Rising Up With Sonali

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FEATURING ERIC BLANC - In spite of the Teamsters decision not to endorse Kamala Harris for president ahead of the 2024 presidential election, most unions backed the Democratic Party. In fact, organized labor groups poured more than $40 million into Harris’ campaign for president and are now bracing for the anti-labor presidency of Donald Trump.

But Eric Blanc, assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University says all is not lost and that there’s no stopping the surge in labor organizing in the United States.

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FEATURING DR. AHMED ABDEEN -  Israel has continued to pound Gaza with bombs 13 months into a genocidal campaign. Most recently at least 50 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in north Gaza. Donald Trump’s election in the United States has emboldened Israeli officials who now speak of annexing the West Bank. 

Palestinians are exhorting the world to act. Among them is Dr. Ahmed Abdeen, a 29-year-old aspiring neurosurgeon who graduated with top honors, from Ain Shams University in Cairo in 2022. Born in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, he was working in Gaza’s European Hospital when his medical training was cut short and he was evacuated from Gaza in early 2024. 

His wife Reem Ahmed’s story of surviving 12 hours under rubble in October 2023 was featured in the Washington Post. Dr. Abdeen is currently in Southern California seeking asylum while his family remains trapped in Gaza.

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FEATURING ADELA DE LA TORRE - Donald Trump has confirmed that he plans to declare a national emergency on immigration and rely on the U.S. military to deport millions of immigrants. Anti-immigrant racism was the central pillar of his presidential campaign and his first term was marked by the disturbing scandal of thousands of immigrant children being separated from their families. Immigrant rights organizations are bracing for worse this time around. 

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FEATURING JAMES WOODSON - Reflecting the national mood that resulted in Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Californians also succumbed to the politics of fear, passing Proposition 36 which would increase penalties for petty crimes–a police and corporate backed measure that undoes the progress of decarceration. 

Voters on the left coast state also look poised to reject Proposition 6, a simple measure that would have ended forced prison labor. They rejected a rent control measure in spite of anxiety over the rising cost of housing, and rejected raising the minimum wage in spite of anger over low wages.  

In Southern California, incumbent District Attorney George Gascon, considered one of the most progressive DAs in the nation, lost by a wide margin to a pro-cop, former Republican. And voters in East Bay appear to have successfully recalled two top officials–Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao–seen as “soft on crime.”

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FEATURING KAMAU FRANKLIN - In our on-going coverage of the failure of the Democratic Party in the general election, with the loss of Senate control and the White House, the question arises: what could organizers have done more of or better? And can we organize our way out of the mess we’re now in? 

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FEATURING DR. JENN JACKSON - Donald Trump is president-elect, winning his second term and beating Vice President Kamala Harris. Pre-election polls did not capture his popularity and on election night Trump made gains in all seven swing states early on, ultimately winning five out of seven. In addition to winning the electoral college vote, Trump also won the popular vote. However, turnout was lower this year than in 2020. 

We face a future where fossil fuels will likely be entirely unleashed, leading to faster, more catastrophic climate change than the one we now have, federal government workers will be fired en masse in an attempt to destroy the regulatory state in favor of businesses, and immigrants will be deported en masse. 

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FEATURING SILKY SHAH - Ahead of the polls opening on election day, Donald Trump made his final pitch to voters, and, unsurprisingly, he relied on demonizing immigrants as a way to mobilize support. He described the U.S. as an “occupied country,” which referenced both undocumented people and those with documents and said he would “rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered.”

Meanwhile, billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest supporter, has been outed as having violated immigration law in the past. Musk has been beating the anti-immigrant drums nearly as hard as Trump. 

Regardless of who wins on election day, immigrants have suffered from relentless dehumanization in terms of rhetoric and policy. While the Biden Harris administration hasn't chanted “Mass deportations now,” it has adopted Trumpian anti-immigrant policies at the border. What can immigrants’ rights activists do to prepare for the future, no matter who ends up in the White House? 

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FEATURING SERENE KHADER - Election 2024 is upon us and today we’ll examine the ways in which women have been politicized and mobilized by numerous issues, including the attacks on their bodily autonomy. Most recently Donald Trump vowed to “protect women…whether they like it or not.”

By the time audiences hear this interview, we may know the outcome of the election. Regardless, we’ll examine today the role of women in the election, how candidates spoke to them and of them, and what a future presidential administration can do to serve women and their rights. 

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FEATURING KHURY PETERSEN-SMITH - The genocide in Gaza has been front and center of our political landscape since last October. Leading up to Election 2024, a movement of “uncommitted” voters vowed to use their power to force the hand of the Biden Harris administration into embargoing U.S. weapons to Israel. 

As of election day, which is the day this program is being recorded, the Arab American-rich state of Michigan–a crucial swing state–has yet to turn toward Kamala Harris and it’s possible the outcome of the election may depend on her refusal to end U.S. facilitation of the genocide in Gaza. Regardless of how the election transpires, we’ll examine today the way in which Palestine has played a role in the election and how a future administration can be held accountable. 

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FEATURING DORTELL WILLIAMS - There are two initiatives on the ballot in California this November dealing with the prison industrial complex. Proposition 36 would worsen penalties for petty crimes, increasing the prison population and reversing more than a decade of decarceration efforts. Meanwhile, Proposition 6 would end forced slavery inside California prisons. Prison abolitionists are calling for a No vote on 36 and a Yes vote on 6. With little public education on the propositions, polls show the reverse is likely. 

Our prison correspondent Dortell Williams in a past episode explained how California’s Proposition 36 would increase harms, particularly to low-income communities of color and how similar initiatives in other cities and states are reversing progress. Today he makes the case for why Proposition 6, if passed, would end the forced labor loophole in California, and puts it into a national context. 

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