RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 332 The April 5th Protests and Beyond With Hunter Dunn from 50501
Episode 332 of RevolutionZ has Hunter Dunn of Southern Cal 50501 as guest to share insight from his experiences with organizing the massive Southern Cal Unites protest in downtown LA, as part of the nationwide April 5th demonstrations against the Trump Administration. Hunter is a Senior at Pepperdine University and our conversation went beyond reporting April 5th tactics, scale, and mechanics to discuss the many factors shaping youth political engagement. Dunn explained how Gen Z members are pulled toward right wing involvement including talking about how right wing influencers and Trump as well as social media algorithms appeal to Gen Z economic despair at their future prospects and social awkwardness and loneliness, particularly among men even as other Gen Z youth are shifting toward progressive solidarity.
Dunn relays how the loudest cheers at the demonstrations weren't just for opposition to Trump, but for bold proposals like universal healthcare, ranked choice voting, and meaningful climate action. He reports that the events revealed not just a growing resistance but growing positive commitment. Americans aren't merely fighting against something, reports Dunn from his campus, an historically conservative one at that, they're fighting for a fundamentally different future.
Dunn provides concrete ways to get involved because, as Dunn reminds us, "this isn't just about stopping one administration - it's about creating a society that works for everyone."
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I'm the host of the podcast titled Revolution Z. This is our 332nd episode and our guest this time is Hunter Dunn to discuss the April 5th demonstrations and what's next. Hunter is the Press and Public Relations Director for 5051 Southern Cal, which organizes the Southern Cal Unites in downtown Los Angeles on April 5th. When he's not organizing, hunter is a senior political science major at Pepperdine University, where he is finishing up his thesis in political philosophy. So, hunter, welcome to Revolution Z.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:That's my pleasure, so perhaps we can start just with an overview of what happened on April 5th. I think that's relevant to provide people, because I'm not sure people, everyone has a grip on the scale of what was accomplished.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so, for SoCal Unites, which was the downtown LA protest on April 5th, was part of a larger movement called the Hands Off protests, which happened that Saturday Across the United States. According to a number of pundits, we're looking at 5.2 million people in the streets the Straits In downtown LA. According to MSNBC, who I believe was quoting the LA Times, we're looking at potentially up to 100,000 people in LA alone. For SoCal Unites, we started at Pershing Square, which is a historic square with a large history of protests, especially in the civil rights movement. I believe we had speeches there, starting at 4pm, and then from there we marched at 5pm to City Hall and then we there we marched at 5 pm to City Hall and then we had our main event.
Speaker 2:I would call the march the main event, but we had our main speakers at 6 pm at City Hall and at 8 pm we finished up. It was amazing. We had people of all ages, classes, creeds, anyone that you could find in Los Angeles, and even some people that you couldn't, because we had people fly out from other states and even at least one press person from Azerbaijan. So you know we were looking at a wide swath of society all united against the Trump administration and the main word I have for that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:How were the activities organized, not just in LA but in general? How is it that this happened? On a particular day 5 million people turn out. That's not magic. So how did it come about?
Speaker 2:Well, it actually did sort of come about by some level of happy or lucky coincidence you might even call it magic because 50 51 was voting on when we would do our next national day of action and April 5th one. And then, pretty shortly thereafter, um and I don't know the full story, but indivisible and some other groups, including fight back table Um and later including groups like the woman's March and AFL, cio, greenpeace and plenty of other organizations which we were also working with, were like we were also trying to do an event on April 5th, you're trying to do a bunch of protests, we're trying to do a bunch of protests. What if we all do one big protest?
Speaker 1:And everyone said yes and suddenly hands-off was a national movement in all 50 states, and apparently even some protests outside the country as well, that were associated with maybe over 100 organizations partnering together just at the national level and many more at the local levels to put on one large solidarity event. And yet there were events. I don't want people to get the wrong idea here. There were events not only in large cities like your own Los Angeles, washington, new York, chicago and so on but there were also events in smaller towns, even spontaneous events, I think, from from everything I can discern on the day itself. And I guess what I'm wondering is okay. So take 50-50. Do you pronounce it 50-51, 50-501? What's the proper way to talk about it?
Speaker 2:So we say 5051 or we say 50501, because it is spelled a little bit differently than it sounds, which has been, you know, it's too late now to change it.
Speaker 1:So that's what we're with. All right, I'm going to do 5051. But what's the point? In other words, in your mind, the events happen, it's now April 6th, yes, how do you? It's not. But it's now April 6th, sure, how do you look at the event and judge what is success, what is a little less than that and what is maybe needs some help? How do you assess what you're doing?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, there's two ways to assess it right. There's one way, which is what have we set out to do? And then how did that go? And then the other thing is how is the world responding?
Speaker 1:Right, how is the what? How's the world responding? Or like, how is the sum? How is the what? How's?
Speaker 2:the world responding or like how is responding what?
Speaker 2:what is happening since then? Well, you know this didn't start april 5th. This actually started before february 5th, which was our first protest day. That's where the idea of 450 51 comes from 50 states, 50 protests, one movement. Originally it was 50 states, 50 protests, one day, where people would come from across their state, go to the local state capital or go to the largest metropolitan area if they couldn't reach their capital, if you're in a place like California and protest against the Trump regime, against executive overreach. And two months later, we went from a few hundred people in City Hall, maybe about 20,000 people nationwide, to possibly up to 100,000 people in downtown LA and over 5 million people nationwide. So, from that perspective, even from the perspective of what we were expecting, which was maybe 10,000 people in downtown LA, maybe a quarter of a million or half a million nationwide, we're looking at 10 times those numbers. That's a massive success.
Speaker 2:However you splice it right, like however you try to square it, we expected this many people to get up together in solidarity. We got way more than that. That's amazing. It was beautiful to see. We also had way more Gen Z than we have had in the past. I'm Gen Z, so I'm really passionate about that Because you know, I expect more from my generation and I also want to create a better future for my generation, for the people that come after me, and having Gen Z care and having them come out there, having them protest is is another big success in my book.
Speaker 2:But when we're looking at the responses, we're looking at the most media coverage we've ever had for this in the past. In the past, we were mostly being ignored outside of a few places like Newsweek and a couple local events, but even before the protests we had a lot more press coverage. We had a lot more people paying, ready to stand up against the Trump tariffs and against the executive overreach. So, from the way that I see it, we're not going to know the full impact until months or even years later. But this isn't the end. This is the beginning. This is maybe the rising action in Act One. For those of you who are literary nerds and you know, we're nowhere near a climax. So we're nowhere near where we're going to get, and I think that's. I don't have any other word for that other than success all right, what is, uh, the plan for the next step?
Speaker 1:insofar as there is one, I don't really know. Is there a plan for a next step? Yes, an idea for what should follow.
Speaker 2:Okay. So the next thing that we have on the books is, for 5051 at least, is a community day of action, which is a little bit different than a national day of protest. So what we're looking at is we're looking at community activities, whether that is things that build is like things that build community or things that demonstrate the connection of the community. So in some cases we're looking at things like volunteering with charity organizations, cleaning up beaches or having town barbecues, picnics, festivals, those kinds of things, sort of just to encourage people to connect together and get and form stronger bonds for the next National Day of Protest and for the years to come. And we're also looking at things like sit-ins and other demonstrations that are different from rallies and marches, although there will be some, I'm sure, because, again, we're pretty decentralized, so it is up to the local organization how they would like to handle things.
Speaker 2:But we're going to be looking at more demonstrations and more community events for 419. And then, date pending we're going to have another large event like this in, presumably in May, because we try to do things about once a month. We had February 5th and then we had February 17th, just because we had so much momentum, and then we had March 4th and then between that there was a gap where we had more community days and more local events and now we had April 5th. So I would be looking towards May for the next big hands-off style event.
Speaker 1:Suppose somebody said to you I don't believe this, but suppose somebody said to you yeah, that's nice, but how's it going to affect anything? Why and how does having a lot of people, you know, march and then rally at a state house or whatever the case may be, what is the connection between that and stopping trump, or stopping trump and musk, or even going beyond stopping trump and musk and creating something more positive? What's? What's the connection? You know? Why should I turn out? I could go to the beach. Why shouldn't I go to?
Speaker 2:the beach. If you want to protest at the beach, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I would love to see someone do that.
Speaker 2:You know the seals, you know like uh you know, get the fish on her side, right?
Speaker 2:but, uh, sorry, to give a serious answer to the question, I would understand those concerns. Right, because it's hard for a lot of people to square the notion that going on the streets in one day has an impact in the future. Right, because it's like this happened. It's done so cool, we all had our little party, but what you're going to do next? Well, the answer is, this actually does quite a lot, because governments, whether they're democratic or not, whether they're liberal or not, even dictatorships, only function at the consent of the governed. Right, if you're getting millions of people out there on the street, the government not only can't really function, they have to respond to that if they want to keep their power In a democracy, which we have or hopefully will still have.
Speaker 2:When you have that many people out there in the streets, it's pretty easy to get them to the ballot box from there. Right it's? You're protesting against this regime, so obviously you want something different. So let's see in 2026 and 2028 and let's get in new candidates, let's get in new ideas, let's get in new blood, let's get in Gen Z, let's get in people who are going to create the protections to make sure nothing like this executive overreach ever happens again, right and even outside of the ballot box, because there are ways that you know there are fears that the next election is going to be rigged. I don't think that the Trump administration is competent enough to do that, but you know I've been wrong in the past about things. So the other thing is that nonviolent civil demonstrations are significantly more effective than violent civil demonstrations in getting policy and regime change right. We're looking for that percent number.
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 2:Because when you have that many people out there, it's not you have that many people out there on the streets, it's not just those people in the streets, it's the people around the world who turn on their television and see that and their next day is different than the day before, whether it's them having hope, which gives them the ability to make changes, for those of them that are in office, for those of them that are not in office, to petition their elected representatives, you are getting those people and you're creating a different level of power that the government cannot control and that the government has to respond to or be replaced, and at that point, either way, we are getting what we want out of it, because either that's a rollback of the tariffs, it's a rollback of the attacks against undocumented immigrants and LGBTQ plus people, or that's the installation of a new administration which will then do all those things.
Speaker 1:All right, let me. Let me ask you another, somewhat related question. Okay, of course. Um, imagine somebody says the level of uh, discomfort, the level of alienation, the level of anger at Trump and Musk is huge, but the level of all those things at the general condition, even before Trump, is also huge.
Speaker 1:And so the person says if the movement, if these demonstrations and civil disobedience and rallies and all the rest of it have as their message, or even appear to be, about getting back to where we were pre-Trump, many, many constituencies say, and arguably all working people are not going to be moved by that their alienation is so great I would say warranted alienation is so great with what preceded, that the idea of getting back to it, to have it only reproduce Trump in the future after all, that's what it did before is not going to be enough, did before is not going to be enough or won't generate the hope, the motivation, the desire and the continuity to actually win. Yeah, so if somebody says that, how does 50-51 respond? In the sense of having something more positive, not just say stopping tariffs, but something positive, not just stopping deportations, but something positive, not just stopping deportations, but something positive, et cetera, et cetera. Is that part of the discussion that's occurring in 50-51?.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is absolutely part of the discussion. That's been a discussion I've been having a lot because, to be fair, I totally agree with that complaint. That is a real concern If we're just going back to where things were before. Where things were before is how we got Trump. So, if I can, let me tell just a short little anecdote from the protest.
Speaker 2:So I spoke pretty early on in the day, right after the event started. Our event started at four. I probably spoke like four or five, four, 10, right. So there was about 15,000 people by the time I started speaking. By the time I ended speaking closer to 20,000, not because they heard me speaking, although that would be cool just because they were coming to the protest, right?
Speaker 2:Do you know what got the loudest cheers, at least when I spoke? Not, it wasn't when I called Trump a fascist, because he is. He is a neo-fascist. He meets the definition of a palingenetic sorry, palingenetic ultra-nationalist. He meets the definition of a red Caesar. Whatever definition you want to use, he meets the definition of fascist, not necessarily the definition of national socialist.
Speaker 2:I'm a political science nerd, apologies, but what actually got the most cheers was when I was talking about what we should do next, when I was talking about a great American renewal, when I was talking about universal healthcare, when I was talking about ranked choice voting, when I was talking about climate protections, things that we can do to make sure that we're never in this situation again, that's the thing that got the most passion. That's the thing that got the most response. It wasn't just get Trump out of office because, believe me, people want him out. That's the main reason people are there. But the thing that got the most response, the thing that people were most passionate about, was what can we do next? How can we make sure this never happens again? How can we have a government that puts people before profits? How can we have a future where every person is respected?
Speaker 2:And the steps to get there include more than just rolling back what currently happened. It also means doing things different in the future labor protections, universal health care, equal rights, amendments and plenty more than just that. I even got a lot of cheers for worker cooperatives, which, to be fair, I didn't know that many people knew what I was talking about, so that was cool to hear, because I'm pretty big on democratizing the workplace. I think that that is going to be a more effective way at reducing alienation in the workplace, because it gives people more of a stake in how their company is doing and lets them practice our civic values through the economic sphere, which helps unite the public and private sphere in a way that's actually productive and not in a corporatist way that actively destroys the bonds between people.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question about. You said earlier, you're a Gen Z and you're moved by that. By the way, when Gen Z came along, z Magazine, znet a long history of Z stuff.
Speaker 2:You were ready for us.
Speaker 1:Do you know where the Z comes from in political terms? No, I do not the main time I see.
Speaker 2:Z right now is Russia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's Okay, so set that aside. I know you're not doing that.
Speaker 2:We're not a fan of that one.
Speaker 1:We're a fan of a different Z. Well, it was the Greek resistance. Oh, and Z in Greece is uh, he lives. The movement lives on. Look it up. And look up the movie Cause I think you'll like it by Costa Gavras. You probably don't know who that is, but that's okay. The movie is titled Z, so if you go online probably on, on, you know, Netflix or whatever you can find the movie Z, and I'll, I'll bet you'll like it a lot. So, in any case, what I wanted to ask you next is about your generation, right, I mean, I am not of your generation, you can tell.
Speaker 1:And I and people I know have been sort of wondering about the campuses. I mean, if you're at a distance and you're looking, it doesn't look like much is happening. It just doesn't. And yet our history or our historical memory suggests that the campuses should be exploding at this point. I mean, you have a genocidal war and the response to that was extraordinary back when it was really at its height. That was quite impressive and that meant students were reachable about this kind of thing. And you know, we've sort of wondered why it seems to be coming to fruition slowly and those of us who see the glass half full me have been assuming that students are meeting, talking and getting ready to exert themselves. Those thinking the glass is half empty have thought to themselves they're afraid, they're confused, they don't know what to do, they're studying. So I ask you it's probably some of each, but I'd ask you to try and can you convey to people what's going on on campuses and in the minds of students?
Speaker 2:Yes. So there's a whole bunch of things, and also my experience is going to be colored by the fact that I go to a very conservative university, at least for California. For a Christian university it's not that conservative, and by that I mean evangelical, because jesuit universities are very progressive on average, which is cool. My sister goes to jesuit, but I go to an evangelical university, right one that we kind of jokingly call christian nationalist university sometimes. Uh, so it's a little bit different, it's peberdine right, peberdine university.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Not to say that it's all bad. We have plenty of great things. I'm very thankful that I'm here. We have wonderful faculty and the administration has repeatedly expressed they value viewpoint diversity, so I should have nothing to worry about when talking about this, because they encourage intellectual debate. Sorry, just had to stare at the camera for one second.
Speaker 2:Anyways, so I think that there's two different things going on with Gen Z right. One of them is the thing that's gotten the most press, which is not the protest against, not the protest about the genocide in Gaza, but the right wing shift of young men. I'm putting that in air quotes because that's not totally true. What has happened is that there's way less men who identify as liberal, not way more men who identify as conservative. Most of the men who identify as liberal, who would identify as liberal in the past, like me, don't identify as liberal. We identify as progressive socialists or something else. Right, like it's not. People men have in my generation have shifted more towards the political extremes in both directions, but there has still been a right-wing shift that is noticeable when it comes to median With mean I don't know because so many people have shifted so left that it's hard to figure that one out, and the reason why that's happened is the social media algorithm and the economic disenfranchisement of my generation. Right, like it's pretty straightforward, you get, we are waking up knowing that the situation that we're in is a situation that we were, that is worse than it was for your generation and the other generations before us. Right, we are waking up into a world that is not set up for us to reach the American dream. Right, we were promised something and that promise has not been kept and we're really angry about it. And you have two options. And the option that's had way more institutional support, the option that's got way more dark money behind it, the option that's got way more AstroTurfing behind it that makes it easier to capture them, is the alt-right pipeline. Right, people like Jordan Peterson, who was on my campus sort of as like the gateway point, along with, in the past, ben Shapiro, although he's not as popular anymore and then moving down further and further and further into more and more extreme areas. You think Andrew Tate is bad. You haven't seen anything.
Speaker 2:There are way worse people out there that people my age are listening to, and that's part of the reason why we have not just a right-wing shift but also a school shooting epidemic, right. It's called sarcastic terrorism is the academic word. It's when someone basically gets shaken really, really, really hard by this far-right media ecosystem, telling them that they're never going to get a date, they're never going to find a job, they're never going to do anything with their life, and that it's, and that there's people who are the problem and people who are at fault. And those people are people who don't look like you, and they shake them really hard and don't give them any useful release and pull them more and more and more into these conspiracy theories which almost always ended anti-Semitism, by the way and shake them until they burst. And then, when they burst, they harm other people. And so that's how you get lone wolf shooters, that's how you get the right wing shift that you're seeing in young men.
Speaker 2:But the only reason why that's even possible is because of the economic disenfranchisement, it's because of the lack of third places, it's because of the growing alienation, it's because of the male loneliness epidemic, it's because men my age are way more likely to contemplate suicide than in the past. And that goes back to material and social conditions, right, that goes back to. And that goes back to material and social conditions right. That goes back to, quite frankly, the world not being set up for anyone to succeed, and white men who were told they would succeed, they were promised they would succeed, when in reality everyone should be given a fair shot has been broken and there are billions upon billions of dollars being invested into convincing them. That's other working class people that are the problem, not the billionaires who are swallowing up all the wealth. And then on the other side, we have the people on the left, right, people like me, people who are progressive, people who can tell that that's ridiculous and we know that there's a better path forward and, broadly speaking, that's the path that the woman of my generation have taken, and also a lot of men, and that doesn't get much talked about because, you know, the men are becoming very progressive.
Speaker 2:Doesn't sell well on the airwaves protesting against the genocide at Gaza, when we were protesting against these terrible things that are happening both in America and abroad, and then the Republican Party obviously hates it because they're the problem, and then the Democratic Party also attacks us because they are benefiting from the military industrial complex too. You're not. It's harder to get people on the streets when there's no support from either side. Right, it's hard to convince people to vote for Kamala Harris when Kamala Harris is promising to do the same things that Joe Biden's doing, which are the things that we're protesting against. Now, of course, I still vote for Harris. Almost everyone I've talked to still vote for Harris, because we're not stupid and we know that Donald Trump would be way worse for Palestinians that, as we are currently seeing, he wants to, you know, turn into a strip mall, which is, you know, ethnic cleansing and genocide, where Biden was more just letting Israel do what Israel was doing. That's way, you know, one of those things is way worse. They're both bad. One of them is way worse.
Speaker 2:It's harder to convince those people to get up there and to advocate for, say, the Democratic Party, when the Democratic Party is not doing what a left-wing party should be doing. So what we're seeing is it's harder to convince Gen Z to get out there and risk their necks, risk getting arrested or detained or deported, risk ruining what little shot that they have a good future for people who are just going to stab them in the back. That's how they see things. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily true, but that's the general sentiment. But also we are starting to see a shift there. Because things are getting so bad, because Trump is so obviously evil with the executive overreach and the arresting and detaining of Khalil Oz Turk and other students right, and with the attacks on undocumented immigrants, on LGBTQ plus people, on women's rights, there are still a lot of people who are willing to fight for their rights and for the rights of people around them, even without the institutional support, and we're starting to see more people come out and protest. We're starting to see more people get involved.
Speaker 2:On my campus this is the first we had a protest against Jordan Peterson who spoke yesterday. That's the first time we've had major protest activity at Pepperdine in years. Like that hasn't happened in a while. And it wasn't just that. In addition, the university was telling the GSA you know Gender and Sexuality Alliance they couldn't call or they couldn't use the word gay in any advertisements anywhere. They were doing the whole Florida don't say gay bill thing, including for, most recently, their formal, which was the Saturday.
Speaker 2:We actually would have had probably more Pepperdine students at hands off if it weren't for the fact the GSA formal was scheduled months in advance for that day and there's nothing you can do about that, but we still had some people show up, whether it was in Malibu or in LA. In fact, I wasn't even the only Pepperdine student organizing the protest in LA, which was. I didn't even know that till I was there. It was like wait a second. I know you from school, but we are seeing students even at conservative universities starting to advocate for the rights and for the rights of other people, and I don't know how much of that shift we're going to continue seeing, but when I see that and then I see a lot more Gen Z at the protest than last time, I think that there's more hope for my generation than the media will tell you. Sorry, that was a very long response.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's fine, it's fine. Let me ask you about a piece of that response in particular, sure, which I think is a big part of what's going on. But I also don't understand it and you mentioned it in the course of your overall description of many variables the loneliness factor among students, pushing them to the right. But you did mention this set of variables connected with misogyny and with sexism, and that's my impression from outside. But I wanted to ask you A, is it right? Is that as big a factor as it feels like maybe it is?
Speaker 1:And B, what's causing it in your view? That is and let me be even more explicit about that there are descriptions which say that not only have young women, college-age women, young women, college-age women, students right caught up to men as compared to the past, in their productive output, so to speak, in the character of their work, etc. But they have now gone well past men and they are being more productive, they are getting the higher grades, the higher accolades, etc. And you see it in movement too that there are so many women proportionately as compared to men. What's causing this, do you think?
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I think it goes back to I mean, it's partly good, Let me just it's partly obviously very good, but the flip side of it is the yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So again, I think it's sort of like a weird mix of factors that makes it complicated to talk about. Right, because obviously women's role advancing in society is a good thing, and anyone who's against that needs to shut up, like, just straight up, you're wrong, go home, read a whole bunch of things until you realize exactly why you're wrong, and then you know, move on. And then you know, fix, fix your issues right, like I don't. Like you know, if you are misogynistic, if you're sexist, if you genuinely are upset that women have made gains in society, you're a terrible person. Like that is the. That's the alpha and the omega here, right, right, that's the A and the Z, as we've been talking about. But when it comes to young men, right. So what we're seeing is, again, we're seeing tons of economics and social pressure put onto men and women. Right of our generation. Our generation is not being set up for success as a whole from a generational standpoint, as other generations were in the past. Right, it's the whole fight club thing. We're told we could be rock stars, and you know we, and it wasn't true. And now we're really angry, right, like that's the same, the same sentiment, again, just multiplied by more and more years of the oligarchy hollowing out our country for their own to line their own pocketbook Right. So they own to line their own pocketbook right, so they see that right.
Speaker 2:And then it's really, really easy to tell someone who's seeing them gangs, who is getting stepped on, and to go point at the stuff over there the efforts are being made to include women and include minority groups. It's really easy to point at that and be like, look, the elites are screwing you over and they're helping those people. So those people are the problem, which is totally, totally. I don't know if you're allowed to curse on here, so I'm going to go right ahead. Okay, cool, totally bullshit.
Speaker 2:That is nonsense, right, that is separate efforts by different groups of people who are much more well-intentioned, who are trying to level the playing field for groups of people who are historically marginalized. But just like it's really hard to tell working class poor people, white people, they have white privilege it's really hard to tell you know, young men who are being, who are being screwed over by society, that they have male privilege. Right, they do have male privilege. It's true, they absolutely do. But it's really hard to sell someone on the you're the oppressor when you're getting oppressed too, like it's just, it's that's a hard sell. So it's those economics and social conditions that are causing issues for my entire generation. And then you have white men who are disenfranchised by that because they're part of that generation. But then in all the messaging that they're seeing, they're seeing the. You're the ones with all the power, you're the ones with the control when, from a gender perspective and from a race perspective, 100 true, right, but it's really hard to sell them on that when they're when they are being stepped on.
Speaker 1:So let me try something with you. Let me try something with you. See, I don't think that telling young white men that you have white privilege, male privilege, et cetera, is very smart. In fact, I think it's strategically pretty dumb for the reasons that you're describing. When you say that to somebody, doesn't it suggest you have something you shouldn't have, as compared to you have something that somebody else doesn't have? If you have something that somebody else doesn't have, the solution to that is they should have it too, right? Yeah, if you have something that nobody should have it's a privilege that you know it's associated with racism and sexism and people shouldn't have it Then it means you have to wind up with even less.
Speaker 1:That's what the hard sell is right. When you describe a hard sell, it's that they hear that they're supposed to give something up and they feel they've got very little in the first place. If being able to talk and be heard, if being able to uh, uh, you know walk at night and not be accosted are privileges, then there's something you shouldn't have. You should suffer the same as the. Do you see what I'm saying? Saying so, maybe that wasn't such a great approach. Maybe the, the you've got stuff that you should have, but others should have it too, and until everybody has it, it's your responsibility to fight for everybody to have it. That's a slightly different. It's the same content, but it's a different way of expressing it do you think that makes?
Speaker 2:sense well, you. That's the problem. We're talking about relative versus absolute privilege, I guess right Like if we're talking in a privilege as in thing that you have not necessarily a thing that you shouldn't have, just thing that you have. Right From that perspective. Because from an absolute standpoint, if you're not in the 1%, if you're not in a billion, dollar regard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody's fucked.
Speaker 2:Everyone else is screwed over by that Right In an absolute sense. But then you know there are different levels of screwed over depending on where you're at with your other identities Right, intersectionality, right. So like, if you're a woman who is not part of the 1%, you are getting screwed over for being both not part of the 1% and a woman, right, true, so both not part of the 1% and a woman, right, True. So that's where the messaging is coming from, because you know we're coming from but look at how it's formulated. We're looking at centuries of steps towards women's rights and civil rights and.
Speaker 2:LGBTQ rights still haven't been achieved. So I agree with you that there's a massive messaging failure here, and it's something that I'm trying to work on myself. But also, like I'm not going'm not gonna, you know, go my way to criticize someone for talking about male privilege when you know we've been fighting for women's rights for hundreds of years and we still don't. We still don't have it all the way right, like we still don't so it's a way to go, of course, yeah, and you know it's hard to tone like I don't really want to tone police people that are coming from marginalized communities also
Speaker 2:because those concerns are valid too. But you're right in that there is a framing issue where it's not the you have things you shouldn't have, it's the these people should also have these things, and also you're getting screwed over by the one percent. So like there is someone who we need to take things away from, and it's not you, young man, it is elon musk. That is the person who has to be yours and should be, uh, your girlfriends.
Speaker 1:Right like that, even that's even more the the uh, the sexist oppression, the racist oppression doesn't not affect young whites, right they too suffer from it differently, not as much, right, but it's still bad for them.
Speaker 1:Let me ask a question this way To what extent, when young people, students, young people who are moving politically, who are aroused by Trump, et cetera, et cetera, are talking, to what extent is the sentiment expressed for everyone? Or, to protect me, it's slightly different, right, it's? Take Columbia University, which could be Pepperdine next week. Right? Trump threatens a reaction. Trump threatens to cut off funding to Columbia University. The administrators and the board, the trustees, hear that and say to themselves oh shit, they may not like Trump. Who the hell knows? Right, they may actually have a degree of human sentiment left and they're sort of horrified by some of the hell knows. Right, they may actually have a degree of human sentiment left and they're sort of horrified by some of the craziness. Right, that's possible.
Speaker 1:But they think about the situation and they decide they look at it narrowly in terms of Columbia's finances, basically right. And they decide okay, it's smart to give in. We should give in, to protect ourselves, of course, and that's one kind of mindset. And with that mindset you tend to get that as the result. But with another mindset you tend to get activism and trying to collectively change the situation. Rather than protect yourself while everybody else is screwed, you try and change the whole situation. And what I'm trying to ask, not very eloquently, is among students, do you have the feeling that the sentiment that's emerging is collective versus individual or a small group? Me and my friends, what's your feeling?
Speaker 2:I think it's starting to shift more collective right, like just watching, because I was organizing for 5051, I was organizing for Hands Off, so I took more of a backseat in the organizing for the protest that we had yesterday at Pepperdine. So I was more watching how they were doing it and I was helping out where I could. For example, I brought some of like my safety stuff medical supplies like water with electrolytes in it in case someone fainted, but and also helping negotiate with campus officials at times. But for the most part I was taking a backseat role because, again, I wanted to see how they're doing it and it was remarkable to me how much of it was a perspective of the. We're trying to help everyone here. This isn't just for me or for you or for our singular interest. He's attacking all of these people and even the people who's not attacking, he's giving deeply unhelpful advice. So in some sense, like this is for everyone right. It wasn't just the feminist club upset that he is anti-feminist. They were also upset that he was homophobic and transphobic and Islamophobic and racist and all these like you. And they weren't just picking and choosing the thing that mattered to them because of their own identity, they were looking at. The all of these things matter because we're all human beings and we're going to stand up for everyone. And watching that and seeing way more people show up than we were expecting we were expecting like 10 and we got like maybe 30 to 40 was good to see. So even in you know, a place that is absolutely not set up for any sort of progressive organizing, we were seeing a push towards solidarity that I maybe hadn't seen in the past. I think that that's a good thing. And I also do want to touch on your sexist oppression points Absolutely Patriarchy, the whole. I'm a big fan of Simone de Beauvoir. I mean her writing, not her personal life. We can ignore that, but her writing right.
Speaker 2:And when she's talking and when the second wave feminists are talking about patriarchy right, it's not exclusively in the sense that there's these men and they're oppressing women. It is, there's this patriarchal system that is oppressing women primarily and forcing them into the feminine role, which is designated as bad, and forcing men into this feminine role, which is designated as bad, and forcing men into this masculine role, which is better than the feminine role from a societal standpoint. But if they step outside of line, if they have emotions. If they express themselves femininely, if they use nail polish or dresses, they're going to get hate cracked right, like they're going to be oppressed for stepping outside of their role too. So patriarchy is a good term because it refers to this sort of like. It's not domination by men, it's domination by fatherhood. It's domination by this idea of this masculine inheritance, which oppresses everyone to different degrees, but to everyone.
Speaker 2:So part of the reason we're seeing with young men is we're seeing the inability to work through and understand their emotions and relate to people empathetically, because they're being set up to not be able to do that. It benefits the system and it benefits the elites for men to not be able to connect with women and other men. Like you know, we can talk about the dating thing, and that's a thing, right? That's more of a fear of men than an actuality, where the bigger issue is that they're not even able to relate to each other. Right, like I'll be hanging out with a group of guys and there's so much awkwardness about how much affection can they show each other without it being feminine, right? And that's patriarchy too. And they're doing it to themselves and it's being done to them and they're doing it to each other.
Speaker 1:So that's part about. I mean, it seems more extreme at the moment. I mean there's a lot of going to get it that it isn't there, that we were lied to. That's what caused the 60s. Right, that's not new to, and I didn't think of it as now. I thought of it as then, but that's what actually happened. We believed society is good Doctors serve people, corporations meet needs. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Society is good Doctors serve people, corporations meet needs. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The democracy. And then we got into school, ran into the Vietnam War and civil rights movement and all of a sudden we realized we had been lied to. Yeah, it was all a gigantic lie and we went berserk, but that's not exactly what's happened with you. You're describing this is how humans are complex. I guess You're describing that your generation ran into something similar, but it had sort of a mixed bag of effects on you. It created the anger, but the anger got channeled to the right end also to the left.
Speaker 1:That's a different kind of a thing. Yeah, let me ask what's the? Well, I don't know whether at Pepperdine you have, do you have sects at the Pepperdine campus you have political organization, groups, parties et cetera that are Leninist and Maoist and so on. You don't have that.
Speaker 2:I can't say I've met too many organizations. I've met individuals who are different political views and obviously I have my own political views. I'm very progressive. I'm pretty, you know left-wing in general. I'm definitely not a Maoist, I don't.
Speaker 2:I do not subscribe to authoritarian socialism. I tend to find authoritarianism to be the problem, and I have actually argued with people on campus who are more authoritarian than I am and told them hey, look like you're. You're the ones making us look bad to the conservatives, that we're trying to pull over to us. So you guys need to get your stuff together a little bit. But not that there isn't some valid points being made. But no, we have the Democratic Club, we have the Feminist Club, we have the Gender and Sexuality Alliance.
Speaker 2:That is the one I would probably give the most credit to for progressive organizing. And then there's also some right-wing groups, but we don't really have that whole spectrum of militant political organizations on our campus because the university doesn't want that and they've taken steps to make sure that that doesn't happen. And also there's a lot of rules about not having outside organizations too, especially outside political organizations, which is also good, because it kind of limits how much the right-wing groups can do too, which is nice, um, but it doesn't limit them as much as it limits us on the left, which is frustrating. But yeah, my concerns are also a lot bigger than just the campus. It's with the country as a whole.
Speaker 1:So sure, all right. Do you have something that you want to broach that I haven't asked about? That's fine. If you do Some topic or something, perhaps that's planned, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I like to focus on because, again, we've talked a lot about this anger, right. We've talked a lot about how Trump is a manifestation of the rage. He is not representative of people who want right-wing policy positions. He's representative of people who want to burn down the system because they're upset. Um, and we talked a lot about like down the left too. But I also think that the difference is that we can give people productive things to do with their emotions that make the world around them better, and I would love to talk about that.
Speaker 1:The difference between january 6th.
Speaker 1:You know the, the, the assault on the I remember yeah so, uh, the problem with that wasn't that people wanted to critique and even to change the form of government. The problem with that was what they wanted to do it too. It's interesting that and I wonder if this affects young people at all this might not even arise as an idea. In a way, trump has put on the table the possibility of reconstructing society. I mean, they're not about just policies, they're about literally reconstructing the government and, to a degree, reconstructing virtually everything. Yes, so that's.
Speaker 1:One tends to call that revolution, not the kind of revolution that makes life better, in his case, but the kind of transformation of basic institutions that would make things worse. But it does demonstrate I mean, it's quite remarkable in many respects how they have in fact taken over a major political party cowed, much of the elite of the country, etc. Etc. Etc. Elite of the country, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm wondering whether it's starting to creep into the thought of young people. Well, wait a minute. The task here, ultimately, it shouldn't replace defending ourselves now, it shouldn't replace stopping Trump now, it shouldn't replace stopping Trump. But the task ultimately is for us to redo the institutions, for us to transform whatever it is that gives birth to misogyny, whatever it is that gives birth to inequality, whatever it is that gives birth to racism. We have to find those fundamental institutions and alter them. Is that on the minds of young people who are in schools?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or is it more?
Speaker 1:we have to defend ourselves.
Speaker 2:Well, I think to some degree it's in survival mode first. Right, like, to some degree, it is the you know we need to. There's a bunch. We're in a ship, we're in a storm, a bunch of the water is getting into the ship. We need to get the buckets first before we can get back home. Right, like, before we can get back home. Right, like I was talking to I forget which organization it was, but I was talking to them like a news channel and I was comparing it to the Odyssey. Right, like it takes Odysseus 20 years to get home.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know, we read it in class. Right, like it comes up in college. Right, I have it, I think I have it right here, it's in, it's part of this great book curriculum. Right, it's in there. I actually like, I like looking at the classics as long as we're looking at classics that aren't just by old, dead white men and looking at the broad spectrum. Maya Mondi is an Emily Dickinson are two of my favorites and neither of those fit that category.
Speaker 2:But, like, we're in that survival mode right now. Right now, we need to get past Scylla, we need to get past Cilla, we need to get past the sirens and we can't even focus on reuniting with Penelope until we get there. We can't. To some degree, we're in survival mode before we can try to thrive spaces. Right, because we need to have a plan, because the Trump administration will fall. Even if that they suspend elections, even if they declare national state of emergency, even if they invade another country, they will not last forever. Trump's old Trump's going to die and the next guy is not going to have the same charisma. He will. Their kingdom will fall, much as Rome fell, much as every other empire that has ever fallen. So you know, we're part of it's.
Speaker 2:Those discussions are being had too. What do we do to make changes, to encourage egalitarianism, to encourage a better future for everyone? Um, and it's going to take a lot of work, right? We're not going to be able to. If you ask me, the original sin, the first bad thing that happened when it comes to like human relations, is misogyny. Like you know, like the Mars defeats Venus, or you know, adam becomes the master over Eve. Whatever, you know folklore myth you want to use folklore myth. You want to use the. One of the earliest issues is that women have not been given a fair shake throughout the entire history of humanity, throughout the entire recorded history of humanity, um, and that's going to take a lot more than just the next eight years, next 10 years to fix, but it's something that we have to fix. It's something when it comes to racism, when it comes to wealth inequality I think class conflict is going to be. You know, that's one of the big ones, right.
Speaker 2:So we're having these discussions, we're working on ways to get them better, but for right now, the things I want to recommend are things that people can do today which get us to that place, and in such, they are steps towards a free and equal society for everyone. Whether it's calling your local representatives five calls or even showing up to their doorstep and by that I mean their office and demanding that they stand up against Trump, because that works. That's how we got Cory Booker to do 25 hours right. People demanded, people's constituents demanded that he do that, and he did. He delivered, and I'll give him credit for it.
Speaker 2:Whether it's even just volunteering at your local soup kitchen or helping clean up, beautify the streets, and then, when someone asks why you're doing it, it's because you believe in the idea of America and you believe in a free and equal society for everyone. You do that too, because beautifying the place around you helps make things more comfortable for everyone, helps. You know, even like the little things of what color shirt you wear can change the entire course of a human interaction and therefore a human life. Right Like there are little things that you can do and there are big things you can do, like joining your local 5051 chapter or Indivisible or Women's March or any other group, or if you're in a workplace forming a union, if you're not helping someone else form a union. All those are steps you can take which get us into position to take our country back in 2026 and 2028. And then from there, building the kind of society that will never allow this to happen again.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're almost at an hour. I guess we've come to the end, Unless you again have something else that you want to express. Maybe is there a site, Maybe you could give the URL of the site that people should visit to consider the possibility of volunteering or working with 5051?.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 5051. Our main website, the national one, is 50, like the let the word 50, the word 50, again a period, and then the word one and then for my local one, 5051.
Speaker 1:So wait, and then that can't be the whole url. Is that the whole url?
Speaker 2:that's the whole url okay 50.1 one and then you're good, it's pretty convenient, I think. And then for the other one, my local one, it's 50501 SoCal, which is S-O-C-A-L dot org, which is also pretty simple, which is great. If you want to reach out, those are the best places to do, although you can also find us on Instagram or really any social media platform, except for next door, as far as I'm aware. Um, so you know, you can find us anywhere, or even just go to your local town hall. There might be someone there all right.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to your next round of uh, of events and activism. And I wonder, let me ask you one last thing when it comes time to choose targets, let's call it, you know, we're going to go to town hall, we're going to go to whatever it might be I wonder if anybody has considered the possibility of two slightly new targets. One of them is starting to happen. So, with the Musk focus, people are saying, well, look, this guy is part of the problem, he is behind Trump, behind MAGA, et cetera, so we're going to go after him directly. Well, there's a bunch of other billionaires who could be gone after directly in the same way, at their organizations, at their corporations, at their houses even. I'm wondering if that comes up.
Speaker 1:And the second possible target that I'm wondering whether or not it's starting to affect people's you know, priorities is the media, that is, you know, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun, the NBC, abc, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe those could also be targeted. Press, the press, because I have to say that you mentioned that you had gotten some more coverage this time than in certain past examples. But the reality is, if there are 5 million people demonstrating, that should be the main news item of every newspaper, tv station, local media for an extended period of time. That's a big deal and instead they're describing it as thousands. In passing, I think in the New York Times it was on page 19 or 20 or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw that one, I think in the.
Speaker 1:New York Times. It was on page 19 or 20 or something. Yeah, I saw that one. Yeah, so that should be another target, or could be another target. Does that ring sensible to you?
Speaker 2:Well, when it comes to the Elon Musk and other billionaire stuff, Tesla takedowns have been big. We've had our people there and I think that's great.
Speaker 1:And when it comes to other billionaires.
Speaker 2:That's something to consider. And when it comes to media, you started doing that. There was a big one in new york at fox, where basically fox fox news just couldn't really do anything because everyone was outside their building for a while, and that was. I think that's a good step towards that. Another thing that's being talked about is federal process federal buildings specifically, especially ICE detention centers or ICE processing centers, but federal buildings in general, which is something else that we're talking about, because you know we don't want to. You know, for example, protests outside of Social Security, because people kind of need that, because people kind of need that.
Speaker 2:But what we do want to do is, if we can make things just a little bit harder for the billionaires or just a little bit harder for those federal agencies that are actively making the average American's lives worse or even worse, basically, or taking pages out of the Gestapo playbook, we absolutely want to do that. We want to make it harder, as hard as we can peacefully, because, again, nonviolence is more effective than violence here. Because, look, let's just be real, the US government has nukes, we don't have nukes, and that's kind of the difference there, right? So there's no, no asymmetrical warfare is going to work at this time. So what does work is nonviolent demonstrations, because if they respond with violence, it's over for them, because then the entire American public stands up against a fascist government that's attacking its own citizens, and that's why nonviolence works.
Speaker 1:That's the crucial recognition that you have to create conditions in which they cannot repress you without them losing more. And it's the same thing as you described. How do these demonstrations have an impact? They have an impact if they create a situation in which the government or the corporation if you're fighting for higher wages, whatever the case may be right is facing more costs to pursue its policies than benefits from pursuing its policies. When it looks to the government like they're going to lose more by cutting this or that service, or by doing this or that repression or whatever it may be, then they're going to gain. Well, then they stop. You know, they reconsider. They are sensible to that extent.
Speaker 1:That's why, just as a possible ending, you know, we used to say if we have 100,000 people, as you had in LA, let's say roughly right. So if we have 100,000 people in April, and then we have 100,000 people in May, and then we have 100,000 people in June, the cost to the elites is to clean up the mess. But if we have 20,000, and then 40,000, and then 60,000, and so on, the cost to them is the threat that it's just going to keep going. And so the thread is critical the growth and the impact that it has, as you described earlier, not just on the people who are present, but on the people who see it and who are inspired to then become involved later. And hopefully that's what 50-51 is generating, and if it does and it does it with a mind toward those kinds of effects, I agree with you it'll win.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing, too. Like, that's one of the reasons why, that's why we do the means that we're doing. Right, that's why we're not violent, because our means need to align with our ends as well. Right, we're trying to make a government that is different than the oppressive, brutal, violent regime that we're currently facing, so you can't do that with more violence. Right, and that's also we have to keep in mind what we're fighting against, too. Right, because, like I go to again, I go to Pepperdine. Right, I go to a Christian university, so you know I'm in class.
Speaker 2:Right, and I hear the religious teachings too, and something that stuck out to me the other day that came up was a concept about nonviolent demonstration from even the Bible itself. Right, because our war is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities, the rulers and authorities of this dark world, and that's the thing that we need to keep in mind here. Right, it's not us versus the people that were fooled into voting for Trump, it's not us against the military, or even it is against like the government, but it's not against like government officials per se. It is against the billionaires, it's against the elites, it's against the rulers and authorities of this dark world and the systems that produce them yep, and we do not defeat that's, that's the principalities, right.
Speaker 2:And we do not defeat them through violence. We defeat them through non-violent action. So thank you for having me all right.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for being on and, uh, that said, this is mike albert signing off until next time for revolution z.