The Electorette Podcast

Lily Herman, is the founder of Get Her Elected, a political network of over 2,000 volunteers offering their skills pro bono to more than 220+ progressive women candidates running for office. We discuss women candidates, campaign strategy, and of course, midterms. We also discuss how growing up as a liberal in a conservative region of the country shapes your view of politics. www.GetHerElected.com www.LilyHerman.com

This episode features domestic abuse advocate, activist and creator of the #WhyIStayed hashtag, Bev Gooden (www.BeverlyGooden.com). A survivor of domestic violence herself, Bev Gooden created the viral hashtag, #WhyIStayed, to give others who've experienced domestic abuse a sense of community and safe space to discuss their experience. Gooden talks about her own experiences, her inspiration behind the creation of #WhyIStayed hashtag and her new project, The Bolt Bag (https://bit.ly/2pqrfGo). We also discuss cultural trends around domestic violence and celebrity cases and how society protects famous people from accountability. www.BeverlyGooden.com Bolt Bag Project: http://www.ellamaefoundation.org/boltbag/

In this conversation with Professor and author Shelly Grabe (https://bit.ly/2lOW3ja), whose research includes women’s rights violations and social justice in a global context, we explore the Women's Autonomous Movement in Nicaragua. We discuss her book "Narrating a Psychology of Resistance" (https://amzn.to/2lLmZ37); and through our conversation and exploration of the movement, we uncover the parallels in the women's resistance movement in Nicaragua and the current women's movement in America. We also talk about the many ways in which the Nicaraguan movement is 30 years ahead of the women's movement here in the US.

This episode features a conversation with Jennifer Kavanagh, a political scientist and researcher for the RAND Corporation. We discuss their new study, Truth Decay. RAND defines Truth Decay as the diminishing role of facts and data in American public life. We discuss the four trends that characterize Truth Decay as well as examine some recent and historical examples. We also make the distinction between Fake News and Truth Decay as well as discuss the role of social media and the 24 hour news cycle.

Kelly Dittmar is an Assistant Research Professor at the CAWP or the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. We discuss how the political strategy for women politicians is shaped when it's crafted through a gendered lens, including examining Hillary Clinton's 2008 and 2016 strategies as examples. We also discuss the PinkWave and CAWP's real-time research project, GenderWatch 2018, which provides crucial data in relation to how gender shapes political campaigns.

Mila Johns is a candidate for Maryland State Delegate, 18th District. A terrorism analyst and researcher by training, Mila Johns decided to run for Maryland's House of Delegates after turning down a job vetting Syrian refugees for U.S. Customs and Border Protection after Trump when elected. We discuss her platform including her work as an activist for reproductive justice, domestic violence awareness, and expanding access to healthcare.

"When I come across a story involving police interactions with black women, it's hard to tell whether a story took place in 1863, in 1963 or 2013." This is just one of the points you'll here in this interview with Andrea Ritchie, author of "Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color." We discuss how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement from both a historical and modern lens. Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant, police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, writing, and advocacy around criminalization of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color over the past two decades. She is currently Researcher in Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s Social Justice Institute, and was a 2014 Senior Soros Justice Fellow.

Lisa Hunter is a candidate for City Council in DC's Ward 6 and if elected, she would be the first Latino elected to the City Council. Hunter has a long history of serving her community and just three days after graduating from college, she boarded a plane to Guyana to begin service in the Peace Corps. Once she returned to the US, Hunter took a job at Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters. She was later deployed to St. Louis as a field organizer, where she met voters and learned about the issues facing their communities. Hunter was driven to run for office by the inequalities she observed in pay equity, gender inequality, housing instability, and healthcare. Endorsed by The American Women's Party and Run For Something, Lisa Hunter is a true champion for women's rights.

In my conversation with University of Georgia Law Professor and author, Mehrsa Baradaran, we explore the history and origins of today''s racial wealth gap. We discuss the history of segregated industries and black economies that were created in an effort to overcome the financial effects of slavery. We also discuss attempts be recent administrations to close the racial wealth gap as well as what incoming administrations can do to tackle the problem.

"Democracy isn't just about the ability to vote. Democracy is about being an informed citizen..." This is just one of the points you'll hear in my conversation with data-skeptic, author and mathematician, Cathy O'Neil. We discuss her book "Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality & Threatens Democracy," and the ways in which algorithms dictate nearly every aspect of our lives, including our interactions with the criminal justice system and our elections. We also discuss how Facebook and Cambridge Analytica use our personal data in ways that may influence our voting decisions. O'Neil believes these practices pose a serious threat to democracy and for this reason, this is one of Electorette's most important episodes to date.

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Wendy Osefo, Professor of Education at The Johns Hopkins University and progressive political commentator and strategist. We discuss the success of March For Our Lives and the movement against gun violence driven by the students of Stoneman Douglas High School. We discuss ways in which these movements fail often fail at garnering public support for students and activists of color; and also the NRA and their attacks on student activists.

Our the two guests for this episode turned their energy following the 2016 election into organizational change. Cristina Tzintzún, a nationally recognized advocate and leader in the Latino community, founded Jolt - a Texas-based multi-issue organization that builds the political power and influence of Latinos in Texas. Also we talk with Amanda Litman, the founder of Run For Something, which recruits and support young diverse progressives to run for down-ballot races.

In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers by Bernice Yeung explores sexual harassment, assault and rape for the most vulnerable women in our society. In our conversation, we discuss the ways in which sexual violence is compounded by low wages, precarious working conditions and being undocumented.

"Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood" is a groundbreaking report published by Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, which revealed that adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers. In this episode, Thalia González, an Associate Professor at Occidental College and co-author of the report, discusses the ways in which adults perceive black girls in public systems have both short-term and long-term repercussions.

Spread the Vote is an organization that tackles undemocratic voter ID laws by directly working with citizens in marginalized groups to help them obtain their state ID. Spread the Vote founder, Kat Calvin, discusses the original motivation by her organization's start, as well as the cost and challenges many eligible voters face in getting the necessary ID in order to vote. We also discuss the many hidden barriers that not having an ID poses in every day life, not related to voting.