Pod Save America is one of the most popular political podcasts in the U.S. with over 20 million monthly listeners.  It is hosted by former Obama aides. Jon Favreau is host of the podcast being highlighted today. Most know him as President Obama’s director of speechwriting.

I have on occasion started to watch a few Pod Save America podcasts but have not watched one all the way through until this one because each time I found them to be annoying due to too much inside the beltway analysis,  DC-centric narratives, and typical conventional campaign-think, much of which in my view, doesn’t apply anymore since the Fox News propaganda station arrived on the scene and more recently, Trump.

So when the first words out of Favreau’s mouth on this podcast indicated that he is now acknowledging conventional wisdom may be insufficient and that we may need a new approach, I was all in.  I hope he has the ear of his fellow podcasters, regular media, Democratic electeds all the way down the ballot, and the DNC.  Regular Americans already understand we have to stop treating Trumpism as “normal.”  We are showing up in the streets by the millions, protesting Trump policies and demanding democracy.  Now we need the DC crowd to get it, to adjust to the fact that this is not “normal politics” and should not be treated as such in the media or in campaigns.

I will digress and say that we also need daily national media coverage of the protests happening everywhere around the country. As Rachel Maddow (who is doing an amazing job of covering the protests) has queried, what if the media covered Americans’ response to Trump as diligently as they cover Trump?  Because what Americans are doing about Trump and whether we allow Trump to continue what he is doing is after all, the “most important story of our time,” she has said.  “The strength of the movement against him is what will determine our fate as a country,”  according to Maddow who wrote a book about fascism, titled “Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism published in 2023. The book explores the fight against pro-fascist individuals and groups in the United States during the 1930s and early 1940s. 

Favreau’s guest on this podcast is Erica Chenoweth.  Her book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (2011) with Maria J. Stephan won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, and the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association.  The podcast isn’t just about the 3.5% rule. It covers a broad range of issues related to ousting fascist dictators, what works, what doesn’t, what is known, what is unknown.

Excellent questions by Favreau and kudos to him for breaking out of conventional thinking.  This is what he said at the opening of the podcast that pulled me in. The entire conversation did not disappoint. I watched the whole podcast.  [Note:  It was recorded before the shootings in Minnesota over the weekend.]

I’ve really been looking forward to the conversation you’re about to hear which I’ve wanted to have for awhile but has turned out to be extremely timely after the events of last week and this weekend – massive immigration raids that have led to protests that have led to our own government deploying American troops on the streets of Los Angeles. All leading up to a weekend of nationwide protests that were originally planned in response to Trump’s military parade in Washington, DC.

One thing I’ve struggled with since January is finding the time and space to have conversations about the most effective ways to fight back. Trump floods the zone, we react in the moment, and then everyone moves on to the next outrage. I also feel like even though most of us know that this isn’t normal politics we’re dealing with, the reference point for our response is still basically normal politics. Make Trump and MAGA unpopular, block what we can, fight them on the issues where they’re weakest, and then organize ahead of the midterms and eventually 2028.  But I think a lot of us feel like we’ve reached a point where that may be insufficient and that maybe we need a new playbook to help us through this reality.”  – Jon Favreau