Episode Summary

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election was a triumph of political ecosystems and how much better the right has been in the United States at creating a full-scale ecosystem to funnel people into their party, but it also took place within a larger political environment in which many Americans are unsatisfied with the way things are.

For a decades, most Americans have felt that the country is headed in the wrong direction and that the economy is getting worse. But instead of realizing this and doing something about it, rhetorically and in terms of policy, many Democratic leaders have not responded to the discontent.

As I’ve discussed repeatedly over the years, right-wing propaganda plays a huge role in gaslighting Americans for the benefit of Trump and his fellow Republicans, but the situation here is more than that.

While Kamala Harris was able to motivate voters in the 7 main swing states through spending over a billion dollars, outside of those states, Democrats lost millions of voters compared to 2020. In many ways, the election was decided by people who stayed home.

We’re going to talk about all of this and a lot more with our guest Maura Ugarte in this episode. She is a filmmaker and professor of film at George Mason University and is the co-director of a 2012 film called Divide, which told the story of a West Virginia Democrat who was campaigning for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

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The video of this discussion is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.

Related Content

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— Religious fundamentalism’s intellectual collapse powers Trump’s politics of despair

— Bureaucratic obsessions are ruining America’s educational system

— The science behind why Donald Trump loves the ‘poorly educated’

— Elon Musk and his fellow reactionary oligarchs are much more radical than people realize

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

04:55 — Divide, Maura’s film about building left solidarity

07:54 — How left elites fell for JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” fraud

13:21 — Biden’s failure to inform the public of his popular policies

16:12 — Trump’s new voters strategy and the limits of a “protect democracy” message

19:56 — How Democrats missed real suffering

23:26 — The decline of public trust and Trump’s con artist pitch

29:55 — How Ross Perot foreshadowed Trump’s appeal

31:08 — Fascism’s critique of capitalism must be countered

36:51 — The power of solidarity to beat divide and conquer

45:09 — Blaming voters never works to win elections

49:22 — Hopeful messages for the future

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So in this podcast and my writing at Flux, I've been trying to focus on the idea of ecosystems a lot in the response to the election outcome. But one thing I want to make clear. That it's easy to say, and it is absolutely true that right wing media was a huge part of why Donald Trump won.

And also, some people's thoughts about the economy are a huge part as well. Now whether that was because of propaganda, that's another thing. But it's a mistake. It's overly simplistic to think that it was just. Only those two things or, her failure to, do this or that smaller thing, there were some other [00:04:00] bigger dynamics and well, and one of them is that besides the fact that Democrats don't talk to the public, they also don't listen to the public or know what to say, even if they were talking.

MAURA UGARTE: It's, it's funny though, like, in some ways, I felt like Harris was responding to political consultants who were telling her to message in a particular kind of way, which wasn't actually listening either, but like, it was just sort of this This very sort of bulleted point, if I talk about this and that and the other thing, and not talk about this, that, and the other thing, it's a winning message.

SHEFFIELD: And your, you've been kind of thinking about how Democrats could listen and speak better irrespective of platforms to the public for a while. So with the the film that you co-directed as well, let's talk about that just a little bit before we get further into this particular election.

UGARTE: It's funny because the thing came out in like 2012, but it seems to, and it's short. It's like 21 minutes long, and it seems to unfortunately continually be politically relevant. It was about a retired white coal miner in McDowell County, West Virginia, which is right at the Southern-- it's right, right in the most southern county of West Virginia.

It is one of the poorest counties in all of West Virginia. And this man was organizing for Barack Obama.

Film trailer: If we don't do something in this country, the middle class will be eliminated. There'll be two types of people again. There'll be the rich and the poor. Which it's going that way real quick now the way I see it.[00:06:00]

This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen. Senator Obama's support among hardworking Americans white Americans is weakening again. It's a challenge to try to elect a black man that's named Barack Obama. It is. It's a challenge. Two out of ten West Virginia white voters said that race was a factor.

These are Democrats, white working class Democrats who say in a general election, we're not going to go for you. If we're not careful, we're going to be in the back of the bus and they're going to be in the front. Divide and conquer is of course that's an old saying I know and everybody's heard it, but there's a whole lot of truth in that.

UGARTE: And the, the film, we can talk about how the film came about, which I think is actually kind of important, but the film just sort of tracks his organizing efforts, media the mainstream media messages, both from the right wing and also a little bit from liberal media, mainstream media. and then also integrating that with the labor history of the area and try to tell this broader story of why we're, why we're seeing what we're seeing. And the sort of mechanisms of that, think that's what is important. continuing to be relevant.

And I, I have, I, I've unfortunately encountered a lot of liberals who have very retrograde ideas of what it to be from West Virginia or from Appalachia to be a white working class person, I think.

How the center-left fell for JD Vance's "Hillbilly" fraud

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and that's, ironically, that is those, those, uh, [00:08:00] hottie perspectives and opinions. That was actually when Howard, the success of JD Vance's Heelbilly Elegy book because that book, it was It was marketed as being, well, this is an explanation of why these people did this, but actually what it was, it was just this protracted harangue against, these dumb idiots.

They, they they've thrown their lives away on drugs and they're lazy and they won't move away. They should just leave. But instead they want to stay home and be on drugs. And that's why they voted for Trump,

which is not true at all.

UGARTE: I would remind everyone, I was given this book by several people at the time, people that I loved, people that I cared about liberals, right? People of the left, even people to the left of liberals were giving me this book. He was a darling of it was on the New York times bestseller list.

And if you read it, I only made it a partial way through to be, to to be honest, but he's basically blaming white working class people. He's blaming them for their situation. And,

and basically saying the reason why you can't give welfare to these folks is because they will spend it on drugs. doesn't mention the Sacklers. He doesn't mention any kind of structural problems, right? but he was a way for people to somehow understand the Tea Party. I, I, I, it's a bit absurd.

SHEFFIELD: It was, yeah, and, but it, it, it did, it fit, his narrative fit very nicely into the neoliberal conception of, of what being working class in America. And, and like the other thing also is that they, the people who were touting this book, most of whom I assume never read it, uh, [00:10:00] but if they had they clearly didn't understand what the point of it was.

But, but, from. The other, it also perpetuated another problem that really pervades a lot of elite left discourse about people who are blue collar is that they, they, they racialize so much of it when, and what this election in 2024 really showed is that, All these issues are not racial in a lot of ways.

So Donald Trump won Latino men for the first time of Republican had done that in a very long time and did very well with Latino women. And, and got higher margins among black men. And interestingly enough, did not. Do any better among white men. So

UGARTE: I did

SHEFFIELD: that was you know, and you can say well, maybe he's maxed himself out there, but but what that shows is that he actually, he gained some support from these new voters but he also lost a lot of white men supporters, but it didn't matter because he had these other new people Mm

UGARTE: the reason why Michael the co director, Michael Miller, the co director of the film may like we, we decided to make the film was that during the Dem primary in 2008, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and their surrogates were saying that the reason why you have to vote for Hillary Clinton was because white. Working class people would never vote for a black man, which is an inherently racist argument and it like the also working class people are not all It's a big diverse group and it What we've we Felt we were watching was a whole, but once once won the primary, it felt like mainstream senior news editors were sending reporters specifically to Appalachia, but, but also very, very [00:12:00] much to West Virginia, because it, it, it has such a tradition of being blue to find the white. Dem voter who voted Dem for all of their entire lives, who wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he's a black man, as if all of the racists who are low information and vote against their own interests are located in this one particular state. And that is, that is. It's so upsetting and so offensive and not and I think that thinking is what, what, where, why we find ourselves where we find ourselves.

I should have mentioned prior about McDowell County, West Virginia, is that unlike the rest of West Virginia, it has a 16 year history. least at the time when we were there, I don't know what it's looking like quite now, but like 16 to 17 percent of the population of McDowell County was African American for, for coal mining reasons, like for very specific reasons. And now it is, it, it went they voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and now it is not only red.

It is quite red, that

county.

SHEFFIELD: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Biden's failure to inform the public of his popular policies

SHEFFIELD: And, and one thing about this though, is that with the presidency of Joe Biden, I mean, I think it is, we have to say that it is true that he. Did, do put in a lot of progressive policies. But those policies were, and this is where media does, was a factor, but it wasn't only media.

It's that, so these policies that he put in, a lot of people don't know that they happened. Either they haven't gotten into effect or, like Biden as the president. did the fewest number of press conferences of any recent president by far. So he wasn't out there, telling people what this is, what I have done for you, this is what I did.

And Harris [00:14:00] didn't really do that either. And so to a large extent, it was like they expected, and I kept seeing all these complaints about, well, the mainstream media, they won't report all these things that Biden did. And it's like, well, If the very least she should be saying you're going to expect them to do your, her work for her.

UGARTE: No

SHEFFIELD: that doesn't seem right. Oh, in,

UGARTE: were, like, asking people, like, what messages are they going to respond to, what they're not going to respond to. And clearly, whomever they're paying of dollars and, and I, personally, I'm quite frustrated and probably will be to the end of my days that that the Clintons in 2016 and Hillary and that whole establishment around forced her through because I'm relative, I counterfactuals, whatever, but like, I'm relatively certain that Biden would have won. Easily, based

on the same, yes,

SHEFFIELD: in, in 2016.

UGARTE: stuff that he was talking about in 2020. Yep.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I, I think so. And it definitely would have been better from an energy level, But you know, the other thing also though, is that so this, it was like, they they really did believe that, policies speak for themselves. And so like there was this, this idea and people started calling it deliver, deliver ism or delivery ism the idea that if we deliver policies that are good and helpful to people, they will appreciate that and they will vote for Democrats.

And

UGARTE: Especially because of 2016, right? It's very

frustrating. Well, that,

SHEFFIELD: what do you mean?

UGARTE: that, the denial, like, that because they are, they will receive votes.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, it is. It's, it's [00:16:00] very, I mean, frankly, astonishingly naive that people who call themselves political professionals would advance these beliefs quite frankly, and, and I just to look at the numbers here. So,

Trump's new voter strategy and the limits of a "protect democracy" message

SHEFFIELD: I think Democrats haven't figured out that a lot of people are not paying a lot of attention to politics and it makes sense that people decide things on what they see.

And so if you're not there speaking up for yourself. Then then why would they, make up your justifications for themselves? They're not going to do that. And that's especially true with, with, younger people and, and newer voters. And just looking at the, the exit poll data. So, of the 8 percent of people who said that this was the first year they had ever voted, Trump won 56 percent of them and Harris won only 43%.

So That you could argue that was the election right there they were new to the system and Democrats were not there for them in one way or the other. And then of course, now we're going to have to the one, the biggest wild card, of course, in the election is that not all the votes are counted at this juncture, but about 7 million people who voted for Biden did not vote at all and Trump got about the same margin that he earned vote total that he had last time

And so the question is, why? What what's on the minds of those people who stayed home? We don't know that yet but we definitely need to know. But you know if I had to guess I would say that I mean, this was a, a huge record turnout in 2020.

And a lot of that was probably people who were just really mad at how messed up things were under Trump. And they were coming out to be against him. But notably Trump himself also, it massively increased his total from 2016 and 2020, and then he kept it. He had [00:18:00] badly messed up in 2020 and in his presidency, the, the number one task that he was assigned, by fate to accomplish was to handle the pandemic.

Because of his incompetence hundreds of thousands of people died and the economy was destroyed because of him. And so he failed at that. And that did probably is what motivated these people to come out and show up against him. But then come 2024, he had riled up a lot of people to come and support him anyway, despite how bad things were.

And they kept Out there to continue to support like that is the a power of the right wing ecosystem that He had he had messed up so badly As president and then you know was a traitor to the country the only president in history to resist You know leaving the office And he still was able to get people to come out and show up for him.

And then you know, whereas democrats And they kept running on the protect democracy. Trump's a fascist and look, that's all true. All that stuff's right. But that's not something that is going to resonate with a lot of people. That's I think that's what we have to admit.

UGARTE: I think I have a variety of thoughts here. I don't have a polling background like you do. So, I, make films. I talk to people. The professor, I talk to people, but so. this for what it is. But I, I think a lot of folks who voted for Trump understood of the general shape of who he was and were disgusted by him, but did it anyway. And then there were a lot of

people who just didn't, who just was like,

SHEFFIELD: Oh yeah.

UGARTE: I'm not going to vote. And those two categories are gettable voters. And they are both doing a disruption vote.

How Democrats missed real suffering

UGARTE: And, I've been banging this drum for so long [00:20:00] the liberal establishment, seems to be, Quite hubristic.

Like you do need to deliver on the things that you're saying that you're going to do. And while Biden did to a certain extent and did not message enough around those things you still have huge problems. Like, like. Like inner city poverty, like people, places like in DC or in the areas that I live, but like Philadelphia, like all these, like people are really suffering in rural areas.

People are really suffering. And you really do need to deliver some kind of message that you are going to something. But the problem is like. they voted Obama in, it wasn't, it wasn't tactile enough. It wasn't, it wasn't enough

SHEFFIELD: yeah. Well, and especially with inflation, like. Democrats did not understand how to respond to that. Like they, so inflation started going up globally after the pandemic as supply chains restarted. And and there was some profiteering and greed as well. And then actually there also was the Donald Trump had explicitly raised gas prices actually right before he left office and, but Democrats didn't tell anybody that this happened that he had done that.

Like, that's what they should have, like, he did it actually before the election that he, he signed a, a deal with Saudi Arabia to raise gas prices. Like to me, I, that's something that everyone should have known about. And, but they didn't. And then But then, irrespective of that, once inflation did start happening going up, they didn't talk about it.

Like I, I looked in the White House press. archives of the, of the Biden administration. And they almost never talked about it in the early months of it going up. And then they took so long and it's not all their fault because obviously Joe Manchin and Kyrsten [00:22:00] Sinema were there ruining things.

But you know, at the very least, if people are ruining things for you, then you should be talking to the public about how these people are causing problems for you. And 'they're doing this to you, not me, they're doing this.' But yeah, so it took like almost a year when I, just short of a year of them to get the inflation reduction act out the door.

UGARTE: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: and they lost all that time and with that. And, and then after inflation started to go down and again, Biden deserves credit for that. A lot of the policies that were in the bill were inflation reduction, like forcing drug companies to take less money for their products, things like that.

So when it started going down, they didn't, let people know that that happened, but then at the same time also didn't understand that people still felt the pain of it. Because even if the prices weren't going up as high as quickly, they were still a lot higher than they were before that.

UGARTE: Like,

Like, there's, we were talking about, like, there's a vaudevillian aspect to Trump and that clownishness like, the Dems have also. Clownish they, they they have not, they talk in one way and then things don't end up happening in the way that they're talking. Like one of the things that was really important to understand about.

The decline of public trust and Trump's con artist pitch

UGARTE: Uh, 2008 was the election was the Iraq war, and that that is still an under discussed issue, particularly in working class communities and particularly in working class rural communities where you, you were sold this idea. And it was an utter disaster.

People lied to you left and right, and a lot of folks just see the system as rigged. voting for Trump or, or just simply not voting I think [00:24:00] that's, that's partly how you account for an Obama Trump voter. It's also how you account for the kind of split tickets that you're seeing in 2024. People just simply don't trust.

And, and, I think that that is a completely reasonable thing to, to feel.

SHEFFIELD: yeah, well, because, I mean, a lot of the people in power did lie to them. And or if they weren't, let's say you don't want to accuse them of lying at the very least, they were so terribly incompetent that they made it hard for people to trust them. There's This narrative that really has taken hold of a lot of people that, Oh, the public health authorities, they were wrong about everything. They lied about everything. They were too, tyrants. And, and these things are not true because, they were explicitly saying all along the way, look, we don't, know what this virus is.

We don't know what it's going to do. So we're putting these precautions in here as a matter of, just because it could be a lot worse and we don't know. And also it was Trump who did these things, not, not Joe Biden. And that, that's, that's something that the Trump supporters just kind of casually threw out and pretend didn't, wasn't there.

But you know, they were, they've been very good at creating this story of the pandemic that is favorable to their ideology. And There is no counter story to that that is more factual based from the other side. At least I haven't seen it. Have you? Mm

UGARTE: should be, in a sense, that like, the, some aspects of the institutions did fail us and even, like, the mistrust there, that is a failure. Of of our liberal democracy, right?

and,

SHEFFIELD: hmm.

UGARTE: I, I have particular interventions other than listening actually, when, when are telling, [00:26:00] telling people what the issues are. I, I think that is It's something that apparently we're in the, the DEM establishment is incapable of doing.

SHEFFIELD: They seem to be. And, and yeah, and I, the, the paradox is that, the Democrats, Aspire to be the party of the people, but they actually never listened to the people and have no idea what they're saying. And, the only real method of them trying to know or pay attention is through polling or focus groups, yeah. And I say this as somebody who is a former pollster myself that there are severe restrictions on what you can know from the public through polling even if all your methods are sound and all the, your sample group is, is Reliable. It's, it, it's a formal setting and it's, you're, you're asking people to understand the question the way that you have worded it and expecting that they will understand it the same way.

And, and you're in many cases, these are just multiple choice answers. And maybe somebody has a different answer for what this question would be. And, and, and then the focus groups are also problematic as well, because it's just so easy to skew these focus groups because a lot of times people are just going to sit there and echo whatever the loudest person in the room says, or the person who can talk the most says.

UGARTE: Democrats really seem to lack imagination, right? Our, like, the policy platforms of the Democratic Party should be aspirational. They should, need to have, we need to have not poll driven politics. platforms. We actually need to be able to shape to have an imagination, to shape a politics is broadly focused on liberation.

That's really important. That I think is what we should be doing and having poll, [00:28:00] polling, just as you said, like where you're, you're not really quite able to extricate bias from the way that you're asking the questions and who you're asking them from. Like that stuff, of course, is important, but it shouldn't be in the driver's seat. We should be

able to

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

UGARTE: a

politics.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and you were ex Yeah. And you're expecting also people to understand how to articulate what it is that they're thinking. Like that's, that can be extremely problematic because, and, and that's why I think the talk radio and podcasts it, besides being really great for pro, propaganda purposes of disseminating the, the right wing messages, they're also very good at helping them understand.

You know what the audience wants what motivates people and what they're thinking about So whether that's people calling in and saying what's on their mind or just simply them elevating particular hosts or or or Creators who are who are talking about certain issues. So maybe they they can't articulate What their beliefs are about something but they they really like this one guy who he tells it like it is about You know these four or five things And you know that those are those are real You I much more reliable barometers of opinion, I think

UGARTE: I

SHEFFIELD: or at least additional ones.

UGARTE: like, a figure like Bernie Sanders in 2016 was able to focus energy, was like able to focus people's discontent, was able to focus it into a real political movement. And I think, I guess we're hoping for someone to rise to the top now, but it seems to me after this last election, no Superman is coming to save us.

SHEFFIELD: Doesn't seem likely now at this point. And yeah, and,

How Ross Perot foreshadowed Trump's appeal

SHEFFIELD: and like with Sanders though typically in the past [00:30:00] when a politician had come along and kind of created a new movement, usually what the parties had done in the past was to say, okay, well, I'm going to identify what the things were that that person was talking about.

Then we're going to, Take them over those issues and incorporate them into our thing or their way of talking about things. So like Ross Perot is a great example of that, that Republicans hadn't talked about, national debt or trade. And Donald Trump in a lot of ways actually kind of absorbed a lot of the Perot message.

And the bluster and the showmanship like it was right there in front of us that you could see that a lot of people wanted this You know straight talking billionaire who tells it like it is and wants to keep the foreigners out like that was a that was a thing there and and you can't just The the problem that democrats have and and there was a great piece that that we've been talking about amongst ourselves about how There's this, economic think way of thinking and it's sort of almost completely paralyzed democratic establishment that, and it's a, it's a manifestation of neoliberalism, largely this, this idea that everything is about economics.

Fascism's critique of capitalism

SHEFFIELD: And you have a personal familial background to this topic here, because, the unpleasant reality is that fascism has a very effective critique of capitalism. And you have seen that and your relatives have seen that.

UGARTE: and I also, I'm like just to contextualize some of the other things that we've been talking about. I, I also have a personal relationship with West Virginia and I also grew up in mid Missouri, so I have these like rural roots, but yeah, my, my grandparents are. what I would describe as self exiles from the Spanish Civil War. My, my great grandfather was a governor in the, in the Second Republic, which was, so Spain has a very short history of democracy. This is, it's been its longest run, which is about 45 years or so. And yet my great grandfather was death marched across [00:32:00] parts of Spain and my beloved grand uncle spent a significant part of his life in exile, and, my, my grandparents suffered pretty significant health mental health challenges and that stuff kind of all rolls downhill. So for me, the stakes feel particularly high, but if you look at Spain you did have extremely polarized society. You, you can't have dear leader without. a huge portion of the, of the citizenry that support it. This is, this is quite dangerous. It's very dangerous. And I'm not trying to be histrionic here about, I'm not saying that that's what we're about to face here.

I, I just think that the stakes are high.

SHEFFIELD: Hmm. Well, they are. And and the, the, the critique though of, of fascism, of capitalism, what it, what it does is it, it's very eager and willing to point out how, some people are economically left behind but it also does fit to kind of the more, emotional and psychological problems with capitalism as well.

and it's absolutely the case, you know, economics. is not a way of living. We are not economic beings as humans. We are much more than that. And if you have a party that only can speak in economic terms and only thinks in economic terms about efficiency and about maximizing benefits and utilitarianism, like that's just crap to a lot of people.

Like it's and look and I love talking about those things But this is the reality that we live in, and like we're seeing you know I mean like the the commodification for instance of of dating, you know through that, it used to be it was a very organic thing that people met people through their friends or through community associations [00:34:00] or groups or religious organizations, whatever it is It was very localized.

It was non commercialized And it worked pretty well for a lot of people. And now dating has been completely centralized, corporatized. And it's just disgusting to a lot of people. And this is just one area.

UGARTE: said, I think Vance actually talks about these kinds of issues quite well, and he, he talks about, like, what, you're gonna give away your humanity for some plastic stuff from Amazon, right, but then his, of course, answer is blood and soil. That, that, that is how you, that is, you

you just

SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm.

UGARTE: a group of people who have no power and march forward, like, no matter, no matter the consequences to, to certain, certain categories of people's lives, they're, they're fine to be eradicated. I was listening

to this interview with this guy who leads the Manhattan Institute or some right wing think tank. But he gets published in, big mainstream publications, blah, blah, blah, interviewed, widely quoted. And he said that what he really wants us to do as a country is invest heavily in prisons. That is his Intervention. Yes. And, and, like I said, he, he is well paid, he is, leads a major think tank, publishes papers that then, trickle down, or trickle up, I guess, into, into the the political discourse and he said it so easily, so smoothly this stuff is.

Bad.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah,

UGARTE: Bad.

SHEFFIELD: it is. and yet, like, again, because there is, there is not a media platform ecosystem, there's not a [00:36:00] communications platform. Understanding and then there's no appreciation for, the psychology or the and I don't, I don't want to use the word spirituality, but in some sense you could say just the emotional wellbeing that people are feeling.

And it is a paradox because like Republicans basically declared war on reality beginning in about the 1950s with William F. Buckley and these, reactionary figures who came in and took over the party. Like the problem with trying to defend reality is When you've got people who, when you've got a system that does suck for a lot of people and people are hurting, they're unemployed, they're, they don't have friendships, they don't have relationships, they don't have things that they want and should have as humans.

And we can't turn around and say, Oh, everything's fine.

The power of solidarity to beat "divide and conquer"

UGARTE: One of the things that I learned specifically making the movie Divide was how unions were such a central part of telling the story. So, so many folks. belong to unions and this is where labor history was taught and passed down and these ideas of solidarity and these ideas of like this solidarity is the only way out. Like this is, this is how we build movements. This is how we win against, the wealthy elites.

And we, and that story, labor history in the United States, which is so robust and amazing, it's not taught in schools, right? So it was the one place where it was. And then also in the military, right.

In terms of diversity, not, and not in terms of solid. Well, yeah, I guess it's a separate. Type of solidarity kind of message, but that diversity is our strength. And like, like coming together, like, these are very important institutions for telling the story of how we make everything better for the majority of people. And we don't, [00:38:00] don't have that now because the right has exploded it. The there is no society, like the And Reagan and all, all of that stuff. So I think that's also a part of, we're talking about media ecosystem, but it's also, I think that's also a very important part to discuss.

And I think that's also one of the reasons why higher ed is under such pressure right now, because it's, it's one of the last places where even any kind of story is being told about that, even though that's not what the main story is.

SHEFFIELD: The value that unions did provide to a lot of people who were never going to get formal education. And even to ones who did, like, again, like a lot of colleges, most colleges, I'd never heard of colleges that have a requirement to learn about these things, which I think they should.

UGARTE: right?

SHEFFIELD: But you know, like, You might yeah, you might at least see some of it. And yeah, like, but even unions, as they were became more beleaguered and under attack by the government from Republicans and also some Democrats as well. We have to say that that they, they focused all of their resources purely on survival and not enough on, on trying to, Expand because if you if you can't bring in new members, then you're not going to Whatever is happening to you on the economic side.

That's you're you won't have any hope of getting new Organizations new businesses to unionize like you have to spend on this and and they stopped to a large degree and but I mean ultimately the like what you were saying the idea of solidarity like That's that is the message that has to be understood and it's the only full You Full spectrum critique and response to capitalism in a way that is empowering of everyone.

Because I mean, ultimately, and it's such a simple strategy when you think about it, divide and conquer really is all that they're doing. [00:40:00] But. It's very effective. Yeah. And I mean, so, and like, the idea, I mean, and you talked about it in the film also, like with, with the mining companies, like how they use divide and conquer with specific demographic groups.

You want to talk about that?

UGARTE: Sure. Yeah. Um, they did it very specifically, very knowingly. So it's called the judicious mixture. So they would recruit miners directly off of Ellis Island, people who did not speak English. And they wanted, a third of their workforce, people who, who were immigrants who did not speak English.

They wanted a third of their workforce in this, this particular area to be black Americans who are coming up from the South, West Virginia was a free state and so could potentially like in one's imagination offer a little bit of a little marginally more security than some of the places in the Jim Crow South, but whether that was true or not, um, debatable. And then they also wanted a third of their workforce to be what they called native whites. So people from the mountains and they thought that that inherent mixture, that third, third, third would, never allow for organizing to happen, right? You have people who have vastly, not only different contexts, but also, different, Needs and different stakes.

And they thought like this would make enough conflict that they wouldn't be able to organize. But the thing, but stakes were so high. Everything was so horrible people were dying left and right. That they were able to. to organize a union. And, you know, John Sayles, described some of this, um, in the film, Matewan that happened in a neighboring county to McDowell County. And like I said, like, these are very simple kinds of things. But when, after the election, I, I am going on to [00:42:00] Twitter or I'm, I'm watching TV news or whatever. And people are saying, F around and find out Latinos, like and people are saying, Oh, like to the, Uncommitted voters like, well, if, uh, I'll be, um, drinking tea while you're getting deported and schadenfreude is a thing like this is playing.

Well, not only is that Trumpist, but it's also playing into this divide idea. I, I really wish if I had a wand and I could wave it around, I, I w I would want, middle class. I think it's important for us liberals to understand that they are part of a third of people, right, that they have choices here, and othering people who maybe, maybe we have very different ideas about what an egalitarian society would look like, but othering people like that is playing directly into the hands of our own people. Or overlords, to put it in a, in an exaggerated way.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and it's also, it is, it absolutely is doing that and you're making the job easier for them because yeah, like the goal is to get, is to pit the pit people against each other. So, and it's, and it's, and it's so hilarious because they often use, try to say that the Democrats engage in identity politics, quote unquote.

But the reality is. That is exactly what they do. Their entire operations are based on identity and, getting people to elevate, so whether whatever identity that they. You know are in favor of so like they offer to black Americans. They tell them well you Actually are a christian more like that's what you really identify as and you should accept our identity of christian, we're the christian nationalist party.

So if you're a christian you should We've [00:44:00] a long go along with this. And and, and so they just, they just offer different facets of, of their identity politics to people. And and, and, and the idea of solidarity and intersectionality, those, those are, those have got to be the, the only, those are, are the only ways that we can get around these things because our differences will always be there.

But. They aren't all that we are. And I think that that's that's the message that I think a lot of people have struggled to get.

UGARTE: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: right wants you to struggle with that. They want you to think that, that you're better than somebody else who thinks differently.

UGARTE: encountered so many liberals who think that, they are, right? Better, better than the people that I, I, I came from. And And the whole idea of flyover country, like all of this, all of this it's, it's absolutely like, like you, you are playing into the broader tool to disenfranchise yourself when you do that. And I, I,

I,

SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm.

Blaming voters never works to win elections

UGARTE: The other, yeah, the other day I was talking to someone and they said that The, the reason why, actually it happened twice, the reason why Harris lost was because she's a woman or a black woman and, okay, that is a reason. is not the reason, right? that is a, a very important distinction, I think.

SHEFFIELD: It is. Yeah. And, and like, if that's going to be all the analysis that you're going to do, then nothing is possible because that's, these are thought terminating cliches actually is what they are. Like This is the system that we have, you're not going to magically get another one. So you have to learn how to operate [00:46:00] within it.

Like I, I will hear people complain about the electoral college and look and it's, it is unfair. It's not it's not fair to the vast majority of America that basically only the people in seven states, their votes really are the only ones who matter. That sucks and it's not fair, but This is.

how it is. And, and if you, and the only way that that changes is if you use the system to change the system. And like that ultimately is, what the institutional and organizational power of Republicans is based on. They knew what the rules were and they organized their ideas around them. And, Democrats, I think.

So the public supports our, the public supports left wing ideas more than right wing ideas, but that doesn't mean you don't have to do the work. That doesn't mean that you can, you don't have to talk to them. That doesn't mean that you don't have to create media for them. That doesn't mean that you, you're not, you're going to not bother educating them.

Like these things, politics is the art of the possible, but you make things possible. You can't wave a magic wand and say, Oh, look, we got better policies that you should vote for us. Otherwise, you're a dumb moron.

UGARTE: and

SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm.

UGARTE: Spain became a fascist dictatorship for 40 ish years, depending on how, when you want to put the end of, of Francoism is internecine People couldn't get it together, um, create a popular, popular front. And they tried to at first it, they couldn't. And like I said, it's not the reason it's just one, one very important one. When Franco. One, a huge portion of the population was in concentration, civilians were [00:48:00] in concentration camps, people were being, tortured and murdered and like, it, it was an utter disaster. So don't you think that, like, it would have been better for the communists and anarchists to get along, like, in terms of that, like, and that, that, those stakes, again are very, very different than what we're facing right now, but I'm just saying, like, why can't we figure this out

here? And, and

it's going to take the

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

UGARTE: to figure it out.

SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah, if you really,

UGARTE: already understands

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

UGARTE: which is

one of the reasons why so many of

SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm.

UGARTE: Trump, they were like, okay, he, he seems to be like, at least blowing things up. So blowing

things up is a better option

SHEFFIELD: Mm hmm.

UGARTE: quo and telling everybody the

status quo is fine.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

UGARTE: And then

asking, don't get it.

Like

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Create it. Yeah.

UGARTE: not.

SHEFFIELD: Creating a system where the only people who can get a good job are people with postgraduate degrees. And then tell people, Hey, that's just how it is. It's a great system. And you don't want them to be upset about that. Like, you have another thing coming.

Hopeful messages for the future

SHEFFIELD: So we're coming up on the hour here. So, and then you got a hard out here. So, but there is one thing hopeful thing actually for the future which I think is. Great to end on here. So, tell, tell me what you mean by that.

UGARTE: know,

The, there's a phrase in Spanish in a political sense, Seguimos Adelante. We continue forward, right? It's, and that I think is a particularly important message that we need to take right now because things feel pretty bleak and it's not like no pasarán and like si se puede, like those, those [00:50:00] phrases aren't, aren't for us right now. But we, is essential we understand, we look back to the, to the history of movements for justice and liberation and see how many times folks have won in almost miraculous circumstances. Like in Spain, it was a miraculous thing that that they got a democracy. And it's very, very important that we. We, we, we, we need to do that. No matter what I think

SHEFFIELD: button. Yeah, it, it, I think that's right. And it's easy to think it's, that the world is ending and everything is horrible and everything is awful. But that's having that mentality is the way to make sure that that happens.

UGARTE: to stand firmly and understand, and I say this to people sometimes and people are like, look at me like glassy eyed, like, what are you talking about? But it is actually a thing like the, how we were talking about a third, people, people participating in their own divide and conquer. Also participate in your own political demise when you have no hope. So, so it is

SHEFFIELD: You do.

UGARTE: much,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

UGARTE: I'm very pessimistic, so I'm not saying, but like, but but I am going to be marching forward, i, I, it's going to be, these next four years are going to be very challenging to put it mildly for some more than others.

And it's just going to be incredibly important to steel ourselves, particularly in the next, month and a half or whatever. We need to really be thinking

about that, I think.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I think so. [00:52:00] Yeah. The goal is to, is to make people feel bad and withdraw and to give up. And that is the, is the, is the one thing you can do the most that helps them win. And so,

UGARTE: thing.

SHEFFIELD: And and the good thing is, yeah.

UGARTE: or writing

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

UGARTE: or whatever. That is

a, that is something that you literally

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, that is absolutely right. Yeah. All right. Well, so Mara for people who want to Keep up with your things on social media or the internet. What are your recommendations for them?

UGARTE: Well, my film is very short, 21 minutes, and you can get it at dividethemovie.com.

SHEFFIELD: Oh, we'll have the link to it.

UGARTE: I also have a film called Uncensored about journalists experiencing violence in Colombia. And then I have a film about Spain's transition to democracy, but like that's in progress. So, I have a mailing list.

So people, like you said, you're going to sign up. You're going to have a link so I can put a link in so people can, if they're interested in about that.

SHEFFIELD: Great. Well, it's been a great conversation and we will keep having this conversation in the months to come.

UGARTE: I hope so.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

All right. So that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody joining us for the discussion and you can always get more. If you go to theoryofchange.show, you can get the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes, and if you are a paid subscribing member, thank you very much for your support, you can support the show on Patreon or on Substack.

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