Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence, with Hardy Merriman and Naomi Washington-Leapheart

This transcription was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

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

[00:00:07] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: A lot of the political violence that we see in our contemporary life gets cloaked by religious language and religious Dogma. I think that religious communities bear some responsibility, particularly Christian, let me say, American Christian communities bear some responsibility for creating an environment whereby violence can be sanctified, whereby violence can be morally justified.

[00:00:36] And so I think it’s important for people of faith, people of conscience who say, not in my name, not in the name of my faith. Must we allow this political violence?

[00:01:12] Sue Hyde: Hello friends, I’m co host Sue Hyde. Scott and I first joined forces about 30 years ago to help defeat anti LGBTQ ballot measures proposed by Christian authoritarian groups. 

[00:01:25] 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. The challenge is, how do we go from being the majority to acting like the majority?

[00:01:37] 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. Thank you for joining us.

[00:01:59] Scot Nakagawa: Researchers are warning that politically motivated violence and threats have been increasing, suggesting that a dangerous trend might be developing. Moreover, while most of the threats and acts of violence are being driven by authoritarians, the fear that this is driving up is affecting everyone. And members of both political parties are suggesting that defensive violence may be necessary.

[00:02:21] Here to help us make sense of this are two leaders of a new program co founded by the Horizons Project and the 22nd Century Initiative called Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence, or HOPE. For short, Hardy Malryman is first up. He is the author of the recently published Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence, a guide for those who want to take the offensive on political threats and violence and work collectively to make these incidents backfire.

[00:02:47] Along with Hardy, we have the Reverend Naomi Washington Lippard, a member of the community based team of trainers and activists who are adapting best practices around countering political violence, for a United States audience and bringing hope to the masses. First up with Hardy Merriman, here’s Sue Hyde.

[00:03:07] Sue Hyde: Hardy Merriman has worked in the field of civil resistance for over 20 years and has presented at workshops for activists and organizers around the world. Hardy is developing resources for practitioners and scholars, speaking widely about civil resistance movements with academics, journalists, and members of international organizations.

[00:03:31] and writing on the subject of civil resistance for a global audience. Links to some of Hardy’s work will appear in the show notes. Welcome, Hardy. 

[00:03:42] Hardy Merriman: Thank you, Sue. It’s good to be here. Thank you, Scott. 

[00:03:45] Sue Hyde: Nice to have you. Hardy, there seems to be some confusion about what is meant by the term political violence.

[00:03:53] Can you give us a good working definition of political violence and why understanding Political violence as a distinct problem is important. 

[00:04:03] Hardy Merriman: Absolutely, sure. There are a number of good definitions of political violence. I don’t think I have the only one, but I will offer the one that I use in the Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence guide.

[00:04:14] And to do that, there’s just two, there’s two pieces to it. The first, we have to define what we mean when we say violence. And the second, we have to define what we mean by political. And so here we use a very broad, or I use a very broad definition of violence to include acts of physical violence, but also threats and acts of intimidation and various forms of action like doxing or swatting that all serve to threaten and intimidate people.

[00:04:39] And make them fear for their physical safety. So that’s a broad definition of violence. And then for political, we actually is a fairly narrow definition of political. So here I talk about the sort of violence that is used with a political intention. It has to do with the intent of the perpetrator.

[00:04:54] The perpetrator has political goals. They’re trying to achieve a political outcome. They’re trying to silence political voices. They’re trying to make a specific political point. And when they have that intention and engage in violence, when we put those two together, that’s political violence. Now, violence has, any kind of violence has political implications.

[00:05:13] Structural violence, psychological violence, violent crime, all of it has political implications. But political violence is, again, has that specific political intent. And the reason it’s so important to look at that Peace is because political violence is really a fundamental threat to democracy. It attacks, not just the freeness and fairness of our election system.

[00:05:35] It also intimidates people all over society from truly exercising their democratic rights. Rights that were granted to them by the constitution of the United States. It causes people to feel less confident speaking out or to choose to not speak out at all. It causes public servants to choose not to run for reelection.

[00:05:54] It causes many qualified and talented people maybe to choose not to run for public office at all. It aims to influence the decisions of legislators. It aims to affect the way that the judiciary functions. So it actually is an attack on all of, on democracy as a whole. On every pillar that upholds our system, political violence aims to undermine it.

[00:06:15] No group is exempt. Democrats receive threats as do Republicans. Some groups such as women and people of color bear a disproportionate Number of threats, considering their representation in the system, and ultimately it affects everyone and this is why we really need to take it on at this moment in time, as the threats rise in, in public life in the United States, to say this is actually all of our problems to solve.

[00:06:41] Sue Hyde: So Hardy, according to one poll we know of, 80 percent of local officials, reported being threatened. Why is this happening so much at the local level and where does it lead? 

[00:06:56] Hardy Merriman: Yeah, there’s been a growth and an incitement of political violence. And I think we really have to start with looking at the role of inciters.

[00:07:05] Frequently, people look at, a particular individual targeting a particular other individual as the story. Why did, he, generally as a he, do it? Why did he threaten? Or why did he physically attack? But actually, what we’ve seen is a big change. Big growth in incitement, right? And incitement has a few qualities that I think are worth noting.

[00:07:25] So the first is that it, it takes a certain group and blames them, cast them as inherently guilty of some major problem. And the second thing is it tends to dehumanize them and say, Oh, they’re all the same and they’re all, again, collectively guilty and they’re all, they use this really inflammatory language to describe them.

[00:07:43] Comparing them to, whatever, disease threats to, claiming they’re traitorous, various really strong statements that then start to normalize and prime people psychologically that violence, could be used against them. And so that kind of rhetoric, that kind of innuendo really sets the stage for what we’re seeing.

[00:08:01] And. It’s interesting because you see some political leaders denounce political violence while simultaneously seeming to tolerate and sometimes even engage in the exact kind of rhetoric that drives it. So as that rhetoric has increased and becomes more normalized, we’ve seen threats increase dramatically.

[00:08:21] Yeah, it’s. Difficult to track threats, right? Many threats go unreported, but like one concrete thing we can track, for example, is threats to members of Congress that have been reported, because they tend to get reported and the U. S. Capitol Police track them. And so where we are right now with that is, threats started rising in 2016 or 2017 they peaked in 2021, they’ve gone down a little bit since then, but they’re still about double where they were seven years ago.

[00:08:46] And similarly, at the local level, as you mentioned, Sue, local elections officials and local elected officials are facing large numbers of threats, as are state legislators. And I think part of it is because a lot of threats emerge locally from local threat makers. But again, inciters incite those threats, and then they take a target that is local and convenient to them.

[00:09:09] That would be my guess. There is no single major psychological profile or like clear set of motives for every threat. So you can’t say that they’re all, one way or another. But that’s my general sentence, but there are also threats that can come from automated systems like AI.

[00:09:26] There are threats that actually seem local, but originate. from international sources. So it’s not surprising that as our society and our, as our democratic governance shows weakness, that even sometimes you have external forces or international forces that are also seeking to exacerbate, inject disinformation into the system, or sometimes even directly try to incite or engage in threats themselves.

[00:09:50] Sue Hyde: Hardy, we’ve seen some rather. I’m, I apologize. I’m going to use the word spectacular spectacular kinds of plots and intentions to, for instance kidnap a sitting governor that, that happened in Michigan. And then we also, I think see some more localized threats against Election workers in particular, and we have a very, I would say, fraught election coming up in November.

[00:10:27] What are your thoughts on election related threats and violence at this point? 

[00:10:37] Hardy Merriman: I think, look, if past is prologue then we’re gonna see more of them. So we saw them last time. I have seen little effort by some politicians to to increase, to to tone down that rhetoric.

[00:10:50] And so I expect it will probably be used again with predictable results. Last time it resulted in deeply unfair targeting of civil servants who are just doing their job running and administering elections is a professional track in this country. We’re glad it is. There are dedicated professionals who do it, who devote their career and their life to this service for our democracy.

[00:11:12] And when they’re targeted, again, it’s not just an attack on them. It’s an attack on all of us. And it’s an attack also that it’s important to keep in mind with political violence. There’s always two targets. One is the particular individual that is threatened or intimidated, but the other is all the onlookers, which is all of us, right?

[00:11:30] The goal is to try to get us to change our behavior, right? It’s fundamentally anti democratic to try to get an outcome in a democracy through threats of physical force. We’re supposed to do this through debate and institutions. So when one side believes that they can’t achieve their goals through debate and institutions anymore, we’ve seen in the last cycle, there was a temptation to start to say we need to start inciting threats.

[00:11:54] And unfortunately, I see little to indicate to me that wouldn’t be the case this time as well. I do, however, think that people are a bit more prepared this time. I think I have seen there is more, there are more laws that have been passed at the state level in particular that are primarily defensive in nature, like more resources for election protection more resources for training of election workers more resources for physical security greater public communications capacity by election officials.

[00:12:23] And I think those will matter. But the other piece of what we have to do here is change the cost benefit structure of the threat makers and the insiders, right? Because why do they keep doing this? They do this because it’s actually politically profitable for them, right? They get greater benefit from making the threats.

[00:12:40] Then they suffer in terms of costs of making those threats. And in the case of insiders, they also sometimes get economic benefits, right? Because they develop a big following that can be monetized. Until that cost benefit calculation changes for them, I think it’s going to be tough to completely curtail this problem, even as government does take, and sometimes in a bipartisan way, efforts to try to reduce the damage that these threats do, and hopefully try to reduce their incidence.

[00:13:06] But the incidents can’t really be, we can’t really turn the tide on it, in my view, until the cost benefit calculation changes. And that’s part of why this is a problem where I think all of us really need to say, this isn’t something government alone can solve. This is something where we need to think through where the threat’s coming from, what are their intentions, now what can we do to make sure that they backfire, to make sure that those who want to incite and make these threats don’t get the political outcome that they’re seeking.

[00:13:33] In fact, they get the opposite. 

[00:13:36] Sue Hyde: So Hardy, you’re the author of The Guide, Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence. Hope PV. It was commissioned by the 22nd Century Initiative and the Horizons Project, and the guide shares best practices for making threats and violence backfire, as you mentioned, making it backfire on perpetrators.

[00:14:00] by sharing some important backfire tactics. Can you just walk through the steps of making political violence backfire? Sure. 

[00:14:11] Hardy Merriman: Yeah. And I build on the work of Brian Martin and other scholars who asked a question decades ago, which was basically looking at when movements are nonviolent and are fighting for their human rights or democracy.

[00:14:24] Why is it that sometimes when violence is against is used against those movements, it doesn’t backfire. But other times it does. What are the things that movements that nonviolent activists can do to try to increase the cost that those who use violence pay when they use violence against those movements and what they identify.

[00:14:41] They started by identifying five tactics that are used by perpetrators and abusers to try to inhibit outrage. And when I say them, I think everyone will say, yeah, that makes sense, right? The first one is perpetrators and abusers try to cover up what they’ve done. They deny it ever happened. And they try to suppress information about it.

[00:14:59] The second is they try to devalue those whom they victimized. They claim they have low social value, that they deserved it, that they’re very different in a way that is marginalizing relative to the rest of the population. They do everything possible to try to say that person, yeah, okay, fine.

[00:15:14] Something may have happened but you shouldn’t concern yourself with them. They’re not like you. And then the third thing they do. is they try to reinterpret what happened as necessary, right? So they might say yes, some people may have been hurt, but it was in the name of restoring order.

[00:15:29] The police or whoever was just doing their job. Or they might say, it’s true actually that there were some bad things that happened, but it was just a few people who did them who got out of line. It’s not indicative at all of a systematic thing. Or they might say, a few things happened, but how bad was the damage really?

[00:15:47] Were people really that hurt? A few people might have suffered a few small things, but no one died. So why are we making a big deal out of this attempt to minimize what was done? The fourth thing that they’ll do is they’ll try to if they get, if the first three tactics don’t work, they have to accept that there needs to be some kind of process, some kind of process that gives the appearance of impartiality and justice.

[00:16:10] And they tend to like those processes to be very technical, to be closed, so that not many people can see what’s going on in them, and so that not many voices can be heard. It becomes very technical and legalistic about who gets to testify. It takes time, and the hope is that over the course of that time, that public outrage will die down.

[00:16:29] And then the fifth tactic they use is to do threats or intimidation, right? Threaten witnesses, threaten people to not speak, or bribe and reward them if they’re silent. Threats. So that’s their playbook, and it’s predictable. What’s really interesting is this playbook has been used all over the world.

[00:16:44] It’s used by autocrats. It’s used in democracies. It’s used at a very micro level, when there’s one on one perpetration and victim. It’s used at a macro societal level. So you know it’s coming when there’s abuse. Because you know it’s coming, you can start to think, what are the five things I can do to counter it, right?

[00:17:01] And then it becomes quite clear. Number one, reveal, right? The five R’s. This is when we go through reveal. Then two, redeem counter efforts to dehumanize. The third is reframe when they try to minimize or downplay what was done. You reframe it in a narrative that says, actually this is something that’s systemic, the abuse is real, it’s been ongoing, and we have some demands now that we need to make to change it.

[00:17:26] The fourth is redirect, right? So you don’t want to rely on institutional processes necessarily to try to deliver justice, but you can’t necessarily completely disengage either. So you try to redirect to keep the issue in the public domain, to keep it in to use institutional processes as mobilizing opportunities.

[00:17:45] Make demands of the process, give running commentary in the process, but keep people engaged. And then the fifth is resist, you resist threats, and you resist bribes, and you actually develop opportunity, you look at those as opportunities to create additional backfire. And that’s part of what the guide goes through is that five step process and applies it in particular to circumstances in the United States right now.

[00:18:08] Sue Hyde: Thank you, Hardy. I’m going to toss it over to Scott who will be speaking with Naomi about the upcoming opportunities to learn more and more. About to backfire strategies.

[00:18:24] SOT: Hello, I’m Marcy Ryan and I’m the print editor for Convergence. If you’re enjoying this show, like I am, I hope you’ll consider subscribing to Convergence. We’re a small independent operation and rely heavily on our readers and listeners like you to support our work. You can become a subscriber at convergencemag.

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[00:19:23] Scot Nakagawa: Thank you, Sue and Hardy. I have the Reverend Nomi Washington Leapheart with me. Nomi is a Black queer daughter of Detroit and a minister, professor, and movement strategist who is deeply grateful to be able to make a life doing the work she was made for. Sue. Preaching, teaching, and plotting resistance to inhumane political, economic, and religious systems.

[00:19:44] And aren’t we grateful, too? Naomi has worked as a faith organizer and director for Power Interfaith, the National LGBTQ Task Force, and the Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement in the City of Philadelphia. She teaches emerging scholars of religion and theology at Villanova University, Arcadia University, and Harvard School of Divinity.

[00:20:06] And, importantly, Naomi is one of the designers and trainers of Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence. Welcome Naomi. 

[00:20:15] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: Thank you, Scott. And thank you, Sue and Hardy, for that wonderful beginning to the conversation. 

[00:20:20] Scot Nakagawa: All right let’s just dig in, Naomi. As a community organizer, a parent, and a spiritual leader, you have a lot on your plate.

[00:20:27] So with all of that in front of you, why did you become a HOPE trainer? Why is this program important to you? 

[00:20:36] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: Thank you for the question. I am interested in eradicating violence in all of its forms. And I think that political violence doesn’t get the kind of intervention and investment that other forms of violence gets.

[00:20:50] And so I’m interested in being part of an initiative, part of a movement that helps put people as Hardy and Sue were saying earlier, back on the offensive. Thank you. That helps people recognize political violence when they see it. I don’t want to live in a world where political violence is acceptable or legitimized.

[00:21:09] Particularly by religious institutions, those institutions that I work very closely within. It’s my responsibility to bring this kind of training, this kind of content, this kind of methodology, particularly back to religious communities. And so I’m just grateful to be a part of this work. And I’m looking forward to engaging all different kinds of people and communities so that we can be back on the offensive.

[00:21:36] Scot Nakagawa: Okay before we just dig into the program, you said that as a person of faith and a faith leader, this is especially important to you. Why is that the case? 

[00:21:45] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: Because I think that a lot of the political violence that we see in our contemporary life gets cloaked by religious language and religious.

[00:21:56] Dogma. I think that religious communities bear some responsibility, particularly Christian, let me say, American Christian communities bear some responsibility for creating an environment whereby violence can be sanctified, whereby violence can be morally justified. And so I think it’s important for people of faith and people of conscience who say, not in my name, not in the name of my faith.

[00:22:23] Must we allow this political violence to continue? I think there need to be avenues for those folks to come together, meet each other, and begin to build a movement to confront political violence that’s happening in our most vulnerable communities. I think Christian communities in particular have the, are burdened with the legacy that Christianity carries in codifying, sanctifying forms of violence all throughout the world.

[00:22:54] And so Christian communities in particular have a responsibility to stop it. 

[00:23:00] Scot Nakagawa: All right. Thank you. As folks come to the program can you walk us through the process of leadership development they will go through? 

[00:23:10] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: Sure. So we were thinking about how do we take Hardy’s wonderful publication, Hardy’s wonderful research and guide and make it accessible to everyday folks.

[00:23:21] We, we first of all, want to affirm and celebrate that people in communities know what they’re facing. They know what they’re confronting. They have experienced threats of political violence, actual political violence. And so the first part of the training is really getting people to open up and talk about, share the stories.

[00:23:43] of intimidation, the stories of doxing, the stories of political violence that are rifling through their communities. We want to get grounded in Loveharty’s sort of spacious definition of political violence. We can think about it in terms of something as concrete and as recent assassination attempts, right?

[00:24:05] Using weaponry to intimidate and harm a political opponent. And we also need to think about violence, political violence in a more broad way. And so we get people to tell those stories and we affirm that yes, This is real. This is the reality that you’re facing and give people a moment to get grounded in that reality and express the frustration or the sadness or the anger of living in this kind of political environment.

[00:24:36] And then after we get those stories, we ask people. What patterns, what trends do we see as it relates to these incidents of political violence or threats of political violence? What do they have in common? What are the keys of success for political violence as you experience them in your own communities?

[00:24:57] And that is what backs us into the guide, which gives us some vocabulary, some language to talk about those five keys of success. We noticed that political violence usually looks like this. It sounds like this, it tastes like this, right? And so we are mining the wisdom of the people in the room who know best what’s going on in their communities to tell us about the political violence they’re facing.

[00:25:23] And then we sort of segue and say, Now, listen, the goal of political violence is to get you to feel like you can’t do anything about it, that it’s inevitable that you are not powerful enough to overcome it. But we know that communities throughout human history have actually dealt with and confronted the political violence that they face.

[00:25:45] And so we segue from what could be a pretty despairing, conversation about the extent of violence that we’re facing in our communities to a more hopeful term, right? That we can, with strategy, with tactical approaches, we can make political violence backfire. This is grounded in research and grounded in the best practice wisdom from communities that have faced violence.

[00:26:13] have confronted political violence and made it backfire. So that gives us the segue into the five R’s as, as Hardy described in the guide, what are the tactics, the approaches we can use to make political violence backfire. And we check in, we say, which of these have you used? Which of these have you dreamt of using?

[00:26:33] If you had enough resources, if you had enough momentum, which of these would you use? And so we teach about the five R’s. And then the rest of the training is practice. We need to practice using the five R’s with real life scenarios. And so we bring to the group, we bring to the people in the room, the trainees case studies of people in communities, everyday folks who have used these five R’s To make political violence backfire where they are.

[00:27:05] And we say it’s possible because people like you did it. And so we talk about so where did you see the where did you see the resist approach used by this community to use one of the five Rs. And so once we talk about the case studies, which are examples outside of the community.

[00:27:26] the communities that are gathered in the room. We then end the training by saying, okay, we started by assessing the landscape of political violence in your community. Let’s bring one of those stories forward. And let’s as a group sort of workshop how that community might confront the political violence facing them using one of the five hours or two of the five hours.

[00:27:51] So we actually take. a real life situation that’s ongoing, that’s live in the room. And we say, let’s see if we can experiment and apply a couple of these approaches to that situation. So that we’re giving people the tools they need when they walk away from the training to actually put their heads down, get in community and confront the political violence they’re facing.

[00:28:15] So we see this as a deeply experiential training. That again, minds the wisdom of the people in the room and a training that focuses on application and experimentation. We want to stoke the imagination of the people in the room so that they’re given the tools and the language they need when they go back home to organize and make political violence backfire.

[00:28:39] Terrific. And those five 

[00:28:41] Scot Nakagawa: R’s again are reveal the injustice, redeem the victim, Reframe and counter reinterpretation by perpetrators redirect, get people involved, get people to take action and resist them firm against intimidation and potentially attempts to bribe people, which often go along with political violence.

[00:29:07] Naomi one thing that you did mention to me earlier that I took note of was you said that sometimes people say that talking about violence and preparing for it scares people and makes us more prone to violence. And what do you say to that? 

[00:29:22] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: Yeah. I I think that the current climate that we live in encourages people to simply deflect and hide, right?

[00:29:35] In intimidating times, people put their heads down, they hunker down and they say, I don’t want to talk about that scary stuff over there. The more I talk about the violence, the more I’m making myself a target of that violence, right? This is a very understandable way to think and way to feel about violence.

[00:29:52] But what we know is. Actually, by talking about violence and preparing for it, strategizing our response to it, we actually lower the anxiety, we lower the fear, and we take back some of our power, right? The whole goal of political violence is to create the conditions whereby people sit on their hands, right?

[00:30:17] They are completely disempowered. And what we’re saying is, by going on the offensive, we ready ourselves. And, I don’t want to, as an organizer, as a religious leader, I don’t want to, I don’t want to diminish the value in building community around confronting violence, right? This, these approaches are not meant to be done in isolation or as individuals, right?

[00:30:44] We are trying to organize communities to work together to confront violence, right? And The empowering nature of community is what we’re trying to cultivate here, giving community strategies, right? While it is a scary and sometimes triggering and traumatic thing to talk about political violence, I think an antidote to the fear and an antidote to the anxiety is community and strategy.

[00:31:10] And that’s what we’re trying to offer with this guide and with these trainings. 

[00:31:14] Scot Nakagawa: Terrific. Thank you very much. So I’m going to bring Hardy back for just a second and ask both of you actually in these scary times, what’s giving you hope? Hardy, why don’t you start? 

[00:31:27] Hardy Merriman: A growing number of people in the country have had an experience now with authoritarianism, with what it can look like, with what it can feel like, than what we had five or six years ago.

[00:31:38] And I think that a growing number of people are receptive to exactly the kind of points that Naomi was just making. This is something we have to do something about. This is something on all of us. This is something where the goal is to actually try to demobilize us, to get us to feel hopelessness and despair without a sense of power.

[00:31:57] Our power is in coming together. I really loved hearing we talk about it, drawing on the wisdom of the community to, because that’s where you find where the hurt is. You find where the emotion is, where you find where the, where that political intersects with what’s personal. There’s actually enormous power in recognizing that actually when we get together and share our stories, We can do a lot when the antidote to despair is action, but it’s strategic action.

[00:32:23] It’s organization. It’s not just mobilization. It’s strategy. And I think we have really great grounds actually to turn the tide right now, as more and more people wake up to the fact that we have a big diverse country. We have lots of different opinions, but one thing, the vast majority of us can agree on is that there are rules to the game that should be respected.

[00:32:43] And one of those rules is that we need to be able to solve problems Our difference is through institutions, through elections, through the legal system, and not resort to violence. So that gives me hope, 

[00:32:52] Scot Nakagawa: Naomi. Bring us home. 

[00:32:55] Naomi Washington-Leapheart: Yeah. I too am enlivened by energized by the growing refusal to think of violence as a An inevitable part of any human society, right?

[00:33:13] People are saying, even though we’ve lived with this violence, we don’t have to live with this violence and the righteous refusal to compromise about that is growing. Scott, you mentioned when you introduced me that I’m a parent, I’ve got a kid who’s going to be voting for the first time in this November election.

[00:33:32] And as we talk to her about this consequential moment in her life I am really heartened by her clarity about what is appropriate and what is not. By her refusal to sacrifice her own future in the name of status or in the name of celebrity or in the name of Fill in the blank. There’s a particular clarity that pain gives to Hardy’s point, right?

[00:34:01] Heartbreak gives a certain kind of clarity, right? And helps us refine our priorities. And I think we’re at that inflection point now, where the heartbreak of this moment, the pain of this moment, the rage of this moment, helps us clarify our priorities and clarify our role in making the kind of nation we want to live in.

[00:34:23] I’m just happy to be to be part of the work. And happy to watch my daughter blossom in this moment. 

[00:34:31] Scot Nakagawa: Thank you very much, both of you. We are very grateful for the work you do. 

[00:34:35] Sue Hyde: We are happy to be in the work with both of you. Thank you. 

[00:34:39] Hardy Merriman: Thank you. Truly an honor.

[00:34:53] Sue Hyde: Hey, 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.

[00:35:19] SOT: The Antiauthoritarian 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 Eskridge. Our producer is Josh Elstro and Yong Chan Miller is our production assistant.