it in service of something real, not the the horse race, not the, you know, partisan bickering back and forth, but in service of actual change that means something to people. It feels great and I want more people to have that feeling.

[Stacey Abrams]

When we come back. More from my conversation with Ben Wickler Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by Forkful Eating well can be a challenge, especially when life gets busy. Between work, travel and everything else on the calendar, finding time to plan, cook and clean up after a meal isn't always easy. And while plenty of meal services promise convenience, many still require prep or rely on ingredients that aren't exactly the healthiest choice. Enter Forkful. Their meals are chef cooked fresh, never frozen, and ready in under three minutes. They're made with high quality ingredients like grass fed bison, wild caught salmon and fresh vegetables. Whether you're looking for gluten free, dairy free keto plant based GLP1 friendly or low carb options, they've got meals that fit your lifestyle or without sacrificing flavor. As someone who's often juggling a packed schedule, it's nice to have something that tastes like you actually spent time making it without actually having to cook or clean a single dish. That's what I appreciate most about forkful eating. Well doesn't have to be complicated. You get a fresh, flavorful meal that's ready in minutes and delivered right to your door within 24 to 48 hours. Explore their plans and menu of fresh ready to eat [e-mail] and use code assembly to get 50% off your first order. That's forkful F O R K f u l meals.com assembly and use promo code assembly for 50% off and thank you to Forkful for sponsoring this episode. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by the Back from the Brink podcast. We spend a lot of time on this show talking about how even the biggest problems can be solved by everyday people coming together, speaking out, and demanding action. The Back from the Brink podcast takes that same approach to one of the most consequential issues of our time nuclear weapons. It's hard to imagine that nearly 81 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world still lives under the threat of nuclear war. Today, just a handful of leaders have the power to launch nuclear weapons, making decisions with unimaginable consequences for all of us. The Back from the Brink podcast challenges the idea that that this is simply the way the world has to be. Through conversations with experts, advocates and organizers, the podcast explores why nuclear weapons don't make us safer, how we've arrived at this moment, and what everyday people can do to help reduce the threat and move us toward a world without them. Find it [e-mail] podcast or search for the Back from the Brink podcast wherever you get your podcast. I opened today's conversation in the top of the show, talking about what happened in India this week. The Cockroach People's Party, the Cockroach Jantha Party, and how students basically said, look, we're going to ask for the small things. Yes, we want these larger changes in our competitive authoritarian democracy, but there's some basic things we want, like tell the truth, don't cheat. And they apply it to a test that allows 2 million people a year to compete for. I think it's a little under 150,000 slots in the medical field in India. And when I think about your book, one of the most important pieces to it is that authoritarianism feels so big and weighty and cinematic and impossible to reverse. But you lived it in Wisconsin. I lived it here in Georgia, and before that in Mississippi. Americans live with authoritarianism. We've done it before. We have had autocrats hold power. The south is basically a soft, authoritarian nation state. If you look at just how often governors control all three branches of government and piece out who gets what. And you saw that with Scott Walker in Wisconsin. And so in today's show, I tried to connect the dots between the hyper local actions we can take and the big changes it can yield. And I'd love to take a moment and start with how you think about the role of local politics in overthrowing authoritarian regimes and how your book, how this is the plan starts to put us in that, that space.

[Ben Wickler]

You and I see this so similarly because we've both seen how a domino that a group of friends can tip over can tip another domino and another domino and change everything. You know, the fact that there are two Democratic U.S. senators from Georgia goes back to you and groups of people saying, hey, there are a whole bunch of people who are not engaged in the political system right now, but who absolutely could be if we do some organizing here, you know, years ago, and in my state, it's been this work year over year, often at the hyperlocal level that has unrigged a system that was, it felt like it was absolutely locked down wrapped in chains with giant padlocks on it to stop people from being able to decide who would lead the state. And what I map out in this is the plan is how these local races actually write the rules for how democracy works on the ground in ways that can shape who becomes president, who has the majority in the U.S. senate and the U.S. house. So to make a concrete example of this, city councils in Wisconsin and mayors in Wisconsin typically choose the clerks and set the budget for election administration. And what we see over and over is that when the right takes over in a specific community, they will remove the absentee ballot dropboxes, they will cut down the number of polling places, they will make sure there are no polling places near the college campuses. When people who believe in democracy, who unfortunately that is very often just Democrats right now, but that can be people of any party and no party. When people who believe in democracy become the leaders at the local level, they can ensure that everyone can freely and fairly cast a ballot without waiting in line for hours. And in Wisconsin, over and over, we have elections that come down to less than 1 percentage point. We've had 13 of those since the year 2000. On a statewide basis, we've had five of the last seven presidential races has come down to less than 1 point. That's four, sometimes three or two votes per precinct across the state. Which means that suddenly who you vote for for your city council could be the thing that tips the tipping point state in the Electoral College of the United States. And you pull the lens back. The whole country is balanced on a knife's edge in exactly the same way. The U.S. house of Representatives majority that the Republicans right now control. 7,309 votes across three districts. And if you go a level deeper than that, three Republican House seats are only there because a Republican won a North Carolina state Supreme court race in 2020 and then gerrymandered the state with his power in the state Supreme Court, he won by 401 votes, which meant that people who brought a few friends to the poll, you could have one classroom of kids all telling their parents and their parents friends to go along and vote. They could tip that state Supreme Court race. Republicans wouldn't have a House majority right now. There's a direct link. It's like the power grid that lies underneath the surface. There are these substations in the power grid that if you can, you know, if you take them out, the lights turn out in a whole neighborhood. And if you can light them up, then everyone can get the power that they need to be part of this democracy. And what I try to do in the book is lay out how that grid works sometimes. In Wisconsin, it has felt like we got the, the blueprints to the Death Star in Star wars and we gotta, you know, fly in to the ventilator shaft. And in Wisconsin, it turned out to be our state supreme court. That was the only way that we could undo the rigging of our state legislative maps, which in turn was the basis for the union busting and the voter suppression and the defunding of schools and all the things the right had done. And I map out from the local level things that groups of friends can do that individual people can do, how that can map onto a national plan to, to unrig American democracy. Once you see what you can do, how much power you have, it is hard not to get involved and do it.

[Stacey Abrams]

I love the fact that you raised the issue of power, the power grid idea, but also how impactful polling places are. In fact, one of the conversations I want us to have more nationally is just how important it is not only to show up at the polls and bring your friends, but, but to volunteer for or to sign up to be a worker at the polls. There's an organization called Power to the Polls that is trying to do this work. And as someone who has been on both the organizing side, but also the management side, can you talk about how important it is to have the right people actually doing the administration of elections?

[Ben Wickler]

This is historically one of the biggest challenges to democracy, but now is one of the biggest safeguards to democracy is that in the US Constitution it says that the federal government doesn't run elections. They're run by the states. And in the states, every state has its own system. But very often they delegate it to counties and to municipalities. And at the municipal level, it's poll workers who sign up to work the polls. And that is where the ballot hits the box, so to speak, the rubber hits the road. Wisconsin has 1,850 municipal clerks. They run the elections in their own municipalities. That is so, so decentralized. Michigan also has huge numbers of local clerks who make these decisions. They design the ballots, they figure out how the flow of people is going to work through the polling place. And that stuff has enormous consequences when elections are very close. Poll workers, if you have enough poll workers, and those poll workers are focused on ensuring that everyone has a good experience and that every vote is legally cast and properly counted, then that instills confidence for people. What we know from study after study and from practice is that when people realize that it will be someone from their own community who's in charge of making sure that the vote goes through, it increases people's confidence and turnout rates. Very often the right tries to suppress the vote by telling people that their votes will not count and it's just not true. In fact, there are enormous safeguards to ensure that the votes count. And the people counting them are people that we trust because they're people we know from church or people that we know and know us. In Wisconsin, when I got elected chair, we found out that the state of Wisconsin requires or invites state parties to submit lists of poll workers the year before the election of people who want to be poll workers in their community. And the local authorities have to look at the list submitted by the political parties first to try to fill the ranks. And the Democratic Party hadn't been submitting list of poll workers. We hadn't been doing that organizing work when shortly after I was elected, you started Fair Fight and you started this organization that said to state parties, hey, voter protection is not something that you do in the last two weeks of an election. This is something that actually should be a year round priority. And I'm so grateful to you personally for helping us raise the funds and train a team to run a year round voter protection operation. One of the things that that team did was a statewide recruiting drive for poll workers the year before the big elections where we find thousands of people, put them through trainings to understand exactly how the process works. Not to advantage one side or the other, but to advantage voters to be able to make the decision about who they want to support. And now that is just a core part of how we approach this work. We see the work to ensure that everyone has the right to participate in a free and fair election. And as an inherent part of the mission of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. And you've supported efforts like this in tons of other states. That is something that I think makes the case for why parties do matter. They have special legal powers, but they matter insofar as they can be places where people can go to work. They can pour their energy into making democracy work for everyone. It's a bottom up strategy. And in Wisconsin we've been in the top three states across the country in the Election Quality Index that there's a, a study at MIT that rates electoral systems. That's because people get involved and do this work and that gives people the confidence that their ballots will be, will be freely and fairly cast and counted. The right is Constantly trying to torpedo that. We have to it is sacred, we have to protect it with everything we can. But it only works when it is a people powered at every level of the election administration system.

[Stacey Abrams]

Ben, one of the things that you just raised, you know, you and I met in 2019, I started Fair Fight. And our genesis of course was the Georgia elections. But what I was very clear about was that Georgia was a testing ground for what would spread across the country. And so we did a 20 state program where we were in Wisconsin, we were in Minnesota, we were in Arizona, we were in Kentucky. We did work across the country because we understood that while elections, federal elections, all elections start locally, they have national impact. And the corollary is also true. The work that you talk about in this is the plan may be Wisconsin based, but it is not Wisconsin centric. There is the ability to take what you talk about and apply it nationally. So if there were one or two component pieces that you think every state, every community should think about, that may have been grown in Wisconsin, but can be seeded everywhere, what would those two things be?

[Ben Wickler]

So the first elemental thing is to get some people together and map out the plan in your state for how you make your state better, how you unrig the democracy if it's rigged, if you have a democracy that's functioning well, how you ensure that that democracy does good things. And it's going to be multi year, multi office strategies that get us out of this mess. And in the bluest states, there are absolutely things you can do if you, I mean the biggest blue states, New York and California, they've lost population to Texas and Florida that are basically run like autocracies by the far right, in part because it's so expensive to live in those states. And what sets the cost of housing? Ultimately it's very often local policies, sometimes statewide policies, but there's so much you can advocate for at the hyperlocal level that can affect that. I argue in the state that you should pour yourself into building a group of folks who actually enjoy doing this work together, find things that you can sustain on a long term basis. Maybe it's a few hours a month, but build a group of people, join an organization or start one and then work where you are and on the elections in the places where the fight is right on an edge. And there are a bunch of battleground states. There's, you know, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia, the governor's race this year is absolutely critical. A bunch of states where we can break Republican trifectas or win Democratic Trifectas or in Alaska have a multi party trifecta that believes in democracy. So help out with that, but also do the stuff where you are. In Wisconsin, through our state party we built this neighborhood by neighborhood organizing machine. And I would love for people in lots of other states to do the same thing. You can see that right now with Anderson Clayton in North Carolina. This, this commitment to year round organizing and there's good stuff happening in a bunch of state parties. If it's not happening where you are yet, maybe you can do it in your county party. Maybe you can start just a neighborhood team where you are and demonstrate the power of it over time in a way that will spread. But this is a strategy that each. My goal is that each of us can see ourselves in this. We can find something that we can do. And at the heart of it, the kind of secret of this book is that it cannot be about one election, one office, one candidate. There is no one politician who can save us. It just doesn't work that way. Our system is built to not work that way. That also means there's no one person who can destroy us all. It is a complex, diffuse system. And once you understand how that system works, you can find ways to pour yourself in and, and, and work year over year in a way that both makes your life more joyful, makes you believe in your community more, because you see how many great people there are who are willing to be part of it. And you can do things that send out ripples through the entire country. There's enormous power in this work when you focus in on the things that make the biggest difference. So that equipping people to do that is my goal with this is the plan. And it's one reason I'm a fan of assembly required. It is the work of discovering that the power lies within each of us when we join hands with other people in solidarity and take action.

[Stacey Abrams]

I just wanna tell everyone I did not ask you to say really nice things about me, but I'm very appreciative of it.

[Ben Wickler]

You played a big role in my state's unfolding. I will say we've had this sometimes overwhelming sense of threat to whether there will be a connection between what voters do and who actually wields power in our state. We've had multiple elections where a big majority votes to throw out Republicans who are in the majority in our state legislature. And yet Republicans have held on to huge majorities. We were only able to unrig our state legislative chambers because we won a state supreme court majority. And after that happened, Elon Musk came to Wisconsin and tried to buy the state Supreme Court majority back so they could re rig our state. I mean, it's been on a knife's edge. There are thousands of people who've done enormous things to make this possible, and you're one of them. Because that voter protection infrastructure, we were able to individually help more voters than the margin of victory in the 2020 presidential race because we had this voter protection team that thought of that work as an organizing challenge. So it comes from a place of deep gratitude. And there are of course, so many heroes who've been involved in this work, and I'm grateful to them all.

[Stacey Abrams]

When we come back, more from my conversation with Ben Wickler. Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams is brought to you by Quince the summer's best pieces are the ones you end up wearing on repeat. Comfortable, versatile and somehow right for almost every occasion. That's where Quince comes in. They make elevated essentials using premium materials like European linen, organic cotton and washable silk without the traditional retail markup. Quince's 100% European linen pants, dresses and tops are the pieces you'll reach for all summer long. They're lightweight, effortless to style and start at just $32. Their denim is soft and comfortable, and their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering when evenings cool down. Quince's beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry adds a subtle finishing touch. Simple hoops or delicate chains make even the most effortless outfit feel intentional. Everything at Quint is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for exceptional quality, not brand markup. With the summer heat in full force, I like that Quint has all the accessories you need to feel and look great, like sun hats and stylish sunglasses that make even the hottest days a little easier. And it's not just apparel and accessories. Quint's also offers elevated essentials for your home. From bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and furniture make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to quints.com Stacy for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com Stacy for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Stacy one of the things that you and I have in common is that we both publicly applied for a job that we were not selected for. I put my application in Twice. And twice I was told, no, you put in a bid to be the head of the dnc. And recently there's been a lot of sturm and drang around what's happening with the party. And I do not want to talk about what went wrong. I want to talk about why you remain so committed to the Democratic Party and what you believe. The average person who is looking at the challenges and saying, I'm done. Why you think they need to remain involved.

[Ben Wickler]

Where I come from with this is not evaluating everything on a scale of extremely satisfied to extremely dissatisfied. I come to this from a perspective of where can you make change? And in a moment where there's one party that is wrapped around the person of Donald Trump, where the only question is whether you can get Donald Trump's endorsement and then you become the standard bearer in your state. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor, he had to win one vote when he ran in the Republican primary, Donald Trump's endorsement. And he did that by helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election and voting for his trillion dollar cut to health care and supporting his terrible war in Iran. So Tom Tiffany, he's the Republican standard bear in Wisconsin. Across the country, you see the same thing. That's how Ron DeSantis became the governor of Florida. He got, he got the anointed by Donald Trump. On the other side is a party where there is no one person in charge. There's a formal Democratic Party, there's a formal Democratic Party chair, but the Democratic Party is a genuinely big tent where people genuinely disagree about a whole bunch of different things. And that's fine because we are in fact, a country with the possibility of being a free and fair democracy. And having democracy within the Democratic Party's really a vital and important thing. And I believe that it's an important vessel, it's an important place to invest energy because it can contain so many of us who believe that the country should work for working people, that everyone's rights and freedom should be protected, and that people should decide who holds power, those three things. And we can debate exactly what they mean, but those actually unite Democrats across the different factions, across different geographies, across lots of different labels that people use. And that in the Democratic Party, you can find a way to get involved in organizing in elections and change in every community in the nation. It's the only institution like that. Every zip code, there are people who vote for Democrats, who identify as Democrats. Sometimes there's this old saw in politics, yard signs, don't vote. And when I ran for chair. I joined our rural caucus in particular in saying, yeah, they don't vote, but if you know whose yard it is, it means a lot to see a yard sign. So we started actually working, working to ensure their yard signs wherever someone was willing to raise their hand. And all these people were like, oh, my God, I thought that was the only Democrat in my neighborhood. And then people started finding each other and making amazing things happen. The Democratic Party is the one thing that spans the whole country where people can put up those yard signs, people. And find a way to get involved, link arms, and fight back against this creeping authoritarianism. So even if you are so mad at the Democratic Party, if you're frustrated and fed up six ways from Sunday, it's also the case that if you show up for the Democratic Party meeting and you start bringing a few friends, you can turn the party into the thing that you want it to be. You can be a place where people come together and organize and fight for change. And you've seen this play out across the south and in so many different places. I've seen it play out. You can make change at the hyperlocal level and build power there. There are unions, there are grassroots groups. There's so many other parts of this whole ecosystem, but the Democratic Party's the only thing that's everywhere. And for that reason, I think it's a place that is absolutely worth pouring some time and energy into building the future that we want.

[Stacey Abrams]

So let's talk about the future. There's a lot of conversation about, okay, we win the midterms, and then. And you and I have had a very spirited conversations where we aggressively agree with each other that, you know, it is important that we win the midterms. It is vital. But this is not a 20, 26 problem. This is a 28, 30, 32 challenge. And to get there, we have to think about what do we need to do now and what do we need to do next. And one of the best parts of your book is the litany of changes that you recommend that we could make that can forestall this happening again. Because my deep worry is we win a couple of election cycles, and then we forget that what was broken is still broken. We've just patched it over. We have not fixed it. So what are a few of the fixes that you think can actually not just stop our meltdown, but actually save our democracy?

[Ben Wickler]

So the first one is one that very few people have on their radar right now, and it could change everything. And it does not require passing a federal law. It's got the worst acronym, wonkiest name, but I'm gonna say it and then I'll suggest how to pronounce it. So it's called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which does not ring any bells for a lot of people. But it is a way to render the Electoral College into a formality and convert us from a system where people only in a handful of states have any real say over who becomes president, to becoming a one person, one vote democracy in choosing the most powerful person in the world. So the way that works is states pass laws saying that if enough states pass the same law, all of them will jump together to give their Electoral college votes to whoever actually wins the presidential election. Meaning gets the most vote, gets the. Gets the national popular vote. And as we know, 270 electoral college votes determines the president. States representing 222 electoral college votes have already passed this. So we're right, we're on the cusp. We need 48 more. And if we win at the state level in 2026, we could get this through in 2027, which it would transform how this whole thing works. So I, this is one of my great joys, is telling people about this and how close we actually are. And it helps focus people's minds on the consequences of winning state legislative seats. They get no national press attention, get almost no money compared to the, you know, hundreds of millions that are spent in these governor and Senate races, but could unlock a path to totally transforming how presidential politics works. So that's reform, number one. That's how we shift the presidency. The other ones do take a federal law. So step one in the plan is to win at the state level as well as Congress in 2026 and do this at the state level. Step two is we need to win the House and the Senate and the presidency and then actually pass structural democracy reforms at a national level first thing in 2029. The most controversial thing I argue for in the book, I think, is to reform the U.S. supreme Court. And my favorite way to do that is term limits, make an 18 year term limit on U.S. supreme Court justices. I think folks can see increasingly. I read in the book how this kind of current malaise, the meltdown kind of started with Citizens United in 2010, and then the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, and then it gutted the Voting Rights Act. And in between those things and a million different ways, smashed labor rights, smashed environmental protections, time after time, sided with Republicans, specifically gave Trump immunity from criminal prosecution while he's in office and also sided with the big concentrations of money and power that want to rig the systems for themselves. And I don't think that that's tenable for the long term if we want to have a genuinely democratic society or one that works for everyone. So I think we have to change the way the U.S. supreme Court works, not by tilting it one way or the other, but by turning down the partisanship, by ensuring that there's a connection not just in who lives the longest, but over time with who people vote for that can affect the composition of the Court. To do that, it requires removing the filibuster. And to me, this is the gateway to every possibility. The filibuster right now is structured to do the things Republicans want, which is cut taxes for rich people and appoint Supreme Court justices and let the President act like a king. And that takes 50 votes and it takes 60 votes to do anything else, such as, you know, restoring rights that have been stripped away. That also doesn't work. And I go in the book through the history of the filibuster, which came into existence basically as an accident and then was only used by segregationists for 80 years to kill civil rights legislation. And then Just recently, Mitch McConnell figured out you could use it to block everything. And there's no reason we should be beholden to Mitch McConnell, whatever life status he has in deciding how our country should be governed. So if we change that, then we can address the. That means the Senate becomes more small d Democratic in itself. Then you can do D.C. statehood and you can invite Puerto Rico to have a referendum on statehood. And you can reform the US house as well, which used to change size every 10 years. I think we should maybe double the size of the House. We should consider proportional representation. There's a number of different ideas. Ranked choice voting is another one. But. And we should do a national gerrymandering ban that would affect state legislatures as well as Congress. If you do all those things and there's different ways to solve these problems, we should have a big debate about them. But right now the House is at risk of being totally calcified. So we don't have competitive House races because of hyper gerrymandering and the wipeout of black and brown representation, especially in the South. We can solve that. The U.S. senate, already unrepresentative and not majority rule. We can solve that. The US Supreme Court ratchets the country to the right regardless of what the public wants. We can solve that. And the presidency's not chosen by the majority of the people. We can solve all of those things. We can reform the American system of government if we take action once we have the power to do so. And the big plan, and this is the plan, is the step by step process to be able to make those reforms so we can have a more free and fair and just and representative democracy than we than we've ever had.

[Stacey Abrams]

Ben McClure so two things. One, the inaugural episode of A Sibly Required was about the national popular vote.

[Ben Wickler]

Hey, I actually remember that.

[Stacey Abrams]

Yes. No, I'm smiling because it is why you and I are so aligned, because these are things that we can do. I actually introduced the legislation in the legislature in Georgia. We almost got it done and then people realized what it would mean and so it died. But you've done something else that I need you to do. And on the show we ask people to give our listeners homework. You've given them a lot of homework. They need to go and read the plan. They need to organize and show up in polling places. You've given them a lot to do. But I want you to give them one more piece of homework. And that is what's one thing you think they need to do to prepare themselves to wake up tomorrow and get to work?

[Ben Wickler]

So I actually write in the book about this specific thing, which is to pick up your phone, whatever kind of phone you have, and set a calendar alert for tomorrow morning to remind yourself to do the thing. I mentioned several times, setting calendar alerts to remind yourself to call your senators and urge them to support repealing the filibuster and changing the US Supreme Court. But that if there was going to be one thing I'd ask you to remind yourself to do, it's actually to identify the friend, the first friend that you want to do this with. This works better. Democracy works better in groups. It works with friends, and we both hold each other accountable and we can celebrate our success. Think about who it is, who shares your values, who you would love telling about the thing that you just did. Maybe you want to go volunteer together. Maybe you'll go to a meeting of a local organizing group that you're nervous to to go to alone, but with this person, you'd feel great about it. Maybe after this episode, maybe after you read the book, maybe tomorrow morning, call that person and check in with them. There's a bunch of research about how we underestimate how much people like hearing from us. Everyone thinks that other people are so busy and they don't want to hear from us. It's not true. They love hearing from you. So you're that kind of friend listener. So that is my homework for you. Think about the person who just brings a smile to your face, makes you feel great, and make a plan to ask that person to go do something together and it becomes much more likely that not only will you do it the first time, you'll keep doing it because you'll find out how joyful it is to take action as part of a community.

[Stacey Abrams]

Ben Wichler thanks for being the friend I can always call on. Ben Wickler, author of this Is the Plan thank you for joining us today on Assembly Required.

[Ben Wickler]

Thanks so much Daisy.

[Stacey Abrams]

As always at Assembly Required, we give you actionable tools to help make a difference. So let's start by being curious. Pick up a copy of Ben Wickler's book this Is the How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy to learn more about building a future of democracy, opportunity and freedom for all. Next Solve Problems Power to the Polls is a nonprofit organization dedicated to recruiting the next generation of poll workers to ensure safe and fair elections for all voters. And they need you to sign up. So visit powertothepolls.org to get connected to your local poll worker application where you can apply to be a poll worker in your community and help your neighbors vote. Polling places currently don't have enough poll workers to ensure access, inclusion and participation by everyone. If you're interested in serving your community as a poll worker and earning some extra cash, go to powertothepolls.org to learn more. Democracy is at stake and of course we want to do some good with Back to School just around the corner. Operation Backpack Volunteers of America's initiative to fill in the gap for children experiencing homelessness, poverty and and otherwise underprivileged circumstances. Well, they need your help. Visit www.voa.org Operation Backpack2026 to make a donation that will help provide backpacks and school supplies to children in need while also supporting services for children and their families from after school programs to housing, stability and other critical support. You can also find ways to get more involved in your local community. And remember that your community can be a force multiplier as you do good. So ask five friends or neighbors to donate and volunteer as well. And I want to say thank you again to all of you who share questions and comments via my substack Assembly Notes, Cricket Media's Discord or on the other platforms. Your support attracts folks like EppermintSpice Latte, who wrote, quote I'm so sad I only now learned you have a show. Thank you for the work you do, Stacy. I'm trying very hard to turn inspiration into action. Thank you. Peppermint Spice Latte when you, like, subscribe and share, you feed the algorithm and help others find their way to our show. So do me a huge favor and keep the questions and comments coming. And if you like what you hear, tell others about us and add us to your feed. We keep growing and we're only 300 subscribers shy of 95,000 subscribers on YouTube. So help us get there. And however you listen or watch, make sure you show your support and bring your friends and then let me know what episodes resonate and what you want to learn more about. Okay, so that wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. I need you to do good out there and I'll meet you here next week. Assembly Required is a Cricket Media production. Our show is produced by Linna Minkowski and Farah Safari with Katie Long and Adrienne Hill. Our team includes Matt de Grode, Ben Hethcote, Kiril Palaviv, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, and Jay Banks. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.