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Ep. 37 (audio): The Obama Organizer Who Showed Up in Sherman and Changed Alex's Life (Scott Mackey)
61 Plays11 days ago
Alex has told this story before — how a campaign organizer showed up in Sherman, Texas of all places, and changed the trajectory of his life. This week, that organizer is finally on the mic. Scott Mackey recruited Alex as a high school senior during the 2008 Texas Democratic primary, back when the campaign had no budget, no VAN data, and was cutting turf on hand-drawn Google Maps. It's a homecoming conversation and nostalgia journey.
But Scott and the hosts don't just stay in 2008. They use the Obama years as a lens for everything that's happened since — what that campaign got right about organizing and message, where the party has drifted, and what it would actually take to build that kind of coalition again in Texas and beyond.
In this conversation:
- How Scott went from Peace Corps-bound in Guatemala to catching a flight to South Carolina the morning after New Hampshire
- Organizing Sherman with no data, no staff, and hand-drawn turf maps — and what that scrappy model still teaches
- The Obama organizing principle of "respect, empower, include" — and how far Democrats have drifted from it
- Why Trump's rise runs on the same playbook as Obama's, just a different feeling
- James Talarico's "top vs. bottom" framing and why it's connecting where traditional Democratic messaging hasn't
- Citizens United, dark money, and how Democrats became the party defending institutions instead of people
- The 2028 primary field — and why the candidate who changes everything might not be on anyone's radar yet
Plus: Scott ran the 2030 census numbers — and even holding Obama's exact 2008 map, Democrats lose seven electoral votes. The old math won't cut it.
Follow Scott: @scottmackeywriter on Instagram
Scott's novel: Love Is Not The Answer
Learn more: Veterans for All Voters — veteransforallvoters.org
Support the show:
Love what we're doing? Become a member at patreon.com/missiontexaspodcast — just a few dollars a month keeps independent Texas media alive. And if you can't spare the cash, a five-star review goes just as far. God bless Texas. 🤠
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Mission Texas'
00:00:00
Speaker
Howdy. This is Mission Texas. A political podcast about winning Texas by 2032 or else we may lose the White House for a generation. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Clark.
00:00:13
Speaker
And I am Kate Rumsey. Other podcasts may focus on the day-to-day the next election. But we are keeping the eyes of Texas on the bigger prize. What happens after the next census?
Alex's Political Awakening
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Mission Texas. This is a very special episode for me because it really gets into the heart of my origin story, not only as someone who's interested in politics at all, because I didn't come from a political family, but also ah because it's really the path that took me into political science as ah as a major in college and and really to law school and many other things. To be a teacher, to be honest, it was Barack Obama.
Scott's Journey with Obama's Campaign
00:00:54
Speaker
Maybe you've heard of him. Very important guy. Our guest is Scott Mackey, the Obama organizer who recruited me as a high school senior at Sherman High. Welcome, Scott.
00:01:05
Speaker
So happy to be here. Let's let's let's cast our memory back to the wonderful world of the Texas primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
00:01:17
Speaker
Let's just talk about who you are, where you where you grew up. How did you get involved with the Obama campaign? Take us take us through it. All right. I'll try to do it concisely and quickly.
00:01:28
Speaker
Okay. but yeah i i grew up in ah I grew up in East Texas near Tyler in a town called Bam. 903. 903. That's exactly right. 963 specifically. I was still in the age of landlines when I was going to use television.
00:01:44
Speaker
um So yeah, the Texas primary specifically in 08 was a little bit of a homecoming for me. Homecoming because I didn't necessarily always love growing up in rural East Texas, but i um I got out after high school. i went to college in Oregon.
00:01:59
Speaker
and was planning to join the Peace Corps actually. So like after college I had moved to Guatemala and I was there to learn Spanish until my Peace Corps assignment came through which was going to take me somewhere North Africa or Middle East at which point I was going to learn Arabic. and You know I'd pop out at 24 with three languages under my belt and the world at my feet and As I've learned over and over through life, my plans are not the plan.
00:02:26
Speaker
um One thing that happened over my last couple years of school was that i like a lot of you know folks in their early 20s at that time, really fell in love with Barack Obama.
00:02:37
Speaker
um I initially read Dreams of My Fathers, and then I'd also A couple of years, but well probably a year before that, I'd read a book called America in an Age of Genocide by Tampa Powers.
00:02:49
Speaker
And that was really the book that first, as someone who had you know was very idealistic at that age, but thinking a lot about policy, that was actually the book that taught me that if you're worried about policy, you have to be worried about politics as well.
00:03:03
Speaker
And Samantha had taken a leave to go work for Barack Obama, like then Senator Barack Obama. And so that was what got Barack Obama on my radar. started reading about him with some other friends in college.
00:03:15
Speaker
You know, by the time I was in my senior year of school in 2007, I was like really into Barack Obama. So I got to say, fast forward a little bit. I was in Guatemala observing the campaign very closely.
00:03:28
Speaker
And he won the Iowa caucus initially. And in my young brain at that point, it was like, oh, oh my gosh, it's all going to happen. Barack Obama is going to
Emotional Highs and Lows
00:03:38
Speaker
win the primary. He's going to become the president as someone, you know, at that age who had a strong and growing sense of our past and really some of the dark parts of the past of what it means to be an American, and especially a white American. i was like, oh,
00:03:53
Speaker
Barack Obama is going to become president and in some way that is going to absolve me or us of some of our sins or help bring justice um to the current day from like wrongs that were done in the past.
00:04:06
Speaker
And it meant a lot. And then he lost New Hampshire a week later. And, you know, same young me was just crushed. And I remember walking around the city called Quetzaltenango that night, just so bummed.
00:04:19
Speaker
It was like walking around late night. I was despondent. I didn't know what to do. And I had this thought, you know, not rocket science, but it was like, you know, there's more primaries to come.
00:04:29
Speaker
I could actually act on the sense of disappointment. I could do something. And the next day I was on Skype and I finally got someone in a field office in South Carolina. with me mixer This woman named Jillian Bergeron, who became a dear friend later on. And she was like, yeah, just show up. You can volunteer. And The next day I was on a bus to Mexico City and I caught a flight to Charleston, South Carolina, and I became a super volunteer like you did several months later. And then after the South Carolina primary, i just jumped in the car with an organizer and went to Alabama.
00:05:00
Speaker
And then after Alabama, the Texas primary was out, which we cross ba Yeah, so it's so funny. Something you said earlier reminded me of the old proverb that a man makes plans and God laughs.
Grassroots Organizing in Texas
00:05:11
Speaker
glass and places I mean, it's something special is going on in a political campaign. if It takes an idealist who had joined the Peace Corps to come back to work on an electoral campaign.
00:05:23
Speaker
There's something about that moment. and It's funny talking about Skype. I hadn't thought about Skype in a long time. But there was. There was something very exciting. And you mentioned the New Hampshire loss. I remember that was where the the kind of iconic Yes We Can speech was delivered for the first time. And i don't know if it's too cheesy, but I'm sure kids these days would say it's cringe. But the Will.i.am music video that was made out of that speech yeah would genuinely give me goosebumps. Yeah.
00:05:54
Speaker
i it's still giving me goosebumps. Yeah. So wait, so y'all met during the Texas primary or did you guys continue to volunteer through the general? Like what stepped me through that? Cause I don't know this. i I knew y'all been doing work together and this was part of Alex's story, but please tell me more about that.
00:06:11
Speaker
You want to take this one, Alex? Yeah, sure. So I was literally a high school senior. I i was not ah allowed to travel to the next state or whatever, but Texas was part of super Tuesday, if I remember correct. And at that time we were, um,
00:06:23
Speaker
really kind of fun. It's called the Texas two-step. We had both a primary and a caucus at the same time, which is very strange. And um Hillary Clinton who actually won the primary, but because of the way the caucus works, we actually have to take really excited, dedicated volunteers to show up somewhere in person.
00:06:41
Speaker
We won the caucus. Very strange results, split, split screen result there. So no, I, I actually had to finish up high school and, uh, But no, what I'm curious about is, so you show up in Sherman, Texas, of all places, and you send out an email. Was it you who sent out an email email to the Sherman High School leadership class? cause Because I remember getting pulled aside by my teacher, and there were two of us who were like, yeah, let's go. And everyone else was like, we're not dumb enough to be like out and out pro ah Barack Obama in Sherman, Texas.
00:07:15
Speaker
Can I ask, like, why, how did you end up in Sherman? I mean, I'm just imagining like how a Barack Obama campaign is in the middle of Sherman. And I'm saying that because if we jump forward to today, having any national candidates or presidents, it seems just so like foreign. And to have them not only because they come through Dallas, they come through Houston, maybe, but Sherman.
00:07:39
Speaker
So tell me more about that. Yeah, you know, the the campaign from the start and before I got on it was very like very committed to organizing, like ideologically committed to organizing. And then they're also committed to showing up everywhere. you The idea being to fight for every vote.
00:07:54
Speaker
Related to that, I had maybe been on the campaign a month at that point. I still actually wasn't staffed. I was just a full-time volunteer working my 100-hour weeks, you know, getting some gas cards to help cover costs and letting volunteers make me mail sort of thing.
00:08:07
Speaker
But, you know, they were like, we're going to open an office in Sherman. There's no budget for it. Um,
Voter Data Evolution
00:08:13
Speaker
go. Democrats rely on the VAN, Voter Activation Network. That's the database that we manage volunteers, we manage voters and similar.
00:08:21
Speaker
But Texas hadn't had a competitive Democratic race in ages. So data in the VAN was terrible. So, you know, we didn't have a lot of identified volunteers. We didn't know exactly who our voters or supporters were.
00:08:32
Speaker
um The only good list that we had to call were small dollar donors. And so it's like, you know, you arrive in Sherman and you just start talking to anybody and everybody you can looking for an office, but then looking for supporter housing. Like, where am I going to live? And looking for volunteers. And so that's how I found you eventually, Alex, was...
00:08:52
Speaker
Like probably however it was I was able to find it was finding email addresses, maybe calling schools to get them to email like civics or government teachers or history teachers and then sending an email looking for volunteers in that process. So just really scrappy organizing more or less.
00:09:09
Speaker
And that kind of thing works. It surfaced someone like you and a lot of others who, you know, signed up for the adventure basically. Well, I was going to just tie the dots a little bit because, you know, we've all heard of van, maybe our listeners haven't, but one of our guests, Cliff Walker, who used to work in the party here in Texas, talked about how we finally got our own van towards the, like, 2018, I think Alex, he said. And so it took almost a decade, right, for us to get that kind of data. And now as a candidate myself and 2024, like I have seen the data. I've seen that hard work that has happened over the last decade and and a half where I see like someone has been to that door. These are the answers that they gave. you know, here are the years that they're voting.
00:09:48
Speaker
And it's just amazing that you guys just went in blind. I mean, you just went completely blind. We were sending out people to knock doors using like literally would just make a map.
00:10:00
Speaker
And, you know, like a lot of our voters were African-American voters. And, you know, like so had some African-American volunteers and they'd be like, yeah, these are the parts of town where we live.
00:10:12
Speaker
And so then I worked with them to make a Google map and would just draw squares on it. And then like go knock every door your square. And so, yeah, all i and tur be listening who's volunteered or worked on campaigns, you know how
Experiencing an Obama Rally
00:10:27
Speaker
detailed the turf cutting and list making process can be when you have good data.
00:10:32
Speaker
But at that point, we absolutely did not have that. And so we're just trying to, um you know, use some version of, you know, common sense intuition and volunteers enthusiasm to go.
00:10:44
Speaker
you know, do whatever good we were. we were organizing like our ancestors. Right. right Before technology. Yeah. um no in any it was and thank you and it was it It was exciting. I remember the other intern from Sherman High School. Her name was Courtney.
00:11:01
Speaker
She and I skipped class. We were kind of on the tail end of our time and in the leadership class in Sherman High School. My time as student vice president had the sun had set on that and I was looking for things to do with my hands and I was so excited to to put them to work in this campaign.
00:11:16
Speaker
And we we skipped class and we went to Reunion Arena in Dallas and saw ah Senator Obama speak. And it was just such a magical experience. i don't know how to describe it for someone who's listening and was not around for that. Like if you were too young to remember hope and change, standing shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers who by the end of the the rally felt like family. And we were all, as they said, fired up.
00:11:41
Speaker
Ready to go. Right. Like i'm I'm having so much fun reliving the memories of all
Engaging Non-Voters
00:11:46
Speaker
this. And I have like, a you know, a shoebox full of old campaign buttons and things. I want to I want to ask, like, you're here on a hope and a dream. You got no money. i didn't even realize you weren't even staffed at this point. Have you seen the kind of engagement of non voters by the Democratic Party since the Obama years?
00:12:08
Speaker
Or do you think that we're kind of missing that that old Obama magic? I think they've definitely tried. um You know, like, you see that in You see that in variety of ways. But I don't think that there has been... and like Bernie Sanders did this in a way as well, but there hasn't been...
00:12:25
Speaker
a candidate that effectively colored outside the traditional lines or had a message or an aura that like really transcended yeah like the traditional lines since President Obama.
00:12:39
Speaker
And so you know the campaign was able to really effectively, like intelligently capitalize on that. And like who we have seen to that very effectively over the last several cycles is Donald Trump, though.
00:12:54
Speaker
They, um it's a different message, a different sense of alienation that, you know, they've really capitalized on to go find non-voters to pay attention to them, to make them feel respected.
00:13:08
Speaker
and Like, whatever you think of the message, there's been this, like, very human element they've effectively leveraged to engage new types of voters. and Same playbook, just reading off of them a different, like, set of talking points.
00:13:20
Speaker
The Obama campaign, I remember, had a like internally within their organizing training, they had an expression. It was like a slogan. It was like respect and power include. Right. Respect and power include.
00:13:33
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I feel like that's something I feel like we could
Countering Fear-Based Messaging
00:13:38
Speaker
do better about. I mean, I've heard you in recent talks on your own platform talk about how you know disdain begets disdain.
00:13:47
Speaker
And I do feel like sometimes, whether explicitly or just kind of implicitly, there are messages sent by some within the party, not necessarily even elected officials, but some within the activist class, people like us who don't hold any office, but we're kind of like a very public Democrat, that we don't like certain people.
00:14:07
Speaker
And that that shuts them out, and then they don't like us right back, right? And now talking about coloring outside the lines, we're talking about some actual lines on the map, because Obama was able to put together a team that respected it and empowered and included voters and and and non-voters who were showing up for the first time, pulled Iowa.
00:14:27
Speaker
He pulled in Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida. Like, these are all states we would love. Yeah, this is in 2008, yeah, in the general election. And then even in 2012, he still hung on to...
00:14:44
Speaker
Iowa and and Ohio and Florida. These are all states that we have not really had in our column since then. Something that he was very good at and I think was authentic and real for him, a core part of who he was, not perfectly known as far, but like he really saw people and you know would see the person behind the political party label, see a person behind the you know, a belief that you said that you had.
00:15:14
Speaker
and people felt that from him. And it was a core part of his rhetoric, but also like that was the energy that he showed up with, the attitude that he had. and was something that people really sensed. Like, you know, everyone is communicating all the time with much more than the words that they're saying.
00:15:34
Speaker
And, I think when folks... get so mad at politicians a lot of time or leaders of any sort. It's when their words and their energy or their words and their actions are inconsistent.
00:15:48
Speaker
And it's almost almost impossible to be perfectly consistent, especially if you're looking for political outcomes. But, you know, if you can take like your energy or your attitude or your values and match that to your words, then that's really going to come across as being sincere.
00:16:02
Speaker
People reacted to that. And I think to your previous point, like all humans struggle with this. It's not unique to Democrats or Republicans or any ethnic or religious or social group or class.
00:16:15
Speaker
But, you know, there's like there this deep reality like, can we rise above our biases or can we rise above this core need that we have to feel that we're right and then being right, being better than somebody else?
00:16:28
Speaker
And if we don't or we can't, like one, we get like a quick dopamine hit of belonging or superiority, which we like. But at the same time, anyone that we're communicating to or with can also feel that coming from us.
00:16:43
Speaker
And if they're the target of that or they feel mean or disrespected in that process, like, you know not only will they tune somebody out, but they will also return the favor. um And we've been collectively returning that favor to each other. yeah love ae Well, so can I just do
Cultural and Demographic Impacts
00:17:02
Speaker
some parallels here? Because we're about flipping Texas. And, you know how can we do that?
00:17:06
Speaker
But I've also been heard Alex say, because this is about his origin story, that he appreciates Beto because he came to Sherman. And, you know, there's an obvious parallel there. And so the two things I'm hearing are that Very similarly, they both believe no stone is left unturned. We're going to go everywhere.
00:17:23
Speaker
But also about how you make people feel. Like, I feel seen. I feel heard. have hope. And I think that we see... Republicans, especially Donald Trump, lead so well in a different kind of feeling that overrides everything, which is of fear. And that is leading people to vote. And I'm wondering in, you know, not in maybe the better years, but in others, whether we have not done a good enough job of countering that feeling with a different kind of feeling. And that's Yeah. And these are points that other people have made that we kind of go through a laundry list of policy points that we want to accomplish. And it really doesn't drive people out. And just to give you my you know, in 2008, I was in New York. I just graduated law school and taking the bar exam. I've got $200,000 debt.
00:18:09
Speaker
and had thought I was a Republican for most of my life. And i remember that year, Dark Knight was on the movie screens. I saw it the night before I took the bar exam. i started my job in September of 2008 in a law firm with a lot of debt.
00:18:25
Speaker
And then the next that very week, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, and it catapulted us into recession. And then I very proudly was voting for Barack Obama that that fall and was feeling so much, you know, even though we were going through the recession, a swell of pride for my country and the patriotism.
00:18:44
Speaker
And it's led me on a path to wanting to become in the in the military to work in Department Justice and I even have the Game Change book. I don't know if you see it like behind me. I read all about the the campaign that you were a part of. So you know I wonder, like what can we be doing now to counter the fear talk that Republicans lead so much with instead of just that like laundry list of points and and also just to also to get back into organizing in all parts of the state?
00:19:11
Speaker
A lot of questions.
Need for Political Reform
00:19:12
Speaker
And yeah and and and it's speaking a game change, I feel like really the the origin story of the modern day MAGA movement was when, unfortunately, despite being a man of honor himself, John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his vice president.
00:19:28
Speaker
Like that's where really this modern, it's it's been around for a long time, but the modern iteration of it, I feel like really started there. Let me know if you disagree about it. Can I tell you, I was Sarah Palin for Halloween that year.
00:19:40
Speaker
but I in that like red search suit dress. did you see Could you see a ah Russia from your house? I could, for it very much in New York. Yep. Okay.
00:19:51
Speaker
And, you know, and I think that's right in a lot of ways. But, you know, whether you're talking Sarah Palin or Donald Trump eight years later, you know, in the end, what they were largely doing was tapping into a vein or a stream of discontent and feeling.
00:20:07
Speaker
They weren't creating it themselves. And that becomes a self-reinforcing cycle eventually. But, you know, they there was something that was there that a lot of us had missed or weren't aware of.
00:20:17
Speaker
That, you know, that year, John McCain's strategist or he were aware of. And they found someone in Sarah Palin that they thought they could capitalize on what was then not as big of like a vein of discontent.
00:20:31
Speaker
But, a you know, a side note on that, after 2008, probably the end of that year, beginning of went back and i read a book. think it was called 1988 Road to the White House. And that might be the wrong title, but like very famous kind of political book, tracing the entire campaign across both parties in 1988.
00:20:53
Speaker
And that part of that was Pat Buchanan, you know, like an early moral majority leader on the Christian right. And what was fascinating and very educational for me at that point in my life, and I You were a senior in high school. I was 23, I think, Alex, like just out of college.
00:21:09
Speaker
But Pat Buchanan and Sarah Palin were reading from the exact same playbook using the same talking points, literally the same language. and For me, it was just this like, oh, like some version of this thing has been around like a very long time.
00:21:27
Speaker
You know, this is an iteration of that today. Yeah. But, you know, I think maybe to get back to your previous question, Kate, it's like, what can we do now? And, you know, we haven't talked with either of y'all about Texas politics right now, who the candidates are and similar, but I do think, and and so you guys know, you I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about like independent politics recently and largely because think we're getting the, we're getting the results our system is designed for right now and if we want different outcomes, like change the incentive structure.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I think, you know, the incentive structure of the two-party system and how funding works in politics right now is oriented towards. Right. And that that that's why I'm a volunteer with an organization called ah Veterans for All Voters. and they Yeah, good organization.
00:22:12
Speaker
Great organization. They push democratic reforms that are exactly focused on changing the incentives. you know things like ranked choice voting, things like the way you actually process a primary can have huge impacts on the kinds of people you get out.
00:22:25
Speaker
And for exactly we We're talking about Sarah Palin, right? The only reason why Sarah Palin is not a member of Congress right now is because Alaska has ranked choice voting. and Even the Republicans in Alaska did not want her.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, indeed. to candidates right now, I think James Calarico is doing an incredible job of running a very different type of campaign. And I don't and don't necessarily mean like the tactical aspects of how one is campaigning or raising money, but what he talks about and how he talks about it and the respect that he shows for people, his willingness to speak very wisely on some of the really hot button issues right now, especially around like challenges that men are having, the degree to which he effectively uses like faith-based or spiritual language.
00:23:14
Speaker
And I think he's caught on to a core societal problem that not a lot of folks in mainstream politics are talking about. think a lot of people outside of politics who you know maybe who live in a more like spiritual or therapeutic sort of space talk about a lot. But, you know, the idea that, you know, like at the root of every crisis we face as a country right now is a single crisis.
00:23:37
Speaker
It's a spiritual crisis in the end. That's a crisis of separation or disconnection. The nature of life, the nature of how we're organized, the nature of society, the nature of the anxiety-inducing distraction supercomputers that we all carry around in our pockets,
00:23:54
Speaker
is that we get so disconnected from like who we actually are. We get disconnected from each other, from community, from family. um youre like We're disconnected from this earth that is our home in a lot of ways.
00:24:08
Speaker
And, know, like the larger answer is it can be political, but like so much of it is like a spiritual question.
Constraints of Grassroots Campaigning
00:24:14
Speaker
Like, how are we connecting to the powers of this earth, whatever you want to call them?
00:24:19
Speaker
And then to what degree are we able to recognize that those powers are also illuminating every single one of us? That we are all alive, that we all have value, that we are all human, like children of God, if you want to use that language.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah. what And I like that he's not afraid to... point out who's who's benefiting from that, right who benefits from our separation. And like he says, it's not left or right.
00:24:45
Speaker
It's top versus bottom. Right. And I think that was also one of the through lines from the Obama years was I think there was a really clear understanding that he his phrasing of it back then was the special interests.
00:24:59
Speaker
Right. You know, pundits wanted to slice and dice the United States between red states and blue states. And in real reality, they wanted to slice us up between people wearing the red jersey and when people wearing the blue jersey.
00:25:11
Speaker
But that's not how most. voters conceive of themselves, right? Like I didn't join the Obama campaign team as a senior in high school because I was like Democratic Party, right? Like I was like a big fan of Barack Obama. I yeah came around to become a member of the Democratic Party because honestly, how I watched what I thought were very good faith efforts on behalf of President Barack Obama to reach out, get rejected by Mitch McConnell, who would say things like our number one job is to make you a one-term friend to them.
00:25:41
Speaker
and in like policy proposals that were aimed at bringing on Republicans get turned down just so that they wouldn't give them a win, those kinds of things. that But back to the bigger point that most people don't think of themselves as a card carrying member of a party.
00:25:58
Speaker
like Even if they're going to vote for our candidates and even if they exclusively vote for our candidates, that's not how they conceive of themselves. They're first and foremost Americans who care about things, right? And so, yeah, I think that we have to keep that in mind, that when we use kind of phrases like turn Texas blue, that means nothing to like 90 percent of voters.
00:26:21
Speaker
Right. It means something bad for five percent of voters who are going to show up in the Republican primary. It means something good for the five percent are going to show up in the Democratic primary. But for like the 90 percent of people who don't show up to the primaries at all, and turn Texas blue doesn't motivate them at all.
00:26:38
Speaker
But we have to think bigger and we have to connect with people on a more visceral level than that. I try to think about like, what do I recall being the core messages of our last statewide candidates? You know, like with James, I think it's, he's already set himself apart as far as that connectedness, Scott, that you talk about. And also i think people have resonated with like flip tables, which is also like a feeling of like call to action. We need to like do something about it.
00:27:06
Speaker
And I think then, but then I try to look back and I'm not trying to be super critical of Colin Allred, but I don't recall, even though I voted for him, like what his core message was, like what was he trying to accomplish? I know a lot was leading with reproductive rights and his background as a single mom and And I remember like one phrase was Ted Cruz is all hot and no cattle. Like I remember that being a core phrase, but I don't really remember like other things, you know, like, do you have any thoughts on that? And then for Beto, I, I recall the sense of like, he's going everywhere. He's there for everybody. And he's going to go to Uvalde and like stick up for the families when no one else was. and He was going to be there to hear everyone and stick up for me.
00:27:48
Speaker
as a little guy in a bigger picture. And i don't know. um Do you have any thoughts on that? And especially like what it would take to get back to that, like, feeling that we got from Obama?
00:27:59
Speaker
I would just tack on for Beto. I think it was compelling to a lot of people, again, who weren't on the blue team, that he would say that he wasn't going to take corporate PAC money. Yeah. remember that being something he would also emphasize.
00:28:12
Speaker
And every one of his events that I ever went to, he would start off with, if you're a Republican and you're here, you're in the right place. If you're an independent and you're here and you're right you're in the right place, there's a place for you in this campaign.
00:28:23
Speaker
And I know that kind of can can seem hokey for both those of us who are already bought in, but I don't think that it is. I think it's important to respect, empower, and include. Amen.
Hopes for New Political Voices
00:28:35
Speaker
Amen. Yeah. I mean, the, you know, you mentioned one of the things James is doing so well is, you know, it's not left versus right. It's top versus bottom. And that is something most American voters I think would agree with right now.
00:28:51
Speaker
And, you know, I, whether it's, you know, in like broad circles, like i live here in Austin, um whether it's when I go home to East Texas and i have buddies who never left who are, you know, like,
00:29:03
Speaker
Republicans and we get breakfast and hang out or similar, ah you know, left, right or middle, you look around and you're like the systems are broken. It is not serving us.
00:29:16
Speaker
The top 1% or 0.1% or 15% are doing better and better, getting richer and richer. And if you're talking about the 0.1% in radical, extreme ways right now,
00:29:29
Speaker
I saw Elon Musk is going to have more money than every school teacher old teacher and um in America. Every single one of them. As a former elementary school teacher, I take i take great offense to that. It's actually the hardest job I've ever had, and I i assume will be the hardest job ive I will ever have. bre They are so underpaid.
00:29:47
Speaker
So underpaid. And they do such wildly special and important work. I saw a thing, ah Men's Humor on Instagram had ah had a had a post where it was like, again, not like a partisan page. They were like, if if there was a monkey who had more bananas than he could ever eat in his entire lifetime while the other monkeys around him were starving, we would want to study that monkey and figure out what's wrong with it.
00:30:15
Speaker
Instead, we put ours on the cover of Forbes. Most of us, and I think, you know, largely outside of some version of those who are in those classes, and that that exists in both political parties right now, sure agree with that. And I think that's, you know, that is one of the insidious aspects of the left versus right, red versus blue knife fight that we're in, and we've been in for a long time, is that it really, it really distracts us.
00:30:43
Speaker
from you know the larger systemic reality of what is going on. And a lot of and one of my frustration with the Democratic Party is I feel like for a long time, Democrats were really effectively an alternative voice that sat on a side, like really effectively sat on the side of equality and being the voice for people that were getting a systemic raw shake was a core part of what they did. And I think that you know, an effect of Citizens United is that Republicans enthusiastically initially, and then Democrats, because we had to so that we could win and we could compete, started raising the same amounts of obscenely large money from, you know, from corporations and from billionaire donors. And in this world of like unlimited dark money, if that is what one wants to call it,
00:31:40
Speaker
Democrats, as the case with all of us, like in the end, we respond and we work for whoever is paying us. And think in this like increasing cycle over the last eight years, and it's not that Republicans are better at this per se, but like Democrats have become like have stopped being the voice oftentimes of like marginalized communities or, you know, middle class Americans that are struggling.
00:32:06
Speaker
Such that it stands out when someone actually does the work of running a grassroots campaign. Someone like Beto who will not take money from corporate PAC. Like when he shows up everywhere and does the real work, it stands out. Like, whoa, it's something different happening here. It feels like it's a part of, I mean, a part of, not a part of.
00:32:22
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And it's also been a funny side effect of Trumpism is, you know Trump has been so committed to breaking things that Democrats increasingly became, know, like the institutionalist party.
00:32:35
Speaker
And that has been protecting democratic norms or government institutions. But that also has extended as like an additional side effect of I think how funding works right now.
00:32:46
Speaker
to defending the same type of large corporations and big businesses, whether you're talking pharma, ag, or otherwise, that we accurately identified as a societal challenge or problem for a long time.
00:33:02
Speaker
whether it comes from left, right, or elsewhere, I think like those alternative voices exist in the grassroots. like James Tallarico and folks like him are like weaving a new story right now, which is important, like telling that story in a
Innovation in Democratic Strategies
00:33:14
Speaker
different way. But yeah capturing that momentum as a party in a way that like means to real change in terms of how Democrats routinely show up and how they're viewed would do wonders for less than even like any upcoming election and more just do wonders for the direction of the trajectory of this country.
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah. And it's important. I mean, that's, we're at a crossroads and this, this whole podcast is not about the 2026 midterm. It's about what happens when the census completely reshapes the country and not really significant ways for elections.
00:33:50
Speaker
And my personal view is that Democrats are at their strongest and at their best whenever they have young standard bearers who are pushing for reform when they have that mantle of change, not to keep thinking about for Barack Obama, but whether it's Beto or whether it's James Salarico or anybody, Zoran Mandani in New York City or or anywhere else, that seems to be where there's a lot of momentum and energy.
00:34:16
Speaker
And i think that we can't ignore the just the reality of what's coming down the pike in 2030. I was very curious about this, so I ran the numbers.
00:34:30
Speaker
And again, this is a little underselling the impact because Barack Obama picked up so many what we now think of as Republican red states. But even based on what he actually carried, just taking the 2008 map and then changing the number of electoral votes each state has,
00:34:50
Speaker
based on what the Brin Center is projecting to happen with with the population changes, Obama would lose seven electoral votes just based on how population changes have happened.
00:35:01
Speaker
Then again, remember like Ohio and Indiana, Iowa, forget about that. That's that's ah that's keeping those in his column. And then if you look at the 2012 numbers, you know he loses 11 electoral votes.
00:35:15
Speaker
And keep in mind, he won Florida in both of those races. And Florida is going to get another a couple electoral votes after 2030. So the old ways will not cut it.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yeah, old ways will not cut it. and also, we're not static. Like 10 years ago, there was great enthusiasm in Democratic circles in Texas and elsewhere that for reasons of like the ethnic evolution of this country generationally that, know, like a democratic takeover was seemingly inevitable.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah. Demographics. Demographics as destiny, as they would say. Exactly. And um that didn't happen. And I think that hasn't happened for economic reasons, but that also hasn't happened because we just never know in the shifting sands of reality and how people are reacting to that and how the two coalitions, which are both our parties at this point, how they're going to negotiate with each other to land on language that either will or will not resonate effectively with people and over time.
00:36:24
Speaker
And so I just, you know, this point is like never get too excited about what's coming down the pipeline and don't despair too much because in the end, you know, having your back against the wall being in a dark place, thinking that you're at rock bottom in many ways is an opportunity because that lets you like see your mistakes real clear.
00:36:44
Speaker
that's That's an excellent point about the despair. There's not much to protect. So you can stop thinking about who you might be offending or who you're responsible to or whatever the case may be and just say, what has to happen? That can be from what's right or wrong, what's moral or immoral. That can be from a more tactical, well, what do we actually have to do to win?
00:37:02
Speaker
Really interesting set of years coming up. Because, like, Donald Trump feels dark right now, but he's not a popular president. You know, i think... I don't know how to feel other than rock bottom last fall. Yeah. So I'm there. That's why we started this podcast. You know, like, how do we...
00:37:18
Speaker
the state not only for our sake but also for the country and how do we do that? I mean, I it just so um that's what we're exploring and how do we help? How do we get people at home to feel engaged in knowing the plan?
00:37:32
Speaker
But I don't know where you were wanting to go, Alex, but I was curious to go back to the national organizing and what that looked like here. Because as somebody who maybe was, i was living in New York, but I didn't see it here. And all I've seen is what we've had in the last five to six years. And it ain't much.
00:37:51
Speaker
What does it look like? I mean, what did you, like, going into the fall, where you did you stay in Texas? Like, what did it look like from an organizing perspective in Texas? Because I will just, like, as an example, while you're thinking, like, we have candidates coming through Texas, but it's almost all for fundraisers that nobody knows. They're all secret. I know about them because someone told me I wasn't invited. i don't have enough money.
00:38:16
Speaker
Well, was going to say, if you wrote bigger checks, then you could, um and you could do it. Yeah, yeah. Or we had some rallies like i Governor Walz came through. Kamala Harris had a rally in Houston. I think we're all just very surprised. Like and I think that our memories are short,
National vs State Campaign Strategies
00:38:32
Speaker
right? Like they forget the 2008 and 2012 years when y'all were around. So like what did it look like and what could it be now?
00:38:42
Speaker
Because I think Ken Martin is saying he is not writing off Texas. And and in a way, I don't want to say like we need to like have a you know a white knight coming in to save us, because I think we as Texans can save ourselves. But I am curious, like you know it doesn't hurt to have more help. It doesn't hurt to have these national organizations or candidates to come in and help organize and bring us all together.
00:39:02
Speaker
Briefly, 2008. So I left after the Texas press. So we were like all the organizers in the primaries. We're just writing the circuit. It was state to state to state. So I went from Texas, a brief stop in Pennsylvania, just to hang out with friends and help while I was waiting for an assignment.
00:39:18
Speaker
And then North Carolina, North Carolina primary. I was in um small North Carolina towns, Lexington. ah And then i went to Colorado after that to help with the transition. And so there are kind of a couple months between when Brock formally, or a month or two, maybe a month before he formally wrapped up the nomination, and when the general election would kind of begin. So I was on the transition team in Colorado, just start basically going from town to town across Southwest Colorado. So just meeting with the grassroots groups that were left over from their primary caucus process, just kind of briefing them and keeping them engaged before the general election started. And then I stayed in Colorado for the general election after that. But in 08, initially, the campaign staffed up like grassroots in every state.
00:40:04
Speaker
And then probably August by August or September, I don't remember the exact time they pulled out of the states that they felt they weren't going to be competitive in to focus like staff, but also financial resources on the states. We felt like we had shot.
00:40:19
Speaker
And, you know, I think some version of that same logic is what still drives staffing decision staffing decisions in democratic politics. It's We're like, it's a financial decision. It's also like, you know, something of like an ideological component of that like you really believe in grassroots. Do you think that it's important? you think there's value beyond even just like the win at loss possibly?
00:40:44
Speaker
But, you know, they're choosing to invest grassroots resources where they think they can win. And when it comes down to it, you know, like, field on a campaign, like will have some effect if you're in a like two to three point race, but all of the money that is spent on field when it comes down to it is in the off chance that you are in a race that is actually a coin flip.
00:41:07
Speaker
And 1000 or 10,000 votes that you managed to affect across a population of many millions actually like flips the race.
00:41:19
Speaker
Like that's the, that's the calculus you're working on in the end. And not many races exist like that in the end. For our listeners who might not know this, I wanted to point this out because you mentioned Colorado, where the DNC was that year, where the where your transition work was happening.
00:41:37
Speaker
have family in Colorado. Colorado special to me. Colorado, we think of today as and is a blue state. 2008, that was the first time a Democratic presidential nominee had carried it since 1992.
00:41:50
Speaker
It's a battleground state, right? Yeah. But it has been consistent since then. So it's just a matter of having a bigger imagination.
00:42:01
Speaker
That's where demographics is destiny. Denver has grown a alive. the The current mayor of Denver is actually a guy I've been following since college, just because ah i I was teacher for America, and and so was he, a Democratic state senator, and now he's the mayor. and it's just It's been fun to watch his his career progress. But i think I think Colorado is such an interesting example that Texas could look to. But I also think you know Arizona, Georgia, there are lot of people I would like to speak to from those states to get the lessons because for whatever reason, Texas has this longest losing statewide streak sure you know about.
00:42:40
Speaker
And there's really, I don't think there's and like a good reason for it other than we've gotten in our own way. We have refused to believe in the possibility of of victory.
00:42:51
Speaker
so and what I mean by that is, you know, Beto, he does this thing. He near the end of the race is starting to get these polls coming out, like showing we can win this thing. And then finally, Texas Democrats believe he can win.
00:43:04
Speaker
And half of the money he raises in a record setting fundraising year for any Senate candidate ever, half of it comes in like the last three weeks of the campaign. Which, you know, is not the best.
00:43:17
Speaker
That's the story. To get it and to spend it, right? I think Beyonce made an endorsement like the day before Election Day or something like We could have had that during early vote. That would have been great.
00:43:30
Speaker
At the very least. We've had it when you were registering voters six months out. like Yeah, exactly. Like that's also the thing with field is it's expensive. Like to really run a great field campaign, you don't run it the last month or three.
00:43:42
Speaker
You start, you know, 10 months or a year out and you're building relationships really early and you have enough staff on the ground to start registering voters at the beginning of the year. And you know, thinking back, Colorado in 2012, we registered or re-registered 150,000 voters in the state.
00:44:01
Speaker
We'll largely call it from you know February through May or June of that year. And, know, it's powerful because you're expanding the electorate. Two is you're building your list, like we were talking about with lists earlier. Like every one of those people, we knew that they were engaged enough to re-register to vote or to register to vote that year.
00:44:19
Speaker
We had a fresh address for them. um You know, those folks immediately end up in your get-out-the-vote universe. Again, if you match the registration, someone who But you said 150,000, 150,000. I just looked this up.
00:44:35
Speaker
He only won Colorado by like 200,000 votes. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a big part of his his his margin right there. So can I ask a question? um you if we're thinking like this thought exercise, like in the next presidential year, 2028, there's presumably going to be a competitive primary.
00:44:53
Speaker
what are we thinking? There's just going to be no top of the ticket, no governor, no Senate candidate here in the state of Texas. So, you know, what, how do you see that play out, especially as somebody who was organizing in a primary for a Democratic candidate?
00:45:07
Speaker
Because we saw Gavin Newsom already come to Texas. I mean, he was recently here. I mean, do you have any predictions or thoughts, you know, just for 2028? Because we're thinking like that. Like, I know everyone's talking about 2026, gearing up for the primary. But, you know, I think it's interesting to think, you know, years ahead, because we if we want to be organized, if we want to flip the state for a presidential candidate, you know, we have to think about those things.
00:45:32
Speaker
I think, first of all, we saw very clearly two years ago that it's important we have a primary. that and And I trust that we will.
New Political Narratives
00:45:42
Speaker
You know, second is i I do not have any predictions for 2020.
00:45:45
Speaker
Like, I think it's clear Gavin Newsom is going to be in the race. I think there's a really good chance. Governor Pritzker has made a a visit to Dallas recently as well. Yep. I think Kamala is going to run again.
00:45:57
Speaker
i It seems likely. Yeah. I don't have any special inside information. and i And I hope that we have a really full field in the primary, frankly, and that there are some, you know, like somewhat out of left field candidates that have a different type or an alternative message.
00:46:19
Speaker
that catches on looking back a number of years, you know, like similar to what was happening with Marianne Williamson several years ago, who she has a little bit different perspective, but is a real pre precursor of what James Tallarico is right now.
00:46:34
Speaker
And she started to catch fire and the Democratic Party of fish fight effectively just squished her. Because the momentum that she was generating did not fit into the story that they wanted to tell or the exact outcomes as they imagined it.
00:46:51
Speaker
Sure, like, that's your right if you're head of a party. But, like, what you effectively do when that's happening is, like, she was tapping into a vein of discontent and or hope that existed. She was bringing that into the Democratic Party fold in the process. And then because the powers that be in the party found that threatening,
00:47:10
Speaker
they effectively like cut that cord. And in doing so, like you deprive the party of that momentum. Well, you deprive the party of that momentum, but you also deprive the rest of the candidates of a chance to learn from what was happening to maybe evolve themselves and to learn how to adopt that language or to learn something new in the process. And to that point, we we may not know who this person is even is yet, right? Barack Obama was a no-name person in 2004 until he got up on the DNC stage and gave that speech. Right.
00:47:40
Speaker
And you wouldn't have guessed after George W. Bush won the popular vote. you know, tell me if you've heard this one, you feel like it's rock bottom after an unpopular Republican wins the popular vote.
00:47:51
Speaker
Sounds like today. Right. But again, and in the moments of despair, when you think it's darkest, some guy you've never heard of, who's going to have a message that is way different than what you were expecting is going to come through and flip all these states.
00:48:08
Speaker
It's going to have a blowout, electoral landslide. We might not know who that person is in 2828. There's a lot of well-known figures who we all kind of get a sense of are going to run. And it's going to be a full primary field, kind of like it was in 2008, because everybody senses the opportunity.
00:48:24
Speaker
But yeah, ah we don't know who that person is yet. So do you all have any predictions or hopes? Insight? I don't. All I know is it's going to be a lot of people.
00:48:35
Speaker
um I think that should someone young when a Democratic Senate seat in Texas. I think their name is going to be part of the conversation. Whoa.
00:48:49
Speaker
Whoa. Just like Joe Rogan wants it to be. I'm just saying. That's an actually an important point. my first it wasn I wasn't the first person to think it. Joe Rogan said it. the ideological landscape of this country is like much more flexible than we tend to think and what's consistent is the like discontent dissatisfaction and dis distress that exists but you know like joe rogan is something of like a bogeyman to a lot of folks on the left uh but i'm not a big joe rogan fan listened to like several episodes over the years he's an awesome so he's kind of just in the general like after here yeah but he's somebody that
00:49:26
Speaker
He doesn't care about parties. He senses the world is broken with his experiences where he comes from is out there like really objectively in his own way trying to find things that work or that resonate or just like feel true.
00:49:40
Speaker
And, you know, it's like interesting story of how James Tallarico ended up on his radar. But, you know, it's like a comedian mentioned it to him. He watched some of his videos on Instagram was like, oh, this guy's got something going on.
00:49:53
Speaker
And, you know, within a few weeks was on the largest podcast platform in the country speaking to a center right audience that loved what he had to say. Yeah, from a political science perspective, it's fascinating that someone could be like ah a Ron Paul voter, ah Bernie Sanders voter.
00:50:16
Speaker
a Donald Trump voter and then also be like really into James Salary. Like there is just people out there who, again, not tied to political
Political Accountability
00:50:27
Speaker
orthodoxy. They're not tied to tribalism that we somehow think is really important.
00:50:34
Speaker
And I don't I don't think it is. There is a lot of that tribalism, and I think it is it's probably more than, you know, like five or five or 10 percent of voters in either party. But like a lot of folks like their identity is tied up in being a Republican or a Democrat.
00:50:49
Speaker
And think it's dangerous for a democracy if your identity is tied up in a political party, because that does make an election or politics a zero-sum game. Because like literally your value is tied to winning or losing at that point.
00:51:04
Speaker
And if someone is attacking an idea that is considered orthodoxy within your party, you're not hearing them make an intellectual argument. You feel like they're attacking you. and and And I think our we've we've we've sussed out through our conversation is that it's it's bad politics, too.
00:51:21
Speaker
Right. If we are reflexively defending every Democrat who is accused of wrongdoing. That's going to turn a lot of people off. Like we should admit. this person is wrong.
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah. And they've done wrong. And if they have committed a crime. I'm not going to name names, not referring to any particular crimes, but we have had a number of issues with Democratic lawmakers ah who are credibly accused of crimes. And I have tried to be very consistent in my life because, right, my my political North Star, my origin story is Barack Obama, you know, not left versus right, not red states or blue states. The United States is like, look,
00:52:03
Speaker
You do the crime, you do the time. I'm not going to give you special defense because you're a Democrat. And i'm not going to go after you with special vigor because you're a Republican. Some of my best friends were Republican. I clerked for a Republican judge.
00:52:14
Speaker
Right. Like, I think that we have to keep in mind that these are not our enemies. These are our neighbors. and And we're compelled and commanded to love our neighbors.
00:52:27
Speaker
Well, was going to say, like, ah how I was introduced to you was through Alex sending me your position on the No Kings rally and how it just sort of is reminiscent of what you're saying, which is, you know, i I get the desire to want to go to these rallies. And I understand, like, pointing out how bad Donald Trump is. But whenever I engage with friends and family or who are his supporters, they easily just point the finger at the other side and say, well, we've got the Biden crime family and we've got these other things. And it just seems like there's a lot of that whataboutism. But maybe can you explain like what that position was with the no kings rally I that Alex had sent me? Yeah. And, you think in the end, politics leading to governance. So in governance, like we're in relationships.
00:53:12
Speaker
And I think the discontent and that you're talking about, Alex, how do you go from Paul to Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump to maybe Elizabeth Warren to back again to Donald Trump to now done with Donald Trump?
00:53:25
Speaker
People sense like there's a lack of trust. The systems are broken. the systems are working for those at the top and the rest of us are suffering. So I think that's the thing. But like put that to the side. mean, like we're in relationship and in relationship ruptures happen.
00:53:38
Speaker
Trust is lost. We act out of integrity. We take advantage of somebody. We may be acting with the best intent wrong somebody or make a mistake, whatever the case may be.
00:53:51
Speaker
And I think this is largely true of both political parties is that in a relationship with another person, like if I wronged you, Alex, and I wanted to continue to be in relationship with you, or I wanted to like rebuild the trust after the rupture,
00:54:04
Speaker
is repair. And how do you repair? You repair by apologizing. You repair by taking accountability for the mistakes that you made. And then you repair by acting differently afterwards. Your words don't mean anything if your actions or the fruits of your words are not visible to those who are around you.
00:54:26
Speaker
And we live in a political system where rule number one is that you do not take accountability. You do not take responsibility. You do not admit that you were wrong.
00:54:37
Speaker
And part of the reason for that is that like your opponents can so easily take or twist any admission of wrongdoing. And so candidates are like extremely hesitant, or anyone in politics is extremely hesitant to admit wrongdoing because they can pay the price for that.
00:54:54
Speaker
But over time, what has happened because of like the reality of those political dynamics is that we're in this like broad political environment where no one takes responsibility for their mistakes.
00:55:05
Speaker
No one admits when they are wrong. We largely, i think, actually become blind to our flaws as a party or as a movement.
00:55:18
Speaker
And when someone tries to point that out to us, and it's normally coming from someone who disagrees with us, who we think may not respect us, We just fight back, like you were saying, Katie, by pointing out all these similar mistakes that exist on the other side.
00:55:31
Speaker
And, you know, so I think a lot of is my perspective, where I spend a lot of my time thinking is more broad than the next election or the next electoral cycle or who's going to win the election. it's like, how do we rebuild trust as a society?
00:55:44
Speaker
Who's going to take the step that is like choosing to actually lead instead of choosing to do their best to win the next election by the rules as they understand them.
00:55:54
Speaker
And for that person to step up or for a party to step up, it's going to mean like admitting mistakes. That's going to mean like really putting yourself in the shoes of those who are pointing the finger at you, understanding why they are, discovering what is likely at least like the seed of truth in their criticism, taking responsibility for that, and then objectively choosing to act differently moving forward.
00:56:21
Speaker
That's true in a relationship with one's wife or significant other. That's true between friends. And that should be true between the leadership of a country and the voters that country. I think that's right. like i think So I think you' the point that I had read was that, you great, we have the No Kings rally, we're reveling our base, you know, but has to be more than that, like kind of what you're saying these broader terms that our leaders need to, and our people should also be speaking about. And something that we've mentioned a lot is that we're not just a party that doesn't like kings, we are also a party that is providing value in other
00:56:53
Speaker
um And also we're electing people that believe that, too, if I'm getting right. Yes. Yeah. and the The affirmative case. Right. i mean Yeah.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:57:05
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for your time. I mean, it's been a lot of fun going back through and and reliving the Obama years, but also kind of drawing out what those lessons are and how they can still be implemented.
00:57:18
Speaker
We kind of like to ask everyone at the end of all these conversations, as you know, what are what do you got going on outside of politics? And how can people stay in touch with you? Yeah, I mean, easiest way to find me is Instagram, Scott Mackey writer.
00:57:32
Speaker
But i the novel is called Love is Not the Answer. Something of an allegorical political satire. Don't take the title too seriously. Yeah, and then live in Austin. I've been like in and out of tech over the last number of years. And then I also do a lot of work called in be like consciousness or human transformation space.
00:57:53
Speaker
and that That touches on psychedelics. It touches a lot on psychedelics and how they can interact with anyone's spiritual practice, um whatever whatever faith tradition or religious tradition all year on.
00:58:06
Speaker
um And spend a lot of time thinking and writing kind of like we touched on earlier, but really about interconnection as foundational reality of life that we might touch on like intellectually at times, but often doesn't have a lot to do with how we actually are like seeing the world or making decisions or designing systems.
00:58:25
Speaker
It would be really powerful for us if that began to change. Well, we appreciate your time and your perspective. i This has been fun, Alex. And I, like both of y'all, I'm occasionally in and out of Dallas, but it'd be really fun to that meet up to like grab a drink or coffee or similar as well. There's more stories to tell. That'd be excellent.
00:58:44
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you, Scott. and we will see everyone next week. And God bless Texas.
00:58:52
Speaker
You can follow us on all socials at Mission Texas Podcast. Email us at missiontexaspodcast at gmail.com. This episode is edited by Juan Jose Flores.
00:59:04
Speaker
Our music bumper is by Adam Pickerel, and our cover art is by Tino Sohn.