Engaged Citizen

If we are being honest, I think we all know what’s going on here. The overt corruption carried out by the Trump administration—from the billions pocketed by his family from cryptocurrency, social media, and presidential merch to stripping away human rights and launching an unprovoked war—is so blatant. If we ignore or wave it away at this point, we are responsible for enabling it. While I think so...

The conservative Supreme Court has once again sliced up the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Regardless of whether you identify as Conservative or Liberal, Democrat or Republican, or somewhere in between, we should all be horrified by the efforts to manipulate and deny individuals’ right to vote. There is no doubt that Trump and his buddies are feeling their unpopularity and trying to do everything to hang...

Let it be said very clearly that political violence does not belong in a functioning democracy. Let it also be said that if our democracy were functioning, it would neither be fomented nor tolerated. What happened at the White House Correspondent’s dinner was wrong. And how might we examine it as a shadow aspect of what happens when unchecked anger guides our behavior? James Baldwin once wrote, “T...

Last week, Timothy Snyder published a Substack on the five things we need to watch for in anticipation of Trump trying to manufacture a coup to prohibit November elections. While some of them may seem far-fetched, I honestly would not put anything past this administration to hold tight to power. We walk through the scenarios and give our own take.

We are a nation at war. We are a nation whose democratically elected president is actively trying to undermine and downright take away the vote of millions of people. ICE is in the airports, and some analytical readers of Project 2025 say it was always part of the design. We have primaries and elections coming up in every state. What can we do about any of it? Well, we can show up locally. We can...

Let’s talk about what’s working. Protests are working. Going to city council meetings to refuse permits to privately run human warehouses works. Voting works. Calling your reps works. So does checking on your neighbor and documenting what you see. Shoot, we saw artwork in powerfully during the Super Bowl! We are far too creative a species to take this lying down!

In an unconventional move, Judge Fred Biery wrote these words in his opinion ordering the release of Liam and Adrian Conejo Arias: “Jesus wept.” I don’t read it so much as an imposition of Christian values on the legal system, but as highlighting the moral depravity of an administration that is willing to detain children to prove a point. I’ll link to her commentary below, but a Lawyer and Mother...

The past week has brought an onslaught of events and emotions. We’ve seen ICE double down on Minnesotans, and we’ve seen these resolute midwesterners triple down en masse. It seems the whole state showed up for the protest on January 23. The very next day, we saw ICE brutally murder another citizen advocate, Alex Pretti. Minnesota hasn’t let up. Following the death of Alex Pretti, their National G...

We recorded on MLK day in the US, and we end this podcast by reading one of his well known quotes from his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It reads, “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” The US has all but forgotten this truth of reality. We...

We address three topics this week: what we are learning about Venezuela, ICE actions against Renee Good in Minnesota, and voters’ privacy in the upcoming election cycle. As crazy as it seems, there are parallels between what Trump says his purpose was in Venezuela and what occurred in Minnesota. The abduction of Maduro was not about holding him accountable or limiting his power; it was about mimic...

…and many are asking for a refund on 2026 already! Shortly after midnight on January 3, the Trump administration took military action against Venezuela, which resulted in the extradition of Maduro and his wife to the US to be accused and tried for drug trafficking. All of this was performed without congressional approval. Strangely, Trump let Fox and Friends know before informing our elected offic...

One of the things we talk about in this episode is stamina - how do we keep pressing for the kind of change we need to see in this country? How do we swing back toward democracy? Many are turning a blind eye to the lack of legal processes in our country right now, not least of all the Supreme Court. They are playing to a bully, but they are also getting a taste of power. We are a split population,...

Though it’s been a couple of weeks, the Trump administration keeps on providing plenty of fodder for podcasts. The whole “let’s strike every boat coming out of Venezuela” strategy seems a great distraction to Trump’s growing unpopularity. When six democratic lawmakers pleaded to the military to remain faithful to the Constitution rather than a despot, Trump called for these people to be executed....

Amidst a democratic victory in the special elections, the current elected Democrats joined with Republicans to reopen the government, with the promise of a vote on healthcare forthcoming. While SNAP benefits have been restored, the rollout is slow and varies by state. ICE continues to rampage cities and traumatize residents. Amidst all of this, a push to release the complete Epstein files continue...

“The cruelty is the point" was coined by Adam Serwer, a staff writer for The Atlantic Magazine, in his October 2018 essay of the same name. It became a widely used catchphrase to describe the political approach and policies of the Trump administration.  Defunding food programs for the poor, withholding pay from government employees, especially the ones the president doesn’t like, and limiting asyl...

In the language of dreams, houses symbolize the dreamer’s psyche or inner world. The state of the house — be it chaotic, old, in disrepair, clean, bright, or dark — reflects what might be going on for the dreamer. If we externalize this symbol into the waking world, we might say our house is broken. Quite literally, the White House, a symbol of democracy, has been busted open, and its gilded power...

On Saturday, October 18, around 7 million (MILLION!) people marched around the country to support “No Kings Day.” Whether we realize it or not, the protests stretch all the way back to England circa 1215. King John signed the Magna Carta in Runnymede in support of the principle that everyone, including the king, was subject to the law. It introduced key concepts like the right to a fair trial, due...

Somehow Marvin Gay’s epic song feels like an appropriate soundtrack to this week’s podcast. What’s going on in our country needs our attention. As ICE is being employed as Trump’s personal paramilitary, as recruitment for it increases and gets ever more lucrative, and as the Texas National Guard makes its way to Illinois, we ought to be singing along. We ought to be flooding the streets. We need t...

Amidst all else that is getting media attention, Trump and his team managed to sign a little-noticed national security directive intended to target “radical left violence” or anything that is anti-Trump. Both individuals and institutions can be targeted if you indicate any of the following behaviors now identified as “violent:” anti-American (what it means to be an American is not clearly defined)...

It’s impossible to avoid talking about the ugliness of political violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Whether we agree with him or not, there is no justification for shooting him. For us, as we are greeted with a barrage of repsonses to his death, the issue that rises to the top is around free speech. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishm...

I know this episode's title is dire. The truth is that we are in a dire situation, we are facing hopelessness, and Josh and I believe we can’t go to sleep on it. I know many of us want to go on about our day to avoid feeling perpetually stressed. To a degree, this is okay—take in what you can and stand in where you can. But going to sleep on what is happening may inadvertently cause harm. How can...

This whole episode is embedded in good news—and if not overtly fluffy good news, it's inspired by a fierce and compassionate woman who is quickly becoming my local hero: Rep. Ann Johnson. She is in league with Abraham Lincoln, who jumped from a 2nd story window in 1840 to break quorum, and with Professor Dumbledore, who disapparated to protest the asinine Minister of Magic in Harry Potter 5: The O...

We spend a few moments updating voter redistricting, our numbness to violence, and the uptick in cities threatening to be taken over by the military. We also discuss a conservative viewpoint expressed by David Brooks and others that the “nihilism” of the right is, in part, caused by highfalutin leftist language and ideas around equity and inclusion. We are curious what listeners think. Article lin...

In this episode, we talk about the militarization of the D.C. area as Trump moves the National Guard in, voter redistricting in Texas, and the impact of White Christian Nationalism on our society. We wonder what rights to resist the military/law enforcement have if they perceive an injustice is occurring. We commend the dissent of the Texas Democrats. As of our recording, the vote in Texas had not...

Our aim here is to help us consider that what is happening in our country politically and socially impacts the whole project of democracy. Today, we talk through voter redistricting, the quieter, more sinister goings on based on the Epstein Files, and several institutions that continue to “obey in advance” in order to capitalize on federal funding. In return, the Trump administration is scrutinizi...