It's Freaking Personal

Bethany, Katie, and Marva talk presidential primary: Bloomberg (booo!!), how to talk to folks in your life about Bernie Sanders, the Indivisible Guide of yore, Obama's silence in the face of being presented as endorsing Bloomie. All while our various children are screaming in the background (sorry, not sorry!) 

Katie and Bethany kick off the third season, and we discuss what this whole podcast is meant to be and how we see ourselves. 

Bethany, Marva, and Katie discuss wtf the job title 'district leader' means and why it matters. Also, Marva talks about why she's decided to run for district leader herself!!

Bethany, Katie, and Marva talk gatekeeping and some of the awful political nonsense going on around us all the time.

We're back after a long hiatus, but it feels good to be back. We're who you want to listen to for the best leftist parenting content out there.

We talk about NY primary day, why katie hates sex and the city, and why centrists can fuck off.

More on the fight for county committee, or what would happen if you spliced the tale of 'david and goliath' with that classic 1980s existential romp, 'Groundhog's Day'. It's still Feb 2rd, Phil.

An update on Bethany's crusade to get Ordinary People onto the County Committee (yeah why should they get all the caps?). Spoiler alert: it ain't going well, not by any fault of our determined cohost. We also talk about respectability politics and why its just another way to shut us up. Like the political equivalent of saying, 'you'd be prettier if you smiled' or 'I hate when women talk too much.'

Katie is away, so this episode is Bethany rolling solo explaining what just happened to her at the Board of Elections while trying to run for Queens County Committee.

We discuss Joe Crowley refusing to vacate the WFP party line and how NYC politics is crazypants in general. We also discuss County Committee and why we submitted petitions to run for the lowest level and most obscure elected office on the planet.

We chat about displays of patriotism on the 4th of July and Justice Kennedy stepping down. We can't enjoy shit for one day, can we?

El tiempo es ahora!! We are super sore winners over Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez's stunning victory over party boss Joe Crowley in NY-14!! We discuss her platform and strategy for victory, what this means for the dems going forward, and how words mean things.

Just like that old Jimmy Stewart movie. Except it was us, our kids, and a bunch of community activists talking to our congressman about the humanitarian crisis on the border. And we didn't save the day. We also discuss boring middle of the road democrats vs. the bold, uncorrupt, idealistic badasses primarying some of these old farts. Especially our #1 badass woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in NY-14. (We fucking love you, Alexandria.)

How to lay the groundwork for the resistance. Not the #resistance pussy hat social media warrior resistance, but like actually forging personal relationships with the people who live around you. Also, centrist democrats make us exhausted and sad.

We took our kids to the state capitol to lobby for voter reform. It was just like that movie "Mr Smith Goes to Washington", except instead of Jimmy Stewart and a pack of boy scouts, it was us and our 3 little girls taking down the Man. Ish.

To quote the inimitable Jon Lovett, "What a week, what a week." We talk about former #metoo champion outed as yet another fucking slimeball abuser, Eric Schneiderman, Melania Trump, and the Williams TransCo Pipeline. Every week is a year in Trump's America.

Why are the people with the loudest opinions often the least informed? We discuss the myth of all arguments having two equal and opposite sides. Spoiler alert: this is high school debate club bullshit!

We talk about our white privilege. It's an awkward conversation to have but we have to start somewhere.

We discuss how the types of behaviors necessary for grassroots activism (cultivating personal relationships, listening, compromising) are often 'feminized' or seen as weak in American culture, as opposed to corporate, top down, stereotypically masculine strongarming. Like traditional Washington politics or the guy whose tagline is "You're fired."

We discuss Laurie Penny's article, "Who Does She Think She Is?" https://longreads.com/2018/03/28/who-does-she-think-she-is/ and how the world just hates women when they do pretty much anything besides sitting quietly and looking pretty.