RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 352 WCF: Back to the Beginning and Ending the Orange Monster
Episode 352 of RevolutionZ continues with chapters two and three of The Wind Cries Freedom. Alexandra Voline tells about going from despair to determination, from her parent's activism to her own revolutionary conviction. Born to 1960s radicals, politics was "background noise" until Trump's election added passion to knowledge. Alexandra describes how giving a speech against war-making at a defense plant taught her a painful but enduring lesson. Her self-righteous rage alienated the very workers she needed to reach. To organize effectively she had to develop empathy, not just display moral certainty.
Malcolm King relates his experiences of electoral politics. He learned from Bernie Sanders that dissidents could run viable campaigns, raise money without corporate cash, and inspire volunteer armies. Sanders challenged traditional fatalism. He opened possibilities many had stopped believing in. Malcolm asked, "If you believe the system is rotten to its core, but you don't believe it can be changed, what exactly are you doing?"
The episode's interviewees also conveyed their understanding of Trump's appeal. They recognized that while racism and sexism were factors, many working people supported Trump because they had been abandoned by a political establishment that ignored their suffering. Effective organizing would require addressing economic devastation alongside fighting gender and racial oppression. They discussed as well fear and overcoming it.
These interviewees report that their organization, Revolutionary Participatory Society, emerged when activists began thinking strategically rather than performatively—asking not "what makes me feel pure right now" but "what builds power for the future." As Alexandra put it, "Justice isn't a pie that we divide. It's a flame that we grow."
The Wind Cries Freedom is an oral history of how people like you, perhaps even your alter-ego in another time and place, won extraordinary change through their vision, strategy, and uncompromising solidarity. Human stories to reveal revolutionary lessons--with more to come.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I'm the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. Before beginning this episode as an emergency intrusion, I guess I just read a brief account of the evolving bedlam at the Center for Disease Control, the CDC. Trump fired its head for disagreeing with the morally decrepit and intellectually stunted RFK Jr and in reaction a number of other CDC officials quit. The reaction from the head of the CDC, a Trump appointee, and the other officials is vastly better than to obediently bow down to the administration's veritable insanity. In our upside-down times, such a step requires serious commitment and courage, likewise the follow-up lawsuit. I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding the Trump and Co's efforts to eliminate vaccine. How does that advance their fascistic agenda so effectively that, in their eyes, the benefits for them offset the associated cost in declines in health and safety and, before long, in life expectancy, including for themselves and their offspring? Maybe you have an answer for that. I don't, not a convincing one. Are they not just amoral, self-aggrandizing fascists but also literally utterly insane? My reaction from the sidelines, like a backseat driver, and therefore timidly, I do wonder about if there isn't a better step for the CDC head and other leaders to take? Or an additional step how about if they said to Trump and to RFK Jr with all due respect, your Majesties, in addition to being immoral fascists, you are literally out of your minds. We therefore hear your dismissal and we reject it.
Speaker 1:I, we are in fact not leaving and we call on every CDC employee to join us in telling you that we do not accept your authority. We will carry on to try to fulfill our responsibilities to protect society and even you from diseases. We will not leave our jobs. If you send soldiers in here to drag us out, we will promptly return To keep us out. You will have to jail us, all of us. This is called responsibility. It is called resistance. Hopefully the medical profession and the public will understand our step and support us. Who knows, donald? Perhaps your own doctors will inform you that if you prevent us from serving and protecting the whole population, they will cease working to serve and protect you. My point when the fascist government moves to demolish agencies of merit, we should not aid them by resigning, as courageous and positive as the intent of that is. We should resist them by refusing to leave Again. It is easy for me out here to suggest such action, but perhaps nonetheless such action is worth considering. Someone needs to go first.
Speaker 1:And now back to our regularly scheduled show. Last episode, I began a new sequence of episodes that would intermittently continue when I don't have a guest or something more pressing from the world around us to address. The new sequence is a presentation of an oral history of the next American Revolution, titled the Wind Cries Freedom, or WCF for short. The first installment last week included the introduction by the interviewer, miguel Guevara, and also Chapter 1, which took a peek down the road of the revolutionary process and thus the book that conveys it. I had a guest episode set for this week, but a technical glitch when recording, followed by a medical interruption for myself, meant it would not get completed in time for this week. This time, therefore, I had to insert a replacement, and so we now return to the beginning of the revolutionary process recounted in the Wind Cries Freedom, by conveying its chapter two and then also its chapter three. Doing two chapters makes this episode a bit long, but hey, revolution is a big topic. So in Chapter 2, we meet the first interviewee, alexandra Voline, who was recorded much earlier than when last week's Chapter 1 was recorded. Alexandra relates to Miguel the interviewer. Alexandra relates to Miguel the interviewer, pivotal events of her having still earlier become an RPS, standing for Revolutionary Participatory Society. Revolutionary this is, please remember, the pattern of the whole book and thus the whole sequence of episodes.
Speaker 1:Miguel questions various interviewees, each with a different backstory and recounting different experiences and their lessons. Miguel takes his interviewees' words and merges them into chapters. His aim is for the chapters to convey both the human or personal, and the organizational or visionary and strategic dimension of his world and his time's successful revolutionary process. The resulting book, the oral history, the stories conveyed are not about loss but success. They are not about the repressive power of the state but the liberatory aims and methods of the resistance and then, more so, of the movements for and choices of the movement for a revolutionary participatory society. How did these people work together to win? What can we learn and then modify, refine, alter and augment for ourselves in our times and in our our situations? To ourselves, win, fundamental change. This sequence of episodes is, in short, about winning. It is for those who want to win another world. And so what am I doing? I am just a conduit bringing you their words. The check-in chapter begins with Miguel's first question.
Speaker 1:Alexandra, you've stood on the front lines as a workplace and union organizer, as a tireless advocate for nonviolent resistance and as someone unafraid to cross lines of division to reach those who might see us as enemies. Within RPS, your role has been a constant and profound, from the beginning to your recent position as our shadow secretary of labor. To begin, then, tell us how did your radical path first begin? Honestly, miguel, I don't think I had much of a choice, not in the way people mean that word.
Speaker 1:I was raised in a family where activism was baked into the DNA. My parents came out of the 60s young, fierce and unapologetically committed. They were part of the original SDS. They fought tooth and nail against the war in Indochina and they helped blaze a path for second wave feminism. Our dinner table wasn't only a place for meals, it was a political classroom. My mom became a community organizer, constantly propelling urban activism. My dad, an auto worker and a proud UAW member, helped initiate the charge toward green production.
Speaker 1:So yeah, by the time I hit college, I had a pretty solid understanding of what it meant to resist injustice. But if I'm being real about this, I didn't yet have the internal fire that carries you through the long haul. Maybe being raised inside the turmoil with the language already familiar, made the fire feel more like background noise. You grow up with something all around you and sometimes it loses its urgency until the world smacks you in the face, and that happened to me when Trump got elected in 2016. And it happened again devastatingly eight years later. It was surreal, so dystopian it made me physically ill.
Speaker 1:I lived near a bridge at the time and I'd be lying if I said the thought of just a few seconds of free flight didn't enter my mind. The thought that we would endure decades under someone that vile it was soul-crushing. My parents were in agony. They started to wonder if all their efforts had led here. Was this the legacy they were handing down to their daughter? My mom asked herself what the hell are we passing on? And my dad was struggling to grasp how his own friends, people he marched with, people he trusted, could fall in behind a billionaire grifter who spat in the face of working people. Born when Hitler was rising. My dad was going to die to the sounds of fascism resurgent. My community of radical friends they were shaken too, but if I'm being honest, especially that first time Trump won, I saw too many folks clinging to postures, holding on to being right, rather than stepping into the hard collective work of building something different. That changed later, but early on it felt like everyone was scrambling for ideological safety rather than for political momentum.
Speaker 1:Trump's second election victory was my personal low point. It's the only time in my life I've been fall-down drunk, and the fog of my despair lasted for weeks. I felt like the oceans were rising into my lungs, like the sky was cracking above my head. I felt wrecked, like I'd washed up on a poisoned shore. But I got pulled back by people who loved me, friends who, even while I was spiraling, were already back on their feet. Who, even while I was spiraling, were already back on their feet. Their resistance quiet, fierce, rooted reignited something in me. Watching them, I realized how contagious courage can be. I don't know where I'd be without their example, certainly not here, not speaking to you.
Speaker 1:Trump didn't only unleash hate, he also activated despair. He was a savant, utterly bankrupt of empathy, but wickedly good at exploiting fear. And yeah, my anger toward him gave me fuel. It gave me something to push against. But rage alone burns fast. Solidarity kept my passion alive. Community purpose, vision are what turned the corner for me from just being radicalized by inheritance to being revolutionized by conviction.
Speaker 1:Miguel follows up. But specifically, why become everlastingly radical? Why didn't you pursue conventional success or just keep wallowing? Conventional success, movie-like success, thought like a lie, fancy dinners, black tie fundraisers, polished grins behind closed doors it all made my skin crawl. Pursue that no way and sure. Wallowing offered comfort for a while, but eventually it started to fester and rot. What pulled me forward, what really pulled me out, was a deep hunger for love and dignity, even if at the time they felt smothered by hatred and cynicism. I didn't know how to reach them, but I knew I had to try.
Speaker 1:Miguel replies I became a dissident journalist with similar feelings, but some key events must have attracted you. What were some early high points of RPS for you? That's a tough one, miguel. I don't usually turn the lens inward like that, but if I really think about it, I'd say the campaign for the 30-hour work week and later the push for real worker participation and decision making. They changed me. Those were more than just campaigns. They shaped how I saw myself, how I saw organizing, how I saw what we were capable of building. Beyond that, I'd say the first two RPS conventions were where I found my footing. But two more personal moments, while not headline moments in RPS history, definitely left their mark on me.
Speaker 1:Tell me about those asked, miguel. The first one was actually a seriously painful lesson. It was early on, when RPS was still just beginning to find its voice and we were trying to connect campus protests against military research with the workers inside a defense plant nearby. I remember speaking in this large auditorium. It was packed. On one side, student activists were ready to shut it all down. On the other side were defense industry workers who made their living in that plant.
Speaker 1:I was furious, I was nervous, I was shaking. I got up to the mic and I just let it rip. War kills, weapons kill. Killing, fucking kills. Shut it down. I meant every word, but I didn't say anything about what shutdown might mean for the people who worked there. No plan, no bridge, just moral outrage. I could think only about Gaza. I could see the wreckage of war, the injustice, the children starving to death in the streets, but I couldn't see the faces in front of me. I treated those workers like they were part of the problem. Instead of people caught in the same system, we were all trying to dismantle.
Speaker 1:A man stood up and yelled at me you want to steal my livelihood. You ignore my needs. What about my family? You should shut the fuck up. I heard him, I mean, I heard his words, but I didn't stop. I didn't take a breath. I bulldozed on, caught up in the righteousness of my anger, and looking back.
Speaker 1:That moment still haunts me, not because I was wrong about the war, but because I failed to see the people I was addressing. I hadn't yet learned that winning justice requires empathy, not just anger. Miguel comments, and I'll bet you look tough to your supporters Probably so, but the truth is, even in that moment, yelling like that, offering workers what was basically a suicidal definition of solidarity, I was blind to what they were going through and when the guy in the audience yelled shut the fuck up, I felt it. It hit, but not enough to stop me in real time. Later, watching a video of myself, I was horrified, like truly ashamed. I'd been tone deaf to the reality of their lives and, honestly, I realized that kind of behavior, that level of detachment from real people, had, in earlier years, probably helped fuel the resentment that led to Trump's rise. We were preaching justice and solidarity while sounding like we couldn't care less about the people we were supposedly trying to reach. That moment was a mirror and what I saw wasn't good.
Speaker 1:Too often radicals got wrapped up in being technically right, in sounding revolutionary, in having endless answers. Too often we aimed our passion at the people already with us and forgot to build bridges to those we actually needed to reach. We got applause from our base but boos from the people who matter most for real change. I came to see how we alienated and disrespected working people and that they were right to feel that way. But, miguel, it was hard. It was hard to listen to people whose views felt completely opposed to everything I believed in. It was hard to hear their pain and hostility Without fearing I'd be pulled into their worldview. So I resisted listening. I shut down emotionally, but over time I learned to sit with that discomfort. I learned to listen. And that guy in the audience, the one who cussed me out, he was my teacher. I owe him more than he'll ever know and, honestly, our whole movement did some growing up from experiences like that, miguel says. I have to admit I didn't learn that lesson so fast and so early.
Speaker 1:But you said a second event also particularly stirred you. Yes, and I still don't really know how to explain it. It's weird how growth happens. Maybe it was buried guilt, maybe I was picturing my parents watching me and shaking their heads, but what happened was I was at a memorial for civil rights activists, part of the wave of remembrance that had grown out of the Black Lives Matter uprisings back in 2020. There was music, there was community, and something just cracked open inside me. I had this kind of psychic break. I don't know what else to call it. Suddenly, I wasn't in the room anymore. I was in the streets of Birmingham, alabama. I saw Bo Conner, though I'd, of course, never actually seen him in action. I saw in my mind the activists, the dogs, the water hoses. I even saw my parents, though they were too young to have been there. It was surreal.
Speaker 1:After that, I went back and read Martin Luther King Jr's letter from a Birmingham jail and his I have a Dream speech. I'd heard them as a kid. My parents read them to me and I loved that. They thought I could understand such big ideas, but honestly, back then it felt like homework, like history class. It didn't live in me. Yet.
Speaker 1:This time, though, it floored me. I memorized those speeches. I'd repeat them to myself in jail cells, on protest lines, even just sitting quietly weighing whether I should risk arrest or not. Dr King became my internal compass, guiding, pushing, grounding. There's a line in his letter I used to whisper to myself I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law. But I have longed to hear white ministers declare because it is the law. But I have longed to hear white ministers declare follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother. That line changed how I thought about complicity, about silence, about so-called neutrality, and it reminded me of Howard Zinn, another voice in our household growing up. His line quote you can't be neutral on a moving train. You're either part of the momentum for justice or you're getting in the way. And I thought about Bernie Sanders too, a commercial of his. He looked straight into the camera and asked whether we could fight just as hard for people we'd never met across town as we do for our own families. And he said quote if we can do that, we can win. I cried when I saw that he cracked me open in a way that politics almost never does.
Speaker 1:Miguel reacts. Images of Bull Connor. Did fear ever impact your choices? Look, their side wants to produce fear. They attack when they can. They attack when support for their targets will be muted and weak. For our side to talk of being clubbed, jailed, even shot, does their work. For them, it can help instill the fear they pursue. Our job is to ensure that anyone they hurt, repress, lock up or even kill, arouse far more solidarity, far more militance than fear. Don't mourn. Organize is real. Don't draw pictures of pain that they induce. Draw pictures of militance and resistance that they produce. Teach the lessons of reducing violence, not the scale of it or the pain of it. You interview us seeking lessons. That's what you will hear from us, not descriptions of cops in jails, descriptions of movements rallying and resisting and of how that is the antidote to fear.
Speaker 1:But okay, regarding me, if you mean fear of getting involved, of stepping into movement life, no, I think when I was young, I was just too angry and too heartbroken to feel that, and maybe also too stubborn. The future we were dreaming about had such gravity that I barely noticed the risks. Later, yeah, when things got heavy, I felt fear, sure, fear of clubs, fear of jail, fear of worse. But I wouldn't call it personal exactly. It wasn't about me. It was about what might happen to the movement, to the people I cared about, to the hopes we carried. I don't know, maybe that was a little reckless, or maybe it was personal and I just wouldn't admit it. But to wallow in it, that was never an option. And I will say this A lot of people thought we were crazy, like legit delusional. They thought to want more than a paycheck or a job title made you naive To want a better world. They laughed at that, but they're not laughing now.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks did Trump's assaults impact those trends? Sure, when Trump went on his rampage in 2025, for a time he did scare the shit out of people. He got lots of people to fearfully succumb to his wishes before he even threatened them. But after a time people realized we had to disobey. We had to fight back. If not, all would be lost. Obey, we had to fight back. If not, all would be lost.
Speaker 1:A mood changed from defense to offense, from protecting against his negativity and repression to fighting for our own positive alternatives. Even nominally defensive campaigns like sanctuaries to protect immigrants began to adopt positive aims. Our tones switch from seeking to survive to seeking to win and advance that shift. God, that was everything. Trump had this way of infecting the political air like a toxin and for a while, yeah, people flinched before he even spoke. He weaponized fear and used it to paralyze hope. But then something broke open. Maybe it was seeing university trustees, law firm partners and so many politicians obey Trump's commands. Whatever it was, people started to realize that submission wasn't safety, it was surrender. To paint. The pain was to aid the repressors. We had to paint resistance. We went from shielding ourselves to standing tall and stepping forward. It was no longer enough to survive, we needed to build.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks what can you tell us about the first signs of RPS emerging? That's hard, miguel, because the roots of RPS, they run deep. I'm sure some folks would trace them all the way back to the early 20th century, to radicals like Alexandra Kalantai who, by the way, my parents named me after or even further back to Bakunin. But from what I experienced directly, I'd say the real momentum that became RPS started to build around 20 years ago, when people began actively reaching for unity across movements that had long been siloed.
Speaker 1:For me personally, the first real spark happened at this rally in Detroit. It was about raising the minimum wage and ending police violence. It was one of those sunny days where the air itself feels light and everyone was in that good mood you sometimes find in big crowds Peaceful, familiar, spirited. Nothing new. At least, that's what I thought at first. But as I stood there, something shifted.
Speaker 1:The speeches that day weren't just about wages or policing. They were about systems. They drew connections between class, race, gender, sexuality and state violence. It wasn't a laundry list of injustices, it was a living web of analysis down water, raise wages, wage peace, keep at it, win the world. That was the kind of thing we were hearing and, yes, I'd heard that kind of framing before. My parents had been teaching me about systemic injustice my whole life.
Speaker 1:But this was different. The speakers weren't just saying what's true, they were saying what could become true. It wasn't just about moral outrage, it was about strategy. They weren't offering slogans, they were offering plans. Some talked about mutual aid, some talked about the need for durable organizing structures that wouldn't collapse after one campaign ended, and others made the case that without linking all these fights, without a shared vision, we just keep spinning our wheels. That was what I'd been missing Before that.
Speaker 1:I'd been to plenty of rallies, powerful ones, inspiring ones, but always so tied to the present, so tied to a single issue, to a single place. The speeches would light you up, but then you'd go home, maybe post something online, perhaps cry a little or wave a fist and then back to Netflix. No follow-through. And I'm not throwing shade. We were all stuck in that cycle, but I knew deep down we had to break it. Trump's second election for a while we had to break it. Trump's second election for a while had thrown us into a tailspin and our resistance had become almost entirely reactive. But that later Detroit rally, that was different. People weren't just talking about what they were afraid of, they were talking about what they were ready to build.
Speaker 1:And that grounded, defiance, confident, determined, unshakable cut through me. I needed it. I think a lot of us did. And it wasn't even only the words, it was also the feeling in the air no more just surviving, it was time to win. But what about you, Miguel? What got you into journalism and then also RPS? Miguel replies I was in college, headed gleefully toward a future in soccer.
Speaker 1:I was damn good, but the macho culture coaches, players, the whole setup drove me away from the sport that I loved and back toward my other love, writing. Then came the eye openers the pandemic and its grotesque priorities, the uprisings against police and racism in every form, the horrifying hypocrisy of genocide defended or ignored, and then the books I picked up in the aftermath. All of that carried me into activism and from there it wasn't a long leap to join RPS. Alexandria asks. And I bet you didn't think about repression or even about the long trajectory of your life, did you? You're right, and maybe, if I had, things would have turned out differently. Was it really a choice or just a path unfolding beneath my feet, impossible to step off? I don't know. But let's not reverse roles here, alexandra, I'm the one asking the questions.
Speaker 1:Most people point to that latter march one million protesters flooding Wall Street as their first step into RPS, but not you. You were there, weren't you, or weren't you? My personal turning point was the earlier, smaller Detroit rally. But yes, the later, much larger march on Wall Street had the same feeling and it certainly inspired many more people. And yes, I was there and, as nervous as I was, I was in the ridiculously long line of speakers and I even gave my first speech to a big crowd.
Speaker 1:I remember it well. I said quote we seek dignity and justice. We won't settle for the periphery of power. We do not oppose impoverished budgets, escalating inequality, resurgent racism, sexual predation, assembly line schools, corporate profiteering, divisive classism, hideous repression, heinous war or planetary climate catastrophe. No, we oppose it all. We don't demand racial solidarity, cultural integrity, gender equity, sexual diversity, political freedom, collective self-management, peace, ecological sanity or economic equity and classlessness. No, we demand it all. We don't want old bosses and we don't want new ones either.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember that moment like it was yesterday. That march was huge, historic even, but also deeply personal. There I was, hands shaking, voice raw, standing in front of a sea of faces and pouring every ounce of belief, rage and hope into those words. And sure, the crowd was big, but the power of it wasn't only in the size, it was in the clarity. We weren't just marching against pain anymore, we were also marching for pleasure. That march was about more than just corporations or inequality or climate. It was about claiming our entire humanity, our full spectrum of potentials, and we were done. Asking nicely, and you are right. I remember, at the Wall Street march, feeling part of something much bigger. That was just getting going. Our march to the organizational center of economic depravity addressed income distribution and corporations, of course, but it also addressed reproductive rights, racism, war and especially the still strong and very seriously accelerating need for ecological transformation. That rally's emergent, diverse community was starting to collectively define itself. Connections were made, connections spread. It was a young but growing organism and it already had a powerful hold on me.
Speaker 1:That day wasn't just a political event, it was a living declaration. It was an uprising in spirit, not just in protest. I remember looking around and seeing people, so many people who had never marched before, who had never held a megaphone or signed a petition, never sat in, never broken a law, but who had had enough. We were starting to cohere, not into some rigid organization but into a collective heartbeat. We shared recognition of who we were, what we deserved and how we were going to fight for it.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks what in particular, made you feel held? What held me that day, and I think held many others too, was more than just the signs or speeches. It was the way we were showing up for each other. It was the blend of rigor and love, of outrage and care. There was an emotional intelligence to it that I hadn't felt in earlier marches. This wasn't just about opposition, it was about affirmation. We were affirming a new kind of politics, rooted in solidarity, yes, but also in joy and dignity. And yeah, it may sound small or sentimental, but after the rally, when you're driving home and it feels like every car on the road is honking and waving and rolling down windows to cheer and chant and connect, it hits you. You're not isolated anymore, you're not alone, radical, screaming into the void. You're part of something, and not just anything, something that's going to win. My speech wasn't the most eloquent, but it reflected the vision we were all leaning toward, a vision that would soon crystallize into the values and goals of RPS. I left Wall Street with two things increased clarity about the world we wanted and overflowing faith that we could get there together. So that ends Chapter 2. Did it resonate for you? Did Alexandra's experiences speak to how we might see our times, how we might act in our times?
Speaker 1:Chapter three has the then-Senator, malcolm King, reporting on electoral precursors of RPS, including Sanders, trump and fighting Trump. It begins with Miguel asking Malcolm. I don't want to dwell too long on pre-RPS elections at the expense of focusing on RPS itself or elevate electoral politics above the organizing that's taking place in the streets. That's taking place in the streets, in schools, in workplaces and in the structure of RPS itself. But before we turn to all that, I do think it's worth taking a moment to look at how we got past Trump and how those experiences helped shape RPS's evolving attitude toward the electoral arena. I hope people won't find it boring because they lived through it, but I agree that it matters, miguel, albeit in second place to grassroots organizing.
Speaker 1:There were plenty of electoral efforts before RPS, but in my view, none had the impact that Bernie Sanders had. Let's be real his speeches, his writing, his whole political platform those lean toward the values of RPS before RPS even existed. And what did he do? He got millions, tens of millions of Americans to think bigger, to hope louder, to imagine bolder. He gave people experience. He gave them confidence. When supporters went out and knocked on doors for Bernie, they weren't just campaigning, they were learning how to organize, how to speak up, how to believe.
Speaker 1:In 2016, sanders turned out massive crowds. People were hungry for change. Meanwhile, hillary Clinton relied on the old political machine. Meanwhile, hillary Clinton relied on the old political machine. Let's not forget. It was rigged with rules designed by and for party insiders to protect the status quo and the donor class. That nomination was supposed to be hers a walk in the park, but it wasn't. Bernie gave her a serious fight, especially in states where independents could vote, especially where people could register late. Bernie won. He crushed it with young voters and independents. In the end, clinton prevailed thanks to the party stacking the deck, yes, and also thanks to the support she got from older voters and, paradoxically, from black voters in many places.
Speaker 1:That really confused a lot of people, miguel asked. I wondered about that odd dynamic myself. Did you arrive at any conclusion about it? Let's start with this the Clintons Bill and Hillary. They had built a reputation of treating black voters with respect on a personal level. They showed up, they talked the talk. But if you looked at policy, sanders was clearly the vastly stronger choice for black and Latinx communities. The young folks knew it. Many older folks knew it too. But fear intervened. Older blacks and Latin voters voters especially knew how dangerous the Republican Party was becoming. They saw Trump coming down the tracks. They were justifiably scared and they asked themselves can Bernie beat Trump? Does he have the structure, the media coverage, the resources, will the Democratic elite stab him in the back? So they went with Clinton, not because they loved her policies, but because they thought she was the safer bet, and then, of course, she lost.
Speaker 1:I interject I will try to do this very infrequently, that is, interject from outside the chapters, the book, into the flow of words. I just want to point out clearly the world of the oral history is quite like our own. Their revolutionary participatory project emerged from conditions like those we are enduring, while almost everything about it will be from its future. Sometimes its interviewees will reach into their past, into our times and even our past. I think of their stories as being possible, plausible directions we might more or less ourselves roughly traverse. I think of the lessons they have taken from their experiences as lessons we might modify and improve upon in our future. At any rate, however, it's important to choose to interpret the history they are recounting for us.
Speaker 1:Miguel next asks but what was so impactful about Sanders' run? What did he reveal that affected you and others? Look here's what stayed with me. Bernie proved a dissident could run. He could raise money without corporate cash. He could fill stadiums. He could inspire volunteers in every state in the country.
Speaker 1:For decades, most folks on the left didn't take seriously the idea of actually winning Not just winning an election, not building a new society. It was like we'd forgotten how to dream big. People didn't spend much time thinking about what a good economy could look like, or how schools should really work, or how to structure a just democracy. Why? Because deep down they didn't think that kind of future was possible. Bernie cracked that fatalism.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks what did it mean to call yourself radical and still not believe you could win? Don't get me wrong, I think you're right. Back then, that doubt was everywhere. Even if most of us never said it out loud, I felt it myself. But it's a strange contradiction, isn't it? If you believe the system is rotten to its core, but you don't believe it can be changed, what exactly are you doing? If radical ideas have no path to victory, then what's the point of being radical at all? Exactly, that's the contradiction For decades. Exactly that's the contradiction.
Speaker 1:For decades, being radical was less about winning and more about being right. It was about being moral. It was about being able to sleep at night. It was a kind of lifestyle, being on the quote side of the angels. Not for money, because, trust me, there's no money in this and not always for joy either. Most of the time it wasn't fun, it was exhausting Meetings, marches, arrests, repression, sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Most participants, I think, jumped in when their anger boiled over, when something pushed them to act. But most didn't stick around long. Why would they? The movement didn't feel like it was going to win. Others stuck around to maintain their moral clarity, their sense of integrity At least I can look at myself in the mirror, they'd say. But if we're not planning to win really win then we're not planning at all. That's a problem, miguel asked. So you feel? Sanders awakened hope, no doubt in my mind. He reminded people that, yes, it is possible, you can reach millions, you can organize, you can shift the national conversation. And I'll tell you, he didn't just expose the weakness of the establishment, he revealed the weakness of the Democratic Party itself. The man said quote political revolution. And people cheered. They didn't run away, they stood up.
Speaker 1:Now here's something we've got to talk about why did so many people, especially some on the far left, go after Bernie so harshly? I'm not talking about healthy criticism. I'm talking about people acting like he was a traitor, a sheepdog for the establishment, a misleader, a horrible impediment to progress. And here's my read Two reasons First and this was much less common, but I think it was very real it was defensiveness. People had been organizing for years, even decades, and in a few months, here comes Bernie and suddenly everyone's paying attention. His campaign built more momentum in months than most groups had seen in 20 years. Some folks had a hard time facing that. It made them question everything they'd been doing, and that's not easy. It was less painful to dismiss Sanders than to question their own approach. The second reason was about disappointment.
Speaker 1:After Clinton secured the nomination, bernie endorsed her. Now, I didn't love that either, but he made it clear his goal was to stop Trump. He kept calling for political revolution, he started a new organization, he kept fighting and he also wanted to beat Trump. But for a lot of his supporters that endorsement felt like a betrayal. They'd poured their hearts into the campaign and when Bernie said, vote Clinton. It was like a switch flipped Suddenly. They weren't just disappointed, they were furious. A lot of them felt like jilted lovers. But here's the thing they didn't stop to think that maybe Bernie hadn't changed, maybe circumstances had changed around him and he was trying to do what he always said he'd do fight for working people and, in this case, to stop the greater evil. And you have to wonder if more left voices, more organizers, more writers had urged voting against Trump in the battleground states, would things have turned out differently? Same with Nixon back in the day. Could leftists have changed history if we'd voted smarter, even while holding our noises? I'll say this too Bernie himself didn't handle that moment perfectly. I think if he had been more direct with his supporters, if he'd explained his reasoning more clearly, maybe with more fire, it might have helped. He probably agreed with that later.
Speaker 1:Okay replies, miguel, but what was the impact or meaning for RPS? Let me put it to you straight when you head into an election or any project with the belief that there's no real hope for major change, when you're stuck thinking we can only ever win modest gains, then you don't take long-term strategy seriously. You ask yourself what feels right, what sounds radical and especially what lines up with my personal values right now. You don't ask the deeper question what actions might actually grow our support and help us build sufficient power to win a new society? And the truth is, even among those who did think about long-term consequences, a lot of people came to the conclusion, quite understandably, that they couldn't vote for a war criminal like Clinton or Biden or, later, harris, no matter the risks, not even in swing states where Trump might win. They called their stance voting your conscience. And look, I get it. People felt like it was about personal integrity, about not compromising. They believed that to vote for the lesser evil was to betray yourself. But here's the thing that outlook, however sincere, missed two important truths and I think those truths, when they finally sank in, helped lay the foundation for what would become RPS.
Speaker 1:Now, I get this gets people riled up and we could go on about it forever, but I'm going to be brief. The same logic applied when it came to Genocide Joe and Kamala Harris. During the horrific US-backed Israel attacks on Palestinians, people were rightly furious at the White House. The administration armed, financed, defended and even cheered on genocide, and a lot of folks said I cannot in good conscience support these people, not even to stop Trump. I understood the sentiment, but the deeper strategic questions? They were still the same as in 2016.
Speaker 1:Here's the first insight we had to think what it meant to be true to yourself. Was it more authentic to say I hate both Clinton and Trump, so I'm not voting for either. Then it is to say, I hate both Clinton and Trump, but Trump is a catastrophe, so I'm going to vote to stop him in any state where my vote could matter and then work against Clinton when she wins. Why should standing on principle mean ignoring the damage that Trump would inflict on millions of people? Because, let's be honest when we vote, it's not just about us. It's about people's lives, about workers, about immigrants, about the climate, about reproductive rights. So let's stop pretending that the only moral choice is whatever makes us feel better individually. Sometimes the moral choice is the one that protects others, even if it means swallowing our own disgust. The second insight it's about consequences for organizing.
Speaker 1:Sure, after Trump won, we saw a predictable surge of activism. It was real, but it was defensive. It was about holding the line, not moving forward. We had to stop the bleeding. With Clinton or Harris, we would have had to push harder to get people mobilized, but that organizing would have aimed at winning new ground, not just preventing rollback. Same pattern every time Trump sets us back, we scramble to stop the damage. Harris and the White House would have required more effort to get folks fired up, but the potential for forward movement would have required more effort to get folks fired up, but the potential for forward movement would have been much greater Eventually.
Speaker 1:Even amidst all that chaos, some of us helped shape growing anti-Trump energy into something bigger Not just protest, but progress. We stopped just resisting and started also building. That's when the logic began to shift. People started thinking longer term. We realized it wasn't about checking a box on election day, it was about shaping history. People stopped asking quote what makes me feel pure right now and started asking quote what builds power for the future. They kept their passion but ditched the performative posing. They owned their decisions and, yes, the Biden years were slow going. Progress crawled. But then we saw an upsurge in union activism. We saw the Palestine solidarity movement explode. We saw how serious Green New Deal campaigns took shape. And even when Trump and Musk came roaring back and laid waste to all that, we didn't fold. We doubled down. We looked at the fascist abyss and said, no way we are going back. But more than that, we said we're going forward. And that messy, beautiful, determined moment, that's where the seeds of RPS took root.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks what about third-party politics? That was another long, hard debate. Some folks said forget it. Third parties are dead ends. Others said the Democrats are where hope goes to die. We need a new party and we need it now. Still others took a middle path, built third parties, yes, but not in ways that hand the keys to Trump or anyone like him.
Speaker 1:Activists debated it every four years. We learned running for office is messy. It's hard. You try to tell the truth, to speak from the heart, to not step on other people's movements, but the pressure is intense. It warps you movements. But the pressure is intense. It warps you.
Speaker 1:Third-party candidates would often start out principled, clear-eyed, but as their campaigns wore on they'd get tunnel vision. They'd convince themselves their vote total would revolutionize the system. More is better. They'd stop thinking about what came after. They'd forget the bigger picture that effect, the way elections suck all the action out of the room. That's what RPS saw and took seriously. So RPS said we're not going to become an electoral party. We're not going to build something whose entire structure immerses in elections and fundraising. No, we're going to stay focused on the long haul. It didn't mean we rejected electoral work.
Speaker 1:I ran for the Senate as a Democrat, some ran as Greens, some as Independents, but always with the same purpose build power, not parties. Miguel follows up. I hate to waste more breath on the buffoon, but I can't help asking how did anyone, let alone so many, rally behind Trump, even after the grotesque boasts, the unravelings, the indictments and the fascist tirades? Why did the support not just persist, deepen? What was that support really? Was it not, in the end, an embrace of his racism and misogyny? And, more to the point, how did his most devoted backers stay locked in, even as the evidence mounted all the way through the 2024 election and then even after? Let's not sugarcoat it. Yes, a chunk of Trump's support was driven by racism and sexism, white supremacists, men who saw gender equality as a threat. They were both loud and dangerous, but they were far from the whole story. A lot of Trump's support came from well-meaning working people, from folks who were hurting badly towns gutted by job loss, communities ravaged by opioids, families won paycheck from homelessness, and these folks didn't see any serious solutions coming from Clinton or Harris or the Democratic Party establishment. And they weren't wrong. So they rolled the dice on a billionaire blowhard who at least pretended to be different.
Speaker 1:Trump, despite being a con man, despite being anti-worker, despite his luxury towers and grotesque ego didn't sound like a politician. He was vulgar. He was raw and to many people that felt honest. Even when it was a lie, he turned the table over. He shook things up and in a system where nothing ever seemed to change, that alone was enough for a lot of people. People were angry was a billionaire fraud. He made them feel heard. Partly he scapegoated others and benefited from myths of great replacements. Partly he lied and manipulated to stoke fear. Partly he benefited from a media trying to profit but not concerned to communicate honestly. Partly he benefited from some leftists and Greens, creating a climate in which many activists felt that to vote for Clinton and later Harris was a sellout and to vote Green or not vote at all, even in contested states, was admirable. But for our purposes now, I think there was something else that has more lasting relevance, else that has more lasting relevance.
Speaker 1:Years earlier, another politician with immeasurably less showmanship, though also considerably less proclivity for disastrous stupidities, had done something pretty similar to Trump. It wasn't yet the age of TV posturing, much less so-called social media, but Spiro Agnew had also tapped a class anger to galvanize support for the right and hate for the left. He did it by ridiculing and distancing himself from what he called bullet-headed liberal intellectuals and the word that was revealing in this approach was not liberal, but intellectual. Agnew tapped justified anger at what were soon after called professionals and managers and what RPS later called the coordinator class. So Trump did the same thing as Agnew had done, but much more aggressively.
Speaker 1:Many working people felt Trump was one of them. He wasn't establishment. When he won, he wouldn't ignore them like the Democrats did. He wouldn't forget them like the Democrats did. He would be their tribune. This perception of Trump was devoid of reality, of course, but voters' desperate desires to reverse working class decline were real, and Trump was a master at playing to those desires. Once organizers and activists later got over the tendency to look down on working people and began to instead listen to working people and learn from workers' insights regarding their deteriorating circumstances, it pushed RPS from being isolated from working people to being, among other things, an expression of working class desires. Miguel asks what about the effect on you? Did Sanders running and Trump winning impact you to later become a candidate? Yes, and not only via the lessons described above.
Speaker 1:I had gone to college and majored in history, and when I got out. I was very radical but not at all interested in pursuing an academic career disconnected from people's needs. I got an assembly job and next I worked as a short-order cook. I focused on organizing my workmates and getting more generally involved in community organizing. I was very anti-war and very frightened by ecological concerns and I couldn't stand electoral parties or process.
Speaker 1:Yet I didn't just favor Sanders, which I did, and I didn't just try to aid him, which I did. He got me to see that, as rigged, alienated, corrupt and mindless as our political system is, there is nonetheless some wiggle room to fight constructively within it. He got me thinking about elections being a part of winning major change Not the heart of it, but a part of it. So all the above-mentioned disputes and debates were important to me, but in my case, even more important was the simple fact that Sanders demonstrated that it was possible to finance an electoral run. It was possible to be truthful about serious stances for change. It was possible to educate, organize, mobilize and win. I decided that while there were certainly many routes to contributing to change and that even while activism was certainly most key, given my history I was myself most likely to have an impact if I took an electoral path. Of course, not all who were inspired to run for office ever ran, much less succeeded, but a good many who were then inspired are now in office, often doing excellent work. If Sanders were here, I would thank him profusely.
Speaker 1:But here was another factor for me. I think my working class background by birth and early upbringing, and especially due to my time as an assembly worker and short order cook, including waiting tables and my time organizing in neighborhoods, were incredibly enlightening. I knew just how hard it was to not explode from the angers you feel at the customers with suits and ties and erudite language who oh so clearly looked down on you or really who often didn't even do that much, since for them you were as enclosed to, invisible and inconsequential as a person could be. Our anger, as well as the associated fear, is what Trump rode. It could clearly lead to escalating racism, sexism and macho defense of an impoverished situation.
Speaker 1:But for whatever reasons, I not only didn't follow that path, I recognized it and also emphasized with it. Enough to be able to talk one-to-one to folks who are on it. I could do that without being hostile. I could do it, in fact, liking the people who I disputed. I could hear them, respect them, learn from them, but also convey hope to them. And a different kind of program. I could talk to workers without condescension and even more by taking their views and especially their desires seriously. It wasn't just optics, it wasn't to manipulate. It was what I felt. I think Sanders had something to do with that. I also had a feeling for how to talk to coordinator class types. I didn't make believe I liked where they were coming from, because I certainly didn't. I didn't condescend or manipulate them. I instead overtly but calmly challenged their harmful inclinations, while I heard their motives and rationales. I think this helped me win office later.
Speaker 1:Miguel asks I wonder whether Obama becoming president affected you as a black man. I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect me. But let's be clear Barack Obama was not a radical, not on race, not on economics, not on foreign policy. His administration didn't inspire my beliefs. Quite the opposite. I became a sharp critic of his policies and my goals moved in a completely different direction. But that said, obama's election did inspire me In 2008,.
Speaker 1:I was 23 years old, black, working class, just out of college, working on an assembly line. My politics were raw, instinctive, not yet shaped by the kind of systemic vision RPS would later embrace. Still, seeing Obama, whim didn't turn me into a liberal. What it did do was show me and millions of others that a black man could stand on the national stage and win. That cracked open the door of possibility and, I'll be honest, I don't know if I ever would have become a candidate if that hadn't happened. Maybe Sanders wouldn't have reached me the way he did if not for that earlier impact. And I think a lot of women experienced something similar, seeing Clinton nearly win and then Harris. They didn't become liberal because of it and they didn't support the politics. They saw a version of themselves in the arena and that made a difference.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not the most eloquent person I won't pretend to be, but I'll try to explain something that's hard to put into words. When you're working class especially when you're black and working class you're carrying a thousand invisible burdens Doubt, pressure, fear. You want to stay true to yourself, to not sell out, but you also want to rise above your circumstances. To not sell out, but you also want to rise above your circumstances. But then, if you find yourself in a place filled with Ivy League insiders, inherited money, cynicism and corporate power. It's alien. You feel like a trespasser. So, yeah, maybe this is a little self-serving, but I ask folks, especially those on the left, not to be so quick to judge people like me when we disappoint. You Try to work in our shoes, try to understand the pressures we face, and then imagine watching people who should be your comrades leap to attack you. Imagine holding your tongue when everything in you wants to bite back.
Speaker 1:The lesson I took from all this whether we win or we lose an election, a legislative fight or a grassroots campaign is that we can't just close ranks. We have to reach out, not just to people already on our side, but to people who should be, people who maybe disagreed with us yesterday, but who we can still reach today. Sure, we have to keep organizing our allies, but we also have to grow our coalition. Now there were people who said quote if you voted for Trump, you endorsed everything he stood for. You embraced his racism, his sexism. And for some who voted for Trump, that was true, no question about it. But for many others, that wasn't the whole story. And yet the left wrote them off, said they were unreachable. True, no question about it. But for many others, that wasn't the whole story. And yet the left wrote them off, said they were unreachable, not worth talking to.
Speaker 1:But there were activists, thankfully, who pushed back on that, who said, quote look, yes, some of Trump's voters had ugly views, but others millions are just angry, desperate, hurting, and if we don't talk to them, someone else will. Now, sadly for some activists, talking to them meant lecturing them, shaming them, calling them backward or ignorant, or demanding that they repent before being welcomed. That's not organizing, that's moral grandstanding. Others said wait a minute. Do you really believe that all the black voters who chose Trump are just little Trumps? Do you really believe that all the women who voted for Trump did it because they love misogyny? If not, then maybe, just maybe, we ought to ask what did they see that outweighed their revulsion at Trump's worst qualities? And if we can ask that question about black, brown and female Trump voters, why can't we ask it about white working class Trump voters? Look, if the white working class who voted for Obama had turned out for Clinton or Harris, Trump would have lost.
Speaker 1:So why didn't they? Was it racism, was it sexism? Or was it that their communities had been hollowed out by unemployment, drugs and despair? Was it that they saw the system as flawed, beyond repair and they saw Trump as a welcome wrecking ball. Maybe some white working class folks who feared job loss or resented the indignity they felt day to day weren't angry at the billionaires, resented the indignity they felt day to day, weren't angry at the billionaires. Maybe they were angry at the lawyers, doctors, consultants, administrators and politicians who look down on them every day. That anger can get misguided, yes, but it's real, and when you're drowning in misinformation and you never hear from anyone who sees your struggle, clearly it's no mystery how that gets weaponized.
Speaker 1:I'll say something else. Trump was a bully, a narcissist, a liar, but he did something we should notice. He took over the Republican Party and his billionaire allies nearly remade the entire government. They had a plan Project 2025, and they pursued it relentlessly. They didn't care about truth, they didn't care about reason, they offered hate and they almost prevailed. So I asked myself if they could do that with lies and cruelty, why couldn't we do it with truth and compassion? Why couldn't we build a movement rooted in dignity, community and justice? Why couldn't we organize a base and actually deliver for it? The answer we came to in RPS was we can.
Speaker 1:Miguel turns to Alexandra and asks Alexandra when it came to the white working class right after Trump's victory, why did so many on the left, radicals included, immediately assume the worse? Why rush to believe that bigotry alone explained the outcome? Why didn't we start from the premise that other, less vile, though deeply confused, motives might have been driving that support? That's such an important question and, honestly, one that haunted a lot of us in those early years and, honestly, one that haunted a lot of us in those early years.
Speaker 1:I think part of the reason so many people, especially in progressive spaces, jumped straight to the worst possible interpretation was that they didn't have a deep connection to working class life. They didn't feel the pain up close, the poverty, the humiliation, the fear of losing your job or your home or your health care. Those aren't abstractions for millions of people, they're everyday reality. If you haven't seen that in your own family or community, then when a worker lashes out when they vote for someone like Trump, you don't hear it as desperation, you hear it as hate. And yes, some of it was hateful. But to see only that, to act like there was no other dynamic at play, that was short-sighted and, frankly, it made things worse. Some Democrats and liberals, and even progressives, were so disconnected from working class reality that they assumed white workers were basically bigots who couldn't be reached, that they assumed white workers were basically bigots who couldn't be reached. That kind of elitism, it's corrosive. It writes people off before you even try to engage. And I think that attitude did real damage. And it wasn't just elitism.
Speaker 1:Some folks on the left, including some radicals, were laser-focused, understandably, on fighting racism and patriarchy and they felt that any attempt to explain Trump's voters' behavior risked soft-peddling that struggle. They were concerned that if we said quote, it's about class too, then we'd start excusing repression. They worried it would take the teeth out of the necessary confrontation with white supremacy and male domination. And it wasn't crazy that could happen. But here's the thing we don't have to choose.
Speaker 1:We can confront racism and sexism while we also acknowledge the economic devastation that helps fuel right-wing resentment. In fact, if we want to win, we have to do both. We have to show up with compassion and clarity, not to coddle, not to condescend, but to connect. That means looking people in the eye and saying, yes, your suffering is real. Yes, you've been lied to and exploited. But no, trump is not your friend, he's a con man. He's not fighting for you. He's using your pain to protect and enlarge his power. It also means holding up a mirror to liberals to call out how they courted corporate donors while letting working people rot and how they paid lip service to equity while upholding systems of injustice. Clinton, obama, biden, harris all of them. We had to be honest about that betrayal if we wanted any chance of building trust.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, I think two core insights lit the way to RPS First, that ignoring pain of women and people of color is both morally wrong and politically ruinous. And second, that ignoring the pain of workers white, black, brown, immigrant, male, female, all workers the pain of workers white, black, brown, immigrant, male, female, all workers is equally self-defeating. Justice isn't a pie that we divide. It's a flame that we grow. The moment we truly understand that the seeds of RPS began to sprout, that's the end of chapter three.
Speaker 1:Just to clarify, and in case it hasn't been sufficiently clear, the interviewees are all participants in the same revolutionary process by way of the same organization. They have different backgrounds but also share essentially one vision and aim. Also, to be clear, you hear me conveying their words, and, okay, I wrote their words, but the words are theirs. As I read this to you, I hear it also, not for the first time, to be sure, but still out loud for the first time, like you. So I know that I have many reactions, sometimes wanting to say in a phrase from my youth right on, but other times having in mind questions and doubts, extensions.
Speaker 1:I can only assume that you do too. Maybe you can listen along with someone else who you can talk with about these things. Or maybe you can add comments to the episodes in Patreon. I will see those and try to reply if called for. Or maybe you can go to znetworkorg and use the associated discord system, which even has a section to address Revolution Z content to leave comments, not those of you who have done so repeatedly, but those who haven't. In any case, all that said, this is Michael Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.