Transcripts For CSPAN2 Stacey Abrams Our Time Is Now 20240712

Dialogue around the most Critical Issues of our time. We are gathered tonight virtually anytime of uncertainty over the past two weeks its become abundantly clear theres no more urgent time to talk about Voter Suppression head of the upcoming 2020 election in this moment following ongoing tragedies of Racial Injustice in our country, i have more hope than ever that our declaration that black lives matter and our protest in support of freedom for all will be unrelenting in bringing about equitable and longoverdue change. We feeling credibly fortunate tonights guest is one of the nations foremost experts on Voting Rights, leader abrams is a bestselling author, nonprofit ceo and political leader and was the first black woman to cover the good between zero nominee for a major party in the us and in the race for governor in georgia in 2018 she won more votes than any other democratic in the states history. Stacy abrams again made history at the first black woman to deliver a response to the state of the union in 2019. There is no doubt that her history making endeavor is far from over. In her new book our time is now she draws on Extensive Research to offer concrete solutions to an Voter Suppression and empower citizens. Former us secretary of state Madeleine Albright called the book essential toolkit for citizens of all backgrounds who believe as i do that democracy is not a spectator sport. Tonight, stacy abrams will be in conversation with karen haynes, a word and editor at large. She was previously the National Writer on race through the associated press, focused on the intersection of race, politics. We are so grateful for her participation. Later in the program we will take some of your questions you can submit them using the q and a button at the bottom of your zoom window and we also include a link in the chat box where you will want to purchase not act copy. Im excited to listen to and learn from these extra and a women again for joining us please welcome stacy abrams and aaron haynes into your home. Thank you so much, heather and thank you so much for what i hope is to be a conversation with someone who i have covered for a long time and who we went to your more from in this moment in our democracy and facing what i feel like is the most consequential election of our time. Welcome, leader abrams. We have got to stop meeting like this. Good to be with you again. Good to be with you as well. I feel like to george us and im a native of atlanta. We have to talk about what happened yesterday in their home state, the primary which was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic, but nonetheless turned out to be what i think we can agree was a debacle of democracy regardless of whos responsible. You and others predicted this, not yesterday, not last week, not last month, but two years ago it may be earlier. I went to ask you what your assessment is of what happened in georgia yesterday. Thank you so much for doing this and thank you to heather and the entire team and thank you to everyone tuning in. We know that yesterday was the result of a combination of incompetence and malfeasance. But start with buffy since. This is a state that has for the last decade practice Voter Suppression is an art form. In the 2018 election we saw it, but we go back to 2010 when the newly integrated secretary of state arrested 12 people for having the audacity to use absentee ballots to win an election. They followed the rules, did everything they were supposed to them because they were africanamericans who beat white men and women who they didnt think should lose, they were arrested and charged with 120 felonies. They spent three years with their lives 20 part. They lost their jobs, their seat on the school board and lets be clear, it was a School Board Election took their lives were destroyed and one woman nearly committed suicide. That began, at least in my window, that began the most recent evidence of Voter Suppression. Passport to 2018, at that point brian kemp has been secretary of state for eight years and purged 1. 4 million voters, overseeing the closure of 214 precincts. He has been the architect of exact match, which is the system that helps 553,000 application for Voter Registration hostage, 83 work people of color and was responsible for multiple infractions in the news that the power to run for governor and was replaced by brad ratzenberger. He comes into play and through Fair Fight Action Organization i started suited the statement said that we saw happen will never be undone. I will never be the governor in 2018. The process was wrong. That democracy didnt work, so one of their solutions was to buy new machines because we also had an issue of flipping where people would put in their vote and the person they selected, namely me, would suddenly become brian kemp. I am not brian kemp and i want to frame them for this reason, malfeasance doesnt disappear prevent action doesnt disappear because it goes underground and what happened in part was that the same structure that had been deeply problematic in the state of florida for the last decade reared its ugly head again yesterday, but then you layer on top of it incompetence and that in car finance what brian kemp said when he was secretary of state and what brad said which was despite the constitutional obligation they hold to be the superintendent of elections meaning they are responsible for directing, training and investing in those elections, they basically do pride any obligation and set is on the county. The constitution doesnt say that. The county has certain responsibility, but what brad ratzenberger did was refuse to do his job so the county smaller counties, republican counties, all experienced terrible results from these new machines that brad purchased at the cost of 107 million. I am bringing this to a close. 107 million that are brandnew machines and was worn by everyone. My organization, a Progressive Group worked with freedom groups to tell them this was a bad idea. When i agree with charles koch on an issue, its deeply problematic. That he perfect purchases these machines and fails the most basic responsible behaviors which is making sure everyone in charge of administering those machines knew how to do it, made sure enough machines were available and so what we saw happen were three things, one absentee ballot he increased radically because we are in the midst of a pandemic and georgia [inaudible] heated one good thing to say applications should be made available to every active voter, but then the company that was woefully behind in setting out the ballots including thousands of people that never received them. Number two, he failed to manage and train appropriately the county. For example, full 10 county most populous counties said we need to under 50 extra people to meet the basic needs of our increased turnout to the state did nothing. The states that it was not their issue. Instead, he spent 400,000, the secretary of states them for thousand dollars doing an advertisement saving himself for by these machines. That could have paid for 1600 poll workers yesterday to reduce the seven hour line people stood in. The third issue is this we had fewer polling places, fewer workers and not only with the resources have provided for that, he did nothing to ensure communities that desperately needed to vote would be able to do so safely. Incompetence and malfeasance come together and make Voter Suppression not only a disaster, it makes it a solvable problem. You can change the laws to make them do good and also have to demand that those elected to hold office, the secretary of states do their job and thats what did not happen yesterday in georgia. I think you made so many good points and because he saw what was coming, you are not surprised by so much of what we saw yesterday. Although, i think it did and should alarm much of the rest of the country; ray . To your point you are someone that pushes back. You are one that says its not normal for a voter to be in line for hours to cast a ballot, but what we saw it when i was struck by were the number of black voters in particular in georgia who showed up with basically a survival kit, bottled water, extra phone charger, stadium chair, snacks. They were ready to be in line and expected to be in line for a Long Term Care didnt expect to cast their ballot to be it in and out process. What does that tell you about how much those hours long wait has been normalized particularly in black communities quebec absolutely. The Brennan Center did a fantastic study, a good analysis of the [inaudible] in 2018 georgia had the single longest wait time for africanAmerican Voters in the country with an average of the four hours what happened yesterday was that people have gotten used to it because they are used it to be in under resourced, how many secretary of state who points the finger at the county and the county that points the finger back to the constitution doesnt mention the county. The constitution gives the responsibility to the secretary state. What we also saw was the fact that people were reacting to the long lines in early voting because we had so many new voters entering the process and that is the one bright spot i want to hold onto. We saw new voters showing up yesterday, showing up over the process of this election and those new voters strained the system, but the point of having leadership is that you look at whats happening and he scaled to make the moment and for africanAmerican Voters who comprise more than 32 of the voting population in the state, they knew they would be voting in communities where they would be the least likely to be resourced, the most likely to be pushed out of the system because of what we found existed in the databases. For example my father is trying to track his absentee ballot and i put him into the page managed by the secretary state. He didnt exist and it turns out they put in the wrong birthdate so i had to have a lawyer help me figure it out. My absentee valid ballot arrived but the return envelope was sealed shut so i had to vote in person. We have normalized as africanamericans and communities of color and poor communities have normalized the maltreatment that we have received in casting a vote and that should not happen in democracies, but we often forget stint of the didnt become real for many people until 68 or 1970 , so we have had a much shorter period of access than we have had of malfeasance and the living memory of that malfeasance continues to not just galvanize us to show up prepared, but unfortunately has lowered our expectations of what we deserve it. Absolutely. So, i guess in the speaking about that im wondering what your message is of what the georgia primary revealed about Voter Suppression across the country and voter depression. Voter suppression is theory things. Bottom line is an eligible voter denied access to the right to vote. The three ways it happens, when you register. Hes upset about malfeasance as well so can you register and stay on the role, can you access a ballot at is your ballot counted. The United States is what the few industrialized democratized nations that has delegated to make 50 different states the authority to create their own version of democracy so the rules differ from state to state and thats one of the reasons that Voter Suppression is so insidious and pervasive it because it looks different depending on where you are. We know for example the challenges i spoke of with the secretaries of state, yesterday the same time we were having our election in georgia, South Carolina had their election as did nevada and they boast experienced challenges because republican secretary of state that made it more difficult for voters to cast their vote primarily among communities of color, so we know around the country Voter Suppression is alive and well. Fair fight action created a i have a Second Organization called fair fight 2020 which is our Political Organization targeting 18 battleground states in the 2020 election where we know some version of Voter Suppression will come to fruition we saw that play out and we are confident in the midst of the pandemic forced voters to stand in line and long lines where they shut down hundreds of precincts and refused to allow the normal use of absentee ballots of people could stay home and be six. What we know this predicts 42020 november election is number one the obligation to understand the need to scale up the resources. States arent going to be able to do this alone. More people are energized, excited and terrified so more people will show up. We also have to put guardrails on the system, so no bad actor i could bad secretary of state has the authority to deny access to the right to vote 21 eligible. Those are things we can accomplish and im happy to talk to the details, but i want people to be aware and be a great, but i also want folks to understand that there is a way through this and theres a way to make it right. Yeah, and i also underwrite me speaking directed to voters voters right, i mean, what you say to someone who is concerned our baby doesnt have confidence that their vote will counted november or how to get folks to vote with a read headlines like the ones that were coming out of georgia today . Voter suppression is the most effective not simply by blocking access to the right to vote, its the most effective when it convinces his communities that its not worth trying to one of the reasons post 2018 that i decided to focus my attention on the production and amplify the issue of Voter Suppression is that i spent 11 years in the legislature watching people tell me that their votes didnt count, that it didnt matter if they participated. They were denied healthcare because georgia is a state that refuses to expand medicaid. Theyre losing access to reproductive choices because georgia outlawed abortion after certain amount of time. They are facing environmental challenges that are completely ignored by those in charge and whats happening in georgia is happening across the country, but would also happens is that we had the two year the first two years of the Obama Administration and we saw glimpses of what was possible in those glimpses are what we have to hold it to, but whats more important as we saw 2018, i didnt become governor, but we tripled the turnout of latino voters, the turnout of a vision American Voters and increased Youth Participation by 139 black participation by 40 . We increased white participation for the First Time Since bill clinton ran in georgia and those of numbers and these are all democratic voters, those numbers proved people still have hope. They still want more and so its incumbent upon those in office were those of us who care about democracy, we have the affirmative obligation to go to those voters and say if you try it will work. What we should not do is alive and say if you try it will work instantly and all will be well. Thats the unfortunate message that people took from the 2008 election which is why in 2010 we were set back by a decade. Now, we will say it will work but it will take time. It will be tedious. There will be setbacks. It will require our relentless and affirmative engagement every civil time because we are pushing against people who want to hold onto power so desperately that they are willing to break the machinery of democracy to do so. Our responsibility, those of us in elected office or those of us that just believe in america, our affirmative obligation is to acknowledge those who feel depressed, who feel suppressed and who were legitimately pushed out of the system. Its our job to tell them why its happening and tell them how to get back in and for us to carve a path. Yeah, i mean, obviously adding to that because the remarkable expansion of the electorate that you are able to a call bush and 2018 even though as you say it didnt become governor. You did not concede, which id knowledge. Expanding that electorate, balancing of the fact that we are in the midst of a pandemic and you have a voter especially africanAmerican Voters who are being disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, 30 of the deaths are africanamerican even though we only make up 13 of the population and so what do you say to americans who wonder how they can participate safely in our democracy this fall i mean particularly vulnerable populations like the elderly and africanAmerican Voters . I would add to the litany and i know you mean this, the native american population, whats happened to the Navajo Nation that how now has among the highest rates of covid19 infection death despite their population in the population. We know what is happening in communities of color especially that has that coexisting not only people of color, but they are impoverished or they are working for. The challenges that the only way we get to through and recover from the pandemic and its affects, the devastating Public Health crisis, the economic collapse and the lack of faith in our system because we have watched our leaders lied to us about whats happening in the fact that we had to lionize a man for telling us the truth and hes just emblematic of how broken our country is at this moment, but we are still here and particularly for communities that are the most vulnerable in the least resilient, the only way through mr. Voting, the only way through is to elect new leadership and select new representation, representation that sees us and listens to us and part of the responsibility i think each of us holds to not given to suppress it evil. That is strong language, but theres nothing that is less evil than watching people die when you know you could do something about it. In fact, when you accelerate it because of your deliberate inaction and thats what we are watching happen. I believe that the solution is twofold. Number one, we need the u. S. Senate to pass that heroes act. The heroes act will allocate 3. 6 billion to our elections across the country. About 3. 6 billion will pay for vote by mail because you will hear these stories about how vote by mail is fraudulent and ripe with fraud be the only only front we have heard about when it comes to mailin ballots is the fact that donald trump, his press secretary, the two of them have been using false addresses and that may be an issue of the fraud, but other than that its a demand this issue. We know the Heritage Institute has a said that they have been able to amalgamate 1300 cases, im being generous since 2000 of voter fraud of any kind. Thats out of 625 million votes past and so we know voter fraud is not real but we know Voter Suppression is. Being able to vote by mail can be made real if we have busy heroes act. 34 states already have absentee ballots but as we saw georgia yesterday having the right to do something doesnt mean it works out in the resources necessary to scale up the volume of voters that we will likely have the pandemic requires early investment and thats why the heroes act needs to pass. As many of us should go to as possible some people have no choice. Native americans often cant vote from home because they dont have regular addresses. They dont have read killer mail and thats why sometimes they need ballot selection which is basically allowing tribes to gather the absentee ballots and turn them in. We also need in person voting. We need in person voting for those who are disabled, language barriers, homeless or have been displaced by covid19. We need it for those that have attempted to vote by mail and could not get it done, people like myself. People that could not use another process. What we can do through the heroes act with the money the senate needs to put in place to allow us to scale this up across the country, but for the 16 states that dont allow vote by mail without an excuse, those states would be held to standards that for this pandemic would be a standard that everyone who thinks you might contract covid19, that its a legitimate excuse for not standing in line possibly being coughed on by someone who could infect to. Absolutely. I went to ask about that. My mom lives in georgia, because she is older and was able to vote early. Wanted to cast a ballot in person and was able to do that without having to be in line for very long. You tried to vote absentee but at the issue with envelope so had to vote in person. So me about your boating experience. Ive had two interesting voting experiences and georgia. 2018 i attempted to vote for myself and i was told i already turned in a absentee ballot and almost denied the right to vote. I had cameras with me so we were able to resolve the issue. At this time when i tried to vote absentee my ballot was a delayed in arriving and when it did i filled it out and reached for the return envelope and it was sealed the shot. I have watched a lot of mystery shows in my life so i tried to steam and open and that did not work. I reached out to get another copy get another envelope and it never arrived, so i had to go and vote in person, but i was lucky. I live in a community where the lines are not that long. About 45 minutes from beginning to end, but in Union City Georgia near the airport, they were in line until 12 36 a. M. This morning. Dot doesnt have to happen in a democratized industrialized nation. It does not happen in wealthy communities. It does happen, however, everywhere because what happened in georgia while you will hear a lot of conversation about the largest county, it happened in one of the counties represented by the secretary im sorry the speaker of the house, a republican. It happened in jasper county, coffee county. Unless you have studied the map or you are from there most cant pick the counties out. What we have to think about is that even though the target of Voter Suppression are largely communities of color, mainly African Americans in the south. If you are in the west intends to target latinos and native americans, but no matter where you are we know if your targeted , you are messing with the machinery part of what i talked about in the book is the history that this isnt it mail. Of this isnt it mail. We have seen this before. The poll tax of the 1800s 1900s is the long wait time of the 21st century because when you have to stand in line for five to seven hours george is a state where you dont get paid time off to vote which means you sacrifice a days pay to cast a single ballot. If you have to wait in line for five hours and then you get to the front of the line only to find out that your name has disappeared from the role or that your precinct was on the other side of town, its too late to get there and vote. Is too late to participate and its not right. Yes. Listen, what to talk about the book a little bit and i went to start by asking if you are psychic because, i mean, the title our time is now almost seems like a rallying cry in this moment for so many americans. Our corporate moment of rational an honorable i think the fight against Voter Suppression feels more urgent in this environment, but im wondering if you agree with that and i also wonder im thinking about how. [inaudible] how does it undermine our effort our organizing documents, we have two of them, the declaration of independence, which is a beautiful call for humanity, quality and injustice in any of the constitution, which says that belongs to a certain class of people namely white. If you are africanamerican you are not human and if you are native american you were invisible and if you were a woman you should be silenced. From our inception we built a system designed to aggregate and hold power 280 community. The beauty of americans that we have over time than our best to expand that initial restriction and meet our real obligation. It took the 13, 14 and 15th amendments to not only free slaves but to grant us citizenship, but lets be clear the 15th of many granted right to vote to black man. It was the 19th amendment that granted the vote to women, but it was actually only two white women. It wasnt until 1965 that black and brown women got the right to vote and then it was the 26th amendment that acknowledged young people who could be sent off to die for their country should be allowed to live and vote in their country and is so that tenure has given us both attention of knowing that we have been considered less than since our inception, but also the promise of what we could be if we lived up to our ideal. I wrote this book in the wake of the 2010 election because i was mad. I talk about this a bit in the closing and in the beginning and kind of you can hear it. I was angry not just because i didnt become governor. I was angry because of the tens of thousands of people i spoke to and promised that if they did their part and showed up and participated in our democracy that they would have the opportunity to change the things they needed to change and because of brian kemp, because of Voter Suppression they were stripped of those rights and it wasnt just being stripped of the right to vote, or having that vote count, it was that they were denied healthcare and in a pandemic that has ravaged georgia where at one point the city of albany and the fourth highest infection rate in the world, when we know that africanamericans are both contracting the disease and dying at a higher rate than anyone else in the state. Could they told that you not only are at risk, but that you dont have the right to healthcare, thats the consequence of the voting. Ahmad arboretum was murdered in the streets just outside of savannah and that young man, his body was shot down. There was no conversation for 74 days. His murderers were sent home to celebrate. That happened because of the law on the books that said they could perform the citizens arrest which were laws in place to dehumanize blacks and so we had to think about the fact that there is a direct connection between the original sin of our nation, its dehumanization and denial of citizenship despite what the paper says and at the structure that we are looking at today because the system is working exactly the way it was designed, but our time is now. The title because what i not just a litany of the terrible things that happened, but a prescription to make a better so the first few chapters we late i lay out all of the challenges of Voter Suppression, but the back half of the book is about how we take our power because fundamentally this is a coward conversation. We deserve the power eczema [inaudible] we had to start now because the moral Inflection Point of george floyd embryonic taylor and shawn reed and ahmad barberie, there are too many mets what we are called to do now and thats why i think this book fits into this moment. I absolutely agree, i mean, the book does tell so well because i think so many of these folks that you have seen take to the streets after day for more than two weeks now are really talking about who in america will have the power. Your book had me thinking about something that i have thought about for some years, actually, which is the idea of voting is a form of protest. Particularly we marginalize americans. Do you feel like voting, i mean, i know you talk about how voting is power but do you also think its a form of protest . Because protesters also power protest is how we declare in unison are discussed, our disagreement and our defiance of those who are not doing their job as we have asked them to do and so i have always seen protests as a necessary part of power. When i was in college, ive led a protest after the rodney king decision and when they teargas the Atlantic University center they teargas in part because we set oppose with the Housing Development with four young people that caught cannot imagine they could attend. And to uplift of those what that did do a good job. Voting is an extraordinary foam approaches because it is how we tell people who we were supposo see is an value was, that they did not do their job but its also how we call attention to the issues we need especially if were lucky enough to live in states that a citizen initiatives such as the one we saw passed in florida and, unfortunately, get overturned by the legislature and the governor but locally a court stepped in to allow exoffenders returning citizens to vote. That was a protest, protest of a broken system where the citizens took power and they will have to keep fighting because it works the way it should there will be people are very, very angry because their power will be diminished. Yeah. In the book i was so pleased to start the book and see you quoting one of the heroes of our democracy, a personal hero of mine from mississippi, and im talking about fannie lou hamer. I love this quote. It says we will state instead of for what belongs to us as american citizens because they cant say we havent had patients. I want to talk about the patients of black americans, lack women in particular because i think thats been on display for so long in this country andd i thought a lot in this election cycle about franco what america, the protectors of the union. I wonder what you think the answer to that question is . Its equality. It sounds so mundane as an answer but the reality is its always ever demanding. We have asked to be included in the nation we help build, a nation we helped birth, a nation we have cleaned, the nation we have served, the nation weve nurtured. We asked simply that we get equal access to opportunity, equal access to justice, equal access to power. Thats not a lot to ask. Thats what every citizen should be able to enjoy by virtuous citizenship. For black women in particular that citizenship has been constantly undermined, demeaned and denied. Thats what im pushing for. I get a bit of a reputation for being too candid in my responses and my conversations about power but when you grow up a black girl and mississippi who then moved to georgia, you learn that power matters and youll learn who has it, who doesnt, who needs it, who wants it. My entire life has been an investigation of how do we get it for those who have been marginalized, disadvantaged and denied their godgiven right as a citizen of this country. You are certainly a black woman who has no problem standing up for yourself or for this democracy, and so i had to say that caught the attention of a certain democratic president ial nominee who you could be joining on the 2020 ticket as Vice President which is a prospect incites a lot of people who are watching this conversation right now. A lot of people have heard you layout the convincing case you make for why you should be joe biden is running that i want to ask you this question in light of the dual pandemic of the coronavirus and racism which has shifted for those thinking that this role and you is best position for it. First of all i want asked if he believed Vice President biden at this point given everything were seeing happening in the country now, does he have to have a black woman on the ticket with him in november to win . How would you see yourself uniquely qualified respond to these dual pandemics which has taken on new urgency since this whole conversation about the vice presidency began. I think the Vice President has demonstrated in the last two weeks a moral core that is very rightly juxtaposed against the moral current president. The current leader is a coward who refuses accountability and refuses responsibility, and joe biden has taken responsibility for his past actions but also future responsibility. He has a pathway and a plan and more poorly he is been going to speak with and not act communities that are suffering. I am absolutely complete faith that joe biden is never going to take a community for granted. There may be some disagreement about how we get there but the concerted goal is going to be progress. Its going to be addressing the systemic inequities, and i believe to my core i believe in his commitment. I think you will pick the right person for him. Is going to pick a running mate that complements him. Hes going to pick someone who i think will help challenging but also more importantly help deliver on the promises hes making to our country. I trust hes going to pick the right running mate and the right Vice President. I dont know if thats going to be being, and what i think ive been mischaracterized as campaigning for it, what ive only ever done is answer the question, would you want to serve and are you qualified . Those are questions i cant let go and it should because my silence speaks for me and people will assume no, she doesnt want it and notion, she doesnt think shes qualified. As a woman of color and women is been underestimated quite often i learned early on i have to speak with itself. I shouldnt and people will look at my resume and look at my experience and william. I tried to buy the shorthand and after the question. Ultimately it will be up to the Vice President. I will say that my experience as a legislator and as someone who is committed to justice, i am very proud of the work i have done on police accountability, helping pass laws in georgia to make the process more transparent and to make it work better. Im proud of the work of done in criminal Justice Reform to ensure our Justice System works on both sides of the conversation. Im proud of the reputation ive been able to deal with the most marginalized communities and no, i stand in solidarity and i dont have to be tutored on what we need to talk about, that i can go and sit in the black lives matter meeting, i can call folks in the drink offenders. I can do the work because ive the record and regardless of what position i may hold in administration, if any, my responsibility is to never have to apologize for who i am and what i have done and im very proud ive always stood in community with those are marginalized in disadvantaged and that i will continue to do that work. The last time you and i talked, george was on the verge of reopening after weeks of being shut down due to coronavirus and many residents were dissatisfied to say the least about the current governors handling of the reopening and were openly limiting that you were not the governor of georgia during this time. Given what we saw last night in my home state, i have to ask you again, this is a job i know you wanted very much in 2018 and assuming you are not our next Vice President and it typicalli do not assume this, are you interested in running for governor again possibly in 2020s purpose that is absolutely a consideration. There you go. Next question, i love this introduction of your book. Use those are most vulnerable, become the most effective to capacity of that reluctance to others. That line really struck me as we are in the midst of a Global Health crisis. I wonder if you think, is voter depression like a virus . If it is [inaudible] absolutely it is a virus. In part, think about the way we learn everything. We learn from those around us. We learn the act of washing our hands. We learn about whether we should stick our fingers into light sockets. We also learned good financial habits for financial habits. We learn our behavior is young and we learned by what we see. I was infected early with democracy. My parents took us to vote with them. I describe it in the book as we look like for make way for ducklings because there were six of us. They wanted to secede in an act of voting. They would also take us within to volunteer and even though we were poor and we would point that out, why are we going to serve for people because thats as . My parents would say having nothing is not an excuse for doing nothing. They would take us with them because they want us to see service was an active part of who we are. That our obligations transcended our physical and a financial wellbeing, that we were responsible for the world we were a part of. But the corollary to that is if you dont see someone vote or worse if you hear the negative, if you hear about the politicians who, some who show up and never show, show up for your vote but never show up again, or was, once he never bothered to. When you live in communities where nothing changes, or persistent poverty is a given, when you hear about your self talk about in the third person or your community described in such dehumanizing terms, then you start to internalize that. Why would you engage in the system that hires people who say those things about you . Why would you engage in a system that these people who do not believe your life is valuable and putting you in a chokehold, putting a a knee on your neck s legitimate form of service . It is a disease of underestimation. It is a disease of distance, and that distance is reinforced every time we have elections with people who promise more, failed to deliver, and more importantly failed to explain why not. I have been a politician long enough to know theres no way you go going to get what you want. I with minority leader. I used to joke that was latin for lose well because i was never going to win about silva because of my charm. I would have to work and often my job was to minimize harm, to stop stupid or at least slow down and to block the bad those going to harm our community. My job was at the conversation. I would be chastised by some of my colleagues for being too honest about what we could or could not do. What i would remind them of his i grew up in those communities. The worst thing you can do, the most invasive way to spread the disease of voter depression is to lie to the person about what you can accomplish. You should be aspirational but you also have to be pragmatic and clear that yes, we can do this but its going to take time and here are the things we will have to do and his obstacles we want to face, and its not going to be a Straight Line because as much as we want good, evil will push back even harder. As much as we will progress, there is a party that calls himself the conservatives. Conservatives. Conservation means to hold steady. To not move. If you want to maintain the power structure that is, there is no incentive for their behavior to change. They have an equal say unless we overwhelm the system with our numbers and our attention. So yes, voter depression is a a disease but there is an inoculation that comes with honesty and engagement and thats one of the things i talk about. What we saw happen Barack Obamas in 2008 we thought was a fluke. What i was able to do even though i didnt become the governor people dismiss it as it was an example of what i could do. Im a good candidate but there are other good candidates. If we look at the outcome of not only the 2010 election with the number of black women mayors, latinas, muslims, communities of color and disadvantage and marginalized communities that have been able to access power, what we should be telling ourselves is the antidote to this disease of voter depression is voter engagement, to treat people like they have some sense. And that does the work of asking them to help instead of expecting them to simply because the rotten life is so hard. The rally is people get used to hard. Its much worse to try to get used to hope. Two things Stacey Abrams nose and thus democracy and the dictionary. Youre going to get the definition. I would be remiss because i do work in a newsroom that his name the 19th amendment. As you rightly know, that amendment which were celebrating the 100 anniversary of this you did not extend to all women. That was mainly an amendment the protected white women. I want to ask you more about what youre thinking about. As we work this milestone but he mimicked you mention in the book you would like to see added to our constitution. We have to celebrate the 100th year of the 19th amendment because it did move the franchise forward and black women were instrumental in its passage. Even if we didnt benefit immediately from its success. What we were able to be a part of, what this proves for america is the voices of our population, that they should be heard in the multiplicity and diversity. Thats a glorious thing in a democracy. We have too many restrictions on who is allowed to speak, who was allowed to be heard because theres a fear if we diffuse the power among too many it wont work anymore. Shared power is more effective because its more likely to resist the corrosive effects and its more likely to stand up and push back against harm and danger. The 19th amendment for me is a clarion call for what is possible. It took a lot of women multiple years at various stages of their lives to get this done. It wasnt simply the schoolhouse rock song we hear about how it marched across. That pressure proves it can be so. When i look forward to its happening today i want people to remember that there is nothing easy about any of these amendments. Possibly the 26th amendment is given the easiest task to think about the number of wars it took for young men to die most again man, to die in the source, all the women were there and auxiliary positions, how many and people had to perish in order for us to grant the franchise to 18yearolds and the civil war and the inhumanity of our constitution to great the 15th amendment. Its important for us to remember how hard it was to get what we got and how much work we have to do to keep what we have. Those are things we can accomplish and i believe thats a a solution to making this less hard is to fix the problems in the constitution. Number one, the delegation to the states of complete authority over the administration of elections has its fundamental flaw. Those states that the want people to vote have the right not to let people vote. Which means you are allowing the person who broke it to fix it after they told you we dont want to fix it. The second part of the challenge is it should be in our constitution that the right to vote for citizens shall not be abridged, period. We have created teeming exceptions. We have allowed too many clauses and too many opportunities for it to be undermined. Lets be clear. The Voting Rights act, the act that made it the hardest to interfere with the right to vote, but the conservatives came after section five and successfully dismantled it and now they are after section two. I want people to understand section five required precludes pickets and you have to get permission before you make it harder to vote. What section two says is you are prohibited from passing laws that abridge the right to vote based on race, nationality, and language barriers. What that means is the rules theyre trying to put in place, if you can prove it has a racial intent, then you can stop it or racial effects. What theyre trying to say is if they just happens to be racist, less we wrote it down, we cant be held accountable. That would remove the last protection we have in the Voting Rights act to stop these laws of Voter Suppression. This last few weeks republicans find a multipronged attempt, attack on the second amendment, i mean on the section two of the Voting Rights act. We cannot sleep on this because they have told us what theyre going to do. They have committed to spending up to 60 million to suppress the right to vote in 2020. They have agreed to put 50,000 volunteers into communities to intimidate voters and stop them from voting. Just in case those things dont work, they want to dismantle the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights act which means in the moment our nation is becoming the most diverse its ever been, the protections that allow that diversity to become true engagement as voters will disappear. A lot of you at the watching have submitted a ton of Great Questions i want to get to a couple of those for stacey. I want to start with a question from justice and asks how do explain system grace is up to someone and welleducated but does not believe systemic racism exists in America Today . I think the challenge that is being offered in describing it, you have to begin with people who see that there is a problem, even if they dont understand it and cant articulate it. But the fundamental idea is that, and i heard it said this way in a recent panel i was on, there are those who are put in the water and they are swimming with the current. The current is the friend, its pushing them along toward success an opportunity and it gives them an extra boost as they go towards their goals. Systemic racism is when you get put in the water and your goal is on the other side against the current and your entire life is about swimming against those currents being thrown upon the rocks and having actually new opportunities that do not require that you had to go upstream against the current. That is systemic racism. It doesnt say the reason you got in the water and you got to go in one direction versus the other was because of the are but it does say you benefit from the fact some people entered the water going downstream with the current and others into the water going upstream and against the current and the never have a choice. Thats actually a very good analogy. I will start using that one as well. We have another question asking what is the responsibility of white allies in regards to Voter Suppression . How can we help . One, we have to understand that Voter Suppression may target communities of color, they target young people but it affects us all. Heart of what i lay out in our time is now our time is now, those who not only the solution but the problems because the first opportunity, the first moment of fighting back against Voter Suppression is doing what it looks like. Our conception of Voter Suppression until last night for a lot of people was that the soy stood in front of the voting booth or front of the doors with the shotgun and they dog and said you shall not enter, you shall not pass. Its much more insidious and much more administrative. One thing alice can do is talk about it, understand what it looks like, understand what the problems are and that articulate it. One of the reasons suppression works is people get convinced it is user error. Either it was my fault i messed up or it was your fault you messed up. We have to start by articulating what suppression is thats why use those three things, can you register stay on the roles . Can access the bow and dish about get counted . It looks different to been on the state youre in so as an ally make sure you understand what suppression looks like in your community. Number two, interfere. Make it easier. How people get registered. Make sure their thing on the rolls. Volunteer as a poll watcher and a poll observer. The antidote to the intimidation. I want to go on the question in from melinda who says she is volunteering as an organizer in this election cycle and shes in north carolina. She says is any advice you can give for volunteers and organizers to help us reach as many voters during this time when a lot of our efforts must be done digitally . Dont forget the analogs. Phone calls work. For a lot of folks especially Rural Communities that can have more people color them folks realize and took more people were susceptible to change, make sure you having conversations and whether you are doing it digitally or through the phone. The tendency of organizers is to preach. You treat them as though they are parishioners who come to your church. They are not parishioners are at your church and they use because im a daughter of two ministers. They are people you get to meet where they are and that means they have to believe theres a reason to come with you. I stop asking people what they want. What do you need . What is broken . What is your dream for your community . To get people to talk with you want, when you start to talk about what you during your offering them a solution to the problems. If you begin by articulating the problems are worse by preaching or not having fix the problems you have no reason to engage. Conversation works when people feel heard and a field like theres access. Take the time to engage and know that its going to be multistage. You are not going to someone on the first try. Be prepared to build longterm friendships with a lot of folks but the longterm friendships, im being a bit facetious but what he means it will take more than one conversation, what engagement. The more you do it the more likely you are instead of creating someone who votes for an election is you are creating a voter for community and that is your goal. I want to and by hearing from you about some eu included in the dedication to the book because i know how he or she was to you and what a powerful figure she was in shaping we are and how you viewed voting. That person is your grandmother. I know she passed away a few months after you did not become governor. And about you tell a story that i also wrote about in a profile i did for you about you for the 19th, this is the story you tell about your visit with your grandmother right before the 2018 election. I wonder if you can share that story with our audience now and if you could also come what you think your grandmother would make of the 2020 and what would be her message to voters as a super voter herself . I will encourage the readers to read the book, i will say the truncated version is, my grandmother who had been part of the Civil Rights Movement primarily through her children on the day she first had the right to vote did not want to vote. She was afraid. It wasnt that she was afraid that it wouldnt work. She was afraid of the power of the vote. My grandfather had to control her and then shame her into doing so. What you want me to understand was cudgel. Sometimes power solar warming, defines a set of using it. She believed in me. She supported me. She always told me i need to get more sleep, and i believe that she would look at what happened yesterday and whats happening across our country and tell us that even look at ecclesiastes is nothing new under the sun. But we also have the time to rise and this is our time. It is our time to take our country and make it better than it has been, and thats what she would call for and thats what im trying to do. I think thats a a perfect y to end this conversation. Thank you so much, stacey, for sharing your thoughts and for writing this book which i thought was phenomenal and i hope that people will recognize our time is now, so thank you so much. Thank you. I could ever listening. Thank you so much that sixth and i. I really appreciate it and its been a delight. Thank you so much to Stacey Abrams and errin haines for such an important conversation. I encourage you all to buy a copy of tranone. If you havent already. We have autographed copies for sale. The link to purchase is in the chat box it will also email you that link as well. With more Virtual Events with authors can get so please check out our website at sixth and i. Org and when the time comes we look for to welcoming you back sixth and i. Take care and good night. Heres a a look at some boos being published this week. Bind these titles this coming week wherever books are sold and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. The president s from public affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. Presents present biographies ofy president organized by the ranking by noted historians from best to worst, and features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executive and leadership styles. Visit our website cspan. Org thepresident s to more about each president and historian featured in order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to indiebound. Most of these authors have appeared on booktv and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. Hello, everyone and welcome to another David Horowitz Freedom Center webinar. Thanks for joining us. Im mark tapson and this week were pleased to feature David Horowitz himself discussing his important new book titled blitz trump will smash the left and win. In just a metallic turn things over to david and after speaks we would take some questions from those of you doing and ani will come back onto a facilitate that. David is the founder of the Freedom Center, former radical leftist and became an intellectual battering ram for