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How Underdogs Build Power: Stephanie Luce
00:42:29
We discuss Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies to Change the World—a guide for a new generation of activists seeking not just to understand power, but to build it. Stephanie’s civic action toolkit recommendations are: 1) Learn a new...
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- [00:04]
A
How do underdogs win in the fight for economic justice and social change? What strategies actually work? Welcome to Future Hindsight, where we take big ideas in civic life and democracy and turn them into action items for you and me, because democracy is not a spectator sport and tomorrow starts right now. Hi, I'm your host, Mila Atmos. The fight for economic justice and social change is a fight as old as time. How can people at the bottom of the economic ladder with limited political power win against far stronger opponents? This is not just a theoretical question, it's an urgent, practical concern for anyone working to build a more just world. Joining us is someone uniquely positioned to answer this question. Stephanie Luce is Professor of Labor Studies at the School of Labor and Urban Studies and Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She's the author of several influential books on labor movements and economic justice and her latest book, co authored with Deepak Bhargava, is Practical seven Strategies to Change the A Guide for a New Generation of activists seeking not just to understand power, but but to build it. And before we start, thanks to Shopify for supporting future hindsight. Shopify is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, giving entrepreneurs like myself the resources once reserved for big business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com hopefulalllowercase and if you want to support future Hindsight, subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's easy and free and a great way to build your civic action toolkit every week. Head to YouTube.com futurehiindsight to subscribe after this episode. Welcome Stephanie, thank you for joining us.
- [02:03]
B
Thanks so much for having me.
- [02:05]
A
So your book is called Practical seven Strategies to Change the World. Who is the intended audience? Who is a practical radical?
- [02:14]
B
Well, pretty much anyone who's fighting for social change of some kind. The book was written coming out of a class that I co teach with my co author. We were asked by actually some union leaders to teach a class on long term strategy for people who have been engaging in organizing for a while but who have never had the space or the time to just really step back and think about the big picture. So many of us are engaged in immediate daily struggles, trying to pay the rent, trying to save our job, trying to win a small raise. And as organizers or activists we don't the space to step back and really think, well what would big change look like? How could we really not just have these small fights but something really transformative?
- [02:58]
A
Yeah, well I think it's an excellent book. I really Enjoyed the book and also your accompanying podcast, and it just illuminated so much about to me, what we're missing in this moment. So your book came out in 2023 and the world was not then where we are today. A lot of things have changed for the worse, I think. And I think it would be helpful to get the lay of the land and ground ourselves. You would call this the conjuncture. What is the state of play? And I want to do this in two parts, meaning the right and the left. So let's first address the threats of rising authoritarianism and continued neoliberalism, state capture, overdog dominance in media, and what kind of world we are in right now.
- [03:42]
B
Yeah, things are pretty bad, as you say. And you know, we wrote the book in 2023 with some prediction that it could go this way, but really it's turned out even worse than I think what you thought and many people probably thought. We write in the book about being under racial capitalism in this country since its founding. A system that really is stacked against normal, everyday people. It's stacked in favor of big business, it's stacked in favor of political parties that, you know, control the wealth and the resources. And, you know, we've seen different forms of that over. Sometimes it's been a bit better when underdogs win things, and then there's backlash when the overdogs fight back. We've been in a period of backlash for the last 30 or 40 years under what some call neoliberalism, or we call racial neoliberalism, where big business, corporations, the wealthy, were really fighting back to take over the state. And as that system began to crack because it's, you know, not producing the economic growth that we need as a society. You know, we're in this moment of like, which way are we going to go forward? Are we going to deepen the attacks by the wealthy and the corporations and certain politicians, or are we gonna build a true multiracial democracy? And so we're at this moment that, yes, some people call conjuncture, where the system is not really, you know, sustainable. We're in experiencing economic crisis, political crisis, environmental crisis, social crisis. And how is it gonna turn out? We're not sure.
- [05:08]
A
Yeah, we are definitely in a crisis moment. So let's take the second part of the conjuncture, which is the failures of the left to make the world that it. And you just described that the overdogs have been winning for the last 30, 40 years. And why is that? What is it that the left is not doing like it Seems not even on equal footing.
- [05:30]
B
Yeah, I think that's right. And I think what we, you know, hypothesize and talk about in the book is going back to the last period of multiple crises. The 1970s, global economic crisis, political crisis. Part of the left was fighting back and pushing, but they lost. They lost because, in part, they didn't have a big vision of an al, in part because the right just got super organized and the right was willing to make coalitions and alliances that the left wasn't willing to make. And I think for the last 30 years, the left has kind of retreated into these defensive battles, the short term battles, and we actually have won a lot of things. So I don't want to discount what we've won. We've won tremendous things, particularly if you look at the city level and in some states, certainly in terms of rights for women, rights for LGBTQ communities. But overall, we were losing ground in the big picture. The other side had a long term strategy in which they wanted to change the rules of the game in their favor. Democracy, they realized, wasn't working for them, and so they began to chip away at democracy because it just wasn't in their favor, and they can't win if it's a true multiracial democracy. The left failed to understand that they had to engage at that level of a 30 year battle over the rules of the game.
- [06:45]
A
Mm, yeah, that's very well put. So you mentioned just now that the left didn't really have a grand vision in the way that the right did and pursued doggedly, including winning power and changing the rules of the game. So what is the vision on the left? How would you describe it? I mean, I know you're not like the authority, right? But I think probably you can talk about what most people on the left would agree is a vision that we should be pursuing.
- [07:14]
B
Well, I think I would first say that the left had historically been great. People had visions of, you know, societies run by workers, or societies run in a democratic fashion, or societies where, you know, we had a work life balance, feminist households and so forth. And then I think we retreated from having these grand visions in part because of attacks on the left in the McCarthy era and the Red Scare. If you talked about big ideas, you were labeled a communist and you were really pushed to the side. And then in part because I think we became afraid to raise some of the issues that divide us. So, for example, labor unions may have, like, focused on, okay, we all agree on a, we want a 5% raise. That's safe. Everyone agrees on that. Let's avoid talking about the issues that might divide us, immigration, race, gender, and things like that. So we got out of the practice of really deliberative democracy, engaging with one another debate. And so those things took us back from talking about big picture vision. It's a muscle that we lost. And so I'm always amazed when we do these exercises with our students, how hard it is for people to talk about what the world should be, what would we want? They often come with very small demands. So I would say there isn't one grand vision at this moment. We have to rebuild that muscle. We have to get people practiced in thinking about it in general. It involves some basic principles of decency, human decency, democratic participation, you know, underdogs, having voice in how we run our society and being able to take care of each other and achieve our full human potential.
- [08:45]
A
Well, that sounds all very reasonable. And so I just want to juxtapose this against this very much shorter version on the right, which is white Christian nationalism. And they're unabashed about this. Right. And I feel like this one term captures so much. If you could come up with a slogan, what would it be for the vision on the left?
- [09:06]
B
I mean, I think that the term of multiracial democracy would be the counter to that. And you asked for a very simple version. But I would just say democracy is complicated and messy, but it's our best system for solving conflict. We can solve conflict through force, through war, but democracy is the way to do it, that can respect all individuals.
- [09:26]
A
Sometimes I wonder if democracy is really, you know, no longer apt for this moment, but that's a bigger question for another time. So to get to this world, the world as it could be, we need strategy. It's the bridge from the world as it is to the world as it could be. As you say in the book, and you actually quote the military historian Lawrence Friedman, that strategy is the art of creating power. So we need to win power to affect meaningful change. Tell us your theory of power, and how does rigorous strategy fit in?
- [09:57]
B
Yeah. So we start the book and the class with first talking about vision. What's the world we want? And then we say we have to be really realistic about where we're starting from. Because a vision without assessment of power is kind of like science fiction, right? It's a nice story, but we need to be realistic about where we're starting. So we went back and forth a lot about different definitions of power. There's a lot of great ones out there in the academic literature and in the organizing field, we try to kind of get a mixture of both, to understand both the power that keeps us down, how are those in power maintaining the status quo as well as power for liberation. And I just want to emphasize that second part because I think another problem that we have on the left or underdogs is we're afraid of power. Many of us are afraid. We've seen it abused, we've seen it used poorly, and it's messy. Like, we understand if we get power, it's gonna involve some compromise. We go through six forms or sources of power. In the book, we talk about the main power that people have is solidarity power. The power in our numbers, whether it's co workers or neighbors or a voting block. The power of disruption, which is the power to shut things down, to withhold our labor, withhold our dollars. We talk about ideological power, which is shaping the narrative, helping people make sense of the world. Economic power, who controls the resources in society, political power, which is, you know, who governs. And then lastly we talk about military power, which is, you know, often related to political power, but not always.
- [11:27]
A
Well, so then there are seven strategies.
- [11:28]
B
Yes.
- [11:29]
A
According to your book for underdogs to win. I'm just gonna name all seven here. Base building, disruptive movements, narrative shift, electoral change, inside outside campaigns, momentum, and collective care. And we are going to do our very best to fit everything in. And it's important to point out that often these strategies are overlapping and are used together in order to achieve the goals. So let's talk about the first one, base building. What's a good example where it was evident that base building is absolutely essential. Like, you can't do this work without base building.
- [12:03]
B
Yeah, we would say base building is really kind of the evergreen strategy that often it comes back to this one. And really this is how the strategies relate to the power. So solidarity power, which is our power that comes from being in numbers, is best harnessed through what we call base building. And that's coming together in labor unions, community organizations, faith based organizations, student organizations. It's when we have more numbers than the people we're up against. And so historically, actually that's one of the main strategies that the left or progressives have employed to make change is to come together and say, hey, we as a mass demand these changes. So in the book, we write about both community organizations and labor organizations, but there's lots of other examples out there where, where people have won a lot through coming together and making demands.
- [12:49]
A
Yeah. What's your favorite Example that you love to point to if you're in a dinner conversation, you're like, this is the one where it's clear.
- [12:56]
B
Well, in the book we write about the St. Paul Federation of Educators, and this is an example of a group of people that are so committed to their job. Teachers go into work because they love teaching, but they felt that, you know, the system was kind of stacked against them. The school systems were underfunded. Everybody blames the schools for the failure of society. The right has been attacking teachers unions. And the teachers came together under their union leadership and said, you know, what would the school look like if we ran it? What would a school be that teachers and students and parents deserve? And starting with this grand vision of a well funded, well run school, they engaged more and more of the teachers and parents and students in thinking about how to build power to really transform the school, both for the teachers and the teaching assistants and others who work at the school, as well as, you know, the community. And I think this is again, in numbers. When we bring people together and hash out a vision, it's not teachers versus students, it's together. We all benefit from having better schools.
- [13:56]
A
Yeah, that's a really good frame. And I think it's important to remember because so much is us against them. Right.
- [14:01]
B
Yeah.
- [14:02]
A
Even within the left.
- [14:04]
B
Right.
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A
Writ large.
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B
Right.
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A
So we are, of course, in the midst of massive protests on a regular basis, whether that's against the Trump agenda or the genocide in Gaza. And there's a sense that these are disruptive acts. And sometimes I don't think that they are and that they add up to a disruptive movement. Like I said, that's not maybe exactly right. So what's your favorite story of a successful disruptive movement? The real deal.
- [14:27]
B
So, yeah, in the book we talk about the distinction between a protest and a disruption. Because a protest may, you know, it's good. Like it might help us get news media, it might help us build bonds with each other. But unless it's actually shutting the system down, stopping those in power from functioning, it's not disruption. And again, another labor example is thinking about, about in the 1930s when workers occupied factories. They, they shut down the factories in Flint, Michigan and said, this cannot run. It cost the car makers and the economy, you know, millions of dollars. And that was a way of getting the companies to start recognizing the union. But we can also see disruption in the civil rights movement when people boycotted buses and caused great economic harm to cities and saying, you need to end desegregation or we will continue to cause economic hardship for the city.
- [15:16]
A
Yeah. I want to note here that the bus boycott was over a year long, which a lot of people don't know, that it was really a sustained effort to boycott the buses and cost a lot of money to the people who ran the buses, but also the rest of the economy.
- [15:31]
B
Right, right. Yeah. And it was really hurting business owners, which is another important part of this strategy is often peeling off a component of a coalition. And in those cities, there's a white power structure that contained, you know, different elements and the civil rights organizers targeted as the weakest link, where they had leverage. And they're like, we could cause them economic harm, which will force them to come to the table and give concessions.
- [15:56]
A
Right. And it succeeded. So we also need narrative change. You argue that's one of the strategies. And in the book, you point to Occupy Wall street having done narrative change really well. What is the power of narrative change and what is the narrative that Occupy changed? What did they change?
- [16:15]
B
Yeah. And here we highlight this as an example where it seems perhaps like disruption but didn't disrupt Wall street kept running throughout Occupy Wall street, but what it did was make a huge intervention into how we talked collectively about the 2008 recession or a depression, whatever you want to call it. It's crisis and reshaping how we think about inequality. So it went from blaming and people might not remember right after that 2008 crisis, the initial blame was against small homeowners or against public sector workers. And walk you by, Wall street helped shift that and understand, hey, this is about corporate power and Wall street are behind the crisis and we need to really reform and re regulate if we're going to actually chart a new path. That opened the door to talk about inequality and power in a way that opened the door for the Fight for 15 movement, the Bernie Sanders campaign, you know, all kinds of other campaigns that the Democratic Socialists of America, growth, other organizations and movements that began to really refocus the attention on economic power.
- [17:19]
A
Well, you just mentioned the fight for 15. That's another strategy, the inside outside campaign. What exactly is an inside outside campaign and how did that work to win in Chicago?
- [17:32]
B
Yeah, so the inside outside campaign that we. The way we talk about in the book is campaigns that are aimed at big policy changes that involve both sympathetic allied elected officials, whether it the city or the state, federal, working alongside movement organizations and protesters and so forth. On the outside, they need each other to help craft policies that are big demands that make a real impact. And legislators are organizing within the system within city hall, while movement groups are organizing on the outside and mobilizing protests and signing up voters and pressuring candidates who don't agree to, you know, sign on to this demand. And so that's both the inside and the outside working together to make big change, such as the fight for 15, which is succeeded in many cities in raising the minimum wage dramatically to $15 an hour or more at some states. And so tens of millions of workers won a huge change in their minimum wage based on this inside outside strategy.
- [18:31]
A
Right? Yeah, it was very effective. Although I have to remind people that $15 an hour is still not very much money.
- [18:37]
B
Right.
- [18:38]
A
Even though it's a huge change from the federal wage, which I think is 725.
- [18:43]
B
Right, right. So yeah, a big jump.
- [18:45]
A
It's a big jump, but not really. I mean, some people would argue this is still not a living wage, Right?
- [18:51]
B
Absolutely, yes, for sure.
- [18:53]
A
So you know, we talked about instru people working on the inside and legislature. So electoral change is also important and we talk a lot about that here on the podcast. In fact, we had Maurice Mitchell on to talk about winning governing power in an episode earlier this year. So I encourage all the listeners to go back and listen to that. So the question is, how does electoral change as a strategy work to achieve power and change the rules?
- [19:21]
B
Yeah, we wanted to emphasize the difference between strategic electoral action and non strategic. And we, you know, argue that just endorsing a candidate and thinking of elections as once a year, every couple years and centering it around the candidate is not strategic. It's not building an organization, it's not engaging voters year round. It's not actually sticking around to see are we implementing the policies? Are these policies meaningful to people? Do they feel that they are political agents themselves who are responsible for change? And that's what we wanted to emphasize. We did talk a lot about the Working Families Party and interviewed Maurice Mitchell in the book. And to say this is a different way to think about electoral change is thinking about it as a broad based movement that is going beyond just the one election every few cycles.
- [20:08]
A
Yeah. So talk a little bit more about the strategy in terms of what it is that the party wants to achieve as opposed to just endorsing a candidate. How is that exactly different?
- [20:18]
B
Yeah, it's much more comprehensive in that starting from even who they recruit and look out for in terms of running for office, training them, and then working with them to co govern. So it's not that we elect a person and then, okay, get into office and you're going to save us. We're then continuing to work in governing, in helping do the research, do voter or, you know, citizen engagement, having other things other than elections. I worked with a precursor to the Working Families Party in Wisconsin, where we actually had neighborhood tutoring projects. We had other kinds of social activities and cultural activities. So the party actually took on a life that was much bigger than a ballot line or just a candidate that you get a mailer from. It was actually a cultural institution that drove the platform. It was the members of the party that drove the platform and the vision of the party.
- [21:09]
A
Right. It sounds a little bit like the old union.
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B
Yeah.
- [21:13]
A
You know, unions are no longer like this, but unions used to drive cultural projects or the cultural agenda in any given town. And had dances, but also bingo night. But also food drives. All of the above. And community and political education, of course.
- [21:29]
B
Yes, exactly.
- [21:29]
A
Exactly.
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B
Yeah.
- [21:34]
A
We'll be back with Stephanie in just a moment, so don't go anywhere. You definitely want to hear this episode. Civic Spark One small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. But first, it's been almost eight years since future hindsight first came to your headphones. And in those early days I had to figure it all out on my own. I speak from experience when I say that's an overwhelming feeling. You know that feeling when your to do list just grows and grows with new tasks every day. To tell you the truth, that list can pretty easily take over your life if you're not careful. But what if you could find the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything? Because that would be the game changer, wouldn't it? For millions of businesses out there. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Magic Spoon and Death Wish Coffee to fresh brands that are just getting started. So if you want to get started, take the first step with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand's style. Plus, Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that run write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography so you can accelerate your content creation with no problem. With so many great tools at your fingertips, you can get the word out as if you have an entire marketing team behind you. In just a few quick minutes. You can easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. Shopify is yours. Commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. So if you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Let me tell you what I love about Shopify. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Turn your big business idea into Cha Ching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial period and start selling today at shopify.com hopeful. Go to shopify.com hopeful shopify.com hopeful Cha Ching and now let's return to my conversation with Stephanie Luce. So let's talk about the momentum model. It feels intuitive, right? For anybody who's listening, that momentum is necessary for any campaign for change. And we had actually Aru Shiny Ajay on at Sunrise this year as well, which of course uses this model. And you wrote about how 350. Org uses the momentum model and distributed action. Tell us a little bit more about how this strategy works.
- [24:41]
B
Yeah, this is a strategy that's really trying to take in some ways the best of two different models. One is the base building, which is we need lots of people and lots of numbers. But that's often a very slow process. So how can we take that with kind of rapid escalation, the kind that we might see in a disruptive movement. And so it involves, you know, the distributive organizing model is really how can we quickly upscale that people around the country or around the, you know, the movement can take the DNA, what they call of the campaign and run it themselves. And so we don't need as many staff, we don't need so much infrastructure. But we trust and train people to do that themselves. They are also going after pillars that uphold a system, the pillars that uphold perhaps the oil and gas industry. Right. So how can we take one of those main institutions and have a coordinated campaign against it? And then also how can we begin to shift the common sense on the way we understand an issue? And we give the example of the marriage equality movement, you know, really shifting the frame to understand it in a different way that appeals to a broader mass. So you're doing, you know, narrative work in this, you're doing some base building, but you're creating a system that allows it to spread very quickly and bring in lots of new people who can help build a campaign and shift the dynamics.
- [26:01]
A
Yeah, I think the marriage equality campaign was so effective and also almost clandestine, you know, because we didn't know that we were participating almost as long as we were watching Will and Grace or we were talking about it at the dinner table. But I remember during this time when the vote was coming up or when the decision was about to come out from the Supreme Court, that people were talking about it at dinners. You know, people. This was a topic that people were interested in that maybe they had changed their minds on or had maybe never thought about. And now they're like, oh, we should think about it and talk about it. And it was kind of fascinating.
- [26:39]
B
Yeah. Yeah. I think that sometimes from the outside, we think, oh, these things are just happening naturally. It's just unfolding. But in fact, it took a lot of organizing and a lot of strategic targeting of media and culture and strategic targeting of certain, you know, state legislatures and city councils and getting defectors, people that might have seemed they'd opposed it, but then maybe they had children who are gay, and they began to talk about gay rights. And so suddenly kind of comes in a whirlwind moment in which suddenly we're all talking about it.
- [27:07]
A
Right, Right. So the final strategy is collective care. And that's not really obvious that this is a strategy. So what exactly is collective care? How does this work? And what's an example that actually illustrates that collective care is a strategy?
- [27:23]
B
Yeah, so this is one that we did not initially have in the class or in the book, and a number of our students kept pushing that this is a strategy we should consider. And particularly, I would say we were working on some of this during the. So then it became particularly heightened. And what we would say is that collective care isn't always strategic, but it can be strategic. And what we mean by this is there are many cases when we, as underdogs, people are suffering just to stay alive. Whether it's the people who were kidnapped into slavery, whether it was the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, whether it was during the COVID 19 pandemic. Our first requirement is survival, and we turn to one another. We can turn to one another to help us survive and to transform survival into political agency. The example we give around the AIDS crisis is the gay men's health crisis that began to help people first just stay alive and then to think of themselves as political agents who had a voice in the fight to find a cure and address the AIDS pandemic. So that is an example of how collective care can help people transform themselves from victims to agents and to see their own power and then to have each other's back, that they can take bigger Risks. So collective care can also look like when you think about going on strike in your workplace, but you're afraid, who's gonna watch the kids when you're in strike? Who's gonna feed me? Who's gonna provide legal support if I'm arrested? Collective care lets you know someone has your back and you're much more willing and able to take those risks to become part of a political movement that's very powerful.
- [28:57]
A
Yeah, political agents. Yeah, we're all political agents. And I think we often don't think about ourselves in this way because I think, I think in this world, and I've said this before on the podcast, the way that we walk through life in the United States, I think we think of ourselves first and foremost as consumers.
- [29:13]
B
Yes, yes, consumers. And maybe victims, like which you know, as you don't understand because we're often on the wrong end of power. We have a system that's stacked against us. But we try and emphasize the book that everyone in every case can access some form of power. Whether it's the power of turning to your neighbor with solidarity, the power to withhold and non cooperation, or the power of care. You can access some form of power.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah, that's a good reminder. So we are in what I think are very dangerous times. And I've been wondering whether this isn't a time for revolution. I've been wondering this out loud on this podcast. I do this at dinner parties and people look at me like I'm from a different planet. But I think there's also an opportunity right now for solidarity among groups who might not be natural allies. We just talked about the marriage equality fight and how how people who might not be natural allies might come together. So you point out in the book that the neoliberal economic model is unstable and unsustainable because of course it is based on exploiting people and the planet. That the authoritarian turn that we're experiencing right now will make matters worse and that the alliance between billionaires and some working class people is inherently unstable. And especially on this last part, I feel like people are missing this. So where do you see the fissures where the left can drive a wedge? And, and like, what would you, if you were a movement person, like really in it, what would you do now?
- [30:40]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And I think you're right. This is a moment for us to think about building a bigger we, so to speak, about people that can unite around some of the basics, around what does multiracial democracy look like? And who's holding us back. And as you say, it's a lot of those billionaires, a lot of the politicians that support those billionaires or that you know, are creating this authoritarian agenda right now. I think that there are wedges that are among elements of business that also, like, for example, are pro immigration, like a lot of business owners themselves are immigrants or hire immigrants or have immigrant customers. A lot of faith based organizations are also at their heart pro immigrant and pro family and pro community. I think that there are spaces around the environmental agenda where oil and gas is one sector of the economy that a lot of the other sectors of the economy, economy are perhaps at odds with. And so I think there are spaces to build these coalitions of what some people might call a united front, of saying, okay, we don't agree on a lot of things, but we want to have a peaceful system of democratic deliberation to solve our conflict. And we want to have a peaceful approach to addressing environmental issues and climate issues. And so I think there are a lot of potential wedges to draw there. And as you said, like there are elements of workers supporting this current authoritarian regime. Unlike in the past, there were fascist governments that could then provide something in return. They provided jobs or they provided a safety net or so forth. This one isn't. This one's not providing anything else in return other than white Christian nationalist identification. And I think that identity can only go so far. So I think there are spaces to work on peeling off that coalition.
- [32:26]
A
Right? Yeah, there's definitely an opportunity here. You just mentioned a united front. And I think it's worth mentioning here to discuss briefly what is the difference between a popular front and a united front and what do we need in this moment? You talked about this a lot, actually in the book. You make a reference to the time before Nazism took over Germany that the parties on the left did not become allies and missed the fight, missed the moment. And I feel like we missed it a long time ago here in this country. But talk to us about making alliances in this moment.
- [33:00]
B
Yeah, I mean, these terms are tricky. They're used in different ways historically and there's different traditions of using them. One of the traditions suggests a united front being allying all of those in the working class movements and farmers movements, peasants movements against the ruling class. Others in traditions of popular front say actually everyone that's fighting against fascism or authoritarianism, including perhaps members of the business class class, are part of that popular front. So, you know, I think both terms are helpful in one sense. I think There's a space to build a so called Popular Front that includes anyone who might have any kind of opposition to the authoritarian white Christian nationalist agenda. But within that we know there's going to be a lot of conflict and a lot of differences. And so you could have another coalition as well. So some people are using helpful terms, I think, to say we have a coalition of the no, which is all those people saying no to this authoritarian agenda. And within that, perhaps a smaller coalition of the yes, those who are promoting a vision of a shared multiracial democracy that has more attention to climate and democratic rule and so forth. And so they may not be the same coalition. And you might have strategies for both, what we call nested strategies, like a big strategy for the fight back and the defense and then another strategy for the offense. And so this is the kind of conversation we were trying to generate through the book and through the class is like, hey, let's look 30 years out. Where do we want to be and what are the steps we need to get there? Maybe the Popular Front takes us through steps one through three and then, you know, this coalition of the yes takes us further to steps five through eight or whatever it might be.
- [34:39]
A
I think it's so difficult right now to make allies because it feels like the world is on fire and we need to just fight that immediate fight wherever we are, whatever community we are in. And without somebody actually being a leader and sharing a grand vision, it's really hard to coalesce and rally around something that we can all pursue. And so I have a question about leadership because I think a lot of movements think that they are horizontal. What is the role of leadership in strategy and in pursuing a vision?
- [35:16]
B
Yeah, I think this is a great question. I think we've had a challenge of some on the left or progressive movements being skeptical of leaders. I think that goes along with the skepticism and power. People are cynical thinking that if you're in a position of leadership, you might be corrupt or it might be hierarchical. And I think this is a real mistake. I think we want transparent and accountable leadership, but we definitely need leadership now. Leadership can be broad. We can really challenge traditional understanding that the leader is like just the one who talks the most or who's most willing to stand up in front of the room. But in fact, if we don't name the leadership, we have what some people. Well, I've named the tyranny of structurelessness, which is the person who's most confident is going to step up and take leadership. So there's Always leadership there. It's whether or not we have accountable structures for it. You know, we argue in the book that our strategies will be strongest when they include more people and more voices. Leadership doesn't have to be one person. It could be a team. It could be the structure of different teams. You know, there's different ways to think about leadership. But we need those people who are taking the time and space to, to say, hey, yes, we're doing the immediate fights, but how can we do those immediate fights in a way that builds our capacity to open up new possibilities so that the next fight up we can accomplish more? We're not just falling deeper and deeper into a hole because we're not paying attention to what's going on around us beyond that immediate fight.
- [36:44]
A
So we are a civic action oriented podcast. So every week on Future Hindsight I ask my guests to share civic spark once more. Small step we can all take to be more empowered and ignite collective change. What's a good way to turn the insights that you've just shared with us into action?
- [37:02]
B
It's such a great question and you've had so many wonderful guests that have given all the answers I might have initially thought of. But I think in this moment, what's exciting. One thing that's going on is there's so much space for education and training. There's groups called like One Million Voices Rising, there's the Freedom Trainers. These groups are offering trainings in person and or online. There are that teach people the basic skills that we need right now. Either skills of non cooperation, how to resist when something illegal is being done to you or around you, or the skills to build mutual aid networks. How are we going to survive in these tricky times? Skills to provide medical support to people that might be suffering from police violence in this moment or ice violence. So I think there's a moment where everyone can learn a new skill right. Right now.
- [37:51]
A
That's really good advice. So looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
- [37:57]
B
Well, I think right now, you know, what we hear so much about is the polarization of our society. We not hearing as much about the other side, which is incredible numbers of people, more than I've ever seen in my life, engaged in this moment of what can we be doing? How do we learn more? How do we fight back? Through this book, for example, I've been speaking to everyone from labor unions to pastors, to corporate social responsibility, to environmentalists to student groups. You know, there's just a lot of activity and engagement. They really care and they're speaking cross divisions, they're speaking across sector, different kinds of people coming together because they do share this vision of what's happening right now is wrong. And that's what's giving me hope.
- [38:40]
A
Yeah, it is hopeful. I mean, I've been hopeful about that for a long time, let's say since 2016. Yes. And I'm just, you know, I'm really flumping that this has not taken off more strongly. And I wonder whether you think it's just because the overdogs have so much more power and resources or is it that the underdogs are just somehow not finding each other in a way that is making the maximum impact and really pursuing the strategy to change the rules?
- [39:08]
B
Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna kind of say it's some of both. The overdogs right now have access to a lot of resources as well as very sharp, unfortunate use of misinformation and disinformation, creating confusions in a confusing time. And I think the underdogs have failed to coalesce around creating space to talk about big vision. And so people feel forced into making a choice between Republican versus Democrat. What we're facing right now is much bigger than that, and we haven't created that space. Many people are trying to narrow it into something very safe and careful, but people know it's something bigger than that. And we have to do a better job of saying, hey, we have a new world to build. Come be a part of building this new world that's bigger than your ballot box.
- [39:54]
A
Oh, yeah. We need a bold vision.
- [39:56]
B
Yes.
- [39:57]
A
For everyone right now.
- [39:58]
B
Right.
- [40:00]
A
Well, thank you, Stephanie, for joining me on Future Hindsight. It was really, really a pleasure to have you on the show.
- [40:05]
B
Thanks so much. I really enjoyed it.
- [40:08]
A
Stephanie Luz is co author of Practical Radical seven Strategies to Change the World and professor of Labor Studies at the School of Labor and Urban Studies and professor of sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Remember, civic action doesn't have to be complicated. It's about small steps that spark progress, like sharing this episode with a friend. Let's recap this week's civic spark and fire up our collective power. There are so many ways to get involved through education. Find an organization that aligns with you and see if they offer trainings. There are always new skills we can add to our civic action toolkits. So stay curious and find a way to learn from your fellow organizers. Next week on FUTURE Hindsight, we're joined by Bruce Schneier. He's an internationally renowned security technologist and the author of Rewiring How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship.
- [41:12]
B
If the AI system distributes power, it's generally good. If it further concentrates power, it's probably bad. Think of town council. Think of systems where nobody's paid, nobody has staff, nobody has budget. And to the extent that these AI systems allow for greater participation in our democracy, that's great.
- [41:34]
A
That's next time on Future Hindsight Now. Be sure to follow us on your podcast app so you'll never miss an episode. We are here to build your civic action toolkit every week, so follow Future Hindsight now and we'll come right to you. And if you want to support Future Hindsight and all the work we do as an independent pro democracy podcast, follow us on Instagram uurehiinsight Pod. It's easy and free and a great way to stay up to date on all things civic engagement. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, see clearly, act boldly and spark the change you want to see. This episode was produced by Zach Travis and me.
- [42:22]
B
This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.