Podcast Summary: We Can Do Hard Things

Episode: HOW WE ALL BECOME MINNESOTA: BRITTANY PACKNETT CUNNINGHAM

Date: January 28, 2026
Hosts: Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle
Guest: Brittany Packnett Cunningham

Overview

This emotionally urgent and fiercely insightful episode welcomes Brittany Packnett Cunningham—organizer, activist, founder of Love & Power Works, and host of Undistracted—into a wide-ranging and deeply honest conversation about the crisis in Minnesota. The discussion examines how Minnesota’s preparedness is no accident, but the culmination of generations of organizing, and issues a call to action for all communities: How do we not simply watch and admire Minnesota but become Minnesota—ready, connected, and resilient—when injustice comes for us? The group discusses the realities of state violence, the necessity of intersectional action, the harm of American amnesia, and the hope found in joining together, daring to build something better.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. There Is Something for Everyone to Do

• Action, Not Admiration: Brittany stresses that being appalled from a distance is not enough; everyone has a role, and consistent daily action is crucial.
• Direct Actions:
  • Demand a statewide eviction moratorium to protect those hiding from ICE ([03:40])
  • Pressure senators to defund ICE
  • Call for investigations into specific ICE-related deaths and abuses
  • Follow and act in accordance with local Minnesota organizers and journalists
• Quote:

  "There is something for everybody to do. And I don't care where you are, we need you to do it." (Brittany, [05:19])

2. Minnesota Didn’t Just “Become”—Decades of Organizing

• Historical Depth: Minnesota’s rapid response is rooted in a long legacy, involving Indigenous and Black organizing, labor strikes, and intersectional alliances.
• Misconceptions:
  • It’s inaccurate to attribute 2026’s preparedness to “just what happened in 2020”—the infrastructure is generational ([06:50])
• Organizing Is Unsexy & Daily:
  • The work happens in churches, neighborhood meetings—everyday spaces, long before the spotlight.
• Quote:

  “...this is worse. And I actually don't think people are getting that. ...We're talking in Minneapolis about a city of 300,000 people. And what's been reported is that 10,000 of those people have been disappeared.” (Brittany, [10:59])

3. This Moment Is Worse, and Different

• Escalation of State Violence: What’s happening now surpasses previous crises (e.g., Ferguson 2014, George Floyd 2020) both in scale and governmental complicity.
• State Surveillance & Disappearances:
  • Description of ICE tracking license plates, detaining or “disappearing” thousands—including U.S. citizens and green card holders—tearing families apart ([11:54])
• Activists under Siege: Organizers and even bystanders are at risk, paralleling the violence of past centuries.

4. The Cost of American Amnesia

• Danger of Not Historicizing:
  • Comparing today to Nazi Germany is incomplete; Nazi architects studied the U.S. South for their own oppressive frameworks.
  • Germany did the work to reckon with, teach, and repair after atrocities. The U.S. has not—leading to cyclical harm ([17:12])
• If We Had Listened to Black and Indigenous People…:
  • Many injustices could have been avoided if white America had reckoned with the truths and leadership of Black and Indigenous communities.
• Quote:

  "The hard thing for people to realize is that if we had listened to black people in the first place, we wouldn’t be here." (Brittany, [20:17])

5. The Logic and Survival of Listening to Those Who Know

• A “Lost in the Woods” Analogy:
  • Why seek guidance from those who know the woods—those who have always survived and navigated oppression?
• Follow, Fund, Support—Don’t Center Yourself:
  • The resources, leadership, and instructions exist—join the work that’s already happening.
• Quote:

  “All you gotta do is join the choir. It already exists.” (Brittany, [25:12])

6. Collective Preparedness: Infrastructure, Not Individualism

• Organizing as Mutual Aid:
  • Trust, communication, and connection are built in normal times, so crisis response is rapid and united.
• Not Too Late to Start: Even if you think it takes decades, local organizations are everywhere—they simply need your energy, funding, and willingness to connect ([35:06])
• Neighborly Tactics:
  • Practical mutual aid: shoveling snow, grocery runs, forming communication networks for emergencies.

7. Whiteness, Individualism, and the Challenge of Community

• Rooted Individualism:
  • The society-wide value of “just go get yours” is a function of whiteness—encoded as a protected social, political, and economic class ([39:55])
• Community as Subversion:
  • True interconnectedness threatens dominant systems which rely on keeping people separated and suspicious.
• Being a Traitor to Conditioning:
  • Real allyship means betraying cultural conditioning to stand in solidarity, even at personal risk.

8. The Power of “Being Together”: Heather McGhee’s "Drained-Pool Politics"

• The Pool Analogy:
  • How systemic racism led communities to deprive everyone of public pools rather than integrate them—hurting all.
• When We’re Together, We’re Strong:
  • To win lasting change, we must practice being together, even when it's uncomfortable, so protection and solidarity become natural, not foreign ([51:47])
• Memorable Moment:

  “Maybe we wouldn’t be here right now if we knew how to be together. And that’s not no kumbaya ... That is me and all of us understanding that there are real life consequences for structural choices.” (Brittany, [54:48])

9. Daring to Dream Beyond Survival

• Radical Imagination:
  • Brittany shares her ancestor’s history as civil war soldiers and survivors—how their dreaming made her life possible today.
  • She dares to envision a world where her children’s joy and genius is protected, not crushed.
• Backward Planning:
  • We must articulate the most radical, beautiful world and work backwards from that vision so that our actions are worthy of it, not just of bare survival ([58:30])
• Quote:

  “...if I’m not daring enough to build that world, then I will not act in ways that rise to that expectation. ...I want more for them. My ancestors wanted more for me because they were daring enough to dream that I’d be free.” (Brittany, [61:49])

• "It always seems impossible until it’s done." (citing Mandela, [63:46])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the responsibility to act:

  “It is easy to look on in horror from afar. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s easier to do that than to decide to be incensed enough to take action.”
  — Brittany Packnett Cunningham ([03:09])

• On why surprise is a symptom of privilege:

  "The shock that some people are feeling now is not because they never woke up, but because they didn’t dare to stay up, they didn’t dare to stay woke."
  — Brittany Packnett Cunningham ([63:59])

• On mutual aid versus individualism:

  “A lot of white people don’t realize that they’re not free. ...That’s why the surprise, and then the surprise at the surprise...”
  — Brittany Packnett Cunningham ([46:16])

• On infrastructure built in crisis:

  “We are capable of doing that when there’s a hurricane, when there’s a tornado, when there’s a snowstorm...What’s the problem?”
  — Brittany Packnett Cunningham ([35:18])

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–03:04 — Episode Introduction / Invitation to Brittany Packnett Cunningham
• 03:04–05:40 — "There Is Something for Everyone to Do" (Action Steps)
• 06:50–14:31 — How Minnesota’s Infrastructure Was Built Over Decades
• 14:31–23:44 — Tying Today’s Crisis to Generations of State Violence
• 23:44–27:23 — Why It’s Logical (and Survival) to Listen to the Most Marginalized
• 29:26–35:06 — Interconnected Organizing: From Parks to Protests to Survival Networks
• 39:55–46:16 — Whiteness, Individualism, and Collective Power
• 51:47–56:20 — Heather McGhee’s “Drained-Pool Politics” / Building Interdependence
• 58:30–64:00 — Brittany’s Dream: Radical Imagination and Planning Toward Liberation

Actionable Takeaways

• Don’t wait for crisis or a “megaphone” moment—seek out, support, and join local organizing now.
• Move from online “hot takes” and performative activism to in-person, embodied community relationships.
• If you’re privileged, put yourself between danger and the vulnerable, and treat anti-oppression work as collective survival, not just charity.
• Center and amplify the leadership of those who have always survived and strategized under oppression.
• Dream—and plan—beyond harm reduction; work for liberation, joy, and shared flourishing.

Closing Note

This episode is no comfort-zone listen. It is an urgent call—to study, grieve, connect, repair, be braver and more imaginative than ever before, and to remember that “hard things” are possible only together.