EP. 120 — How To Find Your Political Power with Adam Conover

Jameela [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I gave Jameela Jamil a podcast against shame. Sorry for laughing. My dog has decided to come sit right next to me and then give himself what can only be described as a blow job. But I’m not going to shame him about it, because that’s not what we do here over at I Weigh, is it, everyone? No. So I’m just going to try and pull the microphone away from that very vivid licking sound. And I’m sorry if you can still hear it. Anyway, I am very excited for you to hear today’s episode. It’s one of those hugely important ones that we’re going to need to share with everyone we can, because it directly relates to everything that’s going on politically right now, especially for people with uteruses, but also across every marginalized group. I invited Adam Conover to come and talk to me about political engagement and political activism and things that we can tangibly do other than cry and scream and shout and retweet and protest, all of which are important. But we need tangible organizational efforts, and he is a comedian and a podcaster and just an excellent guy all around but -Barrold. Stop it. Sit, please. Will you just sit? Just sit. Just please stop terrorizing me. Please. Thank you. Oh, God. If any of you have got a dog at home and you work from home, I fucking feel you. I feel you so hard. Especially right now. I apologize. Anyway, what is so great about Adam is the fact that he is proof that you do not have to be an expert in politics. You do not have to study politics your entire life. You don’t have to come from a political family to educate yourself about political engagement and every level of government and what you can do right now to help change your country, your state, your town, your future. We discussed his journey into politics and the best place to start for anyone who is interested in getting involved. And we talk about how to access your political power and make a difference rather than just talking about it. We discuss why L.A.’s mayoral election is so important for the whole of America due to what’s going on with Roe v Wade. We discuss the Supreme Court’s impact and how we’ve gotten here, and we discuss the homelessness problem and how to fix it in a humane and decent way. I really hope this helps because I felt extremely helpless and I have felt disempowered and I have felt confused and intimidated by the United States’s extremely complicated political system, and Adam breaks it down in a way that makes it feel completely accessible and makes me feel like I actually have hope again. So listen to the episode. Tell me what you think. Sorry about my dog. Message me. DM me. Follow Adam. Listen to Adam’s podcast. They’re also so informative. Watch his Netflix show and please know that you have so much more power than anyone wants you to know that you have. It is very deliberate that they have made up all of this jargon to make us all feel that we are all too stupid and too helpless to do anything. We have all the power if we just unite and do it together. I love you very much. This is the excellent Adam Conover. Barrold. Thank you for letting me finally finish that fucking intro. Adam Conover, welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

Adam [00:03:54] Thank you so much for having me, Jameela. I’m so happy to be here and I’m feeling fine today. I just ate a bahn mi. So I feel full and satisfied.

Jameela [00:04:03] Excellent. Now I’m hungry. Fuck. I am so happy to have you on this podcast, and I. I can’t think of a time where you are more needed right here than this moment in which I, like so many people, feel extremely disempowered politically. And and while I understand intellectually that the government works for me, it really just doesn’t feel that way.

Adam [00:04:30] Mm hmm.

Jameela [00:04:30] And so, aside from the many things that I want to talk to you about, something that really thrills me, that, you know, I think I briefly mentioned to you when we spoke over the phone is the fact that you break down the government in a way that feels unpretentious and accessible and you make change sound actually doable, which I think a lot of people, whether deliberately or not, deliberately whose to say. I think they try to make government sound more complicated than it actually is so that we kind of don’t bother, so that we feel disempowered. And I think that you have been a big part, especially, you know, in my circle and for me and I’m watching what you say online, you’ve been a big part in changing that and turning that around and making me feel like we can do something. So just. Thank you.

Adam [00:05:15] Well, I appreciate you saying so that that means a lot to me, that I mean, I just sort of try to. A lot of times what I’m saying stuff like this, I’m telling it to myself, too, to try to buck myself up and try to solve my own problems and questions and concerns so the fact that it’s brought anybody else some solace and some, you know, maybe some energy and some focus is it means a lot to me. Thank you so much for saying so.

Jameela [00:05:39] So. Okay. Something I really appreciate about the work that you do and people similar is the fact that you remind everyone that there are multiple levels of government that we need to be paying attention to all the way down to the school boards where a lot of these politicians, career politicians start. And so there are sometimes it fundamentally doesn’t even necessarily completely matter who’s at the very top. Obviously, it is important. I’m not saying it’s not important. I do really want everyone to feel galvanized and empowered and to go out and vote when the time comes. But it’s also important that we don’t just take our eye off the prize. Other than that, like one kind of section of two months.

Adam [00:06:18] Yeah.

Jameela [00:06:18] At the end of every four year run, we need to we need to remember that these things are being increasingly state divided and makers have a lot of power. You have been incredibly informative about, I would, had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have known about Caruso. You know, every Los Angeles.

Adam [00:06:35] L.A. Mayors election.

Jameela [00:06:36] Yeah, yeah. The L.A. mayor’s election and mayors are something that I haven’t particularly paid attention to, especially as a Brit. We have such a different political system. I haven’t really understood the changes and the influence they can make. And also, once they’re in at mayoral level, then they get to keep moving up and up and up. And, this is likely someone who will run for president one day.

Adam [00:06:54] Yeah. And I mean, you know Gavin Newsom, right. Who is the governor of California and transparently wants to run for president, he used to be, I believe, the mayor of San Francisco. Like, this is how the system works. So in California, we have a such a totally blue state that most races are two Democrats running against each other. And, you know, it’s Democrat versus Democrat. And if you if you just say, oh, Democrat, that’s the side I am, that’s the party I’m going to go with. Then you’ll say, Well, who cares who wins? They’re both Democrats. I don’t give a shit when in reality there’s going to be real differences.

Jameela [00:07:28] Yeah. Caruso only changed to Democrat in January, this year having been Republican until 12 years ago, then for 12 years ran as technically apolitical and then in January became a democrat all of a sudden.

Adam [00:07:41] Yeah. In order so that he could run for mayor of Los Angeles. And, you know, it’s ludicrous. The guy is on the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library like he’s been he’s been a Republican his entire life. But he now says he’s a Democrat. And, you know, he says it in all his ads. And so if you are too wedded to that Democrat, Republican or right left distinction, you won’t realize that there are differences between the two Democrats that are running. And one person, you know, is actually wants to, you know, it depending on the race, one person might want to say take policies around homelessness or crime that will actually work. And the other person might want to just, you know, pursue the failed policies of locking everybody up a portion of street to street corner. So we have to be able to tell the difference between Democrats and Democrats or between Republicans and Republicans, depending on where we live. You know, if you look at the actual government of your city, right, if you get to pay really close attention to what the politicians are doing, you might find that even if you’re like, hey, I’m a Democrat and this person’s a Democrat, they should agree with me. If you actually look at the nitty gritty of what they do, you might realize that they don’t actually share your values. And that’s the thing that I try to alert people to. I also try to alert them to how important those local races really are, that that, you know, wherever you live, there are problems in your community and those problems and you probably live with them every day. You maybe you have a long commute and you’re forced to take a car and you can’t take public transportation even though you would like to because it doesn’t exist. Maybe there’s homelessness in your area. Maybe there is, you know, police violence, maybe there’s crime. Any issues like these, these are determined by your local elected officials. And most of us don’t really ever think about them like they’re covered very little, even in our newspapers, even, you know, here in Los Angeles, we have the Los Angeles Times. It’s a very good paper as far as local papers go. We’re lucky to have it even. It barely covers local politics. There’s shit happens every single day that I read about on Twitter that just isn’t in the Times. So it’s something that I’m really trying to do is bring people awareness of that. And that’s the entire sixth episode of the G word. My new Netflix show is entirely all about local government for that reason.

Jameela [00:09:53] And that’s a really exciting new part of your career. The fact that Obama wanted you to make that show that’s so real and has given you the freedom to make it from your perspective and not his. Yes, which I think is super important so that you can remain critical of whoever you need to be critical of. So okay. Now take me. Right. Actress Thirties moved to America in the last few years trying to fucking figure it out or a 16 year old who’s maybe just become politically engaged. Where do we where do we start with learning? We say, like learn about local politics. Where does one start? You’re saying the newspapers don’t really cover it. What is your advice for those of us who would like to be like, all right, let’s figure out who are reps for every level?

Adam [00:10:37] Yeah. So what I try to tell people to do is the best thing you can do is find a local group that is working on an issue that you care about in your area. So, you know, I really care about homelessness. And I’ve mentioned a couple of times on the show, I joined a group here in Los Angeles called SELAH stand- it’s an acronym for some of the neighborhoods here in L.A. And we’re a local neighborhood Homelessness Coalition. And so we go around with food and water on weekends and we visit encampments. We drop off that food and water because, you know, it gets 100 degree days here in L.A. And then we also say, hey, do you need anything else? We try to connect people with services and we have a drop in center, just a volunteer group. But by joining that group and meeting other people who are really tapped in, they started alerting me to, Hey, there is a neighborhood council meeting tonight that’s a little local neighborhood group and there’s a homelessness issue that was being discussed. Would you show up and, you know, make a public comment or they’ll say, oh, there’s a bill for the local city council and we’re all phoning in to give a public comment. Would you do that? So, you know, that is the beginnings of organizing, but, you know, of not just reading the paper and voting, but actually getting involved in a discreet way. And you start getting opinions about the different politicians that you wouldn’t have otherwise. You start understanding, Oh, this person who says they’re a Democrat and says they have a compassionate approach to homelessness. Oh, they called the cops on this encampment and, you know, just swept them down the street, wasted all this taxpayer money using this incredibly harmful enforcement method that doesn’t work. And you start like becoming alert to those issues. So there’s so many different groups like that. For instance, if you care about voting rights, the League of Women Voters is a group that has, you know, chapters in practically every community in America. If you care about climate change, there’s a group called the Sunrise Movement that is a you know, they do on the ground organizing in schools, but also communities everywhere around the country. If you care about abortion rights, actually don’t know the name of a particular group that you would that you would join. But I have a feeling that we’re going to start some in this country given what’s happened.

Jameela [00:12:46] Yeah. Currently I’ve been learning a fair amount from Planned Parenthood, the PP. Yeah. Just to gain information about where we should be directing our funds on state by state level, etc. and who we should be looking to is reps who are willing to fight for people’s right to choose bodily autonomy. You know, when people hand out phone numbers of our reps, obviously not like mobile phone numbers. I don’t mean doxing, I just mean that they hand out the numbers of the offices of local representatives and they say, Call your representative. This is the script of what it is you need to say. Does that make a fucking difference?

Adam [00:13:28] It does. It does. But it depends. It depends. So, like, if you’re calling a senator whose state you don’t live in about a hot button issue that is already being discussed, you know, it probably doesn’t matter that much. But if you call, what I think is much more effective is if you call your the the the office of your local city councilperson and you say, hey, I really want the city council to pass a resolution in support of, you know, abortion rights, in support of reproductive rights, which which, by the way, can be meaningful. Like when you, you know, having if you live in a place if you live in a state that is not restricting abortion rights, making sure that city resources won’t be dedicated to prosecuting people for abortions, making sure that you won’t extradite people to different states, things like that. Those are real steps that a city and state can take. If you call someone who’s not receiving as many phone calls with something more targeted, it really can make a difference. And especially if you’re talking about a local issue, it makes a huge difference. I mean, I have seen just a small, small group of 20 people raise so much noise in a local government office like the city council about a building development they don’t like or an encampment that’s making them mad or something that they want, that they can completely drive the conversation. And you see those arguments come out in, you know, the next city council meeting. So, you know, what I’ll say is. Your voice is proportionately more powerful if you make that phone call to somewhere local. But yeah, go ahead and call your senator, too, but also call your state senator and your city councilperson.

Jameela [00:15:03] Well, the thing my theory on why it works and why I participated in it is because these people are all looking to. Escalate, you know, their own careers. They’re looking to move forward and progress. And if they feel like there is an overwhelming amount of displeasure with something that’s happening or something that they are doing, I think they are more likely to bend in order to be able to continue to succeed in politics. So I do think it makes a big difference. I do think these people respond to their popularity. The only place it doesn’t seem to make a fucking bit of difference is the Supreme Court. Because what is it? 70% of people would like gun reform. 70% of people or more, even think, think people should be able to choose what happens to their own bodies, believe in medical privacy, a stand against all of the things that have been voted for by the Supreme Court. And yet they’ve just it’s just as bonkers to me that six people have been able to just discard what over two thirds of the country want in two areas that make the difference between life and death.

Adam [00:16:04] Because they have the power. Right. They have life, a poor lifetime appointments. They can do whatever they want. The only thing they have to worry about is the court’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public, which can really, you know, be bad if the court were to lose it. And they’re certainly on a path to losing it.

Jameela [00:16:19] Right. But what so what happens? Like, how does that how does that how does that work out? Right. So so if they lose let’s say they lose the legitimacy in the eyes of the public, then what does that look like?

Adam [00:16:30] So the thing about the Supreme Court and I’m not a judicial scholar, so this is just me repeating what I’ve heard judicial scholars say. But, you know, the thing about the court is now they have no they have they have no army. Right. They have no police force. They have no enforcement power. They can make a decision, but they can’t enforce it. And so there have been times throughout history when the Supreme Court has made a decision and nobody has enforced the decision because they didn’t take the Supreme Court decision seriously. So one of the biggest examples of this is Brown versus the Board of Education. When the Supreme Court in the fifties issued a decision that said, you know, that school segregation was unconstitutional, a lot of states just ignored that ruling. They said, well, fuck you, we’re just not going to do it. We’re going to keep the schools segregated. And it wasn’t until, you know, Eisenhower finally decided to enforce the ruling years later and, you know, send armed forces in there to to make it happen. That the ruling was actually followed.

Jameela [00:17:29] What, so they had decided that on a nationwide level, they hadn’t said states are allowed to decide for themselves. They said, you have to listen to us. This has to be the way. And states still ignored a federal policy.

Adam [00:17:41] Exactly. Because at the end of the day, you know, there’s there’s legal power. The Supreme Court has unfettered legal power. They in our system do decide what the laws mean on a factual level, but they require the rest of the society to go along with it. And so if the public believes the Supreme Court is illegitimate, well, then it’s more likely that large segments of our political society, the politicians that actually run the government, will think that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, think that its decisions are illegitimate, and then they might just choose not to follow them. Now, that’s a very sort of abstract way to think about it. You know, like it. We’re a long way from that actually happening, but it is a real risk for the Supreme Court, and that’s something that they have to worry about. Like the Supreme Court has had built up so much legitimacy in American life. We all really believed, yes, this is the you know, we have these legal priests who are figuring out what the Constitution means and, you know, their decisions are sacrosanct. And now that we are seeing in real time no, these are political appointees who are just deciding based on whatever policies they prefer and making up a legal justification that now that a large portion of the public now believes that’s how the Supreme Court operates, that does reduce the Supreme Court’s power to an extent, not in a way that we can immediately make use of, but it is real.

Jameela [00:19:03] And do you think it’s something they will be afraid of and perhaps adhere to more just rulings? Because I feel like these people don’t give a fuck. I’m like, I mean, just the fact that they they swore that they would uphold precedent. Just a matter of, you know, within recent memory.

Adam [00:19:20] Yeah.

Jameela [00:19:21] One is one as recent as seven months ago. Like, and then to be able to like overturn that, I just don’t want, I don’t as a Brit, I don’t understand how that’s possible. And I come from such a broken political system. Obviously we are a fucking clusterfuck that maybe even led the way for the US clusterfuck. But but you know what I’m do you know what I mean? Like how, how is that been possible for them to just go back on their word so so sickeningly.

Adam [00:19:47] They have the power to do it. I mean, the fact is that we’ve lived in a world where we have believed that, you know, we people follow norms and they say what they’re going to do and then they do it. And, you know, that that, oh, we don’t abide hypocrisy and stuff like that, but none of that matters. What people say doesn’t matter. What matters is power. And, you know the conservative supermajority gained enough power that they don’t need to care what anybody thinks about what they said in the past, and they can just do whatever they want. And that’s the fact. And, you know, people say that John Roberts, the chief justice, would prefer to go more slowly because he is worried about the legitimacy of the courts. But the other five justices don’t need to listen to him anymore because they’re all, you know, radical ideologues and they can do whatever they want. And so the thing that I’m trying to impress upon people is that power is really, really important. You know, just who has the power in the system? The Supreme Court does have a lot of power. The president has a lot of power. However, we have been tricked into thinking that all that we can do in the political system is to, you know, plead with those in power to do the right thing, to call our senators, to call our representatives and say, please, please do the right thing. And it is important that we do that. But it is just important that we as people, as a group, build power ourselves. And that is something that we can actually do if we start thinking about it that way, rather than just saying We’re going to vote once every four years, we’re going to phone our senators. How can we build power to make change ourselves?

Jameela [00:21:23] And by that, do you just mean protesting? Do you also mean aligning yourself with groups who are already organizing and doing that work? Are there other things on top of that that that help the people? I mean, we also need to fucking come together. I’ve been talking about this so much for four years now that we need to be able to come together and organize and stop nit picking each other to fucking death. While I understand it’s important to hold each other to certain standards, we can’t organize a piss up in a fucking brewery. And it’s terrifying because we’re being constantly distracted and we’re trying to deal with every single issue all at once. And so many issues are completely intersectional. I have so much time for that, but we are trying to make sure that every single issue gets heard from every single angle of every single intersection all at the same time. Whereas they are going after our rights one by one by one, an organized fashion if they claim all of our rights all at the same time. So let’s say gay marriage, interracial marriage, abortions, the wealth gap, health care, etc. they came for everything. All of us are price gouging, etc. They would never be able to get anything through because it would just be like a wave of chaos coming at us. They pick one fucking human freedom and luxury at a time and they meticulously in an organized and and united fashion go after them. And then we try to combat that by coming for everyone’s rights all at the same time to try and defend them, rather than just organizedly going after one by one by one, just getting our rights back one by one by one. This really stresses me out to watch.

Adam [00:22:57] I mean, you’re you’re right. That is exactly what they’re doing. They’re going and they’re doing it by organizing, by being organized. You know, the the anti-abortion movement, the forced birth movement, as you very well put it, has been organizing since Roe versus Wade. They’ve been working on it for 50 years. And they don’t just call their senators. They have groups, they have think tanks, they have community groups. They have I mean, if you go to if you go to a college that’s anywhere in a, you know, semi conservative area, you can go join the anti-abortion group and they’ll have a meeting every single week and they’ll tell you what you can do that week to advance the movement. That’s what they did. And they slowly built their power.

Jameela [00:23:41] Yeah, they had they had sorry, they had trigger laws in state for like four decades. I don’t know that we have similar trigger laws in place to take up our rights.

Adam [00:23:52] We’ve been, you know, folks who care about reproductive rights. Unfortunately, we have been complacent and we’ve allowed it was, oh, there’s a Supreme Court decision. It’s really hard to reverse a Supreme Court decision. That will probably never happen. And, you know, the folks who were not in power at the time, the anti-abortion people organized to build power until they were able to finally flip what they want to flip. And so how did they do it? Right. They didn’t just call this is really important, but they didn’t just call the senators and say, hey, we want you to do it. They built entire structures of power that got specific people elected, that got the Mitch McConnell’s of the world elected by the anti-abortion movement. And then those people, the Mitch McConnell’s of the world got judges put in place, like very carefully and methodically and in an organized way. They conservative legal movement, trained up judges to, you know, they injected the idea that, you know, Roe was wrongly decided into, you know, the legal mainstream. And then they only appointed judges that agreed with that philosophy that they invented. And then they methodically built that until they finally got enough of those, you know, types of people put on the Supreme Court that they could get the decision that they wanted. It took them 50 years, but they did it. And we’re going to need to do the same thing, but in reverse. So when I say build power, I’m not talking about like protesting is one form of power, but it’s kind of a loose form of power because it shows your rage. It shows your anger. But like, how does it actually make the change that you want to see in the world? Like, what are you doing to literally force the change that you want to make happen, happen. What is the pressure point that you’re working on? And that’s the really important thing that you need to think about. Let me let me give you an example of this. I’m also very involved in union politics. Right. I’m a member of the board of directors of the Writers Guild West. I’m also a member of SAG-AFTRA. And so how does a union get a big raise when they need it, you know, and they or end an abusive practice?

Jameela [00:25:51] They strike.

Adam [00:25:51] Exactly. It’s a strike. Now, you can try to make the argument. You can go and say, hey, guess what? We really need more money and we deserve it. And we beg and plead and we’re going to protest and we’re going to chant. And then the bosses will say, Oh, sorry, we can’t afford it. We can’t afford to give you more money. As you know, you made a good argument, but sorry. Too bad. So how do you make them give you more money? You go on strike, you say, guess what? You’re not going to be able to make any more money until you pay us a fair wage. And then once the company is losing money and they realize the only way to stop losing money is to give you more money, then they do it. So that is power. You don’t need to ask anybody’s permission for that power. You have built it. And how do you build it? You build it by forming a union and then by organizing your union. You get the union organized, you need to get the union ready to strike. You need if you have 10,000 members, you need to make sure that every single one of those 10,000 members is going to show up to the picket line when you actually call the strike. And, you know, there’s unions out there that don’t build that kind of power and therefore they don’t win as much for their workers. So when we say how do we, you know, build abortion rights or reproductive rights back, how do we, you know, fight back against the erosion of democracy, etc.? We have to stop asking nicely or stop it, or even stop asking rudely, and we need to start figuring out, okay, how do we force that change that we want to see it to happen? How do we take over the political system in order to make it happen? And you know, what we’re starting to see here in Los Angeles, for instance, is we’re starting to see the communities that care about issues like that, homelessness or immigration actually build political power. So we’re not just protesting. We’re not just like calling up the city council. We are doing those things. But also what we’re doing is we’re picking candidates who we know are going to fight for the things that we believe in. And then we are getting them elected. We are going out and knocking on doors, thousands and thousands of doors to get those people elected. And once you’re able to do that, we’ve now gotten two different city council people elected who, you know, we’ve this movement has put in place. And with more on the way, once you’re able to do that well, now you’re actually able to drive policy. You’re not begging anymore. You’re really changing things and you’re able to then turn those wins into bigger wins because now you have a machine that you can use to get more people elected. You’ve got a community that’s behind you. You’ve got people who had the experience of winning. So that’s what I mean by by building power. And it takes a long time. But the first thing to do is show up, like find an organization to join and show up and start figuring out how to do this.

Jameela [00:28:34] And I want to talk about just going briefly back to Caruso and the current importance of the mayoral election in Los Angeles. I’m not saying this just because I’m a fuckin actress in L.A. and I think this is important. There are there are many reasons why it’s important to concentrate on California and Los Angeles, for example. Gavin Newsom is trying to or has already succeeded in signing either an executive order, I think. But he would like to make California a haven state, which means that people could come in from other states to receive an abortion and the California government would not cooperate with other states in order to get information around the medical privacy of that person who has come to seek an abortion here. Right now, the shit like that is incredibly important. This is also where the majority of the wealth in America seems to exist. Can I say predominantly in California?

Adam [00:29:32] I mean, yeah, I think so. A huge amount of the wealth in the United States is in California. Yeah.

Jameela [00:29:37] Exactly. So there’s a lot of power. This is also where I mean, and I could be wrong about this, but I’ve had someone on this podcast before come and explained to me that what they do is when people are released from prison, they literally put them on busses to California. So we have like this. So we have this. And also, you know, it’s an easier place to survive as a homeless person who cannot get work purely because of the climate. Although the summers are getting hotter and scarier and there are more and more fires, but we have a huge homelessness crisis.

Adam [00:30:04] Let me just say. More people die of the cold in Los Angeles than do in New York City. And that’s because, you know, it gets very it gets very cold here at night. And Los Angeles has much less many, many less shelters and much less housing available. So, you know, the the the idea that, like, you know, homeless people are surviving easily here is is somewhat of a myth.

Jameela [00:30:24] Totally.

Adam [00:30:25] Please go on.

Jameela [00:30:26] No. So they told me that this is where a lot of people just get sent. It’s also possibly because California has is a wealthier state than other states. But the point is, is that this this is a political hot like hotspot for many reasons. And that so that’s why I would like to this is not me just being like, how can you help me fix my state? There are multiple things that that have kind of trickle down effects across America that I would like to be able to unpick with you. So can you talk to me about why that a mayoral elections are so important?

Adam [00:31:01] Yeah. So we have a very hot one this year, the L.A. mayoral election.

Jameela [00:31:07] Because we have a billionaire running.

Adam [00:31:08] We have a billionaire running. Yeah. Rick Caruso, who is a real estate billionaire, is running for mayor. And the way he went about it, he was a Republican up until 5 minutes ago. He changed his registration and then he started blanketing the city in ads that say Caruso can fix Los Angeles, can clean up Los Angeles, was the language that he was using.

Jameela [00:31:29] And he doesn’t need funding from anyone else because he can self-fund, which is extraordinarily powerful.

Adam [00:31:34] He poured, I think at this point, $40 million of his own money into the campaign, which is many times over what all of the other candidates spent combined. It’s, you know, many, many times more than has ever been spent on a mayoral election in Los Angeles, ever. And he’s running on a, frankly, quite right wing platform of, hey, I’m going to clean. He says Caruso can clean up L.A.. What he means is I’m going to get rid of all those people you don’t like. You know, the homeless encampments are going to sweep them away, you know.

Jameela [00:32:04] What does he plan to do with them?

Adam [00:32:06] I mean, it literally says on his website, I’m not making this up that he wants to create massive shelters out in the desert and bring and force homeless people to go live in them. It says that on his website, which is, you know, not only I mean, unconstitutional, I don’t know what what you can consider the Constitution to actually say right now. But like, it’s certainly inhumane. And it also would never work, like because you can’t, you know, unless you actually want to imprison people. That won’t work, unfortunately. You know, sorry actually fortunately, being homeless is not a crime. So you can’t actually imprison people for that purpose. But that’s what he that’s what he wants. He wants to make the problem invisible rather than make it go away. He’s running against Karen Bass, who is a member of the House of Representatives here in Los Angeles. She’s a long time, you know, politician in L.A. She’s a community activist from South L.A. and she was the favorite to win until Caruso came in with his tens of millions of dollars and started blanketing the county in ads.

Jameela [00:33:09] And he’s got the Kardashians and Paltrow and all kinds of people.

Adam [00:33:15] So a lot of people endorsed him who don’t live in Los Angeles, though. The Kardashians live in Calabasas.

Jameela [00:33:22] Calabasas, yeah.

Adam [00:33:23] Yeah. It’s not Los Angeles.

Jameela [00:33:25] Fuck out of our politics.

Adam [00:33:28] Well it’s confusing to people because the city of Los Angeles is smaller than people think. A lot of people who think they live in Los Angeles actually live in the county of Los Angeles, which is a different, you know, municipal body. But yeah, he is Snoop Dogg endorsed him like there was a long period where he was kind of tricking people into thinking that he was a liberal Democrat. It was sort of like a Reagan edge, you know. But I think people finally wised up right before the primary election. He ended up not winning the primary election, but he is going to the runoff in November.

Jameela [00:34:00] Yeah, it was close. It was really close. And I feel as though we are in a situation where we’ve got literal billionaires like the Kardashians and squillionaires as like Gwyneth and Snoop who just like don’t want to see homeless people when they’re out and about, you know, they don’t want to run the risk of running into and I understand, by the way, I understand that there is a mental health crisis across America. I understand that it is very upsetting and disturbing and sometimes unsafe to have unhoused people who are not being given any access to any kind of health care or mental health care, like who might come into contact with you and maybe you have a violent altercation? I don’t know. But the point is, is that it’s just throwing them away as if they are trash is not the answer here. Utilizing all of our funds to be able to create more mental health care, to create drug facilities, to create affordable fucking housing rather than constant price gouging. The market here is absolutely insane. And also health care. I got here and I presumed it was just drugs. That was the reason. That’s what I’d always been kind of fed by Hollywood, that drugs are a big part of the reason for homelessness in America. I had no idea until I started to actually go and, like, meet with people and talk with people and work on the ground and and see and read people’s signs and and engage with them and understand that a lot of these people just had a family member who got fucking cancer or who had a kid who got sick or were in a car accident. They didn’t have health care. And so they were absolutely bankrupt. And then they lost their home and they lost their job and they lost everything. This is it’s this is this is just not something that’s like we need a bunch of millionaires and billionaires just saying, shoo, go away while not putting any of their money or any of their thought or power or access into actually dealing with the cause rather than the symptom.

Adam [00:35:52] Look, so the problem you’re exactly right. The problem that causes homelessness is housing costs. Yes, people are on drugs. Yes, people are mentally ill. But the rates of mental illness and the rates of drug addiction are not the highest in the world in California, right. There is a huge like we have a meth problem in Los Angeles. There’s also a meth problem all over America. There’s a problem in Louisiana. There’s meth problems in Indiana, right?

Jameela [00:36:21] New Mexico. Yeah.

Adam [00:36:22] Exactly. There isn’t as much homelessness in those places, though, right. If you look at the places that have the most homelessness, it tracks exactly with the states and cities that have the highest housing costs. That’s why people are on the street. In the other places, people are doing drugs and they’re mentally ill, but they’re doing drugs and they’re mentally ill in homes because they’re able to afford them because those places have have lower costs of living. But here in Los Angeles, we have some of the highest housing costs in the country. And as a result, people are not able to have a place to live. And by the way, you know, it gets a lot worse when you don’t have a place to live your mental illness and your drug addiction, because then, you know, you’re just like, well, why the fuck shouldn’t I do some more meth tonight? Right. Or you go a little bit crazier because you’re living exposed. You’re out in the hot sun all day. You know, this is. This is real.

Jameela [00:37:10] So isolated like an animal. You’re completely dehumanized. Yeah.

Adam [00:37:15] Yeah. The cops come and rough you up like people. I mean, literally people in Los Angeles and around the country. And there are people who see homeless people as targets. You know, they’re like, oh, this is a person no one cares about. I can go there to set their tent on fire. I can go throw, you know, liquids on them. Like this is so.

Jameela [00:37:32] So much sexual assault as well.

Adam [00:37:34] Yeah, exactly. The homeless people I meet, this is what they deal with on a day to day basis. So the problem is housing. There is not enough housing. Every single homeless person I have ever spoken to wants to live inside, but they cannot find a place to live. Every single person I talked to says the first question, Hey, what do you need? Can you help me get housing? Every single person. Now, a lot of them don’t want to stay in shelters because their shelters are very poor quality and they’re dangerous because their their congregate shelters, there’s no privacy. People get attacked in them. There’s no security. And but everybody wants permanent housing.

Jameela [00:38:07] Which is what’s going to happen out in the fucking desert, by the way.

Adam [00:38:09] Exactly right. Exactly. When when when Caruso gets his way and everybody is held in giant, you know, basically concentration camps in the desert. So when here’s the question, though, like Caruso is a real estate developer, he’s a billionaire. You know, he is he made his money building the Grove, the Americana, these different mega malls, luxury houses.

Jameela [00:38:36] The Rosemont, which is frequented by all the people who are now currently going and speaking to their millions and millions of followers. It’s it’s up in Santa Barbara.

Adam [00:38:46] Yeah, exactly. And so Caruso caused the housing problem. Right? He’s one of the developers who caused the problem by creating all of this luxury housing, by driving housing costs up, by encouraging people to see housing as an investment that’s going to make them money rather than as a place to live and a human right that we all need. So why should we entrust him to solve the housing crisis and to stop homelessness? If he was into doing that, why didn’t he build some low cost, affordable housing? He could have done it. He’s a great developer. He’s really good at building buildings. Why did he never build a place that people could afford to live in and help drive down housing costs? Why didn’t he build a fucking apartment building with middle class rents instead of luxury housing and luxury malls? And that’s the question we need to ask ourselves. So, you know, in terms of it is exactly what you talk about that we need to take a closer look at the people running and look at what they’ve done in the past and the policies that they actually support and not just support the ones that have policies that sound good, but support the politicians who have policies that are actually backed up by the evidence.

Jameela [00:39:50] Yeah. And don’t listen to me or Kim Kardashian or Snoop Dogg for your political information or any information really, other than projects that we have coming out ourselves. Like we are I am here to ask the questions of people who know better than me. Don’t even just take Adam’s word for it. We need you to go out and exactly. We need you to go out and do your own research. And we will continue to let you know about organizations that we know have political success and have political access. Please don’t fuckin listen to these famous people who just don’t want to be inconvenienced anymore in their bubble. Alternate realities. Always the super rich and famous who are most likely to believe in like the fact that we are all AIs and that this is a what is that like an augmented reality that we’re in? It’s kind of like a matrix. It’s because they’re aready living in what feels like a matrix. I say this all the time. It’s all like white male billionaires who are going on like Joe Rogan or something to say, like, you know, maybe this is just not real. Maybe we’re all in a kind of VR is because you are living an alternate reality that doesn’t reflect most people’s day to day. So it’s very easy for you to like click on something that’s in your hand. You want this, you can buy this, you can buy that island, you can acquire. It feels like a video game for a lot of these people. Life doesn’t feel real. They are living in a in something that just feels like the Sims or something where they can just flick and get rid of something. Don’t listen to these fucking people.

Adam [00:41:18] Yeah, I think that’s a very good way to put it. I mean, look, Jameela, you’re you’re an actor, but you are, you know, thoughtful about these things and you’re actually looking into finding out the answers to these questions. So I think you’ve built some credibility for yourself hard earned. And I’m just a comedian, but I try to do my best to study and research and share what I’ve learned with people. Kim Kardashian has a lot of wonderful qualities. You know, I’m not I’m not a Kim Kardashian hater. She’s not someone, however, who has spent her time or really any of her time trying to understand what are the problems that ails the world, you know, what are the problems of other people and how do we best solve them? And so she’s probably not the person that we should go to first. You know.

Jameela [00:41:59] I think just generally anyone who this is why when it comes to political candidates, the reason that I personally would feel more comfortable with someone like Karen Bass is that Karen Bass has lived a somewhat normal existence. You know, you see that with many politicians. I think that’s why AOC is seen as quite relatable, perhaps imperfect to some, but relatable as well. That was someone who was a waitress in New York City who had to work her way up and actually understands the fundamental issues, has lived in areas with poor housing, has lived among homelessness. You know, these are people that they can how the fuck can you fix problems that you don’t understand and have absolutely no ability to relate to?

Adam [00:42:40] Yeah.

Jameela [00:42:40] I don’t want trillionaires and millionaires running.

Adam [00:42:44] I mean Karen Bass is is not a in my mind a perfect candidate. However she is a you are correct that she got her start as a community organizer in South L.A. building, you know, organizing for community power down there. And that’s an experience that I think stays with you. And, you know, I think that that’s a much stronger basis for being a politician. It actually helps people, one who, you know, works by consensus, by getting community groups on board, by actually trying to serve the needs of what people need, rather than, you know, a billionaire who says, I alone can fix it like Donald Trump. And let’s by the way, don’t forget about Rick Caruso, the guy who’s donated $1,000,000 to anti-abortion politicians. He’s donated to Mitch McConnell and all of them. Right. And he he is has been anti-abortion his entire life. And so when you talk about, you know, loss and. Was this a sanctuary place for reproductive rights like that’s meaningful.

Jameela [00:43:38] And that can go away with the wrong person in power?

Adam [00:43:41] It can or can just be you know, we can do less of our part than we should be doing. So, yeah, I do think that there are real differences between these people. Now, look, we’ve talked for a while about Los Angeles, but I guarantee you that where you live, dear listener, there is a there there is a political race happening in your area that you don’t know about yet between candidates who you’re not aware of. And if you’re lucky, there might be a smart progressive who is running to oust some calcified old dinosaur who is not serving, you know, the people’s needs. And if you get on board with that campaign, you could have a transformative experience like I had supporting candidates here in Los Angeles myself, like Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto, Martinez and Hernandez, who are all folks who, you know, are either elected or on the verge of being elected here in L.A.. But here’s the really great part. If you look around and you’re like, my local government sucks, all the all the politicians are just, you know, these these old dinosaurs who are not doing anything to serve us. If you join a group and you start getting involved in local politics in your area and you start figuring out how to influence them, you start understanding how politics works. You might realize, hold on a second, maybe I could fucking run. You know, like all three of those people I mentioned who have run for city council seats here in Los Angeles and now represent 250,000 people. They were just citizens who are involved in local politics, who are members of different groups. Nithya Rahman was a, you know, a member of Time’s Up. And, you know, Selah, the homelessness group I mentioned. And after a while, you start to know enough people and people start being like, you know, if we just, like, knocked on doors, we could get, like, you elected. And you start to realize that. Hold on a second. The people in power are not that smart. They don’t really they don’t really know what they’re doing. And if you put in the effort and the legwork and apply some intelligence to it, you can actually beat them. It is real. I have seen it happen.

Jameela [00:45:44] Okay. So I have one big question for you, and I see it especially on Twitter and on social media and on the left and among liberals and Democrats. You like the look of a politician, but you do not agree with every single thing that they stand for or have ever done. But in general, they represent more progressive things and which have, as you said, dinosaur as maybe currently running. We have a big habit of it kind of feels quite modern of perfectionism and moral purity and inability to therefore make a decision to back someone. But we can’t just look at and I’m not trying to criticize anyone because I understand this instinct, but we are kind of losing our critical thinking faculties a little bit in our search for moral purity because we are expecting complete perfection. When it comes down to  the wire and you are having to choose that person, you do not agree with every single thing. I mean, obviously, if they are like trying to take away someone’s fundamental human rights, that’s fair. But when you don’t agree with every single policy, how do we encourage people to still be active and still vote? Because I think one of the more dangerous things is to go, well, I don’t know who to vote for. I’m not gonna vote for anyone.

Adam [00:47:03] Yeah, well, I think that the answer to that question is very case by case, because sometimes there are people who say, you know, there’s there are politicians I voted for before who I said, you know what, I don’t love their stance on this or that. You know, I I’ll just give you a very specific example. I wish Karen Bass here in Los Angeles were more vocal about police violence. I’ve seen her be asked questions about police violence, where she deflects and talks about crime instead. And I’m like, No, we still have a problem with police violence in the city. I wish that you would talk about it right. Now I’m still going to vote for her because, you know, in this upcoming election, there’s two options, and only one of the options is one that I support. But, you know, there’s a lot of other important things in the game for me. Right. But if there were someone who were to say to me, hey, look, her stance on police violence isn’t strong enough. I don’t I can’t in good conscience vote for her. That is the most important issue to me. That is all I care about. Right? Then that person should vote their conscience. I’m not going to tell them not to. However, I do think the real the phenomenon that you’re talking about, where we sort of demand perfection and we look at it as like a a laundry list of, you know, I want every single one of my boxes checked is symptomatic of a consumerist approach towards politics that we have. We say, well, hold on a second, I’m not being presented with a box of cereal I like you know, I looked at the nutrition facts and none of the nutrition facts are good. Someone needs to give me some better cereal. Right. And I don’t think we have the luxury of taking that consumerist approach and waiting for something else to come along. I think what we often need to do, and not in every single case, but we often need to do, is say, I’m going to take the best option available and then I’m going to be an active participant in pressuring that person. I know this person is closer to the you know, is more open to pressure from. It’s another example. Karen Bass. Right. Is more closely tied to activist groups who I know are going to be fucking pushing on her. Right. And we might not get her all, all the way there, but we might get her some of the way there for the issues that we’re trying to make happen. And that’s valuable. That can work. It’s not it’s not perfect, but it is how we get there. And and the reason I say that is not like. My whole point of this is to diminish the power of the politicians. The politicians are powerful. But we need to stop acting like making the right choice in voting is the end all be all of political action. It’s one of the things that we do. So go vote and then stop arguing about it and find a group to show up to. That is going to build power to make the changes that you want to see otherwise. Everything else that you want to do. And if you do that, if you make your group about homelessness, your group about democracy, your group about reproductive rights, the most powerful political force, then guess what? The politicians are going to start falling in line just because they know you have so much power and you can turn people out and you won’t need to just like vote for the right person, quote unquote. Right. Because you will have the power yourself.

Jameela [00:50:08] We have several hundred million people versus several thousand people like we. We have all the power. We actually control the market. We actually control the economy. It’s all on us. We keep this country running. We can bring it to a standstill whenever we want. I think it’s incredibly empowering. I really thank you for talking about this, and I think that it’s really great to be able to have the conversation of being able to zoom out, vote for the bigger picture and know that that’s not it. And, you know, I remember watching videos. I was really surprised because I was not all politically engaged during my teens and twenties. I was just so mad and dealing with that, to be honest. But I remember kind of post Obama seeing old videos of him when he was in the running to be the president saying that marriage was something that should happen between a man and a woman. And then it was during his presidency that gay marriage became legal. And so people can change their minds and you can change their mind for them and we can pressure people. And I don’t know how or why that went about or which one was true to his soul. But I do know that change is really valuable and substantial and significant change can be made after the fact. Just yeah. Try to zoom out and go with your best option. Don’t give up. Don’t check out. It is the reason they’re trying to take people’s fucking voting rights away in places like Georgia is because voting rights or voting is important is not everything, but it is so important. So don’t not exercise your right there when it’s being taken away from people who want to be able to do it. There’s a reason they’re trying to fuck everything up. I mean, fuck the Electoral College.

Adam [00:51:47] Why did you move here? We’re so fucked up here. Why did you move here?

Jameela [00:51:52] Because England is also terrible and the weather is nicer, and the food is better. For fuck’s sake, Adam.

Adam [00:51:59] Look, first of all, couple of things I wanna say as a parting note, if it’s okay.

Jameela [00:52:05] Please.

Adam [00:52:06] You know Obama. Who knows what he actually thought about gay marriage.

Jameela [00:52:10] Exactly.

Adam [00:52:11] I could sit here and say, well he probably when he was saying that he probably supported gay marriage but didn’t feel like he could say it. But you know what? It doesn’t fucking matter, because the reason we got marriage equality in this country is because we had a mass movement of people of the public who said loudly, we support gay marriage and the Supreme Court. Right. The Supreme Court at the time made their decision, but they made that decision partially in response to the public energy and outcry. And that is what caused Obama to finally change his public position was because of what the people made happen. And so this overwhelming focus on, you know, what a politician said in the past, etc., etc., is giving them too much power. We have the power. Now in response to the last thing that you said about like England, so fucked up everywhere is fucked up. You can go to the greatest country on earth. Like I went to Norway a couple of years ago and it’s beautiful in Norway. It’s incredible.

Jameela [00:53:10] Are you about to send for Norway? I’m excited to go.

Adam [00:53:13] I’m about to make a good you know, you always hear about, oh, Scandinavian countries. They’re so organized, everybody’s so happy there. You know why Norway is doing so well? Because they have sovereign oil wealth, because this is a country that like owns vast undersea oil fields and they sell the oil to people and then they give the money to the public and they use it to build schools and, you know, social programs and etc.. So and there’s people in Norway who are like, yeah, that’s fucked up, are massively contributing to climate change, right? So every country is fucked up and we will never have the luxury of getting to just sit in a country where everything is nice and it’s all provided for us. Unfortunately, it’s always going to be a fight and it always has been a fight. The when we when we’re born. When we’re when we’re raised, we’re brought up with this fucking illusion by our parents that the world was designed to be the way it is and that it makes sense. Right? And then you get to a certain age and you realize, hold on a second. This doesn’t make any sense at all. Everything’s fucked up. And then some people say, okay, I got to get to work fixing things and making them a little bit better. I got to put my back into it and do all the work that I can. Then they do that for a couple of decades. Then they die right with the work unfinished, and that is the only reason why anything is the way it is at all. That’s the only reason why anything is as good as it is. So that, unfortunately, is the human condition to live in an imperfect, fucked up world where people are hurting and dying and people are being oppressed and bad things are happening. And then to look around you and say, okay, I need to do my bit to stop that shit from happening as much as I can, and then I’m going to die. All right. So I know it seems very depressing, but I find solace in that, right? Because that means that when I when there’s problems and I am putting my full back into trying to solve them, that’s all that I can do. That’s all that anyone has literally ever done. And so I hope that, you know, this this this the Supreme Court decision at first made me very depressed, and then it made me really energized because it made me realize there is so much fucking work to do. There’s an infinite amount of work to do. There is like there are so many ways that I can contribute and so many other people are waking up and saying, Holy shit, I have to help too. And so we have such an opportunity to organize and to make change in a way that we never have before, that I’m genuinely really excited about it.

Jameela [00:55:33] And to remember that that precedent was set because people like us fought a long time ago without social media, without the access to be able to organize that we have now in harder and more elusive maybe is the wrong word, but in harder times, you know where we were much more like physically, literally divided. We were able to set these precedents. And so I believe that we can do it again and this time we can do it for good, and this time we can fucking codify it. Jesus Christ. So I, so I do, I do share your feeling of faith. And I think the reason I waited a second before I wanted to have this conversation with you is because I needed time to process my own sadness and rage as someone with a uterus. And now I feel ready to fight. And so I appreciate your solidarity with causes even that don’t affect you because you recognize that everything affects you, even if it doesn’t affect your body in that moment, impacts the society that you live in. I wish that more people without uteruses would engage in this fight and understand that if we forced birth across America, we are going to overcrowd. We are going to I mean, beyond the pollution levels are going to be beyond survivable. We are going to destroy the economy, destroy the already collapsing health care system. This is going to fuck everyone. Everyone needs to be involved in all of these things because they all impact the society that we all exist in. Even those fucking billionaires up in the fucking hills.

Adam [00:57:04] It’s true. It’s true. I mean, like the amount of misery and pain and death that will come out of this decision benefits no one and it affects everyone. And it’s something that we all need to fight together. And, you know, my and I was depressed about it until my therapist told me, you know, look, it’s never not been a fight. Like, you know, it’s it’s been a fight. She’s she’s a little older. She’s a gay woman. Her mom, used to work in an abortion clinic that was bombed right in like the seventies. And she was like, this is a fight the whole time, so welcome to the fight. And that was like the best advice that was like that was worth the price of five years of therapy just to get that one sentence. Welcome to the fight.

Jameela [00:57:43] Well, thank you for passing it on to the rest of us. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. Please come back on this podcast cause there are so many other things I would love to talk to you about, and thank you for speaking to me at length and so clearly about about politics today. And I’m sure a lot of people can apply these things, even if you’re not from America to your own feeling and your own governments that seem to be in cluster fuckery all across the world.

Adam [00:58:06] Of course. Thank you so much for having me, Jameela. I had a wonderful time.

Jameela [00:58:09] You’ve been a joy. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. We also have a bonus series exclusively on Stitcher Premium called Ask Jameela Anything. Check it out. You can get a free month of Stitcher Premium by going Stitcher.com/Premium and using the promo code I Weigh. Lastly over at I Weih, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 18186605543 or email us what you weigh at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our fabulous listeners. Here is an I Weigh from one of our listeners. I weigh my ability to learn from my mistakes, my regrets, and the people I’ve had to let go out of love. I weigh my amazing friends and the family I’m slowly creating around me. I weigh my intersection with drugs and homelessness, and the professional world allows me to see people as complex individuals. I weigh my need for times of rest and the painful work I do to grow. I weigh being an engineer, a gamer, a lover, a peacemaker. Someone who makes wrong decisions often.