Dana Goldberg (19:52)

We'll be right back.

Alison Gill (19:54)

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Dana Goldberg (21:39)

I'm all right, Allison. Thank you for having me on and thank you for this conversation.

Alison Gill (21:44)

Thanks for coming on. How are you? Is a loaded question these days because things are kind of not going very well. And I wanted to talk to you about, first of all, I think the news that's top of mind for everyone, and we'll get into more depth with NIH in a minute, is the absolute gutting of fda, cdc, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the Department of Health and Human Services yesterday. And we can get into a more umbrella discussion about RFK Jr. Himself and his plans for this gutting, the HIV AIDS office, getting rid of the vaccine specialist and all that. But talk to me about what you're seeing at your institution with regard to this absolute gutting of the cdc, for example.

Dana Goldberg (22:32)

Yeah. So I'm gonna start with how am I? Because actually it reminds me of a question my therapist asked me last week during my session. I'm like, I don't know, I guess kind of troubled because I keep waking up at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning and I can't go back to sleep, you know, because my mind is spinning about all the stuff that's going on in the country. So, so that answers my emotion. That's my emotional response to you. How are things? Things are not surprising, I will say that. But public health is under attack. Healthcare is under attack. People who are marginalized, you know, in our society because of their race or their gender or their sexuality are under attack. And you know, at our, at my school in particular, we've had five grants that have been lifted from us. And so how we're doing is we are struggling to make sense of what is going on because there is no rhyme or reason, or maybe there is a rhyme or reason for why these things are going on, but this is just out of the playbook of Donald Trump, of everything he's promised would happen in this country. It is under the umbrella of we're going to make the federal government leaner. But if you were making the federal government leaner, you wouldn't be so targeted in your attacks. And what we are seeing is attacks on public health, attacks on infectious disease attacks, attacks on vaccination, attacks on transgender people, attacks on diversities. These are all very targeted attacks intended to undermine what the MAGA base, I believe, wants to be undermined. And the President is doing just that.

Alison Gill (24:15)

Yeah. And let's start with. We'll get to these five grants and how that's impacting you. But let's start out with kind of the Alphabet soup here. And I wanted to talk about the eis, which is the Epidemic Intelligence Service. Right. This is if everybody's seen shows or documentaries about how they sent people out from the CDC to find out and triangulate and battle the outbreak of Legionnaires disease, for example, or the hantavirus that came out in certain areas at one point and they were able to track down the source of it and how to prevent it from happening again, and then to work on mitigation. Talk a little bit about the impact of gutting this program, the EIS program, because what is this like a two year training program for folks to come in and learn how to go out and track down the sources of disease, of infectious disease.

Dana Goldberg (25:11)

Right. Surveillance. Right. And so it's like one of those fundamental skills we teach in our schools, which is outbreak investigation and.

Alison Gill (25:17)

Right.

Dana Goldberg (25:18)

And you think about like the early days of AIDS and you think about COVID and you think about the Ebola outbreak that happened. And what happened was that these individuals who are trained in this regard were able to speak to people, interview people, look at vectors of infection, and were able to then identify what exactly was going on and to identify in terms of hiv, which I think is the best example that this was a virus that was causing this disease. And you know, for those of us who are old enough, we'll remember the first few years of aids, it was like nobody was really clear what was causing it. But this, in these investigative teams allowed this to happen. And once you identify, once you identify the cause of an infection, then you can go about developing tools to control it, which include vaccines and treatments, and most importantly, figure out how it is transmitted from person to person. And so without any of that knowledge, we're shooting in the dark. It is particularly problematic at this moment, I think, because, let's be frank, Covid still exists. The next big infection is just around the block and quite frankly, bird flu, you know, H1N5 is still a work in progress, and one mutation makes it much more harmful potentially than we're seeing right now. So without this, we don't have the knowledge base, and we don't know how to approach disease in our country in an effective way.

Alison Gill (26:35)

Yeah, because, like, after I start to hear about an outbreak, you know, I went to school for public health, too. My first question is, what's the R naught? What's the R naught? So that I, you know, we. And. And without this team of people, we don't know. And that. That scares the bejesus out of me.

Dana Goldberg (26:54)

But also, you know what else it does? It allows, in this moment of misinformation, for misinformation to prevail. Right. So we'll all remember the COVID days when, like, we were worried about shopping bags coming from the store. And I'll remember from the AIDS days, the toilet seats and the doorknobs. And without really having knowledge, without having science, those mythologies spread. And as a result, people make bad decisions based on bad information.

Alison Gill (27:22)

100%. All right, let's move on to the next acronym DEI and how diversity, equity, and inclusion removal from these things impacts health. You know, I worked at the VA for a long time. I'm right now working with a nonprofit to help get people who have been wrongfully terminated from the government resources. But there was a whole group of scientists and statisticians at the Department of Veterans affairs, for example, that would find out how, for example, like certain groups of veterans, whether they needed additional outreach because they weren't hearing about the benefits that they got, and because it just so happens that the people who don't get the information as fast as everybody else are in marginalized groups, that was considered diversity, equity, and inclusion. And even though this is just data on how to reach these folks to get them their benefits, they cut that whole program right out. And so talk about what you're seeing up at Rutgers and other universities as well.

Dana Goldberg (28:21)

So, yeah, I mean, so dei, you know, sort of has become synonymous with favoritism to, like, people of color and women and sexual minorities and gender minorities. And that's not what DEI is. And we think about diversity, equity, and inclusion in science, and whether we're talking about pharmaceutical science or what have you, we're talking about how it is that disease manifests in different segments of the populations and how different groups have vulnerability. Can you imagine, Allison, that if we had millions of dollars for hiv, which we may not have in a minute, but imagine we had millions of dollars of hiv. And we were targeting that money saying, oh, we're just going to give it to every population. Right. Well, but heterosexual men don't really get hiv, you know, and, you know, people of color are disproportionately affected by hiv. So diversity, equity, and inclusion is not this bad term. It just means recognizing that diseases and burdens of disease do not happen the same way in every segment of the population. Would you put. Would you put, I don't know, prostate.

Alison Gill (29:23)

Cancer research to a bunch of women?

Dana Goldberg (29:25)

Correct. Exactly right. And so this is the thing. This is the concern. We are not one people. We are not one type of person. We all have very different needs. And even within our population. Think about the population of women. Right? Population of women. Some are childbearing years, some are not childbearing years. Some are black, some are. Some are white, some are Latina. There's some English as a first. And everyone has very different needs. And. Right. So doing research, science and doing clinical programming that is attending to the vast diversity in our country is about tailoring and doing precision medicine, giving the person what they need in order to stay healthy. And, Allison, what you need is very different from what I need. And so without knowing that we're going to be doing these blanket programs like we did during COVID unfortunately, thinking like, we're just going to put the vaccine out there and everybody's going to take it. And we should have known perfectly well that different populations would respond in very different ways. And that kind of lack of tailoring made us, in some ways, fail in that regard, too. So it is a way of making sure that the wide variety of people who live in our country get the kind of care that they need. And we know. And we know. I'm going to talk about LGBTQ people in particular. If you're an LGBTQ person, if you're lucky enough to live in New York or LA or San Francisco or some big city, you're going to get tailored care with people who understand what LGBTQ people are. But if you're living in some, like, square red state, that's not happening for you. And so it's going to compromise the health of those most at risk for diseases, be it physical, infectious, or chronic.

Alison Gill (31:03)

Yeah. And if your goal is efficiency, that is the least efficient way to go about public health care.

Dana Goldberg (31:12)

If you. If you say, I have $1 million and I have $1 million on prostate cancer screening, and I know prostate cancer screening is really, really low, let's not even go to. Let's not even Go to race. Let's just go in like it. For people who live in rural counties in the United States, and you take that $1 million and you spread it out across the whole country, you're missing the people who are most vulnerable.

Alison Gill (31:38)

Agreed. And then my last acronym here, lgbtqia, it kind of falls under DEI and EIS and all the other acronyms we're talking about. But specifically talk about how these cuts not just to eis, but CDC in general, hhs, and then we're going to weave this into the National Institute of Health and those grants after that. But talk about how these sledgehammer cuts are impacting the LGBTQIA community.

Dana Goldberg (32:11)

Yeah, so it's a really interesting. I was at an interesting conversation we had at our school the other day about LGBTQ healthcare right now, and one of the themes that emerged from there was this, like, this thought that there's some insidious approach, when you think about that the MAGA folks are using and the Project 2025 people are using synonymous. When you think about LGBTQ rights over the course of its history, it's often been led by trans people. You think about Stonewall, you know, and you think about, like, you know, the groups that are most out there fighting for rights. And I think that what the insidiousness here is of this administration is it's trying to splinter LGBTQ people by turning lesbian, gay, bisexual folks against trans folks. And if you splinter them, then you weaken the population, because, quite frankly, a white CIS gay man is not gonna have the same, you know, drive impetus, you know, as a trans woman fighting for rights. And so the effect it's having is unless we stick together as a population, I am part of that population, we're going to be splintered and be less effective, and then they're going to chip away at the rights and the health care of trans people, and then eventually it's all going to spread. You see it already. You see it happening with the HIV funding. All of a sudden, our prevention, all the work we've done all these decades to keep people from getting hiv. Right. Is going to be undone because prevention is being taken apart. And who's most affected? Trans women and gay men and maybe affect trans women first, but it's going to affect gay men and. And quite frankly, it's going to affect the whole population ultimately, because, you know what? We just don't live in. We don't live in, like, little buckets by ourselves.

Alison Gill (33:51)

Yeah, we definitely don't. And I mean, it reminds me of when J.D. vance actually said, well, I think we're definitely going to get the normal gay guy vote out of this election Again, trying to splinter the lgbtq, trying to take. When they took the stone with a T out of. And the Q out of lgbtq and the Stonewall Memorial website page that. That kind of trying to split. And we see judges pushing back on this. I know Judge Reyes and Judge Settle have. Have said in their efforts to block the ban on transgender troops serving in the military because the government came and said it costs $8 million a year to care for a transgender soldier without providing how much it costs per year to take care of a white CIS soldier with tinnitus.

Dana Goldberg (34:41)

Right.

Alison Gill (34:41)

Or. Or how much, you know, Hegseth Viagra costs or whatever. And so without those numbers, and the judges are like, you. You give me one set of data with nothing else. Like, I don't know if you've ever written a paper before, Mr. Trump, but, you know, you need to have comparative data. And if you're going to give me five studies on why we should ban paper straws, but zero studies on why we should ban transgender people in the military, that makes absolutely no sense to me. You have no data, you have no science. There's nothing here to back this up. And even Mattis had written a bunch of white papers on showing that there was no impact on morale or health care or dollars or anything like that out of the. Out of the ordinary. All right, let's. Let's talk about what happened. And this. This is going back a little bit now because this. This FDA and CDC cuts are pretty fresh, but they're ongoing. But let's talk about the decimation of the NIH funding and how that's impacting education and.

Dana Goldberg (35:37)

Yeah.

Alison Gill (35:38)

Institutions.

Dana Goldberg (35:39)

So, you know, I mean, Since World War II, you know, we know that we've been like a machine for science here in the United States, developing knowledge and, you know, moving things forward. You know, whether we, like, whether we can. We may debate this with some activists, and I am one of those people about whether the response to AIDS was quick enough. There was a response, Right.

Alison Gill (35:58)

Eventually there was a response. Yeah.

Dana Goldberg (36:00)

Eventually. Eventually, Right. Eventually there was. There was eventually a treatment 15 years after. Right. The identification of virus maybe could have been a little faster. Right. Maybe we should have a vaccine right now. Okay, we can debate all that, but it happened because science allowed that to happen. So what we're seeing right now is about 1,000 grants that have received termination notices. Three of those grants are directly at my school dealing, and they've all received the same type of letter, which is this very nasty letter that basically says, we support real science. And basically your work you're doing is not real science, given some weird reason for defunding it. Like, it deals with gender identity, even though those don't. Grants do not. And they just have been making these, like, haphazard decisions and sending these letters out. So you've got these thousand grants. You, you know, you've first of all directly affected the health of the population that's being studied. Number two, you're affecting the ability of the scientist, the researcher to do the work that they've been trying to put forward. You are undermining, of course, you know, you know, the foundations of higher education, which is science and the development of knowledge, without, without this funding. And you're basically saying, we're just going to fund things that we like. Right. But here's the thing that is, to me, Allison, the thing that people should be most worried about. Yes, it may not affect you today. You may not care about a grant on pre exposure prophylaxis in trans women, because somehow in your, like, racist, homophobic brain, data shouldn't matter. But you chip away at one set of grants and you get away with it. You're going to chip away at all the grants. And if we don't think they're going to chip away at cancer research and they're going to take away at breast cancer research and prostate cancer research and Alzheimer's, they're going to chip away at all of it, and they're going to use this DEI umbrella, right, to sort of undermine all of it. So basically, what I think about all of this, I think it is a tactic to undermine science and to undermine the, the intellectual community of our country. Because people who have supported this president somehow feel that they've been betrayed or belittled by this intellectual community, when in fact this intellectual community has been working hard to try to keep them healthy and alive.

Alison Gill (38:23)

Yeah, I mean, I remember when DOGE rescinded a grant to, I think it was the Southern University in Louisiana. They were doing a study on synthetic hygiene products and developing alternatives to that because they were finding health problems and because they had one mention of, oh, by the way, transgender men sometimes menstruate, they just nixed the whole study.

Dana Goldberg (38:44)

Correct. Or you know what I'm saying, the COVID stuff, like, so this is, you know, obviously a sore point for this president and his administration. There is an ongoing, long Covid problem in this country.

Alison Gill (39:01)

Yeah.

Dana Goldberg (39:01)

We have so many people who are suffering for this. If the federal government defunds efforts in this regard to understand what this phenomenon is, those people are just going to get more sick and more sick and more sick. And ultimately their inability to work is going to be a burden. Much bigger burden potentially on the financial structure of this country than doing the work to try to keep them healthy.

Alison Gill (39:27)

Yeah. And then finally, let's wrap up with the idea that there's only two genders, which completely goes against all science that we know of and how that's going to impact future grants and studies.

Dana Goldberg (39:43)

Well, you know, I mean, this is just mind boggling to me, right? Because, you know, how long did it take us finally to get to a point where we realized that gender was fluid and you could be some partially masculine, partially feminine, partially male. It's like this idea that gender is just biologic biology, right? Based on the organ that you have between your legs, based on DNA. And even that's sketchy because we have intersex people is going to miss an enormous segment of the population that does not identify purely as male or purely as female. I think everybody identifies in some capacity with some combination of masculinity and femininity, whatever those things.

Alison Gill (40:29)

Well, even MAGA people do, right, if they think that there are alpha males and beta males, right? I mean, that course sort of says that the gender's on a spectrum, right?

Dana Goldberg (40:38)

But it's like we want, you know, it's like, you know, this idea that their people are either in a mailbox or a female box or sick box or not sick box, mentally healthy or none of that's not the way it is, right? And it's like everybody is on a spectrum for everything. Some people have high depression, some people have low depression. You know, it is like this dichotomization that is an artificial reality that's going to not only undermine how we think about gender and sexuality in this country, but it's going to really, really affect members of the population who are, you know, are non binary and are navigating this thing and trying to figure out exactly who they are and what they are and what they desire and who they, who, who they want to be. And so it goes.

Alison Gill (41:20)

It's hard to respond to, right? What is it so ridiculous, right?

Dana Goldberg (41:24)

It's like, oh, there's only, there's only like. It's like imagine say there's only like black dogs and white dogs. Well, that's not the case. There's all these in between dogs, right? And so it's this very nonsensical, just irrational and ultimately, let me tell you what I think it all is hateful, hateful, hateful, hateful. A way of diminishing people's lives and their identity.

Alison Gill (41:51)

Agreed. I appreciate you joining us today. Is there any advice or maybe something you can tell the listeners about what they can do to combat what's happening right now, specifically as it pertains to health. Public health.

Dana Goldberg (42:04)

Yeah. So, I mean, if you are really interested in this, there's a group of us who have founded an organization called Defend Public Health. We have over 3,000 people who are academics and practitioners. We have working groups, and we are an organizing grassroots organization, much like ACT UP was. And there's a few of us who are in this group from ACT up, from those ACT UP days. Look for Defend Public Health, join the Google group and partake in those conversations. And then I think the other thing is recognize that what work we have to do is try to change the hearts and minds of the people who are closest to us. Right. Because those are the people who are going to listen to us. Right. And I'll leave you with one story, Allison. I went to a wedding shower for my cousin's daughter about five years ago. It was like right after we were beginning to come out of COVID and I was sitting at a table and I was talking about vaccination, and there was somebody at the table who was a distant relative and his child and the child had been vaccinated and the father had not. And I said to the father, but do you know when to get sick and die of COVID You want to see your child grow up? And I think those empathetic approaches for the people in our lives to try to understand why they're making such poor health decisions, changing one heart and one mind is going to ultimately lead to millions of hearts and minds being changed.

Alison Gill (43:21)

Thank you so much. Yeah, we long, we've long talked about, you know, especially coming up on elections, that you got to talk to the people in your community one on one and, and sort of appeal to. To what matters to them. So thank you so much for, for talking to us today. I really appreciate it. It's been, it's been enlightening. Dr. Perry Halkidis, I appreciate you.

Dana Goldberg (43:41)

Thank you, Elton. I appreciate you.

Alison Gill (43:42)

Everybody. Stick around. We're going to be right back with the executive director of Swing Left to talk about their initiative they're launching today called Three to Win. Her name is Yasmin Raji. We'll be right back with that interview after this break. Stick around. We'll be Right back. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm super honored today to be joined by somebody who I've worked with behind the scenes for many, many years, but never got to meet face to face, or at least in a virtual studio. The executive director of Swing Left, Yasmin Raji. Please welcome Yasmin. Hi.

Yasmin Raji (44:12)

Hi. Longtime fan, first time caller. Great to finally officially meet you after many, many years, as you said, of collaboration. Allison.

Alison Gill (44:22)

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about our what we've done together in the past with MSW Media and our shows and how we win, and then talk about what you're planning for the midterms this time. I know a lot of people are feeling kind of deflated still from what happened in November, and I want to talk a little bit about that kind of, you know, how we look forward as well. So I remember, gosh, going all the way back to when was the first time I was at 2020 or 2018.

Yasmin Raji (44:52)

Even, I think, if I remember correctly. I think you all have been there. I mean, I've. I just joined the organization in 2022, and I remember from the outside sort of following yalls work since 2018 and always sort of assuming that you and Swing Left were friends. Peas in the pod from the very beginning. But I think your big moment with us was in 2020 with your I think you broke our fundraising record for personal fundraising pages, and then I think you broke it again in 2022. So amazing.

Alison Gill (45:22)

The listeners are incredible. I think we raised half a million in 2020, but the damage we did to the Republicans in 2018 can't be understated. It seemed to fly under the radar because votes come in so slowly, especially in California, where we flipped so many seats that particular year. And we're in a very similar situation, perhaps even more so because people are so upset with, you know, unelected, unconfirmed Senate confirmed Elon Musk pulling all the strings. But, yeah, we've done a lot of great work in the past. And I think some of the best part about why we loved working with Swing Left and why we're gonna do this again in 2026 is because of the massive amounts of data y'all use to figure out where your dollar does the most good. Right. So rather than give all your money to, like, Amy McGrath, who's a friend and I love, but had a huge war chest and kind of ignoring some of the more down ballot, more flippable seats, we sort of were shooting ourselves in the foot, even though we did so well in 2018. But, you know, moving forward, to be able to know that your dollar is going to have the most impact is based on the incredible people on your team and the data that they pull together for the most flippable districts. So talk a little bit about that and what Swing Left does for folks who might be new to the daily beans and Swing Left, and then we'll get into your initiatives for. For the midterms.

Yasmin Raji (46:56)

Yeah. So Swing Left started actually on the eve of Donald Trump's first inauguration, which obviously we all hoped would be his last. And the mission from the very beginning was very simple. We exist to make sure that people can channel their time and their money to the highest impact races to win Democratic majorities. And in 2018, we knew that the first line of defense against Donald Trump was the House. Right. It feels like we are. We've seen this movie before, unfortunately. And so, as you said, In 2018, folks felt tremendous energy and desire to do something, weren't necessarily sure where to do that, and were unaware that actually most Americans live within 90 minutes of a really competitive House district, including folks in places like California, where you are in New York, and so many other kind of deep blue areas where just a hop and a skip away, there's a district that's going to come down to just a few thousand, in some cases a few hundred votes. And since 2018, we've not. We've expanded to be about more than just the House. But again, so, I mean, this is such a different moment in many ways from 2018, and it also rhymes so much with 2018. And so we are back in a moment where, you know, what Donald Trump is doing can feel. Can make people feel overwhelmed and feel a real lack of agency. And once again, winning back the House is going to be the most essential line of defense, especially in a moment where, at least in 2018, we had some degree of integrity to our court system. Right. And we had some degree of institutional strength, still defending, you know, and didn't defend us from everything, but defended us from more than right now. And so today, we remain focused on that simple mission of how do people move their time and money in the ways that will make a difference to actually shift the balance of power, to put a check on Trump. Our primary focus is going to be on the House this cycle, but it's about more than the House, too. Right. We need to make sure that in our swingy states, so not places like New York, California, but purple states where a governor's race or the balance of power of A key legislative chamber is at stake. We're also going to be making sure that folks are moving their money and their time if they live close to those places, to make sure that states are going to be essential, especially as Donald Trump is stripping us of any sort of semblance of agency wherever he can, that states need to be a key line of defense as well.

Alison Gill (49:30)

Yeah, agreed. All right, so let's talk about this 2026 initiative. It's called Three to Win. Tell us about Three to Win.

Yasmin Raji (49:37)

Yes. Well, I think what a lot of folks don't know, especially because we were all in such a state of shock after the presidential election, is that we just barely lost the house. It was 7309 votes that we lost the House by. And it's just three seats that we need to win to win back the House. And so I think right now, so many of us feel, I mean, overwhelmed. Feels like remarkably, it's a lot right now. Right. And I think by design, this is a moment where Trump keeps saying over and over, he has a mandate. He has a mandate. He has a mandate. He keeps saying, the Americans are. The American people are on my side. And we know in our brains that that is not true. But we have started to actually absorb some of that into our bones. Right. And so Three to Win is a campaign aimed at, first of all, reminding us that we are a rounding error away from winning the House. We just barely lost it. We just need to win three seats. That's 7,000, 309 voters that we need to turn. That is completely winnable. And the implications of that very achievable win are very, very serious. Right. We will be able to have a check on Trump. We'll be able to have control of committees in the House. We will be able to also put a real check on his sense that everything is on his side, momentum is on his side. And we know that that's not true and that the American people are more on our side and Democratic Party positions align with majoritarian positions. But, you know, we've got some real work to do to make sure that we are aligning a key chamber in our direction. And what I'll say is, also, it's not that the Senate doesn't really matter. It really, really, really does. And I hope that we talk about that, too, especially for things like the courts and so on and so forth. It's just, to be brutally honest, we're not going to be able to win the Senate. Just the math doesn't. Math for 20, 26. So we'll also focus on winning some key Senate races. But we need to win a chamber and so we have to win the House and it is existential to flip those three seats.

Alison Gill (51:48)

Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm with you on that. I think we can make headway in the Senate as we move to 2028 and swing our focus then. But let's talk a little bit about the, this whole media, corporate media narrative that Everybody's tired resistance 2.0 is not going to happen. Now we've seen just publicly a lot of counter facts that counter that narrative. All these Tesla takedown rallies that we had this past weekend, all of the town halls, whether it's a Republican there or an empty chair town hall because the Republican refuses to show up. I think that we're seeing a lot of that emergence. But you're also seeing it within your own organization. Talk about that.

Yasmin Raji (52:28)

Yeah, it's funny because it's a moment where I was really worried, I mean I was worried about the state of our democracy and where we were headed after the election, but I was also really worried that maybe people were just not going to show up and maybe folks were going to say, you know what, I got to worry about my family and my livelihood and I got to bow at out. And we are seeing on a week to week basis and we've been seeing this every week since the inauguration, levels of volunteer action that are exceeding the levels in the peak resistance moment in 2017. And I think that's important. We saw similar trends that kind of bucked national narratives in 22 and even 2024 when folks were really feeling, feeling all the feelings about Joe Biden being at the top of the ticket, we were still seeing a lot more action than what, what the national narrative was. And right now it's kind of gangbusters levels of action and it's just not breaking through beyond some of the kind of town hall actions in the way that folks are absorbing. And I think that's because obviously the weight of this moment is significant and the weight of the damage that Trump is Trump and Elon Musk, you know, are doing at every level. But it's also because even if the levels of action people are taking are on par with the peak of the resistance era, the mood is really different. And I think that's really important. So what we're seeing is in our surveys from folks, they are much more skeptical rightfully and I think intelligently about this moment of is my action actually moving the needle? How do I know sort of what is the data showing. And they are also still taking actions because they know we can't take our foot off the gas. And so for us, what that means is we are playing sort of at two different levels of a chess game. We are both making sure we're moving quickly to give people actions. Such as the Wisconsin Supreme Court is coming up. I think it'll be after this show or before the show airs, but this Tuesday, April 1st. So we want to make sure, you know, folks are taking tremendous amounts of action there and we are engaging in this House Campaign 3 to win. That is also something we need to move quickly on. And at the same time, we can't ignore the much bigger questions that are underneath people's doubt and worry and anxiety, which is what were the things that went wrong last presidential cycle? It's not just a simple, oh, we didn't have a Joe Rogan or oh, we didn't get our economic message. Right.

Alison Gill (54:56)

Right.

Yasmin Raji (54:56)

Tactically, there's stuff that we still have to learn and analyze. And so it is a bull fan. We are seeing the energy that makes me feel really bullish about just how big the wins are that are possible in the midterms and how big some of the advocacy wins could be. With the caveat that I don't trust Republicans in Congress to do a single bipartisan thing, even if the politics show them that they should. But it's also something that makes me impressed with the sophistication that volunteers and donors have, which is walk and chew gum. Let's do while we're still taking a beat to learning so that we're not in kind of a rinse and repeat moment of as one of our volunteers said, let's make sure we're not reheating leftovers from the 2024 cycle. Let's make sure that we're actually engaging in, you know, building a plate of the right meal for winning in 2026.

Dana Goldberg (55:46)

Yeah.

Alison Gill (55:46)

Or the 2012 side. I mean, we've been stuck in old politics, right. Totally. In this post insurrection era for, for too long. But I also, you know, I want to let you know we're seeing it in independent media also, like after the election, nobody wanted to watch the news listenership for podcasts that I host and my friends host dropped off pretty significantly for the week or two after the election. But then everyone plus came back and it's been growing and I mean, I think we're up like 80%.

Yasmin Raji (56:16)

Incredible.

Alison Gill (56:17)

Over just pre election numbers. I know Midas Touch is now Beating Joe Rogan in some cases.

Yasmin Raji (56:23)

Incredible. Yes.

Alison Gill (56:24)

And so it's there the, you know, the. It's there more than it has been in the past. And also we have new tools to thank. Like Blue sky, for example. We were all stuck on Twitter pre2024 election, which was, you know, a road to nowhere. Yes. Everything sort of plateaued over on that particular platform. So now we have new tools. So, you know, that's why what Swing left is so good at, because it's so data driven, is adapting to the new normal. And so I think it's something that we should be injecting into people's bones instead of, you know, to replace this exhaustion, cynicism, nihilism narrative. And let's talk about that. That's the last piece. I want to talk about how to overcome that because I see so many people saying, oh, that's cute that you think we're going to ever have elections again, or, you know, kind of just a very defeat. And, you know, so many people feel defeated because of what happened in, in 2024. I remember it happening 20 years ago in 2004. And then someone that no one had ever heard of gave a pretty rousing speech at the dnc. And then four years later, Bazinga.

Yasmin Raji (57:36)

That's right. That's right.

Alison Gill (57:37)

So we're all kind of trying to have the pieces fall and find the path. But I want to talk about how you guys overcome that, because what I basically say is we just had an election in Pennsylvania. We had two special elections, and we, we flipped a really red seat. We had one in Iowa for the legislature there in January. So we are currently having elections. We're still having elections and we're winning them.

Yasmin Raji (58:05)

That's right.

Alison Gill (58:05)

And. And I know that, you know, three to win. We've got, you know, Florida one and Florida six. But we did have New York 21, but we don't anymore. Because I think that this administration recognizes the Democrats ability to flip these seats and hold elections. And that's why he pulled the nomination of Stefanik. So what do you guys. What's your messaging as far as we have to move forward as though there will be elections? Because I feel like if you say, oh, it's funny, no one's ever gonna have an election again, that kind of helps the bad guys. It sort of discourages people from bothering to vote. Right?

Yasmin Raji (58:44)

Yeah. I think this is, It's a really important point and it's really resonant. I think this is probably, if not, number one, it's in the top two questions that we get from volunteers and donors saying, you know, why should I, you know, it's if we're in a three legged stool of the ways that we're tackling this moment of litigation, of all the big lawsuits that folks like ACLU and you know, Democracy Forward and others are, are leading and then you've got the advocacy side of as you said, the Tesla town halls and the, and so on and so forth. And then you've got the election leg of the stool. A lot of folks were like why, why does that even matter? Does you know, he's been clear, he Project 2025 is clear that elections, he's going to undermine the integrity of the elections. He's already passed an executive order that is sort of moving that forward. There's already movement in Congress. And so I think it is part of what you said, which is we've got to first of all operate because we don't know yet what is ahead. And I think we would be delusional if we, this was going to be a linear road that was smoothly paved for us, right? They're going to be throwing not just potholes, they're going to be throwing sort of like firebombs on the road to the midterms. And if we want, if we are serious about our commitment to flip those three seats, which again is winnable, it's like 7309 voters is nothing. Then we also need to be organized early and really, really robustly or when they throw those obstacles in our way. We don't know exactly what those obstacles would be, but we have a pretty good sense of the kinds of stuff that are, that are coming. We've got to be well organized and we also need to be winning more than three seats. Three is what we need to get to a majority. But it is much harder for them to block us. If we really have organized voters over the course of 20 months and really gotten folks to realize their egg prices are high because of Trump tariffs are impacting their quality of life over 20 months through media. As you were saying, that is sort of outside of what folks were listening to maybe in, in 2024, but also face to face and voter to voter. So for us it's, it is the depth and the breadth of the organizing ahead is really significant. And the other thing that's on our minds, just on our own morale as volunteers and donors because we ourselves, this is a, this is a marathon to 2026, it's a marathon to 2028 and it's going to be a marathon beyond that. And we're humans. Right. Like, we, I'm not a marathon runner. I can't run a marathon.

Alison Gill (61:15)

Right.

Yasmin Raji (61:15)

So sort of how are we training for this moment, individually and collectively? And something that we have observed that I think is really important and is central to our strategy on three to Win is the level of digital fatigue that folks are experiencing right now is really significant. And it's digital fatigue that is coupled with loneliness that our last surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, called the greatest public health crisis that is facing our country. And I'm saying that in a. It's kind of esoteric, but it actually is really core to how we're thinking about this strategy of we're going to let people organize online. We're going to have the best digital tools to make sure that folks are engaging from wherever they are. And core to our strategy is to get people to listen to amazing shows like yours, to engage online, and then to get together in a coffee shop or in a living room or in a library or in a park with their neighbors. Because 20 months of organizing around your closest swing district is going to require us to be really strong. And we can't be strong if we are just sort of clicking a button and moving on with our lives. We've got to build some real power. And so face to face engagement is going to be essential even to the online digital advocacy that we're going to be doing for the midterms.

Alison Gill (62:32)

Yeah, agreed. And voter suppression isn't new. That's right. We've been having to overcome it as Democrats for many, many, many elections. Voting numbers too big to manipulate, too big to rig. He cheated in 2020 and we beat him anyway. That's right. It can happen there. And there will be. There's never going to not be an onslaught of Republican attacks on voting rights ever.

Yasmin Raji (62:58)

That's exactly right.

Alison Gill (63:00)

Because it's the only way they can win. And, you know, we, despite gerrymandering and all sorts of terrible stuff, we did what we did in 2018 and 2012 or 2010, I can't remember, you know, but we've, there's always been voter suppression. So that can be overcome if we organize properly. So there's no, I don't think there's any reason to be like, well, it's over because I think we've proven it. Yeah.

Yasmin Raji (63:23)

I remember my first organizing job was on the 2008 Obama campaign in Northeast Ohio. And I remember during my, it was my first get out the vote and I was sort of starry eyed about how beautiful our democracy was. And I was on a call where one of my fellow organizers who was organizing in downtown Akron was reporting on signs and leaflets that were being, you know, posted all over black neighborhoods in Akron saying Election Day was moved this year instead of Tuesday. It's on Wednesday. And here's the information. And so we had to bring in a bunch of our allies from the labor movement to come in and literally block walk neighborhoods, not to contact voters, but to take away these false leaflets. And so, you know, that was 2008. And the story of Barack Obama's historic election was not the story of voter suppression. But as you said, it was going on there. But if we are well organized enough, we can fight it back to have a fighting chance. And then we can only actually fight back to end things like voter suppression if we have Democratic majorities, period, full stop. And that is even for any listeners who are annoyed by Democrats right now, who are disappointed in Democrats right now. Those feelings are valid, are probably how most of our volunteers and donors have some mix of those feelings. And we still need to fight like hell to get Democratic majorities because that's the only way we've got a fighting chance at actually passing, passing proactive legislation when one day we have a trifecta, hopefully in 2028, but in 2026 to put a check on Trump because we just need a chamber.

Alison Gill (64:58)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us. So good to meet you finally and tell everybody how they can get involved with and support Swing Left.

Yasmin Raji (65:10)

Yes, folks can go to swingleft.org and they'll be able to get involved, whether they have time, money, a combination of the two, very little of it, or a lot of it, to make sure that whatever resources they have are going to making sure that we are winning those three seats that will get us a House majority in 2026 and have us have a fighting chance at putting a check on Trump.

Alison Gill (65:33)

Thank you so much. Yasmin Raji from from Swing Left. I appreciate your time today.

Yasmin Raji (65:38)

Thank you. Thanks for having me and for all you do.

Alison Gill (65:40)

Yeah, you too. All right, everybody, stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news, everyone.

Dana Goldberg (65:49)

Then. Good news, everyone.

Alison Gill (66:04)

Good news, good news. And if you have any good news confessions, corrections, pronunciation, corrections. Thank you for the French correction. We almost called yesterday's episode the French correction instead of the French Connection. Please send those to us. If you have a shout out to a, a loved one or somebody in your area that's doing great activism or community organizing. A small business in your area that could use a boost. Your small business A self shout out. We love those self shout outs. Toot your own horn. Tell us why you're awesome because we know that you are also shout shout outs to government programs that have helped you or a loved one. Social Security, Medicare, PACT act, great VA health care you've received the Affordable Care act subsidies for example WIC, SNAP, Head Start, Section 8. That helps a lot of folks rent control. Any kind of government program that's helped you out, including student debt relief. We love those. Send it all to us. All you got to do to get your submission read on the air is pay your POD pet tax. That means attach a photo of your pet. If you want us to guess the breeds, we'll do our best. We're not very good at it, but it's still fun. Also, if you don't have a pet, you can send us an adoptable pet in your area. If you don't have that, any animal photo is good. We're doing a lot of bird watching photos, which is a photo of an actual bird or you and your family and friends flipping off Trump and Musk properties. That counts as bird watching. And then of course, if you don't have any of that baby pictures, we always want your baby pictures. All right, send it all dailybeanspod.com click on contact first. First up, Anne Marie hello AG. While I don't have any specific good news, I thought I'd share some bird watching photos. I love this Anne Marie. Thank you. These were spotted near my car at the health club after my exercise class with my breast cancer support group, the Buffalo Hope Chest Dragon Boat Team. I love this Buffalo Hope Chest Dragon Boat team. Fortunately, it was early in the season so I didn't need to go near their nest to get in my car. In a way, these birds are flipping off Trump because just buy up their existence. Behold the Canadian Goose. The Canada Goose AKA the Cobra Chicken. It's important to remember, don't mess with Canada geese. Yeah, that is very true. Look at these beauties. They are amazing. Thank you for yeah, it is kind of a fuck you to Trump because they're Canada geese. Anne Marie, thanks so much. Next up from Anonymous, she herself hello Big Beans fan. Since January, I've become inspired to become politically active in my local community, which led me to help organize an upcoming Empty Chair Town hall in partnership with INDIVISIBLE Montgomery County PA and friends, Senator Dave McCormick will not host a town hall. So we've organized an empty Chair Town Hall April 23rd, everybody. We will have a link in the show Notes Anonymous thank you, thank you, thank you for organizing that with Indivisible. Everybody. Y'all can do this. You don't need to wait for it to happen. If there's no empty chair town hall in your district or for your senator, call your local indivisible chapter. First of all, everyone should join their local indivisible chapter so that we have this base of amazing people. So that when we build up and build up and build up and then go tell everybody to go fuck themselves close to the midterm elections in dc, we will have more robust lists of folks to contact. So you can do that, Join Indivisible and just be like, hey, why don't we do an empty chair town hall? It's awesome. It's so much fun. People show up. It's incredible. And you get to meet a lot of really wonderful activists too. Next up, Anonymous she her the Resistance Rangers are blazing forward and doing amazing work. We launched a Trans Day of Visibility, our uncensored page on our website, and our uncensored Instagram. These pages are going to be focused on the stories and history that the Trump administration is trying to erase. I'm so proud of us. All us prairie dogs in a trench coat. Again, it's resistancerangers.org we'll have a link in the show Notes we also have a link to how they created a website of removed queer and transgender stories from NPS sites and some censored content. Explore Hidden Stories from the Resistance Rangers Our pod Pet Tax is a picture of my cat, Callie, a calico. She's energetic and unpredictable like me. She's adorable. It looks like she's about to pounce on something because her pupils are saucers. Look at those eyes. She's adorable. Think. Either that or she's, you know, in a K hole like Musk. But probably she's getting ready to pounce on something. Next up, Anonymous Pronoun she and her hello beanies. Thank you AG and DG for tirelessly doing the show and being a bright spot in my day. I wanted to give a shout out to my husband for years. He was a libertarian conservative and we were in a politically mixed marriage. Dum dum bum. Although he never voted for djt, he and I had different political opinions and mostly did not discuss them. This made for a lonely first Trump presidency for me. Since then he has on his own and with great courage, realized what the Republican Party has become and left them in the rear view mirror. It takes strong critical thinking skills, self confidence and humility to make this type of change and I'm so proud of him for doing so. If we are to move through this current nightmare, we need everyone, regardless of past affiliation, to feel welcomed to the resistance with open arms. Anonymous I could not have said it better myself. I have said in the past we can't scream at people to change and then show them no grace when they want to. We don't have any pets in our house over five pet tax I'm submitting a pic of one of our kids with a family pet, a stuffed animal named Ham Sandwich. I call one of my cats Ham Sandwich. Anonymous that's great. We love our Chunky boy. Thank you again. Keep rocking it in every which way to Sunday look. It's so adorable. Thank you for this photo. Really appreciate it. Anonymous and shout out to the hubs. Next up, Donna Pronoun she and her good news. I was happy to hear the wonderful news out of Wisconsin and I also want to share our own good news from Stillwater, Oklahoma. Our school board race went to the very qualified candidate Marshall Baker over the unqualified Christian nationalist Carpetbagger and his dark money by a margin of 75%. This is the third race by these people and they've lost each time. So there's that high five. Donna I never hear anything good coming from Oklahoma. But we're not all turnips here. We're fighting, we're doing good trouble and I want to give us a shout out. UUs blue dots, our chapter of Indivisible and 50, 51 etc. We have not always been a backward looking the backward looking dum dums we currently appear to be and we fight until we are freed. The Pupper is my very good and smart girl Midge. She's from Dachshund Mama and a Rhodesian Ridgeback Dad. Don't give that much thought. Thank you. I was gonna ask who the how that looks but anyway, beautiful Pupper, very well behaved, sitting still at least. Which is awesome for a Rodina Ridgeback any part Rhodesian Ridgeback. Thank you for that. Next up, Joan Pronoun. She and her on March 31, the Oregon Legislature was voting to remove our universal mail in voting system. Ours was the first in the nation creating equal voting access for all residents. A Reddit post brought it to my attention and I spread the word on how to post testimony online. It turned out that so many Oregonians posted to the government site that we almost broke it. The bill was voted down, keeping our mail in voting. At least for now. We can make a difference. This photo is my roommate's dog Domino, who is 13 and loves being a dork in the snow. Joan this is a great photo and that's great news. See, we are having elections. We are winning them. Please check out my post on hope and gratitude@mullershirote.com today. I wrote it yesterday but you know time travel podcasts. And thank you all so much for sending in your good news. Please send it to us dailybeanspod.com click on contact. Thanks to my guests today, Dr. Halkitis and of course Yasmin Raji. Thank you for joining us and we'll be back in your ears tomorrow for Fugal Sang Fridays. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health and take care of your family. I've been AG and them's the Beans. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information please visit mswmedia.com msw media.