We're Not Abandoning The South (with Amanda's Mild Takes)

Amanda Nelson has become a political powerhouse without really meaning to. After Trump's second inauguration, she started posting online as Amanda's Mild Takes, sharing stories from history alongside Trump's failures and losses. Now, she has almost 2 million fans.

What was so striking, however, was just how many of her perspectives were shared by Red Wine & Blue! Amanda emphasized the importance of local politics and relational organizing -- aka talking to our friends and family about politics. She was truly singing from our songbook.

Amanda's relational organizing is playing out in her Y'all Vote initiative, where she's recruiting small content creators in the South to share information about voting with their audiences. Whether it's a small-town bakery posting resources about registration or someone talking to their neighbor in person about the importance of voting, it all comes down to those real authentic connections.

We're not abandoning our neighbors, whether it's women in the South, other red states, the suburbs, religious groups, or anyone else. We're not throwing our hands up or calling any community a lost cause. We're all Americans, we share so many values, and it's only by working together that we can create a better nation.

For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue.

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Transcript

LaFonda Cousin: Hi, everyone. Welcome to How to Not Lose Your Shit. I'm LaFonda Cousin, a part-time yoga instructor, self-care advocate, and the chief people officer here at Red Wine and Blue.

Katie Paris: And I'm Katie Paris, founder of Red Wine and Blue. 

LaFonda: This week, Katie, we have someone that so many people at Red Wine and Blue are super excited about, Amanda Nelson, who goes by Amanda's Mild Takes on social media. 

And she has more than a million followers across platforms. Can you think about how you would feel if you had a million people listening to you every day? Like, I freak out because we're on a podcast, and I don't know how many people are listening, so it's- 

Katie: I mean, like 10 million, LaFonda. Duh. 

LaFonda: Oh my God. Okay. 

Katie: But also, like, heads up, Red Wine and Blue does have over a million people between our social followings and everyone on our email and- 

LaFonda: I try to tune it out.

Katie: – who we text, and, you know, with all of our best friends out there, so kinda yeah. But what's crazy to me, and Red Wine and Blue has grown really fast, but her entire following has grown since Trump's second inauguration.

LaFonda: Yes. 

Katie: And so she has clearly hit a nerve. And there's something about people knowing their history that has gotten very sexy in the Trump era. People are like, "What is happening?" And understanding our past helps us process what is going on today and figuring our way out of it. I think it's just very grounding, and people are clearly seeking it.

I mean, as we talk about in this interview, it is amazing. She's got over, you know, a million people in such a short period of time. Heather Cox Richardson, multimillion followers in, in, in such a short period of time. So people want what they are serving up. 

LaFonda: There are a lot of influencers who talk about civics, who talk about history, who talk about, like, how the government and the world works, and all of them in different, unique ways. I think there is an appetite for that, and I love that history is the thing that people wanna talk about online and learn about. It's kinda sexy, nerdy kinda situation. I love it. 

Katie: Like, you know what both she and Heather also have in common, and I think that this must be linked to really knowing our history and what has been effective in terms of movements fighting extremism throughout American history, is that they both, I'm not even sure they're realizing they're doing it, but they end up preaching the gospel of relational organizing, of friend-to-friend organizing, of the importance of everyday people working locally in their own communities and talking to the people that they know.

LaFonda: Yes, in such a practical way. 

Katie: Yes. So I don't know. It's almost like we're all onto something, right? 

LaFonda: It's almost like you were doing it right from the beginning, Katie. It's crazy. 

Katie: Well, I just think we're all in very good company here, and whenever I come along a Heather or an Amanda, it just feels like, oh, these are our people. You know, and these women, like, of course we're gonna be the ones that end up with the W and not the L, as she talked about. The win! 

LaFonda: Yes. 

Katie: She just leaves me- she, she... I am feeling hopeful. I am feeling, you know what? It's gonna be a good afternoon. 

LaFonda: And, and I feel like… taking the wins also, this is a side note, just anytime you are unproblematic, I feel this in my spirit, you don't age. She said she has 15-year-old twin boys and she looks 15, and I feel like that is a testament to just, like, doing the right thing. I'm gonna put another plug in for, um, having a little mashup show with her and Heather. 

Katie: I thought that was a brilliant idea. 

LaFonda: I think they should be together on a show.

Katie: Yeah. I think so too. I, I, I... We'll have to, we'll have to pitch the whole drunk history idea to Heather. I don't know if she's gonna go for it or not, but yeah. 

LaFonda: She can take Diet Pepsi shots.

Katie: Okay, I am totally asking her that. 

LaFonda: I love it. All right. Well, I think we had a great conversation, and I am ready for everyone to hear it, so let's bring on Amanda. 

You go by Amanda's Mild Takes online, and I'm curious about the mild part. Usually, people posting political takes are anything but mild, including you. So tell us about the mild takes. 

Amanda: I, uh, mine usually aren't that mild either, if I get going. Um, when I start- when I started my account, uh, I actually, I started making content about politics on Inauguration Day. That was, like, the, the last straw for me. 

Katie: Wait, which one? 

Amanda: This one, 2025. 

Katie: Okay, that's what I thought, but like, holy shit, you have a lot of followers for that much time. 

LaFonda: I was gonna say, you're over a million followers, right?

Amanda: Yeah, 1.8, last I looked, um, across platforms. And when I started making content, you know, since it was day one of the administration, we all kind of knew what was coming. It was like so many executive orders that we knew were coming down the pipeline, and it just felt... Everybody was so panicky, and it was like, “elections are over, democracy is over, we should all just move to Canada,” all this kind of stuff. And I was like “Hold on. For so many reasons, y'all need to chill out, not because this isn’t bad, but because we're not gonna just roll over and, like, let this happen to us.”

 So I started with this idea that, like, I'm gonna be a grounding force in the social media space, and we're just gonna bring the temperature down a little bit because I… not because, again, not because it's not a crisis, but because people don't operate strategically from a place of panic. We operate strategically from a place of groundedness. 

So that's, that's where the idea of, like, mildness came from. I didn't want hot takes. I didn't wanna be, like, the other end of the spectrum where I was pretending like what was happening wasn't real. But I wanted to bring folks kind of back down to Earth to a place where we could actually resist in an effective way without losing our minds. So that's, that's where the name came from. But in reality, I am very spicy. 

Katie: I mean, but that's, like, the whole basis for this podcast, right? It's like, we've gotta get shit done here.

We have got to... Obviously, we're gonna lose our minds a little bit in the chaos, but if we are constantly losing our minds, if we are constantly losing our shit, we are not going to be able to be strategic, to be as impactful as we need to, as this moment demands, you know? I mean, we can say we're upset all day long.

Amanda: Yeah. And that's, like, totally valid. Like, of course we are, right? Like, it's a terrifying time to be alive. It's, uh, it's really frightening. It's very stressful. We're all... On top of everything that's happening, we're not really-- Our nervous systems are not designed for this amount of input, so, like, just, it's a, it's a real perfect storm of terrible. Imperfect storm? I don't even know how to describe that. 

But the thing that I see on social media that I was partially responding to was this, like, kind of, not conspiracy theory, but this, like, dooming, this, like, automatically jumping to the worst case scenario, and, uh, that, that to me is not helpful. Like, all of...

You know, it was immediately, "Well, the midterms are gonna be canceled." And we're s- we don't n- I don't hear as much of that these days, but, you know, for, like, a year, that was the thing that was happening, was like, "Elections are over. We're not doing this anymore." And that, to me, was like Uh, so we're gonna just panic about that.

We're gonna focus on that instead of doing the thing that we actually need to do, which is protecting elections, making sure that elections happening, are happening, and that they're secure and that we can all get out and protect our right to vote, which requires you to do something, right? Like, that requires you to go outside, which people are often resistant to doing.

So it's not just that, like, everything is terrible. All of that is true, but if you are flailing and spinning out and just following a bunch of people who are telling you that the sky is falling, uh, maybe it is, but, like, which part, so that I can focus on the thing and, like, fix it. 

Katie: And isn't that the whole point, too, of, like, what the extremists are trying to do anyway, is that they're trying to make us spin out so that we aren't focused, so that we aren't… I mean, they know they're, that we're the majority, so they've gotta divide us against each other, make us freak out, and just as long as we're doing that, then we're not fighting back. We're not consolidating our own power. 

Amanda: Yeah, Steve Bannon has said that before, that his sort of initial media strategy, at least in the first term, was flooding the zone so that people can't pick one thing to focus on to collectively organize around. So they do it on purpose, right? Like, there's a reason why in the first 100 days, Project 2025 instructed the administration to release so many executive orders, because then it's difficult for the organizations that exist on the ground to focus on which, on one thing, 'cause there's too many. So it is intentional.

And then you also have to remember that, like, Steven Cheung, who's the White House communications director, came from MMA. You know, like, he's a clown. Like, it's a reality TV administration, so they are pretty good at dividing your attention and making sure that you're looking at the bright, shiny thing you're supposed to be mad about today, and not the slow, boring, hard work of preserving a democracy. 

Katie: Well, right, and also, like, to effectively govern, a lot of that work is slow and boring, too. So I think because they're not doing that, like, therein also lies the opportunity. 

Amanda: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: Right? Like, if we can be more focused than them, we can be more effective than them. 

Amanda: Yeah, it's not hard. 

Katie: Yeah, no kidding. It's a low bar on that front. 

Amanda: Yeah, I was thinking about, um, Pete Hegseth I think it was yesterday, 'cause I was- I'm working on a project about Iran-Contra. Um, I, I like to focus on these periods of history that people our age, like, were maybe a little too young to pay a ton of attention to, so we've, like, memory holed it. So like Bush-Gore, you know, that election, we've all kind of memory holed. Iran-Contra I think is another one of them. And I was, uh, reflecting on what a clown Oliver North was, and how, like, Pete Hegseth is just a dumber Oliver North, which, like, how is that possible?

But every- but it's true, and the entire administration is like that. It's like the dumbest people from the Reagan administration turned up to even dumber somehow, and, and here we are. Which I guess is, like, kind of works in our favor in some ways, 'cause they can't figure out how to get anything done really in a, in a, in a durable way.

Katie: So much opportunity in crisis. 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Katie: Amanda, where do you find that sense of calm? You know? I mean, it's one thing to say, like, "Everybody, let's be mild, let's, uh, be grounded," but where do you find that within yourself? 

Amanda: Therapy. Um, I have a history degree, so that's my educational background, and I've maintained a strong interest and focus on history throughout my life, um, since college. And I think knowing a whole lot about America's past and the things that we've done to each other, and the ways that we've overcome that before makes a lot of this look less panic-inducing. Because, like, we have been in much worse places than we're in right now. That doesn't mean we won't get to a pl- like the worst place we've ever been in. But we have been in worse places before, and we've come out of it stronger and more unified from the past. 

So that, that's helpful to me, thinking about, like, the things that I love about Americans and are, like, the kind of basis of my patriotism, is that even when we're at each other's throats, we do have this shared value of coming out on the other side and taking care of the people we actually know. Like, the internet makes it hard 'cause we're all yelling and screaming at each other and all that, but you're hard-pressed to find, like, in actual emergency situations, times when people are just gonna wanna screw their neighbors over, like the people they have to actually look in the face, you know? 

So that gives me hope. And being, like, really involved in local politics, it's so boring, right? Like, you go to a county convention-  

Katie: Not to us, Amanda! Not to us.

Amanda: Yeah! 'Cause it's like 12 people, right? It's like 12 people, and most of them are named Betty, and they're retired, and they, like, are just so happy to see you, and they have brownies. And I love it so much, but it is such a grind. Like, somebody's gotta man the tent. Somebody's gotta bring the snacks. Somebody's gotta, like, have the clipboard at the fair, you know? Or whatever. And, but that's, that's where the real glue of democracy is, is made. 

Katie: And you can have such a big impact. 

Amanda: Yes, yes, on the stuff that matters to you in your daily life, right? The stuff that, like, what your kids' schools and your neighborhood roads and things like that. 

Also I think, I do think radical acceptance, which I did learn in therapy. I joked about that at the beginning, but, like, for real, um, has been super helpful to me. And it's not like a rolling over, right? You're not doing like, "Well, I accept things the way they are," and that's the end of it. It's not fighting the emotional impact of the thing. Like, every day we wake up to a new horror. Like, it's just terrible. It just is, right? 

And instead of spending a bunch of time spinning out about it, I try to just accept that that's the reality of where we are and then move on from there. And that takes, that's a whole lot of like, you know, you gotta learn how to box breathe. You gotta learn coping mechanisms for fear and anxiety. Um, and I'm not a therapist, so I'm, like, not equipped. I can tell y'all how, what, what works for me. I did a Substack series about it called Managing Political Anxiety, um, that y'all can go read if you want more. But radical acceptance was super, super helpful to me.

Katie: You know what's-- I, you know, I keep thinking about as you talk is someone else who is a close friend of Red Wine & Blue is Heather Cox Richardson. 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Katie: And I think that she would have the same answer when it comes from, like, where does her groundedness come from? And you both are historians. And the other thing you all have in common is gaining a huge following in a short period of time in this time of crisis for our country. And I think that really, I mean, when, when I think about “rockstar historian,” like that wasn't really a term that I think we were throwing around until recent history. 

And I think because the same thing that you're getting from your craft, you're able to share that with others. And instead of that just being like, I don't know, in the past, like keep scrolling, that's boring, there's something that's really clicking about it.

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, there's so much that's familiar in the stories now. You know, like you can talk about the Gilded Age, and there's nothing more familiar to us right now than the Gilded Age of these like uber wealthy oligarchs taking over the government and the rise of the Klan. Like that's 2026. You could just lift and shift it, you know?

 So instead of feeling like I'm sitting in a boring class having to listen to this nonsense about like dead white dudes that didn't impact my life at all, something that I think Heather is really, really good at is tying that to your lived experience right now. Like here's why this matters to you, you know? She can talk about Reconstruction and how that, the South actually winning the peace, even though they lost the Civil War, they won the peace, how we're having to deal with those repercussions right now. 

And I think that's a little terrifying and a little comforting to people because being able to understand how you got to a place and the root of the problems that got you to a place gives you an idea of how you can start to solve them, or at least makes them seem less like a nightmare boogeyman, you know, with no solution whatsoever.

And Heather, I will say, Heather, Heather's an academic. I don't have a PhD, so like I wear... I usually call myself an amateur historian 'cause I'm not, I haven't contributed to the academia at all. 

Katie: You had me fooled!  

Amanda: Oh good. Um, and she's brilliant and I'm obsessed with her. And I w- I, she popped into a Zoom call I was on once, and I didn't real- I didn't know she was coming, and I about died. People sent me screenshots of my face being like, "Oh, it's Heather, oh my God." 

Katie: I think I had that face the first time she joined one of ours too. 

Amanda: And she's so like chill in her Maine house, you know? 

LaFonda: I was gonna say, I feel like there needs to be like an event of some kind or a podcast of some kind with like you and Heather on it. I feel like that needs to happen for us in the future. Red Wine and Blue, like, that's good. 

Amanda: I don't know if sh- I don't know if she's a drinker. I mean, if she'll come on Red Wine and Blue, I would, I would imagine so. But my like weird dream is- 

Katie: She really likes Diet Pepsi. 

Amanda: Okay. 

Katie: That's the way to her heart.

Amanda: That scans. I wanna do drunk trivia with her. I think that would be amazing. That would be amazing. 

LaFonda: I love drunk history. I feel like you would be really good at that drunk history. 

Amanda: Oh my God. 

LaFonda: It was so good. It was so good. Um, Amanda, what got you interested in this work? I mean, knowing what you do online, amazing, but what got you interested in this work in the first place? You said you have a history degree. Why are you interested in history and politics? 

Amanda: Oh, um, I've always been interested in history. I, like, when I was a kid, I wanted to be Indiana Jones, you know? I was gonna be an archeologist. That's what I was in school for, and then I realized I don't like dirt, actually here, which is a problem. Like, it, it hadn't occurred to me, like, you're gonna need to go be outside and, like, never get your nails done forever until you die. Uh, and so that's, that stopped me. 

And then, you know, I got married super, super young and got pregnant and all of that, so then I never went back to school. But as for politics, I was always a volunteer because I have that kind of personality where, like, I don't like injustice.

I don't like unfairness. I was a clinic escort at a local abortion clinic for many, many years, and I, you know, have worked on campaigns in a volunteer capacity doing the door-knocking stuff and, like, setting up signs and being a poll worker. I just like-- I consider myself, maybe weirdly in this moment, quite a patriotic person. And I think that a lot of patriotism has to include the vigilance of civic engagement, so I've just always done that in some way.

I mean, more now that my kids are a little older. I have twin boys, and they're 15, and when they were very little, I wasn't doing jack all 'cause I was just trying to survive. But once they got to, like, middle school, I was like, "All right. Well, you're kinda good, so I'm gonna spend more time making sure that America can be kinda good." And it hasn't really worked so far, but I think now we're, we're getting somewhere. 

Katie: Yeah. And then so you said it was Trump's inauguration this last time that inspired you to start to make the case online. Ever so mildly. But like, how did you gain so much traction? What do you think it is that has clicked?

Amanda: It was a couple of things. The L's series that I do twice a week, um, which I started in April, really, like April of the year, last, of his inauguration. Um, I started doing that series, which is where I just collect all of his screw-ups and losses, the ways that people have resisted him, the things that have happened that have like knocked his administration down a peg. I started collecting them and then putting them, as many as I could, into one video, like a three-minute video. Um, and I started doing that once a week, and then I had to do it twice a week because there were just so many. 

And nobody else was talking about that. Like, every, every other content creator, the, the mainstream media, everybody else was talking about all his wins, all the things he was trying to destroy, all the things that, like the executive orders especially that were coming out, the, the statements Stephen Miller was making about how he was gonna denaturalize people, all this stuff. But there was never any follow-up of like, "Yeah, but did it work? Did it happen? I know that people sued. I know that people protested. I know people tied themselves to their office doors and wouldn't let DOGE in. What happened after that?” 

No one was ever doing any follow-up, so I took it kind of upon myself, and there was such an appetite for that. There was such an appetite for people watching resistance in any way and, and having it be successful. And also, you know, it's kind of fundamental to, like, resistance of authoritarians throughout history, especially like Eastern Europe, and you know he loves Putin, that mockery is like such a weapon against authoritarians. They have to be taken seriously. They have to. Because if they're laughed at, then you're not scared. You're not scared of somebody if you're, if you're laughing at them. 

So I wanted to create that permission structure as well, and people really latched onto that, really latched onto the idea that like, "Oh, he's not a strong man. He's not all-powerful over me in this country. I can laugh at him," and that takes away some of his power. That took off really, really big. The Daily Show picked it up pretty early on, you know, and then I got a lot of... I actually had people-- I still worked full-time at the time in tech, and I had people in my job being like, "Is this you?" And I was like, "No, I don't know what you're talking about..." 

Katie: I love that, and it's also so strategic because the thing about all the hair on fire hot takes and look how much he's winning and isn't this scary, is that it might get clicks, it might get views, but it also turns people off from wanting to do anything. It's disempowering.

Amanda: Yes. 

Katie: It’s the worst thing possible for those of us who are trying to engage people in the civic political process because it sends the message that nothing we do matters. You know, this is just a constant onslaught of terribleness, and so all we can do is sit back and gawk and cry, you know? 

LaFonda: Yeah. 

Katie: And so I think instead, giving people this content that is pointing out that like, actually, as much as he wants to say that he's winning, winning, winning, he's not. And then that provides a model for something different. Like, “well then of course I wanna get involved. Of course I wanna do something because I wanna win, and I don't wanna let him win, and this is showing me that other people just like me are, and so I can be a part of that.”

So it is not just important as sort of like, "Oh, let's put out some positive good news," you know? It's super strategic. So thank you. 

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, and like even sometimes I would just read the Constitution. Like, I remember, I think it was January, like the first month of his administration when they passed, they, he wrote that executive order overturning birthright citizenship, right, that the Supreme Court just ruled on. And I played a clip of Karoline Leavitt saying that birthright citizenship was unconstitutional, and I stitched it with me reading the 14th Amendment, and that was it. There was no commentary, there was no nothing. 

And that, I did that for a few things. Like this is, and the point was obvious, right? Like, this is just unconstitutional. It just is. And so I would get pushback sometimes from like, "Well, they don't care about the Constitution." That's not the point. I understand that Donald Trump does not care about the Constitution, but you should care about it. You should understand what your rights are. You should understand why we even have that amendment to begin with. You should understand what your legal pathway to resistance is. You know, you can't stand up for yourself if you don't understand in the first place what you're standing up for. 

People want to understand civics, like as boring as that sounds. The number of questions that I have to answer in a day that are like, "Wait, how is a bill passed?” You know? I do the whiteboard, which is literally just like an easel in my kitchen, where I track legislation on Post-It notes as it moves through like committee, voting on the floor, the Senate, to, you know, whatever, like, uh, explaining that process because people now, uh, most of my audience, like, they're just a little too young to have gotten Schoolhouse Rock. So they don't know how a bill becomes law. 

And so that sort of thing where people like, in very quick snippets, and I'm pretty funny and I'm kinda mean, and people like that, can have an understanding of how the government works, what's going on, and what they can do. And that's all people want right now. 

LaFonda: I think what I like about all of this, all, this whole package, is like all of the things that you just said. Like what you said, how you described yourself. "I'm kinda funny," um, or, "I'm, I'm funny, I'm kinda mean." Like, you are so relatable. Even just talking right now, you are so relatable. 

But it's also this reclamation of patriotism, right? Like, people feel like being a patriot is on the other side. It's those people. And you are saying, "No, it's actually not. Like, I'm gonna read what he's saying, because they're saying they're patriots, and then I'm gonna read you the actual Constitution that says what you should be doing and how you should be thinking, what we really are, and nothing else." It's that reclamation of patriotism.

I think that's what's important about the work that you're doing. Like, "I'm, I'm gonna point out where he's losing. I'm gonna point out where he's not winning. I'm gonna point out where if you are overwhelmed by the foolishness and the chaos that he's putting out every day, he is going to win, but here's why you shouldn't let him. And if you don't keep working, he will." 

Amanda: Yeah. There was a great scene from last week, I think. I think it was Abdul El-Sayed. He's running for Senate in Michigan. He was having some kind of event, and Jake Lang, who is a Nazi and a Trump supporter, came to his event and like crashed it. And El-Sayed clapped him out, had the audience do, "USA, USA," to kick a Nazi out of his event. And I thought that was so good. Like so smart, so brilliant. 

Because America is a multiracial liberal democracy. That's what we are. We are a multiracial liberal democracy. And I mean, I'm saying, little l liberal, like classic liberalism, individual rights, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, all of that. And the Trump administration is anti-American. The Trump administration is none of those things. They don't care about democracy, they're extremely racist, and they're illiberal. So they are un-American. 

And I think that it's important because, you know, Americans, especially like swingy, independent, moderate voters, they like feeling proud of their country. And I think on the left sometimes we can give people a little bit of shit for that. Like we can be a little scoldy about like, "Well, America has a whole bunch of problems." Obviously. Obviously, and I am not denying, I talk constantly about all the problems we've had across our country. 

Katie: Part of your love for it is you recognize all the ways that we can keep improving.

Amanda: Exactly, yes. Like, the, the thing to love about America is not all of the terrible things we've done to each other. We need to learn from those things. The thing to love is how, alongside of that, all-- not all of us, most of us have dragged her kicking and screaming, bloody and resisting into the future, and we are going to keep doing that no matter what Donald Trump says.

Katie: Yep. Beautiful. I'm on board for that patriotism all day. All right, I also-- I wanna talk about one of your big projects this year, Y'all Vote. 

Amanda: Yay! 

Katie: Which, which I love as, uh, I-- LaFonda and I are both from the South, so appreciate you. And we know you've been doing this alongside our friend Kate Barr, who's been on the pod as well. So as I understand it, Y'all Vote mobilizes content creators in the South, which means so much to so many women out there who sometimes can feel alone or ignored. So what kinds of conversations are you hearing from Southern women right now? 

Amanda: Whew! A lot of relief that someone is paying attention to them. You know, I'm in Virginia. I've lived in Virginia my whole life. Kate Barr's from South Carolina. She lives in North Carolina now. Our other co-founder, um, Anna from Bull City, Anna is in North Carolina. And we have over 500 content creators across every single state in the South right now. Um, and we've raised, I, I can't remember what it is, I mean, $180,000 I think for State House candidates in, in all of the Southern states in about two months, because we started in April when the Calais decision happened.

And the thing that I hear, especially from blue dots, you know, I mean, like in the Deep South like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, um, is that they have felt so abandoned. And not just by like the party, which we all know has kind of abandoned the South for a long time, but by the country. Like, especially after this election and Trump's second term, there's such disdain from people outside of the South towards the region.

Not Virginia where I am, 'cause we have a blue governor, and so I guess we're exempt from it, even though that's very recent. But there's such disdain for the- like, "Well, y'all are getting what you voted for." Excuse me. The majority of the Black population of this country lives in the South. Are they getting what they voted for? No. There are millions of Democrats in the South. There are more Democrats in Texas than there are populations of most states. 

And we are not gonna just pretend like those people don't exist, that their work doesn't matter, that they haven't been busting their asses for decades to keep the party alive in the South while the rest of you have been ignoring us because you wrote us off as a bunch of hicks.

Katie: That's right. 

Amanda: So I think anybody paying attention, anyone offering them actual support, fighting for them, not just politically or like electorally, but in the narrative. Like, "No, we're not gonna talk about the South that way anymore, actually." Yeah. "We're not gonna do that." 

LaFonda: Yeah. 

Amanda: Uh, we don't, we don't talk about Ohio like that either. We shouldn't talk about any red state like it's a foregone conclusion full of dumb-dumbs who should just be like sold off into the Atlantic Ocean, right? Like, we are a nation of 50 states, no man left behind. 

Katie: Totally. I mean, listen, as someone who was born in Georgia, grew up there, and in North Carolina, and now lives in Ohio, you are singing from my songbook. And I think not only is it counter to, I think, look, if we're gonna claim to be some big tent and inclusive of everyone, what's up with that exception, right? 

Amanda: Yeah. 

Katie: And also, it is so unstrategic what you said about Black voters. I mean, take, take for example in North Carolina where more North Carolinians actually voted for Democrats in their state legislature last time than Republicans, but they have a Republican super majority because of gerrymandering.

That's politicians, not the people. So I love that you all are, you know, providing that hope and doing it in such a strategic way. You know, and 500 influencers, I bet some of them have, like, a few hundred followers, and others have, like, a million.

Amanda: Most of our, most of our creators are very, very small accounts, and most of them have never talked about politics before on social media in their lives. And those are the people that you want because, you know, there have been studies about this, but social media accounts that are not explicitly political are three times as influential with their neighbors as accounts like mine. Because people come to me and they know what they're gonna get, right? 

But if you follow, I don't know, a baker in your neighborhood because she makes cool cakes, and she made one for your kid's birthday party, and then she's like, "Hey, by the way, there's an election tomorrow. You should go vote." That's all she has to say. We're not telling them, like, "You need to talk about this Democratic candidate constantly, or I'm gonna come yell at you in your DMs." We want voter education, we want turnout, and we want fundraising from those folks, and they can do that without turning anyone off, without alienating their neighbors.

Especially, again, in the Deep South, where sometimes that can be really risky. Like, there's a lot of identity stuff wrapped up in, in being a rural, deep Southerner. Um, and so we don't, we don't want them to put themselves at risk, uh, in any way that they don't want to. But they are so influential with their neighbors. And like you were saying, the South is not a red region. It is a gerrymandered, voter-suppressed region. It is a non-voting region for the most part. And if we can help people overcome that, if we can make turnout a big question in the South, then we're back in, we're back in the game. 

Katie: I don't know if you meant to do it, but here at Red Wine & Blue, our whole thing is relational organizing. It is getting people to not only commit to vote themselves, but to talk to all of their personal networks.

And the same thing is true as you and me out there talking to people in real life, that if you're not the person who's talking about politics all the time, yeah, you're gonna have even more influence in those networks. We talk about that all the time. 

LaFonda: How do you convince those people, those content creators, that baker with, you know, two, 300 followers, how do you convince them to go political, to get engaged, to be like, "Hey," maybe say this to your, to your followers? How do you convince them? 

Katie: Yeah, let's hear it. 

Amanda: We haven't had to do a ton of recruiting. Like after, after the Calais decision, I think people in the South were so desperate for any kind of thing to do, like anything to help their neighbors in their region, um, that they just, they come to us. Like they'll, they'll… I keep a pinned post across all of my platforms about Y'all Vote, and we get new signups every week. 

But once they're in, there is a lot of like, "What do I do?" You know? So we do, um, I send them a whole bunch of, it's probably a little overwhelming, information in the very beginning when they sign up. Very simple social media guides, how to create content, how to make an Instagram carousel, 'cause some of them have just only ever taken pictures of their breakfast, you know. How to collab someone on social media, how to get on Facebook, how to use your back camera instead of your front camera. Like very simple stuff. 

And then we do monthly trainings for any creators who are new who wanna come learn. So we did, uh, we just did one in the beginning of this week about how to get involved in your state level politics. 'Cause Y'all Vote is focused on state houses. We're focused on flipping state houses because that's where congressional maps are drawn. So we want them to understand how to go meet their state senators. It's different from your senator, right? Like your federal senator, that's like a little scary. Your state senator is probably an accountant full-time who lives four houses down from you. Like, you probably know all of your local politicians.  How to get up and talk at a school board meeting, like just very basic political stuff that folks who've never been involved, never talked about it before need to know. 

Because, you know, we are, are up here. We assume everyone knows how to do all of this stuff. Most people don't know how to do any of it, and they don't even know where to start, so we offer a ton of training and a ton of guidance. And we also have Signal chats for every state, and we encourage them to get in and ask their neighbors questions. They can ask me questions. I got 500 people talking to me all day, "How do I do this? Where do I put that? And what do I, how do I talk about this?" And I make myself as available as I can because I want them to be as effective as they want to be. 

LaFonda: You're doing all the things that Red Wine & Blue is doing. You're like- You're relational organizing these sub locals. You're doing… You're, you're doing all of the things. 

So one last question. If you, do you have advice for somebody who is a Red Wine & Blue member and they are trying to convince their friends and family, just like Thad Baker, to care about politics, what would you say to them? 

Amanda: Uh, you don't have to care about it, it cares about you.

And a lot of people, you know, a lot of people that I talk to, especially in Y'all Vote, it's a lot of moms. Like it's a lot of... 'Cause I feel like moms are gonna be, we're, the matriarchy is going to save us. And there's an instinctual “I don't want this for my kids” kind of a thing. So I, I tie that, I tie it to that a lot. Like, I tie it to like, you know, I'm a mom, I've got 15-year-old boys, and God, what a time to raise teenage boys, you know? 

And I don't make it this big like, "You have to care about climate change for your kids, or you have to care about the war in Iran for your kids," or whatever. But don't you want your state to be a place they stay or come back to? Or do you want your state to be a place that they flee and they never come see you ever again? 

Katie: That's so real.

Amanda:  Don't you want your state to be a place they can afford to live, and your s- your school to be a place that they have fond memories of, and not like, "God, I'm so glad I got out of that"? You know, so tying it, making it as small and as local and as, this is your life.

Like, politics isn't a sports game. It's not the Super Bowl. It's not red versus blue. It's not us versus the Republicans. I mean, it is, but you know what I'm saying. It's about your life, your family's life. This is your fucking country, pardon my language. It's your state. It's your county. So you get to take ownership of it because you pay the taxes, you know? And it's your family. So I try to make it as personal as I can. 

Katie: And visceral, and maybe, like, not that mild. 

Amanda: That's how I get ya!

LaFonda: Amanda, where can people learn more about you and your work? I hear you just started a podcast, so tell us more about where we can find you. 

Amanda: Oh, I did. Yeah. My podcast is called Executive Dysfunction. It's on all of the podcast platforms. That's a history podcast, so I'm talking mostly about screw-ups of American political leaders. So if you like history, you can, um, go listen to that. If you wanna follow me on social media, I'm Amanda's Mild Takes everywhere. 

And… what else? Yallvote.org. If you're in the South and you wanna talk to other Southern content creators, if you've never made content in your life, I don't care how big your platform is, I don't care what platform you're on, if you want to help, you can sign up at yallvote.org. And you can also see our list of State House candidates who we're targeting in the South, uh, and give to them if you would like. 

Katie: Thanks for being in the fight with us. 

Amanda: Same!