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Kathleen Stuart
639 Plays6 months ago
Blend a background in fast-paced PR, political campaigns, and a lot of roll-up-your-sleeves energy, and you've Stuart Collective founder and CEO Kathleen Stuart.
Kathleen founded Stuart Collective in 2017. With a crystal-clear mission to support changemakers in securing progressive wins, Kathleen works every day to win campaigns, pass high-profile legislation, and influence public opinion.
Kathleen brings over a decade of on-the-ground political work in campaigns and leading PR strategies. As a result, she advises leading progressive organizations that impact all the spaces — from healthcare to housing to infrastructure and more — that Stuart Collective shares with its clients.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Valente. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and I could not be more thrilled to have Kathleen Stewart, head of Stewart Collective, somebody I have a great deal of respect for and know, but haven't talked to in a while, so this is serving a dual purpose. Welcome to the show.
00:00:36
Speaker
Oh, I'm so, so glad to be on. Just to really just catch up with you. As I was saying, Ken, before we started recording, our team was like, this guy Ken wrote in, you know, like, you know, our team outside of Oregon. This Ken guy wrote in, I don't know what this, you know, what this is. I'm like, oh, whatever Ken wants, let's just do it. That'd be great. I just want to catch up with Ken anyway. So glad to be on in your podcast and so forth.
00:01:02
Speaker
That is great. That is great. I always wonder on the other side.
Philosophy and Politics
00:01:06
Speaker
And I do know a lot of times it'll be like to some folks out of nowhere, like I send an email to Joan Jett's team, right? And, you know, philosophy, he's asking about nothing and something like what's going on here.
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's just pause. We're doing a we're doing a special kind of episode here because part of it is you need to help me because I worked in politics for quite some time, though I haven't done as much in the political arena in the last few years. And I follow your work, have a very high regard for your work and worked with you in politics. But
00:01:56
Speaker
I want to ask you this question. It's an open question for me. Are American politics fundamentally different or very different than they are now?
00:02:13
Speaker
I don't know five or eight years ago. We're talking here in march 2024. Yeah Yeah, no, and it's funny Can I you say, you know, you're not maybe you don't feel as in the forefront as you used to be but I I think of you very much as working in politics and I think um, so I have a great regard for your work too as organizing and working with folks who are really making our society churn right teachers and educators and Frontline workers and
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and I'm really interested to hear your thoughts too, because I think part of the reason that I look at your work as, you know, so fundamental is that organizing and those workers that you work directly with are, I think of as politics, right? Like, you can think of politics, you know, a lot of folks are
00:03:01
Speaker
I have friends who are like, you know, telling me the latest Trump news and telling me the latest this and that. And I just, I just don't, that's one element of politics, but it's not all politics. It's most of politics is what, you know, John Stuart just came back on the air last, was it last week ago? Kind of love that guy. And he, you know, at the end of it, he said, you know, what I've learned these last nine years is that all politics is like lunchbox politics, that you said something like this, I'm paraphrasing, but
00:03:27
Speaker
You pack it in, you pack it out every single day. It's the actions of the everyday person in and out, what they're advocating for, what they're pushing for, what they're doing, the work of just showing up to work and helping others and educating and caring.
Grassroots Movements and Political Shifts
00:03:44
Speaker
I think that's politics. But that said, significant shifts. I work here in Oregon on the West Coast for the most part, apart from a handful of campaigns in the past few years. And I think one of the most notable changes across the country is that growing emphasis on
00:04:03
Speaker
social justice issues, racial equality, LGBTQIA rights, climate change. Those progressive voices have really gained momentum in advocating for policies that address systemic inequalities and promote a more inclusive society. And I think those grassroots movements that have really fueled this are being helped along by social media. And then there's a really palpable push for policies that prioritize affordable healthcare and
00:04:32
Speaker
education reform and environmental sustainability. And I think it's a shift. It's been a long time coming. It's still not where it needs to be, but it does reflect that desire for government that does actively address the needs of everyone, particularly those who've been left out of the conversation and out of the change. And I think something that fundamentally has shifted here in Oregon, and I hope in other states, but I hope in all states,
00:05:00
Speaker
is a real shift of, you know, that organizing power, the knowledge, the palpable kind of feeling of like a diversification of political power, where you've got groups who maybe are new or maybe who have been around for 40 years, and they're starting to have big wins of things that they were, you know, farm worker overtime, right? Farm workers were
00:05:24
Speaker
exempt from overtime in the state of Oregon until just a couple of years ago. And everyone's like, oh, we just did it. Well, they've been talking, you know, Pecun, the farm worker has been talking about that for how many decades, you know, since it was passed that the farm workers were excluded from overtime protections, which was racist, you know, when it started. So it's just, it's exciting. It's also exciting to see that organizing power shift to folks who know what's happening in the front lines.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah, I am. And thank you for for helping me think right off the bat, too, about politics. Right. Because I did, you know, off-handedly say, you know, you know, not been I am involved in politics each day. And I was thinking about it in terms of more campaign work. And I've done a lot of local campaigns, the school board, a lot of nonpartisan work, technically bonds and levies to help
00:06:22
Speaker
you know for for schools uh done a lot of that but i think i think there's something uh exciting about what you said you know when john stewart um uh you know deeply intelligent engaged on the issues but that um that lunchbox type of thing right the kind of conversations the fact that labor is political or advocacy uh is political and we are in a charged atmosphere where
00:06:48
Speaker
There's this reaction, don't make it political, and many of us who do things in the world feel like, well, it is political to say working people should be able to band together and increase their wages, right? You know, that's there. And I think also some things you had to say just
00:07:12
Speaker
in that amount of time there, just about policy changes, policy wins, farm workers, you know, that deeply important and much at times imperiled like labor force, things like overtime, basic safety regulations and a lot of things that are needed. Kathleen, I was going to ask you a question.
Women in Politics and Campaign Dynamics
00:07:41
Speaker
Just a tiny bit here about women in politics. But one of the things, I don't know if I told you about this before. In 2018, I worked on a filming project with a friend of mine. She's since passed on. But it was a project called Why She Runs. And we were capturing women in the 2018
00:08:10
Speaker
election around the country with the surge of you know women going into the merge program which Women learning and growing politics and I've done some work with her down in Oakland, California which in some in Portland and Basically, it was a very
00:08:37
Speaker
important process for me, and it is connected to the show. For me, I had a role in editing and producing, being a producer and filming, learning and engaging as history I felt was happening at that time, asking questions, honing my skills in asking questions. And
00:09:04
Speaker
having important conversations and it's a really exciting thing to do working on this documentary.
00:09:15
Speaker
And uh at the time there's a surge like I said in women running for office a lot of women are saying you could hear interviews with them saying Uh, you know, I never thought about this but holy shit what's going on out there right now? Like I need to get involved or my daughter came up to me and being like why is this happening and you know felt inspired um to to run for office and so You know, I found that uh
00:09:45
Speaker
in working in politics, particularly in Oregon, I come in contact with a lot of women who are doing great work and have
00:09:57
Speaker
are so important to what's happening in prominent roles, although I know there are still structural problems with access to particular roles, but I view women as crucial to politics now, engagement in politics now. So it's implicit in my question is why are women crucial in politics here in 2024?
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, I struggled with this question only because there's kind of a rote way to answer it. Like, of course, women are crucial and, you know, etc. But I think most of us who aren't like dragging our knuckles have acknowledged that. Like, yeah, women, we need better representation, more representation, that sort of
00:10:49
Speaker
been a point that's been made and then but it goes a lot deeper than that and all so I can touch on that and then touch on what I think is next and you know just to say I think to move past the piece of just representation you know women especially those from marginalized communities bring that wealth of their you know these diverse experiences and this rich tapestry of experience that
00:11:14
Speaker
are critical for the whole body, you know, something like a legislature or even a county commission or a city council that help us understand and address the issues facing our society in just a whole different way. And, you know, issues related to reproductive justice, but also economics, right? Economic inequality, health care. But it goes so much further than that, right? A lot of times you're like, oh, you know, women deserve that seat at the table for reproductive justice. And I would say,
00:11:44
Speaker
all of economics and then labor, right? You know, we talked about how labor can become political and it's like, labor is a measure of economics and economics are a feminist issue in my opinion, you know, and an issue for everyone. But I think that the richness of experience help us understand that from just a different lens, help us as a society, I should say, not like me.
00:12:10
Speaker
And it's really the inclusion of women from those diverse backgrounds helps us dismantle systemic racism and challenge the structures of power that exist.
00:12:21
Speaker
I would say, you know, working in politics kind of frontline, I think it's really important that we start to look at things or continue to look at things. I say this like, I don't mean to say this, I have found it. I have learned from others who know a lot more and are continuing to push the envelope. But I think the work, at least my work now, I think the work around me feels like
00:12:43
Speaker
recognizing the historical and ongoing struggles of women, particularly women of color, and women in politics can actively work toward dismantling those oppressive systems and advocate for policies that do promote equity and justice for everyone.
00:12:59
Speaker
And a lot of times, how this goes into practice is, I think, to your point, you've got in places like Oregon, we've been successful at elevating women to a number of positions of power or decision-making positions. But what those women are, and I would say there's a couple of reports out recently that reflect the experiences of politicians of color who have been elected and served in the legislature, for example. So it's a microcosm.
00:13:28
Speaker
to share it. To paraphrase, part of the experience there that they shared was like, yeah, they were elected, and that's great. They were like, yay, representation. We have more representation of folks of color than we've had in the past, women than we've had in the past. But they were thrust into then a framework and a system that was designed not only by and for other people that didn't look or how their experience looked like or how their experience was.
00:13:58
Speaker
but was literally a system that was designed to kind of like crush and work against women and people of color and like the legislature, for example. And I don't say that lightly, right? And that's a big thing to say, but I think that that's, you look at everything from like the existence of spaces to breastfeed and privacy, the position, the space or the ability for caucuses to exist.
00:14:23
Speaker
of folks of color who serve or the safety mechanisms for folks who are going to have different safety needs among folks who are in opposition to bills for passing. And they just don't exist in the way they need to exist. So I think part of the dismantling that I've seen that I know we're going to talk about like hope and all that, like what we can do.
00:14:47
Speaker
Um, I think what's exciting is that people are, for a long time, it was like, okay, we're anti-racist and we're going to be anti-racist in the box that we were given. Like here's the box. We're going to put everybody in that box and we're going to be anti-racist. And I think more, more and more often people are looking at you, sort of like, Oh, that box sucks. Like that box doesn't work for you. It doesn't work for me. Oh, it doesn't actually work for the white guy either. It didn't work for anybody. So let's just use this whole box so that we can exist better together. And that music box.
00:15:17
Speaker
broadly as a metaphor, but you know, we're changing the actual system that we work within and saying like there's some of these
00:15:24
Speaker
organizations and structures that have been around, you know, I'm quick to point out some folks like, hey, that's been around for like 50 years. It's okay if that doesn't work anymore. It's okay for that 30 year old organization to not be the vehicle by which we
Empowerment through Campaigns
00:15:37
Speaker
continue to pursue that change. Because that vehicle, that box might just be like the wrong, the wrong one. So like, let's change it. And that's exciting to me. Anyway, I'm off topic now. But women are crucial. And we can't always just say, you know, and women of color and people of color,
00:15:53
Speaker
in these systems. It's not only crucial, but it's also crucial to look at how we and us and as a society are all being asked to work together and challenge whether those are the right structures.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. We're speaking with Kathleen Stewart, Stewart Collective. What do you do, Kathleen? What's a Stewart Collective? What do I do? I should have like a canned response for you. We are a communications public affairs agency.
00:16:25
Speaker
We're based out of Portland, Oregon, but we work all over the country. And we do everything from communications to movement building. We do a lot of organizing. We do lobbying now to some degree in the state capital here in Oregon. But largely we build campaigns. We design campaigns and then run them.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, and we have an awesome team and we just love the work. So we work with unions and political action committees and nonprofits and associations, et cetera, to really change the conversation, push things forward. Yeah, it's always great to see the work that you're doing.
00:17:03
Speaker
Very inspiring. Let's talk about campaigns. Again, there's a little bit implicit in here. The question is how do campaigns empower people? I see them as empowering people, changing people, transforming people. And can you give a stab at that one about how campaigns themselves empower and transform people?
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think the two big ways one is that they create community, right? Like you look at the we talked about like politics being hyper local a little bit without saying it that way. But you know, I think of like the state senate campaign that you were probably
00:17:43
Speaker
around somewhere in 2012 I was working on and we had like a coffee and muffin Friday mornings. On like Friday mornings we would have like we'd bring in cheap pastries and some cheap coffee and we'd make it in the office. And all these volunteers would show up to like sign postcards and they would talk together about like local issues, national issues. And that sense of community, it's so easy to lose these days. But I think that just having a vehicle by which we like create community is really empowering.
00:18:13
Speaker
and doesn't always exist in other spaces, especially with COVID. I feel like I'm still finding my way back into like, okay, we have friends that we get together with and we do things and it can be normal to do that. I think that experience is common, although a lot of people haven't talked about it. I think it's common. Right. I know. I have a couple of friends who have pointed out that COVID happened to everyone and everyone's dealing with that trauma, but very few people have started to unpack it still, so it just exists underneath everything.
00:18:43
Speaker
I gotta hit the drum roll. I don't have all my mechanics on it. Yeah, it's still going on. Okay, so impacted community, obviously, with campaigns and stuff. What about that? What about campaigns doing now after COVID and that type of thing? Is it more special or is it...
00:19:05
Speaker
Um, what, what campaigns are doing now after COVID? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. Like the mechanics, like I think of like, look, I've been for a little bit, uh, you know, when I, when I came up doing work out in Madison, Wisconsin, uh, 2001, right. Um.
00:19:23
Speaker
And I love this part of it, and I know things have changed, but like phone jockey, people were still picking up their phones, boom, banging those lists, phone jockey, phone calls, all that type of thing. Heck, that was almost 25 years ago, right? So some of the mechanics, I guess I'm asking multiple questions, but maybe some of the mechanics or how campaigns happen now or with COVID is a different vibe and a different feel for you now.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It is a different vibe. It is a different feel. Most of it, at least in Oregon, is now wealth.
00:19:59
Speaker
I can only speak from my side of the aisle. I don't know what the Republicans are doing per se, in person or not, but there's a lot of virtual now. So whereas like you'd have to go in like get your phone list or like sit in a phone bank, you know, physically sitting there so somebody could kind of watch like, you know, phone jogging, you're able to do that externally. But what they're, what folks are finding organizers that I've talked with, I'd be interested if you've had the same experience, but they getting a lot more connects and a lot more like people doing the work. So it's like,
00:20:28
Speaker
It's community, but I think we've had to accept that community can be bifurcated and in different places. People can build community from their virtual space. And to be honest with you, the travel to the workspace, the travel to the campaign office has never been very inclusive. It doesn't really work for the parent who's at home with their kids, or the elderly person that can't physically go, or anyone with different ability to go somewhere. So it's exciting to see that that has made it more
00:20:58
Speaker
accessible for people that want to help out. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, how how campaigns happen and, you know, and where they happen, right? And whether somebody can create that. I would think in my head that that local space, even if it was physical space for a few folks may be accessible, maybe they're on their schedule rather than shit. I'm supposed to get over the union hall for the phone bank and I'm right.
00:21:27
Speaker
I can't even make it over there. Should I make it there even though I'm going to have 40 minutes when I get there? And of course we'd be saying, yeah, 40 minutes still. But yeah, it's. Yeah. And I also think speaking of that, like in the virtual stuff, you know, I think campaigns are really incredible vehicle for
00:21:49
Speaker
knowledge transfer and kind of skill transfer and skill sharing, you know, you get organizers that work all year. And they're doing, you know, it's easy to like, you're working in your union, your pack, or, you know, whatever amazing work you're doing, but it's, it's easy to be like, okay, I'm doing this thing, and then campaigns below everything open, like, okay, we got to focus on this candidate and this candidate that we care about, as organizations or as firms, and we all get to like, learn new skills and try new things. And
00:22:14
Speaker
be thrust into situations that are really weird for us and I think that weirdness and that like the time sensitivity of everything just teaches nothing teaches like the the fire and brimstone of a deadline like election day so I think it's absolutely not moving you're not you're not moving that deadline um and I think that's really I think speaking of community like when you put people in that pressure cooker together you build a lot of like new
00:22:42
Speaker
relationships that then transfer to better policymaking, transfer to better conversations, better relationships.
Nature of Political Campaigns
00:22:50
Speaker
I'm just speaking from a staff perspective or organizational perspective, but I think it's so powerful. You just get so much shit done, and you don't even know because you're just busy winning the election, but then it translates later.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, yes as a as a philosopher myself sometimes I think on the in the bigger questions and I think uh one of the things I've thought about a lot was fascinates me to this very day is the campaigns and and you have these amazing temporary well maybe they can continue but fundamentally for the electoral piece of it the kind of tempo most of them being temporary operations that pull in the things that you need to and then
00:23:32
Speaker
are running and operating and then dissipate and spread out. And you don't see that in a lot of
00:23:45
Speaker
you know, all the time where you have to have this acumen and ability to win or to overcome or to upset. You have to operate at such a high level, but it's usually not a permanent kind of, it's put together for the course of the campaign. I've always been fascinated by
00:24:05
Speaker
the building up and how that goes. I know. I agree. And there's like nothing as bad as when you're tearing it down. Like, win or lose, tearing it down is always just this like, oh god. Tearing it down after a loss.
00:24:19
Speaker
really hard. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. It is. It is amazing. You know, it's funny. I was, um, I forget where I was saying this, but it also teaches you just this crazy flexibility. Like I was on, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm not young anymore. And I was like on my laptop, on my lap, literally on the ground somewhere, just getting some work done. Someone was like, you must need a chair. How are you? You know, Oh my gosh, you know, you didn't
00:24:43
Speaker
like they were kind of flabbergasted that I was actually achieving anything sitting in this corner and I was like no I guess it's because I've worked on campaigns but I can like I can get shit done like literally giving a laptop and wi-fi and I'm like I'm off or really anything I can kind of improvise but um it does teach you this level of like flexing that I think is really valuable yeah yeah I also love campaigns they're really fun
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah. I have a weird relationship with campaigns. Yes, the answer is yes, absolutely.
00:25:23
Speaker
In my labor work, working on labor, wrapping folks up, organizing, et cetera, a lot of times that I've done political work, it's been on top of an extraordinary amount of effort to begin with on the other stuff. And so when I started in politics, I actually resented
00:25:46
Speaker
like the work duty at first because I had so much to do then it's like hey you know build this up but I tell you um I could do it uh it was good for me and also in short order I went from
00:26:03
Speaker
You know, I got trained up. First of all, I never took a political science class in my life, you know, before I started in politics. And, you know, I went to trainings. I went to like Wellstone trainings back in the day out of Minnesota. And my I would just in labor, if I had time, I would go like, OK, how the heck you run a campaign? And I do campaign management school and that type of thing. So I always had this weird relationship just as far as capacity, like individual capacity. But
00:26:31
Speaker
um I've got to tell you one thing that's really really cool that I've done throughout my career is I love more more than almost anything in the world I don't know how many campaigns I've gone into or anybody's like are you effing crazy here is no way you can win and I win those so me and my folks can win those things you know we do bonds
00:26:53
Speaker
out in Oregon here, out in rural Oregon, and we pass them. And it was, for me, I had a fundamental understanding, first of all, that whatever the popular wisdom was completely useless, number one. Yeah, I know it's a conservative area. People don't like to spend money. Nobody likes to get taxed. I get it. I get it. I've heard it all before.
00:27:16
Speaker
but there's something with a small group working again on the campaign being like and inspiring people and be like we're doing this to win we're like we are not you know and that doesn't make the win it's the hard work of doing the door to door but a lot of you know door to door and on the phones a lot of people who might want to be involved in a campaign like that a local campaign
00:27:39
Speaker
might not have the guidance, might not know like, are you supposed to do this? Or I don't want to do anything illegal. But once you have those basics there and you tell people the campaigns to win, you can get rid of a lot of the junk psychologically and such. And you go, you stick to the plan, you work hard as you can with your group and you have a much better chance of winning, you know,
00:28:07
Speaker
at that point. So that's the piece for me that I've always adored and loved. Another piece that you might like this one. This one's funny.
00:28:15
Speaker
Most campaigns I've worked with are non-partisan. I'm a union guy who can create a reaction, like going into management, being like, oh geez, we got a problem here. This is different. It's non-partisan and the union guy is helping to run this campaign, not filing grievance or anything, looking to fund schools so kids go to better schools and stuff like that. So everybody loves my ass at that time.
00:28:42
Speaker
Give you a chance to actually be like the friendly.
00:28:46
Speaker
Everybody smiles, rather than half of the people not smiling as soon as they enter the room. Everybody's smiling when I'm answering the room. He's going to help us do the thing. Who do you guys can help us do the thing? I know. I'm so lucky, man. There's nothing better than seeing a group of people that didn't know the how before and felt kind of powerless as a result. And then seeing them, seeing that group later, being like, fuck it. We can do that. We can do the next thing. I just love that. I love the teaching part of it.
00:29:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, and even afterwards too, we almost want the impact of being like,
00:29:21
Speaker
You know, Ken was really good, but I got the basics of what, you know, so they can go on and be like, what did we do last campaign? And we go, oh, we did this. And, you know, and so it's that teaching component. Of course, there's expertise in politics. I'm the last person to tell you that there is, right, with the work that you do. There's expertise. There's expertise and there's effective ways of doing things.
00:29:47
Speaker
Um, yeah. And I think people are quick to make it about like you and like, you know, in that situation, like, Oh, Ken came and saved the day or like, Oh, it's Kathleen did this. And I'm like,
00:29:59
Speaker
I just, I really don't like that. Like I think it has to be about the group and like, I'm constantly, my team will sound like, it's not about me, like get me out of the middle of that. Like, no, no, no, it's not, it's gotta be about you, like part of our name, right? I'm always reminding people like the collective pieces that we're better together. Like it's about the team that's created. It's not about the leader or the person who started it. Cause it's just, otherwise it doesn't last. You know, it doesn't create something new.
00:30:27
Speaker
the Stewart Collective. Love it. Love it. But because, you know, my name's still on there. So I have to, everyone's like, well, it is about you. I'm like, no, no. Eventually we'll take that out of there and we'll just be something different. You get to have the piece of personality, always like what you bring to it. And there's a big piece of that. And then you look in labor and politics, you know, it's tied to, you know, what you do as an individual. Not that, not everything, but there's a,
00:30:52
Speaker
that association. I want to ask you, and I might have another question because I probably have a ton, but we're going to keep this to less than six hours here.
Hope and Change in Politics
00:31:07
Speaker
This is an important one about politics. Are you hopeful? Talk to me. Talk to me about
00:31:19
Speaker
We're here in March 2024 and talking American politics. Are you hopeful? I think I struggle with this like everybody else. I'm hopeful in the long term that
00:31:35
Speaker
The forces of needing to kind of survive and thrive will cause us all to get our stuff together and work things out. But I have the same, I mean, I have the same existential dread that I think we all do about climate change and about the impacts of economic injustice and inequality.
00:31:55
Speaker
um just the heavy burden that that place is on on everyone and seeing you know covid kind of dismantle everything but then you know moments of like wow we really pulled it together so i i would say i'm sort of
00:32:09
Speaker
I don't know, between the dread and the moments of a lot of pride and like, all right, we got this and we're great. And we can, you know, look at this, these small wins in politics. You know, I think I'm probably at land somewhere in the neutral and the overall, but it's an anxious time to be watching all of this. That's for sure. And with Trump coming through again, it's like hard to, like, oh God, okay. It's hard to see that everybody, you know, it's hard to see how we get through this.
00:32:36
Speaker
It's right in front of everybody. For me, part of the thing I harken back to was fair and loathing on campaign trail, Hunter S. Thompson.
00:32:52
Speaker
There's like, you know, where politics seems, you know, wild and mad. And there's these pockets of inspirational stories and madness. There's something that I tap into, into the kind of maybe outrageous and inspiring
00:33:15
Speaker
you know, um, a typical type of analysis and such, um, that energy keeps me.
00:33:23
Speaker
keeps me invigorated. We're not exactly outside of time and place. I mean, politics in the late sixties and early seventies such as covering around that time, uh, uh, lends a fascination to me and in some of the local politics. So I just looked it up. I'll have to, I'll have to take a look at that book.
00:33:48
Speaker
I, in my opinion, this is just me sitting here, the greatest political analyst in history that I've read is Hunter S. Thompson. Uh, yeah. And I, I don't know if it works for everybody. Um, for me, there's a, an idiosyncrasy of his, uh, analysis. I'll tell you something about Hunter S. Thompson, which might, I don't know if you know, uh, and Richard Nixon, um, Hunter S. Thompson, uh, detested Richard Nixon.
00:34:18
Speaker
And feeling was mutual, in essence. However, Nixon found out that Hunter S. Thompson was a madman about talking about football, particularly college football. And Richard Nixon was a madman for talking about college football and thought that Hunter S. Thompson just knew everything. They went on a plane, I don't know if it was Air Force One, it probably did,
00:34:45
Speaker
They only talked about college football during that entire time. So they spent time together, but they could talk college football together. Did they build a better relationship after that?
00:35:02
Speaker
It's not inspiring in that way. I mean, maybe the respect of having spent time in such together, but I think if I bring up Hunter S. Thompson, but just the political analysis and I think in reading that book, I think it was Fear and Loathing on a Campaign Trail, 72, I think it was 70, it was the year I was born.
00:35:26
Speaker
But the the analysis in the energy behind there and when you get into local politics, you know where things feel Really strange or wrong? Whatever it is a feel of it being like, you know, you're up in rural, Wisconsin and you're running into this problem and you know, it's It's it's it's a it's a great
00:35:47
Speaker
So you struggle with hopefulness, but you are, and it sounded like a little bit more future oriented, that there's this right now in politics.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, there is now in politics, but, you know, I can't help but look, you know, I've got kids and so do you and, you know, anyone who's looking at like, what is 30 years? What's 30 or 40 years from now look like? And like, how does that, what are they going to grapple with? And like, I was asked to say, to share why I do this work.
00:36:24
Speaker
on stage in Portland at an event. And I like, you know, came up with this big, you know, all these reasons. But really, I mean, cut the bullshit. The reason that I do anything is just because I have my kids. Like, you know, I want them to live in as good or much better ideally world than we live in now.
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah, so and I want them to see that like you can make changes. So, you know, yeah, when you really boil it down, I really look at it like, what will their lives be like? What will the future look like? And I mean, right now in the micro sense, like, yeah, I'm hopeful we can win some local and even national things. And I think we've built up a lot of, like I've said, organizing power and shared information and
00:37:11
Speaker
What I do get hopeful about is when we talk about new leaders coming up in a lot of the new voices and a lot of really smart new ideas. And again, just like the dismantling of, I think there's been a lot of systems for the last 20 years that have like
00:37:24
Speaker
really despite a lot of really strong efforts have really the systems have held us back like you know it's hard to make change when you're working within the system again it wasn't built for folks making the change but also isn't built for like actually people in society it was built for you know an economic system that doesn't really work for people
00:37:44
Speaker
And so I think when we're talking about, you know, new voices, new leaders that look different, that have different experiences, and then they're just, you know, those leaders are designing systems that actually work for people rather than the people working for the system. I think that is the place to get excited. But it's, you know, the challenges feel sometimes like I think anybody's looking at
00:38:06
Speaker
You know, like, Oh God, okay. Trump's on the ballot. The country is more than just that one office, but it's still like, you know, between that and, you know, climate change and all these other things. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I, I hear you. And then for me, I mean, think implicit behind these things is that I think since the, um,
00:38:26
Speaker
You know, the advancement of a more autocratic rule, climate change, the wealth issues that are unsustainable. I think that's the piece where, you know, working in politics seems like, you know, every election is the biggest election ever. And, you know, it's kind of our secret that, you know, it kind of is. And then there's one that like really is or are upcoming. I think political decisions now are so
00:38:55
Speaker
seems to have such a way to them more vital if folks understand or accept a limited timeline on these matters like climate and other questions of democracy. I mean, climate alone, it's just hard to overstate how
00:39:18
Speaker
how big that barrel is coming at us, you know, our house, I mean, I'm saying it's my own personal experience. In the last month, we had a big ice storm here in Portland. Yeah, normal ice storm, but my house are all our pipes broke, and the house flooded. And it's a fucking tragedy. It's a mess. I mean, the house is totaled. And it's like, you know, we're working it back and with insurance and everything, it will be fine. But
00:39:43
Speaker
It really gave me a different lens, I think, from my personal experience of like, oh, this is what climate change can do. And it seems like a small thing, right? Like an ice storm. And then there's houses with trees through them here in Oregon. These huge 200-year-old trees fell. And I was like, Jesus. And you know, my story is like a tiny piece of it, but. No, it's still, you know, you see the maybe the extreme extremity of the storms. And that was very destructive.
00:40:12
Speaker
ice storm really blanketed, but particularly up north over by you. And, uh, well, uh, I'm, I'm glad to hear things are getting back. That can be, that can be so disruptive to your place, your home. Yeah. Hence my rental. And I was like, Oh, I don't know if it's our wifi. You never know. But, um, yeah, no, I mean, and, and an example, right? You know, we work with an organization called Oregon just transition Alliance. And they're just amazing. Um, he based here in Oregon, but they're working on just transition.
Climate Change and Its Challenges
00:40:42
Speaker
principles across the country with sister organizations.
00:40:49
Speaker
You know, the executive director of that organization was sharing with me the story of some folks in Southern Oregon that were displaced by a wildfire. And the wildfire came through a community that was lower income, and it was near Ashland, Southern Oregon, between Medford and Ashland. And it just decimated by the fire. And the folks that were there in that community, there was an elderly man in the 60s that was displaced and moved. They didn't have insurance or
00:41:18
Speaker
for whatever reason, their situation was they moved to a field with their family, with a bunch of kids and a bunch of other family members. And they were like kind of camping or had some situation. But then because that guy was working outside, he was working outside in the fields and he was living outside essentially, he got a respiratory illness and then caught COVID because he was out with this big group and ended up dying because of all these situations. So you look, you know, it's easy to be like, oh, climate change is so scary. But when you look at how it becomes intersectional between like economics,
00:41:48
Speaker
and climate and space and like how climate meets economics and meets even things like maternal health, right? That's where you're looking at this intersection that for some in our communities, and you know, we're always all closer to the edge than we think, like it becomes insurmountable a lot quicker than you expected to. And I think that's the piece where I'm like, how do you get our communities ready for that is a huge question.
00:42:14
Speaker
Well, I think in the experience of it, like, um, for me, it was, it's pivotal. Like sometimes in my brain, I create narratives, right? For better or for worse. But for me is the, the, the, the wildfires down, down in Albany, right now out in the Santiam Canyon, uh, Mill City out that way. Yeah. Uh, you know, the descriptions are.
00:42:43
Speaker
Infernal fueled by 60 to 70 mile an hour winds wind tunnel just unbelievable to even understand but for me And now I'm a transplant from here I've been here for 12 years, but I lived down the East Coast in the Midwest and I remember this to this day I was walking around the ear was out there and it was the ear was terrible and I would walk over and I
00:43:10
Speaker
I was talking to somebody and be like, what do you do when this happens over here? Like this, this type of, like, we've never seen anything like this. Like I was just so naive. I was like, I was like, Oh, it was like two, no, this is like what's going on here. And I'm like, is the fucker gonna like burn us all up over here? Like on the west side of the state. And like the question, the answer to the question was, uh, we don't think so, but the wind has to stop. Um,
00:43:39
Speaker
And you also learn that there's not much the firefighters can do. We have some friends who are on fire. And there's a lot that they can do when they do. I mean, it's incredible feats. But also, there's a limit to our ability as humans to combat the elements. And then when you realize that and you really internalize it, you're like, oh, fuck. I just have to get out of the way.
00:43:59
Speaker
It's terrifying. And you don't really know where out of the way is. That's the stuff, you know, again, it's like politics, like when you're talking about politics, it's really like, like COVID, right? Remember COVID, it was all, everybody was like trying to figure out in these little ecosystems. And that was politics too, right? Like, how do you live and how do you survive? And I think climate will quickly become like, how do you survive?
00:44:22
Speaker
question over the next handful of years. How do you evolve and how do you protect yourselves and how do communities become more resilient and how do you make sure that's intersectional because it doesn't impact everybody the same way. When you're talking about something, as people experience more and more wind tunnels and fire flames, I think it'll settle in that, wow, this is a lot bigger than any one person, don't you think?
00:44:48
Speaker
Well, hey, and Kathleen, even on all these, you know, with the infernos and Supreme Court decisions and Trump's on every ballot and on economic injustice and rich people flying up the planets or whatever they're doing, we remain hopeful. We believe it.
00:45:11
Speaker
I'm saying that we do. We put our trust in science and people and we move forward. We believe in people on some level. Yeah, the question is, are you hopeful? Very complicated, very complicated question. I'm sorry to give a better, more rosy picture, I guess. I hope you haven't been blue saved for an hour.
00:45:40
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of inspiration. It's inspiration amongst everything that's happening. Kathleen, can you tell listeners, you mentioned the Stewart Collective, but just as far as
00:45:58
Speaker
finding out like, you know, the work that you do or putting out your your handles and that type of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much again for the opportunity to come on here. This is really fun. Just to reconnect and also get the chance to to think about some of these things in a macro way. You know, I'm always sleeves rolled up working on data.
00:46:17
Speaker
for a moment. Yeah, nice to step back. It's just great to see you. Yeah, you can find out more about store collective at store collective.co.co. And you know, if you're working on a campaign or I say campaign, but if you know, really what we mean by that is if you're, you're working toward a goal, you've got a mission and a kind of a movement in mind.
00:46:38
Speaker
You know, reach out to us. We'd love to chat with folks who have new things going on. We're working on everything from health care to maternal health, hospitals, intersectional economic justice, just all sorts of cool issues, labor stuff, and we're just delighted to do the work. So keep us in mind. Yeah. Thank you for what you do. It's important. I think you've been personally, you and I, sharing
00:47:04
Speaker
as far as how it feels to work on a campaign and to inspire or to learn or to trip a little bit and then get up. There's something very powerful about that. And I think folks when they're around it, or maybe it's quite simply to see
00:47:29
Speaker
that you've worked on something that has improved something. I'm trying to distill it down. Well, accountability is so important because sometimes it feels so existential and it's like, yeah, well, can we just do something? And it feels, it is really powerful, right?
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Kathleen, so super to chat with you and catch up. I know we'll chat some more and I look forward to chatting with you sometime about organizing and that type of thing. So I know we'll have some more conversations together.
00:48:06
Speaker
Thanks for coming on to something rather than nothing and dealing with some not so much softball questions. Yes, I'm happy to do it. I'm happy to do it. What a thrill and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks again. Take care captain. This is something rather than nothing.
00:48:41
Speaker
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00:49:02
Speaker
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Speaker
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