A Sleepy White House Correspondents' Dinner, A 2024 Election Tell-All, And Democratic Hope With Amanda Litman
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream presented by Betches News. The show where the only person getting out of doge is Elon Musk. Ha ha ha ha ha. Thanks, Caroline. We love that one. So today we are talking leadership. And later in this episode, we're going to be talking to Amanda Lippman, author of the upcoming book, When We're in Charge. Yeah.

Amanda co-founded Run for Something, and she's responsible for truly thousands of young people running for office. You see David Hogg. That's how you do it. We're going to get more millennials in there. When we talk about young people, I'm not talking about like 22, 23-year-old Gen Zers. I'm talking about millennials. Okay, so when we say when we have power, we mean we, the forgotten generation of millennials.

Look, I like a developed prefrontal cortex. So depending where you fall in the younger generation, also time marches forward. So because of that, you will continue getting older and hopefully more mature, I hope, again. And, you know, we're going to talk about what makes a good leader. And we're not going to talk about this only from the perspective of age, but from the perspective of coalition building. And...

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Full glam for this. It was White House Correspondents Weekend, and we went last year. We didn't go this year, but I feel tired like I went. I mean, I did the MSNBC coverage, so I felt like I was up kind of dealing with it, but...

Did you hear anything from the weekend? It kind of felt like a Passover, like a little Passover cloud. I didn't really hear much. I did see some photos. The photos made me feel like, oh, maybe I should have gone. You think so? I didn't have a bow big enough. All I saw from the photos was Tara Palmieri's red outfit with a huge red bow. And I thought to myself, you know what? I wasn't meant to be there this year. I can't give you a bow.

Can't carry a bow. Can't carry a bow. All right, fine. Yeah, we were critiquing. You took the bow last year, the little cutie hair bow. The bow was much bigger this year. We were on the outs of the bows. We were little bows and it was a big bow year. You know, maybe we'll go next year. We'll see if we still have a free press. We'll see if we have a free press. Well, they're handing over leadership from Eugene Daniels to whoever comes next. And so I'm interested to see

how it's going to go, if they'll bring back the comedian, if they'll push back a little bit more. This year's awards were really about dragging the shit out of Joe Biden. And I guess that makes sense because that's kind of what, you know, the last year of covering the press was. Yeah, I think there was something notable about it, which was actually that there was a lot of time spent kind of at the actual dinner of journalists saying, acknowledging that they had missed this story. And also, yeah,

I keep seeing people talking about this seems to be sort of like in the discourse, I think, because Alex Thompson from Axios won an award for his reporting on Biden's condition. And there are also three books out right now that are sort of backtracking on or not backtracking, but.

to the 2024 election and the whole switch, the candidate switch out and what happened with, you know, how is the Trump campaign reacting and like really what was going on behind the scenes and examining how the Trump campaign was able to actually pull

poll so many of Biden's voters and what dynamics they were responding to. And I actually read one of them this week. I read Fight by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes. I'm not sure what made me pick that one. I just...

It just called to me. And I think Jonathan Allen, I read a lot of his reporting and it's very good. So, and I feel like I read it because you sent me so many screenshots because you, it was so, it was so, it was really interesting. So I mean, it was like a book club of our own this weekend. You don't even know the half of it, but I wanted to talk about this today because I

I think that the key message I got from this book is that the Democratic Party is a true delusional circle jerk living inside a bubble. And that is the reason why the party to this day has no message. It's what kept Biden in the race for so long. It was the cause of what went down with the candidate switch.

And it even served as a huge drag on Kamala Harris's campaign because the people running this party put party over country time and time and time again.

They didn't necessarily put party over constitution, like maybe some of the other, you know, maybe some other figures in this country are doing, but they definitely put party and their own interests, though I would argue they fucked their own interests in the long run. So that's what you get for thinking very short term. And that's really what they did. The simplest way to put is that everything that we suspected is real.

I wasn't ready for these books. I was actually super aggravated when these books started coming out, like in January, February. I think now. No, I think they're just coming out like now. When we started hearing they were coming out, I was like, why do we have to rehash the Biden thing? It was still like a little open wound for me. And I will say I am much more open to it now. And I think I learned a lot and healed even a little bit from it.

because there was a lot of stuff that we knew was going on and that we want to stop that now that it's sort of been brought into the light, I'm hopeful we can move on from because we still have issues. I mean, Biden's out of the White House, right? And that's that's sort of like gone. But we still have Chuck Schumer who refuses to leave leadership. We still have Nancy Pelosi who refuses to allow anybody to run for her seat. She hasn't even recognized that she has a challenger like Biden.

So we're still facing a lot of these issues. And the problem is what we see from what they did during the campaign were things that a 70 or 80 year old person may have found really powerful, like having Liz Cheney join Kamala Harris on stage. That wasn't actually about anybody. It wasn't great. But I but I could see that being something that people who remember the old John McCain party would have maybe been into. Yeah.

Maybe, but that was a data-driven decision. Like, I think that part, okay, there were, there are a lot of pieces to this and I want to, I want to go through all them. Yeah, take us through. Okay. But I will say the decision to, the decision to campaign with Liz Cheney was more about her hitting a ceiling in terms of support and they needed to actually, what they did in this

You know, I wrote down a few interesting things I found, which was that they had like expanded the definition of a persuadable voter so wide such that someone in the Harris campaign actually knocked on the door for the executive director of the Virginia State Republican Party.

That was then assigned to the state parties, the state Democratic parties and Republicans that the campaign was failing and that they were looking for these like moderate voters that they are former or Republican voters that they thought they could persuade. And part of that was that they were limited voters.

with how much they could say in terms of breaking with Biden. And that's actually, I think, like the biggest dynamic here that really screwed her. So let me just explain the dynamics, but like how that how the DNC works now. So the Biden and Clinton worlds, their advisers, the people who worked in their administrations, there's a lot of overlap between those worlds and the DNC.

That contingency has more control over the DNC. And therefore they had a chokehold on the rules that would have enabled the party to replace Biden when he wouldn't step down. So that's why I was like only his decision. And then the Clintons had a lot of sympathy for Biden because they had been attacked by the party in the past. So they were kind of like, you know, he's the guy. Plus, I'm sure the age thing didn't help. Then the Obama party.

As we know, is a different thing. But I don't know if that it appears that way to the, you know, average American. They wanted Biden out for the same reasons we and every American pretty much did. They're not really part of that Obama, that Biden Clinton contingent. And the reason is because or what one thing it traces to is that Obama had originally tried to set up a

when back when he was running a platform that was adjacent to the DNC that he called Organizing for America. That's it ends up working. But there's now a consensus that him doing that really screwed up the DNC organization potentially to this day. So him trying to kind of do his own thing and be like outside the party apparatus never really like

fixed itself. And then it was heightened by the fact that Obama never really supported Biden and running for president. Obviously, he thought it was a great vice president. He endorsed Clinton, though, the first time. And that was like their first big beef because he was just coming off being vice president to Obama and he didn't get his endorsement. Yeah. And I mean, I think that part of it was that he wanted to have

He thought, like many people, that they wanted to try to have a woman president. And also, I just think he doesn't hold Biden's political instincts in that high esteem, nor did he nor does he hold Kamala's political instincts in that high esteem. And it was ultimately from the book.

Oh, oh, yeah. You'll find out. It was ultimately Obama's people, David Plouffe, Stephanie Cutter, who were the ones who ended up taking over Harris's campaign. And they were the same people who had tried to already prevent her from taking the nomination. So so that's how it started. And then Obama and Pelosi, for the same reasons, not holding Kamala Harris's political instincts in super high esteem.

wanted this open convention, mini primary that again, I still do not see how the logistics would have worked. It would have been a nightmare. It wouldn't have... It also wouldn't have under... It wouldn't have taken care of the major criticism which is of the Democratic Party, which is that people perceived the switch to be...

Like throwing out the primary voters. It's too late. Yeah. I still don't understand that because she was on the ticket. Well, that's why it had to be her. Right. It was this idea that her name was also on the ticket with him. When you sign up for Biden, we knew what age he was. We all did that. That song and dance show where we sort of were coping and being like, this is why it was what it was. I was always for Kamala. So I I don't know.

I was always for Kamala as like a logical like yeah like if you were if it were two years ago I would watch a primary and then I determine who I think was the best but in that situation there was no other option and I think that the way it played out showed that she was the best chance because okay so because there's no party leader right now right she lost and there's no one who's like even a close second right now when you say who's leader of the Democratic Party there's

Right. People maybe I don't know. So this is how it went down. They wanted this mini primary. And in fact, in that three weeks and even before Biden had even considered stepping out before the debate, they.

and his advisors and basically anyone who was suggesting Biden should get out, they would use Kamala Harris becoming the nominee as like the threat against lawmakers like and donors like do you well, do you want him to replace her? Do you want it to be Kamala Harris? And so he he seemingly took so long to get out because he didn't think she could win. Plus, the fact

fact that his own administration had sort of spent the past two years throwing her under the bus for his own advantage, like it's Prince Charles doing it to his own son, Prince Harry. And then once it was clear he had to get out, he only used that endorsement of Kamala Harris as a fuck you to Obama and Pelosi. He wanted to wait. We knew that. Yeah. Yeah. He wanted to wait like a few days to endorse her. And she basically had to be like, no, like this.

this has to happen now or it won't work. And the reason she was able to get the nomination was because she and her, she and kind of people on her behalf, you know, like Hakeem Jeffries, Bakari Sellers, like many and more, they were sort of

Right after the debate, they realized that it was going to either be her or him and that this open primary idea was not going to happen and that if they were to skip over her, it would actually just break apart the entire Democratic Party because the base essentially like that Jim Clyburn led South South Carolina led part of the vote.

Hello, Oversharing listeners. It's Dr. Naomi Bernstein with some exciting news. Starting January 13th, our Oversharing Calm the Fuck Down subscription is getting even better. Subscribers will get Oversharing episodes a day early, plus additional exclusive bonus content on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month. Here's what's new. One bonus episode with even more emails and advice, and another where we follow up with past email writers who could be

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fuck down. We're so excited about creating this new bonus content, talking to more of you, hearing your stories, sharing some of our own and reminding us all to calm the fuck down. Did you hear the new mega millions jackpots are going to be higher than ever? How high? Like really high. As high as the top of this helipad? Higher. This hot air balloon is high enough, right? Higher. Higher than this 14,000 foot mountain?

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for his own advantage, not because he thinks South Carolina is like, should be the most important state to go first. Right. Yeah, exactly. So we're pissed when they felt like they were trying to push Biden out. I remember online a lot of the like older Democratic Party and and and a lot of

Biden voters were furious at what they were doing and like canceling people and canceling their subscriptions for even suggesting that Biden should step down. And then it was like, if it's going to happen, then it has to be Kamala or we won't accept it. It was like this very, very messy breakup. Right. Well, the thing is, if you're going to argue it has to be Kamala because because you can't skip over the first black woman vice president. Right.

I kind of think that that's a stupid argument when you could make an argument for her that has...

nothing to do with like the racial piece or the gender piece which is that she is the vice president there's nobody else who has this experience in the party no one else who can take the donations no one else who is already voted for on the ticket so it's like the reason to defend her is not that oh you can't skip over you can't skip her it's that there is no one better positioned to

there was no one better positioned or legally positioned to take the role. And you see how much, how much her campaign brought the party back to a place that it was not going to be. So with her, she had kind of been politicking a little bit, but not in, I guess it's probably obvious to people who know, but

She had been like carrying water for Biden those three weeks, but she was also kind of like subtly courting future support. And that's how she was able to avoid the primary because by the time

Obama was like, let's try to do a mini primary. She had already like with the delegates, like it was done. You know, we already had that first white women for Kamala meeting. Everything was already on the, on the track. Exactly. It was over. And Obama really made her like sweat it out. And she was hurt by that because it is hurtful. She was like, why does he not hold me in any sort of esteem that he thinks I can do this? And so,

I wonder if like all that did hurt her. Like the fact that they just like, there was no confidence from people internally. And it's not that she's like perfect and just only brought down by her team. I do think her own sort of like lack of a vision that she was willing to say, you know what? I'm going to put this on the table. It's like,

He what happened with him? And this is the part that's so fucking maddening. It is hubris worthy of a Greek tragedy like the family chip on the shoulder, the Jill drama. It's all real. The resentment against Kamala, the resentment against anyone who dares suggest that he was too old and shouldn't have run again. By the end, he made Hunter his top priority.

political advisor. Everybody's fucking wagons circled up real tight with this. And to say, you know, Joe Biden is a very sweet, wonderful, nice man. And I think his niceness may have clouded his judgment and who he allowed in. He's also a person who's experienced massive amounts of family trauma that does change you where he's softer on Hunter than maybe he should be. It was supposed to be Bo, right? Bo was good. Like Bo was great. Yeah. Would have maybe been the president.

that maybe would have worked out. But when he lost Bo, he put it all in Hunter to be like, well, you have to step up and be Bo to the point that Hunter, didn't he like marry Bo's widow or he has a child with Bo's widow?

Not a child, but they had a relationship with Bo's widow. Like there's a lot going on in that family in terms of like the way that they operate and how tightly they sort of close ranks on each other. And I do imagine in the end, he didn't feel like he could trust anybody outside the party. So he went to his son who is not maybe, I mean, the best person to go to for this kind of stuff.

No. And I think that what we see it. Look, I think some of it is like from grief. Sure. But there is such a large ego on this man and his wife. You make him call him the boss, which I thought was a joke, but apparently it's true. Even Jen O'Malley Dillon, by the time that they were trying to pressure him to get out of the race, she was like actually trying to be more honest and they cut her out.

Because they wouldn't consider it. But then they made Kamala pick her to be the campaign manager. And we saw it all throughout the entire time we campaigned. There were little bits of Biden's ghost everywhere, whether it was the aviators they handed out to creators, right? It was the ice cream trucks at events. It was the different cities that they picked. And understandably, like a lot of event planning goes into this and money and contracts. And we had to go certain places that made sense for it. But it was still so like.

Biden leftover that it's amazing that she did as well as she did, given all of the fuckery that was going on and the fact that the entire first night of the DNC was a goodbye to Biden, was a thank you. We lost an entire day. That's why people say I didn't know what the Democrats were for, because what we seem to be for was celebrating Joe Biden, giving him what do they call it in the book? His golden watch, his golden watch retirement moment.

Yes, yes. It literally was. OK, they they talk about how that night Biden was supposed to be on it like 830. And if you remember this, it oh, it was horrible. It was so late. Yeah, it was so late. And it's like they wouldn't cut like his daughter. They wouldn't cut Chris Coons like they wouldn't. They would only like it was all revolving around like how to get Biden on. They cut James Taylor, who was there for Joe Biden. It's like it's honestly like the OK. And here's the thing.

If his flaw is just this massive ego, hers is that she is loyal to a fault. Kamala Harris was screwed from day one, from the beginning by Biden and his people. But she felt indebted to him. And she was very polite. He was in her head the whole time. His his his word to her was no daylight kid. So he calls her before the debate.

And is like right before and is like no daylight. He and it gets in her head. And if you remember, like that answer on The View where which went totally viral, when she says she wouldn't have done anything differently than Joe Biden. Right.

all of her momentum was gone after that, really like after the debate, because the calendar was empty, they had to make their own headlines. And all people wanted to do was ask her, how are you going to be different from Biden? And he like was in her head telling her, nope, you can't break from me in like any way. And that basically only opened the category of persuadable voters to more moderate people. And that's how they ended up with Liz Cheney. And, um,

Like with the state parties having like the Biden strategy and not moving away from that at all. Mm hmm.

Well, and also then he said this one thing that I remember it stuck out to me because I was like, I hate that because I could feel this. Right. I was like actively campaigning for her and you could feel this all the time. We're on one side of meetings. We would hear how she would do things differently, let's say, in Middle East or foreign policy. And then she'd come out and be like, no, I don't think he made any mistakes at all. And it was like, no, you actually do think he made mistakes. You may have done things just slightly differently or finessed it differently or whatever the case may be.

And then he came out and said, a vice president's job is to be loyal and all vice presidents who become president carve their own path eventually. And it was like, no, no, baby, she's got to be doing that now. But he felt like

Like he did that for Obama the whole time and he waited his turn the whole time. And so now she was going to have to wait for her turn. And this man stayed president and stayed what he wanted to be to the very last day. And there were things he did in the last week that didn't make it into this book that I guess I'll wait for the next book, like the fake signing of the ERA that were absolutely fucking unhinged at the end of the situation. Oh, no, sorry.

Sorry, that was not mentioned in the book. It was mentioned in a different piece I read because I was then starting. I was then like after I finished, I was like kind of like like browsing for more like info about it. And all he cared about in the end was the legacy. That's all I heard in the last I saw him. The last time I saw him was December 13th in the Oval Office. And it was about his legacy and who was going to tell his story and how we were going to do this. And I was like.

And he's like, I'm going to do the ERA. And I was like, OK, well, then that'll be it. Right. And then we had like a fake ERA signing. And I was like, I can't do anything with that. Yeah. It was like that stupid tweet. It was like, OK, there's something that is uncomfortable about that, where he was just it revealed it revealed everything. Basically, like after the debate, his character was revealed.

because he and the flaws in the party. And I think what the problem is, is that Biden, by insisting on staying in, never changing course and having all his people there. That's like the key thing. It's like the people you can't make any changes because you have this old guard that's sitting in their positions and will not change anything. And by the way, I'm not suggesting something like the president.

Vice chair of the DNC, David Hogg, should be raising money to beat safe seats to primary Democrats and safe seats so that you can have someone with a younger, you know, was born in a more recent year. That is crazy. That's all. Yeah. Short sighted. Look, that's not the answer either. That's just like doing the same thing for people who are younger because they're younger.

Just like generational politics. Right. Right. It's not. OK, for why, though, what are they going to I'm sick of this this age shit, because let's when people say they're too old, I don't believe that they mean old in terms of years, because you look at Bernie Sanders and everyone gives him his flowers. And look, the man is going across the country. He's an old.

an old man going across the country and he does not waste a day or an ounce of energy. It's not about your age. It's the way that you think about things and your willingness to actually be aggressive and fight and be creative and what you'll say.

That's what I think is so frustrating. And people use age as like a proxy for that because it usually does kind of work that way. But there are plenty of people who are sort of deploying the old school way of thinking, Alyssa Slotkin, who is much younger. And it's like, it's not really about their age. It's about the way they think of things. So just because someone is of a younger generation does not mean that they are better. And I think we have some examples of that to bring in our next section of leadership. Yes.

Right. And when we're when we're, you know, visiting the digital town square where young people often gather and are getting their ideas. And now we know, thanks to Pew Research, most people are getting not just their ideas from TikTok and Instagram, but their actual opinions. They will not just come forward with what they inherently believe is true, but will rather defer to comments to decide their opinions for them. Comments that are full of bots and propaganda and all kinds of influence.

Over this weekend, we saw a lot of folks in leftist spaces criticizing their own efforts to combat disinformation and the end of democracy and the ways that it's sort of like failing. And perhaps the infighting and the just power grabbing is not just for the old people. It is also for the young people. We saw David Hogg say he's going to, you know, primary all these people with 20 million dollars. Who's giving him 20 million dollars, by the way? And like, what?

Who are the people he'd primary? He didn't have a plan. He just had money in a something-to-mouth alpha about a little bit here. And then there was the Unfuck America tour. Did you see that? No, what's that? Okay. So the Unfuck America tour, I think in its idea, right, in its inception, really makes a ton of sense because what people are being told online is that we need a left version of the right's success, which is not the path that I would take to chasing any kind of success.

And so Charlie Kirk has his speaking tour on college campuses, part of Turning Point, where they are actively recruiting and bringing in young people to the right side of the party. And so these kids who are really good at debating online, Dean Withers and Parker, joined with this funder to meet at Charlie Kirk events and then essentially heckle him until he debates them.

And it just didn't work out that well. So they went. Of course, Charlie Kirk is much more funded. They aren't allowed to just heckle him at his own event. Then they're like, we're winning. He doesn't want us around. And then they set up like a stand. Not many people came to this particular stand. And I think young people are learning like.

it's not that no one has had this idea before. It's that perhaps it hasn't worked before, or it takes a little bit more to get it off the ground. And so today on Tik TOK, all we're hearing about is people blaming the funder who, um, I'm not involved in this. So I don't know. She, they called her microaggressive. They said that she was anti-black. Um,

They said that she they wanted to continue to do the unfuck America tour, but they needed to find another funder. And I think it's so that sort of fell apart over the weekend. They turned on their own funder. They did publicly for what? I.

What did the funder do? This is like active. We're on Monday morning and they're just starting to talk about it. So I think over the next day or two, if you're following the Unfuck America tour drama on TikTok, you'll start to see maybe a little bit more transparency as to what happened here. But at the heart of it, I'm not seeing them necessarily say, hey, it didn't work to show up and heckle Charlie Kirk at his own event. Perhaps there's a better way for us to gain audience than by heckling Charlie Kirk.

Right. So that's one thing that sort of happened. That was crazy. And then the other thing moving on from that, since this is like happening right now, I was disappointed yesterday to see the way that some people responded to or create a platform for themselves at Cory Booker and Hakeem Jeffries stoop talk on the Capitol front steps. The historic importance of two black men speaking on the stairs is

It cannot be understated, like both the physicality of it, the way it will be historically documented in the conversations they were having about this week's budget bill. And there is truly nothing I think we should be focusing on more than the budget reconciliation package that the Trump administration is trying to put forward that would cut all of Medicaid, that cuts veterans benefits, that cuts public schools, just an absolute dismantling of the country as we know it.

And that's what they were talking about. And then you have people making tick tocks because they're like, did you see me with my free Palestine sign right behind Cory Booker? They wanted me to move, but I didn't move. And I had my sign. I had my sign. I'm such a hero. Granted, that is a really important thing to young people and to everybody. Right. Like the atrocities that are happening around the world matter to everyone.

But at a time when Cory Booker is actively the Senator for New Jersey, who is negotiating the release of Mahmoud Khalil to be able to return to New Jersey, um,

from a detention camp that he was put in in Louisiana because of him being a negotiator for the pre-falsified movement on Columbia campus. I'm not sure that heckling Cory Booker yesterday was the right time or the right person to do that activism at. He takes APAC money. He's the devil. I know. And don't you forget it. That's sort of part of the parroting of things where I'm like, okay, guys,

We're not in the Biden years anymore. We're not in the Kamala years where you can sort of like have these pickoff conversations and where we were really able to kind of like get some attention for that. We are actually facing Trump now and you don't see these kind of protests at Trump rallies and then they'll say, oh, well, because it would be unsafe for me. I'm like,

But it is unsafe for you to continually sideline and overly criticize the people who are fighting for any of the things you believe in. And I'm not saying people are above criticism. Certainly not. But yesterday's event on the Capitol stairs, I think, was –

Not necessarily the right time to come out and start protesting for abortion, start protesting for anything other than what we were there for in that minute, which was, hey, can we quick talk about this budget that will affect all of us? That's what we need to sort of like organize around right now and not make it a moment to try and heckle people for likes from bots in the comment section of TikTok. I think there's a pretty clear thread between TikTok.

what works and what doesn't, or just what is sort of like shitty, selfish activism, quote unquote, versus what is going to be effective or inspiring. And I think that sometimes what I've noticed is that people are extremely unoriginal. So like, you're not like original because you, uh, like hold up a sign where you're trying to get attention that just says free palette. Like, what are you accomplishing? It's not original. Yeah.

They're not original. And like, as in the technique is not original and their followers, like you are not like what, what is your idea? So like even the idea of following around Charlie Kirk, like stop following the right, stop trying to create a left wing Joe Rogan. Like it's not, it doesn't, it's a premise that doesn't even make sense. Like all of this is very frustrating to watch because it's like, get your

Get your own idea. Get like stop being a parasite on some other thing that you that you are trying to use to get attention. If you look at what has been effective, it is creative things. Cory Booker doing the 25, 25 hours. No one was like, oh, let me like try. He didn't try to imitate what someone else did. The oligarchy tour.

The people are just coming out. They're just going. They're just coming out. No one told them to do it. No one said, oh, this is going to be modeled on XYZ thing. I'm going to follow around. Trump's what Trump did. It's like they just went. These town halls, like it's not obviously that original of an idea, but they keep like they're making a point. And the point is not that they go rival. The point is that the people in the town see them and attend it. It's like there is...

There's so much performativeness on the Internet and it drives me fucking crazy. And the last thing I just want us to bring up before we bring Amanda Lemon in, who's going to probably help us talk about some more productive ways to lead originally and creatively, is this really great carousel I saw from...

It's on the thread account at Patricia Deanna. And she posted a carousel from the soft revolution. And basically it's about how to tell the difference between healthy protest rhetoric versus red flag leftist rhetoric.

because I know people think, oh, we're not being harmful if we're just calling for more than what moderates or moderate liberals are calling for. But it's not really that simple because you can also hurt the cause by making the protest actually against people who are aligned with you. So she talks about

Like people who are sort of, you know, bringing in trauma when it's like bringing the trauma as their reason for disruption or performing pain or like weaponizing their own knowledge. Like, like people who say don't vote or vote third party, like don't organize, like just you just, you know, you do your own thing. Like don't take your elders advice for organizing, like all of those things are

are harmful. And there's a reason that you defer to expert organizers and people who have succeeded in movements before. And ultimately her point is that like tone is important. The way that you respect your felt, you know, fellow people, even if they're not like totally in agreement with you, like that is part of solidarity. Like,

yelling at people because they didn't say the right word or they're canceled because they have this opinion. Like, do you think, Corey, like, does the Free Palestine protester think that given the choice, who would be more respectful of their point of view, Donald Trump or Cory Booker? So you're going to go yell at Cory Booker? I don't really understand. That's where I think a lot of folks are at now with a lot of the action that's happening and the way that it's going down. Because even today, right,

Most people didn't know what the Un-Fuck America tour was and what they'll see on TikTok is the members of the Un-Fuck America tour turn on each other and try to blame each other and try to – like all the average person is going to know about it is that it failed. That's going to make it a lot harder to get this lift off, and I do think that Dean and Parker are talented debaters and there's a place for that. I mean there was a world – at the end of all of this –

The thing that I have been aggravated with and that I am now really shut off to and sort of narrowing my focus on is like, who is the Democratic Party? What are our values? Instead of trying to chase other people or change minds, I just need people to stand somewhere and say, this is what we stand for. Here's our tablet of our Ten Commandments or whatever we want to call it. This is what we do. This is our Project 2029 agenda.

And that is how that's a government that you could expect and fucking be selling that for the next four years, because I don't really care about all the fractures within this or who's doing the right thing. It's kind of like Democratic Party has 29 percent or whatever, very low approval rating right now because people don't know what they're signed up for. They don't know who we are anymore, what we're about until we have that. All this other stuff isn't going to matter.

I have some ideas if anyone wants to, if anyone's listening and wants to know what they are. I think that our pillars should be equal rights, affordable housing, and getting money out of politics. Bang. See? And then we can run with that. And let's bring Amanda Lipman on because we've been waking her weight.

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Amanda, welcome. What's going on? Hi. I love that. That was so interesting. Thank you for. I love that. That's so fun. Any of this stuff? Because you've been listening in. You didn't know about this. I didn't know anything about the unfuck America America tour. It sounds like it's not going well. No, good name, though. It's a great name. It is. It's a good idea. But it's like instead of chasing Charlie Kirk.

let's get Dean a stage somewhere to talk about whatever it is and model for other young men why you shouldn't be an asshole, right? Like I would go to that. I'd love to go to that. Dean is a phenomenal communicator. He's a great orator. Like that'd be really cool to watch. I don't need to watch him heckle Charlie Kirk from the side. I think it diminished his power. Yeah. Why are we chasing our opponents? I think both of you are spot on. Like,

we got to like hold the create the space of what the Democratic Party is and like define ourselves. That doesn't mean everyone's going to like it. But if people know what we are, at the very least, they can have something to respond to. We don't got to chase the other people's bullshit. Yeah, that's not leadership. That's not leadership. Just what we're going to talk about. So you know what leadership is. I mean, do you know what leadership is? Because you just wrote a book on it. So will you tell us what are like, what do you want everyone to know? What's the point you want everyone to get from reading your book?

And they should read it. Yeah, they should. So when we're in charge, which comes out May 13th, get it, whatever books are sold is about what it means to be a next generation leader, which as you guys were talking, I think is really what the democratic party needs to be doing moving forward. We need to take our cues from these millennial and Gen Z leaders across the country, both in politics and outside of it, who have really navigated the tension of clearly standing for something, communicating that in a way that makes sense to people and,

Like being inclusive, which, you know, sometimes requires being a little bit exclusive. You got to like keep know who you are and who you want to bring in in order to keep other people out, which I think people don't always think about. Yeah.

to really understand that sometimes that means people won't like you and that's OK, how to cope with all of that and how to do it in a way that doesn't make people miserable, which is really like sort of the tagline of this book that I wrote that I'm really excited about is it is actually incredibly possible, hard, but possible to be an effective leader without being shitty to the people you lead. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. I mean, I think that's very important.

Because that's kind of a problem now. It's not fun right now. And I think like, you know, look at Trump and Elon. Those are not admirable leaders. They're not doing it right. I don't think it's fun to work for either of them. That's not good role modeling. There's an entirely different way of doing this. And we are seeing examples of that across the country. I think like both of you are examples of that. And that's where we got to take our cues from.

Thank you. But question, do you think that any of this play maps onto the sort of, you know, masculine, you know, the people call it the masculinity crisis? You could say, oh, like this, this kind of like male dominant attitude. Do you think that that is playing into this? I do. I think there is like a very traditional understanding of what a leader looks like. And it's older, white, cisgender dude, usually rich.

I think that that particular model, like the last 15 years have been everyone else sort of ramming a battering ram against that door. And like we are right on the tipping point of that changing in a really big way. And that's part of the reason we're experiencing so much pushback is like it's because we're about to break through big time.

That's my optimism, perhaps. Do you have any thoughts on like, OK, maybe this is a really pessimistic view. Actually, I don't even think it's a pessimistic view. I think it's actually quite realistic. I don't see how like at any let's say Republicans grew a spine. They impeach Trump. They remove him today.

see how you go back to the old way ever again. Like, I don't see how there's going how we don't come out of this with like potentially a different government that's structured differently than it is now, because I actually don't see how any of our any other countries in this world would trust us to trade with to as a military alliance for any intelligence alliance.

If we can reelect like like the fact that we have Trump again, I think they're just like, oh, get us out of that. We don't want to be attached to you. We don't want to be beholden to you. We are kicking you out of the friend group. Oh, totally. I don't we're not going back. And I think like that is both really scary and also an opportunity because what what we had before wasn't working for a lot of people. I think part of the Democratic Party's problem has been refusing to acknowledge that like it didn't feel good. It wasn't working.

We get a chance to build something new. And I think there's a lot of stuff from the last 250 years that has worked well, but a lot that has not. And we get a chance to hopefully sort of rebuild trust, not just with like our voters, but with the rest of the world, because I think we'll get there. I think what I like, I know this is insane to be optimistic. So here's the thing.

We have had, so Run for Something has had 42,000 young people raise their hands to say they want to run in the last six months. That's more than in the entire first two years of Trump's first term. Mm-hmm.

We are building a whole new sea of leaders across the Democratic Party, and Trump cannot run for a third term. We should not give in to this dumerism shit that he will be back on the ballot. And no other Republican can get away with this bullshit. We saw that in the 2024 primary. We see that with J.D. Vance. We see this with Ron DeSantis. Like, none of them can get away with his bullshit. So in 2028, there's going to be a lot of ways in which that election is very, very hard for us to win. But I think we'll have an opportunity. And once we do...

I think we can build something better. I think so too. And the thing that I like about your organization is I know for a period of time as a queer person, right? For a period of time, it was really important for me to identify myself as a lesbian news anchor, right? Like there was something that was important about that sort of representation. I don't feel like I have to do that anymore because now there are lots, right? Everyone knows it's not a whole thing. And I like that we're not, you know, on the run for something site being like, and we have 900 black candidates and a thousand queer candidates and this one like this, like,

Young people, by virtue of our culture and our friendships and our families, are more likely to be mixed race or to have a more diverse group of friends and people that we've already identified as leaders and helpers in our world than, say, folks older who literally grew up when they forced them to desegregate. So it's like, you know, we're in a better situation where I think those kind of like identity politics.

don't need to be as front of line for people, for other voters and young voters to see that politician as a whole person without them having to come out and potentially ostracize themselves from this is that white vote by being like, well, I am a lesbian and that's why you should vote for me, right? I'm sort of glad as I'm watching the years go by that that becomes less and less and less meaningful.

it's both less traumatizing to the actual candidate. It puts you in a less vulnerable position because we're the only ones who have to like qualify ourself by who we sleep with first before we'll listen to if we like your traffic light policies or your school board picks. Like, so I feel like

To that point, when we say we need to pass the baton to the next generation, it's not like we talked about earlier in this episode about age to age. It's like old thinking to new thinking to like the new truth of what this country is right now. And, you know, we're going to see it in politics first because it's sort of the tip of the spear on leadership change, but it's going to come for every other sector. Yeah.

The youngest boomer hits retirement age in 2030. We're already starting to see it in media. We're starting to see it. I mean, tech is already kind of a young space, but we're seeing like a new different kind of tech executive. We're seeing slowly, slowly, slowly more women, more people of color. Not that demographics is destiny, but like just by definition, as you said, millennials and then Gen Z are more racially diverse. They're more like broader definitions of gender identity and sexual orientation.

As we take power, by definition, leadership will look different. And that's going to happen everywhere. My concern with the resistance, quote unquote, is that you sort of have this like institutional resistance represented by like a Cory Booker. And I would say it could really be represented by nearly like almost anyone who's in office now. But then you have this streak, which really concerns me, which you saw around like Luigi Mangione.

where it's this almost resistance streaked with acceptability of death. And I think you see this with people screaming, like, death to Jews, that they support Hamas, even as a response to Israel. And I think that there's definitely a strain that's going to occupy the guillotine caucus. And my concern is that if you don't have people who...

believe in sort of that like line of like, you know, you don't kill your opponents because that makes you no better than than them. If you don't have like a line, you're going to get something French Revolutionary. And that's my real worry. So like that there's no person who's saying, OK, here's a plan that is like moral and not deadly. Right.

Well, the guillotine earrings are so cute, though, Sammy. And a lot of the I mean, there's a little bit of gallows humor here. But yes, to the point when we say they're like they're they're trying to make it 1939. Let's make it 1752 France or whatever. I'm like, you can't actually kill people in the streets like you used to be able to guys. If you're OK, if you're like, oh, like they're killing, let's kill. Then what's wrong with their killing? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Then you're fine with that. You just don't like them. You can't kill other people or yourself, like I always say. We have to get through this together.

You know, there's a lot of like sort of this broader resistance stuff where I'm like, if you really don't think there's ever going to be another election, like what are you doing in this conversation? You should be out in the streets with guns. Like that is, that is totally insane way to think about it. We have to operate. Maybe they're not convinced. Yeah. Like we have to operate as if we are going to have a chance to build something better and that we can have a chance to do it in a way that like is humane and compassionate and doesn't involve like chopping people's heads off in the town square. Well,

Well, and we have to recognize that having a sense of urgency also can come with a sense of patience. Right. We can have a sense of urgency and have patience that our sense of urgency is to ensure that we protect our democracy and we fight autocracy in the courts in every which way we possibly can. And we have the patience to not just shoot people. Right. Because that'll take care of the problem. Right. Like that. That's also important.

Not going to take care of the problem. You create martyrs when you do that. And that's also a lesson from history. It feels like it's been 100 years since Trump took office. It's been barely 100 days. You think about where we were at. And a president is the most powerful in their first 100 days. After that, people grow very tired of them not committing the campaign promises, whether they're good or bad.

I think this is sort of like a media, like this to me is like a created event. Like the fact that it's a hundred days, like that is a pro I don't really buy into that. Like I get maybe in like 2008, but like, I don't buy into that now. Here's, here's why I bring that up. It's because it's so early. Like,

If we're like, where is the leader? Where is the person putting out the plan? We're barely three months into this. If you think back, like for the Democrats, for the Democrats, like the opposition, there is still a lot of time. Many of the leaders that we look to now, like AOC didn't start get it get started until later into the first year run in 2018. Like we are so early into this chance to define who's going to lead us forward.

that's my yeah maybe we don't even know them yet i hope so i really hope we've never even heard of them it's our only hope yeah someone who are you come on so so let me ask you then what do you think are some of you know besides the obvious examples the oligarchy tour you know the you know corey booker what do you think are some effective ways that like you would like people to be approaching this that you're actually not seeing that's a really good question um

You know, most of my work is focused on getting people to run for local office. And I think one of the really meaningful ways that we can push back is by doing good things where we have power. So, like, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, they just passed some of the biggest, most wide sweeping zoning reform in the country.

What that does is very, very abundance coded. Well, you know, especially on housing, they're onto something here because you think about it just like,

And especially for young people who are disproportionately renters, the impact on housing is the biggest cost of living issue. So we think about psychological, it's psychological. It's like, it's not just that I can't afford my house right now. It's that I'm never going to be able to afford a house. And what does that mean about my possibility to like build a life for my family and to be able to hand something down to my kids? And I'm so mad at my grandparents who don't understand what this is like, because they bought a house in the 60s when, you know, it was very different.

This housing reform could 10x the amount of housing built in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was pushed forward by a run for something along Burhanazim, who himself was one of the first renters and only renters elected to the Cambridge City Council. Baller. Baller. Yeah, there needs to be more renters who are in political office because I think, OK, I

I had said I don't remember if you were on when I had said this, when I think the Democratic pillar should be equal rights, affordable housing and money out of politics, because I don't think people realize the psychological piece of of of what housing means for people. Yes, it represents this American dream, but it's there's a reason why. And it's so much more than this. It's that people cannot tether themselves to communities.

whether they want to be parents, whether they want to be married, whatever it is, you cannot tether yourself to something and see a future where, where there's any sort of stability or like connection with the people around you or with your, like your own future. If you do not have a stable home that you are sure you will be able to continue living in. So it's not just about like the affordability. It's like the, it,

you know, it's not just the affordability of buying a house. It's the, it's the fact that like your rent is just going to keep going up and like renting isn't a stable plan either. So you're basically kind of just like have people who are in the back of their minds. Like I could be homeless one day. And like, who is going to invest in a future? Who wants to keep like playing within the system when they're like, this system has fucked me so hard.

So Run for Something Civics, which is our 501c3 arm, spoiler here, is going to be doing a bunch around electing more renters and getting more renters to lead. Because in particular, you know, we're talking a little bit earlier about like identity. 93% of elected officials are homeowners. That's fascinating. Like that is not representative of where the American people are. In the New York State Assembly, a state where there are a lot of renters,

There are more landlords in the New York state legislature than there are tenants. Even in California, there's only, I think, five people who claim their identity as a renter. And that right there should get you to run for office because this is the whole thing. Yeah. It's not just the renting, right? And not being sure where you're going to live or how you're going to live. It's being worried about hanging a picture, making the space your own, because what will my landlord charge me when I move out? It's the fact that you buy furniture or acquire furniture for a rented home that's not as

permanent as the things you bring into your home that you own, right? You're constantly moving, the cost of moving. What if your roommate moves out and you have to get another roommate? It is a terrible mental state. And it's been so normalized for people because we were sold on the idea that renting is freedom, right? I bought a house last year for the first time, something I never thought I would ever be able to do in the suburbs of Rochester. Very affordable place to buy a house.

And you it is different. They're just I did until you experience it, then you don't realize like what 30 years of renting did to my mental health and stability that you just sort of don't realize aren't there anymore once you do own something. Well, I'm a renter and I have two little kids and thinking about where they're going to go to school. It's like I can kind of make a plan. Right. Maybe. Hopefully I don't get priced out of my apartment. Right.

Right. And also like, I think maybe people don't run for office because running for office is a location tethered thing. So it's like, if you don't feel like you're definitely going to live there, then why would you run? Why would you run for the board of like your school, you know, your school or anything? Cause it's like, you feel like you might feel or other people might feel like, oh, well that's not definitely permanent as if people who have homes can't also move. But it's the job.

I didn't want to buy the house. And Natalie's like, why? I'm like, well, what if I get a different job? She's like, babe, this is the job. Okay. Like, and it's Rochester. You've been in Rochester the whole five years doing under the desk. You're going to stay doing it here. You're good. This is it. Okay. We're going to do this. But you're always worried, right? Like about what if I have to move? What if I have to do whatever? Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Well, and I think it'll be a really powerful way to to rethink about class solidarity, too, because you can experience a very different types of life in very different types of places. It's an issue in rural communities, suburban communities, urban areas. There are, you know, the boomers who want to, like, move out of their starter. I'll move closer to where their grandkids live. And the Gen Zers who are like, I just graduated from college and I can't afford to live where I want is a cross generational, cross class, cross ethnic experience.

that can really bring new people into the fold. So I am really glad you brought it up, Sammy. I'm really excited about that when we're eventually ready to roll it out more broadly. Also cross class because people don't realize that it's not just like, oh, at this level, you can't afford a house or at this level, there's no inventory. It's like people, there are no houses to buy at any level of price. And so,

- Well, because private equity on top of it, right. - Private equity is certainly responsible, but I think housing is so much more complicated and also because it's market-based where it's like in some places is private equity, in some cities, private equity have bought up like all these apartments.

But in like a suburb, a lot of it has to do with like the people there don't want multifamily units or they don't want to build slightly more affordable housing or like you can't get this land or this isn't zoned for the school district. There's like so many complicated pieces that it's also like you can't fix it with one policy either.

Right. But you could start by just building a fuck ton more of it. That would actually be the number one thing. Yeah. Lots of other stuff, too. But number one, first and foremost, is increased supply inventory. It says all those, you know, homes that were built in the 50s that y'all got to buy for like thirty thousand dollars and have lived in for the last 40 years. Maybe those houses can only be fifty thousand dollars. Maybe maybe they shouldn't be going for four hundred grand for a two bedroom, small 1950s apartment in rural fucking Rochester. Yeah.

Or perhaps bring back something like the GI Bill that works across races, across genders, across age. And to get it, you have to have student loans, okay? Because I put in my time. Yeah.

I'm telling you, I grew up in my grandparents' house. My grandfather was able to pay for a house in Roslyn, New York, which is one of the best public school districts in the country that my family, you know, we moved in with them. And if it wasn't for him being in the Korean War, getting a cheap mortgage in a new neighborhood that ultimately became a very, you know, an upscale neighborhood. If it wasn't for that, I would not have my education. I would not have gone to Cornell because my high school was a feeder school to Cornell. I wouldn't have started my company. It is like...

like the ripple effect of this. I think just giving people a little leg up, even if it's from a parent, you know, it really makes a whole difference. The Democrats have to say, and that's our platform, right? We're not going to deal with all of the culture war bullshit that the right pins on us. We're not even going to respond. I will no longer answer questions about politics

If trans eight year olds can play on a co-ed soccer team, they can't. Stop thinking about kids genitals. Moving on. Like I'm not dealing with that anymore. The only kids genitals you should be worried about are none. Your own. Unless it's your child at the doctor. Right. Yeah. But it's like we can't be defined by them. And that's why I think chasing them around and trying to be the left version of the right, of course, doesn't work. But yeah. OK, so housing. And here's what it is. And you know, Project 2029 and publish it.

To zoom out and even a little bit more, like we talk about authenticity, the way that you be authentic is by knowing who you are. And that's part of the reason that I think many like Democratic candidates really struggle with this is that you can't perform yourself and all of it is a performance, but you can't perform yourself unless you know what the core is. And that's where we struggle. And I think that that's a huge thing. And I honestly feel that that's the reason younger people and Bernie Sanders can do this is because...

Not everyone feels gets the permission in their lifetime to be themselves. And I think that a lot of these like boomer Gen X politicians like we're really raised in a place where it's like actually not being yourself is kind of like the way you win. And a lot of millennials and Gen Z were raised in a way where it's like if you're not yourself, you are your own. People can smell it. And so I think it's currency. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think people kind of exaggerate it and are like, I have to play up this thing.

I'm special, you know, and I write about this in the book of like, what the responsibility is for leaders in particular is like really responsible authenticity, like being yourself in service of a goal. And that doesn't mean don't be yourself. It doesn't mean like, don't bring your flaws and like your character and your humanity. It just means knowing, you know, to your point earlier, be like, when to shut the fuck up and when to speak up. And that

that is intentionality, that is strategy, that is also authenticity. And that is like the tension in that is the challenge that like all of us face right now, but that's also the work. - Yeah, it's true. Well, 42,000 people,

That is wild. That is wild. Congratulations. Congratulations on the book. Thank you. Everyone should check it out when we're in charge. I am. I have a little, a little section in there where I talk about working with friends. So it's fun time. Yeah. And I got to talk to so many people like Sammy about their leadership styles, which was so fun and,

like really stuck with me because it's not just about politics. It's about so much more about what it means to lead right now and work in community spaces and your nonprofit and your group chat wherever in a way that like both is effective and not shitty, which I think especially right now when everything feels so bad, it's like really important that the spaces we control feel good. Totally. Absolutely. Can't wait for the book. Super excited.

Yay, book friends. Well, thanks for stopping by and chatting with us. Where else can people find you? They can buy the book and they can find you online where? Amanda LITM on Instagram and Amanda Littman basically everywhere else. And you can find run for something of at run for something or run for something now, depending on the platform, but we're run for something.net online. Yay. All right. Thanks, Amanda. We'll talk to you soon.

She's so fun. 42,000 people. 42,000. What a thrill. One thing we didn't get to today, so I'm going to shout out my own damn thing, is on Substack today, I have an article that I think is really important for you guys to read. It is about how Trump canceled the $49 million in federal assistance to CASA, which is the Court Appointed Special Advocates for Literal Neglected Children and Foster Kids Act.

And the fact that he may have done it because he thinks that Casa is the Casa that's representing Kilmar Brego Garcia in a lawsuit against him. And you know how Doge does things. They just search a keyword and then cancel the fucking funding. So read that. Let us know what you think.

And watch us on YouTube because, you know, we're having a lot of fun doing the YouTube. Until next time, I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Creek.