BrownTown sits down with co-authors of the "Girl, I Guess" Progressive Voter Guide, three-peat guest Stephanie Skora and newcomer Raeghn Draper to talk all things 2024 Cook County Democratic Primary Elections. From ethics and attitudes in long-form opinion journalism to new endorsement standards surrounding Palestinian liberation, the gang situates the relationship between electoralism and the Left in this moment and extrapolates its potential for the future. Originally recorded February 8, 2024.
BrownTown sits down with co-authors of the "Girl, I Guess" Progressive Voter Guide, three-peat guest Stephanie Skora and newcomer Raeghn Draper to talk all things 2024 Cook County Democratic Primary Elections. From ethics and attitudes in long-form opinion journalism to new endorsement standards surrounding Palestinian liberation, the gang situates the relationship between electoralism and the Left in this moment and extrapolates its potential for the future. Originally recorded February 8, 2024.
GUESTS
Stephanie Skora is a writer, educator, speaker, organizer, and non-profiteer based in Chicago, Illinois. She lives as a Stone Top hard femme trans Lesbian and working-class anti-Zionist Ashkenazi Jew, and mobilizes her identities to work in solidarity with Palestinians, to queer Jewish spaces, and to fight for justice and liberation for all trans people. Stephanie is the Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer of Brave Space Alliance, serves as Board Treasurer for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, and is the co-author and editor of the "Girl, I Guess" Progressive Voter Guide. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Raeghn Draper is a Chicago-based writer, community organizer, and hospitality professional originally from Milwaukee, WI. Since 2019, they have been involved in the Chicago social justice scene and co-founded the Chicago Hospitality Accountable Actions Database (CHAAD) Project. This commitment extends to their current role at Futures Institute as the Lead Storyteller, where they blend creativity with a drive for social change. Through their activism and advocacy, they strive to raise awareness of the issues that affect workers of color in the industry and work toward meaningful change. Follow them on Instagram.
Mentioned in episode and more information:
Opinions on this episode only reflect David, Caullen, Stephanie, and Raeghn as individuals, not their organizations or places of work.
CREDITS: Intro and outro music from Polls by Piff Marti. Audio engineered by Kiera Battles.
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BrownTown sits down with co-authors of the "Girl, I Guess" Progressive Voter Guide, three-peat guest Stephanie Skora and newcomer Raeghn Draper to talk all things 2024 Cook County Democratic Primary Elections. From ethics and attitudes in long-form opinion journalism to new endorsement standards surrounding Palestinian liberation, the gang situates the relationship between electoralism and the Left in this moment and extrapolates its potential for the future. Originally recorded February 8, 2024.
INTRO
Music: Polls by Piff Marti.
BODY OF EPISODE
[00:01:24.690] - David
I'd like to welcome everyone to another installment of Bourbon 'n BrownTown. It's your boy David coming to you from the Harambe studios out here in Chicago, Illinois. As always, with my boy, Caullen. Caullen, man, how you doing today?
[00:01:35.970] - Caullen
Mmm. We doing okay?
[00:01:37.930] - David
That breath.
[00:01:38.550] - Caullen
It's been. It's been an hour. It's been a day. It's been a week. It's been a month. It's been a season. It's been a year already. But we are here. I feel like more imposter syndrome recently. One, because we haven't recorded in a long time. Or it's been- it's been a bit. It feels like a bit. I think the past couple weeks, I felt months within them. And also, we're like, you know, it's early February, we're taking on some new projects, kind of continuing back older projects, and it feels like it's a lot at once. I'm like, oh, man, can we- can I do this? Can we do this again? The hiatus was nice, and I'm like, oh, I gotta do things now, and email people, and film stuff. But lots happening in the city and in the world. A lot of bad. A lot of good. And I feel like that's why we do what we do and try to push forward for the change. So I'm okay, I'm selling it. I'm happy, I'm happy now. Happy to be in this room again recording. Looking on beautiful faces. All that being said, how are you? You got your chain out. I see you! He got the shirt unbuttoned and everything, the chain out, okay!
[00:02:40.550] - David
It was hot! I love how you like- appreciate him gassing me up. Look at him. Caullen, we love you. But no, it's been- we're doing alright as well. I think, sometimes I think our eyes are much hungrier than we're capable of sometimes. You know, it's like, I just see all the videos, it's like, I want all of it. I can do all of it. Like, yes, say yes to everybody. And then, no, we can't. And so, I don't know. I definitely feel you on that. But, I think I'm really grateful for the decisions that we're making as an organization, right? Really using the space and our resources to the fullest capabilities. I think I'm really excited to continue doing that, right? And I think it's fun because our guest here, we've done previous episodes, right? And it was like, before we had a studio, it wasn't even at Cards Against Humanity, it was all via Zoom, and here we are kind of full-circling it, yet again. And so I'm really excited to kind of get this going for us. But you want to tell the people what we chatting about today?
[00:03:33.350] - Caullen
All the things: 2024 primaries, "Girl, I Guess" voter guide, voter guides in general, why we do this shit as radicals and leftists and all these things, why we engage in electoralism- which is a common thread in Bourbon 'n BrownTown, common thread with Soapbox in general. Obviously, have like, alder homies and stuff, but people are still in the system working- using these levers of power and immense potential for violence, immense actualization of violence, right? So like, how and why do we engage in these systems? So I think conversations like this that we're having and I've had before about voter guides or just in getting involved in electoralism in any capacity and you know-
[00:04:11.120] - David
Like the, "why?" It's all burning, burn it all!
[00:04:12.110] - Caullen
Why?! Holding your nose and voting and all that stuff. But also understanding the importance of it and how depending on who's in love with power, things can be very, very bad or kind of bad. Or even like, kind of good. And where those kind of good moments are, how we have to mobilize on that. And so I'm always interested in this conversation as things change, as cycles change, as the world changes, as global or even local events come to the fore. And things maybe folks in this room may have known about or maybe not, become national mainstream issues. And so how do you engage folks that are- have their heart in the right place or just don't know; or vice versa to get on your side without watering down the actual thing that is happening? And I know that Israel's recent assault on Gaza, which isn't new, but has been at the forefront of a lot of folks minds and genocides across the globe, how that impacts us on a local local local level, and I think that's important. I think we'll get into that as well. So that's kind of the table setting on a large scale and kind of furthering this conversation in early 2024. I think the time, the place also matters, too. Like, two years ago, it was a little different.
[00:05:20.610] - David
Very different.
[00:05:20.990] - Caullen
Before that, it was a little bit different. 2016 is a little bit different, you know what I mean? But also the same in the same time. And so that's kind of how I see these conversations. And it's always exciting to have it with folks who are engaged and think similar to how we think but also are doing different- a lot of ways better, your work is more expansive and in different buckets. So that's where I'm coming from. What about you?
[00:05:43.240] - David
I mean, I'm excited because I think when we were earlier having these conversations and voter guides, I'm like, I don't watch the news. I'm like, I don't want to read this shit. Like, don't give it to me. And so it's like, now I'm like, oh, I'm excited. It's really different because I'm definitely one of the individuals that from 2016, I'm learning more each year. I'm understanding. And I appreciate the learning, right? And with things like "Girl, I Guess", and other voter guides we're gonna talk about, they make it accessible. And they make it fun. Specifically, the "Girl, I Guess" guide, it's fun, it's entertaining. It's like, it's shit that like, okay, cool, I can sit with my coffee, with my drinking and just read this at a bar type shit. So that's very exciting, and I'm excited to get more into some of those creative factors that we see implemented in this year's design.
[00:06:29.140] - Caullen
Hell yeah! And so with us- we've been hinting towards it- but with us, we have Stephanie Skora and Raeghn Draper. For y'all that don't know: Stephanie is a writer, educator, speaker, organizer, and non-profiteer based in Chicago, Illinois. She lives as a Stone Top hard femme trans lesbian and working-class anti-Zoinist Ashkenazi Jew, and mobilizes her identities to work in solidarity with Palestinians, to queer Jewish spaces, and to fight for justice and liberation for all trans people. Stephanie is a co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Brave Space Alliance, serves as Board Treasurer for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, and is the co-author and editor of the "Girl, I Guess" Progressive Voter Guide. When not working or organizing, Stephanie can be found enjoying the pleasures of life for a Virgo: food, love, and being right.
[00:07:22.960] - David
I'm fucking dead. Yo, what's uppppp!
[00:07:25.560] - Raeghn
Earth sign!
[00:07:26.567] - Stephanie
Earth sign!
[00:07:26.720] - David
Love it, love it, love it. And in addition, Caullen named Raeghn Draper. Raeghn is a Chicago based writer, community organizer, and hospitality professional originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since 2019, they have been involved in the Chicago social justice scene and co-founded the Chicago Hospitality Accountable Actions Database, or CHAAD. This commitment extends to their current role at Futures Institute as the lead storyteller. We need to know more. Where they blend creativity with a drive for social justice. Through their activism and advocacy, they strive to raise awareness of the issues that affect workers of color in the industry and work towards meaningful change. Beyond professional roles, Raeghn actively pursues creative writing as a storyteller who believes in their collective ability to envision and create new realities by mobilizing people through narrative. What's good, Raeghn?
[00:08:16.140] - Raeghn
Hey, thanks for having me.
[00:08:18.020] - David
For sure. Thank you for being on. This is so exciting. And so to kind of go straight into it, for our B'nB listeners who have not listened to any of-
[00:08:29.170] - Stephanie
The three-peat.
[00:08:30.170] - David
The three-peat. We Jordan-ing it now.
[00:08:33.010] - Stephanie
Back In The Habit: Electric Boogaloo.
[00:08:35.070] - David
Can we give our lay people here a little understanding of the "Girl, I Guess", and how it came to be this iteration of it?
[00:08:44.320] - Stephanie
Yeah. So, you know, "Girl, I Guess", is Chicago's progressive voter guide. It is now, officially- so a couple of years ago, people started reaching out to me from other cities that do this. And they're like, love them, their stuff is very cute. A lot of the names are like, rhymes with their name, and I think that that's adorable.
[00:09:06.560] - Caullen
There's not a "Boy, Maybe" voter guide?
[00:09:08.260] - Stephanie
There's not a "Boy, Maybe". No, there's no "Boy, Maybe".
[00:09:11.720] - Raeghn
Or "Non-binary, Maybe".
[00:09:13.740] - Stephanie
"Non-binary, Perhaps".
[00:09:15.330] - Raeghn
Ohh, I like that one!
[00:09:18.430] - Stephanie
I have always wanted to write a conservative parody of "Girl, I Guess", for April Fool's Day called "Madam, I suppose". And I invented a fake conservative persona, and I was like, wait, this doesn't make sense, it's off cycle for elections, so I was robbed. But in 2018, a friend of mine, Ellen Mayer, and I decided to do a service for our friends who were grouchy, pissed off leftists who didn't want to vote because they didn't believe in the system. And we were grouchy, pissed off leftists that said we should probably still vote. And we were both nerds, and nerds about politics, and nerds about elections. And we came together over our shared love of being nerds and Jews, and we created "Girl, I Guess", which back then was just called "Stef & Elle's Excellent Voter Guide".
[00:10:08.260]
[Sound clip from Bill and Ted]
[00:10:09.980] - Stephanie
And it became "Girl, I Guess" in the 2018 general election because we were sort of echoing the ambivalence of Black women towards Hillary Clinton's candidacy with our own ambivalence towards JB Pritzker's annoy-you-into-voting-for-him first gubernatorial campaign. He's done well since then. JB is, you know, as far as governors go, pretty good job. But it really blew up in 2018. That was a midterm election, folks were really looking for democrats to take back Congress.
[00:10:43.150] - Caullen
The blue wave!
[00:10:44.120] - Stephanie
The blue wave!
[00:10:46.910] - Caullen
The waves are already blue, so, like. I'm just saying!
[00:10:49.550] - Raeghn
Well, look, you're not wrong.
[00:10:50.770] - Raeghn
It's deep blue.
[00:10:52.010] - Caullen
Well, technically, the waves are already blue.
[00:10:54.360] - Raeghn
It's a deeper blue.
[00:10:55.550] - Stephanie
So it really blew up. And we said, oh, okay, shit, I guess we have to like- we're stuck with a brand now we have to keep writing this. And we did it again in 2019 for the municipals. Ellen, who was at the time the Politics Editor of South Side Weekly, was just living and breathing elections all the time. And so they retired. Yeah, Ellen retired, said, no, absolutely not. And we talked about it, and I kept writing on my own and did- this is my, I think, 13th guide now. Yeah, there was a special edition in there for the 7th Senate district appointment that happened a couple of years ago for Mike Simmons. I edited a guide for Evanston Fight For Black Lives in 2021. And they did a great job with theirs. They did some really cool stuff with the format.
[00:11:50.280] - Stephanie
And after the municipals, I sort of said, damn, I've been doing this for a minute, this sucks, I would love to write with somebody again. Raeghn and I have known each other for a long time, and Raeghn is just so funny and so cool and such a fantastic writer. And so I hit them up and I was like, hey, do you want to do this thing with me? Fair warning, people will bother you about it for the rest of your life. And they were crazy enough to say yes. So we split this one, and we'll see how it goes, and hopefully Raeghn doesn't run away, and we can-
[00:12:28.720] - Raeghn
I might. Still might.
[00:12:29.290] - Stephanie
Yeah, look, you're valid. You're valid. Once the elected officials start getting your phone number and you don't know how they got your phone number, that's when it really sets in.
[00:12:38.640] - Caullen
Get some burner phones.
[00:12:42.060] - Stephanie
But people give out- like, I created a Google voice number, people gave that out. So I just stopped. But, yeah, so we've put out the 2024 primary guide together. It's the first guide that was co-written since the 2019 1st round municipals. And it came out, as of recording, today.
[00:13:02.710] - Caullen
February 8th, son.
[00:13:05.590] - David
Hot off the press. How has this experience been for you?
[00:13:08.350] - Raeghn
Stephanie has made it really incredible. I, as a grassroots organizer, and I wouldn't say grouchy leftist, I'm fairly optimistic in change.
[00:13:18.650] - Stephanie
You're a cozy leftist.
[00:13:19.780] - Raeghn
Cozy leftist, but definitely distrustful of politicians, of electoral politics. And so, yeah, when Stephanie brought it up, it was like, oh, I don't... I vote because- especially in local elections, because I understand and I believe there's power there, but I don't believe voting will get us where we need to go. And so you want me to work on this thing that I don't 100% buy into. Do you really want me? Maybe I'm not the best person for this. Maybe you want someone that really believes in this.
[00:13:55.750] - Caullen
Blue wave!
[00:13:56.900] - Raeghn
Yeah, literally.
[00:13:58.110] - David
We're gonna copyright that, put that as a sound bite now, moving forward. Go ahead.
[00:14:02.380] - Raeghn
I think you want a different person. But it's been actually really, really great. I think you spoke to it earlier when you were like, I'm not- I don't pay attention to the news. I don't really pay attention to politics. "Girl, I Guess" even for me, was like, I show up at the ballot box and I read through the bolden suggestions. And I'm like, yes, I don't gotta do any work. Yes. Easy. Easy peasy. So I didn't feel prepared and capable and knowledgeable enough to do this. And Stephanie walked me through it, made it really accessible. I've learned a fuck ton over the course of our working on the guide together. I feel like, far more capable and informed. Also politicians are stupid as fuck. They are! They need a lot of help in their marketing department and website development.
[00:15:01.400] - Stephanie
People can't just-
[00:15:03.610] - Raeghn
I've learned a lot in a couple of days. But I think a big thing that I was really nervous about is, I do have a lot of- not, what I feel like, is not mainstream views when it comes to politics as an American. And I was afraid that there wouldn't be a space for this and I would have to mute myself and mute my beliefs. And Stephanie, over and over, reassured me that like, I want your opinion. I want 100% raw you, what you feel, your opinion, your politics, your ideologies. And I felt very supported in that. So it's honestly been really great. I got to learn a fuck. I learned a bit about some of the people that are trying to run for office and continue to do so even when they lose. Like, literally.
[00:15:47.970] - Stephanie
I am also not mainstream and am a fringe weirdo to a lot of people and also probably a normie to a lot of people. But I don't believe in this shit either. I'm very vocally an anarchist. And that means that I really believe in the power of people, over the power of systems and states and governments. What that's translated into is, I believe a lot in local government. Like, local government is what anarchists create for ourselves after we overthrow the systems, we just recreate city councils. Because we have to have people who do stuff, and just the turnover is more frequent. But this is the joke about leftists, right, is that you join a leftist organization to overthrow the system and you just have to join 15 committees. And this it's just a lot of meetings and reading and parliamentary bullshit. But that's why this works so well.
[00:16:37.520] - Stephanie
That's why I really wanted to work with Raeghn, because we believe a lot of the same things, including the fact that neither of us completely buy into this system. So we can go out there and say, yeah, fuck Joe Biden. Yeah, fuck Congress. And, you know, let's pay attention to the water reclamation district because that's the thing that actually matters. Let's pay attention to the state's attorney because that's what actually matters. Whereas a lot of people, I think, in politics, get very caught up with the big shiny toys of the federal government. We can just cut through all of that and say, no, the federal government's fake, it doesn't do anything. There's three worthwhile people in the whole thing. Fuck it, we'll cover it because it's on the ballot. But let's talk about state representatives.
[00:17:16.810] - Raeghn
Let's talk about the referendums.
[00:17:18.290] - Stephanie
Yeah, let's talk about the ballot measures. Let's talk about the tax districts, the stuff that nobody knows about.
[00:17:24.050] - Caullen
You're gonna see your alderperson on the train, like, you're gonna see them. They're right there. You're not gonna see Joe Biden on the train; you're gonna see your alderperson on the train.
[00:17:30.070] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[00:17:31.050] - Caullen
I have two things I'm thinking of: one, thanks for that answer and giving that expansive view on where you all are coming into making the guide and the space and the love. I'm thinking about one, the guide itself, I think it's always been the case, there's a pretty healthy preamble on who y'all are, how the guide started. It was like this-
[00:17:51.590] - Stephanie
Very verbose.
[00:17:52.480] - David
Yeah, no where to drop the bag.
[00:17:53.840] - Caullen
I appreciate it. Think- exactly, yeah, yeah.
[00:17:56.600] - David
We'll have the tags at the details all for y'all.
[00:17:59.240] - Caullen
I know y'all got a little- you pay for brunch, someone's paid you back, it's in your venmo, you can just slide it.... No, but I think.. What I'm thinking of- of giving people information in a way that it's mass produced and it's easy to do that now in the digital age; being honest on who you are, who's making this thing, whether it's an article or a voter guide or whatever. And then also throughout the guide, you can very much be yourself, which is kind of rare in most voter guides. And I think of like, I read In These Times a lot of other lefty publications, whatever, and they'll have an article on something, they'll be like, just so you know, I gave this campaign in this year, but like- what I'm saying is still valid, but I'm a person in the world, not just AI writing this article; which is also not even neutral. Different podcast episode. And so what I appreciate is just naming that you are bringing in a perspective and experience and being unapologetic about that. And also any article ever written is always doing that. And so you're bring that in, so I just wanted to name that as a tool of giving information out- whether you call it journalism or whatever.
[00:19:06.090] - Stephanie
It's long-form opinion journalism.
[00:19:09.170] - Caullen
Another thing is, you spoke about local elections and this is a primary, right. And so I think we understand why local is so important, because those people- those policies and those folks are around and they're affecting us, like day to day. But I guess, to put it simply, what are primaries and why are they important if they are?
[00:19:33.720] - Stephanie
Yeah. I mean, to be very honest about it, in places like Chicago that are so heavily skewed towards one party or another; in this case, in Chicago and Cook County more broadly, everybody's skewed towards Democrats. I mean the area is like D+50 or something. Like, the Republicans aren't winning over here. Certainly not anymore. It's not the 90s. It's not the early 2000s anymore. We're slowly pushing all the Republicans further, further into other parts of the state. The primary is the election that matters. This is where you actually get to make the choices about who will be holding public office. A lot of the time, the Republicans don't even bother to run candidates for most seats on the ballot because they know they have no chance. So what we're seeing now, especially in the wake of the Vallas mayoral campaign, and it's high degree of success. I mean, Brandon won, but people forget Paul Vallas got 48% of the vote. Dude was out and out a Republican. He was open about being a Republican, just lying to everybody about it.
[00:20:30.100] - Caullen
Lied, y'all. Just straight lied.
[00:20:31.540] - Stephanie
Straight up lied. And we have a lot of that going on in this primary. There's a woman running for state's attorney, Eileen O'Neill Burke, who is just straight up a Republican. She donates to Republicans. Her husband donates to Republicans. She's endorsed Republicans. Her campaign manager is a Republican. Her campaign treasurer is a Republican. Like she's a Republican, but she's running as a Democrat. And the first thing you see on her website is Eileen O'Neill Burke, lifelong Democrat. And it's just not true.
[00:20:57.400] - Caullen
The "lifelong" thing. Why do they always say that?
[00:20:59.160] - Stephanie
Every time I see "lifelong Democrat"-
[00:21:01.410] - Caullen
We have the internet, y'all. We can figure this out.
[00:21:01.950] - David
Receipts!
[00:21:03.550] - Stephanie
But that's the thing, right? People do not check. People do not do their research. The average voter is not engaged enough. They don't have the time. They're not going to look and check to see if this person is actually a Democrat.
[00:21:19.130] - David
Lifelong.
[00:21:19.890] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[00:21:20.780] - Caullen
Blue wave!
[00:21:23.320] - Stephanie
They're just not going to check. So the primary is how we keep those sorts of folks out of office, because if they get through the primary, they win automatically. There's a republican candidate for state's attorney, he's gonna get like 30% of the vote. He also is a perennial candidate, Bob Fioretti, if you remember him.
[00:21:40.720] - Caullen
Oh, my god. Bob.
[00:21:41.630] - Stephanie
Bob "The Hair" Fioretti. Mister Toupee. He changed the toupee up, actually. It's less Trumpy now. So he's running for state's attorney as a Republican. He's not gonna win. There's no way that a Republican is gonna win a county-wide election in Cook County. He's running anyway. But there's another Republican running as a Democrat, and she has a real chance. And that's why we Golden Shrugged in the- we gave sort of like a top level endorsement and really focused on it in the state's attorney race, because that's such an important race. The state's attorney matters so much because they get to decide who goes in front of a judge. They get to decide what crimes are prosecuted. They get to decide how those crimes- like, what sentences are pursued against those crimes and, importantly, what NOT to prosecute. And our choice is between a Black man professor who teaches a course on police brutality, and this Mega Karen who's a Republican, but running as a Democrat.
[00:22:45.010] - Stephanie
And that's why primaries are important, because this is the election. The general election is for judicial retention, and it's going to be about the school board, which is going to be a whole different mess. But in Cook County, there's one election and it's the primary. And if you win the primary, you generally don't have an opponent in November.
[00:23:01.260] - Caullen
You mentioned the Golden Shrug.
[00:23:02.700] - Stephanie
Yes.
[00:23:03.220] - Caullen
And I'm trying to think of like- for listeners who are new to voter guides in general. We talked about the rhetoric; and you guys name your politics and all the stuff that goes into "Girl, I Guess". So I'm thinking about the recommendations for folks, or things to vote for- how that's different from the Golden Shrug. What is the Golden Shrug? How you put your politics into that and maybe how you compare that to what a "typical" voter guide is normally like.
[00:23:31.750] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[00:23:32.540] - Caullen
Cause ultimately, you read the voter guide to know who to vote for and why. Like, what's a Golden Shrug? Why? You know, what is that?
[00:23:37.800] - Stephanie
Yeah, well, I think- and Raeghn, I want to hear your perspective on this too, because this is what we talked about, actually, when we were writing.
[00:23:43.570] - Raeghn
Yeah.
[00:23:44.110] - Stephanie
Is one thing that you brought up a couple of times in your first go-through of this, was how to make your endorsements for certain candidates stronger than others? And you can talk about that if you want. But we had a number of discussions about how to differentiate between candidates we actually like and candidates that are just better than the other guy. And that's really where the Golden Shrug comes in, is in the 2020 general there were- I was, after the primary, I had noticed that there were a lot of candidates.. An endorsement is an endorsement, you show up on the ballot the same. You show up in the TL;DR in the voter guide the same. And I wanted to differentiate between "eh, this person's fine, hold your nose and vote for them. They suck less than the other people." And "no, this person, really, is great. You really should vote for them. You should show up specifically to vote for them." Or "this race is really important and we can't afford to lose this." And so "Girl, I Guess" is sort of this tongue in cheek like, "eh, girl, I guess I'll vote", like everybody is sort of just like a meh.
[00:24:45.950] - Stephanie
But the Golden Shrug is meant to delineate between the, "eh, okay, I'll vote for this person" and the, "yeah, I want to vote for this person" kind of votes. Because there are occasionally some people on the ballot that you read up on these people and you research them and you look at their platforms and you figure out about their life, and you wind up really proud to vote for that person because they really represent your values. And I wanted to be able to differentiate between that kind of candidate and somebody who just happens to be on the ballot and be the least bad option.
[00:25:20.150] - Raeghn
Yeah. I think also a thing that sets, "Girl, I Guess" apart from other voter guides is it's not about your political party. I think so many voter guides- and just voting in general for the last couple of decades- is about Republican versus Democrat. Don't care. I don't care. I don't identify as either of those. I care if you're going to uplift the policies that I actually care about. And that's, I think, why "Girl, I Guess" is set apart from other voter guides, because we're not just giving you the basic information of "this is the Republican, this is the Democrat. People will be like, okay, I'm going to vote on whoever I- whatever political party I identify with. Like, no, this is deeply personal for us. The way we research candidates and share their issues is deeply personal. And I think that's really what sets it apart. And again, where the Golden Shrug comes in, it's not that we really believe in them because of their political party or, I don't know, other...
[00:26:26.980] - Stephanie
Other affiliations.
[00:26:27.860] - Raeghn
Yeah, other affiliations, it's about how you show up for the people and are you going to show up for the issues that I really care about regardless of what party you affiliate with? So I think, yeah, that's really what sets us apart.
[00:26:43.100] - Stephanie
Yeah. And you know, we've endorsed Greens in the past. In the first couple of guides there were a number of Green Party candidates endorsed. Not for a while because the Green Party really sucks at running for office. And they kind of, I think, have run out of people to run for office. Because they're starting to cycle back through the people they ran in the early 2000s and it's kind of sad. But, yeah, exactly what Raeghn said. We're not- yeah, we'll cover the Democratic primary only in Cook County because there's not enough Greens to cover the Green primary. And why would we cover the Libertarian or Republican primaries? Cause the Democratic primary is the one that matters. But in the general election we cover every single candidate on the ballot regardless of what party they are. Yeah, we're gonna just make fun of most of them, but if there's a Green on there who is legit and is running a decent campaign and has good stances, they're gonna be seriously considered.
[00:27:31.130] - Raeghn
Yeah.
[00:27:31.560] - Stephanie
Because they don't deserve to be treated like a joke just cause their party sucks. The Democratic party sucks too, it just has more money.
[00:27:36.890] - Raeghn
I also think that's why people respond to this guide. They're not responding cause we're just giving them the standard journalistic, here's my, like, I'm just giving you the information, I'm not giving you my opinion. "Girl, I Guess" is extremely personal. Our values, our ideologies, our identity is wrapped up into why we pick certain candidates. And I think people respond to that because, also, their identities are wrapped up into how they vote. Or at least they want it to be. They don't want it to be, oh, I'm just voting for the Democrat or I'm just voting for the Republican. They want to vote for people that they actually believe will uplift the things that they care about. And that's the style that "Girl, I Guess" is written in. And I think that's why people respond to it.
[00:28:17.690] - Caullen
And I appreciate, too, about the Golden Shrug, it's- if a person is a awesome leftist unicorn- shoutout Rossana Rodriguez.
[00:28:26.110] - Stephanie
Yes!
[00:28:27.510] - Caullen
Another B'nB alum. Or someone like that, you know, you're like, I want to vote for this person. But you also said, if the race is super, super important. Like, I believe the person who's running for state's attorney, Clayton-
[00:28:37.190] - Stephanie
Clayton Harris.
[00:28:37.960] - Caullen
Yeah. He's like, good, but not like-
[00:28:40.870] - Stephanie
He's pretty good, but he's running for state's attorney. He's running to be a cop, essentially.
[00:28:46.130] - Caullen
Yeah. I'm thinking about that race, and maybe this is off, but other races too, that are just- the race itself is super important. Or the other person is so, so bad. And I think for context, for folks aren't use to Chicago, we had Anita Alvarez, who was the cop-iest of cops; movement got her out and got Kim Foxx in. Whether you believe in the progressive prosecutor or not, Kim Foxx was as GOATy as you can be for that role. And is like, hey, y'all got me tired, I'm stepping down. So it's like, we have this person in this role for so long that- should the role exist? No, but the person who's in it is gonna reform, reform, reform. And they have for so long, we're not gonna have it any more. So it's like, this seat that's empty now, one that has a lot of power, maybe shouldn't exist, but it's gonna have a lot of power. And while it is gonna exist, we need to have someone good in there. So I think the way I see that race, particularly with the history of movement in Chicago, interacting with electoral politics. Or not directly interacting, but like, okay, we're gonna probably choose Kim Foxx because she's the only viable candidate that we can maybe kind of get down with. It means something. It means a lot. And that history, I think, is important. And you're seeing that in other parts of country as well. So listeners, just for context and stuff, that's the one to give that background. But I think that is important, too, as far as the races themselves being super important.
[00:30:04.960] - Caullen
I'm also thinking about the moment we're in. Early 2024, it's a new year, y'all. But I think, every cycle is different, that the needle is moved as far as what is considered progressive or left or even right or what have you. I feel like every cycle, every year- I wanna hear from everyone- where do you see this primary this season- really this year, because general is in the Fall, god forbid. How do you see this year in terms of- I don't want to say where the left is, but just like what is considered "progressive" and or how the right has taken power in a certain way? Versus previous cycles, if that makes any sense. I'm just spitballing, y'all.
[00:30:56.800]
[inaudible 00:30:57]
[00:31:00.220] - Caullen
Or are there any events from, I don't know, October 7 to now that have changed things in a certain way, and how maybe you all pick folks to endorse and/or how we kind of see in color what we expect out of elected officials more or less now?
[00:31:17.180] - Raeghn
I kind of just want to lean on the work that I'm doing now. So my full time job, I work at a, basically a policy think tank, that works on community safety and youth opportunity. And a lot of the conversations where I ask- that folks are asking in that space is like, how do we engage the youth vote? The youth vote. We want the youth vote. How do we get the youth to vote? How do we mobilize them? And what, I think, people aren't realizing in terms of elections and voting, especially with younger folks, is that they don't care about candidates. They don't care about your democratic champion, your republican champion. They care about the issues that they care about. They care about student debt relief, they care about climate change, they care about Palestine.
[00:32:02.520] - Raeghn
And regardless of your golden politician, this person that you're uplifting as the hero and the savior, they don't care if they don't care about their issues. I think young folks, younger generations, are less inclined to vote for individuals and more inclined to move and vote in support of the things that they care about. And I think that's where I think specifically the Democratic Party isn't doing the best job because they're still uplifting these individual characters as like, this is THE person to vote for. This is the savior. This is the one who's going to save us from the big, bad Republican. And I think that's something that they're repeatedly doing wrong, is that people don't care about this good versus bad. Not people, but younger folks specifically don't care about this good versus bad scenario that is being presented to us. We care about the things that impact us directly: our communities, our families, our parents. And if you're not on board for that, I don't care if you're the person that's up against the big bad Republican or the big bad person who's going to strip these rights from us if you're not gonna actively do things to disrupt the status quo and move us towards the things that we actually care about.
[00:33:25.410] - Stephanie
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I talk very frequently about how, hey, this might be the last election. We don't know.
[00:33:33.530] - Caullen
I remember you saying that in previous episodes.
[00:33:35.210] - Stephanie
Yeah, this is it. Biden's probably gonna lose. There's a number of scenarios where he doesn't, but who knows? So if Biden loses the general election, we might not have another presidential election. We might not have a country anymore. Like, okay, that's fine. But the local government will still matter. The systems that we have in place will either continue to be in place or need to be reshaped. And we want to platform people who have good ideas. We want to platform people who care about their communities. We want to platform people who aren't invested in doing things for the sake of doing them and maintaining systems and structures for the sake of doing them. That's really what "Girl, I Guess" is about, is making sure that you have as clear a picture of everything that is going on in a particular election as possible.
[00:34:35.390] - Stephanie
People ask very frequently, what is "Girl, I Guess" about? It's a voter education tool. It's a voter education and turnout tool. Is it about winning elections? Yeah, kind of. It's about winning elections because a lot of people read the guide. But it's a voter education tool because informed voters are progressive voters. And the more information a voter has, the more likely they are to vote for policies that are good for them and good for their family, and good for their community and good for the things that they care about. And by and large, those are progressive policies. Those are progressive politicians. Those are progressive elected officials. And we want to make sure that those are the kind of people who are in office. And I think Clayton Harris is a great example. He's running for a state's attorney. State's attorney shouldn't exist. That's fucked up. It's an investment in the carceral system. Boo, hiss. Bad. Like, we're abolitionists, we don't want that shit to exist. But it does. And I would rather have somebody who gets it, in that seat. Like, Kim Foxx isn't perfect. She's done a lot of stuff that I think is really fucked up. And her office has done a lot of things that reinforce carceral systems, but she's also prevented bad things from happening that could have absolutely happened if we didn't have her in office.
[00:35:49.470] - Caullen
Jussie Smollett.
[00:35:50.490] - Stephanie
Yeah! Well, and if you think about the person who ran against her last time, Bill Conway, he was like a Green Beret or whatever. He was in the military. His dad's a billionaire.
[00:35:59.330] - Caullen
And now he's sitting in city council.
[00:36:00.750] - Stephanie
Yeah, he's an alderman in the 34th ward right now. Which may- no this is too far east for the 34th ward. He's a bit that way. But- he's like, West Loop. West Loop and sort of River North. And it could be somebody like that instead, who would have their hands on the levers of power.
[00:36:22.320] - Raeghn
It's harm reduction.
[00:36:23.740] - Stephanie
It is. And people laugh at the idea of voting as harm reduction.
[00:36:27.360] - Caullen
I was gonna say, that's not popular in some spaces.
[00:36:30.700] - Stephanie
And it's a very-
[00:36:32.530] - Raeghn
I mean, but on a certain issue people do believe in it. People believe in harm reduction when it comes to drug addictions, for example. Most leftists and radicals are on board with what that means in those kind of scenarios. So it's a little bit of the same principle.
[00:36:47.300] - Caullen
I think we're just more scoff at like, harm reduction as in like, Joe Biden versus Trump. I think that's like, more- everyone can agree and scoff at that collectively.
[00:36:55.970] - Raeghn
No that kind of harm reduction.
[00:36:58.330] - Stephanie
I think that's the problem, right. Is people have talked about politics on the federal level for so long. Federal politics are garbage. The federal government doesn't do anything. All of our money, all of our tax money is spent on bombs and war and to pay people that don't ultimately benefit us. We don't have any social services. We don't get any benefits from the federal government. It barely functions as is. It shuts down every goddamn year because the politicians can't agree on what's going on. The president is always terrible. And we're at a place right now where we're openly debating whether or not Biden or Trump is worse. And there are actually arguments for both sides, and that's terrible. We should never be in that position. The federal government is a joke and it's a dumpster fire. But on the local level, voting really is harm reduction.
[00:37:46.360] - Stephanie
I mean, you think about a person like Rossana Rodriguez is a perfect example. She won her election by what, 13, 19 votes in the runoff. Really, really close in the 2019 election. And the person that she beat was a fucked up machine alderman who was doing terrible stuff, who was a nepo-appointee from her dad. And she was in the general assembly before. Moved into the aldermanic seat and was just a garden variety conservative. Like, not even really conservative, but for Chicago, a conservative. And which really is more of a moderate. And Rossana is a badass and has done so many amazing things for this city, even just in her fiveish years in office. And if people hadn't believed in the power of voting for somebody like that, we wouldn't have those things. We wouldn't have had the Ceasefire Resolution. We wouldn't have Treatment, Not Trauma. We wouldn't have some of the best things that have happened to Chicago, politically, in the last five years. But we do because the metaphor really does work on the local level. It really is harm reduction to vote for better people in local politics, because all politics is local. Those are the decisions that actually have a day to day impact on your life.
[00:39:00.580] - David
I think the only thing I would add, Caullen, to your question which has gone around is like, I mean, I think a lot of folks... Brandon Johnson's win, I think opened a lot of eyes for folks in terms of like, he wasn't popular. I think when we talked about him on the podcast, I think 2%, right, 3% of motherfuckers knew who he was. It was like, who's Brandon? Like, I don't know?
[00:39:22.420] - Stephanie
Some random county commissioner from the West Side.
[00:39:24.340] - David
You know. And I think that, as an example, and the way he was able to mobilize his group, his peoples, his background, where he came from. I think that has empowered a lot of people in terms of like, yo, it's not all bullshit, to a point. And yeah, now there's conversations about Bare Minimum Brandon. But you know, I think those types of moments of inspiration and calling to action, I think is something that I'm excited to see in terms of where we'll continue to push. It's very interesting how you're like, you're breaking down the federal for me, cause now I know how to talk to motherfuckers about that. It's just easier, right. It's just easier. So I appreciate that.
[00:40:06.010] - David
I did want to take us a little bit back to the guide in terms of like, I really appreciated one of the notes that you have in it being like, yo, this is a living, breathing document. And you've done this multiple times.
[00:40:18.430] - Stephanie
Yeah, it's always been like that.
[00:40:19.890] - David
Yeah. And I'm curious, for some of our listeners and to get to know what some of that background looks like, what are some of the structures that you have in place in terms of receiving feedback? Today it just came out, so by the time you're listening to it, it's probably been out. So there's probably been modifications.
[00:40:34.970] - Stephanie
Yeah, a bunch of stuff has changed today alone.
[00:40:37.080] - David
Just today alone. But can you give us some of that insight in terms of like, how's that work? How motherfuckers actually reach out, etcetera, etcetera?
[00:40:43.730] - Stephanie
Yeah, I mean, people- so we put our contact information in there. We post this on social media. Our email is- it's a Google Doc. Our emails are right there. So people can contact us. They contact me through my website. They contact both of us through our DM's, and they just give their opinion on what we think. Sometimes they'll send information that we weren't able to find, and we evaluate that information based on whether or not we think voters need to know about it. Because if it's important politically, then people deserve to know, that's a factor in their decision making. And if somebody sends us a source and it's a reliable source, and it's real information that's valuable and important for the election, we'll literally just slap an update under the coverage of the race and say, "Update, we found this thing out." And sometimes that means an endorsement might change. Sometimes that means that the candidate that we wanted to win turns out to be a terrible person. And we have to change that. But we're not writing the guide with an agenda. We're not writing the guide with a goal of having a certain person win. There are some races where we vetted the candidate in advance, and those are generally the Golden Shrugs. Where we know this person is not perfect, or they're pretty close to perfect, considering that they're a politician, and we want them to win. But for most races in the guide, these are just people who are running for office who have crappy stuff that they've done and they're trying really hard to hide it.
[00:42:12.580] - Stephanie
And our research process is we're not super secret spy sleuth people. We're regular people who have the time to dedicate to the research. But we take the perspective of an average voter. If we can't find it, an average voter can't find it. Because most people are not going to spend more than 30 seconds researching their election. And if we are going to spend 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour on each election, maybe even more than that, if we can't find something, then we don't- people who know where to look won't be able to find it. So folks will send us that information that they have found or that they knew anyway, and we'll add that because it's valuable.
[00:42:56.330] - Stephanie
But somebody sent us some information today about a candidate for a committee person who was saying some gross anti-migrant stuff on Facebook, on his personal Facebook. He's a sitting state senator, and we had endorsed him for committee person because I don't like the alderman and the alderman is the current committee person. And so we said, okay, yeah sure, I don't like this alderman, go ahead. And the alderman voted for the ceasefire resolution, so I was going to change it, actually, to the alderman. But I forgot because I don't like the alderman usually, and I forgot that I liked him now. So this person emailed me and said, hey, this guy took a $25,000 donation from Republicans and linked it and then sent a screenshot of this guy's Facebook page- where I'm not friends with this guy on Facebook, I would have no way of seeing that. Most people would have no way of seeing it because it's his personal Facebook. And it had a hashtag of, "migrants are invading our country."
[00:43:57.410] - Caullen
Oh, that's bad! I thought it was kind of like, ahhhh. Like...
[00:44:00.890] - Stephanie
No, he's like a Black South Side state senator. So he's taking that really unfortunate position. Which is understandable in the context, but also is wrong to say, ah, well, you know, these Latinos are getting the stuff that Black people should be getting, fuck em. They shouldn't be here. They're invading our city. They're invading our country. And I get how he feels that way, I really understand... It's terrible to be waiting in line for so long and to see your neighborhood and your city and your people that you care about be disinvested in for so, so long. And then to see random people come to the city that got bussed here from another state, from another country, get resources that you've been waiting 20 years to have in your neighborhood, that really pisses people off. So I understand why they're angry. And also, it's not these people's fault that they're getting these services, they really need them. Just because somebody else hasn't gotten served doesn't mean both of those people shouldn't be served. It's fucked up that that guy said that, so I changed the endorsement to the alderman because that's fucked up. I don't want that person to be an elected official. And he's already won, so I don't want him to have another elected office that he can displace a person who maybe has not said that in public or at least voted for the ceasefire resolution. People will send us stuff that we aren't able to find or that there might be no way that we would have known.
[00:45:21.960] - David
Yeah. Through a screenshot.
[00:45:23.140] - Stephanie
And so we'll look into it, and if it's real we'll publish it if we think it's important. And somebody sent me in a Venmo payment detail, somebody venmo'd me and was like, hey, here's $15, thanks for the guide. And they put a tip about a candidate in the Venmo details. So now when I get home, I have to research that. Because they said, hey, this person lives in Indiana.
[00:45:49.200] - David
Yo, they're not even from here.
[00:45:50.130] - Caullen
That sounds more like a bribe. Hey, here's $30, also, look east at midnight.
[00:45:57.440] - Raeghn
But that's also the thing, we don't have affiliation to anyone or anything. So it's like, if there is a tip and we think that it warrants some information, it's gonna go on. And at the end of the day, it's like, yes, we have our endorsements, but this information is so that people can make their own decision.
[00:46:15.860] - Caullen
Sure. I have a comment and a question. A comment- I live in the fourth ward, and so is the Soapbox office now. And so the fourth ward, you know, in 2023, Sophia King, for whatever reason, ran for mayor.
[00:46:30.300] - Stephanie
Well, she ran for mayor because she didn't want to be alderman anymore, but she didn't want to say that she quit.
[00:46:34.730] - Caullen
Right.
[00:46:35.190] - Stephanie
So a lot of the time politicians will do that. Where they'll "run for office" to get out of doing their current job. And they'll make a show of it, but then, not really try.
[00:46:45.710] - Caullen
Does that help their next thing? Like, I ran for mayor, and I got polled at this amount. Or like, so many folks voted for me, so this next thing I'm gonna do, I have more status? Like, does it help that at all?
[00:46:57.570]
[crosstalk 00:46:58]
[00:47:00.670] - Caullen
Her and homeboy, the Carl Winslow looking dude.
[00:47:04.670] - Caullen
Rod Sawyer.
[00:47:05.460] - Caullen
Yeah, I was like, Rod, what are you doing? But I do- I mean, look, there's a whole thing there. But I do appreciate that insight, too. I thought about that, it's like, okay, this is a calculated move, you know you're not gonna win.
[00:47:13.550] - Stephanie
Yeah. I don't get it. I think that losing an election in politics is bad.
[00:47:17.630] - David
It's a waste of time.
[00:47:18.380] - Stephanie
But I think that there's this idea among politicos that if you weren't really trying to win in the first place, then it's not so bad.
[00:47:25.960] - Caullen
Yeah.
[00:47:26.540] - Stephanie
I don't know. I would have just retired.
[00:47:28.230] - Caullen
I remember reading the guy last year- there was a slew of candidates because the fourth ward was open, including Lamont Robinson, the current alder person, including Matthew something something? There was a guy who is a... Several folks, like CTU, several progressive groups backed him.
[00:47:50.620] - Stephanie
Oh, yeah, that guy.
[00:47:51.790] - Caullen
And then there was some other people who weren't great.
[00:47:53.970] - Stephanie
There's was the Chief Of Staff for Sophia King. And then there was a couple of other people.
[00:47:56.550] - Caullen
Yeah. Prentice Butler. Yeah. And several other people. So I went to the- not the ward night, but the debate, which was fiery! It was exciting. Lamont got up there with his Obama-speak, Buttigieg-fake whatever, whatever. I'm- Lamont... I'm... The jury's in Lamont for me. I don't know.
[00:48:12.950] - Stephanie
I will say, he's got a Palestinian Chief Of Staff.
[00:48:17.060] - Caullen
He does. She's dope. She's dope.
[00:48:18.630] - Stephanie
Sabha is amazing.
[00:48:19.390] - Caullen
She's amazing.
[00:48:19.940] - Stephanie
Sabha's amazing.
[00:48:20.600] - Caullen
[inaudible 00:48:21] I'm just like, I have my reservations. But his beard looks nice. He got a clean shaved head. He's looking good, says the right things.
[00:48:26.860] - Raeghn
Put him in!
[00:48:27.450] - Caullen
Anyway. But at this debate, people were yelling at him as far as kind of falsifying his involvement in Save Mercy Hospital, and things. And it was getting intense and was fun. But I remember the guide itself, when I read it, and I so appreciated what you put in the guide as far as- talking about Lamont and what he's done in general assembly. Talking about Matthew something something, see, this is the point, him being forgettable. But he had good politics.
[00:48:52.480] - Stephanie
That was his problem.
[00:48:53.270] - Caullen
Well, but I when I went to the thing in person, he said the right things. I feel like I believed him, but I was also like, bro, like, get some hair on your chest, come on, now. And so, I think I ended up voting for him first round instead of Lamont; because of even, like what you said in the guide was like, what we're saying now. Not so impressive. What he has out there isn't great. But I felt there was enough information there on the guide, but okay, I'm gonna, for one of the, maybe, first times or one of the few times, not go with the "Girl, I Guess" endorsement.
[00:49:21.410] - Caullen
But, because of the information on there, and from me doing my research, and I'm looking outside of-
[00:49:25.303] - Stephanie
I'm looking this guy up.
[00:49:25.870] - Caullen
No, right. You can't remember his name, which is actually very good for the whole point of this conversation.
[00:49:30.180] - Stephanie
Well, if you ran for office and I don't remember who you are, you sucked at running for office. Because I spent a lot of time looking you up.
[00:49:35.810] - Caullen
Do better. Just do better.
[00:49:37.620] - Raeghn
But the point was, the information was there so that even though there was an endorsement you can make your own decision.
[00:49:42.150] - Caullen
Exactly. And luckily, the debate was 3 blocks from my crib, so I could just sliiiide, see it, slide back home. It's like, alright, how do I feel?
[00:49:49.350] - Raeghn
We love easy.
[00:49:50.420] - Caullen
So it was great. I think, with that, too, it's like, I think, if you have the time and energy, it's like, this is one guy out of many, probably the best one we have. But it's like, we're all people in the world, we need to take this information and think about it and deduce it how we need to.
[00:50:03.100] - Stephanie
Oh. Khari Humphries.
[00:50:04.520] - Caullen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matthew "Khari" Humphries. I was like, Khari, where you at, bro? Come on, now. Let me cheat sheet, let me tell you what to say.
[00:50:15.130] - Raeghn
Kari, sly.
[00:50:16.350] - Caullen
Come on, Kari.... Anyway, but my whole point is, the guide helped me understand that, and it pushed me to, like-. Like, I probably, I may not have went to that debate night if I didn't have the information I had in the guide. And with the- I'm just curious with journalist friends, journalist homies in general- not saying you guys are journalists, but you dip your toes; research, investigating, getting information. How do you separate.... How do you separate the tea and gossip with things that maybe matter? Things that might, on their face be like, oh, this is irrelevant to their- how they're gonna do their job; but also like, no, this informs their values, those values inform how they do their job. I feel like it's messy. And I feel like you get a lot of stuff.
[00:50:59.014] - Stephanie
It's super messy.
[00:50:59.050] - Caullen
You make these things. The way you phrase it. And then the guide can be really boisterous and fun, but it's like, where's the line in the hot goss and the information that is valuable and people should know?
[00:51:10.020] - Stephanie
Yeah, I mean, Raeghn, you just did this for a couple of the candidates. He was the one with the baby daddy that you didn't like?
[00:51:18.300] - Raeghn
Because he was a Republican?
[00:51:20.420] - Stephanie
Yes. Yeah. Cause he was a Republican.
[00:51:22.260] - Raeghn
Oh! He wasn't very present, and there wasn't really any goss there. But I was just like... But I think it was also to what you spoke to earlier; some of these people are like, yes, we're Democrats, but it's like, there's some Republican energy here that I don't... What's this energy about? So, yeah, yeah. It doesn't really apply to, potentially, apply to her position and her role, but it's like, her husband is running as a Republican. And it's like, how can that not have an influence on your politics?
[00:51:54.060] - Stephanie
And so that's relevant, right?
[00:51:55.110] - Caullen
And then the guy, too-
[00:51:56.370] - David
And that's when it stops being goss. Go ahead.
[00:51:56.820] - Caullen
Yeah. And then the guy, too, who was it? Someone married to Maze Jackson?
[00:52:01.390] - Stephanie
Oh, Kari Steele.
[00:52:02.410] - Caullen
Yeah. And I do- you named it in the guide, and you're like this ain't nothing, but also, she's not him and she's her own person, woowoo.
[00:52:09.190] - Stephanie
Would have lost her the assessor's race cause he couldn't stop being a bigot on his damn radio show for 5 seconds.
[00:52:14.230] - Caullen
Yeah.
[00:52:14.870] - David
Oh wow.
[00:52:15.350] - Caullen
So it's like, I think in the guide- I can't find exactly-
[00:52:18.450] - Stephanie
Water reclamation district.
[00:52:20.550] - Caullen
But you named like- I think people's partners matter, in who you choose.
[00:52:25.670] - Raeghn
I mean also, if the roles were reversed.
[00:52:27.230] - Caullen
But it feels-
[00:52:28.190] - Raeghn
If the roles were reversed the woman is supposed to act like a goddamn angel. And show up to her partner's things and be the supportive, patient wife. And why is that not applied also to the husbands? It's usually the reverse where it's like, oh, we're looking at her politics, not his. But it's like, if that is reversed, and I don't appreciate that; I do care about his politics, I do care about how he shows up and that does influence y'all as a couple and what I think your capabilities are as an elected official.
[00:53:02.990] - Caullen
Yeah. I just really appreciate the nuance, like everything you just said too. And sprinkling in that little patriarchy on there, how we normally cover these things. You know what I mean? Let's talk about it.
[00:53:11.670] - Raeghn
The wife has to be perfect!
[00:53:12.550] - Caullen
Right. And I think about this when I think about celebrity culture and folks who are like, oh, this celebrity did this awesome or horrible thing, we're gonna do this. Like, maybe it's horrible or not but it's like, your friend did that same thing, you're not calling them out. I don't, like- yeah, Kanye's Kanye, but your friend said this shit. You gonna talk about them? No? So you're this person who doesn't- never gonna know who you are ever, you're gonna tweet something but like, you're not gonna talk to your friend and hold them accountable, have that conversation? We all have friends who date people you're like, ah, buddy ain't great, but like, you know, whatever.
[00:53:42.650] - Raeghn
And not think that that influences you.
[00:53:45.080] - Caullen
Sure.
[00:53:45.560] - Raeghn
Not thinking that hanging out with that person who has suspect ideals and values and the way they show up in the world. That like, oh, that's just my friend. That's just my- that's the way they are. That doesn't have an impact on like-
[00:53:57.560] - Caullen
The way they are is wrong.
[00:53:59.440] - David
I mean it probably speaks volumes about that person. And why you haven't dealt with them.
[00:54:03.290] - Raeghn
Literally.
[00:54:03.890] - David
In that time and space.
[00:54:05.020] - Stephanie
Well, and I think, Caullen, it's a good question. How we separate the goss from the tea, essentially. And the line that I tend to draw is whether or not it's personal.
[00:54:20.150] - Raeghn
Yeah.
[00:54:21.330] - Stephanie
If somebody has a personal problem with somebody else, I don't care about that. If you just don't like this person, if they were mean to you one time at a party in 2012. Like, if you worked for them and you had a shitty experience but they didn't violate your human rights or anything; like, I'm sorry that that happened to you, but I don't necessarily think that somebody should base their vote off of that.
[00:54:44.720] - Raeghn
Yeah. But also, if they were in a position of power and they used that position of power to do something to you, that's one thing. If it's just an interpersonal beef where y'all are kind of on the same level, that's a little different.
[00:55:00.350] - Stephanie
Yeah! And I think even, to some degree, the other case in that as well. Like, if you worked for somebody 20 years ago and they were a shitty boss and now they're running for office, I don't necessarily know if I care that you had a shitty experience 20 years ago, because that's a really long time ago.
[00:55:18.370] - Raeghn
Yeah.
[00:55:18.860] - Stephanie
And if there's nobody else who's willing to back you up on that, if there are other people who aren't speaking- like, if there's a bunch of people who are saying this person was really terrible to work for, maybe that's something to go off of. But an individual's experience a long time ago, I don't necessarily think should be vote-shaping for members of the general public.
[00:55:38.890] - Stephanie
And I'll use the 48th ward alderman's race as an example. There were like, fucking 17 people who ran for 48th ward aldermen. And I'm not kidding, there were so many people. And it was terrible. And that was the race where it really came down to Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth who's now alderperson. Joe Dunne, who was sort of the plant for the former alderman, so much so that the former two alderpeople endorsed him. And then Nick Ward, who was this carpetbagger, white guy socialist that all the DSA people lined up behind. And everybody cared about that race. Everybody cared. And I used to live in Edgewater. I used to live in the 48th ward. A ton of my readers live in that ward, and it was really clear that whoever got the endorsement was going to win, especially because there were that many candidates. So people were lobbying for it, and lobbying for it, and sending me every single piece of personal grievance they had against any of these candidates. And there were a couple of them that were exactly like that. Oh, I talked to this person at this thing, and they were a jerk to me; or, I worked for this person's small business, and they were a shitty boss in 2012. And those are kind of nothing. I don't... If you have a personal problem with somebody, then just don't vote for them. But I'm not going to tell other people about your personal business if there's no paper trail. If there's no- if you're just saying that this happened.
[00:57:04.660] - Raeghn
Yeah. Where's the receipts?
[00:57:05.840] - Stephanie
Yeah, I'm not going to print that, because there's no proof that it happened. But then, on the other hand, and I think this is the other part that is really valuable about "Girl, I Guess", is that- and this is something that Raeghn and I have talked about, but this is journalism. It's long form opinion journalism, and we're not part of a news publication, but we also are. We hold ourselves to journalistic standards; we're fact checking ourselves, if we get something wrong we correct it and we say that. And I'm not going to print anything that I don't think is true and that I'm not willing to stand behind. And so people feel really safe sending us things that they don't want to talk about in public, that they don't want to use their voice or their platform or take the risk to talk about because it might not be safe for them. But they'll send it to me and they'll send it to us. And that's how I got to break the story that this maxed out donor to Nick Ward's campaign and a member of his kitchen cabinet and a union organizer and a member of the DSA board was faking being Latina.
[00:58:07.720] - Caullen
That's so bogus, bro!
[00:58:10.042] - David
How do you fake that?
[00:58:10.600] - Stephanie
You just say that you're Latina. And people don't catch you on it because they're too afraid to-
[00:58:15.100] - David
To check you?
[00:58:15.770] - Stephanie
They're too afraid to-. It's the same shit with-
[00:58:17.680] - Raeghn
Just have one ambiguous feature.
[00:58:19.180] - Raeghn
Well sometimes it's not even that, it's just be really committed to the lie. And, I mean, this person was fucking white white wihte. I thought that they were white.
[00:58:27.320] - David
It's a, "no sabo kid".
[00:58:29.270] - Stephanie
And so, one of my gay kids went to middle school with this person in the suburbs- if anybody had bothered to look into them, they would have known that they weren't Latina.
[00:58:39.940] - David
And lying about that, that's crazy.
[00:58:41.740] - Stephanie
But people in organizing spaces, especially if you're organizing in spaces mostly with white people, are so- like, white people... One of the reasons that I wanted to work with Raeghn is because they're actually a grassroots organizer and do grassroots organizing work still. I come from that world. I do a lot of political work. I did hardcore grassroots organizing for a long time. I don't do it anymore. And I don't do it anymore because for a lot of reasons: one, because I'm immunocompromised and people aren't COVID safe. Like, I'm not going to your fucking meeting if nobody's wearing a mask. I'm not going to your fucking protest if nobody's wearing a mask. I don't want to die. It doesn't do anybody any good for the movement if we all die from COVID.
[00:59:20.200] - Stephanie
But also because people are so fucking fake and they're so afraid of conflict in the name of their group doing well. And especially when you're in organizing spaces with white people. As a Jewish person, yes, I'm white, but I also can't stand a lot of other white people because they come from a different kind of white person than I do. And not in the Italian, Irish way- or kind of in the Italian Irish way, but also not. People just are afraid to call other people out on obvious lies when that lie involves race. And so somebody sent me a folder full of documents proving that this person was white and documenting lies that she had told.
[01:00:03.170] - Caullen
They love Friends. They like mayonnaise. *laughing*. Gluten free scones.
[01:00:09.170] - Stephanie
Seriously. The person that sent me this stuff. Looked up there, like, googled their grandparents. And got their grandparents obituaries and there were pictures in them and shit.
[01:00:19.060] - Caullen
They have good credit.
[01:00:22.300] - Stephanie
Directly contradicted statements that the person who was lying had made in public. And so I triple checked everything, and I checked with the sources, and I was like, you're sure, you're sure? Tell me where to find this stuff, I need to independently verify it. And all of it was 100% true. And so I printed it. And Nick Ward lost because he wasn't willing to admit that his bestie was a racist. So he came in third. Despite having a year of running for office and all sorts of money under his belt, he lost to Joe Dunne, who had all sorts of money behind him. And Leni, who got the endorsement and was kind of chugging along on volunteer staff and had never run a political campaign before.
[01:01:00.960] - Stephanie
But that isn't gossip, right? If somebody is running for office and somebody that has donated money to their campaign, got them a union endorsement that was worth $10,000 when that union didn't give any money to anybody else, despite a public statement that they made, which was not true. And this is a person that this candidate trusts, and that person is lying about their race, and they're white, and they're lying about being Brown, that really says something about the character and the judgment of that candidate. That means that they aren't willing to call out bullshit when they see it. That means, at best, they're very stupid; and at worst, they're willing to cover for a racist because it benefits them. And that's not gossip, that's something that you really need to know about somebody who wants to be your alderman. So I printed that because that's legitimate information that voters need to know. And it wound up swinging the election because voters cared about that, because that's really important. There's so much bullshit political tribalism going on in our city, and it stops things from happening. Like, what the fuck are we doing? We need to get our shit together and realize that... I don't care if I didn't read the same books by the same dead white guy as you.
[01:02:21.000] - Caullen
You didn't read Marx?
[01:02:22.300] - Stephanie
Right, like, if we're trying to get to the same place, I don't really care how you get there, I care that we achieve what trying to achieve. And it reminds me of the Internet conversations that folks have about trans people and our identities and how people should be supportive of us. I don't give a shit if you don't use the right language and don't know what you're talking about, but you support your trans kid. I care that you support the kid. I don't care that you didn't read their Tumblr blog and learn where their pronoun originates from; I care that you're trying, because that means that you want the same thing that I do. If we're demanding perfection from each other in the movement, we're all gonna die before we get anywhere that we're trying to go. Cause the other side doesn't fucking care. They come to a consensus that all of us need to be dead. And they don't care, they'll figure the rest out once we're gone. And we're over here arguing about what kind of socialism is right? We need to get our shit together and actually get a move on before we lose the battle before we even get on the field.
[01:03:22.770] - Caullen
I'm gonna use that. "Lose the battle before we even get on the field."
[01:03:26.650] - Stephanie
Yeah. Because we're in danger in doing that shit.
[01:03:29.900] - Caullen
And that's kind of why I asked about- and I hate even saying like, "what is progressive isn't 2024?" Cause, what does that mean anymore? Whatever, whatever, whatever. But it's like, you see the right and however you define that, just keep leaning in, keep leaning in, keep leaning in.
[01:03:45.940] - David
And organized as fuck. They use their churches, they use their schools.
[01:03:50.240] - Stephanie
Right wingers are crazy, but they're so smart. They know exactly.
[01:03:54.332] - David
They got it down to a T. You don't agree, they banish you and your whole family.
[01:03:54.350] - Stephanie
They know exactly what they're doing.
[01:03:55.750] - Raeghn
Well, they don't let identity politics divide them.
[01:03:59.460] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:03:59.830] - Raeghn
They're like, we all hate the same thing, we all want the same thing. We're all fighting for our rights of freedom and freedom of speech, and we're all aligned on that. Whereas on our side, it's like, oh, what's your gender? What's your race? What's your politics? What have you read? We allow all these things to divide us and so we're not a unified front.
[01:04:19.360] - Stephanie
Yeah. And there's a No Leftist Infighting rule, but I'll do some leftist infighting if it's important. Yeah, I'll infight if the infighting is for the sake of getting something done. But if people are infighting for no reason, or they're making up a reason to infight... I don't care whether you think that Russia is good or not; I think that imperialism is bad. I don't want to hear you apologize for brutal dictator governments just because the guy who came before the guy who came before the guy who's there right now read the same book as you. Or believed, nominally, the same things as you. Who cares? Who cares, dude, people are fucking dying. It's not important. Get your shit together. Get the anchor out of your pants and let's go.
[01:05:11.230] - David
I got two questions here. The first one is, so what are you doing to protect yourself? Is the money going to bodyguards? *laughing* But the second question is more realistic, it was terms of like, what... Just curious, like, you're clearly pissing people off. At some moment in time. And so, what are some of the things that you're doing, that y'all are doing, to make sure that y'all are good? But like, are motherfuckers really good? Or is it just all hot, hot, hot air type shit? I'm just curious. Especially having done it a few times at this point. Like, motherfuckers, like you're saying, are aware that it's out now. Motherfuckers hitting you up? Have y'all been seen on the street, and they yell at you, type shit? I don't know. I'm just curious.
[01:05:47.850] - Raeghn
I'm hiding behind Stephanie. *laughing*
[01:05:51.250] - Stephanie
And I think that there's part of the platform that's protective in and of itself. Where, you know, if somebody wants to fuck with me or with us, they've gotta do it. And they know we're willing to talk about it in public and make a huge deal out of it. So they got to be real fucking sure that whatever they're gonna- they gotta do some shit that they probably don't want to do in order to actually shut us up. And the 48th ward thing is a great example. People threatened to sue me over that. And the union that that person worked for threatened to sue me. And I was like, okay, bet, I'm gonna sue you back. And if you say shit about me in public, that I'm a liar, I'm gonna come and put all my receipts in the newspaper; I'm gonna countersue you, and I'll fucking shut you down cause I don't care. You're abusing your members dues to go after somebody for a petty political grievance? Fuck you. SEIU will take all your members. I know the vice president, they'll be fine.
[01:06:55.080] - Stephanie
And I'm willing to burn shit down if that shit doesn't need to exist. I'm not an accelerationist, but I am an anarchist and I really- I fuck with that shit. I am not gonna respect an institution because it insists that it deserves respect. I'm gonna respect an institution because it has earned my respect. And if they're engaging in shady political shit, or if they're threatening people behind closed doors, I'm gonna print it and I'm gonna tell people about it; because that organization, that union, that candidate, that political party doesn't deserve their respect. And I tell people all the time, I'm not a Democrat. I write about Democrats. And if I run for office, I'll probably run as a Democrat cause it's Cook County and that's what you kind of have to do. But I'm not bought into that. I'm not a dues paying member of a political party. I'm not drinking that Kool-Aid because that's how they get you.
[01:07:47.060] - Stephanie
And our ability to say things in public that are true and important is really, really important to the people of this city. And it's really, really important to the people of the county, or else people wouldn't read. People read the guide because they're hungry for this kind of information. And this isn't anything that anybody else couldn't do. We're not special, we're not unique in our ability to do this. We're just unique in our ability to be willing to put in the time to do it. But people don't have the time. People don't have the energy. People feel like it's too big of a task. So they really flock to independent political reporting. That's why outlets like the TRiiBE are so popular, because they're willing to say shit like it is. And that's what, "Girl, I Guess" is, is we're willing to say shit like it is. And if that pisses people off, then so be it. What are they gonna do?
[01:08:38.750] - Raeghn
Yeah. The guide is itself a protection, because what are you gonna come after? We don't have jobs tied to it, we're not getting paid from it, or endorsements from it, or sponsorships that you need to come after. We don't have- like, yeah, it's not tied to an entity or an institution that you can be like, hey, fire these people for what they said. So if you're gonna come after us after what you said, you're coming after a Google Doc that we released on public. So what are you really attacking?
[01:09:06.500] - Caullen
Reminds me of that meme of the child. Like, if you're coming after us, here's who you're coming after. It's like, you, and it's like six behind you.
[01:09:12.020] - Raeghn
I just- I published it on Google, and just like.... Just little babies. It's a Google Doc that we published publicly, like, what are you coming after? And I think that in itself is a protection. We don't have endorsements and money and sponsorships tied up in this. And I think, again, that sets it apart from other guides.
[01:09:32.610] - David
But if that was me, that would piss me off even more.
[01:09:36.110] - Raeghn
You're like, you're hurting my feelings.
[01:09:38.000] - David
Not even that, but it's like, yeah, or it's like, you-
[01:09:40.060] - Stephanie
What are they supposed to do about it?
[01:09:41.020] - David
You hope- I fucking love it. I love it. Because homegirl probably thought she was gonna be Latina for the rest of her life. *laughing*. She said, I'm good with this til I die. I'm taking this to the grave. And then now it ain't.
[01:09:50.370] - Caullen
I love hard shell tacos.
[01:09:52.250] - David
Yo, it's so real now.
[01:09:54.080] - Caullen
Can I say that? Is that okay?
[01:09:55.050] - Raeghn
It's the crunch. It's the crunch.
[01:09:59.090] - Stephanie
But that's the thing, what are they gonna do about it?
[01:10:02.330] - David
Yo, it's real.
[01:10:04.770] - Stephanie
And also, in a very real sense, we're not journalists. Like, capital J journalists, but we're doing citizen journalism. We're doing grassroots journalism. Looks real bad to threaten a journalist over something that they publish, because then that means that it was true. And that means that it really pissed you off. And so people have to make that decision. If they want to come after us for something that we said about them that was true, they got to be really willing to admit in public that that was true. They got to feel so strongly about it that it's worth doing something about. And if it's not true, then prove it wrong.
[01:10:40.120] - Raeghn
Yeah. Because it even backs up like, what's the difference between the gossip and then what are the facts? It's like, if you're really going to sue us, we're only putting out what we can find in a couple Google searches.
[01:10:52.180] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:10:52.630] - Raeghn
So if you're really gonna come after us and sue us, we found this on the Internet. The Internet said it was true. Go after the Internet!
[01:11:01.630] - Stephanie
That's the thing, right? Is we are not gonna publish anything that we cannot verify. If we can't prove that it's true, we're not gonna say it or we're gonna say, "now, we can't prove this, but we think this is what's going on." There's a great example of that in the guide right now. There's two adjacent South Side districts, the 31st and the 32nd state house districts. There's some shady shit going on there. There's two incumbents: one of them is really bad, the other one's fine. And they have candidates being run against them. And at one point, it's no longer like this if you look at their disclosures, but there was one point about a week before we started writing that they had the same donations in the same amounts at the same times from the same people. And that was so fucking shady. And I spent a week just looking into these two candidates; because they didn't have any websites, they didn't have any social media, they didn't have anything. One of them wound up putting up their website the day before we wrote about her race. And-
[01:12:00.280] - Caullen
So weird to me.
[01:12:01.690] - Stephanie
It's openly shady. And so I wrote about that, and I said, hey, I can't prove that anything is going on here, but this is really suspicious, and this is what I found. This doesn't smell right to me. I'm gonna endorse against this candidate because I don't approve of this shit, and the incumbent is fine. So, maybe I'll find out more. Maybe this is just really suspicious, and the candidate needs to do better to ward off suspicion. But something's clearly wrong here. I can't prove anything, but this is what I was able to find that looked suspicious. Go vote for her if you want, otherwise vote for the other guy. But this is what I think. And I'm very clear about, I think this is going on, but I do not know. Whereas if we can verify something, if there is evidence, if there is proof, if there are sources, we will say this happened.
[01:12:51.820] - Stephanie
Like Eileen O'Neill Burke, for example. She's a Republican. I can prove that she's a Republican to you right now. There's links in the guide to donations that she and her husband have made to Republicans. There's a link to her campaign manager from 2016, when she was running for judge. And one, her campaign manager was a Republican. Her current campaign chair donates to Republican candidates. She is a Republican and I can prove that, even if she's running in a Democratic primary.
[01:13:15.960] - David
The kind of smell that's smelly.
[01:13:17.630] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:13:19.280] - Caullen
He read the guide. He knows what's up.
[01:13:20.780] - David
I was just trying to see where to put that in. I love that you put that.
[01:13:22.920] - Stephanie
But that's the difference, right? Is if we can't prove it, we're gonna say we can't prove it. But if we can prove it, we're gonna say this is true, because we proved it.
[01:13:31.870] - David
Yeah. So exciting. Appreciate y'all putting time and effort for years, but jumping on a project like this, I think it's like, clearly there's a reason why we're talking about it and why it's still circling. I was curious to see, Stephanie, with you having done this a few years- first, what was your favorite thing about doing it this time?
[01:13:50.800] - Stephanie
I really think writing with Raeghn has just allowed me to do two things that I have really enjoyed. One, was do deeper research on races that I really wanted to focus on. Because I know somebody's got my back; I can spend a week on a certain race and just really dig into it and find out what the fuck is going on, I don't have to go back and write everything else also. And also was just having Raeghn's perspective at the table. I try my very best to be self aware, and I know that... I am- I stopped organizing during the pandemic. I'm still rooted in movement, and I'm still connected to movement, but I'm not part of movement like I used to be. And so, Raeghn, like, we love each other, we trust each other, we've known each other for a really long time- they're gonna call me on my shit if I say something that's fucked up or if I make a decision that's wrong, because I've gotten too familiar with the people that are running to office or running for office. And we talked about that, and I told them, hey, if I do something and you disagree with me, I want you to tell me, and I want us to talk about it, because that's how the guide started.
[01:15:03.020] - Stephanie
When Ellen and I started writing, we each wrote independently. And sometimes we'd be sitting across from each other, but we each wrote our races independently. We came back and we talked about everything. And we ran the endorsements by each other and said, hey, I endorsed this person for this reason. Cool. Or I endorsed this person for that reason- eh, I don't know if I agree with that. And having somebody to do that with again, whose politics I really trust, whose perspective I really trust, whose opinions really matter to me, was such a breath of fresh air from just the slog and the deep dive of "this is what I think about 200 people who are running for office in the city right now."
[01:15:43.330] - Raeghn
And even that conversation helped with the refer- the landmark.
[01:15:47.320] - Stephanie
Yeah. Yeah, that was- that's a perfect example.
[01:15:51.920] - Raeghn
It was just cause we had a conversation about it.
[01:15:53.420] - Stephanie
Yeah, there's, um. Oh, go ahead.
[01:15:55.430] - Caullen
And I imagine that has to free up your capacity, Stephanie, too. As far as just putting up the work, but also to dig deeper in the different races and stuff as well.
[01:16:05.050] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:16:05.430] - Caullen
And you know, I don't know, but I imagine you get feedback, more feedback than the last cycle and the previous cycle on that, previous cycle on that, so it's like you're getting more stuff.
[01:16:12.820] - Stephanie
Well, municipal elections are crazy, so...
[01:16:15.220] - Caullen
I'm sure, yeah. I guess it depends on the actual race and the cycle and everything too. But I guess I can just imagine, outside looking in, one, having two folks work on it. Because of the work capacity, but also be able to respond or think about or investigate. Cause you both have full time jobs, like, this isn't the only thing you're doing. So you have to be able to, I'd imagine, be able to dig deeper, verify those sources, do those things, versus reacting all the time, just getting stuff out and not to getting back to everyone at the same time.
[01:16:43.390] - Stephanie
And, yeah, that's been great. Like somebody sent us a fact check on something today, and I was able to just send it over to Raeghn and be like, oh, this is a race that you wrote can you look at this? And that was great, not having to just put that on my list of, okay, this is the 15th thing I need to change at 5:00 p.m. when I get off of my nonprofit job that I can't work on this during because it's against the law. It's so great to have a partner in crime on this. And, yeah, I mean, exactly what Raeghn was just mentioning- there's the last thing on the ballot is a Lakefront National Park referendum.
[01:17:17.360] - Caullen
Oh, yeah, tell me about that. I knew nothing until I read the guide. I was like, oh, shit, what's happening?
[01:17:21.580] - Stephanie
Yeah! So I took a look at it, and I was like, okay, yeah, sure I guess, whatever. The lake is good. Love the trees. This is the same group that put on the, Save the Trees South Shore referendum, I think it was in either 2023 or 2022. I was like, yeah, sure, okay, fine, whatever. Go trees. Yay trees. Vote for the trees. And that was the stance that I took on this. I was like, okay, yeah, sure. I mean, the lake's great, we need the lake. The lake's important. Sure, protect it. And then Raeghn and I talked about it, and-
[01:17:54.170] - David
You said, fuck them trees!
[01:17:55.030] - Stephanie
Well, no, they said-
[01:17:55.810] - Raeghn
No, my first question was if it's a federal-
[01:17:59.370] - Stephanie
If it's a national park, isn't that federal?
[01:18:01.350] - Raeghn
Doesn't that mean that we can't smoke weed in there?
[01:18:03.890] - Stephanie
And I was like, oh, shit.
[01:18:05.046] - David
That was your first thought?
[01:18:05.100] - Raeghn
That was my first thought.
[01:18:06.570] - David
Where have you been?
[01:18:08.670] - Raeghn
Cause I've been to like, the Grand Canyon, and I want to go to Yellowstone. And I know from going to the Grand Canyon, it's like, you're not allowed to smoke there because it's federal protective land. It's a national park. You're not allowed to smoke on national- on federal land. So I was like, if this becomes a national park, does that mean that we can't smoke?
[01:18:25.380] - Stephanie
This is the other thing, is, Raeghn is both more interesting-
[01:18:27.860] - David
I know my readership. I was like, okay, I see you.
[01:18:31.350] - Stephanie
This is the other thing, Raeghn is both cooler than me and more interesting than me; so they can bring that stuff to the table where I'm like, I don't smoke, like, I don't know, I don't care. But we talked about that, and they said, oh could you not smoke weed there? And I said, oh, shit... Wait, you are right. If it becomes a National Park, that means the federal government owns the land. And so I know stuff about government because I went to school for this. *laughing*.
[01:19:01.770] - David
Ironically.
[01:19:03.200] - Stephanie
I have a degree in Political Science, which is part of the joke, is I'm an anarchist with a Political Science degree. But um... So I was like, oh wait, the federal government owns the National Park. So I went and I double checked, and the federal government absolutely owns the National Parks. You cede the land to the federal government in order to create a National Park. Now, this ballot measure wouldn't automatically create a National Park, you can't do that. You have to like- the ballot measure is to support the nomination of the land to be a National Park and the Department of the Interior would have to actually do it. But if they did, the federal government would own the lakefront, which means that state law wouldn't apply on the lakefront anymore. And I don't want the federal government arresting me on the beach because I'm trans. Like, we're about to have a fascist in office no matter who runs the government. No matter who wins that election, we're gonna have a shitty president. And one of those presidents wants to make what we are illegal. And if the federal government controls the lakefront, that means that you can't smoke weed at the lake, that means that you can't get an abortion in the city and then step foot on the beach.
[01:20:11.020] - Raeghn
Assault rifles.
[01:20:11.920] - Stephanie
That means that you can carry an assault rifle on the beach. That means that you can't be queer or trans on the beach. It would destroy people's ability to live in the city because-
[01:20:22.280] - Raeghn
And then access this free public space afterwards.
[01:20:26.100] - Caullen
Is it the entire lakefront?
[01:20:29.410] - Stephanie
So the ballot measure is consisting of all of Chicago's park and public land adjacent to Lake Michigan; including their harbors, lagoons, and inlets. So that could include like, Grant Park and Gar- it could include a lot of stuff. And that would destroy the city if a Republican president was able to control the entire border of the city of Chicago. People couldn't live here anymore.
[01:20:58.530] - Raeghn
Yeah, and I mean, Chicago especially is known as, yeah, a sanctuary place not just for people of different identities, but just also in terms of politics. So people sometimes flock here because they know that their ideologies are supported here. But then you come here and there are these territories that are now not safe.
[01:21:17.320] - Stephanie
Yeah. And I don't think that this is malicious on their part, I think they just didn't think about it.
[01:21:22.690] - David
Or they don't smoke weed.
[01:21:25.760] - Raeghn
That's my first thought. I was like, wait, can I not be high on the lake?
[01:21:31.200] - Stephanie
So originally I said, yeah, sure, vote yes. Yay, the lake. And we talked about it I was like, oh wait, absolutely no. You cannot fucking vote for this. Absolutely not. And so we said actually, absolutely the fuck not.
[01:21:44.540] - David
That's literally what it says.
[01:21:45.980] - Stephanie
Because, sure, we can make it a State Park; but a National Park, no. Because then you get the federal government involved and the federal government sucks. It's not all Delia, it's a bunch of terrible people.
[01:22:00.500] - Caullen
I want to talk about anything else on this voter guide/ this election that sticks out. *whispers* Bring Chicago Home. Anything else. And then I do want to kind of pivot. I want to mention anything else and then also talk about Palestine. And where, Stephanie, you've been on the podcast before, you've mentioned your positionality and mentioned you throwing down for Palestinian liberation. I've gleaned something from you as far as American-Jewish life and Zionism and the insidiousness of it before, which I really, really appreciated. So I wanted to just forefront what's happening in Palestine now and how that has- not changed, but it seemed like from the outside looking in via the social medias of the world, leaning in to that and leaning into how to see candidates. And then I think maybe we can kind of look to the future, maybe kind of wrap up. But I am curious about any other big things that stuck out this cycle right now, the primaries in Illinois.
[01:22:57.540] - Stephanie
Yeah, I mean, I think. So one thing that's new in "Girl, I Guess" is Palestine has always been a criteria for endorsement, especially for congresspeople. But now it's a litmus test, where you have to have certain positions in your platform, or I will not endorse you. And, you know, we agreed on that and we put out a statement- I'm an anti-Zionist Jew. I've been an anti-Zionist Jew for a long time. I was raised a Zionist. And it took me a while to unlearn that because I didn't know any better when I was a kid. I didn't know any better until I knew better. But now, this is my Judaism. This is who I am. I rediscovered my Judaism through Palestine, and I can't compromise on that. That's the future of the world. That's the future of my people, of another people, of both of our peoples tied together. And that's fundamental to who I am. I'm not going to compromise on Palestine for anybody or anything. Certainly not some rando who wants to be an elected official.
[01:23:57.610] - Stephanie
And the guide has always called out- even when Ellen and I were doing it together, we were both anti-Zionists, so we both had the same position on it. The guide has always, really brutally, called out elected officials who were cowards on Palestine. I refuse to endorse Jan Schakowsky because even though she's progressive on everything else, she's a huge coward on Palestine. She's a straight up fascist on Palestine. Now, she called for a ceasefire, but she also had protesters arrested in her office for calling a ceasefire. She dropped the charges against them, but she had them fucking arrested in the first place and that was horrible. And so it allowed us to really put our views into action and utilize the platform that the guide has to push these elected officials to say, no, we're not going to compromise on anything other than the bare minimum; which is you have to support the three demands of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. That's full civil and human rights for Palestinians in their country of origin, so in Palestine; the removal of the West Bank Apartheid Wall and a decolonization of Arab lands; and the right of return for Palestinians. You have to have those three things either explicitly written on a piece of paper that we can share with the voters or on your website, or we're not endorsing you. I don't care how progressive you are. And so that's our litmus test.
[01:25:11.030] - Stephanie
And it came up in a race that I didn't expect it to, where Chuy Garcia, who is really, really great; he's a great congressman. He and I disagree on the vision for the city, but I think we agree a lot on pretty much everything else. He has a 40 year record of being great on Palestine. And I talked to his team, and I reached out and I said, hey, do you have a challenger who sucks? Ray Lopez is one of the worst politicians in Chicago. One of my favorite jokes in the guide is when I called him "Swiper the Fox's next of kin". I was proud of that.
[01:25:48.390] - Raeghn
Other people loved it too.
[01:25:49.620] - Stephanie
Yeah. So I talked to Chuy's team and I said, hey, these are our criteria, we would really love to endorse you. You've been very strong on this issue for a long time, and you didn't have to be. This is the criteria, let me know. And had a great conversation with his team. They said, yeah, you know, he supports this stuff. But only two of the three planks were in his platform. And so I reached out, and I reached out and I reached out, and they didn't respond. And ultimately, last night- I saved Chuy's race for last, and I was like, okay, I'm going to give them time to fix this.
[01:26:24.830] - Stephanie
And they can still do it. I mean, the guide's a living document, right? If he adds it tomorrow, I'll change the endorsement, and I'll say Chuy Garcia is great. But I wound up putting a lot of work into that endorsement because I said, hey, he has a 40 year record about being right about Palestine. He has stood with the Palestinian people when he did not have to in times when it was not popular to do so. And also, he does not meet the criteria for an endorsement. So you can vote for him based on his record if you want, but based on what we promised the people who read this guide, we would do..
[01:26:54.060] - Caullen
Standards.
[01:26:54.560] - Stephanie
We can't endorse him. And I'm not going to compromise on that just because he's been right in the past. He has to be right yesterday and today. It doesn't count if you're only right yesterday. So, that's sort of yanking the Overton window back left on this issue. For so long, people have been just spewing out pro-Israel bullshit, because they felt like they had to. And this is my, and our, little contribution to saying, no, absolutely not. That window is coming back Palestine's way, because Palestinians have been asking people to adhere to BDS for almost 20 years now. And movement has done it, but politics has not.
[01:27:37.360] - Stephanie
And we're just now starting to get pro-Palestine voices in Congress; we have Rashida Tlaib, we have Ilhan Omar, we have Delia Ramirez in Chicago, who's fantastic. The only congressperson I actually like is Delia from the 3rd district, she's been great. But we need more of that. I don't believe in the federal government, but I believe in giving it the best we've got, and seeing what they can do with it, cause they believe in it. Let them try. So, you know, Kina Collins, this is her third time running. She's very strong on Palestine.
[01:28:08.968] - Caullen
Kina!!!
[01:28:09.310] - Stephanie
Love Kina! I really hope that she wins this time. But that's- Raeghn, that would be Raeghn's congressperson.
[01:28:15.950] - Caullen
Likewise.
[01:28:16.560] - Raeghn
My vote.
[01:28:18.390] - Stephanie
But so we didn't endorse Chuy because he didn't meet the criteria, even though he would have last time. He didn't meet the criteria this time. And I really hope that his team adds that last piece in, because the part he left out was the Right of Return and Palestinians care about that more than the other two.
[01:28:34.260] - Caullen
I think it means something just for y'all, as far as your ideology and your thoughts and your passion, your heart is always there, but the moment is different now, and so you lean-in more and your standards change.
[01:28:49.930] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:28:50.180] - Caullen
So your standards for them change, therefore the guide changes. I think that makes sense. I think that's a human thing, that's how you grow. I think that's how all this should work. And so I think when- I don't know when it was- but when I saw the statement about it, months before the guide came out, it was like, oh, they're changing up their standards because of this moment we're in, which is important.
[01:29:08.620] - Stephanie
Yeah and I had always sort of considered doing it, but, you know, I felt like calling somebody- calling somebody a coward was enough for the moment that we had before. Saying, hey, okay, fine, you get the endorsement, but you suck on this. And you're a terrible person, you need to do better. But now the world has changed for the better in this way. I mean, it's terrible what's happening in Gaza and people are being massacred and there's a genocide going on, but the political aspect of this has changed for our side.
[01:29:36.790] - Raeghn
Yeah. I think people see how it translates to their communities and what's happening here. Whereas before it was like, oh, that's something that's happening over far, far away that I have no relation to. That's foreign policy, I just care about what happens here. And I think the past few months, people have really been able to paint- just to see more clearly how this translates to the issues that are impacting us in our communities.
[01:30:03.580] - Stephanie
Yeah, and we didn't even cover the 5th congressional district because there's only two candidates running in it, and both of them suck on Palestine. Fuck em. Who cares? Neither of them should be in Congress. So the guide has always been vehemently anti-Zionist, but now there's a groundswell behind that. And so, whereas before, people would have been like, okay, sure, alright Stephanie, we get it, you don't like Israel. Now, I'm saying, yeah, neither do any of these other people.
[01:30:33.190] - Caullen
Right.
[01:30:34.060] - Stephanie
We're all gonna vote because we all read this thing. Do you want our votes or not? Cause I will tell people to not vote for you. I'm not gonna tell people to hold their nose. I'm not going to tell people, oh, yeah, you're good on everything else, but you suck on this one thing, yeah, maybe. You say, no, don't vote for them. Fuck them. They don't deserve it. So the standards have changed, and there's power behind those standards now, because a lot of people read the guide. It's the largest independent voter guide in the nation.
[01:30:59.160] - Raeghn
And a lot of people care about Palestine.
[01:31:00.580] - Stephanie
And a lot of people care about Palestine now. So people are willing to put their beliefs into action and stand up about it. And if somebody lose- that's going to carry over into the general election. If somebody loses an election to a Republican, because they didn't get the endorsement because, they didn't stand up for Palestine, so what?
[01:31:16.502] - Raeghn
Boo. Hiss.
[01:31:16.610] - Caullen
Sucks to suck. Boo hiss, *laughing*
[01:31:17.510] - Stephanie
Yeah, then, you know what? You shouldn't have supported a genocide.
[01:31:20.960] - Caullen
Yeah, "but other guy's so terrible." Well, then you shouldn't have supported a genocide.
[01:31:25.490] - Stephanie
You should have had the same view as that person.
[01:31:27.380] - Raeghn
The bar is low. The bar is very low. We weren't asking for like, healthcare, Medicare For All, basic income. We're just asking you not to...
[01:31:36.380] - Caullen
We could.
[01:31:37.120] - Raeghn
We could. We're asking you not to kill people.
[01:31:39.610] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:31:40.510] - Raeghn
My favorite thing about doing "Girl, I Guess"... Well, I loved staying up last night until about 3:00 a.m.
[01:31:48.710] - David
Doing final notes.
[01:31:49.750] - Stephanie
Night before launch is always rough.
[01:31:51.270] - David
Oh, yeah? Okay.
[01:31:52.790] - Stephanie
We stay up late double checking everything.
[01:31:55.540] - Raeghn
And then it was a work day. So like Stephanie said, it's not like I was doing it-Iike, I worked a full day and then at 5:00 started doing "Girl, I Guess" stuff. So, yeah, that was fun. My favorite part- I mean, Stephanie and I have known each other for a long time, and we see each other once a year. So this is the excuse.
[01:32:15.090] - Stephanie
Millennial adult friendships.
[01:32:16.660] - Raeghn
It is. It's like, let's schedule our hangout six months in advance.
[01:32:21.180] - Stephanie
What happened to you in, like, April?
[01:32:23.270] - Raeghn
Yeah. And it's all just a catch up. So this was the excuse to really spend time with each other.
[01:32:29.060] - Stephanie
That's been great.
[01:32:30.020] - Raeghn
It has been really wonderful.
[01:32:30.920] - Stephanie
I've seen you more in the last month than I did in the previous three years.
[01:32:34.780] - Raeghn
Probably in our entire relationship.
[01:32:36.260] - Stephanie
Yes.
[01:32:38.160] - Raeghn
I really enjoyed learning a lot, and just very quickly, Stephanie ran through just how to look these people up or to search for information. And so I found that very informative. I was nervous. I was nervous about writing the guide. I just, coming from a professional space, I'm like, oh, let me just put the facts out and none of my opinion. And Stephanie, over and over, was like: No, put your opinion-
[01:33:05.620] - David
Go ahead creative writing, come on.
[01:33:06.740] - Raeghn
Put your opinion, put your voice, put your ideas out in there. And I really enjoyed the freedom of that to really be like, hey, I'm not the biggest fan of our government, of electoral politics. These are the things that I believe in, but here are my thoughts. I really appreciated that freedom and liberty to go ham with the jokes, with-
[01:33:30.880] - Caullen
The sass.
[01:33:33.160] - Raeghn
The sass, my own thoughts. And so it was an adventure. Got to spend time with Stephanie, which I always enjoy, and I learned a fuck ton.
[01:33:44.010] - David
That's what's up.
[01:33:44.100] - Stephanie
Yeah, it was really great and really beautiful watching. Raeghn is just such a talented and phenomenal writer and really has written professionally and then narratively, creatively, they're a very, very gifted creative writer. And I know that they can write. And so that's why I didn't have any hesitation about asking them to be part of this, because I know that they can do what I want them to do and what they would need to do to be part of this. But watching them develop a new kind of voice for this kind of writing was really beautiful. And just an element of watching a part of somebody that I love and care about so much get to blossom, because they have a new medium through which to express themselves, really validated my decision to ask them to come hang out and do this with me because they fucking rock at it.
[01:34:41.510] - Stephanie
And I went back and I was reading the first few editions of the guide as part of preparing myself to edit again rather than just editing my own writing. And I was remembering, I wasn't great at this, my first couple of times. The first couple of guides are rough. They're not bad, but they're very sparse. There's not a lot of detail. We don't really dig into anything. There's information there, it's useful and it's funny, but it looks very different in 2020 than it does right now. And to see Raeghn be able to use that talent and use their skills to just jump in and really, really hold their own in a way where a lot of people would have been very intimidated coming into the 13th installment of a long form writing piece that the other author had been writing on their own for the last four years.
[01:35:37.080] - Raeghn
It was a little intimidating.
[01:35:37.370] - Stephanie
But you did so great. And it was really wonderful to see that and just get to nudge you in the right direction. But know that I just had to be like, no, just go do your thing.
[01:35:48.670] - Raeghn
I was texting Stephanie last night at like, midnight, 1:00 a.m like, hey, I'm starting to swear, so.... wanted to vibe check; is this okay?
[01:35:57.160] - Stephanie
Yeah. Fuck yeah.
[01:35:59.230] - David
Yeah, indeed.
[01:36:00.350] - Stephanie
Because politics is funny. And the whole point of the tone of "Girl, I Guess" is we want to be able to talk about elections and elected officials the same way that you would talk to your friends about it over a beer.
[01:36:10.260] - Caullen
Yeah.
[01:36:10.790] - Stephanie
So if your alderman is a fucking scumbag, we're gonna call them a fucking scumbag. If you think that your state senator is a dumbass, we're gonna call them a dumbass. But that's the casual language, the casual tone, the colloquial nature of the writing is part of why people like "Girl, I Guess". Because so many other voter guides are just a list of names endorsed by some organization or some stuffy 70 year old white guy writing about something in, like, the Tribune.
[01:36:44.630] - Caullen
Not the Tribune.
[01:36:46.950] - Stephanie
And I say the Tribune, because the TRiiBE doesn't do endorsements yet. I don't know if they're going to. They should.
[01:36:54.400] - Caullen
Morgan, where you at?
[01:36:57.230] - Stephanie
But what that means is that all the other news sources in the city are nonprofit. So the only endorsing bodies outside of explicitly political organizations, the only news producing bodies that give political endorsements are "Girl, I Guess" and the Tribune.
[01:37:13.690] - Caullen
Yeah. Editorial teams.
[01:37:16.890] - Stephanie
Yeah. And so people are really hungry for this kind of writing, because there used to be so much of it in Chicago. You used to be able to see 15 different endorsements from newspapers, and now there's one and a Google Doc. And people- the Tribune sucks a lot. There are so many talented writers at the Tribune, but the editorial board is notoriously conservative. So there's no progressive alternative for them, because the Sun-Times is a nonprofit, and Block Club is a nonprofit and the Reader is a nonprofit. WBEZ is part of the Sun-Times, which is a nonprofit. They don't endorse, because they can't endorse. So they need somewhere to get political media that both teaches them about an election and a candidate and gives a suggestion on what to do, because people need both.
[01:38:04.390] - Caullen
You think that'll change? Do you think that'll change? And/or- I feel like- we're all in a... I wouldn't say a hub, but I feel I know the people to go to if like, something happens- Oh, what's Benji saying? Thing happens, oh, what's Stephanie's saying? Thing happens, oh, what's Charles saying? Caullen knows who to go to for those kind of things, but it's like- to your point, yeah, I agree, and I feel like a lot of models are changing for their own reasons, which is great.
[01:38:28.540] - Stephanie
But it's a sustainability problem.
[01:38:31.220] - Caullen
To add to your point, who.. Will there be another like, I don't know what to call it, I don't know if it's a vanguard or another change, where the churches exist, exist- but it's also more explicitly political orgs or people or factions or some or thing, independent things that are naming endorsements or who to vote for or whatever, while still keeping other stuff that's separate and institutional and 501(c)(3) land or whatever. I'm thinking about it as I'm talking, I wonder if that will change in the years.
[01:39:03.840] - Raeghn
I also just think the way that we're intaking information has changed. We are less trusting and reliant on institutions to feed us information, and we are more willing and eager to look towards individuals that we trust, whether that be influencers, activists, you know, YouTube mongols that we're like, oh, I've been watching this person for years, I trust their opinion. We are changing as generations of how we intake information. So we're less likely to trust what we're reading in the Tribune and more likely to see what our favorite person on Instagram is saying about the issues that we care about.
[01:39:41.560] - Caullen
And I do appreciate that you all say, too, like, hey, here's this guide, we've put all this work in it, we believe what we say. But also, like, fuck it, talk to the people you know or do you trust, like, whoever you trust, individuals, organizations. Get that rigid, just base information. And like I said the digital age has made everything a lot decentralized for better and for worse. Like, not every YouTuber has a degree in Political Science and has studied these things on a rigid level, but also that neither has every journalist. And so it's like, don't trust institutions, but also don't trust just anyone who has a Twitter account. But also some folks with Twitter accounts, like folks in this room, have done their shit right. And so it's just like, just looking at the world critically, being able to trust and value, and that sometimes- sometimes it takes time. But it's worth it if we're fighting for, literally for our lives; it's worth it to do that deep dive. Or the time in the past you had, which defined the relationships that matter to you, that reflect your values and how you want to see the world.
[01:40:39.950] - Raeghn
Yeah. And I think, which is what I do believe "Girl, I Guess" does, I think it's important to follow people that aren't afraid to be like, yo, we made a mistake, we're changing our stance. We're pivoting, we're flexible, we're adaptable. I don't want to stick with an institution or a person that does not move and budge. I do want to be with someone that adapts with the time. And I do think, "Girl, I Guess" does adapt with, as we just discussed with the stance on Palestine, is adaptable and changing with our own political views but also the views that people are wanting to see. And I think that is a reason to continue to trust and follow. It's like, oh, you're reassessing every time you put out information? I respect that.
[01:41:23.260] - Stephanie
Yeah, and something that I have seen really, since the guide got big, is other people trying to do their own grassroots voter guides. And I think that that's really cool. I think that there need to be more voter guides because more information is more better for more people. I don't want us to be the only game in town. I think it's bad for democracy when there's not multiple sources. And bad for democracy is kind of the theme of this election. There's so many of these races that are... But even on the local level, there's four or five, maybe six now races for state representative or state senate where one candidate has raised more than $400,000. It should not cost-
[01:42:06.690] - Caullen
Why do they cost so much money?
[01:42:07.580] - Stephanie
But that's a problem, right?
[01:42:09.110] - Caullen
So much money. Just give that to the people. Just give that money to the people directly.
[01:42:12.660] - Stephanie
You should not have to spend half a million dollars to run for local office. It's ridiculous. And it's a democracy problem. There's so few contested races on the ballot because people feel stifled. They aren't able to politically express themselves, they feel like running for public office isn't realistic. That's bad for democracy. There's not enough news sources and political opinion out there, where people can access it and feel like it's real and tangible, it's something they can talk to- that's bad for democracy. And I think that there should be more people doing their own voter guides. This isn't the only way to do it. I'm not that old, but I'm also really old fashioned. I'm not gonna make a TikTok voter guide. I'm not gonna do a series of YouTube videos. That's not my thing. But that might really work for some people. So people should go and do it. And that's why it really upset me in 2023, somebody who was trying to do a very respectful spoof of "Girl, I Guess", did an AI voter guide. And called it "Girl, AI Guess."
[01:43:24.250] - Raeghn
Oohhh.
[01:43:25.560] - Stephanie
Yeah. And changed the- and I was like, this is really gross, you got to change that. And they did, to their credit, they did change it. But that really sucked, because that's- like, the robotic nature of that, you cannot roboticize politics. I don't.. It was so perverse to me.
[01:43:48.690] - Caullen
Was it like a healthy novelty? Like, what you do is cool, I'm gonna do the same thing with AI. Or was it like, I'm gonna.... This is coming at you in a certain way.
[01:43:58.130] - Stephanie
So I talked to a bunch of people about it, and it seemed like it was the first one.
[01:44:01.180] - Caullen
Yeah.
[01:44:01.690] - Stephanie
They were like, oh, this seems really cool. I want to, say, haha, let's do it also, but with AI. But it was so base-level offensive to me because it's everything that grassroots politics is trying not to be. Like, pre-packaged, pre-produced, machine vetted opinions. Even if presented in a progressive political framework, are completely fake. And we can't let the machines tell us who to vote for, man. We can't be a slave to the machine, man.
[01:44:41.060] - Caullen
Can't let the machines win, man.
[01:44:42.210] - Stephanie
Yeah. Not to be a Luddite about it, but politics has to come from people. Politics is people. And the more people are putting their opinion out there... There's this really cool gossip blog for Logan Square that followed me on Instagram randomly, and I was having a slow instagram day, so actually, that's when I saw it. And it's like "Logan's Loose Lips" or something, right? I cited it in the guide because they did a really thorough point-by-point breakdown of the platforms in the 20th Senate district. This is really cool. This is grassroots political journalism. That's what we need. That's what- on a hyper local level, that's what people need in Chicago. That's what people want so badly. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to write ten pages on one race, nobody's going to read that. I already wrote four, and I think it was too long. But that sort of... There are limitations to the format, right? The guide can only be as long as people are willing to read.
[01:45:41.870] - Stephanie
And the municipal one last time was 70 pages and 31,000 words, because there were about 200 candidates on the ballot and 50 different races, plus the mayor's election, plus the police district councils. It was a mess and it was really long, and it sucked to write. But one of the biggest problems is the space constraint. Some of those races wound up being five, six pages. And that's exhausting for somebody who's just trying to get some political information to read all of that, because there's 20 candidates on the ballot, and that's terrible. So there are limitations to the "Girl, I Guess" format. We cannot spend forever talking about one race, even if we want to.
[01:46:27.740] - Stephanie
My endorsement for Graciela Guzmán in the 20th Senate district. Graciela is great. And I had to edit the fuck out of that because I wrote it, and it was six pages long. And I said, nobody is going to read this if it's six pages long. It was too much information. It went very, very deep on stuff that was important, but also it needed to be edited because people like "Girl, I Guess" because it's accessible. And if you make it too long, it stops being accessible and it starts just being a chore. But there are other news sites where people will go for that kind of journalism, where they want to read ten pages about somebody's- like the nitty gritty of somebody's platform, rather than me saying, yeah, they believe this, this, this and this. That has a specific and distinct political place in the Chicago journalistic economy, and it should exist and there should be more of it.
[01:47:17.960] - David
Hopefully we do. To your 2020- what moves us forward. But, um, clearly, we can be here talking about it for a minute, right?
[01:47:26.350] - Stephanie
Yes.
[01:47:26.660] - David
Clearly a lot going on, but we really appreciate y'all taking the time again to come in and hang out with us in the Harambe studios, chopping it up. Day- fresh out print. Not that it's printed, but it's fresh out.
[01:47:38.860] - Raeghn
It's fresh out the print.
[01:47:40.130] - Stephanie
Day zero.
[01:47:40.910] - David
I did want to give everyone an opportunity to give any final shout outs to their homies. Or is there anything that we didn't talk about in the guide that y'all do want to talk about, or any specific shouts that you all have?
[01:47:49.410] - Stephanie
I did two pages of math to explain Bring Chicago Home.
[01:47:52.830] - Caullen
Yeah, I appreciated that a lot.
[01:47:54.198] - Raeghn
I would never.
[01:47:54.270] - Stephanie
Yeah.... There's a lot of attempts out there to make Bring Chicago Home seem much more complicated than it is. It's not complicated. It is a tax decrease for 95% of people. And that's the 95% of people who are people that we know who are lucky enough to be able to buy property.
[01:48:12.040] - Caullen
Right.
[01:48:13.030] - Stephanie
I don't know anybody who's gonna buy a million dollar house.
[01:48:15.830] - Caullen
And if you somehow did, they could afford a small...
[01:48:17.880] - Stephanie
Well, I'm in politics, so I actually do know those people. But, you know, the average- probably the rest of us don't know those people. And I only know those people by chance, because I have been doing this long enough that I know a lot of rich people now. But, those aren't our friends, those aren't our circles. The average person that we know doesn't know anybody who could even conceptualize the idea of owning a million dollar house. But they could buy a condo, they could buy a small house in their neighborhood, and this will decrease the taxes that they pay when they buy that house. And that's a good thing, because it'll keep people in the neighborhoods that they grew up in.
[01:49:01.670] - David
Yep.
[01:49:02.590] - Caullen
And folks who aren't familiar with that, that small tax above- a million dollar home and above will go to wraparound services for unhoused folks.
[01:49:10.130] - Stephanie
Dedicated, legally dedicated to those services.
[01:49:13.620] - Raeghn
So it's not even just more money to the government, it's more money that we're purposely funneling into specific programming.
[01:49:19.230] - Caullen
Which is important. I think folks, hopefully, B'nB listeners know that like, a thing is passed, politician says they're gonna do a certain thing. Great- doesn't mean anything until it actually happens.
[01:49:27.870] - Stephanie
Half the time they just don't do it.
[01:49:28.920] - Caullen
Implementation and budgeting towards a thing is half a battle after it's been approved. This is different in that way- it's changing the tax rate in Chicago, it's making it happen. It has to happen, and it's legally binding, right?
[01:49:39.410] - Raeghn
Yeah.
[01:49:40.200] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:49:41.240] - Caullen
Though, doesn't city council have to vote on it afterwards? How does that work after it is passed? Hopefully it will be.
[01:49:48.830] - Stephanie
So they voted to put it on the ballot and as part of that, they committed to saying, if it passed, they'll write it into law.
[01:49:57.330] - Caullen
Got it.
[01:49:57.920] - Stephanie
So, the idea is the people that voted to put it on the ballot will vote again for the law once the referendum passes, and that's enough votes to pass the law. So, there's extra steps involved and we have to take people's word for it, which is not always the most reliable currency. But it's something to hold people to, this is a promise that the city councilors who voted for this made. And the aldermen said that they were going to do this so if they don't do it, that's something that Brandon can use to try and enforce it. That's something that we can hold him accountable to, kick him out of office in 2027, if we remember it by then. But this will not... Referenda in Chicago don't work like that, this isn't California. We can't vote for something and then pass a law that way. We have to... They're all advisory, but this has a little bit more teeth.
[01:50:56.230] - Caullen
Okay. That's good to hear. It's good to know.
[01:50:58.680] - David
And for all of our listeners, definitely stay tuned for the next episode that will take a deep dive into Bring Chicago Home.
[01:51:04.510] - Stephanie
Yeah.
[01:51:05.780] - David
Definitely appreciate y'all. For all of our listeners, any other details, please check out the episode notes, all the shits is gonna be in there. And as always, peep out the "Girl, I Guess" guide, which will continue to be until the day of? Or when do y'all stop editing?
[01:51:20.310] - Stephanie
So we put out a digital palm card, which is essentially the list of endorsements on social media about a week or so before the election, maybe a little bit further out than that. And generally, we'll stop updating it then. But if something big changes... If something- we'll continue updating the small stuff. The last couple of elections, something big happened after the palm card came out, where an endorsement changed, and we'll put out a new post. And we'll say, hey, this endorsement changed. In the municipal it happened in the 5th ward aldermanic election; I gave somebody an endorsement, and they kind of lost it a little bit.
[01:52:09.720] - Raeghn
They fumbled the bag.
[01:52:10.660] - Caullen
They fumbled it.
[01:52:11.240] - Stephanie
They were not doing okay. Running for alderman is a lot of pressure and this person was having a bad time and wasn't handling the pressure well and was not, physically and mentally, was not okay. And did some stuff that they should not have done and said some stuff to people on the Internet that they should not have said. And it got to a point where I said, okay, I can't keep supporting this, so I pulled their endorsement. And then in 2022, an otherwise really progressive sitting state senator ran an anti-defund the police poll. And somebody told me about it the night before the election, and I said, hey, get me a screenshot of that poll and I'll change the endorsement. And I.... I love this person so much and it took them way too long to find that screenshot. I stayed up really late, but they sent it to me and I said okay, and I posted. And the person that I endorsed, I knew was gonna lose but that didn't matter it was the principle of it. It was holding the elected official accountable and saying, hey, you cannot represent a safe, progressive district and fear monger about defunding the police. Absolutely not. You lose your endorsement.
[01:53:27.230] - David
Yeah. It be like that sometimes, right?
[01:53:28.630] - Stephanie
Yeah. So we will change stuff if something is important enough to change. But when the palm card comes out, generally, that's when the endorsements are more or less set in stone. But nothing's actually really set in stone. Not until you vote.
[01:53:40.540] - Caullen
Just like politics and policy.
[01:53:42.620] - Stephanie
Nothing's set in stone until you vote.
[01:53:44.010] - David
Appreciate y'all.
[01:53:44.890] - Stephanie
Yes, of course.
[01:53:45.560] - David
Audiences, please peep the episode notes for all details. And as always, from Bourbon 'n BrownTown, stay Black, stay Brown, stay queer.
[01:53:53.150] - Caullen
Stay tuned, stay turnt.
[01:53:54.460] - David
And we'll see you next time.
OUTRO
Music: Polls by Piff Marti.