What do we do next?

A field manual for everyday changemakers who are done doom-scrolling and ready to move. There is a moment in every political crisis when worry stops being useful. Gary Lucks hit that moment in 2004, after John Kerry narrowly lost to George W. Bush, and instead of retreating, he started a group. That group helped flip seats. Then he did it again. And again. And now, with his book We Are the Power,...

What happens when a veteran journalist reads 15 right-wing headlines every single day so you don't have to. Most of us scroll past the other side. Howard Polskin scrolls straight into it, every morning, on purpose. He launched The Righting in September 2017, the world's only newsletter dedicated to analyzing right-wing media for mainstream and progressive audiences, and he has not stopped since. I...

What happens when brilliant people stay invisible, and what to do about it. You can be genuinely brilliant at what you do, have years of hard won experience, a track record of real results, and still be the best kept secret in your industry. That is not a talent problem. That is a visibility problem. And on this episode of What Do We Do Next, we are going straight at it. The recognition gap is rea...

What if the system isn't broken. It's working exactly as designed. You know that feeling when you vote, and then nothing changes, and you vote again, and still nothing changes? That's not a glitch. That's the feature. This episode of What Do We Do Next podcast cracked something open for me, and I think it's going to do the same for you. This is a civic engagement podcast built for people who are d...

I mean, what is my life if not a long, slightly chaotic love letter to women finally stopping the wait. So many of us have spent years being patient, being nice, being "ready," and honestly, that gets old fast. Women's career advancement does not need another sermon. It needs a wake-up call. This episode matters because self advocacy is not some fluffy personal development slogan. It is the thing...

From French Class to Fighting for Eastern Oklahoma with Erik Terwey He Saw a $100,000 Medical Bill and Decided to Run for Congress. He did not want to run for office. He wanted to teach French, help kids conjugate verbs, and maybe quilt on the weekends. But somewhere between a $100,000 hospital bill, an overdraft notice, and watching rural hospitals close one by one across Eastern Oklahoma, Erik T...

From Iraq to the Senate Floor with Brian McGinnis He broke his arm at a Senate hearing and called it worth it. Brian McGinnis deployed to Iraq in 2003, ran into burning buildings as a firefighter, and in March 2026 had his arm broken by Capitol Police while protesting U.S. military action at a Senate hearing. He walked away without regrets. That moment did not create his conviction. It revealed it...

Here’s the thing, mis amigos: every once in a while I talk to somebody who makes you sit up a little straighter. Jeff Pixley did that to me. He’s a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel. An F-16 combat pilot. A guy with 30+ years of service who has literally spent his life in the arena. And now he’s running for Congress in Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District because, in his words, the oath he took as a...

I wanted to have Mark on because he is one of those people who makes you sit up a little straighter and pay attention. He is blunt, thoughtful, and completely unafraid to say the quiet part out loud — which, honestly, feels rare right now. What struck me most was how grounded he is for someone running such a bold race, and how clearly he connects the personal, the political, and the practical. I a...

What if you could vote on the same bills as your legislators — right now, for free? That’s exactly what the Digital Democracy Project has built, and this week Molly sits down with Sadie Holzmeyer, the woman helping take it national. Sadie grew up in rural Indiana as a self-described cynical non-voter. A college conversation about a local utility company sparked her interest in climate, which led h...

I know, I know — it sounds almost suspiciously optimistic. But that’s exactly what made this conversation so fascinating. This week I sat down with Tom Joseph, founder of America’s Main Street Party, and we got into a wild, surprisingly practical idea: what if the problem with Congress isn’t that we need a brand-new law, but that we need a better way to choose the people who run for office in the...

If nearly 50% of Americans identify as independent voters, why does our government keep getting more partisan? The answer, according to Chad Peace, isn’t apathy — it’s architecture. Chad is the founder of IVC Media, a partner at Peace & Shea LLP, and the legal advisor behind the Independent Voter Project. He’s taken election reform cases all the way to the Supreme Court. And in this episode, he br...

This one hit different. I sat down with Liuba Grechen Shirley — founder and CEO of Vote Mama — and walked away energized by what happens when a mom decides the political system needs to change. We talked about broken structures, nursing babies on the campaign trail, and why moms in politics are still fighting for the basic support other candidates take for granted. It’s a conversation about courag...

In this episode, we sit down with Sarah Jakle — Yale grad, social worker, political organizer, and Founder & Executive Director of DemocraShe — a nonpartisan national nonprofit paying high school girls $15/hour to become America’s next generation of elected leaders. What started as a question (”Why didn’t the Year of the Woman ever become the Decade of the Woman?”) became a movement rooted in neur...

Welcome back to “What Do We Do Next?” on today’s episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Anne Brodsky—better known as the Fence Fairy—joining us all the way from Key West. Anne is an unwavering advocate, artist, and community builder whose activism and rainbow fences have sparked hope and resilience throughout her community and far beyond. With decades of experience—from child welfare to...

In this episode of “What Do We Do Next?” I sat down with Sarvnaz Chitsaz, the chair of the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Sarvnaz Chitsaz shares her inspiring journey—having joined the movement as a university student and now leading the women’s resistance—offering a firsthand look into Iran’s ongoing fight for democracy and women’s rights. Our conversation dives...

Welcome back to What Do We Do Next? In this episode, I sit down with Aceil Haddad, whose career at the intersection of communications, public policy, and social change truly inspires me. Over the past decade, Aceil Haddad has been the driving force behind campaigns that shape public debate and help leaders communicate complex ideas with clarity and conviction—most notably through her agency, MAP P...

Welcome back to What Do We Do Next? In this episode, I’m joined by Cristina Giovanna Olivares—an award-winning visibility coach, leadership advisor, and TEDx speaker who helps high-achieving Latinas and women of color step into their power. As the founder of Social Butterfly Gal and Hustle and Socialize, Cristina shares her journey from being inspired by her trailblazing grandmother to becoming a...

A lot of us are trying to stay informed without getting swallowed by the news cycle, and still figure out what to do with what we’re feeling. I’m one of them. In this episode, I speak with Anabel Ternès von Hattburg—psychologist, futurist, professor, author, and host of the radio show We are Power —to talk about what it looks like to keep showing up when the problems feel bigger than any one perso...

What do we do next? Linda Chavez has spent fifty years holding positions that cost her, and she said the quiet part out loud: if it ever makes her a pariah, she’ll read great literature and play with her grandchildren, and that will be sufficient. I can’t stop thinking about that. So here’s the assignment, pulled straight from a woman who’s been doing this longer than I’ve been alive. * Pick princ...

What do we do next? The story Professor Hughes told me about how she found this movement has been rattling around my head since Paris, and the lesson in it is bigger than Iran. So here’s the assignment, from a woman who’s given thirty years to a cause that isn’t even her own country. * Lead with the people, not your own pain. A man stopped Donna on a London street in 1995 with a binder full of pho...

Why a top European lawyer took up Iran's cause, with Izabela Konopacka Why a top European lawyer took up Iran's cause, with Izabela Konopacka The former president of a million-lawyer federation on why governments must treat Iran like Ukraine. Izabela Konopacka is a Polish attorney and the former president of the Federation of European Bars (FBE), the body representing roughly one million lawyers a...

What do we do next? I sat in a room in Paris with 37 women, former prime ministers, ministers, presidents, who each decided, some thirty years ago and some two, to stand publicly with the Iranian resistance even though it cost them at home. That’s the bar. So here’s the assignment, and it’s the one I set for myself on the flight back. * Stand tall even when it costs you something small. These wome...

I need to tell you about a conversation that made me absolutely furious—and then gave me hope. Today, I sat down with Paige Loud, a 29-year-old social worker running for Congress in Maine's District 2. She's spent years working with adults and children with intellectual disabilities, and she's watching the system she knows intimately get weaponized for political gain. The story she told me about M...

This episode started with a simple question and turned into something much bigger: how do we actually stay connected to each other when everything around us feels fractured? I’ve been thinking a lot about how hard it has become to talk to people we love—family, friends, coworkers—without politics, resentment, or fear blowing the whole thing up. This conversation sits right in that tension. It’s ab...