While precise scheduling details are not publicly aggregated, the broader push is part of a statewide – and national – effort by Democrats to court younger voters. For example, the Democratic National Committee announced an approximately $500,000 campaign last year to boost early voting among college students in Iowa and other battleground states. The Johnson County Democrats are hoping to improve the relationship with UIowa students while reminding them how influential they can be in politics. 

Youth struggle to have their voices heard in the Democratic Party; some say it cost them the previous presidential election. This measure, taken by the Johnson County Democrats, is a steer in a new direction for the Democratic Party as a whole. In an attempt to truly listen to the youth, the group will continue on this listening tour. The research documented along the way will be relayed back to elected officials throughout the government. Common motifs during student feedback toward the Johnson County Democrats so far include:

1. Banning ICE from Iowa City
2. Enforce the frequently ignored recycling ordinance with city landlords
3. Protect trans and marginalized students in light of the threat to federal funding
4. Protect Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives
5. Develop a platform to address an evolving technological environment, including AI, privacy, copyright, and natural resource concerns

Meanwhile, at UI, the non-partisan student-led group Hawk the Vote (under the Leadership, Service & Civic Engagement office) has been working to register students, provide guides, and encourage ballots. Their resources note: “Your vote is your voice” and point out that students eligible to vote in Iowa City must decide whether to register locally in Iowa City or in their home jurisdiction. They offered information on how to research candidates, attend city hall meetings, input in planning initiatives, and encourage all the students to participate in the democratic process.

Hawk The Vote hosted a forum for city council candidates at the Iowa Memorial Union. This gave students the chance to hear out each candidate who could potentially represent them as Iowa Citizens. Newcomer Clara Reynen is a graduate student at the University and stated she plans to bring a young voice to the council. Challenger Newman Abuissa is attempting to appeal to young voters through his aggressive environmental action. Incumbent Megan Alter plans to improve the child care industry, and Incumbent Bruce Teague appeals to his extensive experience addressing affordable housing and free busing measures. 

To learn more about these candidates, visit the KRUI YouTube for interviews and updates.

The post Democrats Tour Campus to Connect with Youth Voters, KRUI Talks with Clara Reynen appeared first on KRUI Radio.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Amanda Moy: First of all, you know, you’ve been in Iowa City a long time. You’ve worked and volunteered at a lot of places, like Public Space One, the Emma Goldman Clinic, Iowa Farm Sanctuary, can you tell us a little bit of what you’ve learned from these experiences and how they’ve helped shape your ability to serve on city council?

Oliver Weilein: Yeah, definitely. I’m always someone that likes to keep busy, for one, so that’s why I do a lot of these things, and also it’s just things that I’m passionate and that I care about. One way or another these things deeply impact my life and I want to be a part of them. With the Emma Goldman Clinic, obviously, Emma Goldman herself was one of the first feminist authors and thought leaders that I read when I was a teenager, and so I have a personal connection for that reason with the Emma Goldman Clinic and I think it’s really cool that it’s named that, and I think that it also helps that I live across the street. You know, just looking and seeing people you know bugging and harassing people trying to go in there and get healthcare, it does not sit right with me. It makes me upset and so that’s why. I support everything Emma Goldman does, so that’s why I just want to go help out in that capacity where I can. 

With the Iowa Farm Sanctuary, I am someone where I’ve been vegan for 12 years and I haven’t eaten meat since 8th grade when dissecting frogs freaked me out. So, it’s always been a priority for me, especially living in a place that’s kind of ground zero for bad factory farming like Iowa. I just think it’s beautiful that we have a place like that and connecting with the animals is really important to me, and I recommend people go volunteer there. It’s a depression cure a little bit, especially in the summer.

With Public Space One, I play music; I play in a couple bands and I remember being super young and when I still lived in Cedar Falls I would come here and go to shows at Public Space One when it was below the Subway. It’s come a long way since then, and it was really important to me growing as an artist and as a person, so I’m just really happy to serve on the board and do what I can.

Just doing all these things, it has allowed me to touch so many parts of the community and to understand what’s going right, what’s going wrong, and what can be improved. Specifically, it’s put me in contact with other working class people, and low income people, and people of traditionally marginalized groups. It’s given me a perspective on a lot of the inner workings of Iowa City, and not from the perspective of I’m like this super educated elite business owner, property owner, and yeah it’s just like I’m a member of the working class. I’m just like one of these people, and yeah I think in that way it’s really primed me to have a unique perspective on city council.

Amanda: I will say, I’ve also volunteered at Iowa Farm Sanctuary. It is absolutely something that will lift your mood. Especially in the summer.

Oliver: Do you have a favorite resident?

Amanda: That’s a good question. I think my favorite resident was Rudy.

Oliver: Rudy? I loved Rudy. I like Flower. I have a special connection with Flower. She’s a thousand-pound dairy cow who was born without eyes, and she’s blind, and she loves being pet, and she purrs when you pet her.

Julia Wilson: So, how do you plan to implement these environmental values, in regard to farming, while still supporting the local farmers around Iowa City?

Oliver: That’s a really good question. I think that coming at these issues centering around sustainability and climate, I don’t think it has to come at the cost of farmers or people making ends meet. I think that it’s a lot of nitty gritty policy stuff, but basically just from the mindset that these two things don’t have to work against each other. There’s lots of really cool organizations around here that I’m really excited to work with, that really look into local preservation, look into prairie restoration, and try to work alongside farmers while doing so, and trying to figure out more sustainable ways to go about these things. Even if I myself am not an expert, I know the people who are, and the people who really inspire me to do this work. I know people who not only lead some of these organizations or some of these movements, but people that are rank and file, people who go and do controlled burns of prairies and stuff like that. So, I’m someone who tries to get the entire picture from the “lowest worker” to the overarching picture.

Amanda: What do you think are the top three emergent issues that you plan to address while you’re on city council?

Oliver: I really think that one of the things that convinced me to run… I’ve been probably what you can call a housing rights activist for like a decade in the Iowa City area. Whether that be a founding member of the Iowa City Tenants Union where we did things like help families fight eviction, got security deposits back, helped with immigrant families who were dealing with abusive landlords, worked with lots of students whose landlords just think that they’re dumb young people and they can take advantage of them, to doing more direct mutual aid work with the homeless population in Iowa City.

I think that housing is so central and intersects with so many different issues in our society: racism, transphobia, homophobia. Lots of these systems of oppression get so much of their power from housing insecurity and from economic insecurity so housing is huge, huge for me and I’m someone who believes deep down that housing is a human right. I think as a society that we should move away from viewing housing, which is something that is a basic need for everybody, as a commodity, but rather something we see as, well, you’re a human being and you deserve a home. Obviously, I know going in, I’m not going to be able to be like: I declare housing as a human right. But, I think there’s lots of tangible ways we can move in that direction. 

Along with housing, a huge thing for me is also maintaining some type of financial independence as a city from the state and federal government. Making it to where we are not so afraid of repercussions from the state and federal government. There’s so much fear right now about, well, we can’t do this because maybe the state’s going to come take some funding away. I think that we can start laying a foundation for long-term solutions for making ourselves more independent. I’m a huge proponent of things like public banking. We have one public bank in the United States, and that’s the Bank of North Dakota. Look into public banking, how it is essential to the economy in so many different places around the world, and how it can be used as a tool to fund the things we need to fund and save ourselves so much money as a city. Obviously, wealthy bankers do not like it, and their shareholders, because this means they don’t make money. But, I think as a society, we need to do what we need to do for the community and for people, and not just always focus on making the richest people around us richer, and being in their grasp with their talons in us. 

Those are probably two really, really big things for me. Transit is always up there. We are doing a really good job as a community when it comes to transit, with our fare-free public transit and our commitment to maintaining that. I’ve talked with so many homeless people, so many low-income people who say that has improved their lives significantly. Just keeping that.

I will say one more thing that might be the most important thing currently is protecting marginalized people in Iowa City. It is making sure we do not go into this administration, this federal administration and this state administration, with people who operate abject cruelty towards the most vulnerable people in our community. We need to not go into this relationship pre-compliant, or work as collaborators with them. I think that we can be smart and strategic with how we go about doing these things, protecting these communities, like our immigrants, like our trans community. That means that we go into it with the attitude that we will never give up, and we will not collaborate with fascism. 

Amman Hassan: I have two questions. For transit, are you supporting the North Liberty rail, or the commuter rail proposal? Also, about the not collaborating with fascism, and the Iowa City autonomy, obviously we are kind of a blue dot in a sea of red. How much autonomy or wiggle room does Iowa City have to kind of ignore some of these resettlement orders or some of these acts against minority groups, immigrants in particular? How much wiggle room do we have to ignore those orders and address the issues as we see fit, or protect these groups as we see fit?

Oliver: For the transit, I don’t know all the ins and outs of what has happened, but I think that the county is having trouble finding bidders to create the rail, and I think that the project has been put on hold for now, if not scrapped, which is unfortunate because transit is huge for a multitude of reasons: for economic reasons, for climate reasons. I’m somebody who thinks that we need to move away from a car-centric society. Obviously rail, streetcars, biking infrastructure, all of these things, density, not relying on sprawl, there’re so many reasons why we need to go in this direction. So, it is upsetting to me that’s been put on hold, because as it comes to climate, we can’t afford to push these back all the time. 

When it comes to what kind of autonomy or agency Iowa City has in the state, it is true that we live in a hostile state run by people who are cruel and do not have the best interest of the people in mind. They want to protect the wealthiest people in our state, and they want to keep oppressed people in their place. We need to not go into this thinking that these are people that can be reasoned with, like Kim Reynolds, that we need to try so hard to placate them and to beg, because no matter what we do it will never be enough for them. They will always keep coming after our people. They will always keep cutting our budget. They will always keep lowering property taxes. They will always keep doing all of these things that are detrimental to our community, and I think it is delusional to expect any different, no matter how much we give them. Going into it with the attitude that we need to come up with another way.

I think that if we really put our mind to these things and make them a priority, we can really do something. I look at examples like in 2020, when our mayor Bruce Teague and the city wanted to implement a mask mandate, and Kim Reynolds was like, “No, I’m writing it in law that cities cannot do a mask mandate.” We were able to get around that with just clever wording, something about mandating masks for persons and not facilities. Something like that. We can always put our minds to something and there are so many smart people, and so many organizations of smart people who know the law, who it’s their mission to do these types of things. The city councilors and the mayor at the time, they did a great job with that. I think if we apply that same determination, and willingness, and priority to protecting migrants and protecting trans people, and protecting our LGBT community, and our low income people, I think there’s always something that we can do.

Like I said, that doesn’t mean that we do something reckless or not strategic or not smart. A lot of people have criticized me saying oh, he’s just gonna like… No, I’ve never said that. What does differentiate me from my opponent is that I am willing to say that I do not support ICE, and I will do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, to protect the immigrant community. At the end of the day, if everything has been, if all the things have been tried, if there is absolutely nothing else we can do as a city, I’m not willing to sell one person for a dollar amount. That seems to be what a lot of people who were criticizing me were saying, “Well at the end of the day, we are just going to have to sell out some of our neighbors to fascism.” I think going into this new administration with that attitude is crazy. It is what has gotten us into this position in the first place.

Rigby Templeman: So, the budget of the city has always been an issue. How do you plan to deal with the conflict between having that limited money to spend, but wanting to build permanent supportive housing and make existing housing more affordable?

Oliver: It’s been a huge part of my campaign, talking about how I think we can fund a lot of the things I’m talking about, and directions I think we can go. I think that capitalists love to say that you have to spend money to make money, and I think that the same holds true for cities. We can spend money to build a foundation that in the long run saves us money, and even give us money as a city. A lot of the things I’m talking about, you don’t even need to spend a lot of money to create a public bank, and then that has been proven to make things easier for cities to get loans, to get good loans, and to fund the things we need to fund without having to make private banks happen. I grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa and I thought it was normal my whole life that we had a public utility company, that was city owned and operated, community utilities company. Then I moved to Iowa City when I was 18 and I was like, why do I have like three bills instead of one? Also why is it this private stuff? Then I learned.

Amman: Is the power plant that operates the University of Iowa privatized? 

Oliver: I believe so. I guess I can’t speak surely, but I think so. Anway, in public utilities, in Decorah, they have something on the ballot in March, where they are going to vote yes or no to establish a public utility company. It is something that not only makes it easier for us to democratize our energy, and be able to more directly as community members make decisions about where we want our energy to come from, and our sustainability, but the profits that we make go back into the community, not into a private company’s hands. That’s another revenue source that I’m willing to explore. Like I said, a public utility company is a long term plan, but we need to start having these conversations and set a foundation. 

When it comes to housing, housing if done right, other models in cities around the world have proven that public housing can not only be a self-sustaining utility, but it can be one that makes the city revenue. I look at the city of Vienna, it is truly a model that we can learn from. They have a 100+ year, huge history of public housing. 25% of the housing in Vienna is owned and operated directly by the city and they get 200 million dollars in revenue from the rents collected. 80% of the population qualifies for that public housing. That’s why it’s so effective and that’s why it has such good results, and that’s why you get revenue, because you have people of different incomes. It’s not just for the lowest income people. As a utility, it balances rent. That’s why it’s cheaper to rent an apartment in downtown Vienna, the capital city of Austria, than it is in Iowa City, and that’s kind of a crazy statistic. That’s what the last numbers that I looked at were. So, these are all things that, it might be an upfront investment, but in the long run it gives us more revenue streams and it can really make a dent I believe.

Rigby: So, speaking of housing, your opponent Ross Nusser also states on his website that affordable housing is a top priority for him. How do you think you two differ in approach to that? 

Oliver: I’m not saying that he doesn’t actually, legitimately want to have affordable housing. Nothing like that. What I do think is that he is someone who has a background in real estate, and with property management, and with being a real estate developer, and being a landlord who has Airbnb’s, and I think that just naturally shapes your worldview in terms of what is possible when it comes to affordable housing. In different forms, when I’ve been talking about how other cities around the world are looking into public housing, he responds to it by talking about things like permanent supportive housing, so I just don’t think he knows or has heard about a lot of these things, which doesn’t make him dumb, he’s just been not exposed to the things that I’ve been exposed to, and hasn’t read things that I have or learned things that I have, doesn’t have the same lived experience.

So, when people generally in the United States think about affordable housing, they think about tax credits to developers and landlords, which let’s say you’re a developer and you want to build an apartment complex in the city. The city will say okay, you can build this, but 10% of the units have to be what’s considered affordable, and it actually has a definition, affordable, and that is 30% of your income or less goes to rent and other housing costs. Even that, I don’t know if it follows that model exactly, because a lot of the “affordable” units that we see from these tax credits are not very affordable, and also they’re not permanent. We have increased the longevity of them, from 5-10 years to 15-20 I believe, but it’s just kind of kicking the problem down the road to deal with later. Giving money to the wealthiest among us, thinking that it is going to trickle down onto the rest of us, it is actually just trickle down economics.

Rigby: And that worked great.

Oliver: And that worked great! It’s just trickle down economics that’s kind of painted as this progressive thing. It’s not like I don’t think in this environment that we never do something like that. I think it can help ease symptoms of the problem, but at the same time we need to be looking at the overall, root causes of these problems, and the solution is not to continue to give money to the wealthiest people among us. It doesn’t work, we know it doesn’t work in the long run. We need to think of more structural change to how deep down we view housing.

Amanda: Speaking of your competitors, instead of accepting campaign donations, you’re directing people to donate funds to the Emma Goldman Clinic, Shelter House, Iowa Trans Mutual Aid, and the Prairielands Freedom Fund. What steered you to make this decision? Do you think that this will hinder you from winning the overall election, especially because Ross is using donations to campaign for himself?

Oliver: A huge barrier to me even coming to the decision to run was that, for one, I don’t like making things about myself. I have very intense criticisms of electoral politics a lot and their effectiveness, and one of those main criticisms is that so much of electoral politics is lighting millions and billions of dollars on fire and losing. Or, you win and you get minimal to no results. So, I think going into this as a special election, I thought that I would not have to spend as much money as I would in a general election, I thought that I already, due to a lot of the community work that I do, have kind of like face and name recognition around town, so there was a lot of that work already done for me.

But, deep down it’s just, I think that grassroots organizing and things that are not just electoral politics, I think those are more important than just electing the right people. I do think that strategically, getting local government officials on your side or electing the right people, I think it can really, really help working people directly in their communities and it can strengthen movements. So, a lot of the people in town that would donate to me, I feel like they’re low income people, they’re activists, they’re people who are putting their blood, sweat, and tears in these organizations on the ground that do so much good in our community, and I didn’t want to take their money.

So, I’ve been spending a lot of my own money. A lot of people have been begging me, like please let me give you money, and so if I accept money from somebody I personally vet them. I have a conversation with them and I say is this something that you can afford, and please be honest with me. If they convince me that yes that is the case, my next question is, is this a substitution to doing something else in the community? If they say no, I will continue to do stuff for the community and put finances into the community, then I’ll accept that money. I just didn’t want to take money from the general public. I fear that I would get a lot of money, and then be tempted to spend it needlessly, if that makes sense.

Honestly, I don’t think that this is really hindering me. I think at the time of the primary, I had spent $700, and $534 of it was on yard signs, and the rest of it was on the website and printing, and I still won the election with 69% of the vote. My opponent spent over $3,000 which is public record. I think that goes to show that money can only go so far in things like this.

Julia: Despite the spending ratio between you and your competitor, I’ve seen your signs in just about every business, house, and window in town. I’ve seen your name on a sign all over my social media. How is it that you’re getting people so worked up, so excited about this election?

Oliver: I don’t think it’s necessarily just me, it’s about the values of the campaign, it’s about the knowledge that we just elected a TV show rapist as president for a second time. Am I allowed to say that on the radio? I’m sorry. 

KRUI: Yes.

Oliver: The status quo failed again to combat this right wing authoritarianism. People are fed up and they know that we can’t keep going in that direction that the Democratic party, and the elites of the Democratic party, the higher ups of the Democratic party have tried and failed. They ran a right-wing campaign that was xenophobic, that abandoned trans people, that campaigned with Dick Cheney who’s a war criminal, they shamelessly participated in wholesale genocide and slaughter abroad, and they lost.

They made all of those moral concessions with the justification that we have to beat Donald Trump. And they were going after a demographic of Republicans that don’t want to vote for Trump. That doesn’t exist in the numbers that you need to win. I think people around the country, and in Iowa City, are just realizing that you need a message that is not the status quo, that is for working people, that is unapologetically pro-working class, a populist economic message, and you need to stand with oppressed people, and unflinchingly do so. I think that this is the reason why people really support my campaign. It’s not just about me, it’s about that message. 

Amanda: Looking at the city’s 2023-2028 strategic plan, I know we’ve talked a little bit about the environment in previous questions, but the City of Iowa City states that it wants to focus on maintaining and improving a lot of the outdoor spaces and the Iowa River. A lot of people in the city are concerned about environmental pollution and especially the water quality of the city, especially given the fact that Iowa has the 2nd highest cancer rate in the US, and the fastest rising cancer rate. Do you have any plans to address this?

Oliver: Specific plans, it is hard to say exactly the approach, because there’s so many different angles that you can look at this particular problem from, and it’s hard to say exactly what authority the city does and does not have. I’ve been talking with a lot of lawyers about these things, and the lawyers don’t even agree with each other sometimes about what they think is possible and what they don’t think is possible for the city to do.

What I would love to see is… I guess I’ll just start with the story of how in the 90’s, the city of Bogotá, Columbia, they had so much poverty, they had so much pollution, they had so much litter, they had so much car infrastructure, just smog, everything. They got a new mayor, I can’t remember his name right now, and he got into power, and he was like, “I want to make the city happier.” That was his message. The way he went about doing that was scrapping the multi-million dollar idea of a highway to go through the town and using all of that money to expand on green spaces, build parks, build hundreds of miles of bike infrastructure, build hiking trails, invest in infrastructure that isn’t car based. They even did something where he was like, “Alright guys, one day I declare that you will not drive a car, unless you absolutely have to.” I don’t remember the exact stipulations, but the vast majority of people did not drive a car for one day, and it was so popular that it’s now a city wide holiday yearly, and I believe it’s still going on.

Instantly, they saw people utilizing common space, public space, in ways that they were not used to doing. The smog thinned dramatically in one day. The green spaces that were built were utilized in ways that they hadn’t seen before. People just went out in the community and they enjoyed their community spaces in ways that they hadn’t seen. That, mixed with the investment in green spaces, the investment in moving away from fossil fuels, in pedestrian and bike infrastructure, that type of thing, it really made a huge positive impact on the city. I cannot wait to learn and read more about how they went about doing these things, and the nitty gritty on how these things were implemented, and the exact ways that they went about doing this because I’m very passionate about not only making the city more accessible and more public and more democratic, but making it a beautiful place, and making it one where you’re not afraid to get in the water.

Rigby: You’ve said you are a gun owner who dislikes gun culture. One quote that stuck with me is, “We sadly live in a country with many more guns than people, and with our current leaders, it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. I think we can avoid harm by strengthening our community networks and engaging in this type of gun violence intervention.” 

This view is pretty different from the left’s usual take on gun control, and pretty different from what I’ve grown up being taught. Could you expand on your thoughts about gun control a little bit?

Oliver: There’s been a lot of talk about the fact that, and it’s also something that I’ve addressed on my website, about how I hate the NRA too. People, with whatever agenda that they have, have gone through 10-plus years of my social media history and posted things that they consider to be bad. A few of those things were a 6-year old picture of me holding a gun, and a couple recent pictures of me just at the shooting range.

So, a little bit of background of my journey to becoming a gun owner, if you will. I’m someone who has been very public facing in my activism and the type of activism that I’ve done. I was in the streets when Michael Brown was murdered, I was at Standing Rock with Indigenous People in North Dakota when they were fighting the pipeline going through, I was at Mississippi Stand when we were fighting the pipeline in Iowa, I was at Donald Trump’s inauguration and I got arrested there protesting his first inauguration. I was in Minneapolis for Philando Castile, I was at Tamir Rice protests, I was in Minneapolis during the George Floyd uprisings.

Because of this public facing history of activism, and being arrested in D.C. during Donald Trump’s inauguration, I was heavily doxxed by extremely violent right wing nationalists, neo-nazis that had posted not only my address, but my partner’s address, and my family’s addresses, where they work, and sometimes what their phone numbers were. I think I was like 23 or 24 at the time, my partner and I, it was just something where we didn’t know what to do. These are the types of people where when political violence happens, 99% of the time it’s violent white supremacism right wing people. They commit the murders the vast majority of the time and they’re the people that I know that are capable of extreme violence, and have made direct threats to me and my family.

When I say that I have weapons, or I bought weapons for self defense, I don’t mean in the NRA talking point of ugh, what if someone walks in and steals my TV. If someone walked into my house to steal my TV I would let them have it. I think that lives matter more than property, and I think a lot of these NRA types, when they talk about self-defense, it’s actually just kind of murder fantasies about them wanting to be in a position where they can use their firearm. It’s the absolute opposite for me. Even if it was a neo-nazi, it would be the most devastating thing probably in my life if I had to use a firearm in self-defense.

Even with animals. I go back country hiking in bear country pretty frequently, so I have a handgun that is an absolute last resort if I’m being currently mauled by a bear, and I have all these other items. Pepper spray, bear spray is way more effective and all these other mitigations are way more effective, but if it comes down to it, I would rather shoot a bear than be eaten by one. Even if I had to shoot a bear, it would be devastating to me. Like I said, I’m a vegan. 

So, my reason for owning firearms, my philosophy surrounding firearms is so different than your average right wing person. It’s also put me in a place kind of like you mentioned in your question, a very unique person to where a lot of people where they’re in similar situations, like particularly with marginalized people, people who have faced similar threats. They’re like black, they’re trans, they’re part of the queer community, they are women who have stalkers. A lot of them don’t feel comfortable going to a racist organization like the NRA and asking for their help. So, if someone makes the hard decision to purchase firearms for self-defense for legitimate threats, and they feel comfortable coming to me and asking me, “Can you help me be safe when I’m going through this?” I will always do whatever I can for free. I have multiple times. I’m not telling people to buy firearms. I always tell them the risks involved, and make sure they really think this through because it is true that if you have a gun in your house, statistically you’re at much higher risk of gun violence, specifically marginalized people, specifically women. But, if they make that decision, I will be there to make it as safe as possible.

I even bought a safe that’s way bigger than I need, it’s like huge. My partner Juliet hates it because it takes up so much of our living room, and so they’ve tried to “yassify” my gun safe, make it look pretty. So many people have reached out to me because they’re like, “Hey, I have guns, but I have family coming over and I don’t have a proper place to store this.,” or, “I am currently expecting a child and I want a proper place to store this gun before I get rid of it,” or, “I really need my gun to not be in my house because my mental health is so terrible.” Usually, individualistic American gun culture does not have that community minded approach to gun safety, where people feel safe as a community to reach out and have these public resources that they can use. Countless times I’ve stored peoples’ guns in my gun safe for that reason. That’s the reason why the leader of the chapter of the Moms Demand Action endorsed me, it’s because of my commitment to gun safety in that way.

Amman: On Ross Nusser’s website he says that historical preservation is one of his most important values and at his last campaign event, he and his supporters were repeating similar things. The Iowa City Historical Preservation council is big into zoning and controlling what can and can’t be built in the city. Do you view that commission and its concerns about historical preservation as compatible with your affordable housing plans, or do you view them as NIMBY dog whistle?

Oliver: I guess it depends on who is saying it and their reasons for saying it. I’m someone who doesn’t think we need to be at odds at all. I think that we can maintain the character of a neighborhood, we can preserve important cultural things and buildings in our communities while at the same time adding density without having to tear down or heavily modify these places. I really like Friends of Historical Preservation because they’re really big on sustainability. If they have to demolish a historical site, they have a program, I’m blanking on the name right now [The Salvage Barn], but it’s for old historical buildings that have been torn down and they take the parts and the things from the historical building and store them there so if people who have a historical house or historical building, they need to repair it, they can recycle those things.

I think that it does not have to combat affordable housing. I don’t think it has to combat sustainability efforts. I think that they can work hand in hand. I really think that we should dispel the myth that you can’t have historical preservation while also building housing and adding density. I think we can bring the community together and really find a common ground on what type of architecture we want to use, and the scale of projects. There’s currently one being talked about now, it’s the rezoning of a place on North Governor street. They want to build what’s called the Goosetown apartments, and there’s lots of conversation going on there. A lot of people might think of zoning and this type of thing as boring, but I’m someone who has read lots of books about how zoning and city planning greatly affect cities, and how they are very political things that really play an important role. So, I don’t view these things as boring. A lot of people would. It’s fascinating how cool zoning can be.

Amman: On the topic of zoning, do you have a plan for that open downtown lot they’re talking about right now.

Oliver: Personally, I don’t have a plan. Obviously there are priorities of things. I don’t know exactly the stipulations or the costs involved, so I don’t know enough details to know what’s possible there, but I do know that the city has made a recommendation. There’s a few bids from different developers, and the city has made a recommendation to choose between one of the two. I’ve read both of the proposals, but I feel that I would need more context, and I would need to meet more with the city councilors and learn more about the process of how we got to this point to make an informed decision. I think it needs to be something that is very beneficial to the community and adds to our housing stock, I will say that.

Amanda: You’ve touched a little bit on the culture of community mindedness. A lot of times when it comes to politics, people feel like their voice isn’t heard. If you end up being elected, how do you plan to make yourself available to your constituents?

Oliver: I have my phone number on my website, and lots of people just cold call me, and I love that. I really want it to be known that I’m somebody who will meet with virtually anybody, and views everybody’s input in Iowa City as important. Not only just for me but I want people to feel that in general. I believe in the words of Henri Lefebvre or David Harvey, that people have a right to the city. I think that can start with more transparency with what the city is doing and the willingness of people to meet with anybody, the willingness of councilors to meet with anybody, so no one feels left out. 

Rigby: What are your plans and intentions of non-enforcement for specific state and federal laws that target certain community members, such as anti-trans laws or the ICE executive orders?

Oliver: In terms of anti-trans laws, there’s the TAC, the Trans Action Committee, and I’ve met with lots of people who are in that committee. I’ve met with lots of different transgender individuals with different backgrounds in Iowa City constantly about this type of thing. What I will say is that there are ideas that the Iowa ACLU will like, and think that there’s a good chance of being successful. Also, organizations like One Iowa, that’s an advocacy group for LGBTQ rights in Iowa. I remember phone banking for them when I was in like 7th grade. That was when gay marriage was being passed in Iowa. Remember when we had a state government where that was possible? That’s crazy. I don’t know if you all remember, I’m kind of old. Like I was saying before about how we can get creative with our wording, we can get creative with how our role as the city council can direct our city attorney in a way of how he interprets law. That’s kind of vague but that is a direction that a lot of these organizations like. 

When it comes to ICE, I think the city should do everything that it can in smart and strategic ways, like I was talking about with the mask mandate, we need to explore all options and work with lawyers and really try to explore how other communities are handling this. I don’t think it should be overlooked how much grassroots community organizing plays a role in protecting people in the community, and I think as a city, we can do so much in terms of providing education and resources to these grassroots organizations to effectively protect people. Tom Homan, he’s the director of ICE that Trump appointed, he went on I think CNN and was whining about how the people of Chicago know their rights too much and it’s making it hard for them to arrest people. So, he gets on TV and proves that if people, not only migrants know their rights, and if people in Iowa City know their rights, you do not have to talk to ICE, you do not have to talk to the police. Actually, I want Iowa City to have a culture where if ICE comes in here, they’re gonna get the door slammed in their face, and they know that we are a city that looks after each other and has solidarity with our neighbors, and we’re not gonna sell each other out. Those are directions I would love to go.

Rigby: Thank you for talking with us today, Oliver. Where can people can reach out to you if they have questions or concerns? 

Oliver: My website is https://www.oliverforiowacity.com/ 

You can read more about everything on there: how to vote, where to vote, when to vote, and at the bottom of the website, my phone number is on there. I love getting calls and texts. I haven’t gotten any weird ones yet. My email is on there. I get a lot of emails and I respond as quickly as I can. I kind of understand why people have secretaries now, because it’s extremely hard to keep up with all this, but I make it a point on principle to try my absolute best to respond to everybody and to meet with everybody in good faith. Absolutely reach out to me. 

You can reach Oliver at oweilein@gmail.com or (319) 269-5189

Note: We do not speak on behalf of the University of Iowa or the Board of Regents.

The post In Conversation with Oliver Weilein appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Dr. Ben-Ghiat visited the University of Iowa as a guest speaker for the UI Lecture Committee on October 3rd, 2024. KRUI had the opportunity to speak to her before her public appearance to talk about her significant research findings on the blueprint of fascist movements, strongmen, and why the MAGA political movement has been so successful just over a month ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Since the time of this conversation, Republican Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have been declared and confirmed as the winner of the Presidential election, and were inaugurated on January 20th, 2025. All comments were made in speculation of a tight race and in the context of rising political tensions between the two parties with the end of campaign season rapidly approaching.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Julia Anderson: In preparation for speaking with you today, of course, I watched just about every video of yours I could find on YouTube. An interesting fact that you mentioned, that I thought would be a really good starting point here is that 30% of the population at any given time has authoritarian leanings. This is in a global sense, and so according to the trending news today, there are many right-wing political movements happening across the world, such as in Hungary with President Viktor Orbán and in France with the rise of the National Rally Party led by Marine Le Pen. There’s also a couple of others I believe in Germany and whatnot, along with several places in Europe. What distinguishes fascism from other types of nationalist movements, and where do we see fascism rising in the world today?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I mean, classic fascism was a product of the 1920s and ’30s, with Mussolini being the person who invented fascism. It was very much a product of World War I and the total upheaval of everyone’s lives, with millions and millions of men who were killed and disabled, along with changes in gender relations. One of the things I found in my research, and fascism as the first example, is that authoritarianism is appealing when societies have had a huge amount of change.

World War I was the biggest example, with progress made with gender, racial equity, and the beginning of anti-colonial activities. That leads to a backlash, and so fascism was this very pure form of state driven racism, you know? Nations wanted to turn back the clock and make women kind of the tools of the state for procreation, but only the right kinds of babies. In the Nazi version, it was having the state channel to create a master race, right? That leads to imperialist campaigns of conquering, looting, and plundering. So today, things work differently, and there are many fascist aspects that remain. For example calling people garbage, scum, or vermin, and talking about them as animals. This has remained from fascism. Hitler used it for the Jews. Mussolini used it eventually for Jews, but also for leftists.

There’s the whole idea of needing these hyper nationalist movements to defeat Marxism and defeat communism that comes out of fascism. But things work differently today. There are not as many one party states where there’s no political opposition allowed. Really, it’s places like North Korea and China, which are communist. So fascism remains in its spirit, in its language, and many policies, but today I use the word authoritarian because that encompasses the fact we still have elections. Like in Hungary or Turkey, you have authoritarians, but they have elections and they’re not one party states.

Anderson: Is it possible to see fascism in a democracy such as what we’re seeing across Europe? Are these actually considered fascist movements?

Ben-Ghiat: Some people use the word fascism for them, and there’s a whole debate on this including what we do about Trump and the GOP. Are they fascist? Do they want fascism? So, there’s a debate on whether you could use the word today, right? Or, you want to restrict it, and I’m kind of in the middle where in some ways it’s not useful to label Viktor Orbán a fascist, because then people say, “Well, wait a minute, it’s not a one party state. It’s not a pure dictatorship. So, what are you talking about?” That’s why I use the word authoritarian. Fascism was just the first stage of authoritarianism, which is when the executive, personal power of the leader kind of takes over, and eradicates or highly damages the independence of the judiciary and opposition parties. That allows the leader to have supreme power and even immunity from prosecution.

So, there are many similarities, but definitely some of the same conditions that led to fascism—like people feeling they need to turn the clock back on racial or gender emancipation, all that stuff—that exists today.

Anderson: You brought up a good point a second ago with mentioning how this relates to Donald Trump and the rise of this kind of Trumpism version of Republicanism in American politics. Since the release of your book, which served as an analysis of the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in Italy, he essentially created the blueprint for right wing dictatorship.

As it relates to Donald Trump and with the upcoming election, you’ve spoken very publicly and been very critical of the policies contained in Project 2025, and how they relate to fascism. A common response is, “It can’t happen here in the U.S. We have too many guardrails in place. That really wouldn’t be possible. As entertaining as politics is right now, nothing’s really a threat, an actual tangible threat to our democracy.” But, what is it that experts making this claim, that there is a connection between the two, what are they seeing that indicates that the U.S. is susceptible to a fascist movement?

Ben-Ghiat: Well, we already have many signs of this. So basically, you know, Trump is an authoritarian. He’s in my book. It was one of the first books to put him in historical perspective, look at him and see how does he bring forth not just fascism, but also right wing military dictatorships. Trump has been on record many times saying he wants the military to have a new role. Not just abroad, which has been their role, but also he thinks protesters should be shot. He’s talked about executing generals who are not loyal. He wants the military to be used, in part, for domestic repression.

So, he doesn’t just borrow from fascism, he borrows from these other forms of authoritarianism. What has happened to the GOP since he became president is that in my analysis it’s become an autocratic party. Trump has a genuine leader-call. It’s extraordinary what he’s been able to do. Working in a democracy, he has been able to have this personal control over the party. Now, he has his daughter in law, Laura Trump, who’s the head of the Republican National Committee, and the money is raised from ordinary Republicans around the country. It goes to Trump and not to other campaigns. There’s a lot of personalization of politics, and the GOP is now a party that is dependent on lying, such as the idea that Trump won the 2020 election. Also, they lie about January 6th, which was an attempt to overthrow the government. So that’s an example.

How far have we come down the path of authoritarianism? We already had an attempt to overthrow the government with tens of thousands of people committing violence, along with the GOP, Fox News, and all the other allies that have been trying to cover this up and say it was just terrorists. They said it wasn’t violent, because that’s what you do in history if you’re not done. So, they’re dependent on corruption, on lying, on violence, and that’s how authoritarian parties work. They can’t really have fair and free elections anymore in countries. That’s why they engage in this election denial.

The last thing I’ll say is that we never had a national experience of dictatorship in America, but we had a regional authoritarianism which was the Jim Crow South. We have a long history, and not just in the South, of voter suppression, a lot of which is racially motivated, but also just political trickery, right? So, in places like Ohio the GOP uses voter suppression very effectively. Redistricting and gerrymandering, these are all forms of voter suppression and just trying to game the results so that it’s not really a free and fair election, even though it seems to be. So, we have all this history and that’s why it can happen here, but it always looks different. That’s why people don’t see it coming. When you analyze something like the tool book of global authoritarianism, and then look at our history here, you see how they meet.

Trump was very smart from the very beginning in 2016 to address himself to all kinds of extremists, including southern racists who never liked Barack Obama, never thought he should have been there, along with neo-Nazis and the militias. So, he created a big tent so that everybody could be part of his Trumpism and that’s why some people would say, “Okay, well, isn’t he repeating fascism?” and in part, he is, but he’s also activating things that are specific to our country, if that makes sense.

Anderson: Yes, it does seem that his popularity increased with this emotional appeal. It was like an appeal to people that felt like they had been forgotten, given that they weren’t at the forefront of the progress being made for people that have historically been left behind.

As a response, as you mentioned, the GOP does use a lot of rhetoric to combat against claims that they’re fascists, such as blaming the left, accusing the “the radical left” of being a fascist, or an authoritarian movement that’s attempting to oust him from politics and disrupt the democratic process. Is there any validity or any weight to those claims, or are they simply just diversion tactics? 

Ben-Ghiat: That part is diversion tactics. I call it the upside down world of authoritarianism, you take everything and you flip it. So, a diversionary tactic is claiming that when Joe Biden stepped aside due to age and a sense that he wasn’t as effective as he could have been, and Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee, the Republicans are saying that was a coup attempt. What we have to pay attention to is the big narrative lines they use, and one of them is that it’s the Democrats who are authoritarians. They’re very good at doing that.

But you brought up something really important about the validity of all this. Democrats had kind of neglected white working class people and rural populations. The Biden administration has hugely corrected this, both with like manufacturing policies and stuff about addressing the opioid rhetoric epidemic, right? But they were a population that was not served by Democrats. So, Trump is a marketer at heart, and he’s a brilliant marketer. He’s not the first one, there are others in my book who scan the political marketplace and see who is underserved, and is going to be susceptible to his appeals. He doesn’t care about the working class, but he came to them and he said, “You’ve been forgotten. I love you, and I will fix it for you,” and of course they voted for him. Here was somebody speaking to them directly, and authoritarians from Mussolini, Berlusconi, even Putin do the same. They know how to use emotion to make people feel they care about them.

There are huge crowds at Trump rallies. They feel that he loves them, and he’s very good at making them think that. So, he went and he said, “You were forgotten.” Democrats didn’t have anything to compete with that. Emotion is extremely important, and it’s actually been authoritarians who have known how to use emotion until very recently, with the Kamala Harris joy and love sentiment. That’s really recent, but Hillary Clinton was not a joy and love type of emotional person. It was Trump who knew how to do that, and he gets credit for that. I believe it’s a terrible tragedy for our nation that he doesn’t actually care about the American people. He cares about his own power and riches, but he’s very good at making people feel like he cares about them.

Anderson: As someone who has obsessively watched the news since probably 2016—even when I was a little too young to understand exactly what was going on—I could tell the emotional appeal was strong, even if you don’t have much of a political background. Donald Trump on TV is someone that anyone can understand. Just breaking down his vocabulary, it’s not the most complex, but it appeals to people and it’s accessible.

Ben-Ghiat: There are studies that he, especially in the whole 2016 campaign and while he was president, was at a fourth or fifth grade level with his vocabulary. The other thing he did is that he used all caps. Most of his posts are all caps. I study propaganda, there’s a chapter in my book about propaganda, and I also studied visual things. He’s a hugely visual person, and so at the beginning, he would capitalize only some words in his tweets. They were words that he knew when people were scrolling would stand out. Stuff about his victimhood, stuff about the horrible Democrats, stuff about him being so great, he would capitalize those things, and he would use this very basic language that appealed to people who wanted a politician who they feel is down to earth.

Anderson: When there are serious, credible threats of authoritarianism or fascism on the rise globally in a political climate, what are the most effective practices in curbing that rise?

Ben-Ghiat: So recently, we had a really good example in Poland. In 2023, the opposition mobilized to the polls and voted out a far-right government that had all but banned abortion nationally and was horribly anti-immigrant, which is the same checklist of far-right things that we are having here and all kinds of other places. So, what do they do? They expose the corruption of the far-right government and their hypocrisy. That is a little harder to do here because the GOP is highly organized with a very effective party machine for messaging. They also have Fox News, and there was no Fox News equivalent in Poland. But, they did expose the hypocrisy, showing that government politicians were actually selling visas to immigrants and profiting, gouging them. People didn’t like that. They also appealed to women about abortion rights and so and they had positive messaging.

They also had like a six party coalition. Now, we are really hindered with this because we’ve only got the two parties. We’re a giant nation, a big, powerful nation, and when one of those parties leaves democracy, doesn’t recognize election results anymore, and uses violence, what do you do? That’s hard, and that’s why we have Republicans endorsing Harris now. Hundreds and hundreds of prominent Republicans, people who served with Trump, and generals are coming out and saying things like, “For the good of the country,” and “Put country over party this time and keep him out,” because we know how dangerous it is for national security. So in Poland, the polls were able to get six parties representing a wide swath of opinions. They all unified against the far-right government.

The final thing they did was mobilize emotion. They had the March of a Million Hearts, and literally a heart as their logo. It was about positivity, solidarity, kindness, all of it was a values based campaign. Plus, the anti-corruption and pro-reproductive rights. It was the largest turnout since communism fell in 1989. Then that led to the largest voter turnout since 1989 and now they have progressives in power. Those are things that are much harder to do here, but that’s why when the Harris Walz campaign started talking about joy and love, I was like, “This is good, this is what we need.”

Anderson: Honestly, I do take a more moderate stance between the two, specifically when it comes to being on radio, but I do really enjoy the positivity that’s been coming from the Democratic Party since they’ve switched to having Vice President Harris be the primary candidate as opposed to Joe Biden. There is a massive tonal switch that I don’t think really anyone can deny. If you watched the DNC, it just seemed like there was a lot more positivity in the room than there has been in the last eight years that we’ve seen from the Democratic Party.

Ben-Ghiat: On that positive, moderate note, it’s really important to engage people on a positive basis and not just attack. It’s not by demonizing each other, it’s by actually reaching out to those you know. Bridge building is important, and a lot of people have family members or friends they don’t talk to anymore because of politics. You have to have those conversations. All the research says you should not shame them, you should not condescend them. You have to meet them where they are and keep the connection going, because otherwise we don’t have a civic fabric anymore, and that’s what can lead to political violence, and nobody wants that except a very small minority of extremists. Most Americans don’t want that.

In fact, on some of the major issues, Americans are much more moderate than MAGA. They are for reproductive rights. They are for same-sex marriage. Those things have been accepted. There’s a lot of repair we can do. That’s why I’m also on this tour talking about these things. It’s just we can all do things our own way and have our own contribution, because what is the alternative?

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Reid currently hosts “The ReidOut” on MSNBC, and was the first black woman to host a primetime cable news program. In her speech at Hancher, Reid led listeners through her life and explained how she got here. Being “here,” of course, meant being a nationally recognized and award-winning journalist and political analyst. Her story began with her adventurous, West Indies mother, who Reid said pushed her to learn about and explore her passions.

After her lecture, an audience Q&A, and a reception, Reid visited KRUI for an interview. The interview was conducted by KRUI editor-in-chief Lauren Asman, KRUI writer Sebastian Buchman, and Daily Iowan reporter Kate Perez. Also in the studio were Daily Iowan photographer Olivia Lapchick and DITV reporter Johnny Valtman. Alex Lenaers, KRUI’s production director, engineered the live interview and edited the audio for re-upload.

The internet has produced a lot of bite-sized information, Reid said, and as a result, people are reading less and not always absorbing accurate information. “I definitely think the narrowing of the American palette has been bad for journalism and bad for the country,” Reid said. To correct this, she said, mainstream media should practice transparency and try to lead audiences to a wide range of journalists and investigative pieces.

Reid urged new journalists to sharpen their writing skills, and to read as much as possible. The journalist shared her past affinity for Russian novels, including “War and Peace,” as an example. She encouraged listeners to branch out and explore new subjects. “Read the banned books,” Reid said. “Those are the first things that should be on your list.” She also recommends conducting interviews, and learning how to listen to interviewees.

The interview covered racial politics as well. Reid broke down the difference between racism on an individual level and racism on an institutional level. She also explained her thoughts on recent legislation to ban critical race theory. She explained how the phrase “critical race theory” is a law school program that has been negatively branded, primarily by conservative Christopher Rufo, and is now inaccurately associated with all race-related education. “Trying to ban critical race theory is dumb, because they’re still going to teach it in law school,” Reid said.

Reid’s final insights featured a humorous riff on getting her Jamaican godmother to eat steak medium-rare, and shoutouts to several journalists and political experts. She listed Rachel Maddow, Nicole Wallace, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Adam Serwer and David Folkenflik as examples of good reporters and writers.

Access the full conversation and other interviews at anchor.fm/krui.

The post A Conversation with Joy Reid appeared first on KRUI Radio.

KRUI news staffers interview former Minister for the Environment of Chile, UI alum and former KRUI Music Director Marcelo Mena. In this interview, they cover climate policy, the economics of climate change and KRUI.

The post In Studio: Marcelo Mena appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last couple of months, then you know that the United States’ midterm elections will be held on Tuesday, November 6th, 2018. Midterms are held during the middle of the presidents current term of service — hence, “miderms” — and they are elections for the House and Senate, as well as governors.

So while we may not be voting for a new president just yet, the representatives that we put into office will really affect how “easy” the last two years of President Trump’s current term is.

So, yeah, you could say that midterms are pretty important.

To get in the spirit, I have created a top ten list of politically-motivated songs that I love and inspire me to get out and vote.

“Happy Judgement Day” by Neck Deep

“Happy Judgement Day” comes off of Neck Deep’s third studio album The Peace and The Panic. Hailing from Wales, UK, the pop punk band took their political stance on the political climate of the world shortly after the election of U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

There’s a strong, sarcastic tone throughout this song, seen in lyrics like “Oh, what a time to be alive! / Wake up and smell the dynamite.”

Themes that are touched upon include reliance on our phone screens, Brexit, the infamous Wall, and worshiping celebrities. There’s a lot touched on, but considering the enormity of what Judgement Day is supposed to be, it’s fitting to touch on that many themes.

The songs overarching opinion is that ultimately, we are f**ked, and we did this to ourselves.

“Building walls / dropping bombs / stop the world, I’m getting off / oh we almost had it / then we pissed it all away.” 

“Everyone Lies To Me” by Knuckle Puck

This track comes off of their latest release Shapeshifter. While the album in its entirety isn’t a political album, this track is one that comments on the nature of our current government.

The lyrics comment on how our current generation is undoubtedly listening to what the government is telling us, and how they make up our minds for us. There are lyrics in here that can’t be taken as anything but political — for example, “They’ll cut tax for crooked and corporate” and “Cause education only taught you what they want you to know.”

It’s on the angstier side of pop-punk, something that I’ve always really enjoyed about Knuckle Puck.

“Hands Held High” by Linkin Park

This song came off of their 2007 album Minutes to Midnight, and this track has always hit me right in the gut. The song criticizes rich men and politicians who use their power to further themselves in life.

There’s much speculation that this song directly comments on the Bush Patriot Act, by saying that Bush was taking away freedoms entitled to us as Americans.

Other parts of the song comment directly on the War on Terror, and certain scenarios that were happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What I like most about this song is not only the lyricism, but the simple snare drum beat that follows it. It reminds me of something that a marching band would play — and I’m sure it’s meant to sound like something a soldier would march to.

“Hero of War” by Rise Against

This acoustic track is always heartbreaking to listen to. The song follows a Iraq veteran looking back on the hardships that he endured during war.

The lyrics allude to a couple different situations, one of them being the human rights violations committed by American troops against detainees in Iraq.

“We took him away / A bag over his face / From his family and his friends / They took off his clothes / They pissed in his hands / I told them to stop / But then I joined in / We beat him with guns / And batons not just once / But again and again”

Another situation that arises is a woman or child that walks out during a firefight and how the narrator has to shoot them down, as they don’t know if they are an innocent bystander or a suicide bomber.

The song is meant to showcase the heartbreaking situations that our soldiers go through overseas, and to hopefully persuade people to not support the War on Terror.

“Dear Mr. President” by P!nk

P!nk is one of my favorite vocalists, and songs like this play a huge reason as to why that is. This song is so underrated.

This song acts as P!nk’s open letter to the president, who, at the time, was George W. Bush. The lyrics comment on the War on Terror, No Child Left Behind Act, the disapproval of homosexuality, lack of empathy for the poor, and Bush’s strong religious beliefs.

The lyrics are posed as questions, such as “How do you sleep while the rest of us cry? / How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?”

It’s a really moving song that stands the test of time; many comments on the YouTube video of this song suggest that President Trump have a listen.

“Still Waiting” by Sum 41

This song has a sick guitar riff that takes off in the beginning, which really drives this powerful anthem.

The song opens up with “So am I / still waiting / for this world to stop hating?”

Vocalist Deryck Whibley said in an interview with MTV back in 2002 that this song isn’t just about the war on terrorism, but “. . .the war on everything. It’s about the world as we know it.” He also said that the song was heavily inspired by the events of 9/11.

“American Idiot” by Green Day

Who would I be if I didn’t include “American Idiot?” This entire album of the same name was a concept album during the time of George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004. The song was heavily inspired by his politics, 9/11, and the War on Terror.

This song also comments on the affects that the media has on consumers, especially in the post 9/11 period where Americans were on edge.

This song is an absolute banger, in case you haven’t heard.

“A World Divided” by Our Last Night

This song doesn’t comment on politics the same way that the others on this list have, but it still shows a strong point of view: we are divided amongst ourselves by the color of our skin and our beliefs.

“Divided by the colors / Split by our beliefs / Forced against each other / nothing’s as it seems / But between white walls, we could forget it all / The fear would fade, we could start to change / A world divided and afraid”

I think it takes a good approach and is a little bit more timeless than the rest of the picks on this list. Segregation has always been an issue in our society and the way that we see each other.

“20 Dollar Nose Bleed” by Fall Out Boy

One of my favorite things about Fall Out Boy is that their lyrics are very much left up to interpretation — this song is no exception.

The song mostly refers to a drug called Benzedrine, an amphetamine that is known for causing nosebleeds. But there’s also some political references in the second verse:

“It feels like fourteen carats but no clarity / When I look at the man who would be king / The man who would be king / Goes to the desert, the same war his dad rehearsed / Came back with flags on coffins and said / “‘We won, oh we won!’”

It’s been speculated that this verse is about George W. Bush in his president-elect state (looking like fourteen carats but no clarity) and going to the same war that his dad had (George H. W. Bush also went to war in the middle east during his presidency).

“Imagine” by John Lennon

To close out this list, I figured I would bring back this gem. This has got to be one of the most political songs of all time, perhaps. This song came out by former Beatles member John Lennon in 1971. It was very anti-war, this war being the one in Vietnam at the time.

The lyrics are asking the listener to just imagine what life would be like with no religion, no countries, no possessions. It’s a really interesting thought. The simple piano that flows throughout the piece carries the lyrics from one verse to the next.

It’s a sugar-coated, optimistic, hopeful song. That’s something that we might need more of sometimes.

I hope you enjoyed my picks! Let me know what yours are!

The post Jen’s Top Ten’s: Favorite Political Songs appeared first on KRUI Radio.

For many, politics and entertainment are meant to be in distinct categories and politics shouldn’t enter our areas of entertainment. The way that I’m defining politics in this article isn’t as a policy related discussion or by our political party but it includes the political issues of woman rights, social issues, and race.

The biggest examples of people being upset when celebrities talk about political issues have always been when celebrities chose a platform in which millions of U.S. viewers were watching like the Superbowl and the Academy Awards.Speaking about these issues with a large audience allows for people to listen and hear what the discussion is about.

An example of woman’s rights, more specifically, the pay gap between men and women, being discussed by a celebrity on a big platform is Patricia Arquette’s 2015 Oscar Acceptance Speech. The speech started out normal before finishing with the statement that it was time for women to receive equal rights within America. This speech was received in both positive and negative ways.

Positive reactions consisted of people supporting her remarks and continuing the conversation over the pay gap difference as well as Meryl Streep’s and Jennifer Lopez’s reaction at the actual event itself.

Arquette was able to get the discussion about woman’s rights out on a bigger scale than if she had said these statements in an interview. Even if that interview was on a top talk show it wouldn’t have received the same amount of attention that her 2015 Oscar Speech did. Twitter hashtags were made to continue promotion of her comments on social media.

Negative reactions towards her comments were also abounded as many people felt like Arquette shouldn’t have discussed this at the Oscar’s and others felt like her opinion was wrong.

Arquette was thus able to start a debate about women and their rights as human beings. However, when she was asked to expand on her comments, Arquette made it obvious that she was advocating for equal rights and equal pay for white woman and not all women.

When asked to clarify her comments, Arquette stated, “It’s time for women in America and all the men, all the gay men, the people of color, to fight for us now.” While she was promoting woman’s rights, Arquette failed to realize that being a woman, a person of color, and be a part of the LGBTQ community could all be attributes of a single person. Reactions towards her failure to discuss intersectionality were quick.

Even after her comments, many still applauded Arquette because any discussion was good enough. Since Arquette’s Oscar Speech, many have continued the discussion of woman’s rights and equal pay. While Arquette may not have realized that she didn’t include intersectionality in her speech, many others have.

An example of race being discussed in a popular entertainment event includes Beyonce’s 2016 Super Bowl 50 halftime show.
(Watch it here.Skip to 7:04 to view Beyonce’s performance).

Her performance was deemed political from her song choice, outfit choice, and the entire performance as a whole. Her performance was considered by some to be pro-black and anti-police alongside many other things. Reactions varied from those who supported Beyonce’s support of people of color and were thrilled that someone with her stance in our society spoke out. Others were upset at Beyonce’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement and for what they believed to be an “anti-police” performance.

Reactions against Beyonce’s Performance:

Anna Kooiman, at the time, was the host of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends”:

“Beyonce got a police escort there and then gives a salute to the Black Lives Matter movement.”

National Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Jonathan Thompson:

“Art is one thing, but yelling fire in a crowded theater is an entirely different one.”

“At this point, I think the NFL had a serious error in judgment.”

Rudolph Giuliani, former New York City Mayor.

“I thought it was really outrageous that she used it as a platform to attack police officers who are the people who protect her and protect us.” Also stated that he would have preferred a “decent wholesome entertainment.”

Reactions in Support of Beyonce’s Performance

The article titled “Why the Outrage Over Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance is Completely Ridiculous.” 

Jessica Williams in response to Rudolph Giuliani saying that the performance wasn’t “wholesome’ enough for middle America.”

“Are you saying you can’t talk about race issues to middle America? What are they, so delicate and unaware and maybe so white that Beyonce is too much for them?”

Damon Young, Editor-in-Chief of www.verysmartbrothas.com

“I think that you’re hard-pressed to find that demonstrative an example of performative blackness on stage, on such a high profile stage”

—

While the reactions to both the examples above are split, with some in support and others against. It’s clear that both of them managed to do one thing.

Keep the discussion alive.

The public attention span is very short. Meaning that when something happens, we talk about it for a few days, weeks, or months and then we move on to the next thing. Injecting politics in entertainment whether that be in award shows or sports shows is a good time to get the voice out even if some people are against this.

Politics within our entertainment is a good thing in the sense that it allows for a bigger pool of opinions to be heard. It’s also a way for us to be confronted with the issues that we may not want to discuss. Politics within our popular culture ensures that we are consistently aware of what is happening around us.

What’s your opinion? Do you believe that politics have a place in entertainment or do you feel that politics and entertainment should be kept separately?

Fill out this short survey below and voice your opinion! It’s anonymous!

https://uiowa.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3OEWB9AW4TtvgPj

The post Living in White America: Politics in Popular Culture appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Woods earned a Ph.D in philosophy, focusing on ethics and tyranny, while drawing inspiration from his historical idol, Socrates.  With this knowledge, he explored the state of journalism in America today.  

He started out by explaining how the divisiveness in America did not start during the 2016 presidential election, but rather on his home turf due to the controversial death of Baltimore’s Freddie Gray.

Because of his close-encounter experiences to the “revolution” in Baltimore, Woods was able to see the inevitable hostile America.

I found his insight on the issues in Baltimore very intriguing, since last year I spent a good portion of the summer watching the Wire: a TV series all about Baltimore’s issues regarding police tactics, drugs, systematic racism, and politics.  

Woods said the problems in Baltimore are apparent throughout America, not only existing today but since the time of the Founding Fathers.

Woods then transitioned into talking about his column in the Baltimore City Paper, “Democracy in Crisis”, and how it strays away from the popular journalism the country’s used to.  

His column focuses on field reporting and immersing oneself into the situation.  This philosophy was best established when Woods brought up the recent white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, VA and how he was there on the ground.

Another tactic of his column that distances from mainstream journalism is his lack of care for being pinned as bias.  For “Democracy in Crisis”, Woods does not see the need to offer a counter viewpoint to his own because he said it distracts the reader and takes away from the content’s message.  

Woods established this mindset in his reporting on Charlottesville in that he did not offer any viewpoints that supported the white supremacist rallies and their right to free speech.

 He said this is a major problem in broadcast journalism, the idea that TV panels need people on both sides of spectrum so they do not appear biased.  

Rather than focusing on the issues at hand, these media platforms care more about how they’re viewed by the public.

Because of his distaste in the higher echelon of journalism, Woods emphasized smaller, independent newspapers that stray away from the mediums norms.  As a result, a lot of his articles have been published in prestigious newspapers around the world, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even in Iowa City with Little Village Magazine.  

Woods not only writes for Baltimore’s City Paper, but also writes non-fiction, with stories such as Coffin Point: The Strange Cases of Ed McTeer and Witchdoctor Sheriff.  

He ended his discussion by painting a rather dark, pessimistic view for the future of America, in that he believes things are only going to get worse.

 I sat there in my booth wanting to believe he was wrong.  That instead of continuing down this downward spiral of divisiveness and fear, maybe America will rise from the firestorm it lit.  One thing I do know for certain is at the moment, the chances are exponentially getting worse.  

The post Witching Hour: The Witchdoctor Sheriff Will See You Now @ The Mill 10/21/17 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

However, we cannot ignore what the individual states are up to at a time of high drama in the federal

government. The Iowa 2017 legislative docket looks like a mixed bag. Including bills about “Stand Your Ground” laws (remember the legislation used to justify the murder of Trayvon Martin?) and various bills looking to restrict voting rights, there is legislation being introduced all across the board in terms of topics and political stances.

Here are some of the bills being introduced related to reproductive justice:

Senate File 11: Maternal Health Care for Low-Income Women

This legislation aims to establish a way for low-income women who use a Medicaid family-planning program for their pre-natal care to receive continued, comprehensive coverage after they give birth.

Senate File 2: Defunding Planned Parenthood/State-Only Family Planning Program

Connected to the tirade about defunding Planned Parenthood, this bill aims to take Planned Parenthood clinics out of the Medicaid-approved health care provider networks. This means that people with Medicaid would not be able to get their care from Planned Parenthood covered. This would be a substantial blow to our local Planned Parenthood’s security, because it could mean that they lose a large group of their patients.

Senate File 53: Abortion Prohibitions

This bill prevents anyone from having a legal, safe abortion after 20 weeks, unless the “unborn baby’s life” is in danger. You read that right: not in case the woman’s life is in danger. No, that would be too humane. This bill protects the fetus and not the woman/ fetal container.

Senate File 67: Oral Hormonal Contraceptives

This bill would let pharmacists prescribe and then sell women hormonal birth control pills regardless of whether or not they have a prescription from a doctor.

Senate File 27: Abortion Funding Restrictions

This bill prohibits people from using federal health care reform money (like Obamacare subsidies) to pay for an abortion in Iowa. It also prohibits using any federal health care reform money to pay for insurance plans that may cover abortion, regardless of whether or not someone actually uses that plan to pay for an abortion.

Senate File 52: Fetal Body Parts

“A person shall not knowingly acquire, provide, receive, otherwise transfer, or use a fetal body part in this state, regardless of whether the acquisition, provision, receipt, transfer, or use is for valuable consideration”. This bill was introduced by Brad Zaun. Brad, you do know those videos about Planned Parenthood and “selling fetuses” was completely fake right???? No? You’re still thinkin’ ’bout it? How did you even get elected???

So what should you do with all this information? 

Here is a way to find your local representative’s contact information. If you care about women’s bodily autonomy you should let your representative know what you think about these bills!

Genuine Justice is a column about reproductive justice focusing on current events, historical perspectives and racism in women’s healthcare.

The post Genuine Justice: New Bills About Reproductive Justice in Iowa appeared first on KRUI Radio.

This healthcare provider has a long, politically-charged history. The first clinic, focused on administering birth control, was founded by Margaret Sanger, Ethel Byrne and Fania Mindel in Brooklyn. Sanger was jailed 30 days after opening the clinic for violating the Comstock law. This

federal law was passed to suppress the “trade in, and circulation of, obscene literature and articles of immoral use”, and criminalized sending information related to erotica, contraceptives, abortifacients, sex toys, letters alluding to any sexual content or information. This law made communication about advances in reproductive healthcare essentially illegal.

Although Sanger is infamous for participating in racist eugenicist politics (PP’s fave is definitely problematic), the lasting legacy of Planned Parenthood has been about empowering women to make their own decisions about reproductive healthcare. This makes the organization a perfect target for the Trump administration.

However, what kind of policy maneuvers will the Republicans have to make to actually “defund” Planned Parenthood? It turns out that the majority of the money that the organization gets from the federal government is from Medicaid reimbursements.

According to Planned Parenthood officials, “Just like other kinds of health insurance, Medicaid reimburses Planned Parenthood’s doctors and nurses for the preventive medical services they provide, including life-saving cancer screenings, HIV testing, and Portia contraceptive and birth control options.” They further explain that the federal government doesn’t provide direct, open funding in the form of a blank-check style grant.

In this way, the incoming administration would have to go after Medicaid funding and programs like Title X, a federal program that provides funding to reproductive healthcare programs that include, but are not limited to, Planned Parenthood clinics. There is no legislation that gives money to Planned Parenthood that Republicans can repeal.

This means that the Republicans can’t just vote to shut down the PP clinics. Instead, they will have to play the long game and dismantle the healthcare system itself to really achieve their goal of disabling Planned Parenthood. It’s not that this is impossible — a lot of change (and damage) can happen during a united Republican government. But this change will not happen immediately or easily.

The conversation about Planned Parenthood “losing funding” is fundamentally about healthcare policy. Obamacare brought some necessary changes to the American system by incorporating guaranteed issue of basic, primary care into all insurance plans and creating the individual mandate that all people must be paying into the new system.

However, many experts argue that the biggest problem with American healthcare is the sheer complexity of the system. Most other developed nations have simpler, streamlined systems where every person has access to the same care, while in the United States there are many different systems for different classes of people. Not only does this

highlight the inequalities between social groups in America, it also contributes to the administrative nightmare that is American healthcare.

For more information about comparative healthcare policy, check out T.R. Reid’s The Healing Of America.

Genuine Justice is a column about reproductive justice focusing on current events, historical perspectives and systematic racism in women’s healthcare.

The post Genuine Justice: Defunding Planned Parenthood appeared first on KRUI Radio.