Welcome back to Beyond Voting season two. Whether you're brand new to the show or you tuned in last season, we are so happy to have you here. Last season, we brought you thought provoking conversations with political candidates, activists, and scholars, exploring topics from the creeping threat of fascism to how to get started in radical organizing, all in an effort to drive home our guiding belief that healthy democracies really do require more than just voting. And this season, we're so excited to bring you even more of those same in-depth conversations with a stellar lineup of guests that I can't wait to introduce you to. Season two starts now.

I'm Emily Williams, executive director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College. Welcome to Beyond Voting. This podcast is rooted in our conviction that democracy requires more participation than just voting. It's up to all of us to take action if we want to see real change. We'll feature conversations with journalists, activists and scholars discussing the state of our country's institutions, ongoing systems of oppression and, most importantly, how We the People can take critical actions in pursuit of true equity and justice.

Okay, let's not beat around the bush, you all. The last ten months have been a lot. We've seen disturbing and often heartbreaking scenes playing out in our communities, with masked ICE officials detaining our neighbors, our colleagues, and our family members. We've seen the president use the power of the executive office to direct federal agents to arrest, detain, and deport academics, researchers, and workers who are here legally for merely speaking about their political beliefs. The military has been sent into U.

S. Cities to quell political protests and punish majority Democratic cities that have amnesty policies for immigrants. Our federal institutions have undergone massive regulatory changes, often with disastrous impacts as a result of the Elon Musk led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. We've all been confronted with increasingly grim political rhetoric, a lot of it coming directly from official government channels and prominent figures in the administration, some of which has resulted in deadly violence. And that's only the beginning.

Frankly, these changes and the unprecedented speed at which they've occurred feel overwhelming for many of us. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that our democracy is in immediate crisis. But just how bad is it? How did we get here so quickly? And if we're in such dire straits with no one on the horizon coming to save us, how do we save ourselves?

Our guest today is award winning editor, journalist and author Karen Attia. Karen is the former Global Opinions editor for The Washington Post, where her work explored the intersections of race, culture, gender, and international affairs. She's also a frequent contributor to broadcast media, with appearances on CNN, BBC, and NPR. Karen's also the author of Say Your Word, Then Leave, a riveting account about the life and assassination of Saudi journalists and her friend and Washington Post colleague, Jamal Khashoggi. We spoke with Karen back in late July, only weeks before The Washington Post, an institution she'd worked at for eleven years, fired her.

And she joined the more than 400,000 Black women who've been pushed out of the workforce just this year alone. The Washington Post took issue with social media comments she made while condemning political violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing. In a substack post addressing her firing, Karen wrote: The post accused my measured Blue Sky post of being unacceptable, gross misconduct, and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues, charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false. They rushed to fire me without even a conversation, claiming disparagement on race. This was not only a hasty overreach, but a violation of the very standards of journalistic fairness and rigor the Post claims to uphold.

When we caught up with Karen, she helped us examine the catastrophic impact of the Doge cuts, the ongoing ICE deportations and raids, and the power of an educated populace in the fight against fascism. But we couldn't just leave it there. We also had to get her thoughts on the ways we can all come together to resist the harmful policies enacted by the current administration, the power of radical empathy, and what it would take implement her vision of a radical political imaginary moving forward. Karen, we're so happy to have you. Welcome to Beyond Voting.

I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Emily.

Yes, thank you. So by the time this airs, you will have completed your first semester of Resistance Summer School. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. Would you talk a little bit about like what it was initially supposed to be and how it eventually became something open to the public instead of a course at Columbia?

Right, right. So, as you read in your intro, my background is actually more in international affairs. So I went to Columbia. I went to the School of International and Public Affairs. And as someone, you know, I'm a Black woman.

I'm a daughter of immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria, very keenly aware that this so called world order put Black people, Africans, at the bottom. I was obviously very keenly aware of race and the social and international, constructs of that. But when I got to Columbia and was a student, I was very frustrated with how that was never explicitly talked about. We were all supposed to, in the backdrop of the UN, supposed to just kind of behave as if these structures were natural and normal, we were being trained to, basically to perpetuate the same sort of inequalities, in my opinion. So I got a chance to teach at my old school and to design a course that basically brought all these thoughts together in terms of race.

How this process of creating racial constructs has been a mediated one, been a deliberate one, has been not just through force and violence, but through images and through headlines and through film and all of that. So I designed this to create the course that I never had as a student. And yes, got to teach for only one semester. That was during the time of the protests over Gaza, the encampments, and I was very vocal in my stance being against what I see as a genocide against the Palestinians perpetrated by Israel. I was very vocal about that and very vocal about protecting students' rights to protest that while I was at Columbia.

So, taught the course, very popular, actually over enrolled. And then a few months later, I was told that my funding would not be renewed for reasons that to this day, I still don't know. But I also do know. Do you know what I mean?

Right, I do.

We get it. You get me. Yes. Yes. In this time when I already knew that not only teaching about race was also systemically excluded anyway, right?

But that we were in an environment where teaching about race was being actively under whether it's CRT, DAI, whatever the point was, that teaching about race and bringing these dark, not only history, but these dark arrangements that we have today up was being actively suppressed politically. I always kind of knew that I was doing something that was a bit risky, right? Even if it was at Columbia, but I did it anyway. Yeah, yeah. That's so great.

Only for one course. So when they canceled the course, someone said it would be a strategic challenge for you to go public about what they did to you. And so I sat on it for a couple months. And it wasn't until I saw the institutional capitulation by Columbia to the Trump administration betraying the very values that I was taught at Columbia, that I was like, you know what? Fuck this.

Fuck this shit. Why should my syllabus, why should they tell me that I can't teach? Why should it be sitting in the closet gathering dust when this is something that not only belongs to me, but needs to be out there? I don't need to worry until 2027, until the storm passes, and then some committee is going to approve me to only teach 18 people because that's just this arbitrary limit. Right?

Right.

So, yeah, a couple of months ago, I just put on Blue Sky. Like, hey, guys. I've got this course and I taught at Columbia. Would anyone be interested in? Honestly, Emily, I would have been satisfied.

I if 20 people said yes, I would have been like yes, right? Like yeah, let's go. Like, honestly, this is something I I would teach under a tree. Yes. You know?

But then 2,000 people said they were interested. And then sold out in forty eight hours, 500 people. Wow. And plus scholarships as well. So they're completely community funded.

And it's just turning something that was like a cancellation into a real blessing in a community. And, yeah, this is an Ivy League course, you know, my Right. Yeah, this is, this is, I'm not diluting it. This is what I was teaching at the graduate level at Columbia, you know, race and the history of media and helping people to understand this moment today. This is what I say in all my classes.

I'm like my class. For all of you who are watching the news, are watching what's happening with this administration, are watching the capitulation, the ice rates, all of that stuff. Unfortunately, there has been a path that has gotten us here in this class. Going to help you answer that question. How did we get here?

Right, and it's such a testament to it shows that with the overwhelming enthusiasm about the course and that people are taking it and traveling from far distances to be in class with you just shows how hungry people are for this knowledge, you know? And it also affirms for people that, like, there is something more going on behind the scenes, you know? Like, people can see that and know intuitively that something is happening. And it sounds like your course is then also giving them an analysis in the history of how that's come to be. It's also, I would say, like a really powerful statement to Columbia.

Like, Okay, you might be able to push me out, but you can't shut me down. This information is still going to be circulating in the world. So that's awesome.

Right. But, you know, look, it's bigger than Columbia, right? And I think for me, even teaching at Columbia exposed imbalance and exploitation. So for me, it was also like, well, why should students have to go into debt just to listen to me? That's the very And essence of why should adjuncts be paid way less than they're worth?

Where is all that money going? And I've said before that a lot of institutions are turning into investment hedge funds with a little bit of education on the side. And they've become not education systems, but credentialist institutions more interested in credentials, right? So for me, this is also jailbreaking that system that probably should have been challenged a long time ago. But now it's like, yeah, can teach freely.

I can actually probably teach in some ways more rigorously without having fear that some donor somewhere is not gonna like what I'm doing and pull the plug. Right. And also it's a community of people who just really love to learn. They're not there because they have to be. They're like, Karen, chop the syllabus.

Chop the syllabus. They're like, give us the books. And I love it. I love it. It is I summer school love that.

I'm like, y'all like, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna have our we're gonna have our notebooks. I'll I'll drop my my back to school. Get ready with me with the pens and pencils, you know, that I that I like to use. So I think a lot of my mentality towards this is like, what does elite education even mean? This idea of like, why do we need these institutions?

You know, granted, of course.

Well, and I think it's interesting too, because it's like also, know, it's a fine line because this administration also is kind of thriving on some anti intellectualism and kind of vilifying higher education institutions. But I think what your model shows us is that certainly there's room for community based education that's accessible to all, right?

I mean, that's just room. That's the foundation. That's the basis. That's how all of these places started. It started as collectives of people coming together, knowing that an educated populace is an empowered one and is one that is more resistant to fascists and dictators and those who would want to kill us.

So

Thank you. And so let's get into that a little bit because we know that that's at the root of it. Right? So when Trump got inaugurated, he signed an unprecedented amount of executive orders. I guess if we're going on previous administrations, we would have assumed that there would be more time between signing orders and then actually putting them in place.

There's been ICE raids, you know, from LA to New York, diversity, equity, and inclusion rollbacks, and now this so called Big Beautiful bill, and many other things. From your perspective, why are all these changes being enacted at the same time? What's your take on the breakdown of democracy and the lack of the checks and balances that are currently being enforced?

So being a journalist and being in Washington during Trump one point zero, even then, seeing the breakdown, obviously, in norms and rhetoric and all of that, I think, for me personally, and for a lot of people who are willing to speak the truth, we always feared that the combination of Trump's incredibly powerful cult of personality was hampered a bit by the fact that he had these clowns around him. Like, right? Like, I'm thinking of Corey Lewandowski. He had these almost cartoonish racists around him, right? Fast forward to Trump two point zero, and it's very clear that they came in with a strategy.

They came in way more organized. So I spent the interim period, a good chunk of the Biden years, let's say, reporting in Texas. You know, remember those school boards' elections and parents talking about CRT and changing curriculums, banning books. What I saw in Texas in terms of the tactics, a lot of the tactics included speed. It included passing rule changes literally under cover of knights, right?

And doing things so fast with so much money and having a blitz around it that the left were blindsided and caught off guard that they didn't expect. So that has, for me at the local level and in a red state, that was the playbook building even back in 2022 or so. What happens with that is it is extremely hard to challenge. So the response is usually, oh, we'll take them to court. We'll sue.

But by then, the damage has already been done. So fast forward to what I see and what they've done this year already is I see a lot of that playbook in action. It is shock, overwhelm, past executive orders, literally take the keys away from workers, shut off access to their computers immediately. And they know that the response, particularly from Liberals from now, is, You can't do that. We will see you in court, which is a process that will take months, right?

But by then, a lot of damage has already been done. People are either losing their jobs, contracts being canceled, people's paychecks being cut off. So I think the strategy, this is what it looks like to use power. Right. By any means.

And we're realizing that our democracy is only as strong as people are willing to enforce the rules behind these arrangements, these agreements that we have about how to conduct, our government and our society. So not only has he come in with a better team, not only has he come in with, the real brains behind this are not household names. There are advisors who have very dangerous worldviews. In fact, again, going back to education, who have said outright, J. D.

Vance, let's say, has said that he believes that Harvard, these places of higher education, that their endowments are basically resources for the enemy, and so that they need to go after their money. They're thinking in terms of war, this is war.

Yep, 100 yep, percent, yeah.

And so what we're seeing is force, is starvation economically of these programs, of people's paychecks, of destroying departments. And again, it's happening under Trump, but this has been what the right has wanted to do for decades. And just finally found the right Messiah to carry out their divine mission.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What does this then say about presidential authority for the next four years?

We're in a scary ass place. Honestly, I mean, for those who have been paying attention, we've been seeing a long creep of the powers of the executive being expanded over the years, not just sort of executive orders, but more and more power being concentrated in the executive branch. What is frightening about this time as well is the lockstep almost of the executive and the Supreme Court, and the bypassing of Congress on many of these things, right? Dismantling a number of these departments. So much of this, technically, is supposed to go towards congressional review and approval.

But instead, we have a king. And it's very dangerous regardless of party. And I'm not, again, I'm not trying to say before people come for me, I'm not trying to say that Obama was on the same level. I'm not trying to say that. But what I'm saying is there were warning signs already that there was too much power being concentrated in the executive.

And

so it's part of the reason why, even under the Biden administration, again, let's take Gaza, the authorization of weapon sales to Israel bypassing Congress, basically bypassing the laws that we already have for vetting weapon sales to countries that are credibly accused of committing human rights under the Leahy law, it's actually by law that was being circumvented under the Biden administration. And yes, people are gonna come for me and say, No, but I'm saying that this norm, this precedent was already in the making before. Now we have a much more virulent, dangerous arrangement in the White House.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I agree with that. And I think also just the complete disregard for any rule order and really complete disregard for people's lives and particularly American citizens.

I mean, I think one could argue that the Biden administration bypassing Congress to provide weapons to Israel, that also is about perhaps a disregard for human life. But this administration seems that their disregard for human life is actually much more brazen and empowered, actually. And so I want to talk about one thing that was really destructive. So Elon Musk laid the foundation with massive cuts through DOGE, you know, the Department of Government Efficiency. Not to mention the stealing of our data without consent, Right?

And it seemed apparent that Elon Musk's role or his appointment to this role was actually illegal. But, you know, they justify Doge with this narrative of, like, weeding out waste, fraud, and abuse, right, which was really not present at the scale that they'd claimed. So can you tell us, what did Doge actually do? Have we already felt the impacts of that, and what might be the future impacts?

Gosh, I mean, even just from a social level, sitting here talking to you from Washington, D. C, I think we have yet to feel the economic impact on what this even means for this city. We realize that the narrative that has been pushed particularly by the right is that government workers are lazy, that they're wasteful, that inherently you must be coasting by. But I think what Americans are about to feel, particularly as we have multiple crises, whether it's we're already seeing this with storm season, in terms of FEMA emergency response all of that comes from, obviously, government workers. Another part of this, particularly from these sort of social racial aspects, is that, particularly in Washington, D.

C, a large number of federal employees, this is how the Black middle class was built largely in this country, was through federal workforce employment, right? So the thing about Doge, and again, having been working in Washington, having been, in a way, observing what largely kind of had been almost like a gulf, like a bit of a rift between Silicon Valley and Washington. I'm sure a lot of people remember Mark Zuckerberg testifying in front of Congress, and these old lawmakers clearly having no idea what he's talking about, being super disconnected. Like, there was this sense that Washington was too bureaucratic, too wasteful, just out of touch with big tech. And now, very quickly, I think in a way that is stunning, Doge coming in, and again, back to Messiahs, Elon Musk, having his own sort of come to racist Jesus moment where he goes from being largely kind of apolitical, and even not even just apolitical, even kind of a almost a bit of a figure of imagining a better, cleaner energy sort of world, going from that to now actively promoting supremacist theories and building anime girlfriends on X capturing media and now this deep alliance between tech and a certain vision of government that, yes, disregards lives, but doesn't seem to care for democracy, doesn't seem to care for processes, doesn't seem to care for what people actually want, because a lot of this is unpopular.

We're speaking about all this. A lot of this people disapproved. Like the polls are showing that. Like this is not what people want. The problem with tech, and I'm glad you said the word consent.

We're seeing a culture of, if you agree that democracy is ruled by the consent of people, that these people are supposed to be our representatives, they're supposed to serve us. But instead, what we're seeing, particularly with tech, and take ChatGPT, take these AI LLMs that are being forced upon us, consent is inconvenient. So doge going in, they're putting in keywords, anything that has to do with diversity. It doesn't matter if it means like diversity of being types in, it doesn't matter. It's for them, the sense that it's getting done.

It doesn't matter whose lives get destroyed. It doesn't matter. It's something that is very deeply and almost spiritually incompatible with this idea of consent and of input. Right? And so we're already seeing the disruption of USAID.

Millions of people who had access to lifesaving treatments now cannot get them. People are dying. They will die. Yep. It's marrying how do you create a democracy that is essentially, as we say, a necropolitic, where they get to decide who lives and who dies more efficiently and without input and consent.

100%. Because by the time that people are feeling the full impacts of the Dovish cuts, there will also be the cuts from the big beautiful bill, so called, right, which, you know, are we then able to say this was Doge and this was the big beautiful bill, right? So they also are really dodging accountability here. Just if we can really quickly so people understand, because I don't think people understand. What did Elon Musk do with our data?

And why did he want it in the first place?

Well, what did he do with our data? Well, we are still not completely sure, but they definitely were looking at access to what employees were saying with tax data. It's not just a marrying of Iran has business interests with the US government, obviously with Starling, with contracts and all of that. This is

Yep. And now Grok having a contract with the Department of Defense, right?

Right.

And Grok has an explicitly white supremacist bent, right? What does this mean for our safety and future as Americans?

It means they could build some of the most powerful weapons this world has ever seen, with little to hold them back. And we're not, we're just at the beginning of what artificial intelligence can do that is even released to the public, right? And with the data, yes, he's gotten the biggest, despite whatever theatrics he and Trump might have, Twitter spots or whatever, and then he's, you know, Musk had to walk back his statements in a way, right? Because ultimately, you're dealing with a man who has Trump as president, who has the force of The entire US law enforcement, and can still throw your ass in jail and confiscate your assets. Doesn't matter how rich you are, there is no bigger force than The US machine.

So for that to be married to tech in which they can I mean, obviously, we're also seeing same with Mark Zuckerberg? We're seeing more of these contracts, their next frontier being military defense. And Palantir, you know, as well. So we're looking at a very scary time where power is not just concentrated in the hands of the executives, but power concentrated in the hands of a few men who control our tech. So what are they doing with our data?

Not only lining pockets, obviously, but learning exactly, perhaps, how to not only control us, but how to surveil, monitor facial recognition. All that is already here. Access to where you're traveling, who you're meeting with, who you're talking to, who your friends are, what's in your retirement account, everything. And I think this is partially a consequence of our cultural readiness to give away our personal data in order for convenience so that we can shop and get cheap stuff on Amazon. Yep.

But power's never satisfied with what it already has. It always wants more. So while they get to go and launch rockets into space and escape this, we're the ones who are, through the cuts to the tariffs, coming to compete more and more with higher healthcare costs, higher rental costs, all this AI, none of that is going into making just basically living any easier for Americans. It's a scary time.

It is a scary time. And these guys, too, also have kind of an alternate view about what's next for this planet, right? Which is also partially related to the disinvestment in addressing climate change, because they actually think that they can take a rocket to Mars and that they will be able to live there. Right? And when they go there, they wanna have a very small group of humans who are there to then start life on this other to colonize this next planet.

So I'm wondering about your thoughts on ICE partnering with Palantir. And for people who don't know, Palantir is a software company that posts on their website real time AI driven decisions in critical government and commercial enterprises in the West, from the factory floors to the front lines. So what are the implications of our government agencies partnering with companies that data mine Americans?

I'm thinking of maybe a few months ago. There was basically like a conference on immigration, border security, and one of the officials was saying, Well, we hope immigration, we would love for immigration to function like Amazon Prime, we're able to be more efficient, right? Like using the same infrastructure that we all use to get our packages, our paper towels, like the next day, they could do that for getting humans out of the country. And we've already seen that this approach, this focus on quotas and numbers and trying to get as many people out, no matter how crude it is, no matter even if these people were doing it illegal or if these people were wrongly taken. This technocratic efficiency is one where it will be harder to challenge, and not just harder to challenge, but who do you hold accountable for things that go on when it's an AI or a program that has been programmed to make these life or death decisions?

I think on a legal frontier, we haven't even scratched the surface of who is legally accountable for an algorithm making these decisions. And so I just, I think a lot about that quote that we're hoping for our immigration system to set up a system that's like Amazon, literally shipping people out of the country in as fast as twenty four hours. Right. And they're testing that. And so, again, back to the question about speed and technology, and not just that, but the fact that there are countries that are willing to partner with us in this trafficking, basically, what I call human trafficking, are making money and cutting deals with The US, obviously looking at El Salvador, looking at the rumors of Rwanda, you know, that are to capitalize off of this techno fueled purge, ethnic purge, because it's not all immigrants, right?

White South Africans are getting fast tracked for asylum. So this is a deeply racial thing of tech aiding in the correcting of the social order through these companies that have been empowered by us, in a way. Again, deeply scary. And again, where's the not even accountability how do we get them to stop?

Exactly, exactly. I think that's right. How do we get them to stop? I think part of the reason why people are able to move so quickly right now is because the vast majority of Americans don't understand what's happening. They don't understand AI.

They don't understand the significance of data. I think there's a fair amount of people who are actually checked out of just the news and as it's unfolding every day.

I'd actually challenge that a little bit, only in from the sense that, yes, there are a lot of people who are horrified. There are enough people who horrified. That being said, we have in this country, the rhetoric, whether it's a Democratic or Republican candidate, the conversation around immigration has always been, we're not going after the good ones. We're going after the bad ones. We're going after the criminals.

And a lot of people either forget, didn't know, would like to forget that for a while, Obama earned the name of deporter in chief because he was deporting so many people. Tom Holman, who is the current head of ICE, was appointed by Obama. Holman deported so many people that Obama gave him a medal. When you bring that up, when I brought that up, people who are quote unquote, on the other side, liberals will say, But Obama only deported the criminals. It is not possible to hit those numbers and not catch people up in the net that don't deserve to be there, right?

So it gets to this question of, we always justify cruelty in saying, we're only doing this for the criminals, right? When, again, this idea of quotas or having quotas, the fact that under the Obama administration as well, children were representing themselves in court. I think for us, we have to deeply go back to the drawing board in terms of, this is why I have my costs, right? But challenging this notion of we can't say that, yes, what is happening is cruel and it's in front of my unapologetically cruel. But they're using the same rationales that previous administrations have always it's just the bad ones.

Right. Right. No. I agree with you on that. What I meant to say was that they're able to move quickly with tech, preventing the regulation of AI, I think, because the vast majority of people still do not understand exactly what is AI and what's capable with AI.

So that's what I meant. But I agree with you on that point.

Yeah. The scary thing, is, and back to the collapse of journalism as well, and people who are able to look into records and challenge this, is we're also living with an administration that is capable of manipulating data about what is actually happening. So even those of us who are journalists, if we were going to issue a FOIA request, immigration in particular has long been the hardest sometimes to get accurate information and responses from administrations. So again, you could see, well, not even see a future, but a moment where an administration says, Oh, but our AI, we've designed our AI so that we only go after the criminals. So whatever we're doing, because it's been done by AI and they're so much smarter than us, we've eliminated the process of error.

And we're supposed to believe that because it taps into what we're being told about what AI can do. And we're being told that it is vastly better than humans at doing anything. So this is where we are building a future where a government that is aligning itself with the technology that is supposedly infallible, then all they need to do is say, ah, but it was AI. So whoever says that, then literally, it's the word of God, basically.

I'm Emily Williams. Welcome back to Beyond Voting. I've been talking with award winning journalist Karen Attia. Before the break, Karen and I talked about her work teaching her resistance summer school courses and the power of an educated populace to resist authoritarian rule, the dangers of the growing alliance between tech billionaires and our government, and the deeply troubling consequences of this administration's much more streamlined second term. In the second part of our conversation, I talked to Karen about what a supercharged ICE budget could mean not just for immigrant detainees but American citizens in the future why the Democratic Party has seemingly shown a lack of will when they had the power to enact popular progressive policies and hold bad actors accountable and why Karen thinks going all in on radical empathy might be the only thing that can save us.

Karen, I wanna go back to Obama a little bit, you know, because Oh,

they're gonna come for us. They're gonna come for us.

That's okay. We can we can have a dialogue. We can have a dialogue with them. That's okay. And it's so interesting how Obama has come up now in conversations in response to what this administration is doing.

In the Washington Post, you said that Obama is not your emotional support president. Okay. So I so I have two questions in response to that. One, what did you mean by that? But two, what is it in this country's imagination that would position Barack Obama as a savior in this moment?

I'm laughing right now because, yeah, so what happened was the ice raids were broadcast everywhere on TV and people were like, my god, seeing things just falling apart. And there are folks on social media, both on social media. And there was an Atlantic article, honestly, was saying, there's Barack Obama, we need him right now.

I read that one. I saw that one. Was thinking, Okay, wait, what?

So and I just was like, what do you want this man to do? First of all, like, let him be. Second of all, like, there are other presidents who are like, like, George Bush is right there. In fact, to me, I think it'd be interesting if Bush spoke, because Obama has been in the ether talking about democracy and Yes, does. So I think it's a combination of a couple of things.

I agree that in terms of a democratic politician with the sort of rock star power, like Obama, yes, he was a cultural icon, yes. His rhetorical abilities are above and beyond. Yes, all of that was true. And in terms of star power, Trump has star power. I would say that he has political power because he has star power.

So do the Democrats have a whole lot of star power? Not so much. Obama and Michelle, to an extent, probably are still, the biggest stars of the Democratic Party, which is a problem because he's been out of office for a solid decade. So it's like, it speaks to the fact that, A, Democrats have not built their bench in this moment. And B, and I would argue this, that we have, not that it's Obama's fault, but this tanking of democracy, this white racist backlash is, I would argue precisely because this country had the audacity to elect a black man to rule white people, not once, but twice.

So I said it's almost as if white folks are burning down black people's houses, going after the ethnics, and you want someone who's representing the group that's being killed and massacred to come out and do something. When it's like, actually, particularly again, I think it's white folks who are calling on Obama to be the magical Negro to save them. I actually had people respond to me. They're like, he just makes me feel good. And I'm like, that's not I get it, but, like, that's not what, you know, what we need.

So I find it I find it in a way fascinating, futile. But he is coming out a bit more lately. I think they're paying attention to what we're saying.

I I think he's listening. Yeah. Actually. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's also a problem, because it never should have been about what makes you feel good. You know, that's what people said about George Bush. Well, I wanna feel like I can get a beer with my president. Mhmm. As opposed to, is our president governing in a way that makes life more livable for everyone?

Right? I mean, what are our values here? Also, you know, I think when we think about, okay, so there was a black man who led for eight years. I also feel like and it was particularly in in reading that Atlantic article. I felt like there was such entitlement.

Like, people are entitled to Barack Obama's time and to demand that he come and intervene. So that's problematic on its own level, right, when we look at the racial dynamics of that. And okay. So he makes you feel good. But what are you doing to address these crises that are unfolding in front of our faces day after day?

I mean, are really important questions.

Right. And then it's just also like, did we forget Obama was deporter in chief? So you like, y'all want like the same president that, again, I'm not before they come for me, I'm not trying to say that it's the same as Trump. Obama maybe did it a little more smoothly, perhaps. But and I wrote about this under that time, the Obama administration was sued for their rocket dockets for not giving people due process and getting people out of the country as quickly as possible.

So I'm like, y'all's minds, like, let's just sit and put our thinking caps on. Y'all are watching the cruelty of the raids right now, but you wanna ask a president that in some ways laid the foundation for what we're seeing today.

Right.

Make it make sense. It doesn't make sense to me. Right. But people just said, people could not see. And I think this is part of the problem, like, he was their guy, their guy could not have made any mistakes, not like the other guy, which I'm trying to, we're trying to say that it is wrong no matter which person does it.

We can't just go on vibes.

Exactly. Exactly. I was gonna say it in how they make you feel while they're doing these these things that are actually destroying other people's lives. So, Karen, just let's let's just talk a little bit more about ICE and potentially their next steps. Because with this new so called big beautiful bill, they supercharged funding to ICE.

And you've mentioned and and we've seen in the news that the majority of people who they're deporting right now are black and brown immigrants. Right? While South African white South Africans are able to come and seek asylum. Right? And for listeners, I just put that in air quotes, asylum in air quotes.

They're now building these detention centers. So how do you see ICE evolving with this influx of tax dollars in this infrastructure that they're building? But then also, who are the next targets of ICE when it's not just undocumented people or people seeking asylum? You know, what happens when it's just anyone? And do you see that being the trajectory?

Yeah, so the developments of not only ICE receiving insane amounts of funding and not only building the detention capacity and infrastructure for this, but one important part about this is the challenge to birthright citizenship, right? And this idea that, yes, if you're a citizen, this can't happen to you, right? But birthright citizenship and the naturalization process is actively being challenged right now. So you have the potential for people to be stripped. And this has happened in history before, where whether it was incarceration of Japanese Americans who were American born here, but because the powers that be deter- not even deter- I mean, The US, yes, was at war.

But if you go back and you look at the rhetoric at that time, not only the rhetoric, but the actions that you could be stripped of being an American if you were deemed to be an internal enemy. And so this is why watching the rhetoric about, particularly around liberal cities specifically, right? Because it's interesting to me how these raids are, we see the most intense in attacks when it's the so called liberal cities that they're at war, they need the military intervention, right? Whereas the raids that are happening that are closer to Trump's base, when they're at farms, when they're hurting red state small businesses, then, you know, it's quiet. But the point is, is they're creating a container for a world in which your citizenship can be challenged and stripped for any reason.

Mhmm. And I hope people prepare for that possibility. Not only possibility, it has been done before. It has been done in other countries, undesirable groups. You are whatever the government says you are.

And in an age where journalism is being challenged, people are on you have this meme making White House that can Photoshop things onto people, it is also the deliberate manipulation and distortion of reality. We're in a really, really tough time. So who has the power to control the narrative about who you are? So the line between who is criminal, who is not, who is citizen, who is not, they can make stuff up about you when they want you gone.

And they have all your data too, so that can be used to manipulate as well.

Absolutely. Yeah. So looking at ICE, I'm thinking about so many people, so many of us who said years ago, abolish ICE, abolish ICE, and we looked at crazy. Right. I guess if there's any, if I had any sliver of some sort of hope, I

don't know.

It's if

it's I hope so, Karen. I hope there's more than a sliver of hope.

I mean, I would hope that even within sort of MAGA worlds in a way that they're seeing a little bit that like, wait, this is a little too far. This is not what I voted for.

Right. Well, which is interesting because I think we are seeing a little bit more of that. And I think also with these Epstein files in the list where there was a list, now there's not a list. I think we are beginning to see where there could be a potential fracture within MAGA, and a potential departure from MAGA support for Donald Trump. What do you think it would take for that split?

Because let's be honest, right? We have heard some people come forward and saying, I voted for Trump, but I didn't vote for this. But also he still does really have support on the ground. And we're seeing glimmers of these fractures, even with Tucker Carlson really challenging Ted Cruz I on

never thought. Who would have thought? Or even Marjorie Taylor Greene challenging Epstein, or even her also challenging on US funding for Israel. I was like, the world is upside down. Exactly, exactly.

That being said, he still has power. We see how he goes after people who are disloyal to him. Right? So, but that's my small, tiny, from that side, I'm not counting on, I wouldn't like hold my, but like glimmers.

Okay, so you think then that like his MAGA base is pretty loyal and that even these things around, if he happens to be on the list, the Epstein list, wouldn't impact their loyalty to him?

It's so hard to say. He's been able to not only survive, but be reelected through the Access Hollywood tapes, two impeachments, January 6. I mean, to an extent.

That's fair.

That's why I'm like, I'm just not really one for like, I just like to look at history and facts. But that being said, I wonder if Israel will start to be breaking points. I do wonder, the Epstein case, particularly this space, particularly the sort of Christian right, has made a part of their culture being anti human trafficking, whatever that means to them. So for him to actively align with a universally reviled pedophile and trafficker is something to watch. That being said, I still I, in general, caution against holding one's breath for waiting for other people to do something.

I feel that. I know.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. They do.

We'll see.

Okay. Alright. A bit more about Obama and the Democrats. So at different points throughout the Obama and Biden administrations, Democrats effectively had a majority in both houses. And in one instance, they had a friendly Supreme Court.

So either through unwillingness to abolish the filibuster to get past the supermajority requirements needed to bypass GOP stonewalling in the Senate or kneecapping themselves preemptively by things like not considering a public option with Affordable Care Act. They've definitely shown a lack of will when it comes to enacting popular progressive policies. So what has stopped the Democrats from doing exactly what they say they want in the way that Republicans in this administration is doing now? And then also, if the Dems win back both houses of Congress, do we expect them to stand up and resist? And what would that resistance look like from your perspective?

I was just I can't see this, but I'm, like, smirking and LOL ing. I don't know, at this very moment in time, on July 22, 12:06PM, I've had it with the Democrats. I mean, you're not alone in In the sense, in the establishment Democrats, the sense of, yeah, exactly as you said, when there was an option to use and exercise power through abolishing the filibuster, which, by, in and of itself, has been used to protect some of the most egregious racist laws. It is a tool of our plantation past, basically, that they've voted to, or they've elected rather, to gain power and then not use it in order to protect the supposed values that they ran on. I mean, it's almost as if their strategy, which is less of an electoral strategy and more of a fundraising strategy, to fundraise off of being the perpetual loser or underdog, right?

After every big win, we get those texts from Nancy Pelosi being like, We need your help and we need your support. Well, what did this party do when you had that power? And I think there's been a fundamental breach of trust. I mean, now I would ask any of them, why should we vote for you again? And it's not enough just to well, we're not Trump.

Right? And if you're seeing a lot of the postmortems, even right now, they're even refusing to go back and look at the Biden Harris campaign. They're concluding basically that, oh, there weren't that many mistakes. Like, let's just move on. I mean, I think that part of what resistance would look like is fucking getting rid of whatever, like, old school 1995 Democratic consultant class, the same ones that for a quick second on the campaign trail with Harris and Waltz.

I don't know if you remember, there's a moment where Waltz was like, unleash and he was calling the like, do have kiwi folks who are obsessed with bathrooms? He's calling them weird. He's like, these people are just weird. And it was working. We're like, hell yeah, like, you know, this is the nice attack line in the right for a second.

Like they were flustered. We're not weird. We're, you know, but then they pulled him back. They benched him, that sort of energy. And it's a fundamental, almost like misread of not only misread, but an active abandonment.

They're more likely to fight against the progressive wings of the Democratic Party than they are against the right. Instead, we see this try to appeal to the right. Harris talking about having the most lethal army in the world and talking about her guns. Yet, again, benching the sort of that authentic not to mention carrying on with genocide and all that. But I think in terms of even for if you could even say where the party should get there are a lot of people that need to be primaried, to be honest.

I I agree with you on that, Karen. And I just wanna say for our listeners, if you all want a good postmortem on the twenty twenty four elections, go ahead and listen to season one of Beyond Voting because we got deep into all of these issues. And let me also just say about there's a lot of Democrats who need to be primaried. Let me also just say, if I hear another one say, we wanna reach across the aisle and we wanna try to work with the Republicans, That should've been out of the window a long time ago, and it certainly is not the time to be saying it now or expecting any kind of collegiality from the Republicans at this point. You know, I just heard Cory Booker, saying that last week in protest that this is not collegial when

Residue shoved into a locker. Is not collegial. He yelled as he was strapped into

We're a leaving. Yeah. We're leaving. Like, okay. We need some serious resistance here.

We also need some elected officials who are serious about getting good, solid policies passed for people. And we're not seeing that from the Democratic Party right now. We haven't seen that for a while, I think one could argue. So, Karen, okay, two last questions here, okay? Number one, if no one's coming to save us, how do we save ourselves?

You know, how can we as citizens create some accountability in the face of growing fascism, racism, authoritarianism? Are there some action steps, or do you believe all is lost?

No. I mean, of course, I don't believe all is lost. Ultimately, there are still more of us than there are of them. And I think to an extent, definitely, my little pocket of trying to do something in this moment was to create a space where people could learn about band knowledge about race and media and international affairs. And I think, again, as we talked at the beginning, speed at which that all this is happening, I think, has just been shocking to people.

And I don't blame people for being a bit stunned and having I mean, I've had my world torn apart in so many ways. So I don't expect for answers to come overnight. I do believe that we do have to go back to the drawing board. I do see, particularly as we're talking about an increased age of internet surveillance, data surveillance, that the internet, frankly, is just not as safe as it used to be. And so we're going to be seeing a lot more people getting back down to, even the politicians who are successful, it gets back down to literally talking to people, knocking on doors.

Just even the basic act of getting to know who your neighbors are, seeing these videos, not only of ICE rates, but communities coming together to fight off these officers and protect, putting their bodies on the line for their friends and for their neighbors or for people that they don't even know. I think we're gonna see a lot of mutual aid, people having to get into that in the interim as we figure out the broader political solutions. But I keep saying, yeah, we're gonna have to learn to organize at a very basic, basic level. Like, the culture workers are gonna be really important now. The truth tailors are gonna be really, really important now.

The educate the people with money also, it's look. Like, this onslaught has happened because the right is willing to put their money where their mouth is. The sort of lefts, the social justice space, what like, definitely, again, this reticence from power is also a reticence from actually giving people the funds to be able to organize in an exchange. One issue in the run up to the election that was actually a piece that I was wanting to do and did not end up getting to do or publish, but was that Black voting organizations on the ground were saying, were sounding the alarm, that they were not getting anywhere near as much funding as they did during the twenty twenty election. And they were raising the alarm, saying that this was they were the ones who were closest to their communities and knew how to reach their communities.

They were getting almost less than half of what they got for the previous cycle. So imagine what that is meaning for not only the arrogance of the Democratic Party that basically, you know, they were sending in their own consultants, who were not parts of their communities who had not done that work, but it just goes to show that if the so called left actually wants power, it's going to mean raising funds, raising money, because you're not going to win this against a side that is heavily funded. Their media is well, heavily funded, heavily organized. So to me, it's just those basics. Again, back to the drawing board.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Final question, Karen. In your radical imagination, how do we rebuild democracy from where we are right now so that we actually have a country where everyone has what they need and can live with dignity?

So you're asking me to imagine a new world. Like, what is possible? Yes. I mean, first of all, I think obviously a fundamental issue with this society is that our democracy, if you count democracy as giving everyone the chance to participate equally in society, that's only, frankly, been around since the Civil Rights Act. Also, that opened the door for many more advancements for immigrants, for women, right?

I mean, I fundamentally think that a better world and a better democracy is one where America purges its anti Blackness, as long as that is a fundamental core, as I said. I will argue until my grave that this country, anytime there's been Black progress, there's been fierce, fierce backlash to the point where, you know, whether it's integrating swimming pools and white folks being willing to pour acid into the pool so that they can't swim in it either, if the Black people can't swim in it, they can't swim in it to what we're seeing now, where Trump being the avatar of a reordering of society is destroying our media, our academia. Anything that allowed Black people and immigrants to thrive, they're going after firsts. So to me, a country that fundamentally is willing to allow Black people to live and thrive would be a first step to an actual multicultural democracy. Oh, well, and then addressing the it's a women problem.

This is a country that is actively trying to deny just bodily autonomy. It's not allowing people to be themselves. Right? So, I mean, it's hard for me to imagine because you're asking me to imagine a country that wasn't built on slavery and genocide. Right.

Right. To imagine if we were to start over again, if that was even possible, to start over again with a basic fundamental premise that there's enough for everyone, that there's enough land, and there's enough resources, that we have enough to take care of everyone. People shouldn't have to die because they don't have money. It's probably for another podcast, but I think it's a very deeply we'd have to have a completely different spiritual reset. And I'm not even talking about, like, a Christian or non Christian perspective, but a way from an act of hatred of empathy and sensitivity to others.

And this makes us a very weak country, actually, as we're seeing now. And I'm seeing it in action, that people who are able to have the strength to practice not only radical empathy, but are willing to get the power that it takes in order to put that sort of empathy into policy and practice. That's the only way. Like, we can't have all these nice and fuzzy feelings and be martyrs. No, I don't believe in that.

But for those who want to do good in the world to think deeply about power and not be afraid of that. I don't know if that answers your question.

Yeah. No, does. It's great.

That's why education is so threatening to them. That's why journalism is so threatening to them, because what that does for people who are able to read and people who are able to slow down, it's one of the few ways, not with AI, not with some chat GPT, but it's one of the few ways that you're able to put yourself in the experience of someone else. And it is the one way that you're able to expand yourself as a human being and expand your imagination as to what is possible. And that is threatening because fascism and authoritarianism is inherently narrow. They're the ones who get to decide who has merit.

They're the ones who get to decide who's a woman and a man or not. We are stuck in their very small imaginations, right? So we have to do a lot of imagination work to counter it. So that's where I'm at, which is why I'm in my sexy, radical professor era. Yeah, because I deeply believe in that, I deeply believe in walking the walk when it comes to this stuff.

So, yeah, we'll see.

Yeah. We'll see. Thank you so much, Karen. This has been wonderful.

Of course. Thank y'all for having me.

I'm so glad that we got to talk to Karen about the many threats to our rights in this country. But before I get into that, I first want to take a minute to address something I think is important to note concerning the growing and imminent threat to journalistic freedom. The points Karen made during our interview exemplified how critically important journalism and a free press are to the health of our democracy. It's essential that members of our news media remain free and fully unencumbered to report on the actions of our government officials without interference whether that be from the federal government, from the billionaires who own our media, or from corporations seeking favor or safety from retribution from those entities. Having access to the knowledge we need to recognize and oppose threats to our rights and liberties is paramount.

Any attack on that should be seen as an existential threat to our constitution and met with fierce and immediate pushback by all of us. Recently, we've seen a rise in attacks against the free press and free speech. According to reporting from CNN and The Hollywood Reporter, the newly appointed Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brandon Carr, who's also the author of the FCC regulatory chapter of Project twenty twenty five, made comments supporting the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel sparked criticism when he speculated on the motive behind Charlie Kirk's alleged killer during his late night talk show. Carr's comments came after TV station conglomerates Nexstar Media and Sinclair Broadcast Groups and President Trump expressed outrage.

Carr then followed that up by saying, We can do this the easy way or the hard way, seemingly pressuring ABC's parent company Disney to remove Kimmel from the air. It's very difficult not to read that as government overreach and a threat to the First Amendment. Increasingly, journalists and other public figures like Joy Reid, Stephen Colbert, Mehdi Hassan, Mark Lamont Hill, and Breonna Joy Gray have been taken off air or removed from their esteemed positions despite well performing shows and critically important reporting. And in September, the Pentagon issued new restrictions on what kinds of information media outlets can report on, threatening to revoke their press passes if they don't comply. It's clear that legacy media is in treacherous territory.

Now more than ever, we need to give our attention and support to independent outlets committed to speaking truth to power in the face of unprecedented opposition. Turning back to our discussion with Karen, I'm still thinking about her take on the transformative power of radical empathy and not in a sense of blindly sympathizing with people who do awful things in an empty show of collegiality. Rather, the kind of empathy that understands what makes all of us richer as people and our country stronger is a commitment to valuing and honoring each other's experiences. One that knows a thriving multicultural democracy requires an education in those experiences, a radical compassion for others, and the practice of those principles through our public policies. Now, before you accuse me of being too woo woo, I know that politics and governing isn't just about what makes one feel good.

We must still commit to holding those who've done harm accountable, because accountability is necessary to create the kind of change we need to see across our institutions. But I do think we have to evaluate our policies and our elected officials in ways that question the true impact of what we're doing and what we're not doing. And what does it mean not only for myself, but for everyone, particularly those who are most marginalized? I think it's fair to say that the moment we find ourselves in today is partially of our own making. As Karen mentioned, many Democratic leaders haven t shown the will to push through bold policies that would make life demonstrably better for working people.

Nor did they prevent many of the institutional failures we ve seen for several election cycles now, when they had control of all three branches of government, partially because of an allegiance to corporate interests over the will of the voters. But it was also a reluctance to hold bad actors accountable for fear of eventually suffering consequences themselves. That has to change. So how do we start building a better future from where we are now? Let's start with advocating to make higher education affordable and accessible to everyone.

Higher education has been politicized and demonized by the current administration and its political allies, and consequently there has been a puzzling embrace of anti intellectualism. We have to loudly reject that. Education is a human right. When people can read books about people's lives who are different from them, grasp how systems of oppression work, and then learn how to combat them, it helps them develop the kind of empathy and political practice that is the antidote to fascism and authoritarianism. When people lack an education that gives them access to financial stability, you end up with a populace so worried about meeting their basic needs that they're not as apt to participate in political activism.

And that's by design. Similarly, that lack of education has led many to take the function of our government and its services for granted. Many of the folks advocating so strongly for weaning out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our government through Doge cuts didn't seem to fully appreciate the need for FEMA, the Department of Education, the EPA, the CDC, farm subsidies, and similar government programs that provide critical stability to so many of our lives. In the haste to start running our government like a business or a tech company, they eliminated the critical, far reaching services that actually support people. A fundamental understanding of the function of government would make it clear that government shouldn't actually function like a business.

It should function like a government by the people and for the edification of its people. Many Americans have been able to live comfortably because of those programs for a long time. That's why it's been so shocking to see these long standing programs dismantled so quickly because so many of us didn't believe we could truly end up where we are. But now we're seeing the truth, and it's affecting everybody. Now is the time to get past the fiction of our American exceptionalism the belief that we are uniquely invincible.

That maybe if we just keep holding on, things will eventually work out. Or some hero will come to the rescue. But the hard truth is no one is coming to save us. There's only one way through our immediate crisis: we have to come together to save ourselves. We want to hear from you.

How do you envision the power of radical empathy to change lives in your community? How have the recent policy changes affected the lives of you and your neighbors? What strategies are you using to push back against those harmful local and federal policies? Tell us on IG at Arcus Center or drop it in your five star review of the show. The more folks who share our show, the more we'll grow our audience and be able to bring you episodes about critical issues that matter to you.

A huge thank you to Karen Atia for joining us and helping us get our new season off to an incredible start. We're so grateful for her insight and the time she spent with us, and we can't wait to see what she does next. You can follow Karen and her work on Substack, The Golden Hour, and on socials karenatia, that's A T T I A H, on Blue Sky and Instagram. You can also check out her past columns at the Washington Post. If you liked this episode, please make sure to share our show with everyone you know, friends, family, comrades, colleagues.

Also, a minute to visit us at arcuscenter.kzo.edu and check out the important work we're doing with the next generation of social justice and human rights leaders. That's it for this episode of Beyond Voting. Don't forget to join us next week. Until then, thank you so much for listening and see you in the streets. Beyond Voting is hosted by me, Emily Williams.

Keisha T. K. Dutas is our executive producer. Kristen Bennett is our lead producer. And this episode was written by Kristen Bennett and me.

Manny faces is our engineer. Marketing is courtesy of Fabian Mickens of FM Digital. And our music is provided by Motion Array. Special thanks to my team at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. Quentin, Adriana, Coco, Tamada, Kara, and all the students.

Beyond Voting is a production of Philos Future Media.