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- [00:02]
Akilah Hughes
The Democratic Party used to win by talking about one your money, who took it and who was going to fight to get it back. Then they started taking checks from the same people they were supposed to be fighting and they forgot the bit the Republican Party figured out. You can take that same economic pain, the closed factories, the shuttered hospitals, the retirement that keeps not arriving, and just tell people it's someone else's fault, someone who looks different than you.
- [00:28]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
And look, it's working. I'm Akilah Hughes.
- [00:31]
Akilah Hughes
And today on how is this better? I'm talking to someone who thinks there are more of us than there are of them. So let's find out.
- [00:40]
John Russell
I'm John Russell. I grew up in the Ohio Valley. I report and live in Wheeling, West Virginia. And I work part time for more Perfect union. Shout out to the homies there.
- [00:51]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Big shout out.
- [00:51]
John Russell
Yeah, big, big shout out. Go smash like and subscribe. And then part time for myself doing a newsletter called the Holler. And most of it is talking class politics all over the place, but especially focused on Appalachia and trying to make sense of, you know, where everything's going and what we can do about it.
- [01:09]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Well, thank you so much for being here. You know, you spoke a little bit about being in West Virginia. That's your home and you spent a lot of time in rural America.
- [01:17]
John Russell
Oh, yeah.
- [01:18]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
You even advised a presidential campaign on rural policy and engagement, which is sick. So I guess, like for a level setting for the audience, like what does the Democratic political establishment and perhaps even these sort of so called coastal elites get wrong about rural America and Appalachia?
- [01:35]
John Russell
I think they're just leaving a lot on the table by not talking about material interests.
- [01:40]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [01:41]
John Russell
You know, I think what's happening to America kind of started in Appalachia first. You're from Kentucky?
- [01:45]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went to school of Berea. So also Appalachia, right there.
- [01:49]
John Russell
Harvard of Appalachia.
- [01:50]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah, I love that so much. And yes, absolutely Berea is there. I think that there is like a coalition to be built that I've always felt was neglected. And like Berea in particular is sort of just this like perfect example of a town that was like built kind of rebelliously against like a sort of racist, Southern, limited conservative viewpoint. So I mean, I hear you. I do think that there's sort of like a big opportunity that has clearly been just missed and I've never really been sure why, like, what is your sort of take on that? Like, why are they afraid to go there?
- [02:26]
John Russell
I think the Democratic Party's been many things over its history, but it used to. If you just kind of go back to the FDR years when they were winning in Appalachia, they were saying, we're the party of the working person. We're going to take on corporate interests. Today, national progress and national prosperity are
- [02:44]
John Russell (reading historical quotes or references)
being held back chiefly because of selfishness on the part of a few.
- [02:50]
John Russell
We're going to, you know, fight for social program, Medicare and Social Security. Now, you know, you can criticize every error because a lot of people were left out of that. And going back to the big picture, I think Appalachia, you know, what happens here, I think is just happening to the rest of the country. And the story of this place, Appalachia, has been, you know, corporations that are doing extractive stuff, making a lot of people rich that don't live here.
- [03:14]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [03:14]
John Russell
Putting a lot of people into really exploited positions to make somebody else a ton of money. There was a time, more than others, where the Democratic Party chose to speak to that, speak the language of that and to challenge corporate interests. And, you know, through the Clinton years and up to now, it's kind of evolved to care less about what people in those situation thinks and more about what the people donating huge amounts of money to it think.
- [03:41]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [03:41]
John Russell
And that's a choice, and it had consequences. And I think, you know, any political party that wants to get working people on its side has a lot to work with because so many working people, despite all of their differences, are united by the same material things.
- [03:55]
Akilah Hughes
And we've seen glimpses of the Democratic Party getting things right. In fact, John was invited to speak at the DNC in 2024.
- [04:02]
John Russell (reading historical quotes or references)
I come from Albert Appalachia. We kept the lights on in this country for generations, but the wealth made by our broken backs and our black lungs never did trickle down.
- [04:22]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
I remember when you were at the DNC on the, like, national stage, explaining the history of the term redneck.
- [04:27]
John Russell
I don't. I blacked out.
- [04:30]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Well, I just remember, for one, just feeling, you know, you have this fantastic mullet. You look really cool. You're elevating what is cool for the Democrats. So suddenly I'm locked in and you're explaining the history of the term redneck.
- [04:43]
John Russell (reading historical quotes or references)
They called us rednecks back in the 1920s because striking workers from all different races wore red bandanas around their necks as they fought and died for respect and a living wage. Their fight yesterday is our fight right now.
- [05:04]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right now, which goes viral. Obviously, people are like, yes, this. Like, can we have more people, like, who Understand that it's not just these people who work for a hedge fund trying to explain to regular people who have to get up and go to work every day, you know, what the future should look like. I don't know. I guess. Can you explain that history a little bit for us here and why you felt compelled to clear it up?
- [05:26]
John Russell
Yeah, I feel like a lot of the times I'm. I'm like a gumball machine where people put in questions, but they only get out one answer, which is that Appalachia can claim the largest armed uprising against corporations and the federal government working together since the American Civil War. Like the largest labor uprising, and that was in Blair Mountain in 1921. And the story of, you know, redneck, it has different origins, but one that's overlooked is that striking minors during that uprising of multiple races wore the red bandana around their neck to identify what side they were on as they took up arms against the coal companies that were in bed with the government and forcing them to live terrible lives.
- [06:10]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yes.
- [06:10]
John Russell
Making the rest. Building this country. Making the rest of the country rich. Piling up the initial fortunes that we see exploding today.
- [06:17]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [06:18]
John Russell
Those were built off of the backs of people who decided to fight for themselves across racial lines together. And, you know, to mark which side they are, they were on, they wore the red bandana around their neck. So I wanted to tell that story because that is a legacy of people in Appalachia, and that's not often spoken to where in the popular imagination now, unfortunately, as being associated with J.D.
- [06:41]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
right. Yeah. The J.D. vance imagination. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. And from his comfort place in Ohio, as he describes. It's such a piece of shit.
- [06:52]
John Russell
Oh, man.
- [06:53]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
It's insane. It's so crazy, you know?
- [06:55]
John Russell
So I wanted to elevate that because that kind of muscle memory doesn't just go away. And it's sitting there waiting for political leaders to speak to that and to unite all of us in a story that we've lived here before. And that's incredibly important to what work needs to be done now.
- [07:13]
Akilah Hughes
Yes.
- [07:13]
John Russell
To change the balance of power in favor of working people and away from giant corporations, which is the same fight as it was back then.
- [07:21]
Akilah Hughes
We'll be right back.
- [07:32]
Evan Osnos
Right now, news and politics are moving awfully fast. It can feel overwhelming, to say the least. I'm Evan Osnos, a staff writer for the New Yorker on the Political Scene podcast. We slow things down to understand how power really operates in Washington, D.C. and what it means for you. My co hosts, Jane Mayer and Susan Glaser and I have decades of reporting experience. And every Friday we have conversations with insiders and experts to understand the forces remaking America. Join us Fridays for the Washington Roundtable from the political scene. On Mondays and Wednesdays, you can also hear insightful episodes from our New Yorker colleagues, David Remnick and Tyler Foggatt, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [08:22]
Akilah Hughes
Republicans have had the benefit of having their cake and eating it, too. They flame the culture wars, blaming immigrants, trans people, women for the real economic problems regular citizens face, and then get to complain that that is all that Democrats care about. All of this while never meaningfully being pushed to improve the situation of their constituents lives just to scapegoat them election after election. And I was curious, how does an opposition party even function under such an established dynamic?
- [08:51]
John Russell
They have to actually, you know, start standing and fighting for working people. And, you know, part of why Trump is so successful, this is, this is why I get mad at the party that I worked for. You know, I worked for Democrats, have volunteered on Democratic campaigns. I ran for office as a Democrat. When I look at the success of Trump, I see the absence of Democrats contributing to his success. Yeah, Democrats are not telling a story that, you know, they're pulling out of these areas. A lot of the times I, from my perspective, I see them playing into some of the stereotypes about, you know, Appalachia being backwards and ignorant. If you're not there to tell a counter narrative, a lot of people are going to fall into the only story that's being told. You're responsible for what goes into your own eyes and ears. But at a larger scale, if you have somebody like Donald Trump and the Republicans taking the material pain that people feel and then telling a story that exploits their anger about that.
- [09:47]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [09:47]
John Russell
And then lying about who caused it, saying, you feel this pain here because of someone who's different than you, different on race or gender or sexuality, all the things that they try to divide on. And then you as a, as a Democratic Party say, you know what, you can just be the only one in town telling that story. We're gonna go out and focus on this.
- [10:06]
Akilah Hughes
Right.
- [10:07]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Good point.
- [10:08]
John Russell
Why are you leaving us behind? That's the first step. And then, you know, the alternative story they could tell is, is naming that game. You know, I feel like we have such a lack of political leadership in this country, and if I were wishing something to be true, it would be political leaders to say, we clearly have the billionaire class united in their interests. They act in their interests. The only way to get power off of them is for working people to unite on class interests. But to do that, we have to remove in name the ways they try to divide us on race, on gender, and to educate people that you only have as much rights and as much power as you're willing to fight for someone that's different than you imagine. If we had political leaders naming this.
- [10:53]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Absolutely.
- [10:54]
John Russell
And instead saying, you're not feeling that pain because, you know, an immigrant took your job. You're feeling that because a corporation closed down the entire factory, which was the only job here, because they wanted to make money. So I think pick one of those that the Democrats do better. You know, we're owed that political leadership. And there's been such a, such a lack of it.
- [11:16]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah, I think that it's like also,
- [11:18]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
you know, they would have to really believe it. And I think that, like, it feels like as someone who wants the Democrats to be better, that a lot of times they don't. You know, there was this huge story in the past couple of weeks about a woman in Kentucky who turned down $26 million for her land for a data center. And this is a story that, like, I feel like the entire Internet is championing.
- [11:39]
Akilah Hughes
But I also question, I'm like, well,
- [11:41]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
if the Democrats aren't seizing this opportunity to say, like, right, like AI should not be able to take our land, pollute the water, do all these things, then they must not really agree with that.
- [11:49]
Akilah Hughes
I think that it's really ill defined
- [11:51]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
on the establishment level what Democrats believe. And I think that that contributes to people feeling like, well, these two parties are the same because, like, I'm not hearing from one party that like, we absolutely don't need or if we do, like, we're not going to start instituting it anywhere until it is good for the environment, until it actually creates jobs and doesn't take them. And so I assume they don't feel that way. But if that's the case, like, I mean, what's the solution, John? Do we get like a third party? And like, do we in our lifetime, is there a third party that is also feels that way? Because I also feel like as much
- [12:23]
Akilah Hughes
as I want there to be a
- [12:24]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
third party that is like human focused, worker focused, there is that moneyed interest that I feel is corrupting. And so, like, do we have to just keep voting for stuff until Citizens United gets overturned, maybe, like, how do we move forward? I guess, like in your, in your perfect scenario.
- [12:42]
John Russell
Yeah, you're talking about hard stuff now. So, you know, I'm dropping out at this point. I don't know. I don't know this stuff.
- [12:48]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah. I'm honestly just describing where we are.
- [12:52]
John Russell
No, I feel this way. I feel like movements that come from the bottom up are able to inhabit one of these two political parties. That's viable.
- [13:02]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yes.
- [13:02]
John Russell
And that happens all the time, you know, in. In the weird, fucked up fun house. Can I say that on.
- [13:08]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [13:08]
John Russell
Weird fucked up funhouse way that that happened is what Donald Trump did to the Republican Party. It was like a bunch of please clap Jeb Bush. Like Brooks Brothers, like loafer dorks. Yeah. And they're just up there like, kind of getting their way through the 2000s, and people were getting like, really pissed off at that. And then Donald Trump started a movement based on lies. But it was still a movement.
- [13:31]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [13:31]
John Russell
That mass of people inhabited the Republican Party and, and with Donald Trump as their representative, who stood up there with all the Brooks Brother loafer nerds, even though he is one, and just wiped the floor with them. And that that party, one of two major American political parties, is unrecognizable and totally his because he built a movement on lies, inhabited it, and took over, you know, electoral power. That to me says that there still is electoral power. And, you know, I am very sympathetic to the people who are. Who want to say that voting is not going to change anything or that what we need is a third party or we can't be shepherding all this energy into the Democrats. What I would point to is look at what Donald Trump did.
- [14:12]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [14:12]
John Russell
Are you mad at the, at the news? Are you astounded at how much he's been able to do? He did it with a movement that inhabited one of the parties.
- [14:19]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [14:19]
John Russell
And it's possible for a labor movement to do that to the Democrats. And more and more, I feel like we are in a not so slow moving political revolution.
- [14:28]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [14:28]
John Russell
And like the. And the first, there are a couple plot points in there. Donald Trump's a major one. But maybe we haven't seen what that looks like when it sweeps over the Democrats. But I think there's a lot of reason to think that they're not immune from, from that happening. Bernie was a big part of it. Zoran Mamdani winning, AOC winning back in the day. And it takes different shapes in different places. Candidates like Graham Platner in Maine, I think are very fascinating. So I think that's still possible.
- [14:55]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
I think that you're right. I mean, like, you know, my more pessimistic side is like, nothing ever gets better. But like, I live in New York again. I'm living under, you know, Zoran Mamdani is like first term as mayor and it's only been a couple of months and things are improving. Like objectively, people feel like, hopeful, like if they have a complaint, it'll be heard and like addressed in a real way in a timely fashion. With the money that they keep, we're all paying in, in our taxes.
- [15:21]
John Russell
I want to talk about that for a second because I saw that like firsthand on a story I did. For more Perfect Union. We talked to this guy, a 26 year old. Everybody's like, what do we do with the young dudes?
- [15:31]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Exactly. They're like, they're lost.
- [15:33]
John Russell
Like, we got it. We have a young dude problem. So we were talking to this young guy when we interviewed him, was wearing a Charlie Kirk shirt, Freedom. Showing me pictures of him with Alex Jones. Everyone in conservative America, you went to CPAC and this guy voted for Donald Trump. And Zoran, he was a huge Zoron fan. I asked him how is that possible. He points up at his ceiling and says, I live in a rent controlled apartment. This is very important to me. My parents were immigrants. They raised me in this house and I'm never going to leave it. But the ceiling was leaking and I couldn't get my landlord to address it forever.
- [16:10]
Interviewee (young man with housing issue)
So my roof started leaking for about three months. I would ask my landlord, please fix it. He didn't want to do it because he's a landlord. Yeah, he's just a landlord. Kept calling 311, which is like the city hotline for help, and no one ever responded to me.
- [16:26]
John Russell
But then Kristian called up Zo Ron's
- [16:28]
Interviewee (young man with housing issue)
office a couple days later. An inspector actually came, cited a couple safety violations. And because of the fines that the landlord received, he was forced to fix my leak and provide me more heat. And that was the first time a politician actually did something for me.
- [16:45]
John Russell
So this guy in a Charlie Kirk shirt at CPAC hears a politician clearly different from the establishment that is like joyfully talking about solving material problems in your life and then did the thing. And now that guy has completely changed his politics.
- [16:59]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
And I feel like I see that everywhere here. Like, not that I see like Trump supporters everywhere, but I do see like people who can like, point to a very real problem that they're having. And like Zoran's campaign was so multifaceted and so aware of, like here are not everyone's having the same, the same life problems, right? Like, not everyone has kids, but people with kids would like to send their kids to daycare without have costed like a million dollars a year. You know, not everyone's a landlord, but, like, for the people who have, like, you know, people who are tenants, like me, like, yeah, it would be nice if the landlord was forced to, you know, respond to any complaint. On the one hand, I'm like, so excited by that because I think that also, like, people love examples and, like, being able to point the zoron over and over again and like, be like, well, he fixed it. So, like, maybe there's hope for the Democratic Party is, like, wonderful. But do you also sometimes feel like, look how great Zoran has to be. Donald Trump was just like, I'll just point to someone and say that is there.
- [17:52]
John Russell
Oh, my God. Yeah, he's just like, you know, posting an AI video of him, like, on protest. I get up on Easter, I hear like, church bells ringing outside. I'm like, oh, what a glorious ad. Crack open my phone. He's like, open the straight. Oh, my God.
- [18:08]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yes. Like, he would never promise to stop a leak. He would be like, this leak was caused by immigrants.
- [18:14]
John Russell
Y you would.
- [18:15]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
And that's it. That's it.
- [18:17]
John Russell
Yeah. It is infuriating that you have to be good and there's is no standard for holding right accountable. But also, you know, like, one of the things I hope we get out of this and, you know, this is definitely a privilege that some people have and others don't, but, man, I don't want to hear any kind of criticism in the post Trump era of, like, somebody's doing something that doesn't matter. Yeah, okay. Donald Trump did it a thousand times over. And people being willing to, like, remind folks of that, I think might be a refreshing development.
- [18:46]
Akilah Hughes
So with all of this in mind, where does that leave us for 2028? What kind of candidate can actually win?
- [18:52]
John Russell
I think the electorate's changing a lot in response to all the unbelievable stuff we've seen. They look at what Donald Trump has done. They look at Minneapolis, they look at him talking about how we can't do childcare because we gotta do a war that he said he wouldn't do.
- [19:07]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
That's what I'm talking about. That's what Trump does. And Zorron's like, all the kids can go. You don't have kids yet have k so they could go for free. And it's like, what?
- [19:15]
John Russell
Yeah. I think people look at that and they think, oh, my God. And then I think they look at what the Democrats have done to stop this. And they also think, oh, my God, we don't really have anybody standing up for ourselves. So I, you know, I think people are more suggestible to things than they've ever been. And maybe that's going to shift how you put a winning coalition together. And maybe that is less dependent on the suburbs, and you can get a candidate who comes in and offers paths to victory that conventional wisdom right now doesn't, doesn't think is going to happen. But for as many of those as there are, I think it's very simple. I think Zoran demonstrated how you do that. I think you talk about the things. You know, we appear divided in many important ways, like this rural, urban divide, all the ways that you can think of. But I think those divisions are only when we're talking about partisan politics. Those divisions are filtered through a Democrat, Republican lens. In rural areas and urban areas, everyone's getting screwed by healthcare, everyone's getting screwed by rent, by the housing situation, retirement, general expenses.
- [20:22]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah. Lack of opportunity.
- [20:24]
John Russell
Lack of opportunity. The extent that corporations are just winning whole hog. If you're trying to start a business, it's not fair to. You can't compete with Walmart. And they got the lawyers and they're donated to the politicians. Those are ways that we are united across all of the ways that we typically think we're divided. And if a politician in 2028 is speaking to those, rather than just doing the typical Democrat, Republican thing, I think there are a lot of voters who are going to be listening to that based off of what we've seen, making us more open.
- [20:54]
Akilah Hughes
Totally. I mean, this is sort of just
- [20:56]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
like my own feeling. This there's no empirical evidence for.
- [21:00]
John Russell
Oh, please. That's what I do.
- [21:04]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Also, like, I am. I'm on the Internet. I hear the conversations. Like, Democrats are not doing enough right now. Like, it doesn't feel like we have a true opposition party in this moment. Do you think that's actually the strategy, though, is like, let's let them run it into the ground all the way so that people have to come crawling back? And if so, I mean, look, the polls don't lie. People are disenchanted with Trump.
- [21:30]
John Russell
Yeah.
- [21:31]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Maybe it's not about us at all. Maybe it's just like, Trump is so bad. Or am I just like. I think there's a world where maybe that's also true. Like, people just get tired of hearing about Trump and hearing from Trump and they forgot that, like, in the past four years or like from 2020 to 2024, they just forgot that. That was annoying as hell to me. It's not a winning strategy. Right. I feel like it was really contributing to 2024's big loss. But now that he's back in office and we could see that, like, you know, not going great.
- [22:02]
John Russell
Rough.
- [22:03]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah. Every day I look at my phone and I go, it's getting worse. It's getting worse. I have, like $300 in the stock market, and every day I lose $5. So if it's happening to me, it must be happening to people with real money.
- [22:16]
John Russell
Yeah.
- [22:16]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Do you think that that is at all a strategy or should someone stand for something?
- [22:21]
John Russell
I think it, weirdly, it is a strategy to win once.
- [22:24]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
That's right. That's not a future looking.
- [22:26]
John Russell
So what happens after you win is. Is my question.
- [22:30]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Well, I guess 2020 to 2024.
- [22:33]
John Russell
Yeah. Basically, like, let's rehash that a little bit. You know, you can be not Trump, and sometimes that's good enough to win. And like, this is. This is really the problem with the Democratic Party going back, actually, decades now. You know, my first election was a 2008 Obama election.
- [22:49]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Me too.
- [22:49]
John Russell
And nothing makes you believe in the possibility of America like knocking on doors in Appalachia for a dude named Barack Hussein Obama. And then that guy winning.
- [22:57]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [22:58]
John Russell
That was crazy. But you look at what Biden was able to do. I mean, we got one, like, major accomplishment. I'm sure, you know, there are probably more. But to me, you pass the Inflation Reduction act, it's this massive pot of money. But it didn't solve the problem that when the money goes out the door, there's like, five corporations that suck it all up and then give it to their CEOs.
- [23:18]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Exactly.
- [23:19]
John Russell
And then every other thing that they were able to accomplish was rolled back in a stream of, like, the craziest executive orders that you've ever seen.
- [23:27]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah. The first day.
- [23:28]
John Russell
Like, the first day. And people are like, he can't do that. And he's like, well, I did.
- [23:33]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah. And no one's chat. I mean, you know, like, even if people are bringing legal challenges, our system isn't built to, like, do anything. In the next four years, like, 20 years from now, they'll be like, and we repealed it. And, like, there's no country left.
- [23:44]
John Russell
And then what happened after the Biden administration, Trump came back stronger than ever. So being not Trump is. We've already tried this. It might get you over the hump once. And then the right wing comes back bigger, badder, worse than ever. And when I imagine what that looks like into the future. I worry about a person like Tucker Carlson, right.
- [24:06]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Ben Shapiro, he can't win. He's too small.
- [24:10]
John Russell
Yeah, right, Small.
- [24:12]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
So Tucker, Tucker, that's probably Tucker, which
- [24:15]
John Russell
also fucked that guy. Like, oh, my God.
- [24:17]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right?
- [24:18]
John Russell
And so you actually have to. And to win and actually do something, you can't just pull a bait and switch and say, we're not Trump, we're not going to do transformative change. And then you win. Because if you didn't talk about the change you're going to make, you're not going to have the coalition to make it happen. So I think a much better, longer term strategy is to have candidates who, who, you know, call it like it is and name the balance of power, how it is, and get a lot of people who are waiting for that political leadership looking for that political home to join you in a vision for what this country could be. Because it could be everything. Come on, we got the money.
- [24:53]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, like, I think we're probably around the same age. I'm 36. I remember Obama 08 and feeling like, change. Wow, what a message. Like, if it was nothing else, shit is not going well. Like, yes. And like, you know, graduating into a huge recession and being like, okay, well, this sucks.
- [25:15]
Akilah Hughes
But like, still the feeling of, like,
- [25:16]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
things can get better. And I worry that, like, the kids today, they don't even think it could get better. Like, for them, they're like, no, this is it. Like, this is kind of how it's always been in their life. Like, since they were sort of sentient children. They're like, it's been Trump. And then sort of nothing but people like, screaming at each other and now more Trump. There are people who voted for Trump three times. Trump saying he wants to run again. There are probably people who will vote for him for a fucking fourth time.
- [25:45]
John Russell
Sure.
- [25:46]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Do you think that I don't know if you can speak to, like, how Republicans think, but, like, do you feel like locally where you are, the conversations are shifting, that, like, they aren't so absorbed in the cult of personality and, like, are having real conversations? Because, like, I feel sometimes I get really embarrassed about Democrats fighting in public. Like, it feels like it's family business.
- [26:09]
Akilah Hughes
Let's keep it.
- [26:10]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Like, guys, stop it. But, like, I think Republicans play it close to the chest. Like, they typically just like, slowly take down their flags and stop posting on Facebook. So, like, what are you sort of seeing and hearing?
- [26:22]
John Russell
I live in rural America, cover rural America, and went out to Elliot County Kentucky and did a piece on the county that voted 144 years straight for Democrats and then flip to Trump. People, they see what's happening around us, it shows up in their pocketbook. Gas is expensive. We're going to another war in the Middle east, no matter who you vote for. I do think a consequence of, like, the. The rich being as rich as they are, having as much power as they do, is making people see, no matter who they voted for, even if it was Trump for three times, they are seeing their hospitals close. They are seeing, you know, their education system destroyed. They're seeing, look, a lot of. A lot of people in West Virginia rely on SNAP and have voted for Trump, and that's getting cut. Whenever that's happening, it's possible to tell those people the truth about who did this.
- [27:16]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [27:16]
John Russell
We don't have a party doing that, though. And there's a lot of political opportunity for a party that does or a candidate that does. I just went up to Maine and filmed a piece with Graham Platner, and by conventional wisdom, that guy. Maine is a very purple state. It's rural, it's very white. It hasn't had a Democratic senator since, like, the Clinton administration.
- [27:38]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Damn.
- [27:39]
John Russell
Yeah. I mean, this is not. This is not a blue state.
- [27:43]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [27:43]
John Russell
I heard people up there who are still Donald Trump fans listening to a candidate, Graham Platner, talk about material things like the Social Security cap.
- [27:53]
Akilah Hughes
Right.
- [27:54]
John Russell
I mean, you know, it's very boring stuff, but people understand. Why do rich people just get a free pass after a very low amount of money where they don't have to contribute anymore into Social Security? Why do they pay a lower tax rate than I do? They listen when you talk in those things. And what we need is political leadership that's. That's willing to say that. And, you know, we. We started this kind of question with a conversation about the Obama campaign in 08. And I remember he was. He was an outsider. That was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's nomination, and he was getting a lot of hate in the party for that.
- [28:29]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Oh, majorly. Yeah. I remember SNL doing the like is the new black as tagline for Weekend Update. And I was like, as a black,
- [28:41]
John Russell
I'm blocking maybe.
- [28:44]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
No, not great. Not great. Yeah. There he was the outsider, and he was the grassroots candidate. And kind of like, funny to think of Donald Trump, someone who has led with his wealth, being the grassroots candidate, but tons of people donate to him for some reason.
- [28:58]
John Russell
Hey, blue collar is a state of mind, not a tax bracket.
- [29:01]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Well, I guess, like to put a fine point on all of it, like
- [29:06]
Akilah Hughes
there's so much that we should be
- [29:08]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
able to coalesce around to have actual class solidarity at this point, like standing up against these data centers and AI future that like threaten everybody's jobs. Or at least that's what they want us to believe. This hoarded wealth among the billionaire class that they didn't earn. And you know, all the corporate consolidation that's pushing everyone out of their jobs, making sure that people's wages keep up with rising costs. Like, yeah, to me, low bar to clear. No, not going to war for no reason, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So like, I guess it's hard to give it one clear answer. But how can we out organize these grifters who want us all battling it out with each other rather than waging the class war against them? How do we out grift them? It's not even a grift. Outmaneuver. Out strategize.
- [29:54]
John Russell
I think practice makes politics. To really change this, we do have to have a political revolution in this country. And that is simply not going to happen if you don't know the people around you. Like what we're going to do a political revolution. And you don't even know your neighbor.
- [30:10]
Akilah Hughes
Right.
- [30:11]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
You can't just join the WhatsApp group for the building. Yeah, join the WhatsApp group.
- [30:15]
John Russell
Yeah. So this is on us, unfortunately. It always has been. You know, somebody from a party or a candidate is not going to come down and save us all. They need a movement of people behind them. And that happens by knowing the people around you. And it's organized. You know, you, you got organized money or organized people. All organizing is, is knowing your neighbor and what their problems are and joining with them to, to solve those things. So I think spending time in your community dedicating, you know, it's, it's hard, but it's like diet and exercise, Right?
- [30:46]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. You gotta do it.
- [30:49]
John Russell
We gotta start whatever chunk of our lives we can dedicate to being in community, to knowing the people around you, to getting on the same page and realizing that. That we mostly already are, that's something we all can do right now. And much like dying and exercise.
- [31:07]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yes.
- [31:08]
John Russell
Is gonna make you happy.
- [31:10]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [31:11]
John Russell
Get you off of the screen. And is the first building block of the political power that is necessary to reverse all of this bad on the news.
- [31:20]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah.
- [31:20]
John Russell
So like going outside and knowing people and talking about this. And, you know, I. I said, practice makes politics. I. I just think of an example here. Like, if you go out and. And hope your local homeless community deal with a police sweep of a camp, that's something that happened in Wheeling, West Virginia, that is going to change your politics about police funding.
- [31:40]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yes.
- [31:41]
John Russell
You're going to see 20 policemen show up in a random small rural town to sit around and stand there as they kick homeless people out of the only place that they're surviving. That's going to change your politics.
- [31:54]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [31:55]
John Russell
So get out there and start doing that. And, you know, maybe while you're doing it, Gavin Newsom will show up and help the police got the homeless.
- [32:02]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yeah. He'll be like, hey, I told them to do this. Yeah.
- [32:05]
John Russell
That's going to change your politics about the party you feel loyal to.
- [32:09]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
100%. 100%, and demand more from those officials. I mean, I want to take a minute. I know we don't have much time left, but I wanted to, like, just say, I'm such a fan of your videos at More Perfect Union. I watch all of them.
- [32:22]
Akilah Hughes
I think that there's something really special
- [32:24]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
about the fact that, like, regardless of if you're, like, in Las Vegas or you're in Italy, you're, like, able to find these stories about people who have united in the way you're describing, who have, like, decided that, like, listen, the problem is always too much corporate power. The problem is always that, like, someone's going to come in here and try to, you know, take us for everything we have and really, like, working together against it for, like, you know, I mean, in Vegas, it's like we're only now realizing that F1 is the enemy. But then, like, Italy, it's like, you know, centuries of people being like, this is how it's going to work. We own the company. So what else? Else?
- [33:00]
John Russell
That would be crazy to me, by the way. But yeah.
- [33:02]
Akilah Hughes
Yes. And so, like, I guess, like, how
- [33:04]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
do you find these places? And, like, you know, how has that
- [33:07]
John Russell
changed your politics immensely? When you go to Italy to study what a cooperative is, and then you witness something that would never happen in America. We are in a factory with 2,000 people in it working. I come from a place where factories like that closed down years ago. They're surviving in Italy because their entire society chose to support a system where the workers own the company and they get to hire and fire their boss. And we're standing there with three workers and their boss. And I say, how would you workers feel if this guy made 300 times what you make. And they said we would fire him.
- [33:45]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
And they had that option. Literally.
- [33:48]
John Russell
Yeah. And it's like a factory where they. They go home and they drink a tiny little espresso outside at a small business that's not like some corporate hell hole.
- [33:58]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Yep.
- [33:59]
John Russell
And they have power over their boss and they enjoy the fruits of their labor. And that's a system that exists in a country that has less money than us.
- [34:08]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Right.
- [34:09]
John Russell
We could choose that anytime we want.
- [34:11]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Exactly.
- [34:12]
John Russell
Those kind of things have changed my politics immensely. And how we find the stories in the people that a lot of credit goes to the team at More Perfect Union. There's Josh Herzfeld. Croen is my editor and producer and we co produce with a a range of people. Nehemiah Stark has been there since the early days in Queer Fuller. And a rotating group of people that helps find folks like Class War Elvis.
- [34:33]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Hell yeah.
- [34:33]
John Russell
Elvis impersonator who's like, they're killing me, man. Nobody can afford to come out here and listen to Elvis anymore.
- [34:42]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Exactly.
- [34:44]
Akilah Hughes
While none of us can predict what the future holds, the current situation in the US Is rife with opportunity for a true opposition party to rise. The economy is not working for most people. The government is not working for most people. And so who we allow to run the messaging in this moment truly, desperately matters. We have to get back to basics. And we have to stop ignoring places where messages of unity, of solidarity, of true community once held real power and created real results. How is this Better? Is a production of Courier. It's written and hosted by me, Akilah Hughes. It is produced by Devin Maroney. Video editing is by Shane Verkus. The rest of the team at Courier includes Marianne Kuga, Sam Hollows, and Charlotte Robertson.
- [35:41]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Please subscribe to Sleep.
- [35:43]
Akilah Hughes
Follow Howis this Better? On all the platforms, YouTube, Apple, podcasts, Spotify, etc. And tell someone about your favorite episodes. If you're interested in sponsoring episodes or giving us products to try and try to sell, reach out to advertiseuriernewsroom.com thanks for listening and until next time, see ya,
- [36:09]
Co-host or Interviewer (possibly Sam Hollows)
Sam.