![\"Former](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/therealnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-1439615487-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C892&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFormer U.S. President Donald Trump watches a video of President Joe Biden playing during a rally for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at the Miami-Dade Country Fair and Exposition on November 6, 2022 in Miami, Florida. Photo by Joe Raedle\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2024 elections have begun, and all signs point to a rehash of 2020\u2019s Biden vs. Trump race. Biden is now at the nadir of his approval ratings in office, thanks to his administration\u2019s obstinate support for Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza. Within the GOP, Trump\u2019s nomination is a fait accompli despite the former president\u2019s ongoing legal battles. There are few silver linings for the left in this scenario, but sticking our heads in the sand isn\u2019t an option, either. Studio Production: Cameron Granadino The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Welcome back, my friends to The Real News Network podcast. I\u2019m your host, Mel Buer. Before we begin, as always, I want to take a moment to thank you, our dedicated listeners for coming back week after week to listen to the show. Without you, we wouldn\u2019t be able to do this important work. Whether you\u2019ve got our shows on while you\u2019re making coffee in the morning, put our podcasts on during your commute to and from work, or give us a listen throughout the workday, The Real News Network is committed to bringing you ad-free independent journalism that you can count on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We care a lot about what we do and it\u2019s through donations from dedicated listeners like you that we can keep on doing it. Please consider becoming a monthly sustainer of The Real News Network by heading over to therealnews.com\/donate. And if you want to stay in touch and get updates about our work, then sign up for our free newsletter at therealnews.com \/sign-up. As always, we appreciate your support in whatever form it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, election season is well underway here in the United States, and the general sentiment about the upcoming general election is complex to say the least. Donald Trump is leading the race in the GOP with Nikki Haley trailing behind, and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden is the presumptive nominee for the opposing party. Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of these races by mainstream media, The Real News is focused on going beyond the horse race politicking that has jammed up the airwaves in the last couple months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anecdotally, no one wants this race to shape up in the way that it has. It seems apparent that many voters aren\u2019t interested in this rehash of 2020, nor are they excited about the rock and a hard place choices that are likely to be on the ballot in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the stakes of this election are pretty steep. Our democracy already reeling from years of compounding crises feels on ever more unstable ground as we rocket toward the general election at the end of the year. To help us understand the stakes of this election and give some insight into what our listeners can expect in the coming months, I\u2019ve gathered a roundtable of seasoned reporters to help us make sense of things. With me today are Lisa Snowden-McCray, award-winning reporter and editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat. Max Alvarez, editor-in-chief of The Real News. Mark Steiner, host of the Mark Steiner Show at The Real News and Stephen Janis, investigative reporter and co-host and creator of the Police Accountability Report here at The Real News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we get started on today\u2019s main conversation, I would like everyone to take a moment to introduce yourself, give folks a little bit of a window into the work you\u2019ve been doing lately. Lisa, we can start with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hi, I am Lisa Snowden. I\u2019m the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Baltimore Beat, which is a Black-led nonprofit news outlet in Baltimore City, and we focus on news in Baltimore City and the surrounding areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great. Thanks for coming on. Max.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hey everyone. I am Maximilian Alvarez. I am the editor-in-chief here at The Real News Network, where I have the tremendous honor of getting to work with our entire incredible team, producing hard-hitting grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices from the front lines of struggle here in the US, here in Baltimore, and around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yeah, that is what we are working on this year across the board, whether it be in the fight for workers\u2019 rights or the fight against the prison industrial complex, or against the military industrial complex that is wreaking havoc on our people and our planet. We\u2019re going to be there this year covering it as best we can, as authentically as we can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark, welcome to the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark Steiner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you. Yeah, I\u2019m Mark Steiner. I\u2019m for Real News. I\u2019ve had the Mark Steiner show there now, and I\u2019ve been covering the rise of the right in this country and across the globe. And another piece I do called Not in Our Name, which is talking about the Israel-Palestine conflict and the future there, talking to folks around the globe as well and talking about elections. And I\u2019ve been involved in and covering elections, either involved in and\/or covering elections for decades and decades and decades. We don\u2019t have to go back to the very first one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great. And Stephen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen Janis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m Stephen Janis. I\u2019m a reporter for The Real News Network, and I produce a show called The Police Accountability Report, which covers law enforcement across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great. And everyone, all listeners should know who I am by now, Mel Buer, the host of The Real News Network podcast, and a staff reporter here at The Real News Network focusing on movements and the labor movement more specifically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you so much for coming on the show today, everyone. There is quite a bit that we could get into that would have us talking for a couple of hours about this current election season, but we\u2019re going to do our best to keep the conversation focused on a few key points and observations that we hope will arm you in the audience, with some new thoughts and ways of viewing this current election season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think a good way to start off this conversation is to take stock of the state of things as they are today. We\u2019re recording this episode near the end of January. We\u2019ve already seen two primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, both of which had some interesting things happen. What are some of the key things that our listeners should know about what\u2019s been going on so far this election season? I think Max or Lisa might be great to start the conversation with your thoughts and observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, our focus is local, so it\u2019s a little bit different. I mean, obviously we are impacted by what happens nationally, but for me, I\u2019m looking because the national outlook is so dismal and because really my work is hyper local\u2026 My focus is local and specifically young people in Baltimore City because traditionally when it comes to talking about voting in Baltimore City, the focus is on the folks that show up, and that\u2019s always the older population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Join thousands of others who rely on our journalism to navigate complex issues, uncover hidden truths, and challenge the status quo with our free newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox twice a week<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young people are talked about a lot, especially in the last year or so, when despite the decrease in crime, there\u2019s been a lot of talk among people in power, in the media, more mainstream media, about how to crack down on crime, still going back to harsher penalties and harsher penalties for children. So for me, as an editor with an outlet and a platform, I want to let young people be able to say what they want to say. Whether it be weighing in on the things that are on the ballot, but also how they feel about voting in general, because we\u2019ve seen a lot of young people really be energized by what\u2019s been happening in Gaza, the organizing that\u2019s been happening around that. So are y\u2019all even coming to the poll and do you want to talk about why or why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s great. Yeah. I think this is something that has also been part of the conversation here at The Real News, and we are definitely going to spend a good chunk of the back half of our conversation talking about local races. So I can\u2019t wait to hear more of your thoughts about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Max, if you want to add in a bit of a national perspective and some of the things that The Real News is trying to cover this year from the federal election season, general election season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. Well, I mean, I kind of want to just call out the elephant in the room, because like Lisa was saying, we got to be honest about the fact that once again, here we are in a situation where it\u2019s election season. We are having our presidential elections, we\u2019ve got national races, we\u2019ve got state and local races, we\u2019re in full swing, and I\u2019m already exhausted. And it feels like we never really get a full reprieve from the election season. Feels like 80 to 90% of politics is just the never ending campaign as it were. And we\u2019re always talking about what we\u2019re going to do and what politicians are going to do somewhere, sometime down the road that never actually comes, right? And so people are naturally exhausted by this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time that it feels like everything around us is getting slowly or less, slowly worse for a lot of people. I mean, I don\u2019t want to minimize and paint a totally bleak picture, and we can dig into this more as the conversation unfolds because it\u2019s not as easy as just saying everything is terrible under Biden. There\u2019s no hope for us one way or the other. Things are bad, they could always get worse. Things are bad, but they are getting better for some other people. Wage gains are being made in some parts of the economy. Jobs are being lost in other parts of the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, it\u2019s always a bit of a mixed bag, but the fact of the matter is for I think your average person, and for all of us here covering this stuff, we have historically unpopular presidential candidates, one who is currently actively the world\u2019s number one supporter of a genocide that is happening in real time in Gaza in President Joe Biden. And then you\u2019ve got Donald Trump, who Jeff Charlotte rightly summed it up on Democracy Now recently, with his campaign fascism is literally on the ballot in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We can\u2019t pretend that it\u2019s anything otherwise. If you listen to what Trump is saying and what Republican voters are saying they want, then we\u2019ve got a real pickle on our hands with these two options at the presidential level with a population that is exhausted already by the prospect of an election season that can feel the government around it sort of crumbling and the legitimacy of that government crumbling while inequality is rising, while war is breaking out all over the place, the climate crisis is getting worse. The bastards keep winning, right? At the same time, Trump and the right present a real scary and horrifying threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so what do we do about that? What do we do about the fact that this is an election that at the national level is still going to have implications even though both candidates are awful, both parties at that level are oligarchic, corrupt, war-hungry, and serve the interest of the ruling class over everybody else. At the same time that elections still really, really matter, and there are tons of races from the, again, state, local and national level that the results of which are going to have a major impact on our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so we have to approach this election like any election, strategically, if not begrudgingly, because none of us want to do it, but it\u2019s all going to have an impact on our lives. So that\u2019s kind of the frame of mind that I\u2019m coming into as it\u2019s clear after these two primaries, it\u2019s Biden and Trump, the Republican and Democratic parties are not going to allow any other option. This is what we\u2019ve got. So I\u2019m excited to talk with everyone here about what we do about that as citizens and as journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Definitely Max, I think it\u2019s definitely a good thing to point this conversation into a direction here just in a little bit about the, as you so succinctly put it a couple of days ago, the quandary that we\u2019re in. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we move on to that though, I want to get your take Mark. You\u2019ve been covering elections for years, many, many election cycles. You\u2019ve spent a lot of time in the decades of all of your work really kind of paying attention to the sort of political machinations of this country. And I really kind of want to key in on what mainstream media is choosing to focus on this time around. It feels a lot, at least to me and anecdotally from some of the folks that I\u2019ve spoken with that we\u2019re kind of seeing a rehash of 2016. It doesn\u2019t seem like media is really covering important issues related to these races. There\u2019s a lot of, oh, incendiary sort of rhetoric and propaganda that\u2019s coming out of mainstream media coverage of the Trump campaign, of the Biden campaign and so on. Do you see this sort of pattern continuing? Is this a new thing? Do you feel like this is kind a new sort of salvo in this sort of information war that we\u2019re seeing surrounding general elections, or is this more of the same?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark Steiner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, I mean, first of all, media in general covers a horse race. They don\u2019t cover the issues deeply, never have. Maybe some parts of media have, but for the most part, this is going to be about two men, about Trump and Biden. It\u2019s going to be about what they represent, and it\u2019s going to be about that part of the race. We\u2019re not going to see a lot of, so far, we\u2019re not seeing a lot about what either party or man stands for. So I think that\u2019s going to be what we\u2019re going to see for the rest of this election when it comes to coverage from mainstream media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think that, and for us, we\u2019re in a very difficult time, and I\u2019ve been doing a lot of thinking and writing just about comparing this moment that we see ourselves in to, on some levels to Germany in 1930 and \u201933 and how things fell apart and how the fascists seized power. And we are on the verge of it now. I\u2019m sitting here, spent a good part of my day finishing up on our story that Max and I and Kayla did in Texas, where the right wing has seized power of Texas and seeing what they can do and what they can do with that power. And I think that\u2019s what we\u2019re facing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think that\u2019s part of what the difficulty is in covering this race for us, these races for us, is that you\u2019ve got these kind of neo-fascist right wing party on one side that is really gaining power momentum, organizing and putting together their power base. And you\u2019ve got these kind of moderate Democrats on the other that really don\u2019t offer the alternative, but they end up being the only alternative because otherwise you have the fascist in power. So I think we\u2019re at a really difficult moment, and I don\u2019t see the mainstream media getting into that in any depth at all. And I\u2019ve been following that pretty closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Max or Stephen, do you have anything you\u2019d like to add about that? I know both of you have had some thoughts about mainstream media coverage. I have found it absurd whenever I\u2019ve turned on CNN and seen what they choose to spend their time on. There was a full day over the weekend of CNN reporters following GOP congressmen through the State House, through the House of Representatives, and asking them if they would support Trump, even if he was thrown in jail or taken off the ballot. Very much a kind of absurd sort of way to spend your time, I think. But yeah, Stephen, Max, if you have any thoughts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen Janis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can go. I mean, I think I\u2019ve always been struck even since 2016 by the media\u2019s fetishization of the Trump voters, excuse me, fetishizing the Trump voter to the sense that I don\u2019t think we get a clearer picture about Trump electability to a certain extent. I mean, it\u2019s so extreme, the coverage, and I think it sort of resulted in the surprise of 2016, but the media, again hasn\u2019t corrected in any way, shape, or form that I can see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what\u2019s interesting and what you saw this past two weeks with both of the caucuses was a very mild buried narrative emerging where voters in the Republican side of the ledger, or even in the independent side were saying they wouldn\u2019t vote for Trump regardless. And the media just, if you watch the media, you think Trump was basically ready to be coronated president already. And I think it\u2019s interesting that once they were confronted with the reality of some of 40% of the electorate, especially in New Hampshire and somewhat similar in suburban voters and things like that, and moderate voters saying, \u201cWe won\u2019t vote for Trump regardless,\u201d that there\u2019s been a very mild correction, but not the kind of correction they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do think that the media kind of feasts on Trump because Trump, I don\u2019t know, he attracts a lot of attention as we know and get a lot of clicks, but there are things emerging that are problematic for this thesis. And I\u2019m not sure why the mainstream media continues. It\u2019s almost like they want to be\u2026 Because if you look at it from a broader perspective with the media, the media does very well when Trump is in power. I\u2019m not saying that they want to put him in power, but they certainly seem to benefit from his antics and his true threat. And no one is saying it\u2019s not a true threat of fascism. Mark is correct about that, and so is Max.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think there\u2019s a certain amount of facilitating him by not really looking at what\u2019s really going on outside this bubble they\u2019ve created, where the whole world is a Trump voter. So that\u2019s just something I think that they\u2019ve done since 2016. They\u2019ve over corrected, and I think it\u2019s a\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 that they\u2019ve done since 2016. They\u2019ve overcorrected and I think it\u2019s a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. Well, I just wanted to jump in. I think that what Stephen was saying was great. I\u2019m a Black woman and one of the things that I\u2019m obsessive about is talking about the lack of diversity in journalism. I think that it\u2019s one of those things where when you\u2019re closer to the danger, you\u2019re more likely sometimes to be able to point out the danger. So if you have a core of media that are mostly white folks, even if they\u2019re well-intentioned white folks that want to do a good job, sometimes they\u2019re not able to sniff out the danger like Black or Brown or queer journalists. And those people are not always in newsrooms, and if they are in newsrooms, they\u2019re not the ones that are making the calls. They\u2019re the ones that are sent out on stories, but they\u2019re not the ones that are shaping the big picture stuff on what these larger mainstream organizations are doing. I just wanted to throw that out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that problem is certainly getting worse. We\u2019ve seen just in the last week and a half alone, particularly at places like the LA Times, layoffs have affected disproportionately Black and Brown journalists who are the ones who are spending a lot of time covering these important issues, and it\u2019s compounding the problem and making it even worse. So I think that\u2019s a really good point that you\u2019ve brought up, Lisa. Max, would you like to add something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, just if I could hop in really quick because I think this is a really important part of the discussion that affects all of us, and I just want to keep tugging at this thread for our listeners. Because I think what Lisa and Stephen are saying and what we have seen over the course of the Trump era from 2016 on, there\u2019s a very eerie and daunting parallel to what we\u2019re watching happen right now with Israel\u2019s War on Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which we\u2019ve been covering relentlessly here at the Real News. And we recently published a podcast here on the Real News feed where I got to interview Adam Johnson and Dan Boguslaw, Adam the columnist here, and Dan is a writer at the Intercept, and we were talking about how the role that Western media is playing laundering, Israel\u2019s genocidal violence for a US audience. And how the stenographers of the IDF and Netanyahu\u2019s government here in the West, they are presenting a version of what Israel is doing to the American public that Israel isn\u2019t even presenting to itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because again, if you listen to what a lot of politicians in Israel are saying very openly about what their aims are in Gaza, that doesn\u2019t translate to what the New York Times is saying the Israel\u2019s aims are in Gaza. It\u2019s this weird effect where they\u2019re trying to present a very skewed version of what\u2019s actually happening and what Israel\u2019s own government is saying, and its own press, is even saying. You had something similar happen throughout the Trump era, and it\u2019s happening now because in a lot of ways, the people who are doing that work in the media, they\u2019re presenting an image of Israel that they want to believe in as well, that they want the public to believe in. There is some projection going on there along with ideological machinations of laundering imperialism and settler colonialism and war, along with all of that other stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Same thing goes with the way the mainstream media covered Trump is there was a lot of projection and the media would take what was happening at Trump\u2019s rallies, what he was saying to his own audience. And then they would filter it into a narrative that made sense to them, and they would project to their readership a version of Trump that they wanted to explain and they wanted to present. Because they kept trying to fit him into this or that archetype of a politician\u2019s past, or they tried to, again, tease out the tidbits of what is he actually saying and what is just hollow rhetoric. We had that whole phenomenon of people saying, \u201cTake Trump seriously, but don\u2019t take him literally.\u201d But the thing is, the more that you just listen to what Trump is telling his supporters at these rallies and what he\u2019s saying in these interviews and what his supporters are responding to, he is telling you as openly about what he wants to do as members of Israel\u2019s cabinet, Netanyahu\u2019s cabinet are saying they want to do in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But for some reason, the media keeps trying to present a different or skewed version of that instead of recognizing the reality that is screaming right in front of them. And we need to be really, really honest about that. And that\u2019s why I\u2019m so proud of the work that Mark does, the work that everyone does here to tell that truth. Because we can\u2019t just not take seriously when Trump is saying immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. And when they\u2019re calling for mass deportations of immigrants, not just illegals, but the language is getting more openly blood in soil, the designs are getting more openly fascistic. The Project 2025 is getting more of these shadowy, financially monstrous organizations involved in the effort to turn the Trump 2.0 into what Trump 1.0 couldn\u2019t successfully achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re bringing up good points, Max, and I think it\u2019s also maybe important to underscore what that is also looking like from a real sense. We have the state of Texas openly flouting Supreme Court rulings currently and attempting to bar the border patrol from accessing parts of the border in Texas. There\u2019s a Texas exit secession movement that is gaining steam in Texas and seems to have the open acceptance or promotion by the governor of Texas. So these are things that are becoming more important as we get closer to election day. Now, I know that we\u2019ve all experienced conversations anecdotally about this particular election season. For myself, no one is excited about November. We\u2019re stuck in this place where the likelihood is we\u2019re going to be rehashing 2020, as max has said, Trump versus Biden. In New Hampshire, Biden apparently won the New Hampshire primary via write-in ballot because he wasn\u2019t even on the ballot. So this is the future that we\u2019re seeing for ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The voters aren\u2019t happy, and a lot of voters that younger folks anecdotally through social media are not even interested in voting. Some of them haven\u2019t even chosen to update their voter registrations. They just don\u2019t care. They don\u2019t think it\u2019s useful. The electoral politics in this country, as we all know, are fraught with, for lack of a better word, bullshit and a second term for either of these candidates, paints a bleak picture for Americans in the coming four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as Max has mentioned as well, the stakes for this election are extremely high, and we\u2019ve been in the midst of what looks and feels like a real crisis of legitimacy for our democracy since at least 2016. An argument can be made to go all the way back to 2000, 2001, and we need to take some time to square what quandary we find ourselves in. I will say for my part, there is a marked difference just as a labor reporter between Biden\u2019s NLRB and Trump\u2019s NLRB. If Trump were to be reelected and spend another four years in the White House, then we are going to see what we saw from 2016 to 2020, which was a hollowing out of the NLRB and the powers that allow labor organizing to continue at such a brisk clip. We\u2019re going to see another assault on the working class, that\u2019s likely going to be worse than it was the last time he was in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not saying that Biden has been a particular friend to portions of the working class since he was elected, but there is a marked difference. And you can see, and we can talk about this, I\u2019m sure Max has some thoughts about this, but you can see that labor is going to have a place in this election. Already does have a place in this election, and these labor endorsements do matter in my opinion. So that\u2019s something to talk about. But yeah, I would like to just talk about this a little bit more openly. Max, if you want to start continuing your thoughts from the start of this conversation about the stakes in this election and the how can we continue to see if we can come up with some answers to your important question about how do we square this? How do we take high stakes for the electoral process in this country, and what can we see moving forward?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I\u2019ll try to just throw out some quick thoughts here because I feel bad about talking so much already. But just to underscore what we\u2019re talking about here with the crisis of legitimacy and the quandary that we\u2019re in that you and I were talking about, Mel, is at the same time that we are growing so tired with the cliche of this is the most important election in our lifetimes. We got to vote like our lives depend on it. That\u2019s what we have heard for\u2026 It feels like every election that we can remember, but it\u2019s really, I think, felt that way. I think if people are honest with each other, maybe like we did in some part of our hearts feel that way over the past few elections, which is why you saw historic numbers of people voting in the past few elections, even 2020 amidst a pandemic, but at the same time that that is happening and people are doing their job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I want to stress that again, there are so many people in this country who don\u2019t vote, who are prevented from voting, who feel like they have absolutely no reason to vote, and that is the great silent majority as it were. But when we\u2019re talking about folks who are exercising the right to vote, we have seen this historic numbers of people coming out in the Trump era at the same time that people are coming out to vote in a system that it seems across the board people are losing faith in. So something\u2019s going to give there because I want to maybe retroactively apologize to my liberal friends out there because during the first few years of the Trump era, it was a lot of liberals who were saying, \u201cTrump is destroying the norms and institutions of our government.\u201d And people on the left, like us were like, \u201cThere are a lot more serious problems than the norms and institutions right now. This guy\u2019s doing real material harm to real people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there is something to be said about the fact that as far as those institutions that uphold what is left of our democracy, and it\u2019s not like our democracy was nothing. We did have a system of governance that was the envy around many parts of the world. It was very novel in many ways. It was expanding in its ability to better represent more and more people, but it was also really and needed a lot of improvement. It was founded by white slave-owning people. It was never a perfect system. But what I\u2019m trying to say is that the parts of it that remain democratic have been falling apart for quite some time and have been actively destroyed by our elected officials and their unelected oligarchic supporters. These things have been hollowed out from the inside out, and people are realizing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the real key part is that the faith, people\u2019s lingering or residual faith in things like the Supreme Court have at last and in large quantities been shattered. And the Supreme Court was really the last bastion of the facade of impartial, apolitical, justice-seeking institutions as part of our democracy. Again, I\u2019m not saying that that\u2019s what it was or always was or ever was. I\u2019m saying that the amount of people who at least believed in that enough to give that institution the kind of power it needed to enforce the law of the land, the way that the Supreme Court is meant to in this system, that is the faith that has gone out the window, the more that we learn about how corrupt Clarence Thomas is, how really gross and cynical and shadowy the process of getting people like Brett Kavanaugh ram through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then you start going back in time, you\u2019re like, wow, was it always this way? Was it always this corrupt? Were people always this bad? And then you have this rapid decline in people\u2019s faith in the system that we live and operate in. And that is a very dangerous place to be. It is both a hopeful place to be because then that is the moment that is ripe for systemic change. It is the moment when more people are willing to take on that thinking, that imagination of how we could do things better. But it is also the moment when these institutions are at their weakest and the functions that they serve are at their most vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I don\u2019t think any of us are truly fully prepared for what\u2019s going to happen like when those institutions are at last de democratized in total. And that is exactly what Trump wants to do. That is exactly what the corrupt assholes who were in those offices tap those seats are doing to themselves. But we are the ones who are all going to pay for it, because when people lose faith in any semblance of a democratic system, that is when they turn to extremism. That is when they listen to people like Trump and then they see what remains of our democracy, Trump\u2019s supporters, they\u2019re not prepared to vote en masse because they want to save democracy like the Democrats are saying. They\u2019re like, \u201cWe got to vote to save democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump supporters, they want to use what\u2019s left of democracy to get in there and destroy what\u2019s left of democracy. And they\u2019re being very, very open about it. So again, we are left in the position of defending the shreds of democracy that were never good enough for enough people and had so much more improvement to go. Defending those scraps from the people who are openly calling for doing away with them, giving lifetime appointments. I mean, really going back to, and turning away from a more liberal democratic system of governments to a more oligarchic, autarkic system and the corrupt and democratic ways that operates. So that\u2019s the crisis of legitimacy that we\u2019re, I think, facing from the broad sweep of things. But there are so many other ways that people have lost faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same way that Stephen and Taya cover every week, and Lisa at the Beat and we hit the Real News, you can only read so many stories about how awful and corrupt the police are before you stop believing the police are there to protect you. That\u2019s again, it\u2019s a good thing given we need to change the police as they are. But I\u2019m using that example to say we have also seen over from 2020 to now, a pretty rapid decline in what was left of people\u2019s faith in the goodness and democratic nature of our government. So we find ourselves in a very, very precarious moment where things can get even worse. But we are left here defending what was never good enough in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark, I want to get your thoughts on what Max is bringing up here, because I think that it\u2019s important to acknowledge that this crisis is continuing to get worse, and we\u2019ve all felt the effects of weakening federal protections of an economy that claims to be robust, but we still can\u2019t afford our groceries every week. And I think it\u2019s important to continue to underscore that this is a real thing that\u2019s happening in this country, and it\u2019s not some fanciful space. But I also don\u2019t want us to fall into patterns that some folks on the left to where they have this accelerationist wishful thinking about, \u201cWell, just get it over with. Let\u2019s just usher in whatever era of fascism or whatever else, and have them expose themselves fully so that we can fight back against it. We can have this open sort of\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026fight back against it. We can have this open war against really bad people who are suddenly in control of this country. Well, not suddenly, but you know what I mean. And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the right way to go forward. So I guess the question is how can we take stock of this and the stakes of these elections, which isn\u2019t just the only piece to the puzzle, but what is to be done? How do we view this in a productive way? What\u2019s a way that we can spur ourselves to action when we see the state of things as they are?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark Steiner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Starting with the last thing you said, there\u2019s an element of the left that believes if things can get bad, really bad, that the fascists come in, we can stop them. I think the exact opposite happens and history has shown that it happens. Some of us grew up in this anomalous period from the \u201930s to the early \u201970s when change was actually fucking happening, when labor was strong, when the civil rights movement was fighting and breaking down racist barriers in this country, when they were actually trying to fund education. Things were moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not saying they were perfect, far are from it, but what that caused was what we\u2019re seeing now that people have to look at\u2026 Sometimes I think we have to step back and look at history, both our immediate history and the history of this country. And our immediate history, the reaction to everything we did from the \u201930s to the \u201960s in all the organizing, fighting, going to jail, all this stuff that happened to move the country forward inch by inch was the right got their hackles up and began organizing in the early \u201970s to seize power back to re-whitenize America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, it\u2019s come to this place, this fruition called Donald Trump and his movement, this maganeal fascist movement around him. So we are really up against a very aggressive force, which puts us in a weird place because we on the left really are not that organized and we do not have either a party or a movement that is powerful enough to stand up to it by itself. That\u2019s part of the issue that we\u2019re facing, I think. But I don\u2019t think, \u201cOh, woe is me, all is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think that we have to\u2026 How can I put this? We\u2019re stuck between a rock and a hard place. I mean, who wants to get out there and go, \u201cRah, rah, rah, rah, go vote for Biden. I\u2019m all excited. Let\u2019s get him back in the White House?\u201d It is a very difficult time. It is very difficult to even want to do that, to say that unless you see what\u2019s at the door. And I think I\u2019m going to go back again to history. Look at the history of this country. For the most part of our history, we have been run by absolutely white oligarchic power. We had brief periods where that was different. Reconstruction attempted it, and then civil rights and post-civil rights. And then it is being re-seized before we can even push it further. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re facing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think that in this coming election, we have no choice but to fight and stop the neo-fascists from taking over the country. And I\u2019m just finishing up now editing and producing this piece that Max and Kayla Rivara and I did in Texas. And one of the things that piece taught me, is teaching me has to say is that the far right can take over. And when they do take over, they will diminish the power as they\u2019re doing in Texas of cities across Texas. Because cities is where the working class lives, where Black folks live, where Latinos live, where Mexicans live, and they are ceasing power away and back to the rise of the white right. And so we need to take lessons from that. We need to see what we face through the states where they have already seized power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So as much as we want to say, \u201cJust like Biden intensely,\u201d the Democrats for the most part are just moderate establishment folks who would care less about the future. We have no choice but to unite and stop the right from seizing power. That is really where I am with all this. We\u2019re doing the series of Rise of the Right that I\u2019ve been doing with Real News has just been\u2026 I already knew it was there, but the more I interview people, the more I see it, the more I do the research, the more I realize we are facing a really, really bleak and dangerous future. I joke about this a lot, but I\u2019m dead serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s so bleak on a personal level. Let me just throw this out for a second. There\u2019s nothing more important to me in my life than my family and my daughters. My daughters, each of them, different mothers, have the right to foreign passports. I\u2019m going to make sure they get those fucking passports because I don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going because I don\u2019t see us coalescing strong enough to stop the force of the right, but I think we can do it. But right now, they really are in ascendancy. And this is not oh, woe is me and being negative, this is just looking at reality. It doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t fight it. We need to realize the reality that\u2019s at our front door and what we have to do to end it. We can\u2019t let them seize power. We just can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think you bring up a really good point that I think helps us further this conversation into our really tightening our focus down from the broader sense of where these elections are going to races, issues, local elections, is what I mean that have real material impact for members of the working class across this country. And I really think, Lisa, this is a great place for you to kind of talk about what Baltimore Beat has been doing in Baltimore City to kind of underscore these important elections, the various issues that folks are running on, and the ways in which your audience, the folks you talk to, constituents, voters, what they are seeing is important. So what are some of the local issues, the key issues that you are seeing in your reporting that folks really should be paying attention to in the coming months?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m going to make a little bit of a liar out of myself because I said that I\u2019m focusing on local. But the thing that I\u2019ve really been thinking about a lot listening to what Max has said just now and what Mark said is how much of a touch point the massacre that\u2019s going on right now in Palestine is for where we are in this moment. I think that there\u2019s so much about it that underscores so many of the issues that Max and Mark just talked about and brings all of those to the surface and also shows the very weak arguments that have been given to us. So we are told, I think that this week it seems like Joe Biden\u2019s team has rolled out this push for women\u2019s maternal health. That\u2019s great, but also we know for a fact if you\u2019re watching and paying attention that there are Palestinian women and people who menstruate, who don\u2019t have access to that right now, to the materials that you need when you\u2019re menstruating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So everything that we have been sold that is democracy and right now that the Democrats can offer us is being proven alive by Palestine. And so I bring that up because for my next issue, I\u2019m writing about the movement here in Baltimore, and I think that we\u2019re in a moment where in some ways, yes, it\u2019s easy for me to say I can take myself out of that and I can work in my community. And there are things in my community that can happen and I can talk about those in a few minutes. But I also think that there are times when the moment we\u2019re in right now where the local and the national unite and intermix. Mark, I know that you said the left is very disorganized and I agree and I think that\u2019s something that all of us, if we have any passing knowledge at the left, we get very frustrated by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I have seen in Baltimore coalitions forming that have not formed before. When it comes to getting our local representatives in Baltimore to call for a cease fire, it\u2019s been Jewish folks, it\u2019s been Black Alliance for Peace, it\u2019s been Baltimore Beat and the Afro-American newspapers. It\u2019s all these groups. It\u2019s other parts of Maryland outside of Baltimore coming together in a way that has never come together before. And I think that that\u2019s going to have, hopefully, if we\u2019re being optimistic, that will make lasting repercussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If I want to pivot a little bit out of that, because that was just on my spirit, but locally Baltimore is part of the national push, like I said, to crack down on policing even though there\u2019s no reason to crack down on policing logically because crime numbers are down everywhere. But we got to keep the police-industrial complex going and shoveling lots of money into it and shoveling lots of Black lives. So we\u2019re going to be unpacking a lot of what policing means or doesn\u2019t mean for folks in Baltimore City. Sheila Dixon, who is challenging our current mayor, Brandon Scott, just rolled out a plan and we know that it\u2019s going to be very conservative because she\u2019s backed by conservative folks. She\u2019s looking to bring more policing into city schools. She\u2019s said all the checkpoints for if you are conservative and want to figure out how to lock up more Black folks, so we\u2019ll be focusing a lot on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark Steiner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I just wanted to chime in for just a quick second on what both Max and Lisa just said, and it has to do with the Middle East in this election. This could be a huge factor in the coming national elections, huge factor because of what Israel\u2019s doing and the neo-fascist government that controls Israel, what they\u2019ve done in Gaza, the split it\u2019s causing in this country is profound and it\u2019s generational and is political and it could usher a Trump in. And it is so dangerous to our future because it\u2019s so wrapped up in racism and antisemitism and feelings that people never want to talk about in public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the reality of what our role is in the Middle East and the oppression of Palestinians, this is going to be a factor that we are not taking into account, I think, in terms of what pushes people in one direction or another. And the longer this fight goes on in Palestine Israel, the deeper it\u2019s going to get. And I think I just wanted to throw that in because both my friends have raised the issue of Israel-Palestine. I think it will be a critical part of this election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen Janis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s interesting because I was just thinking as everyone was talking about an experience I had with regards to Trump and how it bends us and limits us, because Lisa will recall this, we went down to cover the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. And at that time, Bernie Sanders, I think he had won I think both New Hampshire and Nevada and also come in second, I believe, in Iowa, just barely behind Pete Buttigieg. And we had gone down there thinking that perhaps this would\u2019ve been a transformative moment for progressive movements or progressive politicians because Bernie would somehow win South Carolina and then go on to the nomination. And of course, that\u2019s not what happened, as we all remember. And the main impetus besides the politics of South Carolina was the fact that Bernie Sanders was seen as too radical because the only thing that mattered was having someone who could defeat Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I do think, going back to what I said before about the mirage of Trumpism, it is real and it is scary. But we have to remember that Trump has never won the popular vote. And to my sense, I have not witnessed in the past two or three months how he has expanded his electorate. But because as what Lisa was talking about, the media bias, we have these very white corporate newsrooms that focus on Trump voters as if\u2026 They\u2019ve created these super voters, these super specters in our head that we can\u2019t tout progressive values because we only have to beat Trump and Trump is going to win and roll over us. But this guy\u2019s never won an election really, and only a remnant of slaveholder constitution, the Electoral College has made Trump a winner of anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so I think we just have to be cautious of thinking that nothing\u2019s possible within the electoral mix. And Mark is absolutely right. If Trump wins, it\u2019s over in many ways. But I think the media is somewhat responsible for this idea that Trump is somehow unbeatable when he\u2019s never won anything. So I just think it\u2019s important, as Max was saying, for the real news and people like us to get out there and report and pay attention to people that aren\u2019t white and living in rural Wisconsin and are conservative, which is the only thing you see when you watch CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry to put you back on the hot seat, Stephen, but I write about policing from Baltimore. I know that you and Taya sometimes cover Baltimore policing, but you also go national. I\u2019m wondering what are you seeing or thinking about when it comes to things that are on the ballot for policing around the country or have you seen anything like that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen Janis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I haven\u2019t seen any ballot initiatives that we know of, but I do think that it\u2019s interesting that in rural communities we cover, which as Lisa points out, we started out covering policing in Baltimore and we thought that police brutality or bad policing was just something that was a big city phenomenon. But I\u2019ve been surprised, honestly, how widespread it is and how much it raises the consciousness of the people. We get a lot of conservatives who are transformed by a bad encounter with policing and are motivated by it. And we\u2019ve seen a lot of small towns become embroiled in debates over this because as you well know one of the main points that Trump used in the 2020 election was support for police and we need more policing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I think that will be an issue again. I think Trump will go back to this, even though the crime rate 2023 crime went down about 20% while police staffing has been at a low point. Baltimore is down like 760 officers, which who is surprised that Sheila Dixon is saying, \u201cWe need more cops?\u201d They always say that, but the numbers don\u2019t add up. There\u2019s no reality there. Again, this is a mainstream media problem with policing. They paint the picture that there\u2019s some equivalence between having more cops and safety and it doesn\u2019t work. I\u2019ve never seen it work and certainly, we have provable evidence now that it didn\u2019t work in the past three or four years. We have less police and less crime. So I would say, Lisa, to your question, that it\u2019s just as big an issue, though I haven\u2019t seen anything building around it, like let\u2019s have a referendum about it, but there is a huge consciousness of qualified immunity and that would be certainly something that I think will come up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, just hopping in here again to, I guess, pick up on that thread of what we were talking about earlier. What is the version of this that the major media networks are going to be presenting and what\u2019s actually going to be happening, because as far as major news is concerned, as far as what we are calling here, the horse race is concerned, listeners, you guys know what we\u2019re talking about, but just to flesh it out, it\u2019s talking about these elections like a sport, which team is going to have more people in these key positions at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s contained to that sort of weird logic, not really thinking about what are the outcomes of these elections from top to bottom going to mean for people\u2019s right to abortion, people\u2019s right to not get fired for literally any reason, like if their boss stubs their toe that day or whether or not trans people are going to be able to get their healthcare in that state? Those aren\u2019t really the terms in which we have been taught to talk about elections in this country. But as far as the horse race is concerned and the things that people are going to be hearing about a lot if they haven\u2019t been hearing about them a lot already is, as we said, you\u2019ve got the presidential elections and at the moment we\u2019re recording this at the end of January after the two primaries, as Mel mentioned\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026 end of January after the two primaries, as Mel mentioned. We still have other candidates in. I did want to stress that. We\u2019re not pretending that they\u2019re not there. The incumbent for the Democrats, Joe Biden, we\u2019ve got Marianne Williamson, who we\u2019ve interviewed here at The Real News Network, and we\u2019ve got Dean Phillips. But again, Democrats, they don\u2019t want primary debates. One of the reasons that we had that weirdness in New Hampshire with Biden\u2019s name being written in is because of the changes Biden wanted to make to the primary schedule that would basically ensure that his reelection was a fait accompli based on how he performed in the previous elections. It was really cynical sort of stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And of course, we believe that every election people deserve a more robust debate. People deserve options that they actually can hear out and listen to. And the mainstream media and the two major parties are not going to give us that. That\u2019s basically what we mean when we say it\u2019s going to be Trump and Biden, because we know how we\u2019re operating here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are still candidates, not only in the Democratic side, Nikki Haley has said she\u2019s going to stay in. I mean, I personally think that she\u2019s hanging on in case something happens and Donald Trump gets actually barred from the ballot and somehow an opportunity arises for Haley to step in. Again, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen. Or she\u2019s again, just angling to be VP at the end of it. And then we got that dude Binkley. I mean, he\u2019s still in the race. We\u2019ve got independents, we\u2019ve got Kennedy, we\u2019ve got Cornel West, and we\u2019ve got Dr. Jill Stein, right? So that\u2019s where we are after these two primaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I think the way that the mainstream media has been talking about the Republican race is very instructive for, again, how problematic the version of reality they present to us is. Because now it\u2019s all this hype about, \u201cOh, we have something to talk about. DeSantis dropped out.\u201d I mean, if you ever want a lesson in this, just a quick aside, if you guys want to see what we\u2019re talking about, just take a second to go back and look at the media coverage from past elections. And then when you have the benefit of foresight and you know how things went, just sit there and weigh the difference between the reality that the media was presenting in the way it talked about the elections and what actually happened. They\u2019re so often so disjointed from each other. It\u2019s really important to sort of see that looking back so that we can be better prepared for it moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And we\u2019re seeing it right now with Nikki Haley because for a year, it was all about DeSantis is the challenger to Trump. What about Ron DeSantis? Don\u2019t sleep on DeSantis. DeSantis is the future of the party. And then DeSantis flops like a wet fart, drops out, just totally bombed with the National Republican base, and now he\u2019s out. So all those articles about DeSantis over the past year look ridiculous. But now we\u2019re getting the exact same kind of articles about Nikki Haley, who is really only benefiting this. I mean, in many ways, Nikki Haley\u2019s momentary rise in the polls, \u2019cause she did do respectively\u2026 What did she get? Like 40% or close to 40% in New Hampshire?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there\u2019s a really kind of, you need to look at the fine print there because the way that New Hampshire\u2019s voting goes, there were a lot more independents who felt like instead of voting in the Democratic race where Biden\u2019s not even on the ballot, the write-ins aren\u2019t even going to really count. So, \u201cwe can strategically vote in the Republican race.\u201d So I think there are a lot of votes that Haley got in New Hampshire that she\u2019s not going to get in other states. But right now, the media\u2019s talking about it as if she\u2019s got this clear or this path to really challenging Trump. And I just don\u2019t really see that. I see that as a media concoction and a misreading of the recent results of elections more than an accurate reading of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the other thing that the mainstream media is going to focus on is of course, the balance of power in the Senate. And this is actually going to be\u2026 there are going to be, I think, races that ultimately flip balance of power to Republicans. This was like what Democrats are freaking out about after Joe Manchin who was\u2026 We don\u2019t have to go into a tangent about Joe Manchin, but it\u2019s like what kind of Democrat is that anyway, if he\u2019s always voting against you guys or the quote unquote, one Democrat who\u2019s stalling the president\u2019s agenda, so on and so forth. So with Manchin not running in Arizona, people\u2026 Sinema hasn\u2019t announced what she\u2019s going to do. But it\u2019s not looking good for Democrats, and that\u2019s all that the folks are going to talk about in the mainstream news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what I just wanted to tell folks listening, and then I promise I\u2019ll shut up and I apologize guys, for going on. But this just gets me amped up and I\u2019m so looking forward to more of these panels where we can break down the specifics as we go through the election season. But again, at the same time that we\u2019re getting those national races, the horse race crap that no one really cares about because working people don\u2019t care about the way that mainstream news talks about politics. We care about what impacts us and we hate both of presidential candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But at the same time, the things that we cover here at The Real News, the things that Lisa and her crew cover at The Beat, the things that those of us who care about these issues invest our time into, where we try to cover the people who are trying to make real tangible change in the world. There are ballot measures, there are state senate races that are going to impact, again, people\u2019s ability to not get beaten by the police and get arrested as easily as they can now. I mean, there have been just hundreds of anti-trans bills in states across the country over the past two years. That\u2019s a real tangible impact that elections have. And there are going to be more of those coming up in the new year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Nevada, there\u2019s a ballot measure to end slavery as a form of punishment for a crime, which we\u2019ve been covering here rattling the bars relentlessly. So people are going to actually vote to take it out of the Constitution the same way that there are going to be multiple states, including Florida, Arizona, Missouri, South Dakota, New York, that are going to vote on whether or not to enshrine the right to an abortion in their state constitution, the way that Ohio did last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I mean, these things matter like that. But I do think that there is an interesting thing happening there where you\u2019re seeing the state races in fact become more important. Because as things get so fractured and fraught and stalled at the national level, you are seeing in fact states become these sort of bastions or laboratories of certain political ideologies. So yeah, you could have one state where your abortion protections are much better safeguarded than the one literally right next to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s kind of the way that the country is segmenting right now. And there are key races all across the board that are going to impact, again, people who have loved ones in prison, people who have the right to an abortion, and so on and so forth. So please, please, please, everyone out there listening, don\u2019t just wipe the elections away completely. Pay attention to what\u2019s going on around you. Forge ahead as best you can, but just be strategic about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And if I could preach to the choir a little bit, because we are on a nonprofit news network. But nonprofit news more and more, is driving the conversation. And the things that places like The Real News have been pushing for a long time, slowly trickle into mainstream. So like nonprofit news, places like The Real News have been talking about police say journalism or diversifying the newsroom, diversifying who you count as a source and what kind of information you put out. That kind of stuff has started to trickle in. And I\u2019ve been seeing recently more folks in nonprofit newsrooms decrying how useless horse race journalism is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So for folks that are listening that are not in Baltimore, look for places that could be\u2026 There\u2019s more and more pockets of people of color led, indigenous person led, different gender identity led, newsrooms popping up around the country. And you can find those and plug into your local stuff because I think that Republicans and conservatives have known for a long time the power that lies in local communities. That\u2019s why they\u2019ve poured so much money into these initiatives that we\u2019ve been hearing about like outlawing drag performances, getting books out of school. They\u2019ve already known this. This is all a plan that they\u2019ve known about, but we need to understand the value in that too. And I think we\u2019re at a moment right now where there\u2019s a little more resources, a little more attention on smaller newsrooms like The Real News and The Beat that can really help people coalesce and learn the important information and coalesce power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s a great place to, I think, round out our conversation, Lisa. Right before we end, you\u2019ve already spoken about some of the things that you\u2019re planning on working on for your next issue and for what\u2019s coming out later this year. But are there any other important stories that you want folks to look out for, as the months go along?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, we really want to make sure that we are looking at Baltimore\u2019s leadership through a very critical eye. We also think that as important as that kind of hard news is, we think that the arts community is just as important. So we want to really look at artists that are living below the poverty line in Baltimore City. And just the work that\u2019s being created by folks that would necessarily be covered by people looking at Baltimore. That\u2019s really important to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, we are raising money always, so we will always be trying to convince people that there\u2019s value in what the Baltimore Beat does. And making sure that we are training black and brown and indigenous and queer journalists. And giving them a chance and keeping that kind of work going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m excited to see what comes out of the next couple of months. It\u2019s been really great speaking with you about what the Baltimore Beat does and for your insight today on our election coverage. For The Real News Network, there\u2019s also some interesting things that we are working on here at The Real News Network. Steven, Mark and Max, if you guys kind of want to go down the line on the various projects that you\u2019re working on that\u2019s related to election coverage that you\u2019re excited for our listeners to get a chance to view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen Janis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. Well, we\u2019re talking right now about trying to go back to Pennsylvania where we covered in 2018 and 2020, to sort of\u2026 There\u2019s some interesting communities that are kind of right poised between very progressive and very conservative. And mostly try to see what kind of issues are actually on the minds of voters, not just like you said, the horse race. Because it\u2019s interesting when you get down to the granular level and you follow activists around and see. There\u2019s an interesting group called Standup Lancaster or Lancaster Standup. And we want to work with them to try to cover how they\u2019re trying to get progressive issues on the top of voters\u2019 minds. So that might be something that we\u2019ll be working on, going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark Steiner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of rise of the Right, I mean, one of the things I really want to look at very carefully or [inaudible 01:06:20]\u2026 There are certain states I\u2019m looking at right now to talk about the elections in those states, where the right is being challenged, what the grassroots are doing, and what it all portends. And looking at that and really kind of focusing for a bit now on the selection and the rise of the right where they could be seizing power, why, and where they could be stopped. And who are the people who are organizing to stop them and to build something different? So that\u2019ll be a real focal point I think, for us in the coming months, as we look at [inaudible 01:06:50].<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah. And I mean, I guess speaking for myself and just for The Real News more broadly, kind of building on Mark\u2019s example, I think that we are of course going to talk about the significant news as it comes from the national level. And as well as focus on key local races that are happening throughout the year. But everything is going to be, again, funneled through the way that we know how to do news best here at The Real News, from the grassroots, from the perspective of, how does this impact regular people? What impact do these elections have, do these policies have on real people, including the kind of people that we talk to and interview on our shows? And what are the impacts of the people and policies that are up for election this year? What are the potential implications of those? Who are the people and communities that these policies are going to potentially impact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then on the other side, again, not focusing on the horse race and not just thinking that elections are the end all be all of politics. Because let me be clear, they are not. We talked about this Ad Nauseum on The Real News across our different shows. We are not saying that elections are the only way to make change in this country. I think if you listen to our stuff every week, you know we don\u2019t believe that\u2019s true. You can make change and you should be making change in your workplace, in your community. Anywhere and everywhere that you can and that can help build collective power, you can and should be doing that \u2019cause you can achieve a lot of good things with that power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, that\u2019s where we look at The Real News is, where are people building power? How are people using elections as an opportunity to build power that lasts beyond the elections? Or how are elections, in fact, mobilizing community organizations like Cross Partisan Alliances in different parts of the country, and people actually working and organizing together around a certain election issue? And we want to be there talking about what they\u2019re building in that. Not just how they\u2019re going to vote in November, but what they are building and what those organizations, those muscles, those relationships, those movements that we cover week in, week out, what role are they going to play in pushing political change before, during, and after these elections? That is where we\u2019re really going to be putting our focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, the key issues that are going to be on the ballot are going to be in our coverage. But we want to tell the stories of the struggles over those issues, as told from the people who are struggling over them, the people who are going to be impacted by them. Whether that be in the fight against the prison industrial complex, and for our rights, like as free and freethinking citizens, or our right to live in this economy and pursue our happiness without being swept into institutionalized because we\u2019re living on the street and there\u2019s nowhere else for us to go. So, there\u2019s a lot that is at stake here. And none of us are excited about the system we have or the election season in general, but we are going to approach this as honestly and as we can. And we\u2019re going to, as always, dedicate that coverage to regular working people here in the U.S. and around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All right, that rounds out our conversation for today. Thank you so much everyone, for coming on the show and talking about really important issues as they relate to the elections. Lisa, if you want to give us just a little shout-out to where we can find your work and the work of your colleagues with the Baltimore Beat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can find us at baltimorebeat.com or on all the socials. Same thing, Baltimore Beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Great. Thank you so much for coming on, everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lisa Snowden:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maximilian Alvarez:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks for having us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stephen Janis:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s it for us here at The Real News Network podcast. Once again, I am your humble host, Mel Buer. If you love today\u2019s episode, please be sure to get subscribed to the podcast to get notified when the next one drops. You can find us on most platforms, including Spotify and YouTube. As always, if you find us on YouTube, leave a comment and who knows, you might get a response from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019d like to get in touch with me in other ways, you can find me on most social media platforms under my name. My DMs are always open. Or you can send me a message via email at mel@therealnews.com. Send your tips, comments, questions, episode ideas, complaints. I\u2019d love to hear from you. Don\u2019t hesitate to send me something. Thank you so much for sticking around and I\u2019ll see you next time.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mel Buer is an associate editor and labor reporter for The Real News Network. Prior to joining TRNN, she worked as a freelance reporter covering Midwest labor struggles, including reporting on the 2021 Kellogg’s strike and the 2022 railroad workers struggle. In the past she has reported extensively on Midwest protests and movements during the 2020 uprising and is currently researching and writing a book on radical media for Or Books. Follow her on Twitter<\/a> or send her a message at mel@therealnews.comMore by Mel Buer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A rehash of Trump vs. Biden appears inevitable, and voters aren\u2019t enthused. Here\u2019s all the key information on local, state, and presidential races that you need to know. BY\u00a0MEL BUERF EBRUARY 1, 2024 (therealnews.com) Former U.S. President Donald Trump watches a video of President Joe Biden playing during a rally… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31483,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31482\/revisions\/31483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Mel Buer hosts a panel on the critical updates from the election year thus far with Lisa Snowden, award-winning reporter and editor-in-chief of Baltimore Beat<\/em><\/a>; Max Alvarez<\/a>, editor-in-chief of The Real News Network; Marc Steiner<\/a>, host of The Marc Steiner Show<\/em> at The Real News; and Stephen Janis<\/a>, investigative reporter and co-host and creator of the Police Accountability Report<\/em> at The Real News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Post-Production: David Hebden<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
MEL BUERASSOCIATE EDITOR<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n