Future Hindsight

Christopher Paul Harris is Assistant Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of To Build A Black Future: The Radical Politics of Joy, Pain, and Care. We discuss why addressing our society’s hard-wired prejudices must be a substantial part of our endeavors toward a truly multicultural democracy.   Central to building a Black future is reframing and recreating institutions from the perspective of those who have been historically marginalized. The core of the Black movement is a response to Black pain and anti-Black violence. Despite all the violence, Black Joy is evidence that Black communities are thriving and serve as a prefigurative politics of what’s possible on the other side of pain. Care is recognizing that Black people and other marginalized communities carry trauma and need healing.  Follow Chris on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/black_poethics    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagr

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Neal Rickner joins us to talk about the American Values Coalition, a growing community of Americans who are empowered to lead with truth, reject extremism and misinformation, and defend democracy. Get some pointers to dialogue across political divides and across the table.   First, have the courage to have the conversation. As much as hiding in the kitchen sounds preferable, we’re going to engage on the issues one relationship at a time. Begin the conversation with a thoughtful question, and then sit back and really listen. Since we rely on the news to understand what’s happening in the world, our news choices frame our reality. In fact, media source is among the top indicators of political choice. Consult multiple news sources and bring more truth to the conversation.   Follow American Values Coalition on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ourvaluesngo    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/future

Thursday, November 16th, 2023   Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University and co-author of Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working-Class Voters are Turning Away from the Democratic Party. We learn how unions are true laboratories of democracy and why their demise has eroded our democratic culture.   Unions were at the heart of local communities well beyond bargaining for contracts. They were part of recreational and social life, and even the churches were aligned with unions. There was a sense of solidarity for fellow union members, pride in their work, and a natural alignment on politics. If elections are about voting for who is on your side, then politics is partly about who we are — and who they are. American democracy is at an inflection point and the question is whether the news who are engaged are willing to practice and defend democracy.     Learn More About Theda:  https://scholar.harvard.edu/thedaskocpol/home     Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twit

Thursday, November 9th, 2023   Bernard E. Harcourt is Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University -- and he was also our very first guest on the podcast! Bernard's most recent book, Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory, offers the blueprint for a society based on cooperation.   The idea of creating a space that benefits the stakeholders, rather than the shareholders, has a long history. Cooperatives offer a robust way of being. They practice self-governance among equals through democratic process. In fact, we could have democratic processes, democratic education, and democratic training in every aspect of our lives. We could even nurture a culture of democratic self-governance at work, which is traditionally one of the least democratic places in our daily lives. Cooperation democracy aims to extend the democratic culture to every facet of our lives.      Follow Bernard on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/BernardHarcourt    Follow Mila

Thursday, November 2nd, 2023   Hajar Yazdiha is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and the author of The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. We discuss the role of collective memory in the myth-making of American exceptionalism.    Collective memory is the way that we remember history and that becomes central to our idea of who we are as a people. It’s a process of storytelling and the most central stories to who we are as a people. The civil rights movement has become one of the central collective memories in America's story of both who it is and who it wants to be. However, careful examination of the record reveals that the civil rights movement was a political project that was meant to actually dismantle multicultural democracy. Further, as the collective memory of Dr. King became sanitized and whitewashed, his legacy carried a lot of moral legitimacy, and his moral symbolic authority be

Thursday, October 26th, 2023   Nick Suplina is Senior Vice President for Law & Policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. He was previously an advisor for New York State’s Attorney General. We discuss how 10 years of grassroots organizing has changed the political calculus on gun safety legislation, starting with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.    Although progress is slow, 15 Republican senators did vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022. This was made possible because of 10 years worth of pressure from constituents. Since Sandy Hook, grassroots organizing has made a significant difference. The notion that there is no point in fighting because nothing will ever change is false. As Nick told us, “Just because we can’t get everything we want, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act every way we can.”   Follow Nick on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/nicksuplina    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Learn about Everytown for Gun Safety:  www.everytown.org   Follow Future Hindsight on

Thursday, October 19th, 2023   Sam Oliker-Friedland is the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsive Government and a former Department of Justice voting rights litigator at the Civil Rights Division. We discuss the promise of automation for good governance and democracy.   There is a lot of good pro-voter legislation being implemented in states from Nevada to Michigan, Pennsylvania to New York. The success of automatic voter registration laws are fertile ground for better public policy making and better governance across the board. Practical public policy is impact forward. It takes account of on the ground implementation and of the political reality in the states. And then it goes back to see if the policy did achieve the desired impact.     Follow Sam on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/SamOlikerF   Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Sponsor:  Thanks to Shopify for supporting Future Hindsight! Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/hopeful.   Follow Future Hindsight

Thursday, October 12th, 2023   Steven Levitsky is Professor of Government at Harvard University. Together with Daniel Ziblatt, he is co-author of How Democracies Die and has just published Tyranny of the Minority. They argue that reforming American institutions to become more democratic will help us achieve a multiracial democracy—and in the process save democracy itself.    We are on the cusp of a multiracial democracy, but to get there we need to reform our constitution and end counter-majoritarian institutions. Majorities should be empowered to govern. If the majorities are not getting serious consideration in the legislature, something is wrong. For example, states with higher populations should get greater representation because democracy represents people, not territory.     Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!  http://survey.podtrac.com/start-surv

Thursday, October 5th, 2023   Jocelyn Simonson is Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, a former public defender, and the author of Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration. We discuss how certain radical acts of justice challenge the legitimacy of the criminal system and form the underpinning of a new collective legal thought.   The four pillars of this work comprise of court watching, community bail funds, participatory defense, and people’s budgets. Bail funds are pulling the rug out from the system's justification for what it's doing. Defunding the system in this way shows that the combination of carceral and economic forces that we currently use to “do justice” is not inevitable. A big part of the power of these acts of justice is that they’re done collectively. Abolition has two sides: breaking down and building up. Jocelyn shared that “we need to simultaneously decarcerate, stop spending our resources, and start building it out.”     Follow Jocelyn on Twitter: 

Thursday, September 28th, 2023   Stephen Bright and James Kwak are co-authors of The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts. Stephen Bright has been an advocate for death row inmates for four decades and was the long-time director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, where James Kwak is the immediate past chair. We do not have a level playing field between the prosecution and the defense. Inequality and injustice in the criminal legal system is made worse by the widespread lack of capable defense attorneys for poor people. If you're accused of a crime, a good lawyer can tell you what your rights are and can conduct an investigation to uncover new facts that might show your innocence. Unsurprisingly, over 90% of convictions are acquired through plea bargains, instead of through trials.    Listen to our first conversation with Stephen:  https://www.futurehindsight.com/episode/stephen-bright    Follow James on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jamesykwa

Thursday, September 21st, 2023   Sara Schreiber is the Executive Director of America Votes, the coordination hub of progressive communities. We discuss expanding access to voting, modernizing elections, and getting out the vote up and down the ballot. The last three election cycles saw a real surge of voters: 46 million people who did not vote in the 2016 election, voted in 2018 or 2020. Unprecedented numbers of voter engagement and pro voter policies have also been implemented since 2016. New voters are young and diverse. More than half of them are 18 to 34; nearly half are people of color; and 56 percent of them are women. Although most of them think of themselves as independents, they are more progressive on the issues. They are in favor of abortion rights, gun violence prevention policies, and climate action. Democracy issues were also more salient in the election after the Dobbs decision. In the eighties, younger voters were not necessarily more progressive than older voters.  Follow Sara on Twitter: 

Thursday, September 14th, 2023   Yoni Landau is the CEO and founder of Movement Labs, the founder of Contest Every Race, and a former White House Office of Management and Budget and Robert Reich staffer. We explore just how technology can empower our practice of democracy and enrich our civic action toolkit.   Think about your personal impact in terms of additionality – how much you’ve done that wouldn’t have otherwise been done. Movement Labs aims to make it easy for you to have an impactful volunteer experience. To be of more service would be to get involved at a very deeply local level. Down ballot, about 75% of elected offices go uncontested; when contested, 48% are winning their elections!   Follow Yoni on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ylandau    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   >Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!  http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&am

Thursday, September 7th, 2023   Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning professor of journalism at Columbia University and author of Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights. We dive into Humphrey’s activism in the proto civil rights movement and his role to include civil rights in Democratic Party platform in 1948.   Hubert Humphrey was a coalition builder. After his decisive win for mayor of Minneapolis, he put together a civil rights and human rights agenda that put Minneapolis on the national map as an example of what was best in America. He also engaged in deep work to change public attitudes. Humphrey understood as mayor that electing people to the council is crucial to passing laws. Pay attention to every race on the ballot! Follow Sam on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/SamuelGFreedman    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   Love Future Hindsight? Take our Lis

Thursday, August 31st, 2023   Kurt Andersen is a prolific writer and author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History. We discuss the conservative playbook to move our society culturally, economically, and politically to the right, and why continuous civic engagement and investment in Americans can restore basic fairness.   Influential conservatives capitalized on a wave of cultural nostalgia after the turbulent 1960s to turn the American economy into a version of extreme capitalism. Together with neoliberalism from the left, the New Deal was replaced by the raw deal. The US government has provided funding for many of the greatest inventions of the last century, like in pharmaceuticals and in technology. If the government acted like a private investor, it would have more funds to invest in communities and also to support more innovation.    Follow Kurt on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/KBAndersen    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram

Thursday, August 24th, 2023   Anne Nelson is an author and lecturer in the fields of international affairs, media, and human rights. Her most recent book is Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. We discuss the coordination between fundamentalist organizations and oil barons to win elections and pass socially conservative public policies.    Before the demise of local news, the American public had a factual common page. That is now largely displaced by right-wing media, especially on the radio. Right-wing media is unidirectional messaging, only expressing one point of view. This view is repeated on social media, radio, churches, and television, which creates a parallel universe that successfully turns out conservative voters. Conservative groups are also good at playing the long game on the ground, instead of parachuting into communities a few weeks before an election.    Follow Anne on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/anelsona    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaa

Thursday, August 17th, 2023   David Pepper is a lawyer, writer, political activist, and former elected official. He served as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021. He’s the author of several books, including the excellent how-to guide: Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual for Every American. We discuss how every one of us can use our personal footprint to lift democracy.   The forces attacking democracy are doing so in order to keep their minority worldview locked in. All Americans – and not only in swing states – are on the front line of democracy because the battle is waged in local government and state houses. Unsurprisingly, these very undemocratic and rigged state houses render broken and corrupted government. All state and local races should be contested.   Follow David on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DavidPepper    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   Love Future Hindsigh

Thursday, August 10th, 2023   Skye Perryman is the President and CEO of Democracy Forward, an organization that uses the law to build collective power and advance a bold, vibrant democracy. We discuss successful legal action to protect and advance the rights of all Americans.     A culmination of factors have come together to create a moment in which there are serious existential questions about what type of government and what kind of society Americans will be living in. Backsliding in areas such as voting rights, reproductive rights, and freedom to read are leading to legal fights across the nation. Skye reminds us that “The role of courts in a democracy is to fortify and strengthen democratic institutions through interpreting our constitution, through interpreting the laws, through providing predictability, as well as to ensure that everyone has access to the rule of law.”   Follow Skye on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/skyeperryman    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future

Thursday, August 3rd, 2023   Norman Chen is the CEO of the Asian American Foundation or TAAF. We discuss racism against Asians and the pursuit of belonging through philanthropy, civic engagement, and education.   Deep misconceptions about Asian Americans persist. Narrative change is key for people to see Asian Americans as really being Americans. Only about 1.5% of schools offer a formal Asian American studies program, although Asian American history and Pacific Islander history is a critical part of American history. TAAF aims to build greater belonging and prosperity for AAPIs everywhere.  Follow Norman on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/normanlschen    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!  a href="http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard">http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=stand

Thursday, July 27th, 2023   Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran are co-authors of The Open System: Redesigning Education and Reigniting Democracy. Education is our greatest democracy-building endeavor. We discuss rebuilding trust in public education and marshaling the public will to do something great together.   The democratic act is in the spark of everyday interactions with our community, such as in schools. Families and communities should be an integral part of the way that schools function. We need to practice new ways of making decisions together as a society, and education is a fertile place for this practice. Doannie reminds us that “If people can change, institutions can change, because they're nothing more than the people within them.”   Follow Landon on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/lmascarenaz    Follow Doannie on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/doannietran    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/

Thursday, July 20th, 2023   Jenice Fountain is the Executive Director of the Yellowhammer Fund, a reproductive justice organization in Birmingham that serves Alabama, Mississippi, and the deep south. We discuss what the actual lived experience is in Alabama, a year after the Dobbs decision.   Since the Dobbs decision, pregnancies are less safe in states where abortion is prohibited. Exceptions to protect the life of the pregnant person do not work in reality because interventions are only offered at the last possible moment. Having conversations about abortion helps destigmatize, spread the word about what to do in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, and where to find resources.    Follow Yellowhammer Fund on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/yellowfund    Follow Mila on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/milaatmos    Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/   Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey!  http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&am