New Faces of Democracy

This episode of the podcast features a conversation with Katie Michel, owner of Planthouse Gallery in New York City and a member of Victory Garden Collective, a group of women artists using their craft to exercise their patriotic duty. While the group started in 2016 to support Hillary Clinton in anticipation of her victory, it morphed into an act of political resistance under Trump. Just as victo...

This episode features a conversation with Lisa Guide, co-founder of the Women Effect Action Fund, a group dedicated to achieving economic equality for women in our country. Lisa and her colleagues have spent the last four years focused on turning out the caregiver vote, and thanks to them women came out in force to vote in this past election, motivated by care economy issues. These are working mom...

This episode features a conversation with Aditi Juneja of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting efforts to undermine our right to free, fair, and fully informed self-government. In other words, while you spent the last four years calling your senator and phone banking, the superheroes at Protect Democracy have been doing nothing less than preventing our cou...

Welcome to Season 2 of the New Faces of Democracy podcast, hosted by Nancy Bynum. In this season, Nancy will look back at the gains we have made in protecting our democracy, the healing and rebuilding that needs to take place, and an optimistic look ahead at the opportunities for real progress under the Biden administration. Join Nancy for inspiring conversations with people at the grassroots...

This episode features a conversation with Martha Shockey of the grassroots political action group, Indivisible Georgia. A soft-spoken powerhouse, Martha talks about all the hard work that groups like hers put into Biden’s win in the state and what they are doing for the two Senate runoffs on January 5. Martha and Nancy discuss the tremendous hurdles created by the Republican’s sophisticated voter...

On this episode, Nancy welcomes Catherine Vaughan back to New Faces of Democracy. Catherine is Co-Executive Director of the Democratic political action group, Swing Left, and she was one of the first people Nancy profiled at New Faces of Democracy in 2018. Catherine and Nancy do an election debrief and discuss lessons learned this year. Catherine talks about all the progress we have made over...

Nancy follows up on her conversation about sheriffs with Max Rose on Episode 13 of the podcast to explore what happened in the sheriff elections last month. Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/election-graham-north-carolina-protest/2020/11/01/beee5d8c-1c64-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/935873090/for-immigrants-election-promises-relief-from-an-atmosph...

This episode features a conversation with data and analytics expert and political polling thought leader Mike Berland. Mike is the founder & CEO of research, data, and analytics firm Decode M and is an expert on how people think and behave as voters and decision-makers. Mike has appeared extensively on national television to speak about elections, candidates, and business issues. He has served...

This week features a guest episode from Democracy Works , a podcast dedicated to answering the question “What Does it Mean to Live in a Democracy?”.  Each week, the podcast examines a different aspect of democratic life, like voting, criminal justice or the free press. Produced by The McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, Democracy Works showcases some of the finest academic minds...

This episode features a conversation with Marcia Greenberger, a true pioneer of women’s rights law through her work at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington DC. Marcia and Nancy speak about the early days of women’s rights law, the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the path ahead for advancing women’s equality under the law. In the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death, Marcia tells us what...

This week’s episode goes local with Gordon Herr, Chairman of the Democratic Committee in Southampton NY, and member of the Board of Elections in Suffolk County, Long Island. Gordon demystifies the voting process for us and will help put your mind at ease about voting during a pandemic in this most crucial of elections. Gordon tells us everything we need to know about absentee ballots, early voting...

This episode features a conversation with Jessica Alter and Krisserin Canary of Tech for Campaigns . After Trump’s Muslim ban in 2017, tech entrepreneur Jessica Alter couldn’t take it anymore and asked a few of her fellow tech workers if they were interested in volunteering their skills to help Democratic campaigns, and Tech for Campaigns was born. Tech for campaigns is now the permanent tech and...

This episode features a conversation with Ravi Gupta, an Obama alum, podcast host and founder of Arena , an organization that trains and supports the next generation of Democratic candidates and campaign staff. After working on Obama’s campaign and then administration, Ravi stepped away to start a network of schools in the south but jumped back into political action immediately after the 2016 elec...

On this week’s episode, Nancy speaks with Katie Paris, founder of of Red Wine & Blue . Red Wine &Blue is an Ohio-based group that’s harnessing the political power of suburban women to save democracy while having a good time. Politics, fun and festive cocktails usually don’t go together but Red Wine & Blue is lightening up the conversation for women who don’t consider themselves politic...

On this episode, Nancy speaks with Vernetta Alston, a state legislator in North Carolina. In 2017, Vernetta pivoted from a career as a criminal defense attorney to run for public office on the Durham city council. She was then appointed to fill an empty seat in the North Carolina General Assembly last spring and now she is in the enviable position of being an unopposed incumbent in her race. Verne...

Today’s podcast features a conversation with Max Rose, founder of Sheriffs for Trusting Communities . Imagine a law enforcement officer with vast power and authority, little accountability and no meaningful term limits. That’s called a sheriff. It’s an elected position, but many of us do not look far enough down the ballot or even know enough to cast a vote. Nationwide, sheriffs make 2 million arr...

On this episode, Nancy speaks with Desiree Tims, a young congressional candidate in Ohio’s 10th district. There are a lot of firsts when it comes to Desiree. This is her first time running for office, she is the first member of her family to graduate from a four year college, and if elected, she would be the first African American AND the first woman to represent this district. The southwest corne...

This episode of the podcast features Part 2 of the Flipping Florida Series with Dr. Fergie Reid, Jr. Dr. Reid talks about the strategy for flipping the state and its 29 electoral college votes blue, based on the work spearheaded by him and his father in Virginia, helping to flip that state in 2019. He explains the simple and intuitive concept, which is to register more voters and run candidat...

Nancy takes a break from the podcast to muse on the army of mothers powering the resistance. 

This episode features a conversation with Sara Trail, founder of Social Justice Sewing Academy, an organization that provides young people in marginalized communities with free workshops to make textile art about social justice issues. You might think of quilters as little old ladies in rockers, but this fierce, young warrior will upend all your notions of what can be achieved through the artistic...

In this bonus episode, Nancy talks about four groups focused on chipping away at the margins in key, battleground states to beat Trump this November:  140 Florida Blue Project ,  Galvanize USA ,  Vote Values  and  American Bridge .

In 2018, Zak Malamed was living the millennial dream with a job at Facebook. But after coming home from a trip to Auschwitz to images on CNN of internment camps on the Mexican border, he decided he could no longer sit on the sidelines and he needed to do something that felt more purposeful. Since then, he has founded The Next 50, a group focused on helping young people harness their grassroots pol...

Janelle Christensen is a professor and head of the Florida Democratic Environmental Caucus. Margie Stein is a political activist who has found her niche in fundraising for Florida state races. Together, this dynamic duo are spearheading an effort to turn Florida blue by taking a page out of the Virginia playbook that helped flip that state in 2019. Their program, called 140 Florida Blue Project, h...

In this week’s bonus episode, Nancy talks about trends in creative activism she’s been hearing about.

This week’s podcast features a conversation with artist Diana Weymar of Tiny Pricks Project. Diana is a textile artist who one day in 2018 had the impulse to embroider the words “I am a stable genius” onto an old piece of her grandmother’s needlework, and Tiny Pricks was born. Now Tiny Pricks is a public textile-based protest project with hundreds of participants around the world and 56,000 follow...