After the mass-shooting, assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last Saturday, the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee continued as scheduled. Truthout.org news writer Chris Walker (@chriswalker) was on the ground in Milwaukee this week. He shares some of his reporting on the event—especially the heavy imprint of the Heritage Foundation—and on the protests around downtown Milwaukee that most media simply ignored. 

Then 22nd Century Initiative Deputy Director Sue Hyde joins us to discuss the launch of the Anti-Authoritarian Podcast, a new project produced by Convergence and co-hosted by her and Scot Nakagawa.

You can subscribe to the Anti-Authoritarian Podcast and listen to the trailer now on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts.

As finger pointing and arguing about President Joe Biden's fitness to remain the Democratic Party's presidential nominee continued all week here in the US, Great Britain and France made strides toward beating back autocratic and fascist rule in their own national elections.

In this episode, Cayden is joined by Clément Petitjean (@clement_petitj), lecturer in English and Anglo-Saxon languages & literatures at Pantheon Sorbonne, University of Paris. Clément wrote for us in advance of last week’s snap elections in France about the emergence of the New Popular Front, and we're excited to have him join to debrief that election – and talk a little about what lessons we can glean from it as observers across the pond.

Clément's book Occupation: Organizer is available now from Haymarket Books.

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At the top of this episode, we address what may have been a historic moment last night, when President Joe Biden struggled to perform in his debate against Donald Trump. Many in mainstream media are asking today if Biden still has what it takes to be the Democratic nominee and block the return of Trump and the MAGA movement to the White House. In These Times Executive Director Alex Han joins us to discuss what the debate may mean for movement efforts to stop Trump and the ways it might shift our political landscape.

Then Cayden is joined by Vivian Topping, Director of Advocacy and Civic Engagement at the Equality Federation, to discuss the right-wing, anti-trans hate machine and how we fight back. They explore how today's Supreme Court repeal of the Chevron Doctrine might impact laws banning discrimination against trans people, how we organize against the Right's cultural messaging via deep canvassing in our communities, and much more.

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Cayden is joined by Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party, live from the floor of this week's Rising Majority Congress, a week long gathering of over 700 organizers and activists on the left, working in diverse coalition to strategize a plan for the next 10 years while envisioning goals for 2050.

In this episode, Maurice speaks to Working Families Party's role in strategy as they engage in political endorsement and organizing across the country at the local and national levels. They explore the type of party vehicle we need to build and drive to reach the long-term goals of a multi-racial, working class led political future and how we co-operate amidst our diverse range of needs and issues.

To connect with Maurice and WFP:

Text WFP to #30403 and find them on all social platforms as @workingfamilies

Text MOE to #30403 and find him on all social platforms at @mauricewfp

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Many of us have seen the attacks against student protestors over the last month on campuses like UCLA and others by both the police and right wing Zionists, attempting to disrupt their right to peaceful protest. This led to a wave of stand-up strikes against unfair labor practices of unionized student workers represented by UAW Local 4811 across the University of California system. As a result, legal actions have gone back and forth in state courts attempting to force an end to the strike without meeting unionized worker demands. As this story continues to unfold, we are joined this episode by President of UAW Local 4811, Rafael Jaime, to tell the full story of how we got to this moment, hopes for reaching student worker demands, and where things go next.

In the latter half of the show, Cayden and Producer Josh Elstro breakdown some big moves this week by tech giants Apple and Adobe that may have detrimental, long-term impact the tools we use as movement activists and organizers to communicate our messages. Together they explore the facts of user privacy, and terms of service announcements each company made regarding users of their products this week and explore how we as organizers dependent on this technology might rationally respond.

In spite of 34 felony convictions last week, there is still a very real chance that Donald Trump will once again be elected president of the United States in November or that he'll contest the results and attempt another coup. Few of us were truly prepared for his victory in 2016. Many of us felt helpless in the wake of his 2020 blitz to steal the election. As a result, many responses were directionless and lacking in strategy. Experienced organizers Daniel Hunter (350.org) and Katey Lauer are helping individuals and organizations alike be more prepared for the many possible outcomes of the November election through a new multimedia project and book, What If Trump Wins?

Convergence is excited to be the first media outlet to announce the project's launch, which along with the book includes an individualized "pick your own path" interactive website and a brief role playing game which can be easily facilitated and run within your organization or comrades. Each of these tools invites participants to first notice what feelings they're having about the possibility of another Trump presidency or reliving the general post election chaos and uncertainty of 2020 which led to the January 6th insurrection. From this space of emotional grounding, participants can safely strategize and tease out possible outcomes based on historic research of other attempted coups and autocratic governments.

Katey and Daniel joined Cayden this week to discuss the What if Trump Wins? project and how people can engage with it in whatever way is most useful to them.

Order the book here.

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Of course the hot button issue of the day is former President Donald Trump's 34 felony convictions in his hush money trial. We briefly discuss how this impacts us as organizer, but have so much else to report.

Executive Director of Center for Third World Organizing, Chinyere Tutashinda ([email protected]), joins Cayden this episode to discuss the immediate dangers and risks of AI generated social media activism which may have had its first major viral moment with the widely shared "All Eyes on Rafah" graphic you've likely seen. They also explore how organizers and activists think about their work on a longer horizon than the daily news cycle itself.

Later in the episode, reporter for PRISM, Nicole Froio joins to discuss her new exclusive piece Why does Planned Parenthood contract with the arms manufacturer Raytheon? Together they explore the nuanced and complicated reality of a vital health care organization's need to prioritize cyber security and the limited amount of trustworthy market options capable of providing such support.

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This week, Cayden is joined by Executive Director of New Left Accelerator, Deborah Barron and Executive Director of the Center for Empowered Politics, Alex Tom to discuss risk. Any time we perform acts of civil disobedience, we subject ourselves to varying degrees of risk. As we’ve seen in the news lately in campus protests many risk personal arrest. Others, meanwhile, risk loss of funding, jobs, and more. The panel explores how to strategically make assessments of what risks we should take in the face of increasing tendencies of fascist power plays by the MAGA Right. They also take a look at how risk is currently and historically considered in left and progressive movements.

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Today's episode features an interview by Steven Pitts, the former host and creator of our longest running podcast, Black Work Talk. He sat down with Professor of Sociology and Labor at University of Massachusetts - Amherst, Cedric de Leon, to discuss Cedric’s forthcoming book contracted with University of California Press, Freedom Train.

In the book, Cedric centers the monumental contributions of Black workers to desegregating the labor movement and connecting the struggles of organized labor to those of civil society before and during the civil rights era. It excavates the era’s intra-movement conflicts as well as the way that labor leaders and rank and file workers were critical not just in organizing their workplaces but in galvanizing the government to act on crucial pieces of policy, from desegregating the defense industry under the auspices of the New Deal to creating pressure for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s.

You can find an excerpt of the interview already available in print on Convergence's website.

Find more about Cedric's work here.

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This week on the show, Cayden is joined by organizer and former Executive Director of Lavender Phoenix, Sammie Ablaza Wills, discussing outcomes from the past month's student protests. They explore some of the agreements of universities that have agreed to work and negotiate with students. The episode also dives into Sammie's recent article published by Convergence, Right Size Belonging: Six Practices for Organizers; considering how it applies to this new wave of campus organizing. Aside from a glimpse of what right sized belonging in organizations can look like, this episode also engages the importance of finding the right balance of comradely, interpersonal trust, while still maintaining vigilance for outside threats and maintaining proper security for our organizations and movements.

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