How Right Wing Media Rage-baits Local Issues w/ H Kapp-Klote

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

Cayden Mak: [00:00:00] What’s up everybody. Welcome to Block and Build a podcast from Convergence Magazine. I’m your host and the publisher of Convergence Caden Mock. On this show, we’re building a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the impacts of rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front that we need to win.

This week on the show, I am joined by the producer of the Chicago 3 1 2 newsletter H Cap Clot, to discuss their case study about how right wing media rage Bates. Political narratives and influences municipal policy and escalates the discourse against progressive governance. But first, these headlines.

The situation on the ground in Gaza is increasingly dire, and there seem to be some shifts. Put in the way that it’s discussed, as well as the way that governments around the world are responding, including here in the US Now. Look, it makes a lot of sense [00:01:00] why people are being shaken out of a kind of torper that we’ve seen about the same news that has been coming out of Palestine for months and months.

These stories, images, and also just. The sheer scope and depth of the suffering is intensifying somehow, and frankly, it’s a little much to bear. And there have been a lot of things that have been a part of this shift over the last week or so. Some of them are big shifts, like the fact that two Israeli human rights groups have come out with a report that bluntly accuses Israel of genocide.

Some of these shifts are smaller. There was another Freedom Flotilla boat, for instance, that was intercepted international waters last week by the IDF. But let’s be real. Many people are speaking up now because there’s much less of a political cost. We are watching the one day that Omar kod writes about in one day.

Everyone will always have been against this rapidly overtake us in real time, and it’s a really bizarre feeling. But think about it. The people who are bearing the consequences for having spoken out early and boldly have faded from the mainstream headlines. The New York [00:02:00] Times is running photographs of starving infants edited to look biblical in spite of their caping for Israel.

For the past nearly two years far right, conspiracists like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, are calling it a genocide, which it further exposes fractures that are on the right as well. I’ll be honest. I think that a lot of these powerful people who are doing this, they’re largely doing this as an act of political triangulation rather than because it’s a moral thing to do with whatever power they may hold many of these people thinking about the leaders of European countries, of a lot of the US senators who voted yes on Bernie Sanders disarmament Bill.

They’re running this grim calculus regarding Netanyahu and the Israeli government. The looming threat of how this moment is gonna be remembered historically, and frankly Donald Trump, they wanna resist just enough. They don’t wanna be seen as capitulating to bullies like Trump and Netanyahu, but they’re also still scared about seeming too full throated in their support of Palestinian human rights.

They are [00:03:00] towing a delicate and frankly bullshit line. For everyday people like you and me, many of whom have been in the streets since day one. The contradiction and the duality is painful and disorienting. These members of Congress are still not our friends, but they do hold power in a broad front against Trump, maga, and then Yahoo.

And I also think it’s worth thinking about how we can use this energy to relate to everyday people who are coming around as a result of this shift in public opinion. We don’t have to trust or like them either, but the fact that people, just like regular people we know in life are changing their opinions is actually a really big deal, and there’s a place for them in our broader struggle, even though it might not be at the kitchen table.

Speaking of Trump, it seems that his ill-advised tariff shenanigans have been pushed back yet again. Obviously, Trump seems to think that he’s playing some kind of big brain four D chess game by reworking his tariffs seemingly every week for the past six months. But we all know the deal by now. Trump seems to think that raising prices on [00:04:00] American consumers is somehow going to usher in a golden age of domestic manufacturing.

As more Americans catch on to the fact that this is not how economics works, Trump is now seemingly try to buy, trying to buy people’s compliance by proposing that tariff revenue be sent out as quote rebates to consumers instead of having it all go to paying off the national debt. There are some Republicans, however, who are really skeptical about this plan, and while it’s not much, it may hopefully represent yet another crack showing in Trump’s choke hold on the GOP.

As more members work up the courage to criticize him. And finally, I wanna bring some attention this week to the case of Atlanta area independent journalist Mario Guevara, who is arrested while live streaming coverage of one of the No King’s protests in that area on June 14th. Despite charges being dropped against him, he remains in ice detention almost 50 days later.

Guevara is a well-known Spanish language journalist in the Atlanta area, who’s been amassing an audience for nearly 20 years, since seeking asylum from El Salvador in [00:05:00] 2005. His status means that he is indeed here legally and even has a path to citizenship. I won’t walk you through the full timeline of what Guevara’s been dealing with, but in short, after being picked up for three misdemeanors at the pro, at misdemeanors, at the protests, which were immediately dropped and multiple calls by judges that he needs to be released.

Ice refuses to do so per an ice statement. They insist that he’s in the country illegally with little basis. They’re intentionally trying to obliterate the idea of asylum at all as a status for immigrants in this country when the reality is asylum is given to many migrant has given many migrants the opportunity to live more or less as American citizens for much of their lives, sometimes even for decades like Mario.

Many asylum seekers have whole careers and families here in the US just like Mario, and I think that the story hasn’t been picked up by a lot of American mainstream media, likely due to the fact that Guevara has been working for Spanish speaking audiences primarily, but. If you would like to follow his case and learn how to help, we’re gonna put some links to the full [00:06:00] timeline from the case in the show notes from the Committee to protect journalists.

Thank you also to Julio Ricardo Varella at Free Press for amplifying the story.

And before we get to our guests I wanna take a moment to ask you to support convergence during our summer fund drive. Reader and listener support is critical in a time when independent media is under existential threat. So if this podcast has in fact helped consider what you can give back to make sure that we can keep making it.

Anyone who starts an annual or monthly subscription gives $25 or more, or upgrades, their existing subscription will receive a special thank you gift. Head over to bit ly slash summer fund Drive, all one word to make your contribution today. You can also find a link to that. Fundraiser in the show notes.

My first guest today is HCAP Clot. They are the producer of the Chicago 3 1 2 newsletter, which breaks the power and policy in the city, and it’s currently transitioning to a new podcast and video format, which is quite [00:07:00] exciting. They published this piece in March that. I loved and only seems to be more relevant by the day entitled How Right Wing Media Keeps Baiting Chicago.

They join me now to explore that piece as a case study for this media strategy and how it’s part of this tried and true playbook for demonizing and derailing progressive governance in local context. H thanks so much for joining me today. 

H Kapp-Klote: Caden, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited and I’m a big fanboy of this podcast, so I was especially, I was telling people, I was like, I’m so excited.

Cayden Mak: Thank you. I also am a big fan of what you’re doing with Chicago 3 1 2. ’cause I think, the other thing that I’ve seen you write about is how a lot of these, quote unquote civic explainers don’t actually explain anything about how civics works. ’cause it’s not about knowing who’s who.

It’s about, like how these systems of power work together. And that’s why I thought the, right wing media baiting case study that you did was particularly instructive because it actually pulls back the curtain and the mask a little bit on the way that like the media system and government and just like weirdos on the internet who also might be bots [00:08:00] all work together to drum up a lot of rage about like regular everyday stuff that actually should be boring.

So could you walk me and our listeners through. What this municipal bond deal was and the sort of like media hype that you witnessed around it. 

H Kapp-Klote: Totally. And I’ll try to one of the things, I will say, part of the reason that I started Chicago through one, two definitely why I wrote this piece is because I have lived in Chicago for I think 10 years at this point.

At the end of the day, I’m a transplant and there is so much stuff. Especially in Chicago’s like political power system that has always just been so perplexing to me. And like I, like I, I’ll be like people still to this day, I feel like I’ve written 15 different articles about what older manic prerogative is, and I still am like, oh God, I hope Kidden doesn’t ask me to explain an older manic prerogative because I still don’t feel like I understand it.

So part of one of the things that I was really struck by, like part of the reason I [00:09:00] wrote this article and why. I was saying earlier before the call started I’m from the Midwest, I’m trans, I’ve seen this media I’m really familiar whether I want to be or not with the right-wing media and how it can blow things outta proportion whether it’s trans issues or whatever else.

But like for me, I think the fact that, like I said in the piece. I seeing them do it for these issues in Chicago politics for these things that I could never get people to even read an explainer about. To see like hundreds of thousands of people being like, this municipal bond deal is the worst thing that’s ever happened, and I’ll never forgive.

I was just like, there’s something go, what’s going on here? That’s kind where this came. And I think yeah. For better or worse I really appreciate you meaningful, but like to me, part of it is this sort of paradox of these are the issues that keep our cities running, right? Like they are very important and as a huge [00:10:00] geek and civics nerd who.

It often is boring. Like we just genuinely, it’s been so interesting to see the right turn, these things in these conversations and the things that are like getting people so heated. I’m, and I’m totally happy to talk a little bit more specifically about this particular article in the Bond deal, but I just wanted to say that before I further yeah.

Cayden Mak: No, totally. I think that like the thing that you’re talking about here is also just like. There’s such an interesting way that like the like larger system that this is taking place inside of has like actually been primed to unleash a bunch of people who are just like. Like it’s very, it’s a very frightening in some way too to see that the thing that you’re describing play out.

Where it’s like we have a hard time explaining what even is a municipal bond to people. And then suddenly seeing a bunch of people being on both on the internet and on like more traditional force of media just being like, livid about it is, it’s dissonant. [00:11:00] 

H Kapp-Klote: Dissonant is such a good word for it. I wish it.

I wish it weren’t like Yeah, dissonant is exactly it. And it’s interesting because I think for me. The other piece, the just and I feel like it’s like ironic or maybe it was a plant, maybe it was from the BA army that convergence secretly has. I don’t think it’s true, but someone this morning on X where I shouldn’t spend any time but somehow can’t help myself someone said.

I, one of the places I’ll talk really explicitly about like this bond fund issue, this local issue. But I, one of the things I’ve been really passionate about and trying to figure out how to talk more about, especially with Chicago’s budget, especially with all of the getting of federal money that’s happening and how it affects municipal budgets, is I’ve been talking a lot about progressive revenue and what it would look like to, like, why?

Why is that such a controversial topic? Why is that freaking people out? And so I’ve been posting a lot about that, particularly around the Illinois Institute for Public Good put out a report and there are a number of different groups that [00:12:00] are working on how do we talk about revenue in this city without only getting these rabid bots responding.

And one of the things but anyway, so I’ve had activated the bots once again. And somebody in my mentions was like, it’s crazy to me the amount of transphobia and bots and like attackers that you have online. About something as boring as like revenue and bonds and all of these other issues.

And I laughed because I even knowing we were gonna talk today I forget about that and I, but I’ve seen it play out over and over again. And I was working at the Chicago Teachers Union for a while where their president, Stacy Davis Gates is a black woman who is very outspoken.

Who, it’s just very clear to me how quickly these conversations about revenue become these like vitriolic personal, racist, transphobic, profoundly offensive attacks. And kid, and I’m sure you’ve been on the [00:13:00] internet before, so you’ve encountered this. And it’s really violent and it’s so freaky to think that these topics, that for years I would be like, Hey, do you wanna write a do you wanna read about how our zoning laws work in Chicago?

And people would be like, I’m already asleep. Yeah, sure. It’s why they’re like, I’m seriously, like I can’t. Thank you so much. I’m really glad you’re passionate. I don’t care. They, but they are ultimately issues about power. Yes. And so the fact that the right uses this to get these giant emotions going and ties it so clearly to hate and it’s about trying to silence people.

And it’s very active. I feel like I’m off on a totally different wave here, so I apologize. Yeah, no, I, 

Cayden Mak: I feel like this is like good this is the context though, right? Like this is not an isolated thing with this one thing, and I think that’s why it’s interesting to talk about it as a case study is it’s like this is happening in a larger field of right wing media, mobilizing people and maybe bots potentially Sure.

To like [00:14:00] insight. Like a sense of fear around changing anything for the better. That that’s it’s part of a playbook. And I think maybe it’s also a good moment to like, talk a little bit about this particular municipal bond. What was the context for it? What was it about, and what was it that you were noticing that led you to write about it?

H Kapp-Klote: Sure. Yeah. That’s great. Great. Thank you for keeping me on track too, because I feel like, what, so yeah I, like I said, I was at the Chicago Teachers Union for a while. And I saw this kind of, I, I started calling it a flywheel, which I realized recently I had to go. I was like, I don’t know what a fly flywheel looks like.

I had to look at, look it up. But it’s basically it’s a self perpetuating kind of machine, that’s. But I think a lot of the right wing content mills that we see like you said, bots or no bots, that’s what they end up being when it comes to a lot of different messaging. When I was at the Chicago Teachers Union, I saw this happen over and over again, usually with like pretty racist attacks.

Like regardless of whether or not they were important or salient the things that made those [00:15:00] issues sticky or get national traction tended to be like. Really racist. I’ve seen this a lot with transphobia too, so I like I’ve always been like aware, I’ve been aware of it without having a lot of time or energy or like brain really very much like analysis of what it was.

I just knew that, sometimes you could almost hear it or predict it just from what these bots were saying online, right? You’d be like, oh no, like this is gonna be the thing that takes over the internet on the right wing side of the Daily Mail is gonna write about this without having any sense of what that might be.

So for me, the reason I packed, so I know again, I think, something for better or worse, I am a very, I’m very online. Even when I don’t want to be, it is not, was maybe once upon a time it was not my natural state of affairs, but these days I am really online on Reddit x, Instagram, whether I want to be or not.

And one of the things that I think is interesting, and probably I think other people on your show have [00:16:00] actually talked about probably more effectively than me, is that. There is a level of emotion and charge and a lot of these sort of like dry public spaces that like I would’ve associated with I don’t know, like next door type of stuff, right? Like where people are like, oh, has somebody found my cat? I like, I was just noticing these like spikes of emotion. And again, I brought up the Chicago Teachers Union because I saw this happen a lot there where people would be posting over and over again.

They aren’t even teaching our kids to read which is. From a talking point that has just become so perpetuated out of context from a data source that is from a well-funded right wing institute. There’s lots of things that they just cycle, right? I could see these cycles happening over and over again, but for me being a huge.

Nerd that loves to bore people with municipal jargon. I was really struck by this particular bond deal because, I logged into these Chicago, Reddit or whatever [00:17:00] that looks like. And it was like. Make them pay. I think this is how this piece starts also is we need to remember this and there’s this like hundreds of comments that were about the, this betrayal and rage and fury and it was also happening in February, right after Donald Trump was, he was really digging into some really horrifying things in a way that I.

Personally found, like I was having a lot of emotions about it. Yeah. So to see people have this about municipal issues like this bond fund, I was like, there’s something going on here. This isn’t to say that it’s inappropriate to have these strong emotions, but I was like searching past who posted this?

Where did this come from? Who is inciting a lot of these talking points? And there are a couple of like very particular contenders in Chicago. The Illinois Policy Institute, or I guess like the Chicago Policy Institute is an example I talk about a lot in the piece. [00:18:00] A group that, they’re tied to DeVos, to Min to the Cook Brothers, to Bruce Rounder, who is a former right wing governor of Illinois.

Like there, there are really obvious players, right? It’s nobody who. You wouldn’t expect when it comes to, if you are again, a Chicago politics nerd especially if you’re like a not very online Chicago politics nerd, right? But you’re an organizer. You’re like, oh no, I know all of these people.

I know all of these funders. I know their agenda. But when they’re putting these things on the internet, they’re divorced from who they are and their agenda, and this particular bond issue. I guess I should gotten all over the place, I should say, but one of the reasons that I got so fascinated by it is because all of these people in my own life who I would identify as progressive or who might even identify as radical or.

I don’t know, whatever, like very different from the politics of the Chicago Policy [00:19:00] Institute center or the Illinois policy Nstitute. Like they were saying these talking points to me in real life. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And that to me is what I found really interesting about this particular piece and how effective this flywheel can be, right?

Is that it’s so strong that. If there’s a vacuum, if there’s nothing pushing back on it, then it just becomes this thing that everybody is taken in by. Even people who have good politics, who have strong, educated, thoughtful perspectives, they lose out to the algorithm and how it tells these stories.

Cayden Mak: Sure. So the bonded question was this like, pretty big package that was about infrastructure in the city. And I think one of the also interesting things that you identify is that, like one of the things that this hype cycle does is it like blames quote unquote the left, whatever the heck that is.

Irrespective of the fact that a lot of [00:20:00] Democrats who are in office at, the state and local level are like, you’re like boring corporate democrats that like, might actually also be like, like keeping for big business anyway. And like I’m interested in like the link between that thing and then also this like narrative about these progressive cities are doomed. They’re being managed by people who are corrupt and incompetent because they’re progressive. And the way that they’re able to like launder. These talking points that are just, they’re just like Koch brothers ass talking points, right? That like how they’re able to lau like launder that through a bigger media system.

Like we, we’ve been alluding to online bots, but it’s more than that, right? It’s also like right wing talk radio. It’s a lot of other things. So yeah. Could you talk a little bit about the way in which they’re able to set the terms of the debate through these kinds of media issues?

Totally. 

H Kapp-Klote: Yeah. Then this is that. I think that’s a great redirect here too, because I think for me, one of the things I think one of the things that has [00:21:00] changed since Trump has, become president and just really the story of our federal government and what’s happening nationally has changed.

Just it’s really incredible to me how much. Is horrifying and has changed that we don’t need to spend more time on because I know Kidden you are thinking about it all the time and your readers and listeners and watchers are too. But I do think one of the things that has changed is that this particular flywheel of how.

Things are manufactured, has gotten a little bit easier for people to see, right? But, and like that’s very exciting. But the actual piece itself is that I think one of the reasons why. This can be such an insidious narrative is that a lot of people will get cited as good government experts.

Or they’ll frame it as anti-corruption or fiscal responsibility. And those people love fiscal [00:22:00] responsibility. People love fiscal responsibility. And there’s, yeah. People love fiscal responsibility and, it’s important right? Who argue that in a. Small, like in a gover local government context, that we need to be thoughtful and intentional and good at managing our budgets right?

But then what ends up happening as a result of that is these sort of fiscal responsibility arguments. Are just fundamentally connected to a lot of the stories that we also immediately jump to that the left in Chicago and across the country has been fighting against for years and years.

Which is that we need to choose austerity, fiscal responsibility and austerity as as your listeners know, are not the same thing. But the way that people like the Illinois Policy Institute or really any of the sort of good governance. Supposed [00:23:00] experts operate is that they’re like, yeah, we need to be doing more cuts, more layoffs, all of these things that are more about a particular ideology than they are.

About this neutral idea of fiscal responsibility. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. No, and I think the thing that also strikes me about this is living in the Bay Area where. San Francisco, Oakland also to a certain extent, but San Francisco and Oakland are like these sort of perpetual punching bags for ah, look at how bad progressives are at running cities.

Look at what a mess it is. And this happened like far before the pandemic and like the like intense housing crisis that we’re having here. But that it feels so much and I think that I’m starting to see a little pushback on this on social media where people are like, have you literally ever been to San Francisco?

Like that? So much of the, so much of the outrage loop is about gin up a sense that I think this, to me, [00:24:00] this goes back to this sort of like issue where so many people, and as you point out, like if you’re not closely following local politics, you’re like. Being pre influenced by these narratives to be like, oh, it is the like, progressive people of color, whoever it might be who are in power now, who are responsible for X, Y, or Z, or like they straight up just lie about the fact that like crime rates are actually down.

Exactly. That’s the other thing that they like to do. It’s like the combo, the combination of austerity and being like everybody, like this is common sense. Everybody likes this. And then just actually straight up lying about crime rates, which is like. But that they can use those frames and those narratives to get people like in their feelings.

And I think that like the examples that you point out about making people worry that their grandkids are gonna have to pay for the excesses of this progressive government is it’s, it also speaks more deeply to a felt sense of danger than this sort of like more logical [00:25:00] argument about we need to raise some money so that we can improve infrastructure in the city so that our roads don’t collapse or whatever.

Absolutely. Yeah. That there’s a way that they’re good at both leveraging these the ways in which neoliberalism has become political common sense and like press people’s emotional buttons in ways that like. I think that it’s, it feels like the left, the actual left, like we’re not prepared to do.

And sometimes for good reason. ‘Cause it’s disingenuous, but, 

H Kapp-Klote: right, and it’s, and it’s interesting. I think that’s such a good, I will be honest I was laughing at myself because when you were talking about, yeah, I live in San Francisco. This is happening here all the time.

I was oh, of course it is in retrospect, but it’s something that. I think is particularly interesting when I can remember to zoom out because again like I said I don’t know anything, right? I don’t know anything about Chicago politics. I’m learning every day so much.

I, again, I’ve lived here for 10 years, but [00:26:00] there’s still so much, I don’t know. And 90% of what I do know is because people who have lived here their whole lives who have organized here, their whole lives are yell at me because I’m getting it wrong. And that’s good. But. One of the things that I think has been particularly interesting, especially as I’ve been thinking more and more about progressive revenue and municipal finance things that, like I am not ever going to tell anybody that I am an expert in.

I am profoundly not, but I do take it seriously and I. Pay attention to the people who are experts in that, whatever. We could have a whole different conversation about expertise, but I won’t get into that. But it, one of the things that’s been really stunning to me is that every time I dive into an issue where there’s some level of fiscal responsibility or it just makes sense or that’s what good governance is, or this is a corruption issue, there’s almost always, there’s a fundamental.

Inability to actually [00:27:00] engage from, the right, the bots, but also from, the right’s own experts, right? Their own think tanks around what is actually true and what actually works. And progressive revenue in particular with my fixation right now with Chicago’s budget and with just generally the way that we’re seeing that show up so many people.

Will say, whether they’re on the right or moderate or whatever, they’ll say, oh, nobody wants to tax the rich. This is some, this is a non-starter. No one’s ever gonna talk about this. There’s no way to do this effectively. But then when, both in terms of public opinion, what I see from like truly thousands of people that either like again.

Whether they’re on social media or in one-on-one conversations with people is that there actually is a real desire to see increased revenue in municipal finance. That’s not, we all want that, right? But there’s a real desire to do that. And then I think the other piece is that this desire to [00:28:00] tax the rich or whatever, whatever that might look like.

People who, like the rich is on board with that too, because these are the things that will make our city better for everybody. It’s not just about it’s not about punishing billionaires or whatever, or oh no, and like I hear are these talking points that for years I, I was like I don’t know anything about municipal finance, so I can’t say one way or the other, but they’re just.

Wrong, right? And they’re perpetuated by the flywheel of the right wing of this like long-term, like right wing project around narrative. And there are things like, oh all the businesses will leave, or we’re, you’re punishing job creators, all this stuff. And it’s I know these things aren’t true, but the deeper I dive into these issues, the more I realize that they’re still the foundation of a lot of our conversations about municipal issues.

And I hope that we can freaking change that. And I hope that we can see this like horrible, like this. I think this particular flywheel is so powerful because it’s so much about [00:29:00] emotions and it’s so much, I think it’s like. It’s really strong and it’s terrifying, right? Like it’s because it’s emotional.

Like I, I don’t know, but five years ago I, if I had been talking about progressive revenue, like I might have get gotten booed on the internet, but I wasn’t gonna immediately get like transphobic death threats and the way that I do in, yeah, 

Cayden Mak: yeah, 

H Kapp-Klote: totally. I told that emotion can be this is maybe messed, completely fucked up, but or messed up.

But. I hope that could be inspiring for the left and for us as progressives, because regardless of whether or not we can build that flywheel there, it shows that these are issues people are passionate about and they do care about. And there’s a lot of ground that we can take back just by engaging and telling the story that is true, which is that 90% of what people are saying about most of these issues is wrong.

Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s really interesting. And I think definitely where I was hoping our conversation would go to is that in this [00:30:00] particular case, this bond deal passed in the Aldermanic Council. And first of all, are there any sort of like downstream effect that you have been observing?

’cause it’s been in like four months basically since you made this post, since the bond deal passed. Are you seeing stuff playing out differently than you would’ve supposed because of the outrage flywheel? 

H Kapp-Klote: I thought about this when you told me that because of course this makes sense, right?

This is the next question is, you wrote about this four months ago. People were so passionate and we’re both, civics nerds for better or worse. Like what happened with this? Honestly, the thing that I’ve been really shocked about, and I think. I was reflecting on what is useful is I just haven’t seen people talk about the me, I don’t know.

I feel like I have this idea of PR or the media cycle is it’s so if things are wild and things change day to day, and I feel like before the last couple of years I thought that was this like trait [00:31:00] idea that like things change really quickly and things are always moving, but.

I, I haven’t, we have not had an aldermanic election yet. We have not seen those people who, the people who have said, I’ll remember this at the ballot box they have not gotten to be at the ballot box for this particular race.

Cayden Mak: But 

H Kapp-Klote: I also think that one of the things that has been really striking to me observing this is that.

The news cycle is so quick, and this particular right wing flywheel, it might completely dominate the media, the national media, international media for a full week, right? I’m thinking about again, at CTU or even just with transcripts that I’ve worked with. They’ll get attacked by the right and like AM radio, I’ll look, try to do the media clips later that week am radio will still be talking about that issue.

But that doesn’t necessarily translate to people. [00:32:00] Changing what they’re doing in terms of municipal finance. And it also just doesn’t necessarily mean that people have long memories about this. And I think that’s particularly striking is and I say that I hope not just to be like, I don’t know Karen.

It seems like we’re all good, but like also because I think that’s a lesson that I’m still struggling to internalize because it feels. So unreal in a way that a lot of these things about the right wing flywheel are, which is that I’ve actually seen more people respond and have better success. Not like trying to re respond or to cringe or be like, Hey, this is why I did this with the like, but like those things you don’t seem to work.

But what does work is having a proactive, meaningful onto the next type of message about the things that. Actually matter when it comes to the city’s budget, when it comes to governing local communities in general and being as thoughtful as possible about what that [00:33:00] looks like. And I, the federal attacks that we’re seeing are part of that too.

I think because I wish I had like data on this, but anecdotally, something I have also seen is these people who. Their agenda is a little bit more obvious, right? With Trump doing all of the things that he’s doing with all of these attacks. And I’ve had like more conversations with people who, say, ah, Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, or who’s progressive, or whoever else they’re ruining the city.

And I’ve had a lot of people be like, oh, maybe the people who are saying this in Chicago are just as much of these like right-wing pundits as they are. On a national level, which I know how, I know how to identify Megan Kelly in the Fox world, right? Like I know who me Kelly is and I know how I should treat that perspective.

I don’t necessarily know that in Chicago, but now I think a lot more people are starting to say, oh. These are not necessarily reputable sources and that it’s worth looking at [00:34:00] some of these data points and these talking points. And figure out where they come from before I start saying oh, we have the most corrupt government in the history of time and it’s all because of the progressives in Chicago right now.

Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah. As if there isn’t like a huge and vast history of all kinds of grift and political corruption and, in Chicago or really any American city for 

H Kapp-Klote: right, and and I don’t feel I, this is where again, like I, there’s so much that I don’t know, but I feel like I would be amiss if I didn’t say it.

It is like really stunning to see people say to watch people. Blame things that, like Rah Emanuel, who’s like the one of not a popular mayor in Chicago history. Not a, not to put it mildly, right? Or even the ies, right? They’re some of the people, some of the policies that I hear people talk about or the Illinois policy or else they’ll bring up things that these.

People did, right? Like this sort of like neoliberal, austerity tract grifting like quite [00:35:00] overtly corrupt, right? That is not a Chicago has a large history of corruption, right? Famously Yes. But that’s, yeah. Like we would all agree but people will blame that on people who, haven’t even been.

Around, like they haven’t even had governmental power. They haven’t even been alive as long as some of these histories of corruption. Totally. And so it’s always interesting to me to see that kind of play out. And for me, again, as somebody who’s, I, I think this is when the older people who’ve been doing Chicago politics or Chicago organizing for longer I think it’s particularly painful for them to be like, I spent my entire life fighting against this policy and now they’re attributing it to our.

Organization. Are you kidding me? Yeah. But that’s a good, I’d be outta my lane with that. 

Cayden Mak: I think the thing that you’re raising like something strikes me here that there’s like kind of two important things for us to think about as movement people.

One is okay. The, again, the the lesson that we’ve learned on the [00:36:00] left is also the case that just because people like things are manifesting on the internet does not necessarily translate to power. And that is true on the right as well, right? That like we can take the discourse TM with a grain of salt regardless of what side it’s coming from.

And, have a little patience and not feel like we need to jump into every sort of like weird discursive moment. And actually think about and look for signs that powers are being built. ’cause I’m not saying it’s not around this stuff, but like sometimes where there’s smoke, there is just smoke.

And then also I feel like the other thing is. That I’m curious about, especially in the coming years, is to think about ways in which these things then get deployed as shorthand for certain things and memes basically that like then help mobilize people. And that might be the place where the rubber hits the road.

That it might not be about any one particular thing, but it is about pattern identification across things that this [00:37:00] right wing media flywheel gets people worked up about. And I think that being able to point to specific case studies like this is, are vitally important. And then I’m wondering that it may take multiple years for us to see this meme or this form, pop up again and again in different places. And that I’m thinking about like how extensive the. Like media network is that it’s not just the internet, it’s also, it’s not just right wing radio, it’s also Fox News. It’s also like the Daily Mail in the uk.

It’s like all of these outlets that are going to recycle the same talking points and turn them into not actual stories, but like in the sort of. Like pre-internet culture sense memes, right? That they’re like totally these frames that get repeated. And that this is a study and like how those frames get created.

And like I think understanding the infrastructure is really important for us who are thinking about things like progressive co-governance in cities and states that like what, how are we prepared, as you [00:38:00] say, to in some ways not respond, but pre respond. Talking about what’s next, talking about the reasons that we’re doing the things that we’re doing and not getting caught in this trap.

’cause it feels like a trap. That’s vague. Totally. 

H Kapp-Klote: It’s, and it’s a trap. Yeah. And I, yes, I think I, I really pre response. Maybe this is the wrong phrase for me to pick out and fixate on, but I think one of the things that for me, and this is a self problem as well I feel like.

I see people I like, I panic. Like I think one of the things about all of this emotion, about all of this violence, about like people. Threatening you and making all these ad ho attacks about like freaking municipal finance like that. The part of that is by design it like, it gets people going, but it also, it, I get into freeze mode or panic mode.

Or crisis mode. And I don’t make good decisions when I’m in that and, or I, and I think sometimes something I’ve seen at so many [00:39:00] different organizations or. Progressive moments is like something will happen online. We don’t have the infrastructure to respond to it effectively.

And then everybody panics for the amount of time that the news cycle is going and we don’t actually intervene in it effectively. And I do this constantly. This is not an attack on anyone in particular. This is just my own struggle. Yeah. But I think one of the things that I see work. As effectively as you know it, it’s not the flywheel.

We don’t have the daily mail, right? We don’t have defunding or the, I think also like the shamelessness, right? Like there, there’s a genuine lack of shame that we don’t have and we’re not gonna build into our media model on the list. Like that it consistent with values, not why we’re, we can’t do that, right?

What I do see is the people who are [00:40:00] proactive and have systems and structures in place. And this is even just like I’m thinking of like particular older people or, people like I, I like one of the horrifying things is that we are seeing like these gigantic. Intentional, like terror attacks on Chicago’s undocumented community right now.

And on like from Trump because of this desire to threaten and terrorize people and it makes the, like municipal finance stuff, it’s not so cute anymore because they’re using the same tactics to do this kind of work. Not was ever cute, but and I think the people who I see who are responding to that are people who have built this infrastructure are thinking about it, who know who their people are.

Who think about media as an organizer, right? Who take it seriously. And I’m totally just like riffing, I’m just saying random stuff. But part of the reason why I like Chicago has this like giant, wonderful, independent media landscape. And it also [00:41:00] has there’s just a lot of challenges to attack that flywheel.

Yeah. But the people who I see. Who are most effective with it are people who have, they’ve it’s honestly, it’s a lot like convergence, right? Like you all have the whether or not, whatever happens week to week, you all are gonna put out an episode, right? And you’re gonna think about what you’re going to say in that, but you don’t have to reinvent the flywheel, so to speak in order to do that every week.

And I think that’s something that, is very actionable and meaningful. And it also makes our organizing strategy better because it means that we’re not just responding to crisis, we are being proactive and intentional and thoughtful. So I’m, and I’m totally rambling on this one, but I just, I’m a big, I just, I think this podcast is great Kate, and I think you’re great and I’m really appreciate you all having me.

Cayden Mak: Thanks for coming by. I think, we’ll add a, we’ll have a link to your analysis of this particular case study in the show notes so people can like, read it in detail. ’cause I think it’s, I think it’s worth thinking about and it’s certainly when I read it, I immediately started thinking about [00:42:00] stuff that I’ve seen about the city of Oakland and the way that.

National media talks about Oakland and like, why do they talk about it that way? And I think it’s like a lot of the same stuff. Though, like Oakland r slash Oakland is like the same, got some very similar vibes, so it’s not Yeah, totally. 

H Kapp-Klote: I would love to hear, I will be bothering you about that because I love to know about that the local municipal weirdo influencers, they are, they’re a trip across the board.

Cayden Mak: Yeah. Thanks so much and let’s talk again soon. 

H Kapp-Klote: Awesome. Thank you so much. 

Cayden Mak: My thanks to h for joining me this week. We’ll definitely put a link to Chicago 3 1 2 in the show notes so you can follow up, check out that case study that we talked about. And hopefully we’ll get this interview with NMI on the show in the coming weeks.

This show is published by Convergence, a magazine for Radical insights. I’m Caden Mock, and our producer is Josh Stro. Kimie David designed our cover art and this week we’re saying thank you and farewell to our summer intern, Logan Gross. It’s been awesome having you this summer, and we wish you the best in the next academic [00:43:00] year.

If you have something to say, please drop me a. You can send an email that we’ll consider running on an upcoming mailbag episode at [email protected]. If you would like to support the work that we do at Convergence, bringing our movements together to strategize, struggle, and win in this crucial historical moment, you can of course become a [email protected] slash donate.

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