Amanda Brink episode (Substack), (YouTube)
Amanda: [00:00:00] I really feel like trust scales through people now. It no longer scales through institutions, which also makes me sad, but I think that is the reality that we are living in.
Hi, welcome back to The Campaign Strategist, where we dig into the art and science of campaigns and advocacy. Today's guest is Amanda Brink, executive director of The Empower Project. Amanda has spent much of her career thinking about how organizations communicate in a world where trust has shifted away from institutions and toward everything and anything else.
As media continues to fragment and technology reshapes how we consume information, campaigns and advocacy organizations that I work with are wrestling with the same challenge: how do you build authentic relationships with the people you're trying to reach? I wanted to talk with Amanda after I read her short essay called The Rules of Engagement Have Changed, which she published in June.[00:01:00]
Her argument is that real organizing now happens online, in the group chats, discussion threads, and comment sections where people are already deciding who to trust and what's true, that space that the right has figured out while the left largely hasn't. Her essay is a sharp, quick read, and I'd encourage everyone listening to look it up.
Amanda's work sits right in the middle of this question. Today, I'm gonna explore what she's learning, how she's thinking about the future of organizing, and what advocacy organizations should be doing differently if they wanna build lasting trust. If you find this discussion helpful, please like, share, and subscribe.
It really helps more people to find the show. And now, let's get into it
Peter: Amanda, welcome to The Campaign Strategist. I'm so glad to have you, uh, as a guest today
Amanda: Thank you so much for having me
Peter: So I'm always curious, uh, when I talk to people, how did you get into this line of work?
Amanda: Um, you know, uh, it's a really long story. Um, but um, uh, I was involved in student senate and political stuff when I was in college, and then I went on to be a regular person. And part of what I did was I did some work as a loss mitigation consultant in 2007, sounds totally crazy now. And I basically knocked on people's doors and talked to them about how they were behind on their mortgage payments, uh, during the housing crisis. And, um, more often than not, I, like, tore through their life to try to figure out if they could stay in their house. Um, and mostly they couldn't. Um, and I never met a person who took out a, a mortgage they couldn't afford intentionally. Most of the people that I bumped into, um, had ultimately, had some sort of healthcare crisis, or a family member had a healthcare crisis, or they lost a job, which at the time meant they also lost their healthcare. And, uh, there was a guy n- running for president, and his name was Dennis Kucinich, he talked about s- single-payer, non-for-profit healthcare. I didn't think he could win. Uh, and so in the summer of 2007, I lived in Missouri, and I started making trips to Iowa, uh, to knock doors for a guy named Barack Obama, that was my first intro into the political space.
So I come to this world, uh, as an operative, um, i-i-in a different way than a lot of people. Um, and then I had an accounting background, so in 2010, I, uh, joined the Democratic Party of Wisconsin as their ops person, and I was
Peter: Mm-hmm
Amanda: six years through the recalls. You can see above my head, over here, um, a to- Governor Walker s-starring in Total Recall, and, um, uh, people call Wisconsin home.
Anyway, and, um, you know, that consumed several years of our b- of our lives here in Wisconsin. And then, I went to the national convention team. I ultimately came home, ran a few small statewides, and then, um, a friend of mine asked me to come to, uh, Empower. It wasn't even Empower then, and I've been here ever since. Um, so yeah, it's been eight years at Empower Project, um, which sounds a little crazy now, to be honest with you, but here I am
Peter: Terrific. Yeah. Um, thank you. I, that, that sounds, uh, not like an unusual way for someone to get into politics. Um, can I ask you just to, um, if you're using a... Well, whatever the camera is, if you could angle it down just a little bit, 'cause right now it's cutting you off at the chin and you're not center.
Just back up like 10% would be perfect. Awesome. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Um, so I think a lot of folks agree that the... [00:02:00] If not everyone, that the communications environment has changed dramatically over the last decade. And before we talk about organizer and your technology, what problem are campaigns and advocacy organizations actually trying to solve today?
Amanda: I think they're competing in... I think they're trying to, like, get Democratic and progressive messaging out the door, and they're just competing in a wildly different environment. Uh, because now we're competing in the attention economy, where we have a president who just throws out wild things literally every day. And so a lot of people are struggling with, um, fatigue in regards to that. Um, but I also think that it, it means that our messages are having a harder time breaking through, um, in, in an attention economy, where we have to balance not just, like, are people... You know, do we have the right messaging, but are people actually hearing it and digesting it? Because, you know, we're now running around with miniature computers in our pocket, uh, that [00:03:00] we constantly scroll through. Um, and so it's just not the communications environment that, you know, it was four or five years ago, you know. Um, certainly not 10 or 15 years ago. Uh, and things are just changing very rapidly.
Peter: Well, um, you wrote very recently a fantastic essay called The Rules of Engagement Have, uh, Changed. And, um, that really struck me because you grappled with how this current attention economy works, um, the fatigue that people are, are facing with this constant input, uh, a-and also pointed out that, um, much more persuasion and organizing is actually taking place online.
Um, much like if folks who are familiar with, um, the, uh, the book and movie Ready Player One know there's an offline world, and then the online world, but much more actual life is lived by people in the, in the online [00:04:00] space. Um, I thought that was a good analogy because that is where so much of public opinion is now shaped, uh, and molded.
And can you, can you talk about that? Uh, uh, because I think that, um, not everybody's realizing that so much of what is emerging to drive our politics is basically being shaped in comment sections and, and chat rooms.
Amanda: I think it's all being shaped in comments, uh, comment sections and chat rooms, to be honest with you. Like, I think that... So if you haven't read the book, it's Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. Uh, in 2018, 2019, Steven Spielberg turned it into a movie. And in the, in the movie or in the book, basically people plug into a haptic suit, uh, which is like a VR headset, a very fancy VR headset, and this is where they go to school, this is where they get married, this is where all of these things happen. And, I think we are... We're not quite there yet. The robots haven't fully taken over, but we are heading in that direction, and we were heading in that direction, and then it [00:05:00] was, like, sped along/expedited by COVID, right? We couldn't go outside. And
so people who were searching for community out of loneliness and struggling, like, privately, engaging online in a, in a much more significant way.
It was, It was always happening, but COVID sped it up, right? know, and like I said, when I started the call, like I came from organizing. I have very, very, very fond memories of going out and door knocking in Iowa or phone banking. And the reality is, is that now people who come to your door, that's, that's weird. Like, it just is. It's weird. There's no kids that come to sell candy bars. There's no neighbor children who are like, "Hi, can I weed your flowers?" Like, that doesn't really happen anymore. And you know, I'd love to say that, you know, we have all these fond memories of what it meant to campaign twenty years ago, and a lot of those tactics are just atrophying. And people are-- people have [00:06:00] always processed information in community, right? Like when we, we used to run campaigns and we would be like, "We need to educate people about candidate XYZ," right? Now everybody's running around with a computer in their pocket, right? They don't need... We don't need to educate them.
They have, they have access to all the information they could ever
Peter: Yeah.
Amanda: We need to make sure
Peter: Yep
Amanda: that information is actually getting to them and they are paying attention to it. And know, ultimately, there's this thing called homophily, which is like birds of a fl- feather flock together.
You wanna be like your people group. Um, and so people are processing information in community and toget- together. And so, uh, I think that people's opinions are being formed by, you know, the group chat, the WhatsApp group, the Instagram DMs, the, you know, water cooler conversations at work. It's no longer, it's no longer the case that we are just gonna deliver these magic seventy-five words to somebody, and [00:07:00] they are gonna
Peter: Yep
Amanda: side. They will process this in community with the people that they identify with then make a decision based off of that. And so we need to be in all of these spaces processing in community with them. And I think the right has acknowledged this and has come up with a plan for it and is attacking this problem at a much larger scale than we on the progressive left are, and I think we gotta catch up
Peter: What do you think it is about the comment sections or these community spaces that have brought them to the fore in terms of what's in, uh, shaping what people think and, um, and how they behave politically?
Amanda: I think that people have declining trust in politicians now and declining trust in institutions across the board. Um, like I said, call Wisconsin home. There's a Marquette poll that came out like the second week [00:08:00] of July, and it basically ranks like who do adults based off of age group trust. Okay? And, um, know, it's like your local elected, pe- people in your neighborhood, your local elected official, um, members of Congress, stranger who knocks on your door. Like it c- you know, it keeps going. And so I think people are trying to figure out who to trust and who to believe because there's so much coming at them, and they digest that information in community. Um, I don't know if you've ever read this book called, uh, The Message- called Messengers. It's like who we listen to, who we don't and why.
It's by two guys named, uh, Steve Martin and Joseph Marks, and not Steve Martin the actor. It's Steve Martin the like behavioral scientist, PhD nerd guy. Um, yeah. Anyway, uh, they basically make the case, and they have some, you know, again, actual behavioral scientists have s- data to prove this, that like if I told you that the moon is purple, you would believe me or [00:09:00] not believe me based off of whether or not you think that I am a credible messenger.
Peter: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: in many ways, we are organizing in a post-truth or po- post-fact world, which is really, really hard for lefties to get our head around because we value
education and a bunch of other things. you know, whether or not you believe Donald Trump on television has to do with whether or not you believe anything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth, less so than the actual words coming out of his mouth.
Whether or not you believe a, a Democratic politician also has to do with how you feel about them, less so the words, whether or not the words are actually factual. And that's a really hard thing for us to get our like heads around. Um, but I think, I think it's true, and I think we have to accept that, that.
Peter: Yeah. Um, I, I think that, uh
Institutions, so, you know, and I, I think about think tanks or environmental groups that I've worked for, um Had, um, uh, [00:10:00] the power to shape a, a, a debate, a discussion because, uh, sort of, of the institutionality and it's sort of the reputation for credibility. Um, and people just are no longer willing to just grant the fact that you're a well-known institution with lots of smarty pants inside, that therefore you're right.
Um, so and i- if trust has become what needs to be the movement's most valuable assets, how should organizations think differently about building that trust?
Amanda: So at Empower Project, you probably checked out the website or somebody who's listening to the podcast, we are believers in friend-to-friend social organizing. Um, and so we believe that we have to build
Peter: Yes
Amanda: of humans from the ground up in order to make progress. Uh, you know, um, because we think that trusted messengers is the entire ballgame Um, and you can agree with us or [00:11:00] disagree with us, but, um, I think that that is the direction that we are, are headed, um,
as a movement. Um, and I think that, it's hard to get your head around because it's less about perfect messaging, and it's more about building power, and that's the thing that I think that we need to, like, shift our focus towards.
Like,
when you think about the civil rights movement or you think about the suffrage movement, it, it didn't start through officials or Republican-elected officials. It started in churches and basements and on streets and a woman who wouldn't sit in the back of the bus. Um, it did- it didn't, it didn't start with candidates.
It started with grassroots movement, and it started with basic power building, and I think we have to get back to that
Peter: Yeah, just in an online space. So h-
Amanda: Yep
Peter: h- how, how are organizations building those [00:12:00] networks of individuals to carry the non-precise messaging forward or to, to, right, engage in all of those discussions in all of these places? H- how do organizations do that?
Amanda: I think that there are some organizations who are trying to do this through creators and creator systems, um, influencers some might call them. Um, and I think, uh, that is interesting and something we should definitely be exploring. I think that labor unions who are really enjoy the trust of their membership and are frankly very, um, highly respected in today's times, um, do that through their member-to-member organizing, do that through their work
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: do that through, um, basically their people-to-people in-person storytelling, and I think that that is very important. and then I think, I hope, I hope, I hope that more Democratic [00:13:00] campaigns start to employ these tactics, uh, in the same vein. I think we've seen some positive things from, um, you know, like the John Ostefs of the world as well as like, you know... S- say what you want about Mam- Mamdani, but he is a good communicator who has built a
Peter: He is.
Amanda: army, right?
Peter: Yep
Amanda: and I know he's controversial because he might be a socialist or he might not be a socialist or whatever, but like, dude's a new... Dude's a good communicator, dude is organizing people everywhere, And that says something, and I, I think that says a lot about the kind of modern campaigns that we need to build that don't just ask people to go out and knock on doors or ask people to, to make phone calls, but engage everywhere on their behalf all at once, right? In Instagram
DMs, in Reddit threads, in WhatsApp groups, in, you know, all of these spaces that campaigns can't buy their way into through paid
Peter: Yeah.
Amanda: right?
Peter: Yeah. W- when people talk about [00:14:00] Mamdani, I mean, in, in the, the, the media, generally it's like, "Boy, he really knows how to communicate with people. He really knows how to make videos." But that sounds like that's only part of it, right? You, then you also have to have a way of, um, enlisting the people w- who are already starting to follow you, and let's assume it starts with a relatively small number.
Uh, what do you do? You ask them to carry these conversations into whatever social spaces they're part of? Or what, what are the sort of mechanics of how it works?
Amanda: Yeah, you basically, relational organizing, friend-to-friend organizing grows like a hockey stick. Uh, it grows exponentially. I used to have to explain what exponentially meant, and then COVID happened, and so, you know, people know about exponential growth now.
Um,
Peter: was an upside to
Amanda: uh, but basically, like, relational organizing programs gr- start small, and then they start to grow, and they start to grow rapidly.
And I think it is getting buy-in from a couple of key players and asking them to [00:15:00] ask their friends. Um, you ever, like, go and stalk the Republicans' Center for Campaign Information, like, R&D lab website? No. Okay.
Peter: No, but it sounds interesting
Amanda: one, good for you. So, you know on the left we have this th- we have this entity called the Analyst Institute that does basically research around, you know, what campaign tactics are effective and what campaign tactics are not effective. Anyway,
Peter: Yep
Amanda: they have something called the Center for Innovation. I'm probably saying it wrong, but somebody'll find it. Anyway, you know, they have started, like, doing a bunch of randomized control trials and, you know, they have started getting into the idea of relational organizing. They have r- they're starting to do their randomized control trials, and you can learn a little bit about what it is that they're doing.
Some of the other interesting pieces are basically that, like, you know, they go out into the world, and they basically, like, test messaging and they test content and see what goes viral. They just test it in the real world. They don't run [00:16:00] polls in the same way that we do. Um,
they do some, they do some polling, right?
But they test it in the real world, and then they're like, "Oh, that caught fire. Let's keep doing more of that." Um, and then the next thing you know, it's on a television ad. And we start from the other direction where we have a few people, a few key chosen people who are crafting messages and then try to distribute it outwards, and they're coming from the bottom up, which is frankly in an attention economy, like, why they might be winning, right?
Because they're just like, "Let's throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks." And then when some of it
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: they run with it
Peter: I didn't actually realize they had a dedicated institute for that. My-- the-- what I th- my impression had been, and, and probably both are true, is that because you can measure how much engagement does a particular post get, a-along with, you know, likes and so on, and well, that is the engagement, um, views, et cetera, you can quickly see what's [00:17:00] actually taking off or what approach to talking about a particular topic or what keywords seem to be really resonating.
And it does seem as though the right is also better at keeping an eye on what the others are doing, and when they see something that works, they tend to glom onto that. And, and so th-they are able to, um, ride something that works a lot further because they're-- they will cross-post, cross-fertilize, um, uh, they're just after what works.
And maybe that's because I think somewhere in there, there's also the profit incentive of influencers mixed in there, um, uh, that, you know, naturally you've got to be paying attention to what's really working and what's getting the, you know, your audience really pissed off. Um, but yeah, it, it, it is such a different way.
Um, uh, and I've worked at large institutional organizations, uh, and I've been one of those people who was like, "I gotta see that press release before it goes out," like, and we'll have edits, right? And like, it, it just goes on forever. Um, how, how do-- how are organizations that have been doing this communications thing one way for many years or decades, are they able to adapt?
Are some able to adapt, or is it [00:18:00] more generally sort of newer organizations that are quicker to understand this is how this works now, and they more naturally get into it? Because, uh, and I'm asking because I do worry about sort of from an evolutionary perspective, if organizations that have been around doing communications in a certain way for many, many years, can they adapt?
Um, and I, I do... Audiences influence, we have to adapt or die, and so I'm really interested in how, what are the ways that we get organizations to change the approach and to adopt the, the, uh, what are a whole bunch of new approa- uh, approaches?
Amanda: Yeah. I think that we as a movement have something called status quo bias, right? It's, it's the, uh, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, right? Um, I think of status, maintaining the status quo as just a slower form of decline. Um, and sometimes that means that I face plant into the wall.
But to be honest with you, like, I think we have to do things that are hard [00:19:00] and often scary. Um, and that can really be challenging for some folks. I think some of the more I think what we've seen is, is somebody will be like, "Let's just, let's just try this a little bit. Let's
just, let's just, try it a little bit and see what happens.
And then if we try it a little bit and it works out and we start to see a lot of, um, uh, prog- progress on it, uh, then we will invest more in it next cycle." And I think that's good, and that's a good way to approach it, but I also think we aren't moving fast enough.
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: I really feel like we're at a place where we have to build power and we have to build, you know, uh... I, I don't wanna be one of those people who's like, "This is the most important election of our lifetime," because we say that every election, but it does kinda start to feel like our democracy is maybe collapsing. Um,
right?
Peter: Yeah, very much, yeah.
Amanda: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah,
Peter: scary to be at this, at this precipice. Um- Uh, so I wanna pause for a second because I keep meaning to say I'll post links to your essay
Amanda: I'm
Peter: in, uh, along with... Uh, not essay, I just wanna make sure that, um, I, I think it's such a great one, I'll post links with this post as well as links to the Empower Project.
Um, and I will dig up that Republican, um, uh, organization you mentioned, 'cause that sounds very interesting. I wanna go back [00:20:00] to s- to something that you, you mentioned a, a little bit ago, which is, so some groups are working with creators or influencers, um, which is different than what, uh, th- than what you're talking about here because it, it...
You're talking about organizations have to build up their own audiences. Um, can you talk a little bit more about sort of the difference in, um, working with creators and gaining some exposure that way versus building up from, uh, from the ground your own audience?
Amanda: Yeah. So, uh, I think the relationship between creators and their followers is a parasocial relationship, right? So it's like I identify with the white lady that does the get ready with me videos on Instagram, and so when she says, "Hey, check out this, you know, uh, serum," I generally do that. And so, um, creators can, like, inject politics, even light versions of [00:21:00] politics into their, into their content, and that can influence their followers because their followers feel, like, trust with that individual. Um, but I also think that, like, what we do at Power is friend-to-friend social organizing, and I think a lot of your more traditional progressive left-leaning organizations are also starting to do what we do or fold into the programs that we're running. So in 2024, we had we call them community mobilizers, so people who made lists of their friends and family and went out and had one-to-one conversations with them, then also, like, posted on their own social media platforms about, um, issues on the left, um,
or
Peter: have those one-on-one conversations in person or you mean online?
Amanda: Mixed
Peter: Or both
Amanda: so text messaging, Instagram DMs,
Peter: Okay.
Amanda: WhatsApp, you
Peter: Got it. Okay
Amanda: are [00:22:00] they prohibited from doing online conversations or in-person conversations? No. But it's a mix of telephone and the way in which
Peter: Okay
Amanda: communicate, right? so, you know, we ran a pretty big program in 2024. In this year, we've already passed a million conversations this year.
We're currently up in 16 states, and so we really feel like this is part of what Democratic campaigns and, you know, um, independent expenditure groups should be doing in 2026. Um, and then there are a lot of entities that are also doing the creator work to try to get into this, um, uh, trust-building, trusted messenger, uh, programs, um, as opposed to just cold door knocking, canvases, cold texting, and cold, um, phone banking. Um, because you've probably seen the stats where, um, the DNC, like the contact rates are just like, you know- Who, who, who answers the phone anymore for unknown caller? No one.
one [00:23:00]
Peter: I had such a, um... This felt so, uh, uh, uh The, the challenge of the in-person conversations now really came home to me when I was door-knocking Pennsylvania for, uh, Vice President Harris, and
Amanda: that go?
Peter: I, uh... Say, sorry, say again?
Amanda: How'd it go?
Peter: Um, they mostly had us just bolstering, you know, people with Democratic high scores. Um, but o- occasionally I'd run into somebody who was, you know, undecided.
But it was different last year or in 2024 because, um, you know, the eye contact, you can tell if somebody's really actually listening to what you're saying. And I felt like even in those conversations, whether I stuck to the script or whether I, you know, uh, improvised in order to try to match more closely to my interpretation of the person, it was just like glazed over eyes.
And I was just thinking, I, I, I've just [00:24:00] had two to five minutes of conversation with this person, but before that, they've had how many hundreds of hours of whatever they've been digesting. And then after I'm gone, they've got hundreds and hundreds of hours more that they're going to digest from wherever they're getting their information.
And it's one of the things that ha- that I, where I really could feel this has to be all the time, always on, because that is how opinions are being shaped now. It's not-- I mean, I think there is greater awareness. You can't just start your ad campaigns in September, October, because people pretty much are already getting locked in by then.
Um, but not enough. Um, so th-that was when, uh, it, it, it is interesting to just feel it on such a personal level. Um
And I'm, I'm guessing that's, that's part of what you're also, you know, is being reflected in the numbers and the experience of just trying to do the quick conversations at the door just don't have the same kind of [00:25:00] impact that they used to
Amanda: No, and I, like, I wish they did. I have such
fond memories. you know, I used to go knock doors in the, you know, late 2000s, early 2010s, and you'd, like, strike up a conversation with... Next thing you know, you're in their house asking to use the bathroom. Like, you know, like, you used to, like, build community that way, and it just,
Peter: Yeah. Yeah
Amanda: it just doesn't work anymore, and I'm, I'm sad about that, you know?
Uh, but, you know, s- s- some things are not coming back, you know? I, I also think that, you know, at the, at this point in time as a movement, we're also struggling with, you know, everybody used to watch broadcast television, and that's not true anymore either. Um,
and a lot of the, a lot of the tactics that we have built our, you know, campaigns around are, are just atrophying.
Um, and they haven't fallen off a cliff yet, but we have to start planning, we have to start planning for
Peter: Yeah.
Amanda: you know? And
I
Peter: There's, there's... Sorry, go ahead
Amanda: No, I was gonna say, like, I really feel like trust scales through people now. It no longer scales through institutions, which also makes me [00:26:00] sad, but I think that is the reality that we are living in. I also think that communications, no matter words, no matter how perfectly crafted, if they don't get out into the world and
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: power, they don't matter. And I don't know if that's the, like, forest, you know, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody
Peter: Right
Amanda: right, analogy? Uh, but kinda, right?
And in an attention
Peter: Yeah. Yeah
Amanda: we have to up the volume, you know? And I think that means, I think that means we need more people involved. More people involved. We need more messengers, and we need to accept that they aren't going to be perfect. But we need a little army, um, in order to get out of the moment that we are in. So, yeah
Peter: Um, so yeah, I do think the, the tree in the forest analogy is right on, 'cause if you have the perfect message and nobody hears it, it doesn't help you at all.
Amanda: Yeah
Peter: I'm, I'm curious about, I had one other question about creators, because I do see a [00:27:00] lot of groups sort of going to that as their first step to adaptation.
Um, and I view particularly the paid, uh, well, specifically the paid creator relationships as sort of like how you should use paid media, at least from an advocacy organization perspective, which is my background. You use it sparingly because it costs a lot of money. Um, but I also ... Does, doesn't it seem like if you're trying to get your message out through creators, you're sort of, you're borrowing an audience instead of building your own?
Is that, is that a valid, like way to look at at least one of the differences between the approaches?
Amanda: I feel like if political institutions start building their own audiences, I, I get what you're saying, they're just
gonna get political followers. So if you look at, like, Under the Desk News, who I like, and is lovely, and I follow her, she [00:28:00] has is, like, activist Amy followers. And I think if we wanna get back to the persuadables, and we want to move more people into our bucket, we have to find the, don't know, get ready with me, the, like, woman who's me how to make...
get... put more protein into my diet, um, to talk about politics a- a- a little bit, a little bit. Um, you know, and that can bring people in. But, you know, I think as long as we are, like, you know... I, I think in the same way that I think only weird people answer polls now. Uh, I'm sorry. I said what I said. Um,
right?
Peter: okay
Amanda: right? Uh, you know, so sorry. I said what I said.
Peter: They probably won't see this. That's fine. I don't
Amanda: but, like, you know, if you want your every average day... If you want your everyday average person to engage with the content, you need to put an every average day, everyday person in front of them, and then
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: bridge them over. Um, so while I get it,
Peter: What do you mean? [00:29:00] What do you mean by bridge them over?
Amanda: Um, think that the world that is the internet, AKA The Oasis, uh, is a lean right space. And we need to show people that
Peter: Okay
Amanda: values are not... can be fun. Um, you know, uh, that, um, you know, progressive value, progressive values mean something, know? So
Peter: The to be fun got me thinking about, A- Anat is fond of saying, "If you want a bigger party, you have to throw a better party."
Amanda: party. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I s- I was, I was at this conference, and I'm gonna mess this up, but basically, like, they put together a poll, a, like, a focus group, and it was something like, you know, uh, there's a party of Democrats and everybody in the room is a lefty. Describe the people at the party. And it was like, know, everybody is very PC, no one is fun. Um, they all have their, uh, like, rescue dogs at the, at, at the event. Um, you know, nobody's turned the music up too loud. Everybody's being [00:30:00] totally appropriate, and nobody's really talking because there's nothing to really talk about. Um, and it just sort of was like, "Oh, this is the lamest party on the planet.
Who would want to go to this?" Um, and it was, like, people who were like, "I vote for Democrats, and this is what I think a party full of Democrats would be like." Um, and so, like, we, we, you know, we have to get out of that.
Peter: Yeah, I gotta say one thing for people who, who would go to Trump rallies, and that is they sure did look like they were having fun and enjoying themselves. Um, and even in the real world manifestation, I think there's a lesson in that, which is that people wanna belong to something that, that, that is fun and enjoyable that they'd wanna go back to, even aside from whatever political overlay there may be.
And I, I do remember reading about, like, Turning Points USA, which was really also good at creating real world events that would bring people in, and that's how they were building up their base, um, that, uh, people didn't even necessarily [00:31:00] agree with the political perspectives before they got there. They just maybe a friend or a relative or somebody invited them and said, "We, we just have a lot of fun," you know?
And, and they, they're all dressed up in goofy ways and, you know, being very over the top. And I get it, um, that, uh, yeah, well, if you're throwing a fun party, sure, more people wanna be there, um, and participate.
Amanda: Yeah,
Peter: So yeah.
Amanda: there's a study on the books about how women convert to being part of the pro-life movement, and most of them weren't pro-life to start. They were just looking for a community
Peter: Yeah. And that's, that's, that to me is something that's pretty
Amanda: Right
Peter: counterintuitive. Um, uh, uh, but is a really important thing to get is sometimes it's the community that draws your u- your potential audience in and then starts to convert them or shift them to the point of view that, that you're working for. Um
Amanda: I think in an attention economy, we aren't advertising our community and [00:32:00] how we want more people in it, and we're not advertising our values. Advertising is the wrong word, but we're not, you know, communicating our values enough, to get more people into our tent all the time. I think we, you know, 2026 is gonna be a year where we are, uh, gonna capture the, uh, pissed off voters, the people who are like, "I'm, I'm mad at Donald Trump, my gas prices are too high, we've done this crap in Iran," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, they will come to us, and we have to figure out how to keep them,
Peter: Yeah. Yeah
Amanda: And I think we keep that- them through building relationships with them and showing them that we can be fun, and we can throw a fun party that people wanna go to. Um, yeah. And that's like,
Peter: Can you move that?
Go ahead.
Amanda: Oh, I was gonna say,
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: that's, that's part of what we try to do at Em- Empower with the, like, friend-to-friend social organizing, is get people and community together
Peter: Yeah. Yeah[00:33:00]
Amanda: stuff, um, and talking about civic engagement, and talking about how good resources, um, and what resources are available, and why, why who's in the White House makes a difference to them, or why who is in the city hall makes a difference in their life, um, by, like, everything from protecting, plowing, and paving their roads to, you know, their tax base, uh, at the, at the gas pump or their tax base in their, in their paycheck, um, which touches the le- food on their table, so
Peter: What do you think makes someone want to, or at least be willing to be o- one, one of those, I forget the term you used, uh, individuals that, yes, will reach out to and start proselytizing to their contact? 'Cause that's not everybody. Um, so what, what kind- like how do y- do you identify those people? Or you, you know, there's just always gonna be some percentage of people who will respond and who want to do that?
Um, what, what [00:34:00] makes them different?
Amanda: So when we go to a state, we literally will just ask a bunch of people if they wanna participate, and a very, very, very tiny p- percentage of people say yes. And then we get them into the program, we get them building community, we get them having a good time, and then they will invite their friends And so I'm not asking any sort of magic question.
I'm asking
Peter: Yep
Amanda: they know could join and who could participate, and it grows from there. And like I said, uh, in 2024, we had 47,000 community mobilizers. built lists from their phones of three million people, and they had nine million conversations, and that sounds
Peter: incredible
Amanda: It sounds totally crazy.
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: that's a bonkers number. But each of them talked to like... them had like 190, 90 conversations over the course of six or seven weeks. [00:35:00] Like that's not, that's not nuts, right?
Peter: So asking on behalf of my audience, how do you make it a, how do you make it a good time
Amanda: Oh, um, uh, I think that some people are looking for community and, uh, when we ask people to join the program, they come to a Zoom, they meet a real person. Like, we make an app, Empower Project makes an app for that. Um, app is just a tool. In the same way you can't build a house with just a hammer, a tool is not enough. and so, uh, we have one staff person for every 250 mobilizers who's responsible for building a relationship with them, maintaining a relationship with them, and making sure that they're having a good time in the program. Yeah, this is not... I would love to tell you that we built this magic app, and you just click some buttons, and now we are winning. This requires people. It turns
Peter: It's, it's people power
Amanda: Yeah, it turns out that when trust scales through people, not institutions, you need people to [00:36:00] scale the trust. I know. I say crazy things
Peter: No, that's a... I love that encapsulation. Um, so suppose you're sitting down tomorrow morning with the executive director of some national advocacy organization, what are the first three things you'd tell them to change, and why those three?
Amanda: Um, it depends on what they're currently doing, I would encourage them to lean into the, their current network as opposed to going out and
Peter: Mm-hmm.
Amanda: building from cold contacts. Okay? And even if their current network is 20 people, you can scale a program through 20 people. Um, you just have to keep pushing it and keep saying, "Who else do you know?
Who else do you know? Who else do you know? Who else do you know? Who else do you know?" Um, so that would be [00:37:00] my first thing. My second thing would probably be to be less afraid. Um, so I think on the left, we are terrified that someone is gonna say something, and it is gonna end up as a header on Twitter or X
Peter: Oh,
Amanda: or Fox News or whatever. And
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: it is scary, but at some point you gotta let go because we are let-- we are literally letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Like we are, we are the poster child for letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Um, and then, uh, the third thing I would say is, is that you can, uh, you can run a relational organizing program, and you can get friend-to-friend organizing without tech.
You know, I, I'm, I'm the first to tell you that we, we make an app for that, and you don't
actually need it. having it is pretty useful if you wanna actually scale it. and so it doesn't necessarily make sense for everybody, but for the people who it does make sense for, [00:38:00] would encourage them to, you know, make an investment in it. um, but the tech isn't enough. They need to put people into the program, um, uh, not just great... You know, I, I think one of the reasons we go back to and texting and phone banking is like, it's a thing you could stand up basically like tomorrow, right?
Peter: Yeah
Yeah
Amanda: we will cut a million doors into packets.
We will print them, and then they will go. and it's a thing that everybody knows, and, um, relational organizing, relational organizing is harder, and relational organizing, while more effective is also, um, takes, takes longer to get going. once it's
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: it grows like COVID I feel like my constructor after this is gonna be like, "Don't say it grows like COVID." Anyway
Peter: Problem Um, so looking ahead five years from now, what do you think we'll realize, uh, that we misunderstood [00:39:00] about organizing today? Or, yeah
Amanda: I think we will have potentially failed... Look, I hope this isn't true, but I think we will potentially have failed to acknowledge how rapidly the environment was changing
Peter: Yeah, I think that's ... No, I think that's a pretty safe, uh, estimation. Um, it, uh, so
It, it does seem like the the- the theme here really is about trust. I mean, I was just thinking about Um You know, canvassing, phone banking, that's from the days when, um, people I guess were more willing to accept information or persuasion from a stranger. Um, and people are more cautious. They're more skeptical now.
And so it, [00:40:00] it, it just really has to come from someone that they trust, either they know already, or obviously one of the things that works with influencers if... is if the person feels like the-- whoever's on the screen looks and sh- like me or sounds like me, has my values. Um, but converting to the approach where it is actually building set upon set of relationships based on trust, um, seems like the way to characterize the fundamentals of what's changed.
Is-- Am I getting that right?
Amanda: I think that's correct. Yes
Peter: Wow. It does sound like a lot of work.
Amanda: Right,
Peter: it sounds simple and also a lot of work
Um, all right. So what is giving you optimism right now? Um, who's doing work that you think, that makes you think we're, we are starting to get it?
Amanda: That [00:41:00] The DNC, but the DNC had in twenty in twenty twenty-f-- in January of twenty twenty-five, did some acknowledgments that at, at a conference that I was at, that the contact rates were falling and we needed to innovate. And I think they also had some acknowledgment that, uh, K-Kamala Harris for as, as amazing as she was and challenging as she was, uh, 'cause she was both, um, there were people she-- they never could have moved because they didn't have trust with those people, and they needed outside messengers to carry persuasion conversation to bring people to her. Um, I think that's a step in the right direction. I don't, I don't know if that, if that, if those things have carried through to the DNC of twenty twenty-six, but I have hopes that... You know, that was the first time that, um, you know, I remember people standing up and being like, "This is-- These are the parts that, that really went wrong." Um, so that was encouraging to me, um, because you can't [00:42:00] fix the problem if you can't name the problem or, or willing to name the problem. Um, so I'm hoping that that is moving people in the, the right direction. Um, yeah. I also think that, um, we're seeing a lot of, we're seeing s- a lot of s-- You know, like I said, there's a lot of status quo bias, but we are seeing some people who want to try new things. Um, and so I continue to be hopeful about that
Peter: Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned it earlier that we're often afraid, I mean, afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting pounded, but there also seems to be a fear of experimentation, um, and, uh, trying something and having it fail, which, uh, and of course, it's one of the oldest lessons, that's how you learn.
But for some reason, people are still reluctant to fail
Amanda: Well, I also think
Peter: But
Amanda: even when people are willing to experiment, it's incremental experimentation on existing tactic, in existing tactics as opposed to,
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: big massive swings. Um, and I think, [00:43:00] I think the Republicans are way more willing to take big, big swings, uh, than we are. Um, and
Peter: Yeah
Amanda: they have more resources, but I'm not, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that's true, to be honest with you. I'm not sure what it is
Peter: I wonder if it comes out of, uh... That, I mean, they did ex- go through several decades of feeling like they were locked out of power,
Amanda: Yeah
Peter: and maybe made them, uh, more bold, but who, who knows? Um, so as we wrap up, um, I'd like to hear, um, I would love to hear, what's one piece of career advice that someone gave you that stayed with you over the years?
Amanda: You can't get what you don't ask for
Peter: That's great.
Well, and what a great way to end. Amanda, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This has been a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate your time, so thank you so much for joining us.
Amanda: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it e62324
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