Institutional Politics with Megan Brooker: How Social Movements Shape Political Parties

April 18, 2019

Benn talks with PhD candidate Megan Brooker (Sociology, UC Irvine) about the relationship between social movements and institutional politics. Megan shares her own path from antiwar and Occupy activism into academic research, then digs into why movements often succeed at shifting political conversation even when they don't win their stated policy goals — using marriage equality, Occupy/Bernie Sanders, and the Tea Party as examples. They also cover social media's double-edged role in organizing, the "inside vs. outside" strategy debate (illustrated by Indivisible and AOC's primary win), and why coalition-building across the left, like the Movement for Black Lives platform, is key to translating movement energy into lasting party change.

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, I jumped on a skype call with Megan Brooker, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California Irvine. She specializes in social movements, political sociology, culture, and qualitative methods.

We discuss how to navigate decisions on whether or not to organize within institutionalized politics or to go outside it, coalition work, the impact of social movements on political parties and so much more.

Below are links where you can learn more about Megan and some of the movements and resources that Megan had mentioned.

Megan Brooker – This is the link to Megan’s academic site, you can learn more about her work and see her list of publications there.

Occupy Wall Street – If you are curious about Occupy and want to learn a little more about that movement, this is a good place to start.

Indivisible – Follow what they are up to here. I’ve uploaded the Indivisible Guide and linked to it below for you if you were looking to check that out.

Indivisible Guide Download Now

Marriage Equality – This is a site and organization that is not currently active but if you wanted to take a peek at some of the work that was done and the movement work that took place that built the momentum for the win at the Supreme Court of the United States. Also, you should check out the Equality Federation that worked heavily on marriage equality and is still very much in the work of protecting and advancing the rights of LGBTQ folks all across the US.

• Transcript

  Benn Marine 0:12

  Welcome to the ocean of organizing podcast where every week we explore what it means to build community and create change. I'm Ben Marine, your host. And this week I jumped on a Skype call and chatted with academic Megan Brooker. Megan has a phd candidate at the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. She specializes in social movements, political sociology, culture and qualitative methods. We discuss how to navigate and make decisions on whether or not to organize with an institutionalized politics or to go outside it doing coalition work, the impact of social movements on political parties and so much more. There's a lot in this episode. And with that, let's dive on in first. Thank you so much for taking the time. I really, really appreciate it.

  Megan Brooker 1:15

  Yeah, no problem. Glad to be here.

  Benn Marine 1:17

  Um, so I'm curious, so you, so you study a lot of kind of social movements and how they influence political parties. I'm curious, what got you interested in that topic?

  Megan Brooker 1:27

  Yeah, so I started out earlier point in my life involved kind of on the movement side of things. So when I was in college, I, I started undergrad. Um, and then what, probably a month or so later, um, the u s Omd, Afghanistan. Um, so that kind of triggered something in me and there was antiwar activism starting to build on my campus. Um, and so I got involved with that. I grew up in Maine, so, you know, there's a little activism happening, but it wasn't, you know, I was involved in little pauses here and there in high school, but it was really, um, in college where, you know, and this antiwar activism, that was my first big jump into things. Um, so I was a, an antiwar activist for many years as after Afghanistan, you know, then came Iraq and, and the war. Um, and at the time I was involved in activism. My brother was actually in the army and fought in Iraq. Um, and so I was part of military families. Speak out. Um, and so, you know, I kind of have built my chops per se, um, on the activism side of things. So mostly antiwar work, but, and you know, Global Justice Movement, I was melted off the pie. Um, animal rights activism, a variety of, so I was always the sort of person that's like, if there's injustice in the world, I want to will that go do something about that, you know, do my part to try to make change. And then as you know, I, I kind of got older, I was administrative jobs, didn't really know where I was headed. Um, I decided to go back to Grad school. Um, and you know, movements was always kind of that central driving constant in my life. Um, and so I kind of stepped aside from the activism part of it, uh, and started studying movements. I'm trying to figure out, uh, you know, what our movements affective, when are they successful? You know, what types of things are actually going to make. Um, so it was kind of a shift for me to step away from it, but that's where my interest came from with my, my, my own prior involvement, uh, in movements at an activism.

  Benn Marine 4:02

  That's awesome. I'm so curious to hear a little bit more about that. What did that look like? Were you doing a lot of, um, like was it, did that look like direct action or was that working with existing organizations or, or what did, what did that, uh, what did, what did your activism look like?

  Megan Brooker 4:19

  Yeah, so it was mostly working with existing organizations or, well, I'm, and I guess in college it was kind of an activist group on campus and then I was involved and actually like building and creating a new organization that was focused specifically on the war in Iraq. Um, and so, you know, I, I was on, you know, at the college level, I was involved in creating and building organizations. Then when I graduated from college, I moved to, um, Portland, Oregon, and there I kind of linked in with existing organizations. So as I mentioned, I worked a little bit that was military families speak out, you know, which was connected with Veterans for keys and Raf veterans against the war. Um, and then I was part of, Oh, was called the Pvx East coalition. Um, that linked those sort of, um, veterans and military families, organizations as well as, uh, peace movements. Um, uh, if I see American friends service committee, um, you know, other groups in Portland that were involved in antiwar organizing. And so it was this really great Polish and that kind of brought together all kinds of different facets of the left. Um, you know, from like Quaker groups to socialist groups and, you know, veterans groups. I'm kind of everybody in town who was, you know, engaged in, in work against the war in Iraq. Um, and so that was a really great opportunity to kind of see how coalition building works at, you know, we don't see as often as perhaps we should on the left. Um, and so, you know, the war was something that really linked people together in a way that people could reach across the sort of political views and across, um, mobilizing strategies, um, and, and whatnot to sort of come together and set aside tactical, an ideological differences in a way of, you know, this is where we need to focus our energy. Um, and so, uh, you know, I worked with them that was sort of linkedin with a bunch of other organizations. Um, and then when, when, uh, years later when occupy happened, I was living in Honolulu, Hawaii. Um, and so that was a really interesting time also to, um, you know, kind of see who gets drawn in by these sort of big mobilizing efforts. Um, and you know, in a place where, uh, you know, there's a lot of different types of people in different types of organizations happening and you know, some disagreements that happened between sort of white activists like myself who are newer to the islands, um, you know, and trying to link up with, um, native Hawaiian activists. Um, you know, who we had a whole conversation early on with, um, with that group of, of should we call the group, occupy Honolulu, um, because the word occupied to occupy has connotations on an island that has been occupied. Um, and so that was, you know, I think a really interesting experience as well to kind of see, um, how, how coalitions are built across the aisle. Um, and you know, we ended up up there probably days of conversations, um, renaming the group be off the tie Honolulu. Um, and so, uh, you know, I think this just different sorts of experiences and, and movements and learning kind of how, how movements work and function. Um, and especially coalition work at, you know, isn't always, uh, easy. Um, which I think sort of tied into why I thought it'd be interesting to study movements, uh, because we do have all these, these conversations, these meetings, these coalitions of people who want to work together. I hadn't largely have the same goals but have different, um, you know, viewpoints and experiences that they're bringing to the table and different ideologies and strategies of how they think we need to get from point a to point B, um, that are sometimes difficult to sort of, um, overcome, um, and, and find the commonality to dorm together.

  Benn Marine 8:59

  That is so cool. And so I feel like that, that begs a question, especially coming from somebody who has experience, um, you know, on the front lines doing the work. What did you find in your studies? Like, what were you able to find like answers to your questions or, or, or, or a lot of those questions kind of still out there and you're still exploring those.

  Megan Brooker 9:21

  I mean, I think the questions are always out there and, and every, every question, every finding, you know, builds new questions behind it. Um, and, and contacts matters too, right? As, as the political world changes, as, as people change. Um, what worked before may not work again. Um, so, you know, I think we're never going to fully have an answer because it's not simple questions. Um, and, and change happens slowly and in many different ways. Um, but you know, I think what, what's exciting is that we can see kind of through that academic research that movements do matter. Um, but they don't always matter necessarily in the way that we think that they do. Um, and sometimes the goals that movements are working for aren't fully achieved, but that doesn't mean that something wasn't achieved. Uh, and so that's the sort of interesting part. The sea, you know, kind of what our movement to do, a water movement is trying to accomplish. And then what is actually kind of happening. Um, but it's also sort of steered me in a new direction through my academic work. I started to look much more at, um, kind of the interaction between movements and institutional politics, which was always kind of in the back of my mind, especially starting out with antiwar activism. Obviously we're trying to change policy, trying to stop the war. Uh, but oftentimes in my experience it was like activism and movements were for the sake of the movement. You know, like, yes, we wanted the south, the war, but at the time, you know, especially with, with, uh, President Bush, it didn't seem like a very likely possibility that we were going to stop the war. Um, what seem more of a possibility, right, is that we, we build these links. We believe these coalitions, you find commonality with other activists. Um, and I think that that's important to keep in mind is that even if there are policy goals that aren't accomplished, movements have a purpose in and of themselves for the people who participate in them. But also you are changing the political scene as it stands, right? So, you know, we didn't stop the war in Iraq, but now we see in, you know, in the 2016 election, uh, there were battles between candidates of, you know, you voted for a rock, but you know, but I shouldn't have votive are right. And now it's like the consensus is that a rock was a bad idea. Um, but it took politics a lot longer to get there. Then it took, you know, as, as activists in the movement. So, you know, like, yes, it war happened and we couldn't stop it, but we changed the understanding about it. Right. And, and politics sort of comes around. So the same thing with any type of movement, right? So if we want to think about marriage equality, the movement was happening for many, many years in many different ways. Um, and, and politics was kind of the last to come on board. And that was a really intersting case. Uh, especially because it wasn't even the political system that ended up making the change. Right? It happened through the Supreme Court case. Uh, and then the Democrats Kinda came on board so that, you know, the movement was slowly pushing the Democrats poured support for marriage equality. Um, but you know, even in, in 2008, um, oh, the Obama Clinton race, uh, the candidates still war outright supporting marriage equality. And so it wasn't, um, until Obama's second term, uh, once we saw a marriage equality at legalized in multiple states, um, through the work, you know, of, of movement and you know, electoral activists. Um, and then finally with the Supreme Court case, then the Democrats were like, Oh yeah, we supported that all along. Um, so politics is often slow and you need the movements to sort of push things to change that conversation. Uh, that was the big thing with occupy to right, that we saw in the media. It was occupied, change the conversation about income inequality. So that's an important role to remember for movements as well. And you know, that's a place where movement to really do matter is shifting the dialogue, shifting the political conversation in the country.

  Benn Marine 14:04

  That's awesome. I think especially like in the case of of occupy, I feel like sometimes people use that as like an example of this is like something where there, there was no policy tied to it, but, but then you look at like Bernie's run and it was all very much talking about that 1%. But I feel like a lot of that language came from the occupy movement.

  Megan Brooker 14:22

  Yeah, exactly. So that's like a really interesting thing, right? And there's these debates of like, and occupy create Sanders, uh, campaign in 2016 and then people will say, oh, no Sanders as the working on these issues for many years, he hasn't really changed, you know, his views on these things. And those are both crew, right? Sanders has Ben wanting to address, um, you know, economics in way that's different from the Democratic Party, right? He's, um, yeah, he ran on the Democratic ticket, but in the Senate he was an independent and he's a democratic socialist, right? So he has a different political ideology than much of the Democratic Party. Um, he has been more committed to these issues, but the language that he's using, right, it is, it's reminiscent of occupy. Occupy created a political moment where Sanders could be as successful as he was. He didn't win the nomination. Right. But he put up a much bigger fight than anybody would have expected at the beginning of his campaign. And now we're seeing him, you know, mobilizing for 20 plenty. Um, and you know, thinking about things a little bit differently. So movements really do sort of create that political moment. Um, uh, can allow certain issues and positions to make sense in the political moment and be useful or successful for politicians to use. So has Bernie been saying these things for 30 years? Sure. But what was anybody listening before occupy? Not really. Right. And so, um, you know, I think there is, there is credit to be awarded there that even though, um, you know, occupy largely was avoiding electoral politics has sort of inadvertently affected electoral politics and world. You know, we'll continue to see that moving forward in 2020 and now that Sanders was as successful as he wasn't 2016, it sort of opens the door to, um, shift the party, right? That, you know, if there's, uh, a positive response, if Sanders mobilize the support, which he did in 2016, then these new candidates that are coming up in 2020 are like, oh, maybe we want to absorb part of that too. That seems to be resonating with people in the country. Um, and it, you know, it's really the success and the mobilizing of movement at made that message resonate with the public in a way that it hadn't really before that

  Benn Marine 16:58

  thinking about like those kinds of tactics and movements and thinking about how it shifts the conversation and maybe even popular support for different issues. I'm curious the role of social media and all of that or, or if that came up at all in your studies. Right. Cause like occupy is a very, you know, impossible to ignore example, right? It's right. It's out there. It was all over the news. It was like you couldn't possibly miss it. And social media, I feel like there is opportunity there, right? Like with black lives matter or the like Hashtag me too movement, right? Like these different hashtag things that are coming out, but also with social media, people have the ability to kind of create their own little universe, right. And only hear what they want to hear. And so I'm curious if that came up at all in your, in your research.

  Megan Brooker 17:47

  Yeah. I mean, social media has really changed the context of how movements work. Right? And there's positives to that and there's negatives to that, right? I think the positive to that, like you said, is that movements now have this opportunity, right. To create their own media. They can get the word out and get the word out to more people and they were able to before and they don't need this intermediary of the mainstream media to do that. Um, and what's really interesting to me is that the mainstream media then sort of looks to social media. Like now when you read a news article, you know, they've embedded tweets into the news article. Um, which is a very different way of crafting news, right? Reporters no longer need to get deployed to the scene to know what's happening with the movement. They can look to Twitter where people are independently, um, you know, posting or a rundown of what's happening at a protest and right. That makes its own news and it can then get absorbed into the mainstream news as well. Uh, so it's a really interesting thing and I think it does sort of spread the word, um, to more people in a much quicker and easier manner. There's a couple of downsides for social media though. The first is that, you know, um, anybody can sort of speak for the movement. Um, and so it makes it difficult sometimes for movements to focus their message. Uh, you know, before it was like, if, if movements are happening right, and the organizing is happening through formal organizations, if pick the PR person, they've catered a media message, a, you know, have their set person with their speaking points, who's going to pop to the mainstream media and get the word out the way they want the words and get out. Now, right? Anybody can sort of show up or tweet something about a protest. Um, and right, you don't know, right? Are they just a bystander who just showed up at the protest or they actually an organizer who knows what's going on? Anybody can kind of speak for it. So sometimes right, the message can get skewed or can end up in the wrong hands and somebody can easily manipulate that, right? We've got all these online trolls that can veer the message off course and, so that's one difficulty. The other difficulty, right, is that movements need to physically mobilize in a lot of cases, uh, to achieve things. Um, and the danger was social media is that we get this world of virtual organizing, right? It's, some people call it like Hacktivism, um, that right? We've got all these online petitions and we can click yes, I support that. I signed my name and feel like we've done something for the cause. And usually that's not enough. It's a great first start. It's a great to sort of introduce people to a cause to a movement, but a movement really wants to make social and political change. It usually requires kind of on the ground work with organizations who follow up, right, hold politicians accountable. Um, it keep coming back, uh, which is sometimes harder to achieve. Um, with social media, right? Like social media can spread the word that hasn't necessarily guarantee that people are going to show up on the day or that they're going to make those phone calls that they need to the next day. Um, it can and sometimes it works really well, um, to keep people engaged like that. Uh, but not always because it's, it's a little too easy to sort of, you know, tweet the Hashtag and feel like part of the movement without sort of putting in that legwork, um, that really pushes movements forward.

  Benn Marine 21:50

  I'm curious in looking at how like successful movements, if you will, and are, especially as they interplay with political parties, did you find certain tactics were more, .... I feel like you kind of just touched on this a little bit, the, you know, one the fact that people have to show up, right? That it has to manifest in some actual way in the world, whether that's calls or rallies or, or whatnot. Um, but I'm curious, were there other other tactics that you found consistent with successful movement building or, or, and the flip side of that coin? Like were there things that were kind of like the stopper of movements?

  Megan Brooker 22:32

  Yeah, I mean, it really depends what your movement is seeking to achieve, right? And movements can have a different focus. Um, and all of those are valid, but they achieve different things, right? So if you think of, um, something like occupy, we had this sort of, the bait is occupied political movement that wants to make political change. Uh, or is it what people sometimes referred to as a prefigurative movement, which is write a movement who's trying to model the world that they want, right? That's sort of Thandi and be the change you wish to see. Um, that's focused kind of more on personal change or setting up alternative communities, um, alternative structures. Um, and there was very much this conflict. I think there were people who were part of occupy at different occupied chapters across the country who were focused on different pieces of that. Um, but largely right. Occupy avoided taking, you know, explicit, um, action in terms of right, supporting political candidates, um, really sort of playing that electoral world politics game. Um, and so the tactics that you choose, right, half the match the outcome that you want. So if you're focused on sort of a personal changes, right? So say in the animal rights movement, um, you know, maybe you just want to convince people to go vegan and it's a personal change that's going to have these larger social consequences if enough people do it. But it's right. It's based on personal changes. Um, so that's great. And there, there's validity in that. But if you want to create an explicit political outcome, if you want to change a policy outcome and you really have to play the political game, and it's a double edged sword, right? Especially on the left, because we've got a lot of movements on the left who don't want to engage in electoral politics, right? We want to be nonpartisan. We know that the political system in the U S is flawed. It's right. It's not as democratic as we pretend that it is. Um, and politicians are going to sell out your movements. Um, these are all absolutely true. There's a lot of flaws in the political system, but it's the system that we're currently working under, right? So there's this tension of if we know the game is rigged, should we still play the game? Um, and if, right, if you've got outcomes that you're looking for that exists outside of that game, then you don't necessarily have to play it. But if the goals that you have exist within that game exists, you know, in, in terms of affecting an election affecting a policy change, then you kind of have to play the game. And I know that's not right. Not necessarily the most radical, um, perspective. And, you know, it's, it's kind of disheartening, um, for, for many of us on the left, right. And myself coming from the activism world, I was very much, you know, kind of like, well, Oh vote, but electoral politics is never going to get us where we need to go. Um, but, you know, getting more in on the academic side, studying how change has worked in the past, um, I've sort of come to, you know, a recognition that, you know, you do sort of have to play that game if you want an outcome within that system. Um, so bright, there's different ways the movements can be effective, different, um, you know, beyond sort of tactics, different broader like strategies of change that movements can get involved in. Um, but if your strategy of change involves something like politics and policy, then you have to get in that system, right? Um, which is going to include tactics like, um, you know, supporting electoral candidates, running your own political candidates, getting into office, pressuring people in office, um, you know, in, in ways that are assertive and put their jobs in jeopardy ways that make your issue kind of a political litmus test of right. If you don't support this and you don't deserve to be our representative. Um, and so it's a different sort of point of view. Uh, so one of the movements that I study is indivisible, uh, which is a movement that started after the 2016 election. Um, and it was founded I, um, individuals who worked as democratic congressional staffers who then, uh, sort of recognize when Trump won the election of like, Oh shit, we no longer have access to the political system in the same way that we did. Right? If we know our democratic representatives, um, are no longer going to have leeway in Congress, um, you know, because Trump won and republicans took control of Congress. Um, then what else can we do? And so usually movements are kind of outside of the institutional system and try to work their way inside in a visible was this interesting reverse case where it was guarded by people who began within the institutional system and then went to the outside. Um, and, and try to use grass roots mobilizing, um, as a way to sort of regained control, um, after losing political act test. Um, but I think what's really interesting about indivisible is because it was created by, um, these former congressional staffers, they put out the indivisible guide. It had this sort of, um, strategic mobilizing plan of, right, we understand how a members of Congress thing, and this is what you need to do if you write, if you want them to do what you want. Uh, and so the biggest sort of assertion in the indivisible guide is that members of Congress, our focus, especially in the house, right, where it's a two, two year term, they're most focused on reelection. They wanna keep their job. And so if movements can pressure, um, candidates in such a way, right, or representatives in such a way that if you don't do what the movement wants, the movement has enough mobilizing capacity to push you out and replace you with someone else. Um, that's an interesting way, right? To sort of pressure, uh, members of Congress to, to kind of be on your side. Um, it's not as simple strategy. It's really dependent on having enough outside pressure that right. You can be assertive and claims of, you know, we'll vote you out, have to have some credibility to them, but if you can gain enough support to do that and be able to say that, um, their members of Congress will have to sort of pay attention to their constituents. Um, and so I think that's a really interesting strategy. Right? And we saw, um, and the end of his book guide makes reference to the fact that we saw that work, um, for the right. Right. And so the left, right. We're always like, you know, I've got to stay away from the right. Uh, you know, the, we don't want to do business the way they do business. Um, which again, I fully understand, fully resonate with me, but at the same time, right, we can sometimes separate ourselves from between the strategy and the content. So separate the content from the actual tools. And so if we look at something like the tea party tea party, we're not really talking about anymore, but it wasn't because it went away. It was because it institutional APP, right? And the tea party ran their own candidates, those candidates successfully one in primaries and then got into office. Um, and so a group like that is seeing more political and policy outcomes because they got their people, um, integrated within the party. Um, and so, right, there's this, this the bait on the left of right. Do we want to do the same thing? Right? And if we don't trust the Democrats to do what we want, um, and you shouldn't, right? Because Paul politicians, again, they're, they're main focus is getting elected, so they want to build wide coalitions that are going to ensure their own electoral victory. Um, and if your movement isn't strong enough on its own to compete with other constituencies that are going to write, be trying to influence them, including moneyed interests and lobbyists and corporations, um, then, right? Can we really trust politicians to do what we want? Not necessarily, but right. Can we use this strategy similar to what the tea party did, um, and start trying to make change within the party. Um, and, and I think that that is as a reasonable strategy for movements to think about. Um, and right, there's a lot of resistance to it because there are structures within politics that sort of shape the limits of what you can do, right? And so, um, some folks are like, oh, we need to build our own party. Right? We need a new party. This two party system, is it working? Um, I'm inclined to agree with that. But at the same time, the structures of the system that we have now make it very, very difficult to have a viable third party. Um, and you know, we've seen parties like the Green Party, uh, who are doing some really interesting things that have a really hard time getting boats. Um, and so it becomes a decision, right, of that we work from the outside or do we work from the inside? And largely movements are going to be most successful if they have both. And if you have kind of wings of the movement who focus on different strategies, different tactics, and work from the inside and the outside in tandem, that's going to be most successful for you. Um, but I, you know, I would trust that that movement should, um, think about that insider strategy, um, and the possibilities of it. And I think where we've started to see that in this last election, um, candidates like, okay, Casio Cortez are really interesting, right? Because they were, um, Democratic candidates who, um, started in a primary, right? So oftentimes we see, right? Like, oh, let's get a Democrat to beat the Republican and push the Republican out of office. But then we run into these structural difficulties like Gerrymandering, um, that have shaped the district, right? So it's sort of limited and it's very difficult if a district is historically democratic or historically Republican. Um, it, it's hard to shift it, right? Um, there are some sort of swing districts, but many districts are pretty consistent in the candidates that they elect. Um, and so there's a lot of focus sometimes of like we need to beat that party, but I think it starts earlier on, the key party showed us that if you can, you know, beat the sort of status quo, party candidates in the primary and get your candidates in, um, especially in a row, an extract that's reliably going to go to that party. Um, that's a, that's a real opportunity. Right? And that's what a cross yoke Cortez did. Um, and I think that, that, that's a strategy I'd like to see more of because that's the way that you can pull the party in the direction you want from the inside. Um, is that the only way to go? No. Um, and we still need that, that sort of external movement work happening, um, because right. Um, politicians are sort of guided by their constituency is and also limited by the constraints of the system, right? So how much can Anacostia of Cortez do in Congress, um, as a junior congress person? Um, you know, um, especially right, if you're party isn't in control of the full congress and right there, there's limitations there. Um, but right, if we can knock out all the status quo people and we can pull the party to be more progressive, just like on the right, right. The Republican Party has been pulled by the Christian, right. I, the tea party, uh, further and further to the right, um, right, which sort of opened the door, um, for expanding that party coalition, which now Trump has expended that party coalition to allow and even more extremist movements like white nationalists. Um, so right. We've sort of seen that work on a right for better or worse. Um, but if we can see that sort of happen on the lap and we can start the bowl, the Democratic Party to the left to become more progressive from the inside. And couple that with this sort of ongoing organizing movement action on, on the outside that is working to change the national conversation and continue to pressure those progressive candidates. The follow through on what they said they would. I think that's the key. Um, that combination is where we can really start to see change happen. That was a long winded answer. Um, but I think that's where I see this sort of tactics coming together is dining, um, this electoral process working from the inside, uh, as well as working to continue to pressure from the outside.

  Benn Marine 37:29

  I think that's great. And I feel like that I took all of that is super real and super important. I'm curious, something that, um, as I was listening that came up for me was the thought of coalition work. Right. And how thinking about how, you know, historically perhaps I left has been a little bit more segmented. Uh, but ways that that can come together in the context of potentially, like I wonder if there is, you know, a conversation that has to be had around changing the system. Like, I think right now in terms of like Democratic primaries for the, uh, present 20, 20 presidential election, I think Warren and Buddha judge are the only two that are really talking a lot about a systemic change around like the way our electrical systems actually work, which we're not super sexy and you know, and is not a, I don't know that those are necessarily things that people are excited about though perhaps that would open the door to being able to get some of those larger ticket items. I'm curious your thoughts on that, like the coalition but also changing of systems that's even,

  Megan Brooker 38:36

  I don't know, practical or not. Yeah, I mean, I think that both of those things are really important. Um, so in terms of changing the system, I think that is a long haul process and it's going to take many, many years. Right? Even if if worn or Buddha judge were elected, um, they're not instantly going to be able to fulfill those promises. Right. Um, but what we can see, right, is that it, it's now on the table, right? People were saying, Oh, maybe the electoral college is problematic. Right? If we're saying we're a democracy, but the candidate who gets the most votes as it, when maybe that's a problem. Um, and even opening the door for politicians to be making that argument, um, is important. Right? It's not a new argument. It's come up, right. This discussion about electoral college has been ongoing throughout the history of the country. Uh, but the more we start to kind of see as external pressures, forcing politicians confront these questions, the better chance there is, right? That a change might happen. And so this is kind of the first step in that process. Right? Um, and so oftentimes, whether it's kind of with changing the system or whether it's with any particular issue, right? Whether it's, you know, marriage equality or climate change or whatever issue it is, you've got a sorta movements changed the conversation around, right? The sort of political context, a social context that we're working in. And then politicians kind of come on board and they're like, oh, people care about as people are talking about this. Let me get on board with that. Um, and initially the politicians who start talking about an issue like that are kind of outsiders, but as time goes on and that becomes more normalized as the movement further institutionalizes within the political system, right? It becomes more of a possibility. And so you need right, more than just a few politicians talking about it, you need it to sort of become, um, uh, something integrated into the party platform. And you need the sort of party to start to say, right? Like this is on our platform. This is an issue. If you're a part of our party, you have to care about. Um, and that process usually happens pretty slowly, right? But eventually issues kind of become a litmus test, um, to see, right? Like you belong in our party or not. So if you think of something like, uh, being pro choice, right? You, there used to be a variation across the Democrats and the Republicans, um, and disagreement on that issue. Um, but as politics became more and more polarized, um, as movement sort of worked, right? Sort of women's, the men pro choice movement worked, um, a form coalitions within the Democratic Party, the religious right, uh, for him sort of agreements. And under the party coalition on the Republican's side, that became an issue that split the parties became a litmus test right there. You support a woman's right to choose, um, or are you against abortion? And your answer to that question sort of situates you within a party. Um, and so right movements sort of forced that to happen. Um, and so right now we kind of see that, um, with a variety of issues, if you kind of think of any political issue, um, there's kind of a political split that's happening there. Um, but it takes time for sort of a movement, um, to make its issue, that sort of litmus test, right? Like as I mentioned earlier with the marriage equality, um, it didn't become a litmus test for the Democratic Party until after it was already legalized. Um, but now if you have a democratic candidate running for office who said they didn't support marriage equality, right, they would look insane and they would be shunned. Um, so, you know, it, it takes time to build, but once it's sort of there, um, then right, it, it becomes sort of fundamental to the party platform. And so I think even with something like changing the system at same sort of process has to happen. And we're still right, even though this is an ongoing conversation, pretty much through the history of the country, we're only now in the early stages of that process. Um, but to have, you know, a candidate, um, or you know, in this case a couple candidates, kind of having it on the radar is a really great first star. Right? And so it's the same sort of thing, like with Sanders talking about income inequality in 2016 now we're seeing, or, or medicare for all, now we're seeing more democratic candidates sort of pick up on that and say, oh, hey, that seemed fairly successful. There seems to be support and mobilization around those issues. Um, so maybe I should consider that. Um, you know, in my campaign agenda. Um, and so, you know, I think, I think it, it'll happen. Um, but it's, it's a long fight. Um, and so it's, it's dependent on, you know, taking the success of, of those candidate to do support that sort of change, um, and trying to get that, this spread further throughout the party. Um, and then, right. Um, the, the other problem is, is, is that, you know, the Democratic Party historically is still sort of benefiting from those structures. Um, and so I, you know, I, I think sort of changing the system, um, is, is, is not going to be an easy pass and isn't right in the immediate future. Um, but I think, you know, I think we'll get there, um, and, uh, you know, slowly sort of shift. Um, but the way that we shift this sort of circle back around to the other piece of your question, the way we make that shift happen is through the sort of coalition work, right? Because as politics has become really polarized, I think even people, um, on their own side also become polarized, right? Or sort of, um, individualized that, you know, it's like, this is the issue that I care about and I will vote based on this issue and this issue alone. And I'm going to work in this movement for this issue. Um, and sort of put the blinders on to other things. And I think that, you know, historically there is some benefit to that, right? If you are a movement that's organizing, right, you need a certain amount of resources, you need a certain amount of political support, um, you need all these things to make your movement propel forward and you have to make your, your movement stand out, right? You're competing for limited resources, you're competing for the attention of politicians, you're competing for attention from the media. Um, and so, you know, sometimes you want to simplify your message, you want to make it about your issue, um, and, and you know, make sure that that's getting its due focus. Um, and so, right, there's a strategic reason why sort of single issue, single issue movements exist. Um, but at the same time, um, you know, coalitions sort of propel stick SAS and especially since we're working in the constraints of a two party system, which again, maybe eventually we can break apart, but it's the confines that we have right now. Um, and so with a two party system, each party is sort of accountable to a wide array of constituents. Um, and I think in a lot of ways the Democratic Party is appealing to an even broader, more diverse set of constituents than the Republican Party is. So if you're working on the left and you're trying to target the Democratic Party, I think, right? It's, it's going to be a lot more successful if, right. If you can kind of have allies, um, and if you can take, um, movements and organizations who have had some institutional success, um, and sort of build from that, that that's sort of the way we can go. Um, but right. It's, it's challenging sometimes and I think, um, individual activists are often more intersectional than the organizations that propel movements, right? Because organizations have this need for, for resources and attention that there's a benefit for being single issue, whereas the individuals, right come with many different identities and support for many different issues. Um, and so we can come at things from a more intersectional place and see the linkages between these issues. Um, and I think we need to find a way to sort of map that on to how organizations function. And I don't have a perfect answer for how that happens, but I think that the more we can make that happen, the better things will be, right? If we can sort of set aside some of these, um, constraints or assess in the competition, um, and build more unity across the left, um, that, that's, that's how we're going to make change happen, right? Because sometimes sort of within movements or cross movements, um, we have these internal divisions that will break movements apart, right? And, um, your sort of a oppositional forces on the other side of the aisle can sort of use that as a tool to break you down, um, and propelled their own interests. Um, and so if the left can't move past sort of our own internal divisions, our own failures when it comes to addressing racism, sexism, homophobia, um, et cetera within our movements, um, then right? How are we ever going to propel the broader political system, um, right forward. Uh, so I think that that's sort of a starting place. And I think, uh, right as individuals, we can see, um, how things, uh, are, are, um, how things affect people in different ways. Right? And so, you know, you have a movement like black lives matter, the Movement for black lives who put out a platform. Um, and right, it was a movement for black lives platform sort of was a coalition and I think like 50 plus organizations who came together and said, you know, we need to think about policy, we need to think about, you know, what are the things we're asking for? Um, and came to an agreement on, you know, like 30 plus point platform. Um, and right. Oftentimes black lives matter gets sort of situated within the realm of criminal justice reform. Um, but the platform is actually much more intersectional, much broader than that, right? It's thinking about, um, you know, environmental racism, thinking about fossil fuels, you know, thinking about, um, broader questions of racial justice, um, thinking about education and the school to prison pipeline, you know, that it's touching on many issues beyond just, uh, you know, we need to stop police shootings. Um, that sort of much of the mainstream media has equated as the cornerstone of that movement. Um, and so I think that that's a really good start. Um, and if, if more organizations and more movements can use that model of thinking about how all of our issues are interconnected, um, and how we can come up with a broader platform and agenda of right, of activists on the left of this is the world that we want to see. And if, right, if, if sort of our leaders and our organizations can come to some agreement, um, and develop some sort of platform like that, uh, that's that a tool that can be used to pressure politicians to, to follow through. And there's always going to be, I sort of divide, right? The Movement for black lives platform is much more radical, much more progressive than anything we're going to get from the democratic platform right away. But what it does is say, okay, this is our vision. Here are some big picture ideas. Here are some smaller, more specific policies we want. Um, and so then if the Democrats can pull from some of those all are more specific policies and integrate those into the platform, that becomes the building block for moving towards those bigger picture items. So sometimes we have to kind of break down that big picture and think about the little pieces and steps we can use to get us from point a to point B. Um, and you know, I think that that's where coalitions kind of come together because we can't always achieve everything we want. Um, and we need to be thinking about what are the issues, what are the positions, what are the policies that are going to help the most people, um, at this time and sort of create that foundation to keep propelling us forward. Um, and so, you know, that's, that's my hope is that we can see more things like that were coalitions of organizations are coming together. Um, our thinking broadly, but also sort of laying out, um, right with dcis. Um, and, and I think that that's a good tool. And if the party can pick up on pieces of that and then we build the movements and are going to work. I'm on the local level, um, to create change. I continue pressure politicians on the national level. Um, that, that's the sort of blending, um, of, of right. What's, what's going to propel us to the greatest change, um, in the least amount of time.

  Benn Marine 53:39

  Anything that I should have asked and didn't ask? Is there anything else that you want to share with folks that you want to make sure it gets out there in the world?

  Megan Brooker 53:44

  Um, I mean, I, I think just, you know, I, I'd say keep working right, that I think that as an academic, I sort of study the process and the process is murky on the process is long and we don't always get what we want right away. Um, but I'd say right, like don't be discouraged because it's the work of movements now and organizers and now, um, it sets up the change for the future, right? Like the civil rights movement in the 1960s is widely considered one of the most successful movements that has occurred in us history. Those battles are still being bought, right? So it takes a long time to get there and the fight is always ongoing. Every new wave of a movement is building on what's happened before, but it's doing it in new and creative ways and drawing attention to new issues that we hadn't necessarily had on the radar. Um, and that is a central process for making change go forwards. So, you know, burnout is real, um, has some ISM is real. I right, it's, it's important and that's how society works. Only way that change will happen.

  Benn Marine 55:23

  Thank you so much for tuning in this week. If you want to know more about Megan, I will link to her website in the show notes where you can find her different publications to request at your local library. To access these show notes, all you need to do is visit ocean of organizing.com. As always, if you're enjoying this content, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen. It helps ocean of organizing rank higher, which in turn helps folks like yourself find this content. If you've got feedback for me or things I can be doing better, what you want to hear more of or less of, let me know while you're at the ocean organizing website. All you have to do is click on the feedback link at the top and let me know how I can better serve you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Be well.