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The Politics Chicks is a progressive politics podcast and politics news show hosted by Christy Branham and Monica Healy.
Every week, we sit down with candidates, elected officials, journalists, historians, policy experts, advocates, and everyday Americans shaping the future of our democracy. We go beyond the headlines with thoughtful interviews, fact-based analysis, and candid conversations about the issues that affect our lives—from elections and public policy to healthcare, education, civil rights, and the economy.
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Maya Rupert: And we know that if I have a million images for some people of what being a good candidate can look like, right? You take a white man and he can be the principled war hero. He can be the policy wonk. He can be the like erudite professor vibe. He can be nerdy. He can be funny. He can be plain spoken. You have so many different tropes and he can still be by that person as presidential. But we have so many fewer of those when we're talking about women. We have so many fewer when we're talking about people of color. And that means that in order to get people to perceive you as authentic, it's not usually a very internal pursuit. It's a lot about how people are perceiving you. And that has as much to do with my bias in what I need you to be as a certain kind of candidate as it has to do with whether or not you're actually embodying any kind of authentic leadership.
Christy Branham: Welcome to the Politics Chicks podcast. I'm Christy Branham.
Monica Healy: And I'm Monica Healy.
Christy Branham: We hear it every election. Voters want someone who seems real. But how do we decide who's authentic? Are we recognizing honesty or are we recognizing someone who fits the picture already in our heads?
Monica Healy: Our guest, Maya Rupert, has spent her career on several sides of that question as a lawyer and policy advocate, a presidential campaign manager, and now the author of The Real Ones, How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic.
Christy Branham: Maya managed Julian Castro's presidential campaign, advised Elizabeth Warren's campaign, and managed Maya Wiley's New York mayoral campaign. She's now executive president at Blue State and hosts When We Win, a podcast about women of color in elected office.
Monica Healy: Today we're talking about the judgments voters make, what campaign losses can teach us, and the distance between having a policy idea and getting it into people's lives. We'll also visit Maya's conversations with leaders here in Minnesota.
Christy Branham: Maya, welcome to the Politics Chicks. We're so honored to have you today.
Maya Rupert: I am so thrilled to be here. Thank you, thank you, thank you for inviting me.
Monica Healy: We're so glad you're here. We were talking before we started recording that we're doing a little fangirling. It's really great to have you. And like visually, I'm looking at us, and we are rocking the jewel tones today.
Maya Rupert: I love that. Yes. Yes.
Christy Branham: Good choice on the wardrobe today, ladies.
Maya Rupert: Well done, yes.
Christy Branham: Maya, we want to start this off with you taking us into the moment when advice, just be yourself, collided with what a political audience might expect. So what happened, and what did you learn from that? Because authenticity and politics often aren't said in the same sentence.
Maya Rupert: It's funny. I think it's such a good point because I think there's this, I mean, we do, we have this kind of idea about what politicians are, and authenticity doesn't rise to the top. But it's the reason that authenticity in politics is such a currency, right? It's one of the first things if someone says, oh, I'm thinking about running for office, the first thing is voters are looking for authenticity. You need to show that you'd be an authentic leader. It's one of the things that sort of gets counted as like, oh, you know, he comes across as so authentic. And what's interesting about it is when we say authentic, we have kind of a grab bag of words that we associate with it. But they're not always the same word. And when something is as important in politics as authenticity has become, but it can basically be used to mean anything, it kind of winds up meaning nothing. And when something like that means nothing, basically what it means is that we just, it becomes just sort of this proxy for this person fits what I kind of already think of as somebody who can run for office, as somebody who can be presidential. So we wind up taking this term that I think for a lot of us feels very personal and important and kind of using it in a lot of ways to, you know, label people either electable or unelectable for reasons that don't actually have that much to do with authenticity. So you started the question kind of saying, like, what happens when be yourself, like, conflicts with what voters want. And I think that that's something that so many politicians deal with. But what I noticed when I was working in 2020 is that I noticed that the candidates of color and the women of any race dealt with that a lot more often. There was this, you need to be authentic, but don't come across this way because people don't like it. And don't come across this way because people don't like it. And nobody quite believes that, so try this. And then at the end of it, people are like, yeah, you just, you don't seem authentic. So it's like you, you ask people to change all of these things and then penalize them for the ways that they are trying to fit within a system that wasn't built for them. And that's what made me start thinking about this question.
Monica Healy: When you brought up in your book that authenticity isn't so much like me perceiving myself as authentic. It is the people around me, what they perceive as being authentic.
Maya Rupert: Right. It's such an interesting thing, right? Because so many times when we say, I want to live an authentic life, we're talking about a very internal thing, right? It's, I want to feel aligned with my values. I want to feel like who I am in public aligns with how I see myself in private. But the way I put it in the book is authenticity isn't writing a book. It's defending a dissertation. You can feel aligned. But if you can't prove that up to people perceiving you, you don't always get the benefit of, you know, kind of what comes with being authentic. And in politics, that's really hard. Because we tell politicians, be yourself, be who you are, and you'll resonate with voters. But then if voters don't see you that way, we're like, ooh, but change this, right? And so, and we know that if I have a million images for some people of what being a good candidate can look like, right? You take a white man, and he can be the principled war hero. He can be the policy wonk. He can be the, like, erudite professor vibe. He can be nerdy. He can be funny. He can be plain spoken. You have so many different tropes. And he can still be a president, by that person as presidential. But that's, we have so many fewer of those when we're talking about women. We have so many fewer when we're talking about people of color. And that means that in order to get people to perceive you as authentic, it's not usually a very internal pursuit. It's a lot about how people are perceiving you. And that has as much to do with my bias in what I need you to be as a certain kind of candidate as it has to do with whether or not you're actually embodying any kind of authentic leadership.
Christy Branham: And you've experienced, obviously you have real-time experience with us. This isn't just observational. This is you participating in campaigns. And how did this play out in Julio Castro's campaign? And what did that perspective give you?
Maya Rupert: I mean, I started, I feel like, in my mind writing this book because I wanted to read this book because I watched this dynamic play out over and over again. And it was so frustrating for me. In 2020, and I think 2020 is instructive, I will say this, because we're about to embark on in 2028 a very similar-vibed race, right? It's going to be wide open fields, which means there are going to be a lot of people running and a lot of people trying to claim a lane, right? And I remember in 2020, there was, because everyone is trying to just, you know, you're trying to do anything to get the attention because there are so many people. There was so much scrutiny placed on who the candidates were, how are they presenting? Everybody, the media was trying to be like a, you are the this candidate. And we would get so many people saying, well, Julio just seems so buttoned up. He's too straight-laced. I remember he had put out a book right before announcing, and one of the reviews of the book said, you know, there are no salacious details, no bombshells. He didn't have any, like, big thing he had to overcome. And that was painted as a negative. He was too perfect. Is that a bad thing? To, like, not have skeletons in
Christy Branham: your closet?
Maya Rupert: But this is why. What people said is, it's too squeaky clean. And so they doubted his authenticity. But the challenge, and what was so frustrating to me that the part of that story that didn't get told was, when people of color end up in a position to run for president, they don't typically have a lot of salacious details and skeletons in there, right? Like, the way he would put it, and I always loved him for saying it this way, he's like, I came from a place where people don't get second chances. I knew I wanted to do this, so I knew I was going to have to make the most of my one chance. And it's so frustrating to have the concept of authenticity weaponized against somebody who's describing what is a very authentic experience for people of color, especially second generation immigrants who grew up with, you know, young baby boomer parents who were like, look, you know, his mom was an activist. And she was like, you're already who they're not expecting. You need to be. He heard, I think, the same refrain so many of us growing up heard, which is, you have to be twice as good to get half as much. You can't be the one messing up and then expecting it to get forgiven and washed away and still be here. So that actually is a very authentic experience for a lot of us. But it got painted as he's too squeaky clean. He's too boring. He's too safe. He's too cautious. But the other side of that is if he wasn't that safe and cautious, would we know who he is or would he be a really dynamic professor at UT? You know, like that I don't know that he becomes mayor of San Antonio and, you know, a presidential candidate and, you know, a potential VP pick for folks. But he doesn't have that resume if he lived that life. And that's the piece of this that I kept getting frustrated with during 2020 when I would hear that. I heard it about him, but I heard it about other candidates of color. I think Cory Booker gets this a lot about, you know, that personality just seems inauthentic in some way. Kamala Harris, we watched it with her in 2020 and again in 2024. There was a constant question about their authenticity. Obviously, something more is going on if we see consistently that the white men are just having an easier time proving that fact. It can't have absolutely nothing to do with identity.
Monica Healy: Well, that's a piece of the authenticity that I think probably people overlook is that the white man gets the pass. And it is the woman and the people of color that have to work that much harder to get where they are. And you sort of use a spinoff of that example in your book with Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
Maya Rupert: Yes. The Taylor Swift and Beyonce section to me was, somehow this has become one of the most talked about pieces of it. Right. Where it is not Taylor versus Beyonce. I am a giant fan of both of them. What I was sort of talking about in that chapter is this concept of effortless, sort of effortless cool and effortless beauty and how difficult that is for women of color to show. The chapter is called Black Girl Next Door. And the idea that I'm trying to hit home is that there exists this concept in like popular culture of the effortless beauty. It's the girl next door, right? It's the, she stands next to the more glamorous romantic rival and she, her appeal derives from the fact that she is more plain but still beautiful. There is something inherent in that where we tend to vilify effort. We want you to be beautiful but we want you to look like you didn't try for it. We want you to be talented but we want you to, it just came to you and you don't have to practice. And yes, you're running for office but it just hit you one day and you did it. And I understand why we want those things. We want people to embody things but we don't want the people to embody them to feel like they wanted them that badly. There's something about that I think that appeals to us. It's untrue. And what it does is makes it really hard then for some people. So the comparison I make with Beyonce and Taylor Swift is that Taylor Swift's image, and again, these are their images. These are not these women. These are two of the most beautiful, powerful women on the literal planet. But Taylor Swift's image, it's very carefully crafted around this idea that she's just like you. Right. Like she is your best girlfriend.
Monica Healy: Never mind the fact that she's a billionaire. Right.
Maya Rupert: We're ignoring that. We're ignoring all of that.
Christy Branham: And she's married to Travis Kelsey.
Maya Rupert: She's married to Travis Kelsey. No. She's just, she's married to the dude everybody would know. And she married him. So all of her fans, we love him. And she, her songs are basically your collective group chat. And we're all analyzing them together. She's our friend. She's just like us. Beyonce's image is carefully cultivated around the idea that she is peerless. She, she, she is at the top of every game. She's a goddess. Yeah. She is a goddess.
Christy Branham: She's superhuman in the way that she's portrayed. Her hair is, is so long in her costumes.
Maya Rupert: Her costumes are exact, it's everything is the height of glamour. It's the height of like, she is elite. And that's her, that's the image that gets cultivated around her. Now those two images are obviously kind of mirror, like they're, they're kind of fun house mirror images of each other, but it makes them kind of sisters, right? One is built up all around the idea that you're, my appeal is you could be me. And one is my appeal is you could never be me, but don't worry. No one could be. You're in great company, right? So that's the images they have. But one of those is much easier to maintain than the other, because the fact of the matter is being the girl next door, the flaws are built in. They're part of the appeal. So if you mess up, that makes you more human and being more human contributes to your image. Beyonce has to remain above everything. Her flaws actually dent her image in a way that is really hard to maintain. And again, these are Taylor Swift and Beyonce. They don't, they're, for them, they can do whatever they need to do. But it makes me conscious of what we set up. This is, this is Cuomo and she's going to participate now. Hi Cuomo. But it makes me conscious of what we set up in culture, that it's possible for black women. Because if, in order to be read as, like, in order for this to work, she has to be beyond comparison. Well, most people aren't Beyonce. And so it's a much harder thing to do if you have to be this undeniable in order to get recognition. And I think it's something we see a lot in popular culture, that for people of color, and especially women of color, in order to be read as beautiful, you have to be beyond beautiful. There doesn't exist this kind of approachable idea of beauty for people of color in the same way. And that was the point of the comparison. It's that, it's that what we wind up doing when we say, we want, we don't want you to have, we don't want to see visible effort, is it makes it harder for anyone that we don't already naturally see as you can fit within the ideal. And so that's really the point there.
Christy Branham: And we've already seen an example of that. So let's talk about how this applies to the Obamas, right? So we've got Barack, President Barack Obama, who Donald Trump started the whole birthism thing with the birth certificate. And because they couldn't find any dirt on him, this is what they had to go off of. But I want to talk about Michelle Obama for a minute, because I think she is one of the most beautiful, elegant, eloquent, well-spoken, well- educated first ladies in history. And her portrait in the National Gallery was painted by Amy Sherald. And I am a huge fan of Amy Sher ald. I love her painting style. And she portrays, she portrays people of color as the primary subject of her work, but she portrays their clothing and color in their, their features, their hair and their features in shades of gray. And her, I think her portrait is stunning. It makes her look powerful and pensive and strong. And I kind of equated, I had to write a paper on this for a class I was taking in school. So I'm, I'm big on this whole thing. But I kind of felt like she was like the mother Mary and the Pieta where she was, the woman is portrayed as strong and big. And, but people took umbrage with that painting because of the style and, and used it as an opportunity to just further berate Michelle Obama for her looks, which is really kind of a cheap shot because she is une quivocally beautiful. So let's talk about that for a minute, because I, I think that it doesn't just apply to elected officials. It applies to women of color in particular.
Maya Rupert: Basically what we have, if you go back to 2007, before Michelle Obama was Michelle Obama and everyone really like woke up to who, who she was and how she was. The way people talked about her and the way people talked particularly about her appearance was horrifying. And I think there are not black women who were not immediately like, yeah, it's so interesting because I hear so many times people now will be like, why doesn't Michelle Obama run for office? I don't think for one second, Michelle Obama has forgotten how she was treated throughout. There was a moment in time where everybody decided she was, she became the most popular figure in the democratic party, but there was a much longer time where she was fighting against very publicly every single ugly stereotype that we have about black women. And so I think what, what happens is you have someone like her who is dark skin, who has, you know, undeniably black features and doesn't go out of her way to try to, you know, to hide it or apologize for it. Right. And people have a visceral reaction to it. But then I feel like there was a time that people honestly started to see, wait a minute, this woman is gorgeous. And she became a style icon and she was on the cover of Vogue and her arms and her dresses.
Christy Branham: I was going to say her arms. She, she just is so strong, right?
Maya Rupert: We all, I mean like, and I, I feel like there was that moment, but then when people saw that painting, I feel like it kind of took people back to, wait a minute. If you're not, why, if she's not in a colorful dress and I can't ignore some things about her, I'm forced to once again, react to her as a black woman. And I am not used to seeing a black woman and thinking of a timeless beauty. And I think that it just, again, there is a, there's a cultural idea about what, about what beauty is about how people sort of fit into it. And we, we do not put black women in that category where without a lot of work and trying, you can simply be considered beautiful. And so I do, I think if you, you take even Michelle Obama and people can still tear her down, it really does show you that in order to rate. And so, you know, for women of color, you've got to be a nine or above. There's a, a, a, Hassan Minhaj, and I talk about this in the book as well. He got in trouble, um, a few years back because he did that, uh, GQ, um, uh, lie detector thing. And basically he was talking about Dax Shepard who, you know, has a podcast and had said that, that Hassan Minhaj is, you know, he was like, was bra iding him. He's like, he's an eight, he's a nine. Like, you know, he's so attractive. And so they said, what would you rate Dax Shepard? And I think he said something like a six point, but it's like something low. And then he was kind of like, basically what he explained was Dax Shepard belongs to this group of white men in Hollywood who have, they're attractive. It's still Hollywood, but they have kind of attainable good looks. What he said is for us, for men of color, you've got to be Id ris Elba. You've got to be Daniel Day Kim, right? Like there's no, oh, the guy we could have gone to high school with. We have to be undeniably hot to even be on it. And I think that's what it is. It's, you've got to, we don't have that attainably attractive in culture for people of color and especially women of color. And I think Michelle Obama is the perfect example of that. Michelle Obama is gorgeous. But still, if people want to tear her down, that's where they go. And they do it if ever they don't see her in the, on the glossy pages of a magazine, then they remind us she looks like a black woman.
Monica Healy: That's a really hard facade to keep up. And when you're working with a politician, how do you, how do you coach them around all of that, the expectations and, and the persona that they need to present?
Maya Rupert: I mean, I think the challenge is, again, for these candidates, this isn't new. They've been coached in this, a lifetime has prepared people for it. If anything, I feel like what happens is you're having to try to get people to undo a learned behavior. Because, and that I feel like is what is so frustrating about this. There are so many of these things that for a lot of us, we learned early on, you need to change how you come across, how you're perceived in order to comport with a dominant gaze. And you do it and you do it from such an early age, it's second nature to you. Then you get to a point in your career and we go, now people are reading that survival technique as inauthentic. So change it. So let go of the armor that got you here. And I feel like that's really the coaching that we wind up in these situations is how do you tell somebody? I mean, I think Hillary Clinton presented a really interesting example of this. How do you tell somebody that, well, you know, in the 90s, we didn't like how feminist you were. And then we didn't like how, you know, like that we, we wanted you to grow your hair out. And then we wanted the, we wanted softer suits and we wanted these colors. And then you needed to start wearing skirts. And then you, and it's like over and over and over again. And then people are like, yeah, she just, I just don't buy it. She doesn't seem authentic. And it's like, well, she, we have Frankensteined this woman and our identity from the time that we've even known her. And that doesn't even account for the way most girls grow up being told, don't be too bossy. The boys aren't going to like it. Yes, you're the smartest, but don't let that be known. Like let, you know, let the boys win a few times. Let all of the stuff that you just get told and then being in public for 30 years. And then everyone being shocked that, you know, she does, that she has what feels like a more fractured version of her authenticity. But it has been fractured. All of those things fracture who we are at our core. And so I think that is, that's really what we need to do is when I'm working with a candidate, it's almost training them. All right, here's how you let people in enough. And I think the answer is telling this story. I want to popularize the fact that when you are looking at a candidate of color, if you are looking at a woman of any race, you are looking at somebody who from a young age learned strategic inauthenticity. And they are now trying to show you who they really are. But who they really are is a reflection of that experience, too. So I need us to publicly stop reading some of this behavior as it must mean they're fake. It must mean they're reading off of talking points or they're not comfortable or whatever it is. It just means they grew up as not a white man in this country.
Unidentified speaker: Yeah.
Christy Branham: Yeah. And I can't speak to the experience being a person of color, obviously, but I can speak to the experience of being a girl who grew up to be a woman. And make yourself smaller seems to be the theme where we're, like you said, we're told we're too much. You're too, you're too intellectual. You're too smart. You're too loquacious. Make yourself smaller. And I think that's what you're saying, right? That we tend to tell these people in a situation where- Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. Exactly.
Maya Rupert: And then, exactly. And I feel like all of those messages that, like, we're taught not to be competitive a lot of times, right? Like, we're told so many of these things that will serve you later in life, don't do them or hide them or don't be overly aggressive. And then we get to a point in our careers. And it's like, okay, we'll shift out of all of that. And that's a hard thing to do. And rather than force people to do that in order to be read as authentic, what I need people to understand is the authentic experience of most women is having been taught all of these things and trying to learn how to navigate them. And instead of reading that as, okay, well, then she's overly cautious and that must mean she's not being honest. It means that's how she was trained to be. And I think giving it that context allows us to actually see each other in our fuller selves. It does lead to more authenticity. It just, we need to be willing to recognize that everyone's experience isn't the same.
Monica Healy: Spending a lifetime of trying to fit into whatever box you were told you're supposed to fit into does form who you become. You know, as women, we're, we've been trained to read the situations. We behave this way in this situation. We behave this way in this situation. And depending on, on who's present and the conversation that is going on, we might change to adapt.
Maya Rupert: Yep. And, and then they call that calculating.
Monica Healy: Right.
Maya Rupert: And so they, and they say it's not real. And that's the, this is the part that, that, that is so difficult because it's like, I'm not saying that then we should allow, like voters shouldn't be allowed to ask for certain things from some candidates. Of course, that's not the answer. But I think what we start to realize is these aren't actually neutral questions. There are people who like Donald Trump presents honestly a very good example of someone who gets called authentic. Even when he's lying, people call him authentic.
Monica Healy: He's an authentic con man.
Maya Rupert: He's an authentic con man.
Christy Branham: He's mastered one thing.
Maya Rupert: Right. And, but, but that's, what's interesting when you ask people what that is, it's like, well, but how is he authentic if you are also calling him a liar? And it's like, well, he says he very clearly is not speaking from talking points. Right. Like obviously no advisor told him to say that no one is like, yep, you're staying on script. Good job in the background when he's speaking. But the ability to go out and speak extemporaneously and not care about consequences. One isn't a good quality. So if that's what we're calling authenticity, no one would say, oh yeah, that's what I want in my president. But secondly, that quality only comes if you don't get held to account. It is a freedom from consequence that allows him to do that. Kamala Harris gets held to the consequences of the stuff she says. So if she speaks from talking points and he doesn't, does that mean he's more authentic? Or does that mean he has lived a life where he doesn't have to worry about consequences of what he says? And she has lived a life where she knows she will constantly have to worry about the consequences of what she says. If one person comes in and doesn't read the room and it is exactly who he, I was going to say this, I'm going to say this, regardless of how it's coming across. Is that someone who's more authentic? Or is that somebody who never had to learn that it was incumbent upon him to make this social situation better? And if a woman walks in and does something different, we call her calculating and him authentic, are we measuring something about who they are, how they would be as leaders, who they are as candidates? Or are we just acknowledging a difference in the way men and women get socialized in this country?
Christy Branham: Well, and let's talk about the fact that there is so much de ference shown to white men for their missteps, right? So if you are a person of color or you're a woman, you have very little leeway as to making a wrong step. But then we look at someone like Representative Max Miller in Ohio right now, who is cred ibly accused of abusing his wife and his young child. His father-in-law is a sitting senator. And yet he is, if that were a black man, he would have been kicked out of Congress for those accusations. And yet, even from the president, he is getting, if not support, at least a very neutral approach to these accusations. So that definite lack of scale for women and people of color versus men, where men are given so many more conciliations and they are shown forgiveness for their actions much more quickly. That is a real part of this, isn't that?
Maya Rupert: It is. And it's really frustrating because, again, a lot of times all of those chances are done in the name of authenticity. I think Graham Plattner presents a really good example of this. Yeah. Because until the accusations that actually formed the end of his campaign, there were a lot of things that didn't hold up, things he said that didn't quite end up being true. He had, you know, a really, like, some disturbing things in his past.
Christy Branham: Absolutely.
Maya Rupert: And he justified them how he justified them. But what I remember were so many of his supporters and so many people saying, guys, if we ask people to, you know, be perfect, you're never going to have another candidate who's not made in a lab, who's not just consultant driven, created. We need to let him have these things because we need candidates who are authentic. That's what it kept coming back to. He is an authentic, working class Maine guy. And that means he has bad Reddit posts and apparently a Nazi tattoo. Right. That just got treated like that's just authentic. That's just authentic Maine. Guys, unrelated, but I am shocked more people in Maine didn't say that's actually not us. But that's what kept being told. Right. That's the story we got told. That in order to have authenticity, we have to let this guy have this kind of a past. And so, again, what you see is for white men, there is this permission structure that gets built where not just like, is it OK? It's almost like this proves his authenticity more.
Christy Branham: His imperfections prove authenticity, whereas for a woman or a person of color, their imperfections show their lack of.
Maya Rupert: Deeply undermine. And career ending. Yes. Yes. And so and that's it. I mean, I just feel like and I think we've we've seen some of it. You know, I Westmore, there was recently an article written in The Atlantic about Westmore, who's governor of Maryland. People talk about as a potential 2028 candidate. And one of the things that got echoed in that article was people feel like he has an authenticity problem. And some of it is some random things about his background that didn't quite add up. Again, in much the same way, these the small things that we saw with somebody like Platner, right? That was like, OK, wait, you said this, but was it this? And but somehow that kind of stuff sticks with him. And so it's again, it's why doesn't that add to his authenticity? Like, it means he's just a right there has there's again, there's this he has to be beyond reproach. And if he isn't, that isn't treated as one more thing that makes him that much more authentic. It's treated as something that undermines his whole thing. And it feels to me a lot like the Beyonce and Taylor Swift problem for the candidates of color, for the women of any race. You've got to be flawless. You don't get to be the girl next door. And so if you have to be flawless, any mistake sinks the whole ship.
Monica Healy: Where does the media fit in with all of this? Because if I go back to to Trump and your example of him like Teflon Don, right, that nothing sticks to him. And he it's baffling how he has gotten away with so much. And he really is out there speaking extemporaneously with no thought of any repercussions or what the political backlash might be. But the media largely ignores it. And if you take more of an apples to apples example, we look at Biden and anything Biden ever said or did was scrutinized to the nth degree. And and the media is largely responsible for that. So how do we how do we hold the media accountable for that piece?
Maya Rupert: We need more independent media sources.
Christy Branham: Yes. Amen, sister.
Maya Rupert: That's it. I mean, because what we're seeing is the limits of what we have right now. There is a look. It's the business of news, right? It's not news. If Democrats criticize Republicans, it's news when Democrats criticize Democrats. When Joe Biden does something and it gets criticism and Democrats join in, the news is like, oh, this is important. So they keep it going. They cover it more. That's not neutral, by the way. They will say that it's that's not a neutral decision because there's absolutely no like journalistic integrity or lens that's even put on this to go. Well, yeah, but the thing he did isn't itself newsworthy, right? It's well, because Democrats will join in, then we're going to cover it. When Democrats criticize Trump, Republicans don't join in. So the press treats it as that's just another day. That's just what happens. That's not the role of the media. That shouldn't be. And especially in a moment like this. But it is newsworthy that the president has done the things that he's done and that his party hasn't criticized him. It is newsworthy that we have a party that has enabled a diss ent into authoritarianism gladly. And when all of these people, the same people that just went through this, start trying to rehabilitate and you already start to see it, right? You're already starting to see the seeds of the people that are going to run in 2028 saying, you know, this extremism and we've got to get back to blah, blah, blah. And I have heard so many people recently being like, look, I'm a Reagan Republican. Where have you been? These people have let this happen. And the media cannot let it just be, yeah, I guess everybody just, Donald Trump did what he did. And now if somebody else puts a better face on it, we're going to pretend like it didn't happen. There is a role. There is an obligation for the media to say, well, wait, why didn't you say something? You were in Congress. You were in the Senate. You were in your state house. You could have said no. You could have pushed back. You could have worked with Democrats to get the National Guard out of some of these cities. You didn't do that. Why didn't you do that? There is an absolute duty of the media to be doing that right now. And that's, this is our problem. It's that we have let, this has happened and the media has treated it as though their only obligation is to chase a news story and not to report on what is happening. Like this is not, this is not spectator moment. Like the media has a role here and by abdicating it, they've become a part of not just the problem, but also the story. They are driving part of the problem here.
Unidentified speaker: Yeah.
Christy Branham: And in that same vein, let's talk about your Courier essay because you challenged the claim that Harris lost because her campaign moved too far left since we're talking about, you know, extremism. How do you separate the position she emphasized in 2024 from the broader party image voters brought with them? This, this is, I still am bef uddled that she lost that election after looking everything at everything leading up. And I, as, and just so that you know, I was a lifelong Republican until 2016. I had voted straight Republican ticket until 2016. I mean, I grew up in New Hampshire. I, on the East coast, I have very conservative parents. My parents are still MAGA. Um, but you know, in 2016, it really became apparent to me that, that repel, the Republican party was no longer the Republican party of my youth. Right. And so when I looked at, at Kam ala Harris's platform, I did not find it so far left that my Republican roots would have kind of eschewed it. You know what I mean?
Maya Rupert: Yeah. So I, the Overton window has
Monica Healy: shifted so much.
Christy Branham: Right.
Maya Rupert: I mean, I think it's a combination of things, right? Yes. The Overton window has shifted a lot. And Harris actually ran in a lot of ways out of step with a lot of what is the current base of the Democratic party. Right. She was trying so hard, it seemed like, to run a big tent campaign and her big tent moved more right than it did left. So I've never understood the argument that the issue is that the party has gotten too well. I mean, I think that a lot of that doesn't have to do with the facts on the ground on 24. I think it is that there are people in the Democratic party who think that the party has moved too far left. And, you know, I think they are, that that is an argument that people are, are welcome to make. But trying to shoehorn that into, and that's how we lost in 24, you know, the groups didn't force Kamala Harris to the left on any real issues. I think.
Christy Branham: No, and she stood her ground too. She was pretty well grounded in what her, her, her values were. And I don't think she ever sway ed from them.
Maya Rupert: She really didn't. And, you know, I think there is something to be said for that. Because I, I, I will say some of the frustration that I have felt with the conversation around, like, you know, is the Democratic party going too far left? And so many people who have said things like, I said this in, you know, I said this in 2020, but I didn't really mean it or whatever. Kind of like, look, you are not helping by, out of sort of fashion desperation, adopting the language of a progressive movement. Right. It, it, it doesn't actually benefit anyone for politicians to say, I feel this way if they don't. And with that, they're willing to abandon it sort of that quickly. So I always say, like, I really believe that there was a moment where we, we really had separate strategies, right? We had a political strategy that was about getting people elected. And we had an activist strategy that was about moving the Over ton window. And we had an academic strategy that was about, like, actually forming the legal and academic basis for our ideas. And activists would look to what was happening in academia and they would say, we need to do this. And they would go far, as far left as they could go. And then politicians would look around and say, okay, I think I can do this and still get elected, but I can't do this. And activists would say, no, look, we're organizing in your community. Look how many people are showing up. People agree with us. You can come here and still get elected. But at the end of the day, politicians knew their job was to get elected. Activists knew their job was to push. And academics largely were, you know, they, they were writing what they needed to write and staying out of the fray. I feel like a lot of times politicians, when they get frustrated with activists for an activist position, that's them not remembering your job is to get elected. Like, it's not, no one on the activist side is running interference for the Democratic nominee. Like, go as far as you can and still get elected. And activists, for their part, we have to reclaim the mantle of community organizing. We have to go back to, I'm not just going to push an elected official to say something. I'm going to go into their community and convince them of my position. Because that's how I'm going to get politicians to stick with me and stay with me. The activists, I feel like, kind of gave up on the organizing piece. And the politicians gave up on the piece that was like, at the end of the day, it's your job to put your foot down and say, no, if you don't think you can get elected saying something, don't say it. You might get people mad at you on Twitter that day. But that can't be, now the activists shouldn't be asking for things because you don't think, right? So I just feel like we've got to go back to a world where we could have separate strategies and be working toward a common goal rather than infighting where politicians are mad at activists for doing their literal job.
Unidentified speaker: Right.
Monica Healy: I think we've seen a little bit of that in Minnesota under Governor Tim Walz's leadership. He came from a very red district. He was a U.S. congressman first and then was elected as governor, probably because he was somewhat moderate. But he listened to the people. So the activists that were going into the communities and advocating for the policies, he signed the legislation that was put in front of him that did end up being quite progressive for a man that came from a pretty red district. So I like what you're saying about, you know, let the activists do their jobs in the community and let the politicians do their jobs in office.
Christy Branham: Right.
Maya Rupert: Right. And I think sometimes because of the way the social internet connected activists and politicians, and frankly, because people who've worked in movement went to go work in electoral politics, I'm guilty of that. It started being a lot more of that. It started being a lot more of a conversation between activists and politicians. And I think that's when we got the sometimes fair, sometimes not critique that it had become this sort of overly academic stylized, you know, we're just talking to each other and leaving regular people out of the discussion. I think that there has been more pressure placed on politicians and less focus on how are we organizing in our communities. Like when we started getting politicians saying the stuff we wanted them to say on a number of these issues, did we go out into the community? And also, and I, it's so interesting because, and I think I said this in the Cour ier piece, that the mantra, it's not my job to teach you has become a little too popular among people who are engaged, supposed to be engaged in public education. It is our job to teach. In a lot of ways, I want, I feel like it is my privilege to teach people because when I'm engaging in activist work, I am doing that on the shoulders of people who literally died trying to engage in public education and community organizing. That legacy, that is our birth right and it should be one of the things we are most proud to do. And I want us to get back to it because I believe that deep organizing is the only way out of this. We don't have trusted mess engers. We don't have a news media infrastructure that people are going to really rely on, but we are still in community with each other. And there are ways, there are some people who are where they are and I have no interest in trying to organize with somebody who doesn't, who, who, there's a baseline. If you're going to deny me or someone their humanity, there's not a lot we can do, but there are a lot of people who don't vote with us for whom that's not true. They're not, they, they, for a number of reasons, think a number of things and have been lied to and have been, and I think there is room in those places. And I think we have to be engaged in this because otherwise it really does just become, these people feel this way, these people feel this way. Let's see how many people show up to vote. I do, we've got to start exercising the persuasion muscle again.
Christy Branham: Yeah, agreed. Agreed. And you have a bit of a Minnesota connection because on, and we win, you spoke with Mitra Jal ali and Shaniqua Johnson about their experiences on St. Paul's historic all women council. Yeah. What stayed with you, um, that the national political story might've missed because this was historic that this happened.
Maya Rupert: It was historic. And when I heard about it, I was so moved by it and I was so grateful I got a chance to talk to them. I think what really stayed with me was we talked about so much of, of my podcast was about, it was, it was sort of when we win, what's it going to be like? Right. And the idea was so many times people talk about how difficult it is for women of color to get elected. But I was basically wanted to say like, there are stories of it happening. And when it's happening, a lot of times it's because people are challenging the conventional political wisdom. You have to do things this way. You could never do things this way. And they did them differently and they won. And so I asked them to talk about some of that. And one of the things they talked about, which I was so moved by was just the idea that in politics, we're so taught that everything is zero sum. Like if I win, you lose, that's how it works. And even friendships and allyships are very tentative. And I, I, what they talked about is forming, not just sort of like a slate, but a genuine, community where they were learning. And, and, and, and, you know, mentoring each other in a way that we're taught isn't how politics work. But when you get women in politics, and especially, honestly, when you get women of color, the solidarity that can exist there, we have such an incredible skill set that is taught to us for the exact reasons we taught, we started talking about them in the way that we're taught. And the ways that we learn how to comport with, you know, a dominant gaze and how we need to change ourselves. A lot of what that does is build some solidarity and builds these like, this like kind of capital. We, we, we develop this kind of social and political capital. It doesn't get spent because we are told that in order to be in politics, women, you need to behave more like men. Like the system wasn't built for you. So everybody just try to act like, like white men, like white men, like white men, because that's who the system was built for. And these women were like, no, we acted like women of color. We took care of each other. We were each other's people. And that is how we succeeded. And it's how we're thriving. It's how we are still showing up for our communities. And it's fun. And it's, we're having block parties. And we are making, like, it was so moving to me because it is what happens when you say, I know the system wasn't built for me, but when I'm in it, I'm not going to keep acting like it's not for me. I'm here. And I'm going to bring my people with me. And I, and I was so, I just, I feel like there is a, there is such a lesson for us in that for so many people who are trying to break in to the systems that weren't built for them. I'm not saying don't acknowledge it. Like, I think that one of the worst things we can do for each other is try to be like, ignore all of that. Like there are systemic reasons. It's harder. But when you get in, don't keep looking around and going, okay, this isn't for me. So I'm going to keep my head down. Like you're in there, reshape it, make it a little more built for the next girl. And I just, I loved hearing from them.
Monica Healy: That's how we create the matri archy.
Maya Rupert: That's, this is how we're doing it.
Christy Branham: I think it's time women were in charge in general because they claim that we're the emotional ones.
Maya Rupert: Well, when you can redefine emotion, you can do a lot of things. It really is interesting. The things we don't call emotion to keep the idea that women are overly emotional.
Monica Healy: Right. Where does that messaging fail from women in general, but also from the democratic party?
Maya Rupert: Which part of the, which, which messaging in particular?
Monica Healy: The, the, the part about, um, what defines emotion, you know, where women are too emotional, but, but this is emotion too. Right.
Maya Rupert: I mean, I think it's, you know, I think it's bigger than the democratic party. I think it's interesting because even. There are so many times where we will have those conversations and we'll concede the point too. Well, yeah, women are more emotional, but that makes us more emotionally intelligent or what. And it's like, well, wait.
Monica Healy: And connected.
Maya Rupert: Right. Right. Right. So we try, so we, we concede the point and then we just try to make it better. Sometimes we shouldn't be conceding that point. Like what, why are we more emotional? Like anger, just, that's not an emotion. Aggression, not an emotion. When men feel jealousy, they call it competitive. Right. Like they just, they, that ref
Christy Branham: raming, the reframing of
Maya Rupert: everything that would be something. It's like, they just call it something different.
Christy Branham: If a woman's bot isn't, a woman's not assertive, they're bossy.
Unidentified speaker: Right.
Maya Rupert: Right. And so, yeah, if, if you're, if, if we let that remain the sort of baseline and just argue from a place of, yes, women are naturally more emotional. We're giving up half of the argument. Like, I think we, we've got to just, we've got to start pushing back on, on all of that. Like we have now gone through, Donald Trump has temper tantrums in, right? Like he will, when he feels threatened, we have seen him get petulant, get angry, lie, you know, walk out of, like.
Christy Branham: Walk out of an interview, storm out of an interview when he gets asked the questions he doesn't want to answer.
Maya Rupert: Right. Right.
Christy Branham: And attack women physically. Lunge into them when they ask a question that's uncomfortable.
Maya Rupert: Try to be physically intimidating to get. And so at a certain point, we've got to let go of, well, you know, women are more likely to cry at work. So that's emotion. I mean, we've just got to let go of this, this idea.
Monica Healy: And I think we need to take back the idea that compassion and empathy are strengths.
Christy Branham: I was just thinking that.
Monica Healy: Yeah. Because the Republican power, the Republican party frames them as weaknesses, but they are not. They are our strength.
Maya Rupert: Yeah. I don't know the rhetorical wizardry that happened where all of a sudden being empathetic, our leaders being empathetic was something that they are, like, comfortable saying they lack.
Christy Branham: It's a character flaw to have empathy and sympathy and compassion.
Maya Rupert: Right. And I just, how do we let that happen? Especially when we recognize that so many of them have, don't have the same problems that the rest of us have. If you have billionaires who are running things and they lack empathy, what on earth chance do we have? Because they don't, they don't understand what we're dealing with and they're telling us they don't care to.
Unidentified speaker: Right.
Christy Branham: Well, we, we've talked about some really heavy stuff today. I, I, I, and ending up on that compassion, empathy, sympathy is, is really meaningful for Monica and I, because we, we constantly are preaching that empathy and compassion are not character flaws, right? They, they're, they're a higher form of thinking as far as it means to be a human. So let's, let's step into something a little bit lighter and do a lightning round. If you're up for that, just some fun questions. So I'll start it off and then Monica, you jump in policy memo or writing on a blank page.
Maya Rupert: Writing on a blank page.
Christy Branham: And why is that?
Maya Rupert: Which is actually funny because I feel like sometimes when you're writing the worst thing to see is a blank page. Yeah. But because, because I, I feel like already being kind of constrained by the memo and like, kind of like trying to take notes or do things. I already feel like too much is there. Like, I feel like we need to really like lean into our creativity right now. So I don't even want the like start of it. I want to look at a blank page and see possibility.
Monica Healy: So lightning rounds are supposed to be me going on to the next thing, but I need to grab onto that a little bit because you wrote this book and like, how was that process? Did you wake up some days and the blank page was a calling to you? And then other days where the blank page was like, oh my God,
Maya Rupert: there were, oh my God. The days when the blank page was like, I can't like for real how it's.
Christy Branham: When it almost writes itself. You don't need to worry about being inspired.
Maya Rupert: There were days where it just would come together. And it's like, I know what I'm trying to say. And it's just flowing in their days that I was like, all right, I'm going to write. And it's interesting because, because like I wrote a couple of chapters talking specifically about like Castro, the Castro campaign. And those are some of the days you would think it would just flow because some of this is memory. You lived it. I remember being like, it's completely blank. Wow. And I, and it, and I'm staring at it and it's mocking me.
Unidentified speaker: Yeah.
Maya Rupert: But like, sometimes it would just sort of come together, especially. I feel like I love when I'm able to sort of take a pop culture comparison or take something that feels a little distant from where I'm going and connect it. And so when I'm able to do that and talk about a show I love and then connect it to a bigger thing, that's when I felt like it was just like, I was on a roll.
Unidentified speaker: Cool.
Monica Healy: Okay. A song that will get you through an entire day.
Maya Rupert: Right now, it's a song called Going Shopping by The Strokes. It just came out. I'm going to have to look that up. Yes. It's great. It's the, the album, it's a reality away. It's, is a great album. It just came out this summer. And, um, Julian Casablanca is their lead singer is a good friend of mine and he's a brilliant writer. And I love this song.
Monica Healy: You have to look that one up.
Christy Branham: I'm going to add that to my, my playlist. Um, one political cliche you would like to retire.
Maya Rupert: People don't vote on policy. People absolutely vote on policy. They aren't going to read your white paper. Like they're not going to. And we, and I'm the biggest, I'm definitely do it. Pour over these documents and put them in the website. And, and a reporter reads them at some point. Nobody goes to your website and goes, I'm going to look at your plans, but they absolutely vote on policy because they vote on your ideas. They vote on what you're going to do differently for their family. So like the, I, like I hear it so much that people are like, nobody votes on policy. Policy doesn't matter. It's about your message. It's about, it's not your, I mean, if your message lacks ideas, people are not going to respond.
Monica Healy: One thing people get wrong about campaign managers.
Maya Rupert: Only one, no, that, you know, it is not the glamorous job that you see on the West Wing or house of cards or, and it is, it's, there are moments that you're having these unbelievable experiences and you're like debating really important issues with really smart people. And then there's a lot more time that you are managing an organization the same way you are with it. You're dealing with personnel issues. It's like you're moderating a fight. You are checking in on organizers and making sure they're drinking water. And you know, like putting out fires, sorry, putting out fires
Christy Branham: , putting out fires.
Maya Rupert: Like it's, but it's just the, the level of mundane it can be. I think people don't appreciate that. It's like at the end of the day, a campaign is it's an organization. It's a collection of people. It's a management job.
Christy Branham: And we asked this question of all of our guests. What's giving you hope right now?
Maya Rupert: A lot. Honestly, I, I feel weirdly hopeful. I feel weirdly hopeful right now. And here's why it really feels like people are responding to this moment and not saying, okay, everything needs to get back to normal. Like we wouldn't be here if there weren't a bunch of people who said normal's not working for me and I'd rather break it than just have somebody who's like, don't worry, we'll keep things where they are. To me, that's actually a lot of possibility because. That means people are willing to like, there's actually a moment of like real political imagination right now and candidates that are trying to like, there's, there can be realignment in that, right? Like you take somebody like AOC. I remember she talked about the fact that she has more Trump AOC voters than most people in the democratic caucus.
Christy Branham: I cannot wrap my head around that. How did that happen?
Maya Rupert: Like I just, she asked people, she was like, look, if you're a Trump AOC voter, tell me why. And what people said is like, I could tell like you, you were willing to break the status quo. And so was he, they weren't voting clearly. They weren't voting on ideas or issues. They were, but what they were saying is I need somebody who's who recognizes there's a problem and he's going to fix it in a big way, not tinkering around the edges, not don't worry. We're going to go back three years when everything was better because it wasn't better for them three years ago. And that tells me that there's a moment right now where people are willing to say, I don't consider myself a progressive. But if you're saying more money in my pocket and a job that actually pays me fair and safety for my kids in a real way, I'm willing to like break with tradition and go somewhere. To me, that means people are, are, are ready to realign. Like we can have an actually significant election that will shift how people are living day to day. Like that, the fact that people are demanding an affordable life and saying, it's not okay that we just say, well, yeah, I mean, you know, life's expensive and demanding something different. That means people are like ready for something different. And that, that excites me.
Monica Healy: That is a good beacon of hope. And I follow Heather Cox Richardson. And that's one of the things that she comes back to as well is that we're not going back to the status quo from before and things are going to break, but we have a chance to build it back the way that is going to work for us better.
Maya Rupert: It should have been. Exactly. Exactly.
Christy Branham: And that's what Gloria Steinem said. She said, in order for progress to happen, you have to break what is not working and allow it to shatter. Right.
Maya Rupert: Right. In an ideal world, it shattered differently, but. Right. Yeah. But he broke a bunch of stuff. We do have to come somewhere from it. And I think that, that means there's possibility.
Christy Branham: Yeah. And not breaking it for the sake of breaking it, like breaking it because you want to improve it.
Maya Rupert: Right. Right.
Unidentified speaker: Yeah.
Monica Healy: Well, tell our guests where they can find you, where they can find your book, where they can find your work.
Maya Rupert: Absolutely. The book is out now, so you can go pick it up wherever you buy books. And, you know, you can order it online or go physically in person.
Christy Branham: It's called The Real Ones, just so that people know.
Maya Rupert: Yes. The Real Ones, How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic. But yes, it is out in the world now. You can go to my website, which is mayarupert.com, and order from there. I am online. I am mayarupert on Instagram and Facebook. I am mayarupert, one word, on blue sky and on Twitter. I will always call it Twitter. Yes. Same. You can't rename a community. No. That's just.
Unidentified speaker: No.
Maya Rupert: It's a broke.
Christy Branham: Is there anything we didn't ask you about that you'd like listeners to know? Here's your last shot. I mean, I just. So we usually have a show rundown that we follow. We did not follow the show rundown today. But I felt like this was such a great organic conversation, though, because we just covered so much. And I actually learned a lot today. But did we leave out anything that you think needs to be said?
Maya Rupert: No. I will say I didn't realize you were not following the rundown. This was great. The conversation was. I think it was terrific. And I think I love ending on the note that we have a moment that has a lot of possibility. And I like to see where we are going.
Monica Healy: I love that. Thanks for keeping that hope alive for us all. And thanks for sharing your experience and and for being here. Like truly we're fangirling.
Christy Branham: Exactly. We are. And I'm going to make sure I put a link to your books and all the information for your website and the show notes, too, so that people can find you. And I'm going to just ask you publicly, you have to come back on the podcast again, because this is such a great conversation. I would love to have you back so we can talk about more cool stuff.
Maya Rupert: Love that. I would love, love, love that. I think there's a lot coming up.
Monica Healy: So yeah, I think we'll have
Maya Rupert: plenty of opportunity to keep talking. And I would love to come back.
Monica Healy: Perfect. Thank you so much.
Maya Rupert: Thank you.
Monica Healy: To our listeners, if you're finding meaning in the stories we're sharing, if something moves you, challenges you, makes you see the world a little differently, please like, comment and share. It helps more than you know.
Christy Branham: And follow us everywhere at The Politics Chicks on Substack, Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
Monica Healy: Thanks for being a part of our community, folks. Keep shining your light so we can find each other in the dark.
Christy Branham: And remember, we're stronger together. Maya, thank you so much for being on today. This was a great conversation. And I am looking forward to the next one.
Maya Rupert: Absolutely. Thank you.