What Now? Sustaining Political Activism: Strategies for Year-Round Engagement and Empowerment

Transcript

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Welcome back to the United she Stands podcast, the show that brings kindness and women into politics.

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I'm Ashley.

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And I'm Sarah, and we're two women from Ohio who are here to become more educated about American politics and build a community so we can all get involved and make an impact together.

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We hope we'll inspire and empower you along the way, hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to our first episode of 2025.

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Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, 2025.

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How long are we going to be writing and typing 2024?

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By accident, I would say April, that's my guess.

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Anyway, we wanted to kick off the new year by talking about how to stay engaged and make an impact now that the election is over.

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During election season, getting involved is more straightforward Make a voting plan, vote, help others make a voting plan so they can go vote, etc.

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You may be thinking there's no easy way to get involved and make a difference until the next election, but that is certainly not the case.

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The work that's done in the off season is just as important as the work during election season.

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And, good news, we're here to tell you all about it.

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But first we are going to be talking about beer.

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Right, ashley, of course I'm drinking a Great Lakes, ohio City Mexican lager.

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Hold on no.

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No, ohio City Oatmeal Stout from Great Lakes, a very winter beer.

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Yeah, very much.

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So what about you?

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I'm doing a classic who cooks for you?

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I had no idea what was in my fridge and I was thrilled when I saw the can.

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So all about it.

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That is like that would be.

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That's like your version of Mexican lager.

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It is because it's honestly, one of the lowest percentage beers that I enjoy drinking Like cause.

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It's a hazy pale ale which tastes a lot like this.

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Specifically tastes a lot like a hazy IPA, but it's not as high in ABV, so it's kind of like a perfect little hack.

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So you're not slurring by the end of the episode, exactly.

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Slurring after one beer.

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Okay, all right, so let's jump into it.

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We are going to come at this from the lens of the election results, maybe not being what you wanted.

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However, if they were what you wanted, this content is still really relevant for you.

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So we're going to start by stealing some advice from Shannon Watts gun violence activist and founder of Moms Demand Action for our first piece here, and that is begin to rebuild, or build, your resilience.

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The fight for democracy will last our entire lifetime.

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A great quote here from writer and activist Alice Walker activism is the rent I pay to live on the planet.

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We need to be sure we're grounded and ready for what's next come January 20th, when Donald Trump is inaugurated.

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This looks different for everyone.

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Maybe you practice mindfulness, meditation and self-compassion.

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Maybe you're finding tools to help you manage your emotions or decide to step outside of your comfort zone.

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Maybe you cultivate a support system or engage in a new or regular physical activity.

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Maybe you're practicing gratitude, One of Sarah's personal faves.

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She made a little note in the thing here.

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It really is.

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I used to be a lot better at writing it down.

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At the end of the day, I would write down three things that I'm grateful for.

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I have been terrible at that, but it's often a thought that I come back to, maybe not daily If I were perfect it'd be daily, but that's not the case but a lot of times, just little things.

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I'm like, wow, even when I go on my lunch walk and the sun is shining, I'm like I am so grateful to have the flexibility to go for a walk right now when the sun is shining and get some of that natural vitamin D, like little things like that.

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And sometimes some of them were like, hey, I'm just grateful I woke up today and I'm grateful I was just had the strength to get out of bed.

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So, yeah, just one of my personal faves in general.

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So totally recommend.

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But regardless of how you're building or rebuilding your resilience, it'll take some time.

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Some say activism is a marathon and not a sprint, but it's actually more like interval training high intensity sprints followed by recovery periods.

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Without the recovery periods, there are no gains in endurance or strength.

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Just because you're resting, that doesn't mean you've given up.

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As Cheryl Strait wrote after the election in 2020,.

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This despair you're feeling so acutely right now isn't a sign that you should turn away from your calling, but rather that you must turn toward it.

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Your profound sense of defeat is evidence to me that you're in the fight.

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I know, I know it's so easy to want to disengage and go full ostrich mode and for those of you that don't know what full ostrich mode is, which I did it until I read this episode that Sarah wrote it basically means you're putting your head in the sand and not thinking about basically any of it, and that's fine.

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Take the time you need to do that always, but be sure to come back, please, please, please.

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If you're listening to this podcast, you're the type of person we need in this fight.

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I mean, we honestly need everyone in this fight, but we know you are already more willing to engage because you're listening to a political podcast.

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The interest in politics is just already there.

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Use that interest to help you stay engaged in what's going on in the US political landscape without the doom scrolling.

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Hopefully, I'm speaking for both of us when I say we know how easy it is to get stuck doom scrolling Like, for example, how can we not do a deep dive on Linda McMahon, aka the former president and CEO of WWE?

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Oh, and also, at the time of this, recording Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Education?

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I mean, you know, you just can't make this.

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Shut up.

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The headlines are clickbaity without even trying to be clickbaity at this point.

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But what we're trying to say here is it is and will continue to be easy to go down scary and unproductive rabbit holes for the next four years.

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It is and will continue to be easy to get lost in the sauce when reading about all the dumb shit Trump is doing or is planning to do.

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It is and will continue to be easy to want to disengage and throw your hands up and say F it.

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There's no use.

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We're here to tell you, to ask you, to beg you to not give in to those temptations.

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Trump won the election.

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He is going to be our president for the next four years, starting on January 20th.

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He has proven to us in the last decade who he is a delusional man who creates chaos.

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We know this about him.

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This is a fact and this isn't going to change.

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So let's not waste energy being angry about all the stuff he is going to do.

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Instead, let's use that energy to continue to strengthen our communities, our knowledge of politics and the systems within, and our personal well-being.

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So we're our best selves along the way, okay.

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So we're rebuilding our resilience by taking care of ourselves.

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We're staying engaged, but we're not overdoing it by doom scrolling.

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So what's next?

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We've talked about this on social media and on the podcast in some of our 2024 episodes, but we're here to chat about it again.

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Time and money.

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Donate it, be generous with it.

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Pro-democracy organizations need both of those things always, but especially right now.

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We know those are two very valuable resources.

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Some may have more of one than the other, Some may have not much of either.

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Some may have an abundance of both and you're like what?

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How is that possible?

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But all of those scenarios are okay.

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We ask that you take some time to truly think about what levers you can pull to free up one to two hours a month to volunteer, or an extra $20 a month to donate.

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Not only is this helpful for the organizations, it makes you feel so freaking good.

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The feeling after you volunteer for an hour or two, or when you get an email notification that your monthly donation just went through.

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It's electric.

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That's you using your power, your voice, your resources to help preserve our country and democracy Like for real.

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How badass is that?

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Remember how great you felt walking out of the polls in November.

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You can have that feeling year round by donating your time and money.

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Yeah, and a good way to do this is by figuring out your niche.

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It'll help you figure out where you want to donate your resources.

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You can ask yourself questions like what is my job in this moment?

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What do I specifically have to offer?

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Think about what lights you up and just what makes you feel alive.

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Are you passionate about reproductive rights?

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Find your local abortion fund or your repo rights organization.

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Are you passionate about common sense gun reform?

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Throw that into Google along with the city you're in to find local orgs that are also passionate about that same issue.

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We posted a carousel on Instagram in 2024 with the organizations we were donating our time and money, to which we'll link again here in the show notes so you can get your juices flowing on ideas.

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But here's a little sneak peek If you haven't seen that post.

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We support the Abortion Fund of Ohio.

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Aclu, ohio Women's Alliance Rank the Vote Ohio and Ohio Capital Journal on a reoccurring basis.

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We support additional orgs kind of throughout the year as needed or really as we can.

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If you have any questions about any of these, please reach out.

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We're happy to chat about it and, if not, go ahead and just go to their websites and see how you can get involved.

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Look for anything that says how to get involved or volunteer or learn more about these opportunities.

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Something that corporate America has drilled into our heads is to set realistic goals.

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And what does that mean?

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If you listened to the last part about donating time and money and thought, oh hell, yeah, I'm going to volunteer every week One, you're awesome.

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And two, are you sure that's not too much right off the bat, maybe after not volunteering much before, setting realistic goals will help ensure you actually stick to them.

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Let's say you actually set the goal of volunteering once a week Great, something comes up and you miss the first time.

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Kid gets sick and you need to stay home from volunteering a second time.

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Now you're all like I'm so far off from my goal already I might as well just stop and give up right now.

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I'm not saying that's exactly how it would go, but it's more likely to go that way if you set extreme goals right away, start small, carve out one to two hours a month to give your time to an organization.

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You can always increase the amount of time you give once you've met your realistic goal.

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Yeah, absolutely so.

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Last but definitely not least, and probably my favorite, honestly is we want you to inject hope into your veins like an endless supply of it.

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It's going to be a long, grueling four years.

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We're going to need all of the hope we can get to really get us through this.

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Some days will be really hard, some weeks will be harder, some months will just be the absolute worst news cycle after news cycle, but we have no option other than to get through it.

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We might as well get through it with some help, right?

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I mean, what else are we going to do?

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We truly believe that if we work together to help preserve our democracy, we will come out on top.

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We will survive this, we will get through it and we're going to work our asses off and have hope through all of it.

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Hell, yeah, we are.

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So we want to end this episode by talking a little bit about what to expect from us in 2025.

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We mentioned in previous episodes that we're starting to use Substack, in addition to Instagram, for our content, and links to both of those are in the show notes, and on Substack you'll see blog posts from us, a chat room where you can discuss and share things with our community, and other fun things.

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We're still learning our way around the platform, but we encourage you to check us out there as we get things ramped up.

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What other things are we going to be focusing on?

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Ash, yeah.

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So the other things, just kind of from a content perspective, that we are currently planning to focus on, I think we could start by what we're not going to be doing.

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And what we are not going to be doing and what we have never done is be like a breaking news podcast or place to get your breaking news.

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There are incredible sites out there.

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We follow a lot of them, incredible influencers that do that.

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Sarah and I have day jobs, unfortunately, so we cannot do that.

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That is not realistic for us.

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Maybe one day, but not today.

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Yeah, maybe one day.

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We will not be backing down, as I hope you heard from this episode, and we will not be reacting to every idiotic thing Trump and team do.

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So that is not what we will be putting out on our platforms.

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We're kind of there's a lot of sub kind of points under these pillars we won't go into.

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But the first one and what we've done in the past, that we'll continue to do, is be a pro-democracy account.

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We will highlight and educate on democracy reform efforts, things like ranked choice voting, electoral college reform, gerrymandering, etc.

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Second, and what will be a bit newer for us mostly because we didn't have to do it in the last two years as much.

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We did a little bit with the campaign, but we will be fighting fascism.

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I don't know how else to say it.

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We're going to be part of the resistance.

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Isn't that so funny to say, in 2025?

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Yeah, it's something I wish we didn't have to say, but that's just the truth.

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Right?

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We're going to be fighting misinformation and disinformation, nationalism and Christian nationalism, calling out attacks on our freedom from the Trump administration things like when he attacks the free press, on our rights, all that kind of good stuff and just basically ensuring that this Trump mega fascist, this fascist behavior is not normalized, like we can't normalize it, and so that's something we want to make sure we're doing on our platform.

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Third, we're going to be driving awareness and education of how the government works and how we can make an impact, something we've always tried to do, something we'll continue to do.

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And, lastly, we are going to be driving awareness and education on some specific issues.

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Reproductive rights, obviously, is something we've always talked about.

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Lgbtq plus rights, gun rights and reform, and then two new areas Sarah and I have really not gotten into, but we definitely want to is around health care and just this whole I'll just call it inequality, wealth gap, billionaires and corporate impact in politics.

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I don't even know.

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It's kind of a hodgepodge of all those things.

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So those are all the things we are going to be focusing on making content, for we are really, I think, excited about it, I'm excited about it.

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We've already started doing some really good things, I think, and so we're hoping to bring a lot of value to you guys in 2025 with all of that.

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Yes, we've already recorded at least one amazing interview that aligns with one of these amazing topics that we've covered, so that'll be a nice little surprise.

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But yeah, so we, you know, only bit off like a little bit, did you in 2025?

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So, but all that to say, stick around, hang with us.

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We know November was rough, we know the election cycle and season was rough and exhausting, but to all of the points that we talked about earlier, please stay engaged, please hang out with us.

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We're going to be here.

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We want you to be here with us and here's to 2025.

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Here's to 2025.

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The more we can educate and engage others, the more impact we can make.

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The best way you can support us is by sharing our platform with someone, whether that's a podcast episode or a sub stack or Instagram.

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So please, please, please, share with someone if you think it would be valuable to them.

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And thank you, guys, for tuning in this week.

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We'll catch you next week.

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Thank you, happy New Year.

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Thanks for joining us for today's episode.

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We really appreciate the support.

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We would also really appreciate it if you hit the follow button and share this episode with anyone you think would enjoy it.

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And we'd like to thank Kevin Tanner, who edited this episode.

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If you're interested in learning more about him and his services, his website and Instagram are in the show notes With that we'll see you next week without the doom scrolling motherfucker.

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I thought that sounded fine.

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I said like scrolling weird.