Chapter 21 is a marvelous inspiring story of electoral success. Us, us overcoming obstacles & succeeding. Chapter 22 continues with the lessons of how things really work

We're from PA, and this chapter is based on a story that happened here on the Eastern side of our state. I think it an be used as a lesson in organizing. A big shout out to our friends in Lancaster.

Here's an interesting chapter about the birth of a small new progressive organization that happened at the beginning of the trump presidency. This chapter gave me a new appreciation for the organization Indivisible. It also, once again demonstrates, as author Ryan Grim does throughout this book, that political knowledge is a very specific undertaking. Indivisible arose at a very specific time & focused on a very specific task with wonderful effectiveness.

These two chapters fit well together, a contrast between the top of the Dem Party & the dynamic activism at the bottom.

Chapter 17 is a story of how people all over the country, particularly women, became politicized & activated upon trump being elected.

Chapter 18 tells about how the top of the Party once again put an ineffective centrist in a position of power.

The disconnect between these two dynamics is a very serious problem for us.

This was a fun chapter. We get to see Bernie run for President & the how it affected the all the political possibilities. It was a big leap forward for the US public's political consciousness.

First of all, this episode is a little longer than the other: almost 40 minutes. That's because, since this is the end of Part 1 of the book, we tried to summarize what we thought Part 1 was about at the the end of this episode. Our goal is to stay under 30 minutes, but also our goal is to understand why this book is important and what this knowledge means to us. 

Hope you enjoy. Love & Solidarity.

This chapter gives a little more of Elizabeth Warren's history. It also has a really good example of inside/outside political teamwork. 

And just as a little aside, I make a little mistake in my commentary about who's blocking nominations. Sorry if it confuses you.

It was the economic recession, before the pandemic, when the crookedness of the big financial institutions crashed the economy & we needed to recover. National Dem Party had not yet accepted the fact that they'd have to fight like hell to get anything we really needed. 

This chapter helps us understand that path we walked with them, as we struggled to get our feet back under us.

Oh, and if at times, Maria & I seem to lose our place just a little bit, it's because my puppy Soshi (short for sociable socialism had just realized that we were not going to get up & put her back in her cage for a minute while we were recording so was crawling all over us. We literally had a puppy up our buts lol)

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was one of the most important large-scale legislative victories of our lifetime. It was such an awful compromise because the Congressional Progressive Caucus was divided & didn't have the unity & strength we needed it to. Nonetheless, it was a huge victory for us. It saved lives and it also got our foot in the door for winning access to healthcare through national legislation. The elephant in the room has now been named

Here's the second half of Chapter 11, the big struggle that happened as we came down to the wire. Listen to this episode to find out how the sausage was made.