Breaking the Cycle of Political Violence

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Breaking the Cycle of Political Violence"

Offline with Jon Favreau
Date: May 23, 2026
Guest: Zaid Ayersdorn, author and host of "Mother Country Radicals"

---

Episode Overview

In this deeply reflective episode, Jon Favreau sits down with Zaid Ayersdorn, the child of Weather Underground founders Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, to discuss the personal and political legacies of radical activism, the consequences of political violence, and what history can teach us about the cycles of radicalization. Both revisit Zaid’s acclaimed podcast and his new memoir, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young, probing what happens to families at the center of revolutionary struggle and how current generations should grapple with the lessons—and traumas—of the past.

The conversation is especially timely as political violence escalates in contemporary America. Together, they explore questions of moral judgment, the psychology of radicalization, the comparison between online echo chambers and 20th-century movement dynamics, factionalism, cycles of backlash, and the enduring hope for change.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Personal Consequences of Radicalism

Timestamps: 02:53–05:00, 06:11–13:22

• Zaid recounts growing up as the son of fugitives and learning, even at age four, to maintain secrecy as his family avoided FBI capture.
• “They never lied to me when I was a kid... They explained it in ways that a kid would understand—like, ‘we’re Robin Hood, we’re outlaws, we’re the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars.’”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [08:33]
• The gradual understanding of risk and loss dawned in adolescence, not childhood, as Zaid read outside accounts and confronted the emotional toll of his parents’ choices.

Notable Moment

• The emotional complexity of trusting Chesa Boudin’s mother, Kathy Boudin (a former participant in an armed robbery), with Zaid’s own daughter, and how parenthood reshaped Zaid’s view of his parents’ decisions.
• “If you have an infant or a toddler yourself, you can’t help but think, that’s insane... How could you do something like that?”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [13:22]

---

2. What Radicalizes People?

Timestamps: 14:49–16:58, 27:05–29:39

• The path to armed resistance was fueled by frustration: after years of nonviolent protest and escalating injustices (Vietnam War, assassinations like Fred Hampton), some felt “there were no other choices” but to escalate.
• Zaid reflects that echo chambers and constant peer pressure within movements (even without the internet) accelerated radicalization.
• There’s a psychological and strategic divide: why do some respond to state violence with militancy, and others advocate nonviolence?
• “If things get bad enough... people not only can, but probably should resist it with whatever means they have.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [24:43]

---

3. Moral Lines and Lasting Legacies

Timestamps: 22:17–24:43, 29:56–36:50, 41:33–44:18

• Both speakers wrestle with the widening circles of empathy that can motivate dangerous actions—balancing understanding with moral judgment and the importance of agency.
• The question, “Did the violence cost the movement more than it ever won?” draws a nuanced reply: actions that escalated to tragic violence (like the Brinks robbery) were both a “moral tragedy” and strategically destructive.
• Zaid recognizes both the positive legacies (radical racial solidarity, critique of police violence, new waves of feminism/queer/anti-colonial thought) and critiques (factionalization, alienation of moderates).
• Mark Rudd’s quote: “The sds split [was] the single greatest mistake I’ve made in my life, a historical crime.” [32:16]
• Zaid: “Factionalism... is one of the longtime Achilles heels of leftist progressive movements.”

---

4. Parallels with Today’s Internet-Driven Radicalization

Timestamps: 38:19–40:12

• Jon and Zaid draw strong parallels between analog-era echo chambers and today’s social media-fueled polarization and radicalization.
• “The same kind of process of radicalization where you’re only listening to the most militant, hardcore voices... And anybody advocating moderation is expelled and canceled.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [39:19]
• Zaid and his mother both see inspiration and concern in modern protest and resistance, from mutual aid during ICE raids to the dangers of purity tests and cancel culture fracturing movements.

---

5. The Cycle of Violence and Radicalization

Timestamps: 41:33–44:54

• Zaid explains the “cycle” where disenfranchisement and frustration with the political process can fuel justification for violence, but forceful crackdowns by the government risk worsening the problem.
• “When you build a political system where people don’t feel heard... you are creating an environment that is going to encourage that kind of justification of violence.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [43:21]

---

6. Grappling with the Legacy as the Next Generation

Timestamps: 49:05–51:28, 51:28–53:07

• Both Zaid’s and his children’s experiences show the struggle and pride of inheriting a radical legacy, as well as the challenge of explaining both pain and idealism to those outside or inside the movement.
• “There’s a couple things... my children can certainly take from this story. One is this central insight of the absolute responsibility of white people in America to stand up for racial justice... The second... is that change is possible and that radical imagination is still a necessity—and only young people can really bring that.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [50:25]

---

7. Revolution as Contronym: Progress or a Cycle?

Timestamps: 53:07–55:01

• Zaid describes revolution as both “radical change” and a cycle that can bring society back to where it started, ultimately believing progress is real, but never inevitable—each gain is hard-fought and requires sustained work.
• “As bad as things are right now, we have made progress. I think we will continue to make progress. I believe in revolution, in the sense of constant progress of both humanity and of this country.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [55:01]

---

8. Why the Next Generation Stays Hopeful

Timestamps: 55:40–57:29

• Zaid notes that many children of Weathermen and Black Panthers grew into artists, activists, and social workers—not armed revolutionaries, but people determined to “try in their small way to change the world.”
• “Almost all of the kids... have a kind of optimism to them. For all our parents’ flaws and contradictions, they are idealists... those are things that I think we all still believe in.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [55:40]

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Parental Secrecy and Honesty:
  “They never lied to me... We’re outlaws. We’re stealing from the rich, giving to the poor.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [08:33]
• On Moral Reckoning:
  “It has certainly been complicated to learn that those commitments sometimes came at the cost of risking our family’s safety.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [12:39]
• On Movement Legacy:
  “The defining legacy was—oppose the Vietnam War with everything we have and try to fight for Black liberation at any cost. And I think those legacies are still with us.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [31:46]
• On Factionalism:
  “Factionalism is one of the longtime Achilles heels of leftist progressive movements... when a collective struggle becomes an internal struggle, that can’t be the way forward.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [36:40]
• On Progress and Hope:
  “As bad as things are right now, we have made progress. I believe in revolution, in the sense of constant progress of both humanity and of this country.”
  — Zaid Ayersdorn [55:01]

---

Essential Timestamps

• Zaid’s Childhood and Parental Secrecy: 08:33–09:37
• Understanding Parental Choices: 09:55–11:17
• On Kathy Boudin and Parental Transformation: 13:22–14:49
• Moral and Strategic Lessons from Movement Violence: 32:16–34:48
• Radicalization Echo Chambers—Then and Now: 39:19–40:12
• Cycle of Violence Explanation: 43:21–44:18
• Revolution as Contronym: 53:07–55:01
• Why the Next Generation Remains Hopeful: 55:40–57:29

---

Takeaway

This episode is a wide-ranging, emotionally candid, and intellectually challenging exploration of how cycles of activism, violence, and radical hope shape individuals, families, and nations. It provides a rare window into the lived reality behind landmark historical movements and draws urgent parallels to the dilemmas facing today’s political activists.

Whether you are an activist, a parent, a student of history, or someone reckoning with how to fight for a better world in tumultuous times, Zaid’s reflections—and Jon’s probing questions—will give you plenty to think about.

---

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

Offline is brought to you by Zebiotics. I mean, what else can we say about Zebiotics?

[Tommy]

Yeah, I'm, I'm just visiting this Offline episode. Hi, it's Tommy, by the way.

[Jon Favreau]

Nice to see you here.

[Tommy]

If you aren't using zebiotics, if you're over 30 and you're having a single drink and you're not using zebiotics, I just, I don't know what's wrong with you.

[Jon Favreau]

You know who could use making your life worse? Cash Patel. Oh, God, allegedly.

[Tommy]

I bet he's got like a tub that he swims in.

[Jon Favreau]

I mean, yeah, because he hands him out because he's. Because despite what we read about him, he's so high functioning, he's really nailing day by day. Zbiotics Pre Alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break that byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you will feel your best tomorrow. From the crack of the bat at the stadium to the start of wedding season. Speaking of wedding season, you'll be listening to this episode probably a day after John Lovett's wedding and hopefully the two of us will have taken our Zbiotics.

[Tommy]

I will not. I'm going to pack a suitcase full.

[Jon Favreau]

Hopefully they're just handing it out though, at the wedding. Yeah.

[Tommy]

Oh, that's a good point.

[Jon Favreau]

Otherwise, what are they doing?

[Tommy]

I'm pretty sure they are, actually.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, I'm sure your May is also packed with back to back reasons to be out and about. Don't let a rough morning after keep you on the sidelines. Drink Pre alcohol to stay ahead of it and make the most of every Saturday this month. Go to zebiotics.com offline to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use Offline at checkout. Zebiotics is back with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics.com offline and use the code offline at checkout for 15% off this summer.

[VRBO Sponsor Voice]

Don't squeeze in, spread out. Find homes big enough for your whole guest list on vrbo. From family reunions to trips with friends, VRBO has spacious summer stays for every group size and budget. That's vacation rentals done right. Start exploring on VRBO and book your next stay now. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery, so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

One thing I kept finding over and over is that almost all of the kids of the Weathermen and of the Black Panthers have a kind of an optimism to them, or a sort of they believe in some kind of change, even when they're disillusioned by some of the tactics of their parents, some of the fallout for their own families. Almost every one of them became an artist or an activist or a social worker or a poet, somebody who feels like they are trying in their small way to change the world to make things better. None of them that I know of became armed revolutionaries. I think it wasn't the time for it in the sense of a historical context, and I think many of us were disillusioned by some of the things we saw growing up. But all that said, one thing you can't say about my parents or many members of those undergrounds is that they were hypocrites. I think most of us feel like for all our parents, flaws and contradictions. They are idealists. They believe in what they say and what they believe is fundamentally the right thing. Anti racism, anti war, struggle for a better world. Those are things that I think we all still believe in.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm Jon Favreau, and you just heard from today's guest, Zaid Ayersdorn. Most of you will remember Zaid as the host of Mother Country Radicals, one of my favorite limited series we've produced here at Crooked Media. It's a story about his parents, two founders of the Weather Underground who plotted to overthrow the United States government. It's an incredible series, one that reckons with the impact of radical revolutionaries who choose armed resistance, not just the impact on the world they're trying to change, but on their families, especially their children. Zaid is out with a new memoir, dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young, that dives deeper into his own experience as the child of revolutionaries, someone who spent his early years on the run with his fugitive parents, desperately trying to avoid capture by the FBI. I wanted to have him on to talk about what he learned, especially in light of the moment we're in right now, a time when political violence is on the rise and radicals on both ends of the political spectrum are speaking more favorably about armed resistance. Zaid's account of his childhood makes it pretty clear that choosing the path of armed resistance caused his family and the families of other revolutionaries immense suffering. I think it also offers some lessons for those of us involved in politics today who desperately want to avoid such violence and suffering. Again, you'll hear our conversation in just a bit. But first, the tickets for CricketCon 2026 are now on sale for everyone. So come hang with us November 5th through 7th in Washington, D.C. for live shows, panels, meetups, lots more friends of the pod, get a subscriber only price and a bunch more perks that we're gonna be rolling out, plus all the regular year round that subscribers always get, like ad free shows. So get tickets to CrookedCon and all the info you [e-mail] we can't wait to see you there CrookedCon.com for more details, including how to become a friend of the POD subscriber. All right, here's Zaid Ayersdorn. Zaid, welcome to Offline and welcome back to Crooked.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.

[Jon Favreau]

For people who don't know, we worked together in 2022 before that on your fantastic series Mother Country Radicals, you now have a new book out, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent and Young, that dives even deeper into your childhood, which you spent on the run from the FBI with your parents, the radical revolutionaries Bernadine Dorn and Bill Ayers. What questions were you looking to answer when you started this project?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Totally. Well, a couple things happened after Mother Country Radicals came out. I mean, I really thought when we made that series that it was everything I wanted to say about that time and that period and about my parents. But a couple really interesting things happened. One thing was that I had filed a Freedom of Information act request with the FBI when we started working on Mother Country Radicals seven years ago. They fought me and fought me on. In fact, the first response from the FBI was we have something like 2,800 boxes of files on Bernadine Dorn and it's going to take at least 12 years to process them. You'll have to pay for all the photocopying, et cetera. So we had to narrow it down. Narrow it down. Eventually they did produce 7,000 pages of new documents, but that was after the podcast had already come out. So suddenly I had all this new material. Also, once the series came out, people started reaching out to me and sending me new things. I got a bunch of letters that my mom had written when I was a baby. I had some people reach out and say I didn't want to be interviewed before, but now that I've heard the series, I want to talk to you and tell you some secrets. So it kind of like the story GRE for me. And I realized that there were some things that I hadn't talked about, some things that I thought were important. And of course we wound up with another Trump administration and a new era of authoritarianism. And I just thought it was interesting moment to revisit that story.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Oddly enough, and maybe sadly enough, the timing for this story continues to be better and better as the years progress. The book opens with you when you were almost four years old, trained in counter surveillance as an almost four year old telling a kind elderly couple at Burger King, we're going to Chicago for my mom to turn herself in. We made a deal with the FBI so I can go to school. How much did you actually understand about what your parents were, what they were doing, who they were at the time?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Yeah, yeah. That story has become a big joke in my family. I still get teased for almost blowing our cover when I was three or four years old. But the truth is they never lied to me when I was a kid. I mean, there were, as I discovered writing the book, I guess what you'd call lies of omission. I didn't know everything, but my parents were always very open, even when I was 3 or 4, about the fact that we were outlaws, the fact that the FBI was chasing us. In fact, they used, you know, they explained it in ways that like a kid would understand. They, we had watched the animated Disney Robin Hood. They were like, you know, we're kind of like that. We're outlaws. We're stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. Or we're like the Rebel alliance in Star wars and we, you know, are fighting an evil empire and so we have to be careful about what we do. So I understood, but of course I didn't exactly understand. I mean, a three to four year old can't. Doesn't know what the FBI is or what it means to have his parents be underground revolutionaries. So of course as I grew up, my understanding evolved. I had to figure it Out I had to go to other places other than my parents to try to like understand the context of what was really going on.

[Jon Favreau]

What age were you and was there a specific moment when it started clicking that the story you had known in childhood was something different and darker and maybe a little more fraught with danger?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

I think it was a multi step process. I think we turned ourselves in when I was about 4 years old. My mother went to prison when I was about six years old. That was certainly a dark chapter for our family in terms of trying to understand what that meant, why they were keeping her and everything like that. But of course I was still very young, so there was a lot I didn't understand. I think like a lot of kids, kind of high school and adolescence was a period when I started to dig deeper, want to read for myself like this, the books that have been written about my parents, the news coverage that had been written at the time. But you know, honestly it wasn't until we made mother country radicals that I like bothered to really dig in and be like I want to understand A to Z about this story. I think, I mean one of the things I tell people and they don't believe is that like most kids, I just, it all felt pretty normal for me growing up. I mean, I never thought until I was like in my 20s or 30s, I never thought to say, wow, that was really strange what happened to us as kids. You know, I just grew up and it was, it was my normal.

[Jon Favreau]

You write that one of the tenets of your childhood faith was that your parents would unequivocally protect you, that you and your brother were their first priority. Has that childhood faith, you know, that they would always protect you, that you came first, survived what you now know and found out about what they did and when they did it.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

It has definitely been complicated. Has it survived? I think I still believe that my parents wanted to protect me. I still believe that they loved me. I still believe that they. That on some level I was at the center of their minds about their hopes and dreams for the future. But I think probably a lot of kids realized later in life that their parents had secret priorities, other commitments that preceded them and that therefore competed with their parents allegiance to their children. For me, it's definitely been a process of realizing not only were my parents deeply, deeply committed to their cause. Fighting the war, fighting racism, no matter what the costs, they had made those promises long before I was born, long before they even thought about having children. So for them, even though they were now parents, even Though their priorities had changed when some of their former comrades, especially black comrades in the black underground, like in the Black Liberation army, came back to them and said, we really need your help now. It was almost impossible for my parents to say no. So has my faith in them been shaken? It hasn't been shaken because I always knew that they had these deep commitments. It has certainly been complicated to learn that those commitments sometimes came at the cost of risking our family's safety.

[Jon Favreau]

You write about this and talked about this in Mother Country Radicals, but your adopted brother, chesa Boudin, was 14 months old, left with a babysitter the day his parents went out and never came home. Three people died in the robbery that hit him. His parents were part of two officers in a guard. His mother, Kathy Bedine, was eventually paroled. And you write about this years later. She ended up caring for your daughter at 14 months, which was the exact age Chesa was when she left him. She told you she'd look at your daughter and think, how could I have done that? What was it like to watch the person who lost her own child that way become a person that you just trusted with yours?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

It was a journey. And you know, John, as a father yourself, like when you have a young child, you. You, all your priorities are shifting in this, in this dramatic way. And you can't help but think when you hear a story like that, when you hear that somebody left their 14, 16 month old child with a babysitter and went out to rob a bank, if you have an infant or a toddler yourself, you can't help but think, that's insane. Like, that sounds just crazy. How could you do something like that? And so it was strange because I knew Kathy very well. She was like a second mother to me growing up, even though she was in prison. And I loved her and I trusted her, but she had done this unthinkable thing, you know, decades earlier, before I had my children, before I was even conscious of it. So I had to kind of reckon with that and think about these big questions of like, can somebody change? And what had those decades in prison done for her and to her? And my wife and I talked about it a lot, and we did decide that she ended up being the best caretaker for our daughter because she was so devoted, so committed. She was kind of a grandmother at that point, and she had changed a lot. So, yeah, I think for me, I don't know if I could have written this story or written about my family story until I was a father myself, until I was Old enough to have some perspective on what those kinds of decisions mean.

[Jon Favreau]

What do you think the change was and what caused the change? Is it sort of distance from the time when they were all in the Weather Underground? Was it thinking through the strategies and the political philosophy they had at the time? Was it spending time in prison? Like, what. What do you. What do you think? Sort of has. And I'm sure it's different for every person you interviewed, but what's your. What was your general sense from. From talking to your parents, Kathy, and a lot of the other of their other former comrades?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Well, I think one thing I try to write about in the book is if there's one guiding question in the book, it's kind of what makes somebody a radical or a revolutionary? Like, what radicalizes somebody in that way? What. What convinces somebody that it's not enough to protest or to write articles or to demonstrate or to register people to vote, but that they have to do more? And I think it became clear to me, working on the book and knowing all these people as long as I've known them, that they had really gone down this road of radicalization in a way that had its own momentum and its own imperative. And by the time Kathy and David made that choice to, you know, to leave their kid behind and go out and rob a bank on behalf of the Black Liberation Army, I think they had really convinced themselves that there were no other choices. They had been in this kind of cocoon, this echo chamber, for quite a long time. And I think that sense of imperative, that sense of always pushing each other to go further and to do more had driven people quite crazy in a certain way. So I think if your question is, what changes somebody out of that? I do think there's a process of deprogramming. I also think age and wisdom. You know, Kathy had a long time in prison to think about what she had done and a lot of regrets and a lot of reparations to be made. And she spent a long time, to her great credit, you know, thinking about what she could have done differently, what she wished she'd done differently, and trying to make amends for some of her choices.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, it's funny. I think about this all the time now that I am a father and, you know, my eldest is five going on six. And I've even caught myself, because when he's like, oh, you know, you watch TV and even kids tv, it's like, there's the bad guys and the good guys. And so they say, oh, and, you know, he knows Enough about Donald Trump now. And he's like, oh, Trump is bad, right? Trump's a bad person. And even me, I'm like, trying to catch myself and I'm like, well, I don't know that anyone is good or bad. People do good and bad things, and they can do both. And I do think figuring that out is important, not just when you're talking about people that we would all say are bad people, but that people who make mistakes and do bad things can come back from it, you know?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Absolutely. And obviously somebody like Trump tests our empathy and our ability to see that. But I agree with you. I mean, it's incumbent upon all of us as thinking people and as empathetic people to look at people's most difficult choices. I mean, my brother Chesa, who's, you know, been a, a public defender for, for much of his career, will say, you know, one of the things about defending people accused of crimes, it's not so much that they're innocent, that they didn't do the thing. It's usually more like this was one of the worst days of their lives and one of the worst choices they made. And so how do you reckon with that? You know, how do you unpack the idea that people can do very bad things and it doesn't fully define who they are as human beings?

[Jon Favreau]

Offline is brought to you by Quints. The warm weather is finally here, so it's time to change up your wardrobe rotation. Quints has you covered for all the high quality pieces to upgrade your closet at shockingly great prices. We're talking 100% European linen shorts and shirts starting at $34 and clean 100% Pima cotton tees with the softness that you simply need to for yourself. Their pants also hit that same balance. Relaxed and comfortable, but still polished enough to wear pretty much anywhere. Everything is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Quint works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're getting premium materials without the markup. You recently got any Quint clothing?

[Tommy]

I bought a bunch of Quint's stuff for Christmas presents. I got my mom and Hannah. Really nice cashmere sweaters. Got some workout T shirts for myself. Got a lot of stuff from Quince.

[Jon Favreau]

They have a new sweater, Polo. How is it? That's really nice. It's like a good sort of in between. Sometimes it's a little chilly, so you need the material a little heavier. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I bought it the other day. I really like it. You should think about refreshing your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quints.com offline for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com offline for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com offline offline is brought to you by 3 Day Blinds. At this point we can shop for groceries, furniture and even cars from home. So why is shopping for blinds still stuck in the Victorian era? Three Day blinds solve that problem. Three Day Blinds are the leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the US Their incredible team of local, professionally trained design consultants have an average of 10 plus years of experience allowing them to provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you in the comfort of your home. Just set up an appointment and you'll get a free no obligation quote the same day. DIY projects can be fun, but measuring and installing blinds can be a big challenge. The Expert team at 3 Day Blinds handles all the heavy lifting. They design, measure and install so you can sit back, relax and leave it to the pros. Love three Day Blinds. Have some three day blinds in the office? I used them a long time ago, before they were ever a sponsor. It was fantastic. You go online, someone comes to your house, they. They help you pick out the blinds. They come back, they install them. It's informable. It's like no muss, no fuss.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Yeah.

[Tommy]

And look, during the Victorian era, the sun never set on the British Empire. Right when it rises we have three day blinds.

[Jon Favreau]

That's why you. Yeah. And so you need sun out of your. So they're more important now than in the Victorian era. For sure. For sure. I don't think there were blinds back then, but who knows. Yeah.

[Tommy]

Sticks.

[Jon Favreau]

Here's the thing. Three Day Blinds has been a trusted brand for over 45 years. So not quite the Victorian era, but they have helped over 2 million people get the window treatments of their dreams. Right now. Get quality window treatments that fit your budget with 3 Day Blinds. Head to 3dayblinds.com offline for their buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blind shade shutters and drapery for a free, no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to three day blinds.com offline one last time. That's buy one get one 50% off when you head to the number 3D a Y blinds.com offline. Your father, Bill Ayers, his whole account of sort of the leap to violence is the way he explains it is Like a widening circle of empathy so that, you know, Vietnamese kids at the time, because the Vietnam War was going on, you say that Vietnamese kids matter as much as the kids in his classroom. That's a more, I would say, generous explanation that makes the violence or the choice of, you know, armed resistance sound like merely, like, compassion taken too far. Do you buy that? Like, is that the whole story, or do you think that's the most generous version of it?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Well, so here's the argument that. That you're talking about is that, like, we can all imagine circumstances where we would do almost anything to protect somebody who was threatened, right? So, again, as fathers ourselves, we can imagine that we would basically do anything, risk our lives to save our own kids, right? So then I guess the question is, let's say you widen the circle of empathy a little bit, and you say, what about your neighbors? What about your, you know, the other people in your village? And, of course, people throughout history have laid down their lives, picked up arms to defend their village. Then you say, what about the borders of the country? And many people in this country would say, even many people on the right would say yes. To defend our country, we should be willing to do anything to, you know, to fight, to die. I think what my dad would say is, when the Vietnam War was happening, he thought that there was a genocide being perpetrated in his name by his country, and thousands of people were being killed senselessly. And many of them were innocent women and children and innocent citizens and old people. And they were hearing things like the massacre at My Lai, and they were hearing about babies being napalmed. So that can. If you start to think of those people as members of your human community, it can drive you quite crazy. And I say that in both directions. I say, I can understand it, because why shouldn't that drive us crazy if people are being senselessly killed by our own government? On the other hand, I think if it drives you crazy and you lose your capacity to make moral judgments or to, you know, stop yourself before you cross your own lines of rationality or morality, that can be a very dangerous thing as well.

[Jon Favreau]

It's such a fascinating line. Like, it's a fascinating question of where people draw the line and why and how. Right? Because you could see, even if you extend that circle of empathy to, you know, there's a massacre happening in Vietnam. Well, yes, if there's something you can do directly to stop the killing of the kids in Vietnam or people in Vietnam, then you could get yourself there. But to get yourself to the Point where you're like, well, if I plant a bomb in the Pentagon or bomb a townhouse or do any of the other actions, then this will slow down a government that is ordering this and that. I mean, that just. That is a place that a lot of that most people don't go.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Absolutely. And I do. I think it's both a fascinating sort of philosophy, thought experiment, and actually a really relevant question for our own moment. You know, because you think about. I mean, of course, the example my parents often draw on is John Brown and the fight against slavery and the people, you know, or even Nat Turner or something like, if people who are willing to take up arms to fight against slavery, I think many of us can understand that intuitively. Or even the armed partisans and underground under Nazi occupied France, of course they should be fighting back against fascism. And you can draw your lines. You could say, well, they certainly shouldn't target civilians and so on. And I think that's valid. But I think most of us would say, if things get bad enough, if the crimes being perpetrated are bad enough, if the government oppression and authoritarianism has gotten bad enough, people not only can, but probably should resist it with whatever means they have. So then it becomes this very complicated line of, like, I don't believe that our country is Nazi Germany. You know, I think we still have a semi functioning democratic process that people can participate in, and there are other ways to go about enacting change. But then I think about other lines. I think about, well, what about, you know, Dr. Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement, he had a strategy of nonviolence, which I admire tremendously, but they were also facing a situation where they were not allowed to participate in the democratic process in very meaningful ways. So you have to find new ways of trying to enact change. And I think that's what we're all dealing with right now is what is the best way to resist and what is the best way to make a better future. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm also fascinated by, even within a given social and political movement, the psychology that makes some activists choose violence and others choose nonviolence. So with your parents, and you write about this in the book, sort of the FBI killing Fred Hampton, leader of the Black Panthers at the time, is the tipping point for your parents and a lot of the Weather Underground folks. But there were just as many activists in the same movement who reacted to that murder by saying, we have to stick with nonviolence. Did you get a better sense from your interviews of the thinking that led your parents and others to cross the Rubicon and maybe others that they knew at the time to decide not to.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

I did, absolutely. And I interviewed people on both sides of that divide, and I think I can empathize with both sides of that divide. I think, you know, for white activists in particular, there was this sense of. For my parents, the solidarity with the Black Panthers was fundamental to their political struggle and their self identity. Right. They. They saw themselves fundamentally as white student activists willing to sacrifice to help the black freedom struggle. And my mom, actually, when she was helping run SDS Students for Democratic Society, one of her first acts as a new leader of that group was to join Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition of activist groups. She wanted to be a white ally. We would now call an ally, what they called comrades to the black freedom struggle. And she and Fred became friends and they worked together and they helped each other and they shared information and they shared a printing press in Chicago. So they were actively kind of engaged in this strategy of. I mean, it was, at that time, I would say it was nonviolent, although it was confrontational. I mean, of course, the Panthers were carrying guns and they were not nonviolent in the way Dr. King was nonviolent, but they were not bombing buildings or attacking police officers. And then the United States government, the FBI, and the Chicago police murdered Fred Hampton. I mean, they literally had an informant drug him with a sedative. And while he was sleeping, they came to his apartment and started shooting through the door. And then after they shot him with his pregnant girlfriend lying next to him, they came in, saw that he was still breathing, and shot him again at the point blank range. So you need to kind of understand that, to set the scene for what activists at the time thought was happening. I mean, you think about all of us now watching ICE raids, watching the, you know, National Guard being deployed or whatever, and then you think watching a repressive authoritarian government come in and just murder an activist in cold blood. I think a lot of people felt at that time, well, we are in Nazi Germany, like the gloves are off and the government is going to go around and assassinate leaders who threaten them. Right. So there was this divide, as you say. Some people said, okay, well that's terrifying. But we have to push forward with this strategy of mass movement, mass mobilization, and non violence. And that, I think, is a sensible decision even in the face of that kind of terror. And some people decided, no, we have to make a clandestine revolutionary force that can fight back against this terror on its own terms. And that's the path my parents took.

[Jon Favreau]

So these are. And so far, we've been talking about the moral and ethical dimensions of these questions and debates. And, you know, what each individual decides about morality is based in their environment, who they are. Religious beliefs.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Religion.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, right. A whole. Like a whole bunch goes into it. These are also questions of political strategy for people in a movement. And I wonder, like, when you look at the political left today, do you see any evidence that your parents and the Weather Underground actually had a lasting impact on sort of the thought and strategy and sort of the way that, or even the critique that the left has of systemic racism, of American imperialism, et cetera?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Yeah, I think. I mean, I would say there's a dual legacy here. Right. And the people who are very critical of the Weather Underground, many of whom I've talked to, would say something like, the Weather Underground helped factionalize the left, divide the left, and in their embrace of violence, turned a lot of people against the anti war movement and the civil rights movement, you know, normies, people who were sort of on the sidelines, but couldn't possibly stomach bombing the Pentagon, for example. Right. So in that analysis, the Weather Underground hurt the movement by splitting apart large organizations and by driving away more moderate members of the coalition. And I think there is some truth to that, but I think there's also an element where some of the legacy of the radical movements of the 60s, not just the Weather Underground, the Panthers and other groups, the young lords, is this idea of radical racial solidarity. The critique of police violence that we saw re erupt after George Floyd's murder very much originated with the Panthers and the Weather Underground and a sort of a new understanding of what the police were being used to do in this country against marginalized groups. I think also that period, not the Weather Underground specifically, but that period of radical activism led to what we now think of as like the new waves of feminism, of queer liberation, of anti colonial thinking. So, yes, the legacy is complicated, but I think that in. In a lot of ways that the defining legacy was oppose the Vietnam War with everything we have and try to fight for black liberation at any cost. And I think those legacies are still with us. In fact, they're so much still with us that now a lot of people claim they were always against the war and would have done anything to stop the war, and that they were always against racism and were for solidarity with black people. But at the time, those were very unpopular and rare qualities in white activists.

[Jon Favreau]

In the book, Mark Rudd, who was a leader of Students for a Democratic Society, sds, until they split into the more militant faction the Weather undergrad calls the sds. Split. The single greatest mistake I've made in my life, a historical crime. Do you think the violence cost the movement more than it ever won?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

I think that the violence is not one thing. It's not a monolith. So, I mean, I think there were moments where they crossed a different Rubicon that really did cost the movement and cost the individuals involved. And like, well, one example, after my parents. We talked about this, after my parents turned themselves in, after we surfaced, some members of the movement, including Kathy and David and some former members of the Black Liberation army, took part in this bank robbery, the Brinks robbery that, you know, that killed three men, two security guards, and a police officer. Now, not only was that a moral tragedy from the perspective of, you know, killing men who were just out there doing their jobs, orphaning children, widowing wives, it also destroyed what was left of the movement at that time. You know, so that was a Rubicon that, unquestionably, in retrospect, it was counterproductive and morally catastrophic. But when you say the violence, if that stretches all the way back to, you know, the Panthers taking up guns, to firebombing police cars, to blowing up the Haymarket statue before the days of rage, I don't know. I think those actually were moments when the larger movement was galvanized by a sense of, we have to do more. I'll tell you one funny example. When the Weather Underground bombed the State Department. Nixon's State Department, Kissinger's State Department. You know, this was a bomb that went off in an empty bathroom. A warning call beforehand to make sure nobody got hurt. And, of course, Nixon and Kissinger were outraged by this, but they were, you know, dropping thousands of tons of bombs on Vietnam every day at that point. The next day, there were something like 2000 bomb threats against government buildings all across the country. Those were not Weather Underground bomb threats. Those were just copycats. People who saw the State Department get bombed and thought, yeah, I'm that against the war also. I also think we should be doing that. So I don't think that that kind of thing necessarily cost the movement. I think that was a moment when it actually expressed a collective rage that people had about what the government was doing.

[Jon Favreau]

Your mother, at one point compares the moment when a more militant faction of the Weather Underground sort of turned on her later in the movement. I believe it was in the late 70s, and she compared it to, quote, what's happening right now in the movement. Where Right and everybody else is wrong. It's horrible, isn't it? Loaded sentence coming from her.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

It is. It is. And I was struck by it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. What did you make of it?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

You know, it was interesting because of course, my mother, on some level, she's associated with some of the deepest factional splits that happened in the movement at that time. Most notably when she split sds, which at the time was the largest student protest organization in the country. She split it in half to follow the leadership of the Black Panthers and, you know, and formed Weathermen. And a lot of people still think of that as a. As a. Like, including Mark Rudd. Think of that as a terrible decision because it split this larger movement. My mother doesn't regret that. She thinks that following the kind of vanguard of the black freedom movement was what they should have been doing and that that was the right idea. But factionalism, as you know, John, is like one of the longtime Achilles heels of leftist progressive movements. Right. This idea that like, like we're going to pursue ideological purity at all costs. We're going to pursue identity over collective solidarity and, you know, break ourselves into smaller and smaller groups of more and more committed activists. And you do see that happening today. And whatever you want to call it, you know, cancel culture or sort of purity tests or call out culture, it's destructive to movements. And even my mom sees that. You know, she sees it now. She sees that when a collective struggle with everybody trying to fight for a better world becomes an internal struggle where everybody's turning on themselves over increasingly petty disputes, that can't be the way forward for a progressive movement.

[Jon Favreau]

Offline is brought to you by himss. If you want to know what's really worth your time when it comes to losing weight, skip the guesswork and get weight loss by HIMS. HIMS offers access to an affordable range of FDA approved GLP1 medications that now includes the Wegovy pill at its lowest price ever and the WeGovy pen. Plus lifestyle tips to support you along the way. That's a good deal. Through hims, everything happens online. You'll connect with a licensed provider who will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your medication is delivered right to your door, no insurance necessary. Hims makes hitting your goals seamless by offering access to 24.7 messaging with your care team and an in app lifestyle and nutrition support like recipes, meal plans, fitness videos, sleep content and more. With a range of affordable GLP1 options, HIMSS makes it simple to find a weight loss approach that fits into your world and your wallet. If eligible, you'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed. Ready to reach your goals? Visit himss.com offline to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you that's H I M S.com offline himss.com offline based on advertised cash price for 30 day supply of medication only, membership required, fee not included, and billed separately. Weight loss by HIMSS is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk as To get started and learn more, including important safety information, WeGovy clinical study information and restrictions, visit HIMSS.com Premier hosts on VRBO deliver quality vacation rental stays with fast responses and clear instruction.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Oh, I had a question, our host replied.

[Jon Favreau]

Super quick premier move. Wish I had a premier group chat.

[VRBO Sponsor Voice]

They won't even write me back.

[Jon Favreau]

Book a top rated stay with a premier host. If you know, give herbo. How do you think that the fact that all of this is being mediated by the Internet social media today has changed some of these dynamics from your parents day? Because I will say, when we were talking earlier and you mentioned how you're in this sort of information environment and you kind of egg each other on in these groups to become more and more radical and it's this echo chamber, it did make me think I was like, well I like to blame the Internet for this today, but back then I guess it didn't take a bunch of online groups and algorithms and all that to, to radicalize people. They radicalized each other just by being in close contact.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

That was my takeaway as well. I mean, I think, I do think there's, there's, I'm sure we could find ways that the Internet supercharges and kind of like spreads the spores of that kind of militancy and radicalization and internal infighting further than than it used to. But you're exactly right that in their own analog pre Internet way the dynamics were very similar. The same kind of like, you know, mutually reinforced information environment. The same kind of process of radicalization where you're only listening to the most militant hardcore voices and they're and, and nobody who's, who's arguing a counter argument or who's advocating moderation is listened to. In fact, they're expelled from the group and canceled and not allowed to be part of that discussion. So yeah, I think these dynamics were happening long before the Internet and unfortunately I think they'll be happening for quite some time to come.

[Jon Favreau]

What does your mom think of the movement right now. What is. What are her thoughts on. On sort of current leftist social and political movements?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

I mean, I think she's like all of us watching kind of the. The political situation unfold, sometimes with disgust and horror and sometimes with a certain measure of inspiration. I know, for example, she was incredibly impressed and delighted by the resistance in Minneapolis when the ICE raids were happening. And not only the very visible sacrifice of people like Alex Preddy and Renee Goode, but the sort of organizing for a kind of ad hoc resistance movement where people were literally developing communication networks and mutual solidarity societies and figuring out how they could know when ICE raids were happening and how they could resist those. That was interesting and impressive because you could see ordinary people suddenly realizing, like, we have to get smarter and get more hardcore and we have to figure out how to resist, not just online and not just in the democratic political process as a kind of, if you define that narrowly as the voting booth, but in the larger sense of direct action, political participation. And so, yeah, I think she was inspired by that kind of thing.

[Jon Favreau]

I remember having conversations with you during the production of Mother country radicals about January 6th and the black Lives Matter protests, which were mostly peaceful, but just the general rise of political violence at the time. Since then, we've seen the assassination of a healthcare CEO of Charlie Kirk, multiple attempts on Donald Trump, and each time, as there have been throughout history, there's a small but vocal contingent on the left that either celebrates or glorifies or seemingly justifies the violence, or at least makes the case for armed resistance based on moments throughout history, like the period that you've chronicled. And I wonder, like, what do you make of that? And what do you think? What do your parents make of that?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Yeah, I don't know what my parents make of that specifically, but I think. Well, what I would say about it is I spent a lot of time in the book, as I said, thinking about what radicalizes people. And one thing that I think should be very familiar to listeners today is my parents and their friends spent the entire 1960s resisting nonviolently. Right? I mean, most of them, by 1968, they had spent their entire adult lives. And by adult, I mean their adolescence and their early twenties they had spent trying to organize against the Nix administration, against the Vietnam War, against, you know, the Justice Department, the out of control Justice Department and white Southern vigilantes and the Ku Klux Klan, all the things that were happening at the time, all the visible signs of injustice in this country. And they had organized protests and sit ins and die ins and all these things, and nothing seemed to be working. Things were getting worse. Right. And I do think that what I see happening, and this is not a justification, it's just kind of an explanation is young people especially, who feel increasingly disenfranchised by the political process and who feel that their efforts are in vain and that the world is sliding down a terrifying precipice. That is a recipe for radicalization. And I think, again, I don't justify violence, especially against innocent people, but I think when you build a political system where people don't feel heard and where they feel like they have no options, you are. You are creating an environment that is going to encourage that kind of justification of violence. So I think that's a cautionary tale for the left, but I think it's a cautionary tale for the government too, because I think there's a sense in this administration of like, these are isolated, lone wolf things happening and we should just crack down even harder. But the environment is such that you're just creating this cycle of radicalization.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, the cycle part is right, because there's a very thin line, and sometimes it's not even visible, between seeking to understand why radicalization occurs and violence occurs, or the justification of violence happens and you can explain it in a way that I think makes sense to people. And then it's okay, well, this is the environment, this is the government that is doing this. These are the policies, this is what's leading to this. And yet people have agency. And you want to make sure that everyone always remembers that we have agency.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Absolutely.

[Jon Favreau]

And then it's like, and if we

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

could talk to those people, I would want to encourage that kind of agency and moral reckoning. But you think about school shooters or something, and it's like, of course morally unacceptable and despicable, but if, if every time there's a school shooting, all we say is, well, that person shouldn't have done that. And they should have been, you know, that's just not. It's not a useful policy prescription. Like, we need to address some of the root causes as well.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And I think talking, I mean, I'm now thinking about. I had this. Got a little too much attention. But I had this conversation with Hasan Piker on Pod Save America. And you know, when he said, you know, Hamas is a thousand times better than Israel, I was like, okay, well, this is not. I do not agree with that. And my point was just from a pure political perspective, and this goes back to sort of in a different way, but there's parallels with, did the Weather Underground achieve more than it hurt the movement? And it's like, do we think that the Palestinian people are better off because of what Hamas did? Do we know why Hamas has chosen the path of armed resistance? Yeah, you can get to the point where you understand that, but do we think that was good for nevermind Israel and the rest of the world, but just the Palestinian people themselves? And I wonder if sometimes I try to do the. Maybe the political case is better to persuade people, if the moral case isn't going to persuade people. But it's hard to separate the understanding how it happens with encouraging change in a way that is not going down that path to violence.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Absolutely. It's hard to separate. And it's especially hard to separate it, you know, when you're dealing in sound bites and when arguments are reduced to their barest essentials. I mean, one of the reasons I wrote the book, I don't expect the kind of arguments I make in the book to be distilled either in good faith or effectively in a single sound bite. Right. Because I do think these issues are complicated. But I think the analogy is an interesting one. I also think think you think about the violence of the Israeli government over the last couple of years, but over the last many decades. And you know, again, it's not a justification. It's more of a sense of when you look back at the history of the Weather Underground, what they were seeing was an ongoing oppression and an ongoing genocide carried out by their own government, violence funded by their parents and their own tax dollars. And a lot of them eventually decided, like this cannot go on in our names. We cannot live in a society, in a country that is murdering innocent people overseas. And I think you see that with young people today. So is that a justification of violence? I don't think it is at all. I think it's more of just a factual statement that if you for decades oppress a people and use government violence to commit atrocities, and then the only violence you're willing to critique is the violence that comes as a result of that. That feels unbalanced to me. You know, I think if you're going to be seriously nonviolent, you have to be openly, you know, opposing the violence of a government like Israel's in the

[Jon Favreau]

easier way or the way that it gets talked about in a more simplistic way is, you know, along lines of race and ethnicity and religion and nationality. But, you know, like you said, this is. I mean, there's Israelis who are horrified about what their own government is doing. Just like there are Americans right now, horrified by what. Just like there were Americans in the

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

60s all the time. I mean, yeah, you think about how if people outside America are looking at us, at which they are, and saying, well those people are responsible for the choices of their government. That's a horrifying thought. And so of course it's not all Israelis, you know, and certainly not all Jews around the country or the globe. It's a specific hard right government that has pursued fundamentally self destructive as well as immoral policies.

[Jon Favreau]

You mentioned at the end of the book that your 17 year old daughter got hate mail and calls for her expulsion from school because she published a piece in the school newspaper about Luigi Mangione. Your daughter Daelyn's art school classmates asked why she'd want to memorialize terrorists. Both of them are now wrestling with this legacy the way that you and your brothers did. What do you actually want them to take from the book and what do you hope they leave behind?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Well, so it's funny, I mean the book is the legacy that I'm hoping I can pass on to them in the sense that it's my attempt to digest this very complicated story and distill it for them in a way that, that is comprehensible. Of course they love their grandparents. I love my parents and I want them to understand how their grandparents became the people they became. I mean I spend quite a bit of time in the book describing my mother's coming of age and that incredible path from sort of high school, straight A student, first person in her family ever to go to college. White suburban kid believing in the American dream all the way to FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitive and most dangerous woman in America. How does that happen? I want my, my kids to understand that their grandparents weren't always those people and kind of how that that path happened. Also that they are quite extraordinary people in their way. That they, that they made choices that were very difficult sometimes. Choices I don't agree with. But that, that fundamentally there's a couple things that I think that we can, that we. And that certainly my children can certainly take from this story. One is this central insight of the absolute responsibility of white people in America to stand up for racial justice. And how rarely that happens even now and how important it is that all of us attempt to do that. The second thing is just the idea of that change is possible and that radical imagination is still a necessity and that only young people can really bring that, I mean most of us by the time we get to our age, even, we are starting to accommodate ourselves to the world as it is. And the great thing about young people is that they look around at the world that they've inherited and they instinctively think, well, what do I want the world to be? And I think that's a really useful starting point for them and for all of us.

[Jon Favreau]

This year's best picture winner, One Battle After Another, loosely based off Vineland, is also about the child of revolutionaries. I thought about you and Mother country radicals when the movie first came out, and I saw does seem to strike a more optimistic note about radical activism and families involved in that. And I wonder, as someone, who is that child? How does that optimism hit with you?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Well, it's funny. Yeah. I mean. So one battle after another is. I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson, Leonardo DiCaprio have been very open about the fact that it was inspired by the Weather Underground. And Teyana Taylor, who played Perfidia Beverly Hills, has talked about how her character was inspired by Assata Shakur. So it's very much a fictionalized version of this story and of course, updated to a different time period, and it's ahistorical in all sorts of ways, but it is this story or it's a version of this story. I think you're right that it strikes an optimistic note, or at least the note that I took from it is. Is a note I'm very sympathetic to or familiar with, which is the next generation is gonna have to take that complicated, slightly failed revolutionary mess that their parents left them and try to make something better. I mean, to me, the ending of that movie is about young people going off to the barricades again and hopefully doing a better job than their flawed parents and grandparents did before them. I'm sure, you know, John, that the title of One Battle After Another was taken from a statement from the Weather Underground following the Days of Rage, when they said, from here on in, it's one battle after another with white youth joining the black people and the streets and fighting the police.

[Jon Favreau]

You frame revolution as a contronym. Radical change versus a body coming right back around to where it began. After writing the whole thing, which one do you actually believe in?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

I believe. I hate to say I believe in both. I believe that history is cyclical and that times of wild, radical change inspire backlash. I think we're very much living right now through a period of backlash. Backlash against racial progress, backlash against gender progress. And so I don't believe with Marx or even with Dr. King that there's like, A constant bend towards justice or a kind of a historical progress that is inevitable. I think we have to fight for each other, each bit of historical progress we get. And I think that there will always be setbacks, but I don't believe that it's cyclical in the sense that we're always going to come back to where we began. I believe that we can make progress. I believe we have made progress. One of the things about writing this book is that it made me realize as bad as things are right now in this country, they absolutely have been worse. And the kind of. The absolutely out of control justice department of the 1960s and 1970s, we would be appalled by what was happening. You know, I mean, terrible things are happening right now, but they were actually murdering people. They were actually. They were breaking the law in a million ways that were clear at the time. And. And the oppression of black people at that time was militarized and. And explicit in a way that we can barely comprehend even a generation later. So I say that to say, as bad as things are right now, we have made progress. I think we will continue to make progress. I believe in revolution, in the sense of constant progress of both humanity and of this country.

[Jon Favreau]

I've always been struck, since we've known each other, how hopeful you seem as someone who has been through what you've been through since you were a child on the run. And it feels like you could have easily gone in a direction of either feeling very cynical about politics and everything in a way that you wanted to just detach from it, or a direction maybe like your parents went, and believing that only sort of radical revolution, armed resistance, is the only path. What do you think has made you sort of have the outlook that you do today?

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

I don't know all the factors, but I will say that I interviewed for the book and for the podcast, a bunch of kids in similar situations, of course, my brother Chesa, but also Kuku Shakur, the daughter of Assata Shakur, Ty Jones, the son of Eleanor Stein and Jeff Jones, other Weathermen. And one thing I kept finding over and over is that almost all of the kids of the Weathermen and of the Black Panthers have a kind of an optimism to them or a sort of. They believe in some kind of change, even when they're disillusioned by some of the tactics of their parents, some of the fallout for their own families. Almost every one of them became an artist or an activist or a social worker or a poet, somebody who feels like they are trying in their small way to change the world to make things better. Very few of them, none of them that I know of became armed revolutionaries. I think it wasn't the time for it in the sense of a historical context. And I think many of us were disillusioned by some of the things we saw growing up. But all that said, one thing you can't say about my parents or many members of those undergrounds is that they were hypocrites. They were not hypocrites. They believed deeply in what they were doing. And I think teenagers react against hypocrisy more than anything else. The rebellions you see against people's parents tend to be when they are not who they say they are, when their ideals don't match their actions. And I think most of us feel like for all our parents, flaws and contradictions, they are idealists. They believe in what they say and what they believe is fundamentally the right thing. Anti racism, anti war, struggle for a better world. Those are things that I think we all still believe in.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. And certainly things that we want our children to believe about us.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Absolutely.

[Jon Favreau]

Zaydoran, thank you so much as always, for chatting. And the book is dangerous, dirty, violent and young. Everyone go check it out. It's a fantastic book and it'll really make you think. So. Thanks for writing it.

[Zaid Ayersdorn]

Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

[Jon Favreau]

Take care. Offline is a crooked media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Emma Ilech Frank Offline. Austin Fisher is our senior producer and Anisha Banerjee is our associate producer. Audio support from Charlotte Landis. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Matt De Groat is our VP of production. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Delon Villanueva, Eric Schutt and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos. Every week, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America. Sam.