Explicit

Anna Musky-Goldwyn

Published Nov 16, 2021, 8:30 AM

Anna Musky-Goldwyn is a writer, social and political activist, and also happens to be the daughter of former WIP guest, actor Tony Goldwyn. Anna joins Sophia on the podcast today to talk about growing up in the entertainment industry, what inspired her to get involved in politics, and her mission with Political Playlist


Executive Producers: Sophia Bush & Rabbit Grin Productions

Associate Producers: Samantha Skelton & Mica Sangiacomo

Editor: Josh Windisch

Artwork by the Hoodzpah Sisters

This show is brought to you by Brilliant Anatomy

Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome back to Work in Progress. Today's guest is a legacy, seriously. Her father was on the show only a few episodes back and shared his passions for TV, film, criminal justice, reform, cancer research, and more. But we also learned a little bit about today's guest and her activist roots as part of that conversation. I am delighted to have Anna Muskie Goldwyn on the show today to dive deeper into her life, her work with the Political Playlist, her writing career, and so much more. As we know from our episode with Tony Goldwyn, Anna comes from a long line of entertainment industry success stories and is no stranger to working in that world herself. But she's also continued her family tradition of social and political act is um and has recognition from the Webby Awards to prove it. I have got a lot of questions about how Anna got to where she is today and what drew her into politics and how she manages to be such a powerhouse in both the world of nonpartisan politics and entertainment writing. Let's get to it, enjoy, and it's so nice to have you here today. Thank you so much. For coming on the show. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it was such a fun time to talk to your dad and you know, kind of trade stories about acting and storytelling and all the nerdy reasons we love it, and to listen to him just you know, proud dad brag about you and the work that you're doing. And I think that you are the first um parent child team we've had on the show, and I just have it. Yeah, I mean, my dad is I feel like he was a lifetime of therapy growing up. He's a very very easy person to talk to about pretty much everything, and I kind of I sensed that in your Guys conversation. Yeah, I love that he's so um that's funny that you say that that it's almost like you had a therapist in your dad. He really does feel like a person you can go to with questions. He's a really good listener. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense where he played the president, I was like I get this. I like I got it watching scandal, but then talking to him like this for two hours, I was like, oh, I would a hundred percent vote for you for anything, right, just minus the sex scandal. Well yeah, hopefully you know, that's TV, like there has to be some trauma. We were shooting the pilot for my new show and there was a moment where one of my co workers said, Okay, but what this moment And I looked at him and was like one hour drama and he goes, right, right, right, we need we need a catalyst for something. You kind of have to remember that, you know, the outlandish helps you get to the good stuff. Oh of course, that's how you bury the lessons, right, Yeah, And I know that obviously. You have so much experience, you know, as as a writer also in TV, and I want to get into that in your whole story. But you know, before we we go into where we find ourselves today, I love to go back and hear about guests early lives. And I think you know, anyone who listened to your dad and for our listeners at home, and his dad is Tony Goldman. So yes, we're talking about scandal and all of the things we discussed on his episode. I'm I'm so curious, you know, having heard about his life, you know, his upbringing in l a and then getting into theater in New York, all of his experiences. Then one one generation down the line, What was your experience like growing up? What what was your childhood like? Where were you when you were you know, nine, and what were you into? Yeah, I mean my life group was very different than my dad's. You know, he grew up in the heart of l a who were telling stories the other night that he would like hitchhike down Sunset Boulevard and all this crazy stuff, and that was very much not my experience. I grew up in Connecticut, um in a suburb called New Canaan, which is about forty five minutes outside New York City. So everyone in my life, my friends, their parents, it was very revolved around Wall Street and this kind of suburban upbringing. And for me specifically, you know, even though I had parents and a family who were artists and had a legacy in the film industry, I was not. I admittedly like didn't really lean into that until I was an adult. Until I was in college, My life growing up completely revolved around sports. I was hyper competitive from a very early age. I started playing basketball when I was eight, and I think my team lost every game. But I was always super tall. You can't see me sitting, but I'm a tall person. And I would say to my dad afterwards, I would say, no one was working as hard as me, and I would be so mad that but I felt like I was carrying my my third grade basketball team. But what that evolved into is that when I was in high school, I actually started rowing because my mom was a rower in college and she had sort of encouraged me to try and I very quickly discovered that I was good at it, and that was the beginning of my athletic career that eventually, you know, I wrote in college at U c l A. And I was pretty much solely focused on that. You know, it gave me everything that I ever needed to learn about motivation and hard work. And I'm still an athlete. I compete in amateur ways now. But but I think that I always have this insecurity. I feel like a lot of artists, you grow up, you know you're performing or you're writing stories from a young age, and I kind of have always harbored this little bit of insecurity that I wasn't like that. But when i've I look back, I see being a jock teaches you a lot too, So it's helped me out in the long run. I mean, they're really just two sides of the same coin. Because whether you're doing theater or you're you're on the crew team, you're on a team, you're in a collaborative environment where everyone has to show up and give it there all for the thing, the sport, or the play to succeed. And so I think it makes a lot of sense that you you do see um kind of lateral movement between sports and athletics, especially in school, but even as people get older, you know, so many entertainers are on weekend soccer leagues, and so many slates are amazing performers and public speakers, and it makes sense. Yeah, totally. I think that we we're all sort of trying to perform in some way or another. You know, like as a writer, the performing is quietly done, but you know, when you're in a TV writer's room, you've got to perform or people won't listen to your ideas. Oh my gosh, So how old were you when when you started rowing? I was fourteen my freshman year high school. Yeah, I didn't play a fall sport. I played basketball, and I was really into lcross, like you know, perfect sort of preppy New England upbringing. But my mom like I said, she was a rower at BU when she was in college, and she was a rower in the early seventies to mid seventies, Title nine had just been passed. She was a female athlete in this like insane time to be a female athlete, where they only had one boat house, one locker room, so the women had to get up at like four o'clock in the morning so they could practice before the men because there weren't enough facilities. And and this was also the era where the Yale Women's crew team like marched in naked to their athletic director's office because they were like practicing in such bad conditions. And that was her experience of being an athlete. And so when I was a freshman in high school, I didn't have a false sport and she said just try try rowing, and I I didn't know what was going on. I grew up around it because of her. We will go to this big race every year called Head of the Charles in Boston on the Charles River, So I knew what it was, but doing it was very it was a very different experience. And I had this one moment maybe maybe two or three months into learning, where I participated in an indoor rowing competition. So you've seen like the rowing machines at the gym, you know that everyone goes on. There's these indoor competitions that are so weird, and they line all of the machines up and you sit down and you rode to a two tho race on the machine. And I had never done it before, but I sat down and I just pulled my heart out for you know, two thousand meters and I ended up getting a very good time unbeknownst to me. And I had this crazy Russian coach and he came up to me and and he was the coach for my high school team, and he said, Anna, you may not play any other sports. And that was kind of it. It was sort of this moment. It's really cool thing that I think a lot of us we have had in our lives at one point or another. And I'm sure you've had this in performing and other things, where you it clicks for you that you are talented at something, or it clicks for you that you have this capability that maybe went undiscovered. And that was a real important moment for me, not in like a selfish or egotistical way, but in a way of recognizing that it's good to be exceptional at something, and I think we all are just often goes undiscovered for a long time. That's so interesting. I think especially I feel very conscious of the fact that there is so often pressure in terms of that being exceptionalism. You know, quote unquote living up to something that happens to a famous people's kids, whether you know your parent is a politician or a performer. And having spoken with your dad about his life, looking at the generation that came before him and their legacy, and then learning about your family from him and his experiences to find his way as an actor, and uh, you know, even your mom's painting, and then you talking about her her growing history. The image is getting richer and more colorful for me. And then I think about just you having said that, about what it means to find what you're exceptional at, and I wonder was there a pressure for you as a kid, or was there simply an awareness of what was going on in the family and what he did. Where did you kind of find yourself on the spectrum of the experience of having a publicly known family. I luckily growing up in a Connecticut suburb, you don't feel it as much as I think I probably would have if I grew up in l A or even in New York City, because I think people just didn't really care as much. That wasn't something that was being talked about, you know. And my friends that I grew up with and in high school, there's still my closest friends, and it's like sharing this bond that it's not about status or what your parents did. It's just about this you know, communal experience that we shared as kids. And so for my sister's my experience and our family. You know, I was aware that my dad was an actor. I thought that was really cool. I was eight years old when Tarzan came out, and I was on top of the world that my dad was in a Disney movie and we got to go to the premiere where they were like and wild animals everywhere, and um, so you know, that was cool and I and I was conscious of the fact that I had a family legacy in the business, but I didn't really know what the business meant. You know. I knew it as any other kid does, as they think about movies or television. But what I do think I gathered from my parents, probably because of their success and their dedication to what they did. Was this real idea of following your passion. And I think it's something that I was fortunate enough when I compared myself to some other people I whose parents sort of worked in more corporate jobs and maybe didn't feel that same passion about what they did. And that's not to say that people don't feel passionate about corporate jobs. I know I have a lot of friends who are very happy with the work that they do. But I think that when you have parents who have had success in a creative career, you know, seeing the example of passion paying off, that was something that I felt like I could connect to. So even if I wasn't saying, oh, I'm going to be an actor or I'm going to be a director or whatever, at age ten, I pretty easily could understand the idea of if something makes you happy or something is intriguing to you. And this was definitely true with athletics. You know, it wasn't easy and I definitely wasn't happy all the time. Growing is a really hard sport. But the sort of passionate reward that I got from doing that, I knew to follow it and to to lean into it as a pose to being a little bit afraid of it or feeling like when things get hard, take a step back or quit. You know, I think that that was more the lesson that our parents instilled in us, and I think for my dad's part, it very much came from, you know, him being able to be in his family but also prove himself as an individual through his own passion and his own art. And I've obviously grown a greater understanding of that as an adult, but I think even as a kid, I could sense that feeling at least. I love that, and I think it's interesting to consider the the heritage, if you will, of the work, but also that there's such a legacy of activism in your family, because interestingly, you you straddle that line, you know, similarly to the way that it seems your family members do, and in a way that I've certainly had to learn to navigate too, And so I get really excited from other people are doing both. Did you have an awareness of service and activism and sort of community engagement as a kid too, Yeah, I think that, you know, I will admittedly say that I wasn't one of those kids. Was you know, volunteering every weekend or anything like that. But I was aware that my parents and my family were supportive of certain causes, and we certainly had a lot of conversations, especially when I was like in middle school or as a teenager, just about things that were happening in the world and what we could do to help. And I've been thinking about this a lot recently, which is that I think that if you live in a privileged existence, where your your day to day life is relatively comfortable, you owe it to the people around you to think about the future a little bit more. You know, there are people who who, for whatever situation they find themselves in, they're worrying about, you know, what the food to put on the table that night, or how to get their kids to school, or whatever those things may be. But if if you have the possibility to take a step back and feel, you know, feel like your day is gonna go okay no matter what for the most part, then there's so many things that you can be concerning yourselves with that not only will help you and your family, but also help other people. And that that was something that I definitely felt as a kid, and especially as a teenager, and then especially in college and after college when I really started to get into politics and activism and and seeing those you know, seeing those actions go to work. Yeah. Do you remember when you really first became interested in politics as an individual? Yeah, I mean the first moment. And I don't know if this, if this was necessarily the thing that began the journey, but the first moment that I remember is in two thousand eight, my dad took me to the Democratic National Convention and it was obviously the year that Obama was nominated, and it was crazy. You know, have you been I assume you've been to a convention before. I mean, it's yeah. I actually have a photo of a bunch of us, including me and your dad. We were like, oh my god, we're like Ellen at the Oscars. We have this who you know, I love the world. Yeah, it's such a crazy experience. And and that year specifically was really crazy. I was eighteen and was about to vote in my first first election. I don't know, I feel spoiled to have had someone like Obama as the first person that I could ever vote for. And equally, so, I mean, you think about John McCain running against him, Like what you know, look at these two people that that we could choose between, who both you know, had young and also very old legacies of their own. And I felt in that moment, I was like, whoa, this is something that matters, not just because of Obama and how inspiring he was, but also because I started to see like the world of politics and I could see, you know, the other people who were speaking, and the sort of fanfare around all of it, and you know, all of the states with the delegates in the middle with their signs with the name of the stage. Just the process of it was really interesting to me. So that was when I was heading into college, and after that I was engaged. You know, I was aware. I definitely stayed up to date, I feel like more probably than your average college student at the time at least, But it wasn't really until like, um, I had just graduated from grad school and was going to be the mid term elections that year, and that's when I started to get a little bit more engaged in terms of, Okay, what issues do I really care about, What policies are happening, Who are the major players other than the president and the vice president and the governor, What are what are the more detailed things about this world? And that's when I started to find it really fascinating. And then obviously that was followed up by election, which was just this wild ride um that you know, my dad was very active in, and I felt very fortunate to sort of ride his coat tails a little bit and we I went with him when he campaigned in Iowa and got to sort of see that process in a state that was so different than places that I had lived. So that was really the beginning of me being like hyper engaged. But I do remember that first moment at the convention just thinking to myself, like, whoa, this is, this is what what our government? You know, this is symbolic of our government. This is how big it is and how much of an impact it can have. I felt that definitely early on. I think the coolest thing about the convention space, as you're talking about it is, is exactly that realizing the size and scope and realizing that it exists to represent all of us, the delegates and the attendees, and the thousands and thousands and thousands of people each whose voices matter represent thousands and hundreds of thousands of other people, and it's it's such a beautiful thing. It my first time at a convention also really reminded me that it's for all of us, and it's supposed to be by all of us, and I don't take it lightly. And it's really fun to hear someone else talk about the impact of it because it reminds me of how impact well it's felt to me. And yeah, I think the places I've been able to go in campaign, and I love sitting with people, whether it's in small towns in Texas or moving across Iowa, or in Illinois, or Arizona, Nevada, home in California, out in North Carolina. I mean, I've I've traveled to so many states and to sit with people. My favorite moment is when we all realize how much more I like we are than we might have thought. And everyone really wants similar things, you know, a healthy life and future for their family and their community, and and you know the opportunity to pursue goals and happiness. And I'm always really heartened by that. You know, so much of the discourse we see in the media and online feels so tense and ugly, and then when you really look at the breakdowns you realize most people pretty much agree on everything, and it's just the folks of the fringes who seem are you making the most noise? And I wonder, I ask myself sometimes if I'm so passionate about it, because I'm passionate about people's stories as an actor and as a writer and as as a host of a show like this, And for you, do you think that your career as a writer also makes you want to lean into people's stories out in the world, out in the political landscape, out in the sort of um cross section of the citizen ry. D Do you think those things are connected? Yeah, And I think that, you know, I would just say that I feel like the reason we as storytellers respond to politics is because the best politicians are great storytellers. You know, like the policy of it is important, and if they can communicate that effectively, that really matters. But you know, think about the people that you admire most in political office. It's probably a little bit because of their policies, but I think it's more about how they tell their story and how they allow you to relate to their story, whether you know you relate in a one to one manner or not. There's a piece of them that that we feel connected to. And so I think that for me personally, it's become this really interesting two way street where I feel like I was very much focused on writing and storytelling when I really got into working in politics, and so I thought, Okay, how can I kind of identify where the stories are and what I'm responding to? And then as I've gone down the path more in both sides of my life, I've actually started to find the political stuff and the issue based things and the issues that that I care about as a person in politics have now kind of permeated the cree of pursuits that I have, where I've gained a lot more understanding of, Okay, what kind of stories do I want to tell? What sort of messages do I want to be putting out there? And I think that's why a lot of people in entertainment respond to politics, and why a lot of people in politics feel connected to the storytelling of entertainment, because it is just about messaging and about kind of layering in the lesson or the policy or whatever into the story. Um and the best in both worlds do it really well. Yeah, And I think I think there's another connection, another sort of through line that I've discovered is that part of the reason so many politicians travel around is so they can hear people's stories so that they can have, or at least they should have, empathetically informed policy. You're meant to make policy to better people's lives. And I really respect politicians who travel and care to meet with people, not who just you know, travel and yell at people from stages, um, but who actually sit with people and listen to them and and listen to their stories. I I was so touched after that horrible building collapse in Florida when President Biden went to meet with the families, someone from the pool was discussing how they had blocked out a certain amount of time. I can't remember if it was an hour and a half or two hours for him to meet with all of these people who had lost their loved ones. And he stayed for over three hours and just listened to everyone's stories and looked at photos of their families. And he's out there fighting for this infrastructure bill, and people in the White House who I speak to have talked about how that made him really want to double down, because he said, are crumbling infrastructure is literally killing people. People are losing their families because infrastructure is quite literally crumbling. And when we look at you know that six point four trillion dollars we just spent in a twenty year war that didn't benefit anyone. And you hear people like Joe Manchin talking about how we can't possibly spend three trillion dollars on American infrastructure. I just think, yes, we can, and we have to. And your priorities are clearly misplaced. When was the last time you sat with the families like those families in Florida? And it's that kind of energy where I see us being the same. Because while obviously that's an extreme example and the president has an extreme amount of power to change the world for the better, I think about what it means for someone like you when you're writing someone's story, or someone like me when I'm playing a person, to sit with the people who lived it so that we do it right, so that we actually honor them, so that we represent their stories, whether it's their successes or their losses, or their or their greatest family moments or tragedies properly. And I think there is a real through line of a deep empathetic connection to people and their experiences in both of those examples. And that's the thing that as I have developed as an artist and honestly traveled so much as a political advocate, it has really changed the kinds of stories I want to tell because I realized the power of performance, the power of representing someone, and I don't I don't take it lightly. Yeah, And I don't think that any of us ever should take that lightly. And I also think that you don't have to be someone who's kind of taking that story and putting it into some other version in order to feel a responsibility to people's stories. And I think that that is what makes a great politician, is that they're not turning someone's story into a movie. They're turning someone's story, like you said, into policy, or into a speech, or into some sort of messaging that is intended hopefully to make things better for other people and not just for them. And and I think when you talk about infrastructure, the thing that I've been feeling so much is that I can't help but feel like if we weren't in the political climate that we're in right now in terms of partisanship and division, I just think that This would be so much easier because it is a bipartisan issue that has you know, we've seen it has a ton of support from both sides. And what I see, at least from the work that I've done, is is everyone is so beholden into their message and their campaign slogan and there and their stump speech that to give a little bit, and look, I get it, like if you give a little bit, you might lose, and that's they want to keep going. And so what is frustrating, especially around an issue like infrastructure, is that we can do it, like we we have the capability, and we have the interest, and we have obviously the need like you spoke to, but we're just like in this world right now that that it's so impossible for anyone to see those commonalities, which is really unfortunate because like you said, they're they're way more commonalities than there are differences. And I think that that that's something that gets me down. Yeah, everyone's just so aggressively in their corner, growling at each other, and I'm like, guys, just everyone come closer and let's have a conversation. It feels so important. And I every once in a while I try to even drop the reminder, you know, because I'll talk about that and then someone will say, well, you keep calling out Republicans on your social and I'm like, yeah, Republican elected officials, not necessarily you. You know, person out there who identifies in the way that you do, Let's have a chat. You and I are probably neighbors. It's not you, it's it's systems that are harming you and me together because of their hyperpartisan bickering. That is just to feel so silly to me. And I don't know. I think about all of this passion for making it better, and I wonder, have you ever wanted to run for office? I feel like there's a like glimmer inside of me that that wants to do it, mainly because I'm so frustrated with the people who are doing it at the moment um. But but what I've discovered is that, and I think this is the big lesson that I started to learn in the last couple of years, is like, I think that we feel often like we have to do all the things, we have to tackle all the issues and solve all the problems, and the reality is that we can't. And for that reason, I respect politicians because I think that when they're elected, people do expect them to solve all the problems. And that's just it's just not possible for one person to to do that. But if you pick one thing, or you pick one mission, or you decide a really specific, a niche path for yourself to try to make those things better, Um, that's I think when we can actually start to make some progress. And that's kind of what I've become bolden too. And I don't know, maybe one day when I'm when I'm a proper grown up, because um no, but I'm really I've I've been very motivated by what I've been learning and and sort of the tasks that I've decided to commit to because I feel like I can do them. I feel like I've got a handle on what I want to do right now. Um And and I just hope that that many more people can find that because it's possible, it's not it doesn't have to be so overwhelming. Yeah, well that feels like a perfect segue. Can you talk to us about political playlist? Where did the idea come from? And for our listeners at home who might not be familiar with political playlist, can you tell them what it is. Yeah, So, Political Playlists is a nonpartisan platform that educates people about the youngest members of Congress. We have a newsletter that you can sign up for on our website that is customized to the issues that you care about. And then we also have a podcast called Political Playlist Happy. Our our website is Political playlist dot com. So through these two mechanisms, we really are working to inform people and lean on education as opposed to ideology and sort of this like outrage like you've been talking about, Because I really believe that no matter what side of an issue you fall on or where on the spectrum you are, it's so imperative that we have information. And we've obviously been seeing so much disinformation across the spectrum in the last several years, and what our mission is is to disseminate that information in a way that feels fun and digestible and not really overwhelming, so that you can go to a dinner party or talk to your family and have be armed with information as opposed to just these sort of opinions that you find circulating around you. So the idea it came up very naturally. So my co founder, Anthony Barquette and I we both came from pretty political families, um, and we were having lunch one day sort of around the mid terms, and we just started to talk about, like, you know, what can we do that might be a one step above going and knocking on doors or sending some money to a candidate. And what we started to talk about was how both of us were the people in our friend groups that people would come to and say, Okay, who should I vote for? Or I'm sure you get this all the time. Who should I vote for? What issue should I be caring about? What do you think about this? And we've literally said I think Anthony said, he's like, oh, it would be great if you could have like a playlist that you would just share with your friends and they could go off and and use it. And so that's where the name came from. That it's sort of we wanted to lean into this, you know, kind of younger demographic of we share playlists of music and and movies and things like that. And then we started to boil down of Okay, this is what I knew and us saying what's your niche? It's like, okay, well, let's we're young people. Let's focus on young people. And then we looked up what the stats were and at that time there was onlycent of Congress was under the age of forty five, which is what we consider sort of young in politics, and and I was like, that's really low, especially when you look at how many voters there are now from MI millennial generation, and now of course from Gen Z we well outnumber Baby Boomers UM and Gen X, and you know, this silent generation above the boomers, and so that just felt really disproportionate to us. We were like, well, no one knows about these young people who are in office for the most part, you know, after twout eighteen we had AOC, we had Matt Gates. You know, you have a couple of young politicians who have broken through in the media. But for the most part, we didn't know who these people were. And so we started to look up who they were and what they were about, and what kind of policies they were running on. And they were also interesting and had worries that I felt like I could relate to. You know, the people in our generation who are in office who fought in the Middle East, they fought there because of nine eleven. It wasn't about the Vietnam War anymore or the Gulf War nine eleven. Was this seminal moment of our upbringings. And so that's just an example, but but it was all these things that suddenly I was like, oh, I relate to these people and I and then we started to feel like if only more young people knew about these people, maybe young people would feel more um engaged and feel like they had a reason to care. And so that was where it where it evolved from, was just wanting people to feel like they had to say, and like beyond that that their say was actually important and mattered to the future. Yeah, I think some of that information, it's not that it's hidden, but it feels somehow not obvious to so many people. You know, we hear things like we have the most diverse Congress ever, but you know the statistic you're mentioning, I think we're only up one percent now, right were Congress is under on the back And I think that understanding that can also help all of us make sense of why so much of the country can agree and and yet Congress and the Senate can be deadlocked. And I think understanding who is there and also how to communicate with them can help us break through some of that. I'm I'm curious about what you guys are finding with Political Playlist, about your own numbers. You know, who's your audience. What are you hoping they're getting from you? What what kinds of feedback do they have for you? Guys? Well, proudly as the the woman on the team, so that by two partners are both wonderful men. Most of our users are women, were about women, and most of our users are between the ages of forty five, so pretty solidly in that kind of millennial gap. Although you know, as we've started to grow and expand, we have a lot of high school students reach out to us UM, which is amazing because I think about, like when I was in high school, that I would have never sought out a political platform to to educate myself with. And so I think our hope really By the way, all that isn't to say that, you know, we have users who are in their sixties and seventies who get as much out of it, because I also think, you know, my dad said this really interesting thing to me. He said, I asked him, what do you get out of Political Playlist and he said, I enjoy hearing the perspective of of the younger generation about politics that isn't available elsewhere unless you're looking at sort of you know, like you said, the kind of loudest voices in the extreme that you know that's those are important, but they don't necessarily provide the most information. It's a lot more feeling and emotion. So so I think that, you know, whatever your age, we're here for you. But I do think that the main goal, and I think this is why we see a lot of users in our age demographic of people in their twenties and thirties and early forties, is is people being very overwhelmed by what's going on. I think that when you're a person in your thirties, for example, and you sort of begin to feel this responsibility to the world and you begin to come become more aware of what's going on, it feels like, well, I just I can't get engaged. It's too stressful, you know, I have other stuff to focus on. And I think what we're doing, hopefully effectively, is telling people that you don't have to do it all. Like I was saying before, just read the newsletter we send to you. Listen to the podcast. You know, look at the resources that we're providing. It's not going and reading a bunch of textbooks. It's not needing to read the New York Times front to back every single day. It's just these little bits of information that offer a different perspective, because if you watch CNN or Fox News all day or whatever, you're getting the same information over and over again. What we're hoping to do is say, hey, here are these seventy people in Congress, most of whom you have no idea who they are, and here's what they're working on. Here are the issues that they're fighting for, and here's a little bit about the areas of the country that they come from. And those little bits of information I think actually give a much better perspective of what is happening in our government than the sort of news headline that takes up you know, five days of news chirons on on NBC or whatever, especially because we have to remember so much of what goes on Chiron's on any network is designed to boost their business, not necessarily to boost our understanding. And I think I think when I when I hear you say that high school students are starting to reach out. I think about the difference between kids in high school now and when you and I were in high school, there was so much less transparency then. We we existed in a world where we all went, well, the grown ups are in charge, and now we realize we need to be more in charge, that we deserve to have a say in the forward motion of our nation, which we will inherit from said grown ups. And I think it's really I know it's been in inspiring for me, and I think it's really inspiring for younger millennials and Gen Z. They want to be involved in the political world so that they can have a say in their future, and that really makes me feel excited. The amount of information we're able to share, I think has created this, and I would say is probably why there is so much money behind disinformation campaigns, because they're scared that we're going to figure it out, so we certainly have to create ways to battle that nonsense. That's the side that makes me nervous. The side that inspires me is more and more young people coming to the table and using their voices. And I wonder about you know this cent under forty who in the political landscape, maybe even under the age of forty. Who's a politician under forty who's really inspiring you right now? So there's a couple on the Democratic side. There's a woman named Lauren Underwood. I'm sure you've come across the campaign nice so she So she represents a suburb out Chicago. UM, I don't know she's under forty. She might be like forty one. But what I think is so great about the news that we have on her is Lauren was a nurse and then she was she worked in healthcare policy, and I think that one of the narratives, in my opinion at least, that got really lost during COVID was the health care of it all, was the idea that our health care system is not functioning. And many people who have dealt with healthcare problems before I knew this, but anyone who maybe hadn't suddenly became very aware of how fragile our system is. And what is great about Lauren is that healthcare is not only like her number one priority, but she also is putting the pedals the metal when it comes to introducing stuff. So I think that's really inspiring because I think it's an issue that got so much attention under Obama because of Obamacare, but that has sort of faded a little bit in our current rhetoric. And it's something that, you know, it's literally the basis of the health of the people in our country. So so she's one and then another one that I would say is actually on the Republican side, and he's a guy named Peter Meyer who was elected just this past cycle. He's a Republican from Michigan, and he is an Afghanistan veteran. And in the last few weeks, I mean, he has been very critical of the withdrawal of Afghanistan, but beyond that, in the last couple of weeks, he's been sort of at the forefront of leading these bills to really allow more Afghan refugees into the country. Um, and I think that also beyond that, he he was one of the Republicans that voted to impeach Trump earlier this year. And there was a really great episode of The Daily The New York Times podcast that he was on where he talked about his experience of having just been you know, elected to office and going through what he did on January six and tying that to his military experience, and and I think that someone like him has made me really understand the value of having veterans in office, which I hope we as a country are understanding even more now with what's happening with Afghanistan. But those are two people that that I find myself every time that we go and we look up the news that's happening around them and the bills that they're introducing, I find myself feeling, you know, not just inspired, but also like confident, confident that that there is this swell of people who are young, who might have different beliefs, but I think are all coming from the right place. Um, and like you said, have more in common than than dissimilar. So then there's many there's many more. Yeah, that makes me feel excited. I'm wondering if hearing all of this is lighting that little fire in some of our listeners who might be thinking about running for office themselves. And and given all of the work you guys are doing at Political Playlists and through the Political Playlist Happy Hour podcast, I'm wondering if there is any advice that you might offer to anyone who is considering running for office. Yeah, I mean, I'll actually steal a piece of advice two pieces of advice, one which is actually from my dad that he says to me all the time, which is, you just do the work. You just decide the thing that you're going to pursue, you pick that thing that you feel passionate about, and you just do the work and you keep going and every day. I mean, I think this is very applicable to creative pursuit. I think if someone sees a wrong in the world that they feel like they can right, just do it. Just do the work to to try to fix it. And if that means running for office, you just do it. You do the work to get there. The other piece of advice that I would give was actually from Congressman Sarah Jacobs, who is on our platform. She is in her thirties, she represents she's the Democrat who represents a district in San Diego, and she was talking to us about perseverance and the first time that she ran for Congress, she actually lost. And she said this thing where she said, it's not about this goal or that goal, or what each step represents. It's about the thing that you're serving, the thing that is at the top of your pyramid. Everything that you do should just always be having that in mind, and so a loss here, or an obstacle there, or bad press here, or you know, a break up there, or whatever the things are that are getting in the way or you feel like are getting in the way, just keep going with that ultimate thing in mind. And I think that that is applicable to people who might want to run because the process of it can feel so overwhelming. And we have this inherent cynicism now about government that I think makes people very reserved about getting involved in it. But don't worry about the government, you know, think about the reason that you your reason for being, think about the goal that you have that's at the end of that tunnel um and just go for it. Do the work to get there. And if you I think that if you keep that in mind, you know it might it might be bumpy, but that's life. Life's not worth it if it's not bumpy. I love that. I think it's also I love the visual of that. Think about what's at the top of the pyramid, because when you're in the thick of something, it can feel like it's your whole world. And to remember that it's a moment and that you're looking ahead is such good grounding advice, and I imagine I have to remind myself all the time. I mean, yeah, i'd imagine that that there's people who are listening to this podcast thinking, Okay, I've got to start listening to the Political Playlist podcast. What episode would you suggest as a jumping off point for a new listener? So I would say I would suggest two of them. On our podcast, we both do kind of an in depth rundown of our newsletter where we talk about the newsletter and our favorite and most interesting pieces of news from politicians, and then we also interview people, so we're kind of a hybrid. So I would say that for an interview, the goal of the interviews for us is very much to say, Okay, how can we get someone engaged in politics that doesn't see a need for it, that doesn't see how politics could relate to their life, and given what we're dealing with now in our current affairs. I interviewed this really incredible guy named John Lebecky who was a veteran of the war in Middle East and he is now an advocate for psychedelic medicine to treat PTSD, and so he went through the therapy and it completely cured his PTSD. He was a five time suicide survivor, and now he worked with a group called MAPS that is UM working. Yeah, so he's one of their sort of veteran advocates. So that conversation I felt was not only really inspiring to just hear his story, but also a really great example of how politics can be injected into your everyday life in ways that you might not think and how you know for him, his journey of being a veteran and coming back and being really lost and having really bad PTSD, it wasn't solved by the government, but now he's learning how to work with the government and finding advocates on both sides of the aisle for treatment that he's living example of can work in some cases. So that's a really great interview. And then um the the other episode that I would recommend is about the abortion debate in America and the perspective that we come to that I firmly believe in is that abortion is still really partisan issue and I think it will continue to be, but there are more women serving in office than there ever have been before. And what I think that does to the debate is it offers a perspective that has never been heard, which you might a pro life woman, you might be a pro choice woman, but your experience as a woman is very important to that conversation. And so we talk a lot about that, given, you know, sort of the a lot of the rhetoric that was coming out after the bill passed in Texas, and and instead of trying to just play into one ideology or the other, related to why does where we're at in our political moment matter? Specifically for that debate, which is going to continue to be a debate, right, Like, we're not saying that it's going to be solved. But there's a young woman who is a representative from Florida who is a Republican, pretty far right Republican named cat camac and she's in her third she was the youngest Republican woman ever elected to Congress. And she talked about how her mom was told to have an abortion by doctors and didn't and if her mom had an abortion, she wouldn't have she wouldn't be alive. And you know, you might not agree with her stands, but to hear it from a personal perspective is a different experience. So that episode, which is called to whom it may concern. I would love for people to check it out and listen to it. Yeah, that sounds amazing. I think it's so interesting to me when these issues get debated. I just think about none of us are inside of anyone else's families, and the choice should be left to the people with the most details, you know. And and I also realized I say this as a person who's never had to make that choice, you know, I feel incredibly fortunate. I just had a very interesting conversation which I feel like might be a a couple that you guys should talk to some friends, some very good friends of my very good friends, who are you know, very devout and all the things that fit a more on paper, you know, conservative perspective. And they spent over half a decade going through IVF to try to get pregnant and just discovered that there's a and this is pretty you know, late stage, and there is a really horrific genetic anomaly in this baby that they finally thought they were going to have. And they're really in the debate of sitting with do we continue so that we can hold this baby in our arms in the hospital while it dies, or do we compassionately stop here because we know this baby is going to die. And we a group of us sat around talking about this and everyone was just sobbing. Obviously, it's devastating when, especially when people have been waiting for so long, and all of us who know them well and who know them a little or like you did it, and I it's a really wild thing to hold space for. And I wonder if more women having experiences like this are in office, if there will finally be a clicking for people who say, oh, that woman knows better than any of us could know for her. And I wonder if it's that impending realization as more and more women are getting elected to office that is making so many old boomer men try to force laws like this, you know, try to cut our rights off at the knees. I wonder if they're aware of that kind of pain that they could put families in and maybe if it watters, I don't really know, you know, but totally. And I think that also, like what I take from that story you just told, which is just I'm sure you know, it's a story that's common amongst amongst women and couples. And I think that the key to all that is, you as a woman, are able to understand that on a different level than even the most well intentioned man ever could, just because of your experiences in your physical body. And I think that the thing that gives me hope and look like I will say that we approach political playlists just from a perspective of hope, because I think if we lose hope, like we're screwed. Um, if we stay cynical, it's just gonna get worse. So what gives me hope though, is that as we have a more diverse government, as we have a more both on race and gender and age, that you know, the shared experience amongst young people is very specific, the shared experience among minorities is very specific. Amongst women is very specific. Whatever side of the aisle you're on or whatever sort of issues you might disagree about, those experiences overlap in some way or another. And and in terms of the debate about abortion, I just feel like women can have a conversation about it. I feel like women, even if they end up staying in there in their beliefs, they can talk about it on a level that comes from like feeling and comes from an inherent instinct about it and as opposed to, like you said, the boomer men, right, the people who come from this like ideological perspective and sort of logical perspective or illogical perspective. That we have an opportunity to now create different conversations than the ones that have been happening for literally hundreds of years. And that is both just to go back to what we're talking about much earlier, both in what we're doing at Political Playlist and also I think in the content that is being created through movies and television and podcasts and books and all of this now is the conversation is starting to change, and people are paying attention in a different way, and audiences are getting educated in a different way, whether it's through something like Political Playlist or whether it's through watching like Big Little Lies, you know what, whatever is out there is, there's more weight to it, I think than there's been in a really long time, at least I feel that being sort of at the beginning point of my career in both aspects. So that's what keeps me going. I would say, it's interesting, do you think that because the hope is growing, As you said, we have the most diverse Congress in the country's history. We're making progress us on so many social issues, and then we're seeing these very violent and reactionary and historically regressive right wing protests and deeply regressive laws like the one we're referring to with abortion legislation in Texas. Do you think that regression is a sort of reaction to the progress I'm almost envisioning like a pendulum swing. We're moving so far forward that there there is a fear, a fear that's trying to hold us back, that wants to almost almost revert as far backwards as we're pushing forwards. Do do you think that that's some sort of of of a reality of the moment we find ourselves in. Yeah, I do. I think that. The other thing that I try to remember is that, like, progress means something different for everybody. You know, Like, if you find yourself to be a more moderate person, agress might look very different than if you find yourself to be someone who's very very progressive. If you are someone who's an ardent Trump supporter, progress looks very different than if you are someone like this guy Peter Meyer, I said, who's a more moderate Republican. If you live in the middle of the country, your idea of progress is different than if you live in New York City, and so I think that that My perspective, I guess, is that we've come to this place where we have so little understanding of each other and of ourselves as sort of humans who can relate, that we're not paying attention to what actual progresses. We're just paying attention to like our selfish definition of of progress. And then if someone reacts against that, Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that the reactions are trying to pull that back. And so whoever gets a win. I mean, you see this in the way that we flip flop in who controls our congress us Right, Like, whenever there's a president in the last twenty years, they've also won Congress the year that they're elected, but then in the midterms the other party wins. It's like, we just can't get steady, we can't decide, Okay, we're just gonna go on this train for a little bit and see how things play out. It's all reactionaries. So that visual of the pendulum swinging, I think couldn't be more poignant, and I think it's really dangerous because if we are just worried about one person getting a win or making progress in their way and then we pull it back to ours, they're just going to pull back in the other direction. And look, people don't have to change their opinions, but if we don't gain some sort of like connection, and then I just think it's it's not going to go well. And what you're saying before about finding things that we can relate aid on. It isn't about politicians. It's about us as individuals. And if we can as citizens do the work to find that relatability and find those commonalities, eventually it will reflect in the people that we elect to office. But if we don't do that work, if we don't say, hey, I'm going to talk to someone I disagree with, or hey I'm going to help someone out that maybe I wouldn't have considered helping out, then like the politicians are just going to continue to do the same thing because a lot of them don't even believe that stuff. They say it because it's what's of the moment, and that's where I think that we could be in trouble. But I think that we as a I mean, look, there's way more of us than there are politicians. So think of it in the power of numbers. I guess that's such an important thing to remember. And when you think about that, you know how we can stop being so reactionary, how we can stop being so based in a notion of identity politics. And rather, perhaps the way I think about it is, we've got to get away from the identity and we've got to come back to community. And I'm curious, where do you feel like we go from here? How do you think we do that? I think it starts with talking to people. Like you said, it starts with hearing people's stories. And it might be sitting through a conversation that makes you uncomfortable or that makes you mad, or that you don't agree with. And it doesn't have to be to the extreme. You don't have to if you're you know, a AOC support, you don't have to go sit in a swamp of Trump supporters or vice versa. But like you know people in your life. It's not Republican or Democrat. You know people in your life who have different experiences than you do and therefore probably some different opinions than you do. Just start talking about it, get into it. I think that that's one of the great things that we've discovered on Political Playlist is that me, Michael and Anthony, you know, we we agree on stuff, we disagree on stuff, and we've created this space where we can just like talk about it. And that's what we want to do for other people is give them information so they can start a conversation with somebody. So that's where I think we go from here, like keeping politics sort of out of it is get informed, take that information and allow it to propel you into a conversation, and then pay it forward. If someone comes to you with something, then you bring it to somebody else. Um, it's like those uh, you know telephone chains they have parents do and there's like an emergency at school. It's like that. It's like you just go talk to your neighbor about something and then maybe they'll pick up something from what you said and go talk to their family and etcetera. So I don't know, I think that if we just stop worrying so much about who's winning and who's losing, and how extreme one person is or how moderate another person is or whatever, and just talk about what you believe and don't be mad if someone disagrees with you. You know, if you think they're wrong, try to educate them, try to inform them. But getting mad at people it's not gonna work. Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot in terms of community, and a lot in terms of finding more tenderness to kind of parallel path with the sacred rage that makes us want to save the world. You know, if you only have one or the other, you're a little out of whack, and so finding a balance feels that feels like a big top of the pyramid for me right now. Yeah, And that's hard, right, It's a hard it's a hard path to go on. But I think you're totally right. And I think that sort of the synthesis of those two things you mentioned before, just talking about empathy. I do feel like empathy there is a component of anger in it because you're sort of angry on behalf of somebody else, But there is a real tenderness in it, you know, that's kind of the definition of empathy. So I think that we had an episode. I actually did an Instagram conversation. People can go to our Instagram and follow us with a guy named Eric Bailey, who is a communication expert and we talked about the lack of empathy in politics and how if people could just deal with their crap and learn to be more empathetic and kind of do that mental exercise in our government, that we could be at a really different place. That sounds great to me. I hope we're to get out it's a pie in the sky. Well, you know, it's a good goal, that's a good collect the top of the pyramid, I think for us to try to set. I agree, we're talking about a lot of capital p progress, and I'm collective ideas and potential, I suppose you could say, and I'm curious if if we if we bring it a little bit back in. I'm really fascinated by what feels like progress for you. And the thing I love to ask everyone who comes on this show is what what is your work in progress right now? For me, it's very much about letting my passion guide where I'm going. You know, I've disseminated that advice, knowing wholeheartedly that it's something that I have to work on every day. I think that this is also kind of like a plague of our generation. Is this idea of craving like instant success or sort of instant answers, And that's something that has been really hard for me to remember. I think a lot of it comes from being an athlete, where you get you know, it's about the process, but it's about a result. It's about winning the race or lifting the weight or whatever. And I'm in this like evolution, both in writing and definitely in political playlists, and also just personally of of thinking about how can I pay attention to the process and be driven by what I find interesting and inspiring as opposed to being driven by like a material ending that frankly probably doesn't exist. Um, So that's personally, I think what I really am trying to work on, and I think that it's a really common sentiment among a lot of people that if we can recognize that maybe we can collectively work together. I like that plan, and yes, I know that I I certainly agree that that that feels like a sentiment in my life as well, and I'm sure lots of people listening due to It's hard. It's really hard. It's hard to not get consumed by by the desire for instantaneous feedback, especially in a world where you can do this. You can just scroll down with your thumb on your phone and get all new stuff. We we think. I almost wonder if we think our lives are supposed to refresh as fast as Instagram and Twitter do totally, because I think we go on social media and we every day it feels like, well it is every day a new thing is happening, and we're so aware of how quickly things are changing and evolving. We forget that that whatever happened in that person's life didn't change overnight. It was many years in progress or whatever, but we hear about it in an instant, so it seems like it happened really quickly. Takes ten year to become an overnight success, right, Yeah, we've forgotten that. I just feel like we we have become so consumed by the need to feel like every moment has to be meaningful and driving us forward when it's it's just not true, and it's really easy to forget. Speaking for myself, yeah, I'm really trying to find more slow moments. Yeah. Are you someone who like really feeds on the on fast pace and being busy. I've just I've gotten so accustomed to it from my job. Yeah, that for me, it feels strange not to have every moment crammed with activity and things and research and reading and zooms and calls and podcasts and meetings and articles and and it's like I gotta stop. Yeah, So I'm trying to find a little slowness. I'm also trying to give myself, you know, more room to respond to things when I feel ready rather than when the world expects me to. I'm really trying to take my time in my space and let that be okay. Because the notion that our personal spaces, even our you know, our our one channel for our own opinions, rather than our work or our collective schedules as a production or a team or whatever. Your social media is supposed to be your space. And this notion that your space somehow belongs to other people's expectations is wild. So I'm yeah, I'm really sitting in versions of that, both in my life at home, in these four walls, the way I schedule, the way I experience, and also in the amount of space and patience I'm willing to give myself in the spaces that belonged to me but that feel public. I'm reminding myself, I can go at my own pace. Yeah, but yeah, and I reminded me when you were just talking. I I just read um this great book called on Writing by Stephen King, and it's his he wrote it in the late nineties and it's his account of how he became, how he sort of came to writing, and literally like tips on what he thinks a good writer is. And he had this part in it where he said that boredom is a gift to being a writer. And I think it's a gift to everyone that we have forgotten about because when you are you know, quote unquote board, when you are taking that quiet time like you said, and going at your own pace, that's when good ideas come. That's when an idea for a political platform and starting a company that you never thought you would do, because it's those being a little bit bored and being a little bit quieter in your life. It's something that I'm not great at. But when I read that in his book, I thought, oh, yeah, that that is really important and I should strive for it a little bit more. Yeah, it seems to me to be a lesson we're all digesting and learning from in our own ways in this moment. Yeah, and COVID propelled it a lot. I think we had to, we had to be bored, we had no choice. Well, I'm really grateful to you for all the work that you're doing and the and the places that you're giving people to go and and answer some of these questions and and learn at their own pace and not have to feel so reactionary, but but instead feel more informed and perhaps more curious and empathetic of other people's opinions. I think it's deeply invaluable work. And I'm really excited for anyone who listens to this show who's just learning about the platform now that it's a thing they'll have access to. And I'm sure there's also plenty of people, uh who listen to this show who are big fans of yours already. So thank you, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and I loved having this conversation and cathartic, truly

Work in Progress with Sophia Bush

Work in Progress with Sophia Bush features frank, funny, personal, professional, and sometimes even  
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