You may best know Amanda Werner for their Monopoly Man character that trolled former Equifax CEO Richard Smith at a congressional hearing in October 2017.
Amanda took on the character to help the public better understand the issue of forced arbitration (what consumer advocates call “ripoff clauses” and “get out of jail free cards”).
The issue became national news in the wake of the massive Equifax data breach and the Wells Fargo fake account scandal, and when the Republican-controlled Congress overturned a pro-consumer rule on arbitration just finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Chris and Amanda discuss exactly what Equifax and Wells Fargo did to consumers, how political comedy and satire can help drive social change, how Amanda's Monopoly Man character started a conversation not only about corporate accountability but also about gender identity, and the fate of the CFPB in the Trump era.
@wamandajd ourfinancialsecurity.org citizen.org publicjustice.net wedocount.org
About one month after Donald Trump was inaugurated, Timothy Snyder’s newest book - On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (published by Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group at Penguin Random House) - quickly shot to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Professor Snyder is the Levin Professor of History at Yale University, the author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a permanent fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.
On this episode, Chris talks with Professor Snyder about the lessons in On Tyranny, the frightening parallels between our current reality and the reality faced by 20th century Europeans, and how knowing history can help us make history in defense of American democracy.
timothysnyder.org @timothydsnyder history.yale.edu/people/timothy-snyder
Cristina Jiménez is the co-founder and executive director of United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led organization.
United We Dream is at the forefront of many of the current fights over immigration policy, including the DREAM Act, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and more. In recognition of United We Dream's work, Cristina was recently honored with a MacArthur Genius Award.
Cristina talks with Chris about moving from Ecuador to New York at age 13, the strategic decision she and other undocumented youth made to publicly share their stories, and where the fight for immigrant rights stands in the Trump era.
unitedwedream.org weareheretostay.org @unitedwedream @CrisAlexJimenez
Heather McGhee is President of Demos, a public policy organization working for an America where all people have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. She also leads Demos Action, a fiscally-sponsored project of The Advocacy Fund, a 501 (c)(4) nonprofit organization.
Heather discusses her vision for a multiracial populism, the difference between resistance and visionary opposition, and why she still has hope for American democracy even in the Trump era.
demos.org demosaction.org @hmcghee
Jeanette Vizguerra has lived in Denver, Colorado for more than 20 years. She has worked as a labor and community organizer, a business owner, and a mom of 4 kids.
Her story became national news earlier this year when the Trump Administration threatened deportation and she took sanctuary in Denver’s First Unitarian Church. During the 3 months she lived in the church, TIME Magazine recognized her on its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, for giving a voice to so many undocumented people.
Chris meets up with Jeanette at the Women's Convention in Detroit to discuss her story, the politics of immigration policy in the Trump era, and how people of good will can help drive change.
TIME's 100 Most Influential People: Jeanette Vizguerra
metrodenversanctuary.org
Back in June 2016, Van Jones - longtime progressive activist, CNN contributor, adviser to the Obama White House, and bestselling author - warned that Donald Trump would probably win the White House.
Now he's challenging us to correct course before it happens again.
Chris catches up with Van on tour for his new book published by Random House: Beyond the Messy Truth: How We Came Apart, How We Come Together. Van discusses the threads of life that connect the most disparate corners of the country, ways progressives can connect with Trump voters while resisting the Trump Administration, and how bridge building might actually lead us out of this mess.
@VanJones68 thedreamcorps.org
randomhousebooks.com/vanjones
Civil rights legend and artist Harry Belafonte told Women’s March organizers: “when the movement is strong, the music is strong.” When you hear the New York-based Resistance Revival Chorus, you’ll know what he means. This brand new, diverse collective of more than 50 women is bringing music to the Trump protest era, reviving classic freedom songs and creating new ones.
Chris talks with three of the women who helped organize the Women’s March – artists and creatives Paola Mendoza, Ginny Suss, and Sarah Sophie Flicker – about the birth of the Resistance Revival Chorus, the convergence of arts with activism, and how you can join by forming a chorus wherever you live. This episode also features the amazing voices of the chorus and one of its members, Nelini Stamp.
@ResistanceRev facebook.com/ResistanceRevivalChorus
The day Trump was elected, Amy Siskind began reading articles by experts in authoritarianism. The common theme: things will change subtly, and if you write them down you'll have reminders amidst the chaos. She’s been doing just that, publishing a weekly list of all the crazy stuff being normalized in the Trump era.
That’s just in her free time. During the day, Amy leads The New Agenda, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls. Chris talks with Amy about her idea for the weekly list, the strange psychology of normalization, and exactly how far down that path toward authoritarianism the United States finds itself.
@Amy_Siskind medium.com/@Amy_Siskind
It all started right after Trump’s inauguration, when government social media managers began tweeting out rogue science facts. Then, this year’s Earth Day was celebrated like never before, with hundreds of thousands of scientists and their friends marching on Washington and 600 other cities.
Aaron Huertas led communications for the March for Science. Chris nerds out with Aaron about all the cool science stuff Chris missed in school, how the March for Science came together, the debate over whether scientists should involve themselves in politics, and what to do with all those data sets before Trump deletes them.
MarchforScience.com @sciencemarchdc @aaronhuertas ScienceCommunicationMedia.com
Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, was ready for Trump’s election. It has a long track record of advancing justice by taking on everyone from Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, to the insurance companies profiting from the bail industry.
Chris talks with Executive Director Rashad Robinson about Color of Change’s current focus on Donald Trump’s corporate enablers, its advocacy on the terrain of mass media and culture, and why Rashad wasn’t too surprised by the election of a birther conspiracist who happened to host Celebrity Apprentice.
@rashadrobinson @ colorofchange colorofchange.org
Back on April 15, the wild goose chase for the Trump tax returns hit the streets of Washington DC and 200 other cities. Chris speaks with Indi Dutta-Gupta, a poverty expert and one of the Tax March organizers, about what might be in those elusive tax returns, why Trump doesn't want us to know, and how this all connects to the bigger picture of tax policy and tax reform (not to mention health care).
@IndivarD @TaxMarch taxmarch.org
Indivisible is the progressive answer to the Tea Party. Chris talks with Angel Padilla, Indivisible co-founder and Policy Director, about how the Indivisible Guide went viral, how members of Congress think, and how a live chicken ended up on stage at a recent Indivisible town hall.
@AngelRafPadilla @IndivisibleTeam indivisibleguide.com
Less than a week after the Trump issued his infamous Muslim ban, thousands of Yemeni bodega owners - many personally impacted by the ban - closed their stores and protested in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall.
Chris talks with Dr. Debbie Almontaser, one of the strike's lead organizers, about how the strike came together so quickly, how lots of Islamophobic internet trolls had to Google "bodega" to figure out exactly what they were so mad about, and what's been happening since the strike.
@DebbiAlmontaser Yemeni Bodega Strike Facebook Page
A lot of us learned a new word in 2017: emoluments. Chris talks with Deepak Gupta, the attorney who filed the first lawsuit against the Trump Administration for violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Deepak makes this stuff easy to understand and hard to stomach, and he has some ideas on how we might locate Donald Trump's tax returns.
@deepakguptalaw guptawessler.com @CREWcrew citizensforethics.org
When the Muslim ban was announced, one of the most enduring images - along with massive airport protests - was that of lawyers and law students sitting on airport floors, huddled over their laptops, doing everything they could to help. Julie Kornfeld was one of those lawyers. Her client was in the air at the moment the executive order came down. She tells us her client's story, where things stand today, and all about IRAP.
@refugeeassist refugeerights.org