Update your bingo card

Summary

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Next Comes What

Episode: “Update your bingo card”

Host: Andrea Pitzer
Date: November 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Andrea Pitzer visits Roanoke, Virginia, to detail what the city’s resistance can teach us about countering authoritarianism, both locally and on a national scale—particularly in relation to former President Trump’s resurgence and his allies. Central to the story is the rise of grassroots activism, Beth Macy’s congressional run, and how local efforts like Do Good Virginia are innovating ways to defend democracy and vulnerable communities. The episode also draws on international and historical lessons about opposing strongman politics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Stakes: Democracy in Crisis

• Opening Warning ([00:03]):
  • Beth Macy: “If we don't stand for democracy now, we may very well lose it.”
• Pitzer’s Framing ([00:09]):
  • Ongoing return of authoritarian tendencies not only nationally but worldwide.
  • Roanoke as a case study: a blue pocket in a deep red region feeling the repercussions of Trump-era and post-2024 policies.

2. Local Color: Roanoke’s Political Climate after 2024

• Community Crisis ([00:37]):
  • Post-2024, Roanoke grapples with fallout as a “community in crisis.”
  • Protests, town halls (or lack thereof), and public frustration over representation—especially with incumbent Ben Klein.
• Beth Macy’s Candidacy Announced ([01:19]):
  • Macy’s congressional run is public, sparked and supported by continual community activism.

3. Learning from History: From Camps to Strongmen

• Pitzer’s Expertise ([04:46]):
  • Ties current authoritarian threats in the U.S. to global history—citing concentration camps, Nazi Germany, and how authoritarianism gains traction.
  • Andrea: “We're right at the edge of this. Right. But we are not like Nazi Germany. We see these echoes... We have all this knowledge, we have all this ability to communicate... Don’t surrender it before it’s even taken.”
• Community Resilience ([05:52]):
  • Encourages listeners not to capitulate to despair or fear before a true loss: “Don't give that up. Don't surrender it before it's even taken. Right.”

4. Organizing for Defense: Tactics & Models

• Historical and Academic Framework ([06:02]):
  • Beth Macy shares political scientist Erica Chenoweth’s research:
    • “Anti-authoritarian movements usually succeed once they reach a 3.5% threshold of active participation.”
    • Four pillars for successful movements ([06:28]-[07:17]):
      • Large participation bases
      • Loyalty shifts in key supporting pillars
      • Tactic innovation causing direct material costs for authority
      • Organizational resilience and discipline
• Local Efforts and Coalitions
  • Dina Embriani creates Do Good Virginia ([07:57]): Grassroots, decency-oriented direct action & solidarity.
  • Weekly protests and rapid response campaigns modeled after strategies seen in LA, Chicago, Portland, Charlotte.

5. Resistance in Action: Roanoke’s Evolving Model

• Sustained Protest and Civic Education ([08:42], [15:11]):
  • Weekly demonstrations in downtown Roanoke grow in size and impact.
  • Protesters coordinate education sessions post-protest, expanding collective knowledge on policy threats and practical activism.
  • Andrea: “The way that authoritarian societies destroy whatever democracy they already have is by peeling off individual groups... As soon as you make one group dispensable and inhuman, then all it takes is moving the goalpost.”

6. Electoral Shifts: Virginia and Beyond

• Recent Blue Wave ([11:16]-[12:41]):
  • Virginia swings decisively Democratic; every county goes bluer.
  • Abigail Spanberger wins governor’s race by 15 points; GOP loses 13 House of Delegates seats.
  • Noted nationwide shifts: New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial streak; a Democratic socialist wins NYC mayoralty.
• Backlash to Right-Wing Rhetoric ([12:07]):
  • Spanberger’s opponent ran largely on anti-trans ads, to voter backlash.

7. Community Storytelling: Why It Matters

• “Paper Girl” & Public Schools ([14:35]):
  • Macy’s new book, Paper Girl, connects local struggles to national divisions.
  • Schools as cornerstones of democracy; the risk posed by systemic neglect.
    • Beth Macy ([15:11]): “Our public schools, which are the foundation of our democracy, are in really rough shape.”

8. Culmination: Beth Macy’s Candidacy Announcement

• Event Atmosphere and Turnout ([18:58]):
  • Overflow crowds, buzz of hope and urgency in the air.
  • Array of community endorsements—mayor, local activists, working-class speakers.
• Notable Quotes:
  • Trish White Boyd: “Not a Democrat has been in that seat since 1993. And this is very exciting.” ([19:57])
  • Joe Cobb (Mayor): “Imagine a world where your congressional representative meets you on the corner just outside her office to talk with you about why you are protesting government overreach...” ([21:03])
  • Dr. Rev. Bill Lee: “We’re going to send another tin woman to Congress, and she does not need to see the wizard because she already has a heart.” ([23:12])
• Beth Macy’s Pledge:
  • Beth Macy: “I pledge... to visit every county in the district, red or blue, to do the same thing I’ve been doing as a reporter for four decades, to listen. And believe me, y’all, I will be taking notes.” ([27:23])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “The thumbs down is much more impactful than the Yellow Finger because it's a sign of disappointment instead of anger.”
  – Beth Macy ([00:45])

• “The first concern I heard was that people were scared.”
  – Andrea Pitzer ([05:52])

• “Historically, it's very rare for anti authoritarian movements to fail after they achieve a high threshold of participation. About three and a half percent.”
  – Beth Macy (relaying Erica Chenoweth) ([06:13])

• “I never try to sugarcoat things. I think that the next four years will be rough... They're very well organized this time.”
  – Dina Embriani ([07:28])

• “People have always found ways in the most extreme political situations to fight that... We’re just asking you to show up.”
  – Andrea Pitzer ([09:44])

• “The rising tide that was supposed to lift all boats... has somehow only lifted up those with yachts.”
  – Andrea Pitzer ([25:49])

• “I'm doing this not because I want to be a politician, never on my go card, but because I'm worried that our American democracy... is at serious risk.”
  – Beth Macy ([27:01])

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Segment Timeline

• [00:03 – 01:57]: Framing today’s threat to democracy; Roanoke as a focal community
• [04:46 – 06:02]: Historical parallels; introducing key activists and local response to Trump policies
• [06:02 – 07:17]: Lessons from global resistance; Erica Chenoweth’s framework for successful anti-authoritarian movements
• [07:28 – 09:44]: Building coalitions, forming Do Good Virginia, practical organizing
• [10:58 – 12:41]: Review of recent pivotal elections and their significance
• [14:35 – 17:17]: Storytelling as political power—Macy’s work, tangible community effects
• [18:58 – 27:46]: Macy’s campaign launch event: atmosphere, speakers, testimony, Macy’s promise and the movement’s future

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Tone and Language

• Candid, urgent, conversational, but deeply rooted in research and lived experience.
• Speakers blend dark humor, hard-earned hope (“I cannot afford to have despair because the children must have hope.” – Dina Embriani, [07:49]), and a call for participation-over-panic.
• Emphasis on solidarity, local agency, and the long arc of history—tempered by community realism.

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Final Takeaways

Roanoke is portrayed as a microcosm and a hopeful model for grassroots resistance to authoritarian drift in America. The dense network of organizers, educators, and volunteers, the rapid pivot from fear to action, and the choice to learn from the failures and successes of anti-authoritarian movements worldwide—these all demonstrate that the defense of democracy is local and requires new ways of showing up for each other. Beth Macy’s run isn’t the culmination but a catalyst within a broader movement.

“People have always found ways in the most extreme political situations to fight that... We're just asking you to show up.”
– Andrea Pitzer ([09:44])

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For more, visit AndreaPitzer.com or subscribe to Next Comes What.

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Transcript

[Beth Macy]

If we don't stand for democracy now, we may very well lose it.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Those who followed this podcast since its inception a year ago. We are seeing a return to power, kind of of a past that never got left behind in the world. Know that I've gone to Roanoke a handful of times to see what's happening in this deep blue dot in the Red Sea of western Virginia.

[Beth Macy]

I saw all the Trump signs and gave them all a big thumbs down. And some trucks that we've passed and maybe some houses that I felt look like those people voted to end our democracy.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And after the 2024 presidential election, I found a community that was in crisis.

[Beth Macy]

The films down is much more impactful than the Yellow Finger because it's a sign of disappointment instead of anger.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I returned in March to see one that was learning to defend itself.

[Beth Macy]

Ben Klein won't call a town hall meeting and listen to what we have to say.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And I came back to Roanoke Monday and Tuesday in the wake of last week's elections to get a sense of how everything was going one year on and to be part of my friend Beth Macy's Tuesday night announcement that she is running to represent Virginia's 6th district in the U.S. congress.

[Beth Macy]

Welcome to the worst kept secret in Roanoke. My name is Beth Macy and I'm running for Congress.

[Andrea Pitzer]

So be warned. I am very partial to Macy. Through 18 years of online discussion of our writing together, Beth and I have been friends for well over a decade now, in part because we had very similar childhoods and almost that long as friends in the real world.

[Dina Embriani]

I am. I'm deeply disappointed in this outcome.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But her bid for a congressional seat. We'll see what happens. Is just one piece of the story that I want to tell today.

[Dina Embriani]

You say you spoke to the president.

[Beth Macy]

I'm not saying that. Is he supportive of it?

[Andrea Pitzer]

I've highlighted the way that different places around the country have responded in the face of government punishment and violence.

[Dina Embriani]

It came to this at the White House today. The chief spokesperson for the president, who swore to execute the laws of the land, was asked if he wanted to execute some of the men and women who make those laws. The question came up because President Trump, in an extraordinary post, accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of committing a crime he said is punishable by by death.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Whether it's abstract and involving numbers, Donald.

[Dina Embriani]

Trump and the Republicans stopped those food deliveries. Funding cuts could result in millions of.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Additional deaths in the next five years. Or on the ground it involves physical abuse.

[Dina Embriani]

There's the Sept. 30 raid in South Shore, where agents created a virtual war zone, repelling from Blackhawk helicopters, tearing apart apartments, and detaining US Citizens all because they said there were dangerous criminal gang members there. But new reporting from ProPublica today suggests they didn't capture a single gang member.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We've discussed the refusal of juries and judges around the US to accept the government at its word. At this point, they just didn't agree.

[Dina Embriani]

With the Department of Justice that the sandwich toss met the definition of forcible assault.

[Andrea Pitzer]

In Los Angeles, we've seen how people stepped up in the face of immigration raids.

[Dina Embriani]

The coolest thing about today was these whistles worked. This is how we use it. Whenever we see ICE agents in the area, we go a broken cadence.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We've pondered the Portland frog. You're wearing costumes to show just how ridiculous that is. It's not a war zone. We followed the ways Chicago has shown up for its communities.

[Dina Embriani]

In the summer, we begin our Blow the Whistle campaign when we talk to our brothers and sisters over in la.

[Andrea Pitzer]

More recently, Charlotte is speed running the defense tactics already developed elsewhere.

[Dina Embriani]

All right, Secretary, do you hate whistles?

[Andrea Pitzer]

I would hate listening to those whistles day after day. I was watching those videos, Jesse, and wondering if their parents are proud of them. Roanoke has some similarities to these models and some differences. Yesterday, this crowd gathered in Roanoke in protest.

[Dina Embriani]

Dozens in the immigrant community closed their businesses, gathering to show their unity against recent policies put in place by President Donald Trump to strip away the protections for schools and churches against ICE enforcement.

[Andrea Pitzer]

As I've talked about before on this podcast, I met Dina and Brioni early in 2024.

[Beth Macy]

I started thinking, who do I know and what can we do?

[Andrea Pitzer]

Through Beth Macy, who also lives in Roanoke.

[Dina Embriani]

I am seated with New York Times bestselling author Beth Macy, and her book inspired the I want to say Emmy, but multiple Emmy nominated show Dope Sick. Thank you for being here with us.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And Dena had interviewed me about my book One Long Night. When I wrote this book, there was no book that looked at how did the idea of the concentration camp enter the world? How did we get to Auschwitz and what happened after. For a podcast she was putting together back then, after the election, she wanted to be in closer touch. She invited me to Roanoke to speak at an event she was putting together. I don't want to be here just scaring you. A series of speakers who could maybe help people who were in bad shape after the election and trying to figure out what to do in the US like, we're right at the edge of this. Right. But we are not like Nazi Germany. We see these echoes of it that are extremely disturbing. We see the power Trump has, which is also super, super disturbing. He's going to come into office with more power than probably any individual in the history of the world to help them address the terrible effects that Trump's presidency was going to have on all kinds of vulnerable groups. But we have all this knowledge, we have all this ability to communicate with each other as well. And it is not going to be.

[Beth Macy]

A short term prospect for all of.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Us to be facing the kinds of conditions that you're most worried about facing. Don't give that up. Don't surrender it before it's even taken. Right. The first concern I heard was that people were scared.

[Beth Macy]

I'm Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Harvard University, about what would happen to those that Trump had targeted so directly during the run up to the election itself.

[Beth Macy]

Historically, it's very rare for anti authoritarian movements to fail after they achieve a high threshold of participation. About three and a half percent of a tipping point of active popular participation.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Immigrants and trans people, especially.

[Beth Macy]

The four things that these successful movements, hundreds of them over the last 125.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Years have done, but also black folks, queer communities, and even women in general.

[Beth Macy]

Build large participation bases that build momentum.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And on that night in December, a crowd gathered at the Grandin Theater in downtown Roanoke. They were eager to find ways to protect their community and to help each other.

[Beth Macy]

The second is the ability to elicit loyalty, shifts and key pillars of support.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Representatives from existing local groups spoke about refugee and immigrant assistance, women's reproductive health.

[Beth Macy]

Innovate a new range of tactics that begin to impose direct material costs.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Diversity initiatives and Roanoke's LGBTQ community maintain.

[Beth Macy]

Their own organizational resilience and discipline.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Sam Rasool, the delegate for the 38th district and the Virginia House of Delegates, came to answer questions and to help constituents brainstorm about their priorities.

[Dina Embriani]

I never try to sugarcoat things. I think that the next four years will be rough. It'll be very even different than the previous administration. They're very well organized this time.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Dina had been hoping to find a way to build a coalition in Roanoke to support and bring together all the people who would be endangered by Trump's victory.

[Dina Embriani]

I'm enraged, but I cannot afford to have despair because the children must have hope.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The result was a group that she called Do Good Virginia, proudly claiming the mantle of Do Gooders, people who were interested in kindness and basic human decency that prompted them to action on the ground over the Last few months, several protests have been held outside the Roanoke office of six district Congressmen Ben Klein. In the weeks that followed, protesters began gathering every Monday at the corner of Franklin and Jefferson in downtown Roanoke. Local news outlets began covering those protests more frequently in the spring, noting that the object of those protests, Congressman Ben Klein, who had a Roanoke office by that corner, that he had not held a town hall in five months despite weekly constituent demands for one.

[Dina Embriani]

That's not what my town halls are for.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And by that point, a focus was on the federal jobs targeted by DOGE and the projected cuts to federal programs. More than one in five Virginians in Klein's district are on Medicaid. And there was tremendous fear about what proposed cuts would do to local health care systems and to veterans. Protesters have criticized Klein for his support of the Trump administration's federal funding and workforce cuts. I went back in March of this year to see how the Do Good effort was evolving. By that time, they'd added information and education sessions after the Monday protests so that they could let their expanding community of volunteers know about the immediate and upcoming needs as they arose. The way that authoritarian societies destroy whatever democracy they already have is by peeling off individual groups. And as soon as you make one group dispensable, this happens every single place I've looked. You make one group dispensable and inhuman, then all it takes is moving the goalpost. Dina would order pizzas so that people could come on their lunch breaks. I spoke again in March to the group to talk about where the country as a whole is at with rising authoritarianism and how to plan for likely future threats closer to home. We have to be the leaders that we wish they were meeting. Right? And we can. We absolutely can. I was so impressed watching what everybody was doing. People were finding new ways to engage and had connected to neighbors they now understood wanted the things that they hoped for out of their city and their country. It is a powerful thing to realize that you're not alone, and it's even more powerful to be part of people coming together to change the world. People have always found ways in the most extreme political situations to fight that. And nobody is asking you to do that, right? We're not asking you to do that kind of extreme stuff. We're just asking you to show up. Of course, earlier this month, off year elections held around the country in New York City and New Jersey figures who had rejected not only Trumpism, but also a lot of calls to distance themselves from the minority populations Republicans had so directly been targeting.

[Dina Embriani]

Look, Donald Trump is having the worst political spell of his second term and my God, is it showing.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Virginia voters had to choose a new governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

[Dina Embriani]

You can make the case. With the exception of the immediate aftermath of January six, which is his, I think, political nadir, this has been the worst few weeks he's ever had.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Purple Virginia was once deep red, but more densely populated areas have been tinting the state totals bluer and bluer in recent decades.

[Dina Embriani]

And it's been a really incredible turn when you consider what people were saying 10 short months ago when Trump was first sworn into office. Right.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Still, since the civil rights era, the state typically elects a governor from the opposite party of the current president.

[Dina Embriani]

We saw big tech and big law and media companies and elite universities all preemptively surrender to Trump earlier this month.

[Andrea Pitzer]

That trend held, but how it held was especially interesting. Every county in Virginia went bluer and the Virginia candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger, beat her opponent by 15 points.

[Dina Embriani]

But then something started to change. People started saying no. The initial waves of mass opposition to this administration and its overreach started with everyday Americans.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Her opponent ran on a platform that often seemed entirely composed of anti trans ads, millions and millions of dollars of them. And on continuing Trump and current Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin's policies, the campaign motto that basically it was let's keep a good thing going. That was the catchphrase. The damage to the Republican efforts that we saw with this month's elections and the Democratic victories, it went far beyond any one candidate for office.

[Dina Embriani]

The first real test we had of all of this, when Democrats flipped the Governor's mansion and the state legislature in Virginia, opening up a super majority, it was a blowout.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Statewide, The GOP lost 13 seats in Virginia's House of Delegates. Even Jay Jones, who had faced a scandal that revolved around his ill advised repetition of a very old joke about shooting one's enemy. Jones still handily defeated his opponent in the race for state Attorney general.

[Dina Embriani]

They became the first party in decades to hold New Jersey's gubernatorial mansion for three straight terms, to say nothing. The fact that 34 year old Democratic socialist beat both a Republican and a Trump endorsed independent candidate to become the mayor elect the biggest city in the country.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Of course this made a big impact on the people in Roanoke and helped inspire them to think about what else they would like to do. And returning to the city this week, I went to the weekly protest at the corner of Franklin Jefferson again right at noon, and I counted a hundred people that had arrived within the first few minutes. A few dozen more came as the event proceeded, and there was a small band playing acoustic guitars and leading songs like this Land is your Land, along with some revised lyrics for classic tunes, many of them centered on the Epstein files. And there was even an early indication of one person's preferred candidate for next November. One protester was carrying a sign that said paper Girl beats paper tiger, with Congressman Ben Klein's face on a drawn tiger and a picture of Beth Macy's face on the other side. Her new book, paper Girl, is about the Ohio town where she grew up and what has happened to it as our country has fractured in the decades since.

[Beth Macy]

I thought I was going to write a story about, and I did, about how we don't have the structure in place to allow poor kids to go to college, which essentially saved my life. But after spending two years in Urbana, it's more a story about how our K12 schools are declining such that people are dropping out, they're not showing up. There's a huge attendance problem, particularly after Covid, and our public schools, which are the foundation of our democracy, are in really rough shape.

[Andrea Pitzer]

As always, other people in the group had gotten creative with their signs as well. A policeman walked through the crowd early on on its densest corner, reminding demonstrators to keep a walking path clear on the sidewalk for pedestrians who just wanted to get through. That was the only police presence I saw. As before, people showed up and waved to drivers going by and honking in front of the Thieves tattoo parlor. But the big excitement really was over the planned Tuesday announcement from Macy. People discussed how early they were needing to get to the Tuesday announcement for fear of not being able to get into the building. One protester was wandering around looking for Macy, who hadn't yet arrived. He wanted to give her a check he had written to her campaign. A man who seemed to be one of the organizers of the Monday protests, named Richard, was explaining to some other folks, and I overheard that this is the 39th protest that they had held weekly against Klein's votes and his policies, and that only 50 more remained that they had to hold before he could be voted out.

[Dina Embriani]

Klein says while some protesters want to.

[Beth Macy]

Come in and meet with him, he feels many of them, including organizers, organizers, aren't interested in having a conversation with.

[Dina Embriani]

Him and only want to have their political opinions heard.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It was this group that had drafted Beth Macy to run, prodding her week after week at the Monday events, telling her she was the only candidate who could oust incumbent Congressman Ben Klein.

[Dina Embriani]

We are united in the House behind President Trump's agenda.

[Andrea Pitzer]

After the protest, some 50 people headed over to the library. Dr. Ahu Salem, director of the Blue Ridge Literacy Program, stopped by and introduced yourself to me, apologizing that she couldn't stay for the talk. While everyone ate pizza, Joy Sylvester Johnson, a longtime community presence around the unhoused and refugees alike, talked about current challenges facing the Roanoke Refugee Asylum Seekers Support Network, which is popularly known as raisin.

[Beth Macy]

I don't mind being yelled at, but it's more pleasant to have people smile.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When my time came to speak, I talked about where the country's at now and how we can move forward to support each other on the ground while still recognizing the larger pattern of what's happening nationally and internationally. All the things I've been discussing lately on the podcast, I talked about the elections and the critical nature of standing up for every part of our communities, whether they're popular or not. This is a time to redefine politics and what we demand from it. I went to another education session at the Grandin Theater on Monday evening. A much smaller group showed up there, but they engaged deeply with Decca Knight, who talked about the perils of white saviorism and the ways that different communities and people can learn to work collaboratively and deal with the inevitable conflicts that are going to come up. Attendees discussed in part the highly segregated history of Roanoke itself and what that history means for programs today. But the main event of this trip was the Tuesday night announcement of Beth Macy declaring her candidacy for Virginia's 6th district.

[Beth Macy]

You know, we didn't know what was going to happen with the election. I said, well, and then I reached out to her afterwards. I said, what is the number you would give democracy? What's our chance that democracy held out? And you said 55%.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And in the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I read a draft of Macy's speech ahead of the evening and I did give her my thoughts on it.

[Beth Macy]

And I kept checking that with you as, as the proofs came back and you still said 55%. But it depends on how willing people are to get involved in their community.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The announcement took place in the old fire station number one, which has been renovated into a showroom for Texture. Texture is a company that builds furniture from sustainable materials and it builds locally. In Roanoke, more than 450 people had RSVP'd to the event, but the venue filled well before the start time of 5:30. An overflow crowd, which had been expected, began to gather where they could listen via a PA system in the park behind the firehouse. Inside, I talked to a number of people about why they had come. Trish White Boyd, who had recently run for office herself, noted that the region had been sending Republicans to Congress for far too long, suggesting it was time for a change. Not a Democrat has been in that seat since 1993. And this is very exciting. Karen Fisher spoke about Macy's background and her writing about challenges facing Roanoke in the country decade after decade.

[Beth Macy]

We need someone to kick ass.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Nick Fisher spoke about backing Macy as part of a larger project.

[Dina Embriani]

Beth is very progressive and part of a group of people we need to put together in Congress to kind of bring sanity back to government.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Others, like Rob Lunsford, suggested Macy would be an improvement over the current representation.

[Beth Macy]

Beth is quite the communicator, and Ben Klein is not.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I also spoke with Dina Embriani about where she's at now with the Do Good Virginia group that she founded last year.

[Beth Macy]

We're up over 500 members and, you know, people show up in a variety of different ways, whether it's at a meeting, it's at a training, it's donating their time, it's donating money, it's donating food or diapers.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The current mayor of Roanoke, Joe Cobb, opened with the certainty that Macy would do what Ben Klein is currently refusing to do. Meet with the protesters outside the Congressman's Roanoke office every week.

[Dina Embriani]

Imagine a world where your congressional representative meets you on the corner just outside her office to talk with you about why you are protesting government overreach and commits to work with you to rebuild trust in government.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Andrew Tate, a farmer and factory worker from the area who recently wrote an.

[Dina Embriani]

Essay titled Living in the Shadow of the American Dream. A self described Virginia factory worker, farmer and father of two, reflects on the financial struggles facing his working class family.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Gave a stunning speech about just how hard life has become for rural working folks. Fairness doesn't happen by accident, he said. It's built by intention.

[Dina Embriani]

It's a struggle. But when you think about the American dream, you think about, you know, what does it mean to anybody, you know, clean water, safe schools, you know, a living wage. I feel like people are trying for it, people want it, but I don't know if it's something that's in reach.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It was the kind of speech that immediately sparked discussions of what office he should run for himself. Dr. Reverend Bill Lee, who spent 40 years leading the Loudoun Avenue Christian Church and he also founded New Horizons Healthcare, offered a story spun out of the wizard of Oz. He brought up the tin man who wanted a heart. In the wake of government policies this year that have been decimating the local community, Reverend Lee tried to meet with Washington officials and convince them to help. But he said that he found that they had no heart. They could go down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he noted, but the wizard there was just a showman and he had no heart to give them. Dr. Lee suggested that Maci, whose work reporting on the community had made her heart bigger, with every story she shared about the people of Roanoke, might have the answer.

[Dina Embriani]

I'm going to tell you we're going to send another tin woman to Congress, and she does not need to see the wizard because she already has a heart.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Beth is not running against anyone, he said. She is running for us. If she runs for us, she cannot lose this race. Dr. Brenda Hale, longtime leader of the Roanoke NAACP, made clear she had come out on that night to speak as a US Veteran and a nurse.

[Beth Macy]

What is my last name? I said, hell yes. Hell yes.

[Andrea Pitzer]

She spoke of how important it was to serve the community, and she came with a more adversarial tone than Reverend Lee before her. We want to whip him and not just be the whip him.

[Beth Macy]

We want to whip him because he does not represent the conservation constituents and Congressional Region 6.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Another speaker, opioid treatment expert Dr. Sherry Hartman, talked about Macy's 1993 feature for the Roanoke Times, pregnant and Proud, which looked at pregnant teens in Roanoke who were trying to finish high school and the lack of services to help them. That story, she said, had changed local policies and sparked the creation of services and that are still in place today, more than 30 years later. Facing our truths, she said, is the only way to move forward. Delegate Lily Franklin, recently elected to the Virginia House of Representatives and about to go to Richmond for her new delegate orientation, suggested that Macy's run and her own success is the beginning of a movement. She doesn't run away from the hard stuff, she runs toward it. When Beth Macy herself spoke, she talked about holding politicians who abuse power to account, and about income inequality.

[Beth Macy]

I spent most of my life writing about regular folks left behind by the system, the veteran who died because he didn't get adequate treatment for his ptsd, a girl from the projects who held up by the Gainsborough Library and a single mom who worked her tail off. And they're here with us today, Celia and Tonya.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The rising tide that was supposed to lift all boats, she noted, has somehow only lifted up those with yachts. I'm running for Congress, she said, because decent, grown Ass.

[Beth Macy]

People should know when they have enough.

[Andrea Pitzer]

She talked about the three rural health clinics and already closed in the region and hospitals under threat while Republicans are trying to scare us about bathrooms. Do your freaking jobs. She demanded.

[Beth Macy]

Klein has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from giant corporations, including Big Pharma and their lobbyists in Washington because even he doesn't have enough.

[Andrea Pitzer]

She talked about increasing the minimum wage, expanding access to Medicaid, skyrocketing health care premiums, and more.

[Beth Macy]

Let me be clear, Medicaid is not a hand out. It's a hand out.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We have to, she said, put our communities before billionaires. Macy talked about how the creation of Do Good in Virginia and the protests had built a community. She talked about how people began coming up to her and telling her she needed to run against Ben Klein.

[Beth Macy]

I'm doing this not because I want to be a politician, never on my go car, but because I'm worried that our American democracy, the idea that gives voice, opportunity and freedom to all that once represented a light around the world, is at serious risk.

[Andrea Pitzer]

She pledged to give a kind of representation that Virginians in her district have sorely lacked.

[Beth Macy]

Up and down I81, along the beauty of Route 11, people are yearning for real representation. I pledge right here and now to visit every county in the district, red or blue, to do the same thing I've been doing as a reporter for four decades, to listen. And believe me, y', all, I will be taking notes.

[Andrea Pitzer]

There are so many examples of large cities coming together to refuse the current government overreach. I wanted to show you today how Roanoke can offer a model for a lot of mid sized cities or even smaller towns to think about resistance and change. As someone who has followed and tangentially been a part of this process for a year now, I came away from the evening astounded by how motivated the community was and how Macy's announcement is a big thing that is giving so many people hope. But it's just one part of a movement that's already changing Roanoke. Dina's Do Good idea expanded to include the protests and grew to include educational trainings. Lots of people were already doing things in their community, but now they are all networked together at a grassroots level. They're so much more in tune with the material and financial realities of all their neighbors. They began to realize that they could plan for a different future with different elected officials and that maybe the biggest obstacle to the change they wanted was them making the choice to act. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Next comes what Please share this with one person who's looking for ways to survive this mess. To support this podcast, please become a paid [e-mail] and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts.