Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall examines the redemption arcs MAGA figures can have to get back in Trump’s good graces. Professor Eddie Glaude examines his new book 'We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For.' Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition’s Anna Hochkammer details her efforts to pass Florida’s Amendment Four.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some.
Of today's best minds. And Tom Cotton.
Has encouraged people to quote unquote take matters into their own hands when it comes to protesters. I think we all know what that means. We have such a great show for you today. Professor Eddie Glad stops by to talk to us about his new book, We Are the Leaders we have been looking for. Then we'll talk to Anna Hockhammer about her heroic efforts to pass a Florida abortion amendment. But first we have talking points memos. Josh Marshall, Welcome back to Fast Politics.
Josh Marshall, thanks for having me.
Such a weird, fucked up time in American life. I was sitting there yesterday thinking about Karen McDougall and her alleged one year relationship with Donald Trump and the catch and kill scheme that brought Dave vid Pecker into all of our lives, and I realized that I had forgotten all of these characters from season one.
Yeah, it's funny because you know, multi season or reality TV, you sort of bring people back for another run. And I guess One of the things is, you know, people do like in soap operas, they do heel turns and stuff. And you know, one of the things in the Trump shows people come back as you know, they switch teams. And I mean, I think that Michael Cohen still blocks me on Twitter from when he was Michael Cohen. I almost feel like ringing him up, like in his office at MSNBC now and saying, hey, why am I still blocked? Isn't that outdated? We certainly have a precedent that there are people who they will testify but they still love Trump in their heart right. And then you've got people like Michael Cohen who, like you're probably going to do a book party for his next book, right, you guys must be tight now.
His entire ethos is anti Trump.
Now, yeah, and what is it? You know, the woman who was Milania's press secretary or Comm's person and then was briefly Trump's Comm's person or whatever. Everybody in Trump world lives at high volume and in only primary colors.
Yes, Stephanie Grisham.
Stephanie Grisham, Right, so you're not going to go back to being like I was hardcore for Trump, but now I'm just sort of providing some subtle commentary from the margins. You're just going to go mud wrestle once, mud wrestle forever, right, I mean for a lot of them, you got to be all in whatever team you're on.
Yeah, no, I agree, and I guess that's true. But it also like there are a few people from Trump world who have stayed in Trump world, right, people I'm thinking of Kelly ann or the really sort of the political people Walt Nada has provided. You know, he could probably be a very good witness, but you know he has a family lawyer, one of Trump's people.
Right, Well, the kind of it's a protection scheme that they have, that is true. But the ones that are most interesting to me are you have people like Corey Lewandowski, Bannon, who they go through these cycles where maybe even you know, Roger ston't kind of there's a number of people who like they get sent into exile, but they're always going to come back. They do something bad, or they upset Trump.
It's even just too bad for Trump, which again I think we should take a moment.
Someone will rape someone and even Trump gets a little upset, right, or I may get caught raping.
Someone they'll have alleged yes.
Well I'm not talking about that person talking about hypothetical sexual malfeasance, or other times it's just Trump's shooting finger just gets itchy, right, and that's enough. But those people go into exile, but they always come back. There's that kind of person too, which is you know, Bannon's kind of like that. He got canned at the White House and then he's been on the outs a few times. But you definitely have some people who they keep at it from another direction.
But I do think that fealty to Trump is the crucial not of this situation. For example, Trump decided he liked Michael Aavanatti last week because Michael Aavanati said the case wasn't a good case. Like I always think about, like if Trump wins again and sends me to Gimo, like how many tweets would it take to get off the Gitmo transport. Well, Trump did have some very good ideas when it came to I can't lie.
I mean, there's nothing to say.
You have a very different arc. Your arc is something happens, and you've had too much of being part of the woke mob, where woke has gotten too much for you. And you sort of play that out and then you're you know, I used to be woke, but I understand I got it with Trump. So you need to have a you need a you know, in Spy World Day, someone has a legend that's their fictitious backstory, and you need sort of a to create a legend to cure yourself up for this switch.
And it's called Naomi wolfing it. That is the verb.
You've Naomi wolfed your way from normal to Tucker Carlson having you as a regular.
Yeah, that seems organic to me.
It's not quite as craven.
But I want to talk to you as we're looking at this casta characters. The House is in chaos, right the House Republicans one, you know, they have a one person majority motion to vacate.
Now Marjorie Taylor Green.
Luckily, Marjorie Taylor Green was able to find someone as crazy as she was in everybody's favorite, Thomas Massey.
So now that crew.
Together, they have more than a one person motion to vacate. We got this foreign aid that is really has not you know, Ukraine has not gotten any money since Democrats laws the House. You know, there's Taiwan, Israel, YadA, YadA, YadA.
And appliance.
We has been postponed another week, So how can any of us live?
I don't know. I am curious to see what they will do with this, because it does seem like Johnson wants to move past this, and you know that's why he went down Tomar a Lago to sort of get the you know, laying on of hands and everything, or you know, the pallium or whatever. I do think it's possible that if obviously there is one constellation of people and both parties I mean a ton of people, but obviously not everybody who wants to move this Israel thing. And there's a very different and on the Democratic side, much more intense desire to move on the Ukraine stuff. So I do think that you could get some Democrats, probably with the permission of the leadership, to say, let's do this and we will cover you for that vote. The problem is that you can't as low an impression as I may have of Marjorie Taylor Green, she's not so dumb that she doesn't know she can't wait to wak can do it again? And Democrats don't become a permanent backstop for him. Johnson is a complete freak. Democrats just who cares, you know, for me, it's like Trump's social stock going down, right, it's probably every day for me. Right. But having said that, the Ukraine stuff especially is so important. It's obviously important for Ukraine. It's very important.
For Poland, which would like to not be annext.
It's very important for the whole North Atlantic alliance. It's important in the context of the macro contest in the world today between civic democracies and authoritarian regime. So that is just a big deal. And the Israel stuff is complicated, but you know, Israel has an army. They're not kind of using rubber bands at the moment, and Ukraine is using a rubber bands. So that's just absolutely critical. And to the sen I had any input on it, Yeah, throw them a bone. If you can get this done, that would be my take.
Yeah.
I mean it is interesting though to see this Republican party, you know, they really want to keep the house. There's a reason that Trump has spent one hundred million dollars on legal fees is because ultimately he really did not want to be tried. And you know, he's sitting in a criminal court. He's going to be there now, the judges, he has to go every day. There's so many things I want to talk about when it comes to this. One is like the geop smear that, like the lie that he can't go to Baron's graduation though even though the judge told him he could actually go to Baron's graduation and he never went to any of the other kids graduations, Like that wasn't amazing.
Baron's like the son he never had except for Don and Eric.
Yeah, and right, it's that fifth kid. But I mean I also think that, like he needs to be in court now, and we spend so much time being told that this was the quote unquote weakest case. I'm sitting there and the guy looks terrified when he's not asleep.
They're drudging up all this salacious stuff from his past.
You know, it's ben Ghazi on steroids, And some how I'm supposed to believe that this is not as good a case as the documents case. Like I have to say, like this seems like actually, if you're going through like permeating the news membrane, this seems like a much more salacious case than taking home some documents.
It's definitely sexier, I mean, except for the fact that of Trump getting involved right than the documents. But I do think what it also reminds us is that no felony indictment is fun. Even when you didn't try to overthrow the government, it still kind of sucks. You are kind of in the hands of the judicial system. It reminds us, you know how they say, you know, even bad sex is okay, every trial is bad, even the less important felonies really suck. And we're seeing that there are just the atmospherics to being tried by the people of New York or the state or whatever. Trump is a man of dominance, and when you are bound over by the state to answer felony charges that you might lose your liberty for if you are convicted, you are not dominant. You are being dominated. And there is a reality to that that you can't spin. And I think that that is why, in addition to not wanting to maybe go to prison, that is why he has resisted this because it is again his whole world is there are dominated and dominating, and everybody is in one bucket, and most of us live in a much more fluid world where you know, we actually have some relationships that are on par you're dominated or you're dominating, and he's being dominated here, and I think you just you see it when you see him there, right, Yeah.
I mean I would also add that like Trump is being treated I mean, except for the fact that he doesn't get thrown in jail when he violates the gag order, but he.
Is being treated much more like a normal person.
I mean. One of the things that Trump has managed to do because he grew up affluent and white and male, though probably female.
Too, he would have had this advantage.
But as an affluent white person, he has really managed to evade responsibility for almost anything, and then having this political component has really helped him. I mean, you know, I think about like the valuation stuff, the fraud, Like I know someone who went to jail for that, a fancy real estate person.
I mean, you can go to jail for that, and you can.
Go to jail for cheating on your taxes, which Trump has also, you know done. I mean, Trump has done a lot of stuff that a normal person would have gone to jail for.
And so I do.
Think the idea here that he has to sit in a courtroom on Mondays and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, even though it's golf season. You know, the other thing that I think is a really interesting thing is that he's not out on the trail like he wasn't out on the trail before, and now you know this is going to prevent him from getting on the trail.
Yeah, you know, this is almost the part where the one place I'm almost vaguely sympathetic to him is he can say, we all knew I was invulnerable. We had a deal. Of course, I'm not responsible for anything. I've been doing ridiculous stuff my whole life. We had an understanding, and suddenly you've broken the understanding, and the reality is we kind of did have an understanding. In the New York real Estate Trump fantasy world, he's a notorious con man and just shark and kind of comical figure, and everybody just kind of laughed. Again. In a certain sense, I almost think he's right in the sense that someone changed the rules on him. You know, it's funny that I had a tax question and I was talking to our accountant. It reminded me that, you know, I have always been with a relentlessly honest accountant, but in addition to that, I have always been just sort of like, do whatever it is that is squeaky clean, right, I wanted to squeak And part of that, I think is because I'm an honest person, but also like I'm in a controversial business and I can't be screwing around. Most people don't cheat on their taxes and all that kind of stuff, and as you say, Trump has just always done that. The weirdest thing with this, you know, the basic argument, Hey, I had an affair, Like you know, covering up your affair is almost part of having the affair. What are we talking about here? But like Michael Cohen already served time in prison over this, and don't tell me this is a joke. When someone else literally didn't go to jail for something like this, he went to jail for this.
I think that's a really good point.
I mean, I too overpay my taxes because of anxiety and also because I just figure it's better to overpay than to not as well we should. But I do think that Trump avoiding responsibility and sort of living in this complete fantasy land where you just get to do what you want to do because you don't want to upset his people is completely crazy.
And I will add that.
A friend of mine who is a straight reporter, was like, when you know, it's kind of maybe they shouldn't have brought these charges because the president's hide affairs.
And I was like, no, you can't do this.
You can't once you you know, the idea that if your president, you can just do whatever the fuck you want is how democracies die.
Democracies die in this.
Well, and look, this is not because he had an affair or whatever you want to call the stormy thing, right, I mean, that's like how we call that an affair. I mean an affair has to at least lasts longer than five minutes.
Right, Well, also had a girlfriend at that time.
Right, right, he's double stepping out. But yeah, look, is falsifying documents up there with trying to overthrow the government or jacking a few tons worth of classified No it's not. But you actually just can't do that. And this is one of the weird things the of the Trump reality distortion vortex is that you don't get to falsify documents. There are cases where the underlying substance of what you are falsifying isn't earthshaking, but you still can't falsify them. But what you also can't do is should we bring it? Because what are the optics of? Like, no, that's just what are you talking about? But it really is an example. When Trump gets into the mix, people just start thinking weird things, just strange things like what are you talking about? Or like should we bring this because we're already bringing three other ones and this one's weaker. So maybe when you average them out, the average will become weaker. And you just have to whoever's saying they have to look at them and say, dude, what are you talking about? Like what the average? Like you committed a bunch of crime? You think about that? I mean, one of the big reasons I don't cheat on my texts is it'd be too terrifying to me to be like in Trump's position. So I just I just go in and say, just I, let's not screw around because Josh is fraid.
Yes, Josh Marshall, I hope you'll come back.
I would love to come back as always much.
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Eddie Glode is the James S.
McDonald Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and author of We Are the Leaders We have been looking for the web Dubois Lectures. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Eddie.
Well, it's such a delight to be with you and to have witnessed, Mollie, the way in which you are in so many ways helping you know, the nation understand the stakes of this moment. You're writing at Vanity Fair and across the various platforms. It's just I've learned so much from you every single day, so I appreciate you.
Well, I'm a very big fan of yours.
I'm a big fan of your work, but I'm also a big fan of the kind of thinker you are and sort of more importantly, the people you know, the historical figures that you've brought back into the discourse. So we're going to talk about your book, but first I want you to talk a little bit about some of the really I think important ways you've brought Because you are an academic and a historian, a history back into the forefront, and I'm actually thinking about James Baldwin.
I was really surprised by the successive beginning. Again, I knew Baldwin was in circulation among activists. I saw quotations from his work all over the place during Black Lives Matter. And I've been teaching Baldwin for so long and writing with him and about him for so long that I thought it was time for me to try to think with him about our current moment. And so I was just so delighted to see how people responded to my particular reading of him. And here we are on the eve of his one hundredth birthday in August second, and it's wonderful to witness people taking his thinking seriously, not just his presence, his fiction, but to really see how he's thinking about democracy. You know, I think he's the inheritor of Emerson. And so what I've tried to do over the course of my time in the broader public domain, Molly is to try to bring the full weight of my bibliography to bear on these pressing issues, to think carefully in public with others, and not to lose sight of you know, my specific skill set. You know, sometimes when academics make the transition into the broader public discourse, they think they need to leave themselves behind. What I've tried to do is to figure out how to think carefully within the limits and confines of a SoundBite. And oftentimes that means bringing in tow all of these people who mean so much to me, like Jay Balden.
Yeah, yeah, I read a lot of like Baldwin and Gorbadal and people who are you know, the sort of like great writers of the you know, they're different generation.
They're not the same generation, I think, but the people.
Who sort of wrote really beautiful lyrical work I'm thinking of. And Baldwin was one of those writers who just had an incredible voice.
Oh yeah on the page.
You know.
He comes out of the church, so he's a childhood preacher. So there's this sense in which the way the language. You know, he's a student of you know, the King James Bible. He's a student of Henry James. He's sitting in Shakespeare, even if it's a kind of vexed relationship. He you know, he's reading you know, a Proost and Emerson and Whitman. He's listening to the blues. So there's this, There's a unique timbre to his voice and the delicate balance he he strikes on the page between rage and love, you know, gives his a sense of urgency and also a kind of It reveals a deep seated care about the reader, about us, and I think it takes a special artist to make that happen. And just think he grew up poor in Harlem and willed himself into becoming one of the world's greatest writers. So I'm just delighted, to be honest with you, to see us catch up with.
Him in the decision to move to Paris. Yeah, I think that had I been in his circumstances, I probably would have done the same thing, because to be able to live somewhere that wasn't so racist must have been very interesting.
But then he decides he has to come back.
Yeah, you know, I think he leaves in nineteen forty eight, and you know, he's not trading the American fantasy for the French one. He realizes that he needed the space to breathe. I mean, he didn't have to deal with America's assumptions about him, but he saw what was happening to the Algerians in France and Paris and many of his friends. So I think, you know, not having facility with the language in those early days, not having a lot of money, so he really turned inward, and in turning inward, admit that he had to turn to the United States, which was always his subject. You know, America was always his subject. You need that space sometimes to breathe so that you can think more clearly, so you're not just out here fighting these people, right.
I don't know, you know, his struggle it feels so much like my grandfather's struggle in certain ways, even though they were fighting different things. So we are the leaders we have been looking for. Talk to us about this book, lecture series and how it came about, and anything else you want to tell me.
Yeah, you know, I calivered these lectures about two, you know, in twenty eleven, and it took me all these years to return to them, to see the kind of seeds of all of the subsequent work in some ways begin again is in this text. Democracy in Black is in these lectures. And you know, so much has happened since that twenty eleven and now you know, Michael Brown was still alive Sandra Bland was still alive. To mere Rice was still alive. When I get delivered these lectures, you know, we were dealing with the Obama era and in some ways not the illusion of being post racial, but you know, the beginnings of the spike of the betrayal, as it were. And so what I wanted to do is to kind of think about this need for us to take responsibility for democracy right. We've been outsourcing it for too long to people who claim to be prophetic or claim to be heroes. We have to understand that democracy's well being rests in our hands, and that requires of us right to understand our role. And so I wanted to write about that. So I wanted to think about that again, and so I had to figure out me in relation to all of this, And so the book is this deeply introspective work about the need for every ordinary people to take up the responsibility of democracy in this moment and to do so for me, say this really quickly, Molly, to do so within the context of African American politics means that we have to resist the narrow understanding of what the prophetic is. We have to resist this idea of heroes that force us into postures of supplication and understand the power that democracy is and has when we need are its most vital expression, when everyday ordinated people are its most vital expression. If that makes sense.
Yeah, I wish you could say a little more about that idea of you know, sort of what that means, the kind of next steps towards a multi racial democracy, which is the dream.
Yeah, now you know.
I mean, I take up three particular figures in the book. I look at Martin Luther King Junior, I look at Malcolm X, and I end with Ella Baker. These three figures are so important in my own life for how I think about democracy, and all three of them have cast these enormous shadows over how I understand myself and in so many ways, the book is, as I've said, it is about me coming of age as a thinker in relation to these people who are so important to me. But Miss Baker's understanding of what I call following the theorist Sheldon Wolan, a politics of tending, a kind of attention to the everyday lives of folk close to the ground, building a sense of community that affirms the capacity and dignity of everyday ordinary folk, expressing our values in our social and political arrangements, electing people who reflect those commitments, and understanding that those elections are just simply one moment in the work that democracy requires of us, cultivating the attitudes personal individual attitudes that are necessary for democratic flourishing. You know what I mean. Part of what I mean by that, Molly, is that, you know, we got to become better people. If we're going to become the leaders that we're looking for, right, We've got to be better people. And that means we have to build the relationships with others and with ourselves so that we can release ourselves from the burden of all of these noxious ideas that have got and in the way of building a really truly and vibrant democratic life in the country. So we are the leaders we've been looking for. Aims to explore that, And you know, it's a different kind of book, Molly, in the sense that I'm not a historian. In the book, I'm more of a philosopher. You know, I'm trained as a philosopher of religion, but in the public domain, I'm often read as a historian. And so this is me in a different kind of voice. I'm kind of nervous about it. But we'll see how folks, how folks respond.
I'm sure that you don't need to be nervous, but that is a really important point.
Why did you pick those three figures?
Oh yeah, I mean King means everything to me. You know, as a young child and as a young student in the eighth grade, I remember being in Miss Mitchell's history class and on the coast of Mississippi and memorizing the eye have a dream speech.
You know.
Back then, you know, I didn't have a tape player. I had to borrow the album from the library, and I remember starting it over and over and over again, picking up the needle and rising that speech and being transformed by transfigured and transformed. And then of course I went to Morehouse College, King's alma Mahuter and they are kind of baptized in his thinking. And so King cast this amazing shadow over me. And then as I was trying to find my own voice, and this is part of the pain of the second chapter of the book, Malcolm X became this hero of mine. You know, I have my goatee as an honor to him. It's my first conversion experience, right because I grew up with all of this, you know, with this vexed relationship with my father. And I opened the book with this, you know, this horrific moment that he probably doesn't remember. I'm down the street Molly playing hopscotch with coocious fifth grader named Angel Houston, and I'm messing up on purpose because I liked her and I wanted her to show me how to play every single to show, you know, every time I messed up, she would have to show me again, you know. And my dad saw me playing hopscotch with this girl, and he screams for me to come home. I run home because I know the sound and tone that voice. And in that moment, when I stepped into the fourier of my father's house, he questioned my sexuality. He said, what are you at? F something? And he did it in front of my uncle. It's like I was experiencing this ritual that they both went through or something. And he said, in that moment, with this vexed relationship with the most responsible man I've ever known, that I started to look for heroes, people who could help me become the man as I imagined myself that I was supposed to be. And Malcolm became this figure, this hero that I was looking for, and I began to lose myself in the imitation of him at Morehouse. And so what I wanted to do is to kind of think through him and to put aside the hero and to figure out what his life actually represents for me. Right, and I moved from the hero to the representative figure, reading Emerson and the like, and what does it mean to think of Malcolm as a fallible, finite, fragile, vulnerable man as opposed to this shining black prince. That's why he was so important. And then Ellen Baker is my model for democracy. She's born in Norfolk, Virginia, December thirteenth, nineteen o three. She dies December thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, on the same day she was born. She's at the center of black politics in the twentieth century. She's a field secretary in the nineteen forties for the NAACP, organizing NAACP chaptors in the South. She's the first executive secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, so she actually builds the infrastructure of that organization. And of course she played a central role Molly in organizing helping organize the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee after the Student Citizens of the nineteen sixth early nineteen sixty right, and at Shaw University, she helped organize a conference on April first, which led to the formation of SNICK. And she used to tell the SNICK of organizers Molly, as they went into the south, shut up and listen. You might learn something from these I mean, she was an amazing figure in so many ways.
Is Shaw one of the women HBCUs.
Yes, it's not just women, Yeah, but one of.
Was it at that time? Gender or separate? Are now?
I don't think so? Oh okay, But she's this amazing figure on so many levels. You know, she refused to become, you know, a teacher and became an organizer, and I was just blown away by her. You know, she has a what we call a few centered politics as opposed to a pulpit centered politics.
What does that mean.
She's more interested in the people than she is in the preacher.
Oh wow, that's really cool. Yeah.
I mean it just seems like these three are such really good examples of totally different ways of trying to enact chate the same change.
Right right, And I think there are examples of what we can find in ourselves. Right, We don't need prophets who are anointed from on high, who come in with that authority to tell us what we should do and that we should follow them. We are the profits because we can imagine the world as being otherwise. We can imagine in that which is possible and use that as the basis to critique the world. All of us have the capacity to exercise prophetic imagination. We're the profits. We don't need heroes. You know, we're in this age, Molly where we're looking to you know, the Marvel heroes of Iron Man and you know, the Hulk and Thor and you know, I'm showing my nerdiness. We don't need those heroes. Emerson made this, you know, wrote this wonderful eye. Great men and women are here for the purpose of even greater men and women. You know. That's a pair of phraise. And so when we encounter our heroes, they are revealing what we are in fact capable of if we're courageous enough to step into it. We're the heroes we need. And then, of course, democracy at its best right is when everyday ordinary people assume the responsibility for its safety and security for its flourishing. So you know, although I invoke the names of Martin and Malcolm and Ella, they're all in the service of me, calling each of us, you and me and everyday ordinary people to the task in front of us, and that saving, salvaging, reimagining democracy as such.
Oh God, I'm so worried. You are interacting with students, Maybe not this semester, but often does it give you hope? Yes?
Good, okay, good, It's a blue soap hope though, because yeah, our students are so burdened. They are coming of age in a broken world and they're trying to figure it out. You know, we can't put it all on their shoulders. Some of them, because they understand that it's broken, Molly, they're reaching for languages of order. They're attracted to the autocratic, the fascistic, dictatorial currents in our politics at this moment. So and then there are others who are just growthing for new languages altogether. You know, they don't want to find comfort in nineteenth century ideologies. You know, they're longing for for some sense of stability and certainty and safety, and they're willing to risk, you know, because you know, there's no guarantee, so I'm hopeful, but I'm prayerful at the same time. If that makes sense.
Yes it does, Eddie. Thank you so much. I hope you will come back.
Thank you, Mollie so much for having me. I appreciate you.
Anna Hockhammer is the executive director of the Florida Women's Freedom Coalition.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Anna.
Thank you for having me. Mollie.
We're delighted to have you tell us a little bit about how you got to be the person who got involved in this nonpartisan super pass. Just explain what it is and how you got involved with it.
In my non working on amendment for in Florida life. I am a local elected official down here in Pinecrest, Florida, or one of the interring suburbs of Miami. I've always been a Democrat. I've always been active in local politics down here and ran in twenty sixteen, ran again in twenty twenty. Always been paying attention. But my meaning potatoes has always been local issues, right. I do police and hootholes and parks and tree trimming. I help people when their garbage doesn't get picked up and their neighbors are sprinkling when they're not supposed to. But I also read the newspaper and I pay attention to the stuff that's going on in Florida. And so when Florida started passing these abortion bands, I started calling around and saying, I'd heard rumors that somebody we're going to try and do a constitutional amendment. What's going on? And long story short, I found my way to Floridians Protecting Freedom, and Floridan's Protecting Freedom is the umbrella organization that's the official sponsor of the constitutional amendment. It's made up of stix organizations right Now, Land Parenthood, the ACLU, FCIU eleven ninety nine, Florida Rising, a small group out of Sarasota called Florida Voices, and I ended up creating, with our chair Dona Schalela, and a really couple of smart consultants, an independent path called Florida Women's Freedom Coalition, because we knew that we were going to have to get a pretty broad and diverse coalition of voters to support amendment, for there's just no way to get to sixty percent without it, and we knew that we needed to create some platform within Chlorines Protecting Freedom. That was single issue that was only working on Amendment four that was bipartisan as opposed to nonpartisan, and I really got out of my way emphasizing with people that there's a significant difference between being bipartisan and being nonpartisan in this space, and there was need for bipartisan action that was independent of every other group and independent of any other group in this space in order to create a Florida coalition that would get us into the end zone. And so Florida Women's Freedom Coalition has made up of a lot of current and former elected officials of both parties, including people with no party affiliation, who believe in Amendment four, believe in access to abortion, and leave all the rest to get at the door all of the other civil rights, human rights, and partisan issues out there so that we can all focus on one thing and win it together. And so I ended up being the executive director and that's what I've been doing.
So first, talk about the sixty percent threshold that Florida has for amendments.
Talk about that first, and then I have a follow up question on this.
So the sixty percent threshold, and then the Florida Constitution is not new, It's been around over a decade, and so you know that was part of the rules of the game going into this thing. Didn't take anybody by surprise. So Florida has passed some fairly progressive referendo over the last decade or so at the sixty percent threshold, including their districts. In order to try and deal with some of the gerimandering restoring voting rights to felons, we passed a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana. And sometimes these things blow through the sixty percent threshold. There is a certain schizophrenia in Florida that everybody has to acknowledge of passing these fairly capressive referenda and simultaneously voting for candidates who have absolutely no intention of enacting these challasis.
Right, And in fact, that was my next question, which was, you guys have passed referenda like restoring voting rights to felons, and then your government has been like yeah, Now.
I want to be clear here that they didn't say yeah, no.
They said yeah, but it's going to cost you.
They said yeah, but you guys left the whole fines and piece thing on the table, and so we're going to use it and manipulate it. I understand that, and I think anybody here in Florida understands that you're going to pass and then you're going to have the fight of the implementing legislation. And I also ignor a little bit when I hear people get hot and bothered about that, because anybody who thinks that politics is one and done is living at fancasy Land. There is no such thing as one and done on any issue, whether it's abortion, access, voting rights, or any of the other major themes of modern American politics. I certainly do not operate, and I don't think anybody and the coalition operates under the misconception that, you know, we're all going to win in November and then everybody's just going to go home eat because the problem's been solved.
Right, good point.
Yeah, it doesn't work that way. It just doesn't work that way in politics, right. And I think one of the reasons why we're in this fix across America is because you know, everybody said, well, Roby ways, the law of the land wonn't done right, right, But for twenty five years they've been telling us exactly what they intended to do, and nobody wanted to believe right it's.
A really good point.
But I also think what's important about what you just said is that it's really about how the amendments are written, and that's something that you have actually spent a good deal of time focusing on right, a.
Lot of time focusing on the amendment that we propose is forty nine words. It's two sentences every now and every verb was tested, was argued over, was focus group was pulled, and it turned out that the simplest, most straightforward language was actually the language that hold the best every single time. And unlike most constitutional amendments in Florida, which oftentimes seem to be written in order to confuse the electorate, there's a real fence that these amendments are a bait and switch game. Ours is unique in its simplicity. And that's why the language that was on the actual petition form that people filled out is identical to the language that's going to be on the ballot that they're going to see in front of them in November. It's one of our strengths, I think.
So I'm hoping you could explain to us how you sort of get to the sixty percent threshold in Florida and what that would look.
Like the math is super straightforward, and I mean there are a couple of assumptions that you make going into it. The first is that you're going to have historically high voter turnout. And I think that that's a pretty safe bet. That voter turnout in twenty twenty was off the charts. Voter turnout in my own community was about eighty seven percent in twenty twenty. So Floridians take their November presidential elections pretty darn seriously and tend to show up for that. I don't think given the repeat of the Biden Trump presidential race that we're about to live through, that we should assume that that's not going to happen again. And we need about eighty five percent of the Democrats who vote to vote yes on Amendment four. We need a majority of the no party affiliation voters, which is what Floridians call independent voters.
And that's a pretty big group in Florida, right.
It's a very big group in Florida, and it's the fastest growing group in Florida. And I think as we see people registering to vote in the run up of the primaries and then into because we have some pretty significant August elections here in Florida as well. In the run up to the August and in the run up to the November elections, we're going to see that NPA group grow again. And we need thirty five to forty percent of the Republicans to vote yes on Amendment four, which I think is completely within reach. The polling is outstanding and over sixty percent of Republicans support Amendment four. And we've even got data that shows that about fifty seve percent of the Trump voters in Florida support Amntent four.
So this is ours to win.
When you're sort of talking to vote because you're in Florida, you're in my Pine Crest is near Miami. Miami is very swingy in a lot of ways. So you're talking to voters on the right and the left. Is there a feeling that DeSantis, like you guys have had a real problem with inflation in a way that I don't think anyone sort of saw. I mean, I think the environmental stuff, yes, but the insurance stuff has really spiraled out of control. And I'm wondering if do you see that on the ground affecting voters, or do voters are they sort of do they not tie the insurance issues, the flooding issues, the climate change issues with their political votes.
That's a really good setup. I mean, I will have an interesting sort of lived experience because I represent a city that's voter registration is about a third a third third. I was at the door for a November twenty signorance. I was at the door for a November twenty twenty race. As they say, the local politicians are as close as you can get to the constituents because if you do the wrong thing, you hear about it while you're waiting in line at CBS. So I talk to a lot of people about real stuff all the time. I think the financial concerns are very strong in South Florida. We've been the place with basically the highest inflation rate in the entire nation. We've been running several percent above the rest of the nation for a very long time. People feel the crunch insurance is a major problem. Most people understand that it's a statewide problem, but most people frankly don't understand which government agency provides which service to them. They just know that government, right, the big g government somehow has failed them, and so They're willing to blame almost anybody who comes to the door for their problems because things are perceived as being complicated, and you know, the regular Joe is perceived as always ending up on the losing side. So I think that these economic motivators are extremely strong. But in my personal experience, people are willing to vote for candidates who agree with them on policies that affect their real lives, their daily lives. And as much as we like to paint thirty ends is completely ideological, I think, like most Americans, they just want to vote for somebody who they think is listening to them and responding to their problems. And abortion access is one of those things that you know, knocks on everybody's doors and door later because we're all making families and we're all having babies, even if you're not carrying the baby yourself, you know, you know, and what somebody who is. So I don't believe that this is an issue that's going to pack very hard on the partisan level. I think it's a matter of right. You know, I'm creating a very open tent and allowing people to talk to their own communities and language that makes sense to them, and in real ways, and as long as we have a multiplicity of voices in this space, Amendment four is going to way.
Historically, your state has been a very pro choice state, largely because of the sort of swinginess of it and also the libertarian leanings of the right in the state. Now you're at this six week ban, which is taking into a fact, and now it's in fact, or it's about to be put into a fact.
The Supreme Court decision.
I think the Florida Supreme Court decision was interesting because, like, you had the signatures to get on the ballot, the fact that the judges were still like, maybe we won't let it be on the ballot.
Isn't that a bit odd?
No, I don't think it's odd. I mean Florida is odd in many ways that are very unique components of the process of getting on the ballot. In Florida. We are the only state that requires Supreme Court scrutiny of the ballot language before the election. We're the only state that has that. That rule is not so brand new that we didn't understand that we were going to have to get through the Florida Supreme Court, and we knew exactly who had appointed them, and you know, obviously we're paying attention to the legal philosophy of the individual justices on the court. And again back in early twenty twenty three, when we were writing this language, we were writing it knowing that we were going to have to get through the Florida Supreme Court, and given the fact that the vast majority of those justices are extremely unsupportive of abortion access as a general rule. The fact that we got through, I think speaks to how well crafted the language is. We knew exactly what we needed to do in order to get through a hostile court, and we did it. It's a tremendous achievement. I think it speaks to the expertise as the working groups that put that language together and how data driven this initiative. Haspent, I mean, Molly, I cannot tell you how dubious the entire universe was about our ability to get on the ballot here. I mean, people thought we were just downright crazy, that Florida had turned bright red, that the entire state had suddenly become hostile to abortion access, that we were never going to be able to raise the money. We ended up raising almost eight million dollars just in order to fund the petition phase. We had over two hundred grassroots groups across this massive state, with thousands and thousands of volunteers. We managed to collect about one point four or five million petitions, that's about ten percent of all of the registered voters in the state of Florida right in less than six months. And we did it so quickly that we finally had to have some tough conversations with our volunteer networks, telling them ordering them to stand down. In December, we weren't going to collect any more petitions because we were lapping in the field. We feel like we were wasting money in that kind of environment where everybody thought we were downright crazy.
Right to continue to.
Hear this narrative of but but but it is a little bit frustrating because what we've done every single time is we've been told there's a really hard, high bar, you're not going to be able to do it, but you're welcome to try and flame out. And what this coalition has done time and time again is meet that bar and exceed it over and over again. And I have trom as confidence that when given the opportunity to write up vote on Amendment for Lordians are not only going to get through that sixty percent, they're going to blow through the sixty percent. This is not a state that has a lot of trust in meddling and interfering government. This is not a state that has a lot of tolerance for people telling them what to do. This is not a state that has a lot of tolerance for the government telling them what they can and cannot provide to their children. And the six week abortion ban, with almost no exceptions for rape or incest, is such a profound violation of Gridian's own sense of independence. You know, the good old free state of Florida, that this was a real moment of just not reading the room, and they went so far, they revealed their ultimate intentions so nakedly that I think Florida voters are just going to clap back, and clap back hard.
Now the six week ban is, in a fact, floud is an enormous state. So we're going to see the kind of stories that we been seeing out of Texas out of Florida, right, and guaranteed it's good affect the way obgyn's practice in the state.
Right.
This is a problem that's been getting worse and worse and worse ever since they passed the fifteen week ban. So you've got issues with the practice of medicine. We've now rolled it back to the six week ban, right when most women have no idea that they're even pregnant. You're going to see cases like you know, that horrific case out of Ohio where you had a ten year old had been raped and couldn't get abortion access and her lawyer had to drive her out of state, and then everybody involved was, you know, subject to possible prosecution for felonies for you know, helping a ten year old rape. That is going to be what happens in Florida. You've got to remember the sixth week ban has language in it that makes anybody who quote participates in an abortion subject to arrest and conviction for a felony. Well, it does not define what participating in an abortion is. If that dispensing pills, is that a pharmacist, is that a doctor? Is that a husband who drives his wife to an appointment with her obgyn? Are we all about to be rounded up and prosecuted simply helping our family members who have a medical need. It's really intimidating. It's written to be intimidating. And on top of that, Florida the third largest state of the nation four million women and girls of reproductive age, a quarter million live bursts every single year, the number two provider of abortion services in the nation, right after California. About eighty five thousand abortions are performed here every single year, the vast majority of them for Floridian women's It's not that people are coming here in such great numbers. We're a big state, and we can't even properly train our doctors in our medical schools right now. Our surgical interns have to be flown up to New Jersey and New York in order to be properly trained in accredited programs because you can't even teach doctors how to serve patients in this state anymore.
It's just such an insane place to be. But here we are. Thank you so much, Anna.
Look, thank you for having me. I'm happy to talk about Florida anytime. My great love and obsession.
No more perfectly Jesse Cannon by junk Fast. One of my favorite things in our business is when Republicans' ultra stupid strategy leaks. When even if it didn't leak, it would be stupid anyway.
So we're talking about the GOP leaders in Arizona. You'll remember that Arizona has enacted this eighteen sixty. They haven't enacted it yet, but they passed in eighteen sixties Civil War era abortion Man. The Democrats in the Arizona State House tried to repeal it, and the Republicans made sure that it stayed the law. Now they're on break for a week, but they accidentally sent the Democrats their plan to try to defeat the ballot initiative, the pro choice ballot initiative that Arizonians are trying to put on the ballot. The details were revealed in a PowerPoint presentation that was supposed to be circulated among Republicans only, but was accidentally sent to Democratic lawmakers. Thank god, Arizona Republicans are stupid and that, my friends, is our moment.
Of fuck Gray.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening,