Campbell Conversations: Recent Episodes

View Details

Katherine GrandjeanProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Do you like murder mysteries? My guest today is a historical sleuth and she's unearthed a particularly intriguing and gruesome case from our distant past. Katherine Grandjean is a history professor at Wellesley College, and the author of a new book. It's titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution." Professor Grandjean, welcome to the program, it's a really, really interesting book.

Katherine Grandjean: Oh, thank you so much. Glad to be here.
GR: Well, we really appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a very basic question. How did you get put on to the trail that led to writing this book?

KG: Well, the truth is, I just could not resist this story. I mean, that's the very candid answer. So, "Kingdom of Devils," is, it tells the story of a brutal series of murders, as you said, on the revolutionary frontier committed by two brothers named Wiley and Micajah Harpe. And cutting across hundreds and hundreds of miles of territory in the early west, they killed about two dozen people.

GR: Wow.

KG: And the sort of incredible, one of the incredible things about this story is that no one has ever really explained why they did it, or why this all happened. And that was the riddle that sort of drew me into it. As a little bit of further background, I'm a historian, I've written about other frontiers and Native American history, and you know, encounter, generally. So I was sort of primed, I think, for a frontier story to come along that would allow me to unpack the darker sides of early American history. And what happened was, I happened to be teaching a course that's about early American violence. And in that course, I assigned kind of an old roundup, an article from the 1960s that just sort of gave an overview of violent episodes in American history. And my intention, I had not read it, my intention was just to give my students a way of thinking about what they might want to write about in their own research projects, just kind of a list of things that had happened. It so happened that in that piece, the Harpe’s were mentioned, very briefly in a couple of sentences, they were called the ‘brutal Harpe brothers’ who were responsible for something like 20 or 30 deaths in frontier Kentucky and Tennessee. And I just was sort of blown away because I had never heard of them, I had never encountered this story. And at this point, I had already been reading and writing and thinking about early American history for years. So I just thought to myself, how in the world do I not know about this case? And that was the beginning of it. I just fell down the rabbit hole of trying to understand what these murders were all about. That's really what caught me. Why? Why did they do this? Why did they commit all these murders? And, you know, it wasn't very long before I just could not put it down.

GR: Well, I want to unpack some of the things that you threw out there, in particular the question of why, but I have some other questions first. So, one was about the way you went about writing it. You had, your reviewers had some very high praise for the book in advance. And one of the reviewers used something that really caught my eye, which was, compared your book to, "In Cold Blood," which is one of my all-time favorite books by Truman Capote.

KG: That’s great.

GR: And he claimed, Capote claimed to have invented a genre, I think he was over claiming for himself, but the genre of nonfiction novel. And I was wondering if you had that type of consciousness when you were writing this, that you, because every, all the reviewers praised your writing and said that it was, you know, it read like a really great mystery novel. Did you do that consciously?

KG: Yes. And thank you for sort of highlighting that, because I think it was very important to me to tell this story in a way that would be compelling and sort of plot driven, even as it does make some important points. I think about the early Republic in the years after the American Revolution. You know, we're in this moment where there's a lot of uncertainty and nobody really knows what the United States is going to be or look like. And so, it is a serious history book in the sense that it sort of interprets some of what's happening in these years. But having said that, I wanted to write a good story, you know, and I wanted to sort of, ensure that my readers wanted to keep turning the pages and that I would sort of develop some of these characters and places and the world around them in really rich, kind of immersive detail. So, I think the "In Cold Blood" comparison is an apt one in certain ways. Not just stylistically, but, you know, that was also, in some ways a book that pushed the limits of genre and I think mine does too. You know, I mean, it's sort of sits somewhere, it's a marriage of true crime and history, and it is sort of novelesque in its in its sensibilities and in its structure. And so, I hope it succeeds on the level of sort of murder spree thriller as well as, you know, a portrait of post-revolutionary America.

GR: So, let's do something similar to what you see in like a traditional British murder series, detective series, just to give us an idea. Let's start with a couple of bodies, you know, you mentioned that these guys killed about two dozen people, but what was the nature of the victims being discovered and the circumstances of the deaths, were there any shared characteristics as people knew it at the time?

KG: There are some shared characteristics. You know, the first murder that seems to be the one that's sort of, the way when people narrate the Harpe murders, they usually begin with a victim named Thomas Langford, who was sort of an affluent, you know, very well to do man from Virginia traveling into Kentucky, kind of silver jangling in his pockets. And the Harpe’s encountered him, it seems, in a tavern and what was called the Wilderness Road, which was sort of the way everyone went to get to Kentucky in the sort of settlements in early Kentucky. And he's representative in some ways, mostly the Harpe’s killed men, and they killed boys, I think even more specifically, many of the victims were well-to-do, sort of affluent, men who had done really well and prospered in the years after the American Revolution. People like Justices of the Peace and Continental Army, veterans and men of substantial property. So there are some clues in that, you know, there are some indications I think of what they're up to when you start to see that pattern. Having said that, and this was sort of a very hard-won lesson for me working on this case, there really is no one murder that unlocks the entire thing. I mean, there's not exactly one profile because they killed people they knew, they killed people they didn't know, and I ultimately decided that, you know, the victimology only takes you so far, and you kind of have to step back and see the wider picture, which in the 1790s was not easy to do because they're covering hundreds of miles. I mean, they just, they took advantage of the fact that they could keep moving and spreading terror. And, you know, the county sheriff is sort of the face of law enforcement in these years. His jurisdiction ends at the county line, so if you keep moving, you know, there's really no ability for law enforcement in the late 18th century to sort of work across wide swaths of territory. And there were coroners and there were, you know, deputies and kind of lesser peace officers that sort of swarm to the scene every time one of these murders happens. But their ability to sort of conceive of it in a wider way or have any hope, really, of catching these fugitives, even once they become kind of notorious and there's a little more public awareness of what's happening, their ability to do anything about it is sort of hamstrung.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Wellesley history professor Katherine Grandjean and we're discussing her new book. It's titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution," So how did the public at that time become aware of who was doing this? How did they get found out?

KG: That's a great question. And another thing about this story that sort of surprised me was that, you know, despite the kind of haplessness of law enforcement, the media, you know, the sort of nascent newspaper and print networks in Kentucky and Tennessee and in the early Western territories were much better about gathering information and sort of printing information almost in real time. The publishers, men like John Bradford, who published the "Kentucky Gazette," and George Ralston, who published the "Knoxville Gazette," had surprisingly effective networks of post riders and sort of men who distributed their newspapers. And so, they were better, in fact, at collecting clues about these murders and then presenting them to the public than law enforcement was. So, at the same time that there's this kind of ongoing spiraling of terror in the public consciousness and knowing that law enforcement can't really do much about it, there is a kind of growing notoriety around the Harpe’s. Even as the murders were unfolding, they sort of gained, you know, and I will say it took a little bit of time for that to begin happening because the first couple of murders, nobody knew that they should be afraid, you know? A murder here or there on the American frontier is not out of the ordinary, it's not out of the question, right? So, it's not really until it's sort of started to sink in I think that it's the same two men who are responsible for a lot of these deaths, and where are they going to turn up next? It's probably a couple months into it, really, before the public begins to sort of conceive of the fact that this is something pretty novel and a kind of threat that has not really been confronted before.

GR: So, I'm not going to ask you what ultimately happened to these two.

KG: Thank you.

GR: I'm going to preserve that reveal for when people buy the book and read it. But, you mentioned that, you know, that this information does get passed along and shared through news publications and, you know, the word of mouth and all that. Did it did it affect the area in a certain way that, you know, people like, men started staying up all night to make sure that, you know, their families were safe or what? You know, how did it affect the general area?

KG: Yeah, it did affect the general area, I think psychologically, you know? I'm not sure I can argue that it had any kind of long term implications for, you know, the building up of law enforcement. But certainly as the murders were unfolding, there are many accounts, I mean, quite a few records capture the fact that these little frontier villages sort of convulsed with fear. You know, there are stories about, you know, children being told not to stray too far and men kind of putting a pocket pistol into their trousers on the way to do business in a different part of Kentucky. So, yes, in real time, there was really serious sort of shock waves of fear in society. And this is a place and time where it's not necessarily the case that people are unafraid. They're not used to being kind of complacent and comfortable. It's just that, you know, the threats that they're more accustomed to worrying about are things like Shawnee raids or a Cherokee attack on the Wilderness Road. That kind of thing, these people have been sort of bred for generations to fear. But the idea that, you know, ordinary looking American strangers might knock on your door and be a lethal threat to you or your family, that's really not something that they have any natural immunity to. So, I think the sort of emotional and mental repercussions of this spree are pretty profound for the time.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Katherine Grandjean, the Wellesley history professor has written a new book titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution." So, let's get into the topic that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation about the motives for these murders and how you discovered that they were more complicated than a lot of people assumed. So, this wasn't just two guys that kind of went off and became serial killers, there was something other than just pure bloodlust that was driving them. Tell us what you discovered.

KG: Yeah, and that's exactly what I instinctively felt at the beginning. You know, historically, when people have tried to make sense of these murders, they have said things like, well, these two brothers were just bloodthirsty or they were monsters. That never felt fully satisfying to me and I felt like there had to be more to it. There just, you know, there had to be more to the story. And so, to say that they're monsters, I think forecloses on the possibility of understanding better. And what I ultimately came to conclude is that there really is a deeper meaning. And they, I believe they thought they were doing something more profound and meaningful than just this kind of, you know, improvised and like, spasmodic explosion of violence. I think they really were making a statement. And that insight came to me after, you know, several years, frankly, of trying to reconstruct their background, their experiences before the murders began, what happened to them in Knox County, Tennessee, which is where they were living before the spree. And I uncovered a kind of, without giving everything away, you know, some challenges and misfortunes and a kind of almost a cascade of problems that began to accumulate for these two brothers. And then I started to also kind of put that into view with some of the things that have come down to us about how they talked about the spree and what other people sort of said they said about the spree. There is some surviving evidence about that. Things like, they declared war on fellow American citizens, and they were doing this in retaliation for some fancied injury. Okay, so, think about whether that feels kind of familiar and resonant in some way. So, sort of bringing in criminology and other sorts of disciplines even than just history, I concluded, really what they look like are rampage killers, this is a rampage. And rampage killing comes from sort of a different place. It's very often about revenge, grievance, having the last word and sort of like, protest is a strong word to use, but…

GR: Well, is there a class component to it? I mean, it's not, you know, looking at this, you say they encountered all these difficulties, and they often murdered well-to-do men. It almost sounds like this is like they're engaging in sort of a class warfare at the individual level. Does that capture a bit of it?

KG: I think that's fair to say. I mean, I think that I wouldn't necessarily sort of reduce it to just that, but I do think there is a class component to it. I mean, I think these are two men who felt pushed out of opportunity in ways that, you know, while they were watching other people really benefit in some ways from all of the promise of the post-revolutionary years and the sort of expectation coming out of the revolution. And so even the politics of Kentucky and Tennessee in these years is very much about haves and have nots. It's, you know, in the legislatures, it's sort of very fissured along those lines. And I think when you put the Harpe murders in the same arena as that story and kind of see them as embedded in the social politics of the era, yes, you can see that this is about, you know, the losers, if you will, sort of having their way with the winners.

GR: And so what do you think this tells us about the founding era in America that we may not know or fully appreciate?

KG: Well, this is a darker picture of what independence meant and what the American Revolution meant. I mean, I think of this book as, in the broadest sense, really being about the long legacies of the American Revolution. And the revolution, you know, was an absolutely momentous, inarguably profound thing, historically, politically, but also personally for Americans, because it was not just a political experiment. You know, it's not just sort of the political separation with Britain, the creation of the United States. Those things are profound, I won't take any meaning, or I won't take any sort of significance away from those things. But that's part of it, right? Because the revolution also taught Americans to think about themselves in new ways and expect new things for themselves. You know, under monarchy, most men are just subjects, and they didn't expect to become gentlemen because they hadn't been born to that, right? But the revolution says pursue happiness to the extent that your own abilities and merits can take you, you know, go sort of chase your dreams. And so, what the book does is sort of say, there's a little bit of a price to that that I think we have not acknowledged, which is that, you know, inaugurating this new kind of society, which is in many ways magical and incredibly empowering, but also competitive and, you know, organized in such a way that people will succeed and soar in this new republic, but also kind of fail in some cases and not be able to realize their dreams, and some of those people act out violently. So, I hope at the end of the day, what I'm uncovering is that there is that threat, there is that sort of unseen, violent legacy, which I think we have not grappled with as Americans.

GR: And a real dislocation to it sounds like from what you're saying, you know, it created I mean, the old thing that was always said about the British system was, you know, there's a place for everyone and everyone in their place.

KG: Correct.

GR: So this completely upends that.

KG: Correct.

GR: But that puts pressure on you then, yeah, very fascinating. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. My guest is Katherine Grandjean, we're discussing her new book, it's titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution." You know, in terms of this argument you're making regarding the violence on the frontier and during the founding era, do you think there's something fundamentally different about that era regarding that frontier in contrast to as it expanded further west? I mean, we're more familiar with stories of lawlessness and violence and the quote unquote, “wild west”, but is this something, I don't know, more raw? How would you explain the difference?

KG: I think yes and no, I would say. I mean, I think it is qualitatively different than other frontiers in some ways. You know, you're right, we are more familiar with the sort of wild west of the Jesse James era.

GR: Billy the Kid, you know, yeah.

KG: Right, right. I mean, and that feels more known and familiar. But, you know, so I think in the revolutionary era, it's the first west, it's Kentucky and Tennessee, it's the Trans-Appalachian West. Part of what's different about it is the fact that the American Revolution has just tossed the chessboard, I mean, it is in some ways more destabilized and more new and more kind of confused than it will be in future years. I think nobody knows quite what to expect and one of the things that happens in the aftermath of the revolution is that, you know, this proclamation line that the British have sort of instituted down the spine of the Appalachians and said, there will, you know, everything west of this is Indian country, and there will be no further western settlement. Well, when the revolution ends and that's removed, there are just sort of gushers of streams of migration, I mean, people pour over the mountains. And so, there is this kind of carnival of mobility and rootlessness and breaking of ties from families and villages and just a kind of loss of traditional safety nets in ways that probably really had not been true in many ways in other eras, and maybe wouldn't necessarily be true in the trans Mississippi West either. There's some novelty to that in the sort of quickness with which it happens and the unfamiliarity with which it happens, and the people who are just kind of disoriented and destabilized in the midst of living through this tornado. So, you know, having said that, there are some things about it that are, of course, familiar. Grinding warfare with native people, obviously the absence of sort of strong structures of state and law enforcement and court systems that kind of corral the people who are moving into these new territories. So there's some resonance, I think, you know, with future wests. And Turner, for all his flaws, I mean, I have to confess, I am sort of a Turnarian in some ways, you know, I think there is something…

GR: Yeah, it seems like he’s captured something there that you're exploring, yeah.

KG: Yeah. I mean, look, the West is a crucible in American history in many ways.

GR: Yeah, no, it's fascinating. So, do the people living in the areas of Kentucky where these murders were concentrated, today would they know the name Harpe’s? Is it part of the local lore or not?

KG: Yeah, that's a great question. Mostly not, I think, though it has survived as a kind of folk story and folk tradition in some places, particularly in the places that are associated with, you know, the major episodes of this series of murders. So there, you know, there's some kind of folk memory that has survived, but it's surprisingly has been forgotten even in Tennessee and Kentucky to a large extent, I found. I mean, it's just sort of staggering, I think that these murders are not better remembered even in the locales where they took place. And they have been lost for about 100 years. I mean, the last books really to cover these crimes in any detail were written about a century ago.

GR: Wow. Well, yeah, this is my last question, we only have about a minute left, but, I'm just wondering, why do you think that's the case? Is it, I mean, one thing that occurred to me was, well, maybe it's the Hatfield and McCoy feud that kind of colonized the memory of those folks in that area and drove out the… why do you think they don't know about it? It's weird, you’re right.

KG: Yeah. Why have the murders been forgotten? This is a thing I've wrestled with a lot. I think there are a couple of ways of thinking about this. One is, the Civil War really kind of crashed like a giant wave over southern folk tradition. Two, Appalachia became branded as kind of aberrant by mainstream America, people became uninterested in studying it. And the third thing, though, I think is, look, there's been a kind of strange squeamishness about looking too closely at the Harpe’s all along, I think. You sort of sense Americans have been worried what might happen if they sort of stare too long at these two brothers and what they did. We don't want to sort of own and recognize them, I think.

GR: Well, so we'll have to leave it there. And that's the intriguing thing about your book, you invite people to stare at them and it's quite interesting what they'll see. That was Katherine Grandjean. And again, her new book is titled, "Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution" and if you'd like to upgrade your current beach reading, but still keep that reading interesting and bloody, this is choice. So, Professor Grandjean, thanks so much for talking with me, really had a lot of fun with this.

KG: Thank you so much.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Stephen YoungProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Class politics seems to be back in political style, and my guest today has an interesting take on it. Stephen Young, executive director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism and he was a former dean and professor of law at Hamline University School of Law. He has a new book out, it's titled, "America vs. the Overclass: How a New Elite Corrupted Our Nation and What We Can Do to Stop Them." Mr. Young, welcome to the program, very provocative book.

Stephen Young: Thank you so much, glad to be here.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a very basic question, how did you get the idea to write this? And in addition to that, as kind of an intro, you write about the United States as being founded upon a covenant, that's kind of how you set this up. So, tell us where this book, it's the book's origin story and then how a covenant figures into it.

SY: Actually Grant, part of the thinking about this book has been in my mind for a long time. It kind of got started when I was a college student at Harvard. But particularly the notion of a covenant, which is very New England, and I can't remember who, but Bernard Bailyn and some of the other writers on sort of the founding of the American culture. And then I think it was Professor Be er who assigned de Tocqueville, written in 1835 on, “Democracy in America”. And I remember picking up from de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, this notion that there was something different about these Americans because they had this sense of individual responsibility, which I thought, you know, that’s pretty cool. This was in the 60s, so it brought to mind JFK, his inaugural address about don't ask what your country can do for you, etc., etc. Also in particular, one of them, a professor who became my friend and mentor, David Riesman, he had come up with the theory in 1950 in his book called "The Lonely Crowd", that there was a new kind of American culture emerging, which was different from this older inherited culture from the Puritans. And that came up with this notion of inner-directed Americans who have a sense of focus and self-confidence and the work ethic, really, those old fashioned Protestant work ethic which is less popular these days as it once was. And then what's more popular these days is ‘other direction’, I don't particularly have any purpose in life, I don't really have a work ethic, and it's me-ism. So those things came together. The other thing about the class side, it's a personal anecdote. When I graduated 1967, Harvard class, 1200 young men who are now, they're all retired now, I think most of them, I can't even track them all. They’ve made a lot of money, they've been across our elite, across America, they are our elite, and of those 1200, 10 went to Vietnam, and I was one of the 10. And that just, that graduation day when they listed where everybody's going, I suddenly realized that I was the odd man out. Just put something in my mind about what is happening to us.

GR: Yeah, yeah, well that's interesting. And, you know, you mentioned Riesman, a towering figure in social science and certainly a classic of all time, that “Lonely Crowd”. So, after you talk about this covenant and maybe you could say a little bit more about it, actually, so you have this sense of individual responsibility, it's rooted in and these older religious values in part. What is the nature of the mutual obligation that you see as being the foundation here?

SY: I see sort of two things. One very specifically in this, it's a Calvinist Protestant tradition, which to me is very Old Testament. It's like God made a covenant with you, we make a covenant with God. And the best expression is John Winthrop's, I think, you know, sermon on board the Arbella sailing, where the pilgrims are sailing into Boston Harbor. He basically says, we have a job to do, and our job is, this is not perfectly, you know, correct, but our job is to serve the Lord. So we are not here to have fun, you know, we are, and Puritans were pretty dour people, I have some in my ancestry.

GR: (laughter)

SY: But the sense of responsibility then I think, and this goes to sort of the interpretation, Calvin is in there a little bit and Martin Luther is in there, is that we have a responsibility to others in God's creation, we are not here to enjoy ourselves. We are not here to make a mess of his creation either. And so, to some extent, life is not fun. But on the other hand, if you feel good about yourself, then life does become, fun is not quite the right word, then life becomes something that's reassuring and affirming of you. But it's based on this notion of a job to do. We can also see this, Grant, I think, and I so rarely hear people in these days talk about it, in Abraham Lincoln. I mean, in the Gettysburg Address in his second inaugural where he's talking about our responsibility to free the slaves, our responsibility to have a new birth of freedom. So, I think that's what I sort of consider the core part of America. Two quick points. One, there were there were parts of our people who were left out of this covenant. One is the slaves. And we're still suffering, I think from that non-inclusion to this day. Secondly, the southern slave holders, the gentry who then led the South away from union in the Civil War. They had they had a different, they were not really part of this covenant as believers. So, that's I would say, that's to me, the starting point of who is America? Where do we come from? Where should we be going?

GR: Interesting. And I have to say, this is an interview of you, not me. But you put chills down my spine when you mentioned John Winthrop in the Arbella. Because when I give talks to people from outside the United States trying to explain what is distinctly American about our political culture, that's where I start, and I'm very familiar with that speech that that you referenced. Yes, I think you've got it right. So, all right, so after that the book's main preoccupation then is about this notion of an overclass in American society and how this has changed as you argue for the worse in recent decades. So, what is the overclass, first of all? Let's just take it out as a concept. What is an overclass and how does it differ from a word that we're probably more familiar with, which is elite? You know, what's the distinction?

SY: Well, I would say the overclass is an elite. But the important thing, particularly these days with the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America, is that in my analysis, following other people, Bakunin, Trotsky, Hegel, is that the overclass is a managerial class. But as managers, they are neither capitalists or nor are they proletarians or workers. Because the overclass, basically college educated Americans, Americans with degrees who have white collar positions in government and business across the board. They live, in a quasi-Marxist sense, their relationship to the economy is rent extraction. These are salaried people, and some of them have very, very big salaries, which they can invest in the stock market, which is a money process, but they're not capitalists. They don't run businesses, they don't take risks, in fact, they're risk averse and they're not workers. And the idea for this class, I traced back to Hegel in the early 19th century in Germany, and it comes to the United States after the Civil War, first with Johns Hopkins University. It came with, it created the university movement. Prior to this, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia were old fashioned, sort of Puritan Calvinist colleges whose mission was to create good citizens and good people, not to do research, not to have tenured professors who write books and peer reviewed articles. But to deal with sort of the quality of the young man as a student. By the time you get to 1890 and when you get to Woodrow Wilson, 1912, we have a whole university system which is based on research, training and creating experts who can manage us for the better.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Stephen Young of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism and we're discussing his new book titled, "America vs. the Overclass: How a New Elite Corrupted Our Nation and What We Can Do to Stop Them". Okay, so that's a pretty broad definition. I don't know if you're familiar with this book, I spoke to the author about a year ago, but it reminds me in some ways of this book, titled, “We Were Never Woke”. And he breaks out, you know, the different and academia figures into it the media, this kind of managerial class with this kind of education that you're talking about. Okay, so it's this group, but it's pretty broad. They don't create, and they manage, and they have a certain attitude toward risk and sort of putting themselves out there. What are the main tenants of the things that they stand for and against politically? I mean, for example, you say they have an ideology of decadence that's very provocative, so explain that.

SY: Well, my sense of decadence is, picking it up from just older writers, about the sort of rise and fall of nations and kingdoms and things like that, is decadence is sort of when you care about yourself and you don't really care much about other people or your country or your duties or your responsibilities. One thinks of the Russian aristocrats at the end of the, you know, Romanoff dynasty, one thinks of the French, Marie-Antoinette, let them eat cake, that kind of a feeling. It’s, I don't have a sense of responsibility, I think that to me, is core. And therefore, if I don't have a sense of responsibility, I don't really deeply care about other people or what they think or this, which puts me in a position of telling them what to do. I think the class has this function of telling us what to do. But there's a problem in the middle of this, because if they are, as Reisman said, other directed, which means they're always looking to somebody else to tell them what to do so they can then turn around and pass it on to, you know, to whomever they're listening. I also associate the culture of this overclass with, particularly Carol Gilligan's, sort of, I don't, feminist or, the feminine mode of thinking and acting, particularly an ethic of care where she argues against Kohlberg that the feminine instinct is to care for other people. But caring is also very close to managing other people. If I care about you, then I'm going to make sure you live right, according to what I think is right. And so the center of, I'd say the overclass is to create political, governmental, administrative structures which allow them to, quote unquote, “improve people, improve society”. I just read a review of a new book, I can't remember the name, but it was stunning. It was somebody out there, is arguing that that the destruction of the African-American family, which is not a good thing, can be traced back, he traces it back to the 1930s under the New Deal, the creation of housing projects, using architecture. And Le Corbusier, the famous French architect I remember is building at Harvard, and I was there, the architect is part of the overclass because they understand how many square feet you should have, this where the playground should be, you know, you should have no problem living in a 30 story building. I didn't know this, in some of the early projects, the elevators only stopped at every other floor so that you’d have congregations of people at different floors who were not really neighbors. That to me, is an example, the, I associate the federal debt, I mean, our total federal debt, what, $38 trillion is government expenditures on programs starting in the 1930s. And all those programs were designed by members of the overclass, in theory, to make America better. We are not a happy people. I try to bring that out in the book. I think we have identity, we just saw it with the 250th, we Americans are not happy. We’ve got problems all over the place, particularly with young women and particularly with young people, etc., etc. So, what have we got? What have we purchased for $38 trillion?

GR: I want to come back and follow up on some of those things after we take our break. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Stephen Young. He's the executive director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism. And I should say, by the way, if you're going to look that up, it's a French word, c-a-u-x, the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism. And he's the author of a new book titled, "America vs. the Overclass: How a New Elite Corrupted Our Nation and What We Can Do to Stop Them". All right, so there's a lot that you said before the break I want to unpack. First, you're tracking, I would say, the unintended consequences or maybe negative externalities, if I want to use those two phrases, of some of the New Deal policies and probably Great Society ones as well, and I can see that critique. At the same time, people are going to hear that I think and think, oh, wait a minute now, is this guy a conservative or a neocon dressing his anti-government desires in some covenant rhetoric? I have the feeling, though, there's something more going on here. So let me just put that question to you, because people are going to want to put you in a box. And I'm not sure you fit neatly in there.

SY: No, and I have felt more and more, and I'm really worried about the country, that putting people in boxes and then not liking them and then not listening to them is a form of decadence. It's a form of cultural and political decadence. And I've been very influenced, you know, I don’t know, sort of intuitively I guess, my dad was Jack Kennedy’s ambassador, the notion of the meeting of the, I’m a lawyer too, the meeting of the minds, which means I have to listen to you and you need to listen to me, and I might learn something from you, and you might learn something from me. The word I'm putting on it outside of the book, but I do talk about at the end of the book is being centered. And I think part of the traditional inner direction, going back to the sort of the Calvinist and it's very Protestant, but Catholics are centered in their own way, so were Buddhists by the way, Buddhists are very, they really believe in centering through meditation, right? But if you're centered, you're open to both sides. And what we're seeing in America, and particularly with our current president is a breakdown in compromise, a breakdown in Americans ability to say, okay, you give me two, I'll give you one, or whatever it is. Or let me point out the word you used, Grant, let me point out some negative externalities of your proposal that I don't think you're paying enough attention to. And I'm also a believer. And this goes back to the law, in each of us, we have our own truths, understood, but we also have a burden of proof to defend our truth. So I should come forward and not just say I'm right and you're wrong. But I have some obligation to say I think I'm right because, one, two, three. So, I worry about the breakdown of the sinner. Now I've grown up. I'm a baby boomer, grown up with protest movements and the notion somehow the people in the center are wishy washy. They don't have strong feelings, the center is not good. You've got to be principled, say Ronald Reagan on one side or then we have other people on the other side. Now we have the democratic socialists, which is all about me and my principles, I'm not going to meet you anywhere. So, I like to feel, and I try to live as a centrist, if you will.

GR: Interesting. And you've certainly got, a lot of different people factor into your book. I mean, you mentioned some of them, but we've got Carol Gilligan, we've got Leon Trotsky, you know, it's a varied group of luminary names. So, you just mentioned this, ‘it's about me’ and I did want to push back on that too and see how you reacted to it. It seems to me you could make the argument, though, that the, whatever we’re going to call these people, democratic socialists, new progressives will fit more people in under that title, folks that are really concerned, they do seem to be very empathetic and very concerned about others rather than themselves if you listen to them. I mean, they're, the protests over the Israeli war, for example. You know, there's a, there is an express, the protests over ICE, there's an expressed concern for others that these folks are embodying. So why do you see them as more self-oriented? I'm curious about that.

SY: Because my own feeling is that that expression of concern, we have this notion, which is around a lot these days, of virtue signaling. I tend to lean toward the idea that these are people, if you're other directed and you really have no strong sense of yourself, you're pretty risk averse. The second thing is you need a sense of power, a safe space to protect yourself. When I hear safe space, I don't hear nice fuzzy things. When I hear safe space, I say someplace I can stand it, it's my castle, and it's a power thing. But then, I need to tell myself that I really am a good person by virtue signaling. How do you signal your own virtue? You care about other people, and this is a great moral tradition. I mean, I could give you an argument from Kant. You know, I mean, to never use another human being as a means, right?

GR: Right. The only pure good is the goodwill.

SY: Right, right. Something like that. And you know, what is Jesus teaching us with the Beatitudes? He's talking about, or the parable of the Good Samaritan? But on the other hand, if I can very easily and I see this a lot, when we usually see this in people who are ideological, I don't care whether they're Jesuits on one side or Trotskyites on the other. If you've got an ideology about what is perfect in heaven and earth, you're going to impose your ideology. So you need to justify your ideology. So what you do is you say, I'm helping the victims. There’s also a theme which I talk about in the book which people are not talking about, but I sense it's deeply human. It's the old word Gnosticism for a certain kind of religion, Gnostics. Gnostics get very extreme, but my take and what I want to suggest in the book is Gnosticism starts with the evil. The first thing is, Star Wars is a movie really about, the first one, about Gnosticism. There's evil and there's good. Start with the evil, because that's what you get your focus on, then your mission in life becomes the extirpation, the wiping out of evil, which can easily put you in the position of using power or misusing power.

GR: Interesting, interesting. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Stephen Young, and we're discussing his new book, "America vs. the Overclass: How a New Elite Corrupted Our Nation and What We Can Do to Stop Them." So, let's dig more into these, this overclass. And you use the term in your book and you used it again in our conversation at the beginning that I think it's important to unpack, to understand sort of what their M.O. is, according to you, and that's rent seeking, you know, these are rent seekers. That phrase is not going to be familiar to a lot of our listeners. So, just quickly give us a, what is going on with rent seeking? How is that different from making stuff?

SY: Well, a classic example, and let me put it in a political context of Donald Trump and his father. Rent seeking is when you extract money because you have a position of power. I think the economic or the legal origin of the term is I'm a landlord, you want to rent my farm, so I, the law gives me power over my land, right? I say it's going to be $100 a month, and you say that's too much, and I say tough. What I'm interested in you, is, I'm not building anything, right? You're the guy who's going to do all the work in the farm, I want your money. And the money that you get because you have a position of power is rent.

GR: And the legal system that allows you to do that.

SY: The legal system, but also, I mean, think of, well, Don Corleone in the mafia, the young mafia don when he's walking or when he walks into a store and says, I want my $10 this week. And the guy running the store, you know, he's a poor little Italian immigrant or something like that, but if he doesn't give money to the future, don, right, he's in trouble. That's not the law, but that's what, I should say, that's the law of power or something like that.

GR: Right. Okay, all right. So, if I then want to spend my money lobbying to change a law or to stop a law that privileges my position, that's a form of rent seeking.

SY: That is exactly rent seeking. And the scholars who talk about it, and a lot of the things I’ve read on rent thinking about like third world country dictatorships, kleptocracies, crony capitalism. You're the minister of the economy, I go to you and I say, I got this beautiful resort in the mountains, you and your family can go there any weekend you want, I'll pay for your transportation, you can eat steak. On the other hand, I would like a government license to be the sole importer of Palmolive soap or something like that. And you smile and you say, Steve, you're a good guy, I think we can work that out.

GR: Yeah, okay. And so, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm thinking of your broader argument here about this class of people. So then to paint in very broad brushstrokes here. So I'm in this class, I've got this education, I've got this managerial position I'm in mid-level management that I enjoy. Then a legal framework that is very favorable to landlords, the tax code is very favorable to landlords, by the way, you never earn any income as far as the IRS is concerned, if you're renting places. And I am able to benefit from a fairly generous tax code more generally. And at the same time, I am virtue signaling by saying, I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that, all the while my bank account is growing and I'm quite comfortable, okay.

SY: And I tend to live in a nice house and my kids get to go to good schools.

GR: That's right.

SY: Oh, and by the way, I'm going to retire, and I really shouldn't talk about this because my wife was a civil servant for many years and she has a very nice retirement situation.

GR: Yes they can.

SY: But your entire position, Grant, removes you, protects you from risk.
GR: Okay.

SY: Two things, from risk and from hard labor. Real work.

GR: Right okay, right, that comes through in your book. So, all right, so we're about 2 or 3 minutes out, but I do want to squeeze in a couple other questions here. One in particular was I do have some counterfactuals to throw at you and I'll just throw out the biggest one for today's, you know, today's culture, today's life, and that is Elon Musk. Okay, so he's the richest man in the world. He does make stuff, right? He is not part of this overclass the way you've defined it in a sense. I mean, he certainly has done rent seeking with the Trump administration, there's no question about that. But you know, he's made these cars, made these rockets, you know, he's an entrepreneur. How does he fit into your model?

SY: Well, I think he's a fascinating case because I think he challenges the model, but it's not a clear, simple picture. I would put him partially in the overclass. I sense a conflict in Musk. Part of him is a real capitalist who makes things, who takes risks, who runs companies. The other part of him is an overclass guy who's using intellectual property law to defend his, everything he does, he gets some sort of patent to or intellectual property, that's rent seeking. The entire Silicon Valley, high tech is built on rent seeking. And so, if Musk was, for a short time, a trillionaire, that's because of the stock market. That wasn't any cash he was getting, it was a whole bunch of other people where they were predicting that his company was going to make a lot of money for them. So, the (unintelligible) or they were just the classic rent seeking, they were just trading stocks, you know, I buy low, I sell high.

GR: So, I'm being very unfair on my last question, but we only have a few seconds left. We didn't really get to, what do we do about these people? So, what do we do about these people? I'm taking his.

SY: We restore a covenant.

GR: You don't want you don't want to take them out and shoot them, what do you want to do with them?

SY: Well, I think with all Americans, it's going back to the Constitution, democracy, people, bottoms up. Let's redo a covenant that we Americans, are going to work hard and we're going to care about people through open politics and free markets.

GR: So, last question. You only have 15 seconds, even harder. How do you do that now? The minute you try to have that conversation it's going to get hijacked by partisan, polarized debates, right? How do we break the barrier?

SY: I don't have a good answer to that other than you got to get out and try. You’ve got to start somewhere. People tell me, Jesus Christ started with 12 followers, right?

GR: Okay, all right. Well, that's fair enough. I wish you well in this endeavor, but it's going to be tough. That was Stephen Young. And again, his new book is titled, "America vs. the Overclass: How a New Elite Corrupted Our Nation and What We Can Do to Stop Them." And again, it's a very provocative book, it's not going to be what you predict it to be. Mr. Young, thanks so much for talking with me, I enjoyed this conversation. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Daphne Brooks.Program transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. David Bowie and Prince are two iconic figures in music who pushed cultural boundaries while also generating large popular followings. And of course, both of them were consummate musicians. My guest today has edited and contributed to a new book that considers both of them together. Daphne Brooks is a professor of Black Studies and Music at Yale University, and her book is titled, "Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince.” Professor Brooks, welcome to the program, very interesting book.

Daphne Brooks: Thanks so much for having me, Grant.

GR: We really appreciate you making the time. So let me just ask a very basic question at the beginning: how did you get the idea to put this book together? How'd that happen?

DB: Oh, I mean, it was really a calling. And in many ways, the book kind of sprouted out of this moment of just collective cultural grief. Beginning with David Bowie's passing two days after his birthday on January 10th, 2016, which was, you know, shocked the world, and several months later, with Prince's passing in April. And I'm a professor that does a lot of work in public humanities, a lot of public programming designed to bring together our greater community in New Haven with the Yale campus. When I first came to Yale, I organized an event with the great Jack White around blues records and the Blues Record Archive, and 800 folks showed up at Battell Chapel for that. So, kind of my organic sort of place to go was to think about putting together a conference. But really just, you know, a gaggle of my closest friends, fellow compatriots in music writing, to just, you know, kind of hold an intellectual and cultural wake for these two figures who shaped our lives. And then the event just kept growing and growing and growing. We ended up holding it in January of 2017, marking the first anniversary of Bowie's death, and it was a three-day international conference.

GR: Wow, wow. And, I know you could speak about this for the entire time that we have, but what, I guess, sort of briefly, what do Bowie and Prince share beyond the proximity of their passing that would put them in the same volume? Are there certain things about their impact, the nature of their music and so on that you think make them a pair?

DB: Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm a proud Gen-Xer, although I have questions about my generation now.

GR: (laughter)

DB: That's a separate conversation. But, I did feel drawn to the both of them, not only with regards to the fact that they, now dominated the soundtrack to our lives as we like to say, but because of what each artist represented in terms of, a kind of politics and poetics of freedom with regards to identity formations, world making practices, as we like to say in the academy, but also outside of the academy. So, what they each represented aesthetically was a kind of will to invent these alternatives to normative ways of being, that historically, one could argue were oppressive to folks in the margins. So, when we think about, you know, gender liberation, sexual identity liberation, Bowie is a real beacon of light. And with regards to Prince, NPR's Marketplace, I mean, so many different press outlets were contacting so many of us who are music writers in the early hours of Prince's passing. And I got a call from NPR Marketplace asking me if I could be on the air with them. And, at first, I didn't believe them. But the first kind of gut reaction I had to the question about what does Prince mean to you, as I said, well, he is the voice of the post-civil rights freedom struggle. And the person on the phone kind of went, what are you what are you talking about? I was like, well, you know, I'm a post-Civil Rights baby. My parents, you know, came of age as Bay Area Civil Rights, local educational pioneers. And for me, you know, they bequeathed to me and my generation the world in terms of what we thought was possible. And Prince culturally represented that in terms of the sonic boundaries that he transgressed. So, the two of them were transgressive figures in terms of the ways in which we, who see ourselves in the margins, who experience ourselves in the margins, you know, they offered us a way of thinking about what was possible.

GR: This follow-up question may seem a bit almost crude in a way, but does it have any significance for the book or the way you think about them, that one's Black and one's white?

DB: Well, another really important part of the project, and this came up organically in the conference, is that we were really trying to reclaim the roots of Bowie's passion for Black culture and Black music in particular. You know, if anyone went to the historic David Bowie Is exhibit, which originated at the V&A museum in London and became that, sort of the foundation for what is now the David Bowie Archive in London. And the two curators of that exhibit were presenters at our conference, and they're in the volume. But if anyone is familiar with that exhibit, they'll know that the exhibit begins with these kinds of images of David Bowie's fandom and attachment to Little Richard. And you can really hear that, especially on the "Let's Dance" album, but even Young Americans. And he was a long-time champion of the ways in which Black music held the seeds to modern music-making, is one of the arguments that he made across the course of his career. So, we really felt like there was a kind of kindred spirit, you know, way in which to think about Bowie and Prince together, what they embraced about the history of rock and roll, as Black music.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Yale University professor Daphne Brooks, and we're discussing her new book titled, "Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince.” So let me get into your title here about the afterlives. What, after Bowie's passing, what do you think, looking back now, what has been his effect on music and culture? What were the permanent, or more lasting contributions that he made?

DB: Yeah. I mean, I think that one of Bowie's central idioms is the spectacular, and the ways in which his storytelling practices wove together the sonic and the visual, the performative. Again, you know, drawing through lines from early rock and roll pioneers, all the way to his own present-day, you know, landscape of glam rock, which he pioneered, and lionized and experimented with aesthetically. So, you know, he's just inescapable in terms of how we think about popular music culture today as being sensorial, as being, having a kind of this, sort of, politics of sublimity. As being someone who is thinking expansively about what it means to be able to remake the world through the sonic. So, I see him as inextricable with regards to popular music culture, and how we consume it today, how we define it.

GR: And how about Prince? What would you add to what you just said about Bowie in terms of thinking about Prince?

DB: Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, Prince, his radicalism had so much to do with rejecting the constrictions of how Blackness has been defined historically in this country. The boxes that Black musicians have been put into by the recording industry, by fan cultures as well. He very famously, when he was signed as a teenager to Warner Brothers, said, you know, I don't want to be perceived as a Black artist. And people kind of misinterpreted that statement as a rejection of Blackness. But what he was doing was rejecting the category of Blackness as it had been just defined by, you know, these corporate logics. So, I think that, you know, Prince is someone who, you know, talks about Bowie being an influence, but the ways in which he kind of seized back the expansiveness of Black expressive practices, as being tied to, sort of narrative authority, about claiming one's own terms of what it meant to be Black in America makes him an extremely powerful singular artist of his generation.

GR: Yeah, that makes sense. I was wondering, I was thinking back on how musicians and bands sometimes ebb and flow in their popularity and their significance. And I think I remember this right, you would be the expert, but I think there was a time, for example, when I can remember that the Rolling Stones kind of faded and then they came roaring back with “Some Girls.”

DB: Tattoo You, right? Oh right, and "Some Girls," right. "Some Girls," which has a really problematic history. I mean, you know, the Black press really, you know, attacked the Stones, critiqued the Stones for "Some Girls," but, yes, that was one of their comebacks.

GR: Yeah, and so did Bowie or Prince ever go through something like that? And did they do something to kind of get back into, get the public's attention again?

DB: Oh, God, yes. I mean, they had they each had such long careers and they each took so many risks. I mean, one of the other parallels is that they had, you know, these kinds of, you know, projects that some would consider artistic failures, like Bowie's “Tin Machine” project, you know, is one infamous one. And even people found his late 90s work, you know, with techno to be, you know, polarizing. I think polarizing is a word that is used a lot with regards to their work after their major breakthroughs. You know, for Bowie had several different breakthroughs, beginning with "Space Oddity" and throughout the course of his career. His biggest comeback, so to speak, was "Let's Dance." And, you know, "Let's Dance" was a collaboration with Nile Rodgers. And in many ways it was, for him, a return to form, having grown up, first playing the saxophone, being able to sort of reclaim this music of the 50s and the early 60s, early rock and roll, and infuse it with this kind of modernist new wave sensibility. So, you know, it's interesting to think about him kind of continuing to revisit these different points in his career and remake them. You know, there's, we could just talk about Bowie, you know, all day, and we can just talk about Prince. But I mean, another moment to think about with Bowie is the fact that he very famously has this drug addiction in the late 70s. He goes to Berlin to clean up, so to speak, and he gives us the Berlin albums, which includes "Heroes." So he's, you know, and then with "Ashes to Ashes,” he's kind of, you know, critiquing Major Tom and critiquing his own addiction arc and clean-up. So, you know, the template for, kind of the ebbs and flows of his career are tied to his aesthetic rebirths. And with Prince, it's sort of like, you know, he has this enormous breakthrough with "Purple Rain" in 1984. And then there's a way in which Prince, you know, being so incredibly prolific, you know, he kind of flooded the airwaves with his own experimentalism and it really challenged listeners to follow him on these journeys through all sorts of trials and errors with his own artistry. Some would argue that Musicology, which was a huge stadium tour, some called it a comeback, was a turn away from the kinds of challenging, more challenging music that he'd made earlier in his career. But he did reach a new generation of listeners. So, I think the story that we're telling with each of them and thinking about, you know, who they were as artists is that they never walked away from their music entirely. And it was really about a lifetime of relationships with fans who had to kind of reckon with all of the different sides of Bowie and Prince.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Daphne Brooks. She's a professor at Yale University and the editor of and contributor to a new book titled, "Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince.” You obviously have a great expertise going into this project, but I'm curious: as you worked on this book, did you learn things that surprised you about these two figures that you didn't know before?

DB: Oh, that's a great question. Well, I do want to emphasize that this is an anthology. There are over 40 contributors; I'm only one of the contributors. And so I learned something from everyone. I mean, there are six different sections of the book, and, you know, it spans topics from spirituality and utopia in the work of Bowie and Prince to thinking about their regionalisms from Bowie's downtown New York and London to, of course, Prince's beloved Minneapolis. There's a section on, you know, Bowie and Prince and the spectacular. There's a section on Bowie and Prince and their sonic experimentalisms. There's a section on Bowie and Prince in thinking about intersectionality, how important Black and brown women creatives were to their own aesthetic vision and the collaborations that they, the collaborative journeys that they went on with Black and brown women. So, it's a book that really, I think, is trying to honor both their artistry. And also what they, again, what they meant to us in terms of their iconicity, and to a range of different kinds of listeners coming from different places around the world. You know, I guess the biggest thing that I learned about each of them is that, and this is a journey that we all went on as we mourned them, and as we move into deeper and deeper into the 21st century and think about racial and gender liberation politics, is that they were, you know, flawed icons. I think that was always there in front of us. You know, there have been a number of stories, especially with regards to gender politics, that have just been complicated to think about. So, we didn't want to do a hero worship kind of project, but say, for instance, Ezra Edelman, who is also who's a Yale alum, who's an Academy Award-winning documentarian, he did the massive, epic documentary about O.J., which she won the Oscar for. He has an unreleased multi-hour Prince documentary that he originally made for Netflix, which has not been able to air yet for a variety of different reasons, and The New York Times covered that story. You know, just complicated stories about Prince that are included in that project. And that's a story for Ezra to tell. I haven't been able to see the material, but it is something that we wanted to be really mindful of and that I wanted to be mindful of as editor of this project. That and the many stories of David Bowie and, you know, at the pinnacle of his fame and, you know, quite a bit of coverage, even at the time when this happened of his cocaine addiction and how that was entangled with several, you know, infamous incidents tied to Nazism, Nazi salutes. You know, really, really just complicated anecdotes about each of these individuals. The thing about Bowie that's interesting is that he really did reckon with that kind of period. And by the time he got to Berlin, and many different Bowie scholars who have thought about this deeply, those Berlin albums have a lot to do with a kind of cleaning up, you know, both physically in terms of his substance abuse and thinking about, you know, a romanticism that was tied to ideas about authoritarianism and rock and roll and glam. So, Bowie is somebody who kind of came back to these issues at different points in his life. And Prince is complicated because, you know, even though we have these anecdotes about gender politics and gender abusiveness, he also was someone who very famously, you know, championed gender non-normativity, kind of pushing of the boundaries in terms of gender formations and a complete adoration of especially Black women's genius and musicality that was so central to his own repertoire. So, the takeaway was that they each were deeply complicated individuals, and we wanted to be able to think about the art on its own terms, but to not ignore these other stories about who each of these men were.

GR: Yeah. There's a powerful picture in the book of Prince; he's photographed from behind. He's watching, I think it's Patti LaBelle in a tribute to him.

DB: Yes!

GR: Yeah, that speaks to what you're saying. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Daphne Brooks. We're discussing her new book, it's titled, "Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince.” So, one thing that you did have in the book, structurally, that I was curious about was these recurring, shorter pieces that are in between the chapters called ‘Critical Karaoke Interludes’. Tell me what the purpose of those were. They were a lot of fun, but tell me what the purpose of those were.

DB: Yes. Well, the origins of that genre, as we like to think of it, a genre of writing, come from the late poet and scholar Joshua Clover, who died tragically just a year ago, but he's a colleague of mine. And we met at a conference that's dear to many of us music writers, scholars alike, musicians. The conference originated at what was then called the Experience Music Project Museum in Seattle early in the 21st century, started in 2002. The museum opened under the stewardship in the education department of Eric Weisbard and his life partner, Ann Powers, who were each celebrated music critics in their own right. We would gather each year at this conference that still lives on in a different form now, but we'd gather in Seattle each year and, you know, come together on these different panels and roundtables to think about different themes in popular music culture each year. I mean, it really was and continues to be one of the most important intellectual spaces in my own professional life. But the second or third year of the conference, I believe it was a second year, Josh Clover, who was a regular attendee, tapped a cluster of us, including the legendary rock critic Greil Marcus, who's a wonderful colleague and mentor of mine. Ann Powers was on this roundtable. He wrote to us and said, you know, I have this idea, I'd like for us each to choose a song, any song, that at some point in our lives we absolutely felt, you know, deeply connected to, had a passion for love it, hate it, whatever you feel, I'd love for you to write about this song in a style that's a combination of memoir, but also music criticism. And there are only two catches: when you read your piece, you're going to be reading it to the music, and it cannot be any longer than the track itself, so I'm calling it ‘critical karaoke’. And, you know, it's my favorite writing exercise; I use it in the classroom, I use it in my own writing. When we did it at the Bowie and Prince conference, it was the largest critical karaoke that we'd ever organized. There were about a dozen of us at the time who chose Bowie and Prince songs, and it was just round robin. People are reading, Matthew Fred Jacobson, historian here at Yale, did a reading of, and it's in the volume, of Prince's legendary performance of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the George Harrison tribute…

GR: I was going to ask you about that; you anticipated that.

DB: Yeah, and I mentioned his critical karaoke at the conference because people actually got up and started cheering like they were at the Prince performance, right? So there is an energy to critical karaoke that's incredibly powerful. And, you know, I wanted to be sure to include that in the volume to give people these snapshots of our critics’ intimacies with the music itself in really concentrated spurts. So you'll find these critical karaoke’s in pairs and sometimes in trios interspersed throughout the volume.

GR: Well, it's no surprise to me, then, that I found a lot of that writing, very lyrical, and I can see why that would come out of that. We've only got about two minutes left. This occurred to me, from what I learned about the artists in reading your book, it's the big question about work ethic versus natural talent and the equation that equals greatness. And, you know, Prince, for example, obviously had this huge amount of natural musical talent playing all these different instruments, but it sounds like also he had a really killer work ethic.

DB: Yes.

GR: And so, I'm just wondering if you had briefly, any thoughts about how those two could go together in the equation for greatness?

DB: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I've talked a lot about world making, and I think both of these artists were so immersive with regards to their craft. I mean, it just, it was, it constituted their entire life worlds. And so, the way in which they accrued a kind of prodigiousness in terms of their instrumentality, their song making practices, their performative aesthetics, which were virtuosic, had a lot to do with, you know, this just kind of complete, you know, porousness between the art and their lives, you know, and there are sacrifices that are made, you know, along the way in being that kind of an artist. But I do think that there is a relationship, you know, between that kind of deep connective tissue of, you know, artistry and life worlds and the ways in which the two flow into each other reciprocally.

GR: So, I'm going to do a version of the critical karaoke for you at the very end. We only have a few seconds; I can't resist this, but let's just say, I'm not going to ask you to, but let's just say you have to pick one song from each artist to take with you in your life; what are the two songs?

DB: No! It's the Stephen Colbert desert island slash question.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

DB: Oh my God. I mean, for Bowie, it has to be, "Heroes."

GR: Okay.

DB: And for Prince, probably one of his early tracks, which is "Free."

GR: All right, great, we'll have to leave it there. That was Daphne Brooks. And again, her new book is titled, "Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince.” It's a fascinating read and you can digest it in smaller bites if you like. Take it to the beach, you'll be the coolest person out there. Professor Brooks, thanks so much for talking with me, really interesting book.

DB: Thanks so much, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Emily MendenhallProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. We used to hear a lot about long Covid, but not so much anymore. Is it still a problem? And also, what does it have in common with other similar so-called invisible illnesses? My guest today is Emily Mendenhall. She's a medical anthropologist and professor at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, and the author of a new book titled, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid". Professor Mendenhall, welcome to the program.

Emily Mendenhall: Thank you for having me.

GR: We really appreciate you making the time, very interesting topic in this book. Now, I want to start with what may seem like a dumb question, but I want to ask it anyway. What's a medical anthropologist doing at a foreign service school?

EM: Oh, that's a great question. You know, they were looking for someone who worked from biology to politics and someone who could teach global health politics, and who could also really think deeply about the science. And I think that's what made, we actually have several anthropologists in our department, I think because we think so widely and deeply across history, but also across different levels of thinking and ways of thinking. So, it works really well in an interdisciplinary school.

GR: Oh, it's good to think that our foreign service folks are, you know, broadly educated that way. So, tell us how you decided to write this book.

EM: Well, you know, I've been studying chronic illness and women's health for about two decades. And I started working in Cook County Hospital, now Stroger in Chicago. And I started interviewing people about, specifically, Mexican immigrant women about living with diabetes. And I realized then that, you know, living with chronic illness is never just an individualized experience, it's very social. And it also is very complicated, it goes well beyond the biological. It is a social experience, there are emotional and interpersonal experiences that go with it. And also, no one's ever diagnosed with one condition. I've lived and worked in India and South Africa and Kenya, and as I was wrapping up some work in South Africa, Covid hit. And during that time, I had small kids. So, I went out to Iowa, to rural Iowa, and Okoboji, where I'm from, and I arrived in the middle of an outbreak. And my brother in law was leading the Covid response. So, I actually rolled up my sleeves and I started digging in to think about how Covid was affecting the community. And that ended up being a book I wrote called, “Unmasked: Covid, Community and the Case of Okoboji”. And as I was finishing that book, I actually had a student who became really sick with long Covid. After Covid he just couldn't recover, and I kind of walked with him through that recovery. And I just became more and more interested in the fact that long Covid is not just one thing. And I started digging into the literature to understand his experience. And it became, everything fell out in front of me of like how long a history there is to living with complex chronic conditions and how varied these conditions often are.

GR: Yeah. It really expanded then into this broad history that you wrote.

EM: Yeah.

GR: It does seem like we don't seem to be hearing as much about long Covid as we did before. Is there any particular reason for that, or is it just because we tend to think that this thing is behind us? What is it?

EM: Well, you know, from my viewpoint, as a scientist, a social scientist who lives in Washington, DC, there are so many crises right now in science that I think that some of these more, you know, niche priorities are really getting drowned out because the broader project of protecting science funding and protecting the integrity of science, keeping labs open, providing funding so anthropologists like me can do field work. They've actually closed down the anthropology section, social and behavioral sciences section at the National Science Foundation. There are enormous challenges right now. And so, I think it's just drowning out patient activist groups who have had a lot of visibility from the beginning of the pandemic. So, I think that's really what's happening. I definitely don't think they're being quieter and I think they're really organized and getting visibility. And there's some, RFK actually, has given long Covid some legitimate legitimacy. And they keep advocating, the groups keep really advocating and pushing in a way that's really effective. There's some really amazing scientists committed to understanding long Covid. But I think in the mainstream, in like the general media, it's impossible to breathe. So, I think that's more of the issue.

GR: Yeah, that makes perfect sense that it's been just pushed out by so many other things that seem to be coming every week. I want to come back to the long Covid a little bit later in our conversation, but I want to fill in sort of the other things that your book treats first. And, you know, hysteria is right in the title. Briefly, remind us the story regarding hysteria, how it fits into this invisible illness.

EM: Well, you know, the book isn't about conflating hysteria or long covid or myalgic encephalomyelitis, or endometriosis or any of the conditions I talk about. It's more of a critique of the health care system that for so long, you know, system, obviously cultural misogyny, thinking about women as not having real symptoms, dismissing women from the health system, but also having a system that doesn't care for complex chronic conditions very well. In biomedicine itself, the focus is narrowly on biology on one system or another, thinking about the body as a car. You know, if you have a broken arm, let's break the arm, but not thinking about it as a system. And I think that's what makes conditions, many that women experience, specifically that are more common in women, misunderstood or little understood because so little research has been focused on them. And in some ways, they're trickier to find because it's not just a quick fix. There's not necessarily, although, you know, in some cases, there have been diagnoses like, you know, like MS diagnoses have emerged when they were unexpected. It used to be called hysteria. Now, multiple sclerosis is diagnosed by plaques in the brain. That's a really good example of something that people didn't understand. So, they threw it, you know, into the wastebasket of complex chronic conditions. But then they realized, oh, there's this physical diagnosis. And I think with every condition, including long Covid patients would say, well, I have all these biomarkers that say that I have long Covid, that can prove to you that there's something wrong, but it doesn't mean there's like a quick fix for it. It's a complex, chronic condition that unravels all of these systems at once.

GR: So, what would you say would be the, you know, the greatest hits in the last 50 years of these kinds of conditions that meet the criteria that you're putting forward? I mean, MS sounds like a really important one, long Covid would be another one. What are some of the other ones that have been kind of ignored or discounted in recent decades?

EM: So, in the book, I start with hysteria and neurasthenia, which are two kind of complementary conditions that have been used to explain all sorts of conditions. But I spent a little time in the book specifically talking about infection associated chronic conditions. So, for years, for example, syphilis was one of the greatest causes of dementia, for example. There's all of these complexities of viruses and bacteria, and also genetic conditions that come together to create these complex chronic conditions, and, you know, complex systems that are really hard to pin down and easily explain. And I think what this means is that medicine doesn't do a good job of, people are not trained to identify and care for these multi-system conditions. So yeah, the conditions today that I think are most common is Lyme disease.

GR: Yeah.

EM: Lyme disease is so contested. Some people think it's, you know, chronic Lyme disease is a real challenge, others don't believe it's a thing. And I think that comes back to this idea of visibility and not believing patients. If you are deeply, you know, ill and you have all of these complex systems, your diagnosis is going to be made based on a, you know, a collection of symptoms, and you're going to try every type of intervention you can to try to help people, lift people out of bed, right? Enable people to live a semblance of the life they want to live. So, it's really complicated. Sorry, I missed some of your question, so I hope I answered it.

GR: No, no, you got it. I was thinking of chronic fatigue when I first saw the title and I remember I knew someone who was convinced they had that. And obviously something was wrong with her. But it kept being diagnosed as Lyme disease.

EM: Yeah, you know, and I talk about myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome because that diagnosis itself and so many of these diagnoses, and this is where I put my anthropology hat on, they are culturally constructed. And the way that they live in society are very different in the United States compared to how they are elsewhere. For example, I was just in Japan, I actually took this wonderful trip to Japan to give a couple talks with my daughter, my 13-year-old, it was very fun. But what was so interesting in the talks is we discussed how people thought about complex chronic conditions, how it interacted with a very different health system, how people thought about their illness in relation to society and the health system, and also how they thought about masking. There’s in, you know, a lot of the long Covid community or people who are chronically ill or living with a disability, have particular views on masking that the general population does not. And that's very different in Japan. Just because people think about masks and half thought about masks for a long time in a different way as more of a protective mechanism. So, if you see someone masking, it's really they're not feeling well, they're trying to protect you. And here it's more I'm trying to protect myself from others. And so that kind of frame of masking is very much culturally constructed. And I don't think specifically with long Covid, people are thinking about it culturally, specifically within the long Covid community. I would say there is this narrative that this is what it is, and this is how we do things and this is how we should think. But it is so fascinating to think about. And, you know, I did this study on long Covid in Kenya. And the experience there is so dramatically different how people think about long Covid and what it means and what it does. So, you know, thinking about how infections live in the world are different based on individuals and populations and cultures. And recognizing that, I think is really important for moving through the kind of bio-psychosocial dimensions that people really contest.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Georgetown University professor Emily Mendenhall, and we're discussing her new book titled, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid". You mentioned women being heavily represented in this category of being discounted or not being listened to and then things being not understood very well or, you know, again, the idea that, you know, it's just invisible or they're making it up. Are there other demographic groups in the United States that have been particularly vulnerable to that kind of treatment and misunderstanding?

EM: Yeah. So, historically the conditions have been called like yuppie flu, associated with like, middle class white women. But what we know is that characteristic is based on a cultural construction of chronic fatigue syndrome itself, which was pretty problematic. And then there have been many journalistic and also scientific accounts of how problematic that study was, which I really kind of talk about in the book. And I just tell the story of how harmful that narrative has been for many patients. And there's lots of elements of that story and I encourage you to take a look at it. But I would say that the problem with these kind of conditions is that we have so little understanding of the deep interactions, specifically among women, specifically among women of middle age, between neurology, immunology and infection, particularly when there is a confluence of infection such as in, you know, microbiomes like, how do we live sometimes, you know, we have autoimmune diseases, we have different microbiomes that are changing through time. And also we know that, you know, if you have Epstein-Barr virus antibodies for example, and you get long Covid, you get SARS-CoV-2, if they sit in the nerves, for example, they could, make you much sicker. So, and that's one example of many, but there's many situations where women may be differentially affected. Now, the important aspect of my book, I think, and there are, Chimére Sweeny is a black long Covid activist who I would say is really doing incredible work. And she would say that long Covid communities have largely blocked black voices, for example, black and Latinx voices. But the complexity of the condition is across all ethnic and racial groups, it's across all classes. It's across all genders. And it may actually be higher rates among black Americans, higher rates among trans Americans. There's a lot of theories about why, maybe some argue because, you know, more oppression over time has prevented people from seeking care and so their conditions get worse. There's lots of theories about who is affected and why. But we don't really have the robust data to, especially people who are maybe not seeking care. We're living in an environment where people are avoiding hospitals, in part because they don't feel safe in institutions like hospitals right now. So, you know, really having that data about the number of people who are affected or whose existing conditions are worsened because of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 sitting in the body and disaffecting multiple systems at once. We just don't have that data. But we do know that, you know, millions of Americans, for example, are out of work across categories, you know, across ways in which we categorize people. People around the country and around the world have become really disabled by this condition. And long Covid is not new, right? It's one manifestation of these kinds of complex chronic conditions. So, this isn't a new challenge. There are people I think, I talk a little bit about the book with myalgic encephalomyelitis, how it was starting to become recognized and there were increasing infective outbreaks that were causing people to have, you know, chronic fatigue, MECFS, in the 80s at a time when HIV was also emerging and there's this really interesting narrative. Emily Lim Rogers is an anthropologist who has a really great book coming out that tells the story, and how, you know, people with HIV got a lot of attention. There was a lot of money, a lot of attention, in part because people could fight and protest in the streets and be visible until they were too sick and passed, while people with MECFS at the time could not be visible, you know, be out in the public space to demand political, you know, funding, political recognition. So, there's such interesting stories from political activism, along with these kinds of cultural constructions of illness. So, there's parallel stories going on in the book because you can't understand one illness without thinking about the system, both the physical, the body, but also the health care system and our cultural kind of nuance in the United States.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Emily Mendenhall. She's a medical anthropologist and professor at Georgetown University and the author of a new book titled, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid". So let me ask you, kind of a more medical question about long Covid, because I don't know a whole lot about it. I mean, I've obviously read about it, but, do we have a better idea now than we had at the height of the pandemic of what factors cause people who get Covid for it to stay with them so long and create this kind of havoc for them long term?

EM: I think one of the issues that has been difficult in medicine is that long Covid affects different groups of people really differently. For example, there are groups of athletes who have been really affected by long Covid, who've gone into a-fib, for example, several times because of long Covid. There are people who've had pulmonary issues because of long Covid, or they may categorize their long Covid in terms of, you know, lung dysfunction because they were maybe intubated for a really long time and that, you know, conflated with all these other issues. And there are some people who present, more like having MECFS with different types of dysregulation in the body that cause, you know, dizziness, headaches, migraines, cognitive decline, you know, and these challenges, and of course, fatigue, which manifests in really different ways. And post exertional malaise, which is when you, you know, some people take a shower and be exhausted and need two days to recover because that physical exertion makes them sicker. So, there is such a heterogeneous presentation of the condition, that, you know, what it is, is, you know, not very narrow. And I think that understanding that is really important because if you can have this broader understanding that, you know, one of the, a clinician I talked to at University of Texas, she said, Covid is like a fire that lights whatever is vulnerable or preexisting within to complicate and unravel. And so, I think that's a really helpful way of thinking about it. I think some patients would be, there are patients who've been able to recover and gone on and maybe not lived at the same energy level, or they may have some lingering symptoms that they've gone on to live a pretty healthy life after being sick for a year, 18 months or 2 years. And there's others who are really, really sick. So particularly the category of patient who is still bedridden or is still having severe symptoms, who I have absolutely interviewed people who have, are still really, really disabled from the condition. And, I think that is the area that needs the most focus, biologically, biomedically, to figure out how to help those patients. But the diversity of experiences is a characteristic of the condition.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Emily Mendenhall, the author of, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid". So, do we still have people, let me rephrase the question. Is the incidence of this as far as we know, I understand what you're saying about the complexity of this and how difficult it is to get a good handle on it, but is the incidence of this condition of long Covid lessening or are the, you know, is it that newer infections of Covid are less likely now to produce this case of long Covid? Have the vaccines had any help with that? Because one of the selling points of the vaccines is that if you do get the disease, it won't be as severe. I just, you know, where is the trajectory going on this if you know?

EM: Yeah, I think we know that some most severe cases, especially those people who are still sick, were infected during the first year of the pandemic. And, you know, the fact that we had vaccines and we introduced vaccines, did protect some people, did protect many people. And, you know, the infection, like all infections, is changing. There's many variants that we've had, but the first two years of infection were the most severe. And, you know, some people are still having long Covid or prolonged symptoms after a new Covid infection. And, you know, some people I interviewed maybe didn't have a severe case, their first infection, but they were working like a low, like working as a nurse in a nursing home or as a bus driver in a place where they were constantly with the public and they were infected again and again and again, and their work was pretty arduous. And so, by the fourth time, one woman I interviewed, she was working in a casino, and after her fourth infection, she became so sick she couldn't get out of bed. So, in many cases, some of these severe cases, some are just one infection, some are multiple. Some people have reported vaccine injury, you know, there's a lot of complexity, which I actually don't dig into a great deal in the book. But there are people who report that ,they have long Covid from that. And so, you know, there's a lot of complexity about what the illness looks like today. But I would say incidence is much less now.

GR: Well, that's good news at least. Let me ask you this now, think about it from the patient's perspective. Let's say, you know, I'm having problems. I think maybe I have some sort of combined set of chronic conditions, but I'm not getting, I don't feel like I'm getting the right attention and the health care system for this, I'm not being heard. Do you have any advice for people that find themselves in situations like that?

EM: You know, there are so many people who take different approaches to some people really go online to online communities and seek support from Reddit to Facebook communities. Or there's long Covid advocacy groups to find support to identify other people with similar symptoms. I actually just published on my blog recently, information from this organization that seemed really interesting. It's an app, it's called Atlas. It's an app for you to connect with other people who have similar symptoms. You can kind of disentangle what's going on and actually work with clinicians and experts to help you along with connecting with patients. So that's kind of interesting. So, looking at, you know, there's lots of tools now, I think that one of the biggest challenges that people face is finding a clinician to believe them. So, what I would do actually, there are great clinics. There are clinicians who are written up as people who really care about complex chronic conditions and are working in these conditions and I would try to find someone near you. And if you can't find someone near you, I would just kind of, you know, throw some whispers out to figure out who is the best clinician, who's most open, maybe someone who works with, does women's health specifically or works on, or if you're, you know, if you're presenting differently, looking for someone who cares and works on complex chronic conditions. Maybe your general practitioner, your family doc, or your internist is really good at this. So, you know, if you feel dismissed, go on and seek help from the community. There are other people who refuse to do, kind of online groups, and they look in different ways. So some people go to a naturopaths, some people go to seek integrated medicine, some look to functional medicine. You know, people have really different approaches, and a lot of the people who've recovered who I've spoken to do multiple things at once. They might, you know, one woman I spoke to who had chronic Lyme, she had, you know, high doses of antibiotics, she got on hormones that were really causing disruption and dysfunction in her body. And then she had another medication for her heart. So, you know, all of these, and she also did, a heat / cold kind of process that kind of rebalanced her systems, which had gotten really out of whack. So often those who do recover and the recovery stories I have heard are people who try multiple modalities at once. And it's, I haven't heard ever of anyone who just tried one thing and got better. I think these are multi-system. So, it's really trial and error that people seek.

GR: So, we've got about two minutes left and I would like to try to get to two more questions in if I could. The first one, I know you could probably speak for a very long time on, but that was advice for patients. But more briefly, if you could, what would you say to the medical community about being more sensitive to this kind of stuff? Just listen better, or something else?

EM: So, I'll try to say it quick. In the book I say there's two problems. There's this issue of structural silencing. So structural silencing means the system's broken, which, you know, if you read Sanjay Basu's essays in my new journal, Science Politics, which we will talk about minute, you'll see the insurance system is broken, the way medicine is taught is broken. We really need to rethink what medicine in America means in general. But the other thing is that in medical school, you aren’t trained to work on complex chronic conditions. And students are so stressed out and worried just to pass their boards, they're going to focus on what's on the boards. And those are often very discrete, specific problems that are not using these complexities and, you know, these kind of difficult, you know, cases to disentangle. So, without the training and, you know, #MEAction is an organization that has this thing called Teach M.E., Treat M.E., which is trying to elevate this education on complex chronic conditions in medical schools. So that's really important work. And so, yeah, dealing with those two issues are critical.

GR: Well, I want to give you just a few seconds at the left to talk about the thing you introduced us there, but the thing that you're working on this effort with Science Politics, just tell us super quick about that.

EM: Sure. Partly because of my work on Covid, and long Covid, I launched a new publication called Science Politics. You can check us out at sciencepolitics.org. We work with experts, academics and policymakers, and leaders to help people write for the public about their important work, work that usually gets buried. We're a little bit like the conversation, but more solutions oriented. So, check us out, send me an email, sciencepolitics.org. And you know, let us know what you think, submit your work, we'd love to work with you.

GR: Well, you're working on some really important and difficult things to sort of wrap your your mind around your hands around, but I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. That was Emily Mendenhall. And again, her new book is titled, "Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid". Thank you very much.

EM: Thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Samir ChopraProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Anxiety is something we've all experienced, and some of us have at times been crippled by it. To get a better perspective on the condition, my guest today has literally taken a more philosophical approach to the problem. Samir Chopra is a philosophical counselor and a philosophy professor at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. And he's the author of a new book, it's titled "Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide." Professor Chopra, welcome to the program.

Samir Chopra: Thanks very much for having me on, Grant.

GR: We really appreciate you making the time. So, let me start with the basic question I had when I first was aware of your book, which is, why do we need a philosophical guide to anxiety? Isn't feeling it and dealing with it enough to occupy us?

SC: That's a great question, Grant. I think the easiest way to answer that is, I think we need philosophical guides for the kinds of things or the kinds of problems or issues that we see as perennial or universal or enduring. I think philosophy is most suited to help us inquire into the kinds of things that cut across space, time, cultures. And one of the things I think I can quite confidently say, even if the exact word anxiety hasn't been used in the past, the way that people report their feelings about, you know, about their reactions to existence, the problems of existence. In that sense, anxiety does seem to emerge as a kind of universal, timeless condition. So, I think we need philosophical guides for those sorts of things that are, you know, that are deeply, uniquely, centrally human, which unite us. And I think that's why we need a philosophical guide for something like anxiety. It's a perennial condition. Every age, every era, every society likes to think it is particularly deeply, uniquely afflicted with anxiety. And we might be, in this era, even more afflicted than normal, but I do think it is something that is endured with us. And, you know, one of the small pieces of bad news I have for readers is that it's unlikely to go away and it's likely to stay with us, so we might as well start reflecting on it, thinking about it a bit more carefully, and figuring out how, rather than trying to expel it, we can start to live with it in some ways.

GR: That all makes sense, and I want to come back to a couple of the things that you introduce there in your answer. But, let me ask this now. One of the things that I thought was very interesting about your book is that it goes back and forth, the arrows go in both directions when it comes to anxiety and philosophy. And you just talked about the importance of the philosophic, more philosophical understanding of the condition, but you also talk about how anxiety informs a lot of philosophy. And I was interested in hearing you talk a little bit about that. Would you say that anxiety is an essential part of philosophy?

SC: Yeah. Well, let me start by pointing out that in many languages the word for astonishment and the word for terror, can often be quite related. You know, when we think of something being awful or awesome, these two words, they involve two emotions that are present in there. There is a sense of wonder, but wonder can also be inflected with a sense of fear about what exactly am I looking at? And I put it to you, that if philosophy arises in response to existence, that our wonder and our awe and our amazement at what surrounds us, our curiosity, you know, we say that philosophy starts to wonder if philosophy starts some curiosity, right, what's that bright light up in the sky? But I think for someone who's never seen that bright light up in the sky, it can also be a source of terror. So, amazement has, I think, fear in it. So, I'm also interested to inquire into this thing, because it has struck me in those two different registers. So, I describe anxiety as the kind of, you know, the loam or the soil from which philosophy springs forth. It's wonder, is there, curiosity is there, but it's also a sense of wanting to know what is this thing that confronts us? And let me ask. Because after all, you know, Hobbes says this in the, "Leviathan", that it is anxiety that makes me drive to inquire into the causes of that which perplexes us, right? So here is the darkness that confronts me. The darkness is mysterious, beautiful, forbidding and yet at the same time, it is inviting. Push into me, see what lies hither, reach out into it. So we reach out into it with curiosity, but with trepidation, because we're not quite sure what we might find, right? And I think that's the little fine line that I'm talking about it. You know, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, he says, beauty is but the beginning of terror, right? And the, you know, the opening line of the, you know, the Duino Elegies, right? So, I think there is something going on in there that this wonder is not quite innocent. This wonder has something of, what is it that confronts me? I think that's the feeling I'm trying to, that's the phenomenology I'm trying to get at, that, you know, like the romantics talk about it. There's this beautiful waterfall, it's beautiful, but it's also mysterious, it's also terrifying. I think that's where I think anxiety and philosophy are quite intimately related. And I think that's why anxiety underwrites inquiry as well.

GR: I've got to make this quick observation that, this is the political philosopher in me speaking now, but I was fascinated with that line from Hobbes that you brought up, because you could also think of his ultimate rationale for the creation of this all powerful state as being driven by the anxiety of what might happen without it.

SC: Very much so. The state of war that he talks about, you know, is very much like, I want to reduce the anxiety of uncertain existence so I'm willing to hand over my power to supreme Leviathan, right?

GR: Life is nasty, brutish and short.

SC: Life is nasty, brutish and short and it is extremely uncertain, and it's extremely fearful of what might lie around the corner so let me hand over my freedom to the totalitarian monarch who will dispense, who will dispense power, and as a result, banish anxiety for my life. So there are political significances of us being anxious constantly, yeah, very much so.

GR: Interesting. I'm Grant Reeher, and we’re speaking with Brooklyn College of the City University of New York Professor Samir Chopra, and we are discussing his new book. It's titled, "Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide." I want to come back to the question I started with and frame it in terms of sort of the end user of your book, you know, the reader and in the moments of when they are feeling these things. And it seems to me a lot of the actual experience of anxiety, it's pre-rational and pre-verbal, it just comes. And at that moment you are almost the least able to engage the philosophical part of your brain to say, let me get some context, here's what's going on, let me understand this, you're just like, panicking, or you're feeling it. So, I just wonder if there's something that you could reflect on there about how do we get back when we're caught in the moment of it?

SC: You know, that's a very good question, Grant. I don't think somebody who's in the throes of a panic or anxiety attack is going to run to find my book and say, look, you know, I better read what Professor Chopra has to say about how to navigate these moments.

GR: (laughter)

SC: But I do think that one thing that philosophical reflection on anxiety can help us is that it can make us think about why anxiety is inevitable for us as human beings. And once you reflect on our existential conditions, and we come to see it as inevitable, we've taken a good step towards trying to live with it. So, I put it to you, there are certain conditions, for example, the fact that we live in time, we are aware of a past, present and future. We know that this time is finite, this is not indefinite. And thirdly, we are conscious of this time being finite. For example, we could be creatures that lived in time, which was finite, but we wouldn't be aware of it, right? Now, this kind of creature which lives in finite time, knows that that time is finite, is conscious of it. This creature, the human being, also has two additional features. The human being is also curious about the future. It wants to know what is going to happen in the future. For example, I might be just perfectly satisfied with the present. The present is here, that's good. That's not our condition, we constantly want to know what is happening. Now, we want to know what happens in the future, but we are relatively powerless to drive the future or to change it, or to bend it to our will. This kind of creature that knows it has a future, that its time is limited, it wants to know, but it cannot do anything about it, this creature will always be anxious, right? Now, any problematic situation in which we find ourselves, we really only have three options. Escape, either you leave the situation, you say, I don't like this, I'm out of here. The second one is activism. You do something about it, you change it. If you cannot escape, if you cannot change the conditions, the only third option that's left to you is to live with it, right? So, I compare anxiety, one of the examples I use constantly in my talks is that I'm a traveler in the mountains. I'm walking through, I need shelter at night. I come across this hut. This hut has a little hole in its roof. I cannot leave and go anywhere else, this is the only hut that gives me shelter. I do not have the materials with which to fix the hole in the roof. What can I do? I must spend the night in this hut. I must deal with the hole in the roof. So, I come to see the hole in the roof as perhaps something differently. Perhaps it's the aperture through which I can see the stars in the sky, right, as I lie on my back, freezing, right? So, anxiety is that kind of thing. It's not something, you know, there might be people who might want to escape existence altogether, right? But if we cannot change the conditions of our existence, if we cannot do anything about it, right, if I cannot modify them, in that sense, we are going to live with anxiety and we're going to have to reformulate our understanding of this thing. Some things can be inevitable in our life and still unpleasant, right? There's still problems, but our attitude to them needs to shift if we know they're going to be perennial problems, as opposed to problems that we think are going to go away at some point of their own accord, or we are going to do something magical to them.

GR: Right, right. Yeah, that that's an interesting way to frame it. And I want to come back to something that you had said at the outset, as well. And that is, it is the case that if we look at a lot of survey data, a lot of mental health data and information in recent decades, that it's all suggesting that anxiety has indeed increased substantially in recent years, and particularly so among young people, apparently. Now, one of the main explanations of this that everybody points to is social media and, you know, the concerns that come out of worrying if you're a, you know, adolescent, what people are saying about you and how popular you are and all that.

SC: Yeah.

GR: But I wonder if something broader is going on. Do you have any reflections on that about where we have been as a society in recent years, and why we seem to be more anxious?

SC: Well, Grant, I think that's a really interesting question because, there is truth in the fact that anxiety seems to be much more prevalent now. It is certainly being diagnosed much more often. It is certainly reported much more often. We also have a very large industry that is interested in treating anxiety, through medication and through, you know, through other. So, I think there is a way in which anxiety is much more talked about social phenomena. We started using language for it in the late 19th century. But I think there are some material factors to our age now which do make it a particularly anxious age. For example, technology makes it possible for people to communicate their anxieties with each other. Technology also makes it possible for us to compare ourselves to each other and to feel dissatisfied with our lives, and to not be sure whether our lives are meeting certain kinds of cultural or ideological standards that we might imagine applying to our life. Technology also makes it possible, as you say, you know, when you talked about popularity, I think at some deep, fundamental level, that's the kind of craving or desire which is quite natural for acceptance. And I would say love, and love and acceptance from our fellow human beings. And I think there is a way in which the material conditions of our society, which are extremely gamified, which set standards upon our life, which impose qualitative and quantitative metrics upon our life, which talk about lives being successful, which talk about people wasting their potentials. These kinds of things are tremendous material pressure on us. They constantly make us feel that if you're not living life in a particular way, we are about to lose the love of our parents, of our friends, of our society, that there isn't a home waiting for us. So, I think people now do feel more threatened by loss of love, by a certain kind of alienation from the world. And I think the material conditions of our world, you know, which have made it hard for people to have substantial relationships with friends and family because they are overworked, exhausted, constantly stressed out. These leave us less time to build these kinds of relationships, which can be reassuring. So, I do think there is a sense in today's world, we are anxious, just like every other generation has been before us, but the material conditions have given that universal existential anxiety, I think, a kind of particularly pernicious form these days, which has made it quite hard. This is something that I do feel that in a way, you know, if I could talk to youngsters today, I think one of the things I would try to tell them is that, you know, you really have to find a way to not be so, you know, affected by the cultural and ideological pressures that people tell us on, this is a normal life, this is a good life, this is how you should live it. So, I think this feeling of constantly being a failure, not coming up to standards, not quite matching up. I think this creates a very horrible, gnawing, nauseating kind of anxiety that I'm not good enough, I'm not going to be loved. And of all the things that we can do to human beings, I think threatening them with the fear of loss of love is probably the worst that we could do. And this is something, unfortunately, that our societies, modern societies, seem to specialize in. We seem to make it as if acceptance is contingent, right? And that's horribly anxiety inducing.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Samir Chopra. He's a philosophy professor at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and he's the author of a new book titled, "Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide" and we've been discussing the issues that the book raises. So, I want to talk about kind of the middle meat part of your book, and that's where you break out different kinds of anxiety, and you kind of track them onto different philosophical figures and discussions. What are the principal types of anxiety? Briefly.

SC: I have in my book, I've sort of worked my way through four different philosophical schools of thought, and I think the broadest categories would be anxiety as a kind of universal response to the conditions of existence, which we find in Buddhism. The confrontation with our fine attitude, our mortality, our fear of loss, of becoming old, dying. I would say it's where the fear of being fearful or the fear of future discomfort and agony, probably most, you know, most prominently raises its head. That's one category of anxiety, I would say, as anxiety as existential anxiety in response to the conditions of existence. I also talk about existentialism. You know, 19th century European literary and philosophical phenomena, where anxiety is existential in the sense that it confronts us with the fact that our future is as yet unformed and that we are in some way deeply, profoundly responsible for shaping and constructing that future through our own choices, right? And that is felt by us as a kind of, you know, what we might call a terrible or dreadful freedom, because it is up to me, so to speak. There isn't a script that I can comfortably follow, I need to make my path for myself. And guess what? Every storm that I place in my path is one that I will test by stepping on it, right? So, it's sort of up to me to make of it. So sometimes we say anxiety is the fear of nothing, right? The fear of something ill formed, of something inchoate and that inchoate in the existentialist canon is the future, it's the rest of my life. I also talk about anxiety from the psychoanalytic perspective. And, you know, Freud famously gave us three different theories of anxiety. It was a phenomenon that he struggled with in the course of his lifetime. And, you know, one thing Freud was always ready to do was to revise his theories and he worked on anxiety. And I think one of the most profound, I think, realizations that Freud gives us is, that anxiety is a kind of a fear that I will re-experience a loss that I have suffered once in my life. You know, he sets a lot of store by this kind of genealogical method that something happens in my sort of primeval history, you know, I lose the, you know, the sort of unconditional love of my mother or my parents or something, but thereafter life becomes a kind of a theater in which I think this loss might happen again. So even say, if my friend doesn't invite me to their birthday party, this becomes a kind of a shadow event, right? I'm reminded of this earlier traumatic loss.

GR: Sounds like PTSD.

SC: Yes, very much so. And it's a kind of a feeling which I think is quite profound. And as I was finishing the book and I've been talking about it, have come more and more to think that the loss of love is actually quite a powerful driver. In fact, I would say the most profound realization I've had while writing the book is that even the fear of death, you know, which underwrites the Buddhist notion of existence, or the Buddhist theory of anxiety, or the existentialist theory of anxiety, as in Heidegger, I would say fear of death is actually fear of the loss of love. Because when I die, the most precious thing that I will lose will be the love of those I love and those who love me, right? I mean, the worst thing about being in your deathbed is going to be seeing the faces of those who are mourning for you, right? So, I think that's quite a profound kind of anxiety that I will lose the love of those who care for me. The last kind of anxiety is what I would call material anxiety. The stress that comes from knowing that I live in a society where relationships are commodified, where my existence is uncertain because I don't know whether I'll be able to make next week's rent, whether my children will be able to find, you know, their way forward, whether I will be able to pay the medical bills, whether I will be able to, as it were, keep body and mind together in the material conditions, right? So, I would say, anxiety as a response to existence, anxiety as an awareness of my freedom, anxiety as a fear of loss of love and anxiety as a kind of a response to the material conditions of my life, are the four approaches that I take in this book.

Grant Reeher: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Samir Chopra, the author of, "Anxiety, A Philosophical Guide." Well, we're getting a little short on time, and I just want to give you a heads up, there are a couple of bigger questions I still want to get into. So, one of the subheadings of your chapter borrows the title of a book that I read when I was a young adult, and it had quite an impact on me. You have a subheading called, “The Courage to Be” and so I obviously thought of Paul Tillich. Very curious to get your take on the courage to be, what are you getting out there in that particular section of your book?

SC: You know, one of the things that Tillich talks about in his book is that our anxiety arises from the fact that we confront a certain kind of nothingness at the end of existence, and this nothingness is so profound that even the concepts that we might have for dealing with existence are inadequate with it, because it is quite literally nothing. So, I think one of the things that I drew from Tillich, which made me, you know, include him in my book, is that he is very good at bringing out the kind of anxiety that nothingness produces, but I think he also makes it the case that there is something quite brave, something quite courageous in us just facing each day as it comes. I think we're quite used to thinking of ourselves as being cowards. And I want to say that there's actually something quite profoundly brave about us enduring this thing, this life, which is, you know, the greatest mystery of all mysteries, right? Just the bare fact of existence is quite, and I think that's one thing that thinking about nothingness does is, it makes us realize just how magical and wondrous existence is and how utterly, you know, beguiling, mysterious, and at the same time terrifying existence is. So just in dealing up with it, right, just in facing up to it, there is a certain kind of courage that we're showing, right? And I think that's what I drew most from Tillich that on reflecting on that nothingness makes us realize on just how beautiful, wondrous and terrifying existence is and there's a certain kind of courage we need for it. And, you know, they should breed compassion in us for all of us that deal with it.

GR: Right, right, we're all dealing with this. I want to come back to an earlier conversation we had and tie it to something very specific about the way anxiety is being treated today. And that is the different kinds of medications that have been produced to, very effectively in many instances, allow people to continue to function with anxiety. But it's, the question is this, and I'm sure you've thought about it, if anxiety is such a fundamental condition of human existence, should we at least have some pause in thinking, hey, you know, we can invent a drug that makes us feel a lot better about it on a day to day basis? How do we navigate that? And a lot of people who are hesitant for these drugs, I think are hesitant for the right reasons. They say, well, it might change, this is who I am, this is what I experience, you know? So, I just, if you had some quick reflections on that, I know that's something you could speak about (at) great length.

SC: Yeah. You know, this is an important and complicated question. We are, no response to that question can be made without acknowledging that, you know, we're embedded in a particular kind of society, in a particular kind of political economy, in a particular kind of medical system that has a particular kind of relationship to the understanding of what we call mental health problems, right? And I think, I'll just say this really quickly, I think mental health problems are medicalized to a certain extent, which means that when we see problems in behavior, which are often, it's not quite clear whether they are physical problems or whether they are normative problems, like normative problems in the sense that, you know, somebody who wants to sit around all day, stare at the trees and maybe, you know, throw little stones into a pond. I think our culture would describe that person as being lazy, as being unmotivated, as being ill-disciplined. These are terms of abuse in some sense, because the person doesn't fit in with our social norms. And one of the things I worry about, not just with respect to anxiety, but also with respect to depression, is that we might be over-medicating this, we might be diagnosing anxiety too quickly. We might be taking some things which are a normal response to the kinds of societies we live in, to the normal conditions of existence, and medicating it a little bit too quickly. I think some kinds of reflections on the anxieties we have are useful. For example, parental anxiety, which is quite deep and profound, is an important signature of my love for my daughter, for instance, right? It helps me to reflect on what my values are. The things that really scare me are the things that are super important to me. So, there's a way in which my worst fears bring into contact, bring me into contact with my most important values. So, I think if we run away from anxiety too quickly, if we rush to medicate it, we might be missing important encounters with ourselves.

GR: And to take it to its logical conclusion, you end up with something like, "Brave New World," where you kind of medicate the ability to challenge the system out of existence.

SC: That's right.

GR: Only a little time left, a minute and a half or so. And I'm going to give you a really nasty question at the end, because it's personal and complicated, you could talk about it for a long time. You're a philosopher, but you also write about your own personal issues in this book, you blend memoir into this. Could you just briefly, and again, very briefly, what were your own struggles with anxiety and how did philosophy either stimulate those anxieties or help you cope with them?

SC: Well, you know, it's been said that you can only really philosophize about things that are actually problems for you. Other stuff is kind of armchair speculation. So, I wrote a book on anxiety because I'm a very anxious person. I describe my, what I took to be my becoming anxious in response to the early deaths of my parents, which I would say in some ways removed, you know, what I would call, you know, metaphysical certainty for my life. You know, the sense that I have these guardians, the sense that these people are going to take care of me. So, I think an infected me with a deep sense of anxiety and fearfulness. But I think when I thought about it a bit more, when I spent five years in therapy talking about this stuff, I think I realized that I'd always been anxious. And the more I thought about it, I realized not only had always been anxious, I was always going to be anxious given the conditions of my life. So, I think I went into therapy thinking that I had become anxious. And I think what I learned over a period of time by studying, by reflection, was that this was just who I was. It was just that, you know, certain conditions in my life had pulled that basement dwelling anxiety out and brought it to the fore. But in that sense, I wasn't that different from any other human beings. The universe hadn't marked me out for some special punishment. I was just another human being that was going to get its fair share of, you know, anxiety, unhappiness and all the other mixed blessings of existence.

GR: Well, I'm glad it worked out for you. For what it's worth, for the last 30 minutes, you've seemed pretty zen to me. (laughter)

SC: (laughter)

GR: But we'll have to leave our conversation there, unfortunately. That was Samir Chopra and again, his new book is titled, "Anxiety, A Philosophical Guide." If you want to get a deeper and a broader perspective of an anxiety that's been haunting you or of things you're feeling more generally, this is a very readable and insightful book, and you know, it may make you feel a little better. So, Professor Chopra, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, really appreciated it.

SC: Thanks very much for having me on.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Kailee BullerProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Last week I interviewed Congressman John Mannion, the Democrat who represents New York's 22nd Congressional District. Today, I'm talking with the Republican who wants to replace him after the November elections, Kailee Buller. Miss Buller has a background in the food industry and has served in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, most recently as a chief of staff, which is a top government leadership position. The 22nd district contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties and portions of Oneida, Cortland, and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica, and Auburn. Miss Buller, welcome to the program.

Kailee Buller: Grant, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here, and I really appreciate that you're, you know, giving John and I both an opportunity to talk to your listeners.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time, that's for sure. So let me start with a basic question that I know you could talk about the whole half an hour, but if you could just be brief to get us going and then we'll get into some more details as we go. But if you could just briefly make the case that Congressman Mannion should not be returned to office. That's the, you know, that's a standard challenger question.

KB: Yeah, I have a lot of views on that. But I really want to introduce myself to your listeners a little bit of background about me before we start kind of hitting on him, if that's okay.

GR: Fine. Go ahead.

KB: Yeah. I mean, for my perspective, I'm Kailee Buller. I grew up in Auburn and I was born and raised, my dad, corrections officer, retired after 41 years, my mom's a nurse. And I, you know, as a high achiever, went away to Syracuse University for a year. And like many people my age, I'm 37, couldn't afford to stay there and get more loans so I transferred to state school and graduated in 2011. And there were not a lot of jobs in the area. And I made the decision, the hard decision to move away from my family and go find a place where there were more jobs and more opportunities. So, I moved away to DC and I made a really good career for myself and met my husband, had three kids who are five, three and two. So I'm a mom and a wife, and I've worked really hard. And you talked a little bit about where I was, but I started, had no connections in DC, started as a tax and fiscal policy expert, or analyst really, right out of college and worked on bipartisan issues for the grocery industry, for the corn and soy industry, and served in both administrations for the Department of Agriculture, and really capped off my career as the chief of staff of USDA, where we are now. I resigned that position to run in this race. And so, I have been in DC for a number of years where I've gotten a lot of experience working across the aisle and seeing the inner workings of Congress, of two administrations and of private sector. So, I have a really good background, a really good experience, and really what I want to do, I have my loans paid off three years ago, my debt is paid off and I want to come back to this district and deliver in a way that is not happening right now. Central New York is being left behind. New York State has the highest tax in the whole nation, worst housing situation, sixth highest energy costs. And so we can get into Mannion’s record and why I want to do this, but part of why I want to do this is because I have a unique skill set that can deliver for the people that I grew up with, and I'm seeing them being left behind every single time I'm here. The poor are getting poorer, the tax are getting higher. People are leaving New York State in droves, 500,000. Nearly 25 billion in gross, you know, revenue has left the state since 2020 and central New York is really feeling that.

GR: Okay, thank you, and congratulations on the loans, that's always a big moment. Just one, quick follow up, factual thing. You've mentioned a couple times that you worked in two administrations. I just want to make clear those were the first Trump administration and then the current Trump administration, correct?

KB: Yes, sir. I worked in both Trump administrations. And between those times, I did a lot of work with the Obama and the Biden administrations on the outside.

GR: Got it. Okay, thank you. Well, so, you mentioned several things that you're concerned about, this particular area, some of them related to New York State, others more general. Just if you could then, as a brief thing, what are the kinds of things that you think Congressman Mannion in particular has done that have contributed to that problem or, you know, not, at least not helped? Can you be more specific about him?

KB: Absolutely. So, this district is one of the more moderate districts in the entire country. There's only about 36-ish of them, and this is one of them. It's a Democrat plus four district. We've had a lot of incredible statesmen who have represented this district from Katko to Hanna, Anne Marie Buerkle, etc.. He has been very different than them in the fact that he has really party line voted and not voted with the district. And I'll give you a few examples for that.

GR: Okay.

KB: No tax on tips, he voted no. This is a very, you know, blue collar, a lot of people work in restaurant and food and bar, he voted no on that. Kathy Hochul supports no tax on tips. I would say he's to the left of Kathy Hochul on that topic. He voted no on no tax on Social Security. The median average age of this district is 52 to 54. Social security is really near and dear to many of our constituents’ hearts. So voting no on no tax and Social Security is in the can really help. You know, our average median income is below 70k. So we're on the poorer side on districts as well, and so these things can really help. He voted no on the childcare tax credit. As a mom of three kids, that's a really helpful tax credit. And given we just talked about the average median age of the district, you know, there's not a lot of people having kids, or they’re at least keeping and raising their kids here. He voted no on the Farm Bill when it came up for a vote in the House. This is a really heavy farm and agriculture district, not Onondaga, but Madison, Cayuga, Cortland, Oneida. We have, we're producing so much dairy up here, we have a lot of specialty crop farms, a lot of apple farms. I mean, the Farm Bill, I mean, that would have been a sure yes vote for me and a yes vote for the district. So, when I say he's not thinking for the district, he's thinking with the left and what the left want him to vote and he's in a hard position. I absolutely acknowledge that. I'm sure in those roles he is being pulled to the left. But you can't forget where you came from. And for me, a lot of people, I'm out on the campaign trail there say, don't forget where you came from. I'm like, listen, I left this place for 14 years and I'm volunteering to come back to serve because I know how to serve this district. I know what they want, and that means that I can't be a party line voter. Even though I worked for President Trump, I'm not going to vote for everything that he wants and everything that he says. And unfortunately, John Mannion in his first term has done exactly that.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Kailee Buller, the Republican who's running for Congress in New York's 22nd district. So, on that point, let me just pick up where you left off. If you can, again, just maybe pick 2 or 3 of the most important things, but what would be some of the major new initiatives you'd like to work on if you were elected?

KB: So for me, affordability is the number one, two and three things that we hear about every day all the time. And I have a record of working on affordability issues and actually delivering. And so that has to be the number one, two and three issues that we work on when I'm elected. So, as I go around talking, we have the highest energy bills, almost in the nation, and a lot of that is because of the green energy deal that John Mannion has been supportive of and Kathy Hochul pushed. We have doubled down on, you know, mandates for solar and wind and then we have blocked out other energy sources such as natural gas extraction. Pennsylvania, a state over from us, Democrat governor, Democrat House, they're selling 20% of the energy for the whole U.S., New York is buying from them. We could be doing that ourselves here, obviously safely we want…

GR: Could I interrupt you, briefly, if I could?

KB: Sure.

GR: Yeah, I'm sorry to do that, but I just, before, those things that you mentioned, if I'm hearing them correctly, are more things that the state of New York has done. And so, I guess what I'm asking is here, how, as a member of Congress, are you going to leverage those things? It almost sounds like what you just said, there almost sounds like something I might hear from a candidate for state Senate for example. So, tell me the connection, because I want to make sure I'm following you.

KB: No, that's a really great observation and I think it's a fair one. So, this is the issue, when I'm elected, I'll do everything I can to basically override New York's broken policies in the event that Kathy Hochul and the Albany folks don't shape up. I mean, there's a bill that would do exactly that, the Energy Choice Act sponsored by Nick Langworthy, HR 3699. And essentially what it would do is it would prohibit state and local governments from banning and limiting and restricting access to things like natural gas. So, I will be a lead co-sponsor and do everything I can to get that passed when I'm a federal elected official. That's one example as how I'll use my federal position to help the state, because there again, New York ranks dead last in many issues, and it's not because of things the federal government is doing. And we can talk about another one. I mean, I worked on helping repeal the wind and solar mandates when I was the chief of staff at USDA. That's not to say that you can't use wind and solar, it's to say we're not going to mandate them. New York has done exactly that. They've mandated solar and wind, and that's actually raising our energy bills, because we've gone so far so quick and we haven't looked at all of the above energy. So I mean, I've done a lot of these things federally. We've done a lot of things at the federal level when I worked in the Trump administration to make housing more affordable. New York isn't reaping the benefits of that because we have broken local and state issues, and I will do everything I can if New York doesn't shape up from an Albany perspective and from a local perspective, to call these things out and work to fight federally, to give our residents the rights that they need to have lower bills.

GR: I see, no, I'm glad I asked you that. Now, I wanted to come back to your experience in the Department of Agriculture and working for the federal government. Because that's a, you know, that gives you a particular perspective and set of experiences you might draw on and I wanted to ask you about that. What's the most important thing that you learned about how the federal government works from your experience being inside it?

KB: The most shocking thing is it doesn't. It doesn't work very well, I'll say that. The federal government is way more broken than I ever could have imagined being an outsider looking in. I started my career being in advocacy and tax advocacy and working by states. And then I started working for the grocery industry and passing federal legislation. The first bill that I really worked hard on was a 2013 Farm Bill, that I helped to get a bipartisan amendment pass, healthy food financing initiatives. I've, you know, worked with both Democrats and Republicans to get that done. But I did not realize how broken the federal government was until I got into it and actually saw it firsthand. And it's not intentional. I think it's over time that we just layer more and more people on top of more and more problems and become more and more silo. I look at the Department of Agriculture, for instance, and it's a very diversified agency. When people think about the Department of Agriculture, they're like, oh yeah, farmers. But it administers the food stamp program, which I know you probably have questions about. It manages forest fires, so it has, you know, it has that. It manages trade exports, so making our amazing American goods and exporting them and finding new markets for them, because our farmers are growing more than we need here in a lot of instances. And then we have RD (USDA Rural Development), which is one of the biggest banks in America, lending, right? So there's a lot of, there's also a lot of tribal things that the USDA does. And here's where it gets duplicative. So, there are four different agencies that do some level of economic research at USDA. And then each of the eight mission areas have their own economic researchers. And so sometimes when I'll say, hey, what are we doing on, such as the screwworm, when I was the chief of staff, we have screwworm in the U.S. now, I don't know if you pay attention to that, but it's basically a flesh eating parasite that impacts cattle. So, I would say, research agencies, what do you have? And they're like, well, we're doing this. And then I'd go to the marketing regulatory programs like, well, we're doing this and I'm like, you two internally aren't even talking. So over time, people have become more siloed and it's actually impacting taxpayer revenue. The other thing I'll say is, the government hasn't done enough to make sure that those who need these benefits are getting them, and those that don't are weeded out of the program. And I have a lot of different examples of that. An example in the food stamp program, our food stamp recipients, there are people who really need these benefits and I'm a big supporter of the food stamp program, the SNAP program. In fact, I led a lot of the changes and restricting what people can eat on the SNAP program, we can talk more about that. But for example, the US government, it's a federally funded program, right, and then it gives the money for SNAP to the states. New York State, for example, decides it’s a locally administered program, but some states just administer the program. 29 states have shared their data back with the federal government, and we found 200,000 dead people, 500,000 people getting benefits in multiple states. And that's just 29 states and that's mostly the red states. And some of that is intentional fraud and some of that is they're just overwhelmed at the state and local level, and they don't have time to figure out the paperwork. And so, the feds have helped them kind of fix and make their operations more efficient and they've identified problems that have been lingering for years. New York State, for example, won't share that data. I don't know why. I'm not sure what they're hiding, but it's a way for, you know, us to make sure that those who need the benefits are getting what they have, and maybe more, and getting people who don't need the benefits and are committing fraud or there's particular waste, or there's just not enough people to kind of go through all the day to day paperwork. And so, I think that's one, and that was billions of dollars in a week we found, right? And that was just with 29 states on an initial read. So, New York should share the data and we could actually save some taxpayer dollars. And hopefully we can help those in need, maybe even more so than they're being helped now. So, I think that's just one example. I also think, you know, there's all these other agencies who do a lot of things we do. There's, you know, EPA, they have a lot of researchers too, Department of Energy has a lot of researchers. USDA does nuclear energy funding, so does DOE. EPA has a piece in that. So over time, there's been a lot of duplication and a lot of people not talking and breaking down silos. And one of my favorite parts of the job at USDA was being able to call the other chiefs of staff at the other agencies and fixing these things pretty directly, you know, having these conversations and breaking down some of the regulatory hurdles and the bureaucratic nonsense. And again, a lot of it's not intentional. It's just over time, people don't talk to one another and they start up new programs.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Kailee Buller. She's a Republican candidate for Congress in this November's election and is challenging the Democrat, John Mannion, in New York's 22nd congressional district. So, I wanted to ask you about a policy we haven't discussed yet. And it comes from sort of an idea that's been in my own head, sort of playing around. It's imagining what the second half of this term of President Trump might look like with Congress and the president. And one possibility, although I guess it's low probability, but still, one might imagine that the president would be keen to forge some kind of significant legislation on immigration. No recent president has been able to get that over the finish line, despite numerous attempts by both Democrats and Republican presidents. And it seems to me that even with a Democratic majority, if that's the way the House elections go or Republican majority, it might be something that he might be interested in doing. I just was curious to see what you think the basic contours of an immigration policy could be that could actually get bipartisan support. You mentioned before that you're going to come in focusing on bipartisan work. That's something that the people you mentioned, Katko, Hanna, even to go back to Jim Walsh, did. But how do you see immigration policy? It seems like such a thorny, dead-end kind of policy debate.

KB: No doubt it's a challenging one, but it's a discussion that we have to have and it's one that I started having back when I was in the grocery industry. We were talking about E-Verify and, you know, the challenges of the workforce and H-2A, you know, labor and that's something I've worked an entire decade on and helping the farm and agriculture industry manage H-2A, and it's a flawed program. The current immigration system we have, the president is enforcing the current law on the books, and the current law on the books is incredibly broken. So, number one, the border security situation, the president has secured the border, thank God, that's a bipartisan issue or should be, but that's what the president did. Until we codify that, we could have another administration come in and open that back up. So, if we're doing any kind of immigration package, we have to codify a very secure border, full stop, 100%. The H-2A program is something that we need to fix. Right now, for instance, if you are a, you know, vegetable or, you know, fruit, you know, farming berries or, you know, apples or things like that, the harvest time for that is pretty short, so H-2A labor works for you. If you're in meat processing or you're in dairy, the H-2A program doesn't work. You have to milk a cow every day, that is not a, you don't need to milk three months, you have to milk cow every day, 365 days a year. I'm actually really proud, when I was at USDA I started working on this, and they actually just announced it in the last few weeks, they found some kind of a regulatory fix to let dairy use H-2A longer term, but it's still not perfect and we still need that fixed. Criminals, we all, I think agree, I haven't talked to many people who want criminals in this country. And so those folks who came here illegally and are criminals have to go, 100%. That being said, I do acknowledge there are people who have maybe come here under the wrong circumstances who've been contributing to our workforce for 40, 50 years, have had kids here who are now citizens. And that's the trickiest part that we have to work on together, that a really bipartisan conversation is very much needed. And that's going to be the hardest part about this bill that has to come through. But I have faith that the system is so broken that we have to do it and I will be on board with having that discussion. I haven't quite thought out exactly what the right, you know, number is or what that looks like, but we have to find a way to make those folks, you know, stay contributing to our economy. That being said, I do not believe in blanket, you know, asylum policies. I don't believe in blanket amnesty. In fact, I was just at a small business, I was talking to a lot of Latino minority business owners this week, and they said, you cannot support someone like that because we all worked really hard and came here the right way. And so that's the challenge that we have to work on. But that's not an easy solution. You have to have people from all walks of life, Democrat, Republican, part of that discussion and how we can do that.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is the Republican congressional candidate, Kailee Buller, she's running in New York's 22nd Congressional District. Well, I asked this next question pretty much in exactly the same way I'm going to ask you of Congressman Mannion when he was on the program, and it's something that's becoming increasingly of concern to me and I think a lot of other political scientists and economists out there, it's about the national debt as a percentage of the size of our economy, which is how economists generally view the size of the national debt. We are now at a level we have not seen since World War Two. And the pace of growth up on the debt has been almost vertical since the financial crisis of 2007-2008. It has been a bipartisan problem, both Republican and Democratic presidents have presided over steep increases in the national debt. I just want to ask you, this is a huge question, you could talk for hours on this, but if you could be relatively brief, how do we realistically turn this battle, how do we realistically solve this? You know, people will sometimes point to it, no one runs on it as their first issue, but it's something that we're going to have to address at some point. Do you have any ideas about it?

KB: I'm glad you asked this, because it's actually one of the number one things that I don't align with Trump about. I think we haven't done nearly enough to reduce the deficit. I mean, what, we're nearly at $40 trillion right now and I look at my beautiful kids who are five, three and two, and…

GR: They’re going to pay for it, they're going to pay for it.

KB: Well, and I'm, you know, I get so anxious about this because it's like, we can't just put it out of sight, out of mind, like, this is a real problem. And that's why I think we need more people that are in my age bracket, because, I mean, we've seen Covid, we've seen the economic crisis, and now we're having kids and we're dealing with childcare and the housing. And now I'm looking way to the future, and like, what am I going to leave my kids with? And if I am elected, this is one of the number one things I want to work, and I know it's not the sexiest thing, but, one of my key policy issues is I do support a balanced budget amendment, a constitutional amendment, because I think things have gotten so out of hand. But that being said, how you get there is really challenging. And one of the number one and two questions I hear while I'm on the trail, because I have a much older district is, well, are you going to protect my Social Security? And it's like, yes, if you paid in the system, absolutely. But where we need to start is my kids who aren't yet and who are not yet working. I had my first job at 15 and an ice cream shop, right, so I hypothetically started to pay into the system at like, 14. But we need to look far ahead into, you know, kids who are my age and like, changing what that looks like for them. But we should by no way, shape or means change anything for anyone who's paid into the system. But that being said, I mean, I think there's a lot of opportunity with AI and some of the things we're starting to do at USDA on finding duplicative benefits, whether that be in farm programs or food stamps. There are a lot more ways we can save bits of money, but there's no way around having to tackle this deficit by figuring out long term entitlement reform and doing it in a way that doesn't hurt those who have already paid into the system. That's really complicated, and that's going to take a bipartisan, long term effort, roll up your sleeves. And I started my career and tax policy, so I feel very strongly about this. So, it's something that I want to work on, but it's something that we need a lot of folks to better understand and get to the table on.

GR: How would we start that national conversation in the environment we're in? I mean, I really appreciate what you're saying, and you're willing to at least state publicly, you know, that we're going to have to take a look at this, a hard look at this. The problem that I can't see around is the political environment right now for doing this is just, seems so toxic. Who's going to, I mean, how are we going to get people to do this in good faith? I just, I don't see the current Congress as having that ability right now and maybe even the public, you know?

KB: Well, as I'm talking to the public, I mean, I've been in a DC bubble for many, many years. And as I talk to the public now, I mean, they're scraping by, a lot of them. They're working a couple jobs. So how can they be focused on our national debt when they're trying to focus on paying their bills and feed their kids or, you know, take care of their parents who are aging? So, it's something that we have to keep our eye on and we can't lose the focus, and we have to try to find and make an opening for that. That being said, I also very much support term limits. I also think that because we don't have term limits is another reason that we're in these messes, because these politicians come in, and I also think the increasingly polarized redistricting, Democrats or Republicans have gerrymandered this country so much that we have a much more polarized electorate. And so, I think term limits need to happen. And I also think that, we need to get back to more of this, like, I like the district that I'm in, even though it's a hard one for me to win because it is more moderate and people are like, common sense, tell us the truth, even if it's bad, we want to know. Like, they want to understand. Whereas if you're in a very red or very blue district, you just have to keep, you know, telling them, oh, I'll never do this or I'll never do that to keep getting reelected.

GR: And we've only got about a minute left, but I want to pick up on exactly that thing you just mentioned there about, it's about the district and your strategy here. You know, you already said it, you have an uphill climb, probably particularly this year. It's, from what the polls suggest, may not be a very good year for Republicans. The district has been redrawn a couple of times, it's more favorable to Democrats than it used to be, and I imagine that the Democratic Party is probably very keen to protect John Mannion running for his first reelection as a Democrat. So, you're sort of working against all those things. In a minute or less, do you have, what's your strategy to overcome all that?

KB: Yeah. So, there are 30,000 more Democrats than Republicans in this district. But what no one's talking about is there 150,000 independents who don't really like either party right now. And I know for a fact that my background and where I am in my life, and as I've been talking to people, that I have the ability, they want someone who's going to deliver results. And I have done that my entire career, and I'm very honest. And I am, you know, I view this as I love being an underdog. I'm here to tell the truth and to expose things that people aren't really paying attention to, and it's really working. And the one thing I'll say that's a challenge for my opponent is there's a lot of Democrats who don't recognize the Democrat Party anymore because of the socialist lean. So, I have a lot of JFK Democrats who are like, I'm voting for you because I don't even recognize my party anymore and I don't appreciate how John Mannion has been a party line voter.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. I wish we had more time to talk, but that was Kailee Buller. And again, Miss Buller, just want to thank you for making the time to speak with me, very interesting.

KB: Thank you for talking and I’d love to chat with you any time. And thanks for your listeners for taking a look at my campaign and considering their support for voting for me in November.

GR: You bet. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Pat Hogan(syr.gov)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The Democratic Party primary for Syracuse City Mayor is Tuesday, June 24th, with early voting starting on June 14th. Concluding our interviews with all three of the candidates in that primary, my guest today is Syracuse Common Councilor Pat Hogan, he's also its President Pro Tempore. Councilor Hogan represents the Second District and was first elected to the council back in 2005. He is also chairman of the Greater Syracuse Land Bank and he's board chairman of the Onondaga Industrial Development Agency. Previous interviews with Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens and common councilor Chol Majok can be found on WRVO ‘swebsite on the Campbell Conversations page under the local programing tab. But today, it's Councilor Hogan’s turn, and Councilor Hogan, welcome to the program.

Pat Hogan: Thank you, Grant.

GR: Well, it's great to have you here. We really appreciate you making the time. So, let me just start with a couple of questions I think you could answer super quickly just to give our listeners a full sense of the other positions that you hold outside the council. What's the, or the first one inside the council, what's the significance of being the president pro tempore of the council, what does that mean?

PH: Well,right now, the significance is, as I’m the acting president the council, but I'm an elected member that has a vote. President Hudson, unfortunately, has been ill and I've taken over running the council.

GR: Okay, all right. So essentially that reflects that you are the leader of the council, is that fair to say?

PH: Yes.

GR: Okay, all right. And then equally quick, what does the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency do? What's your role there?

PH: Well, spur economic development, and I think we've been very successful for it. I’m the board chairman, you know, along with some other members of the board, we review proposals from different developments asking for economic benefits that the IDA can give them.

GR: Okay. And obviously, I think it's fair to say that the county executive, the mayor, you folks on the agency, you know the state hit a home run with Micron. We'll come back to that, but yeah, okay, great. So let's get into the questions about the mayor's race. So first of all, could you just briefly give us your overall vision of the city that you have for the next four and possibly eight years?

PH: Well, I think it's a city full of great opportunities and we just have to seize upon them, you know, and recognize what our virtues are and what we're facing as far as issues. I think we have a great city, as far as it's still an affordable city. It's a walkable, accessible city. It has a lot of great neighborhoods in it and I think we should play upon those virtues. On the other hand, we have issues. We have an aging infrastructure, we have a lack of housing, it's a real issue and we have poverty. I think we have to act aggressively to mitigate all those issues, to be a city like we were once, the foremost tier two city, probably in the country.

GR: Yeah. I want to come back to a couple of those things you just mentioned a little bit later, but let me stick with these other questions for now. So how do you think your policy emphasis as a mayor and the initiatives that you would take would be significantly different from what we've seen with the Walsh administration? What would be the shift that people could anticipate?

PH: I have a way more active and aggressive stance on almost every issue. I think this, the last seven years have been sort of in limbo a lot. A lot of times that council and some of the, I'm sure some of our citizens are not sure where the policies were. I'll have definitive policies that will take the city forward. One, for instance, we're going to address the bureaucracy that exists in zoning and codes that prevents people from starting businesses, especially folks who are new to this country, our immigrant folks. It's a maze, it's worthy of Czarist Russia. It's very, very difficult in order to generate tax revenue that, as a city, we have to generate tax revenue and businesses do that.

GR: Well, on that point, you know, I have heard that in many different mayors’ races over the time that I've been in Syracuse, I've been here a little over 30 years, so I've heard different candidates say that. So I gather from that that it is a long standing, perennial problem. But how would you go about streamlining the coding in the zoning?

PH: Well, you know what? We did rezone, it came through my committee, first time since 1967. But, zoning is one thing, but the implementation of zoning and codes, that's the issue. I have a definitive idea how I would handle that, I've been involved in it for many years. I've been on the other side advocating for business folks all the way through the city and citizens too. I would make it, I'd be a hands-on mayor and I would directly run the codes and zoning the first three or four months until we get things straightened out.

GR: Interesting, okay. And then you mentioned that you would be more aggressive, you think, than Mayor Walsh. But more generally, how would you characterize this in terms of both policy and leadership style? What are the most important differences between you and the other two Democratic candidates in the race? What are the most important differences between you and Chol Majok and Sharon Owens?

PH: Well, Chol has been on one side, you know, he's been a legislator. I benefit from my experience, you know, I was a deputy commissioner of a city department for 34 years there. I also worked in the school district, working with kids who had behavioral and academic issues. I have direct experience on many of the issues that are facing the city. For instance, when we talk about education, you know, education is one of the tripods of, you could say, legs of a chair that we have to address as far as poverty goes. You have education, you have jobs, and you have to have housing. As far as the education goes, I have a community school strategy. I would like to extend the hours of the city schools, probably one in each council district. They have a community school program where we not only would provide safe spaces for the children to play in, but also be plugged into the school district. And we did this before, find out what their weaknesses are and bring volunteers, tutors and mitigate those great weaknesses.

GR: On the schools, you know, there's been conversation over the years about the mayor's office kind of taking over the school district, and you obviously have some experience in the schools. Do you have any thoughts about that going forward?

PH: I think we have to look at everything. That was a discussion that took place a lot under Mayor Miner. I wouldn't advocate that. And so obviously I would want this to be like sort of a public thing that we would have, make sure that everybody be involved in it. Our neighborhood organizations and of course, the teachers union and present school board and the superintendent. But I think we have great schools, we have terrific schools. Our issue with the schools is we’ve only got 50% of the kids going, we have an absenteeism rate of 50%. We have to find a way to energize kids to get to school. And I think there's all sorts of social issues that obviously you have older kids taking care of younger kids, we have people working two jobs, especially in challenged neighborhoods. But I would put together a task force and look at that. I'm up to Fowler quite a bit, I'm up to, I've been in Corcoran. We have great programs. We have we still have an issue with discipline, I'll be frank with that. But I think we have to realize that a lot of kids don't go to schools to avail themselves of these programs.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with city of Syracuse Democratic mayoral candidate Pat Hogan. Well, a couple of questions now, maybe a little more sensitive, a little less pleasant. But I want to ask you to respond to some of the criticisms that I have read about you and your campaign in recent months. And first one, you probably know where I'm going with this one, concerns the city's budget, and it got quite controversial. I want to ask you a question or two about that. And I want to go through a quick background if our listeners have heard the previous two programs they’ve heard this before, but just to bring everybody up to speed on this. So, Mayor Ben Walsh proposed a $348 million budget. It involved a 2.2% spending increase and a rise of about 2% in the property tax rate. It also drew on the city's general fund, which was essentially the city's savings account to cover the remaining deficit. The council rejected that proposed raise in taxes, lowered the budgeted spending by about 2.4% or $16 million, and the mayor vetoed some of those changes. The council overrode those vetoes in unanimous votes. All right, you were leading the charge from the council, I think, on the budget, fair to say you were the leading negotiator there. Looking at it from a distance, it's hard to believe that the mayor's race didn't factor somehow into this back and forth between you and the mayor on the budget. Why, first of all, why was the council so concerned about the increases this year? Previous years, they seemed to be okay with similar increases, what was the difference?

PH: Well, we live in a fluid part of American history right now. We have a person in Washington who isn’t a fan of cities. One of the things that remains for us is we always have a structural deficit where, for your listeners, we just don't have enough revenue in order to pay our bills, basically. We do have a cash fund balance and this budget would have withdrawn $27 million, which we all thought was way too much money to draw, especially as we look into the future. As far as being part of the mayor's race, is the vote was 9 – 0, there’s not 9 people running for mayor. This budget was dead almost on arrival. The mayor had a conversation with me about the budget, a two minute conversation the day before he dropped it on us. It was one of the most fiscally irresponsible budgets I've seen in 14 years. I don't think you could raise, it comes from the culture of raising taxes rather than managing departments. I was part of the department, so the councilors put together a plan and implemented the plan that basically cut the departments across the board by 7% except for the police and fire, and that was 5%. Some of the departments actually are going to get more money next year, are going to get more money next year than they'll spend this year. It's part of that where, every budget is a projection. We looked at everything solidly and we were disciplined about it and we passed a budget that benefits the city of Syracuse and their citizens, and they won’t have a tax hike.

GR: I wanted to ask you a question, too, about the process. You mentioned the mayor not really fully consulting prior to proposing, formally delivering the budget to the council. There was some criticism that I have read about the council and your lack of openness and time frame with your changes in terms of the mayor's office not reaching out, trying to find compromise. Tell me a little bit more about the process from your end.

PH: Procedurally, it remained the same. We get the budget on April 8th, we have to make a decision by May 8th. We interview every bureau, every department. We had 27, I think it was 28 department head meetings. These are all open meetings to the public, people could view them. We asked our questions, we went over the budget. We decided to bring in Bonadio, which is an accounting firm that actually does the audit at the end of the year every year in the city budget. We brought them in in the beginning to give us a little more clarity. I thought that worked out great. They pointed out some things that we had already considered and then we, procedurally, it was the same thing we've gone through before. We're in a very compressed amount of time and all of us agreed on what we needed to do in order to save a tax hike and also to put us in a good fiscal standing for the future.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Pat Hogan. The Syracuse City Common counselor is running for mayor and he'll appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 24th. All right, well, just to continue with the theme of the questions before the break, some of the criticisms that I read, get your responses to those. Also, I think the Post-Standard dinged you a little bit in your capacity as chair of the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency on Micron's Draft Environmental Impact Statement and it connects to my question about the budget in that it has to do with process. And the criticism was sort of the timing, apparent lack of openness. The report had not been released to the public, despite being submitted last December. My understanding is that report is now set to be released on June 25th, which, looking at the calendar is the day after the primary. So I can see, you know people looking at this might be like why aren't we seeing this a bit earlier? It's such an important issue. It is part of Micron's calendar of trying to get the operation going. Why the timing on this?

PH: Well, we wanted to make sure it was done. And I sit in, those meetings, the environmental assessment, and it wasn't done. And in a situation like that where you're dealing with state regulations and federal regulations, a big project like that, you certainly have to cross every T and dot every I. Because if there was a mistake, that could really delay things down the road. That was impressed upon us and everybody who was in those rooms. It was released prematurely. My understanding there's some things that will be different in the final releasing of the report. And it was, you know, sort of an unfortunate thing, it was sort of leaked to the press. But I think we're going to be all set to go and this is a big project and we wanted to make sure we’d done everything right.

GR: Okay, all right. So I want to come back to some of the things that you mentioned at the outset of our conversation. And you talked about one of the things that you want to focus on is, of course, the problem of poverty and concentrated poverty in the city of Syracuse. And it's concentrated in a lot different ways geographically, racially. What are some of the ways that you plan to really get at that, that's such a big problem? You mentioned the three legs on the stool, the education, the housing and the job opportunities. But can you speak a little bit more about how you could really try to chip away at that?

PH: You know, it’s almost a person to person basis, family by family basis. I mean, we talk about childhood poverty, but it’s essentially family poverty. I found that out when I worked in the city schools. You know, housing is a big issue and housing we have to, you know, I think we have to really go to the state and like ask them to release, sort of soften the rules as far as the extension of LIHTC tax credits to municipalities. Right now, you only get about two per locale. This helps financing affordable housing. I have a big project that’s going up just a five minute walk from my house is a former Syracuse developmental center area. We're going to 550 units of affordable housing up there. The costs are enormous to build housing now, not only labor and material, and we need help from the state government. If we can get help from the federal government, that's great. But we have to advocate and I'm a politician, we have to get a coalition together to advocate for more housing. As far as the educational part, we have to transition to more what jobs are available. I think the city school district is starting to do that very well. We have a career academy at Fowler, we have a welding program at Corcoran, showing kids that there are other ways, obviously, to support their families down the road. But we have to get the kids in school. To be an electrician, right now, I know a lot of people in IBEW 43, they’re figuring that they’re going to need a thousand electricians to build Micron. And you're probably going to need 300, 400 when it gets up and running. But you have to, in order for our kids to qualify for these jobs, to be an electrician, you have a fundamental understanding of algebra and you have to be to school at least 9th grade, 10th grade. You’ve got to know what you're doing. And I think we have to have a total emphasis on that, to train these kids. I know Micron is going to help us out on that. They're definitely looking to, they don't need kids with the college degree, they need kids who are trained in the proper things. And then, you know, the jobs will be available. I know people, we'll get calls from all over the country, people looking to move here. And as part of that, I believe there's five to six neighborhoods in the city of Syracuse that will be looking at the demographics of Micron that will be especially attracted to some of the people coming in. And I think we have to like, promote them. We have to promote, we want to build the population of the city.

GR: And one of the things that you do here, you did not mention, but I wanted to get your thoughts on it, was on the issue of poverty and opportunity is transportation and the importance of being able to get to these places, to get to the educational opportunities, to get to the jobs. What are your thoughts about that?

PH: You know, Grant, that's great you mentioned that because that’s part of the environmental assessments, is how are we going to get people there? You know, we were successful with the Amazon project. My understanding is the busiest bus route in Central New York is from downtown Syracuse to Amazon. They’re all entry level jobs, but they're also, you know, you got insurance, you know, you make like $35, $40,000 and they're good about promoting people I know it's a tough work environment sometimes, but you're absolutely right. There will be part of getting people to the jobs, through public transportation, Centro is already on board about that. But that is a great question because, you know, where I grew up on the near West Side and South Side, I mean, my grandfather worked at the car plant in south Fowler, I can't think of the name of it now, but, you know, people walked to work in those days, now we have to get them to work.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, I’m Grant Reeher.

PH: Grant, that was the Franklin Motor Company.

GR: Oh, Franklin Motor Company, okay.

PH: That's right. I know I’d come up with it.

GR: It was okay, it was a little bit delayed, that’s all (laughter). I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Syracuse mayoral candidate Pat Hogan. So a couple of questions here at the end, and they get at, again, some of the things we've already been talking about but I want to put them in a very specific context. That the taking down of I-81 and the redevelopment of the East Adams Street area, prior to the Micron announcement that was going to be the biggest development opportunity for the city. What at this point are your biggest priorities for that effort and also your biggest concerns? I'm wondering maybe whether that would be not following through at the federal government level with some of the assistance, but anyway, go ahead.

PH: I think it'll put more than a little pressure probably our Syracuse police department, doesn't really have a traffic division. I think we got to manage that properly inside the city when everything's down. A lot of the folks, unlike me, a lot of the folks who advocated for the 81 to come down, never drove through Syracuse without 81 being up. My father always showed me how to get around the city without using 81. I think the big thing for the city is to maintain control of the 14 acres of property that 81 stands on right now. The state has been not really good at peddling public property. We have been good, making good use of it. Those 14 acres, I look to knit the university finally together with downtown, you know, we properly develop them. I look for affordable housing basically there and maybe some retail shops and things like that that are allowed under our zoning. But that is going to be a transformative thing. But once again we're going to have to manage it right and I plan to manage it so it benefits all the neighborhoods in the city.

GR: Well, briefly if you could on this next question, follow up on that. One of the things that I always have been worried about, and I've said this to multiple people from different backgrounds who come on the program talking about the city, is the actual transition process in terms of transportation. We're already seeing some of the fallout from this. But my concern is that you'll have several years where there will be, for lack of a better word, a lot of sort of transportation pain involved in this. Do you have any plans for mitigating that?

PH: We're going to need help from the county sheriff's department. You know, the city police department, right now, has 36 vacancies. We're going to need manpower. I'm sure that there's a traffic plan, but manning that traffic plan and implementing that traffic plan, we might even have to reach out to the state. I have the same concerns. I worry about traffic sort of jumping on all those north-south arterials west, you know, to try to get around the city. And it'll be a learning curve and we're going to need every facet as far as every media organization, digital media, everything to let people know how they can get around the city. It's going to be a huge undertaking.

GR: And here at the end, a question about Micron. You've already talked about the opportunities that this is going to create for the area. That seems clear and it also seems pretty clear it's going to be completely transformative in a lot of different ways. You're an industrial development guy, you think a lot about this kind of stuff. What are your biggest worries? What are your biggest concerns about Micron coming in here?

PH: That we're going to be able to fill the jobs and all those benefits spread evenly across all our neighborhoods, all our neighbors, especially the challenged neighborhoods. This, you know, when the factories moved after World War (II), in the 60’s, that devastated a lot of those neighborhoods, some of the neighborhoods I represent. This time we can get have a resurgence in those neighborhoods if we are cognizant of what we need to do in order to give our people the best chance to work at Micron.

GR: Do you have any concerns somehow that it will change the fundamental nature and character of Syracuse as a unique location? I mean, one thought I have is that it will do a lot of great things, but in a lot of ways we might end up feeling like a more generic place. I don't know if that question makes sense.

PH: You mean we won't be a college town anymore?

GR: Or we won't feel distinctly upstate, we won't feel distinctly Syracuse, you know? You will lose your accent, you know? (laughter)

PH: You know what, Grant, I was thinking this the other day, as I go to neighborhood meetings across the city, we are blessed we have like, all these unique neighborhoods that all sort of like exist their way. And they all, like, unite and, but I mean I don't think this will change the character, this might even enhance the character of Syracuse. I can't imagine this will change the character of Syracuse, except for, you know, our noted cynicism that we're really good at sometimes. But, you know, you say something about Buffalo up in Buffalo and you're going to get a punch in the snoot. But you say sometimes in Syracuse and sometimes people agree with you. You know, I mean, we're just like that. But I think we have some great neighborhoods in the city. And I think people who come from other cities, this happens all the time, I hear this all the time, people who’ve moved here, love it. I mean, they love Syracuse and I think they're going to be citizens for life. But sometimes we let our own, our cynicism get a little bit.

GR: You know, I've got some neighbors that just moved in across the street from New York City and it's an epiphany for them about the ease with which they can do different things. Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Pat Hogan and again, the Democratic primary for mayor in Syracuse is June 24th. Early voting starts on June 14th. Councilor Hogan, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really enjoyed our conversation.

PH: Thanks, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Chol MajokProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The Democratic Party primary for Syracuse City mayor is Tuesday, June 24th and early voting starts on June 14th. Continuing our interviews with all three candidates, my guest today is Syracuse Common Councilor, Chol Majok. Councilor Majok is a Councilor-at-Large representing the entire city, but he was first elected as a councilor from the Third District. He previously worked in Mayor Stephanie Miner's administration and in 2022, he ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 22nd Congressional District. My interview with Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens can be found on WRVO’s web site, wrvo dot org on the Campbell Conversations page under the local programing tab. Next week I plan to have Common Councilor Pat Hogan on the program. But for today, it's Councilor Majok. Councilor Majok, welcome to the program, it’s good to see you.

Chol Majok: It is great to be here. Thank you for having me.

GR: Oh, well, thanks for making the time. Let me just start with a very basic question. And if you could be brief on this one. I know you could speak for quite a long time on it, but briefly, what's your vision for the city of Syracuse over the next four and possibly eight years?

CM: Well, my vision is with the hope that, you know, when I get elected is to leave this city better than I found it. That is the overall overarching vision. Now that can, I have, I do say this in my vision that I will lead Syracuse into a future where families thrive, neighborhoods flourish, and opportunities are accessible. That is in a nutshell, of what I intend to see this city when I take over and when I leave it, that our families are doing better, that our neighborhoods are safer and opportunities in all neighborhoods, people can have accessibility to those opportunities regardless of economic background.

GR: Okay. And thinking about the last eight years of the Ben Walsh administration, how do you think your emphasis on policy and what initiatives you would take might differ from his and in what ways?

CM: Well, Grant, I'm a true believer in that, you know, in order to move a community forward and to move a city forward, we have to look at our assets. And our assets in this sense are the people. What has happened with Syracuse is that poverty has beaten down this community, that the value of people is under the struggles and the problems. And when a community is dealing with something like this, it becomes a leadership problem. And leaders need to figure out how do you equip people to do for themselves? You know, as somebody with a large experience in workforce development, equipping people to do for themselves, I am the right person for this for this job to be the mayor. Precisely because Syracuse is in this space where Micron is coming, Amazon is already here. And when you talk about Micron and Amazon and many other better paying jobs, they are outside of the city, right? And we need to be able to first do two things, equip people with the right skills, number two, be able to have reliable transportation where people can access those. People talk about changing poverty and challenging poverty to be able to challenge poverty, yes, government policies are great, but if we want to uproot poverty, we have to equip people. We have to equip people to do for themselves that include fathers, mothers, guardian, people and residents in the community. I'm raising a young family and raising a young family to be able to successfully raise that young family, you cannot subtract economic from that equation. And being able to get the right economic tools in my belt to raise that family, I need skills. I need to be able to get to those jobs, and that's where my skills and talent come in. I have a business development experience and talent development experience, which is what this city really need when you look at the future of it, that's what really this city needs. Yes, we can talk about housing, housing is great, we need housing, but we also need to talk about sustainability. Without the right skills to really manage oneself economically, you can't sustain housing. And that's where my skill and talent become essential in equipping people to do for themselves so they can sustain those housing and be able to sustain tax base in our city.

GR: You mentioned your background in workforce development as part of the toolkit that you would have and being able to do that. I was also thinking of your own personal story. I mean, you came here to the United States with nothing and here you are running for mayor. Do you think that that gives you a particular perspective on this issue?

CM: Absolutely, absolutely. I just had a fundraiser this weekend, Professor Reeher, had a fundraiser this weekend and was put together by New American Leaders. And I'm saying that to say I didn't realize how much of an impact I have made, especially to disadvantaged communities, especially those that came in the same background as I am, refugees and immigrant and struggling people, until I saw a number of leaders that said, Brother Chol, what you have done here is something that would outlast us as a generation and will lead into the next generation, right? And that in itself, when you are grinding, when you are working every day and you when you are trying to do your best, you don't look at how far you have come. But people who have lived like you are looking at you. And this race is not just about me, Professor Reeher, it's not just about me. It is about everyone that have lived like me, people with struggle, people who have came to America to seek second chances in life. And America has embraced them and offer them those opportunities to transform their lives. They are looking at me and they are saying, Chol, if we can come to America, pay taxes, revitalize neighborhood, why can we not leave city hall? So this is a fight for every single person, every marginalized community and every struggling person, irrespective of race and gender.

GR: Do you think that that is the most important thing that differentiates you from the other two Democratic candidates? This background, this is what separates you from Pat Hogan and Sharon Owens?

CM: Well, I have a couple of them that separate me from that. Yes, I have the ability to relate to a lot of the city residents here, as when I came, I was not born here, but I grew up here. I went to city school district, a graduate right there. I grew up in the most impoverished neighborhood in the city, Brighton neighborhood. And we have not had a mayor with my background or a candidate with my background that have ran at this level. So yes, there is that differentiation that people, I can relate to people more than the other candidate, that's one. The other piece is, is that as a candidate, I'm coming in with executive training. I'm not just talking about one of those trial and error kind of training that I have seen with other candidate where they make mistakes. I have theoretical knowledge, I've been trained, I’ve applied it as well. So I'm coming equipped more than most mayors in the executive office. I have legislative experience at the state level and then at the city level. That differentiate me between Pat Hogan and Sharon Owens, right? And I am at this point between all the candidate, I am the only one who have been elected at-large, citywide. We have ran a successful citywide election. So when it come to later to Republican, I'm the only one who know how to run election and wins election. So that's the other part of the party. Accountability, you know I'm going to be different because I'm going to take accountability. My record has shown that anything I do, I take accountability for it. Something that I’ve seen, Deputy Mayor Owens and the current administration rarely take accountability for. For example, the advanced I.T. situation that we are dealing with, that is a looming fraud in our city. Second, the Blueprint 15 that Deputy Mayor Owens share and never to accountability for. I'm going to take accountability and people are looking for accountability, Professor Reeher. So that's what really differentiate me a lot with my opponent and we don't have time but I would have went in with a lot as well.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with city of Syracuse Democratic Mayor candidate Chol Majok. Just for our listeners, you mentioned experience at the state level and what you're referring to there is your previous work for state Senator Dave Valesky, right?

CM: And Marty Golden as well.

GR: That's right. Marty Golden, that's right, got it.

CM: Two state senators.

GR: I forgot about the first one, yeah. So I want to ask you a question about the most recent city budget, because that became quite controversial and you were at the center of that along with your two opponents. So, Mayor Ben Walsh proposed a $348 million budget. It involved a 2.2% spending increase and a raise of about 2% in the property tax rate. It also drew on the city's general fund, which is, you know, essentially the city's savings account to cover a remaining deficit in the budget. The council rejected that proposed raise in taxes and lowered the budgeted spending by about 2.5% percent or $16 million. The mayor then vetoed some of those changes that the council made, and then the council overrode those vetoes in unanimous votes. I think I've got that all right. So my first question for you is, watching the way this unfolded, it's hard to believe from a distance that this mayor's race didn't factor into that back and forth in some way. Just explain briefly if you could, why was the council concerned about the increases in the budget this year when you folks were fine with similar increases in previous years?

CM: Well, the short answer to that, Professor Reeher, is that since 2020 we have $123 million that we could play with and we could push around and be able to balance our budget with.

GR: And that was from that was from the COVID money, right? Is that what you’re talking about?

CM: COVID money, absolutely. We have COVID money, next year budget we will no longer have that COVID money. And, and people who are intimate with our city budget knows that we don't generate enough from tax base to be able to cover our expenses. Number two, a basic economic formula is that you don't spend what you don't have. And as a city, and I have said it repeatedly, and I had some people, I rubbed some people the wrong way, I have said it, if the council have to be the adult in the room to really balance the city budget, then so be it. And at this point, Professor Reeher, what is really pushing the council, and you can see people have said that is political, it’s not political, it's unanimous. Nine of us, only two councilors are running for council so far for mayor, only two councilors, right? And all nine councilors voted unanimously to reduce the spending the city is experiencing. So the short answer to that, Professor Reeher, we just don't have it. And it is irresponsible and fiscally unsustainable to continue to spend the way Mayor Walsh has spent city resources. Mayor Walsh has raised our budget by over $100 million since he has been in the office. The city just does not generate enough to be able to sustain that much recklessness, we just don't. And if as councilors, we have to look out for the best interests of our city and constituent, then that's what we were elected to do. We will do our job. And I applaud all my fellow councilors for doing their job.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Chol Majok. The Syracuse City Common Councilor is running for mayor and will appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 24th. So I have a second question, as I mentioned about the budget, and it's about the criticisms that have come, and they've not just come from the Walsh administration, they've also come from outside observers about the lack of openness by the council regarding these decisions about the changes. That there wasn't an apparent attempt in advance to reach out to the administration, say, hey, you know, this looks like too much, we have a problem. Why did the council operate in what appears anyway to be more out of the public's eye in this regard?

CM: So we as council have been accused of politicizing and being secretive, in which it is very surprising, very surprising to councilors. Because what the council has done is what they have always done, right? And there is never a time after a month-long budget hearing, there has never been a time where councilors go back to department head that are managed by the mayor to ask them of their opinion as to what, how we are going to adjust our budget. Now, Professor Reeher, let's make this correction. There's a difference between executive level of government and legislative branch of government. There are two different, and there is nowhere that I have seen the legislators have to go back to the executive to consult them as to what to do. Otherwise there wouldn't be no difference in branches of government. We have done our job just like we have always done in previous years. Nothing was different. Now, in the past five years, like I said earlier, we had ARPA money so we were flexible with the mayor and his spending. This year we cannot allow that. And as councilors, we have a responsibility to make sure that when we deliver that budget that it is to the best of our ability. Three hundred and almost fifty million dollars, it's a large budget. And as councilors we needed to do right by our constituents. That's why we hired the same auditor, the same auditor that was hired by the mayor to look at the city budget. Why was it a problem for us to use them to be able to really vet the process? Now, let's not make no mistake, there is a $27 million deficit, $27 million deficit. The council was able to only take out $16 million of it. There's still a deficit to be addressed. Rather than the Mayor Walsh and Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens worrying about that, they are worried about why the council took time to really vet this process. They are worried about our process and they are not worried about the $14 million deficit that they have to address. That is to me, that's where the constituents should be spending their energy, not the process the council took to balance the budget.

GR: Okay, now I want to come back to something that you spoke about in the first part of our conversation. You spoke very powerfully about your background and what that brings to the campaign and what you are representing for the city and how this is a bigger campaign than just about you, and I want to follow up on that and link what you said to more national issues. And so, you're an immigrant to this country, you have this powerful story about your history as a refugee from South Sudan, often called the Lost Boys. You were one of the Lost Boys and made this amazing journey. And our country right now is in a pivotal moment when it comes to how we deal with and think about immigrants and immigration. This is a conversation that's happening across the country. Do you think that your campaign is somehow importantly linked or has a meaning to that in certain ways?

CM: Well, Professor Reeher, you know, Syracuse and upstate, especially upstate New York here, has a long history of being trailblazers, being inclusive, being a welcoming community. And that is undeniably our history. And at these times, the time that we are in with the federal government, it is shameful. And there are people that I have talked to that have said, Chol, they come to me and apologize and said, Chol, this is not who we are as a country. We are a country that embrace immigration, a country that embraced otherness, a country that embrace the world. This is not who we are. And when I hear that, Professor Reeher, it just give me more energy to want to run. Because immigrant in this country at this point are being beaten down by our government. And they need some space where they can be uplifted and folks like me running is a testament to that uplifting. You know, a good statement that Syracuse, New York, can give to immigrant and to our values is electing people like myself. It is a statement that we see you immigrants, we see you refugees. We see you, those that are coming from broken worlds and see Syracuse as a space where they can get second chances. When I run, Professor Reeher, I am running to be able to uplift those voices, those voices that our federal government is pursuing to beat down. And New York, Syracuse, New York is going to stand, as it always have done, to be able to make sure that we stand by those that come from broken worlds and are here seeking second chances in life. And our message to them, yes, you are embraced, yes, you are welcome, yes, you are listened to and yes, you will be here and this is your home.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Syracuse mayoral candidate Chol Majok. You mentioned Micron earlier, I wanted to ask you a question about that. Obviously, there are amazing opportunities for the city of Syracuse and the broader community, even the whole state of New York here from this Micron mega microchip facility in Clay. Do you have any, and would you bring into the office, any major concerns or worries about that development?

CM: I have a couple of them. I am excited, just like anybody else in this community, to have Micron in our community. Very excited, because the opportunities that Micron is going to bring are going to be great. If it is managed well, we will see a level of economic innovation that we have not seen for a long time. So that to me is exciting because as a young father, as a man that is raising a young family, I can see my daughters and my sons and myself and my wife being able to look at Micron as a gateway to uplift ourselves out of poverty. So many other families, so many other individual and household in the community, it’s exciting. Now, a couple of things that are concerned for me. One, I know that Micron is going to come with their own people and the few that are going to be left, few position that are going to be left to be filled. This is a city, if we go in the same pace and the same direction that we are going in, those jobs are not going to reach city residents, they are going to go to suburban people. If the rate we are going is the way we are going to go without the change of leadership, those jobs are going to be grabbed by suburban people, for a couple of reasons. First, skills level. Our skills level at this moment, Professor Reeher, is atrocious. We need to upskill people, something we have not done. And this is where somebody like me, who has a workforce development experience, would be able to see through that and be able to give people to there. Few opportunities that they would be able to reach our city, this is the second part. Few opportunities that are going to reach this city, right? Maybe I’m going to be challenged by transportation factors. As you know, Micron is going to be far away from the city and transport portion at this moment is one of the most challenging, challenging barrier for our city resident to uplift themselves out of poverty. We have an address that BRT is coming in 2026. But BRT is, unless if they change the route with the right leadership, BRT is not going to go outside of the city limit. So skilled issue is going to hinder people from Micron, and I have a plan and the skill and the ability to get people there, right? Transportation is going to be a factor. And some of the things that we as a current leadership is doing nothing with. So I'm going to change those. And if Micron is going to be for our people here, those need to be addressed head on.

GR: So we've only got a couple of minutes left, so you'll have to be brief on these, I apologize. But I have heard you in the past and you've done it on this program, speak very eloquently about America. And what it means to you and your experiences. What are you telling your children right now about America?

CM: Well, one of the best thing that I tell my children is that, you know, you are in America. America is the only place that I have been to. America is the only place where a child of a janitor can sit on the same table as a child of a president. America is the only place you can do that. And I always tell my children, regardless of the circumstances, you don't have to be your condition, you don't have to live your conditions. And I always tell refugees, I said, just because you came as a refugee does not mean you have to live like a refugee. America is the only place I know that can allow a refugee to come in as a refugee with no English. Get a doctrine and run for a mayor of a major city. America is the only place you can do that. And I said, regardless of the struggles, regardless of the struggle, you cannot take away the fact that America can create dream far beyond your imagination. I always tell my children, Professor Reeher, take opportunities, regardless of the obstacles. Always remember, you always have a chance to take that chance, just like your father has.

GR: Now, last question. You've only got a couple of seconds for this one, I'm sorry. In 2022 you ran for Congress, in 2023 you ran for Common Council-at-Large, successfully. In 2025, now you're running for mayor. Do you just love being a political candidate?

CM: Well, Professor Reeher, you know, this work is all passion, it’s all passion. And as you can see, you know, in 2022, I ran for Congress because I saw that I was going to be redistricted out of my seat. And I have passion for this work. So I tried it and then it didn't work, and I knew 2023 came up. I had to keep my seat. I had to stay in politics, that's why I kept running. And I got elected. And at this moment I see that I am the most qualified candidate, I got to take it. And there is a room for my experience and for the candidate of my caliber. So I'll do it and I'm excited to do it, people are excited to see me do it and let's go from here.

GR: Okay, I’ll have to leave it there. That was Chol Majok. Again, the Democratic Party mayoral primary in Syracuse is June 24th, early voting starts June 14th. Counselor Majok, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. And I just want to say on a personal note, regardless of the outcome, you are inspirational in your story, and so I do wish you well.

CM: Thank you, thank you for having me. Like I always said, my vision for the city of Syracuse is to lead Syracuse into a future where families thrive, neighborhoods flourish, and opportunities are accessible.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Aran ShetterlyProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Aran Shetterly. He's a writer and editor and the author of a relatively new book on the Greensboro massacre in North Carolina titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul". Aran, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

Aran Shetterly: Thank you. Great to be with you.

GR: Well, it's good to have you. So a really interesting book and an interesting timing on it, too. Let's just start with some basics for our listeners. Remind all of us what the Greensboro Massacre was.

AS: Well, we all need to be reminded because it's sort of left our public consciousness in a lot of ways. So in 1979, a multiracial group of activists was organizing in the mills in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were trying to bring black and white workers together. And these were still some of the largest textile mills in the whole world. I mean, Levi's dungaree jean material was made there for over a hundred years. And they were having trouble bringing people, white and black people together in those mills and felt that the Klan was perhaps, the Ku Klux Klan was perhaps interfering with their work. And so they decided to have a march to talk about why it's important to bring workers together, that they would have more power to advocate for better hours, better health care, better services, better pay. And they called it ‘Death to the Klan’ and they put up these posters. And they were organizing on November 3rd, 1979 setting up, putting up the sound truck, putting up posters, singing some freedom songs. And all of a sudden, a caravan of Klansmen and neo-Nazis drove up to the start of the march, picked a fight, started shooting, killed five of these activists and injured another ten, drove off, and no one was ever held criminally responsible for what happened. And when I found out about this, I thought, wait a minute, how do I not know about this and what is this story? I need to go deeper.

GR: Interesting. So one of the things that struck me, looking at your book and then what you just said to me right there, the name of the event in the march was ‘Death of the Klan’ and from what I've read, the marchers were chanting ‘death to the Klan’. What did they mean by that? And I know that, we'll get to this a little bit later, but some of the folks that that were charged pointed to that as kind of the notion that the antagonism was going in both directions.

AS: Yeah. I mean, that's a great question and some ways, the antagonism was going in both directions. But what they really meant was death to racism, death to an ideology that separates people in the way that the Klan has done. And that's, you know, later and after all the trials and after everything that took place, the leader of this march, Nelson Johnson, would say, I really regret that we didn't say death to racism, because that's really what we meant. And instead, the title made it seem personal in a way that they didn't really intend it to be.

GR: Right. And so you mentioned that no one was ever ultimately held criminally accountable for this. But there were people arrested, there were people caught, correct?

AS: Correct. And there were, I mean, almost by chance, though, because one of the curious things about this event was that the local police had decided to take a low profile approach. So they were out of sight, they weren't actually near where the marchers were. And yet they had an informant that was telling them that the Klan was actually going to show up that day and that they had guns. So it was a bizarre and very faulty, if not deliberately faulty decision that came from the top of that department. So at the last minute, some police swooped in and arrested 12 of these Klansmen, most of the shooters. And they were then tried in a state murder trial, then a federal criminal civil rights trial. And then finally there was a third trial, which was a federal civil trial.

GR: Okay. And were there any guilty verdicts or liabilities that were ultimately meted out here, even have a civil kind or no one was ever held accountable in any way?

AS: The third trial was really the most interesting trial, because the plaintiffs, you know, the activists were able to hire their own lawyers. And so instead of having the district attorney, prosecutors doing the state murder trial or the Justice Department lawyers doing the federal criminal civil rights trial, they had their own lawyers who could present the evidence and the arguments in the way that they wanted to. And not only that, there was this incredible judge. No judge in North Carolina would hear the federal civil trial. And so a judge from Richmond named Robert Merhige came down and camped out in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for six months and heard this trial. And Merhige was this incredibly fair judge who had also been responsible for integrating schools in Virginia in the early 1970’s, among other things, and admitting women to the University of Virginia. And he refused to let the jury in that civil trial be all white. The previous two juries had been all white. And there was one black man on that jury in the civil trial. And at the end of the day, there was a judgment in which Klansmen, neo-Nazis, the informant for the police department and Greensboro Police Department officers were found jointly liable for death. And as far as I know, that's the only judgment like that in American history that's held Nazis, Klansmen and police together jointly liable.

GR: Was there any money that ultimately got awarded to any families?

AS: A fraction of, you know, what they'd asked for. And they actually awarded the money only to one of the families who had suffered the death of one of their family members. And it was the only member who had not been a member of the Communist Worker's Party, which is what a lot of these activists were part of. And so it was a curious and somewhat political decision on the part of the jury to award $350,000 about to that one family. But what is interesting is what the activists did is they took most of that money back and put it into a fund that they have used then for decades to fund civil rights work at the grassroots level around the South.

GR: Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Aran Shetterly, and we're discussing his new book, it's titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul". So you mentioned there, right before the break the Communist Worker's Party being principal organizer of the labor action and the protest. So that has to change the dynamics of all of this. And this may be an overly simplistic question, but is this something about communism and anti-communism? Or is this something about race and racism or about labor more generally? I mean, how do you disentangle those things as a historian and a writer when you're trying to unpack what's going on back then?

AS: That's a great question, actually. And the thing is, at some point, you really can't. There's sort of like this Möbius strip, right? You're not sure which side you're on when you're trying to describe this at times. It’s particularly the animosity toward, right, that's being directed from the Klan and the Nazis. So what happened was, and this was one of the reasons they were acquitted in the first two trials, the state murder trial and the federal criminal trial, was that their defense lawyers very cleverly wrapped them in the flag. They said these are patriots, they weren't acting out of racial animus, they were going after communists, and you send them halfway around the world to fight communists in Vietnam and here they are trying to protect the United States from communism and you're going to hold them accountable? And, you know, there's something to that argument, right? It's like, well, it's okay to go fight it around the world, but here they're protected? It's a little confusing. And so, I mean, I don't believe that's right, but I'm just saying I can understand why it causes conflict in the minds of the shooters and the jury. So, yeah, that was a big part of what happened. What's interesting is that Judge Merhige even said, you know, you can't really disentangle these two things, race and communism in this trial. And what he meant by that is that a lot of times civil rights activists were being called communists when they weren't, you know? And anyone who was advocating for equal justice, for true equality, for full participation in our democracy would often get called a communist. And there have been all these witch hunts through our history. So in a way, whether they call themselves communists or not, the Klansmen, the Nazis, because of what they were advocating for, the labor justice across racial lines, we're probably going to consider them communists anyway.

GR: So you are pretty sure, and the way that you're talking to me today also suggests this, that the juries got this wrong, that that the folks that were on trial were the ones that did the shooting, were the ones that did the killing. And how do we know this? I mean, this may seem like a dumb question, but why are you so sure?

AS: Well…

GR: The cops grabbed them right away, like almost in the act? I mean, what would be the reason why, hey, we didn't get the wrong person? It seems like a silly question, but I just want to make sure.

AS: Yeah. What's very interesting is these trials were quite complex, to be honest with you. And what was clear was, the people prosecuting the trials were a little uncomfortable prosecuting in a sense, on behalf of people who called themselves communists. And so they made some decisions that compromised their ability to really prosecute the trial well. And the thing is, is that the marchers had a parade permit, they had a legal right. They'd gone to the police department, they'd gone to the city. They had a legal right to march that day. So when the FBI came in to investigate, they opened their investigation and it turned out this was the third largest FBI investigation in our nation's history at the time, they opened their investigation as a civil rights investigation because the marchers had gone through the proper channels and had their freedom of speech protected to march and to say whatever it was they wanted to say that day. The Klansmen and Nazis who drove up had no such permit. They were just confronting this march out of the blue. And so that really becomes down to, this was not sanctioned on both sides. It was it was sanctioned on one side and then ambushed by another side.

GR: Okay. And so the trials happen, in almost all instances these folks are not held accountable, except for this one instance that happened, you know, several years later, the civil trial.

AS: Right.

GR: How would you characterize what's going on in Greensboro between the end of these trials? And 2004, which is when is the sort of the positive part of your book, the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established. What is life in Greensboro like on this issue during that time?

AS: Well, this is why I call it really a, you know, a struggle for an American city soul in some ways. I mean, this was an incredibly divisive event that fractured Greensboro in a lot of ways, as these tragic events tend to do in our communities. And, you know, the very first thing and, you know, as a sort of investigative journalist-historian, what I get drawn to when I hear that the mayor at the time, the minute the shooting happened, says this has nothing to do with Greensboro, essentially. Don't even look here, you know, it's just some extremists who happened to pass through our city, I think, wait a minute, let's see what this has to do with Greensboro. But you have a big section of Greensboro’s residents who followed that mayor and believed this didn't have anything to do with us, you know? And we shouldn't even be talking about this, you know, we need to just sweep this under the rug and move on. And, you know, a lot of people in the city were traumatized by this event, but they weren't given the ability to process it, to talk about it. The justice system couldn't process it and come out with a verdict that anyone really trusted and so it festered. And the people, you know, who were the activists got blamed essentially for what had happened. Oh, you called it ‘Death to the Klan’, you baited the Klan in here, and they became pariahs in the city. And so there was a lot of pain and trauma and healing that needed to happen and still does, to be honest with you. It's a long process to recover from events like this.

GR: Yeah, I want to pursue that a little bit more when we come back from the break. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Aran Shetterly. He's a writer and editor and the author of a new book titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul" and we've been discussing the book and the issues that it raises. So right before the break, we were talking about the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. How did this commission get established?

AS: So it's interesting, in a way it starts with art. A woman named Emily Mann wrote a wonderful play called, “Greensboro, a Requiem about the Massacre” and it was performed in Greensboro. And all of a sudden, people were able to start conversations about what had happened that they hadn't been having for at that point, almost 20 years. And coming out of that, Nelson Johnson, who's at the center of my book, who had become by then not a communist anymore, but a pastor and a remarkable activist, he continued, you know, being an activist his whole life, he just died this past February and truly a tremendous loss. But he saw this and he thought, wow, conversations can be had and when they're had, there's a healing aspect to that. And so he they started talking about this, and it was, happened to coincide with an American foundation that was interested in seeing if the South African model of a truth and reconciliation process could actually work in the United States. And so they came and said, we'll fund this. Let's see if we can you know, make something happen. Now, the city of Greensboro wanted nothing to do with it. And so what ends up happening is actually a pretty remarkable achievement to my mind, of Greensboro civil society. NGOs, churches, business leaders come together to put on a full scale truth and reconciliation process. Bishop Desmond Tutu visits Greensboro twice, members of the commission in South Africa participated fully in helping organize and structure this commission. And they held two years of basically studying what had happened and having open forums in which people who were participated or connected to it came to talk, including Klansmen and police officers and these activists and lawyers and judges. Quite a remarkable process that ran from 2004 to 2006 and produced this incredible report that basically laid out the history as they saw it, of what had taken place that day on November 3rd, 1979 and issued a whole set of recommendations for the city of Greensboro to try to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

GR: Wow. Let me interrupt there because I just heard you say that Klansmen or former Klansmen were part of this too. How did they generate that kind of trust across the board? I can see how you'd get one side or the other side, but my goodness, how did they thread that needle?

AS: Well, I think they tried to tell people that they were not controlling in the least what they said, they were going to invite them in to tell their stories. And what's interesting about that is two Klansmen came. One was reflective in a very interesting way. He said, you know what? I grew up in the South, I grew up with stories of the Confederacy. We had a frying pan that we said, you know, saved my grandfather's life because a union bullet hit it. And, you know, I eat my fried eggs out of that frying pan my whole, growing up. And he said, so, you know, I believe those ideas, if I had grown up in New York City, he said, maybe I would have been a communist.

GR: Wow.

AS: The other Klansman said to a shocked audience that was shocked into silence, God guided the bullets that day. So you saw that one was open and possibly changing to some degree in his mind, and the other one wasn't, but hugely informative to people listening about where things stood.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the writer Aran Shetterly. So you mentioned that the commission made recommendations and those were directed in part towards avoiding something like this in the future, making things better. What were the, can you summarize the recommendations?

AS: Well, there were a bunch. There were a bunch about sort of economic equality, to be honest, and fair housing, about equal pay, about, you know, issues that, you know, sort of fester in communities and lead to tensions that eventually can explode. There were also recommendations around the police force in establishing an independent oversight commission, right, to look at police actions. That's been something that's been much more difficult to truly achieve in Greensboro. But I have to say that Greensboro, you know, has made some progress on a bunch of these recommendations. It's not perfect, but they are sort of moving in that direction. In fact, you know, I was impressed when my book came out that the first conversation I had in Greensboro was led by the director of the Human Rights Office for the City. And we had over 200 people who came and she asked great questions about this history. So, you know, the history, it's opening up.

GR: I have to confess, I know a bit about North Carolina and where its politics have been in in recent years and how it is changing dramatically in terms of, you know, who it votes for, for president and that kind of thing, or at least the some of the internal politics of different congressional districts, but I don't know these individual towns all that well. So tell me tell me where Greensboro sits in North Carolina today.

AS: Greensboro is in what's called the Piedmont, it's the foothills. And so it's not far from Durham and the triangle area, which we think of as Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh. And it was a city that had big aspirations. You know, it thought it could be the Charlotte, essentially, of North Carolina at one point. But the banks decided to relocate to Charlotte, and that's what made Charlotte, you know, this massive city is the banking industry. So Greensboro had a troubled transitioning from the textile mills and run essentially as a company town of the mills into this modern era. But it has five colleges and universities there, including the state's flagship black university, North Carolina A&T, which has had a played a huge role in terms of the city's activism and the way the city has had to deal with the issues that it's been confronted with.

GR: So it sounds like it's within a transitional state. It's kind of a transitional town, and…

AS: It's a transitional town.

GR: Being both sort of a piece of rural, but near what we would think of as the liberal epicenter of North Carolina.

AS: Exactly. I think that's actually very well put, that it sort of struggles between being sort of a more liberal town and a more reactionary town and where the center is in that, just like the rest of us are trying to figure that out.

GR: Well, I have to apologize, I'm only giving you about 3 minutes to wrestle with this last big topic. But I wanted to ask you the obvious question here at the end of, are there lessons for us where we are now as a country politically, or otherwise that you think come from this event and its aftermath and the commission? I mean, what should we be thinking about in terms of where we are nationally and what you've taken a deep dive into historically and bringing it up to the present?

AS: So, two days ago I got a text from a Greensboro police officer who I talked to while I was doing this research, and he said, Aran, can you talk? I said, sure. And he called me up and he said, I'm in tears. I just finished your book, and he said, and I feel so ashamed that I bought the line, the story that Nelson Johnson was to blame for that massacre and I'm so sorry that I never got the chance to meet him. And so one of the things that I feel like I've learned over and over, and that was a powerful example of it, is that if we try to sweep these complex histories under the rug, they don't go away. You know, they fester, they continue to caused division in our society and we really need to face them and process them. And it took that guy courage not just to read the book, but then to call me up and actually tell me how he felt. And I really appreciated that courage. But one of the things that we talked about, and this is interesting, is he had been, after he left the police force, he was a private investigator for Oliver Stone on the JFK assassination movie, his JFK movie. And so this cop said, you know, I see a line from JFK to Greensboro, he said, when we don't openly discuss these traumas and tragedies, when things feel like they're hidden, we lose faith in our government. And I think, honestly, that he's on to something that without the accountability, right, of who was to blame for what happened in Greensboro, really accountable and held accountable for it, who is to blame for these different things, we end up where we are today with cynicism and a leader for whom there's no accountability or barely any accountability. We're struggling to find it and clawing that back is difficult. So I think that's something that we can take away from this.

GR: And maybe thinking of the future, perhaps some sort of variation of the way that Greensboro dealt with this is something that will be I thinking, about ten, twenty years from now, who knows.

AS: Absolutely. In 2020 in the depths of COVID, the Greensboro City Council held a Zoom meeting in which they apologized for the city's complicity in the murders that day, that the police department should have been there and they weren't. And it was a very powerful moment. And that's the kind of reckoning we need with all sorts of aspects of our history, I think.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Aran Shetterly and again, his new book is titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul". And, when you search for that book, I want you to note that Aran is spelled A R A N. Aaron is really interesting book, and thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me about it.

AS: Thank you, Grant, really enjoyed it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Sharon Owens(Ellen Abbott / WRVO)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The Democratic Party primary for Syracuse City Mayor is Tuesday, June 24th, with early voting starting on June 14th. My guest today is one of the three candidates contesting that primary, Syracuse City Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens. In addition to serving as deputy mayor in the Ben Walsh administration, Ms. Owens is also the board president of Blueprint 15, which is helping to lead the effort to redevelop the East Adams Street area following the tearing down of interstate I-81 in the city. Note that I also hope to have the other two primary candidates, Chol Majok and Pat Hogan on the program prior to the primary. But for now, Deputy Mayor Owens, welcome back to the program, it's good to see you.

Sharon Owens: Good to be here, thank you for having me.

GR: Well, thanks for making the time, I really appreciate it. So I'm going to start with just a very general question. Do you have a vision for the city of Syracuse over the next four and perhaps next eight years that you could articulate?

SO: Yes, absolutely. We, our city is entering into a moment, and my campaign is called, “Maximizing the Moment”, where we're going to see some transformational things happening for our city and in the region. But specific to the city, the I-81 project really is humming around the city, you can't move anywhere without seeing that. It’s going to be transformational for how our community looks and feels. The next job and the next mayor is going to be absolutely keeping this city moving and open for business. And so I'm prepared for that moment for our city with 81, particularly with Micron in particular, and the economic opportunity for our city. You know it's no secret in the nineties when New Process Gear, Carrier, G.E., Miller Brewery all started closing down, we had a really strong and thriving middle class, particularly for people of color, who were able to send their kids to college. And those kids came back to Syracuse, and many of them with a college degree, still worked in those factories because they were great paying jobs. And we really missed the ball when we transitioned and those jobs started leaving that there was no plan moving forward. And here comes Micron with another economic opportunity for us, a new industry for us. And I'm really proud of the work I'm doing to really prepare not only for the 81 work, but for Micron work. Our individuals and our community to be prepared to have that opportunity for that work. So the vision for our city is to absolutely keep growing. We're on a trajectory, I think we've done a great job in this administration to really work on our infrastructure. You have to have a growing city that's based on solid infrastructure. We've been doing that, whether it's roads, sidewalks, lighting, working on our water pipes and the like. What my vision is, is really to improve the human condition as we move forward with the growth of the city, because we can grow and grow and grow, but if our human condition is not keeping pace, then we're missing the mark again. And I'm just committed not to missing the mark of a moment of growth with a city that leaves people behind.

GR: I want to pick up on a couple of the things you mentioned there a little bit later in our conversation. But let me focus in on, you mentioned some accomplishments of the Walsh administration there that you are part of and I wanted to ask you some specific questions about how you would be different or similar to that, and the first one is leadership style. How would you characterize your leadership style, and in particular, do you think it would be different from Mayor Ben Walsh? Everybody is a different person, how would you characterize your leadership style?

SO: Well, I think my leadership style is based on my experience. I mean, people ask the question of what makes you different from Ben Walsh? Well, we're clearly two very different people. He's a fortysomething white man, and I'm a 61 year old black woman with the experiences that come with being a 61 year old black woman. And so my perspective on life is a little different than his and just experience. But we have the same principles, which I think is important for leadership. Leadership for me is steeped in a 40 year career of executive leadership in managing people, places and finances. And so I'm coming in with that on the ground experience of how do you, identify problems, how do you find solutions, how do you work with people, how do you collaborate? And that is my style. If I am the person in the room who thinks I have all the answers, then that room is not effective, that room is not full and I need to make sure I have other voices in that room. We have very similar styles. I have a little bit more fire in me, I think. I've learned a lot from Ben Walsh in when to release that fire and when to knock. And so I've learned a lot from him in that. His campaign was, “Rise Above”, and sometimes I'm like, Mayor, you're being a little bit too nice on this one. And so, but I have been the collaborator. We have come through a time in our community where we weren't working together and we were suffering from that. And I think through my experience with the Walsh administration, I understand that collaboration is the best way to move forward. I will continue that collaboration. I'm doing it now on a day to day basis. When I complete this conversation with you, I go back to work, and that work is about collaboration, initiative, developing, working for the city, the residents of the city of Syracuse.

GR: You know, you mentioned being a black female. And I wanted to ask you, perhaps a sensitive question about that. I was going to do it later, but I'll do it now because you brought it up. When Stephanie Miner became mayor, she was the first woman mayor of any of the big five cities in the state. And those would be New York City, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. When it comes to black mayors, only Albany and Syracuse have not yet had black mayors, and that's despite their large non-white populations. I have to say, I was surprised by this. And I would have thought that this is something that would have been a priority for the Democratic Party in Syracuse a little while ago. And maybe it's just that the stars haven't lined up, I don't know. But do you think that race is important in this election, sort of given the times right now, and should it be?

SO: When I talk to individuals in the community, they are excited about the prospect of Syracuse moving into a space of electing someone of color, particularly an individual, black individual, black female. Many of those folks are still smarting over the federal, the national election with Kamala Harris. I run, and I mentioned my black female, who I am, because that's who I am. And I'm proud of being black, being a female, being a mom, being a mother of a son with a disability, being just the individual who fell in love with the city and stayed here. My qualifications are my qualifications, but I stand in full pride and understanding of the significance of my being a woman and being a black woman running in this race.

GR: Okay, all right. Back to leadership styles and thinking about the Walsh administration. A couple of questions related to that. First of all, I would never expect you to throw your boss under the bus, but is there anything that stands out to you during the past eight years with Ben Walsh that you wish, with hindsight, the administration could have had a do over on?

SO: There are a couple of things. One was, I kind of, I think we're getting some momentum now on the housing authority issue, where we're looking really to be able to close on some significant progress over the summer. We have been kind of, I and others in the administration had kind of seen some concerns we had about capacity and ability for the existing staff of the housing authority to take on such a matter. Now, this is across all the housing, the reformation plan of the housing, it's a billion dollar project. None of us have done anything like this. So to bring, it would be critical to bring in all the capacity necessary to do it. And we were just not seeing that willingness to bring on the help needed to do it and thought that it was really putting the progress in jeopardy in, I think the urgency that we have seen lately from the mayor, I would have pulled that trigger a little sooner. About two years ago we saw it coming. And so there was urgency. He was very clear, been very clear from, you know, late last year into early this year. That should’ve happened probably two years ago.

GR: Okay. And then I'm thinking about your two opponents in the primary, Pat Hogan and Chol Majok. In terms both of not only leadership style, but also policy priorities. What are the most important differences between you and the two of them?

SO: I think that for me, I have been engaged throughout this city and not just, you know, focused on particular neighborhoods or particular populations, but my engagement has been in, basically because of the work that I must do right now, it's been engaged across the city. It is ironic to me that one of my opponents in particular always talks about my lack or our lack of transparency. And I think we've been the most transparent administration with dashboards and information, particularly when it came to ARPA funds. We have dashboards, how we're spending money, how we plan to spend money. This recent budget situation we've been through is clearly not transparent. So to speak about my lack of leadership and transparency I led the Reimagining Policing Initiative under the former governor. There was the executive order for reimagining policing after the murder of George Floyd. Mayor Walsh turned to me and said, Sharon, you’re going to lead that process. Now remember, all municipalities that have governance over law enforcement, DA, county, city, municipalities all around us had to engage in a plan of how they were going to move in looking at how policing happened in their communities. Mayor Walsh turned to me and said, you lead that charge. The county looked to me, the DA's office looked to me and we initiated what had to be a dozen community meetings for transparency to make sure that the community's voice was heard through that process and created a dashboard to ensure that people knew exactly what our plan was going to be. While all municipalities had to participate, quite frankly, many municipalities phoned it in. But we did not, our community would not allow us to. And when we talk about my style, it is very much focused to going into the community and hearing their voices, because that's where I come from. Boy, of the 40 years I've been working in Syracuse, 30 of them have been on the ground in neighborhoods. And that is the aspect that I bring to City Hall, I have been bringing to City Hall and will continue to do so as Mayor.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Sharon Owens. The Syracuse City Deputy Mayor is running for Mayor in her own right, and will appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 24th. So, Deputy Mayor, you mentioned this recent round with the budget process before the break and I did want to ask you a question about that. The issue of the city's budget, it's become quite controversial in recent days and weeks. It's a moving target that's being determined as we speak and you and I are talking on Wednesday May 21st. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about that and I'll try to be as brief as I can but I want to provide some background for our listeners. So just as background, and correct me if I don't have something right here, but my understanding is the Mayor proposed a roughly $348 million budget. It involved a 2.2% spending increase and a raise of 2% in the property tax rate. It also drew some money from the city's general fund. And the city's general fund is essentially its savings account to cover the remaining deficit of that budget. The general fund is estimated to be at around $120 million at the end of the fiscal year. That's compared with $50 million when Mayor Walsh first took office. I believe a lot of that money came from the support for COVID that was provided to cities from the Federal Government. But anyway, the council rejected that proposed raise in taxes and lowered the proposed budget spending by 2.4% or about $16 million. I know it's a lot more complicated than that, but is that basically correct so far?

SO: All the marks.

GR: Okay, great. So my first question for you is, how unusual is it for the city of Syracuse to dip into its general fund, sometimes it's called a rainy day fund, to cover a budget? You know, it's something that hardly ever, ever happens, is it something that periodically happens? I mean, how weird is this?

SO: No, it is unfortunately a reoccurring need of the city because of the cost to run the city versus the revenue we're able to generate. Again, Grant, the major sources of revenue for the city of Syracuse are sales tax, which we saw some increase in. But it's trending to level off and property tax. And again, you know, when you look at the whole pie of property in the city of Syracuse, 48% of those property owners actually pay taxes because as in most cities, you know, hospitals, educational institutions, which are all important economic drivers are tax exempt. And so there's always been a gap in that revenue versus the expenses to run the city. And so that is why that rainy day fund is important to be able to fill that gap. And as you mentioned, when we had come into office, there was $50 million there and through wise use of those ARPA funds and other revenue generating opportunities, it's at $120 million. And so no, that is not an unusual occurrence to dip into that fund.

GR: Okay. And do you think that the budget as proposed by the mayor, gets it about right? Do you have any big issues with it?

SO: I mean those increases that you mentioned, when we look at the increase, it was about an $8 million increase from the previous budget. I'd like your listeners to understand that many of those costs are not controlled by the taxpayers or city government. It is pension costs that are rising, it is insurance costs that are rising. So those costs that, those are costs that we do not control. There are other costs that included positions that we wanted to bring on, initiatives we wanted to bring on. For example, we've heard from our business community that our permitting process just takes too long. So we responded with outsourcing, that permitting to professional firms who can do, who have state licenses to do building reviews. And so we have about six of those, we put that money into the budget so that we can continue to outsource and get that turnaround much faster than what we can do with a couple of staff people. So we didn't arbitrarily add positions in order to just, you know, bring on positions, but it was to increase the efficiency. You know that we have started this red light with the school busses, the red light enforcement, so people are not passing school busses or school zones. But from a legal perspective, when you are identified by those cams there has to be a adjudication process to ensure that it was you, it was your car and give you an opportunity to dispute that. That takes people to do. And so while it appeared that the council was in favor of these red light initiatives to protect our students and our children, they're cutting the very mechanism by which we would be able to enforce it. And so that's kind of where we stand, you know, and in their cuts of 16 million, I heard from many people who have been in city government for a long time and a cut of that magnitude is unprecedented. I think, Grant, the thing that was most egregious to me was, yes, we had hearings, but Joe Cecile or Mike Monds, did not hear in a hearing that they were going to cut 3.5 or $2.5 million. But before you had your vote, you could have very easily picked up the phone and said we are going to cut $3.5 million. Chief Cecile, what is going to be the impact of that and how can you help us get us to that number? None of that happened, and I think that is the most egregious because our department heads in our departments are readily available for any ask, particularly of councilors, but not to get a phone call before that vote was the most troubling part of it.

GR: So, this is a tangled question but I want to try to simplify it as much as I can here. And just to see, I have some other things I want to ask you about some other issues, so maybe if you can just be really brief here.

SO: Sure.

GR: I would assume that it is not an unreasonable assumption to think that the city's budget situation is likely to get better as Micron unfolds. Would you agree with that?

SO: It is our hope that it, particularly because of sales tax, if we can generate more housing that could be taxable, yes.

GR: Okay, all right. So one last question on this, and we've got about 7 minutes left, I want to save some time for other things. But it does seem to me that there are obviously some political questions suggested by the context of this budget issue. You're the mayor's deputy, you're running for mayor, the other two Democratic candidates are both on the city council, one of them is acting as the council president. I'm trying to see a possible political angle here and the one that I can discern is that they can try to say that, hey, look, the administration wanted to raise your taxes, but we stopped that, or I stopped that. Frankly, I could see that working in a general election, I'm a little more perplexed about how it works in the Democratic primary. But do you think that what is going on is election oriented at all? And if it is, can you state in a sentence what you think the intended message is?

SO: I would hope that it's not, but I don't know how it's not politically motivated when the first public response from Pat Hogan in particular was not from him to the press as a councilor, but it was to him to the press from his political campaign. It was a press release from his political campaign. You have not seen that from me. My job is Deputy Mayor.

GR: Okay. I want to come back to the beginning of our conversation and the fact that, you know, the very tagline for your campaign is to keep, you know, what is it, keep moving forward?

SO: “Maximize the Moment.”

GR: …and maximize the moment. I've been thinking a lot about that, actually, and I wanted to ask you a question about it. It seems to me that, both the redevelopment of the East Adams area and Micron, they're both great opportunities and huge opportunities. But I've also worried about just the degree of disruption that both of them are going to bring. And it would seem to me that whoever the new mayor is, they're going to have to manage that disruption very deftly. And if you could just say a few more words about that, I would be very keen to hear them.

SO: Absolutely. I started our conversation by saying that the next mayor's, you know, one of the priorities is going to be keeping the city moving, keeping the city functioning. Because the, what's going to be happening with 81, you can see it along Erie Boulevard. Not only just what's happening with 81, but we're doing our own infrastructure work and multiple sides of the city. This is the most I think anyone in Syracuse in a long time has had to deal with, traffic detours, and it is construction. So my priority is conversations around businesses on those corridors, how people are going to get out to work, what are going to be the routes for children on busses and traveling and walking during that time. It is going to be critical for this next mayor, and I have the existing, I meet with the DOT on a regular basis. I was just on the panel with that team regarding the environmental impacts and how we can protect people as they move towards the next project, which will be Almond Street. So I'm very much in the weeds when it comes to the day to day implications of communicating to our community. Syracuse, this is all going to be worth it. Our city is going to look and feel completely different, especially for the I-81 project. And for Micron, we cannot talk about poverty seriously until we're able to get people work that increases the household incomes of the people there. Not only individuals, but all individuals in a household. That's how we address poverty.

GR: Yeah, and that was actually right leading into what will probably be my last question for you, is the Micron opportunity is huge. You mentioned these other companies, Carrier, Crucible, I don't know if you mentioned that one or not, but, you've mentioned several others. And this is bigger than all of them. And so, what would be your biggest worries about that? I know what your biggest hopes are, but what are your biggest worries? Is it that this happens and poverty keeps getting more and more isolated and concentrated in a way? I mean, what do you worry about?

SO: What I worry about is what I work the hardest against. And it is to ensure that we're preparing people in the city of Syracuse for these jobs. I have always said to individuals in the rooms that we have to demystify what the jobs actually are. You know, these big fabs are big clean rooms with, you know, and OCC is looking to train individuals right now. So it's not complicated, many of those jobs are not complicated. So how can we prepare people? My biggest fear and worry is that we cannot miss the mark on this and leave folks behind in this amazing opportunity. And it's not just Micron, it's all the residual opportunity that's going to happen too. And we have to get the transportation right to make sure we can get people to Micron and other industries that are going to be opening up in our community. And so that is critical as well. I can not not hope, I'm just a hopeful person. That's what's driven me and my whole life. But I'm also very sober about what are the challenges we have and how we have to address them. And instead of pointing my finger and complaining about the challenges, I get down and I roll my sleeves up and try to address them.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens. Once again, the Democratic Party mayoral primary in Syracuse is June 24th, and early voting starts on June 14th. Deputy Mayor Owens, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.

SO: Thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure.

GR: Thank you. You've been listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Eric HeinzeProgram Transcription:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Eric Heinze. He's a professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary College in the University of London. And he's the author of a new book titled, “Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left.” Professor Heinze, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.

Eric Heinze: Thank you very much, Grant, it's an absolute pleasure to be with you.

GR: Well, we're really glad you made the time. So, but before we get into some of the arguments that you make in the book, I just want to take a few minutes at the beginning to make sure that you and I and our listeners have a shared understanding of a couple of terms and I'm going to take them right from the title of your book.First of all, just briefly, what's critical theory?

EH: Yeah, you might say that critical theory is the academic or more intellectually driven branch of what would broadly count as progressive or leftist politics. Having said that, right, there's never been any such thing as a unified left, right? Or as a unified kind of theory of progressive politics. And there is never been anything like a unified critical theory. Particularly today, what we refer to today as critical theory is a loose umbrella term to encompass many different kinds of writing and thinking and discussion that have been going on now for the better part of a century.

GR: Okay. Then how would you define the left? Because I know it can mean something different in Europe, for example, than it does in the United States. So although in some ways we're looking more and more like Europe, but what how are you using the term ‘left’?

EH: Yeah. And there again, my aim with these terms, left progressive, critical theory, my aim is not to define any of them, right? And, you know, to say these thinkers count and these don't, I take a completely different approach. What interests me is, rather than generalizing about everybody, is above all, to try to identify some of the dominant strands of thought that I think have very much driven leftist politics, leftist activism and what goes on in the universities as well, right? So it's more about just kind of identifying a couple of influential themes, topics, tendencies, and really trying to unpack them and see what works with them and what doesn't.

GR: Okay, and let me throw something back at you and see if you would agree with this, then. When I hear those terms, what I normally think of, first of all, is concerns about inequality and in particular concerns about economic inequality and an effort to understand what generates it, what are the limits on political efforts to change it? And then as a kind of an addendum to that, I would say earlier leftisms were more concerned about class inequality, whereas more contemporary leftism seemed to be more concerned about ethnic or different kinds of identity inequality. Is that all fair, in your view?

EH: I think it's, yeah, it's a very important characterization, right, because again, we know that we're only talking about trends and tendencies, right? Obviously, you know, you can still find people who stick to the, you know, to the very Marxist idea that really is just about, you know, economics and class. But then, as you say, on the other extreme, we have all sorts of identity politics, which, you know, often doesn't necessarily highlight economics and then everything in between.

GR: And so, all right, so what's the central problem then that you're trying to address in this book? What do the critical theorists have to come clean on?

EH: Yeah, yeah, exactly right. If you look at what you and I have just discussed so far over the past few minutes, I think a lot of your listeners will know that, you know, simply looking for, you know, things that the left hasn't done very well or should have done differently or things that it's omitted, there's nothing new about that. And that's not really the crux of my book, right? And in particular, the crux of my book is not to start picking through this particular type of identity politics, right? And to say, well, you shouldn't talk so much about X, you should talk more about Y, it's not that at all, because I think a lot of people do this and some of the very interesting ways. That's not my project. I would define it in a somewhat different way, right? If we look at the kind of culture wars that we've witnessed in recent years, right, you have these people, critical theorists, people on the left, right? Who, in various ways insist that we need to take a very critical view of centuries of Western history. Then you have people on the far right who simply negate that by, they simply want to dismantle and destroy it, right? They want to get rid of DEI, they want to get rid of queer theory, they want to get rid of postcolonial theory, right? And so you have these two extremes, you know, which simply define each other, right, at the far ends. And what I want to do is just break out of that, you know, almost verging on a cliché of a culture war. And I tried to do it like this, one of my arguments is that probably the single most important achievement of the left over more than a century does not lie with any particular politician or set of policies, but rather lies with, first of all, fundamentally shifting what it means to think about justice and injustice, what it means to argue about them, right? In other words, the left does not always win on these questions, as we know, right? The conservative and far right forces are as strong as ever, right, and have always, you know, had their, you know, they have always been more or less strong over the past century. So it's not that the left always wins, but it's very much the left which has defined the terms of the debate, the way, the things that are considered to be important if you're talking about justice and injustice. Now, this entails a second thing, which I think is probably the most important of the left's achievements, again, as opposed to any politician or policy. Which is that leftist thought over the past hundred years or so has fundamentally redefined what history is, right? I think if you look throughout the world, go back as far as you like. Sure, you can find many of societies where from time to time it was considered important to, you know, look over past mistakes and consider how things can be done better, there's nothing new about that. What the Western Left has done over the past century or so has fundamentally redefined the very meaning of history, not as the high deeds of great men, you know, from Alexander the Great, right up through, you know, Winston Churchill or whoever your favorite is, right? But rather, history suddenly now becomes an exercise in collective self-scrutiny. History becomes a kind of duty, right, a kind of a moral duty that all of us should collectively, right, understand ways in which the West over centuries has perpetrated mass injustice, right, along the lines of capitalism, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, right? And that this should be the fundamental way in which we understand our culture. This, I think, is unprecedented throughout humanity, right? And it's something I admire. Again, the far right response would be that this is where we've all gone wrong, right? That this is the downfall. And I say quite the contrary if you care about democracy, right? Democracy is best and works best precisely when we're deliberating in a serious and critically minded way about deep and structural problems and injustices, right? And so on these two points, the meaning of justice, the meaning of history, I think my book lavishes praise on the left. The problem then, is that this injunction, that understanding injustice, that understanding history has to be an exercise in collective self-scrutiny, is something that the left for decades now has constantly taught the rest of us to do, but has not been doing itself. And many people on the left are amazed or outraged or disgusted or simply laugh when they hear me say this because they genuinely think that they do this, right? They say, oh, yes, you know, of course, you know, we think about mistakes we've made and, you know, we don't support Stalin anymore and we don't support Mao anymore, right? And so they really do believe that they have been engaged in collective self-scrutiny. And so what I do in the book is I say that this notion of collective self-scrutiny or what I call memory politics, unfolds in two steps, right? The first is, you know, kind of hashing out some sort of agreement on a historical record and even that can be very controversial, right? But what characterizes leftism and what characterizes critical theory is the second step, which is that these histories cannot simply remain locked in textbooks and lecture halls. They need to be disseminated to the broadest possible public through film, through documentaries, through television, through radio, through cultural events, through museum exhibitions, through training programs. Again, I don’t, unlike the far right, I don't attack any of that, I support it, I say keep doing it. But it is that step two, that we have never seen from the left when it scrutinizes its own history, right? So all of the rest of us have to go from step one to step two, but when the left is looking at its own history and all stops at step one. It says, yes of course, you know, Stalin, terrible, Mao, terrible, Pol Pot, terrible, but where are the training programs? Where are the films, the documentaries made by the left, right? In order to show us what collective self-scrutiny is, instead of just telling the rest of us to do it with whatever our political commitments may be. This, in my opinion, has been the number one problem of leftist politics. It's not you know, that Kamala Harris forgot to say A or B, right? It's not that at all, right, it's far deeper. It's far more fundamental and it goes back much further in time.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Eric Heinze. He's a law professor at Queen Mary College at the University of London and the author of a new book titled, “Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left”. And we've been discussing the work and the issues that it raises. Eric, I want to dive a little more deeply into some of the things that you were saying. One of the things was this issue, and it reminded me, as you were talking and also when I was looking at your book, I was reminded of this. This issue surrounding the former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn regarding anti-Semitism in the Labor Party and the way that the Labor Party reacted to those charges, or those concerns. And there were some things that were brought to light and made public about conversations that folks were having that concerned some people. And one of the things that struck me is anti-Semitism used to be associated with the right. Lately, it seems to be, have become more of a problem for the left. Certainly, in the United States, it was a problem for the Democrats in 2024. So I'm just curious to get your thoughts about is that kind of, does that illustrate what you're talking about there, in some ways?

EH: Yeah, in a number of ways. One of the things I try to show in the book when I examine this problem of leftist anti-Semitism in Britain, is to show that even people on the left who claimed, and I think their intentions were good, I think their heart was in the right place, right, people who claimed to care about this problem of anti-Semitism and wanted to kind of dig into it, come clean about it, right? In the book, I note one journalist in particular just because I thought this was so symptomatic of the problem, namely that this particular journalist, a young but very prominent Guardian journalist by the name of Owen Jones. Now, a very strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, a very stern critic of Israel, therefore, you know, nobody could accuse me of, you know, of sources that were maybe too sympathetic to Israel. I don't think anybody criticizes Israel more than Owen Jones, you know, pretty much on a minute-to-minute basis if you look at his Twitter feed. And so I said, okay, then I'll look at his account, you know, because he's certainly not going to make up stories of anti-Semitism. And indeed, I checked all the stories that he reported. And so on the one hand, a harsh critic of Israel, but on the other hand, someone who did want to, as I say, come clean about anti-Semitism. And here's the problem, right, so in many ways, I praise him because at least he went much further than many. Many just wanted to hush it, to deny it, say it's all a plot by Mossad and so forth. So Owen Jones, on the one hand, a harsh critic of Israel, nevertheless, at least, you know, was upfront, right, that there have been many incidents in a short period of time that we need to reckon with this. But then the question is, well, how does he reckon with it, right? Again, better than most and yet there are still real problems, right? So if you look at Owen Jones’ other writing on things like racism, poverty, LGBTQ people, women and so forth, he very commonly characterizes these problems as, and often literally uses the words: systemic, structural. And even if he's not using those words, it's clear that this is how he's analyzing these problems, whether, again, he's been doing this for years and I cite several examples and you can find many more, he writes a lot, right? And so these problems are always systemic, structural, built into the very fabric of how Western society or certainly British society has been operating for a long time. Then all of a sudden he said, okay, now we're going to take leftist anti-Semitism seriously. But he never analyzes that as systemic or structural on the left. All of a sudden, it's just a bunch of mistakes and what's incredible is that he himself recites case after case after case, again, in a very short period of time, right? And yet each time he then explains it as, oh, it was a mistake and, you know, Corbyn really should have reacted a bit sooner or should have used different words or, you know, should have told such and such an adviser, right? It all just becomes, you know, a bit of, you know, sort of juggling the chairs on the, you know, on the deck of the Titanic, right? In no way does he either use the word or more importantly, use the concept of structural or systemic injustice.

GR: Or something that's baked in in a particular way because of the history and because of the struggle.

EH: Yeah, it's all the big oops, it's all just a big banana peel. And the reason I go into this is because, again, this we get this too much from the left and forgetting about the anti-Semitism, right? You know, oh, you know, the USSR, oh, well, that wasn't real socialism, as if it wasn't just a big mistake, right? You know, Mao, well, that wasn't the real socialism, right? And you know, no, right, if they are right, that structural injustices are, as you say, embedded, built into the very fabric of what Western society has been for centuries, then how is it that many of the leftist own commitments so easily come free of that past? Either we're all embedded in our past, or we can all just wipe our hands and walk away from it. But the idea that the left is constantly wiping its hands and walking away from it, right, while the rest of us have to keep rehearsing, almost ritually rehearsing it, it just doesn't make any sense.

GR: Well, let me… Yeah. Go ahead. Finish your point, I want to ask you a question.

EH: Just to give a very quick example of that, right, in case some people, you know, think again that I'm being unfair. You know, just look at a university campuses, right? We’ll have things like, you know, Women's History Month and Gay History Month, LGBTQ History Month and backwards, and that's good. Again, I don't want to dismantle that, keep it, right? Give me one example of, I don't know, Socialist History Month. And again, I don't mean done by the far right. I mean done by leftists and done in the same way. Yes, this is also an example of how liberationist and egalitarian and indeed socialist discourses were massively abused not to create that kind of society, but in fact to create just the opposite, which is precisely the critique of Western liberal democracy. I don't think you could name maybe one campus, and that's a problem.

GR: Yeah. Well, if you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the law professor Eric Heinze. You know, you're saying all these things, and I'm constantly thinking of George Orwell, you know, as someone who was willing to do that. I mean, if you read “Homage to Catalonia,” he's willing to do it, you suggest, and certainly “1984” goes in that direction too. I don't want to take up the whole rest of the time with this, but I have a quick story I want to relate to you to get your reaction to it. So I'm going to put you maybe in the role of psychotherapist here for a minute, you can send me your bill when we're done. But I was in a, several years, few years ago, a DEI training at my school, and it was being led by a gentleman whose name I won't use, but we got into it. And the idea of this conversation, it was on Zoom, was that it was about, I don't know, 50-60 people, and it had professors at all different ranks. And, you know how the system works. So I was a full professor, there were full professors there. There were associate professors who are ultimately wanting to be full professors and there are assistant professors who are scared that they won't be tenured, right? And so, all right. So we're going to have a conversation about identity and race and inclusion and all of this and at the beginning of this, I brought up what I perceived to be a problem is how, because it was billed as an honest conversation, no judgment, honest conversation, I said, how can we have an honest conversation given the gross inequalities of power that exist here on this Zoom call? You've got assistant professors, you know, supposedly discussing these things with the people that are going to decide whether they're going to stay or get fired. How’s that going to be an honest, open conversation? Well, immediately I got turned into by the leaders of this as sort of the bad white guy in all of this. Like somehow this point that I was bringing up as a challenge to what we were doing had something to do with my race and my gender, maybe my age too, I don't know. But it was, it just seemed strange, was like, hey, I'm the one talking about let's think critically about the power relations that are in this room. And the reaction was sort of, oh, no, this can't possibly be the case here. And it reminds me very much of what you're talking about.

EH: Yeah and it's tragic. In fact, getting back to your reference to someone like Orwell, I mean, one of the points I tried to make in the book is that, again, the problem is not so much with what I call step one of memory politics. You can find many important thinkers throughout the history of the left who were willing to call out abuses, that's not the problem. And again, many people reject what I say because they think that I don't know this, right and they think that I just want to rehash all the terrible things that Stalin did, right? But the problem again is, where is step two? And I think the story that you just told also illustrates that. It's this kind of, oh, but we don't need to do this.

GR: Right.

EH: Because if they thought they didn't need to do it, they would do it, right? Again, if it's not so hard to put on, as I said, you know, Women's History Month, LGBTQ History Month, Black History (month), whatever, right, why is it so hard to do the self-criticism that they insist that all the rest of us have to do? As I say in my book, don't tell us, show us.

GR: Yeah.

EH: If collective self-scrutiny is the way to do history for those who care about justice.

GR: So what is then, we’ve got about 4 minutes left and I've got sort of two questions I think will completely occupy us here. But you've given me a sense of what the prescription is, you know, how does the left get out of this trap? And it's don't tell us, show us, engage in this kind of thing. Is there anything that you might add to that as your recommendation for how we go forward?

EH: Yeah. I mean, again, I don't think it's hard to do. I think that critical theorists and leftist thinkers, they've always had the tools, yeah? And so let's just take a quick example before we wrap up, right? You know, again, a lot of critical theory has been about looking at some of the foundational norms of Western liberal democracy, individual freedom, civic equality, economic opportunity and showing how law and politics in society were actually structured to use these as just defying ideologies to entrench the opposite, to entrench unfreedom for the people at the bottom, inequality, lack of opportunity. Again, that's good, this is the genius of critical theory, keep doing it. But what about doing that same analysis with, again, the leftist discourses of liberation and egalitarianism and indeed socialism that again, much of the left was at the very least lending legitimacy to and often zealously supporting for more than a hundred years, right? If it's not hard to do it with liberal democracy, then it's not hard to do it with many of the regimes that the left has also, again, at least lent legitimacy to over the past hundred years. So the tools are there, it's only a question of will. Are we willing to subject ourselves to the same scrutiny that we insist that everybody else needs to undertake?

GR: So, final question on that point. You mentioned the word regimes, so, you know, the Academy is one of these regimes, obviously. And so what I wanted to ask you about, I wanted to take this back to the United States and make it very current, and that is do you think then the problems that you're describing here, do they give President Trump and American Republicans, more generally, enough of a kernel of truth when they go after higher education on the grounds of viewpoint diversity, ideological intolerance and so on? I mean, you know, they're going way over the top, one might argue, and how they're reacting to this and we would be, you know, right to point that out. But at the same time, does the academy and does the left by extension, not do itself a great disservice by not at least acknowledging that the kernel of truth there, before they make that critique? And only in a minute I'm giving you for this, I'm sorry.

EH: Yeah. And that kernel of truth will only seriously be acknowledged when its roots, its causes are acknowledged. And I don't think the left has really understood them, right? And this is why, again, you know, people think that I just want to rehash again the history of Stalin and Battle and all the rest. No, it's not about that at all. My book, it's not about history, it's about memory. They're not the same thing, right? I'm not reproaching the left for denying facts of history, I'm reproaching them for the ways in which they do memory politics, the very one-sided and self-contradictory ways in which they do it.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. It's a fascinating book, and this has been a fascinating discussion. Again, you can send me your bill for the therapy, but that was Erik Heinze. And again, his new book is titled, “Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left.” Very, very provocative, very interesting book. Professor Heinze, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really, really enjoyed this.

EH: Thank you, Grant. It was an absolute pleasure for me.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Dennis PattersonProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. As expertise and the exhortation to ‘follow the science’ become politically weaponized, my guest today is Dennis Patterson. He's a Law Professor at Rutgers University and he's also a Law and Legal Philosophy Professor at Surrey Law School in Britain. Together with Rutgers Law School Professor Jacob Hale Russell, he's written a new book. It's titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism." Professor Patterson, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

Dennis Patterson: Well, thank you so much for having me, I appreciate your time.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a little introduction for you and our listeners about why this book caught my eye, a couple of reasons. First of all, it taps into a set of concerns I've had about elites in the academy in recent years and also, as it happens, I've just finished teaching a course on democratic theory, that's democratic with a small ‘d’. And one of the issues that we discussed was the role of expertise, just how far it can and should take a society in making political decisions and what kinds of decisions we ought to be willing to cede to these subject area experts versus weighing the value trade-offs for ourselves. So I'm very, very keen on what you have to say here. We'll get into the details of your book as we work our way through the issue but I want to briefly, just to start out, just ask you a very basic question. What prompted you and your colleague to write this book when you did?

DP: Well,Jacob and I have had written and had written four articles during the pandemic. We started off shortly after the first wave of COVID with an article in an online publication called Stat News. And the thesis of that article was stop blaming the ordinary American for failing to follow the rules, because, and take the virus seriously, because, in fact, they are and they are doing what they're told. And so if there are problems, the problems lie elsewhere. We then went on to write a couple of more articles. The one that got the most attention was a piece called, “The Mask Debacle”, and that was about three years ago. And our basic thesis there was that the pandemic had, the management of the pandemic had evolved into basically political theater. And the whole idea that anyone was, quote, “following the science” or any science struck us as implausible. Because if you looked at blue states and red states, the regulations that they had were largely political, not driven by any kind of scientific metric. You see, our fundamental focus is not on who got things right or wrong in the pandemic, everybody makes mistakes, it's the way we talk about this. And our thesis has always been that the elites, the technocratic elites who manage the economy and culture, are basically engendering the populism that they claim to decry. And I would go so far as to point to the reelection of Donald Trump as an example of that. Neither one of us is a Trump supporter by any means, but, you know, it's just, you cannot denigrate people day in and day out, tell them their opinion is worthless, that their values and aspirations don't count for anything, and then expect them to just fall into line. That's not going to happen, it didn't happen. And unless things change, it'll just keep occurring. Anyway, that's how we got into it.

GR: Yeah, certainly not a good way to appeal to voters. So we'll work our way through some of these and I particularly want to investigate, probably in the later half of our conversation, about how what actually fuels the populism. But let me break it down first in terms of what's going on with this notion of expertise and experts. You write about an age of what, very provocative phrase, an age of mindless expertise, just say a little bit about that.

DP: Oh, well, we have a passage in the book where we recount the number of times the word expertise appears in the pages of the New York Times. And until about five years ago, it was just like every other word, and then it just explodes. And now we have experts for, you know, everything from drugs to picking a spouse to buying a car, what books to read to your children. I mean, it's just, we really do valorize expertise and we're in some ways that are obvious and important, like science and health and ways that are, you know, absurd, like the best birthday cake for a two year old and things like that.

GR: (laughter)I missed that one. So do you think that when it comes to that phenomenon, proliferation of notion of expertise, that we're living in an age that's different from the past? When I was thinking of the time about 120 years ago or so where there was a real revolution in this notion of professionalism, everything became more professionalized and self-styled professionalism. Do you think something's going on that's unique to our age right now?

DP: I do, I do. And I think it's basically this, but it's also very cultural and it's not across the board. I think that people like us who are, you know, credentialed, educated, tend to believe that the only thing that really matters in any discussion of policy for example, our facts. And if we just get the facts right, everything else will just sort of take care of itself. And one of the messages of our book is, is that, this just ain't so. You can you can have lots of facts but the question remains what to do with them. But we have, I mean if you look at just, you know, popular culture, like, I don't know, Malcolm Gladwell and then somebody more sophisticated like Dan Kahneman, there's all this emphasis on the cognitive and understanding the world and it's basically empirical. And we love to, and Americans love a clean, neat scientific solution to everything, it's cultural. And of course, science is absolutely fantastic at providing solutions. But one of the things that the pandemic did was it really raised the question just how far can we go in making decisions about how to live with just facts? And the answer was, not too far. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the general public's trust in the public health complex is at an all-time low. Now, if that's true, and I see this all the time, that's the claim, the question is why? What happened during the pandemic to make things that bad?

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Law and Legal Philosophy Professor Dennis Patterson, and we're discussing his new book. It's titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism". I want to pick up on exactly that last point that you made there, because, and I suppose that you and I, as you just said, you know, we're credentialed, we might qualify as elites in our society this way. There's this sense I think that the elites, by and large in our society tend to think, and maybe I'm going too much by what I'm hearing from my colleagues, but tend to think that we are living in an age where expertise and factual knowledge are just being discounted and dismissed out of hand.

DP: Yeah.

GR: And it also seems to be the case that for these elites, that that discounting is also linked to democratic backsliding in their minds. That there's almost a causal relationship there. So it sounds like you would agree with that premise that the expertise and factual knowledge are being discounted and dismissed, is that correct?

DP: No, I don't think it's correct at all.

GR: Oh,okay, explain that then.

DP: So one of the themes of the constellation of issues that you mention is that we allegedly live in a post-truth environment where, you know, everybody has alternate facts. You believe, you have your truths and I have mine and so the idea of an objective reality around which we can coalesce is an illusion. Now, there's plenty of social, this topic is a bit controversial, but there's a lot of social science data to support the proposition that we don't live in a post-truth environment. And in fact, for example, the internet is constantly blamed as, internet and social media are blamed as the means by which people acquire beliefs that are false. And then they lead to, you know, the undermining of democracy et cetera, et cetera. In fact, a lot of empirical evidence points to the proposition that social media does nothing worse than reinforce what people already believe. And so if they are getting misinformation, it's coming from another place. And I also want to point out, as Marty Makary made this point during his confirmation hearing, the government was the primary source of misinformation during the pandemic. The need to close schools, social distancing, closing down the economy, masks. All of the non-pharmacological intervention that the government pushed were ineffective. This is a fact. And yet everybody was told you had to wear a mask, your kids had to stay home, it was it was just all wrong. So, so much for expertise, facts and the truth. Now, are there vaccine deniers? Of course, of course. There are flat earth people, and there are all kinds of people who believe things that are just obviously false. But it's not the vast majority of people out in the public domain. Most people believe things that are, by and large, true. They try to follow the rules as best they can, but they also question, sometimes rightly, the dictates and the mandates of government. And I think that's going to happen more and more. Now, the way the pandemic was managed, the way it was talked about, the derision that was delivered to people who deigned to question what the government was doing, this has all backfired now. And so you want to know why we have more populism? This is in part the answer, because, you know, one of the ways I characterize our book is and I'll speak just for myself here, we're basically diagnosing a pathology, a one that you and I are very familiar with from the faculty lounge. And that is, you know, condescension, right? If you don't have the credentials that we have, you're not worth talking to, right? Second, technocratic paternalism. The idea that facts determine everything. And if you would just shut up and follow what we tell you to do, you'd be fine. And finally, intellectual tyranny, that any dissent is going to be suppressed. I mean, look at the attack on the Great Barrington people, Fauci and Collins trying to tank them, you know, with articles and such. The Biden administration’s suppression of people on Twitter and Facebook. I mean, this stuff just can't go on. And again, it turns out these people were by and large, correct. They certainly weren't wrong, right? I mean, the Great Barrington people, they were on to something, focused protection was just as plausible. And of course, my favorite example, right, where did the virus come from, a wet market or a lab, right? Remember when Trump suggested it came from a lab? Everybody said he was a racist. I never understood why it was racist, like, why a wet market is less racist in a lab, but okay. But that aside, right? And now it is at least plausible, if not more, that the virus came from a lab. In fact, it might have been a lab, you know, that received funding from the United States government. So maybe, you know, we don't know the facts about that yet. But the point is, is that we can't even talk about a thesis like that without it being completely politically polarized.

GR: You’re listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Dennis Patterson. He's a Law Professor at Rutgers University, also a Law and Legal Philosophy Professor at Surrey Law School in Britain. And he's the author of a new book titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism” and we've been discussing the book. I want to come back to something that you mentioned, this idea that, you know, the facts drive everything. And not only that, but if you question them in any kind of way, among these, within these elite cultures, the academy being one, that you are immediately kind of dismissed, and also that the conversation becomes very polarized. This is something that I have experienced and I've talked to other guests about and I wanted to get your thoughts about it. It seems to me that there is this blending of partisanship, political polarization, and this sense of science and ways that you've been discussing it in this strange way that very immediately in any kind of conversation that's about policy, things do get put in these polarized camps. And not only if you have a, what would normally be a legitimate question to ask, if you even ask that question, one of the moves that gets made is, if you're in the academy, you're put into a Republican camp and immediately suspect, you know, even questions something to even ask probing follow up. Is that something that you're getting at here in this?

DP: Well, we're not only getting at it, but we're getting it. We had we had colleagues who read some or all of our book.

GR: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about your reaction you're getting from your colleagues, so go ahead. I’m glad you bring it up.

DP: I mean, some people said you guys sound like you're Trump supporters. Which, my reaction was like, the book is written in English, what do you mean? Like, you know, how can you possibly say that after… And the answer is because you deigned to question the mantle of authority. So, for example, to give you a very, very concrete example of life during the pandemic. So Rutgers had a policy where everybody in a classroom had to wear a mask. And this went on for, I think, it went on for two years. In the last semester the edict was, and this was after like Penn and lots of other local schools had abandoned masks, Rutgers kept it. And there was one guy who would send out the emails say(ing), you have to, wearing a mask as mandatory. And I said to him, I wrote him an email and I said, let me get this straight. The students sleep together, eat together, recreate together, they only have to wear a mask when they come to the classroom, what science supports that? Never got an answer. And it turned out that there were some people in the AAUP, the union, my age, your age, right, who wanted all the students to wear masks because they were worried about getting a virus. Now, of course, all the teacher had to do was wearing N-95 properly, and they would have been fine. But this is the kind of problem that I experienced because I could never get an answer to this question. And then I would ask my colleagues, why do you think this book has a Trumpian tilt to it? Well, because you're criticizing the government's handling of COVID. And I said yeah, but I mean, you know, first of all, everybody in Sweden was supposed to be dead by the end of the week and it turns out their death rate was no worse than any other Scandinavian country, please explain. I mean, they just, it's a kind of a mindset that if you just, look, I've been an academic for 35 years. When I started out, you could question anything, you could demand an explanation of anything. Now, if you raise a question about the plausibility of a fair number of policies, you are ostracized.

GR: Right.

DP: That is a real phenomenon. It's not just you know, what fire and other people are reporting. I mean, I can tell you from the front lines, people don't want to raise questions. Now, when you're my age and my seniority, you don't care.

GR: (laughter)

DP: I mean, I couldn't care less what you think. I mean, what's the Dean going to do, fire me for asking a question? No, you know, none of that's going to happen. But it's not as interesting because, you know, there's only sort of one point of view. And for the younger people, they don't want to say a word because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing.

GR: Well, that's a whole ‘nother can of worms. I will say that I had a day in my class this semester, and the students brought it up, where there was a very honest conversation about the concerns that they had about, in a sense, falling out of line with some of the other classes that they were taking.

DP: Well, you know what's interesting about that topic...

GR: Well, I'll just say some of the stories were for me, they were hair raising. They were worse than I thought.

DP: But tell me why. You know, because in my, I just finished teaching populism again. The students report that they're worried about other students commenting on them. Is that your experience?

GR: No, these students were worried about their grades and the faculty. And my experience at Syracuse, every place is different, is that the students aren't that bad with each other. Now, is a there is a subset, right, who's very vocal and very doctrinaire. But for the most part, the students are pretty open and pretty eclectic and tolerant. It's, their report is concerns about the faculty. And this is particularly since this most recent election. You know, I'm a political scientist, I think about this a little differently. And I don't want to take too much of the time that people want to hear from you. But in the dynamic that you're talking about, one of the things that seems to me that's going on is, let me make a specific example with Fauci, for example. I think the mindset is, Trump is criticizing Fauci, therefore, I cannot criticize Fauci.

DP: Right.

GR: That's the driver. And that's where I think, like, I would put the partisan piece up front. Let me ask you this question. And if, by the way, I should say to my listeners, if you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the Law and Legal Philosophy Professor Dennis Patterson and we're discussing his new book, “The Weaponization of Expertise…”. I've got a few writers on the program that have written in a similar vein to you. They're not making your specific argument, but they're concerned about different aspects about academic and intellectual culture, thinking and political assumptions. Musa al-Gharbi is one of them I've spoken with, wrote the book, “We've Never Been Woke”. I get the sense that there is now a growing recognition of this as a problem that includes your arguments among a group of elites that cut across different political ideologies. Like you say, you're not a Trump supporter, and it's growing. Is your sense that even though there is this backlash, there's starting to be some wind in the sails of folks that are questioning this?

DP: Couple of puffs, a couple of gusts of wind, but I'm not I'm not sure that things are going to change that much that quickly. One thing that I think has gotten better is the, it has gotten better on the left, and that is the cancel culture atmosphere. But now Trump is filling that void trying to do the whole thing from the right. And so net / net, things are pretty much where they’ve been. But I don't think any conservative on an American campus is suppressing the speech of their more left wing colleagues. But certainly the opposite has been true for decades. You couldn't criticize anything without being ostracized. And so I do think that there is, that in a sense, and I just sense this in the faculty lounge, that people are now of a view that we just, there is nothing about which everyone agrees. And so we have to hear the dissenting voices. Now, I think it'll be a cold day in hell, at least at Rutgers, before there's a space made for somebody who questions some of the more fundamental aspects of our institutional ideology, but hope springs eternal.

GR: Do you think that a more productive conversation about the problems that you are identifying here can happen once Trump departs the White House after that particular polarizing figure goes away? That maybe the conversation in the faculty lounge and elsewhere can begin to go forward?

DP: I would say no, but, and I'm not a pessimist by disposition. I mean, I may have Irish heritage, but I'm not melancholic at all. But I'm a realist and, look, I mean, people just, I'm at a law school that takes social justice as its number one institutional commitment, that's not going to go away quickly. I'm more interested in producing students who can pass the bar and be successful lawyers. That's my number one priority. So can we talk about it? Sure, we do talk about it now. I think people are polite, but, you know, I don't think much is going to change.

GR: Well, let me jump in if I can, just because we only have about half a minute left or so. I can't leave the conversation on this. Do you see a way out then? I mean, your final chapter is giving political judgment a chance. What do you mean there? In 30 seconds, get us out of this morass.

DP: Well, it starts with it starts with the recognition that your interlocutor is not someone who proceeds in bad faith, that in fact, people have different views of the world. It's like the old, you know, the old liberal political ideal that my conception of the good is something that I get to decide, not you, not the state. And so people have different competing conceptions of the good. If you cannot proceed in a respectful conversation where you take the other person seriously, you let to make their argument, you don't make ad hominem arguments about them, that's the sort of thing that I think we need to do. And I think in some ways that aspect is getting a bit is getting a bit better. Because Trump is such a polarizing figure, that no one really wants to be associated with that temperament. And it's all about temperament. If you evince disdain for people, no conversation as possible. So just at that very basic level, respect for your interlocutor is a great place to start.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Dennis Patterson and again, his new book, written with Jacob Hale Russell is titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism." Professor Patterson, thanks so much again for taking the time to talk with me and really appreciate you writing this book.

DP: Thanks.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

.

View Details

Amie ParnesProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. We’re at about the first 100 days mark for the second Trump presidency, that milestone is being marked across the media. Today, we're going to take a look backward at how we got here. My guest is Amie Parnes. She's a senior political correspondent at The Hill. And with Jonathan Allen, another political journalist, she's written an account of the 2024 presidential election. It's titled, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House”. She was previously on this program to discuss her book about the 2016 election entitled, “Shattered” and he also wrote a book about 2020 titled, “Lucky”. She wrote those books with Jonathan Allen as well. Amie, welcome back to the program and congratulations on penning another bestseller.

Amie Parnes: Thanks, Grant. Thank you so much.

GR: It's good to see you again and thanks for making the time. So let me just start with a very basic question, where does this book, do you think, fit in with the assessments of the 2024 election that are going to come later? I mean, journalism in the moment is sometimes called the first draft of history. Is this book the second draft of history?

AP: I think John and I like to think so. I mean, we wrote this book very much, I mean, people saw what happened in the election. We all saw it play out. We saw the twists and turns. But I think these books are good because they essentially take you inside the room, these backroom conversations. You are privy to learning what is happening about, you know, what Nancy Pelosi is telling Barack Obama, what Nancy Pelosi is thinking as she's watching the debate, who she's talking to. So, you know, it's, we look back, but we write these books also to look ahead and we can get into that later. But, you know, it's a good playbook for Democrats and Republicans about what went right and what went wrong.

GR: It's interesting, you mentioned Nancy Pelosi and that's your opening scene there watching that debate. It grabs you, it pulls you right from the first paragraph.

AP: Yeah, intentionally so. I mean, she had her fingerprints all over this so we wanted to put you right in there with her watching the debate and that's exactly what we do.

GR: That's good, it was well done. So I don't want you to give away necessarily the best nuggets in the book. You know, you want people to buy the book and find those. But basically, maybe you already touched on this, but what are readers going to find in this book that they haven't already lived through? It's the inside backroom story and are there other things about the election that they'll find in here?

AP: Yeah, I mean, I think you learn about both sides. I mean, our book has gotten a lot of attention about the Democratic train wreck. But I think you also learn about what was going on Trump's end, too, and what he was thinking and what his aides were thinking. And it was a tumultuous time over there, too, especially during the candidate switch. You know, when Kamala Harris comes in, it's something that, you know, Trump was very surprised about. And so you learn exactly what was going on there. It was really quiet at that time during the switch. But we take you inside what he is thinking and how he wants to change things up. So I think he really, I think I'm not just saying this because I co-wrote this book, but I think you learn something new on every page.

GR: Yeah. Well, you mentioned that, you know, not just the Democratic side, but also thinking about what the Trump campaign was doing. And I was wondering, and this is a morbid question, I'm just going to say at the beginning, but was there a moment where the Trump campaign really thought, okay, you know, this is ours to lose? And in my mind, it was when he got shot and survived, I thought, I remember turning to someone and saying, there's this he's probably got this now.

AP: Yeah. And what's fascinating is Joe Biden's campaign, it was still the Biden campaign at the time, was thinking the same thing in those moments. And we take you inside one really funny moment with a senior adviser who was at his mother's house. And his mother essentially tells him, well, that's over, the race is over, essentially.

GR: (laughter)

AP: But yeah, I think John and I both saw that moment. And I think the, you know, on both sides, they kind of thought that they had it wrapped up in that moment. And it was amazing that Trump actually knew what he needed to do in the moment, which was to project strength. And he does that, he accomplishes that in that very morbid moment. And, you know, you look at what was happening on the other side of the election and the campaign and Joe Biden was projecting weakness in that moment. So you had that dichotomy of these two, strength versus weak and I think it really played to Trump's favor.

GR: I want to come back to some aspects of the question I want to ask you next a little bit later. But while we're on the subject of sort of turning points, you used the word train wreck a minute ago to talk about the Democratic campaign. I understand why that would be an adjective, because, you know, you had the implosion at the debate. You know, there was really no positive spin that could be put on that. And then the scrambling with finding another candidate, controversy about whether that should be an open or closed process. Kamala Harris gets named, kind of anointed and I want to come back to that later. But after all that, it's still a close election.

AP: Yeah.

GR: So I guess I'm wondering, why are the Democrats looking at this like a train wreck? I mean, there is a way to see the glass half full, even though obviously they hate having Trump as president. But still, I mean, you know, it was a pretty close election all that considered.

AP: It was a really close election. But they also lost the House and Senate. And that was Nancy Pelosi's biggest reason for jumping in I think, because she was hearing from members of the House that they were in jeopardy and she wanted to prevent losing the House as much as the White House. And so I think it was just across the board something that Democrats really wanted to prevent, another Trump presidency, they knew what that was like. A lot of them are thinking this one is so much worse than the first time and we could have prevented this. And the thing is, the election, as much as the Harris folks say it was a close race, but that they couldn't have won, you know, that Trump was going to win from the beginning. It was a very winnable race. The Democrats could have won this race. And I think that's why it was such a devastating loss.

GR: Right. Yeah, that's a good point. Were there any foreshadowing or tells in what you were seeing during the campaign of how Trump has approached his second term? I mean, he's doing things he said he was going to do, but nonetheless, this term looks completely different from the first term in terms of discipline and energy level and organizational, you know, I mean the organization of the messaging, I suppose, if not the people he's picked to be in the offices.

AP: Yeah, yeah. I think he, felt like he, you know, he walked in with a mandate and he's doing what he said he was going to do. I mean, anyone that's surprised about tariffs or anything else that he's doing, it was pretty much laid out during the campaign. And he brought with him Susie Wiles, someone that we profile quite a bit in this book, who is sort of the epitome of discipline. And that's what you saw in the Trump campaign. When you look at the book and you look at how the inner workings, you know, the moves and machinations that they were doing, it was all Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. A very disciplined campaign, a very tightly wound campaign, a much tighter campaign than previously with the 2020 and 2016 elections and I think it was all because of them. And he has, you know what's interesting is in the moment when Kamala, and I talked about this a moment earlier, but there's a moment where he can choose chaos again he can bring in Corey Lewandowski and the people from his past who bring a lot of drama with them and he chooses not to go that way. He chooses to keep Wiles and LaCivita on board when Kamala Harris comes in, and there's a moment where they feel like she's winning. And he kind of wants to shake up the race by doing something drastic, but he chooses the status quo and he chooses exactly where he is, which is a very un-Trumpian kind of thing to do, but he does it. And I think that moment speaks to where he was and his mindset during this campaign.

GR: Perhaps there's an analogy now in the way that he is backing off of tariffs. Seems again like he is open to a learning curve on some things at least. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with the journalist Amie Parnes. She is the coauthor of a new book on the 2024 election titled, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House”. So this next question is the one I have been looking most forward to asking you, because I would like an answer and I'm actually kind of frustrated with the Democratic Party in this regard. There's one thing from the Democratic side of the campaign that I can make assumptions about, but I actually don't really know. And I think, as I just said, both former President Biden and the Democratic Party, I think they owe the nation a factual account of this, and they haven't provided it so far, I'm hoping you can tell me. And this is, everyone saw the debate or at least the parts of it that made it on the news the next morning with Joe Biden, but what exactly happened with Biden's decision to step down as a candidate? How and why was that decision actually made? Biden's speech to the nation did not really provide that answer.

AP: No. And I think in the end, he was really dug in and we get into this quite a bit in the book, Grant. But he, you know, he goes from a position of, no, I'm not doing it to he comes down with COVID and it's a really bad case of COVID and he has to get off the campaign trail. It's much worse than they let on. He was having really bad respiratory issues. And so he goes back to Wilmington with COVID, a bad case of COVID, and he is essentially locked in his house with a closed set of advisors. And they're essentially there to present him with the facts. You know, you are losing, poll numbers show that you're not going to be able to win, fundraising is completely cut off, no one is donating anything anymore. And they are essentially able to convince him after weeks of, no, I'm going to do this, I can win again, in his weakest moment he has to make the biggest political decision of his life. And he's sort of backed into a corner, and he does it. And what's interesting is he does it kind of unwillingly and wants to essentially take a victory lap and doesn't want to really endorse Kamala Harris in that moment. You know, essentially wants to take a few days and say, look how great I am, you know, I'm doing this for the good of the country. And she is the one who essentially tells him, no, I need your endorsement right now, which we reveal for the first time in the book. But there was that sort of gap where he puts out a statement and then puts out another statement endorsing her. And we kind of explained what was happening in those moments around that.

GR: Well, okay, so, well that then directly leads to the next thing I want to know is, how and why Kamala Harris was chosen as the new nominee? You said, okay, she pressures Biden to make the early endorsement. But that's just the, I mean, those are two people, you know, there's Nancy Pelosi, there are big other leaders in this party. And so how was it decided that that it wasn't going to be an open process, that there wasn't even going to be the appearance of an open process? How did that go down?

AP: What's interesting about that is that we detail in the book that Nancy Pelosi was really for an open process, as was Barack Obama and they were privately kind of lobbying, you know, and trying to get people trying to sound people out and hear people because they think, why not? You know, Nancy Pelosi doesn't think Kamala can win, she makes that known from the start. She tells a confidant, if he goes, she goes, meaning if Joe Biden goes, then Kamala Harris should go, too. And so she was very much for that. And Barack Obama up until the final hours, you know, he was calling around, talking to people like Jim Clyburn. And Clyburn feels like he needs to quickly back Kamala Harris because he knows Barack Obama is about to call him and kind of listen to him and kind of convince him about what an open primary might be like. So he quickly gets behind Harris to tell Obama, look, I'm behind Harris when Obama calls him. And that conversation lasts like 30 seconds because he's already done what he needed to do. And Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is, sort of, even before Biden gets out, what's interesting is in the hours leading up to the candidate switch, she has a set of close advisers in her pool house meeting to discuss what would happen if and when Joe Biden does drop out. So while she is trying to project loyalty and all of that, she is, you know, quietly assembling her aides to plan the next moves. So when it does happen that she is ready, and she can kind of galvanize her base and do what she needs to do. And so in that moment, she's pretty much ready to go. You know, she has the support, she knows that the fundraising is going to come to him. She pushes him because she needs the delegates, he's basically locked up all the delegates and she needs those. But she, you know, in a moment like that, in her moment of truth, she pushes him to endorse her and kind of knocks the nail in the coffin as far as, you know, the support from Democrats and she knows that. And that's what happens.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Amie Parnes. The political journalist as co-written a new book on the 2024 election has just come out. It's titled, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House”. So let me just ask you this bottom line question. Were you surprised at the outcome of the election at all? Anything that surprised you about the election itself?

AP: I mean, what I think is most surprising, and I don't want to give anything away, was that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz go into it thinking that they are going to win, that they had it locked up. And I think the big bombshell in the book is that you, once again, I don't want to give away too much, but you walk into election night and we put you in the rooms with them and they're shocked that they have lost. Tim Walz can't even find the words to express how he feels, so much that his wife needs to say something because he just can't express how he's feeling. And we use the word gaslighting quite a bit in this book. But I think the biggest moment, I think, is when we reveal that Kamala Harris was essentially gaslit by her own campaign.

GR: Okay, wow, wow. And you mentioned Walz, and so, this, you may have just help me understand something. I have to say, sort of thinking about it as a political analyst, a political strategist, I am surprised that he seems to be trying to position himself in some ways for a run in ‘28. I just think that's not going to happen, man.

AP: No, I mean, it went from, you know, I think her pick of him was interesting because it initially was energizing. I think people thought that he would be able to really speak to white men in particular, you know, a demographic they desperately needed. But in the end, he kind of became a punch line. But they reined him in and they wouldn't allow him to do what he needed to do, which I think he's kind of alluded to in recent interviews. But I think, you know, he was a big disappointment, I think, to a lot of people.

GR: Yeah, this is a comment in the weeds, but one of the things that that I thought at the time was the Democrats kept emphasizing the campaign, kept emphasizing, oh, he's a coach, he's a coach, you know, and so everyone's going to trust him, everyone's going to like him. And I thought, these people had never played organized sports. Because, I mean, half of my experiences with my coaches were really horrible.

AP: Yeah.

GR: (laughter) I wouldn't want them near my political system.

AP: No, I know. But we do tell in the book that he was almost, he couldn't eat or sleep, he was almost fixated on the debate, the vice presidential debate. And that kind of got very much in his head the entire time. So aides had to remind him to eat and you know, to try to get sleep because he was losing sleep. And I think we saw all that play out, but really interesting.

GR: Wow, yeah. So let me ask you a question about the other side then. I want to ask you a question about Donald Trump. You obviously have been looking very closely at this guy for a very long time.

AP: Yeah.

GR: And you wrote a book on the 2016 election as well and the 2020 election. Do you think that Trump, putting you in the armchair psychologist moment here, do you think that Trump has any internal sense of limits of what his power ought to be?

AP: You know, it's a really interesting question. I think in key moments he does. And, you know, we detail one really fascinating thing in the book where, during the debate we kind of give you what’s playing on, the inner dialog in his mind. And he knows in that moment that he can't pummel Joe Biden because Joe Biden is essentially pummeling himself. And so he reins it in, you know, like he doesn't go after, doesn't go for the jugular, thinks in real, and we put you there, but he's thinking in real time if I do go for the jugular, how is that going to make me look? Here's a guy who's very involved in image, obviously, and branding and marketing and he knows that that's not a good look for him. So he has these moments of self-awareness, even though I think a lot of his haters would disagree with that. But he kind of, he knows what things look like. And I think that's why you're seeing sort of the push and pull on tariffs, for example, because he's aware of the headlines and the conversation around it. And so he is able to rein it in when he needs to, if that makes sense.

GR: It does make sense. And it's this really interesting paradox because one of his main appeals to a lot of people is that he's a guy who doesn't give a damn about how he looks, and he's a guy that doesn't give a damn about what he says. So it's, I guess, what is it, crazy like a fox or something. So I'm also wondering too, what your sense of JD Vance is. There was a lot of debate in both parties about how his political views had changed he was first anti-Trump and more moderate than he, you know, becomes more conservative and also more pro-Trump. I'm particularly interested because he's the likely inheritor at this point of Trump's legacy at this point. And I think he'll be a top tier candidate for president in ‘28 unless something really disastrous happens between now and then. So what's your quick sense, quick take on Vance?

AP: I think that's exactly right. But you know what we did see, especially during Signal Gate, he portrays himself, I think, going into the vice presidential pick as a loyalist. He positions himself with Trump in that way. He says, look, I know that in my past I was this, but now I'm this and I'm very much for the MAGA movement. And that's something that's very appealing to Trump. But then we saw in recent weeks, you know, with Signal Gate that he's willing to kind of part ways with Trump behind the scenes. And I'm curious to see how that relationship plays out. We saw what happened with Trump and Pence, for example, Mike Pence. I'm curious to see if those two, if this relationship ends up being as frayed as that one. And some people that I'm talking to think that it might be.

GR: Yeah, I was with political analysts the other day and they said the difference between the two of them, among others, is that Trump has no shame, but Vance had shame.

AP: Yeah.

GR: I don't know whether he's identifying that as a strength or a weakness. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the political journalist Amie Parnes. So we’ve got about 5 minutes left, I want to try to squeeze two or three questions in before we have to stop. I want you to look ahead now and it is just, you know, prognosticating, but how long do you think it will be, if ever, that our presidential elections feel, for lack of a better word, normal again? You know, back to the way maybe they were when Obama was running. Or have we passed some kind of a threshold point that we're never going to get back to again?

AP: I mean, I think that's TBD, Grant. I think a lot of people are curious to see if Trump tries to run again for a third term, which would really throw everything into, it would be a big disaster, I think.

GR: Yeah, I think it'd be a disaster for the Republican Party as well as Trump.

AP: Yeah. But I think that is something that comes into question and various other aspects. But I think I don't think we'll ever quite be on a normal track, quote unquote, again. I think it's all going to be, you know, we write these books and we keep saying, oh, this is the craziest election cycle ever, this is the craziest election cycle and they end up being crazier each time. (laughter)

GR: Yeah. I've given up thinking I'll see a difference in my lifetime, but I am telling my students, they'll see a difference in their lifetime, but that's a long time horizon. I want to come back to something that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, which was the train wreck for the Democratic Party and sort of, you know, where they are now. Do you have any sense of what the Democrats are generally doing to try to reboot? You know, one, I get the sense there are different potential leaders and different kinds of themes that are being tried out. You have Sanders and AOC on the road, all the while that's happening, the Trump administration's being extremely active and pushing out a lot of different dimensions. David Hogg just came out and said he's got a hit list of Democrats in safe seats he wants to primary, he’s one of the vice chair of the Democratic Party. Do you have any sense of what they're doing to reboot?

AP: You know, it's interesting, I did an interview this week with the governor Gavin Newsom of California and he was essentially making the point to me that they have not done an autopsy yet to find out what exactly went wrong. And I think that's the start. I think there needs to be some accountability, actually, of what has happened. I think Biden or someone needs to come out and essentially own what has happened or claim some responsibility. I think that's the first step and they've been unwilling to do that. But you need to sort of reckon with what happened and how you ended up getting here, what led to a second Trump presidency. And for whatever reason, they're unwilling to kind of face themselves in the mirror. You know, I think they have to do that first in order to rebuild or it's going to be, the house is going to be rebuilt on shaky foundation and they have to regain the trust of voters. I think, you know, while it was a close election, I think a lot of these voters who were traditionally supposed to be Democratic voters voted for Trump. You have to speak to those people and win those people over. So I think what Governor Newsom was saying is essentially right. They need a really thorough autopsy of what's happened. And they haven't done that yet.

GR: Yeah. And it's interesting, I've noticed that he has kind of come out and said some things and participated in some things that would suggest that he's kind of doing a reboot of himself a little bit.

AP: Yeah.

GR: Although I have to say, before I ask you my last question, I have to say that I think my own sense is that in ‘28, the Democrats need to find someone that's not on the East Coast or the West Coast, they need to go to the interior of the country. Well, here's a fun question to end things with. So you write a book on 2016. It's called, “Shattered”, perfect title for the Hillary Clinton Campaign. Then your 2020 book was called, “Lucky”, and your 2024 book is, “Fight”. What's going to be the title of the 2028 book?

AP: “Nap” (laughter), no I’m kidding.

GR: (laughter) Oh, geez, if we could only hope.

AP: No, I don't know. What's funny, Grant, is that John and I weren't even going to do a book on this election.

GR: Really?

AP: Yeah, we were pushed into it by our publisher who said you guys need to get in there. And we had no idea what was going to happen, but I'm sure glad that we jumped in.

GR: Yeah, well I am too. We'll have to leave it there. I could talk to you for hours about this, but that was Amie Parnes, and her new book is titled, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House”. And if you are listening to this and you are any kind of political junkie or have any kind of significant interest in politics, this book is like a giant bowl of your favorite ice cream, you will love it. So, Amy, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me and thanks for writing the book.

AP: I love it, thank you so much.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Marc GarneauProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today has several notable profiles that should be of interest to listeners in Central New York. Marc Garneau is Canada's first astronaut to go into space and then twenty four years following his first flight, he was the first former astronaut elected to Canada's parliament. The Liberal Party member served in two cabinet posts as Minister of Transport and as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Garneau, welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you.

Marc Garneau: Good to be with you, Grant.

GR: Thanks for making the time for this, we really appreciate it. So let me just start with this, and I know this is a longer and more complicated story, but if you could briefly just refresh our listeners on the current political situation in Canada, you are in the midst of an election.

MG: Indeed. Our previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau, resigned under pressure in January, and that triggered a federal election. First of all, the Liberal Party, which was the party in power, had to find a new leader, his name is Mark Carney. He became the prime minister and within about a week triggered an actual election which will take place on the 28th of April.So we're right in the middle of it.

GR: So very similar to the British model in that sense, that short, short election periods and the parliamentary system, okay, great. And you mentioned that Justin Trudeau resigned under pressure. I remember that was the story in the States. Just remind us briefly what the source of the pressure was.

MG: Well, a number of things. He had been the prime minister of the country for over nine years. And as often happens with systems like ours, Canadians kind of get tired of the incumbent and decide it's time for a change. And I think it was really a collection of past mistakes and the feeling that the prime minister was not addressing the issues very similar to those in the United States related to affordability, related to housing. And so I think within the caucus, that is the Liberal members of parliament, there was growing pressure for him to step down.

GR: And I know there's a lot of differences between Canadian politics and American politics and also the views that tend to, Canadians and Americans tend to have. I mean, you folks have a, you know, a guaranteed health care system. It's a complicated one at a provincial level, but certainly something different, profoundly different from what the United States has.But would it be fair to say that the Liberal Party would be sort of the equivalent of the Democratic Party in the United States?

MG: I think that's the parallel that is often made. We're certainly closer to being Democrats than Republicans.

GR: Okay, all right. So do you think that this tariff issue that's going on with the Trump administration and obviously its effects on countries around the world, do you think it's affecting the dynamics of this Canadian general election right now?

MG: Oh, it most certainly is. In fact, I think the ballot question in this election is which of the four party leaders, there are actually four parties or five, if you include the Greens, is going to best be able to handle the tariff question and negotiate with Mr. Trump. That is the central question because it is going to have such a profound effect on Canada and unfortunately also on your country.

GR: Yes, I mean, you're a huge trading partner for us. Do you expect that the Liberal Party will maintain its majority in Parliament and that Canada will have a Liberal Prime Minister going forward? I know you're in the Liberal Party and you may not want to speculate about that, but I want to ask anyway.

MG: Well, if you read the tea leaves or look into the crystal ball at the moment now with barely ten days left to go, it looks like the favorite appears to be Mark Carney, who was a former governor of the Central Bank, the equivalent of your Federal Reserve, not only for Canada, but also for Great Britain, a man of great economic experience.And it looks like he's in the favored position at the moment to win. So if that happens, yes, it will be a liberal government. And at the moment, if you believe the poll numbers, it looks like a majority. I don't want to jinx anything here, but it does look like he, at the moment, unless he makes a big mistake, seems to be the favorite.

GR: Okay, all right. And I wanted to ask you a question about Justin Trudeau and his political legacy, because he was known in the United States. But I think kind of more personally, I mean, he became something of a sex symbol here in the States as sort of the world's most handsomest national leader. But what do you think his political legacy is going to be in Canada?

MG: I personally, from having been in his cabinet for a number of years and known him, we were elected at the same time, I think that his legacy will be twofold. One, something that perhaps Americans don't hear a lot about, but that is what we call reconciliation, which is a massive effort which will take probably two generations to accomplish, to reconcile with our indigenous peoples for all the wrongs we did to them.And that's a massive undertaking. It has begun, but I think the Justin Trudeau is the first prime minister to take it to the level that it has reached and I think it has critical mass. The second thing is, as you know, Justin Trudeau is a progressive and believes very strongly in the social safety net and one of his signature initiatives is what's called the Canadian Child Benefit, which is money that goes to people below a certain income and it has proven to reduce poverty with children by a significant amount.And so that, I think, will also be considered part of his legacy.

GR: In the United States, we do have income supports of that nature. They are pretty much run by the states rather than the national government and that was a product of a law that Bill Clinton signed decades ago. But one of the distinguishing features of the United States system is there are a lot of hoops that people have to go through to get that and depending on the state, quite a bit of restrictions on them in terms of work requirements or needing to show that you are engaged in an activity that will lead to work.Is the Canadian system a little more, for lack of a better word, forgiving or generous in that sense? Do you have a sense of that?

MG: Yes and no. We are composed of ten provinces and three territories and constitutionally, provinces have certain rights and certain responsibilities and the two most notable are health care and secondly, education. The federal government provides funding for those activities, but there is a certain autonomy providing that the provinces act within, for example, the Canada Health Act, which has a number of principles that must be respected.So there is autonomy for the provinces to direct a number of things. The other part of it is the fact that some provinces have barriers to trade internally within the country. And this is one of the things that Mr. Trump's threat of tariffs has really brought to the fore. And that is the fact that we within our own country, sometimes our own worst enemy, because we have interprovincial barriers to trade. And there has been a strong resolve in recent weeks for the framers of the provinces to do everything they can to reduce, if not eliminate those interprovincial barriers Economists believe that this will significantly increase our GDP and I think it's a good thing. And hopefully, perhaps Mr. Trump has done us a favor here. He will have provoked this discussion on interprovincial barriers.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Marc Garneau, a former member of the Canadian Parliament who served both as Minister of Transport and as Minister of Foreign Affairs. So you mentioned the tariffs, I did want to ask you a few questions about that. In addition to the fact that the tariffs have been on again, off again, or, you know, increased at one level and then taken down to a 10% level.President Trump has made a lot of comments about Canada in recent months that have often obviously ruffled feathers on both sides of the border. I had a, the first question want to ask you about that is my understanding is that Canada generally derives some of its sense of national identity from being on the one hand, great friends with the United States, but also and maybe more importantly, not being the United States that, you know, you're distinct. Have Canadian views on the U.S. been significantly damaged by all of what the president saying,or is there a stronger sense now of Canadian identity because of this, do you think?

MG: Both. Yes, there has been significant damage caused, particularly when Mr. Trump started to talk about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state. Now, if you do that once, it may be considered a joke in perhaps poor taste, but he repeatedly said it. You don't treat other countries, particularly your closest and best friend, that way. And so, yes, that has ruffled feathers in a very, very serious manner, but it has also galvanized Canadians to begin to take measures that will reduce our dependence on the United States.Not an easy task, because we do more than 75% of our trade with you. We are closest neighbors and I know particularly in the northern states like New York and others across the country, that there's a great deal of exchange, whether it's Canadians coming to shop, Canadians coming to spend their tourist dollars and that has taken a significant hit.And that, I think, speaks to the seriousness with which we view Mr. Trump's aggressive approach towards Canada. It's fine to want to renegotiate tariffs. We have the USMCA Treaty between Canada, the United States and Mexico, and it was scheduled to come up for review next year. That's fine, we can make some adjustments if Mr. Trump wants to change certain things because he feels it's unfair to the United States in a particular area,fair game. And we can do the same, and so can Mexico. But him jumping in right away and taking this extremely aggressive approach towards tariffs is definitely going to have a very painful effect on Canada with respect to jobs and with respect to affordability of certain things. But make no mistake about it, it's also going to have an effect on the United States. I was reading this morning about how you depend on Canadian aluminum.And the reason that you depend on Canadian aluminum is because you haven't got enough in your own country. It's an energy intensive area, you need a lot of electricity to produce aluminum. Another one is potash. Farmers in the United States depend twice a year on receiving their allotment or buying their allotment of potash for fertilizing the soil.Most of that comes from Canada. So there are going to be some serious effects on both sides. And it's unfortunate because it didn't have to happen this way.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Mark Garneau. He's a former cabinet minister in the Canadian Parliament and was the first Canadian astronaut to go into space. So I want to come back to what we were talking about before the break and the effect of what Donald Trump has been saying about Canada, this idea of, you know, annexing it or making it the 51st state.And you were talking about the effects that this is having on Canadians, but also, you know, it's going to have some policy effects, perhaps. This is my personal view of this, and you made a good point about the fact that, you know, if he says it once, we might dismiss it, but if he repeats that over and over again, you have to take it seriously.But personally, I've regarded these statements as just posturing and bluster because it just seems so unrealistic, let's put it that way. I can't imagine Canadians would want this, I can't even imagine that Americans would want it really if it was being considered. So I just wonder, is there any way in which Canadians might be willing to take this a little less seriously?Maybe I'm being to dismissive or optimistic about this whole issue.

MG: Well, I agree with you. And right away when he started to say that, I recognized it as posturing because he is a transactionalist. He's somebody who wants to get something out of this and he takes a very aggressive posture. And no, there is absolutely no chance to quote Justin Trudeau, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that it's ever going to happen.Canadians don't want it. At least 85% of Canadians are totally against the idea. And as you say, perhaps Americans don't want it as well, because it brings a lot of complications, too, as well. But yeah, you know, it's a negotiating tactic. We never thought it was really going to, or I didn't personally think that it was going to happen.But the point is, you don't say things like that. It's really going, in my opinion, beyond proper negotiations if you're trying to make a point.

GR: Yeah, fair enough. So I wanted to ask you this different question about Canadian politics and society, bigger picture question. But in recent years, the United States has really been rent by a variety of social issues that have that have really been part of our political polarization and the divisiveness that you see here. And they cover different topics, race abortion, gender identity, issues about education that relate to some of those things and other things.Now, we've got similar things going on with higher education, the Trump administration waging war in many respects, on what is happening in higher education in the United States. So I'm just curious, has Canada had any analogous experiences in recent years to those kinds of cultural political conversations of divisions?

MG: Yes, it has. I mean, you know, the issues of DEI and the issues of abortion and political correctness and wokeness and all that have also touched Canada, but to a much, much lesser degree that in the United States. I always like to fall back on a very old analogy, but I think it encapsulates very well the difference between Canadians and Americans.You are the famous melting pot. People who come to the United States to make their life subscribe give wholeheartedly to American values and that's the way your model works and it has been extremely successful. We in Canada are closer to the old concept that we've managed to hold on to, which is that our country is a cultural mosaic.In other words, we're more disposed to be tolerant of differences of opinion, differences in culture. Now, having said that, there has been a growing intolerance in certain quarters, a growing one in the last decade or two. But I think it's at a much, much lower level than in the United States. Now, don't get me wrong, we have anti-Semitism in our country,we have Islamophobia in our country. We have people who are against, for example, transgender people but it's at a much, much lower level. And I think that explains the basic difference between Canada and the United States. We have more of a live and let live rather than, okay, you're here now, you have to subscribe wholeheartedly to our values.

GR: On that point, and this is now a pet theory of mine, and it could be absolutely wrong. I'm going to be dealing in stereotypes, but I have to say you fit my stereotype. (laughter) Which is that, is part of this, I mean, Canadians just seem to me on average, much more reasonable people than Americans. I mean, they just seem much more even keeled and much more, for lack of a better word, sort of dealing just in rationality. Is that, am I on to something there?

MG: Well, thank you for saying that, I view that as a compliment. I think that there are strengths and weaknesses to that approach. I admire the passion with which Americans embrace certain things, and it gives them an energy and a capability that is to be envied. But there's always flip sides to every coin. We come from a system that, we were a colony, a British colony.And if you look at immigration in the 20th century, people came from all sorts of different places around the world where they also, much like the example of New York City when people came in boats and ships at the beginning of the 20th century, we have many Canadians who came from countries where they were persecuted. And I think there was a resolve in Canada to say, look, you are now coming to a country where you don't have to be afraid, where you are going to be respected and you're going to be able to live your lives in the way that you would like to be able to live your lives.And so I think that sort of is inculcated in the minds of Canadians. That being said, there has, and I'll repeat it again, there has been a growing perhaps intolerance that we have to be concerned about.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Marc Garneau, a former Canadian astronaut and is the author of a new book which I'm about to ask him about titled, “A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream”. Well, as I just mentioned, you've just published a new book and it's a memoir, and congratulations on that book.I'd like to talk about it a little bit with you.

MG: Well, thank you very much. I enjoyed the experience of writing it.

GR: Well, does the book have a central, I mean, it's about your life and your experiences, but does it have a broader central message that you want readers to take away?

MG: Yes, I think it does. I wrote it for my children because, you know, first of all, I realized many years ago that I didn't know my parents before, in the first 30 years of their life because I wasn't around. And I realized that there are a lot of things in my children don't know about me and that I'm far from perfect.They have only grown up seeing sort of the public persona because I’ve, you know, I flew in in space 40 years ago, and I've been a sort of a public person. But they do not realize that I had my own challenges in the first, in my teenage years and that I made lots of mistakes and that that's okay if you use that opportunity to learn from those mistakes.So this may sound very boring, but I tried to be intensely honest in writing this book about not only areas where I was successful, but also about my failures and my missteps and my lucky breaks in many, many cases. Because I think that's more reflective of real life and something that perhaps is glossed over by some people when they write their books.And so I'm very proud of the fact that did this book covers my life, warts and all.

GR: Well, I want to just say that's a, you mentioned you wrote it for your children and why, I just want to compliment you on that because I am fortunate, neither of my parents wrote anything in that regard, but I have tapes that they made. And that, you know, it's an important thing and often overlooked.And, you know, you grow up and you hear the stories but you don't necessarily hear everything. And so it's nice to have someone sit down and say, okay, I'm going to you know, here's the entire trajectory. I want to come back to something you mentioned about the writing of the book in just a second. But if you could briefly, I wanted to ask this question first and then we'll finish with a couple of other questions about the book.People who have been to space often say that seeing the Earth from space is, of all the experiences they have, up there, the most powerful one. Was that true for you?

MG: Oh, by far, no question about it. It's been written about and in fact, in a fairly famous book called, “The Overview Effect”. What happens when you go into space and see Earth from above looking down, it is not only a physically different perspective, it's also an intellectually different perspective. Because instead of thinking about perhaps the local problems that we all deal with when we're down on Earth and as we look around us and we can see about five miles around us at any one time, when you're up there and you're going around the planet once every 90 minutes it shifts your perspective and you do a lot of thinking.First of all, you're in an extraordinary place that very few humans have ever been to, but you begin to think about the bigger issues, the bigger questions. For example, are we damaging our planet? You can see that wafer thin atmosphere that allows life to be sustained. You can see the oceans, but you can also see forest fires, and you can see incontrovertible evidence of pollution and other things. And because you're surrounded by the blackness of space, you begin to ask yourself, are we taking care of this planet so that it has a future for future generations?You're also, although you can't see it, and most of the time you can't see it, aware of the fact that there are many conflicts going on down on this planet, this beautiful looking planet, despite what we're doing to it. And you wonder, is there a way that we can find, can we find a way to get along with each other?Because at any one time, there are dozens of conflicts on the planet, many of which we don't even hear about, we just hear about the big ones. And so, again, there are 8 billion of us, it's the cradle of humanity. There is no option B, and so we have to find a way to get along with each other and to make the planet survivable for future generations.That sort of gets a hold of you when you're up there and you’re gazing out the window as you're orbiting over the top of the world and seeing the different countries. And I think it's something that stays with you for the rest of your life.

GR: Yes, I can see how it would. Now, we only have about a minute left. I want to squeeze one more question in, and I'm sorry it's a difficult one, and it's a difficult one to end on, perhaps. But you mentioned already in writing the book that you wanted to deal with warts and all, and you really do deal with some pretty difficult subjects there in that book.I was just wondering if you could share what was the hardest thing for you to write about? And in a few seconds or less.

MG: Yeah, it was the suicide of my first wife. I lost my first wife to, she was diagnosed as bipolar. We had twins at the time, they were 11 years old. And suddenly, after a two year illness, she took her life and I was now a single parent. And the tragedy of losing the woman that I loved and also the sobering reality that I now had to be the parent for two children is something that I've been aware of all my life.But I was encouraged by the editor to be open about it because you know, when this happened a long time ago, you sort of swept mental health under the carpet. And I thought, if I'm going to, you know, live up to my own words about trying to bring it out of the closet, I should be very honest about it.

GR: Well, again, I think that just makes the book better, and it has a lot of hope in it as well. We'll have to leave it there, unfortunately. That was Marc Garneau and again, his new book is titled, “A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream. Marc, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.And I want to give you best wishes and also your country best wishes.

MG: Thank you very much, Grant. And similarly to you, best wishes to the United States.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

.

View Details

Dionne KollerProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Youth sports has become a cultural and political lightning rod in recent years. My guest today is an expert in that area, particularly the ways in which law and government policies have impacted it. Dionne Koller is a professor of law and the director of the Center for Sport and the Law at the University of Baltimore. She's the author of a new book titled, "More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport." Professor Koller, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

Dionne Koller: Thanks so much for having me here.

GR: We really appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with something definitional. What do you mean when you use the phrase ‘youth sport’, are we talking about anything under pro, anything before college? What are the definitions there?

DK: Well, Grant, I'm really glad you're asking that because that was an immediate stumbling block when I started to research youth sport and I wanted to figure out what's going on in the United States. We don't have a uniform definition of youth sports, actually, that makes data collection difficult. It can be anything from a running club with kids, cup stacking, to the type of travel ball that we see all over the place. So there is no uniform definition. The definition I adopted for the book is the one that I believe is the model that I believe is most predominant in the US, which is adult led, organized youth sports activities.

GR: Okay, great. And so looking at it, and that's obviously a very broad category, what have been some of the major trends in recent years in that area?

DK: Well, the trends have been really going in a problematic direction, which is the trend is toward increased professionalization, and professionalization includes a few things. First of all, it's the emphasis on early sports specialization, getting kids to pick a sport and get really good at that and play it year round. It's the emphasis on competition and winning. So again, getting young kids traveling and going to tournaments and competing as much as possible with the ideal of win, win, win. And so all of that early sports specialization, emphasis on competition and winning really leads to, as the medical community has talked about, things like overuse injuries, really an epidemic of those types of things. So it's all those things together that we call professionalization of youth sports.

GR: Yeah, I wanted to come back to that notion of professionalization and some of the problematic things it entails. But let me ask this question first back to, you know, particularly the title of your book. So how have laws and public policies affected that trend that you just sketched out?

DK: Well, another thing that surprised me as I started looking at this is law and public policy hasn't affected it in the sense that there is very little law or regulation of youth sport at the federal or state level. I think a lot of parents think, like other products or experiences that impact kids, isn't somebody out there making sure this is safe? The answer is, by and large, no. So what I conclude in the book is that the way law and policy has shaped ultimately youth sports in the United States is through the lack of regulation by choosing not to regulate. It's sort of been described as a Wild West situation. You can have some really great programs and experiences and some that really aren't so great. And so the lack of any regulation, lack of minimum safety standards, those types of things, that's a choice too, Grant. And so I talk about that in the book, which is, our policy is let it be whatever it's going to be.

GR: Well, yeah, on that point then, that's really interesting because a couple of things strike me. One, on the one hand, you know, with the professionalization, it seems like sports are getting more and more sort of rule oriented, you know. But on the other hand, from a governmental perspective, like you say, it's the Wild West. What do you think some of the reasons are that we have been loathed to involve government regulation and other kinds of things related in that field. Is it because we don't want to bother the parents, it's sort of leave it to the parents? What's the thinking behind that?

DK: Well, there's a couple of different things. And certainly in the United States, we have a very heavy emphasis on parental authority. That is a big theme in the law of families. And in fact, I talk about in the book there's something called the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. One of the rights that the international community recognizes for children is the right to play and the right to developmentally appropriate play. We're the only country in the world that hasn't signed on to that, Grant, because we emphasize parental authority. But one of the other things that I talk about, and this has been something that I've done a lot of research on, is that we see courts, Congress, state legislatures say over and over again, we can't regulate sports, including youth sports. We need to take a hands off attitude, because if we do, it will destroy sports, right? This notion of, I call it the ‘sportspocalypse’ argument. That if you do anything to make changes or requirements in sports, it'll destroy sports. And Grant, if you go back to even the 1970’s with Title IX opening up sports to women and girls, that argument was made over and over. Stay out of sports, don't touch sports, you're going to destroy, for instance, men's college football, you're going to destroy men's sports. And I think both of us know that did not happen.

GR: So it sounds like that it's not really a liberal or a conservative point of view. It sounds like this is something, one of the rare things that is, I guess, bipartisan these days.

DK: Well, youth sport is very bipartisan. There's a youth sport caucus in Congress, yet everybody says, isn't it just great? We can all agree that youth sport is great and let's just leave it alone. But what I talk about in the book is that there's a wide open space between kind of micro-managing T-ball leagues and doing absolutely nothing. And we are very much on the doing nearly nothing side of that.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Dionne Koller. She's a law professor at the University of Baltimore and the author of a new book titled, "More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport." So walking into this topic as someone that doesn't know a tremendous amount about it beforehand, but based on what I do know about law and, you know, this realm of activity, I would have thought that liability law, you know, either through legislation or case law would have had a huge impact on this area. Is that something that has shaped it in any particular way?

DK: Well, I think it does and it doesn't, Grant. And that's a really, really good point. And I think it's the instinct that you have is the thought that many people have that, oh my goodness, aren't there lawsuits aplenty and all kinds of liability going on? There certainly are lawsuits in youth sports, high school sports and private organized youth sports. There certainly are, because there are lots of injuries, there's lots of harm to go around, sports can be a dangerous activity. But what I found is that there aren't actually, when it all comes down to it, there isn't an excessive amount of liability, for instance, assigned to use sport providers. There's lots of immunities and protections built into the system. Parents can sign liability waivers for their kids, and that's very often a condition of participating. Volunteer coaches get immunity in most states from most types of tort lawsuits. The standard for recovery in a tort lawsuit involving sports is a little bit more of a difficult standard to meet than, say, in a typical tort case. So once I really drill down, I think, Grant, there's a fear of liability. And that's talked about a lot, saying if you allow these lawsuits to happen, it's going to ruin all of youth sports. So there's a big talk and fear of it. Is it sort of manifesting in reality? Not to my eyes.

GR: Interesting. Interesting, because I just put myself in the situation of if I were approached and said, you know, we'd like you to be a parent coach on something, my first reaction would just be like, I do not want to expose myself to all of the possible lawsuits coming from that. So it's interesting to know that that the standard for liability is much higher. I was also curious to know whether some sports have seen greater changes than other sports. So, I mean, I know colleagues are always complaining about having to drive their kids to this soccer match, this soccer match, this soccer match. I don't hear that so much about baseball, for example.

DK: Well, actually, I didn't find in my research that there was kind of one sport that was less kind of professionalized than another. I think we see these changes are being driven across really all youth sports. We have been able to monetize and professionalize and drive growth and revenue generation in anything from volleyball to taekwondo, you name it. So I didn't really find that there was a sport-specific difference. But what I found is that the changes have continued to accelerate as state and local governments have emphasized, what I discovered is something called youth sport tourism, attracting tournaments to their localities.

GR: Say more about that. So the states then are, they're tuned into this and they're trying to profit off of it, so to speak.

DK: That's exactly right. So I discovered this when I went looking at state law and I was looking for state statutes saying, surely there must be some minimum safety standards here, for instance. And the statutes that were popping up that I found, Grant, were a lot of statutes that were about stimulating economic development within states saying, okay, we're going to pass a bond measure to build a youth sport megaplex because we want to attract tournaments here. And to give you a personal example, my son played ice hockey and we live in the D.C. metro area, plenty of rinks around here, but I was constantly on the road going to Pittsburgh and Detroit saying, why are we always in a tournament here? The answer is youth sport tourism. This is a deliberate sort of policy choice to attract parents who have disposable income, to fill hotel rooms, to fill restaurants, get these tournaments going. And it becomes a big boost to local economies.

GR: That's interesting, big business. So one huge question that has been in the media a lot and was part of the most recent election rhetoric regarding youth sports has been the question of gender identity and participation and competition. It's been especially, I think, high profile and collegiate, in Olympic level sports. But I just wonder, you know, I'm sure you've looked at that. I'm sure you've thought about that. What do you make of this? And is there for lack of a better question, some way out of what seems to be a political morass here?

DK: Yeah, I mean, I think there's many, many levels to that. And so let's just start with kind of a factual level. How many, for instance, and the issue, Grant, it comes up around trans-girls and women. That's really the issue. So if you look at really numbers, we just don't have the numbers to support the level of sort of fear and panic that's been going on. And in fact, when I look closely, you look closely at some lawsuits that have been brought over this, and courts have dismissed those lawsuits saying we can't find any evidence of harm. That because a trans-girl, for instance, participated on a high school cross-country team. It didn't displace or hurt anybody else. So I think factually it's been way overblown from that perspective. I think the other thing to look at is that a lot of times, and just looking at this objectively, who's making these arguments and how are they being made and why? And when you look at it, the ostensible reason is we need to preserve sport opportunities for women and girls. And as a researcher, I can say the best way to do that is let's enforce Title IX, let's enforce the laws that are on the books that we have never been very good at enforcing. And so to the extent we're worried about collegiate, say, sport opportunities for women and girls, the best thing we can do is not over fund and overemphasized say, a college football team to the detriment of participation opportunities for girls. In terms of just sort of what should we do about it? Well, I'm very clear about this, I don't address it, the book's really not about that, it's really just about youth sports. But in my other writings and work, sport is a very nuanced space, Grant, there are many different levels of competition. Olympic and Paralympic is very different than, say, a youth sport T-ball league, of course. And so because sports are literally made up games, they are made up by us and for us, there are certainly ways that we can make up these experiences so that everybody can participate regardless of their gender identity, regardless of, are you a trans-girl or not? We can make up these games in lots of different ways, and I think we should.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Dionne Koller, a Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Sport and the Law at the University of Baltimore. She's written a new book, it's titled, "More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport" and we've been discussing the topics that the book entails. So I want to follow up on, even though it's not part of your book, specifically, but I want to follow up with another question about the transgendered issue in sports. And maybe I have been captured by this, you know, overhype in the media relative to the number of cases we're talking about. And I remember in particular on this, seeing the Olympic boxing matches that, you know, got played over and over again with, I believe those athletes were from Russia or some country in Eastern Europe. I just wanted to throw this out to you and it's about the partisan politics that have surrounded this. Democrats have been associated, I think, more with, let's let those transgendered athletes play on women's teams. And Republicans seem to be more associated with, this as some kind of violation of the, you know, women's sports and it's not fair for the other girls on these teams. The strange thing in this, it seems to me, is that there is a biological component to it as well as a cultural gendered component. And it seems odd that in this particular instance, the Democrats don't seem to be following one of the other things that they have put forward in recent years, which is to follow the science, you know, we have to follow the science on it. It seems like in this in this case, they're not following the science. I don't know if there's any law about that or anything that you have to say about that. But it struck me as a as an irony to the political discussion in this instance.

DK: Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why it played as a political issue that it did, it looked almost disingenuous. How are you denying biology, right? I think from a sports long policy perspective where I come out, Grant, is it's really important to remember there are different levels of sport with different purposes. So the Olympic and Paralympic level is a different setting, it's a different context, we have different goals. Then, for instance, open youth sport, which we say is just every kid should have an opportunity to participate and get exercise and learn some life lessons, right? So at the youth sport level, there really isn't evidence that there is a problem, for instance, of transgender girls sort of invading sports spaces and taking slots away. As you kind of climb the hierarchy, certainly in different sports, there's no denying biology and that biology can make a difference. And then we have to start looking more closely at what the policies are for participation. I will say that the political sort of moment that we experienced was unfortunate from my perspective, not because, biology is real, Grant, and we need to look at that, but there have been, for instance, at the college level or at the Olympic and Paralympic level, common sense policies in place to make sure that people were sort of, relatively, people who were competing in different categories sort of belonged in those categories and we weren't displacing folks. I think what we ended up doing, especially at the Olympic and Paralympic level, is grouping different things into the trans-women and girls participation issue. For instance, there are some individuals, it's naturally occurring, they are intersex. The Caster Semenya situation, which she was a runner, took the world by storm, people said this is unfair. That's a naturally occurring phenomenon and that just happens. And just like I'm not Simone Biles, I'm not four foot eight and not going to be an Olympic gymnast, I'm not Michael Phelps, I'm not built to swim. Other people are born intersex, and that's just the way they were made. So I think we also conflate some of these issues. The biology is that there is not sort of clear cut demarcations, man and woman. But by the time you're talking about that nuance in a political discussion, people have long since tuned out.

GR: Yeah, I was going to say good luck. So I want to come back to something that was at the core of your book and what you talked about at the outset of our conversation here, which is that professionalization of youth sport. And it does really seem like that's been one of the big changes I've seen. It's, you know, it does feel like these are more pro teams. They’re traveling, there are all these different sort of tournaments, it's expensive, some of it involves overnight travel. So why has that happened? Is that because some families just have more money than they know what to do with? I mean, what are the forces pushing that?

DK: Well, you're exactly right, that's the heart of the book. And I said, how did this happen? How are we here today? And what happens is, Grant, at least in my opinion, my analysis is, without any minimum kind of regulation or policy standards, except for, kids should play sports, right? We leave it to the free market to kind of set up what the youth sport experience is going to be and in that case, more is more because you have people out there who are willing to pay and they'll put their kids in it and there's more money to be made. So there's on the one hand, that sort of free market drive for, hey, there's a market here, let's do it. On the other hand, you have the drive from parents. Parents want to be good parents. I put my kids into youth sports, I believe in sports, I love sports, I was an athlete myself. So I say this is a good thing, I'm a good parent by doing this. The problem is, is that, and there's literature on this from the psychological community, once you're a parent and you get a taste of seeing your kid perform on the weekends, boy, it sure is fun and you like it. And it's almost a feedback loop where, look, Johnny's doing great in the hockey tournament, that must mean I'm a good parent, he's thriving, this is all good. You get kind of benchmarks, they won the tournament. You're willing to spend more, you're willing to do more, you push more. And so the confluence of parents working together in the free market and parents believing hey, this is good for my kids, right? And of course, then you add in all the other variables, maybe this will get them a scholarship, this will teach them life lessons. You sort of sprinkle all that in and what you get is a recipe for a professionalization of youth sport.

GR: I want to come back to one possible wrinkle about that a little bit later if we've got some time but let me ask you this question, which is kind of the opposite of the emphasis on winning. One of the other things that I have noticed in some youth sports is like a de-emphasis on what I would call a meritocracy. It's the idea of everybody gets a trophy for participating rather than you get a trophy if you achieve something. How does that fit into this?

DK: Well, I think there are there are a couple responses to that. First of all, when I went looking for a sort of youth sport policy and in terms of developmental stages, et cetera, we don't have any kind of government agency that's responsible for sports at all in this country, that's fairly unique in the world. And so we don't set any type of goals for different ages and levels based on development. So again, left to the free market. Well, if you're charging parents a whole lot of money to participate in soccer and it makes the kid happy to get a trophy and then you get more sign-ups, you're certainly incentivized to keep giving out trophies and medals and making everybody feel good because it keeps the kids kind of in in your program. So I think without any kind of thought to what should youth sport be in this country, is it about developing elite athletes? Is it for exercise? Is it about friendship and collaboration? What are we doing? Without any direction, we just get these market based impulses to, they paid a fee, you get a trophy. (laughter)

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is University of Baltimore law professor Dionne Koller. Okay, so this is beyond the bounds of your book and what you have focused on, but I have to ask this as well. Intercollegiate athletics, they've seen a real earthquake recently through the name, image, likeness, compensation and this transfer portal, and it looks much more like a professional enterprise than did before. Where do you see this system continuing to evolve? Do you have a sense of where we're going with this?

DK: I do, Grant. And actually, that's a fair question. I don't address it in the book, but I was among the first people to testify way back in 2020. Congress held hearings on this and NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) and where were things going and I testified before Congress and I said don't panic. What has happened in intercollegiate sports and I think most people don't realize this, but the Supreme Court ruled 9 – 0 in 2021 that the NCAA was violating antitrust law with different aspects of their model which I will not go into, but basically they were violating antitrust law. This Supreme Court is not unanimous on much of anything, Grant, but that they all agreed on. Similarly, the Department of Justice under the first Trump administration, the Biden administration was opining lots of antitrust violations going on with the NCAA model. The NCAA has been on notice for years and years and years that their model restraining payments to athletes, restraining the ability to transfer, things that every other kid on campus can do, that that is an antitrust violation, meaning it's not at all been a free market and all the benefits have been flowing to coaches and administrators and of course, not students. And so what we're seeing now is as these antitrust violations have been addressed by the courts, including the Supreme Court, we're getting a free market in college sports, and that's a little messy, Grant, that's going to take some time to sort of work out because it's been suppressed, literally for decades. And so what I am here to say is, don't panic. College sports is still going to be great because even though it looks more professional, it's been professionalized for quite some time in terms of the demands on athletes working 50 to 60 hours a week. It will shake out and it will still remain what we treasure about intercollegiate sports, which is watching our favorite players play for our alma maters, including Syracuse.

GR: Yeah, well, that's good news, thanks for telling me that. So we only got a couple of minutes left. I want to try to squeeze in two questions if I can. I want to go back, and these are big issues so I apologize for the time constraint. I want to go back to the professionalization. Not all parents, though, are going to be able to afford all that. And I know that some really feel squeezed, they don't want to disappoint their children. But this is the, you know, they got to buy this kind of equipment and go to this place. I imagine that's creating some real economic problems for some families.

DK: Absolutely. And this is one of the real sort of tragedies of youth sport in the United States today. It's by and large, a pay to play system, very, very different than it was, say, 40, 50 years ago. State and local governments have pulled back. We don't have a lot of public funding for youth sport. That means that a lot of kids and families, people who want to get their kids out there, they can't afford it. And so this has been talked about for a very, very long time. When I co-chaired a congressional commission on the state of the Olympic and Paralympic movement, we looked at the youth sport pipeline. We made a recommendation to Congress. We said, get back to publicly funding widespread youth sport participation. The American public really supports that.

GR: And so this builds off of what you just said. But again, extremely briefly, just a few seconds left, what kind of changes would you make then to make it better? It sounds like more funding is one and what else?

DK: Minimum safety regulations, not micromanaging T-ball leagues, not a government takeover, but really states and the federal government can do more to guarantee a minimum safety experience for kids.

GR: All right, we'll have to leave it there. That was Dionne Koller and again, her new book is titled, "More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport." If you're getting frustrated with that drive that you just had to take for your kid to play in a tournament, this is the book to understand why you got where you are. Professor Koller, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. Really appreciate it.

DK: Thanks so much for having me.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

George HawleyProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. With our historic levels of political polarization and the hard political feelings that have been generated during the Trump era, each side tends to see the other in the worst possible and the most extreme light. My guest today has written a new book arguing that Democratic and media misperceptions of Republican voters have been especially pronounced. George Hawley is a professor of political science at the University of Alabama and the author of, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization”. Professor Hawley, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

George Hawley: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

GR: We appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a real basic question, what prompted you to write this book?

GH: Well, a couple of things. One was just feeling like there was a, sort of an incongruence between how people were talking about the Republican Party, at least in terms of ordinary Republican voters as this increasingly radicalized element of society and my own experiences and actually interacting with them. So broadly speaking, that would be part of it. Another issue, not to put it on a more social science-y level, I think there's been a ton of really excellent research over the last ten years on what's going on inside the Republican electorate. But my frustration with so much of it was that it was, so much of it was reliant on single snapshots in time, what we would call cross-sectional studies. Either looking at just a single example of the American National Election Study or, you know, some really good and clever experimental studies done. But there wasn't that much just looking at, okay, well, what is going on with the Republican Party over time? And, you know, things that don't require a lot of methodological sophistication but looking at, you know, what are some survey questions that have been asked again and again over the last couple of decades, and can we see has there been this great sea change among Republican voters? And if so, where do we find them? And, you know, as I took a, you know, a deep dove into as many different types of questions and as many different types of surveys as I could find, that we're doing this kind of, you know, over time, taking the temperature over and over again, I was finding more often than not a greater amount of continuity rather than difference over time. I saw that this, you know, this is worth talking about and saying, look, to have a question about polarization and radicalization, but we should also note where we see less change and that's largely what I emphasize in this project.

GR: And you mentioned methods there as you were talking about surveys, talking about social science experiments, the methods that you used in this book, we don't need to go into terribly great detail about this, but you went beyond public opinion surveys. You, I think you did some interviewing and like you said before, you have your own observations. So what did you draw on in writing the book?

GH: Well, quantitatively, I relied predominantly on, you know, the standard big surveys, you know, the General Social Survey, American National Election Survey, Cooperative Election Study, Baylor Religion Study, those that have been done consistently over time that are publicly available so that anybody can check my work and see that it's solid. But I also think that survey data can sometimes be a little bit misleading or at least incomplete. So to supplement that, I also went out of my way to have as many interviews as I could with really just ordinary Republican voters. And I did a fair amount of traveling for this, so I go out and I have a, essentially a focus group in an evangelical church in the Midwest, or I travel up to Nashville to meet with people there. I mean, I did a fair amount of interviews here in Alabama just because it's where I am. But I also went out to the West Coast and elsewhere just to try and get at least some broader geographic representation. So this was, you know, and the people I interviewed, you know, they varied a lot in terms of their levels of political interest and activities. So some of it was people who really don't think about politics very much more than, you know, going out and voting every four years and people who are, you know, rather dedicated activists. I went out of my way to avoid, you know, professional conservatives, so to speak, that I've done, you know, or, and I wasn't going out of my way to try and find people who would have identified with the radical right, which I've done in previous research, looked into that element of society. But that wasn't my main focus here, though, if I did encounter somebody who had far right sentiments, I didn't disregard them either. So those were sort of a mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative. So the quantitative stuff, as I said, is not examples of, you know, tremendous methodological sophistication. There's not a ton of, you know, regression tables in this book.

GR: Right, right. And so briefly, what's the reality that you found among the Republicans that you spoke to and looking at, as you say, the continuity in the survey data? How is the actual typical Republican different from the current stereotype of the typical Republican?

GH: Well, one thing that is true when we talk about polarization is that there is a lot of anger in the Republican electorate. But it tends to be more ideological and partisan than, say, racist or anti-Semitic, which is where a lot of the other focus has been. That is, if we look at attitudes using things like, say, feeling thermometers or attitudes such as racial resentment, which is a term political scientists use a lot. I don't find much compelling evidence that Republicans have gotten say, more racist or more nativist. And the evidence of greater anti-Semitism is almost impossible to find in large data sets. But the degree to which the anger is there, what we've seen, especially since 2000, is this dramatic increase in really just kind of loathing for Democrats and for liberals, but not necessarily for racial or ethnic or sexual minorities, where in fact, over the last couple of decades, feelings have gotten somewhat warmer rather than cooler.

GR: And certainly that loathing goes both ways as far as my experience goes. You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with George Hawley. He's a professor at the University of Alabama and the author of, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization”. Okay, do you think there are certain, let's think about the misperceptions, do you think there are certain kinds of issues on which the misperceptions are most pronounced? You mentioned nativism, anti-Semitism, racism. Are there other things where the misperceptions are most pronounced, or is that where they are?

GH: I think that's where the biggest gap we find is. And I want to be very clear, I am not in any way downplaying the problems of racism, really aggressive nativism, or anti-Semitism. Those are real phenomenon. And if you spend all your time online, particularly on social media, you'll think that this is a widespread massive problem among your ordinary voters. But my takeaway lesson from this is that the type of people who are sitting on X, formally Twitter, all day posting really just nasty, racist, anti-Semitic or otherwise exclusionary stuff are not well representative of the Republican Party overall. And I think that that's an important thing to remember. And I think this is can be a problem in multiple senses because I think that the degree to which people have misperceptions of the Republican Party, it can also perhaps be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because my fear is that a lot of pro-Republican or, you know, conservative nonprofits and other groups, they are perhaps just as mistaken as others and think that, oh, well, where the party is going, where the voters are going is in this really far right direction and so in order to stay relevant, we have to keep up with that. We need to maintain at least as far right of a sentiment as the average person out there. And I'm here to say that I think that would probably be a mistake. I mean, both a moral mistake, but also perhaps a long term tactical or strategic mistake on the part of these parties and these elements of the right broadly conceived. And so I hope that reading this might cause some people to rethink a few things and perhaps, you know, dial back some of the extremism that we do see in other elements of the right.

GR: Yeah, that was I thought, in some ways ,that was the most intriguing part of your book. And you do have a lot of thought provoking arguments that that misperception that you're just talking about, it actually helps the minority on the far right. And you said, you know, you use the word self-fulfilling prophecy, but it actually strengthens their position because they appear to be more of the mainstream than perhaps they are.

GH: Yes, that's my position. And, you know, as I've been working through this project, you know, one thing that has been coming up to my mind is actually a comment that Peter Viereck made back in the 1950’s. He was a sort of moderate to conservative thinker at the time, and he was noting at the height of McCarthyism that a lot of people were making the mistake of thinking that all forms of prejudice and bigotry tend to move together. But he was saying in the context of McCarthyism that that was really not what was happening. Because what he found actually that was that sort of the McCarthy sentiments were strongest among those conservatives who tended to be most anti-segregation and similarly, the place where McCarthyism was weakest tended to be in the white supremacist south where people were actually coming out, including conservatives, pretty strongly against McCarthy was the argument he made. And he said, look, ideological polarization or ideological bigotry and hostility does not necessarily move in tandem with other types of hostility and bigotry. And so the fact that we see a lot of Republicans become intensely hostile towards Democrats and liberals and the left more broadly does not necessarily indicate that other types of hostility are also on the rise. So I think it's important that we be able to disaggregate different types of negative attitudes within different portions of the electorate rather than just assume that if we see one negative trend, that it means that other trends are going to be necessarily correlated with that.

GR: So what do you think is most responsible for the misperception and the stereotype?

GH: Well, I mean, to be honest, a lot of it is to be blamed on the Republican leadership. Look, the fact of the matter is, is that the, and particularly I think President Trump has certainly fed into this. Look, the reality is, is that Trump did run, especially in 2016 and then again in 2024, very aggressively nativist campaign. There are a lot of people, sort of, at least on the periphery of Trump world who say some, have a history of saying some really negative and hostile things. And the fact that Republican voters came out and enthusiastically supported him anyway, you know, on its face seems to provide evidence that at the very least they're not uncomfortable with that style of politics. But does that necessarily mean that they endorse it and want to see the party move in a far right direction? I'm not so sure that that's true. So I'm not making the case that, you know, the people who have these misperceptions, you know, don't have any good reason for developing them. But I think that it is worth following up and saying, hey, you know, what is the actual data? Show us. And that's what I tried to do here.

GR: I want to pursue that line of inquiry when we get back after the break. You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with George Hawley. The University of Alabama political science professor has recently written a book titled, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization” and we've been discussing the issues that he raises in his book. Well, you were talking about some of the sources of the misperceptions and in particular, you were talking about Republican leadership, President Trump. I wanted to ask you flip that to the other side. Certainly, it would seem that the Democratic Party has decided that it tactically benefits from painting Republicans as an extreme way as possible. Do you have any thoughts about that?

GH: Well, sure. And you know, that's just the nature of partisan politics, right? You need to build up as much fear as possible to get your voters motivated. And so I'm actually not, you know, necessarily too critical of Democrats for doing this because Republicans do the same thing, right? This notion that Democrats are all a bunch of socialists who wish to, you know, destroy the West has been, you know, a common theme in conservative media and from Republican politicians, at least the more irresponsible ones for some time. So, yes, I think that just the nature of partisan politics does incentivize leaders to promote what I would consider to be misleading narratives about voters on both sides of things. And that's unfortunate. I wish it wasn't the case, but it's probably not going to go away. And again, this is not a problem that is localized on either one, more on one side than the other, in my view.

GR: Right. I wanted to also ask you about for lack of a better word, legacy media, mainstream media. It's my sense that they've bought into this a little bit, this sense of misperception particularly on the Republican side. Do you have the same sense?

GH: Yes. And I think part of that is just sort of the nature of what makes for an interesting story like the far right, the radical right is a, you know, makes for a compelling magazine article or newspaper piece or, you know, or makes for good television, you know, the people who are out in outlandish costumes and, you know, carrying swastikas and saying just the most awful things is, you know, is good media. You know, it's popular and it gets people interested much more so than, oh, here's what, you know, that an average guy who doesn't think about politics very much is really like. And, you know, luckily, you know, as an academic, I have a different set of incentives. You know, it's not that important that I sell a ton of books, even if my subject is less interesting to a lot of readers than the, say, the far right would be. And then the other issue of course is that the far right, you know, loves media attention as much as they say they dislike journalists, you know, they want to get that attention. And so it ends up being a system in which both sides, you know, in a way kind of benefits. And so I think this is a way in which the radical right can project power in a way that is outsized compared to their actual representation in the overall electorate.

GR: Yeah, that's a really good point. And then finally, on sort of who's to blame on this, I wonder about academia, too. And so you and I are teaching in completely different areas of the country. I can say that in my area, it's pretty obvious, you'd have to almost be blind and deaf not to think that that academia as a whole has bought into this view of the Republicans as a general stereotype. Do you have a different sense of academia in the South?

GH: No, I would say that we are, even down here in the Deep South academia, professors tend to live in something of a bit of a bubble. I would say that you know, the social worlds of academics, you know, it isn't necessarily going to overlap with, you know, your typical red state experience, even when you're living in a place like Alabama. So I do think that there is a sense in which a lot of academics, even those who study these things very carefully, are socially disconnected from the subjects that they're studying, which I think can create some problems of its own. You know, a lot of the qualitative work, even very good qualitative work that I see among academics who go out and try and study, you know, Republican parties, there's kind of almost like a Gorillas in the Mist style aspect to it. But look at these really strange, exotic people that I've managed to find and I’m studying. And so I think that can be a little bit off putting and can sometimes lead to misperceptions as well.

GR: Yeah, yeah, I'm going on safari in North Dakota or something like that. I understand that since the book's writing, you've begun to have some second thoughts about some of the arguments that are in the book more recently. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

GH: Sure. Well, just by the nature of academic publishing this project, the final draft was completed in 2023, so before the 2024 election it really begun in earnest. And at this point I'm just not sure if maybe we have finally reached an inflection point where perhaps the radical right, the views and preferences and talking points have started to permeate the broader population. I think that if that's the case, I think a probably an important moment was when Elon Musk took over Twitter and made it X and not only made it a place for basically untrammeled free speech, but also seems to be putting his thumb on the scale in favor of voices that I would consider to be fairly far right and radical. And I think it would be naive to say that that couldn't have any possible consequences. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of the things I've been hearing from some of the more irresponsible voices on the right start to become more pervasive. Another thing I noticed in the 2024 election that was quite striking in comparison to 2020 was how the Trump campaign dealt with the immigration question. Because what I found very fascinating about the 2020 election for all of the bad things that occurred there, particularly of course in the refusal to acknowledge Biden's win, but despite all that, what I found perhaps most interesting was the degree to which immigration was really just not an issue at all that year. And I was starting to draw the conclusion that, you know, to the degree to which everyone said that nativism was absolutely essential to the Make America Great Again movement to Trump, they'd be saying, hey, maybe a less aggressively nativist Trumpism could do just as well. Because after all, Trump's diehard supporters, they didn't stop supporting him because he stopped showing very much interest in immigration. So I thought that perhaps kind of the nativist element of Trumpism might start to be downplayed. But then, of course, this most recent election happens after the book is completed. And they very much went back to sort of the 2015-2016 talking points and perhaps even went farther with that when we saw the, you know, the rather ridiculous claims about, you know, Haitians eating pets and that sort of thing. And the degree to which that is becoming a sort of pervasive sentiment within conservative media and elsewhere, I wonder if we might be starting to see in the future a sharper turn to the right. So I can't, unfortunately at this point I'm still waiting for all the best data sets from the 2024 election to come out. So until they do, it's purely speculative on my part. I'm not able to say, one way or the other whether or not my intuitions and the things that I found writing this book still hold today.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is University of Alabama Professor George Hawley. What are some the, you mentioned when we were talking off microphone about some of the issues, policy areas that are most important to understand some of the nuance, I think in the Republican position. Do you have a few things you want to add about that?

GH: Sure. One thing that people were talking about a lot, especially in 2015, 2016 and beyond, was that Trump isn't kind of represents a repudiation of Reaganism, right? And sort of the default Republican position that, you know, markets are good, trade is good we want a less regulated economy. And with the rise of this populist movement, perhaps those sentiments were going away. And what I did find was that sort of doctrinaire economic conservatism was not popular among Trump voters. However, if you look at similar questions asked again and again and again, the reality is, is that economic conservatism in particular has really never been that popular, at least even among Republican voters, like the notion that you should raise taxes on high earners. It actually, it polls pretty well among ordinary Republican voters, and it always has. So the degree to which the previous iterations of the Republican Party were sort of pro-free market, anti-regulation in favor of, you know, supply side tax cuts and that sort of thing, that was always at odds with what Republican voters said they wanted in polls. So the degree to which we see an economic populism becoming any type of force within the Republican Party, that is more the party actually being aligned with its own voters as opposed to, you know, representing some major sea change from the bottom up.

GR: And maybe even in an indirect way explains some of what was surprising at the time, anyway, Bernie Sanders popularity when he ran because it sort of speaks to those themes of taxing the rich and taking a little more skeptical view of some of the free market doctrines. I wanted to ask you a question about the effects of polarization. And this is more speculative probably for you, but the effects of polarization on what and how people think and how that might be driving part of the change that you might be perceiving since you've written the book. I mean, and maybe you got a sense of this in your in your focus groups, but let me just take like, you know, a more moderate Republican, for example. They know that other people view them as you know, populist, a particularly right wing Trump supporter. And so perhaps maybe they begin to take on some of those views almost out of a reaction or a frustration. I mean, maybe it's a little bit of, you know, like up yours kind of sentiment. You know, if you're going to paint me in a certain way, all right, I'll just go there. Do you think there's any kind of that dynamic driving the two sides?

GH: Yeah, that strikes me as plausible. I mean, people like to, partisanship has become an increasingly important part of people's social identity, even as you know, we don't necessarily see an uptick in interest in policy or ideology. People take their partisan identities, you know, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat, they take that very seriously. And people like to feel like they're team players. So the degree to which people you know, want to demonstrate, know the degree to which I'm on team Republican, I think probably could drive people to just kind of adopt the norms that they perceive within that party. I think that's entirely plausible.

GR: And we've got about a minute and a half left or so and I wanted to leave you some time to speculate on this or provide at least your sense from talking to folks what your experience tells you. But how (are) we ever going to climb out of this hole of mutual misperception and political hyperbole regarding the other side? Do you have any clues that you could impart to us for where the glimmers of light are here?

GH: Oh, that's very difficult. I don't think I even, you know, speculated one sentence about that in the book itself. But I do think that one of our problems is a high degree of, at least ideological and political homogeneity within our social networks. I think that there is too little dialog across the partisan divide. I think that the degree to which people would be willing to do that, I think would help to alleviate a lot of the misperceptions out there. And, you know, you can see small studies showing that this can, in fact, be effective. The real challenge is you know, how do you scale it up? How do you force or at least encourage greater amounts of bipartisan dialog? And to my knowledge, no one has yet, even people who are working very hard at this has yet to figure out how you can do this at scale in a way that would move the needle for society. I encourage more of that sort of work, but as of now, I have no panacea, unfortunately, to offer.

GR: Well, we'll have to end on that ambivalent note. That was George Hawley and again, his new book, and it's nuanced and it's well worth reading, especially if you are suspicious about the title is called, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization”. George, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really learned a lot in this conversation and it was very interesting.

GH: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

GR: You've been listening to Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations and the public interest.

View Details

Steve FeatherstoneProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Steve Featherstone. He's been on the program a couple of times previously to discuss magazine articles that he's researched and written. But he's with me today because, since 2021, he's been the outdoors reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. In that role he covers everything from hunting and fishing to hiking and ecology. Steve welcome back to the program, congratulations on this position.

Steve Featherstone: Yeah. Thank you. It's good to see you again.

GR: Good to see you. So let me just start by, you know, the job itself. I mean, it seems like for a lot of people it's got to be a dream job. You go out in the outdoors, you experience different fun things and then then you write about them. Is that the way you thought about it when you first approached it?

SF: 100%. As you know me from previous times on the program, I had 20 years as a freelance writer. And what was nice about that job, I got to pick and choose my stories. Bad thing about that job is that you've got to convince someone else that story's worth doing, right? Oftentimes the answer's no, even if I thought it was great. This job, because it’s a daily job and it's a newspaper, there's an endless hole for content, as we call it now, called content. And so I can just do virtually anything I want as long as it's related to upstate New York and recreation and it is really a dream job. In fact, I could not imagine having or taking another newspaper job if it wasn't the outdoors beat.

GR: Wow. Yeah, well, my understanding about you is that prior to taking this beat, you were someone who got out in the outdoors, you enjoyed them, but you weren't like a hardcore survivalist or outdoors person. You weren't someone who, you know, goes out and lives on only what they can forage or, you know, hikes and insane distance in a certain amount of time. I was just curious, first of all, if I'm right in that impression, but also, do you think that gives you a certain sort of everyman's or every person's experience? And so it gives you a particular view about what you're writing about that is kind of immediately connecting with the people that are going to read it?

SF: Yeah, you just totally nailed my personality in the way I (unintelligible) stories, 100%. I'm doing it right then, if that's what you're getting out of it.

GR: (laughter)

SF: Yeah. I'm not the guy who, okay, let's take a look at what the outdoors writer used to be. My relationship to outdoor writing. You’re right, in the past, for instance, I've gone to Chernobyl, as you know, right, or Fukushima, and I've written stories about the impacts of these disasters on the ecology of these regions. So, you know, it's in some ways it was outdoor writing it was writing about nature in this very sort of specific way. When I began my very first job out of, at the master's program at Syracuse, was out in the middle of Kansas working for Garmin International, the GPS manufacturer, which, they hired me with my master's degree and everything else, because I actually had some of a background in hunting and fishing. That's what they liked on my resume. Not that I, you know, had a master's degree, not that I had written, you know, this or that. It was because I had some hunting and fishing background. So they got me all the way from New York State to move out there because my job was to speak to outdoor writers. My job was to get outdoor writers to write about this new technology. So my interface with this industry that I am now part of was as on the other side, right? Back then, it was a very different job than what I think what it is now. Back then, it was just all guys and they were just old dudes. I was this young, you know, twentysomething kid out of college and I would walk into these rooms at these conferences and they would all be like these, to me they’re me now, I'm 57 years old, right, I’m old. I was looking at dudes that were like, looked like me, they had white hair, you know, they wearing flannel, and all they wanted to talk about was like rifle calibers and, you know, and deer and fishing. And I had some background in that, but nothing like they did. So I was, you know, like a little bit like a fish out of water. But, you know, that was a really great position to be in, especially being a young man, because in that environment, they wanted to kind of treat you like, almost like a son. Here, buddy, let me show you what this is about. And that, I think, has kind of been part of my approach to this industry, to this subject, to this topic, the outdoors all along as this sort of outsider, very enthusiastic, interested outsider who's willing to basically try anything as long as it's related, you know, to the outdoors, whether it's fishing, hunting, some kind of weird ice climbing. I did snowmobiling this past winter, which was, you know, hit or miss.

GR: Yeah. I'm going to ask you about that later. So let me ask you a different kind of question, a little bit more kind of higher altitude, what do you think is the most important aspect, your impressions anyway, were the most important aspect of the different kinds of outdoor activities or aspects about the outdoor environment here in Central New York, that we as Central New Yorkers have the least appreciation of? You know, the sort of the hidden thing perhaps that you've experienced. I don't know if there's something that comes to mind.

SF: Well, here's something that comes to mind. And it's immediate and it's related to a story I literally just published this morning, and that is trout fishing. Okay, so I'm going to ask you let me ask you, Grant, you think of trout fishing, what comes to mind?

GR: Well, I have done a fair amount of it, so… (laughter)

SF: So, oh gosh you’re not the guy to ask. (laughter)

GR: So what comes to mind? What comes to mind is the kind of almost the competition or the healthy way, a pleasant way, the mutual tension between the fly fishermen, the people who won't use bait, the people that go out there with a worm and a sinker. And what I have discovered is my son is now explicitly a fly fisherman. And what he has convinced me to do is, I won't use bait anymore. So like, if we go out there together, he's looking down on me because I've got a spinner and then, you know, we're both sort of looking funny at the person with the big worm hanging off their hook. (laughter)

SF: Well, the advantage to that, as you know, is that if you can fish, year-round for trout, as long as it's artificial, catch and release and the artificial lure, so, you know, you had an advantage if you're not fishing with that worm because you can do it year-round here. So one thing I think maybe a lot of folks don't appreciate, and if I were to answer that question, if you asked me what I'm not a huge trout fisherman, I've probably fly fished just a couple of times in my life. I'm thinking like A River Runs Through It, right? Brad Pitt, golden light, you know, you see the leader and you know, he's whipping that line back and forth and it lays on the water, right, we have that here in New York State, right? It's the, you know, Roscoe, New York is where in some ways it's the birthplace of fly fishing, as we imagine it that way, right? I think is maybe in the popular imagination is how it's understood. You have a much more, you know, specific appreciate appreciation for trout fishing, you know, you can do spinners, spin reels. Here in Onondaga County we have probably one of the best trout fisheries, not just in New York, but probably regionally. Now, let's go down the list, some four, we we've got Butternut Creek, we've got Limestone Creek, we've got Nine Mile, probably the big daddy, and then Skaneateles Creek. Four all within Onondaga County. And the great thing about it is we have a county run fish hatchery out in the Elbridge, Carpenter’s Brook Fish Hatchery, paid for by our county tax money, right? And they stock all these streams, you know, beginning now in mid and late March through May with 70,000 fish. 70,000 fish. Now if we just left that up to DEC, that's the State Department of Environmental Conservation which stocks around 2 million fish statewide every year, now, here we have our own little hatchery that does it just for us in Onondaga County. So if, even if you don't fish I would highly recommend you buy a cheap rod, get out there with your worm or salted minnow, right?

GR: (laughter)

SF: Head over to Nine Mile Creek on April 1st, buy your license of course, your fishing license, and just tour in the creek, see what everyone else is doing. Catch a stocked fish, okay? There's no shame in that. And you will be hooked.

GR: (laughter) Yeah. You didn't mention a couple of little gems that my son and I go to and I'm not going to say them on air (laughter).

SF: Oh, no. Of course, yes, a true fisherman.

GR: Yeah, that's right.

SF: We're going to squeeze it out of you, Grant and it's going right in the paper.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Steve Featherstone. He's the outdoors reporter with the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. So, you already spoke to this, I think, just now, but I wanted to get your thoughts about how the outdoor opportunities, recreational opportunities in Central New York compare with other places and you know, there are a lot of, you just mentioned the incredible fishery that we have here. But I'm thinking like when I think about it, I think there are a lot of activities and a lot of opportunities, but in a lot of ways they're more subtle than what you might find in some other more dramatic areas. I mean, it's not like, you know, we're ocean fishing, you know, for tarpon or we're, you know, hiking on some glacier or something like that. I don't know if you had any reflections about that.

SF: Sure, I think about that all the time. So when I was freelancing, one of the great things about freelancing is it's great if you're raising children. My wife is the breadwinner, she allowed me to do everything when I was freelancing because I could pick and choose my assignments. But in between then I had three kids I had something to do with. So let me tell you, having three young kids in this area in Central New York, the opportunities to get them out and doing something outside are just endless. I was just up, was it at last at the end of February, fishing, steelhead fishing. I did a story about that up on the Salmon River. And I was still steelhead fishing with this guy who he's kind of a nut, great guy, knows the river well. He goes to Kansas every year because he likes to storm chase. And we got to talking about that and his experience of Kansas was exactly my experience of Kansas when I moved out there back in the early 90’s to do this job at Garmin, which I spoke about. His first impression was, what do these people do? There is no water here. And that was the first thing I thought, where do people fish? There's no, in the summer, there was one reservoir that everybody would drive their boat to. It would be like an hour into the water. I mean, just think about around here all the opportunities you have. You've got Oneida Lake, the largest freshwater lake within the bounds of the state borders. Just right her, actually Onondaga County borders it. But right here in Central New York, it's the biggest fishery in the state, right in our backyard. You've got, you know, you've got Skaneateles Lake, which is fantastic as you probably know, fantastic rainbow and lake trout fishing in addition to the usual stuff, you know, perch and bass and walleye, which gets a lot of people upset. And so these things, that's just fishing. If you wanted to talk about hiking, I live over here in Manlius. Within 10 minutes, I can be in a county forest, a state forest, another state park, or at Clark's reservation. I can be in two land trust properties, Three Falls Woods, which is literally I could probably walk there from here, right? Beautiful property, it's, you know, owned by the Central York Land Trust and you can go in there anytime you want. And then there's another one over not that much further away off of Woodchuck Hill Road. That's all within ten, you know, ten, 15 minutes. And I could take, great places to take the kids, which I did quite often. And if you just, I think probably in Central New York, if you just looked at a map, anybody, these opportunities are probably within five, ten minutes of every residence in Onondaga County, whether it's for hiking, fishing, kayaking. I mean, look at Syracuse, you've got this Onondaga Creek runs right through the middle of the city. The city of Syracuse itself has three trout brooks that run it in the city limits, it’s nuts.

GR: Yeah, no, you're right, that's a great point. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Steve Featherstone. He's the outdoors reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. So you had quite an adventure with snowmobiling this winter, from what I read of your story. Tell us a little bit about that.

SF: Well, I really so you know, we live in Central New York. You can't be an outdoor writer and not write about snowmobiling. Part of the problem is that we've had some really bad winters lately for snowmobiling. If you look, just last year, not this year, last season there was almost no snow. Now Tug Hill always gets snow. Here in Onondaga County, I think for the first time in history, not a single trail opened. Imagine owning a sled and paying insurance on that and you can't even ride it on the local trails. So, you know, Tug Hill got a lot of business. So this year, lots of snow, great weather. And I thought, this is my year, I'm going up there, I'm going to do a snowmobiling story. So I got a friend to take me up there. He had, you know, this very powerful snowmobile and he also belongs to a club where we could, like, spend the night. It's like, oh, this is great. And it was a really awful weekend weather-wise. I mean, great for snowmobiling, there’s tons of snow there was lake effect happening. So we got up there and yeah, I got on a sled for the first time in 50 years and probably, I don't know, within a couple of hours, I had already, I hit a tree.

GR: (laughter)

SF: Yeah, yeah, not good, you know, $900 worth of damage to this guy’s sled, he was not happy. But here's the thing, it was super slow. I wasn't doing anything dangerous. I wear glasses. I don't know if you can see me, you can't see me on the radio, but if you're looking at the feed, yes, I wear glasses and they had fogged up and I was just lifting the visor up. And in that moment that I was lifting it up, I just, the snowmobile kind of jerked and went off the trail at like one mile per hour, climbed a snowbank and then just hit a tree and bent the bumper on the snowmobile. No one was hurt.

GR: But you almost went over the side of a cliff too as I understand.

SF: Why did you bring that up? I've gotten in trouble from my readers for this.

GR: I mean, as I recall, you were reassured, all right, my question is, were you reassured? Your guide, I think, or your buddy told you, yeah, you probably wouldn’t have survived.

SF: Well, this, okay, my buddy, this tells you about his attitude, the fact that he put me on a sled like this and literally just said, oh, okay. I told him, I said, Martin, I have not been on a sled and probably 50 years. Technology's changed quite a bit, these are very powerful machines. These aren't the machines that I drove when I was, you know, whatever, ten years old. So he literally he puts me on this machine and then just takes off and says, follow me. So I'm okay, I'm on this thing and I'm thinking, okay, he's going much faster, I'm not going to try to match his speed. He ended up going like 96 miles per hour at some point he told me, and he showed me on his console, how fast he was going. I got it up to about 74 before I thought I was going to lose control of the sled. Not in a bad way, I was like, this is, this feels too much like I’m hydroplaning so I'm going to slow it down. Well, that part where we were up in the, near that cliff in Whetstone Gulf, I couldn't see the cliff, it was just woods. And Martin, of course, knew what was there because he rides up there all the time. I wasn't going fast. It was a wooded trails, going very moderate speed. I was enjoying looking around and all of a sudden I see Martin leap off his sled because he's ahead of me on the trail and stand in front of my sled. And he puts his hand on my break and says, stop, stop, stop. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? And I was about three feet from a 200 foot drop off. I just didn't see it. (laughter)

GR: Well, maybe leave your ride there (laughter). So you mentioned the trout season starting up. We're talking just a couple of days before the official opening of it.

SF: Are you are you going out?

GR: Yeah, I think I am. But I just wanted to ask you, I assume you'll be out there because you've already talked about it.

SF: Oh sure, yeah, it's going to be cold. It's going to be like 39 degrees or something.

GR: Oh, dear, okay. Well, the thing I'll ask you, just a personal question and we'll do it real quick and move on to something more important. But the problem that I have with the trout season is that there's always this idea in the family that on the first day, we're going to keep them. Usually we're catch and release, but I have to clean them.

SF: (laughter)

GR: And so by the time I'm done doing that, it's like the last thing I want to do is sit there and eat that thing. (laughter) Will you guys be eating trout on Tuesday?

SF: I would love to. You know, the nice thing about being an outdoors writer is because I'm often covering these things, so I think people feel sorry for you. So you'll have a kind of like, I've had this happen so many times, especially like up at the Salmon River during the salmon run, right? It's like, oh yeah, you're not able to fish? Sorry buddy, here, take this fish and there's like giving me fish. I’m like, I would love to, but what am I going to do with this? I’ve got a job, I’ve got to walk around and take pictures, I’ve got to, you know, talk to people, I can't carry a fish with me. So will I be eating trout? I, you know, maybe you inspired me, maybe I will put a cooler in my car and I will accept trout that are given to me, and I'll run back to the car and throw them in there and eat them later.

GR: There you go. You don't need a cooler at 39 degrees. So of all the new activities that you have been exposed to that you hadn't done prior to taking this job, what's the one so far that you've most liked?

SF: Wow. Okay, so it's interesting that you ask that because I was talking with my editors and we're thinking about starting kind of a new, I don't know, a new thing and like a video intensive, right? Because this is where I think eyeballs as we call them, right? Eyeballs are going, you know, people aren't reading as much they like they like to see video. And, you know, my kids are a great example of this, right? They want to consume all their content in video. So, you know, we're thinking about that here at the paper and we’re starting a new series and then thinking about what kind of things can I do, you know, what kind of weird stuff can I do? One of them we were thinking about was like, you brought it up earlier, is bushcraft - like survivalist kind of stuff. I thought it would be really fun, well, I don't know if it's fun, it probably won't be fun, is to just to go out for a weekend with a survivalist with someone who knows bushcraft and just live in the woods for, you know, bringing nothing with you, nothing, Not a sleeping bag, not a tent, nothing, you know, not a cell phone, obviously. And just go out and see what it's like to have to make a fire, find stuff to eat and just videotape the whole thing and make a video and write a story about it. That would be fun.

GR: Well, don't invite me on that one.

SF: And you know it’s just going to rain too.

GR: Well, I am among other things, I am just done sleeping on the ground, that ship has sailed for me. (laughter) If you've just if you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is syracuse.com outdoors reporter Steve Featherstone. So, of course not all activities are going to be everybody's cup of tea. I was curious, maybe the answer is snowmobiling, but what's the one activity that you've tried so far in this role, in this job that you know, you could have done without? You came home and said that I won't do that again on my own.

SF: I don't know. You know, I like everything, I really do. Let's bring it back to the steelhead story. The thing that attracted me to the steelhead story wasn't the fish so much. I mean, you know, fishing at some point is just fishing, you know? So the thing that attracted me to it was like, look what these steelhead fishermen are doing. The worst time of year you can imagine. It's January, it's 20 degrees out, it's probably snowing. If it's not snowing, maybe it's sleeting. You're out in your waders in a stream that's maybe 33 degrees and you're standing there in this awful weather casting over and over for a really hard to catch fish. That to me sounds awful. I don't want to do that personally, but I do want to talk to the person who does love that. So yeah, so personally, yeah, there's lots of stuff I wouldn't want to do that I don't personally care for. I mean walleye fishing, hugely popular here, not a big fan. I mean, it's okay, I love to eat walleye, but just sitting there and jigging over one spot and catching walleye, it's not my thing, you know, ice fishing, not my thing. But I love the fact that people here love these activities and I love talking to them about it. I love meeting them and listening to their passion for it. And people in this region are very passionate about these things.

GR: That's interesting. And you and I are on the same wavelength because ice fishing, the steelhead, the walleye trolling, those are not in my list of fishing types of fishing that I like.

SF: You're a trout snob, Grant.

GR: No, no, no actually, I'm a small mouth bass and northern pike snob. That's what I really am.

SF: Small mouth, they’re crazy, right? We've got one of the best small mouth fisheries in the United States right here in Central New York.

GR: And I've got some nice tiger huskies over on Otisco Lake.

SF: Oh, beautiful for that, wow.

GR: So I wanted to come back and ask you a question that you alluded to in an indirect way when you were talking about your experiences with your children. I know that, for example, in the realm of hunting, there's a real concern that the younger generation is not replacing these old guys in flannel shirts as you said before, in insufficient numbers to keep these pastimes going. And I just wondered, have you noticed any kind of concerns similar across the board based on your experiences? I mean, you know, we read all these things about kids are doing gaming all the time, they're on their phones, they're, you know, totally entrenched in social media. Do you think there's something we should be worried about?

SF: Oh sure, absolutely, yeah. And this has been a long going trend. I'm an example of the trend. My dad was a very active outdoorsman. He was a city cop in Syracuse for many, many years. But when he wasn't doing that, when I was very young, I mean, he would be gone for two weeks, you know, in Pennsylvania, hunting whitetail with his buddy at hunting camps, right? And he hunted all of his life. He fished all of his life. I would go, we would go up to the St. Lawrence River and fish for bass up there. So me though and my brother, my brother, you know, he hunts occasionally. We've got some properties, you know, south of town here where we hunt on. It makes it easy for us. I don't hunt. I have not hunted since I was 18, big game. But I love it. I just don't have the, I don't know, I just don't have the passion for it, I guess. Now, that is probably, I'm probably part of a trend I think that really is concerning for a lot of outdoorsmen now. If you go to these outdoors clubs, every town has one. There's one of Fabius, there’s one in Fayetteville, there's one in Camillus, they're all over the place, right? They're loaded with, you know, 60 plus old guys, right? There's not a lot of young blood in there. There's some. The fact that syracuse.com even has an outdoors writer is probably testament to the fact that there is a, maybe a larger concentration of people who hunt and fish here than there are elsewhere in the state. It's the reason why I have a job. But yeah, I mean, it is a concern, absolutely, and I'm probably an example of it.

GR: So we only got a couple of minutes left. I want to squeeze two quick questions in if I can. First of all, setting aside the limitations of this area, but if you want to include the area in your answer to this, it's fine. But thinking here and also thinking about anywhere in the world, what is the top on your bucket list of future outdoor activities?

SF: Wow. Okay, well, it meanders. It's such a smorgasbord. What one of the top thing be, you know what I want to do? This is weird. I want to carp fish.

GR: Oh, my goodness. Okay, so you are going to have to hook up with my son because. He is an accomplished carp fly fisher.

SF: Oh, carp fly fishing.

GR: We'll talk later. (laughter)

SF: Okay, so you might know this then, maybe your son certainly does. So the Syracuse area, Onondaga Lake and Seneca River is a world class wild carp fishery. And wild carp, carp fishing in general, worldwide, extremely popular. It's on TV. You know, it's a TV sport, right?

GR: Well, they fight like crazy, they just dive. Yeah, he's caught them everywhere.

SF: They’re big!

GR: Yeah, they're big, they get huge.

SF: And here in Syracuse, we've got this world class fishing. I want to fish for carp in the way that carp fishermen do here.

GR: All right, great, last question. I have to ask, it's kind of silly. Your name is like, perfect for this job. I mean, it's a really cool name anyway, but it's perfect, Featherstone. I mean, it's like if I was writing a novel and, you know, you were the outdoor writer, this is what it would be. Do you think you were, like, born for this?

SF: Well, my name could be. Well, you might remember the old days. There was a columnist in the Syracuse paper, I remember named Rod Hunter?

GR: Yeah.

SF: I think up I’m going to need a made up name like that, that would be even better.

GR: Well, I like Featherstone, so, okay, we'll have to leave it there. We could talk for hours, obviously. That was Steve Featherstone is from syracuse.com, he's the outdoors reporter. Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. This has been an absolute delight.

SF: Thank you. Grant. Maybe I'll see you on Tuesday, opening day trout.

GR: All right, you've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

(WRVO News (file photo))Stephanie Miner served two terms as mayor of the City of Syracuse, from 2010-2018. Before that, she served on the Syracuse Common Council. Now, she teaches at Colgate University, and has written a political memoir titled "Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Stephanie Miner. She served two terms as mayor of the city of Syracuse beginning in 2010, and prior to that, she was a Syracuse Common Councilor at large. She also ran for New York State Governor in 2018 on the Serve America Movement party line. And currently she teaches at Colgate University. She's with me today because she has published a new political memoir. It's titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” Former Mayor Miner, welcome back to the program, and congratulations on your book.

Stephanie Miner: Thank you. Grant. It's great to be back. I'm a little out of practice. I haven't done this in a while, so I remember the rules are try to not answer the question and be brief as a politician. So now that I'm an author, I will try to answer the questions, and be verbose.

GR: Limited, verbose. But I will just say, I remember when you were in office, I thought you answered the questions there, too. And in that vein, before we start this, I should note for our listeners for full disclosure that I've spoken to you in the past about writing this book, and I've read earlier versions of it and offered comments, so I should put that out there. But let me just in a way, kind of follow up on what I just said here for my first question. And note that because of what I teach and what I write about, I've read a fair number of these kinds of books that deal with state and local level politics. And I think one of the ways that yours is different and notable is that there in the book, there's a lot of substantial treatments of things like city finance, the different policy challenges that cities face, both they have faced currently facing will face, as well as the more political and personal stories that, you know, people would expect. And something like this. And I wanted to know whether that substantial, content emphasis reflected something important about you as a politician. Were you do you think you were a little bit different kind of politician that way?

SM: I do think so. And I, you know, I think that about me, but I had many people tell me that throughout my political career that I was on the wonky side, you know, and some would say, derisively, by the way, you're too smart to be in politics, too dumb to be an academic. I, I think you know what this book really is in the best sense of, writing in books is it's it's my voice. And my voice is to, you know, both be substantive. But it's also my experience. And I was aiming to have my experience as mayor, you know, make, make the, policy part of it interesting and applicable to people. So they would understand, because fundamentally, I wrote this book trying to answer the question, why is change so difficult?

You know, there's a saying like, you can't fight City Hall, and yet it often feels like City Hall can't do anything. At least when I was the occupant of City Hall, I frequently felt that way. And this book is an attempt to explain, you know, why federalism matters when you're a mayor? Why the, the division of power between the federal government, state government, and local governments, matter and how it impacts policy and why money matters and why the the lack of a sustained urban policy since really, Ronald Reagan, the impacts that it's had on infrastructure, education, financing, all these things that you can imagine. And again, I was using my experience to, you know, put some meat on the bones.

GR: Do you think that what you just said is the most important thing about cities and local governments that citizens least understand or appreciate that, you know, cities occupy a particular place, but there are all these other forces acting upon them. Is that I mean, what if I asked you just straight up what is the thing that most citizens least understand about cities? What would you say?

SM: I would say that it is that there is this sense that mayors and cities have a great deal of power. But in a federalist system, like we currently have, the power is diffuse and having power, but not having money, or having power that is significantly, impacted by what the state says you can and can't do, you know, has an ability to, or will, limit the policy choices that you can make.

But on the, you know, on the flip side of that, that's the sort of negative case, the positive case about local politics, particularly with a city like Syracuse, and its size is you do have the power to implement change quickly, measure that change and fix what doesn't work, or attempt to fix what does, what doesn't work. And, you know, so you can be very facile, as a mayor in a city the size of Syracuse and, and implement policies, which was one of the one of the things I most enjoyed about being mayor and most enjoyed about local politics, that the the issues that we were trying to impact and fix were the issues that impacted people in their everyday lives.

GR: So you've got a lot of stories and the book that, are moments where particularly early on where where you kind of have a almost like an epiphany or I might say a holy crap moment where it's like, where where it's like, oh, I, I am, I do have this power, you know, people are looking to me to do acts or see me as a leader. On why is there a particular story that you could relate quickly that you think kind of illustrates that? Because I found those very interesting.

SM: I think, look, all of the stories and there were different moments throughout my eight years as mayor where I had that feeling in different times. But for me, I think the most profound was that my first name, Stephanie, disappeared. And for eight years, people either called me mayor or they called me boss. Some of the some of the people that worked for me would call me boss.

And so, I, you know, after I left the mayor's office, I wouldn't answer if people said Stephanie. I mean, that's like a profound change. And now, you know, I've gone back to my first name. I will run into people and they'll say, mayor, mayor. And I like I, you know, and they almost have to yell it for me to pay attention to it. So it was the sense of for eight years I lost, you know, I lost or my identity was subsumed into my title. And then you have to go back to having your identity, you know, become, you know, preeminent in your first name and who you are. It's not related to your job.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Stephanie Miner. The former Syracuse mayor has written a book titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” Well, this is, in this similar vein, but more, more profound and more personal. I wanted to pursue the book's title a little, which is “Love and Loss in an American City.” And one aspect of that, of course, is very personal for you. You know, your late husband, Jack Mannion, to talk about in the book, but it obviously I think that title refers to other things as well. And, I think there are more political as well as personal. I was just wondering if you could unpack that a little bit as far as what that meaning is in the book.

SM: Sure. And by the way, this is probably the 35th idea of a title that I had. And it took me a while to land on it. But, you know, the, the, “Love and Loss in an American City.” It's a story about how I loved politics and loved government and how I have frequent losses in it, but still loved it.

So that sense of that you can love somebody, love something, and really work hard at it and still lose one of the titles that I had in my mind for both the chapter and the title for the book is wrestling with an octopus, because there are many days where I felt like, okay, I've, I've got this problem. I figured it out and I've, you know, I've pinned it. And then another tentacle comes up and slaps across the face. And just like that's what being mayor is like, you're just constantly wrestling. And when you think you pinned it, something else comes up. But later on, when I was, writing the book, I was thinking about, processing my grief over the loss of my husband, who was a, you know, a partner par excellence in, my political career and the sense of community and how, you know, loss is an inevitable part of life losses, an inevitable part of politics.

And a good friend of mine who said to me, you know, the seeds of every defeat are planted in a victory. And the second part of the title in an American city really is this idea that Syracuse is very emblematic of a, of an experience that cities across the United States have gone through and are going through once a very, very prosperous city, one of the, you know, most prosperous cities, top 30 in the United States. And then now our indices are, you know, indices of desperation, of poverty, job loss, unemployment, economic recession. And so using this idea of, you know, love and loss and an American experience, and trying to use the particular of my experience as mayor in Syracuse to illustrate, illustrate the general of what it's like to govern in the United States, you know, in a, in a city.

GR: Yeah. I think it's a great title. And I, I do remember some of the earlier ones, and I think you, I think you landed on the right one on, iteration 35. So that's good.

SM: At least it could have been 350. You know, you just kind of keep going through it.

GR: Well, obviously, I think a lot of the, media and public attention that this book is going to attract will be concerned with your retelling of your experiences with then-Governor Andrew Cuomo. He's now running for mayor of New York City. And you were experiencing his political bullying. I will just call it that. Before it became more widely known and exposed, although I think it was something of an open secret in Albany for a long time. Is there one story that you think best exemplifies that aspect of his political style?

SM: Well, I think that's the story. When they came out with what they said was a policy that was going to reform the pension issues. And I was quoted as saying, well, I have questions about it. And then he sent the lieutenant governor into Syracuse to go meet with the editorial board to threaten to have the state take over the city of Syracuse.

I think that, you know, when a mayor of the fifth largest city asks and says that she has substantive questions about a policy, and he responds by saying, well, you know, you should ask for a financial control board in other words, you know, we're going to take over governance of your city. That to me, was, you know, one illustration. But as you know, because you've read the book, there are many, you know, Andrew Cuomo and I, it's almost Shakespearean. I mean, I think this book was destined to come out in March because of my publisher and timelines. I mean, I had no idea that Andrew Cuomo was going to, you know, run for mayor, much less announce in the same month that my book was coming out. It's just it's, you know, just the universe, I suppose. But we have very different ways that we look at leadership and think about it. My issues with Andrew Cuomo were substantive and policy-based. And he responded, in tactics that were bullying, and, you know, in ways that were political and personal and the I think the perversity of it is that it, it, you know, made me larger in the public, mind, you know, you have a very powerful, tall male governor, punching down on a short at the time, young looking, female mayor and people expect their mayors to fight for their constituents.

I mean, that's what people want mayors to do. So there's also a sense, well, she's just doing her job. And you know, and very it was very clear, that he was, going to take out his frustrations or his disagreements with me, on the people of the city of Syracuse, based on my policy, you know, my disagreements with him on policy. And that was a difficult thing for me to navigate because it's not fair. It's not right. But there's also, you know, I can't change who I am. And ultimately, I had to kind of come to peace with this idea. Well, the people the city of Syracuse elected me four times, and they knew, you know, that I was a fighter and that that's what I did.

But being, you know, lots of sleepless nights about, geez, you know, is it right for me to disagree with him? If you know, when he's threatening funding on a housing project or the school district? Those are hard decisions to make. His view of leadership is, you know, when the media cycle say the best words. And if you win, you know, you get, to the victor goes the spoils. And if you lose, you get nothing.

GR: All of this. Well, all of this is sounding very familiar. More recently, as well. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with former City of Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. She's published a new political memoir. It's titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” And we've been discussing her book.

I want to continue on what we were talking about before the break, about your experiences with Andrew Cuomo. And again, because he's running for mayor, get some further thoughts about that first, kind of a more general question that's related to this. I've heard you on many occasions speak of a certain kind of political corruption. Not money in a drawer or money in someone's freezer, but of putting position over purpose. And, do you think that that's a good description of a political failing that he suffered from, Andrew Cuomo?

SM: I don't know. I think that our system has these our system has now incentivized people where ambition is more important than solving problems. And, you know, ambition always used to be part of the political, your political analysis. But there was also a big part of it, which was, well, I've got to have a track record to run on, and I've got to be able to say to people I've done X, Y, Z, or I'm going to do X, Y, Z.

And now with just all the money flowing through the system, it's almost like you can create your own reality. And so, you know, with Andrew Cuomo, what I, I think the way he left the gubernatorial office is sort of, emblematic or illustrative of this, illustrative of this, this what is happening. He left, because of, you know, sexual harassment, workplace scandals. But prior to him leaving, he was reelected when there was a huge scandal with the Buffalo Billion. Right. A, you know, allegations of bribery judges in the Southern District saying this is the worst form of government and the worst form that we've seen of pay to play. And on top of it being, you know, just filled with corruption, it was a substantive failure, too.

And across the Thruway, we in upstate saw all of his policies were substantive failures. But Albany in the policymakers in Albany weren't really interested in that. And yet, sexual harassment. And clearly, I'm, you know, I, I don't want to say that that is less than but Andrew, the way Andrew Cuomo governed and his failures, I think were political and they needed to be addressed through a political process. And they were, you know, and so now we have this where he's coming back and he just he's using the money. A lot of it is taxpayer dollars to just have this bullhorn, which says, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. And look at all the great things I did.

And there's for a whole host of reasons. There is nobody really on the other side saying, oh, wait a second, you know, did you really? More people left New York. We lost congressional seats. Your prime economic development policies, remember start up New York, Buffalo, billion casinos, all of that were just complete, subsidy failures and ethical failures and legal, legally corrupt as well.

GR: Yeah. Those are important points. Very personal question here. You answer it very quickly, I'm sure. But, when all this stuff hit and we learned more about all these things regarding his administration, I'll throw in a couple others, nursing homes and the number regarding Covid deaths, how all that was handled, his own, his own personal book deal and having staff work on that. He made millions of dollars from that. Did you have a moment of schadenfreude or at least sort of. Gee, I you know, this is what I was saying, people and, you know, did you have that sense of vindication at all?

SM: You know, not really, because as I said, I had started sort of this processing of my relationship with Andrew Cuomo back when I was in the midst of my struggles with him and realizing that the only way that I could govern and the only way I could live with myself is to say, you know, this is the this is the way I think is right. And this is the way I think it should be done. And so by the time all of those things happened, you know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton says he had absolute power, and he had never shown himself to be very interested in policy. And, you know, when you have a public health crisis, you need policy experts to guide you through it.

So there was, for me, there was a sense of I'm not surprised, but I'm saddened by it because I'm saddened by a political system that allows that to happen. And, you know, and allows real suffering to almost go on rectified or unwitnessed because of the, short attention spans. And, you know, again, money can buy big bullhorns and you can just scream into it or pay people to scream into it toxic things on Twitter or X and, you know, and it just takes people's attention away.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. One last question on Cuomo. I'll move on to other things. What do you make of his new run for city mayor? Are you surprised?

SM: No, I, I'm not I'm kind of surprised that he is, a frontrunner, but he has a lot of money. He's a very skilled political operative. And, you know, our country is in a place where, you know, loud voices are winning right now. So, you know, he is somebody who has spent his entire life running for office.

And then to get kicked out of it that way. I didn't think that, you know, I thought he would always try again. You know, he's already been through several iterations. There was there already Cuomo 2.0 when he ran for attorney general. So now this is Cuomo 3.0 or 4.0.

GR: Interesting. Yeah. There is a there is a history of this. So, let's talk about, your political career going back to being on the city council and then as mayor, you were, in many respects, I think, something of a, like a skeptical soothsayer, you know, you warned us about. And you really took a lot of flak regarding the Destiny mall project on all the tax breaks. You were almost at one point on standing alone on that, and then again, you know, you were talking about how the governor was treating upstate cities and those policy issues. I wanted to get your take, given that history on micron, because that's something that has kind of happened after you've left office. That one, to me, seems like a better bet than the Buffalo billions. And, you know, the, Film Hub and all these other things, and certainly a better bet. And Destiny Mall. I wonder how you're viewing. Well.

SM: I think substantively, when you look at the federal government's investment and the international need for chips and to secure ourselves from Chinese influence in Taiwan, that all of those partners, it makes, it makes intellectual sense. My skepticism, though, and this is, you know, I'm a product of my experience is is things that the government gets into for economic development, where they're the primary mover, never materialized the way they say it's going to materialize.

And, you know, we have a free market system. Government should do the things that government is good at roads, bridges, picking up trash, water, educating children, those kind of things. I think when you make the government, the government a partner in a free market economy, it's very, very dangerous. Because what happens is I think the, the nature of doing things for profit, they're all sudden start looking at the, at the government as, instead of shareholders or customers. And so, again, I'm a product of my experience, you know, Empire Zone's destiny, start up New York film hubs, Buffalo billion, all of these things that government, Democrats and Republicans have said is going to, you know, turn up ups, turn around upstate New York's economy haven't worked, but did work, you know, building infrastructure systems that people, smart people, business people and others could take their skills and figure out how to use to make a profit.

GR: Well, I wonder now what goes what's on my mind is the President Trump certainly said a lot of people's hair on fire here in the Syracuse area when he, you know, said repeatedly that the Chips act was a terrible thing. You know, we ought to look into, seeing if we can reverse it. Would you go that far or do you. I know you're not a fan of President Trump. You've made that very clear when you were mayor. But, anyway.

SM: You know, no, I wouldn't, but as, you know, as a citizen of Syracuse and Central New York, it's troubling because there's been investments made, commitments made. And, President Trump and his administration have shown themselves to, you know, not work under traditional political rules. And the traditional political rules would be like, well, that act passed. It's done. You know, let it move its course. So, I think we're I think it's very dangerous, in terms of what Trump is doing. But I also think I, I'm troubled by whether or not the Chips Act is going to move forward. And there's the funding, but there's also the part of when you have the federal government and the state government as partners, when you have this change of leadership.

And now all of a sudden, you know, it's the cult of personality, well, then what happens? Because you have to have you know, look, the same is true for 81. You have to have some sort of consistency in order to make these changes. And these long-term policies move forward. And the kind of tumult that we're seeing in Washington that's going to flow down to, Albany in terms of money and policies, is going to impact micron 81 schools, Medicaid, Medicare, I mean, across the board, Social Security.

GR: That may be even another reason to have the kind of suspicions you have is it's unpredictable, depending on who's who's in there. And in doing it. We've only got about a minute left. I wanted to ask you this last question. And we'll see where it goes. If you answer it in a sentence. But, I was wondering about your future. Obviously, politically would be my main interest, but otherwise too. Can you imagine a scenario in which you might pursue elected office again? You've still got lots of time.

SM: Yeah. I can't, I will tell you, I loved it, and I enjoyed it, and feel profoundly grateful that I had the opportunity to do it. I didn't think about it at the time as a sacrifice, but having been out of office, I look at things and I realize I did. I sacrificed time with my family, time with my friends.

And, you know, somebody pointed out to me, I may be the one politician who, you know, when I say I want to spend more time with my family, I actually means it. But, you know, for close to 20 years, I was a slave to other people's demands on my time. And so being able to make my own calendar, being able to do the kind of things that I want, and I am, you know, I really am enjoying Colgate. It's just a it's a perfect place for me. And it gives me enough to talk about the substance of politics, and also sort of fill this niche of somebody who's run for office to talk about war stories as well. So I enjoyed, not actually writing, but I enjoyed after writing, reading, the book. I'm enjoying teaching and I'm doing some consulting for Bloomberg Philanthropies as well.

So being able to fill my time with the kind of things I want, but, still being able to say, no, you know, I'm going to take a long weekend, or. No, I, you know, I want to read this book this weekend. It's, I feel very, very lucky that I'm in a position where I can do that.

GR: Well, I'm glad you also found the time to write this book. That was Stephanie Miner. And again, her new book is titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” And if you want to learn more about Syracuse politics and policies as well as just the general culture here in this area, this is, this is your book. So, Mayor Miner, thanks so much for taking the time to talk. I really appreciate it.

SM: Thank you for having me. Grant, I appreciate it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media's conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Aaron KupchikOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Aaron Kupchik, a Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He discusses his new book, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Aaron Kupchik. He's a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. And he's here with me today because he has a new book out titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” Among his other books is “Judging Juveniles: Prosecuting Adolescents in Adults and Juvenile Courts.”

Professor Kupchik, welcome to the program.

Aaron Kupchik: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

GR: Well it's great. It's great that you made the time. We appreciate it. So let me just say, first of all, I know this is a serious book on a serious issue and we will treat it seriously. But I thought your title was very, very clever. Well done on that. I got a grin when I read that because of the different ways that that means, but for the opening question, I just want to set some basic understandings for our listeners.

Your book is based on the assertion that school suspensions are an instance of racial discrimination and racism, as I understand it. And I just want to say, you should know that in recent years there have been, similar claims and news reporting about this in the Syracuse City school system, and our listeners will probably remember some of that.

But let me ask you this, in terms of your book, on what basis do you make the claim that school suspensions are, an instance of racial discrimination?

AK: Well, if we look at almost any study, conducted over the last 20 years, when scholars have started thinking a lot more about how we punish school, punish in schools, we see that, youth of color are really much more likely to be suspended out of school than white youth, even for the same behaviors. So it's not the case.

I wouldn't argue that it's always intended poorly. You know, there I tend to trust teachers and educators generally as really well-intended people who are doing a very difficult job with insufficient support and pay, and often hostility directed at them. And so it's not the case that every use of suspension is racially motivated. Far from it. But there's a historical piece to this in a contemporary piece to this.

And the contemporary piece is imbalance or disparity. And it's clear it is exceptionally clear. There's also a historical piece to this, and that's what I'm really trying to, I guess that's what my book does, is fill in that piece right? Because nobody had looked at it in detail before. And what I found was that we only started using suspensions as a way to remove unwanted students.

And those were Black students who were admitted into formerly segregated white schools. So that's its origin story. Is in racial exclusion. And when we follow that through to today, we see that patterns are still playing out.

GR: You know, I want to get into some of that, historical part of your of your argument a little bit later. Let me just stick with some current-day things and then we'll get into that. But and you just mentioned this, but you also you note that suspensions as a disciplinary method have become more common in recent years.

So they've really ticked up just generally in addition to the imbalance that you, cite. Can you give us an idea of the magnitude of that change in recent years? And, you know, whether it's followed some sort of particular trajectory?

AK: Absolutely. What we see is that, you know, in the 90s, the two pretty the late 90s, early 2000s, the rate of suspensions just skyrocketed, more than doubling nationwide. And, you know, this follows all sorts of punishments, right? This is the same time where we saw mass incarceration take off. And when we started investing much more in policing and punishment in society.

And so in the mid to late 90s through the early 2000, we saw suspension rates really took off, particularly for Black students. So their rates of suspension really grew by quite a bit. We have seen, for the past ten or so years, suspension rates start to decline, which is notable that the rate of decline is nowhere near the rate of increase we saw a generation ago.

But we have seen some progress in terms of reducing suspension rates.

GR: And I'm going to get into now some of the things you anticipated when you were, mentioning how difficult the job the teachers have, is and, and one of the things that I have heard from teachers and administrators when this issue of suspensions has come up is that, first of all, they're just reacting to the behavior in their classrooms, so they're not reacting to race.

And you already, I think, sort of acknowledge that that that can be the case. But the way they see this is they have a duty to the students, the parents and the community to deliver education to the entire class. So they see these suspensions as unfortunate, but necessary for them to, in a sense, make the trade off between being inclusive but also delivering what they're supposed to be delivering to the to the entire school.

How what's your reaction to that? And how do you see that is sort of being sorted out?

AK: Up until the very last portion of your statement, I completely agree. So absolutely, they have, you know, again, I believe most teachers are very well-intended and, you know, and doing a hard job, and they do have an obligation to teach to the entire class. And sometimes one or maybe two students are making that difficult or even impossible. And that is an extremely difficult position for anyone to be in, particularly a teacher who's got so much other stress on them.

What I don't agree with is that that necessarily lead has to lead to suspension. There are so many other potential things we could do. It's not a suspension or nothing problem. And yet suspension or nothing is how many schools? Not most, but many schools treat it. And that's not the individual teacher's fault. Again, I want to try to remove I'm not trying to blame individual teachers here.

They are the products of the systems in which they work. Right. And it's administrators and systems. And through a historical legacy, are the ones who are creating the options that they have. In other words, I think I can say that more clearly. Right? What I'm saying is that the system in which these teachers are, are doing their best to take care of children and to teach them the system is flawed.

And it's not those teachers fault. It's often not the principals fault. It's that over time we've created a very narrow set of options and a set of assumptions and norms that this is just what you do and this is the only option. And that's the real problem.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Aaron Kupchik. University of Delaware professor has a new book out. It's titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” So on that point, I'm wondering and I'm just and this is just in my head right now, whether maybe what's going on with some of these administrators in terms of using suspensions so readily is that it's just the easy thing to do.

You know, it's like, okay, I have a problem. Let me deal with it. Let's just take the kid out of the class. Versus thinking about this in a deeper way. They've got other things that are pressing on them that they've got to get done. I don't know if you had a sense in your research that that might have been part of the dynamic.

AK: Oh, absolutely. There's no doubt. You know, administrators are under pressure too. You know, the irony is that it is short-term, easier, long-term, more difficult, and more costly to do what we do.

GR: Hmm.

AK: So it's true removing the student who's being a problem who's causing disruption. You know is a short-term fix for the teacher, for the principal. But that student comes back and that student comes back worse off. Having, you know, having missed days of lessons, having missed the supervision, having, you know, now, maybe they're embarrassed or they're seen differently.

What we see is that suspending kids out of school tends to make those individual students behaviors worse, not better. It also has a chilling effect on other things. So research prior research has shown that when you look at when you compare high suspension schools to low suspension schools, but that are similar on other factors, you know, including, poverty levels, race ethnicity, type of location, funding levels and so on.

The high suspension schools tend to have worse average test scores among low-income among non-suspended students. So suspensions aren't helping the other kids learn. They might be a temporary reprieve for the teacher. But they're in long term, they're not helping the academic mission. They're not helping improve behaviors. So yeah short-term understandable. But we need to find better long-term solutions.

And there are long-term solutions that are that are better and that are out there. We just don't use them as much or as well.

GR: Oh, I want to find out what some of those are. It's a very interesting statistic. And also the way you describe that it's impossible not to hear the parallels with some of the criticisms of the criminal justice system and how that how that operates as well. Let me let me throw out one more thing, though, about, that that I've heard teachers say, and that is that they feel like many days they're primarily engaged in crowd control more than education.

And, and they're very frustrated in that way. And they say, well, you know, school children are just not as able to focus as they used to be when I first started teaching. They're not as well-behaved, etc. Maybe it's impossible to know that there's there any truth to that. Do you know of whether kids have just become more harder to handle?

AK: I'm sure you love this answer, but yes and no. Okay. And so. I think those are two separate things. I think attention spans are different than behaviors. So there are certainly far more children with, attention. Issues and limitations. There are many more children who are diagnosed with ADHD than there used to be. And I can tell you from teaching in college, you know, the pandemic has really hurt, you know, generationally, student engagement.

You know, so I think that there, you know, the challenge of keeping students engaged and present, you know, physically and mentally. Yeah, it has got to be more difficult. But in terms of behavior, you know, the, you know, there's a, an annual report that, the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the federal Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education publishes called Indicators of School Crime and Safety.

And they've been tracking, school crime and student misbehavior for, you know, for since the early 1990s. And one of the what I think is the best measures, in there, it looks at students age 12 to 18 across the country and their reported victimization rates, which can include having something stolen out of your locker to being assaulted.

And what we see is that victimization rates in recent years are a fraction. I mean, I'm talking about 20% what they were in the early 90s. Students today are much safer in schools, meaning that student misbehavior and crime is much less today than it was going back to early 90s. We saw an enormous decline throughout the late 90s and 2000.

GR: That's fascinating. You know, and I have to say it sort of fits my own experiences where I can remember when I was in high school, which was before the 90s, by the way. But, that fights were tolerated to some degree. And when my son went to high school, there just weren't. And so that I could I can see that difference.

You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Aaron Kupchik. He's a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, and he's the author of a new book titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” And we've been discussing his book and the issues that it raises.

You know, Aaron, one thing you mentioned right before the break was how criminal behavior had declined. And one of the things that pops up in people's heads, of course, when they hear that as well, that's maybe because we started suspending or punishing more, you know, and so is that is that the reason why that happened or something else?

AK: You know, the data show that that's not the reason why that happened. And in fact, criminal behavior and misbehavior in schools directly tracks reductions in youth behaviors and communities. Right. So crime rates of youth in communities have fallen at exactly the same rate over exactly the same periods of time. So it's it's something generational. It's something about youth today, suspending kids out of school makes their individual behaviors worse, not better.

GR: Yeah. And that's that's a that's a very powerful statistic, I think. So let me ask you one specific question about, your study. And then we'll get into the history that you mentioned and also what the better alternatives would be. You take in your book two deep looks, in addition to looking at more general data, two deep looks into two school systems, one in Newcastle, Delaware, and the other one in Boston, Massachusetts.

I'm going to guess that the Delaware choice was because you were there. You could you had access, Why Boston?

AK: Well, Boston, I think works for a few reasons. You know, when this issue was first noticed, going back to the 70s, the issue of suspensions as a consequence of desegregation, and it got some attention down in the South. And a number of people back in the 70s looked at how as soon as school districts were desegregating, they started kicking kids out through out-of-school suspension, particularly Black students.

And so it was something that we knew happened initially down in the South, and I wanted to see whether it happened in other places, too. So, yes, you're right. Delaware was convenient because it was its home. But it was also an excellent case study because, I mean, the University of Delaware is right on the Mason-Dixon line.

If it were drawn straight rather than going around the state, you know, it's right in the middle of the country. It's neither North or South. And yes, I describe in the book, it's just got a fascinating, disturbing, fascinating history. Racial exclusion, you know, with some characteristics of being a northern state and some of southern, too. Boston is, you know, this northern liberal, all, you know, city with all of these, you know, academic institutions.

And so I wanted to, to look at, two other sites again, that weren't south. And I kind of crept upward, but a Mid-Atlantic and a northern side.

GR: Well, the reason why I did Boston kind of caught my eye was that it has, I think, a notorious racial history when it comes to education and, I mean, I can attest to some personal experience to the kids from Boston that I met when I went to college. And I was like, wow, that's not what I expected to hear from someone from Massachusetts.

So do you account for that, that Boston might be kind of a, you know, an extreme case? I mean, I know there's a I know there's a tradition in social science of deliberately picking things like that. But, you know, I, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but just that that struck me.

AK: I don't know, the busses and extreme case, I mean, I think if you look at any city, you'll, you'll find that racism, you know, racial hostility throughout the 20th century was was everywhere. I mean, I believe that, you know, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr lived in Chicago, he described racism there. That was above and beyond what he had seen in the South.

Right. You know, and not typical in Chicago, we could look at, you know, I think almost any northern city and come away with a similar conclusion, that this is, you know, maybe think this is might be an outlier. Which means they're not outliers.

GR: One of the things I wondered, and I was curious to see if you had any, thoughts about this as is there any evidence that these suspension decisions are, formulated differently when the teachers and the administrators are not white, when they're African-American or or or brown, as opposed to if they're white?

AK: Yes. There is some research. Not a lot, but there are a number of studies that do look at punishment rates when you have teachers and it's administrators who, who are, who are Black, or African-American. And what it finds is that the punishment rates are lower than with white teachers and administrators, but they're still not equal to those that white students receive. So the problem is reduced, but not eliminated.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is University of Delaware professor Aaron Kupchik. Okay. So let's get into some of the historical aspects of your study and then what the better alternatives would be. So as we've already talked about a lot of your book concerns tracking this history of discrimination, drawing a line between, forced desegregation of school systems that were segregated and then suspensions as kind of a response to that. Just just track, track that out, track that connection out a little bit for us.

AK: Sure. What we see is that suspension or suspending children out of schools followed these mandatory desegregation. So what I found was that jurisdictions where they, were forced to be segregated. And I looked very carefully and in-depth at Newcastle County, Delaware's history and Boston's history of desegregation. Each of them had a desegregation effort that was the result of a lawsuit, and before the desegregation suspensions were very uncommon. They were used occasionally, but very uncommon in Boston, for example, a few years before, desegregation. Any suspension had to be approved by administrators at the district level according to their code of conduct. Right. So it was rare enough that that had that, you disagreed, estimate suspensions weren't, something that school districts reported in their data.

It wasn't something that the state Department of Education was reporting in either state. It just wasn't a focus. And when they did talk about student misbehavior and discipline, they didn't talk about suspension as a solution to that. Immediately after these schools desegregate ended and Black students entered formally, all-white schools suspensions became issue number one. Topic number one.

I spoke, for example, to two people were there on the ground at the time in each of these places. One of them, for example, J Street, who's, you know, still a Wilmington City Council member and here in Delaware told me that suspensions were unheard of in in schools before desegregation. But it was an issue the first day that students were literally getting off, the Black students were getting off the busses on day one of school to their formerly all-white school, and they were being suspended.

GR: Well, so I know that you had said earlier that when we were talking about this in the current day that, you know, teachers have a hard job. It's not like they're sitting there thinking, I'm going to suspend this Black student because they're Black. You know, it's not that. But it does sound like at the beginning there was that kind of conscious, coordinated effort.

Is that fair to say?

AK: Well, I think it's partially true, but I don't know if it's fair to say, because I wouldn't want to lump all teachers into that. There were a lot of teachers who really meant to do well, even then, back in the 70s, and they were just, you know, one, one phrase that came up from many of the people I spoke to was how unprepared the schools were.

And there was a lot going on, and there was a lot of chaos. And so certainly many teachers that were explicitly racist and did not want those Black students in their school. Others were scared. You know, which has a racial component, right? But they weren't ill-intent. Others were very well-intended. Actively wanted to do well, but just didn't have the tools or preparation.

They had pressure put on them by others. So, I wouldn't lump all teachers in on saying that. That there was intentional hostility.

GR: That's a good point. So. So let's get to the $64,000 question. Spend a lot of time on us. So. So okay. This is what we shouldn't do. What should we do? What? You know, if we want to have education happening in the classrooms, we want to be fair. We want to have the right outcomes. How should we be thinking about this differently?

AK: I think schools need to mirror functional families better. If you think about how parents good parents discipline children because that's part of parenting, they you don't kick your kid out of the family for 3 to 5 days when they do something wrong. Right. We don't suspend them out of the family. Instead, there are consequences. There's accountability. Maybe lose some privileges.

But there's there's teaching about behavior and learning, and there's acceptance that you can come back in still a full fledged family member, right? Without a label put on you that you're a troublemaker. You know, without being left behind in some way. And, and so I think we need to model that obviously schools are very different than families, and have different pressures.

And I'm not saying that every teacher needs to be the parent of each kid there. But modeling some of those efforts of how do we hold students accountable, but in ways that don't scar them, in ways that don't keep them back, right, that help them learn and move forward? You know, there are a lot of teachers out there who are amazing at doing this.

I mean, I speak to educators all the time who say they you're in they often work in areas where there are high crime rates. So we know that students are coming with with issues. Right? And they tell me, look, I build a rapport with my students and I talk to them and they trust me. And so they don't want to upset me.

And when something does come up, we talk about it and we I help them solve the problem as best I can. That's what we need to do more of now. That takes resources and time. Right. And and teachers need help doing this. It would be unfair to suggest any teacher who has a class of 40. Anytime a student is disruptive, can take ten minutes and work with that kid.

That. That's not realistic. They need help doing this. And there are programs out there. Restorative practices has grown. It is in schools. Where we try to mediate conflict. We sit down with students who do things wrong. With the people that they might have hurt or offended. They learn about why it was wrong and what they can do better.

Positive behavioral interventions and supports is another type of program that schools often do. But what I found in and across studies that I've done is that often these kinds of strategies aren't always they're not always well done. They're they're sort of add-ons, but without full investment. Right. And as long as those things exist alongside more punitive discipline, they're not going to be fully successful.

One other point I have to mention, one of the most surprising things I found in my historical research on this topic was that these strategies and these understandings, these are these are things that are typically thought of as new and progressive. They were in place before we started suspending kids. And when desegregation first happened and people noticed the rise of suspension.

This was their concern. And they said, no, you know, there are student advocates in the 70s saying, no, no, no. What we need to do is invest in schools so that they can actually mentor and counsel children. You know, we don't want to kick them out. And that will lead to these problems. So I guess what's new was old or maybe is that.

GR: Well, we've got about oh, less than a minute. And I wanted to squeeze one last question. And so I apologize. It's going to be kind of a lightning round. But you've obviously spent a lot of time talking to a lot of different people and watching things. Leave us with something that you saw that really inspired you that was positive. Give us a positive note to go out on.

AK: We have seen progress over the last ten years. More and more schools are embracing, as I said, restorative practices as positive behavioral intervention supports and other strategies. Suspension rates have gone down. I believe that, you know, most educators I speak to get it. They understand that school suspension should be a last resort. It's just how we use it and the extent to which we can build up better alternatives is the issue.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Aaron Kupchik. And again, his new book is titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” It's a provocative and informative book on obviously a very, very difficult topic. Professor Kupchik, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it and I learned a lot.

AK: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here.

View Details

Russell ShortoOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with author and historian Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society. Shorto discusses his new book, "Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Russell Shorto. He's the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society, and the author of a number of popular books, including “The Island at the Center of the World.” He's with me today to discuss his new book. It's titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.”

Mr. Shorto, welcome to the program.

Russell Shorto: Thank you very much, Grant. Thanks for having me.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. It's a very interesting book. And let me just start with sort of a basic build-up question, and we'll get into some of the other things after that. So you're telling the story of the 1664 English takeover of Manhattan from the Dutch in that, as my understand, it resulted in the name New York. And then you're talking about the importance of that and the importance of the city, sort of over time and, and through American culture. And so I would want you in politics as well. And I, I would like you to set the stage for us. I mean, what was going on at that time with the Dutch and the English and how did Manhattan and what would become New York fit into that context for them?

RS: Okay. We're talking about the 1600s here. So I think most Americans think of colonial history as the 1700s. But there was a whole century before, when the English established, the Puritan colonies and the pilgrim colony in New England, and they established some settlements also in Virginia and Maryland. But in between that whole section of the eastern seaboard, the Dutch planted the colony of New Netherland, which encompassed all or part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, part of Pennsylvania. And its capital was New Amsterdam, at the tip of Manhattan Island. The two sides, the English and the Dutch, were bitter rivals in the 1600s. And the English were particularly bitter because the Dutch were, like ahead of them at everything. The Dutch built up this trading empire that, you know, they were the envy of Europe. So, that's kind of the backdrop.

And the Dutch colony lasted 40 years. And it really, in particular the city of New Amsterdam and Manhattan, they built this, this, center of capitalism, what we would call capitalism. The word didn't exist then. And, and, it was pluralistic. There were at least 18 languages spoken. And this became part of the envy, part of what the English envied.

GR: Interesting. And so you've got also when this conflict or this rivalry really comes to a head in and the control of Manhattan, you've got basically two commanders in the field, essentially, staring each other down. And what's interesting in the story is they kind of go off script, right? I mean, they, they take matters into their own hands. Tell us about that.

RS: Yeah, exactly. I, you know, I write narrative history. So I, I think of myself more as a storyteller than a historian. I always, you know, it's a strange thing, but people, when they're trying to compliment me and they say, “Oh, I read your book. I learned so much.” It sort of annoys me. I would rather that I would rather they said, “Oh, I just started reading it. I couldn't stop, you know, I it's the story that interest me.” So I look for conflict. I look for two individuals in conflict. And here you have a situation and this is the late summer of 1664. You have these English warships in the harbor in what became New York Harbor, pointing their cannons at this fort at the tip of Manhattan.

And in the fort they have their cannons pointed at these ships. So you can't get more conflict than that, but that they're ready to go at it. But as you say, they go off script and that is that's really the story that I tell in the book.

GR: Well, tell us a little bit more about what they do. Tell us what? Give us that story.

RS: So that, Richard Nichols was the commander for the British. He was sent on this mission to take this piece of the this desired piece of the eastern seaboard of North America from the Dutch. And he was the ships were filled to the brim with, you know, gunpowder and everything they needed. So he was ready to blast away.

Nichols had done his homework in London, and as I said, the Dutch were the envy of Europeans. And people had gotten to know that New Amsterdam this, you know, in the middle of nowhere. Was this intriguing place where they were doing business, this little, you know, kind of Wild West, or you might say Wild East Town was doing business with the Caribbean, West Africa, Europe.

So he was intrigued and he wanted to he didn't want just the real estate. He wanted the the secret sauce. And the secret sauce was in the people, the this mixed community of 18, 20 languages. So he wanted somehow to get it in such a way that they would come with it. Now, on the other side, Peter Stuyvesant was this very savvy leader of the Dutch colony.

And he his situation was he had been trying for years to get the Dutch government to give more support to this colony. He'd been saying, look, we're right beside this continent of North America. We can we can exploit it. But you have to send more people. You have to send soldiers. And they just ignored him. So he was at his wit's end.

So what happened was these two guys started to talk. They started to send messengers on rowboats back and forth.

GR: Interesting. And so so what is the ultimate outcome, then, of those of those negotiations?

RS: I should add that, on the English side, England in the 17th century was this will sound familiar, a deeply polarized society. You had the Puritans who essentially were religious extremists who wanted, a religious take over the government. They wanted a theocratic rule. They wanted to, you know, outlaw dancing and card playing and all kinds of things.

So you had them and then you had basically everybody else, and they everybody else was grouped under the monarchy. So they were the royalists, whether or not they particularly cared about the monarchy, they fought this bitter civil war. The king was beheaded. The his sons, the princes went into exile. Then eventually they come back and, they now are in charge again.

So they're looking at North America, and they see these Puritan colonies in New England that have been there for decades. So they're the enemies basically still, and they see the Dutch in this real estate that they want. So they send Nichols in this, this flotilla, to do two things to, to take this Dutch colony and then to make the Puritans fall into line.

And Nichols succeeds in the first. But in the second, he fails utterly because the Puritans based in Boston were very strong. They could, you know, they had an ocean protecting them from England. They could care less. They were minting their own coins and, you know, and they had this very, rigorous and violent, government that persecuted anybody who wasn't of their sect and so on.

So that was the that's what, the dynamics got set up here.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Russell Shorto, who has a new book out titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.” Well, so what you were saying there at the end is really what I wanted to ask you a couple deeper questions about.

And just to go to the title of your book, it's, it's that last phrase “and Shaped America” that I really want to focus in on. And I think you're getting into it now, when you talk about that split between the Puritans and the non-Puritans and England, and then how the non-Puritans, in a way, was, were reflected in some of the aspects of that culture that the Dutch had established already there in what would become Manhattan in New York City.

So so I wanted to hear more about that, because you were one of your arguments in the book, is that this moment was, as you already talked about. It's part of a much larger split in England and the colonies, but that it that it's reverberated through time, that that we can track a lot of things back to this.

So say a little bit more about that. I'd like to hear about that.

RS: So the deal that, the Dutch and English, leaders who are about to go to war with each other instead they, they, they, hash out this deal and the deal is basically Nichols, the Englishman doesn't really understand what the Dutch have. You know, nobody has heard of capitalism and the way that works. And, and, and in Europe, a tolerant society that allows for many different religions and languages was unheard of almost.

So he doesn't get it, but he knows that it works. So he wants to keep that. So the deal is the Dutch will keep their features of of a tolerant society. They will. So the agreement they sign, it says everyone who's here, whatever your your background, your language, you can you'll keep your house, you'll keep your business.

By all means, keep your trade networks in Europe and everywhere, because we want you to stay. We want you to, and but the one caveat is going to be it's now going to be an English town. And we're going to call it New York after the Duke of York, the brother of the King. So that was what they did.

And they and the reason they were able to do this was because these English and the Dutch had a lot in common. They were pragmatic, they were relatively tolerant. And tolerance, you have to say relative. Obviously, you know, there's slavery here. Tolerance did not apply to Africans. It didn't apply to native people. But relatively tolerant. They believed in global trade and business.

Whereas the Puritans based in Boston were a very different, came from a very different, cut. They were, you know, these religious, intolerant, their way or the highway kind of thing. So that then that's established as New York. Okay, there's New York and here's Boston, and the Puritans don't go anywhere. And what I'm what I sketch out then at the end of the book is that dynamic is going to slowly reverberate through American history, because we've got two centers of ideology.

One is outward looking, pragmatic, the other is more inward-looking, more, it becomes sort of America first, you know, that becomes, you know, the Puritans saw America as the promised land. And in the 19th century, that becomes manifest destiny. We have a God-given right to take over the continent. So you see that those two, ways of thinking throughout American history, I mean, obviously Boston, you don't think of today as like a Puritan stronghold, but, so the geography changes.

But in the lead up to the Civil War, you've got, you know, what they're arguing about, is slavery, the, the morality of slavery and whether it should extend as the country moves westward. Then that breaks out into the Civil War, then reconstruction, which is basically fails because they fail to resolve these differences.

And then that moves straight into the 20th century. You in the civil rights movement, all the protests around that, and then even into our time, gay rights and all the, you know, controversy over, trans rights and pronouns. And, I mean, all of this is from one side, it's the, the continuing unfolding of freedom that came with the American Revolution.

But from the other side, it's this is, you know, sort of violation against our moral code. And, you know, ideas are hard to track. It's like trying to track, you know, atoms or something. But I still think it's worthwhile because you try to figure out who we are and where we came from. And that's what I think is an interesting trail.

GR: Well, and so I'm glad you brought that up, because that was exactly the thing that I was having the toughest time wrapping my head around. And so I, I, I'll wait to put sort of my $64,000 question to you until I ask this other one, because you talked about, the Civil War and I one of the things I thought about was you characterized New York as sort of keeping its pragmatic Dutch, you know, diverse, multicultural aspect, more tolerant.

And then Boston being more purely Puritan, more strident and reformist. I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that during the Civil War, it was New York City that, saw a lot of support for trying to preserve the peace, preserve the union in any cost and New York was where you had these big draft riots and resistance to the Civil War, whereas New England and I'm thinking of like the burned over district, up here in upstate where you had, you know, stridently abolitionists, which I think were associated with this Puritan tradition.

And so in that sense, it's the it's it's a would that be fair to say that it's that it's that sort of different way of thinking in New York that led them to be less enthusiastic about the idea of, of, of, you know, sending hundreds of thousands of people to die for this cause?

RS: I think, you know what I, what I, suggested a minute ago, the geography really changes. And New York, New York City in the Civil War becomes its own thing, which is a really strange thing. It, you know, the, Fernando Wood was the mayor at the time, I think, and he put forth this idea that New York City should stay out of the war altogether, secede, and become its own republic, called Tri-Insula. The three islands, Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

Because New York, he thought, you know, I mean, New York, was all about trade. And they wanted to be able to do business with both sides and that. So that's, you know, the when I'm talking about these ideologies, the geographies switch. Of course, by the time by the time of the revolution, New England, where you associate with revolution with, quote freedom and and they then look back to the, the Puritans as having sought freedom from England.

But the, the the funny thing about that, it's a little bit of playing with semantics, because when the Puritans came, yeah, they were seeking religious freedom, but only for themselves. And they persecuted others who were who wanted to settle among them. So, you know, there I think the revolutionaries, a century later, kind of, you know, reading between the lines a little bit.

GR: Yeah. Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Russell Shorto is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society, and the author of a new book titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.” And we've been discussing his book, So you use the term Christian nationalism to describe the Puritan set of beliefs, right? Is that…

RS: Well, nationalism? I mean, they weren't thinking in terms of a nation. I was kind of reading later history back into that.

GR: Okay. All right. But you make an association between. Right. Okay. All right. So this is what I'm wrapping my arms around. So is so is Donald Trump the Puritan here? I mean, how do, how do we or or is he a distant echo of a Puritan or. I don't know, I mean, he seems in some ways to be the embodiment of this Dutch way of thinking, you know, just just one, one actor among 100 possible models.

RS: Grant, I wrote a book set 400 years ago. I could, you know, if you want to stretch, you know, it's pull and push and pull. That's good. And I know I'll go along and play along with you, but, you know, I would acknowledge that we are really stretching, stretching these, these notions pretty far. But I think, you know, I think Trump, played into the Puritan, the America first, you know, Make America Great Again, the religious right, that whole side of the equation, which, as I'm arguing, goes back to the Puritans. He plays into that. To what extent he himself is a true believer in that, you know, that's that's anybody's guess.

GR: And certainly in terms of tolerance and that kind of thing, I can see the I can, I can see the, the connections. Well. Let me I'm a political scientist, so you're going to have to forgive the Donald Trump questions and the other kind of questions here. But but, the when I was thinking about this notion of the divide that you identified here and the aspects of the way of thinking about, culture and, and thinking about what's right and thinking about being on missions and America first, that kind of thing.

I started to think about other deep divides in the country that are both old and more recent. That came to my mind, and I was thinking about, well, to go back to like the time of the founding, you had this sort of like, Roman republican tradition and ideas that the founders participated in. But then you had more of these capitalist, individualist, Scottish enlightenment that would be kind of more in line with the Dutch, I think, in that sense.

So you have that that, I was thinking of, first half of the 20th century divides over what's the right role of national government in our domestic affairs? You know, the political arguments you've heard during a time of the New Deal and then second half of the 20th century and into the one we're in now, divides over race and identity and inclusion and how those things should be thought of.

So I know that you are hesitant about taking something that long ago and connecting it to today, but can you help me think about how to place the divide that you've identified, which is very compelling in line with some of these other things over time? How how might this play out?

RS: I think that we're all, you know, it's our mutual inheritance. Is the Enlightenment and the and the Enlightenment we think of again as the 1700s. But the Dutch Enlightenment of the 1600s is what spawned the wider European Enlightenment. So these ideas are very much in the air and animating, in this case the Dutch, and and among that is this notion of liberalism, meaning liberalism as a, as a broad philosophy of individual freedom.

And so I think most people today, that's part of their makeup. The, the, the crux, though, is how you choose to apply it. You know, today, people on the left would say we believe in freedom for all. That's why we think, you know, if you're trans or or you're gay or whatever you are. Whereas people on the right would say no, we believe in individual freedom.

And that's why, you know, you're persecuting us with your pronouns and all that. So, you know, that's where, you know, but I think the important thing from history, from way back history, is that this is all our mutual inheritance. And I would add, maybe that it kind of feels like that broader in inheritance, which is foundational to all of us, is under attack these days, you know, with kind of, tendencies toward dictatorships and that sort of thing in the air.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is the writer and historian Russell Shorto. So, this might seem like a, really bizarre question, but what I, as a political scientist and a political scientist in New York, and upstate, I've paid a lot of attention to the division between upstate and downstate, politically and also culturally.

But certainly, it's a big issue you know, in Albany. And so I'm, I'm wondering if this kind of split that you're talking about that happened all these many years ago isn't mirrored, in a way, in the split between upstate and downstate, because upstate has it seems to me again, I'm thinking of the, the abolitionists and the the, the, all the religious movements, like the millwrights and, you know, all the rest of it that came out of upstate, the Mormon, among others.

And, and then contrast that with, again, this sort of more pluralist, inclusive kind of mentality of downstate. I don't know if there's anything there that you think is worth pulling out, but.

RS: Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic. And, you know, as you were asking me that, I was thinking, you know, one thing that I'm curious about, if Andrew Cuomo declares candidacy for mayor of New York, you know, he's associated with the state as a whole and being governor. How are New York, how are the people in New York City going to feel about that kind of thing?

I have spent, most I've spent a lot of time upstate in Albany. And not just, you know, Albany as the capital, but just with the town. So I have a pretty. And I used to live in the city long ago. So I have a, you know, my own personal sense of that vibe and the differences.

And one thing that I would say is interesting, that goes all the way back is in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, the the capital was New Amsterdam. So Manhattan, the second city, was, which then became Albany, because James, the Duke of York, was also the Duke of Albany. And so and Beaver was important as the name kind of suggests, Beaver Town, because that's where they traded with the native people for furs from the Mohawk River Valley.

And then they'd go down to Manhattan. But you had that. You had this tension between those two cities even then, that are 150 miles of wilderness between them. But you had this, you know, and the people in Albany kind of, you know, they were they were more rural back country. They were more Dutch at a time when Manhattan was this polyglot, urban kind of place.

And they were more like the real, you know, we’re the real keepers of morals and all that. So you had those that divide even then.

GR: Yeah. It's interesting. So we got about three minutes left, maybe a little less. And I want to try, if I can, to kind of squeeze in three questions. So this is going to be more of our sort of pseudo lightning round, if you will, for the first one is New York, as you well know, is often called the capital of the world.

And, you know, to, invoke your previous book, “The Island at the Center of the World,” with the rise of China and also some of the dramatic changes in communication technology in recent decades, do you think that New York is going to remain that way? In say 50 years from now? Will we be still calling it the capital of the world, do you think?

RS: Okay, well, I have to be short in my answers and I'll say, no, I can't see how because, you know, but what I the point I make in this book is that, New York, you could say, was the first modern city for all these reasons. And what's interesting is that template has been copied now all over the world, even in places that are sort of, autocratic in cities like, you know, Moscow or Beijing or something like that.

They have this vibe of of that. But no, I don't I think that will change. And it's kind of changing before our eyes.

GR: And the other two questions are more personal in terms of your own relationship with the city, because obviously you know it very well and you know its history very well. The first one is what part or area or place in today's New York most connects you to the past.

RS: Oh that's eastern I used to live in the East Village, and when my daughter was a toddler, I would take her to the churchyard of Saint Mark's in the Bowery to run around and play. And that's where Peter Stephenson's tomb was. And that's how I first connected with all this. So when I'm in the East Village, I. I feel like I'm back home.

GR: Interesting. And did that did that get you started on some of these travels that.

RS: Me started on that that way I got to Charlie Gehring, the translator of the archives in Albany, and that got me on. That's what I've been on that track ever since, basically.

GR: Wow. Serendipitous. And and and maybe this is going to be the same answer then, but let's say you can't use that answer again. What is your own, personal favorite place to be in New York and why?

RS: My favorite place to be, you know, I like, I like walking on Broadway, which is still has a grittiness, still has, kind of, you know, I like walking along the river, of course, Riverside Drive and looking across at New Jersey, even though that's not that's not New Jersey and not New York there. I like a lot of, you know, I'm, I'm most comfortable, most familiar with Manhattan, but now my, my kids live one in Brooklyn and one in Queens. So I'm becoming more familiar with Astoria and and, Flatbush. And so, you know, I'm discovering the city through them.

GR: Okay. So, so the the past is the future, in a way. We'll have to leave it there. That was Russell Shorto. And again, his new book is titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.” If you think you know New York and its significance to the country, you'll want to read this book to read and learn the full story.

But Mr. Shorto, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. A lot of fun.

RS: Thank you, Grant. It was fun.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Syracuse City Auditor Alexander Marion. He was elected to the position as a Democrat in November 2023. Prior to that, he served on the staffs of State Senator Michael Gianaris and Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner.

View Details

(Syracuse University)USAID has been in the news more lately than at any point since its founding during the John F. Kennedy administration. What exactly does the government agency do? How does it fit with all U.S. foreign aid? Could its work be done more efficiently elsewhere? This week, Grant Reeher talks with Catherine Herrold, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, and an expert on USAID.

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Julian Zelizer, a Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, and the author of the new book, "In Defense of Partisanship."

View Details

Will Barclay / Rachel MayProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Governor Kathy Hochul has given her State of the State address and presented her budget for the year. Back with me today on the program to provide reactions to that and also offer a preview of the legislative session are New York State Senator Rachel May and Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay. Senator May represents the state's 48th Senate District and leader Barclay represents the 120 Assembly District. Leader Barclay and Senator May welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you both.

Rachel May: Thank you.

Will Barclay: Thanks for having me on.

GR: Well, thank you, thank you both for making the time. Senator May, I'll start with you. A very basic question, and if you could be brief, I'd appreciate it. But what do you think are the most significant new initiatives that the governor has set forward here in the State of the State and also the budget?

RM: So, I'm pleased that she's leaning into issues about both affordability and child poverty. Obviously, here and in central New York and Syracuse in particular, child poverty is a major issue. So the fact that she wants to expand the child tax credit to continue putting some specific money into Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo for fighting child poverty, universal school lunches, all of those are really important measures, I think, to help lift our kids out of poverty and make life more affordable for parents raising children. Her child care initiatives, I think, are great, but I haven't really seen the money being put behind it. So I feel like that's one where we need to fight for more investment to realize some of those child care savings that she's promising. But I would say on those fronts, it's a pretty exciting budget or at least a budget plan. I would say for agriculture she's done some really good things with dairy farm sustainability, with investing in farm worker housing, a number of the agricultural products that we produce here locally, like maple syrup, she's leaning into as well. So I feel like those are good things. On housing we need to do, I think more than she's proposing, but at least she's proposing some things that I've been calling for, like a revolving fund for housing construction. So, you know, on balance, I think it's a pretty good budget for some of the really key critical issues that we need to be pushing for.

GR: And Leader Barclay, as you took all this in, what was front of mind for you in both what you've set forward in State of the State and the budget?

Will Barclay: Well, in the State of the State, I was, after the State of the State I was pretty complimentary, oddly enough, with the governor because she did what Senator May said. She talked about the issues that seem to be important to New Yorkers and certainly were key issues in this past election. That's affordability and crime. So I was pleased, you know, she talked about it, she talked about a middle class tax cut, which we certainly would support. She talked about the child tax credit, which is a bill that we've had in the assembly that interestingly has been blocked by the assembly majority over the last few years, but hopefully now that the governor's proposed it, maybe they'll look at it in a different view, a different light. So I was happy with that. However, and she also talked about the rebate program, which is a little inefficient, about taking our money and giving it back to taxpayers. But in my mind, any time we're giving money back to the taxpayers, I think it's probably a positive thing that I could support. But then we got to her budget address and it was curious because I was very quiet about how much she was going to talk about spending and she blew the doors out. The budget proposal that she has, which is usually the lowest starting point in this whole budget process, is $252 billion. It's an 8% increase on state funds, I think seven point on all funds percent. And, you know, that's simply the trajectory that I've talked about on this show, I talk about anywhere I go that New York cannot afford to continue on. And I know revenue has been coming in pretty well in this state, but it doesn't seem like there's a political will, either governor or the two majorities to cut taxes. And ultimately, the problem is we're losing people in New York State because it's too expensive to live here. And I didn't see much in this budget other than those few things I mentioned that's going to change that trajectory. So I was sort of disappointed in her budget address. The $252 billion, we're going to be, you know, we spend the most and tax most of any citizens in the United States. And it simply it's just not a system that we can continue on with.

GR: Well, you've anticipated the question I always ask at this time of the year of the two of you or others. And Senator May, I'll kind of just channel what Leader Barclay just said and say, I did want to get your reaction to sort of the big picture of the budget, you know, putting it in context because when you think about specific programs like the ones that you mentioned, you know, it is compelling.I mean, you know, there are good things that you want to do with those things. But, you know, it is this, if my understanding is, it's another record high budget and New York is always on the top or near the top of the list of tax burden relative to other states. The last time I checked, we are still projected to have outmigration from the state that, you know, may cost us another congressional seat the next time we do a census.So, I mean, Senator May, how should New Yorkers be viewing the state's spending and the future trajectory of the state spending from kind of this bigger picture? I don't know if there's a crisp question there, but you have the specific programs that are compelling, but when you look at the whole thing, it does seem like there's a problem.

RM: Well, I will say we are actually being very fiscally responsible, not like increasing deficits or that kind of thing. We have alot more money to handle some of the real problems in the state because we increased, we made modest increases on the super wealthy a few years ago, everybody predicted that they would all move out of the state when we did that. But in fact, we have more millionaires and billionaires in the state now than we had before, and they are way wealthier than they were before.So that's one of the reasons why the state is bringing in more funds. And honestly, the Republicans in the Senate complain about this every year and then they say, and why don't we have more money for this, this, this, this and this? So it's like, everybody wants more money. We are facing a situation where the Trump administration is probably going to take away a lot of funds that we have depended on, like for Medicaid.And so we have to be making investments now that we can make so that we can put ourselves in a position to weather the storm that is coming, because we can certainly expect to be in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. I do think some of the investments are really good ones. The $200 million for upstate, we were asking for more than that,but I'm glad she put that in there for upstate. I think, you know, really thinking about ways to beef up our infrastructure, get us in position to weather both the climate storms that are approaching and the political storms that are approaching. I think this is a smart way to spend the money.

GR: I want to come back to the Medicaid issue, you brought up something that that I did want to pursue, but Leader Barclay, I’ll come back to you. The senator mentioned the extra tax on millionaires and my understanding is that this calls for the earlier, I guess, renewal of that tax before it was set to expire.Is that, what is your view on that? I mean, would it be possible would it be smart to double down on that effort and to and to really try to get more money out of the very, very wealthiest in New York State? Because, particularly downstate, the senator is right, we've got a lot of those people.New York City has a high concentration of them relative to other parts of the country. So is that one way to go?

WB: Well, first of all, I've never seen a tax that's been instituted in New York State that doesn't continue on. So, which, the Senator is talking about is altering the millionaire's tax so it's put on when we had a fiscal crisis. And oh, we’ll just put it on a few years, but lo and behold, we're not a fiscal crisis now, apparently.But guess what? We're going to take the sunset off and extend that tax going forward. Now, the Senator points out that there's, you know, millionaires and billionaires in the state and they may have increased, but everything's increased. And New York State is growing those millionaires and billionaires at a lower rate than any other state in the country. So, you know, they may not be leaving, but they are leaving New York State.And to further things, the more dependent you get on these wealthy people to cover your revenue requirements in the state, you know, you can just lose a couple of them and that becomes a huge hole in your budget that, in fact, that happened in New York City just a few years ago when, you know, there were something like 29 billionaires were responsible for something like 35%, 40% of New York City's budget.A couple of them left and they had some real deficits on it. So again, it's just not a sustainable system going forward, we have to look at ways. For instance, the governor says on the rebate program, sales tax, we, because inflation, the state's got a windfall from sales tax, which is great. But why don't we look at reducing sales tax? There is a so-called regressive tax that I would think some of the Democrats would want to look at to maybe ease the burden on that.But no, we don't want to do that, we'll just take your money and hand it back, and not back to everybody, just a few, you know, some of the people we, you know, we want to try to be helpful to. So to me, again, it's just more tax and spend more tax and spend in New York. And we're going to just end up with the same results that we've been seeing with people flocking out of our state, unfortunately.

RM: We actually have the lowest middle class tax rates in 70 years and we have been cutting those. And one of the reasons is because we've been able to, you know, have the super wealthy pay a little bit more of their fair share. We have a situation in America where the richest few have gotten infinitely richer. Our state budget is about one Jeff Bezos this year and about 1.6 of a Elon Musk. And we we're seeing people get extremely wealthy and we're seeing ordinary people just falling behind and falling behind. And so we're trying to make the investments in reversing that trend here in New York State. And so far, it's, you know, this budget, I think, shows that that's working to some extent.

WB: One thing I'd ask is, are people leaving New York State because their taxes aren't high enough? Are they leaving New York State because, you know, the cost to live here? They're leaving New York because there is an affordable crisis. They're going to states with lower tax burdens. I mean, it just is evident, it's happening.So we're just going to continue on that same path that we've been on? It doesn't, you know, the facts are the facts.

RM: Most of the evidence is people are leaving because housing is too expensive and we don't have enough of it. And so the more we have more and more housing, the better. But, you know, we've got all these difficulties with local governments refusing to permit more housing, with, you know, zoning codes that are so restrictive that we, it's really hard to build more housing. And so that revolving fund money, the whole point of that is to make it more affordable for developers to build more housing so that they can get the housing that we need.

WB: I think we ought to look at the costs of why housing is so expensive in New York. Developers don't want to take the risk because it's incredibly hard to build a new house in New York. Even upstate is really, really expensive because we put all these requirements on these developers to do it. You know, it's just getting worse instead of better.We now want, you know, heat pumps in every house. Looks like it's going to be $26,000 more money if you require that. So it's just one thing after another in New York State that makes no one want to take the risk of developing housing. That's one of the reasons we have high housing costs.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with New York State Senator Rachel May and New York State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay. And we've been having a very spirited discussion about the upcoming legislative session and the larger picture of spending and the size of government in New York State.Senator May, before the break, you wanted to get in (what) leader Barclay had been focusing on, the number of regulations and new requirements that the state puts on housing as a major contributor to its increase in costs, because developers don't want to take that risk unless they know they're going to get a certain kind of return and just making it more expensive itself to build the houses.That makes sense to me, just thinking of some of my own personal experiences, but you had a response that you wanted to make to that.

RM: Yeah, well, I agree about the regulation, and that's why I have carried several bills that are designed to reduce the kinds of regulations that make it really expensive to build housing. We have one, and the governor picked it up in her budget, it's about the environmental review process for multifamily housing, which is, you know, there are really good reasons to not want to be damaging wetlands or having toxins in the soils or something where you're building housing and I definitely think we need to keep that kind of environmental review. But the review process has been so onerous and has opened projects to lawsuits to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to build multi-family housing in infill areas, places where there's already public transportation, for example, or walkable communities that the lawsuits that they get hit with are so frequent.And they delay the projects so much that a lot of times they just don't get built and the developers end up building sprawl development way out in a cornfield somewhere, which is not good for the environment either. So we are trying to streamline that and the governor agrees that we should do that. I had a bill last year that got put in the budget that was about new configurations of multifamily housing that make it easier to build more affordable housing and more pleasant kinds of housing for families.So we're working on some of those regulations. I think something like the heat pumps, if we can electrify the buildings, in the long run they will be much cheaper to operate and safer. We won't have all of the dangers of gas in the houses. So you know, sometimes things are more expensive, but in general, I think we are working on the regulations to make it affordable to build more housing.

GR: Okay, I want to get into two big issues with the time we have left. Leader Barclay, I'll ask you my Medicaid question. When I've looked at the New York Medicaid program, it really is mind boggling because of the per capita expense of this program that we have in this state. And it's double or more than double that of California, which just blew my mind when I first realized that.So it's obviously a huge part of the budget. And my impression, though, is that neither party is really serious about doing any serious thinking about how you would go about trimming that back. You hear about waste, fraud and abuse, but at some point some hard decisions are going to get made. And I just, you know, every year when this budget comes out, I see the Medicaid part.Does your party have any plan for doing something about that?

WB: Well, one, I would totally agree with you, Grant. The idea that trying to find a solution to the Medicaid growth is very difficult because it's going to take those hard decisions to make. And unfortunately, you know, we've made some decisions over the last decade or so. Where, just increased the idea, let’s just increase Medicaid programs as much as we could in New York because we would get the federal reimbursement for that, with no guarantee that that was always going to be the case.And maybe in the future, the Medicaid federal portion is going to go down, what are we going to do with that? We have, you know, really high levels of income to still, you know, still qualify for Medicaid in New York. There's been a huge increase over the last, since, I guess, you know, maybe the last six or seven years.And then, you know, every health care organization is dependent on those Medicaid dollars. So somewhere along the line we’ve got to look at it. And it's not incentivizing the right efficiencies in the system because there is ultimately going to be winners and losers in that. And when there's winners and losers, those (unintelligible) get very, very difficult. But, you know, that's what we need leadership from the governor.She probably needs to spend some political capital, and is probably going to go against some of her constituencies that don't want to see that. But, you know, if she could do that, I would be with her. If that meant the overall lowering the tax and spend budget she has.

GR: So, Senator, May, it's tough to talk about this without really getting into the policy weeds and I'll try to summarize what I'm about to say as quickly as I can. But you mentioned something that really caught my attention, which was a concern that you have that under Trump, the federal portion of Medicaid is going to go down and that's going to hurt New York State and it will hurt a lot of other, “blue” states. Prior to Obamacare,this is what I understand, prior to Obamacare, the reimbursement to the states varied from 50% to 75% depending on the states. New York was in the 50% category, so it's a 50/50 split. But then the extra part of Medicaid to bring all the states up, and New York was already pretty high, that part the federal government has paid all or most of that additional expense.I think I've got that about right. So I'm very curious, though, what are you worried about that the Trump administration's going to go after here in this Medicaid formula?

RM: Well, reproductive health first and foremost, but also just in general, they are trying to figure out how to cut federal support for the poor, for people they don't like, whether it's immigrants or LGBTQ folks. So they are strategically trying to figure out how to attack the groups that they have gained so much political capital by demonizing.And we are worried about that. I was at an event yesterday, the Bipartisan Pro-Choice Caucus in the legislature, which isn't actually bipartisan, had a series of presentations from experts about the kinds of ways that both executive orders and taking advantage of right wing judges who are making really extreme decisions in different ways that the administration can really interrupt our ability to offer the kinds of reproductive health care that our population expects.

GR: So and then Leader Barclay, I'll bring you in on something related to this. But, so the way I understand what you're saying then is, the strategy is going to be going after covering certain kinds of things that are related to these other groups or, in that way, then putting federal restrictions on if you're getting Medicaid dollars, you can't spend them on X, Y, and Z and it comes back to that.And so that's going to be the mechanism then, rather than just, we're going to go from 50%, I thought maybe you were saying there's going to be an effort to say we're going to change your formula from 50% to 40% or 30%.

RM: Well, we don’t know. How can we possibly know? Their stock in trade is throwing curve balls and making it impossible to plan ahead. So my expectation is that that kind of change can't happen as fast as some of the other changes that they're making. But, you know, it wouldn't be this year's budget, but next year's budget that it would affect.But we'll see.

GR: Okay, interesting. I'd be stunned to see if you could get the change in the formula writ large across the board, through the Senate. But I understand what you're talking about in terms of targeting, you know, certain kinds of procedures that then are to the benefit of certain people. But Leader Barclay, I want to bring you in on this.More generally, what the senator is talking about relates to this more general point, more generally after Trump was elected in November, there was a conversation in a lot of states, mostly among Democrats, about whether the states are going to form a resistance, you know, what's going to be done in in light of this, and even some competition you know, who's going to be the leader of it?Is it going to be Gavin Newsom in California is going to be Kathy Hochul in New York? What's your sense of where the mindset is now? Is this is New York going to be sort of a fortress of resistance? And if that's the case, if that's what you're getting from the governor or other leaders, is there a danger there of kind of putting yourself in such stark opposition to the presidency?

WB: No doubt. You know, I was pleased right after the election that it seemed the governor softened, maybe her former viewpoints on the president, but now she seems to be ramping that back up. You know, I always think it's best to try to work with somebody before you start attacking them. We just got through an election where the president won, you know, not only the electoral vote, but won the popular vote.So clearly, there is a move in this country that people want change. They want change from the last four years of the Biden administration. It seems to me the president ran on a bunch of these things and he's acting on those things currently. So, New York could, I guess, try to put up some, I don't know what specifically you would do, but some try to Trump-proof New York.But I think you do that your own political peril. And I'm not sure New Yorkers are so in agreement for trying to Trump-proof New York.

GR: Well, Senator May we've got about a minute and a half left. I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that, I mean because it sounds like you see yourself as part of this resistance. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the strategy and how it might end up benefiting the state rather than hurting the state?

RM: Yeah, well, let me start by saying we had this interview two years ago together, and Leader Barclay said that Trump was a thing of the past, that we didn't have to think about him anymore, that he was so damaged by the by the January 6th insurrection that we were going to move on from him and I feel like we are in this ‘Alice in Wonderland’ kind of rabbit hole situation where responsible Republicans are refusing to hold him accountable in any possible way.He wasn't held accountable for that, he hasn't been held accountable for appointing really dangerous people to his cabinet. It looks like the Senate is going to cave on those appointees. And so we are…

WB: How about the people, Senator, how about the people that voted for Trump?

RM: Sorry?

WB: How about the majority of Americans who voted for Trump? He won the popular vote.

RM: He didn’t get a majority, he got a plurality.

WB: Plurality. He won more votes than Kamala Harris.

RM: Right. And so many people were saying…

WB: Because they’re dumb? They don’t know what they’re talking about?

RM: …really going to do what he says he’s going to do, we’re just going to vote for him because he’s…

WB: We’re dumb. We’re dumb, we don’t know what he’s going to do, but we just want change?

RM: No, but like, he kept saying he was going to bring down grocery prices and then almost the instant he was elected, he said, well, honestly, I can't really do that. So he was presenting a set of policies that he couldn't actually carry out.

GR: I hate to I hate to do this, but we…

WB: Unlike Kamala Harris, who was, she was being truthful and honest about everything she ran on and people are just, they just got caught up in the whole thing and they didn't know what they were doing, so they voted for Trump because he was, fooled everybody. Is that, was that the sort of idea?

GR: Well, I am sure the two of you, at this point I am sure the two of you are not going to find common ground on this president.

WB: No.

GR: But I do appreciate both of you making the time, we'll have to leave it there. Obviously, the next year is going to bring up a lot of strong political feelings and views and we saw those here today. That was New York State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay and New York State Senator Rachel May. I want to thank both of you for taking time and I want to wish you both good luck with this session. It sounds like one way or another it's going to be interesting. So thanks to both of you.

WB: Thanks for having me on.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Congressman John W. Mannion (NY-22) outside his Washington, D.C. office( Office of Congressman John W. Mannion )One of the most competitive, watched and costly congressional elections last November was right here in central New York, in the 22nd Congressional District, where Democrat John Mannion defeated incumbent Rep. Brandon Williams. This week, Grant Reeher talks with Rep. Mannion about his transition from state Senator to member of Congress, his early impressions of the House, and the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term.

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Last November, right here in Syracuse in one of the most closely watched congressional races in the entire country. New York's 22nd district, Democratic state Senator John Mannion defeated first-term incumbent Republican Brandon Williams. My guest today is that newly minted Congressman John Mannion. The 22nd district contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties and portions of Oneida, Cortland, and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica, and Auburn. Congressman Mannion, welcome back to the program and congratulations.

John Mannion: Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to be on Grant.

GR: We really appreciate you making the time. I know you're really busy getting up to speed here, so let me just ask you a first basic question. How is the transition going?

JM: I'm enjoying it. You know, it's really been a great experience. Obviously there's a lot to do. I was a state senator and we had to shut down an Albany office and a Syracuse office. And then we are kicking into gear hiring staff. Many of my, staff at the state Senate are with me. Some new folks and certainly some people who have experience here in DC. So I think the the biggest things in the first, from Election Day to now would be a hiring staff, getting the offices up and running. And I will say that, you know, everybody that comes on board has to get an official, email address before they can start communicating with constituents. That seems like a small thing, but it doesn't happen on day one. Doesn't happen the day they sign the papers. So while we're getting our office, going here in Syracuse, which it is, and our website is up. So I encourage everybody who has a constituent case or concern or whatever it might be, to please contact us. And then we will have a Utica office as well, which is a part of this process where we have a goal date of March 31st at the latest. But as far as the team goes, we've got a robust DC team. We have a robust, Syracuse team. And we do have, people hired who are dedicated to the Utica office once it's up and running and they're already working with us.

GR: Well, it sounds like you're getting a fast start. So I know that, at the beginning, and prior to to taking the oath of office, new members of Congress attend a couple different orientation sessions. And I was curious to ask you a question about that, because as a state senator, you already know quite a bit about the legislative process. So I was curious to know what was the most surprising new things you learned when you had this orientation at the federal level?

JM: First of all, I want to say that they were fantastic. The first thing that happened, we were ten days in DC. Then about a week or two later, we were three days at Harvard. And then after session started, we were in Williamsburg, Virginia. Not everybody participated in everyone. I did and found it incredibly helpful. And yes, some of, we know that, knowledge or words or vocabulary power and there's a lot of things that translate from the state legislature to here, but some don't. And one thing that I've found is that while I'll give you an interesting number and then I'll tell you something about the job, if you had to guess. Grant, I hate to turn a question on you in the history, in the history of the House of Representatives, how many people have served in that capacity? And I won't make you answer if you don't want to, but it's a it's 11,000, 11,000.

GR: Okay. Okay. Yeah.

JM: The 11,000 really is an honor and a privilege. Now..

GR: That's a small number. I mean, when you think about it, I think I would have I think I probably would have aired on a higher number I think.

JM: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I would have too. The reason I share that information is because it it took me back a step to think. I'm one of only 11,000 people that have ever run, taken the oath and voted on legislation here. Of those 11,000, how many have been women or are currently women?

GR: I'm going to say, boy, 200.

JM: 250.

GR: I'm not bad.

JM: Yeah. But again, it's a it is a reminder. You know, I look at the, freshman class right now, 17 women in that class, and you go, this is 10% of about 8%, maybe of the women who have ever served. So one one thing about the process that I learned is, committee work is different here. Changes in legislation happened in the midst of the committee. And honestly, in Albany, it felt like those changes in legislation happened more in the conference, meaning the Democratic conference, the party in the majority. So, again, I have not been in the throes of committee work other than just being established on committees. And, some really preliminary, preliminary stuff, but amendments to legislation as it moves and the process, the reconciliation process that we're all going to see coming up here and trying to make sure that we have our spending, our budget in place is also different from the state legislature. And in an ideal world, they both would be very bipartisan on the scale of bipartisanship, we'll see what this Congress brings. But there certainly is opportunity for the minority party to get amendments in. I don't think they'll get in as frequently as the majority party members amendments do. But they will they do happen and they will.

GR: Well, that's good, that's good. That's good to hear. I was also curious to know if you've had any particular, sort of chill down the spine or, you know, civic, civic moments that you started any sort of particular times where it just other than that, other than that number that took you by surprise? Sure.

JM: You know, listen, I, I'm, I'm a Democrat. I've been a Democrat all my life and I've, certainly, you know, Hakeem Jeffries came to the district. I've met other, leaders in the party, President Biden, President Clinton. But I day one down here, we got to meet, or, you know, we were more sort of either was the freshman class or it was just the Democratic freshman class. And then the next day we had a caucus meeting. And in that caucus meeting, you walk into basically what's a briefing from Catherine Clark and Pete Aguilar and Hakeem Jeffries, and you walk through that door and they just keep coming out of the door getting a coffee, which is, you know, Nancy Pelosi comes in and then AOC comes in and, and a lot of people that I had spoken with on the phone, but that was a moment where I'm like, I am in this room right now. I'm in this room right now. And, that was impressive. Also, when we were certifying the Electoral College vote, you know, I was shaking hands with people. And the guy I spoke with was Jon Ossoff, and I didn't recognize them. Probably because I wasn't expecting it. And, he said, I'm John. I said, I'm John. I said, where are you from? He said, Georgia. And I went, oh, yeah, you're that John, I got you. Yes.

GR: So it sort of sounds like a little bit of the experience of you're a, you're a rookie and you're, you're, you're in the majors. And then the coach says, you're going to bat after Jeter.

JM: Yeah. It is, it is a little bit like that. Yes. Yeah. The gravity, the gravity of it is real. And, you can appreciate it here. And of course the, the beauty of it, the majesty of it, the, decorum. So far, it's been it's been really, amazing to be a part of.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Congressman John Mannion, who has just begun representing New York's 22nd district. So, just tell us a little bit about your committee assignments, how they are going to be able to fit with your desire to work on behalf of the district?

JM: Well, people know my background, and I would not have this job if it was not for, really a passion for public education and it being the great equalizer and all that it does. So I was hopeful that I would get on Education and Workforce, and I did. And, you know, this is a committee that does much more than just education. There certainly is a lot of funding that comes out of it. Title One funding, that is to help some of our, neediest communities and education and, you know, our, our disabilities funding, but also there's workplace protections in there. There's a lot based on, health insurance coverage provided by employers and then apprenticeship programs. So I wasn't just a teacher while I was teaching, I was also a union president. And then I was chair of the disabilities committee in the New York State Senate. The only one. And this is the space where I can really make some positive impact, in, in all those areas. And that's where my knowledge base is coming from. And, you know, when the President was in the campaign and he was talking about dismantling the Department of Education, I disagree respectfully, particularly because of some of the things that I cited around individualized education and funding for students with special needs. So, that's one committee. And then the other one was a little, I had a feeling that was going to happen. This one was a little bit of a wild card. But I was. But I served in the state Senate, and that was to be on the Agriculture Committee and in central New York, you know, we know we've got a very robust agricultural economy and history. I, we have a farm bill that we have to get over the line, and there will be opportunities to me, for me to fight for things that are good for central New York farmers and those that are in that space. And, you know, I again, you asked what surprised me, we know what we're known for here in central New York. There's a lot of things, but but, you know, front of mind is usually dairy or apples. And when I found out apples were a specialty crop, it got my New Yorker up. Let me tell you, I was like, this is a specialty crop, but as you can imagine, those crops that, we don't call specialty crops corn, wheat, soy. We do a lot of that in that space, too. But I'm looking forward to serving on that committee. And I've got a great relationship with local farmers, visited farms, and, and I, I tried to do my best to be their voice in Albany. I'm going to do the same here in DC.

GR: That sounds like a good combination. You know, you mentioned, bipartisanship before, when we were talking earlier and I was wondering, have you on that point or other points, have you, have you spoken to, your, the predecessor to your predecessor, John Katko? So to get any tips about that because he, he made that a priority for his service.

JM: I have. And of course, John and I have a good relationship. If you look back through the annals, you know, I certainly supported Democratic candidates that ran against him, and he supported Republican candidates that ran against me. But we didn't we didn't take shots at each other. We touted the positive things about, the people we were supporting. So he has been helpful and, we, have a lot of common connections being sort of West Side folks here. We actually attended the same schools. I bring that up because he's a little bit older than me, so we weren't in the same grade. But, he has been helpful, and, you know, there's room for bipartisanship. He was a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. And that caucus that is bipartisan is currently filled. And I've spoken with the leaders of that caucus and expressed interest in it. Hopefully, you know, I'll find, I'll find a spot there eventually. But right now they have their numbers. And as you probably have witnessed, it is a it is a unique, it’s going to be a unique Congress. So, you know, and I and I've already had, very good conversations, certainly with my freshman colleagues and members of the New York delegation that are Republican, because we've got a lot of shared interests, with our with a number of things, you know, the tech hub, the drone hub, salt taxation. So where we, we, we have absolutely going to find common ground.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Congressman John Mannion. The Democrat defeated incumbent Republican Brandon Williams in New York's 22nd congressional district in last November's general election. On that point that I just mentioned there in the in the re-intro, your seat was considered one of the top Democratic targets for, for 2024, really got identified. And, I imagine, in the next two years, your party is going to be very keen to defend it. It's going to keep it in its sights. And I was wondering if you think that fact might help you to be able to leverage some additional funding or projects for the district, you know, through that, through the Democratic leadership?

JM: Well, number one, I hope so. And number two, if uh, I certainly will do my best to remind them of that. You know, in the state legislature, you want to do the right thing and you want to make sure you get your fair share. And I know that I did a good job of that and was a good voice of central New York, now representing central New York in the Mohawk Valley. The process is different. I am a freshman, but like I referenced in the previous, section, there's spaces like in the farm bill where we can get things done for the district and, you know, there's some hangover also that we have to keep our eye on. And that would be, funding that has been appropriated in the past that could be cut if we're not careful about it. And I do, you know, some of that comes from, legislation that might be 1 or 2 Congresses back. And, you know, there's talk about the I-81 funding. There's concern. This has been in the media. We have checked into that immediately and been assured that, we should not be concerned, you know, when the governor or excuse me, when the President signs an executive order that says we're going to pause these funding appropriations. We're in the midst of a project here. We have a contract. That contract is between the USDOT and the New York State DOT. And this is the largest infrastructure project in the history of upstate New York. We want to make sure that's going we can't go back. We've all driven those roads. A lot of us have anyway. And there's no turning back. We've got to complete this project and I'm confident that's going to happen. But there's going to be opportunities there. And, again, we, you know, this is this is governmental, but there's politics with everything in this world. And, I'm going to try to advocate for central New York, regardless of whether, you know, people are looking out for me or not.

GR: Same issue with Micron, too. And I've read about Senator Schumer doing the same thing that you're doing, with, the I-81, making sure that that, that that will, will happen. I wanted to ask you this question that goes back to, the last time that you and I spoke when you were a candidate for Congress, and I asked you, among other things, if Donald Trump should win, the outcome wasn't known back then, would you be likely to join a potential wholesale resistance effort in Congress, you know, to, to try to take him on? And you emphatically said, yes, I will. What? How does that how does that look now? Are we you or what you hearing is trying to figure out more ways to find common ground, or is there, are the are the lines of resistance already forming where where is your caucus and where are you on that?

JM: Exactly. Well, listen, we've got to find we have to work together, and we still have to call out the President. These executive orders, I, I have, you know, I'm participating in this show today. I've already been on other shows. We have a social media presence, some of those executive orders, and I'll start with the commuting or clemency for the January 6th rioters. That is, not the will of the people. It's certainly not the will of the justice system. And what many of the people on the other side of the aisle have said is, look at what Biden did. But I call that out. And I say, I understand that some of that was preemptive because of what the current president was saying about what he was going to do. He was very clear about retaliation and retribution. So, but we're talking about not just people who broke the law. They broke the law trying to interrupt the pillars of our democracy, which is the certification of a free and fair election and the peaceful transfer of power. And that and I that was driven by the current president, and media and social media outlets that perpetuated this lie. And it's very dangerous. Dangerous for me, for my kids. It's dangerous for you. It's dangerous for Republicans and independents, and we can't have that, you know. So these were violent acts made against law enforcement to interrupt our democracy. So I disagree. And I'm going to continue to and in every setting that I can, I'm going to remind people of that. I do, you know, this is one thing about politics, Grant, that I really don't like. You know, somebody will tweet at me from the other side and say, like, I demand that you call out, you know, the governor or you call for this person's resignation. I don't like that, but I am pleading with more Republicans to denounce this executive order, and it's very scary. Some of these are leaders of white supremacist paramilitary organizations are I'm fearful that we're not going to be left in a better place as a result of their release. So we stand up. I stand up with my conference, shoulder to shoulder. They call things out, and I'll use access to the media to do it as well and remind people of what happened on that day and before that day and after that day. People went to federal prison outside of the January 6th rioters because of, trying to overturn an election and, very dangerous. We can't have that. And we need we need everybody to call it out.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Congressman John Mannion from New York's 22nd district. Well, you've kind of given an early, I think grade on the next question, I was going to ask you, but what are your early impressions? I mean, we're in, you know, you and I are talking on Thursday. So what we all, you know, all of 72 hours into this thing. But what are your early impressions of the Trump presidency?

JM: Well, first of all, the people he has around him and himself have had four years to plan. Right? So when we flipped the switch on Inauguration Day, we saw what happened. And like, with his, nominees, he is flooding the zone. He's flooding the zone with executive orders, and presidents have dozens, if not, you know, over 100 executive orders. But some of these are really negatively impactful. And they'll be litigated out in the courts. We've already talked about, you know, the excusing of the January 6th sentences. But also, Biden had an executive order capping the cost of insulin, that's blown up, that's going to negatively impact people's lives. You know, for sure. Certainly, some of the things that are directed at our history and, to try to make sure that everybody has an opportunity moving forward, whether it's, you know, competing for a job or a, spot, you know, program or university, you know, some of those things honestly, are just, mean anti-American and appealing to his base. I don't think it appeals to the broad, you know, American public. And we we heard a lot of in the campaign about saving people money, about costs, about reducing inflation. I don't see that here. I don't see it. And, you know, again, I think he's preying on people's fears, using immigration, an us versus them mentality and demonizing. And it's so robust in what has happened with those executive orders that the Democratic Conference and my team are continuing to weed through it and push back where we can and find allies on the Republican side to push back and advance legislation, or court cases to get this right.

GR: Two, two of them, two of the things that struck me and I and I don't think probably the one I'm going to ask you about is, I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I don't think it's likely to probably survive a court challenge, but one about ending birthright citizenship. And the other one that was in the inaugural address about, taking back the Panama Canal. You know, those are things that get talked about, but I guess I had thought maybe that would be things that would be soft-pedaled once he was in office. But what are your thoughts about this, this notion of rethinking birthright citizenship?

JM: I think it's unconstitutional. You know that my one-word answer is unconstitutional. As somebody whose grandparents, you know, came to this country, right? And, my father was born here. He was a United States citizen. I talked to so many people who have this situation. And if we're going to end that, we're going to be talking about separating families and it's just unconstitutional. I mean, I should stop right there. You know, the president does not have the authority to change the Constitution with a pen stroke. And, that is something that's really, you know, unbelievable to me. And I got so fired up about it Grant, I forgot your second one.

GR: No. That's okay. I just wanted to ask you about that one. I was just mentioning a couple of that that surprised me. The Panama Canal.

JM: Oh, the Panama Canal again, we have relationships around the world, our allies. We are here in 2025. NATO has been in existence 80 years or so, in between 75 and 80. And, the peace by and large, that we've experienced over those 78 or whatever my number of years are here. Has been largely because of our strength and our alliances. And, you know, one of those sessions that we talked about, we went through national security and new member training, and we've gone 78 years without a nuclear bomb detonation, in wartime, not testing. And we've gone 78 years without a world war. And that is possibly the longest period of time going back millennia, that we have not seen such a large-scale war. So the Panama Canal agreement again, let's work through that. But I was hoping hopeful that like tariffs on Mexico and Canada are going to increase costs for Americans and, and ruin some of the projects that we absolutely need related to our infrastructure and, and projects like Micron.

GR: Okay. We got about a couple minutes left. I want to squeeze two questions in if I can. One of the things that's gotten a lot of attention, obviously you alluded to it earlier is the cabinet picks that that the president has made. Just really quick here. Of of all the picks, is there, is there one you think is really the best? Well, who's the best person coming at?

JM: You think that's, you know, I will say this, you know, Marco Rubio, I believe depending on the timing of this, he he has been approved, I believe, you know. Yes.

GR: That's right. Yeah. Unanimously.

JM: Exactly. And he is someone who I think, you know, has served this country. He's he has character. I think he's qualified. I think he's experienced and I, you know, yes, he's already an elected official. And Trump likes to be an outsider and he likes to bring in these outside folks. But what we need from individuals, we need them to be qualified. We need them to have character. We need them to be experienced and have the background to do the job. Clearly not, I mean, I would say probably a majority of these candidates don't fall into that category. I think that he does. And that's that's the kind of, people we need representing our country.

GR: Well, let me let me ask you, you got to be really quick here. Maybe just give me a name. But who is there one of the picks that stands out as the worst?

JM: You know. The health policies that Robert Kennedy Jr is carrying out there to be in charge of basically the largest health care, you know, system in, and when it comes to research that this country does, when it comes to partnerships, you know, and, some of his positions on things, you know, we've, we've I was a biology teacher and we eradicated so many diseases that were so negatively impactful on families, the loss of life, childhood mortality as it relates to, the vaccinations and other treatments for kids. So, you know, I certainly question that one.

GR: I could see people can't see this, but I could watch you. You were having trouble picking one, I think. But you pick that one. We'll have to leave it there. That was Congressman John Mannion. Congressman Mannion, again, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. And I do hope that we can speak again as the session unfolds. I'd like to check in with you from time to time, so.

JM: I'm looking forward to it Grant, thank you for having me on today.

GR: Thank you. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media Conversations and the Public Interest.

View Details

(Syracuse University)Much has been made in recent years about both misinformation and disinformation among American citizens. This week, Grant Reeher talks with Emily Thorson, a political science professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, and the author of "The Invented State: Policy Misperceptions and the American Public."

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks to City of Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, who is entering the final year of his second term in office.

View Details

Grant Reeher holds a discussion on the recent election with Sean O'Keefe who holds the Phanstiel Chair in Strategic Management and Leadership at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship, and Phil Palmesano who reperesents the New York State's 132nd Assembly District.

View Details

In the first half of the 19th century, central New York was a hotbed of reform, social and spiritual movements, earning the nickname "the burned over district." This week, Grant Reeher talks with Marilyn Higgins, author of "Dreams of Freedom: An Irishwoman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest is Marilyn Higgins. She was the Chief Economic Development Officer for National Grid and later, Syracuse University. She's with me today because she's just published a new novel, it’s her first book titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". Marilyn has also been involved in a number of philanthropic endeavors that are related to the period of upstate history that she's writing about. Marilyn, welcome to the program and congratulations on the book.

Marilyn Higgins: Thank you very much.

GR: Well, it's great to have you. So let me just ask you a couple of basic questions to start. Why did you get the notion to write this book when you did?

MH: The pandemic. Like millions of other people, I wanted to write a book all my life. I'd taken probably 20 different writing courses. I never could settle down to do it, pandemic, put myself in the chair and went at it.

GR: All right. Well, at least some good things came out of it, I guess. I have heard that story before about the pandemic with writers. But I want to push you a little bit, you had two substantial and successful careers as Chief Economic Development Officer for two large regional organizations, National Grid, Syracuse University. And writing a book is hard, you know, I know that you said you've been trying it, so, you know, what do you think about, was it that the pandemic that sort of allowed you to do it other than just having the time?

MH: Well, I've always, I love upstate New York. I am so glad I never left, a lot of the people I went to high school with did, you know, because it was the down economic times. I particularly when I worked for Niagra Mohawk, I got to visit all the little towns and villages on either side of the thruway and meet with the mayor in the diner and go to the library. And I was, I remain completely enthralled with the people and the little towns and villages of upstate New York. And honestly, I think we're missing from the creative stage. There's not a lot of books that are set in upstate New York. I think, “Ironweed” in Albany maybe snd Richard Russo did some stuff in the Mohawk Valley. But even the movie Harriet Tubman, Auburn is hardly even in it, it's mostly in Maryland. And when I think of the momentous things that happened here, I think we're too absent.

GR: Yeah, I think it's a good observation. Well, let's talk about some of the things that are in your book. It's about a certain period in history, and we'll get into that. But your book’s main characters, they go on this whirlwind tour of many of the major social upheavals and movements that came through upstate New York in the 1800’s before the Civil War. And I've read some of the histories of that time period. And as far as I can tell in this book, most of it's here. I mean, you're sort of showing the region and why it was known as the burn-over district during that time period. So just to start with, just give our listeners a brief overview of some of the different movements that swept through this area at that time.

MH: Well, this was, in terms of inventiveness, the Silicon Valley of its day. And in terms of thinking and movements, nothing in this nation parallels what happened within 120 to 150 miles along either side of the Erie Canal during this period. It's only 36 years my book covers, and in that time whole religious movements from the Mormons to the Millerites to the Shakers were formed that lived to this day, I think there's 17 million Mormons today. The women's movement was born here at Seneca Falls, the abolitionist movement. This was the hotbed of abolitionism in the whole nation. And the largest funder of the Underground Railroad lived nine miles up the road from me here in Peterboro, New York. Massive things that changed the country forever along with penicillin was invented here. Water impermeable cement was invented here. The things that happened in this corridor during that time changed not just America, it changed the world and it made New York City what it is, because it's very possible the Civil War could have turned out differently if we didn't have the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal made New York the port city, otherwise it would have been New Orleans. And when you think about what occurred, and then 7 million immigrants came along this canal in a 36 year timeframe, and that's a tiny little sliver of time. And the people who lived here, I mean, you had Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, Harriet Tubman, Garrett Smith, all, they might have been on the same canal boats, we don't know. They were all here at the same time and they knew one another.

GR: People like John Brown and Samuel May, yeah, yeah. So, a follow up to that then. I mean, particularly I’m thinking about the spiritual and the reform movements and the like, the abolitionist movement was really radical for its time and the most radical elements of the abolitionist movement were here. What was it about this area, I mean, is there something in the water? I mean, what is the reason for this?

MH: I have a personal belief about why this happened. I've read many, many books about it. Personally, I believe that, just not unlike Silicon Valley, this influx of new people with these diverse ideas, they, to migrate to America from Europe, took a special kind of person. They came here and they were ready to throw off the constraints of the past. And many of them came with Calvinistic religious feelings that, you know, their future was predetermined. Well, they make this trip across the ocean and they come up the Hudson River and across the Erie Canal and they go, oh, I'm not predetermined, I'm making my own future. So they experimented with utopian communities, Skaneateles, the Oneida Mansion House. They experimented with their religious beliefs and I think it was because there were so many new diverse people in one place at one time who were really brave people.

GR: Yeah. Thinking of the Oneida community, I mean, that would be in the category of, I guess, relationship and sexual radicalism.

MH: Right, yeah.

GR: So let's talk about the characters and the plot, because this is sort of the context in which all this is happening. But without spoiling anything for our listeners, because we do want to sell your book. So just give me a brief what summary of what’s going on.

MH: Well, the main character is a young Irish, dark Irish woman named Aileen O'Malley. And she comes here to find her indentured father and her kidnaped half siblings and she knows they're along the Erie Canal corridor. She's sort of imperious, was raised as pretty privileged person in her grandmother's home in Ireland. And she comes to America with some real strict Catholic beliefs with a mission in mind. And she learns about America bit by bit by traveling along this canal. And it changes her and it creates drama. She witnesses slaves, enslaved people committing suicide. She witnesses shakers, dancing. She witnesses all of these things that completely throw her belief system up in the air. And she finds many similarities between some of the social problems in Ireland, her home, and what was happening here. She also identifies with the Oneida women that she meets. The Haudenosaunee, as you know, was a matriarchal culture, that shocked her. She had never seen women in charge. Women pick the leaders, what? You know, that's the opposite of what she had experienced in Ireland. But she learns about the Oneida people and she's very taken with them. And her spirituality grows and changes as time goes on. And she eventually learns that she needs to take a stand and fight for justice herself because she doesn't want her new country to be what her old country was.

GR: Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Marilyn Higgins, author of a new book titled "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". I like that angle of how the new country and the movements are changing her, but then she has the impact back on them and then going back to her old country as well, that's a nice blending of things. Well, I want to ask you a question about this genre of historical fiction and I've read some other pieces like this. I read one about, that was based in the Ulysses S. Grant administration, that was quite good. And often the authors are very careful to make sure that the historical context that they are embedding their stories in are accurate. So that in a way it's fiction, but it's also a real history as well. How did you approach that for this book?

MH: Exactly the way you're describing. I have been reading and researching the Erie Canal since I was a teenager. I read every book that's ever been written on it. I've been serving on the Erie Canal Corridor Commission for 20 plus years. I have lots of history, and I learned lots of history from the little towns and villages along the canal. So to me, because I feel upstate New York is so absent from the creative stage, I thought the way to reach more people was to make it a dramatic story, because it was dramatic. But it seems to me that might be, I hope, a way to reach more people about what happened here. And I wanted to do it in a way that would draw people in. I would love Aileen O'Malley to become to the Erie Canal what Anna of Green Gables is to Prince Edward Island. Do you know what I mean? I want the stories to teach the history.

GR: And so what methods did you use? You have this background, you had all this on the ground sort of research through participating in different activities. What other kinds of things did you do? I guess you were doing a lot of reading during COVID, but…

MH: Yes, but I also had a wonderful coach because I'd never written a book before. And he gave me a way of approaching this. I took book charts, and across the top I put the years. And then in the next line down, I put the major events that I saw happening. And then at the bottom, I put her evolution as a human being. And then I lined those up in slices and started writing. That's how I did it.

GR: Well, I'm working on something that's kind of similar, so maybe I should go have you as a coach now because you just gave me you just gave me an idea. So I had this question about what you came across when you were writing. You're obviously well versed in upstate history, you just explain that again when you started the book, you had that already. But I was curious, did you learn anything in the course of researching and writing this book that totally surprised you that you didn't know before about the area?

MH: No, honestly, as soon as something comes out and the burned over district or, you know, an academic book, I’ve read the children's books, you know, on the Erie Canal, it's been a passion of mine for a really long time. Now, what I did instead, I went to these places when I was doing the work on the book. I drove to Palmyra, I went to Hill Cumorah, I stayed in an inn in Fairport along the Erie Canal. I mean, I went and experienced more of these places. But did I learn anything brand new? I don't think so.

GR: Well, that experience is probably important. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Marilyn Higgins, the former Chief Development Officer for Syracuse University, is the author of a new book titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart" and we've been discussing her book. So I wanted to circle back to the different movements and causes that swept through upstate New York in the first half of the 19th century. And, you know, we've already mentioned this, but some of them are really out there. And one of them that has always fascinated me is the Millerites. And so just remind our listeners of what those folks were about.

MH: Well, they were the ones who believed the world was coming to an end. And, you know when you think about it in a practical way, these people, their lives had been so changed that they were susceptible to believing that, gee, this might be it, this might be the end. The thing that's interesting about the Millerites is that they announced when it was going to happen and when it didn't happen, they announced it was going to happen again (laughter).

GR: Right. It was like, oh, we just we just got the year wrong.

MH: Right, right! People missed it. You know, it's very, very interesting. Something else I just realized is that you asked me if something surprised me, and I just remembered something that did.

GR: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear it.

MH: I did not know that there were these large African-American farming communities in upstate New York. There was a town called Florence right off, like where 81 is in Central Square, an 80 family African-American farming community. Successful, and it was founded by Garrett Smith because he wanted people to own land so they could vote.

GR: Right.

MH: And they started these farming communities. And there were others in western New York too. But I think that's kind of an untold piece of history. And I think that…

GR: …No, go ahead, finish your thought.

MH: I learned that from a teacher in the Camden School District. She was the one who told me about that and I researched it and it just absolutely floored me. So that's in my book, too.

GR: Yeah. I think in one of the books I read, there was a casual or side mention of that and that there was a story about one of the boys or young men who was it came from that community and went to one of Garrett Smith's schools as I recall. So back to the Millerites though, so one of the things that I found fascinating about it was, not only did they think the world was going to end, but they really believed it and that they, some of them sold their worldly possessions. And then on the day that it was going to end, they got out and laid out on their roof and just…

MH: Yep.

GR: And then it was like you know, I reminded me of the scene from Little Big Man where the, you know, the guy doesn't quite die. (laughter)

MH: Yes! Exactly, exactly. It was well, you know, that's a great example. 6,000 to 8,000 people with no mass transportation would gather and have these revival meetings that lasted for six or seven days. There were still panthers and bears in the woods here in upstate New York. I mean, traveling to get to these Millerite gatherings and other gatherings was not an easy thing. But people did it. Now, they also had no other form of entertainment. So I think there's an interesting parallel between religion and entertainment that could be drawn there.

GR: Well, the famous preacher at the time was it Finley, I think, right?

MH: Grandison Finney.

GR: Finney, Charles Finney, yeah. He was the one that drew the big crowds, right. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit on you now. And we're going to come up to the present and think about what you learned and what you know about that period of New York and thinking about now in upstate New York. And so I wanted to get your, not only your historian's take, but your business development take on the current situation here in central New York, and particularly, you probably know what's going to come out of my mouth next, the coming of Micron and its full impact on the Syracuse area. It's been described by many as absolutely historic in proportion, not just something that is different in magnitude, but it's so big that it's going to fundamentally change the area. And so I wanted to ask you, because I think you'd be particularly well positioned to comment on this, do you think that we may be embarking on a new era for this part of upstate New York?

MH: Unquestionably. I was involved in recruiting AMD to Saratoga, the first chip plant that came to upstate New York with a great team of people. There was about eight of us who worked for seven years to get that chip plant here. And I watched what happened. And as it developed, I think, well, there's still some political, but I think we're really lucky to have Ryan McMahon who was so aggressive and went after that project. But let me be very clear, I've watched these things be built. I stood on a hill and watched a mile long train of cement mixers going into that site. And this is four times that big. This is, people will get out of two years of college and make $125,000 - $130,000 a year. This regrows the middle class. It regrows the technology base of the region. It regrows, changes the leadership, I believe in the region. Somebody told me there was going to have to be 37 new gas stations to just handle the population growth. And I think that, I'm also really impressed that there's some planning going on and instead of just like wild growth, you know, some good planning going on to plan for this. But yeah, this will, upstate New York, this is revolutionary and it's going to happen. It's the biggest project in the United States of America.

GR: Yeah, I think there are too many people at too many different high positions in government that have too much at stake for this not to get through.

MH: Exactly.

GR: Well, but here's a concern, possible concern. I mean, maybe it's a good problem to have, I don't know. But do you think that with all this, that this area of central-upstate New York might lose some of its distinctive identity characteristics, that we might become, in a sense, more generic if we have all this advancement?

MH: Not if we're smart about it. I mean, I would be horrified if I thought we were just going to become like mega suburbia, quite frankly. I mean, and lose the wonderful things we have. But I live in this little village of Canastota, which is as authentic as it gets, let me tell you. And we're talking about Micron and how to prepare for it. I think the towns and villages are really looking at their own strengths and weaknesses where this new development is concerned. And I think the planning that the county has undertaken, I give Ryan a lot of credit for hiring planners, looking at development. Can you imagine what Brewerton can be, a riverfront community five miles away from this site? It'll be fabulous. And good planning is taking place, and I'm encouraged by that.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Canastota author Marilyn Higgins, whose new book is titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". Well, I also have to ask you this question. What do you think your characters, particularly your main character there in your book, would make of the current levels of political passion that we're seeing, both the negative ones and the positive ones that we're seeing in this election cycle? Do you think would be familiar to them in some way?

MH: Very familiar.

GR: They wouldn't be wrong footed by this then.

MH: No, no. I mean, this is, my book is written in the period of time with all the political hauntings that created the Civil War. And, you know, there were some things people could never agree upon. This is as close, this period of time we're in right now, in my view, this is as close to that as we have ever come. People can't have conversations over the kitchen table. I think it's really due to a lot of other reasons than that was then. I think that it was more economic and geographic and all that kind of thing. I think now it's a lot due to social media and algorithms. But I do think it would be familiar to Aileen O'Malley to have people unable to converse and have good, healthy discussion about her differences.

GR: Yeah, there's a story by, and it's one of the famous authors from upstate New York, but it's, maybe you can tell me but called, “Copperhead” and it was turned into a movie as well. But it was, you know, someone who didn't support the union and the Civil War, didn't want the Civil War, but was living up here in upstate New York. And the conflict that that family went through, it was very, very interesting, very similar to this. Well, let me ask you a question about where you get your love of history from. I mean, it's clear that you have a love of history. Where do you think it originated from? Was it the experience that you had professionally taking you to all these different towns, or did it predate that?

MH: It predated that. My dad grew up on the Armstrong Farm near Green Lake. It later became (Alverna) Heights, the nuns owned it. And we would walk there when I was a little girl sometimes and he would tell me stories about taking a team of horses down the hill to the canal and cutting out ice and dragging it up the hill and putting it in the coal house. And he would take me to Pompey, to the field days, etc. And I think he started it, I’ve just always been fascinated with the history here.

GR: So we've got about 3 minutes left or so. I want to squeeze two more questions in if I can. And the first one is, hopefully we don't have another huge resurgence of COVID. But I wondered if you do have thoughts for another book.

MH: I have a great idea for another book. But I'll tell you, the self-publishing business, I was an executive. I had a secretary. I don't know how to do all this, uploading this. The self-publishing world is challenging for me. So I don't know, I probably would write another book, but I don't know if I will go through this process again unless there's enough interest in this book to make it worth my while.

GR: Well, I have to say, though, physically, the book, you've done a very nice job with it. I mean, it you know, it looks and feels like any other book. Well, in about the last couple of minutes or so, I know you've been involved in a lot of different philanthropic and public service kinds of things, but one in particular caught my eye, this Freedom Walk. And I wonder if you could just take the last little bit of time and tell our listeners about that.

MH: I'd be delighted. In 1835, and this is in my book, the New York State Abolitionists were meeting in Utica for the first time and they were ransacked and run out of the meeting. They were literally physically assaulted and driven out because there were people in Utica who didn't like abolitionists. They were literally, with the help of Garrett Smith, put on a canal boat, brought up the canal, got off in Canastota and walked nine miles up the hill to Peterboro where they formed the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. An amazing thing there were singing freedom songs, we have farmer’s diaries that describe this. They were singing freedom songs as they went up that hill. That struck me and I thought we should maybe do a reenactment to honor that history. And we started that three years ago and it's been great.

GR: And what time of the year does it happen, in summer, I assume?

MH: October, we just had it, the first weekend in October. We had about a hundred people there. The first year Felisha Legette-Jack came and spoke. Last year, Mel Stith came. This year, Otis Jennings did the remarks. It's a really wonderful experience.

GR: Oh, well, that's great. Well, that was Marilyn Higgins. And again, her new book is titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". And it's sort of timed to match the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal, which is next year, as I understand you told me, right?

MH: Yes. The 200th anniversary of the Wedding of the Waters is coming up, so we'll have a whole year of celebrations.

GR: So check out the book. You'll learn a lot about the area and its history and you’ll also get a good story in the process. Marilyn, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, this was a lot of fun.

MH: It really was. Thank you, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Crime and safety have been at the center of a lot of our debates during this election cycle, both at the presidential level and here in New York. This week, Grant Reeher talks with Jason Springs, a professor of religion at the University of Notre Dame. He's the author of "Restorative Justice and Lived Religion: Transforming Mass Incarceration in Chicago."

View Details

Nick Paro / Chris RyanOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher holds a debate between two challengers vying for departing Senator John Mannion's 50th District seat in the New York State Senate, Republican Nick Paro and Democrat Chris Ryan.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The departure of State Senator John Mannion, a Democrat, to challenge Republican Brandon Williams for Congress, has left open his 50th district seat in the New York State Senate. My guests today are the two candidates vying for that seat, Republican Nick Paro and Democrat Chris Ryan. Nick Paro has prior legislative and executive experience as a Town of Salina councilor and now as a Town Supervisor. Chris Ryan served on the Geddes town board and is now the minority leader in the Onondaga County Legislature. The 50th Senate district forms a ring around the northern half the city of Syracuse and extends north into Oswego County all the way to Lake Ontario. Legislator Ryan, Supervisor Paro, welcome to the program. Thanks for making the time to be with me.

Nick Paro: Thank you for having us.

Chris Ryan: Thank you.

GR: You bet. So, Legislator Ryan, I'll start with you. If you could be brief on this, what is the most crucial thing that is at stake in the voter’s decision between you and Supervisor Paro as a senator for the 50th district?

CR: Can you repeat the question?

GR: Yeah. What's the most crucial thing that's at stake here for the voters and deciding between the two of you?

CR: Well, I think, crucial is, I believe that our candidacy, my campaign, I believe that I bring a depth of experience. I've been elected for serving the public for nearly 20 years as a Town of Geddes, Geddes town councilman, then deputy supervisor in the Town of Geddes, now on the county legislature, former chair of the Public Safety Committee and now as a fore leader for the minority caucus.I think I have worked hard to work across the aisle. I believe in working in bipartisan ways to try to do the best for our constituencies and do what's right for central New York, whether it's matters of public safety or taxation or economic development and on and on and on. Also, one of the focal points, I believe, is bringing access, greater access to health care.Far too many uninsured and underinsured, so I think experience matters and I think I bring over nearly 20 years of experience.

GR: Thank you. Supervisor Paro, same question. What's the most crucial thing that's at stake for the voters here in deciding between the two of you?

NP: Central New York is ready for a very aggressive and loud voice representing them in Albany. Politics in New York State have shifted to probably a larger voting bloc. And downstate, you look at New York City, the Hudson Valley, Long Island, central New York really is looking for somebody that will represent them when they get to Albany. And, you know, I don't have 20 years of experience,I have only six. But one of the things I have proven in that time is, I am somebody that has a lot of, I've been actionable and I've been able to accomplish my goals, and I have been a very loud voice for the folks in my constituency. It's been evidenced by what I've been able to accomplish as the supervisor for the town of Salina.It's been evidenced by the press conferences that I've had calling out the state on their bail reform and other criminal justice policies and it's been evidenced by the fact that I successfully sued to stop the transfer of migrants into my community taking over a hotel. I think that is what we need. We need somebody that's going to go to Albany, that will be an advocate for central New York and also somebody that (is) not just going to fight, but also is going to be able to get things done and cut through the muck and accomplish the goals for central New Yorkers and I've proven I'm able to do that.

GR: All right, thank you. So, Legislator Ryan, I'll go back to you. You mentioned access to health care and you mentioned I think it was taxes and a couple of other issues. I did want to ask you, if you're elected, are there certain areas of policy that you would be specializing in and prioritizing in your first term? For example, you know, Senator May has a couple areas of specialization.She focuses on the environment, she also focuses on aging issues. Are there things that you would be specializing in when you got there?

CR: Yeah, absolutely. Number one, health care, it's certainly expands to many, many, many people in the district. Many whether you're in health care or you just have suffered from a lack of insurance, lack of uninsured, underinsured. We have far too many hospitals that are underwater because of Medicaid reimbursement. We have far too many underinsured. We have lack of access to primary care, we have lack of access to specialized care. We have seen a trend of nursing homes closing across the state. I think that we're heading in a bad spot. And, you know, we need to do better as a state we need to do better. And we need to expand that. We can't leave the central New Yorkers behind with limited access to health care or access to health care that's too far away or primary care providers or specialized care, nursing homes, adult long term care,that's part of it. Number two is labor, a labor workforce. I come from labor I've had a broad, broad base of labor support, whether it's health care unions, public sector unions, private unions, but also skilled trades. We're going to have, we have a very, very big economic development project coming here to the tune of anywhere from 40 to 100 billion dollars.

GR: You're talking about Micron there, you're talking about the Micron… yeah.

CR: We need to make sure that those people that are building that make sure that that's done on time, under budget, we meet that moment. And it's going to take a tremendous amount of state resources to do that, to help in that. So I look forward to tackling those two issues and also education as well. Thank you.

GR: All right, great. Supervisor Ryan, excuse me, Supervisor Paro, the same question there. You mentioned the bail reform. You mentioned being a loud voice for this particular area. So tell us a bit of specificity, loud voice for what? What would you be focusing on?

NP: Well, on my website, we have pretty in-depth policy positions on different things, affordability, education, health care. I listened to just Chris, obviously, his points regarding health care currently, you know, some of the things that I would like to see is increased telehealth opportunities for folks in the 50th Senate district. But one of the biggest things specifically for the 50 Senate district is the fact that Micron is coming.This is the Micron District, and there's going to be extraordinary economic growth as well as population growth in this region and making sure that we are positioning central New York to handle that growth while at the same time stewarding the growth so it's representative of how we here currently would like to see happen, is important. And that's kind of how I would represent something New York when I get to Albany is, look, we're recognizing that we're going to have these economic developments take place, but this is the vision that central New York wants for itself.How are we going to make sure that the state's investing in supporting that vision while at the same time allowing Micron and the other businesses that are coming here to flourish? So I don't know exactly specifically to the question of maybe what committees we’ll be on, I'm not sure yet. What I do know is I have a history of what I've been able to accomplish in Salina. And economic growth,commercial investment is something that we've been able to do very well. We have four different commercial corridors in Salina since I've been supervisor. Two of them are under construction right now to be enhanced. One of them will be done next year. And the fourth one along Seventh North Street is going to take a little bit of extra work because of the I-81 project.But we're looking at ways to make sure that we develop that out. So that's a little bit of experience that I have that will be transferred over into Albany when I get there, as well as transportation. I mean, I was on the losing end of the I-81 argument, and that's fair. I was an advocate for Salina, that was my job. But I think at the same time, I was able to leverage some of the points where Salina was going to be impacted to try to have conversations to offset some of those impacts. I think I can have that same voice on transportation needs because transportation needs are going to be extremely important as we have the investments from Micron and other companies.I know, Chris, you've mentioned it a few times, but if you look at the 31 corridor and if you go a little north a bit, a little bit of south of it, there's going to be some transportation investment that's going to be necessary. I would love to be part of those conversations and making sure that it, again, is a vision that central New York wants for itself.

GR: Yes, go ahead, Legislator Ryan, go ahead, jump in.

CR: Right. So I talk about that a lot also, meeting the needs, you know, that 81 and 31 right now, corridor, it's tough. And those residents in around that area are worried that's only going to get worse and I don't think it can get any better. So with that said, and we talked about this a lot, right, so we we're going to need some serious infrastructure needs and some, it's going to take some planning and we're going to have to ease that burden of traffic congestion when that project comes. You just have to, it's going to be too many people going into one little intersection,got to fix that, got to work on it.

GR: So, Legislator Ryan, let me stick with you. And you mentioned bipartisanship at the outset of our conversation. I wanted to ask you, what's the most important thing on which you broke from your party on and went with Republicans rather than what the Democrats would have liked to have seen?

CR: Well, I think there were, I don't know about breaking with the caucus and the Democrats. I just, when I say bipartisanship, I mean working with a certain degree of pragmatism. I understand that's how I approach government. That's how I approach government in the state. I've always been willing and able to, I guess, work across the aisle, whether it was working with then county executive Joanie Mahoney to enact a law limiting the take home pay for full time electeds. Working with some of my colleagues across the aisle on the on the redistricting, but also with matters also of public safety. I believe that, you know, and also some issueswith taxation. Then former chairman of legislature and county legislator Jim Rowley, we made a budget amendment to return some of the surplus, the county surplus dollars back to taxpayers by way of tax break. You know, I guess that's the way, and I'm proud to have…

GR: …Okay. No, I have a good sense. So quick follow up to you though. And very specifically, is there any important vote that Senator Mannion took where you would have voted differently from Senator Mannion.

CR: Hmm. I can't go into one right now, but that doesn't mean that I would have agreed them. I would have to…yeah.

GR: I understand. No, I understand. I just wanted to give our listeners a sense of how you might fit in with him. Well, Supervisor Paro, same question to you about, is there something important you can point to where you either broke with the Republican Party or, you know, again, dramatically reached out and worked with Democrats.

NP: Yeah. So my job as supervisor is to find whoever I need to work with, to collaborate with to accomplish the goals that we have set out. And I got many examples. Obviously, Assemblywoman Hunter represents Salina in Albany currently, her and I have worked on multiple different projects where she's been able to steward grant funds into the town, whether it was extending a sidewalk or whether it's now for a pool over in the electronics neighborhood, Electronics Park Meadows neighborhood. Senator May was the senator when I first took over as supervisor. We worked together on parks project in Duerr (park), and then Senator Mannion is currently the senator for our town and him and I have had conversations. And one of the things that I advocated for when they were deciding to tear down 81 was looking at the thruway and making the thruway free between the Syracuse exits.And in fact, not only did Senator Mannion carry the bill for us, Assemblyman Magnarelli carried it in the Assembly. So we were able to work with two Democrats at the state level to carry a bill that they knew was important to the district. Additionally, the mayor in the Village of Liverpool, she's a Democrat, she just got elected, her and I are working extremely closely together.We did a joint application, what's called the local waterfront redevelopment plan, a state program. We were joint applicants on it, and we're working very closely. Her and I are both on that together to see a redevelopment within Salina and the village Liverpool so there is cohesion with that plan. Additionally, I have two Democrats there on my town board and we work extremely close together.In fact, they came in, they had a list of priorities, and I said, this is how we're going to be able to get this done for you. And we've been able to slowly tick those boxes and accomplish their priorities while it fits into, again, the overall vision for Salina.

GR: So let me jump in, and those are good examples too, like Legislator Ryan’s. And this question could be a little bit out of right field, perhaps, but our listeners are going to be familiar with this person I'm going to invoke, so that's why I'm invoking it. Are there any significant, I want to ask you if you would have voted differently from Senator Mannion on things, because there's I'm sure a lot of things you would have voted differently from.But I do want to ask you, are there any positions of former President Trump that he's running on that you would take issue? People will be more familiar with that.

NP: So obviously, Trump is running at a national stage. I like to talk about the issues that are directly important to the 50th Senate district. I like to talk about the issues that are important to my constituents here in New York State. Donald Trump represents a different platform of ideas. And I think there are extreme differences that he has that I may have.Again, I come from an old school Republican train of thought more of the Reagan era, so I would like to say that I'm a classical, I have more free market, laissez faire tendencies than I think we see some of the Republican Party currently has today. I still subscribe to those ideas. So on that front, those are probably some of my more policy differences with former President Trump.

GR: Okay, well, let me stay with you. And I want to ask you, if you're elected, you are going to be obviously in the minority party. You know, I don't think there's anybody predicting the state Senate's going to flip. And the Assembly almost may be at this point poured in concrete as a Democrat institution. And then, of course, you'll have a Democratic governor.So you're coming in with facing a solid wall of Democrats. What's going to be your strategy for being effective? Because you're not going to be supervisor, you're going to be one senator. So how are you going to leverage that? What's your strategy?

NP: I think even though I'm not the supervisor anymore, I think it's the same type of advocacy that I've shown. It's having that willingness to say these are the problems, they're not partisan issues. These are the problems that are facing essential New York district and finding people within the majority party that I can work with to accomplish these goals.One thing that's extremely important is, yes, Democrats have the majority of both the Assembly and the Senate and hey have the governor's mansion, but they have a supermajority. And that kind of also dictates the priorities within the Democrat conference. You have more of the left wing part of that party with a lot more power when you have a supermajority. When we take away the supermajority and in the Senate, only one seat is necessary to flip the supermajority just to a normal majority,you then shift that power to probably more of the moderate wing within the Democrat Party, folks within the Hudson Valley that have similar concerns to us upstate and we can then collaborate and have these conversations, so that way I can find partners, so that way we are able to accomplish what we need to. I have a history of collaboration.I have a history of actually being able to have these important conversations and being actionable on them. And I think that will transcend into state politics as well.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with the two candidates for the 50th district seat in the New York State Senate. Onondaga County Legislative Minority Leader Chris Ryan is the Democrat and town of Salina Supervisor, Nick Paro is the Republican. Legislator Ryan, I wanted to ask you this question about, in a sense being in the majority if you're elected in the Senate, and this picks up on what I was talking to Supervisor Paro before the break, but the Democrats have been in power or mostly in power in this state for many years.And every year the state is ranked as either the state with the highest taxes or among the top three states in terms of taxes. So for our listeners who are concerned about taxes, why should the Democrats have any credibility that they're going to be the ones to change this status? I mean, it just, it seems very hard for me to believe that Democrats are going to actually turn that battleship.What ideas will you bring, or do you do you have an interest in bringing ideas for that? Is it okay that the state continues to be the most taxed state in the country?

CR: No, no, the answer to the question is no. No, it's not okay. And I think to a certain extent, that needs to change. We need to grow business. We need to help business grow. We need economic development and we need to stop the exodus from our young people to leave, to go to other states. But I think that that's in the capacity, is I think that what you will find and what this district will have in me will be an advocate of everything that I've done on the county legislature in my previous experience, my 20 years experience, a mindset of less tax and spend. The mindset of a person who doesn't want to pay any more in taxes. I have four children, I have two in college, but, you know, I don't want to pay any more taxes than anybody. And more importantly, I don't want to have my daughter stay in the mid-Atlantic.I want her to come back this school year. I want her to come back to be a PA at SUNY Upstate, I want my sons to come back. So I think that we can do better, we should do better, we have to understand that. But there's also programs that need to be cut, those aren't easy. And so spending,where do you cut where do you fund? But those are good conversations. But I think it will serve this district very, very well to have a person in the majority who understands (unintelligible), who's been working like in the county for 13 years now.We have one of the lowest tax rates, if not the lowest tax rate in the history of Onondaga County. I'll continue to do that. I'm not going to change my policies from what I've been doing for 20 years, when I get down to it.

GR: Okay. And I did want to follow up because I wanted to join that answer to something you mentioned earlier about access to health care. And you were talking about uninsured and the underinsured. And I did want to ask you about Medicaid in particular in the state. The Medicaid program in the state is just simply incredibly expensive by comparison to any other state in the country.I mean, it's way more expensive per capita than California, for example, not exactly a super conservative state. So I just wanted to know and I'll put this to you, Supervisor Paro as well, but let Legislator Ryan answer it first. Are you willing to take a hard look at that program? Like, look at what services are provided? Because it's really just, when you look at it in comparison to other states, it it's the one thing that just stands out.

CR: Yes, yes. That's your question, yes, I am. Number two, because if you look at the concept, I guess the saying is, I guess something's got to give, right? So you have, like our hospitals, you have to treat people on Medicaid, but then they don't get the full Medicaid reimbursement. That's not a good business modeland it's the same for our nursing homes, right? Or for, somebody an older, an elderly resident or elderly citizen goes into the nursing home and that nursing home that’s providing that care is literally getting, I think, don’t quote me, but like less than forty cents on the dollar, it's been decades. So we have to have a conversation because if those rates don't change, how can those institutions continue to survive?It's not a good business model. Or you just give them money at the back end and then there it goes. So let's have a real conversation about how we can really fix the problem, how we can have greater access to health care, greater access to nursing care, greater access to uninsured, greater access to specialized medicine.

GR: What I don't hear in that, though, is a device to lower the cost. Those sound like costs increasing changes to make.

CR: No, in the beginning, you said would you look to make changes? And I think that, yes, I think I said. Whether the services are provided, comprehensively, what services are being provided. Listen, I don’t have all of the answers. And I'm just saying that I just go knock on doors and it's on the minds of many people in central New York.And I'm saying this is a problem and this is an issue that we have to tackle.

GR: Okay. And Supervisor Paro, we're beginning to run out of time here. But if you could quickly jump in on that question and then I have a different question for you.

NP: I think it's something that could be reexamined, similar to what they've done with school aid, right? They're doing the Foundational Aid Study group to look at how that is calculated. I think the state needs to look at something similar. But at the same time, I’m going to tell you that the budget is so large in New York State, there's opportunities for us to find cuts elsewhere in the near term that will have a greater impact while we look at this issue.

GR: Okay, I wanted to ask you, Supervisor Paro, something that other folks in your party are emphasizing. You mentioned it I think at the beginning when you mentioned bail reform. The statistics now that are out about recent trends in crime don't fit the Republican Party's rhetoric regarding it. A lot of violent crime, including homicide, seems to be ticking downward.Yet crime is one of the central issues that Republicans are talking about. So if you could talk about this briefly, is it a fact that crime is a growing problem in the state of New York when the facts seem to indicate that it's heading in the other direction?

NP: Yeah, you talk about violent crime and that's fine. We're not talking about that. I'm not talking about violent crime. Where I'm talking about is quality of life crime, which is affecting neighborhoods which transcend, I think, the data that maybe some of the think tanks want to put out. These are anecdotal of my neighbor Susie and my neighbor John both had their vehicle stolen in the same week.And it's happened now four times in the last two years. This is my, Sue who runs the diner around the corner just had her diner broken into. And it's the same people that broke into it last year. Those type of quality of life crimes are where we're having the problems and it is directly tied to these criminal justice policies that allow those smaller crimes to perpetuate and repeat.

GR: Okay, thank you. And Legislator Ryan, I have one last question for you before I have a sort of a lightning round for both of you. And we've got about two and a half minutes left. So bear that in mind when you answer this one. Why should New Yorkers who are listening to those who are struggling to get by, why should they not be upset by the support that the state seems to have provided for people who have come into this country illegally? This has been a big issue that a lot of the Republicans have been talking about. But it does seem like a kind of a juxtaposition of two things there that are tough to rectify. Can you just in a few seconds help us out on this?

CR: They definitely should be upset, right? People work really, really hard. I work really hard, I pay my taxes. And now I want the services that are provided for, but if the Republicans were so upset about it then they should have done something about it, right? So, it's a federal issue. And if you mean the immigrant crisis or Border Patrol,

GR: Yes.

CR: You know, I say we go back five presidents on this issue at least,right? So it's a federal issue that something needs to be done about. There was a bipartisan bill that could have hopefully fixed the issue and Republicans voted against it. And that's a problem, that's a really, really big problem. You can't complain about a problem that you helped create, by not solving the problem.

GR: Well let me ask you this, though. Do you think Governor Hochul, perhaps Mayor Adams, have been too open to letting the state of New York sort of deal with this?

CR: Well, I don't think that they necessarily really, to a certain extent, had a choice. But, you know, I will say this, that certainly we have a human rights issue. We have a problem, human rights, and at the same time, listen, we have to take care of New Yorkers first. New Yorkers are residents here,they pay their taxes, they need some services and that's the first priority. But the second priority is we need to deal with the problem that was put upon us, right? And that the federal issue that is now a very, very big New York state issue. I'm going to represent central New York in the 50th districtand do it to the best of my ability. But we need to do better at policies that take care of the problem from the beginning.

GR: Thank you. And now just really, almost one word answers here, one question for each of you. Legislator Ryan, is there one book that has taught you most about politics, what is it?

CR: “The Prince”.

GR: “The Prince”, okay, by Machiavelli. Supervisor Paro, what about you? One book that’s taught you most about politics.

NP: The, it's not the whole book. It's the end of it, but I just finished, “War and Peace”.

GR: Wow, okay, we've got some pretty heavy reading there! Machiavelli and Tolstoy, excellent. A great way to end. That was Town of Salina Supervisor Nick Paro and Onondaga County Legislative Minority Leader Chris Ryan. Again, they are the candidates for New York's 50th Senate district in this November's election. Legislative Ryan, Supervisor Paro, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.Really appreciate it and I appreciated the civil conversation.

NP: Thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

( New York State Senate)One of the most closely watched congressional races in this November's general election will be for New York's 22nd District, which contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties, and portions of Oneida, Cortland and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica and Auburn. The district is currently represented by Republican Brandon Williams, who is in his first term.

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Williams' challenger, New York State Senator John Mannion. Senator Mannion represents the 50th State Senate District, and chairs the Committee on Disabilities.

View Details

Randall Balmer( randallbalmer.com)Former President Jimmy Carter recently celebrated his 100th birthday, the first former president to reach that milestone. While still controversial as a president, he is generally regarded as the most active and productive post-president in recent history, also the most religious. This week, Grant Reeher talks with Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College, and a Carter biographer. He's the author of "Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter."

View Details

Sara BroninOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Sara Bronin, an expert on zoning policy and an architect and lawyer. Bronin is also a professor of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University and the author of the book, "Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World".

View Details

Ronald FeinmanOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Ronald Feinman, the author of, "Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama."

View Details

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. We're about to head into a series of election related programs, so today, I'm changing the subject. Two guests, who have been on the program in the past to talk about their respective books, are back with me today to talk about a new book they've written together. James Charney and Noah Charney have coauthored, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. Dr. James Charney is a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist on Yale University's medical school faculty and he's the author of, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”. Dr. Noah Charney is an art history professor at the University of Ljubljana and specializes in art crime. And among his many books is, “The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art”. James, Noah, welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you both.

James Charney: Thanks for having us.

Noah Charney: It’s good to see you too.

GR: Well, so congratulations on this book. And before we get into the book itself, there's just something, it's not a question, I just wanted to say it. I wanted to tell you both I was very touched with your acknowledgments and where you each write while you're grateful for the other. It was a very nice tonic, particularly these day, so thank you for that.And James, I'll start with you. A basic question, why is it important to have a deeper understanding of film rather than just watching them and saying, I like this, I don't like it. What do we gain with a deeper understanding?

JC : I think to understand how something works to affect your emotions and affect your level of interest and to be kind of tuned in to the mastery of the better films, and helps you kind of kind of distinguish between a film that might be a casual entertainment and one that is going to be that thought provoking or touch you in a more personal way.And so I think watching a movie just for the fun of it is wonderful. But very often, I think it's often better for you to go back and watch it the second time and at that point start noticing some things, the kind of things that we point out in our book.

GR: Well, on that note, you've convinced me to go back and re-watch a movie that stayed with me for a very long time, ”Memento”, because you trace the lineage of that back to Citizen Kane, which is a movie I'm very familiar with. So I'm very keen to go back and do exactly what you just said. On the book itself,Noah, the two of you, you divide up your lessons into subject based categories like Comedy, Western, Suspense and so on. And when I first thought of this topic before I actually saw the book, I imagined that the two of you might have more abstract topics like using dialog, flashbacks, using spoken narrative, special effects, that kind of thing.So just explain why you made the choices that you did in terms of dividing the book up in the way that you the two of you did.

NC: Well, the idea was to have the one-stop book for anyone interested in a deeper appreciation of film. So it's not meant to be in that zooming level of detail for any one of the particular genres or subcategories of things that we could study when we look at film, but meant to be that first gateway drug, shall we say, if you're interested in the subject.So the way we divided it is largely by genres, and but we didn't have time to include every genre in the book, not enough space. But I think people search by genres. If you go on to Netflix, for example, the categories are based on genres and I think it's the way that most people tend to think about movies, but they don't necessarily know what goes into the genres, even if they know what they like.

GR: Now, that makes sense. And so, well, I'm going to use the host's prerogative here, and I'm going to pick a couple of the subject areas that are in your book that I like, though I like them all, but some that I tend to spend a lot of time watching. And James to come back to you, the Westerns, what are the essential things that our listeners ought to know about Westerns?

JC: I think the most essential thing is that it is one of the first and most popular genres of movies going back to the silent age. And that there was a fascination with the whole concept of the ever expanding frontier and there's a lot of mythmaking about the Western and many of the myths are reinforced and played with in the in the best movies.And it was only probably not until the mid-1960’s that that there was an attempt to correct some of the myths of the West, particularly in terms of attitudes toward Native Americans and this whole sense of a certain grandeur about the lone outlaw kind of taking the law into his own hands.

GR: Has there been a, it seems to me the newer Westerns that I've been watching, whether they're series on Netflix or an actual movie itself, they've changed it seems to me, the way they think about the characters, but I'm having a hard time sort of putting it into words. What’s your sense of, has there been some sort of a tectonic shift in Westerns?

JC: I think there has. It's gone in fits and starts, and I'm not exactly sure where it is now, but definitely in the late sixties and early seventies, there was a sense of revising the story of the West and understanding that the white settlers and ranchers were not necessarily the good guys with the Native Americans being some version of evil and savage.And yet that was the message that many, probably for the first 30 or 40 years of the movies was what the stories were about. So that change happened in the late sixties and has been carried over. But it's also interesting that at a certain point the Western lost popularity and there are significantly fewer of them except lately on a lot of streaming services.All of a sudden Westerns are a thing. I'm not exactly sure why that is.

GR: Yeah. I'm thinking in particular of the, sort of the Kevin Costner series, there's like three different versions of it now. There's a prequel series to the other series.

JC: So, I'm not at all embarrassed to say I haven't seen any of those. (laughter)

GR: (laughter) Okay. Well, you can only watch so much. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Noah and James Charney. The father and son teamed up to write, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. So, Noah, I don’t know, maybe I was just sort of assuming each of you would have an expertise on one or the other.So don't take this as an insult, but I wanted to ask you Noah, what's the essential thing about film noir that I should know?

NC: It's a wonderful genre for someone like me, who is a professor of art history, because it has a very specific esthetic. And when we look at films and genres, they're usually things that are about them that have been established by early masterpieces of the genre that help set the tone for what comes. And then we come to expect those elements in newer versions of films within that genre.But the expectation of them doesn't detract from the fact that we like them. So if you have ‘meet cutes’ in romantic comedies, it happens in every romantic comedy, but that doesn't detract from it. If you have, you know, a gun-slinging shootout at high noon in Westerns, we expect that to happen and the expectation can be part of the fun. In film noir,we have a really dramatic aesthetic, lots of chiaroscuros. So just looking at a film, not knowing the film, a still, you can probably tell if it's film noir. They're often in black and white, even more modern ones. And they look at the dark underbelly of the world, particularly postwar world wars, involving espionage. We can expect that there will be dirty dealings, that there will be double crosses and things lurking in all those wonderful shadows we see.

GR: Interesting. So to follow up on that and maybe slightly different topic, but I suppose one might think of this film as being, have one foot in the film noir, but a smaller question, but one of my favorite movies is Alfred Hitchcock's, “The Birds” and I notice that the two of you put that in the category of suspense rather than horror.I remember seeing it as a kid and I thought of it as a horror movie. Tell me why it's a suspense movie instead.

JC: Oh, that's a good question. It's a suspense movie because it is, at least for me, a wonderful demonstration of a master of suspense in Hitchcock. And moment after moment I find suspenseful rather than terrifying. But you know, go figure. There are moments that are as scary as any horror movie. But I think the best of that movie is the moments where nothing is happening.But you're anticipating something terrible about to happen.

GR: Yeah, those crows aligning on the telephone wire line. Yeah, yeah I remember that.

NC: Maybe the distinction, Grant, that comes to mind with films like that, a lot of the genres bleed into each other. So you can even have, like, horror comedies about zombies and whatnot with slapstick elements, but with, “The Birds” the question, I think, is whether the thing that you're watching it for and that you come away with is the moments of suspense where nothing's happening, but you're anticipating it.And then there brief moments of violence or whether the violent action is the thing that's driving it, in which case that edge is more of the horror.

GR: That's true, yeah. If you think about Hitchcock movies, the actual violence is really short compared to everything else, right, right. Well, let me go back to the thing I mentioned before, and Noah, I’ll stay with you. Tracking “Momento”, seeing “Citizen Kane” in that movie maybe not many of our listeners have seen “Memento”, but it was relatively popular. Track that line, that lineage for me.

NC: Well, I think the main thing that comes to mind is manipulating time and the idea that there are flash-forwards and flashbacks and the audience is not entirely clear what's happening when and where to fit it into the timeline. And “Memento” is very clever in that the whole thing goes backwards. So we're seeing the end of the film first and then the penultimate scene to the first scene. “Citizen Kane” is an early example of using elements that are bouncing around in time, also bouncing around in terms of where shots are located, things happening in the background of shots that are important. But we are looking primarily at the foreground, and it forces you to study the shot deeply. Again, this is my art history background, I like when a film makes you look closely rather than just passively feeding you whatever it has to offer.So “Citizen Kane” is an early example of a lot of things that would become staples of more artistic direction.

JC: If I can just add something to that because I think, Noah, that was that was very impressive, I like that. But the other thing about “Citizen Kane” is that it is one of the very early examples of unreliable narrators in that you're having, people are interviewed and each one has a different take on Kane and none of them are the right one.Each one is one different person's perception. And I think that is also something that's central to “Memento”.

GR: That's interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with James Charney and Noah Charney. They are father and son, they’re both academics and they've combined to write, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. So Noah, I'll ask you this question, the writer Joseph Campbell, made famous this notion that there is a common narrative arc of the hero's journey, which Campbell argued, you know, it goes across time, it goes across culture, you see it everywhere. And you can obviously see it in films, too. I mean, we talked about Westerns before, I think you can make the argument they fit in that. But, you know, I'm thinking of “To Kill a Mockingbird” the arc that Atticus Finch travels or “Star Wars”, you know, the arc that Luke travels. And you've written, Noah, about mythology in art. So I just wanted to hear your reflections about that, Campbell myth of the hero and how it fits into movies.

NC: Well, it's absolutely true. And there have been a handful of authors who have talked about how there's a finite number of stories that exist for us humans. And every story fits into one of a number of general categories. And we have things like a hero’s quest or a homecoming. And within those stories, they can be divided into acts.And understanding the basic superstructure that is in play in honestly, most film scripts, there's a three act structure or a five act structure, depending on how specific you want to get. And the three act structure is roughly divided into a half hour each. The first half hours establishing character and setting the scene, the time and place, the rules of the world that you're in, if it's sci-fi or fantasy, for example.Then there's the complication that launches the story at about the half hour marker. And then the middle part is the hero trying to figure out how to get out of the pickle that they're in or complete the quest. And then the final third is leading up to a climactic end that should in some way change the protagonist in a meaningful waythat gives us some satisfaction. And this structure goes back to ancient Athens. People were writing plays using this format, and it seems to work for us humans. But I've also written about, the article of mine that gets the most mail is something I wrote for The Atlantic called the “Sitcom Code”, which is breaking down sitcoms into minute by minute formulae that works amazingly with almost every sitcom you could ever watch.And so this formula, from a writer's perspective, makes it easier to plug and play. And okay, what's the twist here, who are the characters? And it's the kind of thing that once you know to look for it, you can never un-see it. But to me, it makes it that much more interesting.

GR: That's interesting. So, James, I've got probably the hardest question I'm going to ask you, saved it for the father. What's the difference between a really good movie and a great movie?

JC: That is a hard question. A lot depends on who's watching and when you're watching. I think a great movie stands above time. In other words, it isn't, it may be about a particular time, it may be about a particular situation, but there's something about it that's elemental and that speaks to you not only depending on when you've watched it, but also in what mood you're in when you watch it, who you watch it with, and when you watch it again ten years later.A good movie may be terrific now and may and may wear not so well over time. I guess that's the difference.

GR: Yeah. I'm thinking of like, to put it, that I would put in the great movie category movies like “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas”. You know, it's just they're about different moments in time, but they're, yeah.

JC: Yeah, I would agree with those, yeah.

GR: Interesting. Interesting. So obviously, there's a question I want to ask you is how the two of you got along, father and son writing a book? Because I mentioned at the outset, it sounds like you obviously got along pretty well and you were able to at least publish the book. But tell me about that process.What were the biggest disagreements about? How did it go?

NC: Well, the process was really seamless and a lot of fun. And my father had finished his previous book, “Madness at the Movies” and it looked like he could use a hobby so, (laughter) you know, maybe we should do a book together. And I have a small series with the same publisher called The 12, or fill in the blank, I have, “The 12-hour Art Expert”. Coming out shortly is, “The 12-hour Author” about writing. And the, “12-hour Film Expert” seemed like something that was of interest to both of us.So first we made these lists, and some of the things I think for readers is the most fun is we have a film menu at the back of the book.

GR: I saw that, yeah.

NC: With recommended films in different genres that are not written up in the main text but are also worth considering. And so first we needed a big master list, and that's the fun part. And I had grown up watching lots of these classic films because back in the day my dad had on VHS cassettes, if we remember what those are.

GR: Oh yeah.

NC: I recorded about a thousand movies, recorded off the TV, skipping the commercials by pressing pause as much as possible, and I had seen most of them with him growing up, so I had a grounding in the films he liked, and that made it easier to find common ground.

GR: Yeah, that's interesting. And James, that must have been a labor of love.

JC: Well, it was a labor of love for me, and it was a labor of love to be able to share it with Noah and with his mom. And, and it is a labor of love sharing it with the grandkids.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guests are Noah and James Charney. So, Noah, if you had to pick one movie that you think is the best movie that most people have never heard of,and let's take it, most people in America. So there may be a movie that's famous someplace else, perhaps. But what do you think is the best movie that that we haven't heard of on this program?

NC: I have an art historian’s answer for you that's probably “Mirror” by Andrei Tarkovsky. Now Tarkovsky is a Russian filmmaker who is beloved of film studies majors, and nobody else has heard of him. And his films are very slow, they're almost like looking at very beautiful slide shows, but I absolutely love it. And if you're interested in art history, there are all of these references that you could play with the films he made.He only made, I think, eight films total. The most famous ones are “Nostalghia”, “Stalker”, “Solaris”, which was remade by George Clooney and a Hollywood version. And he's absolutely amazing, but he's a bit of an acquired taste, you have to be in the right mood for it. But if you're interested in artistic films, it doesn't get any better.

GR: Yeah, I think I've heard of “Nostalghia”, but I hadn't heard of “Mirror”, so I'll add that one to my list. James, this is a question about films in America, because you wrote a book about using films to, what do they reflect about what we think and what we know and can know about mental health. So, James, if I came down to Earth from Mars and I asked you for one movie, one film to best understand America, what would you recommend for me? I'm asking you the tough ones, I guess.

NC: Yes, you are. One film that represents America, (recording reflects a misspoken titles and crosstalk, followed by the answer) “The Best Years of our Lives”. I think it is it's a wonderful portrait of a middle-America at its best.

GR: Yeah. And it's got different classes in it, and it's got tragedy and hope mixed together.Very powerful. Yeah, that's, I like that answer. So we've got about, oh, I'd say five and a half, six minutes left and I wanted to do something a little different at the end and I'm glad we have some time for it. I want to ask you a series of relatively brief questions. You do have enough time to kind of give me a reason why.So it's not a pure lightning round, but it's kind of like a lightning round. And actually, given the time we have left, I may throw in mine, too. Now, I'll put in the dilettante's perspective here. But first of all and James as well, Noah we’ll start with you because, Noah what's the most important movie that's ever been made?

NC: The first one that came to mind was “All the President's Men”.

GR: Wow.

NC: And that was, that's my instant reaction because it's so good. But it also, it's important because it shows that we can't just be automatically beholden to authority. Sometimes we have to shake things up and ask deeper questions.

GR: Interesting. James, what would you say is the most important movie ever made?

JC: I think I don't know. I'd say that's a hard one. It would be hard for me to pinpoint the important film.

GR: Well, my mind went to the negative rather than the positive, I guess. And I was thinking of “Birth of a Nation”. But I don't know what the two of you would think about that.

JC: You know what, that was on the tip of my tongue. And for some reason, I was reluctant to say it. Yes, “Birth of a Nation” in part because it is an absolutely brilliant film about a very bad series of ideas and concepts and in many ways, it can stand as a warning to be to be wary of something that is brilliantly presented, but may have an underpinning of something that is dark and worrisome.

GR: Well, James, I'll stick with you the next one. Best film ever made?

JC: Well, then we're in the category of favorite film because every one of us has a best film. My favorite film of all is, “Singing in the Rain”. It's the film that puts me in a happy place every time I see it. It's the best antidepressant I know better than Prozac and it's a perfectly made film.I mean, the perfectly made film that people will point to is, “Casablanca”. And but that's, you know, that's a heartfelt drama. But if I want to put a smile on my face, “Singing in the Rain” is it.

GR: Noah, I have a feeling you're going to have a different answer on that one. What do you think is the best film ever made?

NC: There is a correct answer, which is, “Casablanca”. That's the one that gives you an A+ in class, because it's often used as the exemplar of the perfect film, from script to acting to casting, you name it. And I think it probably is from my perspective, too. But my favorite film is, “Airplane”, which is totally silly and ridiculous.And I've seen it probably several dozen times. So that has nothing to do with anything, but Casablanca is the correct answer you are looking for.

GR: I think in my top three, there's a film like that, and it's “This is Spinal Tap”.

NC: Oh, that's a classic.

JC: That's great, that's a great movie.

GR: So, Noah, next one. What's the worst major motion picture ever made? One where there was a significant amount of investment in it and it just was really awful.

NC: The first one that comes to mind was, “Waterworld”.

GR: Yeah, I thought of that.

NC: Because it famously had this enormous budget and it was just dreadful. And it lost a huge amount of money. And it was famous for being a total failure. So that's probably the one that I'm most people would say. I'm not sure if that's the A+ answer, but I'll give you that one.

JC: There's an interesting kind of caveat about that, which is very often a film that people think is an absolute disaster, I'm thinking of “Ishtar”, which is another film that people, at the time it came out it was the ultimate failure, written by and directed by Elaine May. And now people are starting to give it a second look and all of a sudden 25, 30 years later, they're saying maybe this may be a great film.

GR: Yeah, I thought it was, I enjoyed it. I thought it was funny, very funny at times. So the last one of these and we've only got about a minute left, James, you already said what your favorite movie was, so now I'm going to say, what's your second favorite movie after “Singing in the Rain”?

JC: My second favorite movie is another musical, I love musicals, “Yankee Doodle Dandy” for the same reason, starring James Cagney, a patriotic movie that he did to undo his gangster image and to go back to his roots because he was a vaudeville tap dancer before he was a movie star. And it's a biography of George M. Cohan, a superstar of the turn of the century at the beginning of the 20th century, who wrote music and was a triple threat.He wrote music, he directed he wrote scripts and he danced.

GR: Wow.

JC: James Cagney did all of those things. And again, there are numbers in there that just immediately make me smile.

GR: Well, Noah, in 15 seconds only. What's your favorite movie?

NC: “Manhattan” by Woody Allen. I absolutely love it. So that's the one I would point you to if “Airplane” has been checked out of the library.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was James Charney and Noah Charney and again, their new book is, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. If you like movies as much as I do, you'll love the book. Thanks for both of you for making the time to talk me.

NC: Grant, thanks so much for such a good interview. It's hard to balance with two people, so thank you.

GR: (laughter)My pleasure.

JC: Ireally enjoyed it. Grant, thank you very much.

GR: I did, too. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Rogers SmithProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Issues of race are once again front and center in this November's presidential election. My guest today on the Campbell Conversations has coauthored a new book arguing that the lines of division on this topic have been changing in important ways. Rogers Smith is a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And the title of his book, written with Desmond King at Oxford University is, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". Rogers, welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you.

Rogers Smith: Great to be here, Grant.

GR: Well, thanks for making the time. And let me just start with a very basic question about the book. You know, to me, the racial battle lines feel pretty familiar in a lot of ways. So explain how they have changed, do you think.

RS: It's important to understand that throughout American history, there have always been dominant racial issues that have defined different eras. Slavery versus anti-slavery, pro-Jim Crow segregation versus anti-segregation. But those divisions were resolved, at least as a matter of law, in the 1960’s with the civil rights laws that ushered us into a new era of racial politics in which conservatives no longer championed racial segregation.But they did insist that we should embrace colorblind public policies, some out of a sincere conviction that this is what our principles should be, others because they recognize that colorblind policies were a barrier to something conservatives had always feared. Just because whites had committed injustices against blacks and other people of color throughout US history, conservatives feared that there would be a push to privileged people of color over whites,and so they urged colorblind public policies to prevent that. Now, many liberals felt that we needed race conscious policies to integrate all of America's institutions. And the battle between conservative, colorblind positions and liberal positions championing race conscious measures like affirmative action and majority minority representative districts, that went on through the late 20th century and into the early 21st century.Now something has changed. Our argument is that conservatives over the last couple of decades, especially perceive the left as more militant, seeking not just integration of American institutions, but more radical transformations. And so they don't talk about colorblindness very much. They talk about the they do sometimes in litigation, but their political discourse is about the need to protect more traditionalist, conservative Americans, especially white Christian Americans, against what they see as a radical left.And on the left, it is true that many civil rights champions came to feel that integration into existing American institutions wasn't enough. There was too much systemic racism in American institutions, and they needed more dramatic repair to achieve racial equity in one way or another. And so, instead of colorblind versus race conscious measures, we see the modern debates as a battle between those who want to protect traditionalist Americansagainst those who want to repair the systemic racism they see in American institutions. And that's a much more polarized clash.

GR: Right.Yeah, no, it does sound that way. So when you say repair, I immediately think of reparations. And that's something that you talk about. And obviously reparations have become a pretty loaded term. You just say there's very polarized debate over this. When we talk about reparations, what exactly are we talking about?

RS: Well, one of the findings of the book is that we're talking about something different than we did historically. I should note that in polls, most Americans oppose reparations. And that's why many champions of racial reform trying to undo systemic racism, talk about racial equity initiatives are not reparations. But the shift in meaning of reparations is that, whereas at one time it signaled plans to provide one-time cash payments to people to make up for damages, harms they had suffered like a tort remedy in law.That's not what the people championing reparations now mostly mean. What they mean instead is that we should have a set of initiatives to transform many of our economic, educational, political, cultural and social institutions so that they provide more extensive opportunities for a wider range of Americans. And that means that, like the racial equity people, the people who talk about reparations now are often talking about combating systemic racism as they see it and not on one time cash payments.

GR: So I want to just ask you this question flat out, and I know it's more complicated than this, but the way you were describing the protect side earlier, is the protect side racist?

RS: Frankly, some on the protect side are racist, just as there has been racism in America throughout our history. And it is also true that there are those on the protect side who, while having no animosity or prejudice against people of color per se, nonetheless feel that proposals from the left will be damaging for the country and will also disrupt many traditional systems, institutional practices, ways of life from which white people disproportionately benefit.And so you can say that, you can debate whether that's racism or not. It is my belief that it's legitimate to preserve many of the aspects of American life that have privileged and continue to privilege white people. I should note also that on the protect side, there are many who see traditionalist Christianity as under attack. And these are overwhelmingly white traditionalist Christians and many of them interpret attacks, or criticisms of whites as also criticisms of Christianity. There is a resurgent movement to recognize that this is a white Christian nation. Marjorie Taylor Greene hands out bumper stickers saying she's a proud Christian nationalist. And the Protect Alliance has blended in many ways the concerns to protect traditionalist whites with concerns to protect traditionalist Christians.The latter position, of course, has broader public respectability and appeal. But again, even those in the Protect Alliance will present the two things as closely linked.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with University of Pennsylvania political scientist Rogers Smith. With his coauthor, Desmond King, he's recently published, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". So you have an appendix where you list the different organizations of different types. You break out different types that the two of you think are in these two categories.And in the protect organizations, you've got conservative organizations that a lot of people would recognize like Federalist Society, Freedom Caucus in Congress, the American Enterprise Institute, a high profile think tank. But then you've also got the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys. So, I don't know what that question is I want to ask here, I guess I’m trying to figure out, like, were you trying to be provocative with that? Because you know people are going to be looking at that and seeing the parallel that you're drawing and get pretty upset.

RS: We're not trying to be provocative we're trying to be empirically accurate. These are members of a coalition, and every coalition has diversity within its ranks. Its members don't agree with each other on every position, but they do agree on the overarching goal of the coalition and all those groups you mentioned do see a liberal or progressive or left movement in America that they regard as radical and dangerous and as something that they must defeat. And they do work together to a certain extent.The Ku Klux Klan did champion Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016. While he disappointed them to a very little degree, they're still on his side. And Donald Trump is the champion of the Protect Conservative Alliance now, as his speeches and his policies have made abundantly clear. Donald Trump did invite to Mar-a-lago Nicholas Fuentes, who heads the America First Foundation and who has said that the nation must not lose its white demographic core.So, now that's a position that many in the American Enterprise Institute, for example, would repudiate. But nonetheless, if you ask them, are you going to be on the side of the Protect positions more generally against the calls for systemic transformations of American institutions that the Repair Alliance wants, they're firmly on the Protect side.

GR: So, something that has concerned me and that I've thought a lot about and I wanted to get your reaction to it, given of all the information that you provide in the book and the research that you've done. But some of my students, echoing what they've heard, I think, from some political leaders and activists on the repair side, claim to me that we are in the midst of a backsliding that is going to return us, is in the process of returning us to the 1950’s or the 1960’s when it comes to this issue.And yet, at the same time we have a black woman who's in a dead heat race for president right now against the gentleman that you were just invoking. So I have to say, you know, I grew up in Virginia in the 60’s. I don't have any sense that this is where we are at present or are heading to.I mean, it's a frustrating conversation for me to have and I wanted to get your take on that. Is there a hyperbole there that maybe isn't helping and is causing some of the reaction or am I missing something important? Help me sort through this.

RS: I would say that there are certainly people in the modern conservative movement, in the Protect Alliance on racial policy issues that we talk about who do want to return us to the America of the mid-20th century. And for them, that's what the slogan, “Make America Great Again” means. I don't think that's likely to happen, it's not feasible in the 21st century to go back to the mid-20th century. And while there are some in the Protect Alliance and its right wing fringe that are openly white supremacists, that is not, in our view, the center position of the Protect Alliance. And it's not the most likely program or outcome. What is more likely, we indicate at the end of the book, is a scenario in which if conservatives regain the kind of national power that they had after the 2016 election, they might push more in the direction of what they and we call multicultural conservatism.It is a set of policies in which whites are not actively privileged, although many institutions that have long advantaged whites stay in place and people of all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds are welcomed into the American political community, so long as they support conservative economic and social policies. So you can have conservative South-Asian leaders, as we did, competing briefly in the presidential campaign this time. You can have conservative black leaders, as we did like Tim Scott of South Carolina as we had competing. It is not the racial conservatism that precedes the civil rights era. You're right, there were transformations in the 1960’s. But it is also not a program that is designed to undo what people on the left see as the pervasive systemic racism of American institutions.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Rogers Smith, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s recently coauthored a book with Desmond King titled, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". And we've been discussing his book, so many people who are sympathetic to some of the things that you're writing about argue that if the focus was on economic class rather than race, you'd do probably 90% of the repair work racially that you're trying to do, but you wouldn't generate nearly the same level of political backlash and resistance.And at the same time, you might also be able to appeal to White working and middle class families who are, first of all, really struggling and second of all, feel left out of the government's attention. They're part of that Trump coalition, or some of them are. So you could substantially repair without threatening the Protect in that in a rhetorical way, I guess.Why isn't the class based approach the smarter and better way to talk about this?

RS: Well, we do note at the end of the book that an approach that foregrounds class concerns along with racial concerns is probably the most promising path forward for liberals and folks further to the left. But it is one that those Americans have had a hard, who see themselves in back in those camps. They've had a hard time coalescing around those kinds of positions.And there are several reasons for that. One is that class appeals themselves are very controversial. We often say that a movement that emphasizes it's going to address the economic concerns of all Americans will have broader appeal, including to the white working class. And that's an argument that has some power, but it is also true that strongly class oriented movements in American history have met with fierce opposition and repression so it's not such an obvious winner.The second thing is, that you said it might do 90% of what the repair side wants, that's much debated. Many think that because economic initiatives which claim to be universal never really are, that they, in fact, might only perpetuate the levels of racial inequality in material terms that we continue to experience in this country. And so they doubt that it will actually work to deal with the most serious problems in most disadvantaged portions of communities of color in this country.The third thing is that the many Americans that have been discriminated against want that experience to be recognized and acknowledged. And what the class approach doesn't provide is the recognition that they have been unjustly treated, that their contributions have been undervalued and obscured and they want that recognition and respect. And that's why the most promising path forward for liberals and those on the left is probably to combine programs that do address the economic needs of all Americans, including white workers who have been hurt by neoliberal policies, both parties in the 20th century, but also include some programs that are designed to respond to the distinctive needs of African-Americans and other minorities in the country.

GR: So I appreciate the way that you answered that at a sort of a systemic and policy level. And you can dismiss this question if you think it's not fair, but I just continue to try to wrap my mind around this. Can you give me an example of a type of person of color who would suffer from a genuinely class based approach?I mean, I'm trying to conjure up in my mind sort of a group of people that get left out and I have a hard time doing it.

RS: Well, for example, one form of reparations that's actually underway in America today addresses housing. And some 20 cities in the country now have reparations missions. And rather than, again, just giving out single checks, they are concerned to try to address specific kinds of institutionalized problems in their communities. Evanston, Illinois, the first of these reparations commissions has begun distributing checks, but only for housing and provide other kinds of housing assistance to black residents in Evanston because it has a history of discrimination in real estate practices and in mortgage provision for black residents in Evanston. Now, housing is a huge problem throughout the country right now. And you can say we could have a big initiative for affordable housing, but it probably wouldn't be massive enough to address everyone in need. You can say that we're going to conduct it on a nondiscriminatory basis, but it might still leave a lot of black families who have not acquired homes, not acquired the wealth, the equity of home ownership because of practices of discrimination in the past and present, they might not get included in those housing programs unless there's a conscious effort to make surethey're included. That's the argument, anyway.

GR: Now I have to have a shout out to the Maxwell School there. Steven Hagerty was the mayor of Evanston when that was being put forward and passed. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is University of Pennsylvania professor Rogers Smith. The conversation that you and I are having is happening in the context of a presidential race in which I think racial themes are pretty obvious and prominent, even though the candidates may not be emphasizing them overtly.And I'm just wondering how you see it fitting in to the presidential race here in 2024 and how the outcome could affect the things that you're concerned about in this book?

RS: Well, in some ways it's ironic that the candidacy of Kamala Harris has moved racial policy issues out of the center of what the candidates are talking about. Donald Trump has to be very careful about how he talks about racial issues if he's not going to appear to be firing up racist opposition to Harris. He's already stumbled into that and done badly with his interview with the black journalist’s organization where he questioned Harris's blackness.That clearly didn't play well with really any constituency. Harris has made the deliberate choice not to feature her racial or gender identities. She waved away the question in the recent CNN interview. She is emphasizing economic programs more than anything else. But at the same time, everyone knows that she is a racial progressive. And if you look at the platforms for the two parties in 2024, the Republican platform emphasizes that they're going to ban teaching critical race theory and they're going to fight efforts to teach about race or to transform public monuments having to do with our racial history in ways that they think amount to indoctrination of woke ideologies.And on the Democratic side, they say that the nation has never fulfilled its promises. They support the creation of a federal commission to study reparations. Both parties are still adopting these clashing policy positions and whoever wins will have an effect on which program gets carried forward in the future.

GR: We've got about a minute left, I’ve got one last question for you. It's a little bit different than all the others, more personal, if I could. But you, like me, are an old white guy.

RS: Getting older!

GR: (laughter) You've got a Harvard Ph.D., you've had tenured faculty appointments at two Ivy League schools and with a name like Rogers Smith, it seems like you could have just stepped off the Mayflower. So, why have you devoted such a large portion of your life to this topic?

RS: I was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, not far from the birthplace of John C. Calhoun, the leading champion of slavery in the antebellum era. And my family then moved to Springfield, Illinois, the hometown of Abraham Lincoln. We visited South Carolina often during my youth, which was in the midst of the civil rights era. And it became clear to me that the clash over racial justice was a central part of the American experience.It was a central part of my family's experience and so it's been central to the work I've done for most of my career.

GR: All right. We'll have to leave it there. That was Rogers Smith. And again, his new book is titled, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". It's a good and provocative read. You can agree with it, disagree with it, but I think you'll find it engaging. Rogers, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really appreciate it.

RS: Thank you, Grant. I've enjoyed it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

(Jason Smith)Compensation for college athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL), along with thew transfer portal, has upended college football and created a new, uncertain world. This week, Grant Reeher talks with sports journalist Armen Keteyian about the book he co-authored, called "The Price: What it Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos."

View Details

Seth David RadwellOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Seth David Radwell, whose experiences include being the president of e-Scholastic and CEO of The Proactiv Company. He's the author of the book, "American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation".

View Details

Mary Chung HayashiProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Mary Chung Hayashi. She's a former California State Assembly member and the author of a new book titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” The book weaves together her own life and political experiences with the stories of women in political leadership positions. Ms. Hayashi, welcome to the program.

Mary Chung Hayashi: Thank you so much, Grant. I am so honored to be part of your show today.

GR: Well, that's very kind of you to say, and we're delighted and honored you have the time to speak to us. So, let me just start with a very basic question about the book. How did you get the idea to write this book at the time when you did?

MH: Well, when I was in the legislature, I served with, you know, just incredible women legislators. And often their personal journeys are not told, you know, in the press or there's, because of term limits in California, we only have a certain number of years to get to know each other and so I really wanted to showcase these role models. And so I decided to interview 17 women and one man documenting their personal and professional journeys toward leadership.

GR: Great, great. And so, you were born and you grew up in South Korea. I'd like you to tell me a little bit about your own immigration experience, if you would, because that's something you talk about your book.

MH: Yes. Really, many women, you know, travel different paths and different journeys. You know, the women were interviewed in the book and I really wanted to, you know, talk about my own sort of personal experience immigrating to this country when I was 12. And losing my older sister to suicide that same year before coming to this country and using that sort of personal experience and trauma to advocate for mental health issues. And that was well documented in my first book, but in my second book I talk about basically dedicating my life to advocating for mental health causes, like so many other women in the book who talked about their own pain and own adversity, barriers to leadership that, you know, they forge ahead and defied the naysayers who told them they couldn't achieve their ambitions. And so I did talk a lot about sort of my own, you know, experience growing up in Orange County and, you know, my parents were very traditional and didn't expect girls to go to college or have a career. And so yes, and I thought I was like, so different. But after interviewing these women for the book, I realized many of us have a lot of commonalities in terms of using our own personal background to advocate for others.

GR: Yeah, I want to get into some of the things that you have advocated for as a member of the legislature, but also more generally, because you did that before you got into the legislature and you've done it since. But I just wanted to ask one thing, intriguing that you said, you know, you discovered similarities in the stories. So it sounds like maybe writing the book kind of had a therapeutic effect on you in addition to in addition to just, you know, putting the book out and telling the story of leadership.

MH: Yes. Because when, you know, like in traditional Korean culture, women are to be seen but not heard. And, you know, we're raised to be respectful and silent, “good girls”. You know, and this meant keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself. And so, you know, when my older sister died by suicide when she was 17, we were unaware that she was struggling with depression because those types of things were not discussed in our family. And I began to understand that my sister couldn't seek help because we were taught to keep our personal problems to ourselves. Well, when I started interviewing these women who I served with and some who I didn't know very well at the time I interviewed them, like the California U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler. I had interviewed her when she was the president of the EMILYs List and then she was appointed to the U.S. Senate. And I had worked with her professionally, but personally I didn't know her that well. But talking with her and better understanding sort of her background and her personal struggles that, you know, many of us, regardless of your immigration status or family background, many of us sort of share that, you know, that good girl sort of upbringing and the values that we're told. The new generation of women, I think have been raised with a better message. That, you know, rather than being taught to be a good girl, they were told to, you know, it's okay to speak up and you can be a leader. And they're actually encouraged to do so. But many of us, including myself and women who I interviewed for the book, you know, we were we were taught to not take credit for things that we accomplished. And we should be careful about, you know, bragging too much about our qualifications. We're supposed to downplay our achievements. And a lot of those sort of messages that we grew up with were very similar. Not just Korean women, but American women experience the same sort of upbringing and those messages.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Mary Chung Hayashi. She's a former California State Assembly member and the author of, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” So I wanted to ask you a story about just a little bit later on your life story. But first, it occurs to me, give us the title, give our listeners the title of your first book, because I think some of them listening are going to be interested in and maybe checking out that one, too. So what's the title of your first book?

MH: You're so kind, thank you. It's actually out of print. But it's called, “Far from Home: Shattering the Myth of the Model Minority” of Asian Americans. And it's, you know, it's a sort of autobiography about Asian-American health status in the United States. Like many of us don’t speak up, or because of our cultural issues, we often suffer from diseases and illnesses that are completely preventable. And so applying those sort of cultural barriers and values, that sometimes we hang on to could be very harmful. So a completely different book, but it does have a lot more information about my personal journey.

GR: Oh, okay, great. And don't worry about it being out of print, that's what Amazon is for, to go find those. I buy out of print books all the time. So I wanted to know, though, how your interest in politics developed specifically because, you know, you come over and you're in this completely new country and you've had this traumatic experience. So, when in your life does your interest in politics develop and how does that happen?

MH: Well, I had an opportunity to work for a legislator and when I wrote my first book, I had just completed my tenure as the executive director of a nonprofit that I founded. I founded a national nonprofit organization called the National Asian Women's Health Organization. And I was 26 years old, completely naïve. I didn't know what I was doing, but I just wanted to find out what had happened to my sister and really wanted to learn more about mental health and advocate for mental health issues. And so after I completed my tenure, I wrote this book. And around that time I had an opportunity to work for an amazing legislator, Assembly member Darrell Steinberg. He's the only man that I interviewed for my book. He's in the mentoring chapter because so many women who were interviewed, had male allies and mentors who helped them and guide them along the way. And I just thought that it was important to highlight their contributions and their partnerships because a lot of the mentoring messaging, you know, lean-in messaging really has to do with, you know, if you're a woman, you have to help another woman. But it's like, well, what about the other 50% of the population, and they are examples of like Darrell Steinberg, who has been an incredible mentor to me. Well, when I worked for him, he authored this amazing statewide ballot measure called Proposition 63, and he advocated and put it on the ballot for the voters to tax millionaires to fund mental health programs. And so I had an opportunity to work on that measure, and we passed it with literally, like no money because we're going against millionaires. And so many people have that personal connection to mental health. They know somebody who's been impacted by it, they know somebody who, you know, maybe not immediate family, but a friend who suffered from mental illness. And so we passed this ballot measure and that was just such an incredible experience for me. And I decided, I said, Darrell, is this what you do every single day? Because if this is the kind of impact you can make, I want to do this, I want to pursue public service. And that really inspired me to run.

GR: Interesting. So when you run for public office, I wanted to ask you both, I guess, for when you ran and when you were serving. Did you encounter any resistance or preconceptions based on your gender or your ethnicity? Or maybe a combination of the two because you've been speaking about Asian women and expectations of Asian women. I'm just wondering, once you were pursuing public office, did you run into that and how did you deal with it?

MH: Yes. And, you know, how relevant this conversation is right now, right? Given that we have the first you know, black woman, South Asian woman running for president of the United States. But, you know, women are often penalized for being ambitious and strong. And, you know, no matter what we do, it feels like we begin, you know, at such a significant disadvantage. Because when you announce for your candidacy, voters are sometimes suspicious because we're not supposed to be ambitious and seek leadership positions. And so for me, you know, I, because I was the first Korean-American woman to serve in the California legislature, many of my colleagues have never really seen an Asian person.

GR: Well, let me stop you there. I have to confess, I did not know that and I'm astonished at that. Maybe I'm exhibiting my own preconceptions here, but, California is such a richly, its current culture today is so richly informed by Asian-Americans. I can't believe that after the 21st century, you were the first one, my goodness.

MH: Yes. And I get this question a lot, you know, because people outside of California, sort of view California as very, this progressive forward thinking, and we are in many aspects. But out of 4400 state legislators who have served in the California legislature, only 192 have been women so far.

GR: That’s amazing.

MH: Yes. So that's, I mean, that was, as you know, last year. And I'm sure that number will increase because for the first time we'll have parity in the Senate, state Senate. But going back to my own experience, you know, just working sort of in that environment, I didn't really realize it at the time, but after I left and had some time to sort of reflect on my service in the legislature. You know, people often described me during my tenure in the state assembly as aggressive and very competitive. Whereas, you know, my male legislators who, chaired this business and professions committee before I did were applauded as strong committee chairs. They would say, well, he had solid opinions and they were brilliant policy experts. But when I express my opinion and sometimes they were controversial, you know, they described me as aggressive. And so Asian women are often expected to be submissive and grateful, like that's our stereotype. And so we often navigate much narrower expectations of what it means to be likable for professional women. And so women already, you know, start at a significant disadvantage in politics, as I mentioned, because we're supposed to be likable and qualify to run for office. But for Asian women, we are penalized when we present a counter to this stereotype, this submissive and the grateful stereotype. So I do think that there are many lobbyists and other legislators who had difficulty sort of figuring out, like why is she not submissive and quiet like so many Asian women who I’m used to? (laughter) I mean, I laugh about this, but, you know, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu gets confused with another activist named Beth Wong. And I was confused with another colleague, Fiona Ma, who's our current state treasurer, our next lieutenant governor, hopefully. And people would still call me Fiona because there were only two of us. And it's like, well, there's only two of us, how can you confuse us? But they did for six years.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Mary Chung Hayashi. The former California state legislator is the author of a new book titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation” and we've been discussing the topics that her book raises. So I wanted to ask you, you've already talked about this in the first half of the program, and I know it's a sensitive topic, but one of the reasons I think that, from my reading that you wrote the book, was the loss of your sister and how that informed your emphasis in your public life on mental health issues. I just wanted to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on that. If you could talk about kind of the transitioning of taking a personal experience into a publicly oriented effort.

MH: Yeah. Well, thank you for that, because, you know, I lost my older sister to, you know, suicide when she was 17, which led me to a lifetime of public service and mental health advocacy. So this is a very relevant topic. And like I mentioned previously, one of the goals of writing this book is to inspire other women to write their own path and to see that we do not have to be controlled by our backgrounds, ethnicities or family histories. Because when, you know, just not even talking about my own sort of nonprofit that I started when I was 26, but fast forward to my time in the legislature and running for political office. It was very difficult, you know, for me to call people for money. Because that's something that, culturally, we're not supposed to do. You know, public speaking. Speaking about why I want to be a voice for the voiceless and representing children's issues and the underserved communities, you know, whose interests may have been overlooked. And right now, like mental health, even (to a) certain extent sexual harassment, those types of issues are very public and women candidates talk about those issues very comfortably. But when I was a candidate in 2006, I can't say that, you know, many people thought that was a great platform. And so I think that women who are willing to share these types of personal, painful stories in a public way and use that experience as their platform to create positive change, I think is very, very courageous and is somewhat necessary. And I think it worked really well for me not just in the political sense, but being able to use my own voice to sort of advocate for, you know, women, Asian women through the nonprofit, but also in the legislature. So I actually think that personal histories and family backgrounds could be a plus. You know if women are willing to sort of use their leadership journeys and their personal journeys and share the lessons that we've learned, I think it can really help overcome the challenges as a woman and to have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

GR: That's a really interesting combination and reflection. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Mary Chung Hayashi and we've been discussing her book titled, “Women and Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” So you talked about the fact that the book is based in large part on interviews that you did with mostly women. And I was just wondering, out of all those conversations, is there one conversation that has stayed with you more than all the others?

MH: One of the women interviewed, Amanda Hunter, she's the executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, and they do a lot of research with focus groups about women in politics. And she gave it a name to this sort of one focus group finding that she did when she asked participants to envision a leader, many of them envisioned a man, and she called it an imagination barrier. And so, you know, and it's like, when I was growing up in Korea, I didn't see women in leadership roles. And so it was really hard for me to envision that I can do something. And believe it or not, it was actually Connie Chung when I was growing up in Orange County who I saw on TV. I thought, wow, you know, here's an Asian woman, smart, and she's on TV. I mean, not that like I was, you know, looking for fame or anything, but just to see her on television really made me realize, oh, maybe, you know, I can do something with my life. And people used to call me Connie when I was growing up in Orange County, and I was flattered. But then when I got older and I reflected on that, I thought, wait a minute, it's because I didn't know any other Asian person when I was growing up, so not such a flattering comment. But anyway, I think that Amanda Hunter's sort of research shows that women and girls need to see role models. And so the book is really you know, they're all role models and not because of the titles they hold, but because they overcome incredible adversary challenges, barriers. And, you know, they pursue leadership and they run for office and they win even when they face criticism and pushback. I mean, that's why they're role models, because they defy their naysayers. And I think that with what's going on at the national level, you know, definitely that imagination barrier has definitely been broken down.

GR: Yeah, that's exactly what I want to ask you about next was, and what you're saying is right on that point is, you know, what do you make of the importance of Kamala Harris’s status as the Democratic nominee for president? I mean, you're linking it directly to this imagination issue. But what do you make of the importance of it beyond that?

MH: Well, I think it's I think it's going to change the trajectory of women in politics forever. I mean, just the fact that we have a woman, you know, it looks like she will get the nomination of the Democratic Party to be the first woman of color to be nominated for president. And I think will really be a turning point for women and, you know, research shows that voters’ perception of her as a leader declines when the media mentions a woman's appearance in any way. And I talk a lot about this account of like sort of a likability double standard. And whether the commentary is positive or negative, the mere mention of her appearance draws voters’ attention to the fact that she's a woman, reminding them of their unconscious bias that women cannot be leaders. And yet with all of this sort of, you know, racist and sexist sort of attacks on her, she's actually pulling ahead, so I'm very encouraged. And I do think that she whether she wins or not, I think that her running and taking on, sort of the establishment and these sort of very sexist comments head on, I think all of her actions that we've seen so far will have an incredible impact breaking down that imagination barrier.

GR: We've only got a couple of minutes left. I wanted to squeeze one last question in, and it goes back to something that you mentioned and that stunned me which was the numbers on the California legislature. In preparation for this interview, I did some of my own calculations and if we look back from today at the presidential and vice presidential nominations, we look at both of those of the two major parties, Republican and Democrat, we look at the last 18 years. It's a really remarkable story if you just look at it statistically, I was struck by it. So there's 24 slots total available, and four of them in the last 18 years have been held by women. Four of them have been held by people of color. And as you just pointed out, one of those is both of those things and one of them was a Mormon. Now that's not parity for women, but it's a completely different story from our history leading up to that If we think about presidential and vice presidential nominees. Up to that point 18 years ago, there was just one woman and one Jewish man that was it.

MH: Wow.

GR: So, I guess my question to you with one minute left, and I'm sorry to make you squeeze it into one minute is, do you think we're at a tipping point now? Given where we are, do you think we're at a tipping point?

MH: Oh, absolutely. I think that the, you know, I was just asked by a reporter if America is ready for a black woman president, you know, Asian woman president. And I thought it was kind of an interesting question with many layers. And it's like the answer is, of course. And we are, I think, you know, at sort of this major historic milestone when we've had Barack Obama and, you know, the first black president and many you know, Hillary Clinton as the woman candidate. But I think we're here and I think we are ready to elect Kamala Harris as the first female president of the United States. And this will be, I think, you know, a major milestone for all of us and all the women who come before me who paved the way for what is possible today.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Mary Chung Hayashi. And again, her new book is titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” But I also want to say it's exceptionally readable and covers a lot of different ground. So I think a lot of our listeners will be interested in it. Ms. Hayashi, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me, I really enjoyed the conversation.

MH: Thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Fred FiskeProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Fred Fiske. Fred spent his career in print journalism, including writing editorials for the Syracuse Post-Standard. He's here with me today because he's recently written a biography about a Syracuse businessman titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson." Fred, welcome to the program.

Fred Fiske: Thanks for having me.

GR: Well, glad you could make the time. So let me just start with a really basic question, just how did you get the idea to write this book?

FF: It came to me right after I got to Syracuse because I read about this guy. The headline for the article was, “The Butcher of Syracuse” and that got my attention. And what got my attention after that was the guerrilla tactics that this grocery supermarket magnate, a supermarket chain owner, adopted for his stores where he put up signs warning about communist actors on TV he'd point with an arrow to, the idea was to point with an arrow to like Swanson's peas and say, “Buy Swanson's peas and support Stalin's little creatures.

GR: (laughter)

FF: Or he'd have a survey, say, “If you want to kill our boys in Korea, then buy Ammident toothpaste. If you want good American toothpaste, buy Ipana or Chlorodent”.

GR: Wow.

FF: And sometimes he'd sweep products off the shelf and put up a sign saying, “I no longer carry Royal Crown Cola because they employ Lloyd Bridges on their TV sponsored show. I will return the bottles to the shelf when he is no longer employed”.

GR: Wow. Okay, that's fascinating stuff.

FF: That got my attention.

GR: Yeah. And kind of goes against basic business, you know, how to grow your business, but we'll get into that a little bit later. Let me start first, though, I want to ask you a question about Johnson's background without, minus his anti-communism activism, if that's possible. So just give us an idea of this this guy, like how he grew up, how he became successful as a grocery store chain owner. Give us that story first.

FF: Yeah. You ask yourself, I ask myself as a liberal, as a liberal who probably wouldn't have fared too well during the McCarthy era myself, when they were trying to screen and blacklist liberals. Why am I interested in this anti-communist extremist activist? And I think he's a very important figure in popular culture and certainly one of the most important people to come out of Syracuse. He started very humbly. He was from a farm family and farm background in Wayne County, west of here and he was orphaned by age 16. And he had an uncle who tried to help him along, but he basically had to make his own way as a teenager. And he farmed for a while but he always loved the old country store as a crossroads of culture and commerce and democracy. He was very patriotic. And he gradually built his business, he was pretty much self-taught, self-made man, built a supermarket chain in Syracuse. Very successful. Not ambitious, but he did find, and he helped kind of invent the cash and carry market. Up to that time. It had been pretty much over the counter off the shelf. And his idea was to have the customers come in and pick their items and go to the checkout counter. And he pretty much invented all these things. So he was actually a very astute merchandiser and commercial businessman. And so he built up this thriving business. And then right after the Korean War started, his daughter helped persuade him to join the anti-communist ranks.

GR: Interesting. And so, tell me a little bit about the anti-communism and how that develops. So his daughter got him interested in this and then how did he develop those views?

FF: Well, Eleanor was called the Molly Pitcher of the Blacklist by one of the writers of the period. And this was because her husband was a Marine reservist, called up to active duty in Korea in a mortar company. And he was right in the thick of the worst battles fighting in ‘51. And when she was with her father watching TV in the living room and there was an actor who had, I suppose you could say, suspect association she turned to her father and said, you know, you have a Red right here in your living room? And things like this really offended Johnson that we could still be supporting people with communist connections while the war in Korea was going on, we were fighting the communists. And so he took up the banner. And he had a lot of allies in Syracuse, too. He had the veterans groups full of these returning soldiers from World War Two and later from Korea and Syracuse was strategically placed in Central New York, close to markets close to New York City. And he developed relations with what (you would) call progressive professional communists in New York, including Vincent Hartnett. And drawing on sources from the anti-communist movement in Washington, fueling the Red Scare with their hearings in the House and Senate in the federal government. They put together this booklet called Red Channels, which listed nearly 150 actors. And his focus was on TV broadcasting and the actors who were performing on there because he and his allies were concerned that they were promoting un-American views on television and their propaganda was going to perhaps undermine American democracy. And so he became very, very active in that. And you're right, it did start to affect his business after a while because he kind of forgot about everything else.

GR: Well, what other kinds of things did he do in the store other than, you know, the drawing the arrows to people and taking Royal Crown cola off shelves? Pretty, pretty extreme. Were there other things that he did in his store, if I walked into a store, what would I get?

FF: You'd be a puzzled shopper some days, I think. I mean, the people didn't really get what he was up to, and he did it again and again, Grant. He did it, there was campaign after campaign. He took on Swanson's and Borden and Kraft and Schlitz and the major sponsors. And the thing is Grant, that he terrified them. All he had to do was threaten to do a poll in the store saying, you know, buy this product and support Stalin's little creatures and the sponsors would say, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that! We'll put pressure on the advertising agencies and they did. And the advertising agencies put pressure on the studios and the studios put pressure on the networks. And like as not, the performers got booted off and their careers really got damaged, a lot of them. And we're talking about, I don't know, you want to know who they are, I mean, Jack Gilford and Lloyd Bridges and Uta Hagan and Joseph Cotten made a pilgrimage to Syracuse to plead his case.

GR: Really? So these are A-list people at the time.

FF: Yeah, some of them really were. Kim Hunter, Judy Holliday, and a lot of lesser known actors. They really got hurt.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Fred Fiske, the longtime former editorial writer for the Syracuse Post-Standard has written a new biography titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson." So on that last point you were talking about that, you know, it does seem like, unless I'm missing something, this guy really had outsized influence on the media and society, given his relative profile in the grocery industry. So how do you account for that, if that's true, how do you account for that? What was his secret to have so much leverage?

FF: Well, it certainly is true. And I think part of the answer is that he was so well known in the grocery industry because he had been such an innovator. I mean, supermarkets were all over the country by 1950. And when he started in 1920, there weren't any. And he started developing them and, and he made a name for himself in the industry. The industry gave him numerous awards for his innovations and also for his anti-communism. So he had, he had their ear, he had the ear of the industry. And that was, that was really key because everything in 1951 depended on, you know, in TV broadcasting depended on the advertising, it was just explosively profitable at that time. Syracuse happened to be a TV town, which means before the Korean War there were two TV stations, WHEN and WSYR in Syracuse. It was one of the few cities that had them before the slowdown during the Korean War, when all the resources had to go into war production and so TV advertising was already a big deal in Syracuse. He had these ready-made allies in the veterans groups. He even formed one out of, from his employees, called the Veterans Action Committee of Syracuse Supermarkets and they were key allies. And whether or not he actually put up all of these signs in the store, all he had to do was talk to these sponsors and they would they would go after those actors because the tenor of the times, Grant, we weren't doing much around 1951, but there was a Red Scare out there. And it wasn't based completely on fantasy. There were plenty of spies in America and there were plenty of people who the Soviets thought they had in their pockets. And the House and Senate were compiling these dossiers and the Federal Archives were full of this information. It seemed very well documented if you want to put it that way, although there was definitely a major flaw in that argument, which is that if you're talking in the House or the Senate or in a federal courtroom or in a federal office, you're immune from libel suits. You're immune from being held accountable for what you say in that sense, you can't be sued legally. But when you're relying as a private citizen activist on Red Channels, the Blacklist booklet, which has those same citations, you're no longer protected.

GR: Interesting, interesting. So I'm curious, did this gentleman, Johnson, did he get the attention of Senator Joe McCarthy? Did they ever meet?

FF: Yeah, if you look on the first, I think it's in the introduction, there's a picture of them together. They met at Hinderwadel's Grove in Syracuse. When Joseph McCarthy came to town, he sued the Post-Standard, by the way, at one point for libel.

GR: McCarthy or Johnson?

FF: McCarthy.

GR: McCarthy, okay, okay.

FF: And he came to town for depositions and for examinations before trial. And at one of those occasions, he was greeted by the veterans and hosted at a clambake at Hinderwadel's Grove and Johnson looks pretty uncomfortable. He looks, you know, he looks rather ill at ease like he doesn't know what to say. They were not intimate, but he certainly admired the Wisconsin senator. He was not a leader in any sense, I mean, he ran his is grocery business and he was a leader in the grocery industry, the retail shopping industry. However, he never took a leadership position in any anti-communist organization or never ran for office or never looked for the spotlight. He was never one to make long speeches. So I think he was he was not very comfortable being in these august circles with McCarthy. But he was thrilled.

GR: Yeah, I bet, interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Fred Fiske. He's recently published a biography titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson" and we've been discussing his book. So you kind of intimated this a little bit, I think, right before the break. But my understanding is Johnson's career as an anti-communist sort of came to a head with a with a big court case. Give us the background on that.

FF: Year after year from 1951 on, he was able to pursue this campaign with devastating effectiveness. Some would call it, I mean I think it's one of the most effective private merchandising campaigns in (the) political history of our country. And the Red Channels document that he used has been called the most effective blacklist that we've ever had. And so I mean, in total hundreds of actors were affected by this whole movement and Johnson was one of the leaders of it. In 1956 he took on a new target, John Henry Faulk, who was at that time a TV personality and just breaking. He had hundreds of appearances on game shows and he had a radio program and he was just about to start a TV program when the anti-communists took him on. He'd been very active in AFTRA, the labor union for show people, and he was part of a slate that ran against the anti-communists. There was sort of an anti-communist majority on the board of AFTRA and these middle of the road people with Faulk, their most outspoken member, won election to AFTRA’s board and this brought him to the attention of the anti-communists. And they put out a sheet of seven or eight suspect associations from him, never accusing him of being a communist, but citing the Daily Worker and citing House committee reports, I think. Very official looking. And then they started putting pressure on sponsors. And what happened to Faulk was just a crime. I mean, he lost, eventually his contracts. Within a year he was unemployable in show business. He ended up trying to be a bond salesman, that didn't work. He finally ended up in Texas trying to run an ad agency, wasn't a very good advertising agent. Oddly enough, he was a great merchandiser. He was a super salesman for his network, for CBS. He would go out to stores and sell product. I think he and Johnson would have gotten along great because he was also very interested in American folklore, just like Johnson was. So they had some things in common, but he was the Eugene Debs side and Johnson was the William Jennings Bryan side. So they took him on, and Johnson, who would make these trips to New York, started visiting advertising agencies and putting pressure on them to get rid of John Henry Faulk. And it worked until Faulk took his friends’ advice and went to look for a lawyer and he found Louis Nizar, who was a celebrated attorney, just a showman and a wonderfully effective lawyer in New York City. And he took on Faulk’s case and they sued for libel in 1956. ’56, you know, think about that. That's five years after he started and two years after Joe McCarthy, you could say, got his comeuppance. The senator in the Army-McCarthy hearings was kind of discredited. And by ‘56, he was near the end, he'd really gone downhill. I think Louis Nizar sensed an opportunity here and he told John Faulk, I think, presciently, he said, this is going to take a while, but you're going to win. And it sure did, it took six years to come to trial in 1962 and the trial was remarkable. It wasn't just about John Henry Faulk and Red Channels and Laurence Johnson and his allies, it was about the whole blacklisting phenomenon. It really put the whole process on trial. And in fact, John Henry Faulk wrote a book about it later, “Fear on Trial” about the trial and it was made into a TV movie and Louis Nizar was played by George C. Scott.

GR: Yeah, I think I may have seen that as a kid. It's ringing a bell, yeah.

FF: William Devane played John Henry Faulk. But oddly enough, there was no Laurence Johnson in the film because he never appeared at trial. By this time he was in his 70s and he pleaded ill health. And I don't know if I want to put in a spoiler about what happened at the trial, but it was pretty dramatic.

GR: Okay, we'll leave that for listeners to buy the book. But let me ask you this, I don't know if I'm ruining it, you can just say I'll take a pass on this. But I did want to ask you how Johnson's life ended.

FF: He did plead ill health and Louis Nizar wasn't having it and so he said, let's have two doctors examine you, one for our side and one from your side. And so Laurence Johnson’s doctor said he had this esophageal problem and a trial could really put him over the edge. And Louis Nizar's doctor, who was a gastroenterologist, said, that's nonsense, he could do it easily. And Louis Nizar just left it at that. Let the jury draw its own conclusion. And right near the end of the trial, Johnson was found dead in a motel room like five miles from the courtroom. Died of pretty much natural causes. He took his meds and then and that had a problem while in his sleep and died in his sleep.

GR: Wow.

FF: So that's how his life ended. And by that time, I think he knew things were not going well at the trial. So it was a kind of a sad end.

GR: Yeah, but the other gentleman's life was ruined. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Fred Fiske, and we've been discussing his new book about the anti-communist crusader Laurence A. Johnson. So I had some questions here at the last part of our program that are kind of bigger picture. Obviously, you had a fair amount of historical knowledge of this era before you started writing this book. You know, your experience with the paper and just otherwise your education, you knew quite a bit about the time period. I was curious, in the course of writing this did you learn something about our history that you didn't know before that really kind of struck you and stayed with you?

FF: I learned that Laurence Johnson came out of a long tradition of fear of the other, of demonizing the stranger or the marginal, the radical. I mean, it goes back to the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1700s. I mean, that's before we were even really organized. And right through the 1800s with the Know Nothings and the anti-Masons and on, you know, the Civil War and the Ku Klux Klan and people who just were afraid of these big groups in society. And in the 1920’s there was an anti-immigrant push and there were red scares in the ’30s. And all around, Johnson, there was evidence that that there really was a problem in America at that time. I mean he didn't have to be making anything up. I mean, a lot of the stuff that he was looking at was made up. And Grant, what I also realized is that it's going on now. I mean, it never really stops.

GR: Yeah, I wanted to ask you.

FF: ...fits and starts, you know. 50 years ago, we had book bans, and now we have efforts to ban books. We have another anti-immigrant scare going on with the illegal migrants. We have pushback against being woke, if you will. We have pushback against DEI. I mean, these are becoming epithets today. We have pushback back against LGBT+ rights. And so there's there are these cultural wars that get fueled by government, by government agents and government hearings and the political process. And I think you just have to accept that it's kind of part of who we are and that's really why I wanted to study this guy. I said, what is it about us that creates people like Laurence Johnson? Well, they've been with us all along, and they probably still will be. And I think that understanding Laurence Johnson, this patriot, this well-meaning idealist who trampled on civil rights, you know, of due process and free speech and association, we understand him a little better we'll be able to cope with these challenges when they come up today and tomorrow.

GR: And it's, in a lot of ways he's really, he's a tragic figure. You know, and you kind of intimated that they're talking about his death and, you know, you don't want to feel too sorry for him, we only have about a minute left, but in the process of writing this, did you get some empathy for this guy that you weren't expecting?

FF: Yeah, I really respected him. I don't know if I would have liked him. I can't impugn his motives. He never made any money off of this, he spent money on this. He jeopardized his business for this. And keep in mind, he never fired anybody. He never actually ruined anyone's career. That was done by CBS and ABC and the ad agencies and the agents who wouldn't touch these actors. Johnson was just a private citizen. He wasn't even the leader of a group, and he was just acting on his patriotic ideals. But yet that's the kind of idealism that can wreck the country.

GR: Well, it’s a real fascinating set of contradictions and paradoxes, but it's a very, very interesting book. I highly recommend it to anyone who's listening. It would make a great summer read, and it's a nice blend of something that happened in Syracuse, but as you and I have been discussing, has implications for the entire arc of American history. So that was Fred Fiske, and again, his new book is titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson." Fred, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, very interesting.

FF: Oh, it's been great.

GR: Thanks. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

(Control Room 2)On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Melanie Littlejohn. Last December, Littlejohn was named as the president and CEO of the Central New York Community Foundation, she brings to that position a wide array of previous experience in the private and nonprofit sector, including a long career with National Grid and its Corporate Social Responsibility program.

View Details

Wawa GatheruProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Wawa Gatheru. Ms. Gatheru is the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a national organization dedicated to empowering black girls, women and nonbinary people across the climate sector. In 2019, she was named the first black person in history to receive the prestigious Rhodes, Truman and Udall scholarships, all three of them. Since then, she's received a number of young leadership recognitions and awards. Ms. Gatheru, welcome to the program.

Wawa Gatheru: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk with you today.

GR: Well, we're excited to have you. Let me just start with one thing, we know already that you're very smart, I think I just proved that. Where did you win all these scholarships? Where was your undergraduate experience?

WG: Yeah, so I'm a proud alum of the illustrious University of Connecticut, Storrs. That's where I did my undergrad.

GR: Excellent, okay. And you did the Rhodes Scholarship, was the one you chose, which makes perfect sense. And I think the Truman was one that you get sort of while you're an undergraduate, is that right? You were able to receive that scholarship at Connecticut, right?

WG: Yes. So the Truman Scholarship is a public service scholarship so it's awarded to undergraduate juniors that have shown exceptional promise in the space of public service and have a track record and hopefully will continue to carry that on throughout the rest of their career.

GR: All right. So the Rhodes is the one everyone's heard of. And what did you study at Oxford?

WG: So I studied major society and environmental governance. So that was a masters where we really focused on environmental governance and have the opportunity to understand what that looks like from a global perspective, it’s very insightful.

GR: Well, perfect for what you're doing, so great, okay. So, briefly tell me how and why you started this organization, Black Girl Environmentalist.

WG: Yeah. So the idea of BGE, Black Girl Environmentalist, was definitely seeded throughout my experience in the environmental space. I was 15 when I really knew in my heart that I had found my calling and I knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to climate solutions. And throughout my time as a young person navigating the climate sector, I had an incredible experience obviously, I'm still here. But there were many instances that reminded me of the leadership crisis that our space really suffers from and even though people of color make up nearly, I think, 40% of the U.S. population, we rarely see a 12 to 16% green ceiling of representation and that is definitely seen and felt when you're in environmental or climate rooms. And so I kept asking myself the question, if we know that communities of color, people of color and women of color in particular, are experiencing the brunt of environmental injustices in our country and abroad, why is it that we're not adequately represented in climate leadership? Why is it that the next generation of climate leaders don't look like a representation of the United States? And so that was a big tension point throughout my journey. And when I completed my master's at Oxford and fall of 2022, I was confronted with the possibility of spending a year turning what, at that point was an Instagram page and Instagram community, into a functioning, fully operational nonprofit that could attempt to address this very unique pipeline and pathway issue in the climate sector. And so I decided to, instead of accepting a job offer that would have provided me financial security, spend a year dedicated to spreading the word on BGE, building out our programing and fundraising. And I told myself that if I wasn't able to fundraise enough to hire myself, then at least two people full time within a year, I would essentially go back crawling to whoever would take me for a job, and I'd keep the organization as an Instagram page. And somehow we were able to do that and we're still going strong with full time staff.

GR: That's great. So, a follow up question on that, but just to underline something that you said at the beginning about the field being dominated by white people. You know, I've had a number of folks on the program in the years that I've been doing it to talk about environmental issues and you prompted me to go back really quickly and think, and they were all white. So you are the first person of color to be on this program to be talking about environmental issues. So it just kind of underlines your point there. You said that people of color bear the heavier brunt of environmental injustices and problems. Could you say a little bit more about that because when I think of some of the environmental concerns, you know, global warming and everything, I don't necessarily think of them in those terms, so help me better understand that.

WG: Yeah, so I mean, there's so many different ways that we can look at this. The origins of the climate crisis in a formal environmental course, we really look at the industrial revolution as being the starting point of the climate crisis particularly, and the rapid increase of greenhouse gases and the way that we really see our economy industrialized in this very specific way and how that launched the US in particular into an era of wealth and really solidified it as one of the most wealthy nations in the world, if not the most wealthy. But I would say, if we took from a historical perspective, the climate crisis did not begin there, right? The Industrial Revolution didn't pay for itself. We think about the abolishment of slavery and what a tectonic economic shift it was. It required the US to really launch itself into a new economic system that did not remove itself from a system of exploitation. So we went from a system of exploiting black and brown bodies to continuing to exploit black and brown bodies, not in the same way, but still doing so while also exploiting the land and our resources at a level that we have not been able to keep up with. And a lot of environmental strands can really trace the legacy of chattel slavery, colonialism, imperialism as being huge, grounding fundamental systems that have led us into this crisis. And because those systems are born out of exploitation, the climate crisis and staying true to its origins and roots, does not impact us all the same. I often say the climate crisis, even though we're all in the same storm that is a climate crisis we aren't all in the same boat, meaning that the climate crisis is a threat multiplier. It does create a lot of new problems for people, and it certainly impacts all different types of people. But depending on your social status, socio-economic status, race, gender, et cetera, your relationship with it is different. We often talk about climate change as being a threat multiplier. And, you know, when we dive into that term, it really means that the climate crisis intensifies all existing social threats. So even if the climate crisis wasn't in the picture, right, we understand that there are communities that tend to be poor. There are communities that have been targeted by systemic inequalities. There are communities that are more likely to experience poverty, and then when you bring the climate crisis on top of that, those issues grow larger. And the gaps between those with and those without continues to grow. And so people of color tend to be on the end of the have-nots when the climate crisis is brought into the mix, again that gap continues to grow larger. A really good example is heat. Right now, we're still in a heat wave. It's kind of crazy to think about, right? We're at day six, I think, to summer. And we are already seeing headlines of people losing their lives to heat. But the thing is with heat, heat does not impact us all equally, right? When we think about the very real legacy of redlining even though redlining is illegal, we still are living out the ramifications of these racist policies. There is research that shows that previously redlined communities that are still predominantly black and brown and low income are actually hotter than communities that weren't previously redlined. And that's because redlined communities were designated for a lot of concrete infrastructure. Warehouses highways, lack of green space. And then if you look at communities that weren't previously redlined and were able to access investment, there's a lot of green space. There is a lot of canopy cover, there's a lot of infrastructure that mitigates extreme heat. And because of that, we can quite literally see that a neighborhood that was previously redlined just a couple of blocks from a predominantly white community that wasn't previously redlined, people are experiencing heat very differently. And that's just like a real tangible example. But, you know, even if we bring in pregnant people into the mix, right? We already have a black maternal health crisis, we already know that black mothers and their babies are disproportionately impacted by our broken health care system. But heat really, really impacts pregnant and birthing people and their babies. And so if you add that on top of the mix, right, a black mother and a black baby in a community that was previously redlined, that is low income, that is hotter, is going to experience that heat differently than a white mother in a neighborhood that wasn't previously redlined, has canopy and tree cover to mitigate extreme heat and likely also has better access to health care in ways that the black mother doesn't have.

GR: Yeah, I could see how the threat multiplier there comes into it. And my mind went to something further back in time when you were talking about this, which was the differential impact of Hurricane Katrina.

WG: Right.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Wawa Gatheru, the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist. So, what would you regard as your organization's biggest success so far, other than building it, obviously, which was a challenge. But now, you know, now that it's built, what's the thing that you would point to with the most pride?

WG: The thing that I would point to with the most pride is, you know, building it, I would say. And the reason why is I don't think people realize how dire philanthropy is for the climate space. Climate is the least funded issue item out there, which is really scary when we think about organizations, groups that are leading on climate solutions that are simply not able to scale and don't have the capacity to do so because of funding. And youth climate organizations are in a really, really interesting predicament and which constantly, we're told, you are the future, you're going to save us from ourselves. And then simultaneously we receive .76 percent of climate philanthropy of the very little there is, we receive .76, and most of that funding is located within the United States. So, we are an organization that is primarily focused in the United States, right? And even then, there's a disparity where my fellow brothers and sisters that are leading incredible work elsewhere are really not getting any funding. So the fact that we were able to raise enough capital to have full time staff and to be able to lead programing, in and of itself is great, but it certainly has been a burden in navigating. But very specifically, I would see our Hazel and Johnson Fellowship program is something that I'm very, very proud of. It initially launched just a couple of months ago. It's a summer program where we have placed 14 current college students or recent graduates at leading environmental organizations for the summer where they are receiving financial support, mentorship and professional development at a scale that really isn't normal in our space. Unpaid internships are thankfully becoming less and less popular, but there is still an issue around college students or recent graduates being able to access these internships or summer opportunities that are really, really critical and being able to obtain your first early career job. Because, A, if they are paid, they don't always tend to be able to correlate with the high costs of living. Two, if you have to relocate, many of the places that are very popular for internships are very expensive already. And the other issue is that students may not know how to really leverage the experience if they're in there. So with our fellowship, all the partner organizations are paying our fellows at least $18 an hour, and only one fellow is actually receiving that, most of them are receiving at least $20 an hour, up to $25 an hour. On top of that, Black Girl Environmentalists, our organization has equipped the bills with a $5,000 living wage stipend to support those fees as well. We are providing them weekly professional development, 3 hours a week, where we get to introduce them to different topics that are pertinent to where they are in the early career journey, and then also expose them to other things that could help them as they develop, as well as partnering each of the fellows up with the mentor. And we're finishing up the summer with an in-person retreat in Washington State, where we'll be able to really share about the experiences that folks had over the summer. Folks will get to connect in person or be able to plan ahead for how our alumni program can continue to support these individuals. It's been a really, really incredible journey to see the program start from an idea into this pipeline that is being recognized and where folks are participating from all over the country. We have HBCU students, we have state school students, we have Ivy League students, students that are utilizing this platform to really get their foot in the door. And our partner organizations are just incredible. We have everyone from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign, Harvard's Salata Institute, The Climate Trust, WWF, Rare (Environmental), across disciplines from renewable energy to environmental justice to policy. And we really wanted for folks to be able to have a wide selection of what type of discipline they wanted to get into, as well as start off in a place that can really help bring them to the next level.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Wawa Gatheru. She’s the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a national organization dedicated to empowering black girls, women and nonbinary people across the climate (spectrum). I just wanted to mention before the break you were talking about your fellowship program, and I just want to give you compliments here because I run an internship program at Syracuse University, but the way you've thought this through, inserting the mentoring into it and the big meeting afterward where people can compare their experiences, that's really nicely done. I just want to say good work on that.

WG: Thank you.

GR: What's been your biggest challenge so far outside of building the organization? I wonder whether it was getting people of color more interested in this or what's been the thing that's been toughest to get around for you?

WG: Yeah, you know, it hasn't been that last point. And it's so interesting because I think there is this narrative around people of color that sometimes we believe as well, like as people of color where it's like, oh, like, black folks don't go outside or don't go camping or don't care about the environment, or people of color don't do those things, when in reality it's not true. Like, we have polling that shows that people of color overwhelmingly do care about climate action, do care about how, for example, political candidates are talking about climate change. Actually, more than our white counterparts. In fact, Latin communities are the most concerned about environmental protection than any demographic. So it's always so interesting that when we think about environmentalism, it typically isn't that communities of color that again, arguably do care the most. I find that the issue or the biggest burden that I've had to face in the past several years with BGE and then overall is combating that narrative. And then also really combating that narrative and really asserting why an organization like this is so important. I tend to get a lot of questions about why I focus on what I focus on. People ask, why women? Why black women? Why black girls? Why not stick it to the tree? That's one I get a lot. You know, like race has nothing to do with climate action or climate protection, why exactly are you being divisive? And so I find that a lot of my job is to, specifically when it comes to overcoming narratives, is to really provide a historical grounding into the ways in which people of color have always been involved in our stewardship, have always been environmentalists, and remind folks of that continuing legacy. And then also to share that history with other folks of color and other black folks, because it's always been, again, this moment of a feeling of tension that I have experienced. But as I continue to meet more and more and more black girl environmentalists, I hear the same thing back. Where so many other people also have this lived experience of being like, this is so strange, like at home, we always recycle and like we always talked about how important it was to take care of the planet, we always understood that protecting the planet always meant protecting people, too. But the prevailing narrative has left us out. And so it's been a burden, but then it's also been an opportunity to connect with other people and build community over the fact that so many of us have been exposed to this narrative and yet, in the midst of it, have continued to persevere and continue to really take up space and really show the movement at large that in order for the climate movement to be successful, we need a movement made in the image of all of us and one that speaks to everyone.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Wawa Gatheru. She's an environmentalist and she founded the organization, Black Girl Environmentalist. Now, your constituency, as you listed on your website and elsewhere, is black girls, black women, but then also nonbinary people. So I just wanted to ask you why that was part of your focus. Do you see some sort of natural connection between the issues of bringing those first two groups into this conversation and the last one, nonbinary?

WG: Yeah, ultimately, right? Marginalized groups, folks that are made marginalized by our prevailing systems, we experience not just the climate crisis, but a lot of other issues differently than other groups, right? And it's really interesting because if you look at data or information that we have around gender, it very clearly points the fact that women of any race experience climate change with disproportionate severity because enforced gender inequality makes us more susceptible to escalating environmental stressors. At the same time, we know that women, when women are in positions of leadership in the environmental space or at large, we see better conservation outcomes when women are taking up space in national parliaments. We actually see more robust climate policies come through. So that's very, very clear in the research. But what's so interesting is that gender expansive nonbinary folks aren't even included in the research. There is a huge gap in the literature around how gender expansive and nonbinary folks and other gender minorities are experiencing the climate crisis and environmental hazards. And that in and of itself says everything that I need to know, right? If folks aren't even being included in the research, in the metrics, aren't being validated as a demographic, then of course, you know, of course, they're experiencing these things at disproportionate levels because they're not even being understood as people with lived experiences that need to be recognized. And so Black Girl Environmentalist as an organization, we are trying to make sure that black folks that have been left out, black gender minorities that have been left out of environmental leadership, out of environmental narratives, out of being understood as leaders of today and tomorrow, we are reconfiguring what that is. We're saying no, that we are leaders were leaders today we are leaders tomorrow, and we are creating opportunities for these folks to be seen, to be invested in, to build community. So for me, it's a very natural progression and it's a very natural part of our community.

GR: I get a sense of what your organization does and you mentioned the fellowship program and developing leadership and focusing on these groups. What's your long term hope or vision for this movement or organization?

WG: Well, to be honest, my long term hope / vision is that we won't have to exist (laughter). Like ultimately, right? All of us in the climate space, no matter who you are, no matter what your race is, we are trying to solve the climate crisis, right? So a long term goal is that we solve the climate crisis and that folks that have dedicated their life to climate solutions can focus on something else. My dream, if I wasn't in climate, I would have been a jazz singer, that's what I wanted to do my whole life. But, yeah, the climate crisis kind of got in the way of that dream. So maybe one day you'll find me out in some smoky bar singing Amy Winehouse, because we solved the climate crisis. As an organization, right, the goal is that we have a climate movement made in the image of all of us. I want for a black girl to be able to look at the climate space as a viable option for them and not to be deterred because they are going into workspaces or going into rooms that don't look like them and don't recognize how the climate crisis is impacting their communities most directly. And so if we get to that point, then I'd be happy to close the doors on BGE and have us focus on other things, but we're not there yet. And ultimately, our goal now really is to continue to create these pipelines to continue to cultivate communities and ecosystems of care for our members to build alongside each other, to build community, and for folks to know that the green economy space, that climate space is for them, and that there is room for them and that they are needed for the viability of our movement.

GR: I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but I'm going to guess that the climate problem and environmental issues are going to remain challenges beyond my lifetime for sure, but also probably throughout yours. So I don't know whether you're going to get to the jazz singing or not (laughter).

WG: You know, I think maybe there's some future I can do both. But for now…

GR: Okay. I have to ask you this question as a young leader. You may not like it, but I'm going to ask it anyway. President Biden, he's instituted some policies that environmentalists have applauded, and they've involved some fights. At the same time, though, among young people, his age is creating unease and lack of enthusiasm. And of course, that, you know, obviously came to a head with a debate performance. What do you, as a young leader make of the age issue in this regard?

WG: That's such an interesting question. And the way that you posed it…

GR: ...You’ve got to answer quick, I'm sorry.

WG: Ah, it's a big question, right? Because I think there is this narrative around young climate organizers or activists feeling some sort of resentment towards older generations. And I think that is a totally incorrect narrative. It does not speak to how movements work, right? Like, I am in this movement because of older people that have taken me under their wing and have quite literally paved the path for me and I'm on their shoulders. I think this question about President Biden and his age and his performance, I think it's a valid one for people to have. I personally am not focusing on his age when it comes down to me being someone that would vote for him. I'm voting off of climate and reproductive justice and so that's where my vote is. Again, I do think that while it's a valid conversation around the lack of representation of young people in our political system and the energy that we bring, oftentimes because of our youth, I do feel like are some ageist narratives that are going about that, take us away from the issues that we should be focusing on. There are things that we can critique for sure, and age can be one of them. Personally, that’s not my number one deterrent right now.

GR: Okay, we’ll have to leave it there. That was Wawa Gatheru and again, her organization is Black Girl Environmentalist. Ms. Gatheru, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really enjoyed the conversation.

WG: Thank you for having me.

GR: You’ve been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Mark MolinaroThis week on the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Rep. Marc Molinaro, a Republican who represents New York's 19th Congressional District. An independent organization recently ranked Molinaro as the 2nd most bipartisan member of the House of Representatives, and the 5th most productive.

View Details

Ken Block(Mark Lavonier)On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks to Ken Block, author of the book, "Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Almost four years after the fact, we are still hearing about a supposedly stolen 2020 presidential election. My guest today is uniquely positioned to discuss this. He was the data analytics expert that the Trump campaign hired to investigate fraud in the election. Yet he found that there wasn't a case to be made. Ken Block is a political reformer and software engineer. The founder of the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, a former candidate for governor, and most importantly, again for our conversation here today, he's the author of a new book titled “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.” Mr. Block, welcome to the program. Really interested to hear what you have to say.

Ken Block: I am so looking forward to this conversation. Let's go.

GR: All right. Great. Well, first of all, obviously this topic has become so tangled, it's going to be hard to unwrap it in the 27 minutes or so that we have. But we're going to try. I think the first thing that we ought to do briefly, if we can do this briefly, is to establish your credentials as an expert and your political background, because I'm sure that anyone listening is going to be wondering about those things right away. So tell us, tell us who you are in that regard.

KB: Sure. So, I am, a, 30-year veteran of the technology industry. I specialize in large database applications. I have an expert a knowledge expert in my field. I came to politics late in life, and I came into politics because in, 2008 or so, I became very unhappy with the choices that the two political parties were offering up to me. I became, very unhappy with what at the time, felt like a lot of hyper-partisanship. Of course, it's much worse now.

GR: Yeah. Those were the good old days.

KB: Yeah. And, in a spectacular, explosion of naivete, I said, well, the right answer is to start a new political party. And I, was the godfather of, in Rhode Island, the Moderate Party, which was a centrist political party. And, it was quite a fight to create the party. We had to sue the state in federal court, get some laws declared unconstitutional just to be given the chance to try to start the party. And, we, won the court case. We had to collect a huge number of signatures in order to qualify the party for the ballot. Then we had to stay on the ballot once we got on the ballot. And, I was essentially, because no good deed goes unpunished, my executive committee basically looked at me and said, well, now you have to run for governor so we can keep the party. So, that's how I got into politics. And, I, exceeded expectations in 2010, I got 6.5% of the vote, as running as a complete unknown and participating in about 40 debates. I realized that I was good at politics. I was really good at the debates. And I had the bug, and I realized in 2012 that, a third party just is too hard to do. I abandoned the party in 2012. I ran for governor in 2014, as a Republican, because in my state of Rhode Island, it's an incredibly blue state. And if you want to make change in Rhode Island, you can't do it from within the Democratic Party. The machine is, all-powerful. So the only option left to me was running as a Republican. I lost my statewide primary by 3000 votes. And I'm fond of saying now that, voter fraud was not to blame for my loss.

GR: Okay, so that explains then. I'm guessing, then, that the Trump campaign, when they came to you, you know, you were the they thought this this guy's not going to be hostile to a Republican candidate. He's got the data analytics chops to do this. So you were sort of the right combination for them. What were the initial, I'm curious to know, what were the initial stated grounds or the suspicions about the outcome that were communicated to you? I mean, the campaign comes to you and they say, we think this has a problem because of what?

KB: Well, interestingly, the lawyer who approached me to do this work, his name is Alex Cannon, did not come to me asking me for aspecific finding. He actually wanted proper due diligence. We, he asked me to provide an estimate for what it would take to look for deceased voters, to look for duplicate voters, where a voter votes in more than one jurisdiction in the same election. And as we discussed doing the work, I told him that in a decade of looking, very closely at voter data, I'd never seen anything close to what I knew the campaign needed to be found. And his response to that was, well, I appreciate your candor and, I want a straight-up assessment. You know, if you find it, you find it. I said, look, if I find it, it will survive legal scrutiny. So, yeah, you know, it'll be a foundation for, legal action if we find it. I said, if we don't find it, I'm going to tell you I didn't find it, and that's the end of it. And he said, perfect. Off we go. So there wasn't an expectation. And that's always surprising to people when I describe, what the nature of my engagement was, the lawyers I reported to were doing their professional due diligence in every, in every way. Which is a very unexpected thing for people to learn.

GR: So, briefly, what did you find?

KB: We found evidence of voter fraud in small amounts. We found some dead voters. We found some duplicate voters, nowhere near enough to have changed the election result in any of the swing states. And as I made Alex aware, as we were moving through all of this, I said, look, even imagine in Georgia that we found 20,000 fraudulent votes. Even if we find those votes, it still can't change the election result, because we have no way of determining for whom those fraudulent votes were cast. And so, without being able to do that, you can't show the harm the campaign needs to show to claim that something should be changed with the election result. And Alex, as a lawyer, got that right away. Unfortunately, it seems like almost nobody else in the country seems to have figured that out.

GR: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because when I was thinking about this, I was thinking, how would you go about investigate this? I would think that at some point you would need to have individual human testimony, right? Like this person paid me to vote twice or, you know, I admit I voted twice. I was part of a group that tried to do that. Or, you know, we got these dead people to vote. I mean, don't you have to sort of have a testimony of some sort?

KB: Well, I think if you if we had been able to identify again, I am very careful when I talk about these hypotheticals. We didn't identify, but imagine if we did identify 20,000 deceased voters in Georgia. We would only need to be able to show two things. That the person who cast the vote is legally dead, and we have the ability to do that. But what we couldn't show is that, that vote was cast, on, you know, as a vote for, Biden or as a vote for Trump. That's not possible to do in our form of democracy. Who you vote for is anonymous by design and you would never want to be able to trace back who a specific individual voted for. So, had we found 20,000 fraudulent votes in Georgia, you can make a weak argument that you should redo the election because of the number of those votes, but because you couldn't prove the harm that those votes caused. I doubt any judge would have gone to that far to have changed the outcome of the election.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Ken Block, and we're discussing his new book. It's titled “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.” So you come back to the Trump campaign and you say, I didn't find anything. I didn't find what you guys were looking for. Here's what I found. How did they react? You said only the lawyers seem to understand.

KB: Yeah. So Alex did a couple of things besides giving me the freedom to give him a straight-up assessment. He also provided me political cover. Nobody above him knew my identity or the identity of my company while we were doing this work. And that was done specifically to avoid a problem where political pressure from the imagine potentially the White House, for example, would be brought to bear on me or my company, to find a specific set of results. So Alex was very receptive and understanding, of the fact that we couldn't find enough voter fraud to matter. He communicated that to Mark Meadows, who was Trump's Chief of Staff at the time. Meadows accepted that finding of fact as true, and he took that information into the Oval Office. What we glossed over here is that while I was asked to look for voter fraud, data mining for voter fraud, the second day of my contract, Alex started asking me to assess the validity of claims of voter fraud that other people brought to the attention of the campaign. And we looked at about 20 different claims of voter fraud, in the one-month window in which we had done all this work. And every single one of those voter fraud claims, I was able to show Alex why they were false, back it up with evidence and as a result of that work, several lawsuits that were going to be filed based on false evidence were stopped in their tracks.

GR: Wow. Okay, that sounds like that's equally important to the original work. I don't know if you have enough contact with the different people there to get into this, but I want to ask you anyway. So did you get any sense of sort of what the culture of the campaign, Trump campaign was sort of planet Trump in regard to this issue?

KB: So, no firsthand information. I wasn't going out to lunch with folks or anything like that. I was very I was siloed on purpose. My only day-to-day communications were with Alex Cannon.

GR: Okay. And this may be a tough question, too, but I have to ask it. Based on your interactions, do you think that there were people in the campaign that actually thought this election was fraudulent?

KB: Well, I would only. I would simply be speculating, right, because I didn't have the conversations so I cannot give you a firsthand account of anything. Based on the January 6th deposition, transcripts that I read, few people who were actually employed by the campaign, seemed to indicate that voter that they believed voter fraud was prevalent. The people who believe voter fraud was a big problem were external to the campaign. They were lawyers like Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, folks like that. While they were attorneys and while they were filing lawsuits on behalf of President Trump, they weren't part of the formal campaign apparatus. So, we all know that there were people who, I don't know if they honestly believe that there was voter fraud, but they certainly, spent a lot of time, energy and money, bringing forward claims of voter fraud all over the place.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with data analytics expert Ken Block, who was hired by the Trump campaign in 2020 to investigate fraud in the election. He didn't find it, and his new book is titled “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.” Okay, so Ken, we covered in the first half sort of what you did while you, you know, you didn't find anything, how that interaction went. So if Trump didn't lose because of fraud, why did he lose? You've got the explanation.

KB: Sure. “Republicans In Name Only.” The reason that Trump lost in 2020 through a couple of different ways of proving it was done in by the RINOs that he denigrated for years leading up to the election and whose support he publicly rejected. Trump made RINOs dead to him. And what happened in 2020? On a national, on a state-by-state basis and on a county-by-county basis, almost consistently across the country, across every county is Trump did about 2.5% less well, in terms of his total percentage of the vote won in 2020 than he did in 2016. 2.5% that 2.5% is the RINOs. And in the reddest states in the country, Trump did less well in 2020 than he did in 2016. And you, it's so consistent. This is it's not an abnormality. It's everywhere. It's a national trend. Secretary of State Raffensperger in Georgia, when they were analyzing the election results, found nearly 30,000 Republican primary voters who did not vote in the presidential election in 2020. So they voted in the primary, they didn't vote in the general. Remember, Trump lost by about 12,000 votes in Georgia. 30,000 votes in the Republican primary, voters didn't vote in the general election. Another 30,000 voters in the general election voted for down-ticket Republicans across the board, but left the presidential race blank. That's really compelling. Really important. The other thing, another equally stark fact is in Georgia, the libertarian candidate took about 50,000 votes and Trump lost by 12,000 votes. So there's a number of different explanations for it. Trump's own pollster did an exit poll, which is where they interview voters leaving a polling place, and they interviewed 30,000 voters across all the swing states. And they found that one out of six of those voters were Republicans who abandoned Trump.

GR: Well, the finding on the primary voting is amazing because as a political scientist, I know primary voters are usually the most reliable voters of all. Yeah, but if you vote in the primary and don't vote in the general. Yeah, that's very telling. Okay. So that brings up a question in my mind about 2024. And again, you know, it's speculating here for you. But do you think then that four years of a Biden presidency for those RINOs might make them less likely to abandon Trump as the challenger this time?

KB: Well, Trump has done nothing to try to bring RINOs back into the fold. So, I don't think many RINOs who abandoned Trump are going to simply embrace him again. I think that more has to happen than that. And if anything, Trump has made himself even more less appealing to moderate Republican voters since 2020 then he was going into the 2020 election between January 6th and just the heat behind his rhetoric has gotten so extreme. I don't see how anyone, how any moderates who abandoned him go back. On the other hand, they look at Biden now, and they're not seeing a compelling political figure anymore. So, you know, this election to me is extraordinary because, both candidates have, substantial negative that they carry along with them. Neither candidate is really providing a lot of pull for anybody under the age of 40 anywhere. Right? You just have nothing in common with these old candidates. And they're both misfiring. Young progressives have abandoned Biden right now, just like the moderates have abandoned Trump. Honestly, and this really stinks to say. But, I believe that this whole election might very well hinge on whichever candidate falls down on live TV first is going to lose. I mean, their health is so fragile at this point. It could be something that basic that determines who's going to win this election. And that's not good for us.

GR: Do you think the fact that the third-party candidates that are in it this time around are more of the type that are likely to draw from the left than the right matters?

KB: Well, the libertarian candidates are always going to derive, they're going to derive their votes from the right, not the left. Kennedy is a is an interesting character. With his last name, you would think he's pulling votes from the left. But when you look at what his positions are, he’s very purposely pulling votes from the right. So I don't know that there will be there will be, left-leaning voters who vote for him because they think he's a classic Kennedy. But other than that, I don't see him getting a lot of support from the left. I don't know if the Greens are going to bring forward, a candidate who's going to draw a lot of votes or not at this point. I guess we'll just sort of have to see. I mean, this is this will be an election for the ages. And if ever there was a voter for voting for the lesser of two evils, this campaign is going to embody that. I think for sure.

GR: I don't know if you want to try to venture into answer this. I know I'm asking you to do a lot of speculating here, but based on your experience, with the Trump campaign in 2020, what do you think they're going to do if this November, Joe Biden wins the election on Election Day but it's close again?

KB: Well, they've, the I don't have to speculate. Trump and a lot of the higher-level people within the Trump Organization have made it very clear that they're going to contest the election results. They're going to claim voter fraud was, to blame. Roger Stone has been quoted recently as saying that they're much better prepared now than they were in 2020 to contest the election results. And honestly, they're going to have an advantage because I'm not sure that there's been a whole lot of effort, to prepare on the other side to refute all of these claims of voter fraud that are going to be coming there. You need to do a lot of expensive prep work to be able to turn back, these claims in real time and provide scientific evidence that they're false. You know, we'll see. It's helpful, I think, to democracy that there were no claims of voter fraud that were valid and would have survived legal scrutiny in 2020. So I think that that's an advantage to democracy in general as we come into this new round of claims. But it's going to it's going to be contentious. It's going to be jammed up in the court system again. And hopefully this time around, people will keep a bit of a, saner head on their shoulders as we work our way through the mess that's coming.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Ken Block. We've been discussing his new book titled “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.” Let's get to the last part of your title there how we can improve our election. So you go through all this and you come up with some conclusions about how we can make the system better. What are they?

KB: Sure. Well, I'm going to start with a statement of fact. The statement of fact is that the two parties have really blown it in this cycle. They brought forward two candidates who really, have more negatives than positives going for them right now. And, as somebody who's tried to start, an alternative political party, the system is designed to make it almost impossible to successfully launch a political party to be able to raise money, support candidates, and do it so hard. And every state has their own obstacles for success of, alternative parties to launch. We really have an unfair, uneven system, and I think we're paying the price for that now. Gerrymandering is one of the biggest issues, I think, that are out there in terms of making our elections unfair. 80% of congressional seats are uncompetitive. We know which party is going to win, which, which of congressional seats, regardless of who the candidates are. And that's largely the result of gerrymandering. And we need to eliminate gerrymandering when the United States helps set up new democracies. I'm certain we don't introduce the idea of gerrymandering to these rising democracies because of the awful implications it has to what the election results are. So, I believe that for strong but not for strong elections with great results. And to get better cooperation in Congress, we need more competitive elections so that our representatives in Congress are more likely to compromise as opposed to collide. And, I think that's probably the biggest thing that we should be doing. Mail ballots are not going to go away, nor should they go away. But really, the way we use mail ballots, when you look at it from a systems perspective, we have the absolute weakest form of identification you can imagine. For those who are voting, in a, by mail and not in person, which is signature matching, we're using a technology that's, you know, a hundred years old. It's rife with its own problems. And, it's not a great way to to confirm identity. Not anymore, for sure. The United States is the only first-world country, certainly in Europe. And, I believe across most of the world at this point that doesn't have a national identifier. when you look at every country in Europe, they all have national identifiers that include biometrics. It makes sense. It's a strong way to prove identity. Here, we don't have any national identifier. We have Social Security numbers. But its purpose wasn't to be a national identifier, and it's no longer confidential. I mean, I could find anybody's Social Security number pretty quickly at this point due to, how many breaches there have been over the years. So, I believe we have to replace Social Security numbers. I believe we should have, voter identification number. That's federal in nature. And I believe that when you're, born in this country or you're naturalized, you should automatically be given your voter registration number. That removes all the headaches with registration, all the problems with state-based registration and people registered to vote, multiple states, all that stuff goes away with a national voter registration number. And I think it should just be automatic. And that would solve 90% of the integrity problems we have.

GR: That's interesting. So we've got about three minutes left, and I want to try to squeeze in two questions more if I can. We did have this organization No Labels this time around and trying to put forward a unity ticket, they called it. But they had done all of that hard work that you described before that, you know, discourages third parties. They had managed to get by a lot of that, despite the fact that the Democratic Party tried to knock them out of those ballot access efforts. But in the end, they didn't get a candidate. So briefly, if you could. I mean, what does that say?

KB: Yeah, it's speaking from personal experience, launching a new political party is a chicken in the egg exercise. Do you build the party around a personality, or can you create the party and then try and attract in the individual or multiple individuals who stand a chance of winning? So No Labels went, and I don't know which way to which which ones, which chicken, which one's the egg. But they just they said, well, let's create a party and then we'll go find a candidate. What I ended up doing, accidentally in Rhode Island was I ended up creating a political party for my personality. Not that that was my that wasn't my intention. But that's effectively the way it worked out, because I then had to run for governor to keep the party going. So I think it's pretty hard to do a party and then try to attract in the candidate to fill the role of carrying that flag, you know, the banner in the battle, basically. which I think is what did in the No Labels thing. And honestly, of all the election cycles to do it, this was probably the worst one because so many people believe so much rides on this particular election.

GR: Last question, and really only about 30 secons for this I apologize, but it is a personal one and I was just wondering of having the role you did for the Trump campaign, having the findings that you did, and then the fallout that may have come to you about that. Has that affected you in any kind of personal way?

KB: Well, I've been subpoenaed by Jack Smith's grand jury in D.C. I've been subpoenaed by Ruby Freeman's legal team in her defamation suit against Rudy Giuliani. And I've been subpoenaed by Fani Willis as prosecutors in the Fulton County, Georgia, matter. So have I been impacted? Yeah. If I have to testify, will that be an even bigger impact? Yeah. For sure. And I actually was compelled to write this book because of the fact that it was going to become publicly known that I had done this work, and I wanted the story told in my framing, not anyone else's. None of this would have been happening had all this just remained a quiet job that was done to no effect. Basically.

GR: Well, the good news is we have your good book that came out of it. we'll have to leave the conversation there. But that was Ken Block. And again, his new book is titled “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.” A lot of interesting stories and interesting ideas in there. Ken, thanks so much for taking time to talk to me. I really enjoyed it.

KB: Great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Kevin Elliott( politicalscience.yale.edu)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. It seems like we've all become busier than we were in the past, from schoolchildren up through retirees. Given that, all the information that's available on the internet, some of it unreliable, how much can we reasonably expect from our fellow citizens to engage the political system and how can we make that engagement easier, more rational and more fair? My guest today is Kevin Elliott. He's a lecturer in ethics, politics and economics at Yale University and he's the author of a new book that tries to tackle those questions. It's titled, “Democracy for Busy People”. Professor Elliott, welcome to the program.

Kevin Elliott: It’s a pleasure to be here.

GR: Well, it's great to have you, and thanks for making the time. So, first of all, before I ask you a question, I'm going to start by putting on another hat, rather than radio host and that, my hat is political scientist and not only a political scientist, but a political scientist who studies and teaches democratic theory. I just want to applaud you personally for taking on this challenge, it's a big one. So thank you for that. My first question may sound obvious, but still, I wanted to ask you anyway. Why did you decide to write this book when you did? And how did you get the idea for it?

KE: Yeah. So you know, when I was looking around, reading in democratic theory, reading in political theory and trying to kind of pick my way through the world that it depicts, the political world that it conveys. I saw an absence of one particular person and this was people like my mother. My mother was a single working parent without a college degree. And insofar as there was a place for people like her in these texts about democracy that I was reading, it was either that she was absent, that is to say that there was no place for her at all, or the place was silent and sort of out of the picture. And so one of the reasons that I wrote the book and I asked the questions that are tackled in the book is precisely to try to make sense of like, where can we locate, within a healthy flourishing democracy, people who maybe don't have a large amount of time, maybe are not particularly familiar with politics and with the kind of ins and outs of all of the, you know, what bills being heard today on the floor of the, you know, people like that. Is there a place for them? If so, what might it look like? So that was one of the big things that was sort of motivating me. This just like absence of people like my mother, of whom it turns out when we look sort of empirically, there are a lot of these people around, as it turns out, millions and millions.

GR: Absolutely, yeah, that's really interesting. So your book is broken into two main parts as far as I gathered from reading in it. And the first one is, what we can reasonably ask and expect from citizens. And the other is about changes we might make to the system to, just as you said, find a place for people like your mother, how can we make changes to the system to make active citizenship more equitable and more accessible? So let me start with the first of those, what we can and should expect from ourselves and our fellow citizens. You write about floors of expectation, and you also write about when we're asking too much. Let me start with the floor. What's the minimum? What's the minimum here for citizens?

KE: Yeah. So let me just clarify one thing about the floor. So the idea here is like, when people do a thing, you know, we typically have a sense of like, what's the minimum level? What's the minimum standard, right? What's passable, what's acceptable, right? And we commonly will mark out that there's like a difference between doing something really excellently, doing something acceptably and then doing something unacceptably like sort of like pass, fail, excel, right? Something like that. A lot of our ideas about democratic citizenship and about what we want sort of out of democracy, kind of elide that middle category it seems to me. We often will just kind of think that like, a good citizen really has this incredibly demanding set of tasks, right? That a really good citizen, being a good citizen is very, very hard and so it's very easy for us to fail. So one of the things that I've tried to do is articulate this like, a minimum, a minimally acceptable standard that will allow us to recognize when someone is being a responsible citizen without being necessarily, while leaving I should say, lots of space for someone to excel to do further, to do more than that, and then sort of demonstrate their like civic virtue or what have you. So on my account, the minimum starts with paying attention to politics, political interest. Ideally, this would be in a critical mode. So we're like observing what's happening in politics and then we're also thinking about it, we're reflecting about it, we're turning it over. Maybe we're talking about it with people that we know, again, in a critical way, in a questioning way. And then on top of that, we also want to make sure that we have the skills, the minimum set of skills that will enable us to step into politics if we recognize, step in actively into politics if we recognize that we are needed, that there's some major issue that is sort of, you know, in play. And it seems to me that when we put those two things together, we have a kind of a surveillance capacity, we're watching. And then we're also able to step in and participate actively. We put those together and you get what I call, “stand by citizenship” and that's the kind of minimum that I articulate.

GR: Okay. Now, we could probably have an hour long conversation about this next question, but briefly if you could, so that does get in to one thing that, you know, you and I know there are both long debates about, which is okay, but do people then have to participate, is it voluntary? Is it, must you at least vote? Or can you just decide to say, I'm going to watch, I'm going to pay attention, but you know what, I'm good with my life, I'm just going to let the thing go.

KE: Right. And so the book is a little bit, I don't take a very hard line on this. I tend to think that you will need to participate actively, sometimes. I do advocate mandatory voting in in the book. I do think that that is a kind of, a sort of a reasonable part of a package of the minimum, in part because voting is habitual and it's the kind of thing that we can come back to periodically. And it's a way to sort of upkeep our civic skills because I know where my polling place is, I have an incentive to touch base with the kind of what's going on in the news, what's going on in the political world. But I don't really take a very hard line on like, you must be engaged in this kind of way. I do think there is a kind of, shall we say, not being fully active that is consistent with good citizenship. One of the examples I give is like, if you sort of observe the political world and you find that people like you are very well represented, basically, like people have heard from people like you very, very thoroughly, maybe it's okay if you take a step back and don't necessarily need to be, you know, heard even more, right? Like, oh, I'm just going to echo what he said and what the seven people before him said. You know, maybe that's sort of okay.

GR: Yeah, it's like a horrible business meeting where eight people say exactly the same thing, but they're all going to say it. (laughter)

KE: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like yeah, we know, we know what this view is.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Yale Professor Kevin Elliott, and we've been discussing his new book, “Democracy for Busy People”. Well, let me delve deeper into this in terms of when things might be problematic in terms of our expectations, how much can we expect then? You said you want citizens to, you know, be analytical, be critical when they're taking in this world, this political world. But there's a, as I said at the outset, there's just gobs of information out there. Not all of it is reliable and some of it is deliberately misleading or false. How much can we expect individual citizens to be their own quality control agents in the information they consume?

KE: Yeah, the information environment, changes in the information environment are definitely an enormous challenge. And not just, of course, to the kind of picture that I'm painting here of democratic citizenship. And, you know, I don't have a sort of holistic response to these challenges. These are things that lots of colleagues, lots of people in media and in political science and in other corners of academia have been struggling with for a long time. So there's a lot to be said for sort of, cultivating a rich media diet. That is to say, you know, not relying on any one source. There's also a role to be played here, and this is one of the sort of themes I hope that comes out of my book that, there's a role to be played by basically wider political, the wider political system. So here I think about sort of media regulators, Congress, political parties, that is to say other actors than the individual citizen. So one of the most important insights, or I should say one of the most important points that I make, hopefully it's an insight for readers, is that it's a little bit of a mistake to think that it's up to the individuals themselves to correct for the sort of systematic malformations and pathologies of our information environment. A lot of the work that needs to be done is at the level of, let's say, platforms. So, for instance, it's my understanding Facebook recently changed some elements of its algorithm, which really kind of downplayed political news. And this actually led to an enormous collapse in traffic towards, in particular, very, very high profile sources of political misinformation. And so this was a change internal to the platform. They didn't do it necessarily out of a concern for the sort of integrity of the information environment, they had other interests, but it is the kind of thing where it's like, it should not properly be up entirely to the individuals. You know, it takes a village not only to raise a child, but also to cultivate a healthy information environment. So we as individuals, we should be trying to cultivate a rich information diet, absolutely. But it's also an important responsibility of those who are managing our information environment, who are adding to it through their role as journalists or as sort of the administrators of our platforms to also have in mind what kinds of sources do our algorithmic amplification processes amplify? Who is amplified? Where does this traffic go? Which is just another way of saying the information environment is a broader construction and so we as individuals can only be expected to have so much responsibility on us.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Kevin Elliott. He's a lecturer and ethics, politics and economics at Yale University and he's the author of a new book titled, “Democracy for Busy People” and we've been discussing what he has to say there. So before the break, Kevin, you laid out the responsibility then that the providers of information have to kind of, in a sense, sort out quality control, maybe to some degree pre-digest what it is that the citizen is getting. But of course, it brings up the huge question of what if those folks are deliberately trying to mislead us? And I'm not going to name names here, but we can think of sources in the media and political officials and former officials who have done that and are doing that. So how do we handle that? Is that just a question of those people falling down on their civic morals, or does the public sector have a role to play in trying to make sure that that works the way it's supposed to?

KE: Yeah. So, you know, one of the biggest sources of misinformation is social media. So let me say a word about sort of the structure of social media, probably a lot of your listeners will be familiar with this, but it's useful to have this little bit of a wonky, little bit of a jargony word, but it's very helpful for understanding the dilemma here and this is the word: disintermediation.

GR: (laughter) Wow! Let’s say it again, “disintermediation”!

KE: Yes, say it with me now - multiple syllables, multiple syllabic word, yeah, disintermediation. So, what social media does is it eliminates the traditional gatekeepers in media, right? So traditionally you had editors, you had journalists, to some extent publishers and what these figures did was that they stood between news consumers and the world, that is to say, the world of events and so forth. And so as we've seen, journalism when we see headlines about newspapers closing and journalists being laid off, what we're seeing is the collapse of those gatekeepers. And in the age of social media, the reason for this is because now we are directly getting information through, typically through social media channels and so this has just eviscerated the revenue model of traditional sources of media. So, this is a removal of these mediating these people who are in between, that's why disintermediation. Okay, so that's how it appears, right? And that is indeed what has happened, that is to say, traditional gatekeepers have gone. But with the rise of social media platforms, these platforms appear to be sort of invisible. They appear to be, as it were, neutral spaces, right?

GR: Right.

KE: But of course, they're not, right? They are carefully cultivated, carefully controlled and algorithmically governed. That is to say, the algorithms created by the platform or the company governing them governs the kind of material that's amplified that you're likely to see and so forth. So one of the things that we need to be thinking about, and here is where I do think there is a role for regulators is, what exactly is a platform, how should we understand it? I think we are still lacking a nice, clear firm publicly shared understanding of what exactly a platform is and what it ought to be, and thus how it should be regulated. Is it like, should we imagine it like the public square, right, in like, you know, ancient Athens or something, in which case we would want to make sure that it has also, you know, high, high amounts of neutrality and so forth? Or do we want to make sure that we have moderation policies in mind that are transparent and for which there are various types of appeal processes? If you think that you have been sort of moderated out of a platform in reasonable ways, rather in unreasonable ways. And indeed, like so Facebook has done an enormous, Meta I suppose, has created this like board that is supposed to be making these types of high level policy decisions regarding moderation practices. Here at Yale, there's been a number of kind of conversations between people in political science and people in democratic theory indeed, with some people from these platforms who are exactly trying to figure out like, what's the right model for this internal process? So this is a kind of self-regulation, right? So it's really not regulatory from the state, but in a way they're trying to like get ahead of that, right? They recognize that insofar as there are enormous problems of misinformation, insofar as violence is potentially being, and not potentially we know, in fact, right? Violence has been coordinated on some of these platforms, fast. Like we're talking about like hundreds of thousands of people have been subject to violence, killed through campaigns that have been coordinated on these platforms. They are not, they shouldn't necessarily be treated as these just sort of neutral like an email system or a phone system, right? They are something different than that. So all of this is to say that we should be thinking, we need to have a clear understanding, a publicly salient understanding. So this is an issue that our political parties should be thinking about. This is something that our elected officials should be thinking about. This is something that regulators should be trying to kind of formulate a theory that also allows us to talk about it, you know, sensibly in a public forum like this one and that would allow us to identify what kinds of rules do we not have, what kinds of rules would make for best practices for companies who might be trying to avoid the heavy hand, as it were, of government regulation, and if they can't, right, what should that heavy hand look like? What should they be seeking to establish? And so all of that is in some ways quite distant from the individual news consumer, right? The individual citizen. But in many ways, right. Like we as individuals can only do so much with the direction of our attention. We should try to recognize when news is a attracting us because it's making us feel angry. We should be sort of emotionally aware that that's, infuriating content is the kind that spreads virally. So before you re-tweet or repost or whatever, some piece of news, think about like, why am I doing that? Like, why am I sharing this thing? You know, is this really helpful, is it even true? Like, there's a lot of, there's a role for individual responsibility, absolutely. But it needs, we really want to be thinking also systematically here. We as individuals should be trying to be more controlled, we should be trying to be more reflective. We should approach our posting, as it were, with a degree of understanding that like, I am the gatekeeper, right? For the other people in my feed, other people are connected to me. And take up that responsibility in a way that is defensible.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Professor Kevin Elliott. And we've been discussing his new book titled, “Democracy for Busy People”. I want to give you some time here at the end to set forward, like your one or two most important changes you'd like to see made in the system. But I wanted to ask you one in particular, and this may sound quirky, but it's something that I think about a lot because I teach in different programs for people who are from other countries trying to learn about the American political process. One of the things that really flabbergasts most of them when I give them a list of this is the frequency with which, and the number of different positions, I, as a citizen am asked to vote on. And so I will do a little exercise and I'll say, okay, let's see who I voted for this year, you know, and it might be like, okay, President, they all understand that. But, you know, 10 minutes later, I get down to, and the guy who is in charge of maintaining the roads in my little town, you know, and in the meantime, we've talked about library budgets and school budgets and school boards and governors and state legislators and local legislators and the list goes on and on and on, not to mention referendums, okay? So sometimes I've admired other systems for being simpler for the average citizen to understand like the British one. Do you think that we should try to consolidate these offices or voting decisions in some way and how might we do it?

KE: Yeah. So you're pointing to what I talk about in the text is sort of regime complexity, basically.

GR: Yes.

KE: So, yeah, as a voter, right? As a citizen, not just a voter, but as a citizen, if you're trying to understand, like, why did this particular thing happen? Why did this, why was this policy made? Why is this problem persisting as the case may be? And trying to kind of sort that out is quite complicated, right?

GR: Yeah, who do you hold accountable?

KE: Who do you hold accountable? Exactly. I think one of the best examples of this is like, you know, Obamacare and the expansion of Medicaid. And so if you're somebody who's in a state that has not expanded Medicaid and you fall into that group of people who would have otherwise been covered under the expansion of the Affordable Care Act, who do you blame for that, right? Because, is it Congress who passed the ACA and did it in a way that allowed, or maybe didn't allow, but, right? They passed a law, the Supreme Court took a run at it and they sort of turned a thing that was supposed to be mandatory into a thing that was actually voluntary, right?

GR: Right.

KE: And then your state legislature chose or didn't choose to expand Medicaid as a result of that. So there's a bunch of different failure points there, right? To say, well, why didn't Congress fix this problem after the Supreme Court? So you could blame Congress, you could blame the court, you could blame your state legislature. And so in this way, responsibility kind of dissolves. And so you as a voter, like I'm not sure who to be mad at, right? This is actually very complicated. So for me, I think one of, you mentioned local government and this is also another feature of our system. We have not two levels of government, but three, right? And this, it's important for Americans to understand in some ways the option set available to us is sometimes invisible. If you were to say, boy, it's kind of weird that we don't understand who to blame for such and such thing. And people say, okay, but yeah, but like, what's the alternative, right? In lots of countries, you know, local governments are appointed by either the national government or a state level government, right? So what if you don't elect your mayor? What if you don't elect your sheriff, right? Why do we have these locally elected offices? It doesn't always make a huge amount of sense. And it's very important that one of the key reasons for being concerned about this is that as the ballot gets longer, right, as the number of offices that we're expected to talk about get longer, the electorate who actually selects it becomes smaller. So we should be looking to de-complexify our politics, I think, as much as possible. I think it's important to locate decisions at a place where we have accountability, where we can find electoral accountability. When we have small electorates, that is bad. When turnout is very low for powerful offices, that's not good. So we want to have accountability at a place that people can identify who is to blame. Federal government, national politics tends to be the right level for this for a lot of things because the most eyes can fall on that level.

GR: We've only got about a minute and a half left, but I wanted to give you a chance to, is there another big, important change that you could describe briefly that you would want our listeners to walk away with thinking about that would help this?

KE: One of the things that I think we want to have in the United States are strong political parties. Political parties tend to be very, Americans tend to be skeptical of political parties for a whole variety of ways. But parties are actually one of the most important institutions for making politics understandable for ordinary citizens. When we try to understand what the stakes are, when we try to understand what the issues are, when we try to understand also just where should we be looking for these important issues, where should we be focusing our political attention and efforts? Political parties help us to convey that. In the post Dobbs world for instance, we've seen a lot of activist energy in the states who have initiatives. So they've been trying to focus activist effort at the level that the change that people are interested in can occur. So I think we want to strengthen political parties. And also we would like, it's good for us to think about ways to diversify the parties that we have. That is to say, if we could have more parties in single party states, this would be a way to enrich our political conversation. And also hold our political parties more accountable. Single party states are terrible for political accountability because the party in power doesn't have to worry about being voted out of office.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. But I just want to add, there are all sorts of other important and interesting suggestions that you make. So I really do want to encourage our listeners to take a look at this book. That was Kevin Elliott, and again, his new book of his is titled, “Democracy for Busy People”. Professor Elliott, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

KE: Thank you so much for having me. It was a wonderful conversation.

GR: It was my pleasure. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Sarah Klee Hood / John MannionProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. One of the most closely watched congressional races in the entire nation in this November’s general election will be that for New York's 22nd district right here in the Syracuse area. The district contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties and portions of Oneida, Cortland and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica and Auburn. The district is currently represented by Republican incumbent Brandon Williams, who is in his first term. My guest today are the two Democrats hoping to challenge Williams in November. State Senator John Mannion and DeWitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood. The primary election is June 25th. Now, this is an informal debate or a shared conversation of sorts. We have just under a half an hour and we've got two candidates. So I've asked the candidates to be brief and extremely to the point, and I've let each of them know that I'll interrupt if necessary towards that end. I should also note that I help run a program at Syracuse University for veterans who are interested in pursuing public office and prior to serving on the DeWitt Town Board, Ms. Klee Hood was a participant in that program. Both candidates have appeared on this program previously. Counselor Klee Hood, State Senator Mannion, welcome back to the program, it’s good to have you both on.

Sarah Klee Hood: Thanks, Grant. Delighted to be here.

John Mannion: Thank you, Grant.

GR: So, thanks again for making the time. So, here's my first question and I'll start, Senator Mannion, with you. I've been reading through your previous debates, and I've looked at your websites, and it does seem to me that regarding policy positions, the two of you are very similar, first of all, and secondly, you're pretty standard for the Democratic Party I think at this point. There is support from both of you for expanding a lot of public programs to aid middle earners and lower income earners. But I don't really see anywhere either of you that you'd want to cut back significantly on spending. So in my understanding, if either of you get in and you get your way in Congress, the government's going to get bigger. You've both talked about letting the Trump era tax cuts expire, but that would involve raising some taxes, mostly on higher earners, but not cutting back on programs. So. Senator Mannion, I just want to start, are there any kinds of programs at the federal level that you'd be willing to cut back on or restructure in a way that they would significantly spend less?

JM: I think the first thing that we have to look at, Grant, and thank you for the question, is that you did reference, you know, some of our highest earners. And what we've seen over the course of a couple of generations now is that that rate is really dropped. So I think it's reasonable that folks pay their fair share and that we do make that adjustment. As far as the programs, 100% committed to the maintenance and expansion of Social Security and Medicare. You know, I do think that there are efficiencies in government that we absolutely have to look at and I think that we have to hold these federal departments accountable. You know, budgets are about priorities, so I do think we have to take a hard look at some things. You know, there was certainly a great inflation of the federal budget and therefore our debt during the Trump administration. And I do see in the Biden administration that we have a real investment in our future in manufacturing and in infrastructure. But still, I think we have to look at efficiencies in government and we really have to hold those departments and agencies accountable.

GR: Any specific programs that you can point to, though? That was a very general answer about just sort of taking a broad look, any specific programs that would be on your list?

JM: You know, I think there is support for multiple corporations. There's these grant programs or investment in those, particularly in the large fossil fuel industries that we have to look at. We have to look at minimizing that, cutting that down. And that's something that should have been done a long time ago.

GR: And then one other follow up and I'll move to Councilor Klee Hood. Can you point to something in your voting record in the state legislature where you voted to cut a program?

JM: So what we just saw and what's out there in the media is a program that was going to increase costs on individuals as far as utility costs, and that was called New York Heat Act. I voted against that because it was going to disproportionately raise dollars, you know, the costs of utility rate payers of our customers. So in that regard, I voted no on that. An adjustment was made, and then I voted affirmatively so it wouldn't disproportionately hurt the people that I currently represent. I was sent here to make sure that central New York got their fair share and I believe that I've done that. I'm proud to secure funding for programs that are really making an impact locally.

GR: And so Councilor Klee Hood, the same question, what kinds of programs at the federal level would you be willing to restructure significantly or cut back on?

SKH: Sure. So I think I'm going to fundamentally push back against a lot of the Republican talking points as of late. They are looking to find tax cuts or programmatic cuts to deliver, if you will, in quotes, “for the American people”, which is absolutely they are looking to strip away the fundamentals of the pillars of the US government. As somebody who managed a $25 million federal budget while I was an officer in the US Air Force, I believe that we can definitely scrutinize our defense spending. I recognize that in the global picture, the US has a responsibility to its allies, but I also know from my own personal investment and time managing federal budgets for multiple years there is a lot of area where we can start trimming some of that fat away. Similarly, the fossil fuel industry, whether it is through incentives or through government partnerships, we really need to look at divestment there. And at the end of the day, the 2017 trickle down Trump tax cuts, they are not helping Americans, it's set to expire. We have a real opportunity to capitalize on this in 2025. And Grant, just to put some numbers to your comment, we are starting the tax 2017 tax code that really gave folks that were making $400,000 or more significant tax breaks. I firmly believe that if we start taxing the ultra-rich we can bring back money annually year over year. For example, when our taxes such as the tax program we have now is skewed to the rich and to corporations, we're losing less than $350 billion a year starting in 2017, excuse me, 2027 if we don't modify the programs that we have on the tables now. So at the end of the day we don't need to start significantly reducing how we're funding federal programs. We need to have an equitable tax code that truly is proportionate, regardless of how much money you are making, so that we can start bringing back some of that money. And it's through taxes, but it's not through taxes at the middle class or the working class, it's for the ultra-rich and corporations. Let's close the loopholes. The carry tax interest loophole, which is the most sought after loophole in our federal tax code right now, it's allowing $41 million annually to be evaded from the US, from the US government, meaning that we are missing out on over $41 million annually in tax revenue. So I fundamentally believe that we can get there simply by readjusting how we look at our tax structure. And with that we also have to ensure that we are funding the IRS so they can do their job.

GR: Well, let me ask you then also, can you point to something in your voting record in Dewitt, where you have voted to cut a program?

SKH: Sure. I'm proud to be a local elected official because that means I get to implement federal policy with all of the baggage and none of the budget. It means we have to get very creative at the local level. I'm proud that Dewitt has been able to maintain the tax cap. Last year, we went above it by, I think 1% to maybe 2%, still at less than 5% taxes with an increase very nominal. The point being, though, we don't have a significant budget. So in order to make up that lost revenue to ensure that we have the funds for the police department, the highway department, the rec department, all of the services that folks would expect from their community government, we've been looking at public / private partnerships, which is really where there is an opportunity here. Not only does that bolster the services and programs available to the towns within that representation, but it also helps small businesses get a piece of the pie while also having some skin in the game.

GR: Okay, I want to interrupt here because we're going into sort of a different argument about public / private partnerships but Senator Mannion let me come back to you. Councilor Klee Hood did mention something pretty specific there and what she's willing to look at and pare back and that was defense spending. Do you agree with that or is that something that you think should be hands off in terms of looking for cutting?

JM: I talked about, you know, efficiencies in government and that would certainly include the Department of Defense. But I think we have to be very careful about that, I'm talking about efficiencies. As far as funding goes, we have to be flexible. We have to be in tune to what is happening in the geopolitical space. So in regards to that, I would be very careful about taking a hard stance about cutting military spending, considering what's happening in the world and where we might be moving forward.

GR: Okay, and Councilor Klee Hood, any just super quick responses to that response?

SKH: Sure. Through my six years managing a federal budget of $25 million, I can tell you there's a lot of room for efficiencies there. I feel confident that there are rooms that we can maintain our global responsibility as a global leader in the current geopolitical landscape while ensuring that there are cuts to be made.

GR: Okay, my next basic question and I'll stick with you for this Councilor. It's obviously, I think probably the biggest question for the Democrats voting in the primary and for independents and some Republicans as well. But it's, briefly, I know I know both of you could speak for hours on this, why would you be the stronger Democratic candidate in the general election against incumbent Republican Congressman Brandon Williams?

SKH: I think we're all here because we want to win in November. We are uniquely positioned to be able to bring home a win that is long overdue for central New Yorkers through a Democratic victory. But we need to think about this strategically, not emotionally. Yes, we should vote for the candidate that has the federal professional and personal experiences that meet the moment of this day. But what's more important is aligning us to a strategic win in November, and that is me. We need a nominee that is able to contrast and compete with Brandon Williams and win over some of that support. We need a veteran. Veterans give Republicans and independents an opportunity to vote for a Democrat that they normally would never have voted for. In a post-Roe era, women are mad, man, I am pissed off. We need a woman that is going to be able to support women's rights regardless of the political tides. And we need a candidate, let's be frank, that isn't burdened by ties to Albany. We can't forget that Lee Zeldin won this district by a lot last time. Republican playbooks are vetted for anti-Albany politics, if you will. And we need to have a candidate that will be able to both remove themselves from that conversation to avoid the attack ads, but to speak eloquently about the needs of today without it being tarnished by Albany. And we need someone who doesn't have, you know, multiple publicly published material that's at the ready for Republican attack ads. But at the end of the day, it's about a strategic win for the Democrats in November and we have to align ourselves strategically.

GR: Okay. Those are three reasons I heard. Senator Mannion, you obviously are going to get the same question, but I'm going to have to give it to you after the break. Right now, I'll just have to tell folks that you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Dewitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood and New York State Senator John Mannion. They're the Democrats running in the primary to challenge incumbent Republican Brandon Williams in New York's 22nd congressional district in this November's general election. Okay, Senator Mannion, just before the break, Councilor Klee Hood laid out why she thought she would be the better candidate in the general election, that's obviously arguably the biggest question for voters in this primary. So she listed three reasons, why would you be the better general election candidate?

JM: So, thank you, Grant. I'll say that I have a proven electoral record and a proven legislative record. So as far as my electoral record goes, I have flipped a Republican seat that was held by them for 100 years. I currently represent a district that has more registered Republicans than Democrats. Of the 42 Democratic Senators, I'm the only one that has that distinction. There are seven Republicans that have that distinction. And also, I would say that in my last election, 7000 more Republicans have voted than Democrats and I won. I work with everyone. 33 municipalities. 29 of them are run by Republicans, so I have a proven track record. And I believe that it's not just, you know, great campaigning or whatever, it's also the deep relationships that I have in the region. I was a teacher, my wife and I have lived here our entire lives, I was a union president and all of those things are contributing factors. From a legislative standpoint, you know, I'm proud of the committee work I did as the first ever Chair of the Standing Committee on Disabilities. I have emboldened a woman's right to choose prior to the overturning of Roe v Wade with a 100% score card from Planned Parenthood. I have expanded universal pre-K into upstate New York and made sure the funding was there to support our schools. And it was a co-prime sponsor on Green CHIPS legislation to make sure that if a semiconductor chip manufacturer uses clean energy and hits their job numbers, there are incentives. And as a result, Micron is coming here with the largest private investment in the history of this country. I'm battle tested, I have broad based support as I mentioned, including multiple elected officials. So I believe that has positioned me in a great spot. The people here trust me, I know those folks and they know me.

GR: Okay, so I have a follow up question for you. And then I have a follow up question for Councilor Klee Hood. My follow up question for you is, the councilor did mention something that has been on my mind and thinking about this election. And when we look back at the previous election, it was obvious that Brandon Williams linked Francis Conole with Albany, even though he had no real ties there but nonetheless, that was his messaging and it seemed to work. You saw pictures, for example, in his ads of Francis Conole right next to Kathy Hochul. How are you going to deal with that? Because I'm sure that Congressman Williams has got four people at least combing through your voting record right now. So how are you going to deal with that Albany, for lack of a better word, the attempt to put a taint on it.

JM: So I'm proud of the record that I have, Grant, and people are appreciative of the work that I've done. I do believe that I'm a good reflection of the district and I've acted accordingly in Albany in delivering for the district and really making certain things a priority that I've heard at the doors and on the phones for years of what we need to do, accelerating middle class tax cuts, suspending the gas tax, providing property tax relief. But also we need safe communities. So a lot of the issues that we seem to have been attacked on involved bail. In my time in the New York State Senate, I have only strengthened those laws, giving judges greater discretion, making more crimes bail eligible and addressing the reoffending issue. In fact, I had the support of law enforcement all along, including in this election, as I'm endorsed by the New York State Troopers PBA. It was my legislation that helped create the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority to make sure that that location is safe and it could be staffed. It is the first police force created in New York in 50 years, and I'm proud of that accomplishment.

GR: Okay. Councilor Klee Hood, the question / follow up I wanted to ask you is, the senator mentioned unions once, but obviously he has gained a lot of support from different unions. And I wanted to ask you about this because I'm going to put my political scientist hat on now. It is my sense that this general election is going to be a lot about, for Democrats in particular, turnout.

SKH: Yes.

GR: And one of the things that unions do effectively do in general elections is turn out voters. So, how would you address this question of the, what might seem to an outsider looking in that the senator has an advantage there with the unions behind him in terms of turnout in the general election?

SKH: Sure. So I think that there's a difference between union logos and endorsements on a website and the rank and file members. Last cycle, when I ran in this race, despite being significantly underfunded, we came up about 1100 votes short. And that's because of the union support that we have within the rank and file members knocking doors for us. But we're talking about your question (that) was pointedly at the general election, and I have great relationships with all of the labor unions. They're supporting John right now because he was a former labor leader, that's what they should do. I have veteran organizations, women organizations, environmental organizations supporting me because that's where I am. It makes sense. But I can also tell you that, you know, when you get feedback, like, yes, we're supporting Senator Mannion right now, he's our guy, but, man, we're really excited for Sarah should she win the nomination. It just goes to show that the support goes both ways. But if they had to choose somebody, I'm good where I am. I appreciate the rank and file support that we have. But I have zero concerns about their support coming through in a general election.

GR: I see, okay, all right, thank you. So I did want to ask a question about abortion because it has been such a huge issue for the country in the last few years and it's obviously something that the Democrats are going to be running on all over the country. And it seems from your campaign rhetoric of both of you that that you're going to do the same in the general election. But, and I'll come back to Senator Mannion I guess to start with this. In looking through and listening to what you've had to say, both of you, it's a little uncertain to me as to what limits, if any, you would put on access to abortion. So, Senator Mannion, let's just start from scratch here and just say, what kinds of limits are you comfortable with short of on demand abortion until the day of delivery? I'm using an extreme example here, but I want to just try to understand this.

JM: So I'm proud to have been endorsed by Planned Parenthood in every one of my previous elections. And in this election, they have not endorsed and they will not until after the primary. But I have a proven legislative record in protecting a woman's right to choose and protecting their providers. I will say that these decisions should be made between a woman and their health care provider. I have a 100% voting record from that…

GR: …I'm going to interject here because there's no doubt that both of you are for choice. I mean, you're both clearly that way and you've both spoken passionately about it. What I'm asking is, are there any limits on on-demand abortion that you are comfortable with?

JM: When I ran in 2018, I supported the Reproductive Health Act. I was not elected, and then in 2019, the Reproductive Health Act was passed into law. I had supported that, as did many and in fact most Democratic majority members at that time. And I have emboldened that law. So I support that law, and that's where I stand.

GR: Well, can you just tell our listeners what those limits are just so we’re clear?

JM: Sure. That limit is what the Democratic majority voted on in that time and what I support is up to 24 weeks and then beyond that is the health, mental health, risk of life to the mother or an unviable fetus when an abortion can occur.

GR: Okay, and Councilor Klee Hood to focus it on the last thing that Senator Mannion said. Are you comfortable with those same limits or would you like to see fewer limits than that? I'm just trying to see where a difference is here.

SKH: So this is where the difference comes in. I'm a woman, this is personal for me. My rights have been removed and I had to seek abortion care while I was serving in the military. So when we ask about term limits and restrictions, it's fundamentally a flawed question because you're not asking the right question, Grant. So I'm going to say the right question might be, do we as American citizens trust women to make the best decision for themselves, their future and their family in conjunction with their doctor? Yes or no? If we trust women to have that autonomy of self, that understanding of what is best for them, with medical guidance, then these questions are moot.

GR: Okay so let me interject and get clarity here. So, the senator said 24 weeks, so, if what I'm hearing from you is correct is, let's say we get to 27 weeks and a woman has this conversation with her doctor, you're okay then with going forward.

SKH: If there needs to be, I trust the woman to make the decision that is best for her. And I would also like to kind of caveat that and go back to your point. I don't support on-demand abortions until the day of birth. So let's be clear there. That's a wedge conversation that is used by Republicans to drive an issue that simply doesn't truly exist in this space, but I support...

GR: …But If that's the legislation that one would vote for, then that's the situation we would be in, I mean…

SKH: That's not the legislation that's on the table. What is on the table is H.R. 12, the Women's Health Protection Act of 2023. And I adamantly support this, which prohibits governmental restrictions on the provision of and access to abortion services. We need to trust that our women have the cognizance, the understanding, the competence to make the best decision for themselves, their family and their future, in addition with a health care provider without the opinions of politicians in the medical room.

GR: Okay, We're almost out of time, I'm going to have to ask these last two questions as a lightning round kind of thing. So this is going to be sort of like, you know, vanilla or chocolate ice cream kind of thing. Here's the first one, and Counselor Klee Hood, I'll stick with you. John Katko preceded Brandon Williams in this position, and he was by all measures, extremely bipartisan and extremely productive. He had a rule that he would not introduce a piece of legislation unless he could get a Democratic co-sponsor. Would you consider adopting the same rule regarding a Republican co-sponsor?

SKH: Yes, with the caveat to women's rights.

GR: Got it. Okay, Senator Mannion, same question.

JM: (Bipartisan) support is very important and the work that I did in my committee involved, almost every piece of legislation had Republican co-sponsors, and I would commit to that.

GR: Okay, and I'll stick with you for my final question. Again, sort of a lightning round kind of thing. I am going to try to get Congressman Williams on the program before autumn comes around. I have tried before, I have not succeeded, but I'm going to try again. If I am successful, what question, briefly, would you most want me to ask him?

JM: Would he support a national abortion ban?

GR: Okay, and Counselor Klee Hood, what is the one question you would want me to ask Congressman Williams?

SKH: Will he remove himself from the Republican Study Committee?

GR: Okay, all right, those were both succinct. You were very cooperative on that. I want to thank both of you. That was State Senator John Mannion and Dewitt Town Councilor Sarah Klee Hood. Again, these are the two Democrats that are running to challenge Brandon Williams in this November's general election. The primary election is June 25th and early voting begins June 15th. Senator Mannion, Councilor Klee Hood, I want to thank both of you, first of all, for taking the time to talk with me. But I also seriously want to thank both of you for the way that you have made yourselves both available in these kinds of formats in this primary season. I think voters have had a lot of opportunities to learn about both of you.Not everybody does that and you have, so thank you.

JM: Thank you, Grant.

SKH: Thanks, Grant. It was a pleasure, have a great one.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Bob Keefe(Mark Lavonier / e2.org)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Bob Keefe. He's a former journalist and currently the executive director of E2, an organization of business leaders who advocate for clean energy. He's also the author of a new book titled, "Clean Economy Now: Stories from the Frontlines of an American Business Revolution". Mr. Keefe, welcome to the program.

Bob Keefe: Oh, Grant, it's great to be with you. Thank you so much.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. So, let me just start with a real basic question about your organization. Just tell our listeners a bit about E2, you know, how it got started, what it does.

BK: Absolutely. So we are a national organization of more than 10,000 business leaders who work or do business in just about every state and just about every sector of the economy. And we advocate for policies that are good for both the economy and the environment. And we've had some great ones recently Grant, that I think we're going to talk about.

GR: That's great. Yeah, I would like to do that. Before we get into that, let me just also ask informationally, where does the organization get its funding? Is it from the member industries or of specific companies?

BK: Well, that's right. Our members are business people, not businesses. And they (leave it to) our organization to let us do our work.

GR: All right, okay, good. So, yeah, let's get into some of those examples. So, you know, your book relates a lot of really good stories that are out there about businesses and entrepreneurs doing creative things to transition to a cleaner economy. But if you had to pick like one or two of the best stories, maybe, maybe there's one in New York State to that you could talk about.But just to give us an idea of what you're excited about.

BK: Well, what I'm most excited about, Grant, is both the volume of the projects that are coming out of the ground are in the works in America now and where they're going. My organization, E2, has been tracking major clean energy projects announced since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act 21 months ago. What we know now is that there are more than 300 major projects all around the country. We're talking about electric vehicle factories, battery plants in Upstate New York, for instance. Hydrogen plants being built by companies that are based in New York, solar panel factories, wind turbine factories. When in the world have we had more than 300 major factories and other projects coming out of the ground in America? I call it an economic revolution. We've had more than $120 billion worth of private sector investment. That's not government loans or grants, that's companies investing in America. And we've had more than a hundred thousand jobs announced because of these projects already and we're just getting started. If, if if we don't go backward and these policies are at threat right now, at risk, and hopefully we won't go the wrong way.

GR: Yeah, I wanted to get into some of that a little bit later, the policies and the political aspect of this. You mentioned Upstate New York. Can you say a little bit more about one or two of the projects that are there?

BK: Sure. Well, for instance, in Massena, a company called Air Products is investing $500 million to build a, what's called a green hydrogen plant that's going to produce hydrogen. Now, hydrogen is new for us, it's not new in the world. It's used in a lot of applications, but it's new in the clean energy space. But hydrogen has been called, for instance, the Swiss army knife of clean energy because it can be used in so many places. I was just in Cleveland, literally yesterday, meeting with the head of a steel manufacturing plant there outside of Cleveland that is converting away from coal fired furnaces to electric furnaces that can someday, that are also equipped to burn natural gas, but also equipped to burn hydrogen. And they are banking a lot of their future on being able to use this clean fuel to produce steel. Hydrogen also can be used to fly airplanes we know, and used in heavy trucking and things like that. So that's an example of a company doing good things. There's another company called Viridi Parente that's building a big factory up in Buffalo that's building lithium ion batteries. Toyota is investing in lithium ion batteries there outside of Rochester, General Motors is as well. Overall, we've tracked since the IRA, Grant, we've tracked a dozen projects in New York, $785 billion worth of investments. 3,000 jobs just in the state of New York. And again, this is just in the past 21 months.

GR: Yeah, that's quite impressive. So I wanted to ask you a little bit later about these social and political challenges, but let me ask you first, what are the biggest technical and economic challenges to transitioning away from fossil fuels?

BK: Well, you know, I spent, before I do what I do now Grant, I spent about 20 years as a journalist, and a lot of that time I spent as a technology journalist. So I covered the introduction of the iPod and the iPhone and the rise and fall of the Internet and the rise again of the Internet and all of this. And frankly, I've given up on guessing where technology's going to take us. But once you have the market signals to business, which is what we now have, businesses can figure this stuff out. And we're going to hydrogen as an example. Nobody thought about using hydrogen as a fuel 10, 20 years ago, but we're on the cusp of that. Nobody thought we'd be driving electric cars by now, but we are. The good news is the technology is here now, the technology has caught up with the problem. The policy has caught up with the problem, the human will has caught up with the problem. We all know we need to do something about climate change and making there a little cleaner and the water a little cleaner. The hope is, again, that we don't go backward on this stuff just when we're getting started.

GR: I’m Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Bob Keefe, and we've been discussing his new book titled "Clean Economy Now: Stories from the Frontlines of an American Business Revolution". So, then, what I'm gathering from what I'm hearing so far is the challenge is really, are political and social. And so tell me what your take is and what your senses of that challenge and where we are.

BK: That's right. Well, first of all, the fact is there shouldn't be anything partisan or political about any of this. There shouldn't be anything that's political or partisan about creating jobs, driving economic growth, making America more competitive. And when you look at where these projects are going, Grant, as we did at my organization, of those 300 major clean energy projects that have been announced so far, 60% of them are in Republican congressional districts. 70% of all of the jobs that have been announced are in Republican congressional districts. 85% of all the money being invested by these companies is in Republican congressional districts. Not a single Republican passed or voted for the law that's making this happen. And we've already had 30 attempts in the U.S. House, including as recently as a couple of days ago or yesterday, really with the farm bill the House has tried to rollback or repeal parts of the policy driving all of this growth. Now, we all know there's a presidential election coming up, I'm not going to get into electoral politics, but we certainly know where both candidates stand on things like clean energy, on electric vehicles, on offshore wind, onshore wind, on climate change. So that uncertainty over their election is frankly already starting to cast a pall over this progress that we're just now beginning to see.

GR: Yeah, you know, you mentioned that 85% figure, 85% of the investment in Republican congressional districts. And I hope this doesn't sound too cynical, but what popped into my head when you said that was the idea of, well, maybe that suits the Republicans just fine because they can speak to their base and raising concerns about the transition and speaking in favor of fossil fuels to some degree, but then they get the benefits anywayof the transition because all this stuff is happening in their districts. I mean, that's kind of a politically sweet spot to be in, in a way.

BK: Well there's, yes. And folks start to look at this a little differently when, they view electric vehicles a little differently when they're building them in their backyards.

GR: Yeah.

BK: They view solar panels a little differently when it's creating thousands and thousands of jobs. I was recently as part of the book, I went down to Dalton, Georgia. I don't know if you ever been to Dalton but Dalton is a little town, It used to be the carpet capital of the world. If you wanted to have a job in Dalton, you had to work in carpet. Well, right now, a company called Qcells is building one of the biggest solar panel factories in the Western Hemisphere in Dalton, Georgia, creating 4000 jobs in that state. It happens to be in the district of Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most conservative, maybe not conservative, but one of the biggest flame throwers in the Republican Party right now.

GR: Yeah, I was going to say flamboyant but… (laughter) Well, you know, I wanted to ask you this bigger picture question about the role of government, taking politics out of it for a minute, but the role of government and the transition to clean energy, because you do talk a lot about that in the book. And it's not new for government to be critically involved in the emergence and the promotion and establishment of new technologies when they come along.I mean, the government subsidized the transcontinental railroads, for instance, they wouldn't have been built without them. So what's your vision of how you see government being involved in this instance with this transition?

BK: Well, Grant, my organization again, E2 got its start 25 years ago in California when California was considering what then were the first ever tailpipe emissions standards for vehicles in the world, the so-called California Clean Car standards. And our founders at the time were businesspeople, they saw what was happening in Sacramento, they saw the auto industry coming into Sacramento, the oil and gas industry coming into Sacramento and saying, oh, you crazy Californians, pass this law and it's going to kill our companies, we're not going to make cars in America anymore, California is going to go to hell and catch on fire and float in the Pacific, and it's going to be the end of the world. Well, our founders stood up and said, you know what? We don't know that much about making cars, we don't know that much about making petroleum, what we do know about is innovation. And what the right market signals from government, from government policies, we can, maybe these, again, 25 years ago, maybe those Prius thingies, these hybrid cars will be more commonplace and who knows, maybe even electric cars someday. And by the way, it's not a bad idea to clean up the air in California. So our founders saw that with the right market signal from government policy, we can drive innovation, we can change the world. And that's what's happening now. We have federal policies, finally, finally, finally, we decided to do something about climate change in this country. And it's creating what I believe is the biggest economic revolution we've seen in generations.

GR: So it's clear from what you're saying that, you know, the businesses have gotten the cues and they're able to make money at this and they see it's the future. So they're going to do the innovation. It may be tough to answer this but if you could imagine that government were not involved, it sounds like the transition would still happen, but it would take longer.Is that fair to say? And my question to you is, how much longer? I mean, do you have any idea?

BK: It would take too much longer is what I would say. And look, the proof is in the pudding. Again, 300 major projects around America, a $120 billion in private sector investment. That would not have happened, Grant, without the policies that were passed in Washington 21 months ago or 2 years ago. And that's again the Inflation Reduction Act, but it's also the bipartisan infrastructure bill and it's the CHIPS and Science Act, which invest in semiconductors that are key to a clean energy transition, generally. But here's the thing, it would take too long from a climate perspective for one thing, because remember, the reason we're doing all this stuff is to create and give us the tools we need to reduce our emissions in this country by 40% to 50% and meet our climate goal, the world's climate goals to keep to keep on track with that. But the other thing is, if we didn't do this, guess what? We would be beholden to other countries in the clean energy transition that is sweeping the world. Right now 90% of solar panels are built by China or other countries. Right now 80% of our batteries are built in one form or another by China. We couldn't even compete in this market before, but today, guess what? We have more than 40 battery factories coming out of the ground, including right there in Upstate New York. We have more than 35 solar panel factories being built in America right now because of these policies. So we're going to finally be able to compete in what is expected to be a $23 trillion global market for this stuff. That's amazing.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Bob Keefe is the executive director of an organization called E2. And we're discussing his new book titled "Clean Economy Now: Stories from the Frontlines of an American Business Revolution". So, Bob, I was glad to see this in your book, you've got a chapter on equity in clean energy.And it does often seem like, you know, when you think about solar panels, you've mentioned those a few times or electric cars, they're almost things that almost seem like luxury items for those who are better off. I mean, you don't normally see solar panels on the roofs of cheap houses, a higher end Tesla costs more than most people make in a year. So how is clean energy related to concerns about equity and socioeconomic inequality?

BK: Well, for starters, you're exactly right, Grant. Look, not only are the majority of purchasers of things like electric vehicles or solar panels affluent white folks, the majority of people who work in clean energy right now are predominantly white men. African-Americans make up something like 16% of the overall U.S. workforce, they make up about 6% of clean energy. Women make up almost 50% of the U.S. workforce, they make up less than 20% I think in in clean energy. The policies that were passed in Washington try to address this in a few ways. First of all, there's something called the Justice 40 program, which means that 40% of all of the government's investments in clean energy projects are going to go into underserved communities and communities of color, for instance. There's also something called Community Benefits programs, which means that any time one of these companies goes into a region, they've got to work really closely with the community to develop that project and address community needs. That's something that's new in government expansion. We didn't have that when the railroads were going through, we didn't have that when the Interstate Highway Program was happening, we didn't have it when the moonshot was happening for that matter. And then finally, there's something called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund which just got released, I think. It essentially sets aside billions of dollars to help bring some of these clean energy advantages to low income communities and communities of color, but also help the entrepreneurs in those communities get engaged and get up and running with clean energy companies to support those communities themselves. This is a new way of doing economic development in America, and hopefully it's going to finally address some of those issues of inequity.

GR: I wanted to ask you a couple of questions now that I hear when I hear the pushback on some of the evangelists like yourself, you know, talking about the benefits of clean energy, and one is regarding electric cars and other things that have these lithium batteries. For example, I have an electric lawnmower with a battery.I love it, by the way, it's lighter than my gas mower, it's quieter, it's my favorite gadget. But you do hear concerns about what we do with all these spent batteries because, you know, they have a lifespan and they pose certain environmental risks and they contain some pretty dangerous compounds of materials.So, you know, what's your response to that concern?

BK: Well, my first response is, yes, we need to pay absolute attention to that. And if only we would have paid that much attention to when it came to burning oil and gas and coal and the impacts of that as well. But, you know, a couple of things about lithium ion or batteries in general. First of all, as part of the book I went down to a lithium mine and processing operation that's being built in North Carolina. And one of the things that I learned is that not only are they extracting lithium from what was an abandoned mine down there, or they plan on it, you can actually reuse about 98% of what's in a typical lithium ion battery today. And so a lot of these battery manufacturing plants, including some of those in New York I think, are also setting up operations to essentially recycle all of the goods in batteries so you can use it over and over and over again. There's another way you can do this, which is reusing these batteries. So that battery in your lawnmower or the battery in my electric car, when it's spent, I might not be able to go , you know, 200 miles on it anymore, but there's still enough good stuff in that battery to maybe let it go ten miles a day. So we have an E2 member, for instance, in Michigan who takes old Prius batteries and basically reuses them. He puts them in forklifts and forklifts on a factory floor. You can imagine they go all day long, but they don't go more than ten miles. So you can reuse that battery in that way. The last step is that because of the innovation that's being spurred because of these policies, we're starting to see so many new types of batteries and energy storage that, again, from my technology reporter days, I'm not even going to guess what it looks like. But finally, the innovation is moving in this and that's going to be good stuff.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Bob Keefe. We've been discussing his new book, which is titled, “Clean Economy Now: Stories from the Front Lines of an American Business Revolution”. Another sort of pushback I wanted to put to you is, it is obvious though that even though we're in this massive transition, that fossil fuels are still going to be part of our daily lives and our economy for a fairly long time.And I do think one gets the impression sometimes listening to the advocates for green energy that they don't take that, they don't sort of acknowledge that fully. And I think that sometimes that makes them sound in a way that opens them up to criticism from the other side. I just want to get your thoughts about that.

BK: Well, look, change takes a long time. We know that in every part of society and in every part of the economy. That said, look at when the mobile phone was introduced. That wasn't that long ago, Grant., and I don't know anybody left that still has a wired phone in their house. I know there are a few people that are that do, but not a lot.Look at something like digital music, right? I remember as a technology reporter covering Steve Jobs one day when he walked out and he held up a little square thing and said, someday you're going to have a hundred songs in your pocket in this iPod, right? And then later it was, someday on this cell phone, you'll be able to take pictures and you'll store all your music on it.That wasn't that long ago, look how fast that technology moved along. That's the type of pace of technology that we're seeing now in the clean energy field. No, it's not going to make fossil fuels obsolete tomorrow, maybe not even next year or then the next decade. But it's moving at such a rate that fossil fuels look like they're headed the way of the CD and the cassette tape.

GR: Well, I hope the CDs stay around longer because I still love my CD’s.

BK: I think there's still going to be people that still love their gas powered cars, right? But just like with your lawnmower, I haven't talked to anybody I know of that has an electric car that says, man, I wish I could go back to a gas car and go fill it up at 80 bucks every week.

GR: Yeah. Well, this may seem like a dumb question to someone like you, and it's I have to just kind of warn you, this is kind of a special interest, I guess, of mine. But I can remember when natural gas used to be seen in positive terms. I'm that old by environmental, you know, natural gas is this great thing…

BK: You and me both.

GR: Now, of course, natural gas is the devil. In New York. You can't get a new house with a gas stove, there are certain carve outs, but that's basically the situation So just for someone who doesn't understand this stuff as much as you do, explain to me why natural gas is still really bad.

BK: Well, natural gas is still a fossil fuel and it produces energy by burning it up. And when you burn it up, it produces emissions and those emissions heat our planet and that heating of our planet causes bigger hurricanes and more wildfires and droughts and flooding and all of the things that are really impacting our economy to the tune of $100 billion every single year now. Natural gas was long seen as a bridge fuel, right? To get us from coal to electricity, really. That bridge is getting shorter and shorter now because the technology has finally, finally, finally caught up. You know, today's Tesla is not the EV1, which was the General Motors early attempt at an electric vehicle. The solar panels that we're seeing utilities deploy almost, and by the way, utilities are switching away from natural gas as well, not necessarily because they just want to do the right thing for the environment, but the fact is, solar and wind is the cheapest power available. It's cheaper than coal, it's cheaper than natural gas in most cases. And you can deploy a lot of solar and wind a lot quicker than you can build a new natural gas plant or a nuclear plant by far, that sort of thing. So it's speed to market with clean energy and it's the pricing.

GR: We've only got about a minute left, but I want to squeeze one last question in for you. Any time you have big changes like the ones that we've been talking about, there are tipping points along the way for society. And these are points when the resistance and the inertia sort of decisively break in favor of a new system. Where are we, do you think, in terms of those tipping points, is the tipping point behind us, or do you see sort of a moment in the near future where it's really going to accelerate?

BK: So, I think when it comes to clean energy, we are at a tipping point already. Again, when you look at all of the new power sources that have been deployed by utilities in the past year, something like 95% of that has been solar or wind or batteries. It's not gas anymore, it's certainly not coal anymore. Nuclear is way too expensive and it takes way too long. So we've already seen that tipping point. Electric vehicles, we've got a ways to go, but we're just getting started. Again, when you look at the fact that every single automaker is shifting to electric vehicles, that's a sign of where things are going. Now, do we still need more charging? Absolutely. But the good news is we've also got a bunch of companies investing and putting new charging out there. So that's coming. We're not there yet with EV’s.

GR: Well, it's an exciting time. And there are a lot of exciting stories in your book. That was Bob Keefe and again, his new book is titled, "Clean Economy Now: Stories from the Frontlines of an American Business Revolution". Bob, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

BK: Thank you, I really appreciate it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

The supply of affordable, quality housing is at a crisis point in the United States, including in the Syracuse area. This week, Grant Reeher speaks with architectural historian Victoria Newhouse, and Michael Gecan with the Industrial Areas Foundation. They have edited and contributed to a new book on the topic, called Housing the Nation: Social Equity, Architecture, and the Future of Affordable Housing.

View Details

President Joe Biden speaks in Syracuse in April on the $6.1 billion grant that Micron will receive to build a chip megafab in the Town of Clay(Darren McGee / Office of the Governor )Last month, a number of political dignitaries, including President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, descended upon Syracuse to tout the massive $6.1 billion grant for Micron from the CHIPS and Science Act for it's massive megafab project in the Town of Clay. This week, Grant Reeher talks about the labor and economic impacts of the project with Syracuse University Professor Tod Rutherford.

View Details

Writer and photographer Jonathan Zaharek(provided photo)New York's Adirondack Mountains are a precious resource, and within them is the High Peaks wilderness area. This week, Grant Reeher talks with writer and photographer Jonathan Zaharek, who has written a new guidebook on the High Peaks, called "Hiking the Adirondack 46 High Peaks: A Guide to the Region's High Peaks."

View Details

The American Dream is a touchstone for this nation. But is it now out of reach for many citizens we used to regard as middle class? This week, Grant Reeher speaks with with Batya Ungar-Sargon, an opinion editor for Newsweek, and has a new book about workers in America, titled "Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women."

View Details

Jenn Jackson(Syracuse University)Black feminism is usually regarded as a relatively newer dimension of racial justice movements. This week, Grant Reeher speaks with Jenn Jackson, a Syracuse University professor, and author of "Black Women Taught Us," about early Black feminists, as well as contemporary ones.

View Details

Pratap Bhanu MehtaOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton University. In India, he's served as President of Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank and as the Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University. He's the author of the book, "The Burden of Democracy."

Program Transcript:

GR: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Pratap Bhanu Mehtar. He's the Lawrence Rockefeller visiting professor for distinguished teaching at Princeton University. In India he has served as president of the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think tank, and as the vice-chancellor of Ashoka University. He's an expert on Indian politics and democracy. And he's with me today to discuss the state of political affairs and the state of democracy in that country, among many other works. He's the author of “The Burden of Democracy.” Professor Mehta, welcome to the program.

PBM: Great to be here.

GR: Well, we're glad to have you. So let me just start by maybe taking you back in time a little bit, and then we'll come forward. But what kinds of challenges did Indian society pose for the original achievement of democracy?

PBM: So I think there were principally two challenges. One, India was an extraordinarily poor country, one of the poorest countries in the world. And one of the most illiterate. And frankly, in the 1950s if you had asked anybody in the world, can a country this poor and this unlettered could sustain democracy? The answer would have been an unequivocal no. I mean, India did not meet any of the preconditions of democracy, as you know, from the, you know, democracy literature and in that sense, it was a gigantic leap of faith that we can actually have political democracy before we've had a minimal degree of economic development. India reverses the traditional sequence of democratization. I think the second big challenge was it's also a country of enormous diversity, linguistic diversity, religious diversity, social diversity of a kind of, almost, you know, a bewildering variety and to craft and consolidate a modern nation-state out of this building, building diversity was an extraordinary challenge. And particularly when if you look at the record of other attempts to do this, they weren't very heartening. I mean, every society has had to go through its process of incredible violence, exclusion, ethnic cleansing. So, you know, again, in the 1950s, people used to publish books with titles like “Can India Survive?” Based largely on the fact that this diversity is not meant to exist, coexist, at least by conventional yardsticks.

GR: One of the things that, occurred to me when I was thinking about that question I wanted to get your reaction to it is the degree to which the society, in addition to being incredibly diverse, as you just explained, also was hierarchical as well. And, you know, there's even a caste system or there was a legacy of that. Talk a little bit about how that challenged the achievement of democracy.

PBM: You know, so I mean, you know, the caste system is in a sense the single biggest blot in a sense, on, on India. I mean, it's a deeply oppressive, almost totalizing hierarchical social system, or at least had become one. And I think almost every modern Indian leader understood that if you want to forge a modern nation, you cannot do it when you have such a deeply oppressive social system at the heart of it. And just to I mean, you know, it's a kind of familiar fact, but caste actually governed people's lives. As Ambedkar once said, it was a division of persons. It was not just a division of labor, who you can marry, what you can eat, where you can sit, which professions, you will possess and it was an it's an extraordinary edifice of indignity. There's no other way of describing it. Right. And, the modern Indian Constitution, actually puts forth the idea of, we are free and equal citizens bound together by fraternity. So there was this incredible contradiction between the stated aspirations of this Constitution and what our social structure was. Now, one of the choices India made, and this was the interesting choice, is in many contexts, these social structures are uprooted through revolution, violent revolution. Right. India made this choice or political circumstances that it adopted a nonviolent ameliorating path to overcoming this hierarchical structure. And the hope was that the introduction of political democracy itself would, over time, weaken the hold of this hierarchical social, social system. And I think the different ways of telling that story. But some people think that glass is half empty. Some people think that glass is half full. but this is certainly a work in progress. And India has a long way to go to this, on this.

GR: And I wanted to explore with you just where it is on that path and what are the challenges. But let me ask this more general question first, and then we'll then we'll get into that. You've talked about how India is different from a lot of the other democracies in the world, and its story of democracy is different. What is do you think the importance to democracy in the world generally of India's democracy? Does it matter for democracy?

PBM: Oh, I think it matters in two ways. I mean, one, of course, it matters, because, you know, this is one-sixth of humanity, right? So them living under a democratic system is the biggest triumph, democracy. In fact, the future of democracy is going to be decided in India. But there's a second way in which it matters. Actually, I think, and particularly I think for, I think listeners across the world. Right. Which is, there’s been lots of competing models of regimes across the world, right, 1920s, 30s, you had communism, fascism and even now you have a competing model in China, which is a kind of one-party state, increasingly more authoritarian. And in the developing world and elsewhere, there was always the sense that, you know, 20, 25 years ago that democracy was not a great option for developing countries because you end up like India, kind of low growth, you know. Yeah, sure, it's it's an open society. But it's not a model of successful social or economic development. If India proves and as it had begun to in the, you know, still on the pathway to that, you can actually get decent growth, 6 to 8% growth just to use an aggregate GDP number, you can actually build out a half decent welfare state. Not perfect by any means, but certainly, you know, impactful enough. Think of what it does to the global debate about what democracy does to empower citizens and make give them a dignified life. And actually, I think sometimes I actually find colleagues in China actually understand this, that the success of India's democracy and the power of its example. I mean, you know, President Biden says the power of the US is the power of its example, or at least was historically. I mean, you know, this is like times for that.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Princeton University professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and we're discussing politics and democracy in India. So I think most of our listeners will know relatively little about India, but they may also know, of the current prime minister, Modi, Prime Minister Modi. Tell us just briefly how this gentleman rose to power, what was his path?

PBM: Okay. so, I'm actually a little surprised. I think people know more than we think they do. And particularly in this day and age, the Prime Minister Modi is an extraordinary figure in modern Indian history, there's no question about him. He is a self-made politician who rose from humble circumstances. He likes to describe himself as a [inaudible]. He's actually from one of India's backward castes. Not the lowest cast, not the ex-untouchables, but still a cast that was relatively low down. the hierarchy. He joined a Hindu nationalist organization, the RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, at a very young age. And basically has dedicated his entire life to that organization. So this the RSS is a almost 100-year-old organization that was created to consolidate Hindus into a self-conscious political identity, and it's the main organization that spearheaded nationalism. He gave up his family ties very early and so there's there's a big mythology around that because, he was married at a very young age, but gave up all on this story, all attachment to family and home to dedicate himself to the cause of nation. And after years of toiling as an RSS worker, he first comes to prominence in the state of Gujarat and he comes to prominence in two ways. One in 2002, there is a major riot in the state of Gujarat. A series of events leading up to it. There was a there was a train, carrying Hindu activists, and one of the coaches was set off on fire. And there's still a lot of controversy around exactly the circumstances under which that coach caught fired. But as a response, as a retaliation, there were riots all across the state. depending on your estimates, almost 2000 people died. Mr. Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat. And many people believe that he and the BJP had active complicity in producing those riots. There were certainly, at the very least, sins of omission. I mean, whenever there is a major riot in an Indian state and the state refuses to or delay stopping those riots, you can pretty much assume at least some kind of complicity. So. So it keeps the negative sin of omission is clearly there. There is a big debate about the sin of commission, right? I mean, who was exactly orchestrating this? But, but that actually catapulted him to national prominence. And many hardline Hindu nationalists began to see him as the strongest defender of Hindu interests, precisely because he'd actually innate allowed this violence. Right. So it was that violence, rather than being a kind of black mark against his career, at least for his core constituents, became a point of attraction. But the second thing he did in Gujarat, and that's the combination he brings to the center. Gujarat is an economically very dynamic state. A large part of India's kind of business success comes from the state of Gujarat, it houses some of India's most prominent businessmen. And he managed to create the buzz around Gujarat, around his ability to be very pro-business, create the kind of modern infrastructure that business requires. Now, again, just to get the facts on the ground, Gujarat actually doesn't do very well on a couple of other indicators, like health and education or social indicators. But this image of a kind of efficient chief minister who wants to modernize India, right, through the creation of infrastructure, he had this kind of flagship project in the city of Ahmedabad creating this kind of modern riverfront where they essentially kind of channel the water [inaudible]. But, you know, but, you know, it makes for a kind of magnificent sort of infrastructural vista, at least, you know, visually. So this combination that he's a militant defender of Hindu interests and he's a pro-business modernizer that became known as the kind of Gujarat model which he then managed to sell at a kind of national stage very, very effectively.

GR: It's beginning to sound familiar. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Princeton University professor Pratap Bhanu Mehta. He's an expert on Indian politics and democracy. So you were talking about this Hindu nationalism and how Prime Minister Modi really embodied that and then erode that, in addition to other aspects of his political appeal to the top in Indian politics. He is generally, I think, seen as a force that has threatened democracy in India. In broad outline, would you go along with that, or is it more complicated story?

PBM: I think a broad outline, that's true. But I think there's there's this there's some nuances, I think, which are I think important. So first of all, when we say threatening democracy, we have to acknowledge the fact that so far at least, elections in India have been free and fair, and his appeal is genuinely popular and his political victories are genuinely politically earned. Even the opposition up till this point has not, you know, challenged the election results. And it's important to his self-image that he sees himself as a genuinely popular leader, and he's remarkably good at actually one aspect of democracy, which is electioneering. I mean, he there's no political leader in the world who takes elections as seriously as he does. Right? I think the worry about him as posing a threat to democracy, in part, is a kind of anticipatory body, which is to say that as Hindu nationalism gets more consolidated in structures of government, it is beginning to show signs of both authoritarianism and exclusion of minorities. Right. So the challenge for India is that while elections are still robust, in between elections, civil liberties are weakening considerably. So, for example, clampdowns on freedom of expression, the use of state power to target political opponents. And just recently, in the last week or last, last month or so, the chief minister of Delhi has been arrested. Now, there again, nuances to that case, but it's beginning to send a signal that this is not a government, even when it's popular, that's actually going to let the opposition now freely organize and mobilize and it also poses an anticipatory tactic, because we know that once you have been in power and have targeted your opponents, you know, through using state power, the existential stakes for you losing power potentially become all that much greater because you might fear targeting. So I think Indian democracies now entering that zone where it will be that democratic commitment to free and fair elections is going to be tested but certainly the clampdown on civil society, freedom of expression, the erosion of independent institutions, what happens between elections as it were, in the kind of non-electoral space? I think those threats are now increasingly serious.

GR: As you speak, of course, it's impossible not to think of the analogies to the United States and many of the things you've said. It's not a 1-to-1 match, but there's obviously a lot of overlap, and I wanted to get reflections on that. Do you think that there are lessons or insights for the United States situation where you have, you know, a pro-business, populist leader that is emphasizing themes of nationalism and some would say Christian nationalism, Christian white nationalism? As an outsider looking at us, you're living in the United States, but you're not originally from here, what do you think the insights or lessons are?

PBM: So, I think there's there's kind of one interesting similarity and one difference. Let me begin with the difference first, which is I think the United States, I think the worry is much more polarization. Right? Which is, two blocks roughly of similar size. Right. 45% vote on the one side, 48 or something percent to the other side, something like that. Right. I mean, whoever comes up with and that polarization actually producing a kind of gridlock, or at least preventing America from doing the kinds of things that it needs to do to solve its pressing social problems. But the distribution of social power across political parties is still relatively balanced. And that provides, at least for now, a certain kind of check and balance. I think with India, the challenge now is actually the concentration of power at one end of the spectrum. So, imagine if one of the two parties or if it was a right-wing party, kind of, let's say an authoritarian Republican Party were to, you know, kind of dominate American politics to the point that you just could not even imagine anybody challenging it. What would, in a sense, you know, your views in like, a democracy look like? So one is I think there's difference between kind of polarization and concentration. But the similarity that I see is, I think the following, which is, that both in both countries there are sections of the population that might be tempted by ethno-nationalism. Right. Again, it's sometimes hard to be precise about how widespread that attraction is, partly because nationalism now itself can speak as a coded language. You know, in some ways it re-articulates itself as something else. so there can be genuine arguments about immigration. There are arguments about immigration that I actually, frankly, just ethno-nationalist arguments. It's sometimes difficult to parse those things out and I think, you see this in both countries. But insofar as there is a kind of attraction to ethno-nationalism, and, and ethno-nationalism defines itself also against a similar set of targets. It's impatient with liberal elites who they think are not just too out of touch. It's impatient with checks and balances because they think checks and balances come in the way of creating the unity of the people, or taking the strong actions that it needs to take to make the country great. Right. I mean, we don't want all these courts we doing different things in Congress. And the natural pluralism of society becomes a kind of hindrance, not an asset. Right? That's the core. Right. And that temptation then leads to the curbing of their independent power, whether it be universities, whether it be media. I think that tendency is quite strong in the US. It's still checked a bit because there are countervailing powers. But I don't think it's something that should be in a sense, complacently, I think, taken for granted and I think the third I think element of kind of ethno-nationalism, which is we are in this moment, in world history, where, every country wants to put their interests first. Again, nothing new about it. All nationalisms do it. Historically, every country has put their interests first. But I think now we are at a vision of the world where we see the world in a zero-sum game. It's America first, India first, China first. And that optimism of the last 25, 30 years that you could see geopolitics and the nature of our economic development in non-zero-sum games in non-zero-sum terms. I think that optimism is waning and once that optimism wanes, it does make the way for a kind of politics of exclusion and closure you know, that, that might not. I think we consonant with the kind of open, free American spirit that we were used to.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Indian politics expert Pratap Bhanu Mehta. When you were talking there, I was thinking of two things that I want to ask you about at the end before we have to stop. But one of them is in the one of the things I worry about as a political scientist looking at the United States is that zero-sum mentality for domestic politics. But it's very interesting to think of it in terms of the international realm as well, and how those two things might work together. But before I wanted to ask you a question that’s related to that. Let me ask you a question about your own experience if you don't mind. And, you know, you don't have to get deeply into this if you don't want to. But my understanding is that the kind of limitations on academic freedom that you're beginning to see in India, that's that's something that that you, you personally have experienced. Is that correct?

PBM: Yes. I mean, I mean, to put it very in a sense, pointedly, there is direct pressure from government on academic institutions to rein in academics who are critical of the government. Could be on a range of issues, not just academics. I mean, there's there's a group of thinkers who have actually been targeted and put in prison. I just mentioned a couple of them just to give examples on and tell to me one of actually India's finest Dalit scholars. He was kind of the government accuse him of, fomenting in some sense, his left-wing insurgencies really kind of surcharge in this evidence now that, evidence was actually planted on his laptop to make that possible. So, yes, I mean, and lots of Indian universities increasingly cannot hold seminars on subjects of national importance. For example, you cannot hold a seminar, on Kashmir in most Indian universities. Either there'll be direct pressure from government or increasingly the government will use or at least support vigilante groups, sometimes, unfortunately, even student groups, to obstruct and block these seminars. Appointments in public universities deeply vetted ideologically. So, so, yeah, there's a whole range of, you know, ways in which are increasingly, unfortunately, becoming familiar in the US as well, in which academic freedom is under jeopardy in India.

GR: So as I listen to you, I also am thinking of, a very famous, political writer, Alexis de Tocqueville.

PBM: Yeah.

GR: Oh, you know, was, a Frenchman who had important observations to make about the American system. And you're kind of reminding me of that here in a modern context. And I wanted to draw on that. We've only got a couple of minutes left, but, I wanted to ask you. Okay, so give the United States political lessons. What should what should Americans be most what should be on the top of their mind politically as they think about their future here? And what should we be most on guard about? How should we and are there things that we need to be doing differently or thinking about differently? If you could give us this advice.

PBM: So, I mean, it's very presumptuous, but okay. But here's two quick points. One, and this I very strongly believe in that almost any tinge of ethno-nationalism in politics, that's a story that never ends well. Even though you might not see violence immediately, it does something to relations between citizens. That's, I think, deeply troubling for democracies, and particularly one that, you know, we kind of celebrate, I think the United States kind of I mean, this was this democracy, the sense of lightness of being was always one thing that we wanted to associate with the United States, not the kind of the heavy heaviness of ethno-nationalism. The second thing I will say, which is a lot of what gives ethno-nationalism links in politics, is actually the governance failures of liberal establishments. So in India, it's also, you know, the credibility of the liberal establishment imploded on its own account. Right. And, while we focus on, you know, ethno-nationalism, white supremacism, pluralism, populism, at the heart, there are serious governance challenges, housing, health, daycare costs. And if you want to preserve liberty, you have to be able to demonstrate that you are up to also meeting these governance challenges. Otherwise, the bad guys would have an opening.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. I could talk to you for hours about this topic that was Pratap Bhanu Mehta and if you'd like to learn more about India and democracy, check out his book, “The Burden of Democracy.” Pratap, thanks again for taking the time to talk to me has been extremely insightful.

PBM: Thank you, it's been a real privilege.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Brian TaylorOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with returning guest Brian Taylor, a Political Science Professor at Syracuse University. He's an expert on Russia and security, and brings us an update on Russia's war with Ukraine.

Program Transcript:

GR: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Syracuse University political science professor Brian Taylor. Professor Taylor has been on the program a couple of times previously to discuss the war in Ukraine. And he's back with me today to bring us up to date on that war. He's an expert on Russia and security and has written about both Putin and the Russian military. His most recent book is “The Code of Putinism.” Brian, it's good to see you again.

BT: Great to see you, Grant. Thanks for the invitation again.

GR: Oh, yeah, you bet. So. Well, before I start asking you questions, actually, I want to publicly give you credit for saying the very first time that we spoke and the war was just getting started and it hadn't really gotten underway, that you said then that you expected Ukrainian resistance to be fierce and lasting. Most of the other experts at the time were expecting Russia to roll over them without much resistance. So well done on that. We'll continue in that vein. So, so, as my first question, though, just briefly bring us up to speed on what's been happening in the war in the past six months or so. Just a real thumbnail sketch.

BT: I guess I would say we haven't seen a massive amount of change in the war on either side in the last six months or so. About nine months or so ago, nine, ten months. Ukraine launched, a long-planned and long-expected counter-offensive across several points of the front line. And I think it's fair to say in retrospect that this counter-offensive was largely unsuccessful, for reasons we can get into, if you want, but it was largely unsuccessful. The amount of territory that Ukraine was able to take back was pretty small. On the other hand, we should say that Russia has not made major advances either. So some people have referred to the war as a stalemate. It's not quite a stalemate because there's still lots of things happening, but the movement of the front line has been pretty small and pretty minor over the course of, I would say, even the last year. The one other thing I might add, the one part of the battle where we've seen a bit more change, perhaps, is actually in the Black Sea, where Russia had pretty much tried to blockade Ukraine from shipping grain and other goods out of the Black Sea, and Ukraine has successfully fought back against those efforts, and they have managed to sink, around a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, even though Ukraine itself doesn't have a proper navy through the use of drones and missiles and other technologies. And so they've reopened that shipping route for them, which has a big impact on global food prices and things like that, but in general, not a huge amount of change. And the final thing I would say, I guess, is that Russia is on the front foot now because Ukraine is running out of ammunition, especially artillery and this has to do with the hold up on the U.S. military assistance package in the US Congress over the last half year.

GR: Yeah, I wanted to get into that a little bit later. Briefly tell us why the Ukrainian, counter-offensive wasn't successful. Was it bad planning or something else that was going on?

BT: I would say it was a series of things. Probably the most basic thing is it is extremely difficult in modern conditions, with the amount of visibility of the battlefield to the combatants on both sides to make a major breakthrough. And it's especially difficult to do that without air superiority. And, Ukraine actually was able to successfully prevent Russia from established, establishing air superiority in the early phase of the war. But certainly, Russia still has the more powerful air force than Ukraine. And so that meant that advancing Ukrainian units when they tried to break through, didn't have any air cover. And normally the U.S. military, for example, in a similar type of conflict, would have established air supremacy by that point. The second thing I would say is that Russia pretty successfully established defensive lines in depth with fortifications, mines, trenches, those sorts of obstacles that made it very hard for Ukrainian armored units to make much progress going forward. So it turned much more into an artillery and infantry fight. And the movement was just very slow. And eventually, Ukraine exhausted itself in its attempt to push forward in several different directions.

GR: So has the level of Ukrainian resolve to resist Russia changed at all, in your view, or is it still as strong as it was at the beginning?

BT: If you look at, public opinion polls, Ukrainian public opinion still remains very much committed to victory. People say that they believe in victory and victory to the Ukrainians means expelling Russia entirely from Ukrainian territory. Currently, Russia is occupying about 17 to 18% of Ukrainian territory. So based on the survey data, Ukrainian resolve seems to be roughly the same. Anecdotally, people say the mood in Ukraine is less optimistic than it was a year ago, that people had high hopes for, the offensive of summer of 2023. And there is, of course, some disappointment that they were not able to reconquer more territory. There's also a major debate taking place in Ukrainian domestic politics now about mobilizing additional troops because they, like the Russians, have taken heavy casualties. And the question is, how are they going to, put into the field an army that is capable of conquering back the territory they've lost and holding the territory they currently have?

GR: Now, what about on the Russian side in terms of the public? The last time you and I spoke, you talked about the kind of information that Russians were getting, how they might view the war. Have there been any major changes there about the factual information that they're getting, or do you have any, any evidence or even hunches, as a Russia expert, that their views might be changing in any significant way?

BT: In terms of, excuse me, in terms of the information available? Not much has really changed. Anyone who consumes state media or even legally available private military or private media in Russia today will be getting a very slanted view of the picture. If they go on social media or go look for independent media externally, then they can get a different picture. But, many people are pretty passive media consumers, and that's not true just of Russians, but of many people around the world, obviously. So I think the picture people are getting hasn't changed that much. But on the other hand, it won't be lost on the average Russian that a war that was supposed to be over in weeks is now already in its third year. And based on the independent survey data we have, the picture seems to be, a slow, a very slow but somewhat steady decline in commitment to the war. More people talking about the need for a settlement, talking about how if Putin went for a settlement, that they would support him in that, while at the same time, the majority seems to think they can have that settlement without getting, without having to give back any of the territory they've illegally annexed from Ukraine. So it's kind of a mixed picture. I think when we talked a couple of years ago, I may have said this, but the picture seems to be about 20% of the population are hardcore war supporters willing to do everything for victory. About 20% are hardcore war opponents, and the majority in the middle tends to go along with what the regime, is saying and at least offer kind of passive support, but not enthusiastic support. And they seem to be willing to end the war if that's what Putin says that Russia should do.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Syracuse University professor Brian Taylor, and we're discussing the war in Ukraine. Well, let's talk about Putin for a minute. You've written on him. He was recently reelected. I guess I guess that's the term we'll use. There was an election of some sort to another term as president of Russia. First, just for someone that grew up in the Cold War, are there any important sort of functional differences between Putin's level of control over the country and, say, the older general secretaries of the Communist Party? Help me understand how, what this guy is as an authoritarian leader.

BT: The main difference, I would say, is that in the Soviet Union, it was a single-party state in which the institutions of the Communist Party, with the support of the KGB and other associated institutions, had control from the top down to the bottom. But there was a set of regularized, institutionalized structures that knew what their roles were and carried out those roles. Putin's Russia is not a single-party dictatorship. It's a personalist dictatorship where power flows from one man who sits in the Kremlin, and that means the institutional constraints on him as a ruler are actually weaker than the institutional constraints that the post-Stalin rulers would have faced. In that sense, he's somewhat more like Stalin, not in the level of repression, which is very high, but not Stalin levels high. But Stalin also, in some sense elevated himself above the party. whereas under Khrushchev and Brezhnev's this system became more regularized, with routines that people followed and sort of informal rules about how the system worked. And now it's much more about Putin, his staff in the Kremlin, what's called the presidential administration, his cronies who have informal influence over him, which means the constraints are weaker. But it also means in some ways, the execution side is weaker than it would have been under the Soviet Communist Party. If you weaken institutions, they don't constrain you, but you also can't necessarily rely on them when you're trying to get things done. So that's how I would describe the difference. The one final point I would add is there was a recent study by an independent Russian media organization that said the level of repression in terms of people being either arrested or sentenced or fined for quote-unquote anti-state activities is as high now as it was under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, and by some measures even higher. So it is quite a repressive, authoritarian regime, and it has become much more so over the last two years.

GR: So you were making some comparisons with Stalin there. Stalin essentially died in office. Do you think that's going to be the case with Putin? Will he have this position and this authority until he passes on?

BT: So Putin is now 71. He's been in power in one form or another for more than 24 years now. And personalist dictatorships in which the ruler is that old and has been in power that long, the typical outcome is that they die in office. That is the most likely outcome if we just base it on comparing this type of ruler to other types of rulers around the world of a similar profile, of similar age and similar time in power. In the post-Cold War era, the second most common way those people, leave power is through some sort of popular uprising. And then third would be some kind of elite conspiracy or coup. So those are the three most common scenarios in order. I think if we had to bet, we should probably bet with, you know, the majority odds, which says he'll be in power until he dies. But we also know that personalist regimes like this are pretty unpredictable and can collapse quite quickly, even though they look very formidable at the time, you know, and the stress that the war is putting on the economy and the political system means I wouldn't put a whole lot of money on that bet, even though that's the way I would bet if I was forced to.

GR: I gotcha, and you could probably dispatch this question pretty quickly, but I'm assuming, then, that this recent reelection doesn't really affect Putin's calculations in the way that we might think it would happen in a Western context of, okay, “I've been reelected, I have a mandate,” or I think that's just is that just completely irrelevant to his thinking?

BT: I actually don't think it's completely irrelevant to his thinking. I think in some ways it is more or less irrelevant. It wasn't a real election, you know, when you call it a special election operation or something like that. But it wasn't a real election, obviously. And the data is clear on that. There was massive falsification and fraud taking place and massive coercion to get people to vote the right way. But Putin has interpreted it as far as people have reported, as if showing that the country is united around him. So I think it gives him an extra boost of confidence going forward. That's maybe the one change.

GR: You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Brian Taylor. He's a political science professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and an expert on Russia and security. And we've been discussing the war in Ukraine. Before the break, we were talking a bit about Putin. Let me ask you this other question about what's inside his head, as far as you can tell. How much do you think he, in thinking about the conduct of the war and his decisions about it, how much do you think he is concerned with what the United States will do in reaction to the actions that he takes, or the Western world more generally? How does that factor into it for him?

BT: I think it's a huge part of the calculation for him. I think it's important for people to understand that for Putin, he is at war, not only with Ukraine, but in some sense with the United States and the West. And he sees this as a more global conflict because the U.S., NATO, other allies are supporting Ukraine, he sees it as very much kind of Russia against the Western world. And so one of his key objectives has been to try and divide the West, try and slow down the supply of Western military assistance to Ukraine. He has said quite openly that he thinks Ukraine would be unable to continue to fight without Western assistance. And I think his calculation now is that after the initial setbacks of the invasion two years ago, he and Russia sort of regrouped and went into full mobilization mode, mobilizing manpower, mobilizing military power, putting everything towards the war where they're spending upwards of 7%. Some people have estimated as much as 10% of GDP on the war effort. In contrast, the response from the U.S. and its European allies has been relatively small in terms of restarting military production lines and those sorts of things, supplying Ukraine with armaments and equipment and economic assistance. Obviously, a lot has been done, but in comparison with the way Russia has mobilized, for, one might say, total war, the U.S. and Europe has barely sort of started moving forward, in that. And so I think Putin believes, and maybe there's some evidence for this, that the U.S. and the West in general will eventually lose interest, and then he will have a free hand in Ukraine.

GR: This is, really, almost a perverse question on my part, but I want to ask it because as you were talking, it occurred to me, if we in the United States were to put like a Cold War lens on this conflict and remember back to the way that the United States kind of effectively outspent the Soviet Union and really caused them to hurt their own economy by staying up with us in terms of spending on a military that they could not afford as easily as we could, would it not be, at least from a strategic point of view, somewhat in the Western interests, to keep this war going and keep spending Russia down and keep making him, in a sense, more and more, contingent in his in his position? Or is that I mean, that has enormous ethical implications for what we're doing to the Ukrainian people and nation. But it just struck me if from that lens, I don't know if that question's making sense or not to you know, but.

BT: I guess I wouldn't describe the situation in that way, because the Cold War was a Cold War, and it went on for decades. And now we're talking about an extremely hot war. The hottest wars in Europe since World War II, in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or wounded, and it goes on day by day. Just last night, Russia sent a massive missile and drone attack against Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. So the scenario is different. The Cold War scenario was, over time, the collective economic and technological might of the U.S. in Western Europe was going to outstrip that of the Soviet Union and its satellites. Now we're talking about a full-blown massive conventional war in which if the West doesn't step up to help Ukraine, defend itself, then Russia will try and grind down Ukrainian resistance, and that will radically change the security situation in Europe and will lead to increasing demands for more U.S. military assistance to the rest of Europe, more U.S. troops in Europe, and that sort of thing. So I would frame the conflict quite differently than the Cold War.

GR: Right. No, I see what you're saying. Well, so you've mentioned this a couple times. I did want to come back to it. In fact, you said it right at the outset, the need, for, U.S. support and Western support for the Ukraine militarily and that you cited as Ukraine's biggest challenge right now is that artillery, ammunition and other things are beginning to to dry up. So what would happen then if, if the United States government didn't provide this aid that Ukraine needs?

BT: I think it would make it much more difficult for Ukraine to continue to resist Russian offensives. I think Europe would try and do what it can, and Europe actually is providing more assistance than the U.S.. I think there's a bit of a misconception about that. So Europe would do what it could, but there are certain things that the U.S., as the world's largest economy, with the world's most powerful military and the world's largest military industrial base can provide that Europe can't provide right away. Things like just the number of artillery shell shells, air defense missiles to protect Ukrainians, cities, those sorts of things. So the fight would get much more difficult for Ukraine. But if the West, not only the U.S. but, Europe sort of withdrew from the conflict, I don't think that'll happen. But if it did, this does not mean Ukraine will stop fighting. It'll just mean the nature of the war will become more like an insurgency, rather than, sort of old World War I, World War II style conflict if Ukraine simply runs out of, you know, artillery and systems like that.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Russia expert Brian Taylor. Well, I wanted to ask you how the Israeli-Hamas war has affected the situation in the United States in particular. Has it changed the way that the war in Ukraine is perceived? I mean, obviously, it's taken some of the attention away from Ukraine, but beyond that, has it, has it reframed it for this country in any important way?

BT: It's an interesting question. I mean, I think the Biden administration initially wanted to go with a message that helping Ukraine and helping Israel are part of the same fight against sort of authoritarian, you know, political actors, whether it's the Russian state or Hamas in Gaza. But, the, the course of the, you know, Israel-Hamas war has almost sort of flipped that argument. And now, I'm getting a bit outside of my lane here. But the way Israel is fighting in Gaza, bears some resemblance to the way that Russia is fighting in Ukraine. And there's a political argument in the U.S. political discourse more globally that actually, you know, we should think of the side that needs protecting as the Palestinians and Ukrainians rather than the Israelis and the Ukrainians. So it's muddled the debate in a way that I don't think the Biden administration anticipated after October 7 when clearly everyone's sympathy was with Israel after the horrible Hamas terrorist attack. But given the course of that war, it looks a lot more complicated than it did back in October. And so the politics of it have become difficult. Specifically, on the issue of the Ukrainian assistance bill that's been stuck in the House. There's a faction of the Democratic House that doesn't want to vote for that bill because it includes not only assistance for Ukraine, but assistance for Israel. And so, the left part of the Democratic caucus in the House is also opposed to this military assistance bill for very different reasons.

GR: We've got about, three minutes left or so. I want to try to squeeze in 2 or 3 more questions if I can. This is a big one, but, I wanted to get your take on it. One of the things that you sometimes hear coming from the Right in the United States, regarding this war, is this notion that historically, Ukraine isn't really a nation. And you know what? What are we helping to defend in this kind of thing? Just how true is that historically, I mean, outside of the carving up of the region that occurred after World War I and World War II and is Ukraine a nation? That seems like a dumb question, but.

BT: Ukraine is 100% a nation. Ukrainian is a separate language from Russia, from Russian. Ukraine has a separate culture and identity, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, first in 2014 and then again in 2022, has made that even stronger and more clear to Ukrainians. I know we're running out of time, but I do want to make one fundamental point that the history, although Putin likes to talk about it a lot, is in some sense irrelevant. Many borders came about accidentally over the courses of centuries, but the current international order is based on the notion of acceptance of the territorial integrity of states in their given borders. Russia recognized these borders multiple times. The UN recognizes these borders, so there's no legal argument about Ukraine's separate status.

GR: I think that's a good point. We could have lots of conversations about the rest of Europe if we were to apply that logic to it. So, I know that the predictions are dicey in this realm. You've kind of, I think, suggested where you think this might be going, but it seems like the war can't go on forever. Maybe it could, but you know, it can't. What's the ultimate arrangement that you think comes out of it in a minute or less?

BT: It's really hard to predict. At the moment actually, I don't see any scenario for a settlement because the two sides positions are completely separate. Russia wants to destroy Ukraine and control Ukraine, and Ukraine wants to keep its independence. So I don't think we should think about this so much as a question of this or that piece of territory. It's a question about political control. Putin wants to dominate Ukraine. He thinks it's an artificial state. I've just said why it isn't. Ukraine thinks they are a real state, which it is. And so in some sense, it either ends with Russia establishing that control that it's seeking, or Ukraine being given the tools to defend its sovereignty.

GR: Okay, we'll have to leave it there. That was Brian Taylor. And if you'd like to learn more about Russia and Putin, check out his book, “The Code of Putinism.” Brian, thanks again for taking time to talk with me. I always learn so much when I speak with you.

BT: Thanks so much, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Robert Mann(Mark Lavonier / lsu.edu)On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Robert Mann, a professor who holds the Manship Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. Prior to joining the Manship School in 2006, he served as communications director to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. He's also the author of, "Becoming Ronald Reagan: The Rise of a Conservative Icon".

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reheer. Super Tuesday has come and gone. And some things are clear. And others maybe not so much. To help me sort this out. My guest today is Robert Mann. He's a professor at the Manship School of Communications at Louisiana State University, and prior to that, he was press secretary or communication director for a number of notable Louisiana elected officials, including Governor Kathleen Blanco, Senator John Breaux, and Senator Russell Long. He's also the author of “Becoming Ronald Reagan: The Rise of a Conservative Icon.” Professor Mann, welcome to the program.

RM: Thank you. Grant, it's wonderful to be with you this morning.

GR: Well, it's great to have you. So let me just start with a very basic question. Our listeners are certainly aware of the big news items that have come out of Super Tuesday. But what were your main takeaways from these presidential nominating contests?

RM: Well, I guess that the that those who said and I had a lot of friends you probably did too, or you knew people who really doubted that all evidence to the contrary, that it would be a rematch between Trump and Biden. I think, you know, I had friends like you probably do who just didn't think it would end up that way. That's something would intervene that, that Trump wouldn't actually go through with it or that Biden would, would drop out and that just didn't happen. And it, I, I kind of expected that that's what would would occur. But I think that what's interesting to me is going to be to see in the coming weeks when those people and I think there were a lot of them, on both sides, but particularly among independents who just didn't believe that it would be a Trump/Biden rematch, began to absorb the, the reality and how that shakes up the polls if it does.

GR: Yeah, yeah. And there are some interesting polls that suggest that substantial majorities of the country, not only don't want to see either of them be president, but don't even want to see either of them run again. But now they are running again. So, as you point out, the reality is that.

RM: Yeah, it's, you know, it's this weird thing because you see in the press a lot of the, the national press, The Post in the, in the New York, Washington Post, New York Times, you see these stories about how people are so dissatisfied with their choices. And yet, you know, Biden wins almost every primary with 85, or 90% of the vote. And Trump romps to victory with, with a, with a little bit smaller percentage because he had actually had some serious challengers this time around. But the vast majority of of activists in both parties seem to do want these two candidates to, to be their nominee.

GR: Well, I, I've read that there were also some notable, results that emerged down ballot. Obviously got less attention. Well, I just was curious if anything in that regard caught your eye.

RM: Well, I think what's happening in North Carolina with the with the Republican nominee, Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor, who, is now the Republican nominee for governor, who I think the Democrats wisely sat on a lot of his I think to say there were controversial statements is is a vast understatement. Appalling, disturbing statements about the Holocaust and particularly about, that he would prefer women weren't allowed to vote. This probably ensures that North Carolina will have another Democratic governor. But I think in a state that Biden only lost by about half a point in 2020, that this puts this potentially puts North Carolina, really in play. And, and, you know, maybe complicates, you know, Trump's, calculus a little bit because, I think they were counting on North Carolina being in their column. And, that could allow Biden to, you know, that could give Biden a little more breathing room in a place like Arizona or Nevada.

GR: Yeah. That's interesting. So, so now that we're at the stage we're at and you had the observation that you started with, but I wanted to see if there was anything else you'd want to add to that when I asked this question. And that's for our listeners and mostly we're in upstate New York, although we do get folks listening in from other places. But what do you think is the most important thing our listeners should have at the front of their minds at this point in the election cycle? Is there something you think they should be remembering or keeping their eye out for when they're watching these candidates or the parties?

RM: Well, I you know, I tell people that that you really need to you really need to tune out the polls. If, you know, for people on both sides, there's a lot of freaking out going on right now and particularly among, I guess, Biden supporters. But, but but maybe Trump supporters are a little overconfident. And I think maybe some Biden people are a little underconfident, and they're reading a lot into polls that will that will change a lot. And I think based on Super Tuesday, I think we're going to see some realignment. And, I just feel like that the polls at this, at this stage of the game are not really, especially the national polls, if you're looking at a you're looking at a national poll, I think you're just kind of wasting your time. You're just inviting, yourself to to contemplate scenarios that are unlikely to happen. And they probably aren't even, realistic. And so I would say people on both sides, if you're if you're a Trump supporter or you're a Biden supporter, focus on ways you can help your candidate, not ways you can freak out about your candidate's chances. And, you know, I think also that one thing that I've been thinking about the last few days is that we've we've got to have a more serious conversation in this country among political reporters and among political professionals about polling and, and how we cover it, how we use it, how the media uses it to create news, which I think is not the best use of their time. But I think we really need to reassess what we do with polling in this election and going forward.

GR: I think it's it's been a problem for a long time. But it's a good point. So given that your experience was mostly on the Democratic side of the aisle, nonetheless, I wanted to see if you're getting a feeling in Louisiana, of any kind of like, sense on the ground among Republicans. You know, you talked before about how people really were discounting the possibility that this would be a rematch of 2016. But it is, and so or it looks like it's almost certain to be. So are you getting any kind of feelings in Louisiana among Republicans that Republicans up here might not be getting the same sense of?

RM: Well, you know, so Republicans in Louisiana. So first of all, I think your listeners need to understand that, Louisiana had its statewide elections last year. We're one of three states that have governor and legislative races in off years. And so, a lot of the political activity that would be happening in other states and a lot of the influence that a presidential campaign would be having on a statewide election just doesn't happen in Louisiana. We elected a Republican governor last year, and a supermajority in both houses of Republicans. So Republicans are feeling really ascendant. The presidential campaign doesn't touch us, really, in ways that it might in a swing state. And so, you know, Republicans are really feeling the roads right now. I mean, the governor just convened two special sessions and passed some pretty bold legislation, and is going to continue to do that. They're on a romp, they're feeling their oats. And, there is just, you know, I think that the presidential election is something that people care about. But I think in Louisiana, it's something they feel like they can't do anything about, because their votes are in the bank for doing it. Our electoral votes are in the bank for Republicans in every election.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Bob Mann, a professor at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Communications. So, Bob, I moderated a panel up here in New York of, academics last week. It was before Super Tuesday, and my last question to them, it was a bottom-line type of question was at this point in the election cycle, I didn't want to ask them to make a prediction because political scientists and social scientists don't like doing that. But at this point in the election cycle, who should be more worried, Joe Biden or Donald Trump? And to a person, they all said Donald Trump. Do you concur with that? And why?

RM: I do, I do, and I think if you look at from a standpoint, the standpoint of resources, of money, from the standpoint of, you know, the issues, particularly how abortion and reproductive rights is cutting against Republicans and every special, almost every special election, since the Dobbs decision. And if you look at the, the sort of the legal peril of the two candidates, one and Biden, who is, you know, the Republicans keep stepping on rocks trying to impeach him and to some extent, the, you know, the prosecutions against Trump are a little bit in trouble and delayed and all that. But there's still, I think, a bigger problem for Trump, there's a story that I saw yesterday that the Democrats are about to dump, the Democrats, the Biden campaign and its super PACs that are helping the Biden campaign, are about to dump early $700 million in television buys across the 7 or 8 battleground states. That's an enormous amount of money, especially this early. This is not to say that it will work. This is not to say that money is the magic potion that just wins campaigns. It doesn't always translate into a winning campaign. But, the the question you ask is, who would I rather be? And I would rather be sitting in the Biden chair than the Trump chair at this point in the campaign.

GR: There's something I've been mulling for a while now, and I wanted to get your take on it. it's the first time in our modern history that we've had, two presidents, each with two four-year records to compare. And an election hasn't happened for a very long time. Now, granted, one is the sitting incumbent and one is the challenger, but they both have full presidential records. Do you think that will affect things? And if so, how would it affect the dynamic?

RM: Yeah, that's a good question. They are sort of running as these two incumbents in a way, and, they're so well known. I think the Trump people think there was a I saw that, that, a Washington Post columnist, tweeted the other day that the Trump people believe that there is no new information that voters need to have about Trump, that it's all baked in and that the negative spots that Biden is going to dump on Trump rain down on Trump will have no, effect. I don't believe that. I think that I think you and I both know that voters have very short memories when it comes to politics, and that there's a lot about Trump, that they don't remember a lot about Trump's agenda. If he's elected, that they don't know about. I think there's still a lot of room for the Biden campaign to educate about Trump. And so where I'm going with this is that, you know, Trump wants it to be a referendum on the incumbent, which is what every challenger wants it to be. Biden wants it to be a choice between these two, these two presidents and that. So if you want to know who's going to win the race, I think you just need to one way to look at it is in late October, are people going to be looking at this, this election as a choice or a referendum? And I think that'll it'll tell you how it's likely to go.

GR: And, are you following the vice presidential sweepstakes on the Republican side of this at all?

RM: Well, a little bit. As much as you as it can be followed, which I think is kind of I think it's kind of funny, funny in a macabre sense to be watching these. A lot of these Republican, former challengers and other people sort of swirling around Trump, you know, doing the bootlicking, trying to, you know, put themselves in contention for this, for this job. It's you know, I think Trump clearly wants someone who will be totally subservient to him and would I mean, he's looking for more subservience than he got from Mike Pence, if that can be believed. He's looking for someone who'll be much more loyal to him. Who will be willing to, if need be, to violate the Constitution in a way that Mike Pence wasn't willing to do. So, you know, I think it's going to be just a race to the bottom in that sense. It's not going to be a this is not going to be a pretty sight. And also, you know, you got to realize that and, you know, in both campaigns, the running mate is really supposed to be the hatchet person. And so you're also I think Trump is also looking for the sort of the dirtiest fighter that he can find. It's kind of hard to believe that Trump is looking for someone who's more of a gutter politician than he is, but I think that's what he wants.

GR: There's some, extra interest in it, I guess, up here in this area of the country, because Elise Stefanik seems to be on that list, and she's a member of Congress from a little bit further north of here. But nonetheless, she looks like she would fit the role of the attack person pretty well. I mean, that's what she did during the first impeachment, for sure. Any thoughts about her?

RM: Well, you know, yeah, I think she's, you know, she's clearly angling for the job. And, one observation I have about her is that, you know, it could be that Trump is looking for someone from a state that, that would, you know, that's in play. I mean, you know, New York is not going to vote for, it's not going to give its electoral votes. Elise Stefanik on the ballot is not going to make any difference in how New York votes. So that is you know, I think presidential candidates have gotten away from that because I think they realize that except maybe for Lyndon Johnson, you can't find an example of a running mate who brought his home state along, but that still may be a consideration for Trump in a very close race.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Bob Mann. He's a professor at Louisiana State University's Manship School of Communication, and he's the author of “Becoming Ronald Reagan: The Rise of a Conservative Icon.” We've been discussing different things coming out of Super Tuesday's primary elections and looking beyond. So, I mentioned this panel that I had moderated up here in Syracuse. Another thing, that we got into a discussion with was, was whether Democrats, are essentially stuck at this point with Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee. It seems to me they are. But my panelists had some disagreement about that. It does seem like the White House is trying to feature her more in recent weeks and expand her portfolio in different ways. What's your sense of this issue?

RM: Well, I would not use the word stuck because I think she's she's more of a of an asset than, than a lot of people realize. You know, there are some, polls if we are just told, people just disregard polls, but there are some polls. It suggests that there maybe there's a little there's a little, you know, the support among African Americans and other minorities is a little bit soft this year. And I think to, you know, I think to, to, to throw, you know, a woman minority overboard a few months before the election would be a, a really bad move on Biden's part. And I think all the people around him understand that even if he wanted to cast her aside, which I don't think he wants to do, but even if he did, that would be I think it'd be a really bad political move for him. But I think she could help. And I think she, she's a she is she is a very, I think a very effective communicator. She's, I don't I just don't see the downsides that a lot of people see in her. I think the people who, who cast a lot of aspersions on her and who denigrate her are people who have trouble with, and I'm not saying everybody, I'm not trying to. I'm not. But I think a lot of people just don't like a I hate to use the word, but an uppity black woman. And I think there's a lot of that. And I see it around in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, among, not very tolerant white people who are just offended by the, the idea of a, of a black woman being in a position of power. And I think that sort of bleeds over. So, you know, I like her, I think she's a, she's an effective, a messenger, for, for Biden, for the campaign. I think she's been a good vice president. It's the fate of every vice president to be denigrated in some way and to be dismissed even by some of the president's own people.

GR: Yeah. No, I, I had used the word stuck because you're the, you're the, fullest throated endorsement of her potential help in the election that I've heard so far. Even among Democrats, they seem to view her as a liability in that may be because they are looking at those polls that you referenced. I wonder, do you think, let's say that President Biden should have some significant health issue that is, you know, patently obvious and can't be spun in any way health-wise, age-wise between now and the convention, do you what do you see happening in that instance?

RM: Well, first of all, let's say I think is I think I think if two people if either of the two candidates are likely to have, health issues, it's going to be the guy that eats Big Macs for lunch every day.

GR: Fair enough.

RM: So I just find it frustrating that there's an inordinate amount of focus on Biden's health when we've got this obese pre-dementia patient running for president on the other side who you know I just find it I just find the maddening that we're focusing on one one candidate's age more than the other. But if something happened to, I think if something happened to Biden, I mean, I think Kamala Harris would be the nominee. I mean, it's just there's just no way this late in the game that the Democratic Party is going to change two horses. Yeah, it's going to be Joe Biden and Kamala Harris through October and into November, no matter what anybody wants, because that's just it's just inconceivable that the Democrats would go in another direction this late in the game. If you wanted another candidate, if you wanted another vice president, if you wanted another presidential candidate on the Democratic side, last year was your time to get that this year, it ain't going to happen.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Louisiana State University professor Bob Mann. So, with about a third of the program we've got left, I wanted to, take some time and explore your thoughts about Ronald Reagan since you since you wrote, a very, very interesting book on him just a few years ago. And, obviously, he's been brought up a lot in the Republican debates, so far. And, and it's even the case that Democrats, mentioned him sometimes, often when they're criticizing the current state of the Republican Party. So let me just ask you, just a flat-out question to start with, is, is Ronald Reagan still relevant in the Republican Party right now?

RM: No, no, Ronald Reagan is, Ronald Reagan is in that sort of Mitt Romney, John McCain, category where, you know, he, a traditional conservative, who bases his, his appeal on his optimism and his patriotism, quote-unquote, patriotism, whatever. You how are you to define define that. That is just Ronald Reagan was not an angry person. Ronald Reagan was not a person who trafficked in personal invective. Ronald Reagan was not a was not a candidate who demonized immigrants. In fact, quite the opposite. Ronald Reagan celebrated America, you know, Trump denigrates this country, calls it a sick country, calls it a bad place to be. You know, he runs down this country in a way that Ronald Reagan would couldn't imagine. So, you know, if Ronald Reagan showed up on the scene today, he would meet the same fate that people like, you know, Mitt Romney, and then Nikki Haley and, and John McCain have met in that party. They're just no longer welcome. It is no longer a party that that they would be that they would even recognize. And I think they would be among the Never Trumpers who have left the party, at least for the time that Trump has control of it.

GR: Yeah. And you put your finger on something with that answer that I wanted to explore a little bit more deeply. Which is, is this a stylistic issue? Most of the things that you just listed as differences seem to me to be style and personality and for lack of a better word, character, with the exception of the immigrant position. Is there a policy difference here, or is this a type of politician in a way, of being a Republican?

RM: Well, I think to some extent I think to well, I think to some or maybe even a large extent, it is about it is about style and approach. But I think that's also very important. I don't, I don't think that it's, it's a, it's necessarily a superficial thing. And here I'll give you an example. when, when Trump won most, most almost all the Super Tuesday states and Haley Nikki Haley decides to suspend her campaign to essentially drop out. Trump attacks her, starts, you know, calling her names and sort of exalts in this victory in a, in a, I think, a very, ugly, counterproductive way, you know, beating his chest. Biden, by contrast, welcomes the Haley voters into his fold. That is what Ronald Reagan would have done. That's what Ronald Reagan did do. He saw politics as, he saw politics as addition, not subtraction. And so, yes, it is stylistic in a, in a large degree, but it is the essence of politics, I think, to know that if you're gonna win elections, you got to add people to your coalition. You can't throw people away. You've got to find room and make room for them and appeal to them. And, I have a million disagreements with Reagan when it comes to his policies. I didn't, don't admire what he did, but I do think that he understood politics, in a way that Trump doesn't. I mean, I don't mean Trump doesn't understand politics. What I mean is he sees politics in a completely different way. And I think that that way of seeing politics is not ultimately going to serve Trump well. It hasn't gotten, you know, a majority of the, you know, he didn't get the he didn't win the popular vote. And the Republicans have lost every major election since then because of those politics, I think.

GR: Yeah. So, you mentioned that Reagan wouldn't do too well today if he was trying to get the Republican nomination. He'd go the way of other folks. But I wonder how what you think, having written a book about him, what Reagan would be saying about Trump, would he break his 11th amendment if he was confronted with “The Donald?”

RM: Well, I don't think he would understand Trump. I think he would, it would just be inconceivable that a politician would or a Republican would, would do that. I mean, I just so a lot of my book was, was about, you know, Reagan's growing awareness of, you know, growing political awareness and his evolution from a, from a liberal Democrat to a conservative Republican. And one thing that I noticed in the book that, you know, Reagan, Reagan had sharp criticisms of the policies of the, you know, of John Kennedy and, and others, other Democrats, but he never made it personal. He, he made he really focused on, on policy or when he or when he did make it personal, it was it was usually about a, you know, sort of a, an anonymous person. He never picked people out and attacked them personally. And so I think that I think that he would just not understand and think that that was just really counterproductive politics to attack people, attack people personally. He didn't want to be seen as that kind of person. He thought it wasn't a he thought it wasn't an effective way to win elections. But I think he was, you know, I think he was largely, he was largely correct. And so I think he would not he would not admire and, and recognize the really, really ugly, mean-spirited Republican Party that Donald Trump has, has brought into being and helped come into being. You know, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan has beared some of the blame for this in some ways. But I don't think he would recognize his party today. I just don't think he would recognize it at all and a lot. And the reason I say that is a lot of the people who I think are Reagan Republicans don't recognize their party and they've left it.

GR: Well, we've only got a few seconds left and I've got to end just an absolutely silly question for you, but I can't resist it. So I'm going to ask it. You are Bob Mann, and you actually hold the Manship chair at the Manship School of Communication. So Mann holds the Manship chair at the Manship School. Is that ever weird?

RM: It is weird. And, you know, what's weird about it is, that I don't, I just have an endowed chair. I'm not the chair of the department. I'm not the dean of the school. But because of that, so many people think that I run the place around here like, I get a lot of emails that I shouldn't be getting.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Bob Mann. And again, his recent book is titled “Becoming Ronald Reagan: The Rise of a Conservative Icon.” And if you're interested in learning more about Ronald Reagan and understanding how he developed the ideas that he did, it's a really great read to help you understand that better. Bob, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciated this.

RM: Thanks, Grant. It was a pleasure.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Tim PalmerOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Tim Palmer. A prolific nature writer and photographer, Palmer has won awards from the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club and American Rivers. They discuss his new book, "Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Tim Palmer. He's a prolific nature writer and photographer and has won awards from, among other places, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club and American Rivers. He's here with me today because he's authored a new book titled “Seek Higher Ground: A Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis.” Mr. Palmer, welcome to the program.

Tim Palmer: Thank you. Grant, it's great to be here with you today.

GR: Well, that's good to have you. So let me just start with a real basic question. How did you get the idea to write this book? Now, on on flooding. What, what's the story behind it?

TP: Well, it goes way back. I was a victim of flooding in, get this, 1972, and some people in your area may remember the Hurricane Agnes flood. It was the most damaging flood in American history up to that time. And I happened to live at ground zero in north central Pennsylvania near Williamsport.

GR: Okay.

TP: And, my home was almost flooded. Not quite. It went up to the, the next step would have got us in. It's a front entrance. But my neighbors were flooded and, you know, seriously damage. And I helped them and became engaged in emergency services. I was also working as the county planner at the time on the planning staff. I was the environmental planner. So as soon as I got back to work, I had the job of not just questioning how we could help flood victims, but how we could prevent this kind of disaster from occurring again. And that was the seed.

GR: Okay.

TP: I worked as a planner and then I started writing full-time. And this has been a long time ago. I've written many books about rivers and river conservation since. But the flood issue has always been very close to my heart and in my mind. And then we came to global warming and the floods are getting way worse. So I think you can see that's unfolding now.

GR: Right. And it's interesting that you mentioned, Hurricane Agnes. I remember that as, as a kid, I grew up in the Washington, DC area, and I can remember that came through. We weren't flooded in our neighborhood, but the main, artery, road was. And that had never happened before. And, my dad and I went down there to just to see it and look at them, watch them trying to clean that up. So I remember that hurricane very well. So, so. Well, give me a, a recent, brief history, if you could, of flooding in the United States, let's say, since 1972, since Hurricane Agnes, you mentioned global warming and the fact that these have gotten worse. But, you know, are there any general trends a little a little more specific than that, that that you think are important for our listeners to know?

TP: Yeah, yeah, quite a few of them actually. But the, you know, for years and years, we basically tried to deal with the flooding problem by attempting to stop the floods from occurring and doing that by building dams. So we spent billions of dollars. The Army Corps of Engineers alone built 400 flood control dams across the country. In spite of all that effort, flood damages continued to grow worse and worse and worse. The fundamental reason is people kept building more and more and more in the flood plains. So even though the Corps was working as hard as they could to stop floods, we still had floods. More and more people were subject to damage. And now we have the dangers to have dams failing and that kind of thing. The other essential approach was to build levees, not to stop floods from occurring, but to keep them away from us. And, you know, levees fail and levees overtop. And Wilkes-Barre again, the Hurricane Agnes flood, 100,000 people, dam flooded because the levee failed. so these two essential approaches were not working in terms of limiting flood damage. And so, yeah, as a planner, you know, I was immersed in this issue, no pun intended, but it was evident to me that we had to simply quit developing more and more on the floodplains and instead protect them as open space. It's the most dangerous, most expensive place to develop with all kinds of not just private cost, but public costs. And secondly, we had to help people relocate out of the danger zone wherever they were willing to go. So this dual approach to me made way more sense. You get rid of the problem that way. And, so I kind of worked on those lines as a planner. We got zoning accepted in all 52 of our local municipalities. We launched a buyout program. I left the planning career, began writing full-time. This is 32 books ago, but the flooding issue has also been one that has interested me greatly. And as the data has come in on global warming and its effects on floods, this to me just augmented the importance and the urgency of understanding this subject better and understanding the path that we must follow if we're trying to get out of the jam that we're in today with this.

GR: Yeah. You just you just gave us a glimpse of sort of the, the central, positive argument of your book of what, what we ought to do instead. And I want to explore that with you a little bit later. But let me just stick with this other thing first, and I'll come back to that. Now, you talked about this. There are two things going on in creating this problem. And your focus is mostly on the United States. I was just wondering, have you have you looked around the world, similar patterns, anything there that, that strikes you?

TP: Yeah, I have a little bit Grant. But, you know, the flooding issue in the United States is so enormous. And I had a limited number of words for my book with the University of California Press. So I didn't really get into that very deeply. But I did look at in a few sections, I addressed that worldwide, the problems are even more serious, because there's even less activity in trying to regulate development or help people move. Take Bangladesh okay, exhibit A, millions of people, many millions of people subject to flood hazards, and they live at sea level, you know, so they not only have river flooding, but they have the rising sea level issue to deal with and the projections for the numbers, the increasing numbers of people subjected to flood damage worldwide are truly mind-boggling. And I have I cover that in the book. My main purpose in doing that is, is not so much to inform about the world situation or figure out what other countries need to do, but to point out how important it is that we try to lead the way. We have ability, we have the knowledge, we have the talent, we have the staff, we have the history to come to grips with this problem. If we just get over the political hurdles involved, we have the ability and all of what's needed to show the world a better way. But you know, we're not doing it. And so pointing to the direction we must follow, you know, in the United States was my primary goal, even in terms of addressing the problems of the rest of the world.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Tim Palmer. He's a nature writer and photographer and the author of the new book, “Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis.” So you mentioned that global warming has obviously made this problem worse, but also where housing is being located, and decisions about that have made the problem worse. This may not be terribly important to try to figure out which which one of those two things has been more of a driver, but I am sort of curious. Did you come to any consensus, that is, which one is the worse culprit? Global warming and the change in climate or where we're putting these houses in the first place?

TP: Well, where we're developing is the fundamental problem here. Since the beginning of time, there've been floods. It's part of the hydrologic cycle. It's the way nature works. We wouldn't even have valleys to build in if it weren't for floods swarming that landform in time. And so, you know, we've always had floods, we've never been effective in, in helping people to build in the proper places and making it harder to build in the improper places. And so it's it's a matter the global warming issue is a matter of more urgency now and a matter of degree. It's simply telling us that, hey, this has always been a problem, and now this problem is getting way worse. Unless we do some really effective reforms right away.

GR: One of the things that you do spend some time talking about in the book is our system of, flood insurance in this country. And, it hasn't it hasn't worked. Well, you argue so. But first, if you can do this briefly, I know it's a very complicated subject, but briefly, how does the system work for those who have never considered having to get it or, you know, dealt with this?

TP: So flood damages are more severe and serious than fire damages to a home. They're more of them. They're more costly. It's more widespread. Yet we all have fire insurance, you know, but we don't have flood insurance. One reason is it's too expensive. The insurance industry is well-informed. They know that selling flood insurance is not a money-making job for them. So it costs way too much for people to afford. So nobody bought it. The floods keep coming, the federal agencies and very enlightened people involved in them back in the 50s and the 60s recognized this. And so they came up with a brilliant formula here, and that was that we can, we should offer subsidized federal flood insurance so that all these victims of floods were already living on flood plains through really, perhaps no fault of their own, so that they can afford insurance. But the deal is to do that, the local municipality needs to zone the flood plain so that the damages don't continue to become worse and worse. Okay, so it was a two-part bargain that was that was developed here. And then after the Agnes flood, it was realized that almost nobody had flood insurance and that Wilkes-Barre mentioned Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where the levee failed in 1972, 100,000 people were evacuated and flooded. Two of them had flood insurance, two, even with the federal program. So the people in charge at that point had the additional brilliant idea that we should tie this to the federal insured mortgage system so that if people wanted a federally backed mortgage, which virtually all of them are, the community had to be enrolled in the flood insurance program and thereby zone the land that is subject to hazard. So that was passed, and I was a county planner at the time, and I think I speak for many in saying that, that we thought we had come across the bridge here and that we were going to solve this problem in the long term because, number one, we won't have much more development in the flood plain. Number two, what development is there will eventually phase out because of the flood issues, but it didn't work out that way. What happened instead was largely owing to the influence of the development industries, banking, real estate, home building, the federal process became somewhat, I think, active. And when the actual regulations came down and when the money was appropriated and all those kinds of things, the program ended up being watered down way too much to be as effective as it should have been. The restrictions on development were not tight enough. The mapping of floodplains was not effective enough. The target of a 100-year floodplain is not big enough. Now. The floods are way bigger than that. And, you know, and the money that that made available for this just just didn't do the job. So what we need to do now is, and what we've needed to do from day one, is reform that program to be more effective. And there are good practical, real ways of doing that.

GR: Well, we'll get into some of those in the second half. It's interesting when you started telling me that story, first thing, I'm a political scientist, first thing that popped into my head is the politics of the zoning must have been out the wazoo. And of course, that is exactly the story you told me. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Tim Palmer. He's a nature writer and photographer, and he's with me because he's recently written a new book titled “Seek Higher Ground: A Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis.” And we've been discussing this book. So I can see what you said before the break there, that as we have also done more of this development as floods have gotten worse, and at the same time you have that political and economic dynamic. It's basically, if you'll excuse the pun, I'm sure there's a lot of these in this topic, but a perfect storm for a problem. So how would you change just the flood insurance plan? I know you've got a larger argument to make, but just in terms of this flood insurance plan, how would you tighten that up? I mean, how can you push back against that kind of influence?

TP: Yeah, just another footnote on the issues of the program. It's worse than I described. It's so bad that insurance, in many cases has become an incentive to build on the floodplains, because now taxpayers are shouldering the burden of the damage, you know, rather than just the individual. So, you know, this whole story is a great illustration of the law of unintended consequences. So how would you fix it? Well, there's this is a big subject of course. There's an organization called the Association of State Floodplain Managers that has a whole agenda on how FEMA, the Federal Energy, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Congress should reform the program. But let me just highlight a couple of things. It should be really easy to do. Okay. One is that people can get payouts from the insurance program after damage without limit. There are limits on the amounts, but number of floods are unlimited. There are actually homes that have been flooded and paid by taxpayers for flood damage 18 and 20 different times. There are many places that have been paid more than the entire value of the house, and these are called repeatedly flooded properties. And, they make up 1% of the policies in the federal flight insurance program, but they account for 30% of the payout costs. So this is an outrage to have for someone to own a property and frequently these are not the people living on floodplains because they have no other place to go. Many of these are like trophy homes along the coastal areas, they're used as rental properties. And, you know, they just keep getting hammered and rebuilt, taxpayer hammer, get taxpayer payouts, rebuilt. And we're all paying for that. So limiting the repeated damage payouts should be a no-brainer. Same problem, development industries come in there and say, well, you know, as long as somebody is willing to pay us to rebuild these houses, we're going to rebuild them, you know? And so that's number one. It should be easy to change. Number two should be a disclosure requirement on flood damage. When you want to sell a house, you have to do a deed search to assure the buyer that you're actually, you actually own the house you're selling to them. This is to protect the buyer. There is no disclosure of flood damage, so the people buying the home have no idea that it floods.

GR: That's interesting because there's disclosures for lead paint. There's disclosure for all sorts of expenses and repairs that that home has had. I didn't know that.

TP: Yeah, absolutely. So the poor people buying the place aren't required to be told. They of course can look themselves. But let me tell you about my own experience on this. I was going to buy a cabin along the Rogue River in Oregon. The place cabin of my dreams. Okay, so I met with a realtor there and, kind of looked things over and asked, you know, is this exposed to flood hazards? It didn't quite pass my eyeball test as a guy who's worked with rivers all my life, and she said, oh, yes, they built a dam upstream. It will never flood again. And that didn't quite pass my sniff test of the negotiation. So I went straight to the county planning office. I was able to do this, fortunately, looked up the maps and sure enough, I was right in the floodway waiting for another atmospheric river with my name on it. So I of course declined to buy that property, but somebody else did, and they probably had no idea it was going to flood. So disclosure should be a requirement. We pay for these flood maps for FEMA to do, it should be public knowledge. The, you know, the arguments to not let people know what they're buying or, you know, just don’t fly. So that's the second big thing, a third kind of reform that's needed is in the schedule for how much is paid for flood insurance. And to their credit, FEMA is moving on this issue and reforming the cost schedule so that those properties that account for the biggest payouts when they flood are actually paying more for the insurance than the poor people who just, you know, through no fault of their own, live in the floodplain and get hammered repeatedly. So those are three reforms that should be easy to do. There are many others we need to more effectively map floodplains. We need to have the 500-year, rather than a 100-year flood be the principle guiding metric in this. We need to include the effects of global warming because they are going to make floods way, way bigger. But those are just a few of the really practical things that can be done that should be done, that must be done to reform the program.

GR: So I want to get to some of the big picture things here in the last part of our conversation. But let me just check one impression that I've gotten from something you said earlier, and make sure I've got that fact right. And that's, you were talking about dams and levees originally. So I just want to make sure I understand this. One of the trends, I assume, that we've seen, along with the flooding, is that more dams have been failing than before. Is that correct? Okay. And the same thing with the levees that they've been I mean, I obviously everyone thinks that Katrina, but. Yeah. Okay.

TP: Excuse me to clarify.

GR: Goahead.

TP: With all credit to the Army Corps, most of the dam failures are not corps dams were built for flood control. But some are in the Bureau Reclamation, built, for example, Teton Dam in Idaho, which failed while it was being filled. It caused more flood damage than an entire network of Snake River dams had prevented in flood damage over the course of history. Most of the dam failures, however, are private dams that have been poorly regulated, poorly monitored, many of them without even owners anymore. So, but nonetheless…

GR: Like the story of the Johnstown flood, you know that that.

TP: Exactly.

GR: Okay. Got it. Okay. If you just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is the nature writer Tim Palmer. So, I want to get to some of the bigger questions that your book gets at. And I want to first ask you, before we get to your the argument that's kind of embedded in the title of your book, but flooding itself, how will more regular and less constrained flooding help us help the planet? Why is it good?

TP: Yes, yes, yes. There's a whole other side to the flooding coin here that we have not talked about that almost nobody talks about, and that is that floods are not only inevitable in the workings of nature, but they're essential to the workings of nature. We actually need to have floods. It's the way landforms are formed. Floods account for the very best of our wildlife habitat. They're needed by fish for their habitat. Floods are what deliver sand to the beaches, we wouldn’t have beaches. If you like beach sand at the ocean, you got to like floods. If you like fish, you got to like floods. And so they are part of the natural process of the way the earth works, that we have failed to really recognize and give credit for.

GR: And so your title is, you know, “Seek Higher Ground.” So if that's really okay. So, so ultimately your bottom line solution to this is we need to locate in different places. First of all, if you could briefly because I want to have a follow up to this. What do you mean by that? Is that just like where we should be doing new construction, where people should be thinking about buying homes? All the above?

TP: Yeah, yeah. So we need to, number one, effectively zone our floodplains so that they are not developed more than they already are. Two very interesting statistics on this. 90% of our floodplain acreage is not heavily developed. So the problem could get about nine times worse than it now is if we're all developed. So we need to protect what still is open space. Second number here is 7%. And that is the total floodplain area of the United States. There are a lot of other places to go, to build, and not that that will be easy, but 97% of America is not floodplain. So much of that is more suitable for development than the high-hazard areas of floodplains that we have. So that's number one. We need to protect what is still open space. Number two, a lot of people are already there. And of course, we're not going to move Saint Louis, you know, or Memphis or Portland, Oregon and so forth. We need to protect them effectively with levees. But most of the area that is in a flood hazard area is not heavily developed. And in those areas, we should look at every possibility we can to help people relocate and get up out of the safety zone. I interviewed some very interesting people in my book who did this. And you know, and their stories are inspiring, really on how you know, people can come to grips with this problem and actually solve it, rather than just staying to worry and, and stress about the next flood to come.

GR: You know, I would think that first of all, the trauma of being flooded would be huge. And second of all, worrying about, as you just said, would be huge. There is one question though. We've got about a minute and a half left, so I want to give you a little bit of time to think about this, but what you just said, though, will be easier for some people than others. Right. And, and, and I'm thinking primarily because of economics. So that dislocation that might be involved and moving could be disastrous for some folks. So I would think that you'd have to build into this some kind of additional help for the people who need it. And very briefly, in about a minute or so, how would you do that?

TP: That's absolutely right. And, and a lot of agencies are doing precisely that. The number one, very few, if any public agencies are requiring people to move. This is the programs to help people relocate are all are essentially all voluntary government agencies. There's federal money, there's state money. There are local districts that all work toward helping people move if they want to. There's a lot of grant money available to do that, but it's not nearly enough. And here is another great pair of numbers. These are the two I'll leave you with. For every $1.70. Are federal government spends helping people to move away from flood danger and be done with the problem, the federal government spends $100 helping people to stay by helping pay for, quote, floodproofing, it doesn't work very well. To do, to help with public facilities that get damaged. So we need to reverse that ratio so that we're really helping people to move rather than to stay.

GR: That was Tim Palmer. And again, his new book is titled “Seek Higher Ground: The Natural Solution to Our Urgent Flooding Crisis.” It's an important book. It's evidence-based. It's got a lot of good material in there, but it's also very, very readable, so I highly recommend it. Tim, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. Really appreciate it.

TP: Thank you, Grand it’s been wonderful to be with you today.

GR: Great. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Mary Jumbelic(Marc Safran)On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Mary Jumbelic. She is a forensic pathologist, serving as Onondaga County's Chief Medical Examiner from 1998 - 2009. She's recently published the memoir, "Here, Where Death Delights: A Literary Memoir".

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Mary Jumbelic. She's a forensic pathologist, and she served as Onondaga County's Chief Medical Examiner from 1998 to 2009. She's recently published a memoir titled “Here, Where Death Delights.” Doctor Jumbelic, welcome to the program.

Mary Jumbelic: Thank you so much, Grant.

GR: Well, thank you for making the time to be with us. Let me just start very basic question. How did you come to write this book?

MJ: Well, I've always been a writer, Grant, starting back when I was 13 and I received a diary for Christmas. My father died six weeks later, and I think I found solace in writing down my feelings and thoughts after that experience. And I just kept doing it ever since. I liked English in high school and all through college, I took creative writing, but I found a passion with medicine and going to become a physician. Some of my writing took a little different flavor. I wrote academic articles and publications, but I also kept journals for all my times through those hard years. So if I did a mass disaster response, I kept a journal about it. So I have notes from the World Trade Center and the tsunami and things of that nature. When I retired, I just decided that I would follow up on some of my interests, and writing was a very strong one of those.

GR: All right. Well, so, briefly explain the title to me. “Here, Where Death Delights.” How does death delight?

MJ: Well, it actually comes from a Latin quote that I won't boggle by trying to say it in modern English, but, basically it's found on plaques in, in many morgues, dating back to the 1450s. And it's, as the quote is, “Let conversation cease, let laughter flee. Here is the place where death delights to help the living.”And so I drew my title from that quote. I think the dead have a lot to teach us, and perhaps delight is a strong word. but they do have a lot to tell us, a lot to guide us by. And two former forensic pathologists have written memoirs, one back in the 1960s, Milton Halpern and Bernard Knight in the 1980s from the UK.And their memoirs were called “Where Death Delights.” So I feel I'm in good company with them.

GR: Yeah. So, at the beginning of your book, you thank the Syracuse Downtown Writers Center of the YMCA. And, I've had, instructors and other participants from that program on the show in the past here on the Campbell Conversations. So just tell us a little bit about your involvement in that group.

MJ: Yes. I found that the Downtown Writers Center was a resource available to me where I could take classes. Oftentimes it was convenient in the evening, and I began dabbling with writing and memoir classes and having readers read my stories and I had no formal other than a few classes in college. I don't have an MFA, and, I haven't gone to, you know, fancy writing programs in Iowa or wherever. However, I felt that the Downtown Writer's Center had very knowledgeable instructors that helped me really hone my craft, and that the process of having my work reviewed every week. Readers comment on it and pick it apart and have no connection to me personally to my story. So they have an objectivity that I can't get from friends and family. It was brilliant and it really forced me to look at my writing with a harsh light and an editorial eye, and I think improved it remarkably.

GR: Yeah, that's my that's been my impression, too, talking to other, writers who have participated in this. Now, the style of this book, is called, I believe, literary nonfiction. You have literary memoir as the subtitle of your book. Explain what that genre is.

MJ: Yes. Well, the general overall genre clearly is nonfiction, and but it's also creative nonfiction. and literary memoir is a more defining term so that I feel that the stories are told in a narrative way. So there's an arc to the book, but it doesn't simply encompass my life in a memoir. It is storytelling, but truthful storytelling, it captures more fictional elements of style than a classic nonfiction would.

GR: Yeah, what I liked about it, and I know this is part of it too. But each of your chapters, stand alone. I mean, there's an end to each of them, but then they all accumulate to something as well. And so I think it's, it's a great book, for, like, reading in the evening or even reading before you go to bed, because you can get to the end of something, but then it's still there for you the next day to continue on. So, I really liked the style. So,

MJ: Thank you.

GR: Let me, let me now shift down to the sort of the meat of the book and, and, your experience as a forensic pathologist. Forensic pathology, obviously is not going to be for everyone, even though death may delight. is there a typical path that you're aware of to becoming a forensic pathologist among the medical profession? And in any way, what was your path if there's not a typical one?

MJ: Well, I don't think it's a popular, choice for a profession. for many reasons. Not simply because death might not delight everyone. it is a subset of pathology. So those doctors that work in the hospital, and they do laboratory work and they take specimens and they're analyzing the urine, and they're also taking sections from surgery and seeing whether it's cancer or not. You know, that's a whole branch of medicine, pathology. And then forensics is a sub-branch of that. And it's small. There are only about 500 board-certified forensic pathologists in the United States.

GR: Wow.

MJ: Now, so there aren't enough to go around, in the country and in the past, because it's often government-affiliated, the reimbursement, the, the salaries haven't really been up to par with other branches of medicine. So that's been difficult to work with. The dead don't vote, as my old boss used to say. So the taxes, go to the living. and, you know, the dead are left trying to scramble for like a little bit of money that might be left over. you know, that being said, I think people have recognized, in government in the past decade that you do need to support that branch of medicine. So I went into it for the interest, for the puzzle solving, for delving into what happened to the person, for being able to explain it to the grieving family members, for helping with recognizing hazards for the living and, for doing, you know, larger scale community work, public health work. So I felt I was drawn to it from that perspective.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with former Chief Medical Examiner for Onondaga County, Mary Jumbelic, who's recently published a memoir titled “Here, Where Death Delights.” So in the book, you write a lot about how your work intersects with your family life and the effects it has on your family. And, you know, I would just think that it would create a lot of, unique challenges. tell us a little bit about the work-family interactions that you had in your line of work.

MJ: Yes. I think, it does create a big challenge, I guess, like anyone who might be in a, you know, first responder type of field, law enforcement, ER work, EMTs, but, you know, so there's, you know, calling out at night for a homicide, you know, having to drop everything and, you know, being late for, you know, maybe family events and that type of thing. That being said, I think what has kept my sanity and kept me grounded has been my family and they've all been incredibly supportive. And I was lucky to have my mother help raise my kids when they were younger. And when I lost her, I had a nanny who became like a second mother to me. I even learned Russian, because she didn't speak any English. So it was very profound. And so my kids always had, like, the village to help, help them. They weren't just relying on some busy parents. It was a very cooperative, environment.

GR: And even setting the family issue aside, it just seems to me I would think that for you as an individual, even though you have a passion for this work and you mentioned the different reasons why you went into it, I would think that the work would wear you down after a while. did you have any special techniques of coping with that phenomenon?

MJ: I think the work does wear you down. And I think, I think part of the motivation of writing the book was to exorcize some of the ghosts that still dwell, in my mind, even years after finishing the work, if you will. so I guess the technique that most people use and that came in handy was, you know, compartmentalization where you have to divide yourself. Here's my role as medical examiner. Here's my role as mother. I'm going home now, you know. but it can't be a really firm barrier. It has to be permeable, because if it's too firm a barrier, you lose your empathetic human nature in the work. So you become distant. You become scientific. You can't respond to the family members. And so you have to have it permeable and yet still be able to put it aside, and enjoy the time you're not dealing with death and sorrow. So, I think my family helped ground me with that and remind me of that, when I came home and, and were very important elements in my being able to cope.

GR: And the essence of your work entails drawing on the body, of the deceased body to reconstruct the deceased final hours or less minutes. Can you just give me an example of how that works?

MJ: Well, oftentimes, we'll come upon a scene. I'll be called to a scene and there's but dead person, and they may be laying in bed. They may be laying on the floor. They may be out in the forest. It may be in a car crash. It's quite, quite the panoply of, scenes. And the very first thing is to absorb and take note of the situation, how the person's lying, where they're what the environment is, what's around him, where they reaching for something, you know, what were they doing right before they… was a phone nearby? Did they write something down? All of these things that you're processing at the scene. And the next time that I will see the deceased is at the morgue, and it's a little bit of a more austere environment. So they are now on the gurney, and I am now observing them. But when I say the dead speak and they and they talk to me, they are talking to me through their disease, through their wounds, through what they did, did they shampoo their hair recently? Have they eaten a meal? I can see that inside their body. I can tell what it is. Have they applied deodorant? Did they paint their nails? what was their state of dress? All of this is giving me so much information. They are really talking to me like this is what I did in the last few hours of my life, and they're. And they're they're showing me and telling me that.

GR: That's interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Mary Jumbelic. Doctor Jumbelic is a forensic pathologist who has served as the Chief Medical Examiner for Onondaga County. She recently published a memoir titled “Here, Where Death Delights,” and we've been discussing her book. So you gave me an example before the break of sort of how this process works, what you're trying to do. Is there one case over and above all the others that sticks with you in your head, maybe even haunts you?

MJ: Well, there are there are many, believe it or not. I guess the prologue to my book was one of the first stories I ever wrote. And it's about a boy who was murdered by his father after the mother was murdered in the same house. And that prologue sets up my book, really because I can envision that so clearly in my mind, going into the house and the situation and seeing the poor child and the mother and then coming home after that to my family and having my boys hug me so strongly and the symbol that stuck in my mind and it's in the story is bloody handprints that were on the wall from the boy after he had been, cut by a knife. And I have on my wall my boy's handprints in finger paint and that contrast of, you know, terror from a child and the love and joy from another child sits with me and is the tension that I feel in many cases, but is emblematic of it.

GR: Yeah, that's very powerful. So how did you know in doing this work, how did you know when it was time to retire?

MJ: Well, I have rheumatoid arthritis. when I developed it, you know, 17 years ago or some something like that. And, it has affected my joints primarily and really got into my ability to bend down, go to scenes, you know, do all this, do all this stuff – manual labor. People don't think of a forensic pathologist as being a manual labor. But we really are in many ways. And, it really took its toll on me. And I had really bad flare-ups of that. So it kind of was time when I felt I couldn't do it to the extent of that I wanted to professionally. Yeah.

GR: So in going through your book, I have to say I was surprised not to find a discussion of the Newlander case. And just to remind our listeners of that case, Robert Neulander was a prominent DeWitt ObGyn physician who was convicted of murdering his wife, Lesley, in their home. He had claimed that she fell in the shower. You were friends with this couple and as I understand it, you were retired by the time this incident happened and the original medical examiner's report, not yours, concurred with Doctor Neulander that it was indeed an accident. But then you develop suspicions about that. Take the story from there.

MJ: Sure. You're correct. It's not in this book. That's because I'm writing a second book and halfway through it now, and it will be included in that one, which, is going to feature stories, of violence against women as part of the lens that I will be using. Yes, I was approached by friends of Leslie about the case, and I had had a devastating medical situation myself, so I was in a wheelchair. I had been in a coma. I was recovering, from a complication related to my rheumatoid, and, I didn't. And when she died, I was shocked and she had visited me just a couple days before, and I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I wasn't well myself, but the friends never let it drop. They never let it drop. And it just kept saying, you know, please look into this. Please tell me what to do. And it went from there. And then, you know, once I did get involved, it was clear to me that this was a murder. And then the rest is kind of, history, if you will. It, there was an investigation already ongoing, unbeknownst to me. Other people weren't settled with this either. was it as if, I was Chicken Little, calling out. So, it went from there and everyone, the prosecution did what they needed to. The police did what they needed to do. They had many other experts look at it, not just a little old Mary Jumbelic and come to the conclusion that, you know, she was killed, and, and didn’t fall in the shower and, and a trial and then an appeal and another trial, and there'll be more appeals. But in my mind, it's settled, yeah.

GR: Well, given all that was going on with you and your relationship to the couple, this whole thing must have affected, you know, very deeply.

MJ: It did, and it was very hard within the community for a couple of years because people didn't know what was going on. You know, nothing was made public. So the evidence was private. And all the investigation was somewhat private, and there are just rumors floating around. And so there was the pro-Bob side and the pro-Leslie side. And I was just persona non grata in the middle of everything. So it was not just because of my relationship with them, but because of the community, very, very difficult couple of years.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is former Onondaga County Chief Medical Examiner Mary Jumbelic. So I did want to ask you a couple of other questions about this and hopefully, I'm not, you know, opening up a wound too much for you here, but I am very curious to get your take on these things. Doctor Neulander's children, I believe, stuck by him during this trial. but in one of the appeals that you mentioned, the evidence was described by the court as overwhelming, in terms of his guilt. Why do you think the children have stuck by him and not kind of, in a sense, taking the side of the dead here?

MJ: Well, I guess, it philosophically gets to, what did the original information that was provided to them do to them? So that's why it's so, so very important that the medical examiner forensic pathologist that's listening to the dead person takes that information and provides it, whether it's pleasant or whether it's not pleasant or whether it confirms or whether it denies what the family thinks, it's important to get it right. It's important to get it right at that at that point, because what happened is, it was called an accident. Everyone thought it was an accident for months. So that has a chance for that settles in. That's the story. That's the oral history. And then how do you change that? Especially when the family doesn't see the evidence, doesn't see everything until court and that's like what, two years later? And so now there's just been too much time for that to jell and set, hard to reverse that.

GR: Yeah, that makes sense. It's kind of a cognitive dissonance kind of kind of thing. Well, you mentioned there were a lot of appeals in this case. My understanding is Doctor Neulander just recently filed another one several weeks ago, and it revolves around the instructions that the judge gave the jurors regarding his daughter not testifying on his behalf, I guess in one of the subsequent hearings. I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a legal expert. But my understanding would be if at this point, if he wanted not to end his life in prison, he'd probably be better off admitting guilt and trying to show good behavior in prison. And, you know, do all the things you need to do to get parole. But he's persisting in these appeals, insisting on his on his innocence. Why do you think he's doing that? Do you have any insight into that?

MJ: You know, I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist or, sociologist. so I don't I don't know what is propelling him forward, but at some point, you're so deep in the lie, I think you can't get out of it. How do you save face and get out of it? “Oh. I've put my family through all this. I've put the community through all this. I still have some support. And now I'm just going to say, oh, well, sorry, guys. you know, I did it.” But, you know, and I'm not sure it's weighing on his conscience. Like, it doesn't strike me as the kind of person who needs to clear his mind before he goes to the grave, so I don't know that, though. But, I don't. What would compel him? What would compel him at this point?

GR: Yeah. Well, we've got about, three minutes or so left, and I want to try to squeeze in, two questions if I can. Okay. I want to change this to a happier note and then the first one is, you know, you've done a lot of, very interesting, philanthropic work helping in different things. You mentioned, going to New York on 9/11. Just tell us about some of the work you've done in various places.

MJ: Well, it started with the crash, off of, Mauritius in Long Island, the TWA crash, where the state, the governor called the response team to help out the local medical examiner. And while I was there, I met the man in charge of the federal team Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. He said, why don't you join our federal team? So I joined the federal team and the next year responded to Guam on a Korean airline crash there. And then one thing led to another, and I started responding to mass disasters, with the biggest, probably the most personal impact being the World Trade Center. But all of them have had, tremendous impact. And I represented the United States, for the Andaman Sea tsunami that occurred back in 2004. I went over to Thailand and there was a big international committee, and I represented the United States as a medical examiner. So my husband has always said, oh, you couldn't take death just on a like a local single basis. You had to really swallow the whole thing. Like really large format. I never saw it that way. I just kind of got drawn into it. But, I guess he's right. It was very impactful because you get to see how different cultures handle death. You get to see what happens to a society in a country when a major event occurs, and you still try to focus on the individual that's on your table.

GR: Yeah. That's interesting. So, we got about a minute left or so. I want to leave you time to talk about the new book you've got in the works. So it will involve the Neulander case. Tell, are you using the same approach or the same kind of literary memoir or something different? Tell us. Tell us what you're up to there.

MJ: Yes, I think that my voice in the stories has been very positively received, and I've gotten a lot of feedback from readers and reviews of the format. And so I feel, emboldened by that. So I'm, I'm continuing in that vein and it will have different stories again woven in with my experiences as a girl and as a woman. So, yes, Leslie will be one large piece of it, but so will Carol Ryan, and so will others that are close to my heart and that I don't that I remember in great detail. And I will interweave that with my own experiences.

GR: Oh. Okay. Well, that sounds great. Just a few seconds left, squeeze something else and go back to what we were just talking about. You going into different areas of the world, working with death. Is there a culture out there or a country out there that you think handles death particularly well in a healthy way?

MJ: Oh, that's loaded. That is a heavy question. I think that every culture has its pluses and minuses when it deals with death, but I think we don't do it well. So I guess I'm answering the opposite…

GR: That's ok.

MJ: …you're saying. But I don't think we do it well. I think we're afraid of it in America. I think we cover it up, we sanitize it, we put deodorant on it, and we kind of ignore the impact of it. If we could just look it in the face, I think it would have a much stronger impact on us.

GR: That was Doctor Mary Jumbelic. And again, her new memoir is titled “Here, Where Death Delights.” It's a very interesting read, and it's very well done. Doctor Jumbelic, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

MJ: You're welcome. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

(Mark Lavonier)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Melissa DeRosa. Ms. DeRosa served as secretary to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during the COVID pandemic. That office is the highest non-elected position in state government. She left the office when the governor resigned and has now published a memoir titled, “What's Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics and Crisis”. Ms. DeRosa, welcome to the program.

Melissa DeRosa: Thank you so much for having me. Great to be here.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. So, let me just start with a really basic question about the book. What were you trying to accomplish in the writing of it and the publication of it?

MD: You know, I decided I was going to write the book within 24 hours of me being out of office. And it was because I wasn't going to allow the first draft of history to stand. And the first draft of history is written by reporters in real time based on non-primary sources, people who aren't in the room when it comes to politics and government, the people feeding them information have a whole host of different motivations. And I lived it, I was there, I was on the phone with Jared Kushner, I was on the phone with Donald Trump, I was in the Oval Office, I was in the room with Bill de Blasio, I was in the room with the health professionals, I was there when we shut down the state of New York. And so I felt a responsibility both to the public, because this was a once in a lifetime pandemic to really understand what was going on when the cameras weren't rolling during those famous briefings, to my administration, who I felt was really unfairly treated in that last year of the administration and to myself and my family to tell the truth as I lived it and sort of lift the veil and let everybody else in.

GR: And I wanted to ask you, you kind of segued into that at the end of your answer, but I wanted to ask you also a more personal question about the writing of it. Was it therapeutic to write this? Was it reliving a trauma, was it a mix of both? What was that like?

MD: You know, when I started the writing process after we resigned, I was almost, it was almost like journaling, which for your listeners, you know, who I don't know if they know what that means, but it's almost like a form of you’re writing to process a trauma or get through something, relive it for yourself to understand it. And so it was incredibly therapeutic. It was also incredibly re-traumatizing at some points. You know, I would literally sit there and close my eyes and bring myself back to the moment of calling the families of the health care workers who passed away and remembering those moments and what that emotion was. And I would cry while I was writing. And so it was, you know, it was therapeutic, it was cathartic, it was also traumatizing in a lot of ways.

GR: Well, I did want to ask you some questions about your experiences during the pandemic that are in your book. But I wanted to ask you a broader question about Governor Andrew Cuomo and his sort of his overall political slant. And I was thinking of this as I was reading the book, when Andrew Cuomo first ran for governor, I remember it, he ran more as a centrist. It was someone who recognized the state's spending issues, the outmigration problem, unfriendly business climate, spoke about all those things. But when he was in office, I think it's fair to say he tacked more to the left. And at one point in the later time of his administration, I think he had some famous phrase about like, I am progressivism in New York, or, but he was very, very strongly saying he was a progressive. I wanted to know how you would characterize the overall policy direction, the overall policy goals of Cuomo's governorship.

MD: I think you hit the nail on the head. You know, when he ran for office in 2010 originally, and disclaimer, I was working for President Obama at that time, but obviously I have a unique perspective into all of this. When he was running for office in 2010, the state was in a massive deficit, he inherited I believe it was a $14 billion deficit that he then turned around. And so, you know I remember when he was running and he would say I'm a progressive who's broke. And he was all about trying to retain and attract businesses. You know, he came in and he brought in a bunch of a bipartisan coalition on a tax committee that included people like George Pataki, who was his predecessor and some other big name Republicans. And, you know, he took a whack at the tax code. We did things like, we lowered the estate tax, which traditionally Democrats don't really go near, we lowered corporate taxes, we lowered small business taxes. And then I think as the administration went on and the party shifted left, he did, you know, wrap his arms around and sort of lead the way on a number of really big progressive issues, like the $15 minimum wage, paid family leave. But, you know, I think his progressive bonafides were always there, he's Mario Cuomo’s son. You know, he did marriage equality in his first year in office and famously, you know, was able to wrangle the entire Democratic conference, as well as four Republicans to vote for that bill and was really ahead of its time. So socially, I think it's fair to say he was always progressive. I think fiscally he was always very moderate. And then as time went on, I think that he did tack more to the left on certain fiscal issues.

GR: Okay. And you alluded to this when you talked about first draft of history that you wanted to counter. But obviously, Andrew Cuomo and his administration, you know, and you have been subject to a lot of criticisms since he stepped down and resigned. Very briefly, because I know you could speak for a very long time on it, but very briefly, why do you think those criticisms are misguided?

MD: Well, it depends on the criticism, right? But I do think that particularly in politics of today, where everything has become so weaponized and the selective outrage is so real, you know, where you can see on what you can, and I write this in the book, you can almost draw a straight line from someone's call for resignation, not to their principles, but to their political interests. And Andrew Cuomo had been in power for so long, by the time he resigned, he had been there for nearly 11 years. He had been attorney general for four years, before that, he had served as HUD secretary in the Clinton administration. He ran his father's first campaign when he was 20 years old. And there were a lot of people with pitchforks that wanted him out. And I think that when there's an opening, you know, sometimes people take it. And in that instance, people took it.

GR: And so to flip that around, though, what do you think are the legitimate criticisms of his tenure in your view? What were the biggest mistakes that the administration made along the way?

MD: You know, and I write about this in the book too sort of at the end where I look back and reflect on everything that happened. You know, when you're a hammer, everything's a nail. And I think that one of the biggest things that, you know, in looking back, we really became so accustomed to fighting all the time, fighting the legislature, fighting the left, fighting Trump, fighting, you know, this one, fighting that one, that we almost lost calibration. And sometimes you catch more flies with honey. And I think that, you know, we had really thrown our weight around. And the governor would say, Governor Cuomo would say it's because the goals that we were after were so worthy and so important and it was about the people and that was first and foremost. Which I do agree in some instances, but it doesn't have to be that way in all instances. And so I think at the end of the day, we had alienated a base of political support that would have been necessary to get through that period. And had we not always looked at everything as a fight, I don't think that necessarily would have been the case in the spring of 2021.

GR: As an outside observer, that sounds like a good insight to me. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and we're speaking with former secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa. She's the recent author of, “What's Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics and Crisis”. So let's talk about the COVID pandemic a little bit. And if you, again, it's similar to the question I just asked you, but if you could do the state's response to COVID again, would you make a different decision along the way? I mean, one big one that comes to my mind is a different decision about putting COVID patients into nursing homes, for example.

MD: You know, I got asked this question on Bill Maher and I said, you know, people ask me, would you do anything differently? I would do everything differently, I would do everything differently. I mean, this was the definition of building the plane while you're flying it. And I get into this in the book and really try to bring people behind the scenes because even though COVID wasn't that long ago, I think almost as sort of a trauma response, we all have collectively really put it away from our minds and it feels much longer ago than it was. And I think it's really easy to forget what it was that we were going through. But, you know, why was it that they closed travel down from Asia but not from Europe? You know, they closed the back door to the country because COVID existed in China, we knew it existed in China. They didn't close the airports to Asia, and that was why New York and New Jersey in the tristate area got hit so hard out of the gate. But in hindsight, how stupid is that? And I mean, these are the smartest people in the world in government, right? Dr. Fauci was helping to make these calls, they had this whole COVID task force at the federal level. Some of this stuff I blame President Trump for, but some of it I don't. You know, they didn't advise him to shut down travel to Europe. But how is it, given that we live in such a global economy, that we didn't think that, of course, a pandemic somewhere is a pandemic everywhere? And those critical weeks between when we knew that COVID existed in China and leaving the door open to Europe and not thinking that it wasn't already in New York and with a subway system like New York’s subway system and the interconnected way in which the tristate area works and lives, that it wasn't everywhere. You know, we wasted so much time that in hindsight, if we had taken steps to shut down earlier and we could have gotten, you know, brought the curve down and, you know, so many decisions were made around trying to keep the hospitals from collapsing which segues into your question on the nursing homes. I mean, people sort of fundamentally misunderstand what happened there, but that was a call that was made at a time when every major, you know, consultant, academic institution was projecting that New York State’s hospital system was going to collapse, that we were getting 120, 130, 140,000 beds, even though the entire system collectively only has 40,000 beds. And that decision was made by health professionals based on health guidance given from Washington to try to say if people are in hospitals that no longer need to be there because they're medically stable and believed not to be contagious, as long as certain steps are taken, they can go back to where they were living. And so, you know, when I look back on all of that there's the scientific and medical hindsight of 2020 of the things I would do differently. And then there are the political things that I would have done differently, looking back in 2020. And whether or not that March 25th health guidance, you know, impacted is still a cause for debate. Some people say yes other reports say no. But if I had known it was going to cause that political firestorm and that it was going to create an opportunity to weaponize real pain of nursing home families to get caught up in the middle of those politics, I would have said do anything but that, you know, whatever we have to do to do anything but that, avoid that of course, because you want to avoid controversy. But, you know, again, and that was part of the reason I wrote the book, because so much of this has gotten lost in the politics and so much of it got lost in the moment that I thought it was important to sort of bring people back into the room as we were living it to understand how and why decisions were being made. You know, both chronologically and also the thought that was going into it.

GR: And one quick follow up on that. You know, you alluded to this, but one of the big political storms that came out of all this had to do with the reporting of COVID deaths in the nursing homes.

MD: Yep.

GR: And I think the general impression is that, you know, those were underreported in some way. Explain that, I know that's a complicated one, but if you could explain it briefly.

MD: I’ll try to do it quickly, and I write about it in the book. When we originally started reporting deaths in March of 2020 it was done for one reason, for simplicity. Anyone, you know, every day, at the end of the day, every hospital in the state reported into state government the number of number of COVID deaths and every nursing home reported in the number of nursing home deaths. And they did it based on their patient population where they were. So the nursing home said, three people in my nursing home died today. The hospital said we had five people in the hospital that died today. And then in the middle of April, end of April of 2020, the press started asking a different question, which was, what if you were a nursing home patient who left the nursing home, went to the hospital and died in the hospital? That person like, how many of those people died? And so then I write in the book, we went back and did this retrospective, we issued up to a dozen surveys to the nursing homes who, by the way, at the time were dealing with COVID and were completely overwhelmed and asked them all these retrospective questions. And then they start reporting in all of these numbers that were clearly wrong. Some nursing homes were reporting deaths going back to December of 2019 before COVID was even here. Some nursing homes were reporting anticipated death dates in the future. Some nursing homes said every single patient that left here, we believe died of COVID, whether we know it or not. And so it was a forensic nightmare, which then and fast forward to August of 2020 we underwent this audit and then ended up releasing the numbers in January. But that was where the controversy came from. And that's another thing we're looking back on it, had we known that that number was going to become a political football, in March of 2020 when we were standing in the war room we would have just said, have nursing homes report the people that leave there and confirm with the hospitals that they died and we can report that subset earlier. But that was another one of those, it almost felt like manufactured controversies, but it took real life pain and sort of weaponized it and it turned into the scandal that spiraled out of control.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Melissa DeRosa, former Secretary to Governor Andrew Cuomo. She recently published a memoir titled, “What's Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics and Crisis” and we've been discussing her book. So I've got a kind of a retrospective hypothetical political question for you about your boss. In 2020, Andrew Cuomo was arguably at his political peak, and certainly the Biden people didn't want him to be running for president, you talked about that in your book. He ultimately cooperated with them, stayed out of the race. Do you think, looking back on it now, he should have run for president then, that was the moment he should have run for president, 2020?

MD: You know, if he had run for president in 2020, I have no doubt in my mind he would have been the Democratic nominee and beaten Biden. But the problem is, Andrew Cuomo was exactly where he needed to be for the state of New York in 2020 and if he were running for president back then in the midst of that pandemic, every decision he made would have been viewed from the onset as a political one. And we only successfully brought down the curve, crushed the curve in New York, beat back COVID because the people of the state of New York I think honestly, watched those press conferences every day he gave them the facts as he knew them, he made an emotional appeal to stay home and everyone sort of fell in line. And not just in New York, but nationwide he stepped into that leadership role. And so I think on the one hand, was that his moment? Yeah, I think politically that was his moment, he would have been the nominee. On the other hand, I think that it was a much higher calling that he be governor of the state of New York during that once in a lifetime pandemic and not be viewed through a political lens, because I think if that had been the case, COVID would have spiraled further out of control here and it would have resulted in many more deaths.

GR: So I asked you earlier about things you might, you wish the administration might have done differently. And if I were making a list of those things, this would be on top of mine, so I wanted to get your sense of it. Did the governor make a mistake putting out that book about COVID?

MD: Yes. Yes, and you know, it was one of those things that, again, I think had we had the foresight to know that it was going to spiral out of control the way that it did, I wish I would have thrown my body in front of it. And there are some things that as staff, you know, you look back and say, oh, I should have done that differently because I had the ear of the principal. And that was one of those things where I should have thrown my body in front of it because it just turned out to be such a political headache, and to what end?

GR: And on that point, I don't mean to be too harsh with you here, but I mean, you're obviously (an) extremely politically intelligent person and you've got a team of people around you that were that way. How did you get that one wrong? Because it seems like the optics to me were just begging...

MD: Obvious? Yeah. (laughter)

GR: (laughter)

MD: No, I mean, and I write about this in the book, it was the end of June of 2020, and we just finished the briefings, the daily briefings which obviously we picked up late. But the 111 day briefings had just finished and we had brought the positivity down below 1% in New York sort of consistently, and it stayed there for three months. And it was like the way Andrew Cuomo's brain works is always like, what's next, what's next, what's next? And it was like the minute we ended those briefings, he sort of was like, we should do this and I'm going to write this book and I'm going to tell the story of what happened and we're going to get it published immediately so that the rest of the country can learn from what we lived through in the first wave, because they're all going to get it in the second wave. And it was really a crash project. You know, it was done over the summer in like a six week time period, and it was published in October. And so, you know, it's interesting to me because some people have tried to, the assembly in their impeachment report said, you know, oh, they were doing this during this critical time, and it was like, well, it was actually during the summer of 2020 when the positivity was below 1% and we were taking sort of a collective breather. And there was no point during that process where his attention was being taken away from COVID. It was like he wrote that book so quickly, a lot of it was done based on voice notes he took in real time. And the, I understood the goal of let's tell the story as it happens to the rest of the country can learn from it. But the, you know, making the money from it in the middle of all of that, you know, obviously was a huge political headache that he, you know, we never should have gone near. And just the timing of it, because I think it would have been different if COVID hadn't come back in the fall and then we were in the middle of a second wave. I think if we just beaten back COVID and that was that, I think it would have been a different proposition. But no, you're right. And I don't know if that was like, COVID brain, I was too tired, I wasn’t seeing straight, but no, I mean, I definitely hold myself responsible for not speaking up more on that one.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Melissa DeRosa. So here's my, I guess my $64,000 question and it may seem like a dumb one, but I am still mystified a little bit by this. Why did the governor decide to resign, given the circumstances? I mean, there are other political figures who have weathered arguably much worse, #MeToo types of accusations. No criminal charges have come from any of these and the criticism that the attorney general's report had some political motivation behind it does seem to have some plausibility to it. Why not just stick it out and force the legislatures’ hand? Make them vote?

MD: You know, I write about this in the book extensively. It was such an emotional time and this is the other thing that people sort of forget, I mean, there were a couple of factors. Number one, the legislature said they were going to impeach, they had the votes. Say what you will about Andrew Cuomo, he can count votes better than literally anyone I've ever seen in my life. And there's no due process guaranteed in the New York State Constitution. There's no, you know, high crimes and misdemeanors like there is at a federal level. It is purely in New York, a political process, the impeachment process. And I believed, he believed they were going to do it and they had the votes to do it. So it would have just been a kangaroo court. But secondly, you know, when that report came out and Joe Biden came out and called for the governor's resignation based on pure politics, by the way, and I write this in the book and you know, it was Biden who I, it hurt me so much because I respected the president so much. We had a long relationship with him. I worked for him and Obama, the governor went back with his son, the governor went back with him, Mario Cuomo went back with him. He had been accused of sexual assault far worse than any accusation ever leveled at Andrew Cuomo. And he came out and said, I didn't read the report, but I saw the attorney general's press conference and he has to go. And when that firestorm kicked off and when the President of the United States of your own party goes out and says that, it created this avalanche that it was just impossible to stop, and every single member of Congress came out and the governors in the surrounding states came out. And, you know, the legislature and then on top of it, the press storm was so vicious. And you have to remember, this is after two years of dealing with COVID where essentially nobody slept, we were all processing in real time emotional trauma that I think we didn't even realize we were living through at the time of making life and death decisions and the weight of all of that, and the sleepless nights and the stress and, you know, the isolation of being away from our family, the pressures of being in the national spotlight, all of that sort of combined. And then the press was not just going after him, the press was going after me, the press was going after his brother, the press was going after some of our longtime advisers, every day, relentlessly. And I write in the book about one moment, Maureen Dowd wrote a column where she essentially compared me to Hitler's enabler, and she compared a number of our top advisers to Hitler's enabler. Now, when you look back on it, it's like everyone had lost their collective minds. Andrew Cuomo was accused of, you know, everyone throws a number 11 around. What people don't realize in that number 11 is that, it's a kiss on the cheek, a hand on the waist for a photograph. You know, calling someone sweetheart, saying, “ciao bella” when you walk out of the room, you know, these are not allegations of assault. This is not Harvey Weinstein type behavior. But the media frenzy and the political insanity of sort of #MeToo and the politics of the moment met, and I couldn't take it anymore. And I write about in the book when I went to the governor's mansion to tell him like, I couldn't put my family through it anymore. You know, they were watching me be pilloried in the press, it was killing them. It was killing me. It was hurting his children, it was hurting his brother. And so there was this very human moment where I think he understood the only way it was going to stop for the people around him even more than himself, was to step down. And, you know, looking back on that hindsight 20-20, could he have stayed and fought? I mean, I still go back to the answer of the legislature was going to impeach him. And, you know, you look at recent things the legislature has done, and this is a little weedsy for your listenership, but there was a Justice LaSalle that they put up for the Court of Appeals last year and this is a totally different type of scenario, but completely tarred and feathered the guy, completely distorted his judicial record. This was a public servant for years and years, made him out to be anti-woman, anti-labor, because he was basically making legal calls as a judge. They then gave him the hearing, they all announced their votes before they went into the hearing and it was a kangaroo court. And that's what it would have been, but Andrew Cuomo on steroids, and in the midst of it, we were fighting COVID, we were trying to get vaccines in arms were trying to get the economy back up and running and the emotional toll was too great. So that's a long answer, but it's a hard question.

GR: But it's an important issue and it's an interesting answer. We got about a minute and a half left. I want to try to squeeze two questions in, if I can. So we're going to go into sort of semi-lightning round here. But at the end of your book, you reflect on the value of government and the good things that government can do for people, especially during a crisis like COVID. I just wanted to hear you say a few words about that, about your view about the proper role of government.

MD: You know, look, government, I write that in the book, during COVID, you saw the best and the worst of government. And in that moment in New York State, the government came together. We built field hospitals, we stood up drive through testing sites. We hardened our hospital system, we brought in PPE, we came together and we saved lives. And very rarely can you point to a time in history other than war where you can say we saved lives. And in COVID, I think you saw that great moment.

GR: Yeah. And the final question is, I read an account of a public discussion of this book that you did recently in Albany. And according to that report, you indicated, I'll say, in very strong fashion, that you were interested in planning on going back into politics. Just a couple of seconds left. What form might that new activity take?

MD: You know, we'll see. But what I've learned in the last, you know, year since everything happened is I'm not done yet. I have more left to give and I shoot from the sidelines. And I'm a big believer that if you're going to do that, you better be prepared to get in the ring. So, we'll see, but stay tuned.

GR: Okay, we will. That was Melissa DeRosa. And again, her new book is titled, “What's Left Unsaid: My Life at the Center of Power, Politics and Crisis”. Whether you love Andrew Cuomo or you hate Andrew Cuomo, this book is a very interesting read. Ms. DeRosa, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

MD: Thanks so much for having me.

GR: You’ve been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Every once in a while on the program, we do something completely different, and that's what we're doing today. My guest is Svetlana Slapšak. She lives in Slovenia and is a specialist in Balkan studies and a historian and a writer. In 1993, she won the American Pen Freedom of Expression Award and in 2005 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She's here with me today to discuss a new book that she coauthored with Noah Charney, titled, “The Slavic Myths”. Charney was a previous guest on the program discussing his book on women in art. But today, it's, “The Slavic Myths” and Ms. Slapšak, welcome to the program.

Svetlana Slapšak: Thank you.

GR: It's great to have you. Well, let me just start with a real basic question for our listeners. Who are the Slavs? How would you define the Slavic people?

SS: Very shortly, I would define Slavs as a huge, very mixed ethnic group. The biggest group in all Europe and in a part of Asia. And at the same time defined by one family of languages, which is Slavic languages. And that would be the shortest definition.

GR: Okay. And some, just to, maybe this is obvious to you, but just so we have a handle on Slavic languages, give us some examples of those languages, what are we talking about?

SS: Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin, recently, Macedonian and so on and so on. So there are many, of course, Baltic groups and Mediterranean groups and Balkan groups and so on and so on. It's a very complicated linguistic image, but it's extremely differentiated and very extremely funny to learn about.

GR: Okay, well, that gives us a much better idea, thanks. So you've written this book about the myths that are part of the tradition of these peoples. Why are their myths important for us to know beyond simply being stories that are passed down over the generations? And that's important, too, but is there a larger importance of these myths, do you think?

SS: Oh, definitely it is. Basically, the Slavic epic tradition and the traditional narratives in the Slavic countries was connected to ancient technique of telling stories in Homer and some others. And in fact, it's in the Balkans where the technique of this epic telling the story was analyzed and in a way discovered. And it was started by two Americans, Milton Parry and Albert Lord.So we have the notion of Singer of Tales, a person who has a treasury of motives and stories, already made stories in his head, and he can produce basically a story on any topic you give him, extempore, immediately. So that's one of the importance of the Slavic epic and oral tradition, basically. And the other thing is that the, let's say, the Slavic myths, some of them are overbearing the rest and this is Russian myths, of course. But the minor Slavic traditions and the narratives and epic traditions are also important. And Balkans among these especially important because it links the Mediterranean myths, the ancient myths, and also the midst of Central Europe and the Nordic myths. And to be different from both of them, it's completely chaotic without real structure and without real hierarchy.And that's what makes it so interesting.

GR: Oh, okay. So, well, you may have just given me a hint of the answer to this next question on what you just said. But if we think of the Slavic myths, and I'll ask you to talk about some of the specific ones in a little bit, but right now, if we think about these Slavic myths as a whole, group, are there any general characteristics of these myths?Are there any sort of ways that they are? You said they’re chaotic, but are they structured in any way, is there a certain type of moral or story they all point to?

SS: Oh, definitely they do. They also mean the tradition between the ancient myths of Europe and the Christianity. And in some ways, this translation or transition, if you want, is so interesting that it really gives new narratives and new meanings to some aspects of Christianity in Europe.

GR: Interesting. And so do they have these myths? Do they have any social or political purposes or messages that you could identify?

SS: They were built on that in the 19th century by intellectuals of all Slavic countries. So, let's say when you start with Slavic myths, you know that they are a lie, a gross lie (laughter) by intellectuals to promote their own nation. But when you clear up a bit, a lot of dust and a lot of state, let's say marmalade that they were dipped in, you'll find in fact many social nuances. Many ideas about slavery, about injustice, about justice winning at the end and so onand so on. They're deeply social, most of these myths. But of course, this estate, if you want, crust, had to be broken, had to be deconstructed to see what is beneath.

GR: And what about any kind of spiritual messages? You mentioned these connect sort of older stories of Christianity and maybe some of the, I heard Nordic in here as well, so, you know, are there any sort of spiritual messages that the Slavic myths are about?

SS: Oh, definitely. They went through Christianity, but they didn't accept the whole. And if we want to see the spiritual line that really unites Slavic mythology, it's shamanism. It's the practices of metempsychosis, of living through the lives of other creatures, not only humans, but also animals. So that's a spiritual line that goes even today that is recognizable in some rituals, even today.

GR: Okay, and when you said one of the social or political messages you mentioned just as winning out in the end and I, you know, I happened to be reading a second book in addition to yours about Poland right now. And I'm just struck by the tragedies over the centuries that that country and those people have been through. I mean, the one that I was obviously most familiar with was World War Two and then the aftermath of World War Two with the Soviet domination.But, my lord, it just goes back and back and back. And I guess my question is, justice winning out in the end, I think that's going to be a hard sell for some of the people in this area of the world, given all of the tragedy that they have lived through over the centuries. Tell me a little bit more about that.

SS: Definitely. There is something that links, if you want, the notion of ancient tragedy and the Slavic myths and in fact, the whole spiritual tradition. And that is the only genre that we certainly know is transferred for antiquity and never stopped. There's no seizure, it's always there. That's a women's lament over dead. From ancient Greece to today in the Balkans and in Greece, it's the same thing.So when you think about this, then you realize, yes, there's a tragedy in history of all these peoples. And when you think about Poland, well, that's a very special case because understanding Poland will make you understand the war between Russia and Ukraine today.

GR: Yes, I'm getting some insight into that. You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Svetlana Slapšak. She's the author of, “The Slavic Myths”. Okay, so what are some of the myths, specific myths that our listeners are going to be most likely to be familiar with? If they were opening your book they'd say, oh, okay, I know this story. What are some of the big ones there?

SS: Well, the big ones are certainly the vampire and werewolf. In America, the shortened version of vampire gave them, which all Americans know at least from film history. And it's something that really passed immediately into the popular literature in the West. And the American, Bram Stoker make it made it so, so known, so glorious in the whole world. You find it in comics, you find it in videogames.Everywhere there's a vampire, there's somewhere there's a vampire there, a series of them about vampires. And of course, it's an interesting phenomenon with werewolf because they exchange their roles and their names also because of the taboo of the name they are too powerful. And they're both related to one of the oldest and the strongest, the Balkan myths which is the myth of wolf. Wolf might be in some occasions, also the primary deity of the Balkans.So it's an interesting phenomenon which, well, vampire changes color, too. In the Balkans, he's red when they buried him and in the West, he's white (laughter), he sucked all the blood, he is white. So it's an interesting phenomenon which we follow in popular culture, also in some serious poetry. So that's a person that they would recognize immediately.

GR: And you say that the wolf then, a primary deity for the origin of some of these myths.

SS: Yeah.

GR: I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. As a deity, what is the wolf embodying? Is it about love? Is it about justice? Vengeance? What are the things that the wolf does a deity?

SS: Well, in my view, he's sacred because of the extreme structure of the wolf society. That's the thing that really impressed people. The wolf society is a complicated one with hierarchies, with relations, interrelations and so on and so on, so that impressed people. But also his strength, his power and being dangerous. He is revered because he might be good also. He is also a symbol of wisdom, practical wisdom.So he, like, he is something close to the Greek Metis, the practical intelligence, the Odysseus way of thinking, finding tricks to how to get out of trouble and so on and so on. So wolf is extremely multilateral creature and also he is a symbol of masculinity, but a well arranged masculinity which belongs to a certain society which behaves according to the rules and so on.

GR: Interesting, interesting. So those are some of the two big ones people are going to obviously be aware of, werewolves and vampires. What are some of the myths that would be unknown or less known to our listeners that you think are especially interesting?

SS: Well, there's my favorite who was totally unknown, and that's the Saint Friday if I translate her name. She's Saint Paraskevi in Greek because she's the day before Sabbath, the day of preparation, so that's this saint. But also her earlier roots go directly to Demeter (the) Greek goddess and also to Aphrodite. So she is a wise woman who protects women. Basically, women in activities like cleaning, weaving, finding medical plants, medicinal plants and so on and so on.And she was translated from the pagan myths to the Christian myths. And she functions in a very specific way in the Christian world, in the Balkans. She is the saint who sits right next to Saint Elias, who is also elected as a leading saint of the Olympic space of Christian saints in the Balkans. She's extremely powerful and she, exactly like Demeter, has a daughter. The father is not known and is not important at all, but the daughter is. So the story is about daughter and in Balkan and tradition, her daughter is called Sunday. It's Friday and Sunday, and between them is Saturday, which is the day of dead. So you see the whole link, which comes from very early times, goes through Christianity and comes back into the new world as a kind of pagan belief.And she is one of the saints that you will meet in churches in the Balkans, in Greece, in Bosnia, in Serbia, everywhere, Macedonia, everywhere. She has a special altar and special duties around women. She heals women, but not only that. For instance, there's one rule that might be remembered and useful, and that is if you wash your husband's shirt on Thursday evening, he will be sick on Friday (laughter).

GR: (laughter)

SS: So she's protecting women from aggressive, from male violence also, she's extremely important. So when you see the walls covered with votive gifts to Petka as she is named in the Slavic Balkan languages you will be surprised, and also Roma and Muslim women have Saint Petka as protectors.So there's one creature that we didn't know about, and it is extremely important.

GR: You know those connections are just fascinating. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Balkan studies specialist Svetlana Slapšak about her new book, “The Slavic Myths”. Ms. Slapšak was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. Well, tell me how you went about collecting and selecting the myths that go into this book. How did you go about writing this up?

SS: Well, I was very scared of the Russian scientists and the Russian achievements in the domain of Slavic myths. They're certainly the most productive group that ever wrote about Slavic myths and some of the most famous names, we're writing, trying to construct the trials and the hierarchy in Slavic myths. That's exactly what I didn't want to do. I wanted to show their lack of hierarchy and their structures which are completely different.So yes, it is a kind of answer to many ruling ideas about Slavic mythology, but it's also about putting into the first plan, smaller Slavic groups of narratives and oral traditions, that was our ideas. And also to think about myths that we could interpret as cultural myths, founding / foundation myths. And that's why we include, for instance, the famous and legendary Czechish ruler Libuše. And some other ideas we brought in showing how much connections there are between the state ideologies and the interpretation of mythology. And also the main idea of the book was to be a popular book. Not a real scientific achievement, but a popular book which would tell the story andgive some basic philological, contextual historical background to better understand these things. And we also put a lot of other myths which would not be included into these notes. So it's worth reading the whole book and not only the good stories. And the other thing is also that the idea was to include some aspects of Slavic myths, which are not usually discussed or researched.And there's a huge area which I absolutely adore, and that could not enter into this book. And this is about plants and the use of plants and magic with plants.

GR: So when you were doing the research in the writing for this book, you're obviously an expert in the field and you're very aware of it. Did you come across anything, though, that completely surprised you that you just had no idea about and it really struck you?

SS: But of course, the thing that struck me was going into detail about the myths which are common to different ethnic groups, not only Slavs at all, like Albanians and Greeks. That I knew about it, but when I gathered the real data and a lot of facts which would not enter the book, of course, that really surprised me. So that's a field of investigation for the Balkan researchers, basically for the Balkan researchers.And it's also a great initiative to make work together people from the West, especially from the West, with the native knowledge bearers from other parts to make these areas more known, more popular, more interesting. Well, also for for cartoons and video games, basically (laughter). They all did it there with, “The Witcher” on Netflix to make this world more known and more amicable and also more bearable.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Svetlana Slapšak. She's the author of, “The Slavic Myths”. So, when you were finding some of these myths that you weren't aware of previously or even the ones that you were aware of and you looked more deeply into them, is there one particular myth that has stayed with you more than the others,got inside your head, maybe even haunted you?

SS: (laughter)Well, I am haunted by one person from the myths, which also was a profession in everyday life. And this is (unintelligible), the name is unpronounceable, but it comes from the Greek word stoicheion, element, and also element of weather. And these guys, which were Albanians, Montenegrins, Serbians and Bosnians, and also some Italians were able to control the winds and the tempests and so on and so on.And they were walking around through their rituals with the human nerves around their feet and stuff like that. This is really a magic creature, but it's also created from life because we know their names and we know their deeds and what they were doing to do their able to fly. One of them would deal with a tempest in Montenegro and then fly to Budapest, stuff like that (laughter).So, it's a creature that really works in your subconscious and appears in your dreams, I can tell you.

GR: And that's why it's haunting you, because it's shown up in your dreams?

SS: Yeah, absolutely (laughter).

GR: So I have to ask you, as I was looking through the book, one of the things that I thought was most memorable about it, in addition to the stories that you are telling, are the visuals in here. The woodblock prints are really splendid. Where did they come from, how did you how did you arrange those?

SS: Well, we did not that's Thames & Hudson editor’s job. They did it absolutely wonderfully. I was absolutely hypnotized when I was looking at these drawings. They're really, really wonderful. They have this character of wood cutting and at the same time, of course they are not, but they give a hint of primitive traditional, somewhere in time and at the same time, so, so, so impressive.Yeah, that's one of the best solutions for the book I could even dream of.

GR: Yeah. They really, really struck me. Well, so, we've got about five minutes left, and I wanted to switch gears unless there is something important about this book that I have not covered with you and then you can tell me what that is. But I wanted to switch gears and I wanted to ask you to tell me a little bit about the work that led to you being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, because that's obviously a big deal.And I wanted to hear more about the activities that you were doing that led people to want to recognize you that way.

SS: Oh, thank you for this question. I wanted to intervene, but I didn't dare not to steal time. I was, in effect, in a group of a thousand women proposed for a Nobel Prize. And it was an internet action and women from all over the world voted for women who they thought were fighters for peace. And we came up with a thousand names.That was a Swiss MP who decided to do this action. And she gathered these thousand names and went with them to the Nobel Committee, that's all. So, yes, I'm one of the thousand, that's all (laughter), let's put it into the real frame. But the other thing is, yes, I was activist for peace all of my lifeand I'm still is, so, I don't think I should be rewarded for that.

GR: So tell us a little bit about your peace activism then. We've only got about 3 minutes left or so. But what things have you been involved with over your life that that have had that…

SS: I was involved with since the ‘68, Let's face it, that's a crucial year in Europe, the university year of around Europe. But then, of course, the real thing happened by the end of (the) 80’s, the second half of (the) 80’s when the nationalisms started to tear down Yugoslavia. And I was in a party which was exclusively for the conservation of Yugoslavia and for peace.We didn't like it of course, that's obvious. But then I went to Slovenia to live with my husband and I was doing many peace activities there. And then, let's say since the beginning of the 90’s, there were so many occasions to breed for peace that I don't even remember how many wars and how many atrocities happened in that time, not only the Balkans, starting with Rwanda and Asia and so on and so on.So yes, today is especially tragic time when we think about wars and genocide.

GR: Absolutely.So you must have some feelings about the war in Ukraine, I'm guessing. It's not terribly far away from where you are. How have you experienced that?

SS: Well, Ukraine is, was very important for me because it's a country, it's a culture that was transferring some of the Western cultural modes to Russia, like the polyphonic music and stuff like that. And Ukraine is really very special in that sense. And when you think about how many artists, literates, actors, musicians came from Ukraine, your heart really hurts, so that's one thing. And the other thing is that when you think about Ukraine as a mixture of very, very many different ethnic groups and its links with Russia, it's really tragic that this culture, which is so important in the heart of the Slavic cultures at all, is something that has been destructed in front of our eyes. And the other thing is that we learn so much being a family and so much about violence against women, the first thing I think when there's war, there's violence, I think about women and children. So it's really something that makes me very sensitive to any kind of violence, animals too.

GR: Yeah. Well, you've lived through so much of it, and you have seen so many different violent conflicts as I think about the region of the world that you occupy. Do you have any optimism about how this war in Ukraine will ultimately end up?

SS: No, no. There's a disturbing tradition of long term wars in Europe in the past. So I hate to say it, but I'm not optimist at all. Revealing the possibilities of peace and reasonable behaving between the states is something that does not appear as a solution at this moment. So any appealing to rationalities, useless, I'm afraid.

GR: Well, we only have a few seconds left. This may be too much of a bit of a stretch, but thinking about those Slavic myths, thinking about the war in Ukraine, is there any sort of connection if the myths could be talking to the people in the conflict now, is there anything you think they would say?

SS: That would be great.Yeah, what they would say first of all, it would be, the myths would have a sense of humor. These myths are really the most useful and the most pedagogically applicable today. So the myths with humor, the animals, the wise animal could trick the others, the tricksters generally, are the figures that could help at this moment.

GR: Well, I'll keep hoping in that regard.

SS: Me too (laughter).

GR: I'm glad we were able to end that. That was Svetlana Slapšak and again, her new book is titled, “The Slavic Myths”. It's a really beautiful book, I think it's informative and entertaining and I think our listeners would enjoy it. Ms. Slapšak, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. It was really wonderful to meet you.

SS: Thank you for inviting me, bye bye.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations and the public interest.

View Details

Theodore Roosevelt campaigns from the back of a train in 1905.( Library of Congress, Prints and Photos Division)Using trains in political campaigns may seem antiquated, but the process is still alive. This week, Grant Reeher talks with Edward Segal, a highly experienced campaign manager and press secretary, and is a student of the political use of trains. Segal is the author of "Whistle-Stop Politics: Campaign Trains and the Reporters Who Covered Them."

View Details

Will Barclay / Rachel MayProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Governor Hochul recently delivered her State of the State speech and then subsequently presented her budget. Now the legislature will consider that budget. As we've done in past years, we're going to hear some reactions from both sides of the aisle in the state legislature. But today, we're doing it a bit differently in that we'll hear first from one representative and then the other. And this was done just for scheduling reasons. My guest for the first half of the program is State Senator Rachel May. Senator May, a Democrat, represents the 48th Senate District and is the chair of the Senate Committee on Small and Medium Cities. She's been on the program many times before. Senator May, welcome back and it's good to see you again.

State Senator Rachel May: Thank you, Grant. Always glad to be here.

GR: All right. Well, let me just start with the state of the state. The governor seemed in this speech to pull in her wings a little bit in terms of larger proposed initiatives concerning affordable housing, for instance. Was that your sense, too in listening to it? And what is your view of that?

RM: Yeah, I felt like she tried to put on an optimistic face, but generally, she was pretty small bore in the state of the state. I think that was true. She did lean into the AI issue and some other things that I think are important. But in general, yeah, it was I was sad. I have been sad in general because I'm working very hard on housing. We hear every day from people who are struggling to find affordable housing in our district, and I hope she will be a partner in that as we move forward.

GR: And also, it seemed to my ear that she tacked a bit right on crime and criminal justice. And that's been a big issue in the state in recent years. Was there anything there that you had concerns about or that you liked hearing from her in that regard?

RM: Well, I think that was true in her campaign as well. I think she has been seeing herself as presenting kind of a opposition to the legislature on criminal justice, even though I don't think, in fact, the analysis of what we have done is really true. But yeah, she did some of that as well. I guess I’d agree with that.

GR: And so you mentioned hearing some of those rhetoric in the campaign. Do you think what we saw then in the State of the State and we'll get into the budget a bit but you know, on housing, criminal justice, was this kind of a reaction to the relatively close shave she got in her election campaign do you think?

RM: That could be That could be. I have been a little sad and we've been, I think, pretty good allies of the governor, certainly in the campaign, but also in a lot of our legislation. But she kind of came out swinging at the legislature a little bit, which is, I think, strategically a mistake. We need to work together and I hope we will work together. I certainly want to work together with the governor on a lot of initiatives that I think could really help central New York.

GR: Well, I guess in that sense, thinking back a couple decades and maybe even more, it seems like beating up on the legislature is kind of a standard thing that governors in New York state do right?

RM: Yeah, I guess I had hoped with Hochul that she was a little more. I mean, she has been collaborative with the legislature on a number of things, but rhetorically, she was a little bit more willing to own that because we can do so much if we work together.

GR: So let's let's think about the budget, which is where obviously the big ideas and whatever ideas are being put out there have to manifest themselves in terms of money. She said in her budget address that the state can't keep spending like there's no tomorrow. I think that was her words. And nonetheless, the budget that she proposed does set a new record, I believe. Are we in this budget, do you think, seeing some effort on her part to turn a ship or make a course correction, or are we slowing the acceleration? What's the right metaphor for seeing the big picture here?

RM: Well, I think the big picture actually is that all year long we have been hearing that this budget was going to involve major cuts, that we were going to have an $8 billion deficit and then a $4 billion deficit. And all of a sudden there is no deficit when push comes to shove in this budget, which is a good thing because we don't want to have to be cutting back some of the things that we have worked so hard to put in place. So honestly, it's I think, yes, there will be some slowing down because we're not getting the kind of funding that we were getting from the federal government as pandemic relief in particular. But in general, this budget is essentially holding the line. There are a few things where I know that we will be fighting as a legislature to restore some things that she has cut. For my part, the clean water infrastructure cut in half. I mean, it has been it has been generous in the past, and I don't think anybody thought that would go on forever. But from $500 million down to $250 million, when every single municipality I talked to has issues with their water and sewer infrastructure. And this is expensive. And the more we have global warming and flooding and a lot of the pressures that municipalities are seeing on their water systems, we can't retrench, I don't think, in that area. That's one, for example, where I think we're going to be fighting.

GR: Do you expect problems with the education funding? Because that, I understand, was something that was at least cut back a lot from the previous couple budgets.

RM: So it's not an absolute cut. It’s a, my understanding and I haven't had time to really look through the details of it, is trying to shift the way foundation aid is funded. For a very long time, there was a hold harmless provision in foundation aid where school districts that were already overfunded still got increases year after year because I think it was the politically expedient thing to do, but it wasn't the right thing to do because there were other districts that were severely underfunded and the funding should have gone to those districts. And, you know, there are some Long Island districts that are very wealthy, some of the wealthiest in the country, and were continuing to get large increases under foundation aid for a long time. I'm I don't have a problem with trying to redistribute that. The place where I'm most concerned is with our rural districts and we do as Chair of the Commission on Rural Resources, but also as someone who represents a lot of small rural school districts, many of them are seeing cuts as well. And we've been hearing from them. And some of those cuts are because their enrollments are down, but their costs aren't down. They still have to have classroom teachers, even if there are fewer kids in the class, they still have to have all the services that they have. And so I think we will be looking hard at how she has the rethought foundation aid in some of those situations.

GR: With that belt-tightening, I guess, is one way to put it, when in the or at least, as you say, sort of strategically rethinking how the aid is distributed. When you say wealthier school districts, is that going to percolate down to some of the wealthier suburbs of Syracuse, do you think, in terms of changing what they were getting?

RM: It could, it could. But, you know, as the chair of the committee on our smaller cities, our upstate cities along the thruway corridor perennially rate among the cities in the country with the highest child poverty. Syracuse came in number two in the country this year. And the schools that have to deal with very concentrated poverty, that is extremely costly. They need a lot of staff who are helping kids, who have got learning disabilities, kids who don't speak English, kids who have trauma in their family and neighborhood lives, and or who just aren't getting, you know, dental care or vision care, all of those things. And the costs are very high. And I think it makes sense to invest in making sure that kids everywhere can succeed. So, yes, I think, you know, I will be pushing to make sure that our that those places where poverty has been concentrated get the kind of investments that they deserve.

GR: We've only got about 3 minutes left. I want to try to squeeze another question about the budget and then ask you something about the legislative session more generally. There was another piece of the proposed budget that the media really picked up on, which was the proposal to spend two and a half billion dollars to house and feed new migrants here that have been arriving here, including 500 million from the state reserve allocation. So what what are your reactions to that?

RM: Well, what are our alternatives? Honestly? I mean, these are people who come to New York who, you know, are going through the asylum process right or, you know, they've followed the rules so far they need a place to live. They need to be able to get to the point where they can get a job, make money, support their families. We also need more people in New York state, we've been complaining about the decline in our population for a long time. So what we find with refugees who come to this region, who have been coming for decades to this region, it takes them a little while to get settled. And then they become entrepreneurs, they become community leaders, They become very hardworking citizens or or, you know, permanent residents. And they contribute a lot to our communities. So I think that upfront investment is necessary.

GR: That's interesting, seeing that as an investment. Certainly, I can see what you're talking about in the city of Syracuse, thinking about all the different groups of different kinds of refugees that have been resettled here. Well, let's think about the legislative session. Are there things that you anticipate the legislature pushing, taking the lead on that are contained in the governor's State of the State?

RM: I was disappointed that she completely left out our waste reduction efforts, whether it's the bottle bill that I carry that would expand the bottle bill, increase the deposit, include a lot more beverages in the bottle bill, the extended producer responsibility. We're seeing a moment when Seneca Meadows Landfill is trying to expand in spite of a lot of opposition from people who live in the Finger Lakes, but also people who have trucks just plowing through their communities with trash from New York City. We've got to put a lot of effort, more effort than we are putting into reducing waste. And I'm sad that she didn't put that in. On the housing front. I have a lot. She had some proposals, but they all had to do with New York City. And I have a lot of legislation that I am working on and and really hoping to pass that would make it easier to build affordable housing here in central New York and upstate in general. So those are some areas where we're going to be working really hard.

GR: Well, we'll have to check back in with you as the session winds down to see how you fared and those things, they sound like important initiatives. That was State Senator Rachel May. Senator May, thanks so much again for taking the time to talk with me.

RM: Thank you, Grant.

GR: We're continuing our consideration of Governor Hochul’s State of the State address, and then her subsequently proposed budget, also looking toward the upcoming legislative session. We’ll now hear from Republican Assemblyman and Minority Leader Will Barclay. He represents the 120th Assembly District. Leader Barclay, welcome back to the program. Always good to see you again.

Assemblyman Will Barclay: Well, it’s good to be on the program. As always, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to be interviewed by you.

GR: Oh great. Well, thanks for making the time. So let me just sort of follow what I did with Senator May in the top half of the program and we'll work our way through the State of the State and the budget. And let me start with the State of the State. The Governor, it seemed to most folks who heard this seemed to pull in her wings a bit in terms of proposed initiatives and the ambition of them, and particularly concerning affordable housing, for instance. Was that your sense of where the governor was going this time? And what's your view of that?

WB: Yeah, I would agree. It was a very staid speech. I don't think there are any kind of revolutionary proposals by the governor. Actually, her State of the State and her budget address were relatively similar. And you may be surprised to hear the script, but I actually was pleased with the message that the governor gave. I think finally a Democrat in Albany has recognized that we had some serious problems, that all New Yorkers were worried about, problems like crime, problems like affordability, problems like outmigration, things that I had been, I've been talking about my conference has been talking about for years. I was pleased the governor has recognized that these are serious problems. I think the question is ultimately, you know, what her solutions are and a recognition of why we got into those problems in the first place.

GR: Yeah, I want to come back to a couple of those things. Well, you mentioned crime. One of the things that I noticed others noticed is she did, seemed to tack a bit to the right on crime and criminal justice. Was there anything in particular there that you liked or that you still have concerns about?

WB: Well, yes. Again, I like the recognition that crime is a problem. Certainly, the shoplifting, smash and grab, as I guess is called now, has been a problem. She mentioned how crime rates are down, and that's true, and I'm happy that crime rates are down. But overall crime is still up, I think something like 33% since 2019. I don't think it's a mystery of why this is happening. We don't hold criminals accountable, unfortunately, anymore. And that's serious crimes that are down, which, again, is great. And I don’t want to deny that that's not good news. Those weren't cashless bail-eligible crimes in the first place. So when I point to the problems that we have with raising age with the bail reform or cashless bail clean slate, you know, these are all the policies we put in place over the last several years. As a result of these policies, we see crime rates have increased. So again, I'm pleased that there's recognition and I'm pleased that she wants to do something about it. And I'll be a willing partner. And I know our conference be a willing partner as long as we're serious about what we're trying to do. And ultimately, I happen to believe that you got to hold criminals accountable. You can't just have a rotating system where people get arrested and put right back on the street. And unfortunately, that's what these, you know, the past policies have caused. And in order to fix that, we're going to pull back on those policies.

GR: Now, let's think about the budget. You mentioned they were very similar, State of the State address and the budget. One of the things the governor said is “The state can't keep spending like there's no tomorrow.” But at the same time, correct me if I'm wrong, the budget did set another record. So is this, what are we seeing here? I'm trying to find the right metaphor for thinking of how to place this. One is – this is the beginning of a course correction. Another one is– we're just letting up on the accelerator pedal, but we're still giving gas to the car. How would we consider this?

WB: I think the cliche that I've been using is ‘spending like drunken sailors,’ but she didn’t go that far. But yeah, again, I'm pleased she’s recognized that we can't continue. Over the last five years, we've increased spending in New York state by $60 billion. And I had some staff in Albany look at this. And I think that's numbers. Something like bigger than two-thirds of all the other states' total budget. So clearly that was not a sustainable course. She did lower spending. I think it's now at 4.4%, which is a step in the right direction. With inflation, I think, you know, we're getting to the right numbers. We just can't continue to spend like we have over the last few years. So I'm glad that there's a recognition of that.

GR: And as part of her budget proposal, she included two and a half billion dollars to house and feed new migrants and added as part of that a $500 million from the state's fiscal reserves. What are your thoughts about that?

WB: Well, it's unfortunate. I don't know, what we have this right to shelter, what we're dealing with, the influx of migrants. You know, she mentioned the numbers that I think they're moving something like 10,000 migrants out of shelters a month. But they're increasing by 13,000 are coming in. So it's clearly a losing battle. And I think it just illustrates that unfortunate New Yorkers have to pay for, you know, the Democrats in Washington, particularly the Biden Administration's failure to secure our borders. I was happy that she said she was going to go to Washington and advocate for federal money, which I do think the federal government should be responsible for these costs. But I also advocate for a more secure border, and I would join her in doing that. And she did try to put some of the blame on the Republicans in Congress and maybe there's some to go there. I do think immigration reform needs a bipartisan solution. But that being said, the administration has control over the southern border and clearly it's not secure because people are coming in by droves.

GR: Senator May had a somewhat different take on this and looked at this in terms of something that you mentioned earlier, which is concerns about the state losing population and sort of saw the migrants as well, this is one way we can do something about this and noted how refugees in the city of Syracuse, for example, have added to both the culture and the economy there. And so she views all this money as kind of an investment in the future. Is that is is that a fair way to live?

WB: I mean, I find that as I would use tongue in cheek, sometimes I think that Governor Abbott's done more to increase New York's population or fix New York's outmigration population than any Democrat in Albany. So that's funny that she's spinning the idea that somehow this is a positive. I'm a pro-immigration Republican. I do believe in immigration, but I feel very strongly it ought to be legal immigration and not illegal immigration. This is a failure, again, by the federal government. If we need more people, let's have an honest policy debate about letting more people into the country through legal means, not through illegal migration.

GR: Well, now part of the budget also has to do with, as it always does, with school funding. And if I understand this correctly, she's proposing a change in school funding to allow the state to not always keep all towns at the same or more level of aid. And so the school districts that were particularly well funded may see less aid, and that's in order to sustain the funding for other schools that are needier. What is your view of the change and the school aid that's in her budget?

WB: I have to look at this closer and see, you know, everything in politics is local. So I want to understand how that's going to affect the school districts in my area. Unfortunately, many of them are low-wealth school districts. So they're the ones that are in desperate need of the aid. So I can't speak directly on how that's going to do it, although I again, here I am. I could be complimentary of a Democrat in the governor. I do think she recognizes that we can't continue school aid spending at the rate we've been spending. Something like we increased a six or $7 billion over the last couple of years. We simply just don't have the means to do that. So the idea that she's looking at ways to make our spending more efficient, that is driving the money where it's most needed, I'm open to that. And I do think, unfortunately, we just can't continue to increase spending the way we've been doing.

GR: So what is the legislature going to do with all of this and what might it also do on its own? Are there things that you would anticipate this year in the upcoming session that the legislature would be pushing and taking the lead on where the governor didn't really say anything or did not push for things?

WB: Well, first of all, I think let's just go back to criminal justice and crime and what she's proposed. I think she's going to have trouble getting any of that through the legislature. Unfortunately, my colleagues don't want to recognize that this is an issue and they don't want to recognize that the fact that some of the proposals, the ones I've mentioned before that they passed are contributing factors to this. So to pull back on any of those or just increase penalties. You know something that we haven’t looked at, say for people that have shoplift multiple times, you can aggregate those crimes so they can be charged with more serious penalties. They haven't shown any willingness to even address that. So I think that's going to be very challenging. In order to get that done, she's going to have to spend a lot of political capital. As seen unfortunately in Albany, what happens sometimes money is used as that political capital, so if we can get some sort of reform on crime, maybe she's going to have to spend more at schools. And that's really where we got into some of these predicaments. We never had any kind of real, you know, slowing down on our spending. And this, again, a little bit off on the spending, too, Grant as you kind of indicated, we're still spending a lot of money. We are. It's 200, I think her proposal is $233 billion, which is massive. But I've always said people often ask me, well, where would you cut? And we don't have to necessarily cut anything. Really, we have to slow the rate of growth of our spending. And we just got to get back down to more realistic terms. I mean, the last two years we're at 10% or 8%, and that's well beyond inflation, well beyond our means to be able to spend. So anyways, who knows? That always happens. A governor usually comes in a bit lower than what the legislature and then through negotiations you'll see increase in spending. Maybe there'll be some trade-off on policy. One thing the Assembly Senate majority has been against is putting any policy in the budget, which I can normally agree with, but generally the policy the Governor wants to put in the budget is something that I can support and she can't get it through otherwise stand alone because of the Democratic majorities in both houses.

GR: Yeah, the budget does act as kind of Christmas tree or however whatever metaphor we want for a lot of different things. We've we've only got about a couple of minutes left. I want to squeeze in a couple more questions if I can, but is your caucus in particular? I get a sense of the kinds of things that your caucus is going to be pushing back against and wants to make sure that are taken seriously regarding budget crime and so on. But is there anything kind of new initiative that your caucus will be trying to push as an idea to get the legislature to take up?

WB: We'll think about it. We'll talk about any new ideas. But usually, you know, I think going back to the three biggest issues that are concerning to New Yorkers is outmigration, affordability and crime. And I think there's things that we can do on affordability that we'll continue to push. You know, some are relatively obvious, like lowering taxes. Well, we've implemented let's take climate change policy in New York that is costing us billions of dollars and the cost benefit of that spending has not been demonstrated by anybody. So we're going to just keep raising those types of issues to show, you know, why are we doing this? Is this a good way to spend our money? And try to point out where we think it's been wasteful and leading to the unaffordability that we have, unfortunately, in New York state.

GR: Well, you've left me with just enough time to squeeze in one question about national politics, so I'm going to do that. You and I are talking before the New Hampshire primaries, after the Iowa caucuses for the Republican Party, at least. Where do you see this at this point? Is the Trump tide unstoppable? Does Nikki Haley have a chance? What's your sense of the terrain right now?

WB: Well, it certainly looks like Trump's going to win it, although I see the numbers in New Hampshire. He's ahead by, you know, a much smaller margin than he was in Iowa. I think whoever it's going to be the Republican nominee, I think there's rich, fertile ground for victories for, whether it's Nikki Haley or whether it's Trump or anyone else, because the President unfortunately for him this so deeply unpopular, so, you know, I'll support whoever the Republican nominee is and looks like it's going to be Trump at this time. I think probably, you know, I don't think long short of it, it looks like Trump's going to win. You know, maybe if Iowa turned out a little differently, someone could say that maybe another candidate has a chance. But, you know, all the polling you know, whatever showed ultimately that victory margin, I suspect, is going to be the same in New Hampshire.

GR: We'll have to leave it there. That was Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay. Leader Barclay, as always, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.

WB: Yeah, thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest is Noah Charney, he's an art historian who's written widely on art and history, including art crime. He's also a professor at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and he's here with me today because he has recently published a book titled, “Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art”. He's also the author of, “The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Art in a Dozen Masterpieces” and, “The Devil in the Gallery: How Scandal, Shock, and Rivalry Shaped the Art World”. Professor Charney, welcome to the program.

Noah Charney: Thanks so much for having me.

GR: Well, it's great to have you on. Let me just start with a departure point for your book. And one of them is a famous essay by the late feminist art historian Linda Nochlin, titled, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” and your book argues two things about that. First, that there have indeed been a lot of great women artists throughout history, and also that women have had a great influence on the course of art.So I want to unpack those two things a little bit as we talk here today. And first, and maybe this is just an overly obvious question, but why have the contributions of women been overlooked in terms of art history and even overlooked more recently?

NC: Well, why women have been largely overlooked, it comes down to the patriarchal narrative of how history has been written. And you can see this in various different fields, and it's no different from others. The story of art is really one that involved, initially, artists who were part of studios who would be in the charge of a master. A master is someone who was licensed to run an artistic studio to produce art, to be commissioned for projects.And they were inevitably men, and they would fill their studio with assistants and apprentices who were also men or boys from age anywhere from 8 to 18. And it was a sort of locker room style atmosphere. And the board of people usually called the Guild of Saint Luke for painters, because Saint Lucas, the patron saint of painters in various towns in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, would have been run all by men.And so when it comes time for a young artist to submit their masterpiece, which is a term we use now for any great work of art, but originally was the work based on which you would be determined to be ready to be a master on your own, then it was men who were given the primary seat. The only women we had historically who created works of art that we know of were ones who had either a partner or a parent who essentially taught them, informally initially, before the age of academies.And that's really the reason why for the first many thousands of years, most artists with only a handful of exceptions have been men. I should say that probably the very first human artists were women. In fact, most of the cave painting hand imprints from tens of thousands of years ago are female hands.

GR: That's interesting. So I know that we could talk for the entire program just about you naming these people and explaining them. But briefly, if you could, who are some of the greatest women artists? Throw me out some greatest hits there.

NC: Well, there's some examples that are really household names, but almost all of them are contemporary or second half of the 20th century artists. And one of my goals is to highlight people from as many different periods historically, styles and media as I could. So the format I chose was, (the) first half of the book is a history of artistic movements in a very traditional sense in talking about the various “-isms” through history, focusing primarily on European art, but also stepping beyond it. But instead of choosing one of the cliché male artists who are appearing in all of the most famous art history 101 textbooks, I used a female artist as a representative.

GR: Okay.

NC: So there are going to be many that people likely won't have heard of, but there are many that people will have.For instance, Marina Abramović wrote the afterword for the book and is the representative of conceptual art. Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Camille Claudel, there are lots of them in the second half of the 20th century, really, from the period of Modernism forward and after World War Two in particular, it no longer becomes a surprise or even noteworthy that there's a significant woman artist.But if we look back to historical periods dating back, including thousands of years, then there are a constellation of just a few that we can pick out, often through archival sources. And we don't necessarily have a work that we know is by them. But then later on, when we get particularly to the Renaissance and the early modern period, there are plenty of them who I would qualify as truly great.

GR: And so tell me about some of the ways that women have influenced the course of art over time and reveal some things to me about that.

NC: So one of the things that we have is a bias towards the top let's say 1% most influential and revolutionary artists in history and those are the ones we tend to study over and over. And we forget that that represents, you know, a few hundred big names if we're really casting a large net. But that's not the vast majority of artists.And so those are the ones that tend to be in our headlights, the ones that we tend to remember and the ones that are written up in history books as being turning points. And there are fewer women on that list than one might like, but they're not entirely absent. So one of the things that I tried to do is look at the way women have influenced the course of art from a variety of different angles, artists being only one of them.There are some very good other books about women artists, but mine also touches on women as influencers in terms of being critics and scholars, patrons, professors, there's a whole wide array. In terms of female artists, we can just look through some small examples that I'll pull out, small in terms of the quantity, but not in terms of the influence.If we look to drip painting or all around painting, which is credited to Jackson Pollock with his, “Galaxy” painting in 1947, it was actually invented by a Ukrainian grandmother who was living in Brooklyn named Janet Sobel, that was her Americanized name. In 1945 she created a drip painting in her apartment called, “Milky Way” and Jackson Pollock actually later admitted that he saw that work and was influenced to try drip painting himself.Now this is an example of someone developing a new technique that no one had seen before, and so she needs to get credit for the invention of it. But we also do have to credit Pollock with the promotion of it. He really became the front man because he was everyone's idea of the macho male artist who can't even sit still long enough to paint something naturalistic but is dancing around the canvas and it made for a great story and he's the one who was on the cover of Life magazine. But we have to give credit where it's due and that's just one example. We also have people, I might mention Properzia de’ Rossi who was a very influential sculptor who is described by Giorgio Vasari in his book, “Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects”, which was the bestselling book on art history, the first true book on art history back in 1550. He mentions Properzia among a handful of female artists who are featured in a way that some artists that you might think would be, are not at all. People like Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer get no mention at all, whereas we have a chapter on influential female artists. We have others like Artemisia Gentileschi, who perhaps is another household name, one of the relatively few in this book who started painting in a Caravaggio-esque style, if you're familiar with Caravaggio, very dramatic dynamic chiaroscuro, that's the play of light emerging from darkness.And he has a very famous painting of Judith beheading Holofernes with blood splattering everywhere. And there's a version that, if you ask me, is better, of the same theme by Artemisia, inspired by his, but I think she did him one better. And she became a hugely influential female painter in Naples, primarily at the end of her life during the Baroque period.And yet we tend to gloss over these people because we have this patriarchal focus which is unfortunate.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Noah Charney. He's a professor of art history at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, and he's the author of, “Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art”. Well, I noticed that about your book, too, that you get into, I'm going to talk about something you said just a few minutes ago, but women as critics and their influence there and then as patrons and collectors.So tell me a bit about those kinds of influences, either through money or social and cultural influence or through writing.

NC: So there are various ways that people can influence art beyond creating it, writing about it. We have people like Gertrude Stein, who is one of the great proponents of Picasso in particular, but she had a world class art collection at her home in Paris, and she was the center of a lively group of artists who would meet regularly and develop ideas, bouncing them off of each other.So that's one perspective we have. Hugely influential scholar Susan Sontag, whose book on photography is probably the most influential book ever written about photography as an artistic medium and how to look at photographs. And then we can go back to periods where a lot of the influential patrons of the arts were, in fact, patronesses, and we can go back in time to Roxelana, who was originally a concubine to the Turkish sultan, but who wound up being hugely influential as a commissioner of works of art.We have people who were in the New York arts scene, founding some of the most important art museums in New York. For example, MoMA was founded largely by three women, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Among the New York museums, we actually see that most of them were initially founded by society women who were at the forefront of an interest in contemporary art.Whereas the fuddy-duddy conservative men were stuck with the old masters. And I love old masters, but we have to tip our hat to the forward thinking female patrons whose influence and wealth and really their openness to new styles and avant-garde movements helped bring modern art to America.

GR: That's interesting. So changing the subject a bit, the female body as a subject for male artists, I guess a critic might say objectified, it's been a staple for centuries, whether that person is clothed or unclothed. And I was wondering whether either women artists or some of the kinds of people that you just talked about, patronesses and art critics, writers, have helped to reinterpret the female as a subject in important ways in art.

NC: Absolutely that's the case. So, there are a lot of examples of this, but I actually have a, I'm going to call it, because it sounds exciting, a lost chapter of this book that I didn't have the word count for to include, I sliced it out. I should have like a director's cut version on what women have represented in art, whether they were representing themselves as in a portrait,but very often they were idealized or they were allegorical personifications. For example, Justitia, or Justice, we have this concept because we've seen her on every courthouse in America as a blindfolded woman with a sword in one hand and scales in the other. Women were often included, and we have to be frank about this, as an object of the male gaze and especially nudes often couched as Venuses, but it was, in fact, an excuse to have a naked lady on your wall. And sometimes we have to be a little bit crass like that. But women have also tuned the tides a bit. And one example that I would highlight is Käthe Kollwitz’s, “Dead Child” (*Woman with Dead Child) is one of the most moving works of art I've ever seen.It's hard to look at, actually. And it shows this almost beastial sadness of a woman engulfing the body of her dead child. And it's something that you need to see and it's difficult to do so, but it's a level of emotional in-touchiness that I'm not sure a man would be capable of, especially that dynamic between a woman and their child.Another example of one of the most influential artists, both in terms of art and policy was Angelica Kauffman, who is a Swiss female painter and she was a real prodigy. And she also became one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1768, one of only two women. And she was making statements about the policy of the Royal Academy, even as a member of it. For a very long time at salons and academies, women were not permitted to paint nude figures, and that prevented them from having access to accurate training for representing the body.And it was considered untoward for them to paint a naked man. And naked women models were often prostitutes before really the 19th century where professional modeling came in, and they simply weren't permitted to do so. And she played little games with this. She painted some murals for the Royal Academy and she joked that the only woman allowed in the nude painting studio was the one that she had painted on the ceiling.And then we also have the female gaze and we need to also be frank that women are allowed to have a sexualized dynamic to their gaze as much as men are. And there's a painting of a woman looking at the front of the famous Belvedere torso, which is a nude, hugely muscular torso that is all that remains of a statue of Hercules.And we can imagine that the woman is enjoying looking at the front of it with the naughty bits and all the muscles, but we only see it from the back. But, so sometimes you can slip in these subversive elements and shift the power towards the female gaze and empower women through creating art by women, understanding women's perspective.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with art history professor Noah Charney. He's the author of a new book titled, “Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art” and we've been discussing this book. So before the break, you were talking about how women have influenced the way that female bodies are portrayed or female subjects are portrayed.And I had some other questions related that. Would you say that there's such a thing as, for example, a woman's or a female view of the natural world or of a landscape?

NC: That's a very good question, and I'm not sure I thought about it yet in those terms. That's why I love doing interviews like these, because you just get my brain bubbling.

GR: (laughter)

NC: You know, it's too easy, I think it's too facile to say that women are better in touch with their emotions. And so emotional themes, particularly to do with parenting, are likely to be created differently from a woman's perspective.I want to say that's not the case, but I think it sometimes is and you have paintings by like Berthe Morisot or Mary Cassatt, two female impressionists, and they are particularly renowned for their paintings of women with their babies. And it's a subject matter that men would be less likely to turn to and also less likely to handle in a sensitive way.We also have, you know, landscape paintings are paintings of animals by Rose Bonhur, who was a very influential female French painter who created huge large scale paintings of landscapes with animals in them, including of horses or cattle. So part of it may be a willingness on the part of women to look at subject matter that wasn't considered as, I want to say, cool, for lack of a better term, to paint.Men were more focused on, you know, of course, you have historically religious paintings and mythology or history painting, which is battle scenes and kings and what not, and the quieter, more thoughtful pieces, genre painting would have perhaps appealed less and you have very rarely women doing this. What was considered the most desirable commissions which were history, paintings, religious and mythological, and focusing more on things like domestic scenes, which I think they're better empowered to paint.That might be one example. So I try to avoid the clichés, but I do think that there's nothing wrong with women being able to handle subject matters related to women in a more sensitive way than perhaps more interestingly than men would.

GR: You may have just spoken to this, but I was also wondering whether you could say the same things about representations of the social world. And I think that you just alluded to that was talking about what kinds of scenes might be painted. Do you have any brief further thoughts on that aspect, the social world?

NC: Sure. Yeah, the social world, a lot of it depends on whether a work was commissioned or whether it was made on spec by the artist out of passion or with the idea to sell it. So historically, nothing was created, sculptures or paintings that were not commissioned because the raw materials were prohibitively expensive. Then when you get to the 19th century in particular, starting in the 18th, but in the 19th, you start to get artists who are creating works with the expectation that they'll find a market for it, but they haven't been specifically commissioned to do so.And you get some social commentary that's quite sensitive. Some of it's sardonic, like Hogarth’s, “The Rakes Progress” or Jan Steen paintings of people parting outside a country inn. You get (Henri de) Toulouse-Lautrec painting prostitutes, but with a very sensitive approach, not objectifying them, seeing them as humans. Maybe one that I would mention that I think is incredibly strong and maybe the first great work of what we would call identity art today, at the timeit would not have been called as such, is the 1923 self-portrait by Romaine Brooks. It shows her wearing men's clothing, a top hat, a walking stick, a white collared shirt, dressed as if she's a gentleman about to go out on the town. And this may not seem like much today, but back in 1923 that was really making a bold statement and it's showcasing herself and saying, this is who I am, toying with gender roles and sort of confronting the viewer who in almost all cases would be a male viewer with questions about gender identity, sexuality and all these things.So I think hats off to someone who really founded a concept that we only really started to talk about in the last few years.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Noah Charney. He’s the author of, “Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art”. So maybe I should have started my interview with this, but there's a big obvious question about this project, and you address it head on in a preliminary note at the beginning of your book.And I'm just going to read from your note here. “When I first proposed this book to my longtime editor, I admitted to feeling somewhat sheepish, being a Caucasian middle class male, writing a book about women in art.” Well, I'm less sure about how you being white middle class creates an issue for this topic that's probably for another program.But certainly being male raises some questions about this. So how does that question get resolved for you?

NC: Well, for me, it was really a question of whether there was a book that hadn't been written yet on this subject that I felt very strongly about. And if it hadn't been written yet, then I might as well be the one to try for it. So when I started to research this, many years ago now, there were almost no books that you could find about women and their influence in the story of art.There were some encyclopedic books about women artists. There are individual monographs about female artists like Frida Kahlo or Georgia O'Keeffe, but there were relatively few books about women in general and their role in the story of art. Since the book came out, or rather about a year before the book came out, there started to be more of them and I like that this is a trend that other people are hopping on. But most of the books that are available now are about female artists, and that's great and very important. My goal is to create something that's sort of a one stop shop to cover all aspects, a 360 degree look about how women have influenced the story of art.And I haven't seen that in any of the books available. There are some very important ones about aspects of it, like, “The Story of Art Without Men” by Kate Hessel is about great female artists. We have Whitney Chadwick's seminal book, which has been published in many editions about, “Women, Art and Society” (book title). But essentially taking those two, putting them together and looking at the other ways that women could influence art beyond picking up a chisel or paintbrush, that's something that I hadn't seen.So I figured, you know, I'd rather do it, even if maybe theoretically it would be better if a woman had taken it up. But you know, what you left out of that quote that my editor said to me is that you don't have to be Egyptian to write about Egyptology. And my goal is, I'm hugely sympathetic, I’m trying to be empowering in the writing and I hope that empowered feeling is what comes across when you finish reading it.

GR: We've got about 3 minutes left, and I want to try to squeeze a couple, just two questions in if I can before we have to stop. And the first one is, and this is where I may know enough to be a little dangerous, I don't know, but I've got, I've got one 1,000th of your expertize in art, but it is an interest of mine and I took several art history courses in college. And one of the things that I've always puzzled over is the relationship between art and politics. And I tended to see sort of politics influencing art. And one of my art history professors tended to see it more in terms of art influencing politics. I mean, that's a huge question,but, you know, in a minute or so, do you have any thoughts about that?

NC: Well, I mean, whether or not you're dealing with women, art can influence politics, but it's often doing one of two things. If it's institutional, commissioned by, you know, the man, the people who are running the show, whether that's the clergy or aristocracy, then it's promoting whatever their message is and it has a propagandistic aspect. But it is still influential because it's visual, not written.So you don't even have to be literate to be able to be confronted with it and engage with it. And it's a propaganda machine. Then we also have subversive element, where rarely is the artist the first one to come up with a subversive idea but the artwork can pass on that idea in a way that makes people think about it more deeply.So I would say that the artists themselves are rarely the ones leading the charge, but they can often have the enduring relic of the idea whether that's in favor of the powers that be, and that’s propaganda, or whether it's something subversive.

GR: I love that phrase, the enduring relic of the idea.

NC: I should write that down.

GR: Yeah, I'm going to too, and I will give you credit for it (laughter). So my last question, we just have a few seconds left, has this book that you've just done led you to consider telling the story of other historically disadvantaged or less seen kinds of artists?

NC: It actually has, but it led me to tell the story for, I just started working on one that is historically advantaged but nobody's told the story yet. The next book I'm working on is called, “The Art of Fatherhood”, and it's about how fathers have been depicted in various art forms from literature to the Bible to film to paintings and sculptures. And that's the patriarchy, literally, but there's no book about that specifically, so that's the next one I'm turning to.

GR: That sounds fascinating. We’re going to have to have you back on when that one comes out, looking forward to it.

NC: I’d love that.

GR: Unfortunately, that's all the time we have, I could speak to you for hours. That was Noah Charney and again, his new book is titled, “Brushed Aside: The Untold Story of Women in Art”. Professor Charney, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, really enjoyed this.

NC: Thanks so much, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Senator Karen KeiserProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is a senator in Washington State, Karen Keiser. Senator Keiser is currently the president pro tempore of that chamber and chairs the Labor and Commerce Committee. The Democrat represents a suburban district south of Seattle. Prior to serving in the state legislature, Senator Keiser was the communications director for a chapter of the AFL-CIO and also a television journalist. She's with me today because she has recently published a book titled, “Getting Elected is the Easy Part: Working and Winning in the State Legislature”. Senator Keiser, welcome to the program.

Karen Keiser: Thank you so much. It's very, very nice to be with you.

GR: Well, we're glad that you could make the time to be with us. So let me just start with the title, “Getting Elected Is the Easy Part”. In my career as a political scientist, I've spent a lot of time watching and speaking with candidates. And to me, at least, it seems like getting elected can be very hard, especially in a purple district.So tell me what message about politics and the legislature that your title is intended to convey.

KK: Right. Well, it's a little bit of a joke, but it's also the fact that we spend so much time, energy and money on getting elected and so little time on getting prepared to be a good lawmaker. And to becoming someone who can have what we call, “policy chops” to get stuff done. So you get elected, you come into a legislative body with the wind at your back thinking you're going to change the world overnight.Well, that doesn't happen, right? The next thing that happens is sort of cynicism or discouragement sets in. And a few years later, they sort of wander away. Now, if you're going to spend all that time or money getting elected and you're going to have all those advocates lined up to help you, and then you wander away and do something else after four or five years, that's a total waste of talent and effort.So it was my goal to encourage urge new lawmakers that get elected to know that there's a whole lot of stuff they can do, but they need to know how to work it and how to make it happen. And there's a lot of learning to happen. You don't just learn it overnight. It's kind of slow and steady.

GR: Well, your book has lots of great advice. And also, I think to the general reader, a lot of inside insights into how the place works. So let me ask you this though, I was very curious to hear your answer to this. You came in as a former broadcast journalist, and, as I said before, a communications director for an interest group.So you obviously come into this political world with a lot of knowledge and understanding, you've been a close observer of it. So I'm curious, as a candidate, let's take candidate first and then we'll get there as an elected official. But as a candidate running for office, what most surprised you, despite your previous knowledge, talking to these people?

KK: Well, I tell you, I never had run for office before. I had put my name on the ballot to become a precinct committee officer. But that was about it. The first election I had and I was in a purple district at that time, and the Republicans were in control of our Washington State House at that time. So my first election was tough and I think I won by less than two points, and it was hard fought. And I'll tell you, the most important thing I learned was talking to real people at their doorstep and hearing what they had to tell you about their neighborhood and what you learned about their neighborhood walking around it was extraordinarily important. It's just an intuition and grounding that you get just by that one on one conversation, it’s so important.

GR: Yeah, I've had the same impression watching, it's interesting that you say that. And then, so after you're elected and you start to serve, what is the thing about the legislature that most surprised you? Just, you weren't expecting to have to learn?

KK: Well, you know, I walked into that legislature with a lot of hubris because, yes, I had been a reporter, I had covered the legislature as a reporter, right? I had been in communications with the AFL-CIO. We reported on legislative issues and gone to committee hearings and so forth. So I thought I knew what I was doing and then I got elected and then I found out I didn't know anything.I needed to learn it from the ground up. And so one of the first things I learned, and I had, I believe it was a gift to be in the minority for the first few years of my career because I didn't get to do much. The Republicans in charge were out for revenge after being out of control for so long.So they didn't let any Democrats get anything done at that time. It was highly partisan right after the Newt Gingrich revolution thing. Anyway, so I was able to sit back, watch, observe and listen. And that's probably the most valuable lessons I've learned is to find out what people were, where they were really coming from, not what they were saying.

GR: Hmm. And as far as the way legislatures work, your book really lays that out. What do you think are the most important things about the working of a state legislature that the public doesn't know and or doesn't fully appreciate that you'd want to share with our listeners?

KK: Well, it really is like making sausage, that's an apt comparison. You know, it is mushing and mashing and grinding and flavoring, all of the pieces of the meat that you're going to end up with. So it is a slow process. That's one thing people don't really understand between the hearings, the committees, the gatekeepers, getting out of one chamber into a second chamber, getting out of both chambers, getting the governor to find something that he might want to veto because it has something in there that might upset him.All of those pieces have to be strategized and you have to think ahead. You can't just walk in and think, I'm going to have this wonderful hearing and people are going to testify. It's going to be wonderful. And think you've done your job. That's just setting the stage. There's so many steps to go after that. And that's what people learn slowly sometimes because it is a complicated process.And it's intentionally complicated because the vast majorities of bills that are introduced, die. They don’t (unintelligible) passed. And it always amuses me that in the first part of a legislative session that the public and the news media always report on bills that are introduced. Like, that's a big damn deal, ha! It's the very first baby step.

GR: It's interesting, I had some training in political philosophy. And there's a quote from this German philosopher, Max Weber, that what you are saying reminds me of, and that his definition of politics was the slow boring of hard boards.

KK: (laugher) That’s so appropriate! It took me 20 years, 20 years virtually, to get our state Paid Family and Medical Leave bill passed and into law. It was a very difficult, I actually passed it twice. The first time, then the Great Recession hit so got set aside and we had to start all over again. But it is a very slow, difficult process and if you don't persevere and maintain your intention and your goal, you won't get it done.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Washington State Senator Karen Keiser. She's the author of, “Getting Elected Is the Easy Part: Working and Winning in the State Legislature”. So is that family leave law that you just mentioned, would you regard that as your biggest accomplishment or success so far as an individual legislator?

KK: I'm not sure. It's really been a very popular program, and it was implemented during the pandemic and was incredibly helpful to tens of thousands of families. But getting, I worked very closely with the federal government on getting what was called Obamacare passed and pulling that end as well. I was health co-chair at the time and we worked very closely with the White House and with our congressional delegations to get that done.That was kind of the last time we were able to do that kind of coordination. And that was huge because we reduced our un-insurance rate for health care from 16% to 5%. So that was amazing. But then just two years ago, I was really thrilled to be able to pass overtime pay for farm workers. We have a large agricultural industry in our state.And as you probably know, Grant, way back in the 1930’s, the federal government excluded farm workers at the insistence of the southern Senators from the Fair Labor Standards Act. So they didn't get overtime, they didn't get any of the basic safety net labor standards. So it's, we're able at the state level, and we need to learn this lesson in all of our state legislatures to thread needles to get around some of our federal limits.We've done this on minimum wage, for example. We can do it on overtime, ee can do it on non-disclosure contracts as long as it's a contract issue that you're dealing with. It's all kinds of technical things. You can really make real change.

GR: Yeah. It's interesting that you brought that last piece of legislation up. Washington State a little bit ahead of New York on that, because New York just went through that decision to include the agricultural laborers and that has been very controversial. And you can imagine the dynamics between the downstate and the upstate where the upstate relies on that.

KK: That’s right, we have eastern and western, same problem.

GR: That's right. Yes, that's right. There's a book I'm going to blank on the name of the author, but the author (David Guterson) also wrote, “Snow Falling on Cedars” about the state of Washington. And makes a lot about that ridge of the Cascades dividing east and west, yeah.

KK: It's a beautiful book.

GR: Yeah. So, okay, those are the good things, right? So what have been your biggest disappointments or failures?

KK: I don't dwell on failures, but I have had my face plants, I'll tell you. One was, this was a really strange thing, I thought hairdressers should get, should be treated as employees, hairstylists should be treated as employees and earn things like unemployment insurance and worker compensation coverage and all of the other things that come with being an employee, health insurance and so forth.But we have a law in our state that allows hairdressers to purchase a chair in a salon, and then they become their own employee, their own independent contractor, if you would. And they have persuaded themselves that that independence is more important. So when we had a hearing on the bill, I had a thousand hairdressers just show up to protest (laughter) and they were stretched out, you know, into the parking lot.It was really something to hear. And of course, the entire hearing was them opposing my bill (laughter).

GR: So that one, that one didn't go anywhere, I take it.

KK: Oh, lots of bills don't go anywhere, as I said. And I think also one of your jobs is to provoke, to put forward the issue. So you provoke questions and questioning. I put forward a bill a couple of years ago to require that all internships be paid at least the minimum wage. Oh, well, listen, here's an issue.Do you know that we have all of our health professions as requiring people with degrees in nursing or whatever to have clinical hours? That means working on the job. It's a very valuable thing to do, but they don't get paid for it. In fact, they have to pay tuition to do it. The same with teaching, do you know that teachers go through their college, get their degree then they have to do student teaching.They don't get paid for that either. So when I open that box and sort of saw the incredible extent to which we are depending on unpaid labor for our professional training, I was shocked and appalled. But I realized this could not be changed in a year.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Washington State Senator Karen Keiser. She's the president pro tempore of that body and she chairs the Labor and Commerce Committee there. She's also the author of, “Getting Elected Is the Easy Part: Working and Winning in the State Legislature” and we've been discussing her book.So you alluded to this, I think, a little bit earlier in our conversation, but I want to ask you a direct question about it. Political polarization, that is the, you know, the drawing apart of the two parties and that having a rigid line between them, the lack of cooperation across the aisle, the lack of even conversations across the aisle.It's arguably our deepest political challenge, I think, in recent decades for us as a nation. And for a long time, state and local offices seem to be less affected by that than the national political scene. But that seems to be changing or have changed, really. And I wanted to ask you about your experience about that, political polarization as you've experienced it in Washington State and have you seen it change since you were first elected to the State House back in 1996?

KK: Well, as I said Grant, when I was first elected, it was just after the Newt Gingrich Contract on America thing, and there was great animosity and polarization at that time. It was really harsh. And it had, when I when I contributed my work in the House, that the House chamber seems to have a much more rigid approach in terms of partisan alignment, maybe because many more members in the House generally, and you have caucuses that really depend on having discipline and people falling into line.And when I got over to the Senate, there's a real difference in culture between the two chambers. In my experience in the Senate, it is considered a virtue to try and get some bipartisan support. And it is not easy, but it is an effort and it works in the end. Because we have become more of a blue state than we used to be.We used to flip back and forth in our chambers, but I've been in the minority three times and in the majority three times. So you want to have relationships with people across the aisle because you don't know after the next election where you're going to be exactly. So there's that, don't have the hubris to think you're going to be in the majority all your life.And secondly, we've found that when you pass things on a simply partisan basis, it's possible that they will be repealed in the future. And in fact, and you've brought this up in your book, we currently in this political season have, I believe, five initiatives coming forward to repeal several bills that we passed in the last three or four years, including our Climate Commitment Act and it is going to be difficult. In the past, initiatives have been more proactive about things like raising the minimum wage or providing other benefits. This one is on repealing legislative action, which has a suite of initiatives that were bought and paid for by a very, very millionaire deep pocket advocate. And he paid for the signatures and he got the signatures to the ballot.And we're going to have to deal with the issues that he's bringing forward again.

GR: Often on those the names of those initiatives are intentionally misleading.

KK: Very misleading and very simple. Initiatives are bad law generally, they’re very poorly written and often have to be changed. But politicians are very leery of initiatives.

GR: So you've got a chapter in your book on compromise without compromising on values. We do hear that phrase a lot from elected officials. So convince me that this isn't only a slogan. Because it might seem that compromising to get something necessarily involves giving up something of what you value in order to get a deal at all.

KK: There's several different methods. Okay, fundamentally, I come out of a background where I negotiated union contracts, right? And union contracts are very similar in some ways. You want to come out of it with a win-win for everybody because you want the company to survive and you want your members to be better off. So that's going after something on a win-win basis as opposed to a zero sum basis and that's just a style of negotiating. Now to get there, generally, I find that you need to have some things to give away, which means your original bill has to have some items that you will work, you know you could give away. So always know your bottom line, know where you can give and where you have to walk away.And that's my fundamental approach to negotiating, and it's been pretty successful over time, but I had to learn it by doing.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Washington State Senator Karen Keiser. What different kinds, if you can name them or describe them, what different kinds of ambitions have you encountered from your colleagues as an elected official? And are there any kinds of ambitions that you think are dangerous to the system?

KK: Well, I don't like to categorize people too much. So, I would just say that some people come to a legislative body as a stepping stone in a game plan, and it may be a political game plan or it may be a professional game plan, but it's not viewed as an avocation or as a profession. It's viewed as a stepping stone to some other goal.And people realize after not very long that you're just in their way. So that's one ambition that I've seen. But I will also say the vast majority of legislators on both sides of the aisle are really in it because they care about their communities. They really care to make things better for the people that they represent.I will say some of them have a very narrow view of who they represent and maybe come from a very, very limited perspective. But one of the great things about legislatures are you meet people from all over who have different perspectives. Your jaw drops sometimes, I never will forget being told that requiring lifejackets when a kid is in a boat is an interference of parental rights.I was absolutely stunned at that assertion. That was beyond my comprehension. But that was one of our members and you had to work with her.

GR: I have a right to have my child drown (laughter).

KK: Yeah, exactly. And so, you do, your eyes wide and your jaw drops to the floor and you can't believe what you're hearing. But you then have to think about that because they're coming from somewhere that you've never been.

GR: Right. Yeah, it's interesting. So, now you've got a chapter in your book on balancing work and family life. And you mentioned this earlier, and thank you for the shout out, I wrote a book on state legislators in different states a while back and I found that that challenge was really huge for many of them. Just that's one of the things that surprised me was just how much they struggled with this and is not only the toll that the service that they were in, public service took on their family life in terms of time and commitments and so on, but also on their financial situation, because in most states, state and local legislators aren't paid very much, they're not as heavily professionalized as they are in other states and even in New York here. This is one of the states that's got the highest pay for state legislators in the country. Most of those folks would earn more and other jobs if they were in other jobs with their skill sets and their resume. So it often involves taking a pay cut. So tell me a bit of what you think about this challenge, what you've learned about it, concerns that you have about these kinds of issues.

KK: Well, it's a huge barrier I'm sorry to say, to so many people who could be wonderful lawmakers because they cannot afford to take a pay cut. Or most legislatures in our country, state legislatures are part time jobs. And even though they're part time in a session level, they're really not that part time. You work when you're out of session as well and your pay is part time. So it's very difficult for anybody who is not independently wealthy or having a spouse that supports them or having a job that they can keep and go to the legislature. I was so lucky to have an employer who allowed me to take unpaid leave while I was either campaigning or in the legislature or doing legislative work. And by not having to quit my job and take just a legislative salary, I could not have afforded to do that. I had three kids, I was a single mom, I couldn't do that. And most people have to figure that out before they take the plunge. This is very important for them to think about, because you're going to have to pay for daycare when you're campaigning and when you're in the legislature and all that kind of thing. But you don't have any benefits to take care of that except for a part time salary. You need to have a support system that can be dependent on. It doesn't have to be a spouse, it doesn't have to be a parent. It can be friends and other acquaintances that you can count on back home in your district. The other the other piece is not just financial, but it's also mental because you spend so much of your waking hours working on puzzling out problems or working on finding solutions or going to events because you have to make appearances. You know, I haven't had a 4th of July or Labor Day off in 20 years. And so you miss a lot of family time in that and it just has to be accommodated somehow. I used to take, I used to have a rule to basically take a month off in sometime in August or early September and just be. And I think that's a little bit of balance there. But it's a tough job and you have to think ahead to figure out how to do it. It is actually a barrier for people who, like I said, don't have, come from a secure background economically and don't have a secure situation with their family. I ended up getting divorced because I just couldn't balance it all. And I thought, well, I'll be a good mom but I wasn't a very good wife.

GR: I've heard I've heard those stories a lot from legislators. Well, we've got only about 2 minutes left or so, but I want to try to squeeze in two more questions, if I can. The first one is, your book was written, and you're open and honest about this, your book was written from your own experiences and perspectives as a liberal or progressive Democratic member of the state legislature. And oftentimes, I think as I'm reading it, it seems like you're kind of speaking to those folks primarily, not exclusively, but primarily so I just wanted to get you, if you could briefly tell me, because I have one final thing I want to ask you, but briefly, what value for a more conservative or moderate reader is going to be found in this book?

KK: Well, I think that the making of sausage is universal. What party you depend on or belong to doesn't matter. The process is the process and you're going to have to go through every step of that process, whichever way you go in terms of your political leanings. And I think the human reality is also something that is really beyond partisanship, which is you learn from other people that have different perspectives. And I have to admit, I learned from people who come from the Republican side of the aisle. And I hope that Republicans learn from the people on the Democratic side of the aisle, too. If you close your mind and your ears to learning, you might as well just hang it up.

GR: I think what you just said in my own view is one of the biggest problems with political polarization right now is that it does cause that closing of the mind to happen, unfortunately. So just about half a minute left. Final bottom line question for you, is politics still a noble profession?

KK: I don't know that it ever was a noble profession, but I do think that it is in danger right now that the public disdain and the sort of honest skepticism about politics is something we've always had in our country. But what I am getting very concerned about is this dark cynicism, which does seem to pervade almost all conversations now.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. We didn't have that dark cynicism in our conversation, though, on a note which I'm glad. That was Karen Keiser and again, her new book is titled, “Getting Elected Is the Easy Part: Working and Winning in the State Legislature”. Senator Keiser, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really enjoyed this.

KK: Thank you very much, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Mark MolinaroProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is New York Congressman Marc Molinaro. The Republican was elected in November 2022 to represent the 19th District, a large geographic area that spans from Ithaca in the West to the Massachusetts border in the East and includes the city of Binghamton in the Southwest. Congressman Molinaro previously served as Dutchess County Executive and prior to that served in the New York State Assembly. And before all that, he was elected as mayor of the town of Tivoli at the age of 19. Along the way, he's been a Republican candidate for the governor of New York State. And he's appeared previously on this program. Congressman Molinaro, welcome back to the program. It's good to see you again.

Marc Molinaro: Glad to be with you again, Grant. And you've covered the obligatory one time calling me Congressman rule. Now it's Marc, just Marc.

GR: (laughter) Well, I don't know, I'll try.

MM: Please do.

GR: (laughter) Okay. Well, we have a lot to discuss and we'll kind of cover the waterfront today. But the last time that you and I spoke, you talked about, you know, you were kind of just getting going, and you talked about your interest in issues surrounding mental health and substance abuse treatment.So I wanted to start by asking you to share with our listeners what kinds of things you've been doing on that, what's been going on those fronts?

MM: I'm glad you asked. You know, I probably said something like and still believe, if our health care system in this country is in crisis, our mental health system is on life support. And I think that's fair. And we've seen certainly an increase in the acknowledgment and recognition of mental wellness as a concern and certainly a rise in the challenges people with mental wellness face.And so, you know, this is a, the 19th district of New York, the eleven counties of upstate New York is a really good test case, an example for the challenges we face. Too many people don't have access, ready access to services. And so expanding access to community based mental health services in communities like ours. So you have you know, you have a progressive community like Ithaca and you have a rural county like Chenango.You have student centers like the ones in Cortland and hills and mountains of Delaware County. And I say that in that, no matter where you live in communities like ours, getting the access and support you need if you're living with mental wellness issues is truly a challenge. So first, it's creating the connection. You know, the federal government rolled out 988,it was once referred to as the suicide hotline. I'm grateful that we've remarketed, rebranded. It is a mental health hotline. It's available, 988 available, you'll be connected no matter what challenge you might be faced with a mental health professional. But here's the problem. Unlike 911, when you dial 911, the FCC has a relationship and cell phone providers particularly have agreed to route those 911 calls to your geographic location.So they triangulate based on those cell towers, now we're getting wonky, and you get to your local 911 dispatcher. 988 is different. Even though the FCC had the resources and the dollars to move this forward a year ago, we're still in the stages where the technology reroutes you based on your area code. And so if you're calling and you're a student in Ithaca or Cortland, or you're by the way, somebody has moved from maybe my end of the district to your end of the district, you're routed to the service center that your area code is associated with it.So there may not be a local connection. Good professional people, but not able to say the campus student services center is available to you, the Binghamton Mental Wellness, you know, et cetera, is available to you. And so we're pushing the FCC, I'm leading the charge to push the FCC to move more aggressively to get that to happen. We fought and we're working pretty hard with our friends in Broome County and in Sullivan County.I think I talked about this, in my previous experience as a county executive, 12 years responsible for overseeing a whole host of things, including community based mental health. My home county launched what is now the most comprehensive, community based mental health infrastructure of any county in the country. And it is the model that New York State is trying to get counties like Broome and Cortland and others, Tompkins, to invest in. And so we're trying to direct some federal resources to Broome County to open a veterans mental health service center, service center for veterans. And we're working with Sullivan County to try to launch a stabilization center, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to provide direct access.And that leaves nine more counties that we're working with one after another to try to expand access to those resources. I truly believe that by investing in mental wellness and mental health, you're not only helping the individual, but societally, more, even broadly, you're confronting a lot of other of our challenges from substance use disorder to those who are criminally involved to just general public health.And in many cases, mental health leads to better physical health. And all of those things can be benefited by expanding access.

GR: And you've also got, I believe, an initiative to try to change the way people think about those with mental health issues called, “Think Differently”. And say a little bit about that.

MM: Well, I'll be careful not to correct you, but to correct you, right?

GR: Go ahead.

MM: So the Think Differently initiative is focused on those with intellectual, physical and developmental disabilities.

GR: Okay.

MM: It’s okay. But there are there are many links. And in fact, I'd offer to you those, and you'll appreciate this, those in particular who are neurodivergent do end up with significant mental wellness concerns that are often undiagnosed.And so creating the stabilization centers like the one we created in my home county, my former home county, Dutchess. I’m living in green, beautiful Catskill, New York. And so in that situation, we trained our professionals to be aware and alert for those living with disabilities and the connection to mental health. But Think Differently is now a nationally recognized initiative meant to change the way in which we think and support those with intellectual developmental disabilities, breaking down barriers and creating opportunities.And let me just mention, you know, where this is a priority for me. If you ask most people to list the top ten things they're concerned about, perhaps services and support for those with disabilities isn't on your list unless you have a family member with a disability and then it's number one, because it is all consuming. Ask a politician what's on the top ten,they may not have it on their list. Some may get to it sooner or later. For me, it's well within our top ten. It's likely a little bit higher than that because this is a population, these are friends and neighbors who need a voice and need a champion. And so we had two successful Think Differently field days.These were an opportunity in the district to connect individuals with disabilities with service providers. I've introduced a number of Think Differently bills, a whole package of bills, everything from ensuring that emergency responders are aware of and have tools to respond to individuals with disabilities in the case of an emergency, to improving ADA compliance by the nation's largest rail provider, Amtrak.And so and everything in between and several of those bills are moving forward. I expect, in fact, one of them to come to the floor as soon as next week and we continue to expand. (The) Down Syndrome Diagnosis Act to be sure that those with young children who are diagnosed with Down syndrome have access to the supports their health insurance might provide, so on and so on.And what I'll tell you is, because you'll appreciate this as much as I do, when you're talking about mental wellness or issues related to those with disabilities, this isn't partisan. Nobody is fighting left or right. It's just is this your priority or not? And I've been blessed to work with tremendous community leaders and service providers around the district and wonderful Republican and Democrat leadership in both Washington and Albany to move these policies forward.

GR: Well, I appreciate your correction at the outset. Because of some of my family experiences and experiences that you and I share, I tend to lump all those things into one pot when I'm thinking about them, but it is important to separate them out. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with first term Congressman Marc Molinaro, who represents New York's 19th congressional district.Well, obviously since we last talked, there's been a lot that's gone on in the House of Representatives, perhaps the biggest thing has to do with the speaker.

MM: Yeah.

GR: You've got a new speaker, Mike Johnson. What are your early impressions of him as a leader of the House?

MM: Yeah, so I worked very hard to express to my colleagues that we have to deliver and we're not going to deliver for the people we serve, I'm not going to get the priorities that upstate New York has to the floor and federal government response if we were going to spend weeks in hallways trying to pick who the next speaker is. And I'll let you know, like most voters, my frustrations got the better of me.And I sort of spoke and said the things that many of my constituents are saying every day, which is, you’ve got to get the job done, you’ve got to get back to work. And we care deeply, we voters, we neighbors of upstate New York, care deeply about public safety and immigration and mental health and substance use, natural resource protection,so get back on the floor and get to work. And so I tell people, you know, we should be judged in part for those three weeks. I think it was a mistake certainly to oust the speaker. You had eight Republicans and every Democrat of the House vote to oust the speaker of the House. I just think it's a mistake that should not have occurred and it's something that should never be repeated.Mike Johnson, when I met with him and I'll tell you, I met with him and had a real deep heart to heart conversation before his name finally came to the floor in our conference meetings about making sure members like me and districts like ours are going to be listened to. And that's for me what matters. You know, the person who holds the gavel has some weight.But if that person is going to listen to us upstate New Yorkers who know too often what it's like to be ignored by federal and state government officials, if we're going to have a seat at the table, that's important to me. And sort of symbolically, he asked me to serve on the Escort Committee to help him, introduce him to the House, his very first days as a speaker.And even now, tomorrow we're going be sitting down, I'll be representing members like me and voters like the ones and neighbors like the ones I represent in a very important conversation about a future appropriations to support Israel, the consideration of concerns in Ukraine, border security. And so having a seat at the table is what's important because again, our voters deserve to have their voices heard and he's guaranteeing us an opportunity.

GR: Well, that's interesting to hear. And I do want to come back to both Israel and Ukraine a little bit later. But let me ask you another question about Johnson as speaker. You've already kind of alluded to this in different ways, but there have been some concerns expressed about him looking at his background and his career in the House up to the moment where he became speaker.And I think it's fair to say, and you said when you were talking about members like you, you know, you were distinguishing, I think, someone who's more to the middle than where he's been in his past. And just a couple examples here. As an attorney, for example, he argued for the criminalization of homosexuality, and as a House member, he contested the 2020 election results.You know, you're obviously a bit on the more moderate side. Do those kind of things worry you? I mean, it sounds like you feel at this point anyway, pretty reassured that that he's going to be inclusive and how he handles things.

MM: Well, he should be judged by his previous actions and how they will or will not apply now as a speaker. So, what you may have done as an individual member and voted as an individual member has to be tempered by the concept that as speaker, which is what he assured us, is that you got to build the coalitions, the consensus necessary move legislation. But of course, he should be judged for those things, as I should be judged for my opposition to some of those things. And so what I tell people is, just as, by the way, what I could have accomplished as a county executive, I have to now be judged on what I can accomplish as a member of Congress, they’re different roles and I think he understands that and I'm assured that he understands that. And so that's important, but I want to reassert, you know, I believe that the people I serve, you know, your neighbors and my neighbors, we truly know what it's like to be ignored by big business and employers leaving. We know what it's like to be overlooked by state officials because they're more concerned about the votes downstate. I want to be sure, regardless of who the speaker of the House is, that your voice is heard. And I have received that assurance both verbally and in action. And by the way, again, in a close majority like ours, our votes matter. And so here's an example, the Agriculture Appropriation bill, the budget for agriculture policy in this country had a provision that would have prohibited over the counter mailing of over the counter birth control pills. What does that have to do with agriculture policy? Nothing. And so I objected. And it is not moving forward and it will not move forward without readdressing those issues. And so, you know, I think, again, it's not a reflection on him. It's just this House is run by the people. And the people are you and your voices need to be heard. And he's assured me both by action and word that those voices, my voice is going to be at the table.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Republican Congressman Marc Molinaro. He was elected in November of 2022 to represent New York's 19th congressional district. One of the things that the new speaker we were talking about, the new speaker before the break, one of the things that he will have to negotiate successfully which is going to be difficult, is the budget. And we're operating currently, the government is operating under another continuing resolution. The provisions of those resolutions are set to expire in January and in February. What do you think the prospects are for a successful negotiation of the budget that's going to be more permanent, that's going to get us out of that cycle of continuing resolutions?

MM: Well, let's be clear that we have a marriage of three, the House, the Senate and the president. And I wanted to offer you is everyone sees things just a little bit differently. And so the burden of this is not entirely on one House nor one branch, but all of us to find consensus. And so I will say that I worked aggressively to have a process that would move forward individual appropriations bills, up or down. Agriculture bill, I couldn't support, hasn't moved. Labor bill, which would have too much impact on the most vulnerable in our communities, I couldn't support, isn’t moving forward. National defense is, homeland security is. And so what I'd offer to you is that the House has adopted about 90% of the federal budget. Our bills are adopted waiting for the Senate. The Senate I think is about halfway there, 45%, and we are now in the midst of negotiations. What I spoke of earlier in fact tomorrow whenever your listeners hear this, it may have been yesterday by then but nevertheless, I'll be part of negotiation, speaking up for pragmatic members like us and upstate New Yorkers like we are. And so that process is ongoing, we can negotiate forward, but it is important that we respect taxpayers. We cannot continue to borrow way our kids’ future, the federal government continue to spend money it doesn't have. But at the same time, we need to balance that against the need to be responsible to taxpayers and constituents, the American people rely on services we provide. And finding that sweet spot, that balance is really what I'm focused on. And I'll tell you, it's how we got the debt ceiling agreement, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which does, by the way, save $2 trillion in taxpayer money while at the same time being respectful of the fact that you can't just arbitrarily gut the budget without actually focusing on how you deliver services. And so these are the kinds of challenges that we face. But I'm confident we're making some good progress. I think that the continuing resolution, which got bipartisan support in both houses, speaks to the capacity to reach those agreements and the American people demand it. We have a bipartisan government by design or default, we need bipartisan solutions and that's what I'm focused on.

GR: And aid for Ukraine and aid for Israel and also thinking about the war in Israel more broadly. But those are both going to be part of the budget agenda. What are your views on aiding Israel and aiding Ukraine and also on the idea of treating and voting on those two things separately versus doing them together?

MM: Well, let me offer, generally my perspective is that America needs to continue to assert its leadership in the world and that leadership isn't based merely on strategic interests, but also on the advancement of individual liberty. The concept that everyone should enjoy the same God given rights that we protect or seek to protect here in this country. And that's needs to be balanced against the concern, which I share, that we cannot continue to enter into every conflict without an exit strategy, because there's just no capacity to do that and we don't want to further and put at risk America's servicemen and women when that is unnecessary to do so and so those are the bookends. I think in the case of, so in both cases, we're going to evaluate a Ukraine and an Israel supplemental. That actually is what will likely happen in the next 30 days. And I think that there needs to be oversight, accountability and some degree of certainty as to the mission in Ukraine so that we don't end up in a in a ceaseless battle. But in the same respect America needs to assert itself as a way of showing that to China and other aggressors like Putin and others that we're just not merely going to allow folks to take illegal and warlike actions in this world. So oversight accountability is important. Exit and sort of mission accomplished strategy is important and that's what really I'm going to ask to try to address. As it relates to Israel, we have a fundamental obligation to stand with Israel. And I understand, to a degree, the concerns that everyone has. But no, no one in the world is a more important ally to us than Israel. It's as simple as that, not just in the Middle East, but in the world. And because of that relationship we established in the 1940’s, we believe then as we do now, Israel is the embodiment of not only democratic principles, but human principles in the Middle East. And what we saw was a vile terrorist strike against innocent people. And in response to that, Israel has the right and in some case the responsibility to defend itself. And in that defense, sadly, there are going to be lives lost, that shouldn't be should be discounted in any way, we care deeply about this, but this is a moment of war. And Hamas, as terrorists themselves are embedded in every aspect of the Palestinian Authority and I use that lowercase p lowercase a. But within Gaza, Hamas has been emboldened and Israel has a right and responsibility to confront it, just as we would had we been attacked in such a way. And of course, just as we did when we were attacked, in 911.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is first term Congressman Marc Molinaro. I wanted to stick with the issue of Israel here, and this may be what we'll talk about for the final part of the program. You've alluded to this, but I wanted to dig a little deeper on it. Do you have any concerns though, in Israel's response that they're being overly aggressive or too general in some of their bombing strikes? Because those criticisms have been aired in this country and certainly around the world.

MM: I am concerned about the loss of any life. I say that fundamentally, I am concerned about the loss of any life. At the same time, I recognize that Israel was attacked and in response to that attack, because no one of authority has stood up to Hamas in in Gaza. Hamas has used individuals as human shields, they've embedded themselves strategically in communities and in neighborhood where innocent individuals live. And they they've used every tool, every vile tool that they can to act out to extinguish Israel. And as many leaders, Republicans and Democrats of good, solid background will say, if Israel doesn't press for the total elimination of Hamas, Hamas will only be emboldened and likely this will continue. And so I want us to be as sensitive to that as possible. It’s why, by the way, we worked very hard to get Israeli or American citizens in Israel out. Our offices worked to get dozens of people out of Israel. And it's why, by the way, if Israel believes that this hostage exchange is in their best interest, then they should continue to press, obviously, for this exchange. But I would offer to you that every hostage that Hamas has taken needs to be returned, they all need to come home. And so the fact that Hamas is harboring women and children as hostages should in its very self, speak to the need for Israel to be strong in its response. And frankly, I think America needs to support that.

GR: And as things can change rapidly in this area, I want to remind our listeners, you and I are talking on November 29th and so things may be different by the time they hear this. I wanted to ask you now about this issue, but from the standpoint of here at home, thinking about the United States. Have you been surprised? I mean, it's still the case that a majority of the nation supports Israel. But have you been surprised by the large numbers who have expressed deep concerns and in some cases very strong criticisms over Israel's behavior? Has that surprised you?

MM: I'm surprised by the level of by which those, that opposition is fueled by what is blatant anti-Semitism. In moments of war, there are those who support and those who oppose. But in this case, there are those who oppose simply on the grounds that they are engaging in, embracing of or party to anti-Semitism. And they could suggest they're not, but they are. Israel is a democracy that protects its minorities unlike any other nation in the Middle East. It elects its leaders and its leaders represent the people that live there. There is no other Middle Eastern country that protects its minorities as Israel does. That said, the level of anti-Semitism is truly frightening. I mean, it just truly is frightening. But I also will tell you that whether it's through K-12 or college education, we're missing opportunities to remind people of the horrible experience Jews around the world lived through, not only through the Holocaust, but coming into and up to the Holocaust. And there's just far too many of America's children who think, young people who think the Holocaust is was overstated and that somehow Israel is the aggressor. We have to get back to educating people to be critical thinkers, but also to understand that the indiscriminate loss of millions of Jewish lives during the Holocaust led to this country standing shoulder to shoulder with our partners and friends in Israel. And there are just too many American Jews that are frightened. I mean, I talk to them on college campuses, I've met with them in neighborhoods. They're just frightened because of the level of hate and anger and that needs to be confronted.

GR: I've got friends who are who are very frightened. And, you know, to your point about education, I've just seen some polling that was interesting. And that's that when you break it down by age, the support for Israel almost flip flops as you get younger and I think it speaks to what you're saying there. We only got about a minute and a half or so left, but I wanted to ask you one other question about this issue. And I'm going to say, I'm going to own the observation here, but then see what you think about it. It does seem to me that there is a segment on the left of this country that very quickly, I mean, in some cases even before Israel made a response, started leveling criticisms of Israel's not only its treatment of Palestinians, but even some of them seemed to suggest that the terrorist attack was somehow deserved or, you know, the country had it coming. And I'll have to say, you know, you hear a lot of these voices at colleges and universities. There was certainly a strong one at Cornell that went way over the line in your district. So, you know, in only about a minute. Does that concern you, and one of the things I'm trying to puzzle out, and you already spoke to it is, is anti-Semitism a cause or is it sort of an effect? Do people start by having this view of Israel and then it kind of bleeds over? I mean, you know, it's really complicated. I'm only giving you a minute, I'm sorry.

MM: The shortest answer to all three of those questions is yes, it concerns me. It is both in the cause and the outcome. I mean, and the fact that some will comfortably fall or find their way to anti-Semitic feelings or thoughts should be troubling enough to all of us. In other words, anti-Semitism is not an excuse for accepting something that you think is rightful. And I don't know if I describe that particularly correctly. But to suggest, there are those that either start from anti-Semitic views or end there and neither of them, none of that is acceptable. But again, this is what I think, we have to do better to educate kids and young people about history and critical thought. And I stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel's right to defend itself.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. I'm sure we could talk about this for hours, but that was Marc Molinaro. Congressman Molinaro, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me again, I really appreciate it.

MM: Anytime. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas.

GR: You too, you too. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Phyllis CheslerProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Hi, this is Grant Reeher. Some of you may strongly disagree with some of the views you're about to hear from my guest on this week's program. That in itself doesn't make it any different from other programs, but the topic this week is extremely politically charged and has deep emotions attached to it. For that reason, I want to remind you that these are the views of one guest, and not those of NPR or WRVO. Thank you.

Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is a lifelong feminist scholar and writer who is deeply concerned with some of the rhetoric from self-styled feminists that is critical of Israel and its war with Hamas and supportive of Hamas in Palestine. Phyllis Chesler is a psychotherapist and a professor emerita at City University of New York.She's written many books among them, “Women and Madness”, “An American Bride in Kabul”, and, “The New anti-Semitism”. Professor Chesler, welcome to the program.

Phyllis Chesler: My pleasure to be with you.

GR: Well, thanks for making the time. So let me just start right at the beginning with something very basic. Give me some examples, if you could, of the public expressions that you have been seeing recently and hearing that worry you and concern you.

PC: More than 62 days after Hamas launched a pogrom on steroids from Gaza into Israel, the public (audio cuts out) feminism (audio cuts out)… Nobody said this is rape, this is barbarism, we believe this happened. They shot their own footage joyfully. And yet feminist icon after feminist icon, feminist listserv after feminist listserv said nothing. They didn't decry it. When they spoke, most said yes. But the Palestinian civilians are in danger and they see as the rest of the academy and the United Nations, all human rights groups and the media in general, they see Israel as the Nazi apartheid nation state, complete big lie, a lethal lie and they think that Hamas, funded by Iran, which has America in its gunsights, they think that Hamas, a terrorist group, are resistance fighters.And in the streets of our country, they're marching in favor of death, in favor of genocide. They denying what they've seen with their own eyes. So that's one example.

GR: Well, I made a, give you perhaps another one you'll want to put on your list, and unfortunately it's from Syracuse University. But I wanted to get your reaction to this, this one caught my eye. This was a statement that was made public from the Department of Women's and Gender Studies. And well, let me read it to you, and I'll just read you the first paragraph. “We…” and this was this was a statement that was made public, and it was also repeated by some faculty in their classes, “We, members of the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Syracuse University mourn the lives claimed by the violence in Palestine and Israel and denounce the escalating Israeli military attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. This position reflects our longstanding feminist commitments to anti-racist education, emancipatory politics and decolonial praxis. We are in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli settler colonialism and occupation and support Palestinians in Gaza who are being subjected to ongoing Israeli military violence through indiscriminate bombing, collective punishment of civilians, and the prohibition of life sustaining resources such as water, food and electricity. We oppose the act of genocide…” I want to repeat that, “We oppose the act of genocide of a dispossessed people and population who are trapped and what the UN, Israeli and international human rights organizations have long called an open-air prison”.Okay, so that seems to be in the same vein then, of the things you’re talking about?

PC: Oh, absolutely, yes. But alas, or to cover my shame as a feminist, a real one, it's not just feminists. However, they have long been since the 1980’s, they are Stalinized and they are Palestinianized and they view America as the Big Satan as Iran does, and Israel as the little Satan. And they really are concerned with the occupation of a country called Palestine, which has never existed in history, more so than with the occupation of women's bodies in Gaza or on the British mandatory West Bank I call Judea and Samaria. They do not care. They will not say, well, Hamas is forcing women to a face veil and wear hijab and marry as children and marry into polygamous unions and they risk being honor killed if they won't marry their first cousin or want to leave a violent marriage.Because for them, what used to be radical feminism or real women's studies, which lasted about a decade I think, maybe 15 years at most, their concern now is with the abolition of prisons on behalf of black men with anti-racism, as long as it doesn't mean Jew hatred, that's not seen as racism. They're concerned with, if there's a colonizer, that means someone's colonized,someone's got to be blamed. And they have, against all evidence based truth, against proof, footage, videos, they've decided that Israel must be the oppressor. And so they repeat these indoctrinated lies, open-air prison, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, what occupation are they talking about? What open air prison? Unless they mean that Hamas, which is true enough, has created their own people, turn them into human shields for the purpose of debt, for good propaganda.But that's not what they mean. So why are they teaching at universities? Who are they?

GR: Well, I wanted to focus in on one phrase because it's something that I've been struggling with, and it is this use of the word genocide to describe what Israel is doing right now. And certainly it seems to me that people can have disagreements over whether the response of Israel is proportionate and whether it is careful enough or discriminate enough,I suppose to use the language here of the Women's Studies Department, but I have heard this a number of times, this use of the word genocide to describe it. First of all, by my understanding of what that word is, what Israel is doing cannot be considered genocide, it's not the indiscriminate and complete effort to eradicate a people.They're not rounding up people, civilians by the hundreds of thousands and just killing them and so that concerns me. But the other piece of this that concerns me is, given the history of the Jewish people, given the Holocaust and World War Two, to use that word, seems to me to be at the very best, incredibly insensitive. Now, I guess I'm giving my own opinion here, but I wanted to ask you about this,that's a hell of a loaded question I just asked you, and I apologize for that, but I just wanted to get your sense of the use of that word in this context.

PC: It's post-Orwellian. Black is white. It is such a reversal of reality. First, the Palestinian population or the Gazan population has grown while Israel did occupy Gaza and since it left Gaza. So if we're talking genocide, you would imagine the numbers would be down by millions, but that is hardly the case. But I think also, one thing I didn't mention, and the hysteric herd-like overstatement of certain brainwashed words like genocide,genocide is everywhere, Palestine is everything, anything is equal to anything else. There is no objective standard or reality left in the academy. But what the feminists and the, everyone, public intellectuals, human rights activists, they do not want to accuse men of color, especially if they're Muslim, especially if they have been in countries that were once occupied by Britain, for example, or by Turkey before that.They don't want to accuse them of committing any kind of barbaric crimes because that would be a colonialist (audio cuts out) overreach. So the fact their victims are other people of color who are also Muslims for the most part, it seems to be a blind spot. So, are these professors? And I have to say, I'm happy to hear that they're still calling Women's Studies, “Women and Gender”, that's very good, because in general, women have been disappeared and it's gender and sexuality studies. And the sexuality studies have been totally taken over by, quote, queer and transgender profiles and these are the courses. I did a survey of the Ivy Leagues a few years ago in terms of gender studies, I couldn't believe what I was reading.Queer people in the Caribbean in the 19th century. And I thought, all right, I'm open minded, but what has this got to do with the violence (audio cuts out) issues that we raised in the second wave, which began with rape, went to sexual harassment, then incest, then woman battering. These are not sexy issues anymore, even though, I mean, rape, what's the slogan at #metoo, believe what a woman says. Never believe a man, always believe a woman. Well, but not if she's Jewish, not if she's in Israel and half of Israelis are not white. They are Jews from Arab and African countries who were forced to flee by the Muslims who hate Jews. And on that subject, I work with Muslims and for Muslims who do not hate Jews and who are pro-Israel, God bless them, as well as Christians.So, and many of them are feminists, so I don't know who these feminists are in women's studies, do you?

GR: Well, I'm asking you, you're the expert. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with the psychotherapist and feminist writer, Phyllis Chesler. So, you mentioned a couple of things I want to get into a bit later about where some of these views might be coming from in terms of the history behind who these groups are.But I did want to ask you something else that's in the news cycle in the last few days. The other day, there was an incident that has gone viral. It was Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s challenge of the presidents of MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. They are all female presidents, as it happens, I believe. And their refusal to state that, in the hearing, their refusal to state that calling for the genocide of Jewish people violates their university's code of conduct and none of them would be willing to do that.They all said it depends on the context and whether it leads to behavior. And Congresswoman Stefanik, I think, was genuinely shocked by this, I don't think it was just political theater. Do you have any reactions to what these presidents were saying? If you've seen this video clip?

PC: I've watched it, it's outrageous. I doubt that they would have the same response if students marched and said, shoot all the blacks, kill them now, lynch them, hang them from trees, let's get rid of the Hispanics, or let's build a wall on the southern border of America. That would be seen as inflammatory, incendiary, it would be seen as hate speech and it would be condemned.But Jews, it's cool, it's okay, that's free speech. And for years in the 21st Century, I kept writing about the way in which the concept of academic freedom and free speech are being increasingly used to engage in Jew hatred. And anti-Semitism is now anti-Zionism, they are one and the same. There's only one Jewish state, and that seems to be considered the very worst country on Earth, not Sudan,wait, I'm remembering something. Remember how the feminists and the women activists were so quick to condemn the so-called rape camps in Bosnia? The rapes in Rwanda, the rapes in Africa, in North Africa, done by paramilitary Islamist groups? Certainly I called it a gender cleansing in the Sudan, the public repeated gang rapes of girls and women by the Janjaweed.And on this utter silence, what conclusions can I draw other than the anti-American, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, that's the Stalinization. And in a terrible way, the anti-woman, I mean, rape is rape no matter who was being raped and in Israel, boys and men were raped by these barbarians as well. And I think that the way to handle this, and I wrote a quick piece, is to have an Eichmann like or a Nuremberg like trial in Jerusalem after Israel, only after Israel is militarily victorious.

GR: I want to follow up on a couple of things you said, but we have to take a break. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Phyllis Chesler. She's an emeritus professor at City University of New York and a psychotherapist and feminist writer.We've been discussing her concerns about some of the public rhetoric about the Israeli-Hamas war. So, Professor Chesler, you've mentioned this at a couple of points in the first part of our conversation, I want to draw it out a little more directly. And it has to do with where some of this stuff might be coming from that you're concerned about.And from day one, I've had this theory and you seem to be saying it's a similar version of it, and that is that the criticism among some of the left of Israel seems to me to be criticism of the United States by proxy and in the extreme form, anti-Americanism. And it does seem like something that was already pent up came forward like the day after the attack.And it does seem like, I wanted to get your sense of that, I wonder if that's one of the things that's really driving this.

PC: The sight of Jewish blood thrilled and excited the long prepared, globalized intifada activists who've been funded by left wing people like Soros, the Tides Foundation, who have been funded by, to some extent, the Arab oil countries and by, certainly by the Rockefeller Fund Foundation. So this has been long in coming. And you're right, this is anti-Americanism, Israel's taking the hard hit.And America with the academics, the intellectuals and the politicians are not paying attention to the danger to us from Iran. Iran right now is causing the kind of international conflict that the secretary general just said he's got to invoke Article 99 because the conflict is spreading all on Israel, excuse me, Iran is having Hezbollah in Lebanon, rocket after rocket.They're shooting during a so-called cease fire into the north of Israel. And the Houthis in Yemen are attacking American warships in the Red Sea in the Mediterranean, excuse me, the international conflict or if you will, the increasing visibility of World War Three is clear to me. And why the American presidents, why Congress doesn't get this and doesn't act on it instead of funding Iran and appeasing Iran is everything that President Obama started.So I think that there are all these factors at play. And then add to it, the left wing academic curriculum. America once had slavery, the fact that we had a civil war to abolish it matters not, it did exist, original sin can't be cleansed, no awareness that Islam practices slavery to this day and always has, as well as being a colonial power. I mean, once I lived in Afghanistan, which was, believe it or not, a Buddhist country, until Arab Muslims came and took it down and turned it Islamic.So every continent and every religion has committed all kinds of crimes, it's not just America and America might be the best relatively speaking. And so the way of thinking that one culture is really the same as another, one culture can't judge another, everything is kind of equal and everything is relative, but America is to blame.White people are to blame, Israel is to blame. This is Stalinist thinking and there was a huge amount of Russian propaganda that became absorbed in the bloodstream of Westerners. And then add to that Arab League propaganda, then add to that Islamic, basic quintessential Koranic propaganda and you have this brew, this dangerous brew that bubbles up as Jew hatred to start with, soon will be infidel hatred acted on in the West.

GR: Now, let me interject here and say now, my thought about the anti-Americanism driving it, it wasn't as deeply rooted as what you just said. I was thinking more in terms of the fact that the United States is Israel's single biggest, or Israel is the single biggest recipient of foreign aid and a lot of that is military aid and the fact that we have stood by Israel over the years.And so I wanted to ask you though, two questions here. One is, some people hearing this, I think, are going to be very concerned about some of the ways that you're talking about this and that it's going to sound to them like you are engaging in a similar kind of thinking that you are criticizing just from the other side.And so I wanted to get your reaction to that and then I'll come back with the other thing. But what how would you respond to that?

PC: Well, unfortunately, the anti-Zionist anti-Semites have been fed propaganda, I have not. I have researched and I've read and I've thought and I've consulted with military experts, counterterrorism experts, psychologists, psychiatrists. I'm now thinking about the trauma of people who have been not only held captive but who have been brainwashed as well, I'm talking about the Israeli hostages. And while I can't, let me say this, of course I'm concerned about the death of innocents, and that includes innocents in Gaza.But most of the innocents in Gaza voted Hamas in and now, of course, can't get rid of them, can't get rid of them even though they're being used horribly as human shields and always have been, even though Hamas, clearly we can see even though people are excelling in denying their own eyes, they're choosing their narrative above reality. And I'm not sure how to break that hold.So I don't, I mean, while I could be not expressing at this moment enough sympathy for Gazans who are in a dreadful situation caused by their own leadership, and it could be ended in a moment, all Hamas has to do is return all the hostages safe and sound to Israel, all Egypt has to do is accept these Gazan civilians, let them out.All right, keep them in a camp if you don't want them to become citizens, which, by the way, no Arab country, 57 of them have refused the populations in the areas as we have after every single war in human history. Refugees in flight have been, they've become citizens elsewhere and life moved on. Only in this instance, the Palestinians are being used from the river to the sea to get rid of the single Jewish state. So, this could end in a minute.

GR: My understanding also, correct me if I'm wrong, is that the Arab countries have not in the past provided much support or help to Palestine.

PC: No support, none. It is, you know I was part of a grassroots team that rescued 400 women from Afghanistan, one of whom I've made my granddaughter from Afghanistan and she's excelling in graduate school here, she's an amazing young woman. And we could not get Arab countries to accept them. And these are Sunni Arabs as they are, not Shia from Iran. And the lack of responsibility for, I mean, the whole this entire disaster could have been solved if Jordan had said, yes, you know, actually, we're the Palestinian state, come home, everyone come home to Jordan. But that never happened because they wanted a fake Hashemite dynasty. So this is not on Israel, this is on the Arab world. It's on Iran, it's on Hamas.

GR: Well, we've only got about 3 minutes left or so. But there's another kind of topic I wanted to make sure that I covered with you here and it's a more personal question, if I could. I wanted to know how you have experienced this personally. Obviously, you've got very strong views of your own. And if I could just share one thing very quickly on this or in this context, is I'm a little different from a lot of other academics in that I have friends and acquaintances that span the entire ideological spectrum. And I'm proud of this in the last seven years, I've managed to avoid losing any friends over politics throughout all of this. But, I have lost my first friendship over this issue and I'm struggling with it. So I just want to know, have you have you dealt with this kind of thing since this war has started?

PC: Oh, my dear, when I published after many, many purely feminist works, some bestsellers, some very influential in the academic world and beyond, when I published, “The New Anti-Semitism” in 2003 because I absolutely felt I had to speak out, that was the first time that The New York Times didn't review a book of mine. That was the first time that major left liberal venues, wouldn't interview me even to fight with me because I held the left liberal intelligentsia in the West as responsible as the 9/11’ers, as the Islamists and terrorists. And then, funny thing began to happen on the way to the forum. But this was going on before, that's a longer story. Yeah, there are feminists now who have not reached out to me, some of whom I've sent one of my pieces about the rape issue and their silence, asked for something and either no response or very hostile response. These are not close friends though. And a lot of distance kept, a lot of silence, which is profound. So I'm thinking you know, I work with Muslims who are feminists, men and women. I work with Christians who are feminists, men and women. I'm not going to say that feminists have failed entirely because it's not true, not true. I'm a founding member of something called the Clarity Coalition, go look it up, they have a website. So, but the feminists of the second wave, third wave, fourth wave, their silence is reverberating down in history and will never be forgotten. Never.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Phyllis Chesler. Professor Chesler, thanks so much again for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciated it.

PC: It's my pleasure. Good questions.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

C.W. Goodyear(Mark Lavonier / https://www.cwgoodyearbooks.com/)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. You know the name James Garfield, probably, but how much else do you know about him and why might he be relevant to thinking about today's politics? My guest today is a historian who has written a new definitive biography of Garfield. C.W. Goodyear’s new book is titled, “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier”. Charlie, welcome to the program.

CW Goodyear: I agree and thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure.

GR: It's great to have you on. So, as I mentioned just a second ago, for a lot of our listeners, I think Garfield probably occupies this murky middle between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century. So, to start us off, just give us a very, very brief thumbnail sketch of Garfield's background, you know, the highlights of his career and then when and how he becomes president.

CWG: Sure. His career is, he was described, James Garfield, and I'm surprised by the way, you mentioned in the introduction that readers would probably have heard of him, many probably would not have. But James Garfield was even before his election to the presidency, he was our 20th president, he was already being described by his contemporaries as one of the most impressive, accomplished and influential Americans in the history of our nation.Rutherford Hayes categorized Garfield as being above Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln in terms of statesmen who would started so low but accomplished so much in all of our history. And so I'll give you a quick rundown. Garfield was born in a log cabin in rural Ohio. He was actually the last president to be born in a log cabin. Raised by a single mother, never really knew his dad, but by his late twenties, he was a state senator, college president and a very prominent abolitionist preacher all at the same time.And then you fast forward another year and change, and he is actually the youngest general at that time in the Union Army. And then you fast forward another year and change, and he is, by his categorization, the youngest congressman in the nation. And then you have a 17 year House career that follows which is almost a record breaker by the standards of that time in American history.And that House career, by the way, ends with him being elected to the presidency. He was the only American to ever be a congressman, a senator elect and a president elect all at the same time. He was also simultaneously a practicing Supreme Court attorney while he was in Congress. He was a prolific writer, he wrote these great columns for The Atlantic and the North American Review.He founded the first federal Department of Education as a congressman. And then on top of that, he authored an original proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.

GR: Wow!

CWG: So, yeah, it was an incredible, incredible career and a very long one. You know, his persistence on the national level was insane. And then he was assassinated. He was the second president to be assassinated.And I, you know, I think it's generally understood now that by virtue of being assassinated, a remarkable career was remembered for how it ended rather than its full breadth.

GR: Yeah, I want to get into some of that a little bit later. So, well, now that you've just given that answer, this question sounds a bit dumb, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So why did you decide to write this full on biography of him now?

CWG: Yeah, no that is a good question. I was working at the time as a ghostwriter in D.C., this is about five years ago. And I was very interested, just as a researcher and a writer in finding a period of our history where there was division overrunning our nation, economically, socially, politically, racially. And I wanted to find that period of our history and I wanted to find somebody who was on a national level leading in a way that was trying to overcome those divisions. So I was drawn to reconstruction in the Gilded Age. And throughout those eras, the post-Civil War and then the post post-Civil War, I found the same name appearing in all of these important national events and it was James Garfield.But his career would be distilled, this long career would be distilled into a single sentence very often in these histories. It would be, James Garfield, future president would be assassinated, you know, within his first year in office. But then, and this goes back to my prior answer, the more I dug up about him, the less fair that seemed as a record.And so I got sucked in. And, you know, by gosh, the subject just unfolded and it became, the book became far longer than a lot of us would appreciate but it was just a real blast. When you find a good subject as you know, it just possesses you. So it became a very fun odyssey from then on.

GR: Well, you mentioned this when you were talking about his career, but my understanding is that he became, for the standards of the day, and it's in your title, a radical by that standard then in his thinking about the Civil War and the treatment of those who were slaves and would become former slaves after the war. How did that radicalness of his thinking develop and what exactly were some of the basic contours of those beliefs?

CWG: Yeah, so from the very outset of the Civil War, Garfield was a radical Republican. So he was from a wing of the Republican Party that was militantly progressive on these issues of race and equality in American society. They were too, for lack of a better term, the radical Republicans were to the left of Lincoln and where Lincoln was slow to implement the abolition of slavery and slow to warm up to the ideas of civil and political equality,radicals were there right from the very beginning. And they believed wholeheartedly that the Civil War was not really a war about sovereignty, it was not really about preserving the union. In fact, it was really about addressing the root cause of this division in society, which was inequality of race. And so Garfield was a member of that faction from the very beginning.He had this firebrand progressivism that he intertwined with patriotic history. He blended progressive ideology in the civic religion of America very, very passionately. The origins of that have much to do with where he was from, northeast Ohio, the Western Reserve. And that was a militantly progressive region of the nation on these issues. It's been estimated by one historian that the Western Reserve had a higher concentration of stops on the Underground Railroad as any other part of the nation.And the social and political history of that is very, there's also a religious aspect to that as well. Garfield's brand of Christianity, the Disciples of Christ in that region, believes wholeheartedly in, you know, implementing equality of race. But when he got into Congress halfway through the Civil War, he was described as wild a radical as ever set foot in the halls of the Capitol. That's how they described the young firebrand James Garfield, “that radical James Garfield”.

GR: One famous presidential historian has claimed that for most presidents, there's a moment in their lives, often it can be an early political victory, sometimes it's a loss that informs the way they approach their careers and particularly when they become president. Was there a moment like that for Garfield? It sounds like he had so many accomplishments that maybe he didn't have that, I don’t know.

CWG: He did. I'll tell you what, it was not the loss of an election because Garfield never lost an election. He had a perfect political record, which just adds to his resume. But there was something that really did define his style of national politics from a certain, you know, as the subtitle of my book indicates, “…From Radical to Unifier”, Garfield became distinctive and it actually was the reason he was elected to the presidency in the end anyway. He became distinctive as being this remarkably conciliatory, pragmatic, ideologically flexible legislator in an increasingly partisan era. Other Republicans as varied as Ulysses Grant to Frederick Douglass to all these other reformist Republicans, they all said the same thing about James Garfield. They all said he lacked moral backbone because he was seen as being so friendly, so kind, so open minded that he was really almost useless in a pitched partisan battle. Now, when did that emerge, when did this firebrand young radical in the post-Civil War Congress change his mind? The impeachment of Andrew Johnson. There's this great line, because Garfield, you know, he, having been one of these firebrands and who believed militantly in the need for a thorough reconstruction, when he saw the impeachment of Andrew Johnson continuing on and he anticipated the political cost the radicals would pay for pursuing a pretty weak impeachment agenda, he started to back off those principles and he had this great line. He had a few great lines, and I'll spare you the details from this period. But one of them, and he's you know, he's sitting there in the trials and he writes, “I'm trying to do two things, which, if I'm to judge by the theatrics around me, are going to be very hard to accomplish. I'm trying to be a radical and not a fool.” So you see him starting to change his tune on politics in America being not about necessarily what's ideologically right, but about but perfecting the art of the possible. And that's where that change happens.

GR: Of course, that has no relevance to anything today.

CWG: (laughter)

GR: I'm Grant Reeher. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations, and my guest is C.W. Goodyear and we're discussing his new biography of James Garfield titled, “James (President) Garfield: From Radical to Unifier”. So he was also known as a political reformer of the spoils system. So tell us a little bit about that.

CWG: Yeah, he was. So, it's really interesting because the term civil service reform, you say that to a modern audience and you think it's designed to put them to sleep. But in fact, civil service reform was the blazing grassroots political movement of the second half of the 19th century. And what it involved, the Federal Bureaucracy, our civil service system on the federal level,it was not professionalized. In fact, most wings of the federal government from clerks in local courts to local sheriffs to local tax collectors and even post office workers, these were not professional civil servants, they were political appointees. So you had political control by local congressmen of federal jobs. And that was a recipe for corruption and machine politics on a grand industrializing scale.And you saw civil servants legally and then not legally taking public money for private use, rigging elections, paying bribes to senators and congressmen in exchange for jobs. And so this idea of reforming our federal government to make federal jobs awarded, not based on politics, but just competitive examination. That was a massive movement and a very important one and a very frustrating one and Garfield was part of that. He was though, I'll say this, he was not a militant reformer during his life. He became critical to the passage of civil service reform, but during his life, he tried to, like with many issues, he tried to split between these very polarizing factions. He believed that there needed to be some standard of competitive depoliticization and professionalization of the federal government.But he also awarded cushy federal jobs to close friends of his. And whenever these clean government activists would get too up in arms and they would give him grief, Garfield would chide them for being too militant. He was somebody who believed in working with the corrupt bosses of his party rather than entirely antagonizing them. So in that shows you his type of politics in general on a very small scale, but a very important issue that he became critically connected to by virtue of how his life ended.

GR: So, I've intimated this a couple of times now, once in kind of a sarcastic way, but do you think that Garfield's relevance for today as a political figure, is it this quality of having these very deep passions, but also being a unifier, being someone that could listen to everyone and try to find compromise if that's what we want to call it, or middle ground?Is that what we take from him today, you think?

CWG: Yeah, I think his life, because I've you know, you get asked this a lot on the book tour. I think his life is a long, in part, a long, long, protracted meditation on political pragmatism. Because he is somebody who makes this shift, who changes with the political tides of the country and who becomes, as he gets older and more experienced, he becomes somebody who embodies, in both good ways and bad, what it looks like to be a pragmatic powerbroker in Washington, fighting against partisan forces who are not entirely, you know, morally clean in many cases.He, as I've described it, I didn't put this in the book, I didn't put this line in the book, which I kind of regret, but he's a great case study of what it looks like when a pathologically reasonable person is in power in Washington. Somebody who defines the desired outcome of a political or impasse or a crisis, a constitutional crisis based on how do we give everybody at the table something to walk away with and how do we keep the gears of our government turning?How do we keep the basic processes rolling on? A very patient, man, and that's not a clean story either, by the way, he is a very grey figure politically. But also, his life is a very good reminder, because he dealt, the crisis he saw in his career from Congress through the White House, it's that Mark Twain line: History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure rhymes a lot.So he's also a reminder, and I’ll end this answer on this, he is a reminder that a lot of the things that we're going through today that we call unprecedented are never entirely so, not in the history of our nation.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with C.W. Goodyear. He's a historian who's published a new biography of James Garfield titled, “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier”. So you mentioned at the beginning he was shot early in his presidential career. How and why was he shot?

CWG: Oh, yes, okay. Well, so he was, the important background is that Garfield was catapulted to the White House half unwillingly. He was nominated spontaneously from the floor of the nominating convention for the Republican Party in 1880 because all the different factions of the Republican Party, their candidates, their declared candidates who were gunning for the presidency couldn't get a majority support.So the Republican Party was so factionalized that it needed this dark horse candidate to come out of nowhere and take the leadership post. And that might sound familiar to a lot of listeners right now. But Garfield's immediate problem, immediate, and it carried through the campaign and into his presidency, was how do you balance these factions? And there was a faction called The Stalwarts who were supreme practitioners of the spoils system.They loved manipulating and profiting those federal jobs, the civil service jobs. The Stalwarts wanted a big chunk of the federal government to control themselves. Garfield did not, and despite what he said in the campaign, he did not end up giving them as much as they expected when he became president and it led to this massive falling out.And after that fallout ended, Garfield ended up winning that fight with the Stalwarts. A mentally ill man who wanted one of these jobs and who identified as a Stalwart, came up with this kooky idea that if he shot Garfield, the new president who was a Stalwart, Chester Arthur, would be so grateful that President Arthur would give the assassin whatever job in the federal system the Stalwart assassin wanted.So it was this mix of toxic political climate, this corrupting federal patronage system, and then good old fashioned timeless mental illness. Which combined to result in Garfield being shot in downtown D.C. He was stopped for weeks by this assassin and then finally killed as he was about to get on board a train or shot as he was about to get on board a train.

GR: Wow, yeah. And ironic, really, as I think about it, that you take Abraham Lincoln, who was a martyr to the Civil War, I mean, shot because of that by John Wilkes Booth. And then Garfield, who had stronger views, ends up being shot by someone who's concerned about the spoils system. And that's this crazy idea, it's an interesting comparison about that.

CWG: In those two snapshots they show you how much the country had changed in those times and the issues that they regarded. You know, it shows you where the priorities of the country are shifting towards. It's from, you know, the winning of the civil war and civil rights, that was Booth's motivation to corrupting, you know, federal power.

GR: And you know, I saw a documentary several years ago about Garfield's assassination. I think it was a documentary, as I recall, and it focused on his medical care after the shooting. And the argument in the documentary was that the medical care was what basically killed him. I mean, if he'd have gotten good, if his doctor hadn't made all the mistakes about infection that that he made, he would have survived the shooting.Is that correct? And tell us about the aftermath.

CWG: Yes. Yes, that's generally correct. I will say a lot of these doctors did not know any better. The idea of germ theory, because Garfield, for listeners who might not know, he didn't die of the shooting per se, he actually died of the infection that developed in his body afterward. American physicians were slow converts to the idea of germ theory.They still believe that infections were caused, not by outside microorganisms, but by internal fluidic balances and that pus was actually a sign of healthy healing. So with that topsy-turvy medical knowledge, that is not a foundation for good infection care. So you did have this, he, Garfield died just awful, you know, the details are in this book.One, you know, I've gotten a lot of good reviews, but one of the ones that had a little bit of reservations was like it was a little bit too grisly when you get into how Garfield died.

GR: (laughter)

CWG: But, you know, what are you going to do? But you know, when he's shot, when he's shot in the station in D.C., the doctors on the scene, they flip him over and they immediately start burrowing into his back with unwashed fingers.They didn't believe in washing their hands. And so you have about 80 days it takes for him to, that infection to run its course. And he has great resilience throughout it. He has ups and he has downs and the country is hooked on news of how he's doing. But ultimately and tragically and it's this long, protracted drama for not just the president, but the whole nation.

GR: So you kind of go a little Cormac McCarthy there in the end of your book it sounds like.

CWG: Ah, that's interesting. You're the first person to say that.

GR: (laughter)

CWG: I disavow any comparisons. I just don't want to bring Cormac McCarthy to my level. That would be unfair to him.

GR: (laughter) If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is C.W. Goodyear, and we've been discussing his new biography of President James Garfield. It's titled, “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier”. So you have the Pendleton Act, which comes after this, right?

CWG: Yes.

GR: Did his assassination lead to changes in government in the same way that, you know, Johnson was able to draw on Kennedy's assassination to push through civil rights legislation?

CWG: Yeah, absolutely. That's a really interesting comparison. So we mentioned earlier how Garfield, in life, was kind of a, he was a half-hearted reformer, not half-hearted, but a moderate one. When he died, he was immediately canonized as this martyr to the spoils system. That was the phrase that a lot of the commentators used at the time, because his assassination was seen as a product of this corrupt way federal jobs are awarded between political factions. And, you know, this assassin’s mental illness was seen as also a product of that. So he became in death an invaluable symbol to the civil service reform movement. And the Pendleton Civil Service Act, which you mentioned right there, that was signed into law by President Arthur's administration and it was a direct result of Garfield's death. And what it did was it introduced the idea of merit into the awarding of public jobs, or sorry, federal jobs for the first time. It introduced competitive examinations for Americans trying to get these federal civil service jobs. It freed federal civil servants from being forced to contribute to political campaigns in exchange for jobs and it excused them from being forced to actually participate in campaigns themselves. So they were, walls began to go up between, you know, wings of the federal government and political activity. That's all incredibly valuable in terms of the yields that's paid and is still paying to our government. Civil service reform historians have said that Garfield's death accelerated the cause by about 30 years and actually a less charitable historian has written that Garfield dead was more useful than Garfield alive to the civil service reformers.

GR: Ouch.

CWG: That might not be totally fair but the great surprise was that Chester Arthur was supporting of civil service reform after. Because Arthur was a Stalwart, he was a corrupt boss. His story is very interesting, but I won't go down that rabbit hole quite yet.

GR: (laughter) So you've kind of alluded to this a couple of times, but I've read in my limited reading about Garfield outside of your book, that many presidential historians think that Garfield could have become one of our great presidents, like the way that he was regarded in his life as you already pointed out. But that that promise was cut short by his assassination. So do you concur with that view, that there was a potential real greatness to be in the top tier of presidents?

CWG: So I'm going to stick a big old asterisks into this, and I'm going to say it's always incredibly hard to tell what could have been.

GR: Right.

CWG: And also with Garfield's legacy, the reaction to his death, the public reaction to his death was not unlike the way our nation also reacted to the Kennedy assassination. Like, the death just radically transformed the way people viewed the life. It's like setting off, as I've said, it's like setting off a firework at the end of a Broadway play. No one remembers the play, they remember the firework that went off at the end. And so the views of him, his legacy and what he could have done, I think it's always been tended to be viewed through rose colored glasses. He was widely regarded as somebody during his life who was actually not well suited for executive tendencies because he was this vacillator. He was somebody who was seen as being very easy to swing one way or another. But whether that would have led to progress or not on a lot of these key issues, I'm not entirely sure. The potential was certainly there. In his inaugural address, it just reads as a prophetic document in many ways. It's the first inaugural address that calls for universal public education in America, because education was such a transformative force in his life, in his public life, he believed in it. And so there's always going to be this worry about what would have been. But as I mentioned in the answer to your previous question, you know, reformers believe that his death was actually, he actually accomplished much more in death on that issue than he would have in life. And, you know, you can't help but wonder, he was probably going to be an incrementalist president. Whether that is the recipe for greatness or not, I don't know. But I bet he would have been somebody who had made slow progress on all these issues he still believed in.

GR: Interesting. Well, we've got a couple of minutes left. I want to try to squeeze at least two questions and if I can and the first one is more about your process of writing this and what you learned from it. Do you think there was one thing about American politics or our political history that you discovered while you were working on this book that you didn't already know before or weren't as fully appreciative of? Was there kind of an a-ha moment for you in any of this?

CWG: Yes, because the a-ha moments, there's actually a few of them, but they all regarded the exact same thing, which is in the structures of our federal system and its founding documents, in the way our legal precedent has developed over time, the recipe has held true throughout the years, since before Garfield's life, but in Garfield's life, it was especially, especially clear. You only discover loopholes when you walk through them as a nation. And one of the incidences that really brought that to light was the disputed aftermath of the election of 1876, which was the first time where in the aftermath of a presidential election, the losing side claimed fraud and threatened civil war if their candidate was not inaugurated. That was the president before Garfield, Hayes, who ended up taking the White House. But when you read the writings of these congressmen who are on the verge of, it seems an armed insurrection that's going to take Washington, inaugurate the presidential candidate by force, you know, they're saying, the questions they're asking themselves and they're debating in the Capitol is, does the vice president, you know, the president of the Senate have the right to count the votes? What exactly does that mean? Do congressmen have the right to interrupt the certification of results? And you're thinking, hmm, well, you know, so when you're you discover that not only is there precedent but, you know, in this day and age when we read the Constitution and we think creatively about what exactly it means, we've always had that problem throughout our times. And Garfield was right there front center for, you know, that election resolution and then other crises throughout that time.

GR: Fascinating. Just a few seconds left. One last question. Who or what are you working on now?

CWG: I'd like to write a biography about Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. I think he would be very interesting. And so I'm talking to his aides and I'm at his legislative center getting that stuff together. It's going to be a long, long work. But that's the next target.

GR: Oh, I hope you do that. We'll have you back on if you do that. That was C.W. Goodyear and again, his new book is titled, “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier”. If you're looking for something a little bit different for holiday reading or for gifting, I highly recommend this book and I think you could tell from our conversation there's a lot of really interesting material in there that speaks to issues of today. Charlie, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really enjoyed this conversation.

CWG: Oh, my pleasure. I really enjoyed it, too. Thank you so much, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the campus conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guests today are two people who have been central to some turnarounds in economic development and housing and the city of Oswego in recent years. And they're here with me to discuss those efforts and the lessons that come out of them. Paul Stewart is the founder of the Oswego Renaissance Association, which he also directs and is also a psychology professor at SUNY Oswego. Billy Barlow is the mayor of Oswego and is currently finishing up his second four year term. He's also Vice President of Public Affairs and System Development at Oswego Health. Mayor Barlow, Professor Stewart, welcome to the program.

Paul Stewart: Thank you.

Billy Barlow: Thank you.

GR: We're glad to have both of you. And, Paul, I'll start with you as the founding director of this organization. I think our listeners are pretty familiar with the standard narrative of Rust Belt City decline, which obviously has hit Syracuse and Utica and Rochester and Oswego, too. But is there anything specific or unique to the case of Oswego, or Oswego’s history that led you to want to form the Oswego Renaissance Association back in 2013?

PS: Well, there's nothing specific about Oswego, per se, that led me to form the association. We have in common, what you described, that sort of slow motion decline over 40 years. Well, what led me to form the association was I didn't think that decline was acceptable nor did many of my colleagues and friends. And so in that respect, we knew something had to change back in the 2012-2013 time frame.

GR: Okay. And was there something about that time that sort of pushed you over to say I'm going to do something actually organizational about this to try to help turn this around?

PS: Well, sure. I mean, almost everybody knows during that time the city had been in a decline phase and had become particularly acute in the late twenty-aughts, you know, and I think in 2008, myself, my partner bought a house in Franklin Square and we were investing our lives into it but all around us things seemed to be degrading and we started to ask, can we continue to do this if the whole neighborhood is going to go down?And so that kind of became a personal question and then led to larger questions about the whole city.

GR: Okay, and I want to get in a little bit later into actually how the association works. But Mayor, I wanted to turn to you just on this background on Oswego. So, is there anything you'd want to add to what Paul said about specific to Oswego or things that our listeners should know and understanding the context for this effort that we're about to discuss?

BB: Well, I think what's important to realize if you're, especially if you're an elected official, but for anybody who cares about their community, is I think it's easy to, when you think about economic development, it's easy to think about cutting a ribbon or new construction, a new building, old downtown building being rehabbed. But at the end of the day, the biggest economic asset a community has, the biggest economic driver is the quality of neighborhoods.And that was something that the Oswego Renaissance Association and Paul pointed out and in as we'll get into in a little while, it's proven to be correct over these last ten to fifteen years. So when you restore old neighborhoods you instill confidence in homeowners and potential buyers. That behavior is contagious and it spreads throughout the community as I'm sure Paul will detail in a little while and how that strategy actually works.So, you know, new buildings, cutting ribbons, it's nice, but at the end of the day, neighborhoods is really what drives the local economy.

GR: Okay, well, let's get some better sense then of how this organization works. So, Paul, I'm going to start calling it the ORA because Oswego Renaissance Association, it sounds great. It's a little bit of a mouthful. So from now on, ORA. How does the ORA work and where does your funding come from?

PS: Well, the ORA gets funded by the Richard S. Shineman Foundation and multiple local businesses and sponsors. And we have been involved in this strategy for the last decade now, it's our 10th year. Where we focus on what are so-called middle neighborhoods. These are neighborhoods that are not your best neighborhoods by any stretch, but they're also not the most blighted neighborhoods.They're in-between. And the rationale is that in those neighborhoods, you still have an opportunity to leverage its potential. And the cost of restoring that neighborhood pales in comparison to what it would cost if we wait till it tipped, right? So we work from these middle markets outward. So, while that traditional experience for people is looking at creeping blight headed their way, loss of owner occupancy, degraded public streets sort of slowly making their way to their neighborhood, we turn that upside down and we start investing with neighbors in those middle neighborhoods so you have a spiraling improvements in the fiscal and social capital. That neighborhood beautification, that neighborhood, it starts to actually spread outward. It's contagious in the opposite direction. And so geographically, we have a unique approach that's not typically the approach most people think of when they do community development. And the other thing I think that's critical is that the majority of resources we leverage comes from the neighbors themselves.You know, we offer, they’re relatively small amounts of money. We'll say, look, we will grant you dollar for dollar, up to $1,000 out of our pocket per house to every neighbor on a block to make exterior improvements as long as it's visible on the street. But the rule is you have to recruit at least five households on your block to form a cluster. And typically because the grants are competitive, you'll have ten or fifteen houses apply. And the really interesting thing is that what we're leveraging, as Mayor Barlow said, is actually long term confidence. When neighbors start to realize that not only are they investing but their neighbors are also investing. They see a real potential for that and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as it snowballs.

GR: That is interesting. And you also get I imagine, neighbor and peer pressure sort of working for you in a good way.

PS: Right.

GR: Because you're looking at each other. Okay, interesting. And so you have this money, it comes from donors and a foundation, and it's like a matching system then, matching dollar system, okay, for these kind of exterior improvements.

PS: Yeah.

GR: So, Mayor Barlow, describe the impact that you think ORA has had on the city and the area. How have you experienced this?

BB: It's hard to really, it's hard to even talk about without underselling it. As Paul mentioned earlier, I actually was born and raised in Oswego. I went to school out at Arizona State and went out there in 2008. I returned in 2013. Nothing good happened in Oswego between 2008 and 2013. And the first positive thing that put Oswego back on the right track was Paul creating the Oswego Renaissance Association.And starting in one small area in the city and slowly growing outward into different areas of the city. It was really the first spark that put Oswego back on the right course and then city government, as often happens, was a few years behind but ultimately began to assist the ORA in their mission. And I'll say, in 2013 you could have driven around the city and you would have been hard pressed to find a neighborhood that anyone would have wanted to live in.Now 2023, you can drive around and it's hard to find an area where you wouldn't want to live. It really has taken off from just one condensed area into the entire neighborhood. I mean we, I often joke with the Code Enforcement Department at City Hall if I see them City Hall I’ll say, do you have any work to do?And you know, sometimes they say, you know, everyone is compliant and you know, we're just finishing up paperwork and it's true. You know, you're hard pressed to find a few properties now that really detract from neighboring properties. So it's smart strategy that's paid off and the city continues to reap benefits from it.

GR: Yeah, I have to say, just as an outsider perspective, and I've been doing this program that you know, the station is based in Oswego there, in a building at SUNY Oswego. And I've been driving back and forth in this time period that we've been talking about. And I remember, you know, in 2009-2010 going up there and thinking, wow, you know, in a bad way,wow. And then just the last time I was up, I think, to do an election night coverage, you know, I had the same impression. So, yeah, it's noticeable. I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guests are Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow and SUNY Oswego Professor Paul Stewart and we're discussing the Oswego Renaissance Association.So I want to put this question to both of you and maybe Mayor Barlow, start with you on this one. And it is kind of a more general sense of this context and I want to bring it out to the whole area of central New York. And this is something I just mentioned, things I've noticed since 2010, but this is something that has struck me as an outsider coming in 30 plus years ago now and then now living in central New York.And I've spoken on this program about it a few times to people like the writer Sean Kirst, for example, we've talked about this. But it seems to me there there's a kind of a pessimism or a fatalism, maybe even sometimes people call it an inferiority complex about this area that comes through. In addition to the real affection and real loyalty that people feel.It's like a sense that things are never going to quite work out or something else is going to leave or, you know, and is that, you're in Oswego, Mayor Barlow, am I tapping some part of the psyche here when I say that?

BB: I think you're absolutely right. We're kind of pessimistic or negative by nature. But I will say it's somewhat turned around the last five to eight years, you know, and a lot of that is because people are now seeing results. I think, in Oswego particularly but I think it's probably more common than not. The public hears ideas, they hear concepts, they see renderings, the government conducts these studies and analysis and talks about what could be.Rarely does it ever actually happen in front of your eyes in the real world. And, you know, we've had a great run this last decade or so where, and I'm not just talking about city government, but whether it's SUNY Oswego, the ORA, city government, we've said things and then we followed it up with reality.Then I think the public has come to expect that now when city government shows our rendering of something that's actually going to happen versus sitting on a shelf, and it's something people talk about what could have been years from now. So you're right, there's definitely a pessimism or a doubt. But, you know, Oswego has shown what confidence and positivity can do, I think they trust their government now and there's a lot of partners working together to move our area in the right direction. And it's certainly refreshing and it's a change from what we've been accustomed to in the last 30 or so years.

GR: And Paul, sort of a similar question, is that something you have felt and do you feel like ORA, you know, is that part of the satisfaction that you get is participating in something that may be changing that?

PS: Absolutely. I mean, first of all, I understand that the sort of, the pessimism you're talking about, I think to some extent, you know, there's kind of a, I don't know if I would use the word cultural trauma but, you know, regional trauma, when you go through just decades of decline, that is an understandable ethos, if you will. But I think what's been missing is, we are too used to waiting for the state or some outside force to make the change for us.And one of my favorite sort of things to tell people is, no, nothing is coming to save your town, nobody is coming to save your town. If you want to save your town, you have to do it. And what I think is very special about what's happening in Oswego at multiple levels is we have found ways to leverage the spirit and the resources, the time and the energy and the money of the residents here and essentially crowdsource revitalization.And once people see those efforts begin to pay off, it becomes easier and easier to build on that momentum.

GR: Yeah. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with SUNY Oswego professor Paul Stewart, the founding director of the Oswego Renaissance Association, and Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow and we've been discussing the work of that association. So we were talking about turnaround both in Oswego and I think we're feeling it generally throughout the area. And obviously, if we're talking about this most recently, we have to talk about Micron, and there was some pessimism and skepticism when we were tossing around some of the numbers that were associated with Micron. But I think people are beginning to believe now. So, Mayor Barlow, speaking of this potentially huge development for Syracuse, I was curious from your perspective, further north up in Oswego, how do you think it's going to affect things up in Oswego? Will it have a ripple effect that far out? What's your sense of this?

BB: Well, first, I often tell my constituents who are maybe pessimistic or doubtful of what may or may not happen with Micron, if even a quarter of what they're talking about happens that is still larger than anything we've seen in this area recently. So, there's a lot of reason to be optimistic and looking forward to what Micron brings to the community. As far as what Oswego stands to gain,I think obviously we're not in a position being, you know, probably a half hour or so away from the plant. We're not in a position to benefit as much as communities that are closer. But we are in a great position to see some benefits. And luckily, we've had this great round of economic development and victories here in the last eight years or so.If Micron employees and their families are looking for an affordable waterfront community with great neighborhoods, great community assessed assets, nice parks, a quaint downtown and a tourism type feel to the community, particularly in the summertime, Oswego is the place to be. And for a lot of these folks who may move from other areas into Central New York for Micron, a 30 minute commute to work, if they're from a metropolitan area, it's like cutting their commute by 50%.So we're in a great position and luckily we've had a successful eight years or ten years or more to be the community we are now. So I think we will see some Micron employees up to live in Oswego and a lot of that is credit to the Oswego Renaissance Association because when people look where to live and raise their family, they look at education, they look at access to health care, and they look at the quality of neighborhoods and we’re excelling in most of those areas.So I think we're in a good position.

GR: And so Paul, there's something that you've mentioned a couple of times now. You mentioned the phrase social capital, you mentioned the idea that, you know, no one's coming to save the town, you have to be the one to save the town.

PS: That's right.

GR: And there's a puzzle that I've always had as a political scientist about effective leadership that this particular case speaks directly to.And that's the relative roles and the relative importance and even sort of the order in which they occur of grassroots activity and kind of, leadership from, I don't know if I like the phrase bottom up, but, you know, the base level out maybe is a better way to say it, as the driver. And then individual leadership, like the kind of leadership that you, Paul Stewart, the impact that you have made or the impact that Mayor Barlow has made and the confidence that the city has and the confidence that people have in the government.I don't know if you have thought about this in your experience with the ORA, but do you have any insights on sort of what comes first or how they're related that could give me some insight on that?

PS: I've thought about that, I think quite a bit. I mean, my friend Chuck Marohn from Strong Towns has a phrase I really like. When we talk about the difference between top down strategies and bottom up strategies, the ORA is decidedly bottom up. And let me clarify, a lot of times strategies from the top, like a program that's been developed for your community, or some new, even sometimes new money that comes in some it's very orderly and structured and plan, but it's also dumb oftentimes. It's called orderly, but dumb, in that it doesn't necessarily take into account local conditions. And a lot of times what is being done for a community is occurring hundreds of miles away in terms of the decision phase. In contrast, when you're working at the grassroots level, like in the DNA of a community, you're on the ground there.We call it chaotic but smart. The people that live in the community kind of know what their neighborhoods require because they're living in it every day. And so we can make much more, I think, directed decisions about what individual blocks need because we're in them and living in them. And when you empower blocks to lead and neighborhoods to lead, you get, they will pursue their interests in the way that that makes the most sense for them,that's very powerful. And in terms of social leadership, social capital leadership, you know, you hit on another important point, which is that for a community to work well, to succeed, it's sort of like a football team. You're not going to execute your plays if you don't know each other, you don't have a camaraderie there and you don't trust each other,right? So one of the things that we do is in these small granting programs that we’re involved in, it requires that neighbors work as groups. And in the process, they get to understand each other. They know what their shared values are and most of them realize we want our neighborhood to be a better place five years from now where we want to raise our kids, et cetera, et cetera.And then letting them lead. It's very much, I think, on point for where those neighborhoods need to go.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guests are Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow and SUNY Oswego Professor Paul Stewart. So, Paul, I want to get the mayor in on this one and before I do, I want to push you just a little bit on what you said.And so a thought experiment here. Let's say Paul Stewart gets a job in Chicago instead of Oswego,what happens? I mean, so, it does need, I mean, you sketched out and you were very generous and spreading out the credit, but doesn't it need a spark and weren't you that spark? I mean, this is the thing, the puzzle that I struggle with.

PS: Is that for me or the mayor here? (laughter)

GR: That’s for you, I’m putting Paul Stewart on the spot here. (laughter)

PS: Well, no, it's critical. You never want success of any movement to depend on a single individual, because if they get hit by a bus tomorrow, you know, that's a problem. So what you want to be able to do is build the leadership of the residents you have so that what you eventually do is, you make it normative that blocks, of course, people paint their houses every seven to ten years.Of course, everyone mows their lawn. Of course, people want to live here and maintain their homes because it's now become healthy and normal to do that. So in many ways, we are changing a culture that outlives any one individual, right? The second thing I want to emphasize, and I know that the mayor would agree with this, is people think that the ORA is about like me and this organization, it's not. It's an application of a philosophy that says, if you as a community want to thrive if you want to grow, you have to invest in yourself and build on your assets rather than being focused solely on what's broken and what's wrong.You have to identify what is it that we're good at, how can we get better at those things? That's a philosophy that's not an individual. And one of the things that I think among many that I have in common with the mayor here is, is he has the same approach. He wasn't coming to office to say, oh, well, here's all the problems I'm going to fix.He pursued a vision that built on our strengths. So I just want to emphasize that, part of this is changing a culture to be focused on building on what's working rather than trying to fix what's not.

GR: And Mayor, we've got about 3 minutes or so left, but I know you want to get in on this, so go ahead. What are your thoughts on this puzzle of leadership and Paul and you and Oswego here?

BB: Well, first I I want to make something extremely clear, is that I view the ORA as the lead in neighborhood restoration and our mentality and strategy at city hall is not to try to be the leader, let ORA lead and our job is to assist as much as possible. And that assistance goes beyond anything financial or just Paul and I getting along personally, it actually means focus at the ORA, what they call target zones.And the city government not only assists in terms of code enforcement, you know, we strategically deploy code enforcement to work in those target zones and certainly around the perimeter of those targeted zones to assist and supplement their investment with strong code enforcement. But also, look, when we decide which roads to pave, where to replace sidewalks, where to make sure the streetlights are in working fashion. We try to work and concentrate investment, city investment in the ORA target zones.And we do that because it's easy. If you take a picture in let's just say in February, ORA comes in, investment, they get homeowners all on the same page to beautify their homes in the neighborhood and then take a pitch for October. And the neighborhood went from a C-plus to an A-minus. That's easy to show. And that progress is contagious versus letting ORA do their thing and city government does their thing.The second component to that is, Paul and I can have the same opinion and take the same action on any given topic without even talking to each other. And that's what a true partnership looks like. You know, I can, we go to make a decision in the city. I can think in the back of my head, would Paul Stewart and the ORA agree with this and is this in line with their strategy? And Paul can be very aggressive because he's so passionate. And I often tell department heads, when Paul Stewart asks for something, assume I'm asking for it, right?

GR: Wow.

BB: Because you know it's coming from the right place, it's not to benefit Paul personally. Why would Paul care about something at Breitbeck Park?He's asking for a reason because there's a strategy and a method behind the madness. And, you know, my job is to empower him, embrace the ORA as much as possible, and let them lead. And we assist as much as we can because the strategy is right.

GR: And Paul we only have a second or two, so it’s got to be a couple of sentences.

PS: So, I want to follow up with that. What we talk to our neighbors about is, if you lead and you show that you’re going to invest, it encourages the city to double down on your investments, that’s part of what Billy just said.

GR: Well, we’ll have to leave it there. It sounds like in Oswego, smart chaos is working and it’s nice to have a good story to tell. That was Billy Barlow and Paul Stewart. Mayor Barlow, Professor Stewart, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.

PS: Thank you.

BB: Thank you.

GR: You’ve been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

James Charney, MD(jhu.edu)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is an accomplished mental health clinician who's also a movie buff. And he thinks that movies can help us better understand mental illness. Dr. James Charney is a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist on Yale University's medical school faculty, and he's also the author of a new book titled, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”. Dr. Charney, welcome to the program.

James Charney: Thank you for having me, glad to be.

GR: Glad you could be here with us. It's a really interesting book. Let me just start with a little background question. Why did you decide to write this book at this moment in time?

JC: Well, I'm going to have to give you the short version of this because this is a story that can probably fill our half hour. I've been wanting to write this book for the better part of 20 years. Before that, I was teaching the subject of this book as a course at Yale for undergraduates, for seniors. And it was a seminar that was sponsored by two different departments, because the subject of the course, “Madness and the Movies” straddle two disciplines.It was about abnormal psychology, and it was about film. And it was an attempt to use film to understand abnormal psychology, but also to use the watching of the films to improve your ability to observe and to analyze and also to learn a little bit about how films have their effects, what's the craft of film that make them work. I've always found that fascinating. So I taught that course for about 15 years at Yale. And then as I retired and spent more time away from New Haven, I wound up having opportunities to teach the course in other places, versions of the course. But in the back of my mind always was, I really would like to record this as a book, to share it with a wider audience, but also a little bit as a legacy, to be able to have a project that was really a passion of mine for so many years could people could relive it and experience it and if they haven't experiencedit in person when I was teaching it, they could enjoy it on the road. However, I never got down to writing it. I had a hard time imagining how I could write about the movies. I couldn't expect people to watch the movies just because they had bought my book or wanted to read the book. When I was teaching the course, every one of the students watched the movie the day before, it was fresh in the minds, they watched it together, it was a shared experience. And as a result, it was fresh in everyone's mind and we were able to refer to it, talk about it, analyze it in detail. How do you deal with that in a book that people are going to be reading?They may not have seen the movie and they may have difficulty accessing the film. And also just ballpark procrastination, just ordinary procrastination just didn't happen. So I was very, very lucky that I have a son who's well published and as he keeps churning out books, he would say, Pop, you want to get this book done?And I would say, yes. And then he'd say, shall I keep nudging you? And I'd say, yes, but I didn't do anything. And what made it happen was COVID. Because all of a sudden I was pretty much in lockdown, and I had no excuse. And by that time, I had been obsessing about it long enough that I figured out, I thought, a way to make the book accessible to people who didn't necessarily have the movie in front of them.

GR: It’s funny, I've talked to several authors on this program in the last couple of years where COVID is the answer to this question.

JC: Well, it certainly helped me out, so I had no excuse. My son was very good, he helped me organize a proposal, he helped help me choose the various publishers to present it to. And once I found the publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, I was on a roll. And I discovered something that I, I actually knew was I loved writing and I loved researching it.I loved reliving the course. And it was the best year and a half or two years I've spent. So, it was very gratifying. And I guess that's a long answer to your short question.

GR: Well, you've already spoken to the thing I wanted to ask you next, which is some of the ways in which movies can help our understanding of mental illness and you talked about that at the beginning about how you use it in your course. One of the things in particular that I was wondering about that, I wanted to get your reactions to, was whether you think movies can help viewers have more of a sense of empathy for people who are suffering from mental illness, because there is a lot of judgment in our society about this.Do you think that movies can help with that?

JC: I really do think they can, and it's one of the reasons it matters to me, if films portray various mental illnesses accurately, even if their agenda isn't necessarily to teach. For instance, a movie that I have a great deal of mixed feelings about is the movie, “Joker”, that was very, very big and very popular just before COVID hit.In fact, it is the film, the R-rated film, with the largest box office in history - internationally. And so it was a very, very big film, and it portrays the Joker character, it's an origin story. It portrays it as though it is taking it very seriously. It's a one off in the world of comic book movies. Trying to really kind of get under the skin of what would make somebody become an arch villain.And the problem is that it doesn't trust its audience, I think. In that it throws so many different incompatible mental illnesses into this one character that it's a bit of a mess. And I think it's a missed opportunity because there would have been a very, it could have been straightforwardly a portrait of the making of a psychopath,it could have been straightforwardly the portrait of somebody who had maybe a borderline personality disorder or had problems with mood because we know that in the film they do show Joker acknowledging that he's had periods of deep depression. Instead, they hand us a mix of symptoms that covers such a broad category that you can't categorize and as a result, you can't really understand them. And yes, people didn't watch this movie to be taught about mental illness, but would it have hurt for them to do it right? And yet, I think they could have told a very good story. Now, as a teacher in my book and in the course, every once in a while I would choose a very good movie that was very bad in its portrayal of mental illness because showing what they got wrong was another way of getting at what's right.If you can point out something and say, this doesn't happen this way or it doesn't happen, if this person has this problem, he's not going to have a separate symptom that reflects another problem. And so showing a bad movie or discussing a bad movie could be educational too. But I would much rather talk about and experience a film that gets it right, gets under the skin of it so we can kind of really experience what it might be like to have that illness.And if you, as a member of the audience, are witness to that, you're going to be empathizing. You can't help it. And so I think it's a wonderful thing. It can remove the stigma because it's presented in a way that allows you to imagine, maybe I could have that problem.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Dr. James Charney, a clinical psychiatrist and the author of, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”. So you talked about the Joker, and that was something else I wanted to ask you about in terms of, we have a sense of the upsides of this, this is about the downside. Do you think, though, that Hollywood has tended to make us view people with mental illness as more dangerous than the average person on the street?

JC: Oh, yes, absolutely. In part because it's, a film that shows someone who's kind of benignly off center is not necessarily that engaging or that interesting, so they ramp it up. I mean, you know, it is true that a percentage of people who do violent things are psychopaths. But it's not the majority of them, by a long shot.And yet you might think that the world is filled with psychopaths, you look to your left, you look to your right, and there must be one there. The film seemed to suggest that, in part because that's what's exciting, that's what what's dramatic. Similarly, films often suggest that someone who is violent might be violent if they're psychotic, if they’re not in touch with reality.And in fact, the opposite is true. If there's any violence in someone who is psychotic, it is usually toward themselves. It is much less likely that the violence will be toward other people, though that can happen if someone is paranoid enough and psychotic enough that he or she thinks that someone is out to hurt them and are really aggressive in a meaningful way, they could strike out.But the percentages are very, very small and movies don't match that percentage.

GR: Yeah. So you mentioned the movie, “Joker” having such a huge audience worldwide and the impact that it had. I did want to ask you, let's set the Joker aside for a minute.

JC: Please do.

GR: Give me the like three or four, and just name them, I don't go into detail about each one, but the three or four movies in your mind that have had the biggest impact on the public's understanding about mental illness.I mean, several come to my mind, but I'm curious how your choices are going to match up with mine.

JC: Well, you're asking a question that's a little bit different from one I prefer to answer, which is how the movies that have affected the public's understanding of mental illness more than others, because I'm not exactly sure how to measure that. I can tell you the films that I think are…

GR: Your hunches, your hunches, because you're a movie buff and a psychiatrist.

JC: For instance, “Prozac Nation” was a film that brought the conversation to the table. The whole concept of someone who is so depressed they needed to be hospitalized and whether or not medications could be helpful. That was based on a memoir, it was basically a true story. And what's her name, Elizabeth Wurtzel, I think, was the author of that.And it was made into a very good movie with Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder. And, no I got that wrong, that’s, “Girl, Interrupted”.

GR: Right, yes.

JC: Also another film that that had a big audience and portrayed mental illness sympathetically, dramatically. Got some of the details wrong but it matters less because they got a lot of things right and it had a big impact, again, putting the conversation on the table. Magazines were writing about it, newspapers were printing articles judging how accurate it was or how inaccurate it was.As a result, people were thinking about it. The film that that inspired my course and the book is a movie that was a big, big hit called, “Ordinary People”, directed by Robert Redford. It won the Oscar for its year on which I think was 1980. It's a beautiful film it's beautifully acted. Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton and Mary Tyler Moore and Judd Hirsch playing probably the best psychiatrist portrait in the movies. And it's the film that inspired the course because when I saw this film I said, if I can find other films this good, that this effectively get under the skin of a person with an emotional crisis, in thiscase a beautiful portrait also health how it affects the family. And also a very vivid and convincing portrait of how therapy can help. If I can find a few other films on different types of mental illnesses, this is something that I think would be the backbone of a course and then the backbone of this book. So, “Ordinary people” is just a wonderful example of a movie that gets it right.

GR: Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Dr. James Charney. He's a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist on Yale University's medical school faculty, and he's also the author of a new book titled, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”. So, you gave me your two or three greatest hits and certainly I remember, “Ordinary People” being very powerful when I saw it.A couple that you didn't mention that I thought would be sort of the ones that people would point to right away, would be, “Psycho”, “Three Faces of Eve”... well, let's start with those two. How come that didn't pop into your mind right away?

JC: Well, it obviously did because it's in the book. And it was something, of course, it was a film I taught. But actually the reason I taught it, it was less for the portrait of the mental illness, which this one is a bit of a muddle too, and more for the fact that this movie changed the way we watch moviesand I thought that was fascinating. Because the ending was such a surprise, Hitchcock was brilliant at marketing and he pretty much invented the: you have to stand in line to get into the movie on time, which was not the way movies were seen before. So I found that interesting. “Psycho” seems to want to suggest that we're dealing with somebody with a multiple personality disorder, and what's very nice is they do have a psychiatrist at the end who calms you down after the excitement of the movie saying, no, that's not the case and it's also not the case that he's a transvestite, but in fact, he has a psychotic disorder, but that kind of gets lost in the shuffle. It's a powerful film, it points to some kind of mental illness, but it doesn't tell us really what's going on. And what was the other one you mentioned?

GR: I mentioned, “Three Faces of Eve”, you don't need to comment on that one, that goes back a ways.

JC: The brief comment about, “Three Faces of Eve” is, it's a mediocre film with a powerhouse performance by Joanne Woodward.

GR: Right.

JC: But it's almost like a classroom documentary. It keeps on over-explaining things, it's a clunky screenplay. It's a film that doesn't hold up, it’s very much of its time.

GR: And you mentioned one of the things you liked about, “Ordinary People”, I'm kind of jumping around here, but you've given me different things to think about, was the portrayal by Judd Hirsch of the therapist.

JC: Yes.

GR: And I don't know if this is in your book, but I wanted to get your take on the movie, “Good Will Hunting”, because that has a portrayal of a therapist as well that is featured quite heavily in the book.What's your thought about that one? That of course was Robin Williams, Robin Williams being the therapist, I should have mentioned that, but go ahead.

JC: I would have loved to be in the same room with Robin Williams and not necessarily as my therapist. I actually have the final chapter of the book is on therapy, how therapy is portrayed in the movies and that's where I talk about, “Good Will Hunting”. The Robin Williams character breaks about a dozen therapy rules. Among other things, you don't choke your patient because he presses the wrong button emotionally and he lectures more than teaches therapy.But what is very good are several early scenes where he does something where he is engaging the Matt Damon character by talking his language and by saying that they have some shared experiences. This is a very good way for a therapist who is using a model that, family therapists use this model more,they're much more talkative and much more revealing about their own persons than someone who's got an analytic background or a psychodynamic background, where there tends to be an insistence that the therapist is relatively neutral or even invisible as a person in the room. But if you're willing to acknowledge who you are as a human being with your patient, you can help the patient begin to feel like you can understand him or her if you are able to say, I've had that experience too, or at least I know about that experience and Robin Williams does that. He talks about the fact that they're both weight lifters, he talks about his relationship with his wife, he acknowledges how brilliantly intelligent the Will Hunting character is, but at the same time makes the point that being intelligent intellectually doesn't make you intelligent emotionally. And so that's where he falls into, he's a little bit too full of himself and he talks too much. As I’m doing right now.

GR: (laughter) Well, it's your book.

JC: But it's a very good movie and a very entertaining film.

GR: Yeah. So two other questions about the movie specifically, and then I have some other questions for you more generally, but, is there one movie that you think has had the worst impact in terms of misinforming our understanding of mental illness, the one that would be at the top of, instead of your hall of fame, your hall of shame.

JC: I can't think of a worst. Very commonly if I mention to people, you know, maybe I'm being introduced to them at a party or something about something about my book or the course, they hear the title, “Madness of the Movies” and the very first movie that is that comes to mind is, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. People are always saying, are you teaching, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”?That is not a bad portrayal, but it is a very shallow portrayal and it really is not a good movie to teach about the experience of mental illness because it's not about that. It's about the politics of psychiatry and the politics of therapy and how hospitals can misuse or mistreat people who have some kind of mental illness. And also at the time, it was also a portrait of some people who retreated to the life in a hospital when you could, when you could stay indefinitely in a VA hospital, for instance, simply because they couldn't quite deal with the world outside.So it was more about politics and society than it was about any one individual. As a result, it's not a teachable film about psychology. So it doesn't make it a bad film, it's an extraordinarily good film and wonderfully well-acted, beautifully directed. It's a favorite of mine, but not on this subject.

GR: That's interesting.

JC: I don't know, do you have one that you were thinking of that is particularly bad?

GR: No, no, no. Because I, you know, I'm probably one of the people that's been misinformed by these things. But that's a real interesting take on, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Dr. James Charney. He's the author of, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”.I've got a more personal question from my perspective, actually, for you, if I could, and it's about the portrayal by Hollywood of people on the autism spectrum. And certainly when you bring that up, “Rain Man” comes to the front of everybody's mind. My son is on the autism spectrum and recently, well, a couple of years ago, we watched a TV series on Amazon called, “As We See It”.I don't know if you've seen that.

JC: I don't know that one.

GR Oh, okay, you might want to check that one out because the show does a good job demonstrating the fact that if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. But at the same time, it did capture some shared tendencies. And as we were watching it, it resonated both with me and with my son.And so, you know, it was interesting for that not only to watch the show, but to watch us watching it. And I just was wondering, are there particular films that you think have done a good job with that particular issue?

JC: There are. First of all, one of the difficulties in even talking about autism in films or talking about it at all, is it really is a spectrum disorder, which means, speaking to what you were just mentioning about that program, which is that there are so many different ways that it's expressed, so many different degrees of disability and by no means do we have an understanding of them.So to use to say someone is autistic, they could be so compromised that they can't in any way take care of themselves and can barely leave the house. Or you can have somebody who's just a little bit eccentric and yet, it fits the autism definition. And, you know, in general, one of the common elements is a difficulty, a kind of reading other people's expressions, a need for saneness and have difficulty transitioning from one moment to another or one focus to another,but the degrees are just dramatic. “Rain Man” is a very good portrait of a certain kind of autism. And I can't put my finger on a particularly good film, not that there aren't any, but I'd have to go back and kind of remind myself of the autism. I actually don't deal with autism in the book and I never did in the course either,I just had to choose my diagnosis. So I haven't researched it as much. But I'll tell you, there's a TV series that does a wonderful job of portraying the essence of a high functioning person with autism, and it's the, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”, I believe it's on Netflix. Do you know it?

GR: I don’t, no.

JC: It's a Korean show, it's a series. It's not a movie, but it's a series of about 35 episodes and it is charming. The lead is a young woman who has many, many symptoms of autism. But she becomes the very first lawyer, attorney, practicing attorney in Korea as an autistic person. And it's a fictional story, but it's very real in terms of its portrayal of the society and it's a terrifically engaging movie.And the woman who plays the part has an Audrey Hepburn kind of charm. It's a comedy drama and I would recommend it. It’s sweet and it's accurate.

GR: Great. I'll check it out. So we got about a couple of minutes left. I want to squeeze a couple, two questions at least in if I can, because I’d really be remiss if I didn't get to one of these. But first of all, briefly, are other than film, are there other artistic mediums in your experience that you have found particularly good at conveying important aspects about mental illness?

JC: Well, one of the things that a novel can do, and there are many novels, and don't put me on the spot to name titles right now, but there are many novels that are very good portraits of mental illness. And one of the things they're able to get at that films don't do so well is, beyond the behaviors that can tell you how a person is thinking. Films that don't do that as well. Certainly artistic expression can convey emotional problems, not just disabilities, but emotional feelings, whether it's painting, whether it's sculpture, whether it's craft art. So there's so many ways that it can be expressed in a way that can communicate the experience to someone else.

GR: Yeah. Back in the 80’s, I thought German expressionism that I saw a lot of these galleries in New York was very powerful that way in terms of emotional pain. So last question is, and I should have given you more time to answer this because it's where you start your book, but you grew up liking horror movies even though they scared you and at the beginning of your book, you told a story about seeing the, “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and then having nightmares. I had to laugh out loud when I read that because I had exactly the same experience, I was drawn to that thing and then regretted it. But, just in a minute or even less, tell us about the natural relationship between movies that incorporate mental illness and horror.

JC: And horror? The short version is that horror films are really good at tapping into some of the deepest fears we have. It's not just fears of death, it's fears of pain, it's the fears of the unknown, fears of people or experiences that are just different enough to be unnerving. And all of those are part of the experience of someone who has a mental illness. They're also part of our own normal emotional experience and the ups and downs of life. So horror, you know, cranks up the intensity and often the level of violence and somehow in experiencing it in a horror film, we can often say, well, I'm glad that's not happening to me!

GR: (laughter) Well, we'll have to leave it there. It’s a really interesting book, I recommend it to everyone who's listening. It's both fun and it's really informative at the same time. That was James Charney, and again, the title of his book is, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”. Dr. Charney, thanks again for taking time to speak with me.

JC: Thank you, Grant. I really have enjoyed the conversation.

GR: Me too. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Kirsten Gillibrand( gillibrand.senate.gov)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She's been representing New York in the Senate since 2009. Senator Gillibrand, welcome to the program.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you so much.

GR: We appreciate having you. Let me just start, I know that for a long time now you've been out in front on issues of sexual assault and gender and women in the military and also the military justice system. Tell our listeners what's been the nature of your recent work in that area and have there been any significant accomplishments that you'd want to share?

KG: Well, yes, last year, we finally, after about ten years of work, passed a fundamental change to how we address sexual violence in the military. We are now taking those crimes, along with murder or other harassment related crimes, other violent related crimes out of the chain of command and giving the review of that crime to a trained, independent military prosecutor.And they will review the claims and decide whether it's a prosecutable offense. That was passed into law last year as part of our defense bill and now my job is to make sure we actually implement it. We are training the lawyers, we are - I think their requirement is to have everything up and ready by January. And starting January, all new cases will go through this independent legal system.So I am hopeful that this independence and professionalism gives more hope to survivors that they can report these crimes and that justice is possible, that the rigor and professionalism of this new system will allow for more investigations and hopefully more convictions.

GR: And you've also done work on sexual assault in the civilian workplace, I believe. So, tell us what you've been able to change there in that regard.

KG: So, in the civilian world we realized, because we heard a lot of stories about workplace violence and workplace harassment, and I had a meeting with a woman who worked at Fox News, and she, Gretchen Carlson, she said, I can't tell you the details because I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement and I'm forced into this nondisclosure agreement by the employment contract that I signed on my first day.I'm also forced into mandatory arbitration by an employment contract I signed my first day. And so we looked into it and everybody signs an employment contract that basically says if you have any lawsuits or litigation with the company you're working for, you have to go to mandatory arbitration. You have to sign a nondisclosure agreement if that's settled. Well, in the issues of sexual violence and harassment, you might have a serial harasser like they did at Fox News, a serial assaulter at Fox News.And she couldn't even tell her colleagues, beware of this guy, he's going to lock you in his room and he's going to take advantage of you or he's going to, she couldn't warrant anyone and she certainly couldn't call out what happened publicly. So I worked with Lindsey Graham across the aisle on writing laws to say you don't have to go to mandatory arbitration.You can sue in a court of law and if you want to name your harasser in that trial, you can. And so now if you're harassed or assaulted on the job anywhere in America, you can go to a jury trial and you could name out your harasser and are not confined. That changed 60 million employment contracts overnight. And now, because Lindsey and I had such a big success, I said, how about we do this for all types of litigation, for gender discrimination, race, religion, LGBTQ status, disability, age. And Lindsey, while wanting to be bipartisan, agreed to just do protections for older people and so we are now doing age discrimination. And so the nature of bipartisanship is you have to take your partner and where he can meet you and you pass common sense good laws in that common ground area. And so while we would love to apply to everyone, we will now apply it to age discrimination, hopefully, and get a vote on it this Congress.

GR: Well, it sounds like a significant change and it's also a good story about working across the aisle, which is tough to do these days. So, I also want to come back to the military, and I understand that you've also been active in trying to bolster benefits for the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq and also going back to Vietnam.So tell us a little bit about those efforts.

KG: So, as you know, I worked for the past decade, a decade and a half on the 9/11 Health Bill to get health care for first responders. And what we found is that the diseases that these first responders have been getting are horrible lung cancers, stomach cancers, throat cancers, brain cancers, because the toxins that were released when the towers fell that were lit on fire by jet fuel, were just this horrific mass of toxins.And we started learning from veterans that they were getting the same diseases. And we realized that a lot of our veterans were exposed to burn pits, which were just like the 9/11 towers falling. It was all things being burnt and set on fire by jet fuel, from human waste to medical waste, to electronics to wood to building materials, all the kinds of things that happened on 9/11.And as a result, the coalition that we put together for 9/11 came back together. Jon Stewart, John Feal, a lot of our first responders, we all work to getting these protections and health care for veterans exposed to burn pits. And we did, we did it in like two years. It was just unbelievably in its speed but it was such a bipartisan issue when it was voted on the Senate it got 88 votes.So it was very bipartisan. I teamed up with a number of different Republicans. Marco Rubio was my lead in my first bill on this. And so, common sense, thoughtful, important and any now and my bill was burn pits. We added it to a larger bill that was any environmental exposure in your service, including nuclear sites, including Vietnam era, anybody who wasn't covered in the Agent Orange.I also covered the Blue Water Navy vets a few years ago. But it's for all exposures. And so we passed the bill and it's magnificent for the for the burn pit survivors. It's going to affect 3.5 million veterans. And we have to get the word out. So far, only, I think only 500,000, yeah, I think only 500,000 of the 3.5 have signed up for health care and to get those benefits.So please, anyone who's listening to this radio show, if you know a veteran who served anywhere in the last 20 years, any part of the war on terror, they were likely exposed to burn pits. They are now covered. And any veteran, you know who is denied coverage, they can now resubmit and they will be covered. So it's really important that New Yorkers know that this benefit is now there for them.

GR: I have a friend who just relatively recently started getting the Agent Orange benefits and the person that the VA had to encourage him to do it…

KG: Yes, because they’ve denied for so long.

GR: …but he wasn't he wasn't aware of it.

KG: Yeah.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York. So I want to ask you a question about something that is currently occupying most of the headlines, and that's the Israel-Hamas war. And your public statements on that I think I've been very direct and very clear regarding your support of Israel and its right to protect itself, but not all members of your party have been equally clear on that. And I wanted to ask you first, do you think that being a representative of the state, you already mentioned 9/11, but being a representative of the state that suffered the most during 9/11, and also in this instance, a state that has such a large Jewish population, do you think that gives you a particular perspective on this issue?

KG: Well, it does. And I also sit on the Armed Services Committee and the Intel Committee, and I've been focused very intently on issues of anti-terrorism and counterterrorism. And so there's multiple reasons why I am standing with Israel. The attack on October 7 was heinous, it was brutal, it was barbaric, it was a level of terror that Hamas has never been able to conduct.And it is absolutely necessary that Israel stop the terrorist attacks on Israel. They have to as a nation, you have to defend your borders, you have to root out terrorism as best you can, you have to keep your people safe. So I think we must stand with Israel and the fact that they took 240 hostages, I mean, it's incalculable the pain, the terror, the unbelievable suffering that so many Israeli citizens and U.S. citizens and Jewish Americans are feeling and facing.And then the exponential rise of anti-Semitism has been truly horrific. So yes, we must stand with Israel. It doesn't mean we cannot also stand to protect innocent Palestinians and communities that are in the crossfire. Hamas uses innocent Palestinians as human shields, that is why they are a terrorist organization and they locate their bombs and their rockets and their munitions in civilian neighborhoods, in hospitals and schools.And so this is a very difficult anti-terrorism effort by Israel to conduct effectively and safely for innocent people. It's very hard. And the United States is going to stand with Israel to support them and to help them. We had our own challenges in responding to 9/11. We had 20 years of war that did diminish al Qaeda and ISIS considerably.But al Qaeda and ISIS left. They reformed, reconstituted in Africa and other parts of the Middle East and it's hard. So I think it's important that Israel work with the United States and our allies on how to prosecute a war against a terrorist organization as effectively and with the protection of innocents as much as possible. It's hard.

GR: Do you think that this war could become an issue that divides and hurts Democrats politically? There's been some speculation about that.

KG: I think it's dividing America right now. I think that TikTok, particularly, is an app that a lot of our young people use, and they don't realize that it's a platform for the Chinese Communist Party to spread misinformation, to mislead people, to divide people. A lot of our social media platforms are used to create misinformation. And I think for a lot of the people who profess to be pro-Hamas, they don't know a lot of information about why that is such a dangerous position and why, in my opinion, is a very wrong-headed position.Hamas is a terrorist organization, they are not freedom fighters. And Israel has a right to exist, the world community decided that after World War II, after 6 million Jews were eviscerated. It is essential that we recognize that this is a commitment by the world, by America to protect the state of Israel. And so when you say things like from the river to the sea, you're saying Israel doesn't have a right to exist and all Jews should be eliminated.That's what they're saying. And I don't know that they all realize that’s what they're saying. I don't know that they all realize that they're calling for genocide of Israelis. So we have to do more to educate our communities, our children, young people on what's really at stake here and that the real enemy is Hamas and terrorism.

GR: You know, there was a Republican presidential debate recently, and there was a lot of talk among those candidates of federal funding for universities being cut off, depending on what that university was doing in terms of allowing this kind of pro-Hamas type of rhetoric to be put forward. Do you have any thoughts about that?

KG: Well, I called on the professor from Cornell to be fired because he celebrated terrorism. He celebrated the capture and taking of children and older people and civilians. He celebrated the beheading of babies and the slaughter of innocent people at kibbutzes. It's like, there's just no place for that on a college campus. You're given a position of authority and privilege to be a college professor. I just thought that was so more than uncalled for, more than inappropriate. It was deeply irresponsible. And that's why I don't think there is a room for celebration of terrorism ever and celebration of death of innocent people, ever. I think it is important that we talk about the real challenges of terrorism in our world, how it felt to be attacked on 9/11, how it feels if you're an Israeli or a Jewish American to see what happened in Israel on October 7th. And so I think it's real. And I think we do have to have accountability for people in authority, particularly people who are teaching our next generation.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She's been representing New York in the Senate since 2009. I understand that you were pivotal in getting provisions to make gun trafficking a federal crime and have that included in the 2022 gun regulation package that went through Congress and was signed into law.Now, this came as a bit of a surprise to me because I would have assumed that gun trafficking would already be a federal crime.

KG: Yeah.

GR: Tell me why it wasn't and why is this change important?

KG: Well, it wasn't a federal crime because the NRA didn't want it to be a federal crime. The NRA doesn't support hunters, the NRA supports gun manufacturers and gun dealers. So they want more weapons sold and used and it's all about money. They like to use hunter’s rights as a shield but it's not true. They just want more gun sales and they want proliferation of weapons.And they want proliferation of all weapons, even weapons that aren't appropriate for hunters or gun enthusiasts like assault weapons. So one of the things that we recognized was that in New York State, most of the weapons used in crimes came from out of state, and almost all of them were illegal. So it was just really frustrating that we could have common sense gun laws in New York, but that a gun dealer in Georgia could just send up 100 weapons in the back of a truck and sell them directly to gang members in the Bronx or in Brooklyn or in Buffalo.And so when I was first appointed to the Senate, I went to meet with a community in Brooklyn who had just lost a young girl who was about to graduate and was on her way to UPenn and had her whole future in front of her. And she was killed with a stray gun bullet from gang violence.And I met her parents and I met her classmates, and I decided that this was the one thing I was going to try to do to get these illegal guns off the streets because it was hurting so many innocent people. I mean, gun deaths every day. And so I wrote legislation to make gun trafficking a federal crime so that law enforcement could go after these bad gun dealers.It’s only 1% of them, but they're bad, and go after these straw purchasers and traffickers. These are criminal networks. And we got a pass last year and we paired it with a great deal of money for mental health because a lot of our public safety issues in New York are mental health related. The obvious mentally ill man who pushed a woman, an Asian woman to her death in the subway.We've seen mental health crises absolute metastasize in every community, resulting in violence, a lot of petty crime. We also have seen a rise in youth crime, and that is largely mental health related. So this bill will have billions of dollars for violence disruption, mental health investments. We can spend that money in our schools for school counselors, for after school programing, summer school programing, keeping kids from going down rabbit holes of the internet to become shooters themselves.Kids, you know, prevent them from committing suicide or substance use disorder. So it's very meaningful. We've already charged about 150 traffickers in the country and we've confiscated over 1100 weapons since that bill was passed. And it's going to keep growing because law enforcement now sees these tools are working and they know they can use it. And it's really good for anti-crime, anti-gang violence, anti-disruption in our communities. So it's working.

GR: I always remind our listeners any time this topic comes up and you just alluded to it, that two thirds of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides. A lot of people find that surprising. We just had an off year election. The quick take from the pundits was that it was a good election for the Democrats. I wondered if you discerned any particular political tea leaves of note in these recent off year elections.

KG: Well, nationally it was a great day. Boy, it was, I mean, there was so much affirmation that this country believes in equality and want to protect women's rights, reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy. The win in Ohio alone was unbelievably inspiring. In Ohio, I think the voter turnout was something like 85% of young women turned out or young people turned out with some extraordinary number. And I don't know it for sure, but you can look it up and tell us. But it was a huge voter turnout amongst young people. And as you know, they're not our regular voters. Our best voters are typically older people who are higher information voters and really know why their basic civil rights are so important.But to have the young people turn out in Ohio, I was so happy and so excited because it's their lives. Because what the Dobbs decision said is, if you have reproductive years and you are female, you do not have a right to privacy. So, so overreaching. And so a lot of these red states have used that to say you don't have rights to privacy in the mail.So you can't get your mifepristone in the mail. You don't have a right to privacy to talk to your mother on Facebook about what you should do if you're pregnant and can't take that pregnancy to term. You don't have the right to privacy to take your child who is ten years old who's been raped across state lines.And I think that story alone was one that Ohioans really was most outraged about that, that there was no protections for all these circumstances, that we need health care and that you have this right to privacy. You have this right, basic civil right and civil liberty to make decisions about bodily autonomy and whether you're going to do something that you might die.I mean, these are life and death decisions. So that was the best part for me. We also had some other successes about who's in charge and why. Our governor in Kentucky won, Beshear, which I thought was pretty impressive it's a very red state, but they liked him. And in Virginia, we had a bunch of local elections that we won that so that we could have a bulk word against ultra-conservative policies by their current governor.So I think that people voted on record numbers in these key states where it really was a life or death matter. New York, we didn't have as many victories, but we had a few really good ones that I was happy about. We did well in the Hudson Valley, which is an important battleground area for next year's House races. A local D.A. in Columbia County won, which I thought was terrific.We also had some other local election successes in Syracuse and other places around the state. The part that was pretty red was Long Island. So I think we have more work to do on getting our vote out and making sure people are inspired by the work we're doing to address these challenges that people are facing. So all in all, it was a great, great day nationally and some real bright lights in New York as well with the landscape of what work we still have to do.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. You ran for president in 2020, did you learn anything about politics through that experience that you didn't already know from being a member of Congress or a United States Senator? What surprised you?

KG: I did. Well, what I really loved about it, and it was very short and sweet, it was only eight months, but I really learned there's far more that binds us than divides us nationally. There is so much common ground, because when I was traveling in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Iowa and New Hampshire, I learned that the top three issues for everyone everywhere were the same, health care, education, jobs. And it was different versions of like what health care they didn't get. So in in Iowa, they had no maternal health in a lot of rural areas and they were closing OBGYN wings. That's happening in New York City right now. In a lot of our communities in Mount Vernon, they don't have a maternal wing anymore. And that whole group of people have to find some other health care system to meet their needs. Now, in Iowa, they had to drive an hour. That's not true in Mount Vernon, but it was still the number one issue, maternal health care, maternal mortality. I learned issues like water quality in places like New Hampshire. Number one issue was the PFAS in the water in a bunch of communities. That's true in upstate New York, that's true in the county I was living in at the time in Rensselaer County, PFAS was a huge issue. And so it really emboldened me that there's no excuse for proposing any legislation that's not bipartisan. Like, you just have to find where that common ground is because the problems are universal and we have to focus on what we can do together and to pass legislation. So I think it made me a much better senator, a much bolder leader, a much more fearless leader. I gained a lot of confidence, even though I didn't do well electorally and could never get my name out there, it really made me certain that my efforts to make a difference, to serve others, to bring people together and get things done is exactly what I should be doing. And I'm that much more excited to be a senator and running for my reelection next term.

GR: Great. So, what do you make though, of these polls that are consistently showing this is for this election cycle, 2024, that majorities of the country don't want either President Biden or former President Trump, let alone win, they don't want them to even run again. It's really quite shocking when you think about it. What do you make of that?

KG: I think it's the noise. There's so much noise in people's lives today. They can't get basic facts, they can't get basic information and almost every piece of information they receive is colored. So it's been, it's got bias in it. I mentioned on the issue with regard to Israel's war against Hamas, the potential for misinformation and misleading Americans is so real and it's ever present. It's on every social media page. Russia uses it against us, China uses it against us. Iran uses it against us. We are very soft targets, I will tell you that. And people just don't know what's what. And I think that if they heard about all the good things we're actually doing to help people, like the big bipartisan infrastructure bill that's going to rebuild all the roads and bridges and sewers that are desperately in need of repair, new airports, new ports, new high speed rail, it's exciting.Rural broadband, all that stuff. Like, that's great, that's exactly what people want to know because it's about jobs. It's about making their everyday lives better. If they knew about the advanced manufacturing we did with the CHIPS Act, bipartisan, again, Dems and Republicans working together, you know from Syracuse, MICRON is coming in. When I looked at the plans of what it's going to look like,it's something like 20 football fields lined up next to each other. I mean, it's huge, it's going to be thousands of great jobs and a great economic growth. And the gun safety bill, again, bipartisan, helping deal with public safety problems, deal with mental health problems. If people actually knew about all the good things that are happening with Democrats and Republicans, I think the country would be far less divided.I think there would be less hate and division in all of our conversations. And then the few Dem-only things we did are also really good. We got the cost of prescription drug prices down for the ten biggest drugs that older people take along with doing a cap on insulin at 35 bucks a month. That's huge, lots of people have diabetes, they really need that medication.So, I think it's that and I think that the lack of truth and the lack of, what's the word, places where people know they're getting honest information and that's being given to them so they can make decisions. We have less and less, you know, honest actors that people know they can rely on. And that's our challenge.And I'm going to work hard for President Biden to tell people that he's a great leader.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Senator Gillibrand, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. We really do appreciate it.

KG: Thanks, Grant, appreciate it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Dina Nayeri( dinanayeri.com)Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Refugees and their resettlement have been prominent and challenging issues in the United States and throughout the world in recent years. My guest today is both a refugee and a writer on the topic. Dina Nayeri is originally from Iran, who was granted asylum to the United States when she was ten years old.She's the author of, “The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You”, and more recently, “Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough”. Her writing has garnered many awards and accolades. Professor Nayeri is also on the faculty of St. Andrews University in Scotland. Professor Nayeri, welcome to the program.

DN: Well, thank you for having me.

GR: It's great to have you. So, let me start with your first book, “The Ungrateful Refugee…”, and the title of that book, I think contains a deliberately provocative word, which is, “ungrateful”. So could you unpack the meaning of that word for the issues that you're dealing with in that book?

DN: Sure. I think in many ways this was a taking back of a phrase you hear a lot. And I think from the very beginning, you know, when I was a kid arriving in Oklahoma in the U.S. and in the 90’s, you know, you did hear people put those two words together, ungrateful refugee, which implies that you should not only be grateful, but you should be performing your gratitude for the benefit of the people already there, which, of course, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.It also didn't make a lot of sense to me because refugees are naturally, like the instinct is absolute gratitude to God and the government who's accepted you. I mean, your life has just been saved. So once you arrive, all you want to do is be useful. All you want to do is like, you know, pray and be with your community and say thanks,you know? What you don't want, though, is people who are born way luckier telling you to perform that gratitude. That irks, that feels awful. And I think there's a lot of people who do feel compelled to do that sort of like, gratitude theater and performance. So for me, it was you know, I wanted to take back that phrase.I wanted to kind of make people ask why. You know, we say ungrateful refugee, but we don't say, oh, she's an ungrateful physicist (laughter). You know, like there's this assumption that this is something that has to be a part of their lives now, an experience. And I want to challenge that, I think gratitude is private, and I think it's something that it's between us and our communities and our people that we love and our deities.

GR: So what are the experiences of asylum seekers and refugees that the people living in the host countries least understand? Is that what you just set forward there, or is there something else that people just don't get about refugees usually?

DN: I think there's a lot that people don't understand, and I think that's why I divided the first book into five parts. You know, it has kind of the entire arc of the refugee experience, and the five parts were, you know, escape and waiting and camps and things. There was asylum and asylum storytelling. There was assimilation, and then there was cultural repatriation.And the reason I divided it into those five parts is because there are things in each of those parts that you know, the native born don't really understand. And I think it'd be helpful they would want to understand because a lot of them want to do well, want to be kind, want to, you know, kind of help people adjust to a new life.But they make mistakes inadvertently. And I think one thing that I did with the book that I wanted to help kind of bridge that gap, is to kind of compare each of these moments with something that's very universal. We all experience, for example, the camp portion. It's about waiting and we've all been faced with waiting. We've all been forced to wait by someone with authority and it's infuriating. You know, it's the worst place to be. And I think to understand how the biggest burden of a refugee camp is not those tangible needs, it's the waiting, it's the not knowing, you know? Or, for example, asylum storytelling. We've all told stories and situations where we really need the other person to believe us, you know, and just how incredible actually it makes us when we need that person to believe us, it makes us worse.It makes us perform the story worse, you know? And I think that that's something else that's worth understanding. But I think what over arches all of this that I think I would communicate to people, is to be aware of the fact that once you've lost everything and arrive in a new country, more than first order needs, you are consumed by your loss of identity and your shame.You know, there is so much. And I think there's a lot people do that they could do differently that can help, you know, refugees overcome that shame quicker. You know, like, don't give charity from like the perch of the helper, don't put yourself above that, there's so much. I think it's all about like, approaching these newcomers with the same curiosity and welcome that you would anybody else, you know, that comes to your community.

GR: You know, I think finding that theme of finding the universality of it was very effective. So, you also blend in memoir along with the broader reflections and the analysis as you have in the book. So could you just briefly tell us your own story as a refugee?

DN: Sure. I mean, I was born in Iran in 1979, which is right around, well, right when the revolution happened. So before that in the Iran of my parents, this was a secular Iran under the, you know, kind of a monarchy which had its own problems. But you know, it was an Iran that was kind of becoming more modern and progressive.There were the arts and literature and modern people, it was very, it was an interesting place. But then the Islamic Republic came in and changed all that, put the women under the veil, took away so many of their rights, started persecuting religious minorities and then the war happened too with Iraq. So my story is that my mother was a Christian convert,she converted to Christianity when I was six. And she was part of an underground church and deeply involved with all that. And she was also a doctor, so she treated a lot of vulnerable women. And so she started kind of talking about, Christianity was like her feminism, you know? And so as she got into trouble and she got put in jail and we had to escape because her life was in danger.So we escaped the country when I was eight years old and we were two years displaced, part of that time just undocumented in Dubai and then part of that time in Italy in a refugee camp before we were given asylum in the U.S.

GR: Wow. So I have to ask this question, and I hope you won't resent it, but do you ever desire to return to Iran?

DN: Oh, no, why would I resent that question? I do, I do want to. I mean, I imagine myself being able to go back there, you know, and I think one thing we all dream about, you know, the diaspora, the Iranian diaspora, is to kind of step foot in the Caspian Sea again, you know, to go into the mountains and the little villages.I mean, one of the wonderful things about Iran, I think an experience Americans won’t have had is that it's a country where the cities can be very modern. Everyone's like got their phones and, you know, wi-fi and they understand American culture. And, you know, you have people who know music and literature and all that stuff.And then like half an hour away, you could be in a village that hasn't changed in 200 years. And like with a grandmother who hasn't changed in all that time and, you know, really get the experience so just being immersed in a truly natural, bucolic, beautiful place that is untouched, I guess, by time. And that's what I miss.I want to go and like grill fish on the Caspian with some grandmothers.

GR: That sounds wonderful. Now, some people might say some of the same things about Scotland that you just said about villages that haven't changed in 200 years.

DN: This is one of the reasons I love it. I mean, I can go half an hour this way and start hiking in the Highlands and like run into people who are just like, wonderful in that way.

GR: You're listening to the casual conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Dina Nayeri. She's the author of, “The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You”, and “Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough”. So, a broader question now. Are there are there significant trends in the prevalence of movements of refugees that you've been aware of in recent years that we should know about?

DN: Well, I mean, we know the big ones. And I should say that I'm not like a geopolitical analyst of any kind. But, you know, I write about people's individual stories. But, you know, you've seen what's going on in the world. You've got, you know, people from Ukraine and Palestine and other places. But I think the kind of trends I'm interested in is people's attitudes toward those refugees, you know, not necessarily what happens, but what happens among, you know, the native born as they receive these people.And what I've seen in the U.K. is kind of a disturbing difference between how they treat the white refugees you know, like Ukraine versus, say, the refugees from the Middle East and Africa. It's a different attitude, it's a different level of empathy and that makes me sad, you know, because, of course, they all come from places of like ruin and ravage and war and all wish for the same kind of opportunity to rebuild.

GR: I noticed that when I was in England as well for several summers in terms of the attitudes toward immigrants. The Polish immigrants, for example, were pretty warmly received, but not so much some of the ones that you're talking about. There is one thing that I personally was surprised to learn, and I just wanted to put it out there and see if you had thoughts about it.But I was surprised recently to learn that the majority of refugees in the world, they resettle in the Southern Hemisphere. And I think there's a stereotype in the United States that this is a phenomenon that largely takes place in the industrialized West, that's where all the refugees are going. But they're fleeing and going to neighboring countries that are in that area.

DN: Yeah, most of them, I don't know the exact numbers right now, but that's absolutely right. Most displaced people actually either get displaced with in their own country, just something happens that they move or in a neighboring country, and, you know, they stay, they settle and that’s it. Iran has a lot of refugees from Afghanistan, for example, who settle and become Iranian.I think it's very easy for us to just look at things from the point of view of the West, like, oh, look at all these people coming. I mean, they're a tiny fraction of all of the people who have had to move. You know, there isn't this idea that, oh, we want to come and like en masse settle in the West.I think they just want to get to safety. Sometimes safety means coming to the West. For example, people like my family, if you are, you know, an outspoken Christian in a Muslim country, it doesn't help you to settle in a neighboring country, you know, what I mean? Like, they're all Muslim countries, you have to just get out of that region and try to find your way to a country that has religious freedom,you know? So, for example, in the book there's a story of how we were in Dubai for ten months and then my mother got in trouble with Dubai. Because they found out and they were going to deport her back and so the UNHCR had to kind of step in and say, these are refugees and we'll take them.And then they took us to Italy, which was a safe country for Christians, while they sorted out where we belong.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Dina Nayeri. She's a professor at St Andrews University in Scotland and the author of, “The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You”, and more recently, “Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough”. And we've been discussing the issues that she raises in those two books.So you'll probably be interested to hear this, Dina, but Syracuse is a federally designated refugee resettlement area, along with cities like Utica and Rochester. So this whole area up here in Central New York. And it's my impression, I think it's widely shared that these waves of refugee populations that have come in have really helped to revitalize these cities, in particular Utica. But you also see it in Syracuse, both economically and certainly culturally. And I think it's to the point now where it's part of Syracuse's identity as a city, that this is this is who we are. So I'm just wondering, is that your sense of the general impact of having refugees come to any particular area that you get that dynamic?

DN: It is. I think, first of all, that's wonderful to hear and I can't wait to be there and see for myself. It's very exciting. I always love to hear about communities that welcome refugees and that are changed by them because I think one thing that I want to make sure people understand is that this is only good for everyone,it's only like, wonderful. Refugees for the most part, you know, what they want to do is come and immediately get back on their feet, be useful, help put their skills to good use and to like, you know, show, I mean, it's such a shared compulsion that they want to show the native born that they were worth it, you know, that they will add something to that community.And often they do because, you know, refugees come from all walks of life and they have all kinds of skills and professions and talents and they put them to use there. But another thing is I think, you know, in the U.K. and parts of the U.K. and the U.S., I've also heard these fears about, oh, will they change our culture?Will they change, you know, the feeling of our cities? And like for me, you have to take such a long term view because when I was growing up in Oklahoma, for example, nobody from the Middle East to come into my community and changing the culture was essentially us, you know, adding our foods to the mix in the church and like bringing our music and our songs and things like that.And all those things were actually joyful to receive for our community. But nowadays, like 20 years has passed and like, say, for example, nobody would bat an eye at somebody bringing hummus to a church. You know, like people, like your regular everyday American is like feeding the foods that we brought 20 years ago, you know, to their children and it doesn't make them less American.It doesn't take away from their family culture because that's how change works. Like time works that way, no matter how much you try to keep people out, the fact is that the world is going to change your children and make them different from you, you know? And so all of these influences that you're so afraid of actually are going to just enrich, you know, who your children are in a different way.You're not going to miss that the, you know, who they would have been had they had maybe a little bit less of this influence and a little more of this. You can't control that stuff, you know? So I think it's a much happier existence for a community to embrace everything everyone has to bring and to like just create like a much richer tapestry,you know? And I think those are the communities that thrive and they do so for a reason.

GR: So let's shift to your more recent book, “Who Gets Believed?...” What are the main issues that you're wrestling with there in that book?

DN: Well, the book came out of, you know, the last one and that, you know, as I said, I was doing this the different stages of the refugee life. And I was doing a lot of research. I put in stories from current refugees and people who had just received asylum or were on their way. And I had woven together my own story with theirs throughout this book.But after I finished it, I found myself just constantly returning to one of the sections, which was storytelling. You know, how asylum seekers and refugees are forced to tell their story in asylum interviews, but also in other contexts, too, and how those stories are received. And I had all of these extra other stories that I hadn't yet put in the book, but there was one in particularI was absolutely obsessed with that I couldn't put in the first book because the Supreme Court case was still ongoing and I hadn't yet met him and his lawyer, and it was such a big story and it hadn't quite come together. And that was the story of KV. And KV was a refugee who came from Sri Lanka, and he came in 2011 at a time where Sri Lanka was actually putting out a lot of refugees, and a lot of them came in with these very characteristics, torture scars on their backs, you know, and their arms.Because the Sri Lankan detention camps, the Sri Lankan authorities, were torturing people with hot soldering irons, you know, in the same way over and over and over again, if they suspected that they had helped the Tamil Tigers in any way or resistance groups, you know? So he came in, KV came in to the U.K. with these exact same scars and somewhere along the line I guess, the asylum officer who heard his story had been desensitized to this story, these pictures.She or he had seen one too many, you know, and rejected his case for a completely made up reason that had been recently made up precisely because too many people were coming in with these same scars, which is that they called itself infliction by proxy. Like he put the scars on his own back they said in order to get asylum. Like, forget the fact that all of the humanitarian organizations are saying this is characteristic of Sri Lanka at the time and that all the doctors were saying nobody would do this to themselves.Still, they rejected him and it took years of going through the system before the Supreme Court said this is absurd, you cannot create an entirely made up category and like attach such a burden of proof to the other categories that you kind of dump everyone into this one, which has no burden of proof, you know? So that story had me so enthralled that I had to you know, include it.But it also made me want to expand out from refugees to other vulnerable people who are not believed for one reason or another. You know, we have the wrongfully convicted, we have people trying to get particular types of medicine or medical attention. You know, a lot of times vulnerable people, the poor people of color, you know, being disbelieved by, you know, the people who are meant to help them.So I started gathering stories for those. And of course, again, I wove a memoir because I had a childhood obsession with how to be believed. And not only that, but I had been a refugee and I had also been someone who, like, came up through places like McKinsey and Harvard Business School and these places of, like, you know, kind of elite education where they taught you how to be believed.And as a former refugee, I was just appalled all the time by some of the things and some of the tools that were handed to the privileged, I guess, that I was now, you know, one of. So I felt that this was a topic that was rooted in my obsessions and also, you know, important because I had all these stories.

GR: Well, this next question is related to this in a way, but gets at it somewhat differently and that is, it seems to me you mentioned, you know, putting everybody in one category rather than seeing the differences that are there and it's related to that. It seems to me that the distinctions between refugees and more traditionally considered immigrants are becoming blurred, at least in the United States, the way they get talked about.And I just wondered if, A, is that impression correct and if it is correct, what do you think it reflects?

DN: Well, I mean, it depends on who you're talking to, because the thing is that the distinction is blurry. You know, it is blurry because the world is changing. There's all kinds of reasons people get displaced, all different types of circumstances. And it's really hard to interpret something like the refugee convention. So just for our listeners who don't know the exact definition of a refugee, you know, after World War Two, you know, the nations, Europe and America, they got together and they signed the Refugee Convention, which is an agreement that they would take in people who have been displaced and in danger and who can't go back to their countriesbased on five characteristics. So that the danger has to be because of your race, religion, national identity, political opinion or membership in a social group. So if you are in one of these five categories and you've been persecuted and you're in danger, then you are owed I guess, asylum, right? The trouble is, so the people who originally drafted this, they created that fifth category, membership in a social group, to be kind of a giant, et cetera.What they didn't want is for something like the Holocaust to happen again to a group that they didn't anticipate, right? So they were like, you don't know who the next persecuted group will be and why, so what we're going to say is something along the lines of, for any reason, you're in danger, right? But now, like countries are, you know, like people who want to narrow that definition and to close the doors are basically just essentially narrowing the definition, saying things like, well, women are not a social group,battered women are not a social group. You know, like if you're been involved with, if a gang has threatened you, you know, and you're in danger, that's not one of these categories or a social group. But the fact is, there's lots of different reasons people need to get away, you know? In Central America, you do have gang violence and threats,you have climate change, you have like people who have to run because they're the place are living isn't sustainable. And then you've got people that we call migrants, economic migrants who you know, have to get away because they are dying, you know, because they can't get food or work or whatever in the place that they live. For some reason, we separate them out and say they are not real refugees.Well, I think those lines should blur because the fact is that those people are in just as much danger. You know, at the end of the day, that's not a life any of us would accept either, you know? And so it is complex. It is hard to know where on that spectrum to draw the line. My personal, you know, ideals and beliefs say you draw them in a place that is generous, you know, a place where, like, if it was anything on this side of the line, you wouldn't be willing to live there because why should the accident of birth decide that, you know, you get to live happier than this other person?

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is the writer Dina Nayeri. We've got about 4 minutes left or so, but I want to try to squeeze in two more questions if I can. And you already anticipated the first one, you mentioned this at the very beginning of our conversation.You were saying that, you know, the current situation, there are going to be a lot of Palestinian refugees. And I did want to ask you, what do you anticipate happening regarding refugees and their resettlement as a result of the Israel-Hamas war? What would you think is going to be the place where they go and how is it going to work?

DN: I don't know. I'm not an expert in that region. I mean, I'm just kind of watching with horror like everyone else. You know, obviously, it's sad because this is not a group of people that a lot of the neighboring countries want, you know, like the doors seem to be closed from every direction. And also, you know, people don't want to leave.They don't want to leave their homes, so I think there's a lot of complicated issues there. I don't know, I have not like, I can't anticipate it. But I think as with every refugee crisis like this, you know, people in luckier countries should be ready to receive them, you know, we should kind of be a little bit better at thinking, what would we want if we were in that situation?

GR: And this last question is, I wanted to give you some time for it, because you mentioned also at the beginning suggestions about how the host people living in the host countries should be relating with the refugees and the things that they could do differently. And I did want to ask you, what do you think are the most important and doable changes in the refugee and asylum seeking process in the West? You know, particularly in the United States that you'd recommend.

DN: Yeah. I mean, I think there's lots of things that could be different short term and long term and within communities and also with the systems, you know, so just very quickly, within communities I think it's really important to, you know, tend to those first order needs, but also come, kind of to greet these people from a place of curiosity, the kind of curiosity you would have for someone new to your community that is kind of rooted in wanting to be their friend and friendship and welcome and all of that. From a, in terms of systems and asylum systems, et cetera, one of the biggest problems that I heard about from asylum lawyers is that not everyone gets equal representation. And some of the reasons that people get rejected and sent back into danger is because they come in and they're kind of forced to speak to an asylum officer before talking to any kind of legal representation. They say the wrong thing and immediately have themselves put in the wrong category. For example, if they come in and say something like, yes, well, you know, I was Christian minority in Iran and persecuted but also, you know, we had some money trouble, like, well there you go, they'll immediately put you in the economic migrant category because you said the wrong thing. One of the lawyers that I talked to said the number one predictor of whether or not someone will get asylum is nothing in their background but whether or not they have a lawyer. And that is not fair because then the rich will always do better. You know, people who have means and money and education will always do better, people who are closer to a Western culture always do better. Second thing is, I think there needs to be better training of asylum officers, you know, in cultural storytelling, the way that people tend to be, tend to tell their story in different cultures so that it doesn't, they don't think immediately that someone is acting suspiciously when they're really just telling their story according to their own cultural rules.But all that stuff is just, it's complicated and hard to implement and a little bit kind of longer term. But I think, yeah, there's a lot we can do.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Dina Nayeri. And again, her two books are, “The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You”, and “Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough”. Also on Friday, November 10th, she'll be giving a talk at Syracuse University titled Reconsidering Refugees and Immigration. That's at 4 p.m. in the Maxwell Hall Auditorium. And for more information on that free event which is open to the public, please visit the website of the Maxwell School's Campbell Public Affairs Institute. But for now, we'll leave our conversation there. Dina, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. This is very interesting and insightful.

DN: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations and the public interest.

View Details

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I’m Grant Reeher. Perhaps one of the less well known frontiers of environmentalism and sustainability concerns the problems with bottled water. You know, the one you probably drank from the last day or so, and maybe you finished it and maybe you recycled the empty bottle afterwards. My guest today has written a new book about the subject titled,, "Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice". Daniel Jaffee is a professor of sociology at Portland State University in Oregon. Professor Jaffee, welcome to the program.

Daniel Jaffee: Thanks, Grant. Great to be here.

GR: Well, we're glad you could spend some time with us. So let me just start with a very basic first question, briefly, if you could. How did you get the idea to write this book at this time?

DJ: Well, I was interested in, I had been interested before in the controversial issue of water privatization, more broadly and was, as someone concerned, I'm an environmental sociologist, I'm concerned about the relationship between environment and society. I was very interested in what the implications are of the market having more control over different areas of nature. And there were a lot of social movements, very vocal around proposals to or actual plans to privatize drinking water supplies, tap water supplies around the world, and then also in the U.S. And gradually I started realizing that bottled water was kind of a less recognized frontier in this process of increasing private or market control over our increasingly scarce fresh water worldwide. And so I started digging into this process and discovered a whole interesting set of movements that had emerged in response to the growth of this product.

GR: Interesting. Yeah, I want to get into some of those bigger questions in a minute, but let me just kind of lay the groundwork here. First of all, about the water itself. Beyond the packaging, what's the actual difference between most bottled water and tap water?

DJ: It is important to get a handle on what's actually in those bottles. Worldwide, a little less than half of all bottled water on the shelves comes from groundwater in some form, springs or wells. But in the U.S., it's less. In the U.S., many may not be aware, nearly two thirds of the water that's being sold on the shelves that we drink is actually sourced just from tap water supplies, it is extracted from municipal public water systems by bottling companies and often re-filtered, they strip out the minerals. They add their own proprietary mineral mixes, you know, so that Dasani, for example, would taste the same in New York State as it does in Oregon over here, and that's it. Only about a third plus comes from those springs as pristine springs and lakes that you see emblazoned on the labels and so that's a paradox. And the fact bottled water is linked to growing distrust of tap water seems pretty ironic given that fact.

GR: Yeah, I've seen the growing distrust of tap water, and it's a conversation that I have with my son from time to time. Also, for the backdrop here, give me an idea of the recent trajectories of the consumption of bottled water and soda and if you know it, of tap water. I know that bottled water has been going way up and I think soda has been going down.But I don't know if anybody knows how much tap water people are drinking.

DJ: Right. So I start the book with sort of a confessing that I'm old enough now to remember that when I was in grade school back in the 1980's, Americans in 1980 consumed only two gallons per person per year on average of bottled water and it was mostly, you know, Perrier and those heavy glass bottles, it was a luxury product.No, there was no such thing as mass produced private single use, plastic, bottled water. And somehow we got from that situation to today where Americans are consuming over 47 gallons per person per year and it is coming to us in those lightweight PET bottles. And really it's fascinating because in the US, in a place where the great majority of the population has the privilege of access to very clean overall tap water on demand 24/7, nearly nine and ten people say they consume some bottled water.And really surprisingly, recent stats show that one in five Americans get all of their plain water from a bottle, they shun the tap entirely for drinking. And so that trajectory has been almost entirely steady upward slope with one little dip in the Great Recession. And I show in the early part of my introduction a graph that looks like an X.Soda is sort of in inexorable decline replaced by bottled water's dramatic rise and two lines intersect in 2016 and bottled water is now the most sold packaged beverage not just in the U.S., but around the world. And just incidentally as a bookmark, that means that it is responsible for the biggest slice of the global problem of plastic bottle pollution which is on the order of something like 600 to 700 billion single use plastic bottles being disposed of each year.

GR: Interesting. You know, in terms of being able, what you can remember, I've got your beat because I can remember when Perrier was first introduced in the United States. Now, the bottled water companies come into play heavily in your book, particularly in terms of this larger issue of privatization of water that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation.I wanted to ask you a question about that specifically. The bottled water companies claim that they're not in competition with tap water. They're only in competition with soda, beer, other bottled beverages. Is that true? Is that a realistic claim?

DJ: It's an important question, and it is actually a central claim of the industry. Very briefly, I talk about the big four firms who have dominated or at least led the industry in the US and abroad around the world. They're very familiar household names, food and beverage companies, Nestle, Coke, Pepsi and Danone. They are the four leading firms, and some of them, as people might be aware, Pepsi and Coke, for example, only sell re-filtered tap water in their bottles, Dasani, Aquafina other brands. But the claim that they don't compete with tap water is an important claim because the industry has many critics, and those critics have often charged that the bottled water industry is contributing to increasing public distrust of tap water through its marketing, whether it's overt or subtly implying that tap water might be unsafe to drink or less safe.And the industry's response, as you say, is, no, no, no, we are not in competition with tap water. We are in competition with soda, juice, beer, milk and all those other beverages. And so I dig into those claims and I look at a range of evidence around that question. I look at marketing literature, I look at industry reports, internal discourse by the industry statements by beverage executives and some stats which are relatively challenging to get on changes in tap water use.And here's what I found, it is certainly true, as I said already, that bottled water gain has been in part sodas' loss. Many people have switched from consuming unhealthy sodas to less unhealthy plastic bottles of bottled water. But it is also true that bottled waters' gain has undeniably also been a result of dramatically falling top water consumptionhere in the US, the statistics are clear. Tap water consumption has dropped dramatically, particularly among certain economic and other social groups, we can talk about it a little bit later. And so what I conclude is that the industry's claim that its growth has not come at the cost of the tap simply doesn't hold water.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Daniel Jaffee. He's a professor at Portland State University and the author of a new book titled, “Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice”. I wanted to ask you another question about those four big companies you mentioned. But first, I'd be remiss with our listeners here in Central New York if I didn't mention that this area is one of those areas that is renowned for its quality drinking water, tap water.And I notice the difference when I travel other places, particularly, I go to Washington a lot in D.C. and the water tastes awful the first couple of days I'm there. And so it really is remarkable to see the number of bottled water drinkers that I see around here, because we live in one of these places that's supposed to have great water.But let's talk about these four companies. And they do kind of figure as villains, I think, of sorts in your book. And you mention them and, you know, I don't recall seeing bottled water with Coca-Cola on the label or Nestle on the label or Pepsi on the label. They have these exotic names, you mentioned a couple of them.What explains that? Are they just trying to fool us here? That that you know, I'm not I'm not getting a Pepsi product. What's going on?

DJ: I honestly can't answer your question, Grant. This is you probably need to find a marketing or branding expert to really answer that question. But I think it's true across the board in food products, we often don't see the parent brands and that might be for a variety of reasons. And certainly the you know, there is an effort to have consumers believe they're buying from more of a mom and pop company.But Coke's brand is Dasani, Pepsi's brand is Aquafina.Danone does not sell a lot of its own brands here in the U.S. and Nestle, interestingly enough, and this may maybe getting ahead of the game, but Nestle due to a variety of factors including falling profits and competition from cheaper brands, in 2021 sold its entire U.S. and Canadian bottling operations and all its seven spring water brands and wells and sold it out to a private equity venture which has the name BlueTriton. And there's actually just a piece in the New York Times a couple of days ago about BlueTriton's extraction of groundwater in Maine.So they've taken over Nestle's business and so they have become the fifth largest global bottled water company.

GR: Interesting. Well, let's get to some of these bigger questions that your book opens up. And you write about the connections between environmental concerns and bottled water. And I can certainly see how those are connected. You know, the bottles themselves, as you mentioned, you know, the other ways in which this is just cutting into something that we don't need, it's not as sustainable as tap water. But you also write about the connections between social justice and bottled water. And that connection, I think, is harder to see in an obvious way. So tell me a little bit more about that connection.

DJ: Right. And this was actually honestly even a surprise to me as I dug into the research for this book. The standard narrative, and I think it's one that I partly even had in my own mind is that, you know, think back to the days of Perrier and those glass bottles and sort of selling it based on snob appeal if you want, a luxury product, right? And the standard narrative, the conventional story is that bottled water is a discretionary product that is most consumed by folks with a bit of disposable income. And, you know, the argument would be that if your income falls, you buy less bottled water and you turn back to the tap. And that certainly was true in the industry's early decade, maybe the 90's, when when the industry grew really dramatically but I think what we are finding is that in at least in the U.S., the evidence points in a very different and surprising direction. Which is that it turns out that bottled water is not just a controversial product with a range of negative environmental impacts, butit turns out to be very deeply linked to the, sort of the social justice crisis of uneven access to safe and affordable water, you know, here in the U.S. as well as abroad. And to jump to the chase, there is a problem of uneven distrust in tap water because our tap water problems in the U.S. are unevenly distributed.It's really only something like 7 to 8% of water systems across the U.S. on average, ever even have one health related violation of that federal regulation, the Safe Drinking Water Act in any given year. And most of those are remedied quite quickly. But the problems, the recurring problems tend to fall in particular kinds of communities. Low income communities, rural communities, small water systems.And these are often in places that are disproportionately low income and home to disproportionate populations of people of color.

GR: You start you start your book with Flint, by the way, and that's what immediately comes to mind, yeah.

DJ: High populations of communities of color, particularly black and latino, as well as indigenous communities. And it is among those groups, the folks, I think it's fair to say, who are sort of on the losing end of the uneven deterioration of public water infrastructure here in the U.S., who expressed the highest concern about their tap water quality and who buy the most bottled water now in the U.S. and who spend the most doing it, despite the fact that these are groups on average who are the least able to afford that extra spending. That spending can go from the hundreds of dollars per year to if like many millions of people, you're relying onbottled water for not just drinking water but your entire cooking, now we're talking into the thousands of dollars per year. Some folks in some of the academic studies, some families, low income families, we're spending 12 or even 16% of household income to acquire bottled water on top of water bills that are rising rapidly. So, you know, I like to say we don't have so much a widespread water safety problem in the U.S. as much as a water injustice problem.And those water crises like Flint, like Jackson, Mississippi and others, unfortunately, I mean, those are indicative of some of the deterioration of our water systems. But they also, as I imagine you could figure out, they have a disproportionate effect on scaring many more people who live outside of those affected areas about the quality of tap water overall.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Daniel Jaffee. He's a sociology professor at Portland State University and the author of a new book titled, “Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice”. And we've been discussing the issues that are raised in his book. So, when you were talking before the break about this connection that is related to social justice, which was not obvious when you first think about it, it's very interesting and disturbing, but it makes sense once you say it.I couldn't help but think of the same type of argument about food for a lot of under-served groups, particularly in inner cities, and that they pay a lot more just to feed themselves because you have these food deserts where there isn't a lot of competition and the larger grocery stores. And this strikes me as a different version of that problem.But I wanted to hear more about Flint, because you do start the book that way and it does come into your story at several points along the way. So tell me a little more about how Flint plays into all this.

DJ: Right. Okay, so Flint in some ways has become kind of emblematic of this newly discovered crisis of threats to tap water in the U.S. In some ways, some of the factories in Flint were unique in that Flint was subjected to an unelected emergency manager who whose authority overrode the local city council and who made some of the fateful decisions to switch Flint away from the Detroit water system and onto the polluted Flint River, as well as other very problematic decisions.But in the broader sense, I think the case of Flint is very important and I think it has some larger lessons around these questions. So, of course, first of all, in a situation of toxic or unsafe tap water, local people, local populations absolutely need a safe, immediate alternative source of emergency drinking water, that's undeniable. And in the early days, according to some of the folks I interviewed, activists and local residents in Flint organized and they demanded immediate access to distribution of free bottled water as a way to get something they could drink.However, what I say is, they actually were not demanding bottled water per se. What they were demanding was safe water. And digging into some of the details of the Flint disaster really revealed some interesting things. One is that both Michigan's governor and many of the local groups, activist groups were asked were requesting a disaster declaration from the federal government it was the Obama administration at the time.They believe that that disaster declaration would open the door for bulk deliveries of trucked in, bulk safe water in tanker trucks and in these things called water buffaloes, where residents can bring their own containers and fill up in bulk. That declaration was denied. The federal government said no, and as a result those millions, or actually hundreds of millions of bottles of plastic single serving bottled water distributed at these distribution points with people lining up in their cars or on foot for hours just to get two cases, became kind of emblematic of that crisis.And those images circulated around the world. We've all seen them that one point in one way, it's priceless PR for the industry. But I think also it's, you know, sort of more troubling because it might inculcate the notion that that is a natural or an obvious way to to access potable water. And I think, you know, one thing we could think, I'd like to think about counterfactual, hypothetical.You know, what, if the Flint crisis, for example, happened in the U.S. at a time where we didn't have the alternative of that ready availability of those millions of bottles of plastic bottled water, what if that had happened to 1980 for example? I think, obviously have to speculate, but I think more than likely what would have happened is there would have been immediate bulk deliveries of tanker truck water of course, and a lot more political pressure on the state, the local and federal administrations to stop this embarrassment and to get those pipes out of the ground, those damaged pipes and replace them and solve this problem.And I think that bottled water is ready availability, its portability and the fact that the pilot population has become accustomed to it, reduces the perceived urgency of fixing the root causes of drinking water problems. And in some ways, it can serve as a crutch for cash strapped local officials who would otherwise have to make very painful fiscal decisions around raising revenues.And the federal government has cut its contribution to drinking water infrastructure by something like 80% over the past 45 or so years. So I think that's where bottled water connects both to social justice and also to this deterioration in process through disinvestment in our public water systems.

GR: That's really interesting. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Daniel Jaffee. I wanted to give you a chance in this last part of our program to talk about some of the things that people are doing to resist these trends and also to get your sense of what you would recommend if you had a magic wand.But let me just ask you this one real specific question about water before I do that that relates back to this area. And we can be real quick on this one. We do have a spring water bottling plant in the area, it's called Nirvana Spring. And I pass it on my way to a cabin in the Adirondack foothills.They emphasize that location in their advertising, obviously. I'm also thinking of Coors beer which emphasizes that it uses Rocky Mountain Spring Water. Is there anything about proximity to mountains that makes water better or even different?

DJ: I'm not a geologist and I'm not a hydrologist, I can't really say that. I can say that in places like Europe, you know, spring water is much more important to drinkers and they're much more interested in the mineral attributes of specific springs and their relationship to them. That's not such a big element in the U.S., and that's why we have about two thirds of our water coming from tap water.And the surprise perhaps is that folks don't find that objectionable, but spring water does sell for a bit more and at least historically, there's been a bit more profit in selling it.

GR: Okay, well there have been movements against bottled water to, “reclaim the tap”. and you write about those too. So tell me about those, how successful have they been? What are some of the methods, you know, that kind of thing?

DJ: Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because that's, you know, in some ways really the heart of this book is the push back or the alternatives. And I find this resistance or this opposition in a range of different places somewhat surprising. Very briefly, I talk first about one facet, which is sort of local community efforts that have happened in very specific places where the industry is either extracting groundwater or spring water or would like to do so.And I have sort of two deep case studies, one in Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge and one maybe in your listening region in the tip of southwestern Ontario. In Wellington County, where a coalition of water advocacy groups, indigenous activists and local residents and others have resisted for several years the proposals by Nestle and now by BlueTriton to expand its existing bottling there. But the second facet of these movements and probably the one that's much, much more widespread and might be more relevant to more people, more listeners, is just what you said, what I sort of lumped together as the reclaiming the tap facet of this resistance, of this response.And that is just a fascinating constellation of efforts by local government officials, city governments, nonprofit organizations, environmental groups, universities, university students, high school students even, to essentially revalue or re-valorize tap water and sort of rediscover the value and the importance of this overwhelmingly high quality, nearly free product, right? The average cost per gallon of tap water is something like a half a cent per gallon and there's a turning back to the tap that is really can no longer be ignored.These communities across the board, big cities and small. So we've got San Francisco and we've got L.A. and New York City, but also a range of smaller communities are installing hundreds, in many cases, of these shiny new water fountains with bottle refilling apparatuses, the bottle re-fillers. Some of them are these high tech ones that tell you how many bottles of plastic bottles of water you avoided by filling up your refilling.And they are shiny and crucially, they're attractive. And I think that attractiveness is very important. We have a couple of decades of deterioration of our water fountains. I think we've lost the public water fountain as a public resource.

GR: I just used one today! (laughter)

DJ: But they sometimes are hard to find. But what's really amazing about this facet ,and it is now, I think it's sort of fused with a lot of the energy in the climate change movements and in the movements concerned about single use plastics. And we really are seeing this interest in refilling and taking the form, especially of young people, walking around with these refillable bottles, metal bottles, not just them, their parents as well. And so people are looking for places to refill, have phone apps like the refill app that are telling them where to find them. And these initiatives are coming together and the industry is starting to pay attention. It actually does seem to be taking a bite out of bottled water sales in the U.S. and Canada and beyond.

GR: We have some of those facilities here at Syracuse University, and it's been driven, I think, by those concerns. We only got about a minute and a half left, but I want to give you a chance to put forward, you know, if you were the water policy czar, what kinds of changes would you like to make? Would you want to just ban bottled water outright?What would you do?

DJ: Well, I think at the city level and at the level of public institutions like universities and local governments where the water is clean, safe and available, yeah, a lot of cities and universities are choosing to actually ban the sales of bottled water, either on city property or on university property. And then the flip side of that is investing in expanding access to tap water.But I go beyond that. I think there are a lot of really great access points, schools are one that we haven't mentioned. Folks who are involved in their schools, PTA, school boards, that's a crucial place where we could restore availability of water fountains and refilling stations. And there's been some very cool things happening around the country along those veins.The Filter First movement is something to look up online. Well, let me say, I think there are a whole slew of things that could happen at the local or state or federal level around water justice in making sure that we don't move toward that two-tiered drinking water society that I was sort of talking about.And I think there, well, let me just say the federal level is crucial, and I think the federal government absolutely needs to reinvest at a substantial level in restoring the condition of our public water infrastructure. There is a bill right now in Congress called the WATER Act, it would dedicate $35 billion a year to a trust fund that would essentially restore the federal government's role in maintaining and supporting, dealing with some of these new chemicals like PFAS and also dealing with the affordability crisis that's getting worse.And it would deal with the problem of water shutoff. So I think people could look into the Water Act and 35 billion might sound like a lot, but it's less than the $46 billion that Americans spent in 2022 to buy bottled water.

GR: That's a good place to end. That was Daniel Jaffee, and again his book is titled, “Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice”. And it's a real interesting way to take a lens on something fairly specific and then have broader discussions about bigger issues that come out of it. It was a really, really nice job on that book. Dan, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. Again, a very provocative topic.

DJ: Thanks so much, Grant. I really enjoyed talking to you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Faisal Saeed Al MutarOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Faisal Saeed Al Mutar. He's an immigrant to the United States from Iraq and the founder of Ideas Beyond Borders, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting critical thinking, science and civil rights in the Middle East region.

(Program transcription forthcoming)

View Details

Joe LiebermanProgram transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is former Senator Joe Lieberman. He represented Connecticut in the United States Senate from 1989 to 2013. He also served in the Connecticut State Senate and as the state's attorney general. In 2000, he was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president running on the ticket with Al Gore. He's here with me today because he's the founding chair of No Labels, a centrist political organization that's behind a possible third party unity ticket for the 2024 presidential race. In a past program, I interviewed Brian Clancy, the chief strategist for No Labels. So, Senator Lieberman, thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Joe Lieberman: Glad to do it, Grant, and thanks for your interest in No Labels.

GR: Well, it's a fascinating idea that you folks are putting forward. And so I've got, as you imagine, a lot of questions about it. Let me just start with the most basic one, is, please remind our listeners who may not remember the conversation I had with Brian Clancy, remind our listeners of what the Unity Ticket Project is and why it was created.

JL: Will do, and I'll give you a really quick history of No Labels. So, No Labels was founded by a woman named Nancy Jacobson, incidentally, a Syracuse University graduate who had spent most of, really pretty much all of her career working for Democratic organizations and candidates. And then in 2009, probably particularly after she watched the very partisan reaction to the financial collapse of 2008,she just decided maybe it was time to start a bipartisan organization or an organization that would try to bring some kind of bipartisan centrism and unity back to Congress. And that's how No Labels was started (in) 2010, worked hard over the years since then really to elect centrists Republicans and Democrats to Congress and then to get them working together with each other and colleagues and the other chamber.And I'm very proud of what we've done at that and really been at the bottom of some of the, unfortunately rarer accomplishments of the last years in Congress including the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS innovation bill and some of the COVID stuff. So what about the Unity Project for 2024? In a way it’s a surprising development, but honestly it comes out of the, really the thoughts and the opinions and ultimately the requests of our members around the country who said we're never really going to bridge this partisan gap in American politics.All the disunity, a dysfunction, failure to solve our problems, unless we have a president who will lead that effort. And so we decided, you know, it's too early to say whether there's really an opportunity to run a ticket, in our case it would be a bipartisan unity ticket next year. But just to keep the possibility open, let's start a major effort and it’s not easy to qualify a third line for president or vice president in each of the 50 states. That's what we're doing, we're over ten, we think we'll definitely get over 20 by the end of the year, and it's going to be a really credible movement. And then next year we're going to see is there something constructive we can do?And just briefly, Grant, we've said we'll only run a bipartisan unity ticket if we believe it has a realistic chance to win. And I know what we say that people say, well, that's ridiculous, third parties don't win. In fact, the third party hasn’t won since, of all people, Abraham Lincoln in 1860. What if you look at public opinion in America today, almost half the American people identify themselves as independents, just a little more than the cumulative (unintelligible) say I'm a Republican or Democrat. People are turning away from the two major parties because they feel like they don't do anything to deal with the things that people worry about at home. They just fight each other. And the second thing we've said is that we will only run a ticket if we're not spoilers. And by that I mean that we're not just, that we have no chance to win.Also, that we would take disproportionately from one of the two major party tickets. And of course, we're talking about a bipartisan unity ticket. Really, well, the last time it happened, it was 1864 with Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. But, because it will be a bipartisan ticket, we think that it will take equally from both parties. So that that's what we're about. I mean, just a poll in the last couple of days, almost three quarters of the people say they don’twant President Biden to run again. Almost 70% say they don't want President Trump to run again. And to us, that's the message to the two parties. But if they don't hear it, we may just decide to give the American people a third choice after Trump and Biden next year.

GR: Well, I wanted to ask you about the decision to run the ticket and to follow up on something that you said, because it's obviously, I think barring any catastrophic health issue, it's going to be the case that Joe Biden is the nominee on the Democratic side, it's an open question who's going to be the nominee on the Republican side,but Donald Trump is the frontrunner, at least based on the polls. So is your decision, your organization's decision going to be based on the fact that these two, the idea that these two candidates are deeply unacceptable to a lot of people? If, for example, a moderate Republican candidate were able to get the nomination, I imagine your thinking might change,is that right?

JL: Yeah, no question about it, our thinking would change. I mean, look, part of this is that we were, the two parties are seem to be heading toward nominating two very unpopular candidates for president. And I think part of their unpopularity is what No Labels is all about, which is that the people understand that a Trump Biden campaign will be just the typical partisan slash counter slash campaign.And then most troubling of all, whichever one of them is elected doesn't really hold any hope of a different four years in which both parties sit down, talk respectfully, compromise, and actually get something done to solve the problems that people worry about, like the economy, inflation, crime, cultural changes are America's role in a very different world. What do we do about China?What do we do about Ukraine? This stuff slides down and it really becomes a party against party, tribe against tribe, enemy against enemy. That's not the way the country gets any better. So yeah, if there was a surprise and one or both of these candidates, if Trump and Biden were not nominated and there were some more moderate or independent nominees, I think that would have a real effect on whether we would run a No Labels ticket.The odds are we probably would not, I have to catch myself, and Nancy always reminds me, No Labels can't run a campaign. We are working very hard to get on the ballot in all, for a third choice in all 50 states. But then, we will recommend a ticket, a bipartisan ticket, but then that ticket has to qualify under the federal election laws.And we can't, we're a nonprofit corporation.

GR: Right. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with former United States Senator Joe Lieberman. So the obvious question is, how is this effort being received by the two parties so far?

JL: Yeah, well, not well…

GR: (laughter)

JL: Particularly not by the Democrats. And it's not surprising, Grant, because we are challenging not just the two candidates, Trump and Biden. Really, what No Labels is doing in talking about a bipartisan unity ticket is challenging the political status quo in America which the Republicans and Democrats control, and that's threatening to them. There's a professor at Harvard, Michael Porter, who describes the two parties control over American politics as a duopoly, not a monopoly, but that they have a kind of, even though they fight each other and tear each other's face off, they have a ground on which they agree, which is let's keep it just us.And we're trying to break down the door and get in there where I think a majority of the American people want us to be. Now, the Democrats have reached, or some of them have reached some kind of conclusion that the inevitable result of a bipartisan unity ticket, the fourth on the No Labels third line will be to elect Trump.But I don't get that because as I said, it's going to be a bipartisan ticket. We think it'll draw equally from both parties as Ross Perot did in 1992. And we keep saying over and over again, we're not going to be spoilers. We're only going to do this if we think we have a realistic chance to win. Let me (unintelligible) with the latest data where I think we have a realistic chance to win.We just completed, No Labels, a poll of almost 10,000 voters in the eight swing states, which have pretty much decided the last two presidential races. And if you ask people if their choice is Trump, Biden or a moderate independent choice. 63% said they're open to a moderate, independent choice. Now, I understand that's open too, ultimately there's got to be some names up there that they have to like.But that really tells you that, and it's coming from both parties. So we basically said to people in both parties, including most of the Democrats are really attacking No Labels, just relax a little bit here.

GR: (laughter)

JL: And incidentally, maybe what you should be thinking about is whether the two candidates you've got, Biden and Trump, are really the strongest candidates for you to be running.And maybe that's the response you should give instead of attacking us for somehow trying to break down the door of this two party duopoly in American politics.

GR: So I wanted to ask you a question about the Democratic Party's resistance to your effort, because I think it's fair to say, at least since 2016, that one of the main central messages of the Democratic Party is that they are the party of small-D democracy. And they're standing up for small-D democracy. Do you think the party's behavior toward you folks undermines that claim?

JL: I do. Thanks for asking that question. When you think about it, what they're saying is the Democrats who are trying to stop No Labels, you don't really have a right to try to get, or maybe you have a right but we don't think it's a right you should be able to exercise to try to get a third line on the ballot to get access to the ballot.Incidentally, there are Supreme Court decisions, particularly beginning with efforts to stifle civil rights groups that say that gaining access to the ballot is a constitutionally protected right. So, I always say and I have said in the last few months to the Democrats who are attacking us, you have every right to disagree with what we're doing and to say so in strong terms.But when you do what we've seen them do now in Arizona, Maine, and to some extent North Carolina, which is to convince Democratic election officials, state officials to use their power to try to block No Labels getting out a third line, even when we satisfy every legal requirement. We put in enough legal signatures of all the rest, that really is unconstitutional.And I said this once before and they really got angry at me. It's actually potentially a crime because the law says that two or more people cannot conspire to deny other Americans their constitutional rights. And that can be a crime under our criminal code of the United States government. So I think the, look, I understand what the Democrats say when they say they’re the party of democracy because Trump has done things that certainly seem anti-democratic, but in this case, the Democrats themselves in trying to stop us from doing what is our constitutional right to get on the ballot, to run a third unity ticket, to give the American voters a third choice, that's unconstitutional.Really, in a way, it's the kind of voter suppression, which, of course, Democrats always oppose, rightfully, because it's often used to try to suppress minority voters who are likely to be Democratic voters.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with former United States senator and founding chair of No Labels, Joe Lieberman. And we've been discussing No Labels’ possible sponsorship of a third party effort in the 2024 presidential elections called the Unity Ticket. So, before the break, we were talking about the Democratic Party's pushback against this effort. I wanted to ask you a little bit more personal question about that, if I could. I mean, this is your party, after all…

JL: Yeah.

GR: You know, you ran in a presidential race under this label. So, are you disappointed at a personal level or do you just kind of chalk it up to, well, this is politics, this is the way things work?

JL: No, I am disappointed, although I must say I’ve had greater disappointments with the Democratic Party over the course of my career. But if you would have said to me that I'd end up in this place advocating for at least the possibility of a third party ticket for president or vice president next year, I wouldn't have believed it. But it's just based on what I've seen.I mean, when I said I had tougher moments, you know, in 2006, I ran for reelection to the U.S. Senate and basically I lost the primary, was close, but I lost it. And, you know, it was based on the Iraq war which I understood. It was a very difficult decision, difficult for me, I was obviously not being opposed to our retreating from Iraq because although it would help me politically, but I thought it was the right thing to do.And I was disappointed that so many Democrats that I had helped over the years, and then I had advocated on behalf of other issues, turned away from me. And people kept quoting to me the Ronald Reagan line, that because you started out as a Democrat, where he said, I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.But I will tell you that I, even when I ran as an independent in Connecticut, and thank God and the voters of Connecticut I got reelected, I never left the Democratic Party, I still am a registered Democrat. But, you know, I've been disappointed by it. And this really slash and burn reaction of some Democrats toward No Labels’ exploration of a third party bipartisan unity ticket has been disappointing to me.But I feel very strongly that what we're doing is the right thing and it doesn't deter me at all. I mean, maybe it's because I'm now out of office and I'm not really thinking about the next election.

GR: (laughter)

JL: I'm trying to see if there's some way at this stage and chapter of my life I can contribute to the betterment of the country.And I really think that this is one of the ways.

GR: You've addressed the issue of this ticket being a spoiler and that the ways in which you're trying to build into the process that you don't do that. If you don't mind, I did want to ask you, though, a question about the 2000 election in that regard…

JL: Sure.

GR: ..as I have you here and I can't resist.

JL: No, go ahead.

GR: And so you and Al Gore ran for president and vice president in 2000 against George W Bush and Dick Cheney. A lot of Democrats blamed your loss on Ralph Nader's third party run that year, he was the spoiler. Do you agree with that?

JL: Well, you know, I'm not sure. And I know it's a funny thing to say. The exit polling in Florida suggested interestingly, surprisingly to me, that Nader took, pretty much equally votes that would have gone to Bush-Cheney or Al Gore and me, hard to believe that but for different reasons, different kind of voters. But there's no question Nader had an effect, I think, in states like New Hampshire too, where, you know, it was so close in 2000 that if we had carried New Hampshire, Al Gore and I, we would have been elected. Just that few, I think they have four electoral votes, maybe even three, I think four, they have four. That would have been enoughto have won the election. But here's the difference,Nader was always a spoiler. He was a, if you will, a protest or ideological candidate to put it in more positive terms of being a spoiler, which is to say that nobody, including Nader, thought he had a chance to win. This is a big difference because as I said earlier, Grant, if No Labels runs a bipartisan unity ticket, it is because to the best of our ability, we believe it has a realistic chance to win.And based on the data that we're getting now, we think if we come up with the right candidates, that we can do that. I mean, when you think about it, you've got those eight swing states that I talked about earlier. 63% of the people say they're open to a moderate independent ticket. Most states in America or their electoral votes, almost all except two, on a winner take all basis.That means that our ticket could carry a state with 35% of the vote.

GR: Right.

JL: And right now, I'd say that's quite feasible. Considering the attitudes, the really negative attitudes toward Trump and Biden.

GR: Yeah, the other thing I would just say editorially is Al Gore is not Joe Biden, and certainly George W. Bush is not Donald Trump. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is former United States Senator Joe Lieberman. Even more sensitive question, if I may, I'm going to ask some different questions now…

JL: Sure, go ahead.

GR: Based on my reading of the 2000 election,my understanding is that you were one of the folks in the campaign's inner circle that was advocating that Al Gore continue his challenge of the election outcome beyond what he did. And you can correct me on that if I'm wrong, but if that's right, I'm just wondering whether you've rethought that moment given what we saw in 2020.

JL: Yeah, no, both are right.

GR: (laughter) Okay.

JL: I’ll tell you the story briefly. So it was on a Friday in December of 2000 that basically our side won the case in the Florida Supreme Court, we thought it was over. And then the Bush campaign asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, which we never thought they would. There was no precedent for it, basically because, and it was sort of brought up, again, you might say, around the Electoral College this in 2020, that these are state law questions.Anyway, the case was argued the following Monday in the Supreme Court and on Tuesday night about 10:00 or 10:30, Al Gore called me and said he had just heard from our lawyers that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Bush. And he said that he was disappointed, he knew I would be. But he said the lawyers had told him that there was language in the Supreme Court decision that arguably, as we say in the law, enabled us to go back to the Florida Supreme Court and ask for a recount of the votes statewide.What did I think? So I said, you know, Al, I haven't seen the decision so I'm going to react based on my own experience, particularly as Attorney General of Connecticut, but also which is, if you think you have a plausible chance on appeal, which this would be, and particularly if our lawyers are right, that the US Supreme Court has said of Bush V. Gore, that we have a right to go back to the Florida Supreme Court, there’s so much on the line for our country, I would say that we should do it.So he called me back, it was after midnight and he said, I made a decision and I'm not happy with my decision and you won't be. But I think we've got to end this because if we go to the Florida Supreme Court, it's highly unlikely that a statewide recount would be completed by January 20th. Therefore, we will not have the orderly transfer of power, according to the Constitution.And, you know, I accepted it, of course, with a respect. As I look back at it, particularly having gone through 2020 and President Trump's refusal to accept the results, refusal to accept the fact that he lost, I think, 60 or 61 court cases to try to overturn the election, I think Al Gore probably took it to a higher level than I was as a former attorney general and he did the right thing for the country. So that's my story today.

GR: We've only got about another minute and I want to squeeze in one more question if I can. And it's a simple one that it was going to be difficult to answer in less than a minute. But, do you think within the two parties, not your Unity Party ticket ever, but within the two parties, there is still room for moderates to emerge as leaders?

JL: I hope so. I mean, I can tell you that in our No Labels work in Congress, we really have helped to elect the centrist. A lot of Democrats and Republicans in Congress are, you might say, the biggest victims of the partisanship, because they worked so hard, they come to Congress and then they get pushed into these warring camps. So, that's why we have 60 members of our House Problem Solvers caucus equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Ten in the Senate and they work together and they get a lot done. Could they become leaders? I don't know yet really, because both parties are still dominated by the more extreme ideologies. But I'll tell you this, I'm an optimist and I think the public is so fed up with the political status quo and the two major parties that there's going to be an uprising. Remember, Thomas Jefferson said he thought it was a good thing for there to be a little rebellion in American politics every so often. As important as storms in the physical world are, in other words, clear out the dead wood basically.

GR: (laughter)

JL: I think we may be at that point right now in American politics.

GR: We'll have to leave it there. I could talk to you for hours, but Senator Lieberman, thanks so much for this, it's really been a thrill for me to talk to you. I remember when you first ran for U.S. Senate against Lowell Weicker and it's going to be an interesting year politically, to say the very least. So thank you.

JL: It is. Thank you, Grant. Take care.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

Ryan McMahon on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Ryan McMahon on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Bill Kinne on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Laurence Jurdem on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Robert Frye on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Claudia Tenney on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

David Schleicher on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Sean O'Keefe on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Nick Tomboulides on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Adam SmithOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Congressman Adam Smith. The Democrat has represented the 9th District of Washington State for over 20 years. They talk about his recently published memoir, "Lost and Broken: My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety".

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Congressman Adam Smith. The Democrat has represented the 9th District of the state of Washington for over 20 years and has been the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee since 2011. He served as chair of that committee from 2019 to 2023. He's just published a memoir titled, “Lost and Broken: My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety”. And he's here with me today to talk about that book. Congressman Smith, welcome to the program.

Adam Smith: Well, thank you very much for having me. I appreciate the chance.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making a time for this, obviously an extremely important topic. Let me just start with some basic questions. You've been struggling with the problems that you chronicle in your book for a very long time. Why did you decide to write this book now?

AS: Well I, so the struggle basically, you know, I had a lot of issues from childhood forward that were there, but I didn't really recognize them for what they were and I just sort of got through them. And then eventually, you know, by 2013, it just blew up into uncontrollable anxiety and chronic pain. And it took me six years, and as I documented in the book, well over a hundred health care providers of one kind or another to sort of figure it out.And by mid-2019 I was starting to get back to better. And I just thought, you know, this is an interesting story, I would like to understand it. So while it's fresh in my mind, let's just chronologically lay it out and understand what happened. And then as I was writing it and thinking about people I interact with, you know, tens, probably millions, tens of millions of people in this country suffer from some combination of anxiety, depression and chronic pain.And I just thought it would be a story that would be helpful for people facing that and hopefully give us a better path for how to deal with those problems.

GR: Absolutely, I think more than tens of millions. So we'll talk a little bit later about how you figured out what the underlying problems were and how you addressed them. But let's just start again sort of at the beginning. What were your initial symptoms, what happened first?

AS: Well, I can break that down into two categories. There were the initial symptoms that were the ones that I talked about when I was younger that I dealt with. There were just, I just thought, okay, this is who I am is what I have to deal with. As a child I was incredibly insecure and afraid of absolutely everything. And I know a lot of people growing up, they lack confidence, whatever, no, I was on the extreme end of that scale. I was, you know, if I encountered a new situation with new people, I just sort of I didn't know what to do. I was afraid of everything and insecure and all of that. And then, you know, on the physical side, I damaged my knee when I was 12 years old and had surgery when I was 16.And so my knee hurt and then eventually my back hurt, my foot hurt. And so all of that was going on for my entire life up to like the age of 40. And then when I hit 40, I had just this five month bout of uncontrollable anxiety. I saw a psychiatrist, I took some benzodiazepines, but it went away in four or five months.I didn't really do anything about it, I just sort of got past it. But then as a document in 2013 was when that anxiety came back and it wouldn't go away. And that anxiety was, basically imagine if every second of every day you feel existential fear. You know, I the analogy is like, you know, a homicidal maniac is coming at you with a machete,all right? That's the way I felt. My body was constantly tense hard going, a million miles an hour, couldn't sleep, could barely eat. And it just consumed me. And then a year after that is when my hip pain and back pain got to the point where, you know, I struggled to walk or sit. So that's when the symptoms kicked in to the point where I just, I couldn't live my life starting in 2013.

GR: So one of the questions I wanted to ask you, I think you may have just answered it is, what was the low point? You know, when did you get to where, you know, I've got to do something more than what I'm doing. It was in 2013 then it sounds like where you hit that. So then you turn, in your own approach , to something that becomes more effective.So tell me about, you know, sort of that moment of saying, okay, now I've got to try to address this in a better way.

AS: There are a couple of different moments on that. When the anxiety hit me in 2013, I was like, I’ve got to go find somebody. So I tried to find a psychologist, I did find a couple, nothing seemed to work. And then I dove back into the drugs, specifically clonazepam, which is a benzodiazepine and clonazepam, If you've never taken it before and you have anxiety, the first time you take it, as I say in the book, oh my god, it's just unbelievable.I mean, it just, it makes the anxiety go away. I was myself again, but I knew there’s side effects and also tolerance, and that came. And when that came I was still lost. So I'm still sort of searching my way through what's going on with me mentally. And the easiest way to think about this, is whether it's physical or mental painhealth care comes down to two things: diagnosis and treatment. What's wrong? What are you supposed to do about it? And really, this journey that I took was I struggled with the diagnosis as a starting point, on either problem and much less the treatment. So, and really it wasn't until, well, I found the psychologist in 2015. So after, I think I was in between hip surgeries there, I'd had two have surgeries, hadn't had the third one yet.And one of the chronic pain people I was working with said I got, I know the psychologist, he works, you know, he specializes in chronic pain. So I went and saw him. Now, as I say in the book, he told me in the first meeting what was wrong with me. It took me about three and a half years to actually believe him.So I had to go through that and then I didn't find, on the physical side, until I found the muscle activation techniques people who do muscle activation therapy, that was April of 2018 when I went to that guy and it took him about a year basically to rebuild me. But most of the time was spent trying to figure out what's wrong with my mind, what's wrong with my body, what am I supposed to do about it?

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Washington State Congressman Adam Smith about his new book titled, “Lost and Broken: My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety”. So as you mentioned, you went through a lot of different medications and trying to deal with these problems and you talked about the issue of tolerance and other kinds of side effects.Do you have any insights to share about that experience with medications?

AS: Absolutely.There are many problems with our health care system, which is a big part of my book, is documenting the limitations of that health care system. You know, in part, you know, yes, I’m a policymaker. I was there for the Obamacare debate, I'm a big supporter of the Affordable Care Act, I've been to health care debates for 30 plus years as an elected official.So part of it is policy, but part of it also is to make an individual patient, this is the system. We can imagine some world where we magically fix it, but understand what the system is, and that alone will help you navigate it better. So that was part of it was trying to figure out, you know, how do I get into this and how do I figure out what to do about it?You asked a question there and I missed the last part of it.

GR: Well, just insights about, you know, dealing with the medications and you turn that to the health care system which is appropriate.

AS: Yeah, look, in my big insight there, we pass out medication for this stuff way too quickly in way too many subjects. I mean, benzodiazepines, my opinion, they can help you in the short term, they’re a huge problem in the long term. And the more I've spoken with psychotherapists who really know what they're doing, benzodiazepines block a part of your brain that is necessary for you to have the conversation about why you had the anxiety in the first place.So it makes the treatment less effective if you've got that in your system, because the key to mental health is really understanding what's going on in your brain and understanding that you don't have to be controlled by it. You don't have to chase every emotion, everything that comes into you. It's real, okay, don't let anyone tell you that that feeling of anxiety that you have isn't real, but there are ways to process it within your own brainthat can get you to a better place in mental health. Benzodiazepines are going to block it, and I am really not fond of antidepressants. SSRI’s, I forget exactly what SSRI stands for, but it's basically Prozac, Zoloft, that's supposed to even out your serotonin, you know, and on pain. You know, I took oxycodone, I took tramadol for a long time.Those things are never really solutions to your problem or, sorry, rarely, extremely rarely are they solutions to your problem. But what happens is, because both with pain and with mental illness, neither the patient nor the provider wants to take any more time than they absolutely have to deal with this. What you want, fix it, get me back with my life.Okay, here's a pill that'll fix it. See you later. Way too reliant on that.

GR: It's interesting what you said earlier about you being a policymaker, and I want to ask you about this later, but, you know, you have a deep knowledge of the health care system as a member of Congress, and you say you were part of the passage of Obamacare and all that, but then you're in the system now and things are different and it reminds me of accounts that doctors have written about, you know, once they're a patient, everything seems different.And I think that's an important perspective. Let me ask you this though, about how did all of your struggling with this affect your ability to provide effective representation for your constituents? I imagine that was a concern for you.

AS: Yeah, it made it a lot more difficult. I mean, there was really I guess, as I document in the book, I mean, 2016 was absolute rock bottom for me. It was after my third hip surgery, I just started seeing the psychologist a couple of months before. I didn't think I was going to recover. And I was in a bad place at that point, without question.And I say this in the book, I didn't do as effective a job during this period. I didn't go to as many meetings. I didn't interact with people as much, but I kept working. I mean, that was one of the things through this is I was fairly high functional. I could go to meetings, you know, particularly before the chronic pain where the anxiety was overwhelming.But for some reason, you know, it's always awkward when I try to explain to people that one of my strengths is that I'm very articulate because if in explaining that I'm not, then they're like, well, okay, really? But I can talk, all right. And it's always there, you know, hopefully (unintelligible) anxious. But if you put me up there and say, let's talk about the budget, let's talk about health care, answer this person's question,I can do that, okay? My heart may be going a thousand miles an hour, the second I'm done, I may be back, you know, but I can do that. So I did the job. And also, you know, much of the member of Congress, I got a staff you know, both on the Armed Services Committee in D.C. and personal staff.And they did a tremendous job. And I've always, even before all this, I understand that the staff is crucially important to effective representation and I've always empowered them. So that's how we got through that. But I'm sorry, one more quick point on this.

GR: Sure.

AS: This is something that everybody has to deal with. Yes, I'm a member of Congress. But, you know, my father was a ramp serviceman at United Airlines.Okay, if you're you know, if you run a restaurant, if you're, I don't know, an accountant, if you're a mid-level manager, you got to figure out some way to keep your life going, your job and your family while you're dealing with all of this. And that's part of it. You know, a big part of it is you need help, you need help from people around you.

GR: I want to come back to something related to that point you just made at the end a little bit later in our conversation. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Congressman Adam Smith. The Democrat represents the 9th District of the state of Washington and has just published a memoir titled, “Lost and Broken: My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety”.I had another question about how this affected your political career, it kind of picks up on where we were before the break. Were you ever afraid in all of this that an exposure of your struggles with this, with these issues, would cripple your political career, that, you know, that it would it would really cause some serious damage?

AS: I was constantly afraid of that. From the very first moment, you know, from the even, you know, going back to 2005 when I had my first little four to five month battle of it. And this hit me, I was like I need help, but I don't want anyone to know that I need help. How do I do that, you know? And I sort of document in the book that, you know, I went and saw the psychiatrist out at Bethesda Naval Hospital, you know, and we didn’t put it on the calendar. I just snuck out a couple of mornings, you know, once a week or whatever and went and saw him. Yeah, my thinking back, certainly in 2005 and even in 2013 was if people find out about this, that's a huge blow to my political career.It'd pretty much be over. And that's one of the things I talk about is, the big challenge is the stigma against mental illness. Now, the last three or four years, we've gotten better at this. A lot more people have come out publicly and talked about this. The stigma is going down, but it is by no means disappeared. There's this and even with chronic pain, there's a general perception that you cannot ever appear to be weak, you know, so people don't seek help and don't, they aren't honest about what they're what they're dealing withbecause of that fear.

GR: Especially in politics. But I think you're right more generally. So you're more public about it now, you've been talking about it. What has been the reaction from your constituents after you went public about this stuff?

AS: It's been very positive because like I said, I think there's this moment now where people, first of all, you know, all this stuff was going on and no one was talking about it, okay, so now that people are talking to us like, gosh, I felt that. I mean, the biggest reaction I get on both the chronic pain side and the mental illness side is the number of people say, hey, I dealt with that or my spouse dealt with that or my child dealt with it.So the reaction has been just very, very positive that, you know, basically thanking me for being part of opening up this conversation.

GR: Well, and I wonder whether that helped you. It took a little bit of a pressure off and helped your anxiety. It's out there now, you know?

AS: Yeah. No, look, I mean, one of the keys to this is one of the things that I think we as humans struggle with most is being honest with ourselves about what we're feeling, what we want out of life. I mean, that's one of the biggest struggles is, you know, I mean, you tell yourself lies all the time about a whole bunch of different things and you wind up suppressing things that puts pressure on you.Huge key to this is be honest about what you're feeling and what's going on with your life. Even going all the way back to childhood, which was part of my issue, things that I had just sort of blown off as, you know, okay whatever, you know, they're there and you have to honestly address them. And that's one of the points I make early on in the book.Psychotherapy is enormously important and incredibly helpful. Now, not all psychotherapists are good at their job.

GR: Like anything else.

AS: Right, exactly. I think I was reading there's some study I think in The New York Times just a couple of days ago that was like, well, does psychotherapy work? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. And I'm reading through the whole thing as they're analyzing it. And finally, near the end they get to the part where, well, it kind of depends on the therapist.

GR: Right.

AS: Well, yeah! You can't do these longitudinal studies and say, well, we studied these people and half of them said it doesn't work. So, no, it matters whether or not the therapist is good at it, as I learned.

GR: I want to ask a couple of questions to go back to kind of the medical aspect of this for you and the treatment aspect of this. First of all, how are the pain and the anxiety intertwined? Did you start to get, like, anxious about that you were going to get a bout of pain that you couldn't handle?Is that part of it?

AS: Absolutely. Now, and this is a really interesting subject. And I could fill your full 27 just answering this one question.

GR: (laughter)

AS: I'll do my best not to do it. It is clear that physical pain is connected to anxiety and depression. How exactly it is connected is nowhere near as clear. I won't go into all of Doctor Sarno's theory.He wrote a book called, “Healing Back Pain” years ago, he's passed away now. He talks about how those two things are connected. Now, in my case, and I went through this a lot, I was like, as the physical pain came, I'm like, is it connected? And in my case, it certainly is connected in the sense that the anxiety made the pain worse and vice versa.But I had two separate problems.There are many people out there that are like, well, you know, physical pain if you just think about it the right way, it'll be fine. And as you can tell from my comment there, I don't really believe that. Now I think in some instances, yes. I had a guy an an ambassador, I forget which country when I was going through this said, he had read Dr. Sarno’s book and he said he had massive back painand Dr. Sarno’s book says, no, it's because of unresolved issues in your life. So understand that, understand that the pain isn't real and just go live and you'll be fine. And he was. That didn't work for me, okay, so I think you have to understand both the mental side and the physical side. One is not just going to make the other one go away in my view, but there's a lot of different thoughts about that.

GR: And you also mentioned that you weren't a big fan of antidepressants, SSRI’s. That has made an enormous difference for a lot of people, according to them, what is the nature of your concern about that?

AS: Well, a couple of things about it is, again, I am a huge believer, and one of the positive outcomes I had from all of this, the ability of the mind and the body to heal is far greater than I think most people give it credit for. It's not easy, but, you know, you can, in fact, find ways to heal your mind and heal your body. Drugs mask that and stop you from addressing it.And then it's like it's all up and down. And I don't know, I've talked to people like that, too. I talk about in my book how I, you know, I would go on the Internet and say, well, what do people think about Celexa? You know, and “oh I love it”. The whole, you know, of course, as I point out in the book, you know, how many of those people are interns for the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug.They go, hey, it's a great drug, you should buy it. But look, the way antidepressants work is they try to regulate the level of your serotonin in your brain. It's an antidepressant. And right off the bat, when my doctor prescribed it to me, I was like, well, wait a second, I've got anxiety. This is an antidepressant. Isn't that the opposite?And he said, well, it evens out, okay, it takes a few months, it can be initially activating. The first two months I was on Celexa, worst anxiety I've ever experienced in my life. It was just, it was uncontrollably awful. And then eventually it evened out, but it would up or down, it didn't work. And I don't know,I mean, I know we're prescribing antidepressants to ten year olds. I'm troubled by that, okay, I'm not a doctor, you know, I’m not a psychiatrist. I mean, I don't know. It just seems to me like we're screwing around in the brain at an early age in a way that we should be a little more cautious about is all I will definitively say on that.

GR: No, I think that's a very reasonable point. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Congressman Adam Smith of Washington State. So where are you now with these challenges? Do you have days without anxiety? Do you have days without pain?

AS: I've never felt better. I haven't had any anxiety since, you know, since I got it. I finally got off all the drugs I was taking in April of 2019, April 5th, 2019 as a matter of fact. So I took my last little carved up little piece of clonazepam and that was it. And since then, no, I have not experienced anxiety.I mean, there's stress day in and day out and different things, but not nothing like that. And physically, you know, my pain is completely manageable, not like it was before. I mean my body is kind of messed up because of that knee surgery and a bunch of other things and I've got two artificial hips and all that. So, but I went back to playing in the congressional baseball game. You know, I walk, I exercise.Yeah, you know it got my body back where it needed to be. So I've, I understand my mind and body better than I ever have, and it has left me in a very, very good place.

GR: Well that's good to hear. I've got a more sensitive question, perhaps, for you. And I don't mean this to sound as challenging as it might. And this is the question that sort of comes back to something you said before about, you know, everyone dealing with these things. But there is a pattern, I think, in our nation recently, probably around the world.There's a pattern, I think, of celebrities usually with great wealth who encounter the problems that ordinary people struggle with. And then they write about their experiences or they do a documentary about it or whatever, as if they have some relevant wisdom to share with other people when in reality, those ordinary people don't have anything like the resources to deal with the problems in the way that those celebrities did.Now, how is your story and your book different from what I just said?

AS: Did you know how much a member of Congress makes?

GR: (laughter) I don't have great wealth, that would be the biggest way that it is different. In fact it’s one of the things that I struggled with is, you know, a lot of the health care providers that I found didn't take insurance, you know, and my insurance is okay, it's not as good as people think it is. I pay like $700-$800 a month in premiums. I've got co-pays, a whole bunch of other things. No I struggled financially to figure it out. And there were a lot of times when someone would come to me and say, hey, you know, I see you're struggling, I got this great treatment plan. You know, I myofascial release was something that I did one time.You know, it was just amazing, you have to do it, okay, but they're not covered by insurance. I need to see them twice a week, and it's $200 bucks a pop, okay, or a psychiatrist. Very few of the psychiatrists that I saw were covered by insurance. I got lucky. The one who actually knew what he was doing was covered, okay, but I went and saw people and I would genuinely, I would not see a psychiatrist for a week as it's $200 and I can't afford that. Nowthe one thing that I did have that is a double edged sword, I know a lot of people, okay, so, and people would try to help me. I say it's a double edged sword because, yeah, I can pick up the phone, you know, when I first had this problem, I picked up the phone and I called the lobbyist for the University of Washington, who I'd known for 20 years and said, hey, you know, I'm kind of looking for a psychologist.And yeah, they found me one. And maybe your average person would be as able to do that. But a lot of the people I found didn't help me. And to some degree, the fact that I had access to all this information was overwhelming. And I was just sort of sifting through all of it. So I think, you know, and look, I’m mindful of the fact that there are a lot of people in far worse circumstances than I am, but I'm not some celebrity with an endless array of resources.You know, I had a wife, I had two kids, I had a mortgage. I had to fly back and forth, I'm living in my office. That's a long story. So I think I think it's a little bit more relatable, you know, than someone who's got $100 million. But, you know, I'll leave that to others to judge.

GR: By the way, our local member of Congress who just retired in the last term, was living in his office. So in this area, we are familiar with that pattern. We’ve only got about 2 minutes left and I want to try to squeeze in two questions if I can. The first one is just sort of an observation of minebut you quickly comment on. You mentioned a lot of these providers, particularly psychiatrists, not taking your insurance. I think one of the things that drives that is there's such a shortage of these people that they don't have to. That they're in such high demand, it's tough to find these people sometimes. Do you have any thoughts about that?

AS: Well, actually, I would say the main thing that drives that is just the sheer difficulty of filling out all the forms and figuring out if you're meeting the insurance companies, you know, requirements and the fact that actually there are enough people in this country who can afford it that the psychiatric profession doesn't need to take insurance.And that gets into a much longer conversation about how we need to reform, what health care should we pay for, how do we get to best practices? And that's one of the biggest problems, I think with mental health treatment. Lack of access is part of it, but lack of a clear idea, what are you doing? Who are these people who are providing health care? There are not standards for best practices.

GR: So quickly, we just have a minute left, but I want to kind of ask a bottom line question here at the end. What is the bottom line that you want readers to take from your story?

AS: Well, bottom line is, if you have a mental health problem or a physical health problem, help exists. It's difficult to find, but go get it. It is not an unsolvable problem in either place. That's the biggest thing. And then there's a whole bunch of other lessons, but it does exist, it can be found, you can get better. You have to work at it, but it exists. That's the biggest message that I want to deliver.

GR: Well, thanks. There's a lot more obviously we could talk about here, but we'll have to leave it there. That was Congressman Adam Smith. And again, his new book is titled, “Lost and Broken: My Journey Back from Chronic Pain and Crippling Anxiety”. And Congressman, I haven't said this publicly before, but like you, I've struggled with anxiety at various points in my life. And I've struggled more publicly in the last 20 years with chronic pain, which two major back surgeries can attest to. So I want to personally thank you for writing this book. And, of course, also thank you for taking the time to speak with me about it.

AS: Well, thank you. And I really appreciate you giving me the chance.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with State Senator Rachel May.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is State Senator Rachel May. The Democrat is serving and her third term and represents the 48 Senate district, which contains the city of Syracuse and the areas west and south of the city and all of Cayuga County. The Senator is with me to discuss the recently passed budget and the remainder of the legislative session.I just want to let listeners know that we did contact some local Republican members of the legislature to join her in this conversation, but none were available. I hope to have them on the program soon. But for now. Senator May, welcome back to the program.

RM: Thank you, Grant, it's great to be here.

GR: It's good to have you here. So, let me just start with a basic question about the budget and central New York. What do you think were the most important aspects of the state budget most relevant to central New York?

RM: Well, on the plus side, we, I think this is a really good budget for children and working families and also for the environment. And I think all of those are obviously important to us here in central New York. So, you know, we were able to get more support for child care. We finally are fully funding our public schools, we got money for school meals.A lot of school districts within my district are going to be able to feed the kids which is really important to their success in school. We raised the minimum wage and I think very importantly, we extended the child tax credit to kids below the age of four. It used to only be four an up,mow it's babies and toddlers as well, which is really important because child poverty is extremely high in the city of Syracuse and a lot of cities across the state, across upstate. And so addressing that, the child tax credit has been one of the best tools we have for addressing that. So that's a big deal. And then on the environment, we are making strides in implementing our climate goals from holding large emitters of carbon dioxide, CO2 and methane accountable through the Cap-and-Invest Program.We're also shifting to much more efficient buildings with the All Electric Buildings Act and building public renewables, which is a huge deal having the New York Power Authority actually contracting and building its own renewable energy projects. And then we got money for the Environmental Protection Fund, for the Clean Water Infrastructure Fund, lots of $500 million for clean water infrastructure.That's enormously important to our local governments and to our drinking water systems and our wastewater system. So, you know, a lot of good things, I think, for this region.

GR: You know, just curious, you mentioned the removal of the four year old line there for child tax credit. What was the era what was the rationale for not covering that for children between zero and four in the first place?

RM: Makes no sense to me. I think it was just a cost saving factor, probably.

GR: Okay.

RM: But, you know, when we count child poverty and we say almost 50% of kids in Syracuse are below the poverty line where we're including the babies and toddlers there, we don't cut it off at age four. So obviously those kids and their parents have needs, too.So I think this was a big deal. And I have to say, you're probably going to talk about the process of the budget, it was ugly.

GR: (laughter)

RM: But this came in at the very last minute. This was something the legislature, really the Senate insisted on in order to close the negotiations on the budget. So, you know, you can debate whether it was worth it having that extra month to finish a budget.But we got something really important for our kids and families and we had some leverage there as the governor wanted to close it down. And that was something we insisted on and I'm really proud of that.

GR: I'll make an editorial comment, I've written on this in the past. But, you know, as you are probably aware, New York is unique in the United States for having a, what I would consider a ridiculously early budget deadline. Most states are into July and some even later than that. I don't know why we do April 1st.But, you know, that would be a recommendation that I would make to Albany is to change that date. You know, you said those are all the positive things. I would assume there are some negative things in there given that you've bracketed it that way. What was not part of the budget that you would have liked to have seen included.

RM: Well, we have a housing crisis in this state. We have an affordable housing crisis. And this budget kind of dropped the ball on that one. And that, I think, is a tragedy in a lot of ways. We have homelessness going up here in Syracuse and across the state. We have people facing eviction or just, you know, their rents are being raised to levels that they simply can't afford and there are no other options for them.So we're going to have a lot more homelessness or, you know, people couch surfing or otherwise living in temporary housing of various kinds. That isn't going to be the stable housing that people should have and we're going to find a lot of employers aren't going to be able to hire people because their workers cannot find affordable housing. People our age whose kids might want to move back and live here after college or, you know, settle here and raise a family here are not having options of places to live.And that is a crisis for the whole state, for, you know, individual families, but also for businesses and for our whole economy. And we did not find a solution to that in this budget. And that's, you know, at the end of the process where you have a whole lot of legislation we're trying to pass still this session. But it's also a budgetary issue, it's a big frustration that we didn't move the needle on that, really.

GR: You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with New York State Senator Rachel May. You mentioned the process being ugly, I mean, it was late and there was a lot of back and forth there. One of the things in my understanding that did hold up the negotiations, among others, was this continued debate over cash bail and pretrial detention and whether to change it. And the governor wanted, I think, more discretion for judges to keep people charged, detained, if that judge thought it was necessary for public safety.The liberal wing of the Democratic members of the legislature wanted to stick more with the system of cashless bail and pretrial release for many of the accused that had already been put into place. Just remind our listeners of where that issue ended up.

RM: Yeah, so this was an issue, we changed the law three years ago. It's been adjusted every budget cycle since then and the governor wanted some more adjustments to it. And she got some of what she wanted in terms of changing the standard that judges use to consider whether to require bail. We did push back on the discovery piece, because she was pushing to have defendants have much less information about what the evidence was against them and much less ability to prepare for their defenseand we pushed that out. That wasn't in the budget, but there was some change in what, how judges can make decisions about bail.

GR: And in recent years, it seems like the budget negotiations and the budget itself have entailed a lot of different programs and a lot of different issues that sometimes I think at first seem like they could, maybe they should, not be folded in to the budget negotiation process. It's like the budget is the big thing and really sort of drives everything for that year. And, you know, bail reform might be one of those. I mean, it's not clear that that necessarily should have been part of that. Why do you think is the budget becoming so, if I'm right about this, becoming so all-encompassing for the state’s policies, decisions, why so much being put on to it?

RM: So that's not a new thing. But the New York State Constitution is different from every other constitution of every other state in the nation in terms of giving the governor power over the budget. And what that means is, the governor likes to, any governor likes to put a lot of policy into the budget because it's the only place where the governor is driving legislation. And so a lot of legislation gets shoved into the budget, partly because the governor has leverage.We have to pass the budget, we have to fund our schools, we have to fund, you know, all of the roads and bridges, all of that stuff. And so, you know, twisting our arms to shove in things that we aren't interested in, including, or that wouldn't that we think should go through a much more rigorous process in terms of vetting the policy,the governor still has a lot of power over that. And there are efforts to reform that, to change the constitution so that we have something closer to other states in terms of division of powers in this state. But we're not there now. And so a lot of, it's always been true that a lot of legislation gets shoved into the budget, and it's, for those of us in the legislature, that's frustrating because that should be our power to, you know, to initiate legislation and a lot of it gets taken away through the budget process. I’ve got to say, in addition to that, because the budget was late, it's been harder for us to focus on…typically after April 1st the second half of our session is our time to pass our bills. And we've been passing bills, we didn't stop doing that.But, you know, the attention was on the budget. And so the ability to pass complicated bills, things that involve a lot of negotiation and that sort of thing, that's been held up for us. And so we have a much shorter window now to do that kind of thing.

GR: It's hard to imagine, I think, in this political climate, having a change successfully made to a constitution. So it's probably going to be the way it's going to be for a while.

RM: We have a process for that in New York State. If we pass a bill in two successive sessions and then the voters approve it, it changes our constitution and the governor doesn't have a say in that process. So we, it's possible to do it and there are some bills out there to change the way the budget is handled. To say, for example, that the governor can't put into the budget anything that's not already proposed legislation by the legislature, something like that, they can't just make up new legislation and stick it in the budget.That's a bill that people are trying to advance and I think the public might be receptive to that. And I think people understand that the executive and the legislature have different roles and that preserving the legislative role of the legislature makes sense.

GR: Well, it'll be something to keep an eye on. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Rachel May, a New York State Senator who represents the 48 Senate District. I wanted to go back to this issue of the budget negotiations that we were talking about, and if you could, I'm just very curious, I want to get a sense of, let's take bail reform.I want to get a sense of what those conversations with the governor's office, what those negotiations are like. I mean, are they are they arguments about the policies themselves or about the politics of it? Is the governor in there saying, for example, look, you know, I got beaten up in the general election on crime, I really can't, I really have to do some things hereand you Democrats have to understand that in the state Senate. I mean, I just I'm just curious as to what the conversation is like, do you have any idea?

RM: So I will say this budget process was more frustrating for me than any other budget process, the previous four that I've been part of. Because our leadership has tried very hard to include us in the process of these negotiations, at least to update us regularly and get, take our temperature on it. And my sense was the governor came with a set of “take it or leave it” propositions early on, and there wasn't really a lot of negotiation that happened.And so we weren't getting updates regularly. And so, I'm not at the table making those negotiations and this was extremely frustrating. We had a lot of conference sessions where we thought we were going to get an update on where we are in the budget and it was basically, “Nothing to tell you here” and so that was really frustrating.And I will say I was much more focused on kind of the money issues in the budget. But those things we also weren't being updated about because the governor's team wanted the policy stuff decided first and so everything kind of happened all of a sudden. Once, like, there was sign off on those issues, everything else happened really fastand we didn't have as much input or as much ability to weigh in about the details as we have in the past. And that was pretty frustrating. But as I said, as it got to the point where people really wanted to close it down, we had a little more leverage to make things happen, for example, for this region, more funding for refugee resettlement,I think appeared at that point later on because we were pushing for it. More funding for the arts, more funding for our Native American health clinics and the school, the Onondaga Nation School. There were a lot of things I was able to influence in the budget because we were in this process where people really wanted to get to an agreement point.

GR: I got a couple calls before the budget process started from reporters asking me if I thought that the governor would be in a particularly weak position because of the election. And what you're saying kind of tracks on to what I seem to have observed, which was that perhaps maybe some of those opening moves were designed to kind of broadcast, look, I am strong, I am not weak and I'm going to show you the power that I have. But as you say, you know, when you got down to past the deadline, then some of the advantages may have shift. I wanted to ask you this question about the budget that you and I have talked about many times before, which is just simply its size, the amount of spending that New York engages in. So I want to ask you the question I always ask you,I'll try to ask it a little bit differently this time, but as far as I understand, it's another record amount, $229 billion. What do you think it would take, given the composition of the governor's office and the legislature as it currently is, what do you think it would take in terms of some kind of shock to the system or other set of circumstances for the governor and the legislature to actually come together and say, you know what, we're going to actually reduce spending this year, our budget is going to be smaller than it was last year. That hasn't happened in a very long time, are those days over?

RM: Well, it is very hard to find a place that you would cut because the biggest pieces of the budget are health care, education and transportation, those are the three. And, you know, the MTA is a huge piece of our budget, but it's also absolutely fundamental to life and business in the New York City area, which is the, you know, the economic engine of the state. And our roads and bridges upstate,you know, we have to keep them maintained. Our schools require a lot of money and, you know, there are ways to cut. I think we do, part of the problem with the foundation aid formula is it has involved, it was about making sure that the neediest school districts get what they want. But politically, it's been important to support all the school districts and continue increasing funding for all the school districts.It would involve a lot of you know, elected officials being willing to say, okay, my school district doesn't need as much as it's getting. And that is really hard to get to.

GR: (laughter) Yeah, right, who's going to do that?

RM: And in terms of health care, I mean, I think there's all the more need for infrastructure funding, but health care is one where Governor Cuomo tried to squeeze the health care budget and he put a cap on Medicaid increases and all of that. And what we're seeing as a result of that is hospitals closing, nursing homes closing, people not getting the health care that they need and doctors and nurses, you know, leaving because they can't get the reimbursements that they require.It's a crisis in this state. And what we heard from this budget, even though there were increases for Medicaid reimbursement all of that kind of thing, it is nowhere near enough. And so, you know, there are parts of the budget where we have tried that and it has led to serious problems. So you've got to figure out what are the pressure points,you know, is it economic development, are there are places where we can cut there? Is it you know, like I said, wealthier school districts, are they willing to take a haircut? You know, it's very, very, very hard to do that, especially when a lot of needs are simply not being met.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is New York State Senator Rachel May. You mentioned earlier in our conversation the importance of housing and affordable housing and that was one of the disappointments you had for the budget process, that there wasn't more done for that there. That was kind of set aside as part of the negotiations.One of the things that the governor sort of said, okay, I'll let that go. I'll come back to it later. What do you anticipate happening with that issue this year? Is that issue done for this year or do you think that this session might produce something significant?

RM: It's hard to say. I mean, there's two pieces to it. There is producing more affordable housing and there is keeping people in their homes who are already there which means tenant protections and support for homeowners who are facing, you know, default on their loans or something like that. And those things, to some extent you can do that through legislation.The good cause eviction is one way to say you can't be evicted from your home, your apartment without good cause. If you've been paying the rent if you've been holding up your part of the bargain, you the landlord can't just say, oh, you know, I'm going to double your rent and try to find somebody else or that kind of thing.But that's a really, really hard one to pass. I hope we can get those kinds of tenant protections because I think just stable housing is really critical to our communities, to our schools, to our employers, to families, you know, and we don't value it highly enough. But that's not going to pass without concessions to the landlords and the, you know, building industry.And so figuring out what a package looks like that makes this happen, I have a number of bills that are trying simply to make it easier to build more affordable housing because New York has a lot of regulation right now that just makes it hard. It makes it more expensive to build multi-family housing and more risky to build multi-family housing.And so if we can just get the cost of building it down, then any multi-family housing can be more affordable because you know, right now just, you know, there are certain regulatory processes that you have to go through that extend the time it takes to build the housing for years. It drives the cost up by ten to eleven percent.If we can get around that, you know, suddenly we can have housing that was more affordable or we can at some point talk about some of these are pretty wonky the bills I have, but they address those kinds of issues. How do we make it more affordable? So even without mandates, without requiring that communities have more affordable housing, you could just make it possible for them to have more affordable housing,that's a big deal.I'd like to see some reform of the way we do zoning in this state, because typically zoning favors the single family homes. When I was on the board of zoning appeals here in Syracuse, we were all homeowners. And even though a lot of the people in Syracuse are renters, they weren't represented on the board of Zoning Appeals. And so, you know, just making sure that the decisions are being made, not just with the past in mind, but looking forward, like, what do we want this community to look like ten, twenty years from now?Who are we trying to get, who wants to live here and how can we make it possible for them to live here, that kind of thing. You know, we ought to be considering. And so there are ways to tinker around the edges of how we do housing. But I think comprehensive housing reform is probably got to be done in the context of the budget because it's going to require a lot of incentives and just money to build the housing.

GR: So it might be like the Brooklyn Dodgers wait till next year on that one. We've only got about a minute left. I want to squeeze in a more personal question, if I could, but it'll have to be brief. You know, I was thinking about when I was preparing to talk with you, you've had a couple of very successful careers before you got into politics.So this is kind of a third act for you, in a way. Do you have any idea of how much longer are you going to want to do it? And what have been, I don't know if you can say this in a couple of seconds, but the things about the job you've liked the most in the least so far, but you'll have to be brief,sorry.

RM: Okay, well, I love this job. I love that I'm learning new things every day and working with fantastic people. And my colleagues are really impressive and inspiring to work with. It is an exhausting job and I don't have big ambitions to, you know, run for a higher office or that kind of thing, which is I think keeps a lot of people going in it. So, I don't anticipate that I want to do this for, you know, another twenty years. But I'm not ruling out running for reelection this coming time or maybe one more time after that.

GR: Okay, great, we'll leave it there. That was Rachel May. Senator, as always, thanks so much for making the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.

RM: Absolutely. Thanks, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

View Details

(WRVO News / WRVO News (file photo))On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Ben Walsh, Mayor of the City of Syracuse. Walsh's recent budget was approved by the city council.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is city of Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh. The Independent is about midway through his second term as mayor and recently presented his annual budget to the city council, which the council approved. Mayor Walsh, welcome back to the program.

Ben Walsh: Great to be with you again, Grant. Thanks for having me.

GR: It's good to have you and congratulations on your budget approval. Let me start with a question on that. So the budget, $310 million, it included some small property tax increases and an increase in the water fee. But what do you think are the most important new aspects of this year's budget that you would want our listeners to know about?

BW: Well, there were two objectives, two primary objectives for the budget. One was to continue down our path towards fiscal sustainability. We've been operating with a structural deficit throughout this administration and going back at least one, probably two administrations. So we wanted to make sure that we are working towards a balanced budget long term. That's why the property tax rate increase was important.But at the same time, the second objective was to accommodate and account for the growth that we are seeing and that we will be seeing. And in order to do that, we need to make sure that we're delivering the current services that we deliver today as effectively and efficiently as possible, but also wherever possible, be increasing that level of those services and again, accommodating that growth. So I believe that we were able to accomplish both of those objectives, but it was a challenge.Thankfully, we worked closely with the council and we were able to do it.

GR: So would you say anticipating growth? You know, the thing that pops into my mind when you say that obviously is Micron. Is that what you have in mind primarily, or are there other things too, that you're seeing?

BW: Well, Micron is certainly foremost on our mind. But even before Micron, the 2020 census showed that we grew as a city in population for the first time in seven years. So we expect that to continue, there are a number of positive trend lines. But yeah, Micron changes the game. I think that we were already on an upward trajectory, but it's going to accelerate that trajectory.And of course it's going to have an impact well beyond city limits. But we do anticipate that it's going to have a significant impact on the city, specifically on housing and development. And we want to make sure that we are preparing the services that can accommodate that development.

GR: And on the issue of sustainability that you mentioned right at the beginning, I was going to ask this question later, but I'll ask it now. On the question of thinking about the relationship between the city budget and the state budget and state spending and the money from the federal government that came from COVID, I think it was a little while ago that I saw this, and I think it was state Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli who wrote this piece in the Post-Standard where he made the argument basically that the healthier budget situation in the city was the product of federal relief money being directed through the state.And so, it sounds like to me, part of what you tried to build into the budget was a plan for returning to, for lack of a better word, I would say returning to normal and not assuming that those monies are always going to be there. Is that right?

BW: Right. So I've had this conversation with Assemblyman Magnarelli, I think he got it partly right. Certainly that the federal relief, the ARPA funding was a lifesaver, it was a godsend. But largely because it stopped us in our tracks and began to push us backwards in our path towards fiscal sustainability that we were already well on our way to.We were reducing our reliance on the fund balance, we were getting to a point where we saw light at the end of the tunnel. Our mid-year budget report, before the pandemic hit, so, early 2020 showed that we were going to run a surplus, a significant one for the first time in a long time.So that federal relief did exactly what it was supposed to do. It helped us, it helped accelerate the recovery from the pandemic. And to your point about the one-time nature of it, we were very intentional in how we developed our spending plan in a way that made investments that would allow for future revenue growth and not investments that created new operational expenses that we were going to have to maintain after that one-time shot was gone.

GR: Yeah, I want to come back to another question about that, but I think I want to wait for that. But I want to move to the state budget now because that's something that that just passed as well. Is there anything in the state budget that you think is of particular importance to Syracuse or the Syracuse region?

BW: Well, there's a lot of things in the state budget that are going to benefit the city of Syracuse. Governor Hochul and the legislature have been very good in recent years about increasing funding for infrastructure, specifically roads, through CHIPS funding, through the touring routes funding. And we've been able to use that to significantly increase the number of roads that we're paving.The number of dig-once infrastructure projects that we're doing. There are investments in housing, even though the governor didn't, wasn't able to get her housing compact done, there are still significant investments of housing. So there's a lot of really good stuff in there for us. Unfortunately, getting back to the city's budget, the one thing that wasn't in there and hasn't been in there for 15 years was an increase in state aid, for, state municipal aid, we call it AIM. That has been stagnant.We receive about $72 million in state funding and that has been the number for the past 15 years. And when you look at how the state budget has grown exponentially since then and the city budget has grown more modestly, but still grown. When you consider that that is our third largest source of revenue, number one is sales tax, very little control over it.Number two is property tax, some control over it and we exerted that control this budget season. The third is state aid and again, we have no control over that, but the state does. And I think if they were able to provide some modest increases along the way, we wouldn't have that structural deficit. But they haven't,we do, and we're managing through it.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Syracuse City Mayor Ben Walsh. So specifically on some of the things that you have been proposing in recent months. One of them that I want to ask you about was this specific pilot program for a larger program to reduce gun violence in the city.And the city has seen an increase in homicides and assaults and in recent years, as have most cities around the country. So could you just briefly tell us about that pilot program?

BW: Sure. So back in 2022, in my State of the City, I announced the creation of a mayor's office to reduce gun violence. It's a model that we were replicating from New York City and other communities. A community based organization, the National Action Network had been advocating for it. And so we created that program, we hired a director,his name is Lateef Johnson-Kinsey and he's been hard at work over the past year. We also have a fellow from Harvard Kennedy School, who I remind falls behind the Maxwell School in terms of public administration rankings.

GR: (laughter)

BW: But they have worked hard over the past year to develop a plan which we call our Safer Streets Planand it's based on best practices. It's looking at what programs have worked in other communities and really tries to get at the root causes of the issues that we're dealing with. I mean, we've done so much to address gun violence, but ultimately what we haven't done effectively is engage the most high risk individuals. Those people that are out there now that are carrying guns around might be using those guns, but have yet to be arrested.I want to be crystal clear because I think this got lost in the communication. If you are committing crimes if you are participating in gun violence in the city of Syracuse, we are going to arrest you and we are going to hold you accountable. But if you are at high risk for those activities and again, may have been part of them, we want to engage these individuals before they pick up that gun again or take a shot and address the root causes that have led them to where they are today.Things like concentrated poverty and generational poverty. So connecting them with educational programs and workforce development programs. Providing them with skills in support that they arguably have, likely have never received in their household or anywhere else. Cognitive behavioral therapy, many of these individuals are surrounded by trauma and that has a significant impact on their mental health and they need therapy.They need health care, mental health care and we're offering that. Conflict resolution, again, many of these young people have never learned how to process their emotions, their anger, and they are surrounded by violence and they perpetuate that violence. These are things that the types of supports that, again, we really haven't done for those most high risk individuals. And it's those high risk individuals that wreak havoc for our at-risk individuals and everybody else in the community.So while, you know, people have chosen to focus on specifically one aspect of it where there's a stipend involved in participating in the program, a financial stipend, I think they lose sight of the fact that these are people that have not received these types of supports and that unless they do, we're going to continue to see this the same cycle play out.

GR: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the stipend. And it has, you're right, it has, I think, garnered just an awful lot of attention. And my understanding is the plan is to pay these high risk individuals about $400 a month if they're if they're going to participate in the program. And as you said, you know, they have to not engage in criminal activity to be eligible.I should note that Rochester, my understanding is Rochester has a similar program…

BW: That's right.

GR: …that pays more than double that amount. But could you just say a little bit more about why that is important? Why the city needs to do that?

BW: Sure. Yeah, again, we didn't make this up. We didn't invent this. We went out and we found best practices. And the data shows that when there is a financial incentive component to these programs, they work better. And that's because, for a few reasons. Number one, while these people may be involved in high risk activities, everyone's time has value.And the way in which they're spending their time right now, they are compensated for in different ways, whether it's through drug dealing or status or whatever, but there's value there. So we have to replace that value and reflect that value as we engage them. We also have to provide positive reinforcement. You know, again, there's a lot of reasons why these people aren't on the right track.But if they are on the right track, that positive reinforcement, that money isn't going to fundamentally change their economic condition. But it will again, it supports good behavior. For those that ask about supporting people that aren't involved in this activity, we have a lot of programs for that and ones that pay. And we provide a financial stipend for our Pathways to Apprenticeship construction training program.Stipends are a proven method for many different types of programs, including this type dealing with high risk individuals. So again, we're doing it because it works.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Ben Walsh, an independent who's serving in his second term as mayor of the city of Syracuse. Well, we talked about COVID relief money a little bit earlier in the program. I want to come back to that and link it to this pilot program that you had been discussing before the break.And again, my understanding is the money for that program, about $1,000,000 would come from this chunk of money that the city received, ultimately from the federal government through COVID relief. And if that's wrong, correct me. But my question coming out of this is how do those spending decisions get made? Is there any difference between that pot of money and the other spending that the city does?You mentioned earlier that you wanted to be very intentional about spending that money and not create, sort of, legacy commitments down the road, but to use it to build things that would create return. But is this something where the mayor can have more control than normally the mayor would be able to regarding the relationship with the city council?Or is it all just exactly the same?

BW: Yeah, in terms of the process for spending the money, it's the same. We still need to get common council authorization for the spending. We do have certain parameters and constraints from the federal government in terms of how we can spend that money. But we developed the plan with a good sense of what those regulations were going to look like.But again, I think that in terms of where we focused the spending, certainly areas where we, investing in housing as an example, where, by building new houses you're developing, you're generating property value, property tax, those opportunities provide a return on investment. The other area that we looked at was kind of proof of concept. Areas where we could be innovative and nimble and try different things.And if they work, then make the case, whether it's to city taxpayers and the common council that we should be spending city funds on it in the future, or going out and securing additional funds. Those were two of the main criteria that we considered when deciding whether or not to allocate funds to a particular project or purpose.

GR: And remind me on the pilot program that we were discussing. Has the council approved that or is that still being negotiated?

BW: It is still being worked on. So, the council really took issue with two aspects of it. One was the stipend, and I don't want to speak for the entire council, there were some councilors that were more vocal on it than others. The other aspect was the procurement of the services. So, the individuals that we're working with, it is a highly specialized skill set that not many individuals or organizations have in this community.So, we felt based on our relationships and based on other programs that we had a good handle on the universe of service providers that we could work with. And so we've been engaging with those service providers throughout this past year. Just first and foremost to make sure that they're coordinating their work, which was something that wasn't being done sufficiently before this office was created.But then additionally to identify where their strengths are, where we could put them into the program. So we had essentially already identified the service providers we wanted to work with and the general dollar amounts that we wanted to allocate to them. The council, for understandable reasons, said, you know what, we're not convinced that this that these organizations represent the universe.And so we would like you to put out an RFP, which is something that, you know, other than lost time we certainly didn't take any issue with. So the RFP process is about to come to a close. We'll review that then we'll go back to the Council with proposed allocations based on the RFP process and revisit the stipend component as well.

GR: I understand. And as far as this chunk of money that came out of the COVID relief, I think it's about $123 million total. How much of that has been spent then? How much is left?

BW: Yeah, so we've spent about half of it. We have essentially earmarked all of it and the council has authorized the spending of all of it. There's an interim step between spending and authorization, essentially obligating and contracting and the other half is within that part of the process. Unfortunately, we are focusing, we do have to look even harder at where we are, even though we think we believe we're well ahead of many of our peer communities.There are discussions in Washington about clawing back those funds which is frustrating and disappointing. But we want to make sure that none of those funds are at risk, which means moving the process along as quickly as possible. But it isn't all accounted for.

GR: And I want to come back to Micron, which we talked about in the first half of the program, and link that to not only your anticipation of additional growth for the city population-wise, but also another topic that you and I have discussed several times in the past, which, prior to Micron was going to be the biggest economic development engine, and that was the redevelopment of the area surrounding I-81, the East Adams Street neighborhood.And so I wanted to check in with you about that, particularly in light of the Micron Development, because I imagine that's going to change the effects of that project significantly. So how is all that coming together, in your view, the thinking about the redevelopment of the East Adams Street area, then linking that to Micron and then thinking about the growth of the city and managing that because there's a lot of moving parts there.

BW: There are. Certainly Micron is going to fundamentally change the community in many different ways. That being said, Micron would not have made the commitment that they made if they felt like the interstate I-81 project and specifically the community grid alternative, the preferred alternative was a threat to their success. They understood the project, we discussed it, and they made that decision anyway.So, while certainly it's going to have an impact on our transportation patterns throughout the region, this suggestion that somehow we would come to a different conclusion with Micron, with the introduction of Micron, you know, based on that premise, any new project or new initiative, granted, few, if any, are as significant as Micron, but any introduction of a change into the environment would prompt a revisiting of the entire process.So, we feel confident that the community grid alternative works with the growth of Micron and that project is moving forward. While there is litigation that still remains, both the state, the city is a party to that case as well as the petitioners, the Renew 81 or whatever their name is. They are, we’re all appealing the Supreme Court's decision.But really that decision is just limited to impacting the elevated viaduct. The rest of the project is allowed to move forward and is moving forward. And actually if you drive up to the northern suburbs around the 481 interchange you will see work being done, trees being cleared, fences being removed. So, the first three or four contracts associated with the project are moving forward full steam ahead.The other ones will wait until the court process has exhausted itself. But it is not holding up the project at this point and I'm grateful for that because to your point, it's a significant investment and it's going to provide a significant benefit to this community.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Syracuse City Mayor Ben Walsh. So, one last question about Micron that popped into my head. I'm thinking of something that I read the county executive Ryan McMahon say recently regarding accommodating the additional population through high density housing areas. And he listed a few of the towns around Clay and Cicero, including I think those two, as being areas where this would be primarily happening.And I'm just wondering, is it going to be the case that the city and the county kind of compete in a way maybe a friendly competition for some of the settlement of the folks that are coming to work for Micron? Because obviously that would do amazing things for the tax base of the city if you could get them, you know, inside the city there.

BW: Sure. I mean, as mayor, I'm certainly focused on maximizing the benefit to the city. I don't think that that has to be done at the expense of other municipalities. The county executive and I talk about this very issue all of the time. And to his credit, you know, the work that he's doing through Plan Onondaga, which is the county's comprehensive plan, really supports what we believe is the right way to grow, which is from the inside out, from existing town and village and urban centers and out from there.So, utilizing existing infrastructure. When you look at the counties’ estimates for the growth and the new housing, this city is going to be the largest beneficiary of it, but it's not going to be the only one. My goal is, again, maximize the benefit for the city and learn from the mistakes of the past decades where we've sprawled without growth.We have infrastructure just in the city alone that can accommodate a population of around over 220,000. And we're at just under 150 right now. So let's, let's build out the existing infrastructure, repair the existing infrastructure that we have, again, not just in our city but in our village in town centers. And then if we max out, then we can have a different discussion.But we've got a long way to go there. And I think if done properly, and I think the county and the city are on the same page, it can really help revitalize a number of those centers that have lacked much investment in recent years.

GR: We've got about 4 minutes left. I want to squeeze a couple of questions in about things at the federal level, if I could. So we'll switch gears a bit. But, as an independent mayor, I'm very, very curious to hear your thoughts about this presidential unity ticket possibility that's being put forward by the group No Labels. And a few weeks ago on this program, I had Ryan Clancy from that organization on to explain and argue for it.You know, basically the gist is it's an effort to get on the ballot, first of all, in the presidential election cycle in a number of different states, more than half of them. And the idea is to field, if they believe it is necessary, a third party bid for the presidency should the nominations go to individuals that the nation as a whole has pretty clearly indicated it doesn't want to see run or be elected or reelected.And so Joe Biden is in that category right now, as is former President Donald Trump. Do you have thoughts on this unity ticket possibility? I mean, it sounds a little bit like, you know, the Ben Walsh plan, I guess to some degree.

BW: So I'm generally aware of it. I've heard a little bit about it. Not intimately familiar but ultimately, I think it's a good thing. I said it back when I ran in 2017, more options is better. And so I understand the concern about, you know, taking votes away from certain candidates. But you know what? I don't think that gives the people enough credit.And I think that if they can put forth a credible candidate that gives a viable alternative, that's good for democracy. You know, the two major parties have gone out of their way to maintain their duopoly and to push out any other competing party. When I first ran there were eight parties on the ballot.Today there are four. That's not by accident. That's because New York state government went out of their way to make it harder to achieve ballot access. So, we need to hold both of those parties accountable. We need to give the people choices. And if this process leads to that, then I'm supportive of it.

GR: And finally, I wanted to ask you about our relatively new member of Congress for the Syracuse area, Brandon Williams. He's off to, I think, a curious start in that he joined the Problem Solvers Caucus, which was a little odd, I think, at first because he criticized John Katko, the previous incumbent, but Katko was one of the few Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus,so he's joined the same caucus. His voting record so far has been pretty loyal to Republican leadership. So he hasn't broken so far from that as often as Katko would have. So I guess two questions here, if you can in a minute or so. Early impressions of him and what's been your working relationship so far?

BW: Looking forward to getting to know him better, we had lunch shortly after he was elected. We are trying to get on schedule with a standing meeting with some regular cadence. He's still feeling his way through his new schedule, so that hasn't happened yet. But I think joining the Problem Solvers Caucus was a welcome sign from my perspective.You know, you look at the issues that are that are facing our country right now, opioid addiction, the proliferation of illegal guns, issues around the border. These are not, they have become partisan issues, but they're inherently they're not and I think if the right people come together they can be solved. And so I'm hopeful there. But again, we really haven't had a chance to sit down and really dig in.But I'm looking forward to doing that with him.

GR: Great, we'll have to leave it there. That was city of Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh. Mayor Walsh, as always, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me.

BW: Thank you, Grant. Happy to be here, take care.

GR: Thank you. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO, Public Media Conversations in the Public Interest.

View Details

Ioan GrilloOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Ioan Grillo, a British journalist and writer based in Mexico. Grillo has been writing about gangs, cartels and the gun trade from the United States. He's recently publishd the book, "Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels".

View Details

D. Sunshine Hillygus(duke.edu)On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with D. Sunshine Hillygus, a Professor of Political Science at Duke University. They talk about her research into how younger generations think and behave politically.

View Details

Jamie McCallum( https://www.middlebury.edu/)On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Jamie McCallum about the rights and interests of workers. McCallum a sociology professor at Middlebury College and the author of, "Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice".

View Details

Ryan ClancyOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks to Ryan Clancy, the chief strategist for the Washington D.C. based organization called, "No Labels", which sponsors the Probelm Solvers Caucus along with other intertesting and important politcal work.

View Details

Peter Wilcoxen / Sarah PralleOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with experts in the fields of environmental policy and politics about climate change, both from the Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Sarah Pralle is a Political Science Professor there, and Peter Wilcoxen is a Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs.

View Details

Beverly GageOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Beverly Gage. The Yale University History Professor has recently written a definitive biography of J. Edgar Hoover called, "G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century."

View Details

Julie McMahonOn this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Julie McMahon, founding Editor-in-Chief of the online media non-profit startup in Syracuse called, Central Current.

View Details

Jesse Eisinger on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Nathan Brown on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Marc Molinaro on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Bill Magnarelli and Will Barclay on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

View Details

View Details

Ryan McMahon on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Sharon Owens and Raquan Pride-Green on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Dr. Warren Hilton on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Georgia Popoff on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

John Katko on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Nina Tamrowski and Luke Perry on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Randall Balmer on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Sarah Binder on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

John Mannion and Rebecca Shiroff on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Marta Tellado, the president and CEO of Consumer Reports.

View Details

State Sen. Rachel May is being challenged by Republican Onondaga County Legislator Julie Abbott in this year's election for the 48 State Senate District.

View Details

Randall Balmer on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Randall Balmer on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Francis Conole, the Democratic candidate for New York's 22nd Congressional Disctrict seat.

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Francis Conole, the Democratic candidate for New York's 22nd Congressional Disctrict seat.

View Details

On this week's edition of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with former Penn State University president Graham Spanier.

View Details

Kristi Andersen and Luke Perry unpack the results of the recent primaries in New York and elsewhere.

View Details

Congressional candidates Sarah Klee Hood, Chol Majok, Francis Conole on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Brandon Williams on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Mark Rupert on the Campbell Conversations

View Details

Sharif Bey on the Campbell Conversations

View Details

Rachel May and Robert Smullen on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Local authors Dana Spiotta, Christopher Citro and Philip Memmer read from their recent works on the Campbell Conversations.

View Details

Grant Reeher speaks with Harry Wilson, one of four Republican candidates running for the GOP nomination for governor of New York in the June 28 primary.

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Jacob Mchangama. He's a lawyer, and founder and director of Justitia, a Copenhagen-based think tank focusing on human rights, freedom of speech and the rule of law. He recently published the book, "Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media."

View Details

View Details

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with one of the most prominent national critics of former President Donald Trump, from within his own party. Michael Steele has served as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and is a former chair of the Republican National Committee.

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

This week, Grant Reeher talks with Onondaga County Health Commissioner Dr. Indu Gupta.

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

View Details

This week, Grant Reeher speaks with Onondaga County Legislature Chairman Dave Knapp, a Republican, and County Legislator Mary Kuhn, a Democrat, to talk about the redistricting process in Onondaga County.

View Details

Election 2021 recap with John DeFrancisco and Chris Faricy.

View Details

Part 2 of a debate for mayor of the city of Syracuse.