Community and Connection: The Antidotes to Authoritarianism, with Sulma Arias

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

[00:00:00] Sound on Tape: This podcast is presented by Convergence, a magazine for radical insights. 

[00:00:07] Sulma Arias: This, we’re like breeding grounds for isolation sometimes. And so I think that the antidote to authoritarianism is connection. And I believe at the core. Organizing is about connecting people about collective thought that then leads to collective action

[00:00:41] Scot Nakagawa: Welcome to the anti authoritarian podcast a project of the 22nd century initiative I’m Scott Nakagawa, one of your hosts. 

[00:00:49] Sue Hyde: Hello friends. I’m co-host Sue Hyde Scott and I first joined forces about 30 years ago to help defeat anti L-G-B-T-Q ballot measures proposed by Christian authoritarian groups. 

[00:01:02] Scot Nakagawa: It was as true then as it is now that those of us who believe in democracy make up a supermajority of people in this country.

[00:01:09] The challenge is, how do we go from being the majority to acting like the majority? 

[00:01:14] Sue Hyde: We dig into strategy questions like these and prescriptions for change. We talk with expert guests and commentators whose scholarship, political activism, and organizing Define the cutting edge of anti authoritarian resistance.

[00:01:30] Thank you for joining us.

[00:01:37] Scot Nakagawa: We know that becoming an effective countervailing force in the fight to preserve and expand upon the democratic potential of the U. S. is a heavy lift. It is one that will require us to rethink Retool and build. All of that can feel like a big lift for community leaders already fighting to meet the basic needs of their communities.

[00:01:56] I feel that sense as well, being overwhelmed. But if we aren’t part of the effort to fight back against authoritarianism, the struggle over democracy becomes a fight among elites, and whichever side wins will position itself to become the prevailing power without us. Given all of that and what we know from looking back at how we got here, what do we do if a countervailing power is to rise?

[00:02:24] Don’t we all need to be all in? 

[00:02:26] Sue Hyde: The estimable Sulma Arias brings over 20 years of organizing experience to her role as Executive Director for People’s Action Institute and People’s Action. Solma immigrated to Kansas from El Salvador at the age of 12 and eventually led Sunflower Community Action, where she worked on training organizers and building a base of volunteers to fight for driver’s licenses and tuition access for immigrants.

[00:02:55] And fighting harmful policies during the Chris Kobach era in Kansas. Sulma worked for people’s action on national campaigns and strengthening community organizing and also led the fair immigration reform movement in the fight for immigration reform. And against harmful policies coming out of the Trump administration.

[00:03:16] Soma rejoined people’s action in 2022 and is leading the charge to build a nationwide organizing revival to rebuild and reinvigorate the field of organizing. Welcome to the anti authoritarian podcast, Sulma. 

[00:03:33] Sulma Arias: Thank you. It is great to be here. Again, I’m Sulma Arias. I am the executive director of People’s Action.

[00:03:41] I would say that I bring to my role different journeys and identities. I’m an indigenous woman. I’m an immigrant. I’m a woman of color and I bring that into all of the work that I do. And I am here particularly and in this role at this moment because I happen to be a firm believer in organizing and the power that it has to transform people and meet people, as we say in organizing meet people where they are and do our best not to leave them there.

[00:04:15] Scot Nakagawa: It’s a real pleasure to have you on, Soma. You referenced being an immigrant. I know a little bit about you, and so I know that you are like many immigrants in the United States in that you came here to escape a repressive regime, in your case from El Salvador. And of course, you got here, and you ended up in epic battles with authoritarians like Kansas Attorney Chris Kobach on both immigration and voting rights, and similar fights with the Trump administration, another authoritarian administration, when you led the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

[00:04:46] The current immigration policy debate in Congress is to the right of what Democrats used to consider beyond acceptable. Given that immigrants Are the authoritarian movements number one scapegoat and target? How can we reframe this debate and stop the scapegoating that is dividing what should be a multiracial pro majority, a pro democracy rather, a majority?

[00:05:10] Sulma Arias: Yeah that is the question of the moment. Again, grateful to be here and with all of you to talk about that. Yeah, I think you reference, my, my journey here and as an, an immigrant from El Salvador who flee the country right after the U. S. intervention there that sort of, drove thousands of us out of the country and which, the United States intervened in the civil war there, like I, like many people flew the country and made a home here in the state of Kansas at the, since the age of 13 years old, at that time, when I came to the state of Kansas, I did grow up in the church.

[00:05:52] I, I grew up in the church, did a lot of my work in the church as part of that work that was happening. By the evangelical church in the eighties to really bring in and pull a lot of us immigrants into into that world. And so I grew up in church building. I became a mother in Kansas and I talk about the way that I related to the world that was around me.

[00:06:16] I, was in, in many ways. Because I was part of a church system of a small town of a state where I’m from El Salvador, I felt many times very small and disconnected from the broader community. For me, that began to change at the moment that an organizer from people’s action knocked on my door.

[00:06:43] And I believe that just as that moment changed my life, we as organizers. Funders and advocates have that precious responsibility today, right? So all of us worry about what you just named, Scott, this, the fascism, the demise of democracy that are knocking on our very front door. And, I remind a lot of people, organizers today that we already know what to do.

[00:07:12] The answer is in all of us. And the answer, it’s in us and in our neighbors in coming together. And in shaping the life we deserve with the person next door to us, our neighbor whether they look like us or not. And I know that because I was that neighbor. And I know that because all the work that I’ve done in the state of Kansas, I could not have done by just pulling together people who looked like me.

[00:07:41] We had, we knew even when we were going up against, Chris Kobach, that there was a lot behind Chris Kobach. There was money behind Chris Kobach and there were a lot of lies and that we couldn’t go at We know we, even back then, we knew we had to build a multiracial coalition of people who saw what was behind the man and what their ultimate motives were.

[00:08:07] And, I guess growing up in a state of Kansas where you actually don’t have the electoral power, you need to win. You actually. I think that I lean and orient towards building and getting to know the neighbor and actually connecting people around a shared a shared identity and also a shared self interest to advance the kind of this is our home.

[00:08:33] This is our state. This is my home. I’m from El Salvador, but I live here. I’ve lived here most of my life. This is where I have a burial ground and this is where I will be buried. So this is my home. And I think beginning as a immigrants to see this place as a home and our shared interest in building the best community that we can for our kids is the same interest that all other Kansans have.

[00:08:56] And so when we went against a an authoritarian and a fascist and, a right winger that Chris Corbett. is we knew we couldn’t do it alone and we knew that what was at stake was much more than Then justice man, right? It was Our very own democracy and who we are as Kansans

[00:09:20] Sue Hyde: last year, People’s Action Institute published a great white paper called the antidote to authoritarianism, how an organizing revival can build a multiracial pluralist democracy and an inclusive economy in the paper. You make a strong case that a revival of community and worker organizing is key to stopping authoritarianism.

[00:09:50] Why do you believe that’s true? 

[00:09:53] Sulma Arias: Yeah, I, I think it’s because of the reason that everything, when we are isolated from one another, I think it’s, it’s the, it’s that darkness and that void of connection which connection itself, I think it’s light. because it brings to bear or it brings to light something about that person that we didn’t know.

[00:10:15] And I, and to me, I think about, I think a lot about that experience with Chris Kobach and precisely why the right wing used places that nobody else was paying attention to the backyards of our homes in places like rural America and places like Kansas where, this were like breeding grounds for isolation sometimes.

[00:10:39] And so I think that the antidote to authoritarianism is connection. And I believe at the core. Organizing is about connecting people about collective thought that then leads to collective action. And it’s in the connecting and coming out of the isolation that we discover one another.

[00:10:59] And it’s in discovering one another and in sharing our, our concerns about our neighborhoods and our concerns about the future and our understanding of things that are happening to each other. And each other’s stories that we also find solutions and we find creativity, inspiration, and ideas that, that we can move forward together.

[00:11:20] I think at the very core, that is the essence of the antidote that we need to fight authoritarianism because authoritarianism bets on us not trusting each other and in us being isolated for it to succeed. And so I think that the antidote is organizing because. It’s the opposite of that. It’s about bringing.

[00:11:44] People are on a shared interest. Together are on a shared interest.

[00:11:53] Sound on Tape: Hi there. This is Caden, the publisher of Convergence, and the host of our weekly news magazine, Block and Build. If you’re enjoying this show, I’d love to invite you to join me every Friday for a breakdown of the headlines with the kind of insight and analysis you’ve come to expect from Convergence magazine.

[00:12:09] I also get to go deep with movement journalists about their crucial reporting and get exclusive insights from some of the most strategic organizers fighting for the world that we deserve. If you’re looking for a break from the news cycle that feels grounded and strategic, come along for the ride. You can find Block and Build wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe today.

[00:12:27] I hope this helps.

[00:12:28] Scot Nakagawa: We seem to be facing an attempt to and a part of some people to rule as a minority. And so getting together a popular majority to exercise collective power, it seems like the right antidote that might also teach us in the process how to be the kinds of leaders we need to be. And just the seed of the genius of that and the work that you do is really something that I’ve admired for a long time.

[00:12:48] But speaking of that organizing revival, it sounds like something that everyone who is on the front lines of authoritarian attacks needs to take seriously. We obviously need more power. That’s really plain. So How can the pro democracy movements and movement and its constituent organizations across communities and issue fronts more explicitly orient itself to build more power?

[00:13:16] Sulma Arias: Yeah. And I think, the idea of needing an organizing revival and, we are very clear that, as we think about what it takes to build A strong democracy, right? And we’re talking about not even going back to the, the democracy before Trump. We understand that we must build a stronger democracy that finally uplifts everyone in America, right?

[00:13:45] Or everybody who has been silenced for so many generations. And that is the kind of democracy that I know I’m here for and that I’m trying to fight for so that is the legacy and the work that I at least my children and grandchildren Will live in and thrive in and that’s the reason why I do the work that I do, but I think It is on everybody’s interest in this moment to I come at it from having been transformed as a, as an immigrant woman who crossed the border, who grew up in Kansas, who.

[00:14:19] Brought communities together to fight around a shared common interest for the kind of state that we wanted to build. And I did it through organizing and I did it, I’ve done it and I continue to do it through connecting people. That is my lane and that is what I believe in. I think that what it will take and it definitely at the time that, a lot of us are looking for that connection, it definitely takes that connection and that, on the ground organizing.

[00:14:48] But it also takes many other forms, right? It takes the consistent investment in what we call the evergreen of organizing, right? It takes the strategies of communication and digital strategies. It takes electoral strategies and it takes Many forms of, work and even research so that the white paper was beautiful in its form because we came together as practitioners and said, This is where we’re seeing where the field is depleted.

[00:15:18] And so we brought together other, academics and funders to say, this is how we see this problem. How do you see it? And so I think that the, there was, there’s agreement on, we don’t have enough power and we all can be doing our part to build what needs to be built in order for us to confront the threats that we see coming, not only the threats of fascism and authoritarianism, but the threats of climate change.

[00:15:46] Isolation. And while in organizing, we can work on climate issues to to pass the policies that we need for better climate policies, what organizing can also do is build resilient communities that rely on themselves to do the very, the very minimum to really understand at its core.

[00:16:08] How not only to just work for pro climate solutions, but also to build just the everyday resilience. Our community needs to work together around solidarity and other types of solutions that we haven’t even thought about because we haven’t had the right people at the table. So that’s what I believe that organizing can do when we’re facing a, a set of overlapping crisis.

[00:16:35] Scot Nakagawa: You mentioned the word strategy. So in terms of strategy, it feels like we’re in the middle of a big, broad rejection of government and consolidated power in general, that people have grown very cynical of government. At a time when it seems to me that it’s really important for us to be trying to work with government or at least to win power within government.

[00:16:56] So What is it going to take for us to reorient the field to really thinking about power in concrete terms, not just about democracy as a kind of utopian concept, but about the structures and the rules and the processes we need to win in order to ensure equitable democracy can continue to advance into the future?

[00:17:15] Sulma Arias: Yeah. That is such a great question, Scott. I it’s just, talking to someone over the weekend about, we say that there might be just a lot of apathy towards anything. There’s no belief that anybody at the, at the electoral, the governmental level can change anything.

[00:17:33] And, I see a lot of that. I, as a woman who comes from a very conservative background, have been doing organizing for 22 years in, sometimes what we call secular or more progressive spaces. I still talk to a lot of people who, a lot of people from the church or even some of my family who, voted Republican in 2016, who even in my own family have like very.

[00:18:01] different ideas than or understanding about what government can do for them or does for them. So I think that we’re in a moment where it’s important to like break, we’re not, we in the progressive movement are never going to have the amounts of billions of dollars that The Republican, the, or the MAGA billionaires are spending to misinform and twist truths across, the people and everybody, even my family that’s watching TikTok and that’s how they get their news, right?

[00:18:33] But I do think that it’s important for us to be intentional about being on the ground, connecting to people and don’t I think we sometimes take for granted that it’s not just apathy. It’s actually that people need to have conversations and have make meaning with people differently. And I think what happens is that a lot of us, especially like in the last, five, six years, a lot of us in the progressive movement, even organizers are not able to engage in conversations with people who don’t believe like us, right?

[00:19:07] Who immediately like, I was, I’m going to just to share a very quick story. I was with my husband over the weekend celebrating our anniversary. We’re sitting next to a a couple that my husband knows and my husband goes to say, hi, actually it’s four people. And the person immediately says.

[00:19:25] Oh, I know you, you are such and such person, and you are a you’re a Democrat and I’m a conservative, so we don’t have any more discus that is the first thing that he says, right? And so we have gotten so used to describing ourselves by our, Our political parties or ideologies that we actually on both sides aren’t even relating to just say, Hi, we were there listening to the same concert, right?

[00:19:50] So that we had that in common. At least we like that. But we come from very polarized Conversations and way of looking at the world that we’re actually not seeing each other. We’re seeing past each other. We are talking past each other. So I think that one incredible opportunity that we have both across the board at this moment for both Progressives, conservatives, Republicans who want to do better.

[00:20:14] And Democrats is just going to reach to each other as human beings and actually connect and have conversations. We may walk out of those conversations. Maybe nothing changed in the in the moment, but we will walk out with a different perspective about the other person. I think if we want to build power, we in organizing believe that we do that by bringing a number of people bringing people together to think together and to act together.

[00:20:40] And so if we want to do that, we got to be talking to everybody, not just people who are in our, in the same realm of 

[00:20:47] Scot Nakagawa: thought. Yeah. I just love that organizers have such faith in people. 

[00:20:54] Sulma Arias: Yeah, we got to. And I think it’s just to me, I, and I tell young, especially young organizers this Scott, that if we wake up as organizers every moment if you don’t wake up with that curiosity, and it’s interesting because I, before coming to organizing 22 years ago, I did a lot of work.

[00:21:11] And the church built church building. And to me, it’s you gotta have the love for people. And even when you find, you may be knocking on doors, you may have people like completely say things that, sometimes it is discouraging, right? When you’re knocking on the door and people say, Oh, I don’t want to talk to you because I already know you’re a progressive and I’m a conservative.

[00:21:30] So we have nothing to talk about. And if you stop there and if you don’t go deeper and you just walk to the next door. You could probably miss an opportunity to really get deeper, and at the same time, it can be discouraging. But every day, we as organizers Have to wake up with hope that if you keep knocking and if you keep going deeper in the conversations That you will get somewhere you will be transformed and others will be transforming in the process as well 

[00:21:59] Sue Hyde: so sulama to go from a Really big picture to an issue that affects Almost everyone in this country.

[00:22:10] I want to ask you about a recent article You used shopping in the supermarket to illustrate the people behind the rising costs, the big corporations and the wealthy that benefited tremendously from the Trump tax cuts and who have continued to raise prices. Despite falling inflation. So how did that example help people make new meaning of this problem that they face every time they go to the grocery store?

[00:22:44] And how did it help people make meaning for who is actually responsible for what they see at the grocery store in terms of prices? Oh 

[00:22:52] Sulma Arias: my God. Yeah. I wrote that article thinking about Some of the same thing that I hear, from friends, from family, again, people that I talk to every day.

[00:23:04] And I and, after a while I kept hearing it and it’s, it can be frustrating thinking, oh my God, this has nothing to do with, with the current person in office. And and so this was also, this article was also my own reflection. And I think it’s also responsibility for us as progressive to actually.

[00:23:22] Meet people where they are like I have I was a single mom, you know some years ago Actually going to the grocery store with that same fear of things are just getting expensive I could hardly afford what I was buying. So I understand that, most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and Thinking the only way they make meaning of the changing world around us is through Is it because we have to go to the grocery store every day and you’re a dollar, a hundred dollars is buying a lot less 60, a hundred dollars is buying 65.

[00:23:55] What he used to buy 10 years ago. Versus what he used to buy 10 years ago. So I do understand, the things are that is the reality that we’re living. So how do you help people understand about what’s happening and why that’s happening? And so I think we do have a responsibility. To go deeper with people and actually is such a.

[00:24:14] It’s such a conversation starter because in every conversation you ask people how they’re doing, what hurts, they’re going to say two things. They feel unsafe in our neighborhoods and things are just getting so expensive from the rent to food prices. So I think it’s important to make meaning with people about why that’s happening and, simply helping understand.

[00:24:35] Oh, did you know that, the CEO of Walmart actually made 25 million last year. And that’s what he takes home. Even though after COVID they raised prices for everybody. Prices never went down. They never lost a penny, instead they made more money. And that is the reality. That is the truth that, that is behind all the rising prices in our groceries.

[00:25:02] But it’s, that is also the truth behind what’s happening in our healthcare. And, the private industry UnitedHealth that is denying people’s Health coverage when they are making billions in earnings more than ever before, right? So at some point, you’ve got to point to the greed of corporations that are taking advantage of any political loophole to make more money that they won’t even be able to spend in their lifetime.

[00:25:33] And that is the reality of what’s happening. And most people, most Americans understand that, but they’ve never been told the truth. But what’s behind the cost and they will get it if they know the truth, but most people don’t.

[00:25:53] Scot Nakagawa: This podcast is presented by the 22nd Century Initiative, a hub for strategy and action for frontline activists, national leaders, and people like you. 

[00:26:03] Sue Hyde: At 22ci. org, you can sign up for our newsletter. You can learn from our anti authoritarian playbook, which includes resources. On how to block rising authoritarianism, bridge across the multiracial majority, and build an inclusive, pro-democracy movement in your community.

[00:26:29] Scot Nakagawa: Let’s get into some of the kind of nuts and bolts here. You referenced having to bring people together across lines of difference, like Republican members of your family and whatnot. I’m totally on board around that. And I know that you’re using a technique called deep canvassing in order to meet people where they’re at, wherever they might be at rather than having a kind of litmus test for how people join organizations and movements where we begin with, do you agree with me about the following things?

[00:26:57] And then everything else follows, right? What is deep canvassing and what have you discovered as you and of course, thousands of people that you’ve deployed? What have you learned as you’ve talked to people on the doors and on phones? 

[00:27:10] Sulma Arias: Yeah. So deep canvas is a methodology and a tactic that we use along with other organizing tactics, but what we’ve discovered in our.

[00:27:20] What four or five years of building up to the 2020 election, but from 2019, 2020, and especially in 2020, after, we discovered 20, 2020. And then when we discovered that, we were all like facing COVID and unable to actually get on the doors, we discovered that we could actually deploy and actually have deep conversations with people and those Not likely going to be with us.

[00:27:49] And at that, I think that at that time we were looking at two issues, the issue of climate and how do we talk to people around the green new deal and like, how do we actually connect 

[00:27:59] Sound on Tape: the 

[00:28:00] Sulma Arias: key about deep canvas, both on deep on climate. And at that time we were using climate and immigration as two of the issues where we know that we’re polarizing issues where people may not have been on the same page.

[00:28:12] Page with us, but the beauty of deep canvas is that both the person is walking in with a train, you’re being trained on the, on how to talk to people, but it’s also not just the training and the tactic and the methodology itself is actually having as a human being, the disposition to actually be in a space with somebody.

[00:28:35] Either in the space, face to face or on the phone with someone who, it doesn’t agree with you and you’re not walking away. You’re actually trained. What are the questions that I need to ask in order to find connection with this person? And this woman, Ebony in down at down home, North Carolina, who talks about it so beautifully and has done the team that has done such an incredible job of reaching people.

[00:28:59] Across the spectrum, race and issue and place a lot in a lot of rural spaces, is that there is a curiosity that you expect to go into the conversation. To change, you are supposed to learn something. So it’s almost taking your hat off that I know everything I want to know about this issue, and I’m going to convince this person to think like me.

[00:29:22] Every conversation it, it’s about opening up the curiosity and through, questions that you’re trained to ask. And it’s more of a training, it’s more of a discipline, like you listen and you ask questions and you listen, right? But the beauty and the transformation that happens in that moment is that you’re because you’re asking questions to try to find the connection Is that nine times out of ten in you asking those questions?

[00:29:46] You find the connection. Once you find the connection, you actually say, Oh, I have that too. My cousin or so and had the same experience and this is the connection. So it’s a really a beautiful conversation that is, is non transactional, right? It’s transformational and that’s the beauty of of deep canvas being done.

[00:30:08] Very explicitly knowing that you’re going to be talking to people that on any issue may not think like you. 

[00:30:17] Sue Hyde: Suoma the mission of the 22nd Century Initiative is to identify and strengthen Pro democracy majority in the United States, and I know that you also and people’s action also shares that as a goal, but I’m wondering, as you are doing your work, how are you helping people see themselves?

[00:30:44] As part of a pro democracy movement across a spectrum of issues and constituencies and organizations and other movements. Help us solve this riddle, Solma. 

[00:30:59] Sulma Arias: I can certainly help with my part because I just, I think that, the, I guess the practice or the journey that we are in this country, as we try to figure out how to govern and how to live and how to be together, it’s so fascinating to me to think about, where we’ve been You know, as a, as an indigenous woman from El Salvador coming from a country like a Salvador colonized for many years, like when did I, in my generation, see a kind of democracy that is truly representative of me, right?

[00:31:36] That I could decide and, or I could see, and I think, or in this country, right? With everything like, slavery and the genocide of indigenous people in this country and everything that has gotten us here. And the fact that We’re talking about democracy within enforcing a constitution that really, from the time it was written, wasn’t meant for people who looked like me, right?

[00:32:01] There were no people who looked like me in that room by gender or race, right? And so to try to imagine something different in this moment to me is really exciting, but it’s the task of organizers and people who still believe. That in this country, we can have a more perfect union and that more perfect union.

[00:32:23] It takes all of us. So it’s if I was in El Salvador, I am trying to build a stronger country with Salvadorians, right? But here in this United States, the diversity and the number of people that we are trying to bring together to form a multiracial democracy that mirrors something none of us have ever really known.

[00:32:43] Is incredible to me, and it’s a beautiful and it’s also very challenging task, right? So the way that we go about it here at people’s action is that we talk about. Governing, right? And that that, that is not the, it’s not only the destination, right? It’s what we’re doing now. We are learning in our institutions.

[00:33:02] We are learning in our neighborhood what it means to to breathe, to have everybody at the table, to imagine things together, how we want to be governed, how we want to govern and how to win a HUD, how are we inclusive to make sure that the ideas are truly. Involving those directly impacted communities of color who’ve never been represented before, but also that don’t leave anybody out, right?

[00:33:27] So if in the past, the people who were governing intentionally left people who look like me. And black people and indigenous people out of the governance ideas for governing and building a strong democracy that when we are in power, and when it’s our turn to govern, we don’t do the same. We actually the multiracial democracy that we want to build is inclusive and is stronger for being inclusive.

[00:33:53] And that is, that is the task that we had ahead of us. And not only are we working towards building it. So that in, in 10 or 20, or that it’ll be real when we’re able to get all of our people in positions of power and especially in Congress. and in governance, it’s actually alive now. And we practice it every day through our organizing when we decide that we want to stop sign in the corner because there’s been too many accidents there.

[00:34:19] And in that neighborhood, we want to bring people together and say where do we get the money to put up the sign that in itself is a beautiful practice of democracy and governance. And to me, that’s, what’s exciting about organizing, because it’s not like we, we’re just working for that. Decades, 500 years and 300 years from now, we’re actually practicing strong democracy every day when we organize and we are intentional about being inclusive of all the voices.

[00:34:46] that are impacted by those decisions. And that to me is exciting. 

[00:34:52] Scot Nakagawa: Exciting to me too. Especially at the scale that you’re doing it, it’s really quite a remarkable thing. I think it gives me a lot of hope. All right. Soma, in many states, your affiliated organizations are building governing power at the local level.

[00:35:09] Tell us more about what governing power means in the contest between authoritarian forces and multiracial majorities and what you’re doing about it. 

[00:35:16] Sulma Arias: Yeah. Yeah. I think that, organizing is at the core of what we do. Our vision for what we call a long term agenda, and especially as we, as we are looking at the next 10 years and how do we reverse a lot of the damage from this authoritarian forces in states where we’ve seen the majority of state trifectas go over the last 10 years.

[00:35:41] decade or two from blue trifexes to red, right? So our goal and part of the work that we’re doing over the, not just this electoral cycle, right? We know that we know that we are a long ways from getting what we want and what we need for our communities to be. Truly be in a place to govern.

[00:35:58] But I but what we’re doing is we’re looking at a 10 year span of time and we’re looking at. So what are the states in which we need a layered approach to? The organizing and base building that is the evergreen. What are the pipelines of people who we want to co govern with? That means that we’re looking at races, down ballot races in every state and at every level of governance so that we can actually build the pipelines of people who we want To look like us who we want to represent us right and on who also want to go or who also want to co govern with us.

[00:36:37] So we’re looking at the next 10 years and how do we, how will we move not only build organization, but also build the kind of co governance infrastructure by electing leaders into positions at every level. From school board to city council to mayor in different cities because we’ve realized that those positions matter and it matters in cities that are trying to define, school budgets or the investments in local communities.

[00:37:06] So up and down the ballot, we’re looking at states 10 years where we want to build governing trifectas with people who look like us and we want to train leaders who run for elections and it’s what we’ve been doing. I think in 2022 we endorsed over 200 candidates. At the local and city state level that actually came.

[00:37:30] Some of them came through our pipeline for candidate pipeline when we trade trained candidates to run for positions across the board. And for us, this is, this is part of the joy in the work. That people who come to our training, whether that be organizers training and fall in love with the vision of a governance structure where yes, we want to be in governance with people who look like us and who people and for who people who actually are accountable to the people who put them in office.

[00:38:01] That is a long term trajectory for us and everything that we do with our, electoral and governance models that we implement in the field are part of building that not just at the federal level, but also at the state level with a 10 year plan to turn 32 states so that’s for us is 10 more states where we can build the blue trifectas.

[00:38:24] Sue Hyde: Yeah Sulema your 10 year plan your big vision for co governance and people powered democracy is beautiful. And some of our listeners want to take action. So how can I get involved in people’s action? 

[00:38:43] Sulma Arias: Oh, I love that question because we actually have we have, we’ve been working to build the infrastructure, right?

[00:38:48] So that’s not so internal while we didn’t do need to do a lot of work internal. We’ve actually over the last six months have built enough infrastructure to actually begin to bring people in. So now, There’s at least three ways people can go to our website and join a deep canvas training orientation where they can learn everything about how they can begin to transform their lives and the lives of others, but being in community with other people and learning how to deep canvas and become part of that.

[00:39:18] There’s also a training, two other training opportunities. through our training modules that people can do online. The basics of organizing, which is, also monthly open to everybody. Go to the website, find opportunities. There’s at least three opportunities that you can take month to month if you want to learn basic skills of organizing.

[00:39:41] Transform your neighborhoods, your communities, and actually transform yourselves. Like in this, I think we’re in a world of everybody’s out looking to buy, what are the best greens that are going to help us be healthy or exercise. Actually being in connection to people is a number one thing that we can do to be healthy.

[00:40:01] And in organizing, who would have thought yes, you can actually Build very simple tools that help you be in deep connections with people. Deep canvas is one of them.

[00:40:14] Scot Nakagawa: All right. Some of this has been really inspiring. I just love that you are just so committed to people power, and I love that you escaped a repressive regime abroad, came to the United States, and saw these authoritarians pop up and decided, I’m not running, and are putting up a fight that I think we can all learn from.

[00:40:34] So thank you for all of that and for joining us here. 

[00:40:37] Sulma Arias: Thank you Scott. Hey, 

[00:40:49] Sue Hyde: thanks again for listening. Find more episodes of the Anti Authoritarian Podcast on all of your favorite platforms and also at 22ci. org and convergencemag. org. Direct links to these and other resources referenced in this episode are in the show notes.

[00:41:14] Sound on Tape: The Anti Authoritarian Podcast is created by the 22nd Century Initiative and published by Conversions Magazine. Our theme music is After the Revolution by Carsey Blanton and is licensed under Creative Commons. The show is hosted by Scott Nawa and Sue Hyde. Executive producers are James, mom and Tony Esberg.

[00:41:33] Our producer is Josh Stro and Yong Chan Miller is our production assistant.