[SPEAKER_01]: This is inform your resistance with political research associates or PRA.

[SPEAKER_01]: tune in monthly to hear experts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Researchers, journalists, academics, and movements strategists explain some of the most significant contemporary threats to democracy from the mainstream and far right.

[SPEAKER_01]: With informed your resistance, we distill what you need to know most.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Koki Mendes, Communications Director here at PRA.

[SPEAKER_01]: On today's episode of Inform Your Resistance, I check in with movement strategist Jiva Manski, whose practice of non-violence resistance is particularly apt in this moment of heightened, extra legal state repression, and the in our global and immediate need for math resistance.

[SPEAKER_01]: As we in the social justice left, call for mass mobilization in the streets, bravery and determination in the face of inhumane and targeted deployment of the deportation machine.

[SPEAKER_01]: We must provide models, historical examples, of successful resistance while also identifying modes of engagement that center, solidaristic mutual aid, and mitigate the violence of a state, and direct confrontation with its people.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the course of our conversation, Diva shares his and twenty second century initiatives and analysis of our contemporary context.

[SPEAKER_01]: We discuss the most poignant weaknesses of the left in organizing a viable resistance movement and how to overcome these weaknesses.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we conclude with the possibilities afforded by calculated non-violent political action.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jiva Manzki is an organizer, strategist, partner, and dad, who is connected to people around the world who are dedicated to building powerful transformational movements.

[SPEAKER_01]: As a director of strategic initiatives for the twenty-second century initiative, his work focuses on building a more resilient, innovative and aligned pro-democracy field.

[SPEAKER_01]: His approach to change is grounded in a commitment to accountability through collective action, organizing led by those most impacted by injustice and healing-centered practice.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has facilitated strategy, training, and change with youth elders activists, incarcerated people, educators, and government officials in Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, England, Iran, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, Romania, and throughout the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just to note that we recorded this interview in April, twenty twenty five.

[SPEAKER_01]: Due to the volatility of the Trump administration, much may have changed in between when we recorded this conversation and when you are listening to this episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jiva, thank you so much for joining us today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really excited to talk to you about sort of what we can be doing to resist in this moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: We have a big conversation ahead of us and certainly take your time with these questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a developing context and there's a lot of unknowns, but I think it's also a really important conversation to be having.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm really appreciative that for the opportunity to have this conversation, it's a really important one and look forward to what comes up.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will go ahead and get us started with the turbulence and rapid developments of these first three months of the Trump administration.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're here recording in April, twenty twenty five.

[SPEAKER_01]: How are you understanding our present struggle and the terrain of contestation and how does that understanding inform your work in your politics?

[SPEAKER_01]: I ask because I'm interested in the ways that people are interpreting and holding the major points of tension in this particularly chaotic context.

[SPEAKER_00]: The context is chaotic.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think some things that also are true are that we're in the midst of an administrative coup.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that coup is soaked in white supremacy and patriarchy.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're in the midst of the constitutional crisis is here.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think [SPEAKER_00]: There are different people, different institutions with different red lines about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think we have to understand this moment as being a constitutional crisis already here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just this last week, the confrontation with the Supreme Court is here.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that kind of ups that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the kind of broader context is that fascism is on the rise in this country.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's here for some.

[SPEAKER_00]: It has been here for a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's important to kind of understand that the authoritarian coalition that is grabbing and wielding power right now isn't one that has a unified ideology or unified fascist ideology, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a group that includes white supremacists, Christian nationalists, the tech oligarchy and populists.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so because of that, if we have that understanding that those interests aren't always aligned, that their vision of society restructured and economy restructured isn't always aligned, it also helps us to understand that there are cracks.

[SPEAKER_00]: And within those cracks, it's part of our job as organizers, as people, is to see other people to validate small acts of resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: to work towards and see the possibility of collective action.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I understand this moment as one that is in the early stages of potentially really protracted struggle.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this isn't just like hoping for the midterms, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's not about four years.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's potentially generational.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so how do we kind of get information around that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And frame this question around a kind of chaotic context.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the context could change within the next week, right now the Interaction Act is a possibility.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, mass repression is a possibility.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both of those could be realities very, very soon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I also think in this moment about regular folks and there's a lot of confusion.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of anxiety.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think a big part of the context right now, too, is that not everybody feels like they're part of the political class.

[SPEAKER_00]: Democracy itself, it's a word that doesn't mean a whole lot to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like if the day after the election, you have people who voted for Trump celebrating that they saved democracy, you know that that meaning of that word has been lost in a lot of ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so part of our job is to understand that part of the context and help people make meaning.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in order to do that in a crisis like this, for me, it's important to kind of draw back from the well springs that have shaped me and recognize that it's times a crisis and domination.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually dignity that shines through the cracks, like people's humanity shines through the cracks and visionary organizers as gracly bugs called them kind of stand up, the people who have solutions who rally their communities and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I have to kind of understand the currents running through my people, you know, the people who have shaped me, folks like my parents who were my first teachers of non-violence.

[SPEAKER_00]: The guys in the county jail outside of Albuquerque, who I first kind of organized with, who had my first experience of teaching non-violence with, have had a chance to be with human rights defenders and peace builders around the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think about my friends right now who are doing really powerful local national international things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my partner, who's a teacher, who has to think about the safety of her students and think about the development, political development of her students in different ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing that's really heavy in this moment for me right now is I lost my dad in December unexpectedly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was in many ways the person who shaped my worldview when it comes to resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so as I kind of weighed through those waves of grief, [SPEAKER_00]: in this moment and trying to kind of understand the present struggle that we're in, the present terrain.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have to kind of realize that I'm not alone in that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've all lost somebody.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've all, some of us have lost many people.

[SPEAKER_00]: These last several years have actually been this kind of mass experience of profound loss and bearing witness to kind of unimaginable loss.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think [SPEAKER_00]: We have to kind of understand struggle in this moment through that lens to the how we can process and integrate or not the grief that we're experiencing both on an individual or kind of small community level and on a mass level is really deeply tied to the political moment that we're in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, that was really beautiful.

[SPEAKER_01]: First, I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your father as someone who was also made into a political being by my own, can imagine how and more this feels to be in this moment without that person.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I really appreciate the way that you framed the context that we're in both in personal terms and local terms at the federal level.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just the different levels of experience right now really encompass the entire political spectrum and what it means to be a political person in the world and the way that how people experience their politics is so different too and just how messy all of this is in a moment where we are looking for clarity [SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate that I think that was extremely grounding over view of sort of where you are right now, where you're coming from, and where you're doing your work, and staying in this contextualizing part of our conversation.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really interested in hearing more about the work that you're doing as a professional political being at the twenty-second century initiative for our listeners.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is twenty-two CI?

[SPEAKER_01]: How does it relate to forms of coalition building on the social justice movement left?

[SPEAKER_01]: And how does it relate to projects of organizing more broadly?

[SPEAKER_00]: The twenty-second century initiative is a pretty young organization, but with pretty deep roots.

[SPEAKER_00]: Long history, it was founded by Scott Nakagawa, who is our current executive director, along with Irbishi Bad, and the two of them had organized together for [SPEAKER_00]: decades, Scott's organizing reaches back to the eighties and has ranged from, you know, direct and confrontations with Nazis to organizing to fight back against repressive valid initiatives that target queer folks.

[SPEAKER_00]: has, you know, spent time kind of on the front lines and in board rooms of foundations and kind of everywhere in between right and so has built this kind of broad network of people and and has a has a big understanding of what the field of anti authoritarian struggle looks like and what a pro democracy field could look like.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Irva she was similar like had this long history of.

[SPEAKER_00]: really powerful organizing in many ways was kind of the face of activism in their duo.

[SPEAKER_00]: The person who's a powerful speaker, person who's analysis was always on point and brought people in and built bridges kind of across political divides and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: and sadly in the very infancy of this organization, Irvishy passed away in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of, in May of [SPEAKER_00]: We are in a moment of crisis within, not only in our kind of political structure, but in our ways of organizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, it's my second century initiative, we see ourselves as a strategy and action hub that's here to catalyze the possibility of feminist, multibracial anti-racist democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the century and in the next and so really kind of seeding the possibility of the democracy that could be that hasn't been here yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: We bring together people from frontline organizations, statewide groups, national movements, folks who are kind of working every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: to toward a world in which everybody has a freedom to thrive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're convener.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are very small team.

[SPEAKER_00]: We tend to kind of work to weave connections and relationships between people.

[SPEAKER_00]: We do that through things like we have a conference coming up this summer in Atlanta and June.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second time that the twenty-second century conference will have happened, bringing together hundreds of people across the movement across the field.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also understand networks as these kind of dynamic formations that every person who participates in a network.

[SPEAKER_00]: brings their own networks.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we see ourselves as a kind of convener of network of networks where people can meet as people, not just as representatives of their organization, bringing their kind of many different roles at different identities.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we can learn together so we can build more alignment.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the last thing I'll say on this is that, you know, the kind of block bridge builds framework that I think has become more of a popular kind of understanding of how to situate ourselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we have a lean towards build.

[SPEAKER_00]: We see the possibility of building something much more deeply participatory than what has existed.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we are also here to kind of break that binary that block bridge build that aren't separate lanes necessarily that the ways that we block have to be ways that we build and vice versa.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so with that in mind, we see our role as supporting the field building the field and a lot of that looks like strengthening civil society more than anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a little bit about us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know that PRA is particularly grateful to be in coalition with you all and Scott's thinking and analysis is so core also to PRA's intellectual legacy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Really quickly before we move on to thinking more about what the politics call for right now in this pro-democracy movement.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am curious you mentioned, you know, twenty seconds century initiative is promised in this sort of long term project that expands beyond the reach of this current century that we're in.

[SPEAKER_01]: How are you all thinking about sort of the long term project right now and sort of the short term immediate needs of this moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a conversation I'm having across political organizing spaces.

[SPEAKER_01]: We do have sort of long-term liberationists, sort of transformative goals, and in this moment also feel like an acute need for action.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are the kind of conversations that are happening at Tony T.C.I.

[SPEAKER_01]: around this tension?

[SPEAKER_00]: is a great question.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a really important one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Two things come to mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is actually kind of about the past to the present and the other is about the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the folks who founded this organization have been doing this for a minute, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, been around for a while and have been through many crises.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so kind of understanding [SPEAKER_00]: the crisis that we're in right now isn't just like a new one or a blip on the screen, but kind of understanding the history that has brought us here both as a field and of our frankly our opponents, like the project of building a far right base that could support this current authoritarian project.

[SPEAKER_00]: the least seventy-five years in the making and so and has been done through a mix of organizing around ideology and organizing around social and cultural capital and kind of building and mobilizing fear and anxiety of people and that's been done really strategically and so I think kind of understanding both of those threads of history [SPEAKER_00]: It also includes thinking about the ways that the struggle opposing authoritarianism has happened in the past as well in elsewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this is a place to lean in a bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: As yes, we need to understand how folks in other countries and other places, in other points in time, whether it's student organizers in Serbia, organizing to top a dictator or [SPEAKER_00]: organizers in this country organizing to end Jim Crow, we need to learn from how that worked and the political context that we're in right now is really different.

[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of understanding of the nation state as this kind of distinct centralized power that authoritarian have wielded in the last century is really different than the kinds of power that are possible and are being wielded right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so being able to kind of hold some of those tensions.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think the other half of this is about the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think right now it's very compelling and necessary to engage the context as it is that chaotic, kind of flood the zone, constitutional crisis with administrative coup, all of those things that are happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to organize around some kind of shared vision of what's possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we think about what's actually that vision could look like what what actually could be possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to imagine it in two years that we would have fully restructured institutions that actually support the kind of participation and agency and sense of political engagement.

[SPEAKER_00]: that everyday folks need to have in a vibrant democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to happen in two years.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to happen in four years.

[SPEAKER_00]: That might not happen in twenty years, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so being able to kind of situate our visioning in the possibility that for many people has never existed, like we don't actually, so many people don't actually have a living memory of the kind of care that would be in that kind of democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to do some work to hold that vision and build it kind of as we respond to the moment right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: If we do that, if we honor the past while understanding the political context right now, and if we work towards with intention, the possibility of the kind of participation and equity that injustice that we think could be possible, [SPEAKER_00]: Then it makes our organizing right now stronger.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it means that we still need to respond to the crisis in this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: We still need to to be building the kinds of experiments that will help us to be effective right now and we're accountable both to the past and to the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's some of what we've been talking about.

[SPEAKER_01]: It makes a lot of sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a really strategic way to conceptualize sort of the passage of time and the evolution of politics that we're in.

[SPEAKER_01]: You mentioned some concrete examples from the past, both the United States and elsewhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk a little bit about what are some of the strategies of resistance learned from the past being generated right now in this moment that are rising to the surface for you and the team at twenty two C.I.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the major approaches to resistance and movement building that you're focused on right now?

[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned the anti-authoritarian playbook earlier, which is the newsletter that Scott puts together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can see if you read that that part of where we are right now is just helping people understand the context and the changing context.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of that means reaching into what has happened before and some of it is being clear about what's happening right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's changed to a certain extent.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was a period where we were kind of narrating what's possible, narrating what does democracy mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does a feminist democracy mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of stuff right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, this is what's happening.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is how to understand it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's actually indicative in some ways of the kinds of strategies that we think are important.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we need to build solidarity.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to build alignment.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to align our strategies in ways that are not just about issues.

[SPEAKER_00]: not just about who kind of has access or not to fill in traffic dollars and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's just kind of like a grounding point of where we're at.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to kind of looking at successful anti-authoritarian movements, one of the core kind of ground for building strategies is understanding that any political system, but certainly authoritarian governments, authoritarian are propped up by pillars of power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so they require [SPEAKER_00]: some legitimacy and so there are others besides a central kind of figure head which in this case right draws a lot of attention.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we we're really looking towards those strategies that are also paying attention to those pillars of power including business community, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's some folks very visibly who are part of the authoritarian coalition.

[SPEAKER_00]: who are actively seeking to restructure their economy so that they can just take more money out of people's pockets and put it in theirs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there are businesses, business people that are pissed, you know, that are looking for ways to resist as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so kind of figuring out how to engage those folks is important, similar with faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we know how much power has been built amongst white, Christian, nationalist, mostly white evangelicals.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so faith has become this kind of pillar of support for the authoritarian regime in big ways and there are people of faith who are on the other side, who are for democracy, who are who are in struggle with us and so kind of figuring out ways both to increase that power, build that power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And inspire defections is part of the strategy.

[SPEAKER_00]: So similar with military, you know, the most kind of hierarchical part of our society.

[SPEAKER_00]: The military also has it certainly backs up that certainly the in the current structure, military that's full of loyalists backs up the authoritarian projects and regime.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the non-compliance of veterans of active duty military personnel of military families and veterans families is really powerful action and same with unions, civic associations, professional associations.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of thing that understanding of the pillars of support is really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we can look then towards some tactics like [SPEAKER_00]: non-compliance of, for example, federal workers who are not complying with, like, hey, you should quit your job voluntarily, another staying in their jobs, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or they're also receiving orders to, you know, stop little things, seemingly little things related to DEI, like, they're being told that they can't, you know, mark gender differences in their [SPEAKER_00]: research, for example, but continuing to do that, continuing to say like my research on AVN flu shows that it affects people in different ways, depending on who and where they are and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, those little ways of kind of non-compliance, I think are really important right now, and especially as they become more mass, I think, [SPEAKER_00]: Don't comply.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's also this week who looks like universities like Harvard and MIT, refusing to capitulate to orders even at great risk of losing, you know, massive financial federal dollars.

[SPEAKER_00]: And granted, these are institutions that can bear that, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like these are institutions that have some money to be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also really important for them to do this, to not just roll over when we've seen other universities like Columbia.

[SPEAKER_00]: just capitulate in big ways and how harmful that is to student body.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the non-compliance is really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're similarly like lawyers leaving prominent firms and protests.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like those are all important kind of acts of non-compliance in this moment that mirror what has happened in other places.

[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly mass-based building, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like [SPEAKER_00]: You know, research shows that we need at least three point five percent of the population to be mobilized in resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that doesn't mean like on a day, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like that means sustained resistance, you know, massive noncompliance, like boycotts, strikes, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think it is important things like the fifty-fifty-one mobilizations that happened recently on April fifth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another one planned on April, nineteenth by the time folks are listening to this and they have been others right.

[SPEAKER_00]: To me, those are important not just because the numbers in the street.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're not above critique, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's not above any kind of critique to say who is actually behind it, who is organizing these kinds of supporting these mobilizations.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it is interesting to look in the crowd and see that folks have made handmade signs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those handmade signs have powerful messages that resonate deeply with the left, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: So like it's a chance to organize folks who may be activated sometimes for the first time.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a small thing to figure out not only what or how to make a sign, you know, how to [SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, I think people are holding, you know, pieces of cardboard boxes and yeah, maybe I'll figure that kind of thing out, but also to write, you know, a powerful message and then fold it in a place that it's likely to be photographed like, and then post it on the internet.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are, those are apps that we on the left should validate and look towards as possibilities for organizing billing power.

[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of other things on that front that I'm paying attention to right now are, for example, veterans and veteran family members are planning to mobilize on June six, around Z-Day, mass protest that symbolic of noncompliance.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that kind of stuff is really important, especially a week before a flag day celebration that is going to be the first military parade in Washington DC in generations for veterans to stand up.

[SPEAKER_00]: and kind of reclaim some space, I think, is really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, groups like Sjambra in North Carolina, organizing not just to protect people from being targeted by ICE, but do that in a way that recruits and builds power, the playbook that they have is really interesting and important right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the final thing that I think is important to raise right now is mutual aid and cultural organizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, usually it adds cultural organizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So thinking about right now, folks in Eastern Kentucky, who have been organizing with poor white people with an explicitly anti-racist lens, are right now just mucking each other's houses out after floods.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't matter who they voted for, right, like their in community with each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's organizing, like those are sites of organizing of power building.

[SPEAKER_00]: that are really important right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so kind of thinking about the ways that we are with our friends and neighbors, whether that's making sure that people have access to groceries or making sure that we are building kind of sanctuary space that can protect people who are being targeted by this administration, by eyes, by other aspects of law enforcement right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about healing justice spaces, transformative justice spaces, restorative justice practices.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are all really important right now to [SPEAKER_00]: develop practice learn from because it's like our connection with each other is the the antidote to authoritarianism.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also builds the kind of resilience that our movements need so that we can both kind of restructure our politics or even think about like solidarity economy kind of organizing co-ops like how do we be in different kind of relationship [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the seeds of democracy that are possible in our forms of resistance that I think are really important for all of us to be paying.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only paying attention to, but finding ways to be involved with because that's going to be part of the infrastructure required to sustain the kind of resistance over a long haul that's going to be needed to stop the harm of what's happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have to say the breath and the depth at which you just capture sort of the key thinking around strategic mobilization at all levels and such a varied array of forms.

[SPEAKER_01]: Really well done.

[SPEAKER_01]: You've captured so much of this sort of thinking that I think is being echoed in various parts of a practice left and how to build the sort of the left but also how to practice democracy.

[SPEAKER_01]: at a moment in which it's really on the table, you call it sort of the seeds of democracy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's right, whether it's non-compliance, whether it's mobilizing, whether it's mutual aid.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are all forms of small de-democratic practice that reinforce the norms of democracy, that reinforce the expectations of democracy in ways that capitulation, like institutions like Columbia, really erode sort of like our sense of what is right and what is normal and what is expected.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of what you've talked about in our conversation today is thinking about the domestic struggle that we're in, which is acute and very top of mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing that I'm interested in hearing from you, and sort of throughout the course of this podcast season, [SPEAKER_01]: sort of what the global implications are of a Trump regime from an organized laughed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so from extra legal detention of US immigrants in foreign prisons, the initiation of an aggressive and potentially devastating global trade war.

[SPEAKER_01]: plans to acquire territory, ranging from Canada to Greenland to Panama, when thinking of strategies of resistance, how can our work reach across U.S.

[SPEAKER_01]: borders to mobilize a global movement?

[SPEAKER_01]: That's needed right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's both this administration, but also this administration is one of many authoritarian regimes coming into power in this moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is the global perspective that you're bringing to this work?

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be honest and say that this is an area that I feel more pessimistic in some ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in some ways, that's because I have a lot of my organizing has been shaped by work that transcends borders.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of the first people that I kind of learned organizing from were not in the US.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we're other human rights defenders and builds peace in the aftermath of conflict and that kind of thing, [SPEAKER_00]: And in this moment, I think this is true beyond this moment, I think the work across borders is really vital.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think right now, there's pretty clear consensus that the number of people around the world who are currently under autocracy has been on the rise and that a super majority of people in the world live under autocracy is as many as seventy two percent of people around the world live under some form of authoritarian regime.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so our analysis and our organizing has to reach across borders.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think part of that is kind of understanding that the authoritarian coalition as it exists in the United States.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them might have, you know, US passports and positions in US government and their actions actually transcend borders that impact of their actions, transcend borders, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just this kind of and similarly in other countries, other autocrats, the idea of an authoritarian is not just kind of like a global phenomenon.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's actually a strategy that's been and is being wielded by people, mostly men who are in power, who are trying to grab more power.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they want to, you know, restructure the global economy.

[SPEAKER_00]: They want to stuff their pockets and grab more power and continue kind of accruing and restructuring so that almost like a global feudalist project in many ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so understanding that kind of piece of what we're up against, again, kind of to me requires that we have the kind of strategies infrastructure and relationships that transcend borders.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think a big part of what that can and does look like right now is relationship building.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think there's some really good learning that's happening from folks in places ranging from like Thailand to Brazil, Philippines, Hungary, [SPEAKER_00]: El Salvador, Guatemala, like learning what has worked, reaching back to my mentioned Serbia before, but similarly kind of learning from struggle, sharing information, being in solidarity and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think this is a place where it's clear like what's happening with the relationship between the regime here in the US and the regime in El Salvador is exposing that we actually don't have the solidarity infrastructure at the movement level to respond to this in this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we don't have folks or strong enough relationships.

[SPEAKER_00]: between organizers in the US and in El Salvador, to be able to strategize together and look at this through the lens of like this is the same threat.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a challenge that we have to overcome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I also think that it's a challenge that has to include not only being clear about what we're opposed to, and we're absolutely opposed to people being imprisoned in conditions like those in El Salvadoring prisons right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: to me, regardless of affiliation, regardless of the narratives about the idea of gangs and that kind of thing, which is the whole other conversation, but I think it's really hard to build that kind of solidarity just around what we're opposed to, and so I think it's again, it's like back to that piece of [SPEAKER_00]: We have to build towards a proactive vision of global democracy, that's deeply participatory, that's anti-racist, that's feminist, that connects to your point earlier, connects the everyday experience of people, and we all participate in decision making in our lives.

[SPEAKER_00]: we all have some experience and some kind of governance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so connecting that actually to the kind of institutions that people actually need to thrive.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think there's this sense right now that when it comes to the vitality, hit the essential project of building across borders, which are meaningless to capital, that we're flying the plane, but we also have to build it at the same time.

[SPEAKER_00]: We actually need to be building that kind of infrastructure that's more than just like, oh, they did that over there.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should try that here.

[SPEAKER_00]: There should be in relationship with each other so that what we're building is together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a challenge right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for naming the challenge.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's so important to be very clear-eyed about both possibilities but also barriers.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the other challenges that you see in building a united friend in mobilizing, you know, the three point five at a minimum percent of people in the United States to resist this administration?

[SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the key weaknesses of the left?

[SPEAKER_01]: And what are sort of the corollary strategies that you all are working on to overcome those weaknesses?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think one kind of blaring challenge is the idea that the three point five percent of people that mobilized like that'll happen on a day right like that will just everyone will take to the streets and then we'll win, but actually like.

[SPEAKER_00]: the protracted nature of the need for that kind of struggle is, I think, feeling like something we need to build towards doesn't mean it's out of grasp, but it's something that is in flux.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the kind of orientation, we've been in this kind of moment over the last, at least decade, where organizing has been very much led by professional organizers, by nonprofit organizations and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: we're really good at kind of organizing and rooted in philanthropic capital, organizing around issues and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: But less so about the kind of strategy of building alignment, kind of outside of the competitive balance of brands and logo and those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think those are things that we have to kind of contend with.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the other thing is even the idea of the left is I think we have to kind of be clear about [SPEAKER_00]: not necessarily what that means, but at least be clear that it doesn't mean the same thing to everybody that I think left for many people means progressive for some people that even means liberal.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes the left the idea of the left leaves out the far left.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so again, that's what that has done as it's meant that the organizing on the left is pretty flimsy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's pretty easy to kind of be fractured and not aligned and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, so some of the good work that I think is happening towards kind of a broader front is about mostly about kind of bringing together progressives and the moderate right and folks in between those those kind of political positions.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the other piece that I think we struggle with sometimes on the left is that we tend to organize around politics.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need to organize around politics, but there are other sites of organizing that I think are really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there are cracks in that challenge on the left, mostly in spaces that are around like mutual aid, that kind of thing like those are cultural spaces as much as their political and I think that's really, really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think in these kind of broad front formations, these big tent kind of formations that are starting to bubble up that are honestly prioritizing our people in the center and on the even the kind of moderate right that we actually need the left like we need the far left.

[SPEAKER_00]: we need the left for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is the my appreciation for the ideas of collective liberation that have kind of shaped me, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I want everybody to have access to that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like I have access to that in many progressive spaces.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been, as I want that for people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think part of how we overcome that is for the left to have a power building orientation.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so to understand that, for example, our opponents on the right, the white evangelical power is not just mobilized.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just wielded, but it's been actively built over the course of decades.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been built not through only through saying targeting folks as single issue voters.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's been a strategy for mobilization.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the power building has happened in more kind of social and cultural spaces, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: church as a site of organizing, not just in the things that the pastor is saying from the pulpit, but in the experience after church where people are connecting with each other, they're having these experiences of belonging that become the kind of wellspring.

[SPEAKER_00]: out of which a vision for the future gets grown.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's problematic as it feels for us, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how organizing has happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think the left has to get better at that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I spent a lot of time over the last few years with the Evangelicals.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then trying to organize around ideas of abolition with people who are more conservative, with people who are who are why the Evangelicals, and trying to kind of understand the theological kind of pieces there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what comes through most often when you think about the kind of organizing strategies is that her hard-hawn say this recently who's a scholar of democracy, that the kind of evangelical right, organizing the underframe of belonging before belief.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't true for everybody, but a lot of folks on the left are like, [SPEAKER_00]: You got to believe before you belong.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if we can flip that, if we can figure out ways to kind of organize in the space where we are connecting as people, the kind of cultural and social capital that we need to be a strong left, not just around issues and politics.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then we are able to invite more people into the possibility of care that we're all building towards right like that we all understand the the kind of radical kindness that we have all experienced in some of the left spaces that we've been in.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can create a living memory of that kind of collectivism and that kind of liberation that is possible for many other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to be part of our power building strategy.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have to be recruiting people, like I said earlier, there are folks that are turning out to the big mobilizations right now for all kinds of reasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's one thing to, yes, critique the organizations that are parachuting in and aligned with the democratic party and those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And look in the crowd, like there are folks holding signs about genocide, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do we connect with them?

[SPEAKER_00]: I might be the first time that they're doing something like that, that they're standing up.

[SPEAKER_00]: to speak out about really radical ideas.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so how do we actually have a frame of mind where we're actively recruiting them and building a sense of welcome?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think those are important pieces that feel not out of grasp, but certainly importance, kind of resensor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there are some folks who are doing that really well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are some that are not.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think [SPEAKER_00]: I feel concerned about the left, like we need the left in order to build the world that's possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also the left is going to be the next round of people that are targeted by this administration.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need folks to have each other's backs.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we do that through building relationships even when our politics don't fully align.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think those are challenges that we need to overcome right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I echo sort of the concerns that you've named and also love this idea of belonging before belief because I do think that is one of the biggest barriers that I've seen, even in my own local organizing practice.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like you have to be on the same page before you're allowed to come to our general meetings kind of sentiment.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I also feel like sort of in the ways in which you've just addressed what you think a solution is to overcoming the fracturing of the left, like, definitional fuzziness of the left.

[SPEAKER_01]: This also feels like a moment of possibility where people are starting to understand that the politics that they took for granted, the democratic norms, the social services that have been in the background, [SPEAKER_01]: are no longer the defaults and that this is a moment, this is like a true wake up moment for so many millions of Americans and if we put belonging in front of them, like this is a really a moment to build that big tent.

[SPEAKER_01]: And to not even radicalize, but just mobilize first, folks who, I think, you know, four years ago, maybe two years ago, they wouldn't have felt like such a possibility in the same way, especially under a democratic presidency, you know, sort of that taking for granted the expectation that this is normal.

[SPEAKER_01]: is one of the barriers to organizing and we're in sort of the complete counter moment to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even though your naming sort of one of the biggest weaknesses in this moment for an organizing left, like just feels so much possibility.

[SPEAKER_00]: Totally me too, you know, and I think about kind of my organizing home currently isn't where I live like I've relocated to where I live now just a few years ago and so I'm still building relationships with people and so I think about the kind of organizing it.

[SPEAKER_00]: really local level that we did where I'm from and tons of respect for the people who are doing that work and I want that work to be more visible to the kind of mainstream progressive left.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want that work of building mutual aid [SPEAKER_00]: and prisoner solidarity and abolition organizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's deeply participatory, as you said earlier, I want that to not only be visible and legible to the progressive left, but I want it to be valued.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to be more mainstream.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to be powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's powerful for those of us who experience it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want it to be powerful politically and restructuring the ways that we understand democracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I agree with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's massive opportunity in that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are some people who are taking it and I want more of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: sticking with sort of the idea of possibility, brings into the next part of our conversation around nonviolence, because I think similarly, we're in a moment of possibility for really seeing sort of the efficacy and being able to practice strategies of nonviolence.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so far listeners, can you explain sort of what is the political efficacy and centering nonviolence resistance [SPEAKER_01]: at the outset of a resistance struggle, and can be provided some historical examples of non-violence resistance so that we can better understand how to adapt to this strategy to our current situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not a scholar of non-violence.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had a period where I was that and then I took a turn into organizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so much of my kind of scholarship is through experience over the last couple of decades.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the scholarship is important in that some grateful to folks like Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth.

[SPEAKER_00]: the activists like Daniel Hunter, who are helping make meaning through everything from like these are the stories of how non-violence, how non-violent action has been effective elsewhere, and then also some of the data.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, for example, thinking about, it's actually clear that resistance movements that include any event sensor, non-violent actions, strategic non-violent action, [SPEAKER_00]: have a participation advantage so they're able to build at the kind of mass level and create the possibility of mass participation and the reality of mass participation and political struggle that both kind of creates the resilience that our movement.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's needed in the face of repression.

[SPEAKER_00]: It makes it harder to target individuals.

[SPEAKER_00]: We become more able to make repression backfire and just as backfire from regimes and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it increases the success rate.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like more people will join.

[SPEAKER_00]: We will be more powerful than that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think, you know, there are popular examples of nonviolent resistance movements, movements that have wielded strategic nonviolent action in powerful and effective ways ranging from the Indian independence movement, you know, think about actions like the salt march when people march to the cross, India, not just in a symbolic way, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, but actually to go claim what was theirs against the law, [SPEAKER_00]: to say, no, no, no, we're going to get our own salt.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like those are powerful acts of both noncompliance and the redaction that embodied the possibility of freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Similar civil rights movement here in the US is full of popular examples, the Montgomery Busboycott, which wasn't just like a [SPEAKER_00]: One day Rosa Parks got taken off a bus and then they they had a boycott and then they won right like board talking about strategic action that was both longer than a day right like those weeks of of organizing and was a test case of the possibility of boycott being part of the kind of tactical bag.

[SPEAKER_00]: lunch counter sit-ins, required not just, there weren't just spontaneous acts of non-compliance by students.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were people who trained and were ready to receive the abuse that was already familiar in many ways, but was going to certainly be escalated in those times.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the answer, apartheid movement against South Africa, the international kind of pressure that finally joined with local struggle that kind of went across [SPEAKER_00]: Many of the pillars that I mentioned before, you know, civic associations and beyond faith, community, et cetera, who rose up and not only demanded but embodied the possibility of a different form of society that international boycotts, divestment, had a big impact in those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they're all examples of nonviolent action.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, some of the more kind of less popularly known, but I think really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: One example is Chilean mine workers who under the Pinochet regime were striking for their basic rights and for the possibility of a different governmental structure altogether.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as those strikes risked clashes with security forces, [SPEAKER_00]: They actually decided to change tactics altogether.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so instead of strikes, they organized mass slowdowns.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so people would go very slowly, either walk or drive to work, which made it really hard for repressions to kind of come in.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were still going, but they were going very, very slowly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And part of what that does, it helped people who were feeling afraid feel like they could do something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it helped them move them over, come some of that fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: They also did things like APM across the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody banged on pots and pans, like outside their house.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so you can hear all of these pots and pans being clamed.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it was tons of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you felt the sense of solidarity and connection.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're in this together.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it wasn't just an individual who was potentially going to be targeted in that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, church is organized sanctuary spaces for people who are going to be targeted in those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: All of those are examples of how [SPEAKER_00]: strategic nonviolent action has to also be tactical and change it up and stay creative.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Serbia, opt for my student lead movement was was not just about kind of building political power to oppose the most victory's game.

[SPEAKER_00]: but actually changing political culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so they used a lot of smaller scale public actions, street theater, for example, mocking the regime.

[SPEAKER_00]: They did a lot of really strategic targeting of pillars of support, not just to kind of raise awareness, but actually to inspire defections.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like they wanted people from the military.

[SPEAKER_00]: from the security forces to put down their weapons and join the resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so they had active strategies around that.

[SPEAKER_00]: They built outside of the capital.

[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't just trying to get elected themselves, but actually kind of leveraging the discontent in rural areas and elsewhere, building a decentralized power structure that could then support civil society.

[SPEAKER_00]: Blastering posters everywhere, you know, using cultural celebrations and music, mass training and resistance manuals that were shared, you know, and through like fax machines and word of mouth and those kinds of things like those were all parts of the strategy of strategic now violent resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: and action that also then fortified them so that when repression came, they were able to make it backfire.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when people were targeted or called terrorists, they organized terrorist fashion shows, where people in my kind of their everyday guard would come out and be like, look at this terrorist and those glasses, you must be a terrorist, that kind of thing, or when offices were raided, they made a show of coming back with moving boxes.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, invited to actually more attention from the security forces who would then come in and find out, oh, the boxes are actually empty.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then make a show of the idea that a couple are afraid of everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're even afraid of empty boxes and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all of that was what helped kind of fold the foundation for the mass, non-cooperation, the strikes, the boycotts, the defections, the interventions like blockades and occupations and those kinds of things that came was built on [SPEAKER_00]: on that cultural and social organizing.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think we have to kind of understand this momentum of lessons from that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should really validate small acts of resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the federal worker who is slowing down the gears of bureaucracy who's not complying with the seemingly small orders and helping those folks get connected to each other and those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can think about nonviolent actions, strategic nonviolent action, and at least three categories.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is not compliance.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're talked about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So federal workers, universities, that kind of space, trying to get the people in those pillars of support to defect and join us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's direct action.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think about like during the last Trump administration and when the one of the crises that the border happens, [SPEAKER_00]: When families were being separated from each other and kids were being put in cages, the governor of New Mexico at the time, Susanna Martinez was vocally supportive of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as a border state, folks who were in community weren't having it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so a group of young people, high school, and some college students banded together with religious women.

[SPEAKER_00]: So leaders from ranging from Catholic sisters to [SPEAKER_00]: Muslim Palestinian leader to, you know, Tibetan and more organized together to sit in the governor's office and did that in a way that would raise into more consciousness the emergency of what was happening at the border.

[SPEAKER_00]: and risk to rest in doing that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when a couple of people were targeted by law enforcement as the first people who would be arrested, including a Muslim Palestinian woman, one of the Catholic sisters not only followed her down to the police car.

[SPEAKER_00]: but got into the police car with her and ended up spending the night in jail despite not having been targeted just to be with her sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think those are the kinds of acts that build the kind of solidarity that we need and that happens through direct action.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are like the blockades of traffic that help people who aren't really seeing the crisis understand the conflict that we're in.

[SPEAKER_00]: the marches, the protests, the sanctuary that's being organized.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the third kind of category which we've talked a bit about won't go in as much as about alternative institutions.

[SPEAKER_00]: So mutual aid, collective care, the kind of infrastructure of solidarity that we need to then take advantage of our participation advantage when it comes.

[SPEAKER_00]: So those are some of the ways that strategic nonviolent action has been effective in the past and has been here and is already here now and that we can build from [SPEAKER_01]: Hearing you describe sort of these examples and modes of engaging in nonviolence and the efficacy that's been borne out by history and also, you know, thinking about sort of some of the examples and the exercises you did in the training that you gave with Naomi Washingtonly, part periods strategic partnerships director.

[SPEAKER_01]: What comes to mind for me is sort of the necessity of making these examples more accessible to folks because these are really doable actions.

[SPEAKER_01]: These are really sort of simple to implement modes of resistance that also serve other purposes, whether it is to provide sort of a physical escort for somebody who may be harassed in state detention or whether it's [SPEAKER_01]: One of the examples you gave in her training with Naomi was sort of alternative modes of getting kids to school, so that ice raids on parents that pick up and drop off was less of a threat in communities where this has been occurring.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's just so many ways in which people can engage in non-compliance.

[SPEAKER_01]: and direct action at the local level.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one of the biggest pitfalls that I see is that these are readily available examples for folks outside of already mobilized political spaces.

[SPEAKER_01]: And how do we tell these stories?

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we make it known that there are ways to get involved that feel intuitive, that feel useful, but I also have like high degrees of political effectiveness.

[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that by the time people are hearing us have this conversation, there are more examples of accessible ways of getting those stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think part of it is in how action and the context that we're in is framed.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've seen over these last several weeks since inauguration, several mobilizations, several examples of strategic novel action that [SPEAKER_00]: Some of which have been told in mainstream media and some haven't.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, for example, some of the mobilizations that have been led by veterans so far have not been as accessible.

[SPEAKER_00]: We haven't seen that as readily and coming up on June six.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a group of veterans that's organizing potentially a mass action and so to be able to then kind of see that happen in ways that actually bring in everyday folk right like people who aren't necessarily seeing their veteran status or their active duty status as political finding a home is saying yeah I actually want to be with these people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And telling those parts of the story, I think are really, really important.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes we kind of get into thinking about these examples of resistance.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we see like the clashes, like we see the flash points that feels really big.

[SPEAKER_00]: It feels dangerous, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like to face down security forces or police.

[SPEAKER_00]: the possibility of the insurrection act like I said, it's still a possibility right now, but it very well could be a reality that means that we're facing down, that activists are facing down with military personnel.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's a scary kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those are the stories that actually end up being the kind of most compelling part of it that's told in mainstream media.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what we have to talk about is the ways that we actually build that resilience.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just through the stress tests of nonviolence training where we're like yelling at each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: and those kinds of things, it's actually about how we break bread together.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's about how we support our neighbors.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, the folks in Eastern Kentucky, we can learn from right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: How do we muck out each other's houses and frame that as acts of resistance to a system that's actually trying to divide us?

[SPEAKER_00]: That's part of the narrative challenge that I think we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: is the kind of violence of the system is here to keep us afraid and disconnected from each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: So stories of how we're connecting, including across different political difference, but not only that, I think are really important.

[SPEAKER_01]: On that topic, where would you direct listeners of the podcast to nonviolence trainings, to resources to better understand how to use these strategies in their own work and their own communities?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so there's a couple of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: One is there's a crew of folks that are calling themselves freedom trainers who are doing mass training and non-compliance so far have mostly worked with federal workers and are working with others and I think those trainings will become more accessible over the coming weeks and months as they're able to kind of scale their old team, you know, right now they're [SPEAKER_00]: doing it on demand, and it's high demand, and so everybody's doing bunch of trainings.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's trying to expand that pool.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of that training is about understanding what non-compliance is, understanding what non-cooperation is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's one aspect.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's this project that we have in partnership, it's the twenty-second century initiative in partnership with the Horizons project, but also with several other core partners, including PRA, including Naomi, who you mentioned earlier.

[SPEAKER_00]: where the training is in a strategy that we think of as backfire.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when repression comes, when there is political violence from state or non-state actors, building the kind of responses that both impose costs, social political and financial costs on those who would seek to benefit from.

[SPEAKER_00]: targeting back to the groups, et cetera, as well as building our power.

[SPEAKER_00]: So getting more and more people to be part of the movement.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we could actually look at real examples that I think will be familiar to people like the airport mobilizations around the Muslim ban under the first Trump administration or more recently when the OMB memo came out that tried to freeze distributions [SPEAKER_00]: huge, huge, and immediate backlash that made that action backfire.

[SPEAKER_00]: That didn't just get resented because like the court stepped in or like institution stepped in or that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those good people rose up.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so our training is about kind of some of the elements of how that works.

[SPEAKER_00]: Understanding that there's a playbook that authoritarian's used to justify political violence that covered up.

[SPEAKER_00]: They dehumanize the targets.

[SPEAKER_00]: They perpetuate mis-and-disinformation.

[SPEAKER_00]: They kind of say, well, there's an investigation happen and happening and kind of slow down the process.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we're seeing that right now with the folks who have been deported to El Salvadorian prisons like, well, we don't know how to do this kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, official channels don't work.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they will target other activists.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so with that playbook in mind, we have our own playbook, which is that we make sure, relentlessly, to reveal that injustice is here.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're seeing that right now with activists and small towns like upstate New York who when their neighbors were targeted by ice, mobilized a thousand people to go outside of Tom Homan's house and say, no, no, we need our neighbors home.

[SPEAKER_00]: or right now in small town in Ohio where friends and neighbors have been targeted in people of faith are standing up and saying no like it's both revealing that that has happened making sure that people understand who the targets are like these are people reframing every attempt at missing disinformation of saying like no this is injustice you know it's not a one-off it's not a [SPEAKER_00]: like these aren't terrorists like what's happening with the folks who are being deported right now and then you know reminding of like we're just saying of stories of active people powered resistance that's what the training kind of goes into and we do have we share case studies we share other stories and many of those are actually accessible on our website which is endpoliticalviolence.org [SPEAKER_00]: which is where you can find stories of backfire stories of strategic nonviolent action that we are hoping to have updated in real time is more and more folks that have been part of this training and others are leveraging these kinds of strategies and it's a place where people can request training whether you're part of a group already whether you're being targeted or have been targeted or have experienced a threat or harassment or you're just concerned there are ways to log in and kind of bring this training to your community.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll definitely share all of those resources in our show notes and on social media when the episode airs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll be continuing to lift up twenty-two CIs work in the meantime.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, Jiva.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is an incredible conversation.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel...

[SPEAKER_01]: inspired in a way that I haven't since say January, twentieth of this year and just really appreciate not only the work that you're doing, but the spirit of strategic and relentless resistance that you're bringing to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I similar appreciate this conversation because I think the opportunity to reflect on these questions is also really important while spring for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, this stuff is happening and I think for all of us to be able to kind of change what we're looking at, you know, and look for kind of heroes, look for groups that are resisting, look for examples from the past and the present and then get together and kind of build [SPEAKER_00]: a vision of the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really important work right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like this conversation helped me to do more of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I appreciate you appreciate PRA as a deep partner in supporting people to have the kind of analysis and connection that we need.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, really appreciate this time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to inform your resistance with PRA.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode was hosted by me, Cookie Mendes.

[SPEAKER_01]: The podcast is produced and fact checked by me and Olivia Lawrence, Wyoming.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jackie's King created our show notes and Frank Lawrence, our music.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sound design and mixing by thick skin media.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't already, rate, review and subscribe.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you appreciate our work, please consider donating to political research associates at politicalresearch.org.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the best thing you can do to help us is tell your comrades about the pod.

[SPEAKER_01]: Resisting authoritarianism is better with friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time.