The Real Power of Protest: How We Fight Back and Win

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Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Crooked Media.

I'm your host, Stacey Abrams.

At a time when the very institutions we've been taught to rely on are under siege, when the people we know face a level of uncertainty that is hard to process.

Figuring out how to respond to what's happening around us is a daily conversation with very few satisfying answers.

We are facing real consequences.

Services are disappearing.

Residents are being snatched from the streets.

And stable programs like Social Security and Medicaid and Head Start are in real danger of destruction.

Republicans and Congress are complicit with an administration that is determined to destroy the fabric of what binds us together.

And unfortunately, the judiciary is struggling to get at the truth, let alone at compliance with the law.

With all of this, the idea of protest can seem to be at best an inadequate response.

Who feels like marching when everything feels like it's failing?

And yet, protest remains one of the most important tactics in fighting tyrants, strong men, and fighting surrender.

You see, Americans know how to do this, and we seem to know this despite all the narratives about how we're not doing enough.

Regular people are making signs and showing up in parks and on courthouse lawns.

What kind of power?

People power.

Who's got the power?

Coalitions like the State of the People Tour have organized organized calls to action in red and blue states.

This fight is about freedom.

Our power comes from the street.

On May Day, rallies occurred in over 1,000 cities across the United States.

A few weeks before that, millions of Americans showed up at over 1,400 hands-off protests.

We have to be honest, though, there are communities that are under greater threat based on race and region and ideology.

And yet, more quietly than the public protest, we have seen intrepid bands of individuals who have taken to confronting bad actions as they occur.

They have staged impromptu intercessions where due process is being violated.

We've seen young and old and middle-aged alike show up and offer public comments in city halls and state legislatures and on college campuses despite threats because they want to make sure that what is happening to our neighbors and our friends is on the record.

In real life and in real time, people are coming out to take a stand against a right-wing fascism that seeks to dismantle our common bonds.

A fascism and authoritarian rise that might be led by Donald Trump, but is certainly much broader than his administration alone.

This is about who we intend to be.

As so many of our guests and our recommended readings remind us, being seen in opposition is not simply a tactic.

It is a vital strategy for defeating oppressive regimes as they begin to rise.

Showing up now helps slow down their progress.

Protests serve as a catharsis for those who show up, it's also an invitation to those who don't yet believe they can or that they should.

There is nothing more dangerous to tyranny than those who are willing to speak out and exercise their First Amendment rights, all of them, including the right to free speech, to public assembly, and to insistent, consistent protest.

In election after election since January 2025, we've also seen communities signal a rejection of authoritarianism from Iowa to Wisconsin to Florida and Pennsylvania.

At every level of government, voters are asserting their belief in an America that serves us, not just the wealthy and the powerful.

Rachel Maddow recently reminded us that protest is essential work because we're at a critical juncture.

We're deciding if we will be silent victims or vocal fighters who refuse to cede our national story to those who hold us and our values in contempt.

If you are here with us, you know that we need to do more than just talk or tweet about everything they're doing wrong, although we'll do that too.

We have to meet the moment with action, and that is what Assembly Required is all about.

So this week, we're going to get into the weeds with two leaders who've built real pathways for everyday people to make a difference.

First, we'll hear from Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who launched the Resistance Lab, an online training series that teaches the history of effective resistance and prepares people to be both strike ready and street ready.

Then we'll talk to Amanda Littman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, an organization that helps the younger generation run for local and state office.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Stacey.

It is wonderful to be with you.

Well, it is always a treat to see you, even in these dark times.

So I'm going to just launch right in because you and I don't stand on ceremony.

Yeah.

You know, in response to Trump, the co-conspirators of the Republican Congress and the authoritarian enablers who now lead most of our federal agencies

have been up to mischief.

And in response, you launched a project called called the Resistance Lab, which is a series of trainings that look at how nonviolent movements around the world have responded to authoritarian leaders.

Can you talk about why this matters?

What prompted it and why it is so critical to you in this moment that this tool be available?

Yeah.

Well, first of all, I think this has been the most hopeful thing that I have done in some years.

And I didn't know that that would be the case, but it felt like what what was happening was in this flood the zone moment that people were paralyzed and also feeling very hopeless and thinking about the power that an authoritarian had in a way that they had never really confronted before.

And I think a lot of Americans have been complacent about our democracy and about the checks and balances that we have built in.

And so they were both frustrated that those checks and balances weren't working and also looking at, oh my God, what do we do?

And it felt to me like we really needed to learn from other models of what you can do to fight authoritarians and dictators, how it has been successful, and also a mode of analysis of what is happening and where the support comes from.

And that then leads you to the ability to say, okay, we as the people are actually the only bulwark against an authoritarian.

It's not Congress.

Of course, there are things that Congress needs to to do.

It's not the courts.

Of course, there are things that the courts need to do.

But both of those presume that the authoritarian is going to listen to the courts, that Republicans in Congress are going to stand up for the Article I powers that we have.

And if neither of those things are happening, then the only way forward is the people.

And I have just been, I mean, it's literally only been five weeks, I think, at this point.

And we have had 25,000 people from 44 states and six countries

be a part of these resistance lab trainings.

And we had a 1.0 version that we were doing, and then people wanted to go deeper.

So we just launched a 2.0 version and sort of a second training that people can take, ideally after you take the first one.

And we're doing them both virtually and in person.

And it has allowed us to really give people an analysis that is shared about what's happening and how to fight back, tools that they can actually use.

And we break people into small groups.

And people just love it.

It's only a 20-minute small group, but think about it.

You're talking to people, you may be in Washington State, you're talking to people from Texas, you're talking to maybe somebody from Canada.

And that kind of diversity of thought and of atmosphere is also really important to continue to cultivate.

So it's been pretty amazing to watch.

In a moment when social media is the most prevalent way of getting information, when we are no longer working in offices and everything feels remote, why is this protest tool such a vital convening space for community right now?

Well, I actually think the reason we kept the small groups is because people got so much value out of feeling like they weren't alone.

Because the power of the people is one that any single person can start something that ends up being very powerful.

Whether you think about it as the Tesla takedowns, or you think about,

you know, an action that a school teacher takes that prevents a sign from being taken down in her school and the whole community rallies around it.

We want people to understand that they don't have to wait for somebody else to take action, that they can do it themselves.

And that it is much more powerful if you are in community and you build a movement.

And so I do think that the ability for people to not feel alone is really important and also to see their own power.

I mean, hopelessness is the tool of the oppressor and people feeling the hopelessness want to feel differently.

And when they see others displaying courage, courage also begets courage.

Courage is a muscle.

And so we're teaching people in these trainings also to be able to exercise their courage muscle and to think about their level of engagement increasing and their risk tolerance increasing as they see the severity of the situation increasing.

And so, we're doing a lot of things all at the same time, but at the end of the day, I want people to walk out feeling like I learned a lot about how dictators get propped up.

I learned a lot about how to take down the pillars of support that prop up a dictator or an authoritarian.

And I learned a lot about what I can do and how I can build a movement on some of these critical issues.

Well, we know that in recent years, protest culture has sparked intense debate, especially in the context of movements like Free Palestine, Black Lives Matter, the Stop Cop City protest here in Atlanta.

And we also know that a core pillar of the Resistance Labs programming is rooted in the key principles of Dr.

King's philosophy of nonviolent resistance.

Exactly.

I mentioned those two things because we also know that the civil rights movement, despite its treatment today, it was deeply unpopular at the time.

Yes.

And this halcyon vision that we have that protest in the past was popular and now it's suddenly unpopular is just not true.

How do you situate your participants in this perspective on the current landscape?

How do they understand

that what we're doing now isn't about popularity, it's about progress.

Yes, exactly.

And we do it in two ways.

One is we actually give the nonviolent framework and we give it both by articulating Dr.

King's principles of nonviolent resistance, but also talking about the research that shows that nonviolent resistance is

by many times much more likely to produce success than violence.

And we talk about why that is and what violence,

whether it's put upon a protester by the forces, authoritarian forces, or whether it's violence that, say, somebody comes in from outside or inside and sort of, you know, inserts into the movement.

How do you deal with that?

And how does that turn people off of the movement and actually play into the oppressor's hands?

And so we go through kind of that analysis, and then we also talk about the principles.

And I think we root them often in examples of what happened during the civil rights movement.

There's way too many people, you know this very well, too many people who don't know our history and don't know what was actually happening.

So you're right to say people sort of see, and even people on the right will talk about Martin Luther King or the movement in, you know, laudatory ways.

And then the very next thing they do is actually use some of the same authoritarian

actions that they supposedly were lauding the movement for fighting against.

And so we kind of talk about all of that and situate people in a place where they understand not only why it's the right thing to do, because morality is helpful, but also why it's the most effective thing to do.

You know, we also talk about the planning that went into the civil rights movement.

It wasn't an accident that Rosa Parks didn't vacate her seat.

It wasn't, you know, all of the training, the church basements, the training in

institutions that was taking place to help people prepare, that is also a part of Resistance Labs.

We're trying to get people to understand that this is not something that you just wake up tomorrow and you're, you know,

it it actually has to be intentional.

It has to be planned.

There has to be strategy and it's got to be smart strategy.

There are more effective things to do and less effective things to do.

So we try to cover all of those things.

And obviously we try to say to people, we don't have all the answers.

This is a two-hour training.

If you take the second part, it's another two hours.

But, you know.

We're tying, we're also trying to tie into organizations that are on the ground, people that are in the community,

other ways that people have to continue their work.

Early in the show, during the opening, I talked about the fact that there are communities that are engaged in protests.

They're just not as visible.

And that's because there is a cost to be paid, especially for communities of color, for communities that are fighting against the immigration renditions, communities that are standing up for the dispossessed and the marginalized.

And there's a tension that exists right now, I think, in the conversation on the side of right, which is not the right, but on the side of those who are correct, which is that protest is disruptive and not terribly effective.

You talked about this a little bit, but can you really dig into why disruption can sometimes be portrayed as violence and how you push back on that perspective?

And at the same time,

about the communities that are legitimately fearful of being treated as inherently violent if they engage in protest.

Yeah, it's very difficult.

I mean, you see it on all levels with different groups, whether it was Black Lives Matter or whether it's the people fighting for peace and justice in Palestine.

And I think that the...

you know, part of what we do is also talk about the level of risk that someone is willing to bear is different depending on your circumstances.

And that has to be okay for people.

And that no matter where you are on the spectrum of risk tolerance, it does increase based on your analysis of the severity of the situation.

We also talk about allies and

on immigration, for example, the way in which white workers have been stepping up to say, hey, I work with immigrants, and how it is important, of course, to have the voices of the people who are most marginalized and affected, but to recognize that in this moment, sometimes that is extremely difficult because the risk tolerance for somebody who is

a white U.S.

citizen is very different than somebody who is an undocumented worker.

And so we kind of try to talk about all of those things,

but I also think that it is

It is very difficult because we tend to get painted, if we're people of color in particular, with the label of violence no matter what we do.

And so we do have to, and I think, you know, even my colleagues in the Democratic Party don't always have the courage that they should in standing up for, for example, free speech, whether you agree with it or not.

I mean, the reality of free speech in this country is that,

you know, the KKK had the right to free speech and we completely didn't agree with anything that was said.

And so I think that this is a very difficult proposition for

us in this moment because there are a lot of people who don't want to stand up for something if they disagree with with what the person is saying that is beside the point you either stand up for free speech for everyone or not at all and i think it requires some of us to be able to continue to push back on the narratives of violence that it is in the

uh right wing's interest to portray us all as violent unpatriotic uh crazy radical you know all of those things and so um i just think we need to continue to build both our own voices to stand up and do that.

But you know, as well as those of allies, but you know, Stacey, that it's very difficult.

It gets lonely sometimes

because we're always the ones, you know, that are standing up and always the ones that are targeted.

I just think it is the reality of the moment.

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So you and I met years ago

through introduction by a fellow organizer, and it was, for me, one of those revelatory moments because I got to learn about your history as an advocate for women and for immigrant rights, for racial and economic justice.

You and I were talking about the potential of you one day running for office.

But at the time, you were very committed to the work of organizing.

Can you talk about how you thread those parts of who you are together?

Because there are a lot of people out there saying, this isn't what I do.

I'm not in politics.

I'm not an organizer.

But the ability to take all of these threads of your career and pull them together led to the Resistance Lab.

Can you talk to someone who thinks this isn't for me or they're not talking to me?

Yeah.

Well, first, I just have to say I always credit you with getting me to think about running for office.

I think you were a minority leader in Georgia at the time.

You were so clear and articulate about the ways in which you used your platform as minority leader to stop some of the worst things from happening and occasionally to get some good things as difficult as that was.

And it did lead me to think about organizing from a whole new place.

And I realized that I was thinking about elected office wrong, that if I thought about it as an organizing platform, then I was okay with doing it because it became a way for me to push

the values that I care about so much and the methodology of achieving change being from the grassroots up, whether you're inside an elected body or outside.

And so thank you, first of all, for just being that person for me, as I know you have been for many people around the country.

country.

I think you really inspired a lot of people to think differently about how to use power.

Thank you.

I think in terms of people who are looking at this and saying, well, I don't do any of this.

And I've had a lot of those people in Resistance Lab.

It's been fantastic, actually, to have people come in and say, I don't know a thing about organizing, or to say, I have been an organizer my whole life.

And I still,

this was the most useful organizing training I've had.

To me, that's success if you can get both ends of that spectrum.

And I think that.

all I need people to know is not how the political system works or how, you know, if they need, if they do or don't want to run for office.

This is really about everybody understanding their individual power and what it means to have collective power and understanding what any authoritarian society tries to do is suppress that individual and collective power and concentrate their power at the very top and then to understand what the connectors are between that power at the top and the power at the bottom.

How do you get power to flow from the bottom up instead of the top down?

And how do you attack not the person at the top, but the pillars of support that actually prop up those authoritarians?

So you really don't need any experience.

You don't need to, you know, you don't need to know how this has happened.

We really speak to everybody

that that wants to be involved in developing a coordinated strategy and learning tools and effective strategies from other countries as well as our own country.

Well, you recently wrote a letter that was signed by more than 130 of your Democratic colleagues demanding answers about the number of student visas that were being canceled and the criteria for revoking foreign students' legal status.

This matters because in every nation, in every

movement that has pushed back against regime change, student voices have been vital.

And we know just last week, we learned a bit more about how the administration has been making decisions.

They were running the names of 1.3 million foreign-born students through the National Crime Information Center.

Those are foreign-born students who sit in communion with American-born students, but all of them are at risk in the act of protesting.

Can you talk a bit about the role that your colleagues and that you play in pushing back against these kind of anti-democratic moves?

And then how should students, whether they are foreign-born or American-born, how should they think about their role in the resistance?

Well, you're exactly right to root the importance of student visas in the fact that student protest has been one of the most effective modes of change in our country's history.

And whether we're talking about apartheid

and divestiture from South Africa, or whether we're talking about what's happening right now around the war in Gaza, I think we have often found that it is on college campuses where the most strident, difficult, and often effective modes of protest happen.

It's also just a very important time of life for people who are just beginning to understand what the world looks like and be in contact with a whole new group of people and for intellectual awareness to really develop and grow.

And I think that what has been happening on the foreign student crackdown is that Marco Rubio and Donald Trump used a very

little-known Cold War era provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to say that these foreign students pose a foreign policy threat to the United States.

And therefore, because they're on a visa,

we can deport them without any due process.

And A, it's not true that you can deport them without any due process.

Everybody gets due process in this country.

And B, what they were doing was also a deliberate attempt to crack down and terrify others from speaking out.

And so we've been

challenging them in court, but it was also important for all of us as members of Congress to have a very united voice.

And that's a significant number of signers in Congress on anything

to say that this is absolutely critical for our state, for our country, and for our Constitution.

And so it has been quite effective.

We've seen a number of students be released.

Of course, the lawyers have been doing an extraordinary job arguing these cases in court.

But it is important for the public to really increase our understanding.

And people don't like it.

And they're making the connection between if they can crack down on these foreign students because they don't like what they're saying.

What does that mean about cracking down on me?

And we're also seeing that starting to play out.

So I think it's been an important way.

And I had a hearing in judiciary where I offered, I was speaking on an amendment to not use ICE funds to crack down on student visas.

And that clip just went viral because I talked about the fact that I was a foreign student.

And I think I was the only one on committee that had ever been on a student visa.

and what that was like as a student when you're coming from elsewhere.

And I think everybody

really connected with that in a wonderful way of everything that you put into coming to this country.

And then, you know, also what it means for academic freedom for everyone, foreign born and native born.

We've got 75 million Democrats who showed up and voted in November, but you've got 90 million people, some portion of whom share our values, who also didn't believe their voices mattered.

And if you listen to the feedback over the last 100 plus days, there's a lot of frustration.

It's being met.

And we're seeing the work that you're doing, the work done by Mayor Ross Baraka and Congressman Coleman.

We saw Senator Booker and speak, and sorry, soon to be speaker, but let's keep him at Minority Leader Jeffries.

We saw Chris Van Holland fly to El Salvador.

So we've seen people taking steps, but there's still a sense of frustration and a sense of inadequacy of response.

And I know at the top of the conversation, you pointed out that these are bodies that have limited power, that the people hold the majority of the power.

But can you give us something?

What do you tell the frustrated folks who feel like Democrats aren't fighting hard enough?

Yeah, well, first of all, I say I understand.

I mean, if anybody felt like we were fighting hard enough, I think they would be living under a rock because the things that are happening feel untenable and they are untenable.

And so there are a lot of people who are just wondering how do we use our platforms.

I also think it took a while for Democrats to kind of fight and get in their fighting stance.

I think there was a lot of shock around the last election, and people did not necessarily respond immediately.

There were too many Democrats, particularly in the Senate.

And I will just shift the blame here a little bit to the Senate because they actually had the power to confirm cabinet members.

And what people saw is Trump's cabinet of remarkably incompetent, corrupt, often people getting confirmed with Democratic votes and not enough fighting back.

And so I think that that is where a lot of the initial anger came from, at least what I saw around the country and here at home.

But I also think that

I tell people that you shouldn't feel like anything you're doing is enough because it's not going to be enough when you have this kind of a flood the zone strategy.

What you should do is find ways to measure whether or not we're being being successful.

And so, in our last 2.0 training for Resistance Lab, we actually gave people a set of measures to assess, are we making progress?

And it's also why on my Instagram and social media, I often do this three bad things, three good things every week,

because I just think it's important for people to know, yes, we're not blind.

We see what's happening, we see it's really bad.

And here are three that we're going to focus on this week that are very bad that you need to know about.

But also, also, here are three good things that happened because people stood up, right?

And fought back.

And because the lawyers worked with the members, worked with the people

to actually bring about real change.

And so I think that's how I talk about it.

I mentioned that we have these checks and balances.

You think they're going to be okay, but we're complacent.

Guess what?

They require adhering to those.

And if you have somebody who's not going to do that, then it's really about us, the people, and the power of the people.

And that, in a strange way, both acknowledges the frustration people have, but also helps to put the onus back on all of us, not any one person, not any one institution, but all of us to be able to build a bigger movement of resistance, effective resistance.

Well, we know that the latest assault on our value systems will come through the budget process that's unfolding now in the attempt attempt to pass this horrific set of bills.

And it's going to attack everything from Social Security to Medicaid to Head Start.

It will attack food assistance.

And it will undercut faith, not just in institutions, but in the very nature of what democracy is supposed to deliver.

And so I'm going to give you one small task for listeners who want to stave off disaster, get in the fight, and be a part of nonviolent, meaningful meaningful ways to stand up against authoritarianism, especially in this month-long race, headlong race towards

basically bankrupting America.

How can they get involved?

And what do you tell them to do?

Yes, I tell them, first of all, to call their member of Congress because right now we are debating this budget that would slash all of those critical programs.

And let me tell you, there's been some success because they were proposing an $880 billion cut to Medicaid.

Now they're realizing because people stood up in town halls with those Republican members, they're feeling the pressure.

But don't be fooled into thinking that they're not still cutting Medicaid, even if they call it something different.

They want to limit the ability for people to participate.

They want to cut the ability for states to be able to get federal dollars for Medicaid.

And so I say to people, call your member of Congress.

Now, if you live in a Democratic district, make a list of 10 people that you know that live in a Republican district or a Republican state and call them and make sure they are calling their members of Congress.

You can go to town halls in neighboring districts

with Republican members who are shying away from doing town halls, but we Democrats are going to still do those town halls in their districts.

And you can get engaged in days of action by going to mobilize.us where you can find an activity that's happening right near you to say, hands off our Medicaid, hands off our SNAP.

All of this, Stacey, is to give a $7 trillion tax break to the wealthiest.

So let's not forget to point out when you're messaging on this, when you're talking about it to your friends, why are they cutting Medicaid and SNAP?

Because they want to engage in the biggest transfer of wealth from you, the people, to the tiniest 1% of Elon Musk's and Jeff Bezos's around the country.

And so it's really important that people engage because this is going to be a short and quick fight over the next couple of weeks.

In fact, I believe it's on Wednesday the Energy and Commerce Committee is

debating the healthcare piece of this.

And so even more important to look up those members on the Energy and Commerce Committee and make your calls now

either to your friends in those districts, states that you know, or to your own member of Congress if you happen to live in a Republican district.

Thank you so much.

So we're recording this on Monday.

They are starting markups on Wednesday, but the fight really won't be over until Memorial Day.

So no matter when you listen to this, make sure that you are listening and you're engaging.

And where can people go to sign up for a Resistance Lab session so they can get even more deeply in the fight?

Yeah, you can go to PramillaForCongress.com and right there on the front page is Resistance Lab.

I think we have resistancelab.us now, but I'm not positive.

So check the first one.

We were trying to get that URL.

But you can even just Google Resistance Lab and it'll come up just through that.

It's gotten so popular.

So the next one, 1.0, is on June 1st.

And if you happen to live in the New York area, we are doing an in-person one on Sunday,

this coming Sunday, whatever that is.

I believe it's May 19th

in Brooklyn, New York.

Congresswoman Pramilla Jayapaul, who is one of our democracy first responders, thank you for joining us here on Assembly Required.

Thank you so much, Stacey.

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Amanda Lippman, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Well, it is always a delight to see the work that you do.

I am just very, very proud of all the work you've done.

Well, thank you.

And, you know, you are the perfect model of why it matters so much to elect great local leaders who can really, you know, rise to the top.

So we're so grateful.

Well, thank you.

Okay, so let's start with the basics.

What is Run for Something and what inspired you to launch it in the first place?

So Run for Something recruits and supports young diverse leaders to run for local office.

We launched on Trump's first inauguration day back in 2017, so January 20th, thinking it'd be really small.

We'd get maybe 100 people who wanted to run in the first year because Kansas recruitment is really hard.

Who wants to run for office?

We started it after I worked for Hillary for two years and after that election didn't have somewhere to send the people who were coming to me saying, you've worked in politics, I want to run.

What do I do?

So when we kicked off, we thought, again, who would want to do this?

We had a thousand people sign up in the first week.

As of today, we're over 200,000 young people all across the country who've raised their hands, about 20% of whom have signed up just in the last six months since the election.

And I understand that nearly 1,500 run-for-something candidates have won races across almost every state in the country.

And I think one of the reasons you and I, you know, connected in the first place is how important I think state and local races are.

Can you talk about why

that layer of engagement from run for something candidates is so important in this moment?

So we only work with candidates running for things like state house, state senate, city council, school board, library board, the real building blocks of democracy and also the positions that really affect your quality of life.

You know, the things like clean water, clean air, how good the schools are, how affordable housing is, how easy or hard it is to vote.

You all know this.

It comes from these local government offices.

So when we get better people into these positions, people have a better experience with government itself.

And I think it's really instrumental, both for advancing progress that improves people's quality of life, but also for mitigating harm, especially in this moment, to have such good people elected to these local offices.

You know, the expression that I often come back to is like, the further down the ballot, the closer to your home.

It's really going to matter who's on your school board, especially if there's someone who doesn't want to do it well.

And can you give us a few moments of just glorious victory?

What are some of the notable races that you're really proud of that you use to convince other people to do this?

I could do this for hours, but I'll give you.

three examples.

In 2018, we were the first people to endorse Mallory McMorrow when she ran for Michigan State Senate.

She Googled how to run for office, found organizations like ours and Emerge America, went through that training, flipped a seat red to blue in the state senate.

She's now running for United States Senate in Michigan.

It's amazing to see that kind of leadership launch.

Lena Hidalgo down in Texas, county executive in Harris County, who ran for that office when so many people said, oh, a Democrat could never win this position.

It'd been held by a Republican for I think over 10 years.

She wanted to run to change how the county did budgeting to flood response.

She was able to flip that seat in 2018 and has done incredible work, both on things like the county budget, but also democracy work, making government more accessible.

The final one I'll tell you is about Justin Douglas, who ran in 2023 for Dauphin County Commission, which is the county government around Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.

We recruited him to run because we were looking for pro-democracy leaders to take on these positions that actually oversee the way elections are administered.

He was a former pastor who'd been fired from his congregation for being too welcoming to LGBTQ congregants.

He worked with the unhoused community in the area.

He was like a CrossFit athlete.

Very cool, dude.

He ran for this office where he was outspent, I think something like 12 to 1.

He raised maybe $10,000 or $12,000.

He ultimately won on election night by about 140 votes, flipping control of the county commission for the first time in over 100 years from red to blue.

One of the first things he did, among things like changing the way the county took over the jail system, the way that they cared for people across the community, was expand access to the polls by opening more ballot Dropbox locations, creating more sample ballots and more languages.

He's been fighting corruption on the county commission level.

It's so cool to see that kind of like small race, small amount of money, relatively speaking, have such a big impact.

Well, you mentioned that you have seen a flood of new candidates stepping up saying we want to run since the second inauguration.

Are you seeing any shifts in who's running, whether that's in background and demography, or just their motivation for running?

I think the cool thing about this is that Trump is the water they're swimming in, but he's not the bait.

You know,

they can tell that this is different, but you can't just run for office because you want to be against him.

You have to really run for office because you want to solve a problem in your community.

It's not fun enough to do it.

We're not glamor enough to do it just because you want to stop Trump.

So we have seen people run for affordable housing to stop book bans.

We're seeing people to run for health, reproductive health, and mental health.

We're especially right now seeing so many people who've either been laid off by the federal government through Elon Musk and the Doge cuts or whose partners or friends have and who personally understand what government does for people and the way that public service can really be in service of the public and want to bring that experience into local government in a meaningful way.

Well, you just mentioned the work that you all have done with federal workers who were fired recently.

Can you walk us through what that looks like?

Well, these are people who've dedicated their life to public service.

You don't work for the government because it's a

high-paying job.

It often has good benefits, but and previously stability, but it's not high-paying.

It could usually make much more in the private sector.

And these are folks who've historically not been allowed to run for office before.

In most places, in most kinds of roles you have, there are ethics rules or even explicit rules about not engaging in government work outside of the role that you do or not engaging in elected office outside of your role with the federal government.

So now that they are sadly no longer beholden to those rules, so many of them are thinking about what they can do to bring their passion into government.

Just last week, our team had a conversation with someone who used to work with the CDC in Atlanta, thinking about, you know, my position just got cut.

I was doing amazing work for public health.

How can I bring that into city or state government?

What can I do to bring that passion into this community that I love?

Folks sign up with us at runforwhat.net.

They look up what office they can run for.

They then start to have conversations with our team about how to move forward.

We give them guides on how to file, how to get on the ballot, and how to really talk about that experience in a meaningful way.

And then when they do decide to run, if they decide to run, they can apply for our PAC's endorsement.

Well, in addition to financing the next wave of leadership, and I think you're a new mom,

you also decided to write a book called When We're in Charge, The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership.

Talk to me about the process of writing this book, why you decided to do it, and what you hope readers get from it.

When We're in Charge, which is out now,

is a first of its kind guidebook for millennials and Gen Z specifically that takes us seriously,

not as nuisances to manage around, but as leaders in our own right.

And part of the reason I wrote it was because when I was starting Run for Something, I was 27 years old, but I've been managing teams for a couple of years before that.

And I could not find, over most of the last decade, books that really spoke to the challenges that I was facing.

Things like, how do I post on Instagram if my employees follow me there?

How do I show up in the office if the office is Slack and Zoom rooms?

You know, how do I take maternity leave as the boss?

Not how do I ask my boss for maternity leave?

How do I hand off projects?

Like, I've had two kids in the last three years.

How do I actually take the leave that I need to be with my family and care for myself and leave my team in a better position moving forward?

So I wrote When We're in Charge to really answer the questions that I've experienced.

And I talked to more than 130 leaders across so many different sectors about the challenges they were experiencing too, about how lonely leadership is,

about how the ladders that we climbed to get to where we are now both no longer exist for the people coming up behind us, and also the ladders that we thought we'd be able to climb moving forward no longer exist.

So the book is really actionable.

It's really helpful.

And I'm so excited for people to read it and hopefully get something really meaningful out of it.

Do you think those ladders are

missing, or do you think it's a good thing that they are no longer there?

Such a good question.

I think that the demise of institutions in many ways is

sometimes a good thing because they weren't serving everyone.

They didn't always work for everyone.

And I think the opportunity ahead of us is to build something better.

It's to imagine what it could be like when we're not beholden to the 40-hour work week, when we feel like we can actually be compassionate and humane to the people we're managing or leading, as well as effective.

I think about it as opportunity, in part because I think if you think of it solely as scary, it's really hard to wrap your head around.

But I like to imagine what it is like if the people showing up to lead tomorrow do not feel beholden to the way we did things yesterday, informed by it, but not beholden to it.

One of the core narratives in fighting autocracy, fighting tyranny, is the willingness to set a vision for tomorrow.

That if all you're doing is saying, we want to go back to what led to the rise of tyranny, you're not going to get a lot of takers or you're only going to get so many.

And we know that in this last election, 77 million people voted for the

reigning tyrant, 75 million people voted for Vice President Harris, but 90 million people stayed home.

And in that 90 million is the two largest generations

on this planet right now and certainly in this country.

And yet part of the challenge of getting them, getting you to engage has been the disappearance of the ladder,

the question of what the vision is.

And what ties that together is the ability to find community.

And one thing that you talk about in the book is that finding community is an incredible pillar of activism because real change doesn't happen alone.

Dreaming about what the world can look like can't happen alone.

But building that community is incredibly hard.

And particularly for two generations that have experienced epidemic levels of loneliness, epidemic levels of anxiety, you've had actual crises that have met almost every decade of your time on this earth.

What advice do you have for those who are trying to find like-minded people and build these meaningful connections and imagine tomorrow when they can barely think about what today looks like?

It is when I think it's worth naming, it is hard because it's hard, not because we are incompetent or failing.

Like trying to build community, especially in this moment, is structurally very difficult.

Everything from the cost of housing to car culture to the commutes that many people are now back to because of return to office, the way that we overschedule our kids, all of that, the demand that work has on us, all of that makes it really hard to make time for the people in your lives.

I can tell you two things that I've really thought about.

One, and I'll actually give credit to my husband here.

This year, we committed to hosting people for dinner every Saturday evening in 2025.

So every Saturday for the last almost five and a half months, we've had a couple people come over.

You know, I have two little kids.

They come over at five o'clock so they can play with our children, entertain them before bed.

And just, you know, sometimes we sit on the floor of our living room.

I don't have a big apartment and we eat tacos or mac and cheese, whatever it is.

My husband very kindly cooks and try and have conversation, an adult conversation about whatever is on our mind.

It's not a solution for everything, but it actually is really meaningful because now when we run into folks around the neighborhood, we have some grounding for conversation, for a deeper relationship.

The second thing I'll say, and actually get into this a ton and when we're in charge, and this is really the onus is on leadership, is to think about, especially for remote work environments, how can you run your office like you're moderating an online community?

Because that's basically what an remote office is.

How can you create codes of conduct?

How can you facilitate conversation?

How can you sort of cultivate the office algorithm?

so to speak, so that it feeds people the kind of positive things they need to hear to be feel like they're part of a team.

And that is really on leadership to do.

Well, I want to remind people that this book, while it is written by someone who has been in the political sphere, your book is not just for young leaders who were interested in politics.

It really focuses on 100 next generation leaders across politics, business, media, tech, education.

I think you found almost every niche there is.

Was there a particular piece of advice that really stood out to you during this interview process, something that continues to stick with you?

You know, these conversations were so interesting to me because of the themes I heard across the board.

I will never forget asking, you know, I'd ask each person, you know, tell me about your leadership style.

What are the challenges you face?

So many people would talk about authenticity and honesty and vulnerability.

But I remember asking someone specifically, well, like, do you feel like you can be yourself with your team?

And they literally scoffed at me.

They're like, fuck no.

And I think that tension of, I want to be authentic, I want to be humane, I want to bring myself to my role, but also it's not my job to be myself for my team because that's not always what my team needs.

That tension is what I think next gen leadership is all about.

Cause it's the kind of challenge that, especially because we have to perform ourselves on all different kinds of platforms and spaces, that the people who came before us, They had it a little bit easier to figure out how to navigate.

And for those who want to find it, that's the chapter called How to Be Yourself,

parenthetically, but responsibly.

First chapter number one, I believe.

There you go.

Speaking of being yourself, you have been very vocal and yourself on a topic that has caused some divisiveness.

And you and I have had conversations about this in the past.

I'm a Generation X.

So nobody really claims us.

We sit betwixt between lots of different things.

And we know that there is a noticeable generational divide in the Democratic Party.

We also recognize that these generational divisions aren't new and they exist across political movements, social movements, across business decision making.

You have really leaned in on this conversation recently.

And I would love to give you some space to talk a bit about why you think the conversation about this generational divide is so critical in this moment.

I am so glad you asked that question.

I think that one of the things that we've learned over the last couple years in particular, and I won't say this, this doesn't start with President Biden's experience, but it's certainly sort of the pinnacle moment of it.

But going further back, you know, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg refusing to retire and maybe leaving open a Supreme Court seat for President Obama to appoint.

Diane Feinstein literally dying in office, leaving open an appointment, and perhaps not serving California the best way that she could.

A number of other elected representatives, again, passing away in office, leaving open seats for periods of time in which people couldn't fill them.

That's a current situation we have in the U.S.

House.

And then President Biden not being able to fully communicate the amazing work that his administration was doing because he couldn't be the salesperson we needed in this media ecosystem.

Some of that, I think it's important, a lot of that is about the generational divide and the seniority of these leaders.

I don't ever want someone to interpret this as I don't think older leaders can rise to the occasion.

They absolutely can.

But we are at a moment when the media environment and the attention ecosystem is such that you need folks who can capture what people are paying attention to.

And more often than not, the younger leaders are able to do that.

Not exclusively, but more often than not, the younger leaders are able to do that.

That attention translates into reach, which ultimately translates into votes.

I think we have to be clear-eyed about bringing our best possible messengers to this fight in this moment.

That means getting as many different kinds of voices into the space as possible.

And historically, young people have been left out of those rooms.

So if I were to reinterpret what you've just said or expand on it, I hear that you believe that there is a balance that can be struck between elevating fresh voices and harnessing the wisdom of seniority, but also recognizing that our electorate isn't just young people, even though if you all voted at your full strength, you could take over everything.

And that those who have been there for a while sometimes sometimes have very effective ways of communicating, although it may not be as technologically modern, but there is salience to what they do.

How do we, how do you and I and others who are interested in this conversation not becoming another divisive debate that distracts us from actually solving problems, how do we have this conversation in a way that can talk about that balance or the need for change?

It's so hard because I think one of the overarching sort of

not even

underarching tones, I guess, to all this is like people die.

Mortality is so real, and it's so hard to bring up.

And there is, it is so tricky not to get into this conversation without jumping on landmines, which is why many people are afraid of having it.

I think we need to have it anyway, because I think there are certainly some communities that are not being served by the folks who are representing them in Congress right now or in other positions of government.

And

I think we have to be really clear about cause and effect there.

There are some amazing older leaders who are able to communicate, but also perhaps some of the reason that millennials in Gen Z don't vote as much is because their leaders haven't been able to reach them, haven't been able to talk to the issues that speak to them.

You know, I think about trying to explain to my grandma, like how I find housing or how much my childcare bills are, or how it feels even to try and apply for a job these days.

She doesn't get it.

That doesn't mean she's a bad person.

That doesn't mean she's not smart or intellectual or like capable of doing amazing things, but she doesn't get it because she doesn't live it.

And when I think about our elected leaders who similarly do not understand what it is like right now to be a 20 or 30, even 40 something in the United States of any race or class or background,

that is missing an opportunity to connect with people on a really human level.

I think part of what you're speaking to is age-related and part of it's experiential.

We know that 90 million people didn't vote because they felt angry or frustrated or disillusioned with the government.

I spent much of my work in Georgia politics at the city level, at the state level, really focused on how do we not just identify with the angst and with the legitimate critiques of how government works or doesn't work.

How do we actually bring people in?

Because you and I both know that if we don't solve this, especially in a crisis moment like now, they will eventually tune out entirely and they won't come back.

So what's your approach to moving someone from disengaged and disheartened to motivated and involved?

And what can our audience do to help you?

I think have really honest conversations with people and not being afraid to explain how the system is broken and you want to fix it.

I think one of the things that many of our leaders who have been part of the system for so long, like they don't want to critique it because they understand why it's broken.

It's broken for a lot of like, not malicious reasons in many ways, just, you know, decades of calcification and

good intentions, hopefully, in many places.

You know, I think when you talk about experience, the first thing that comes to mind for me is housing.

One of the big things that Run for Something Civics, our C3 Arm, is doing this year is trying to get more renters to run for office.

93% of elected officials are homeowners.

In the New York state legislature, there are more landlords than there are tenants.

In California, there's maybe five or six renters.

In Connecticut, I don't think there are maybe one.

When you talk, even on the city council level, most elected officials are homeowners.

That really changes the tenor of debate around housing policy, which in turn is the biggest source of cost of living issues for people.

There's no wonder we don't have affordable housing as like the primary topic of conversation when most of the people making those decisions don't actually necessarily want more housing to be built.

So when I think about what we need to do to bring those disaffected folks in, it's give them leaders who are really going to talk to the challenges they face and be able to make that case compelling.

Well, for listeners who want to get involved, renters who know that they need to show up,

how can they get started with Run for Something?

And once someone signs up, how long does it typically take for them to get through the process and get their name on the ballot?

So you go to runforwhat.net.

You look up what office you might be able to run for in 2025, if there's still options for you, or certainly 2026.

And we know it takes folks about 310 days from signing up to actually filing for our endorsement.

So if you sign up at this point, you're probably looking ahead to next year or beyond.

You'll get invited to our next intro conference call.

We'll answer all the first-time questions you might have, and we will be there for you every step of the way.

No matter what happens, win or lose.

We know that this is not the end of your civic engagement.

This is just another part of the journey.

Amanda Lippmann, author, mom, leader, and transformative voice.

Thank you so much for joining me here on Assembly Required.

Thanks for having me, Stacey.

Successful elected leaders and movement builders have fostered progress not just because of their values, but because they were thoughtful and disciplined about the tactics that they use to make change.

For example, here in Atlanta, my former boss, former Mayor Shirley Franklin, was a savvy leader who saved a city water system from federal takeover and instituted vital policies on ethics to effectively combat corruption.

And that was just her first four years.

Contrary to what some might believe, Rosa Parks was not simply too tired to move to the back of the bus.

She was a strategic leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, someone who mastered civil disobedience as a tool in the fight for justice.

Bayard Rustin and A.

Philip Randolph and Dolores Huerta and recent heroes like former Secretary of the Interior Deb Holland all leveraged their positions of access to curate real power for those they served.

We have those same tools at our disposal in today's fight.

The more we learn about them and begin to use them, the more powerful and effective we can become.

So, in the spirit of harnessing that power, here's this week's toolkit.

First, we start with being curious.

Think about ways you can step up and be a leader even outside the scope of electoral politics.

To help you out, check out Amanda Lippmann's new book, When We're in Charge.

It's full of practical tips on how to lead with principle and to get stuff done without burning out.

Next, we're going to solve problems.

Join in-person or virtual efforts like the Resistance Lab or Run for Something because they can give you practical, actionable tools for activism and running for office.

You can also keep an eye on upcoming protests in your city by going to mobilize.us or Googling State of the People tour to find dates and locations near you.

And last but not least, we are called upon to do good.

You can't do this alone.

So make sure you're building your resistance community.

You already have people in your circle who want to stand alongside you against the destruction of our shared values.

And as you build out your toolbox, find ways to pass on your knowledge, bring people together, and encourage them to get involved so the movement spreads.

Amanda mentioned having dinner together and Congresswoman Jaya Paul gave us a whole toolbox.

Think about ways you can bring people in, even if it's just a few at a time, because that's how change happens.

If you've enjoyed this episode of Assembly Required or our previous podcast, tell a friend and share your favorite episode.

And wherever you go to find us, make sure you like and subscribe.

In an age of algorithms, your voice helps others make their way to our feed.

And if you like what you hear, rate the show and leave a comment.

And please continue to tell us what you've learned and solved or want to hear about next.

You can send an email to assemblyrequired at crooked.com or leave us a voicemail and you and your questions and comments might be featured on the pod.

Our number is 213-293-9509.

Remember, we can fix what they're breaking, but there will be some assembly required.

So I'll meet you here next week.

Assembly Required is a crooked media production.

Our lead show producer is Lacey Roberts, and our associate producer is Farah Safari.

Kirill Polaviev is our video producer.

This episode was recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis.

Our theme song is by Vasilis Photopoulos.

Thank you to Matt DeGroote, Kyle Seglu, Tyler Boozer, Priyanka Muntha, Ben Hethcote, and Samantha Slossberg for production support.

Our executive producers are Katie Long and me, Stacey Abrams.

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