Censorship In The NFL, "Breaking" News & The Future Of The DNC ft. Ben Wikler
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Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betcha's News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Hey, V. Hi. What's up? I'm doing terrible, Sammy. I know, I know. This is, for everyone listening, this is the morning after the Bills' tragic loss last night. Tragic.

Tragic loss. I'm in my feels, though. I was like, what am I going to do? Because it was such a good game. You know, it was such a back and forth. A couple of rough calls came our way. But, you know, overall, good game. But, man, tough, tough. I think most of America is pretty heartbroken. It felt like election night again. I was like, oh, God, we're up. We're down. Oh, gosh. Cut the feed.

It was honestly a good game. I watched football for being, you know, like where I was like, I'm going to put this on for maybe the first time this whole season. All the other times I'd watched it, it was sort of just passing by when it's on in the house. But I actually watched and they were good. They were good games.

In our house, we were rooting for the underdogs in both games, the Commanders and the Bills. And that didn't happen for... So you did this. I'm sorry. They didn't... Look, they were the overdogs. They were the favorites. So the chances that they were going to win was... Like, yes, I obviously care to watch the Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift Bowl 2.0. But I just...

It's such two intense teams, the Chiefs and the Eagles. And it's like I wish we kind of had like a more of a wild card in there. Yeah, the happy Bills fans. I don't know. For people who are watching at home, we have this sweatshirt here in Rochester that's made by Brother Bill. That's like the Bills logo as a broken heart that I love. I do have to give a shout out to the Associated Press for the way they covered it.

the Bills-Chiefs game. They described it in the headline on the homepage. This is the only thing that brought me joy, as Taylor Swift's boyfriend and team beat the Bills. I love that. You know how I know a Bills fan is working at the Associated Press? This is something that happens to women all the time, right? And for it to literally say, like, on the big headline, and it's like her and Travis kissing, not even Mahomes involved,

Taylor Swift's boyfriends and chiefs head to the Super Bowl. I was like, this is outstanding. I do think it is a little messed up that Patrick Mahomes is clearly such an outstanding player. Like he has a Tom Brady level record and he does not get nearly as much attention as Taylor Swift. Right.

And I think part of it is like insider football. People will say Mahomes is nothing without Andy Reid. There are some quarterbacks like Josh Allen. That's how coaches are. I guess.

I guess so. There are some quarterbacks like Josh Allen, though I am biased, who know how to read a field and call their own plays. Mahomes, allegedly, Andy Reid calls every play for Mahomes. So he's sort of like Andy Reid's holding the controller and Mahomes is the player on the screen. That's what people say. But he can execute it. I mean, sure. It never occurred to me that like... Oh, I think his team is phenomenal. I don't know how good a leader he is or anything like that. I don't know much about him. He's got a defensive line that's massive. Every time I looked at the

at the field, I was like, is there more Chiefs than Bills on the field? Because they're so big. Oh, no. I think he has a pretty good reputation. My biggest impression of him is when Travis Kelsey got in his face at the last Super Bowl. And everyone was like,

Oh, it's fine. Yeah, he's just passionate about the game. Like, okay, you can't control yourself. And it was because he wanted to put him on the bench for a play or something. And I don't know, that always stuck with me. And I think him getting in his face is like not amazing. I do have a rant against what I think was the worst take of last night.

So do you know who Jason Kander is? Have you ever heard of him? Former Secretary of State of Missouri. Friend. Good friend. Been on a show a bunch of times. Love Jason Kander. Lovely person. And for the musical theater girlies out there listening, yes, he is the grandchild of Kander and Ebb who wrote like the musical Chicago. So he's a great person. What? Yeah, Jason Kander's grandpa.

wrote Chicago and like Cabaret. The cell block tango and Cabaret? I thought Bob Fosse wrote Cabaret. No, he was the choreographer. Oh, my grandmother loved Bob Fosse. Of course. She would do, you know, she would go to her dance class

at least one time a week. And she was into like all Bob Fosse stuff, Cabaret, the play Fosse. Obviously the Kander family has great takes, right? They write Chicago, women's empowerment. They write Cabaret, warning about the Holocaust. Not Jason, not Jason this week. And we're going to make a clip of this because I hope you see it. Jason posts on his threads last night to all the folks who think the NFL and refs cheat for the Chiefs. Congrats on your pardons. I don't get it.

are you talking to? Are you trying to say that the Bills fans who are notoriously the most generous charity driven fandom in all the land, if I don't say so myself, but is he calling us violent insurrectionists and white supremacists? Because I was like, congrats on your pardons. The only pardon I know is- I think it was a joke. It wasn't funny. It was a weird take.

Because it's okay. I'm going to continue my rant. It's the chiefs, in fact, that have been asked for decades to change their name because we don't make mascots out of indigenous people. And they are owned by the Hunt family who made their money as oil tycones, founding members of the John Birch Society and donated overwhelmingly to Trump. Okay. The Hunt family who own the chiefs are directly responsible for Josh Hawley, who lives in Virginia, becoming the Missouri Senator by funding his campaign. And on top of that,

You got Magma Holmes liking Trump's posts. Harrison Butker telling women to like stay home, shut up, make a sandwich and a baby. Meanwhile, Harrison Butker doesn't even hold the record for longest field goal at Arrowhead. Our kicker Bass does.

And I'm like, Jason, I think if we're going to talk about who funded the January 6th insurrection and subsequent pardons, perhaps you should look a little bit more closely at your franchise, my boy, because it's the Hunt family. OK, not not the Bills. You leave us alone. Look, I know you're feeling sensitive right now, but I really think he was kidding. Also, Hunt's ketchup sucks. OK, I mean,

I'm sick of the Hunt family. I'm sick of the Chief. Hunt's ketchup sucks. And Mahomes has a deal with Hunt's ketchup because he apparently puts like ketchup on all of his food, including his steak, like his wife's favorite president. So I'm done now. That's it. I'm done ranting against the Chiefs, but I had to get it out. So who are you rooting for next week? The Bills. The Bills are not playing.

Oh, no, I'm going to root for the Eagles. I'm going to root for the Eagles because I love Alex Perlman and he's so excited. And so I think the Eagles are a great fandom, much similar to the Bills in the way that they're just so crazy for their team and such great, you know, crazy people. I think they're a little too crazy, some might argue. They're more violent, certainly. Let me see who Avi's rooting for just so we can be on the same. I mean, Jill Biden is rooting for the Eagles. So I guess I'll be rooting for the Eagles. Probably.

I guess going to root for the Eagles, but like, I do want to see the pageantry with Taylor Swift. So I don't know. Can I tell you, I was watching her in the box and I felt like she was sort of reserved. Like she was cheering, but she knows that like as a person who often champions the underdog or at least sort of like made that part of her brand, like being this really good person who's like always rooting for somebody to come up. I think she had to feel bad a little bit that the bills lost like as a person, I know it's her boyfriend's team and she's a part of the franchise now, but yeah,

I was like, I kind of doubt she cares about that. She wasn't wearing Chiefs gear last night. So remember, she's getting dressed by Louis Vuitton. Oh, I know. But she used to wear all the Chiefs stuff and everything. And she was just she was kind of wearing like a muted color. And so I'm just going to take that as like an excuse to continue to listen to her music because she's

I need that. I need both. What I find intriguing is Kylie Kelsey, who is a diehard Eagles fan. Like how's she going to handle this next week? Well, maybe I'll root for the Eagles because she roots for the Eagles because I like her show and I like, I think she's cool. I like her too. I would love to meet Kylie Kelsey. I genuinely think she's so cool. She is. Can I tell you a fun fact that I learned about speaking of

teams that had to change their names. I know who also played this weekend, the Washington Commanders, formerly the Redskins. So Dan Snyder was the former owner of the Redskins, and he basically had to end up selling the team. And that's kind of like when the name got changed. But in the process of him selling the team, he really did not want to sell the team. So after the deal is done, it's signed. He

tried to withhold his wiring info, like his bank info, so that the buyer could not send him the money. So like he couldn't accept, he like didn't, he was just like evading sending it. And they had planned, you know, the new owner had planned like a festival or like a celebration at the stadium. And he still was like, I don't care. Like I'm not sending my information. You can't, it'll be considered trespassing. Oh God. And let them, this is my team. So,

So I don't know. I just thought it was such a funny story because who's like, I will not give you my banking info to pay me because he just, I guess, whatever. I guess he has enough money. So if you have enjoyed this rant from me and Sammy on sports and the intersection of politics and musical theater, you can, we have a sports channel now. What is it, Sammy? Betches Sports. Betches Sports. You can follow us at Betches Sports.

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By the way, speaking of sports and the NFL, did you know that the NFL teams are being told not to use Blue Sky as a platform? My assumption is because there's a concern amongst the owners who lean a little towards one end of the political spectrum that Blue Sky is a platform.

Basically, the effect of not allowing it to be on Blue Sky kind of prevents Blue Sky from becoming the public square that it could potentially become because you have the top league in sports that none of those teams are supposed to go on it. So you take away a huge piece of the American conversation, whereas if they were on it, people would –

flock to it because they want to see what the teams and the athletes are saying. So this really gives it a ceiling. I just think that's an interesting, I mean, bringing us to the political part of this conversation, it's an interesting tactic that isn't by law or by executive order, but these are the kind of actions and tactics and forms of optional censorship, let's call it, that

are going to keep Meta dominant. It's culture control, certainly. You know what was weird? I had a video about threads where I was like, did you get on threads yet that I posted in 2023 that's going viral right now? I actually just had to private it because people are like, V, why are you promoting threads? And I'm like, I don't know that I am, but any company can put money behind anything and boost that video on TikTok. So I'm like, I'm starting the conspiracy that Meta dropped money to boost an old TikTok of mine because...

It wasn't an ad, but if you were to see it today, you would think it was ad-like because I'm like, I don't know. I'm going to try it out. It looks pretty cool so far. I'm excited to disrupt Twitter. But this was from 2023. This was like a long time ago video that all of a sudden was getting like hundreds of thousands of views. So I don't know. I think there's so much weird stuff right now with social media and media in general. And something I want to give folks just like a warning to is we got to stop doing breaking news on social media every five seconds. And I'm not speaking – everybody do what you want, OK? But –

But we are getting into a misinformation and disinformation, just absolute chaos world where you cannot trust face value statements from the White House and from even some reporters. I mean, because they are – especially when it comes to – I'm in particular talking about when it comes to like reporting on TikTok.

Bloomberg does an article saying that an undisclosed source tells them that Elon Musk is buying TikTok and they print that. That was never true. NPR has a story this weekend that undisclosed source says that the White House is in talks with Larry Ellison and Microsoft to take over TikTok. Trump says on Trump Force One or Air Force One, whatever it is now.

that he's never talked to Larry Ellison about it, but NPR still prints it. And I'm trying to overcome my beef with NPR. I love them other than the way they report about TikTok, okay? Please keep supporting them. Get your $5 tote. We need public radio. But I'm going to volunteer to be their special correspondent for all things TikTok because they just cannot get the reporting right on it. And it's like,

That on top of the constant breaking news on TikTok, I'm like, you can't just look at the front page of the AP and just fire off a headline that we know in five minutes is going to change. You got to give a story sometimes, especially as big as these political stories, a couple hours to wrap and see what actually happened. Okay. Right. Especially another good example of this is what happened on Sunday with Columbia. Right. And the tariffs, like if you reported only one thing that was happening, right.

I mean, part of that is this technique of flooding the zone with information. By the way, we are getting so far ahead of ourselves because we still have not let everyone know that later in this episode, in the second half, we are talking to Ben Wickler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, who is running for head of the DNC. And we think he's worth hearing from. And then also later this week, your Thursday episode, we have a bonus with J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois. We had a great conversation with him.

And yeah, that's just some business before we continue going through the remaining stories we have before we have to hop on with Ben. Because I think the thing is like I do think that people have the attention span for longer form stories. I caution you against breaking news and getting your cortisol up that many times in a day because by the time the story is actually fully fledged, you're going to be too exhausted or you'll remember the details funny. It's just not worth doing that.

And we saw it also – there are really genuinely dangerous things going on right now like the ICE raids that I think we're going to talk about a little bit. But there was a story that was like Chicago school turns away ICE officers. Then they're like, no, they're Secret Service officers, not ICE officers. But the truth is the Secret Service officers are deputized to be ICE officers. So like –

If you had done breaking news, you would have had six different pieces that would have all sort of went against each other. And in the end, like we needed the story a little bit more room, a little bit more investigation to suss out the facts here, because ice going into a school is not something you should just fire off on social media. You should be absolutely sure that that happened.

And I think people who do news on social media are used to kind of like when Biden said something, it was kind of true. Like when things were going on, you could take a White House statement and say, OK, that's probably going to be accurate or vetted. And that's not the world we're in right now. And it is folks. I know there are folks on the right sowing misinformation, but there are folks on the left who are picking it up.

And you got to be so careful. You got to be more careful. There's also conflicting stories. Like, for example, with that Chicago Ice Secret Service story, there's still conflicting stories. Correct. So at least finding out what are the different pieces of the story. And, you know, and I think it's hard. We live in, obviously, like a...

immediate reward system and people want to know things immediately. I think they're misreading the AP though. So I want to just like, if you're doing this kind of thing, recognize that the AP does, they will post things as they happen, but they will say this is the developing story at the end. And you're supposed to kind of like, that's your expectation. That's the culture that the AP has said is that, yes, they're going to give you information that could conflict with

but they're going to make sure you know the story is not done. This is just where it is right now, but come back in five, come back in an hour, come back in two hours. And that's not happening on TikTok. People are just firing off breaking news as if it's the final story. And then other folks are stitching and making a bunch of content about it. And then two hours later, it changes. Right. I mean, I think we have like a big comprehension problem also, because just because there are conflicting pieces of the story does not make them both or either false. For example, if one person says this and one person says this, you want to know that

You want to know that there are conflicting accounts of the story. And I think part of maybe what has gotten lost, that has gotten lost in this really polarized environment where people are only seeing things from their own perspective.

Like I saw people tweet about how it's now like legal for your employer to fire you for being pregnant because Donald Trump, he got rid of an executive order from 1965, which underlies the equal employment opportunity, everything in America. So he did do that. That is important. But.

Discrimination is protected by Title VII. And I actually was thinking like, wow, if your employer can fire you for being pregnant, that's something everyone should know. So I was like, should I maybe make a video about that? Then I was like, you know, let me check with a lawyer.

before I sort of react to the way people are wording it online. And I asked Eliza Orlins if she could help me figure out the information. Oh my God, she's phenomenal. Yeah, everyone should follow her. And she gave me really helpful information about it. And to be clear, it doesn't mean that it won't make it easier for your employer to fire you and get away with it.

if you're pregnant, because he also directed the Department of Labor to stop investigating discrimination claims. So ultimately, yes, it is going in this direction. That's what they want in effect, like kind of what we said with birthright citizenship, where it's about creating the fear and the immobilization of people who are in this gray area or who could get picked up in a raid like happened in Newark, New Jersey last week, where

where a military veteran who's an American citizen was picked up. So I think in a lot of cases, it comes down to a matter of language and not to say that you're not

valid for feeling a strong sense of terror and alarm. That's a feeling. But the way we share information is really important, also for defamation reasons. It is indeed. And on that pregnancy situation with him trying to make it easier to be fired for being pregnant, I worked with parents together for several years to get an act passed called the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. And

passed on June 27th, 2023. And this gives pregnant people far more rights. This was a law enacted by Congress. This was not an executive order. It is a law on the books. So if you are pregnant, planning to become pregnant, please brush up on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Basically says covered employers must provide reasonable accommodations for limiting reasons such as pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions related to your pregnancy. So that's the thing is like,

What we'll get in the news is President Trump writes executive orders saying it's okay to fire pregnant people. Pregnant people are going to start to be like, well, maybe I shouldn't have children or maybe I shouldn't – maybe I should just give up. And it's like that's not true and here's a law that isn't affected by his executive order. So I think we just got to slow down. I know people are stressed. We got to slow down and take our time with the information because it is very dangerous out there. I think the way in which we're all constantly gish galloped on a daily basis –

is really challenging. There is someone in Congress who is finally sort of doing something about this. Representative Jamie Raskin has called in psychologists to figure out how to deal with Trump. Good. Tell me everything. And the best way to combat their Republican colleagues. The goal is to combat authoritarian styles of speech in the Trump age. Part of me is like, okay, what

Like, look, if it weren't Jamie Raskin, I would respect it even less. Because why didn't we do this in 2017? Why are we first calling in the psychologists today? And it just seems like a very, I mean, it's a good idea. And Jamie Raskin, I know, is someone who has tried his darndest to save democracy. But it just kind of, again, falls to this

Too little, too late. What are they doing? What is the plan? No one is effectively obstructing except for the people who are actually in these positions. Like on Friday night when Donald Trump fired, I believe it's 18 inspectors general across the government, some of whom were his own appointees. The point of an inspectors general within different areas of government is to investigate corruption, fraud, criminal activity.

and then refer it for some sort of consequences. So Trump doesn't want that happening anymore. He fired all these people. Now, the inspectors general seem to be like, no, you can't fire us because it is actually against the law. You are supposed to give 30 days notice for any Senate confirmed appointees as these are. So many of them are just saying, no, you can't fire us.

I don't know what happens after 30 days, but regardless, again, it's like, okay, even if there were reports by inspectors general, what's going to come of that? Even if they stayed in their jobs.

I like the idea of Jamie Raskin talking about psychology in the terms of authoritarianism. I follow a lot of people who were either in cults before or cult-y, conversionalist people. And a lot of them are saying that in their experience with cults, there will come a point where people start to get sick of this. They realize that it's not serving them or they're personally infected. And what safe spaces for them to land in are there? Because a lot of people who are

our MAGA feel like, well, I have to stay MAGA because every time my kids don't talk to me anymore, my this doesn't happen, that doesn't happen. And I'm not saying you need to subject yourself to MAGA, but I do think that some of us need to be thinking ahead. I'm like, what is the soft place for former MAGA to land if we're to overcome this? And also I had to...

like claw my parents back a little bit. And it's only been a couple days and they didn't vote for Trump. They're not Trump or people. They're very liberal people if you were to ask them questions. But then if you were to ask my dad, like, you know, are you a Republican or a Democrat? He might say he's a Republican. And I was like, I asked, I was like, Pop, what do you think about Trump letting the January Sixers out?

And he was like, well, Biden did a bunch of – I was like, oh, shit, because it's a test, right? You got to kind of see where they're at. And I was like, oh, no, no. No, you know what? We're not going back to making excuses for things when we feel uncomfortable. So I was like, here's my deal with you. If he does something good, I will say, oh, wow, that was really good. He did that good thing. But when he does something bad, you got to be on my side, Pop. You got to be with me. When he overturns gay marriage, I'm going to need your help. And he's like, he's not going to do that. I was like, Pop, he is.

Now, me and Natalie are prepared for that. We did the nine documents from the episode that we had the gay lawyer on, and we're all set with our estate, and we're going to be safe. But Pop, when he overturns gay marriage, you should be on my side, okay? You're going to have to say that one was bad. And he was like, well, that would be horrible. And I'm like, right. But I'm getting nervous too, you know, about like sort of the casual Maganus. There's extreme Maganus, and there's this sort of like casual Maganus. Also was talking to my secret friend, Megan McCain, who was saying,

She is seeing in conservative circles where people were formerly never Trumps, they're almost giving up. They're kind of just like, well, I guess I might as well be MAGA or well, I guess I'm comfortable with it or well, it kind of feels like.

It just is how it is now. That is the party now. And she's like been quite surprised at how comfortable people who fought Trump more in the first term are not this time. And I'm like, we cannot become a wash with authoritarianism and be okay with it. Well, the reason for that I'm guessing is a combination of cognitive dissonance and social incentives. Like it's just easier to let go rather than fighting this. And, um,

They have to just sort of let go with some of their psychological discomfort. I think there was kind of permission created by the election results and the way people are reacting to it and the way that America's sketch of what seems to be happening to itself is.

feels very different than the sketch that the rest of the world is seeing. Like, for example, I don't know if I really saw this anywhere on social media, but there were global anti-Trump protests on Inauguration Day. And did anyone know that, see that? That was not featured in any newspapers or on any cable channels. I didn't even, I saw it on The Guardian. And that

meant something in 2017 when he was first inaugurated. Now it does feel like we're just...

the wave is going to crash onto us. But the reason for that, in my view, is not because people are okay with it. It's because what are you going to do? Raw power concedes nothing. Right. I also felt a lot of camaraderie with international community over the fact that Elon Musk did a stiff-armed Nazi salute. Whether that's my opinion or the truth, I don't care. I know what I saw. And a lot of people across the world know what they saw. And what I also saw was a bunch of random people

folks on the internet, mostly older white women and like in their 60s, like late 60s, being like, my heart goes out to you on TikTok and doing the salute. But they were sort of weak arming it, but pretending like they did what he did. And I'm like, you know what you saw.

You know what he did. You don't have to agree with that. You could say that's not okay, and you should. Anti-Defamation League, though, gave him a little bit of room there saying it wasn't a Nazi salute, which I'm, of course, disappointed in, but is what it is. I don't think now, as Ben Wickler is in the waiting room, is the time for us to get into the Anti-Defamation League. But perhaps one day I can talk about what I think about what has happened to the Anti-Defamation League.

But if you are looking at a preponderance of evidence for what Elon Musk's gesture was...

Elon Musk appeared remotely at a campaign rally for Germany's far-right party, Alternative for Deutschland, which many of you remember got put on the map on this podcast, obviously. Yeah, because we had the AFD email and luckily one of our German viewers was like, guys, I don't think you want to do that. Don't use that acronym. And it's true.

He appeared at one of their campaign events on video. And they're, just to be clear, they are the reincarnation of the old Nazi party.

And he was saying to them, Germans, yeah, that is like their platform. Germans are made to feel too guilty about what their ancestors did. It's like, okay, like maybe you think so. That's a white supremacist thing, though. He's taken that from American slavery and saying we have to get out. I know. Yeah. So that's what we have going on right now. Let's ask Ben what he thinks about it. Yes. When we come back, we are going to have Ben Wickler join us to talk about the Democrats and more.

I'm fired up. This is a terrifying time for the country, but a time when, you know, actually having something to do to fight back is maybe the only thing that alleviates the horror. Oh my God, I feel you so much on that.

Ben Wickler, thanks for being here with us today. You are running right now to be the DNC chair. What is giving you the hope and the energy to do that right now? The hope is kind of driven by necessity. We're in a moment of national crisis. All of our communities are under attack. This administration has no regard for the law. It's willing to do just about anything to have total power to deny people's very existence. And what gives me hope is

I do think that there are millions of people who, if they see a way that they can fight back, they will rise to that moment. Honestly, my hope is mostly driven by looking back at the history of the country, that when these kinds of attacks come, movements arise to fight back. And I think I'm running for DNC chair because I think we need that kind of movement and that kind of fight and that kind of energy. And I want to build the Democratic Party to be worthy of that energy in these years to come so that we can make sure we actually win elections and win the power to be able to fight for people's lives across this country.

So coming off of the electoral loss that was like such a bummer and still hurts my soul to this day, where do you think we can improve? I know the number one thing people say is the Democrats are, quote, bad at messaging, which I don't always necessarily agree with that they're bad at messaging, but maybe bad at picking which platforms to message on.

You have championed the idea of using a lot of new media coming up. How is that being received? What do you think new media will do differently? So there's a real hunger. I've been calling the 448 members of the DNC. People get that we miss the boat on the fact that at least half of voters don't watch TV now, that people spend time with creators and with influencers on podcasts and streaming. And there's a whole bunch of different platforms where Democrats rarely show up.

Most people in the party don't actually spend time in these places themselves, and this is unfamiliar territory. And a lot of our elected officials, this is not this place where their minds go.

And so to change this, what we need to do is build teams of people for whom this is a first language, not a second language, to build an operation that is building trust and relationships with creators so that when something happens, we can send a DM or a signal message or whatever it might be and actually start communicating right away and help shape the conversation.

And that's a lot of what we've done in Wisconsin. We've worked with influencers and creators across the country and in our state. We've built up a network of hundreds of people who are kind of micro amplifiers across Wisconsin. And it's had a big effect when Republicans tried to impeach our state Supreme Court justice last year. We sounded the alarm and created a national kind of news cycle and a national hurricane on social media. And the Republicans backed down because we were moving faster than they were on more platforms and in more places.

So we need that kind of war room apparatus at the national party and in state parties across the country. And we need to work in partnership with the amazing communicators who are doing this, who right now can't get a call returned from Democratic politicians who are often doing, you know, fighting for exactly the right things.

Sammy and I have talked about that. We're like, listen, there are some people in the podcasting world who could call up Obama and he'll come on their show. And sometimes it's difficult for folks like us who have considered a fairly big show, like a medium big show, to get folks to call you back or to do a podcast because, yeah, there is this overfocus on like, well, the senator is saving themselves for TV or, well, you could find out what they have to say on MSNBC tonight. Do you feel like you're in struggle at all with the establishment for getting things like

money allocated to driving up these new media sources and helping make sure that this is a sustainable structure? Are you getting pushback from some of the older establishment Democrats about like, but they like going on TV and they don't want to go on a podcast? Like how much can we actually believe that you're going to be able to really shepherd this change? So losing focus is people's minds. And the fact that we lost ground in every single state and DC in this last election for the first time in 50 years is

that has launched a new conversation. The real question is who can execute this? And then if I'm elected to the DNC chair, then the real question is about money and about time and all these things. One of the ways that we solve this

is by having more communicators, by working with a broader array of people. Right now, the National Party, you know, just structurally, it's not really built to work with like state attorneys general and state legislators who are amazing. You know, Mallory McMorrow, who has endorsed my campaign, just amazing communicator. She's a state senator in Michigan. And the National Party should be working with people who are really compelling communicators across the country. And by doing that, we can have a lot more surface area and, yeah,

Let's go on MSNBC, but let's also go on your show and let's go on, you know, 25 other things tomorrow to shift the national conversation about what Trump is doing. Like this is, this is emergency territory and you need to, I think we can build something a lot bigger fast if we expand the frame on who gets to go out and speak. Um,

I will obviously do this as DNC chair if I'm elected, but we're going to need a ton of communicators who have trust in a ton of different communities and across race and ethnicity and geography and gender and gender identity, like all the different communities. There are amazing folks who we can work with together to share a message that actually unites people around the fight for a country that works for everybody. And that is the kind of country Trump is trying to destroy. No.

Now, within the Democratic Party, there are these sort of like little movements or even big movements like the Working Families Party, right? They caucus with the Democrats, but they're technically like their own party or the independents. Do you have a plan for bringing those folks and those coalitions that are already built that have Democratic-leaning priorities into the big house? You know, the Democratic Party is part of a much bigger ecosystem. We often – we say this on our team in Wisconsin. We are one thread in the broader movement in our state.

And sometimes different parts of the ecosystem are going to disagree about different things. And that's OK. The point of coalition work is to find the places where you have common values and then work on those things. And so this is a big part of the cultural approach that I've taken in Wisconsin that I've

in my previous hat when I was at MoveOn that I worked with the DNC and elected officials. And sometimes not everyone was on the same side of everything. But being in communication with each other, having regular interactions within the law, certain laws about what we can actually talk about, but making sure that we identify, we understand each other's strategies and different roles. And then when there's a huge fight where everyone can lend a hand, we're ready to do that and jump in.

That's how we're going to win. Politics is the art of addition. If you're just constantly subtracting and subdividing and building silos,

The other side is going to use those as a chance to just break us apart. Like, we know that that's what they do. So finding the common thread and common values, that's how we build something big enough to take on the richest people in the world who are now running our government to try to rig the entire country to rip off everyone and enrich themselves. There are like 15 people running for Democratic chair. What makes you different than the rest of the field? Why should folks trust you? I think my unique role in this field is that

I come from an organizing background and helped to build a huge coalition, for example, in the fight against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the gutting of Medicaid. I've worked in roles in kind of movement organizations, in campaigns, in new media, hosted my own podcast for years. And as state party chair in Wisconsin, I was in a state that Republicans had rigged. They smashed unions. They suppressed votes. They gerrymandered maps. They changed the campaign finance laws. They did everything they could to ensure total control.

and made Wisconsin start to look like a red state. And we've been fighting back year over year. And to do that, we've enlisted the support of like hundreds of thousands of people across the country who'd never thought about working with a state party before. We've grown and supercharged this thing and we've unrigged Wisconsin. We finally had fair maps. We flipped 14 state legislative seats. We restored a whole bunch of voting rights in our state. We added votes in 2024 while democratic turnout was going down in most of the country.

And it doesn't mean you win everything. There was still even more Republican turnout in the presidential race, but those voters turned out for Trump. They didn't turn out for the rest of the Republican ticket. And on the Democratic side, we won our U.S. Senate race, sent Tammy Baldwin back, and flipped all these state legislative seats that put us on track for majorities. And I think Republicans are going to try to rig this whole country now. And we need someone who has been on the front lines of that kind of fight and fought back successfully, I think, to supercharge the national party in a moment of national crisis.

Some of the criticism on the Democrats in the last DNC was the over-reliance on establishment figures and celebrities and stuff like that. If you were to put the DNC on tomorrow, who would some of the speakers that you'd most want to hear from be? Who do you think would best represent getting the party re-engaged and re-excited? I actually think the most powerful messengers very often are people who are directly affected by policies.

You want to find people who are like, you know, really good at communicating and compelling and telling their story. But it's stories. It's people's stories that are the way that the human mind processes things. Like we don't collect percentages. We collect stories and narrative. So having people who are directly affected by what Trump and Republicans are doing now and then what Democrats are actually fighting for, which is a country that works for all of us.

That's how you build the deep connection, the identification. You want to have a huge diversity of people who tell a common story about the kind of country that we want to build. And I think we have a chance to do that in the way that the party communicates and fights all the way through the next convention and beyond. And if we can put people back at the center of the conversation,

The Republicans just, you know, they're against a country that works for people. So this is winning ground for us. It's also what our values are, and it's also the path to victory. That makes a ton of sense. When it comes to supporting, you know, small government, state-level legislatures, all the way down to like even school boards, what's your advice to people out there who might want to be their own little Ben Wickler organizer? So my recommendation is to find a fight where if you do everything right,

you have a chance to be able to win and make a difference. I mean, there's a lot of fights where it's important just to speak and represent our values. But the thing that energizes people and gets them to come back over and over is the sense that when we take collective action, when we all work together to do something, that we win. And so if you're in a hyper-red state, find the state legislative race that can break the Republican supermajority or find the mayor campaign where if you all throw it on together, you can defeat the person who's

you know, so terrible and, and have someone who actually represents your values. And after, after you do a fight like that, win or lose, especially if you win, you can all look at each other and say, we just did that. Like now think about what we can do next. That's, that is my experience has been when we can direct energy, we can bring everyone together around fights where pouring our hearts and souls into it. We actually make a difference and can see the difference in people's lives and

that's what creates the renewable resource of political energy. And so if you're a kid, Ben Wickler, when I was in high school, I organized to try to get a student seat in our school board and then organize students in our state to lobby the state legislature for increased public school funding. And we got $20 million in expanded public school funding. That's pretty good for high school. And well, we had this experience of being like, oh my God, we actually did that. And now a whole bunch of people who are involved in that work in national politics. And I think that there's,

those kinds of fights, when you do something that you know it matters, that helps form your own identity as somebody who can be part of something that actually makes a difference. And that's, I think, what we're all called to do right now. So that would be my advice. I will often say starting the Recycling Club in sixth grade was like a really fortifying experience for me as a child and certainly something that I carried with me throughout. It's like the first time you have a chance to feel like

the adults don't just direct at you, right? And that's kind of what we're looking for now. We're looking for the ability to feel like the establishment isn't directing down on us. So can people vote for you or who's going to vote for you? And when is the election?

There's 448 voters. The election is February 1st. If you're a DNC member watching this, first of all, congratulations on tuning into where conversations are actually happening now. And secondly, I'd be honored to have your vote. And if you're not a DNC member, you can go to BenWickler.com and sign up. You can help amplify stuff online. If you know anyone on the DNC, you can give them a ring. I'd be grateful for everyone's support. Because they can call their congressmen and stuff, right? It's like the Democratic congresspeople, senators.

There's nine members of Congress. There's three governors. There's, you know, it's a weird list, but it is worth engaging if you know someone. All right. Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on today. You've got my support, Ben. I've followed your career for a long time, and I really appreciate the way that you make space for people. You're a really interesting guy in the way that you are.

such an actionable listener. There's like active listeners who are like, you know, they're engaging with you, but I could always see like the wheels turning where you're like going to have a real answer of something we could do at the end. And I think that's something that, of course, this party needs that agility. So I hope you win. Fingers crossed for you. And we'll see you. We'll find out February 2nd or 3rd, right? Yes. United Fight win. Thank you so much.

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