Fascism Comes to America

Transcript

0:00 Welcome to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. It's time to build again, folks. Fascism never made America great, but when progressives build, that's where you'll find American greatness. Our missions at YIMBY Democrats for America are to build America and defeat fascism. And tonight, we'll be discussing fascism. As Trump moves to provoke his own Reichstag fire, we highlight our conversations with governors, senators, and members of Congress. They'll tell us what they see as the Trump administration's fascist threat, how they're working to stand up to him, how the Democratic Party can mobilize against Trump, and what you and every one of us can be doing to lead the fight. That's coming up right now on Radio Abundance.

0:48 You're listening to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. Now let's get to the show. Please welcome your host for the evening, YIMBY Democrats for America Executive Director Steve Boyle. And to kick things off, here's Steve. I'm Donald J. Trump, and I hate these guys. Hi, folks. This is Steve Boyle, Executive Director of YIMBY Democrats for America. Welcome to Radio Abundance. You know, at YIMBY Democrats for America, our missions are to build America and defeat fascism. And we talk about defeating fascism because we know what's coming, and what's coming is here. The fear, the horror. The hell is this guy? I think his primary crime is running for governor. Come after me. Arrest me. Let's just get it over with. Tough guy.

1:34 I don't give a damn, but I care about my community. I care about this community. The hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up. They need to stop. And we need to push back. So, Tom, arrest me. Let's go. I told the president, just get it over with. Arrest me. Move on. If you need some head to scalp, do it with me. But stop messing with these kids. Stop messing with four-year-olds. We've never seen this kind of deployment in so many actions. It's mass panic. He never once brought up the National Guard. He's a stone-cold liar. He said he did. Stone-cold liar. Never did. There's no working with the president. There's only working for him. And I will never work for Donald Trump. Donald Trump and Stephen Miller talk about immigrants as an invasion. And it's not hard to understand what that language will lead to, what they intend it to lead to, what they intend to bring.

2:30 And what they intend to bring has begun. It's begun in Los Angeles and it's begun around the country, both the Trump administration sending in ICE to do large-scale roundups of immigrants, not always illegal immigrants, not in any sense people who are causing any damage in this country, people who have families, people who have jobs, people who are in school, kids who are graduating. And of course, part of the idea here is not just to round up immigrants and to make a big show of force. It is to provoke a crisis. There is a deliberate intention to create crises in blue cities, in blue states, to provoke Democrats and folks on the left and Democratic elected officials to stand up to the Trump administration so that the Trump administration can respond with violence, can respond with imprisonment and arrests can respond by locking up Democratic elected officials, by activating a state of emergency, by mobilizing the National Guard and even the military.

3:39 As we're seeing in Los Angeles, you know, Trump was asked, what is the bar for sending in the Marines? And Trump said, the bar is what I think it is. As Congressman Maxwell Frost says, there is no mass deportation campaign going on right now because deportation is a process. This is kidnapping and human trafficking. Because our missions are to build America and to defeat fascism, we have discussed fascism with everybody that we have interviewed. We have interviewed Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, United States Senator Brian Schatz, Congressman Robert Garcia, Congressman Jake Auchincloss, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, Congressman Richie Torres, Congressman Ro Khanna, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, Pod Save America co-host John Lovett, and Maryland Housing Secretary Jake Day.

4:31 We also feature remarks sent to us by Senator Elizabeth Warren. We have asked them about the Trump administration. We have asked them about fascism, about threats to democracy, about what Trump is doing, and about what Democrats can do to counter it, and what you can do to counter it. And we wanted to share with you a little bit of what they told us in a montage of clips and soundbites and discussions and impassioned comments. About fascism, about fascism, about democracy, about this moment for the United States in history, about the answers for the Democratic Party, how the Democratic Party can counter Trump, how they can build a better alternative to Trump, how they can woo people away from fascism, bring society back together, lower the cost of living, sell people on the Democratic Party.

5:22 And, of course, what you can be doing, what every single one of us, us ordinary citizens, can be doing to stand up to Trump. And I want to share with you those conversations now. The world has changed in a short time. Look, I think that we're in a crazy time. We're in a really important moment. We're at a major crossroads here. And not just in the city, but in this entire country. People are suffering right now. We are truly undergoing unprecedented attacks on national rights, things that we have taken for granted in the past. They're going to suffer more as more chaos bleeds out of Washington. I hate to even raise this right now, but, you know, he's on a road. Donald Trump has a fascistic disposition, and he aspires to be a fascist and not look at Putin and Xi Jinping.

6:10 He wants to destroy this country and set up a dictatorship. Donald Trump's the worst thing that happened to this country in the last hundred years. He is the most destructive presidency in the recent history of the United States. It was a death sentence for so many. This view of, quote, unquote, expansive executive authority, where you're taking over the congressional roles and state roles and jurisdiction and authority, is a move towards potential autocracy dictatorship. It's eroded our moral leadership around the world. He's taken away our freedoms already, the reproductive freedom, our voting rights. It feels like we're not governed by the rule of law. We're governed by the rule of man. They're trying to dismantle our right to organize. I'm never going to work with anyone trying to harm people's rights or harm the ability for women to have full access to their body autonomy. He's dismantling our global system of trade. Or trash key people or trans people or immigrants.

6:56 Dismantling our open system of immigration. Dismantling the most ancient principle of Anglo-American law, habeas corpus. He is a horrific president. Dismantling due process. He's destroying our institutions and the foundations of our agencies that we need. They're trying to dismantle all of our rights. I worry that the damage he's doing will endure long after he is gone. He made the decisions that I fundamentally believe were unconstitutional. This is about your freedoms. He is dismantling some of the jewels in the crown of American leadership in the world. This is about your rights. We'll always overcome policy, but the health of our democracy is so important. There are places where democracy has turned to fascism. I don't want to see the country go in a very dangerous authoritarian direction. There's a movement around the world towards strongmen, quote unquote, leadership. You saw what, you know, John Kelly said about Donald Trump wanting his generals to be like Hitler's.

7:45 It is exactly not who we are and exactly not what our defining document, the U.S. Constitution, made us to be. You know, this is somebody who fundamentally didn't respect the outcome of the last election. You know, the U.S. Constitution, in a word, you know, the Clip Notes version, the short form in one sentence is America shall have no kings, no tyrants, no monarchs, no dictators. It is designed to never have that. He still does not acknowledge the outcome of the last election. If people feel like democracy is failing, that it's too slow and doesn't deliver what they need and that their lives are untenable and they can't afford housing and they can't afford groceries, they'll look to an alternative. Do I think the American democracy is dead? No, but it's in a recession. That's what we saw, at least with the presidential election. The, you know, five alarm fire that's happening across the government right now. If democracy delivers, democracy will be successful and it will be durable and it will have longevity.

8:34 I come from a background where we literally watched a status quo continue to put barriers in front of my family. There's a, you know, I say there's a reason why I had to convince many members of my family to vote for me when I ran for governor. If democracy does not deliver for people, it's, it's vulnerable and it's at risk. And it's not that we're not cool. It's that I had to convince many members of my family to vote because we have seen this repeatedly. How systems that were in, in place that were intended to help and support did anything but. The bottom line is they will, they will vote based on their quality of life. The thing we need to be really careful of is somehow acting like we're pretending where, or we're protecting what was. Because what was, was not working for people. People are feeling really angry. I think it's important for us to recognize.

9:19 And I think that's the message that people wanted to send. That this is not about saying we will stand by and defend the status quo at all costs. I think that young Democrats, especially what's interesting is young Democrats that in some ways are leaving the party or that are confused about where they are. If democracy makes people's lives better and it works for them, people will continue to choose it. When you ask people and particularly, you know, young people with concerns are with the Democratic Party or politics, they're going to tell you, look, the costs are too high. People are telling us the costs have been too high for a long time and no one's addressing that. When you ask people where they're being hurt the most, yes, broadly, there's a lot of answers. But yes, young people, it's the cost of housing, the cost of rent, where they're basically paycheck to paycheck trying to pay their rent. Or it's the idea that they're never going to be able to buy their own home. That kind of desperation of not being able to attain what your parents were able to do or other folks that you know that were able to buy a home is discouraging.

10:12 We have a little bit of a credibility gap with people. I think we have a credibility and message problem. They're like, oh yeah, you Democrats, you just like your rules. At the end of the day, it's the outputs. It's what you deliver that matters. Abundance is an outcome-driven philosophy. We are overly enthralled by procedure and not focused enough on performance. We need to have measurable outcomes. We need to drive to outcomes to make sure that there's execution in a building. And so as a political movement, I think YIMBY has an opportunity to address the single largest desire of young people, which is to change your condition as it relates to their affordability of housing. No matter what the process is, no matter what the inputs, if you don't deliver on the outputs, then nothing else really matters. I think YIMBY can be a vehicle to bring particularly some of the young men that are oftentimes concerned or worried about where they're going to go.

11:02 And the YIMBY movement can be very powerful. It's not simply enough to say, okay, we passed a bill and had money. And that makes it harder for us then when Elon Musk takes a chainsaw to a bunch of procedures that actually really are important, right? Veterans have been fired. The impact on young kids in Africa and elsewhere is unconscionable. Like the way that the FDA investigates pharmaceutical quality in its lab in St. Louis. And we're like, actually, wait a minute, hold on. Super is important. Like, don't get rid of that. And then you look at the gutting of medical research, cancer research at places like NIH. I mean, obviously, it was a disaster. On the immigration conversation, you have a lot of independents and Republicans that say, yeah, you know, we should get rid of these people. Shouldn't be here. When I was just two months old and born in the Philippines, my parents saw that dictator rising to power.

11:50 And they knew martial law was around the corner, which it was. And so they brought me to California because they thought I could live my California dream here and reach my full potential here. I tell them that when the raid started in Newark, New Jersey, one of them was my father at the store that was raided. Both parents worked for the United Farm Workers of America. We lived in La Paz. I grew up there as a young boy. La Paz is the headquarters in the Central Valley. My dad worked in the front office with Cesar Chavez and helped set up health care clinics for the farm workers. My mom worked in the preschool with Tuerta way back then in the early 70s. It's a building there with four units. It used to be a deli and my mom's immigration services business. And then, you know, when they retired, they sold it. And it's currently for you. My mom, an immigrant from the Philippines, fought for the restoration of democracy in her home country for years and years until people rose up and chased out a dictator and brought democracy back to a country after the dictator was violating human rights and disappearing opponents and arresting, imprisoning, torturing and killing them.

12:45 One is a Burlington school teacher. One is an army veteran. One is a lawyer who took over for my mom's immigration services business. And one is an electrical contractor for the state of New Jersey. So all documented citizens that are professionals here and have served in some way. We understand what migration has done for our country. Who I am and my background defines how I am and how I see the world and how I fight and my theory of and vision of change from actually a public service standpoint. And ICE came and, you know, I posted the videos. There were 15 of them and they went door to door. They were looking for somebody. You know, with a father who was involved in the civil rights movement, marched in Selma, Alabama, organized for civil rights and voting rights. Arrested anybody. But it was put out to people that if you look at the video and how they came in and my parents and my family owns that building are citizens and they've been there for 50 years and I'm running for governor.

13:34 They were right about that. They wanted freedom and democracy for me, human rights and due process and the rule of law for me. Fairly high profile in the state. And they come in with no warrants or no due process and they go door to door searching for people. And I'll tell you, I know that California dream is alive and well because I'm living my, I never thought I could be in this role. I never take it for granted. We're in dangerous times if you tolerate that sort of thing. Because if it could happen to somebody like me, it could happen to you. Of course, it could happen to anybody. I believe that the way, you know, because of my parents who fought against injustice and believe that when something's not right, it's time to fight and believe that you can make tomorrow more fair than today. And where does that end? Because it doesn't end once you accept it. We can have a future that is pro-immigrant, pro-progress, pro-development, pro-housing.

14:20 I believe that nothing's impossible for us and that the role I have can help shape the change that we need. That is more utopian than the one that we're in now, where everyone actually can live in a community or in a city or neighborhood where they have access to the things that they need. And the vision of a government and a country where we are inviting difference, but that all of us have access to the things that we need. The most important thing that we can do is to show people that we are listening and to show people that we are moving. As Democrats, we have to tie everything back to that household budget. Economic growth and affordability has got to be the number one things that we can we can drill in and focus on. And we knew that you cannot do that without focusing on housing. As we all know, housing is at the heart of American life.

15:09 Number one retirement plan in this country is to pay off your house and live on Social Security. But this reality is looking less and less feasible for so many young Americans. I think that we've got to show why doing things like focusing on increasing inventory, which is going to drive down costs. Our problem is basic econ 101. And that is that we don't have enough housing. And that drives up costs and makes housing unaffordable, particularly for people who haven't yet bought their first home. Where we can win is by saying, you know, we're going to help you not feel it when you're paying rent and when you're not seeing that increase in your rent and your mortgage payments. The answer? Pretty straightforward. Build more housing. If you care about progressive values, you've got to care about building housing.

15:57 We also need to deliver more consistently on starting with the issues that are most important to our people and working our way down. You know, top priorities being cost of living, including housing. What people and the voters care about is delivering, right? One thing that Senator Wiener, I've heard him say a zillion times, I used to work for him, he'd say, well, people, you know, it's good to have a process, but a process needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. The way that things work right now is that there's never an end. Housing offers an opportunity, I think, to gain some ground with voters and with our constituents. Housing is a universal topic to get people excited about. It's not just about doing it in our bikeyards. It's about doing it in the cities and towns we love and about making sure they're vibrant and they're keeping young people in them. That's what the Abundance Agenda is doing.

16:43 It is really about opportunity. It's about abundance. You know, part of the journey is the end and you need to get to the end. You can't be in an endless journey. It's got to be a quick, efficient process and not stand in the way of actually delivering what the people want, whether it's a new school, a new highway, a new rail project, whatever it is, new housing. Really make housing more affordable. What I think it's important to focus on is just delivering for people. Really make eggs more affordable. For people to come off the street who are homeless and into care where they're getting the treatment and support that they need. People are expecting the Democratic Party to deliver for them in this moment. Our constituents care about what gets delivered at the end of the day. Really do it. Not just talk about theories that may or may not work. Not just to pay them lift service, but to actually provide solutions to their everyday problems, to help bring down the cost of living, practical ways to get this done.

17:31 If you're not delivering, your constituents deserve better. It's about making things happen and delivering. That's what people are looking for. They're looking for results. We've chosen democracy, but democracy doesn't have to be slow and it doesn't always have to be inefficient. We also understand you can be over-regulated. That government can sometimes get in the way of housing and building and of progress. We can do better. You know, people want to see good things happen, whether it's highways, whether it's transit, whether it's housing. We have to recognize that housing is the single largest challenge in this country, separate to the destruction of our government. Housing will remain, it is today, it will remain after this nightmare with Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Democrats, of course, should not only not be standing in the way of good things happening, but we should be in the forefront of helping make major improvements to our quality of life and making life more affordable.

18:17 It will remain the single largest issue we have. The ability to show that we can focus on housing affordability, that we can focus on housing stability. We need to deliver for people quickly and efficiently. That's show people that the party that figures that out is the party that's fighting for it. So unleashing housing by removing costly barriers to housing, right? Housing is the number one creator of wealth. The biggest way out of poverty is a high-paying good job. And it's also the number one driver of poverty. And to have a high-paying good job, we need production and we need productivity and we need to build things and we need to build things everywhere. We need to supercharge housing in America. Allowing new transit and rail and roads to be built rather than years and years of review and circular firing squads.

19:03 The way to have people support you is do things that make their lives better. Not talk about it, do it. And so that it's concrete and tangible in their lives. I mean, these are things that fundamentally sabotage government and sabotage the good work we're doing. We know what Donald Trump's plan is, right? He's made it very clear. He is going to cut taxes for the richest people in corporations. And he is going to pay for that by raising taxes on everybody else through a national sales tax. Well, the highest priorities of the Democratic Party must be to resist the depredations of a Donald Trump presidency. And by the way, like even if you're going to articulate like the most generous version of that, which is a version he said, right? Which is he is basically going to get rid of consumer protections, get rid of environmental regulations, break unions, right? His idea, I'm going to let the billionaires and the corporations, people that run those places, do whatever they want, right?

19:52 Billionaires are affording all of this wealth for themselves and not sharing it with the middle class or the working class. And the benefits of that will flow to you. It's a version of trickle down, right? It's the reality of what this bill will do. It's economically disastrous. The Democrats have pointed out it's morally disastrous. It's going to kick 13 million or 16 million, depending on which study off of health care, got Medicaid, got food assistance for tax breaks for the billionaires. The most disastrous economic policy is the tax increase. Like that's what he's saying. And that and that I'm going to raise the price of goods that we import. I'm going to make I'm going to basically boost inflation. I'm going to cause all kinds of negative effects. You have the world's richest person who is someone who Trump calls really important in the economy saying not only is this morally disastrous, this is one of the worst economic policies of any president in American history, that it's going to create the worst deficits in peacetime that this country has ever known and that it's going to cause a recession.

20:45 It's going to cause a recession because of the blanket tariffs in the second half of this year. That does not work, right? It doesn't lead to benefits for the middle class. I've been morally clear in my criticism of his trade policy. It enriches a privilege for you and it leads to all kinds of harmful effects. Absolutely devastating, of course, to increase costs of people, increase the cost of people whose tariffs are passed along, but also discouraging investment. Musk told the truth that this budget would explode deficits in a way that we've never seen in American history. Unprecedented deficit, deficits more than we've had in the last 50 years, the most fiscally irresponsible budget probably in American history. I think of a tariff as a tax. By the way, tariffs, not a good idea. He also said the most irresponsible tariffs in American history with recession in the next six months. Oh my God, like we import all of our drywall from Mexico, all of our, like so much of our timber from Canada.

21:36 They're our friends. What are you doing, Don? It makes no sense. So HUD, I mean, it makes no sense to roll back grants and roll back vouchers for people that are looking for homes. And imagine if the president had the authority to set individual corporate tax rates at whatever level he wants, whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants. Why are we doing this in a housing crisis? It makes no sense. Everyone says there's a roll for tariffs. I don't know. I kind of like, you know, there's this funny memes about Americans making socks. We do high value stuff here. It's okay. We can be who we are. But, you know, if trees grow in Canada, let's not make it more expensive. Musk couldn't hold it in any longer. He just had to tell the truth that this is the worst bill in terms of deficits. And they said blanket tariff policy is an economic disaster.

22:23 It doesn't make any sense. It'll destroy American manufacturing because much manufacturing that we do have relies on parts and materials that are sourced internationally. And so, you know, people shouldn't focus as much, I think, on the personal rift as much as you have this person who has the richest person in the world who's a leading innovator calling Donald Trump's policies economically bankrupt. Could you imagine the uncertainty that that would unleash in our economy? Like, no one could function if the rules are as unstable as an extra sketch. A lot of those factories are going to move overseas, especially to export for the global market of this high tax, high regulation jurisdiction of the United States. If a superpower were planting the seeds of its decline, it would paralyze the global economy with the certainty of uncertainty. It would erode confidence in the reserve status of the U.S. dollar. It would defund scientific and medical research.

23:10 It would allow its manufacturing base atrophy from neglect. And it would grow the deficit until interest on the debt becomes the largest share of the federal budget. People are frustrated and they want to see fighters, obviously. That is the story of what America has become or is becoming in 2025. And that is not a story of success. That's a story of decline. And so I think those of us who believe in America need to commit ourselves to reversing that decline with the fierce urgency of now. We're going to fight back hard because we haven't, candidly, over the last two decades. On the big fights, we're going to fight every time. I strongly oppose the presidency of Donald Trump and I've done my best to hold them accountable. We have an opportunity to do something about it. I think Democrats are figuring out that we've got to be a lot tougher and we've got to be a lot louder. We can step up in this moment and show that local governance matters, that you can still do big things at the municipal level.

24:00 The next four years are really important. Governors will be the front line of defense. We have a unique chance, especially as governing partners, right? Especially as folks in the executive branch. I want to see governors make their states exemplars of how we can lower the cost of core social goods, improve education, improve public safety. We have a chance to show what does an alternative actually look like, to make hard decisions, to build more, to build a level of abundance and affordability in people's lives. Because ultimately, if we're going to try to win back voters' trust for national governance, we darn well better show good state governance. We need big solutions. Often people see our plan and they say, well, this is too big. You can never get it done in a city like this. You have too many opposing forces. Are you prepared to be aided by entire neighborhoods and communities?

24:47 We're facing a housing crisis that is not going to fix itself for affordable housing, for economic freedom, and for a brighter future. To me, this is a mentality that is born out of a failure of leadership. I know we can deliver as Democrats. Republicans are great, in my opinion, at lying, manipulating, cheating, doing whatever it takes to win. This country craves leadership. We used to do big things in New York City. I connect with the FDR vision. At the core of the abundance movement is a belief in America. FDR had it right back in the 30s. We built the Empire State Building in 13 months. It says we need to build more and build faster. Of course, we need a modern technology vision with it, and we need a more multiracial participation. But that can be not just a majority vision. That can be an inspiring vision.

25:33 This is New York City. Come on now. You have to have a hope for a better country. Abundance is an optimistic perspective, very much about a future. What liberals would love to see. For me, three words that best summarize the abundance movement is, yes, we can. If we could all live in harmony. If we all had access to things that we need and want, particularly a roof and housing over our heads. I think Democrats are in a better place when, look, Republicans want to make democratic policies of what you give up. Increasing state capacity to be able to do it. They want to make environmentalism about your, they're coming for your hamburgers and your straws, right? They want to make healthcare a zero-sum game. They want to make all this a zero-sum game. We can do big things here. We're like at our best when we're talking about how much we gain, right? That's what FDR did. How much we gain when we build more housing, that everybody can win if we start increasing the housing supply. That's how we industrialize the country.

26:19 There's jobs in it. There's access to the American dream in it. And if you don't think that we can do big things and you can stay in that corner and be a naysayer, I refuse to accept that. It's a yes we can. I believe that if we are going to be a city where people can raise their family, where you can start your first job, where you can get your first apartment, or where if you were born and raised here, you can stay and see your here. It's going to require for us to do some tough work. How can we address the issue of inflation? How do you actually reduce costs? We've cut the income tax three times. We've cut property taxes. We've removed barriers to housing. So people's basic standards of living and the basic cost to buy materials for your family, that you can actually address it in a real way. Every little area that people have a challenge, how do you have a solution that helps people keep hold on to more of their hard-earned money?

27:08 I am very excited about the Abundance Agenda. What we also need to be cognizant of is that smaller developers are often people of color. I've been a proponent of it before Ezra and Derek Thompson's book. They're often women who are looking for opportunities to enter this space, but do not have the network, do not have the connections, do not have the access to capital that some of their counterparts do. Time is money, especially for small builders that can't carry that kind of burden. And this, to me, is just as important to give these individuals this opportunity, particularly in an environment where we're undergoing attacks from the federal government on diversity and equity and inclusion. I think oftentimes the YIMBY movement has been slow to recognize the importance of diversity and diverse voices within the YIMBY space.

27:56 This is an opportunity for us to put our money where our mouth is and to say, we can put the affordability crisis. I mean, we can also give people opportunities in this space as well. This whole thing about places being full, right, is this kind of like horseshoe theory of politics, where somehow that's like a leftist view, I guess. I would like to see the Democratic Party adopt both progressive policies, Medicare for all, a living wage. There is a lot of that hope within, I think, what Bernie and AOC are doing. And the abundance policies on getting things built faster and better. The truth is, if you talk to someone like Alexandria, like AOC, she very much is a pro-housing person. I think that often what progressives are saying and what the abundance folks are saying are different parts, different quivers of something that we need.

28:45 Folks like AOC has a message that resonates with the average person. I mean, I get tired of people saying, oh, well, she represents one way to the party. She's speaking for a lot of people. She's out there bringing people together. That's a way for us to win, is to push back, to continue to call folks, flip the house in a couple of years, and hopefully we can get more of our policy agenda done. But it's also, again, the kind of thing that the anti-illigoration right talks about. And so we just have to use the kind of vernacular of the progressive left. We have to sit with that. You want doctors to move to rural America? Have neighborhoods. Have a place for their families to come. We have to think about what it means to say that we are full. If it came out of the mouth of, you know, Donald Trump's former Secretary of Homeland Security, we would know exactly how to understand it.

29:33 Someone told me on my Wikipedia page that Khan is a proponent of economic patriotism and the abundance agenda and supported for Barack Obama and supported Bernie Sanders twice. But if it comes out of the mouth of, like, some, you know, Biden voter who lives in a fancy neighborhood in the exurbs, it, like, codes differently. And I don't think it should. You don't have to agree with me on all the progressive policy. You don't have to agree with me on the abundance policies. But I don't see there to be an inherent intellectual contradiction between the two. Like, it's a basically selfish view that those people are going to ruin our neighborhood. Not just, just, I want to, I want to, no, I'm just venting, but it's fun. I believe we can synthesize the two. Certainly, we can take the best parts of the two. On the Trump side of the equation, we're standing up for the rule of law, making sure that we have a presidential administration who doesn't break the law or violate the Constitution.

30:27 He just let it crash and burn. Unfortunately, they are doing that regularly at a clip of once a week. He became, in my opinion, just someone that's a psychopath. We have nine lawsuits in nine weeks. And we don't want to bring any lawsuits because that would mean that the Trump administration is following the law. Someone that had no empathy. Each and every time they break the law, violate the Constitution, we'll take him to court to hold him accountable. Not a lot to ask that the president of the United States follow the law. Important to our democracy that he do so. And unfortunately, he's not. He turned away from the values that we believe a better world should be. Point 2.0 is a little different in terms of the higher volume of actions, a lot of flood the zone strategy, chaos and confusion, shock and awe, and trying to overwhelm the opposition.

31:13 Every time we've seen them break the law, we've taken them to court. We have been successful in 85% of our cases in defining success as winning a court order, at least preliminarily in the form of restraining order or preliminary injunction. So we'll continue to do that, whether it be act by the Trump administration that unlawfully tries to strip away birthright citizenship or pause funding for critical essential services for our states or tries to give the richest man in the world and private citizen, by the way, access to American sensitive confidential information like social security number, bank account. We'll be there every time. That's our role. The most disastrous economic policy is the tax increase. Absolutely devastating, of course, to increase costs of people, increase the cost of people whose tariffs are passed along, but also discouraging investment.

32:00 As that chaos continues to bleed out of Washington, people are going to feel it at home. It'll destroy American manufacturing because much manufacturing that we do have relies on parts and materials that are sourced internationally. They're going to feel it in their utility bills. They're going to feel it in their medical bills. They're going to feel it in their insurance bills. A lot of those factories are going to move overseas, especially to export for the global market of this high tax, high regulation jurisdiction of the United States. All of those things are hurting people right now. I think Democrats need to treat cost disease in housing, in health care, in higher education. Housing is just one example, but investing in clean energy, investing in infrastructure, right? By the way, a damn shame that some of the more red states are building more housing and more clean energy simply because they're just making it easier.

32:45 Like those are not just things that create jobs, but they create the opportunities for economic growth. Let's work with farmers and ranchers to expand overseas markets. They create the space for people to to build businesses, buy homes, live the version of the life they want to leave without being constrained, as you said, by snarling traffic or being unable to afford a home where they're near where their kids live or near where their parents live. We've got to protect Social Security. It's ordinary people that need help. That is the backbone of the Democratic Party's commitment to the American people. Billionaires and big corporations are doing great, and they are not the people that need help. I think the Democratic Party was not vocal enough on free speech, made people feel judged for every word they were saying and not celebrated and give people a sense of mission that the entrepreneurs and technologists were builders.

33:31 Giving people the tools to buy houses and create millions of small businesses, right? Rewarding entrepreneurs. That is how you create wealth in this country. And they're doing great things for society, and we need to make sure that everyone is participating in this new industrial renaissance. That unleashes economic growth for this country. Democrats need to regain trust on how we deliver excellence in education. Standing up for unions raises standards of living. School closures during COVID were a catastrophe. We need to be championing technologists and entrepreneurs in this country. The Democratic Party was complicit in them, and we need to earn back voters' trust by delivering tutoring to kids at scale in this country who are behind grade level on reading and writing and arithmetic. I believe also we need to be championing free speech. Democrats need to regain trust on public safety.

34:18 We need to make sure that people don't feel canceled if they say the wrong thing, don't feel like they're the oppressor because of who they are. I think Democrats need to pick thoughtful fights with tech, demonstrating where it serves social good, like with off-site modular housing construction or biotechnology, but also saying where it is contrary to public interest, like with the social media corporations that are attention fracking our kids and corroding our civil discourse. I think that there's a correction in Democratic politics so that we can win them back. I think that what we have to show is there's a difference between disruption, which is what we all believe in, and destruction, which is what we're seeing right now. I think you need federal financing. I think you need workforce development. I think you need government procurement. To show them what the alternative looks like between believing and disruption and actually creating destruction in people's lives, where their basic needs and their basic frustrations are still not being met.

35:12 Venturing programs at community colleges and skills programs and a White House Economic Development Council. Disruption and destruction are two completely different things. I call it a Marshall Plan for America with business leaders, government leaders, local leaders, academics. Let's make sure that Made in America products are able to be sold everywhere and you can get the parts and materials that you need, no matter where they originate in the world. We need to have a robust new vision for this Democratic Party, not the stillness and the vision that inspired my parents to come to America, a place that was humming and brimming with possibility and the moral leader of the world. What we need right now is not more message testing. I can go sit there in Washington with 17 pollsters and strategists and we'll get a gajillion messages that test really well. It really is a great opportunity for abundance Democrats to lean in and say, let's break down trade barriers for made in America, grown in America products.

36:02 Around about 2016, we entered what I think of as the seventh party system in the United States. There's been six previous iterations of partisan alignments going back to the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans when it was Hamilton and Jefferson, all the way through Andrew Jackson and the Whigs, all the way through Lincoln and FDR. Around about 2016, the Republican Party stopped being the Reagan Republicans and they started being something closer to anti-elitist Christian nationalist party. There just happened to be a realignment. Democrats have not yet realigned ourselves for this seventh party system. You know, one of the reasons that I sort of go out of my way to be almost provocative rhetorically is that I do think we need to change politics, too. As we do, the opportunity that we have is to embrace markets. Republicans are retreating from markets. They are the ones who are becoming more statist, more dirigistic, more skeptical of trade and commerce and exchange.

36:51 It's not just a matter of passing, you know, laws at the federal level or incentive programs at the federal level. I think Democrats have an opportunity to say, actually, markets work really well. Like we as a progressive movement have to have a reckoning about what is our view about housing? Do we want more of it or do we want less of it? They don't work perfectly. You know, exhibit A, health insurance. But a lot of times they work really well. That is the binary choice in front of us. So I think almost the most important thing for any political leader is to start to shift that political conversation so that everybody, you know, like there should be a space for a pro-housing progressive to do so. Housing is a great example of where we have not allowed markets to work well enough because of self-implosed restrictions on supply through zoning. So much of this is generational. It's interesting you say that about YIMBY as the kernel of this, of maybe the realignment.

37:36 I actually really agree with that. I really agree with that. The YIMBY movement is people power at its finest. I think it has been successful, actually, in cascading into the public imagination. Also matched with folks with positional authority. That's the magic, what I call the inside-outside game, where you can do anything. When I first ran for city council in 2015, you could be a progressive, a self-styled progressive, and be very NIMBY. The two of them, there was no cognitive dissonance there. When you have a grassroots, community-driven, people-driven movement combined with people in power who can make decisions and they're working together and they're singing from the same songbook and they have the same mission and goals, then, you know, it's blue skies and anything's possible. YIMBYs, people that believe in progress, I've always believed that most YIMBY folks I know are not just for progress and for housing and for sustainability, but they're also pretty progressive people on social issues.

38:30 We're people that are very supportive of gay rights. We feel like women should have access to their own health care. I think that's where the current YIMBY movement is. We think that we should be focused on the bigger issues that bring us together. That's not where the other side is going. The other side is more of the same. Those folks, and there are some horrific ones in the Republican Party, as far as I'm concerned, should leave Congress because of those people running our country. It's less about you. It's nothing about you or your family. And I'm on the side and the team that's all about all of us and our families. I'm never going to work with a Republican on a bipartisan way on anything to do with taking away someone's rights or harming someone's personal liberty. I'm not going to vote for that continuing resolution a few days ago because it was a blank check for Donald Trump to continue to try to clean the power of the purse from Congress.

39:17 And I think that undermines the separation of powers in the Constitution. Given all that's going out there that's aimed at tearing down government's role and our credibility for doing really meaningful work for families of all sizes, all natures, all backgrounds and all incomes. And if we do that, we have an amazing opportunity in 2026 to start to rebuild our Democratic majority. If Democrats can do that more broadly, I know we can. I think we'll be much better off next cycle and the people we serve much better off, of course, too. I think California has to be hushes here. The fact that we are losing people from our state because of affordability obviously is not something that's acceptable. I think a number of the states that are currently not considered swing states, if you have this mass departure because we've simply made it impossible to live there.

40:06 We're losing population and that has political consequences that are not good. Then to your point, we're dealing with the political consequences, you know, beyond housing. A lot of the data really shows that it's more of a middle class migration that people are losing because they can't afford to live here. Atlanta is a good example of like the political upside of being a growing place, right? That completely aligns with anecdotal evidence and common sense when it comes to the cost here in California, whether it be the cost of groceries or gas, you know, eggs, health care, housing. Housing, obviously one of the most expensive costs in any person's life. That we've got these two, we've got a Jewish United States senator from Georgia and a black United States senator from Georgia. We need to tackle housing affordability if we're going to create access to the dream of home ownership.

40:53 And that doesn't happen without, you know, Atlanta growing. The dream of living in California and staying here and being successful and having our kids buy a home. Obviously, a lot of horror stories from California and other places of what happens when you don't focus on delivery to focus on process instead. I have three children. I don't know how they're going to buy a home or where they're going to buy a home in California. And I'm not alone. Democrats don't raise enough their relationship with the military, you know, and, you know, for both Secretary Day and I, we know we're military guys. Their appreciation, the fact that Democrats have consistently increased funding and support for veterans and veteran services and days. And, you know, one thing I think is, one of the things that makes the military so special and so unique is every MOS or specialization, everyone has their job.

41:40 Right. You know, it always feels like that the military base gravitates more towards the Republican. And especially when you have a leader that says things over time that undermines appreciation. So, you know, you can be a combat arms guy, but the combat arms is not going to be effective if you don't have good intel, folks. I think we have a lot of good ambassadors today. Justin Westmore, I've known him a long time. He's a terrific, terrific ambassador as it relates to the next generation of Democratic leaders. And if you don't have good combat engineers, and if you don't have cooks, and if you don't have JAG and your lawyers, like everyone has their job. He's a military veteran. I appreciate that. He wears that proudly. He talks about it all the time, as I do. He's going to go much further, I think, than where he is today. Individual citizens can never forget their role as well.

42:26 We have agency in what happens next. I think it's a good thing to continue to criticize and put pressure on your federal representatives. We don't have to accept the unacceptable. We don't have to normalize what's abnormal. What could they be doing? I think holding accountable the first level of government, which are your state representatives, which are the first line of defense. We don't have to just take things that are unjust or wrong. We can change them and we must change them. The most important thing ordinary Americans can do is to refuse to pull back from the public sphere. My parents always taught me that the most potent power that there is is people power and that we can drive the change that we need. The priority should be pushing your first line of defense, which are your governors and your state representatives. I think it's important for everyone to understand their own individual power inside this moment. They probably won't feel that pressure until they see some more election results.

43:12 What authoritarians seek is for people to retreat from the public sphere and into the private sphere. We won't know what that really feels like until you see more of those and then Republicans in swing districts get scared. Then you get more accountability by making vote calls. We cannot get to a situation where everyone's looking around saying, why isn't this person stepping up? Or why isn't this person doing this? Or what is this person doing? Without understanding the role that each and every one of us individually have. There are things you should be pushing your state legislature and your governors to do. I don't think we do that enough. What I want Americans to do is pick one issue. It doesn't have to be everything. We know they're flooding the zone. The people who are running organizations and the people who are in the private sector, the people who are community servants and the ones who are working with communities and in communities, that part of your job is to make sure that you are mobilizing right now. That everyone has a unique chance to mobilize.

43:58 One issue that you're passionate about, you get expertise about, you have energy about, and find the nonprofit that aligns with your values and volunteer for them. Engagement is key. Staying active. Democracy, the YIMBY movement. Building more housing is about participation and engagement activism. And that doesn't mean that everyone is going to do the same thing. The enemy of democracy is apathy and not being involved. But what it does mean is that everyone must have a job and everyone must understand their role in terms of making sure they're both protecting democracy, but also really preserving our values and pushing our values forward. So stay involved, stay vigilant, be committed in any way that makes you comfortable, including in your own community. I spent the last 24 hours talking to our members of the federal delegation, our representatives and senators, talking to them about housing. And the thing that resonates and the thing that they wanted to know is the stories of how individuals and families and neighborhoods and cities and towns in Maryland were being affected.

44:52 You're right. That storytelling and communicating is a big part of what politicians do. I think everybody needs to tell those stories. Communication is really, really important. The reality of these illegal or ineffective or otherwise poorly thought through actions is having is that they have real consequences on real families, real households and on businesses. I also think it's important that you are able to have a vision. A vision to have new dreams and build big things in America. That's what's going to inspire people. We've got to tell those stories over and over again. It's not the technocratic, let's do permitting and zoning reform. It's let's be the nation like Kennedy years that are going to have new missions, do big things again. The party, I think, needs more energy, more raw ideas and needs to be less straightjacketed in how we propose them.

45:38 To me, a lot of King Entertainment, a lot of making film and TV, which was what I did, has to do with having a vision and holding that vision in your mind. And being able to communicate that with other people and then working with them to hold the vision. We don't need message testing. Those that will most resonate will rise to the top and we'll be able to repeat them. There's too much self-enforced, I think, discipline on it. You can't put this out there unless it's been vetted 17 different ways. As you know, if you're working on a film, you may read a book and you have an idea. But when you bring in the creative, the other creative people, when the director comes in, the writers, the set designers, they bring their own vision to that project. There are thousands, there are millions of stories right now of how people are being affected. You come up with that vision and then you get your stakeholders together. You build your crew and your cast, right?

46:24 And there are going to be millions more in the months and years to come as the effects of a reduced federal workforce. And then everybody gives their input and maybe you change your vision. You own it based on their input and that whole universe of different experiences that they bring to the table. Agencies that are stripped to the bone and that delays projects, kills projects, changes what's available for families. And then you have to go out and communicate that to the public and get them on board. And that means that they have to share the vision, right? All that's going to be out there. The vision of what we could have, right? We have to start telling their stories loud. That's not just an argument we can win. It's an argument we've won several times. As far as opposition, people should continue to be loud, to be vocal, to match the Republican energy. Not talking about necessarily the policy or the program, the story, the effect.

47:12 We have many more chapters to write in the story of California, the story of America, the story of democracy in California and in America. Let's turn the page with a new vision for housing in America. It's doable. We can do it. We have the vision. We've got the will. It's not, you know, Trump and his billionaire buddies and the greedy corporations that he supports who's going to write it. It's going to be the people who always write it. Thank you for all of the amazing work that you have done so far. You and me and us, the people, you know, we are a nation of foreign by people and we're going to write the next chapter. And everything you are going to do. Including building an abundance of housing for everyone who needs it in California and in America. Thank you all very much. Thank you for putting out big ideas and forcing the Democratic Party to actually engage substantively.

47:59 I appreciate your leadership. What the Democratic Party needs is ideas. We needed this. We should be pumping out ideas through forums like this. You're doing the work that needs to be done to, well, to make sure that our freedoms aren't taken away by Donald Trump. You've been listening to Radio Abundance. Join the movement for Progressive Abundance at YimbyDemocrats.org. Yes, we can build again. Yes, we can trounce the fascists. Yes, you can be the difference. This is AI, by the way. You think these jokers actually got Obama? Check in with me in a few months. It'll happen. Thank you for listening to Radio Abundance, a new podcast by Yimby Democrats for America. Now it's time for you to join the movement. We're building a big tent and it's going to take all of us.

48:45 Join us and together we'll fight to build America, defeat fascism, and unleash the era of Progressive Abundance. Join the movement at YimbyDemocrats.org.