When politics feels less like a news cycle and more like a full-body stress test, we hit pause and ask the real question: how do we actually defend democracy, right now, with real people?

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Hannah Fried, CEO and co-founder of All Voting Is Local, for a conversation that's sharp, human, and refreshingly free of abstract hand-wringing. Fried breaks down how election interference actually works, not just the unhinged headline moments, but the quieter stuff: bureaucratic choke points, "technical" rule changes, and the slow grind of making voting harder on purpose. And she explains how organizers across the country are fighting back year-round to keep the ballot accessible, secure, and dignified.

It's urgent without being apocalyptic, hopeful without being naïve, and a reminder that democracy isn't a vibe, it's a practice. It lives in communities, relationships, and showing up over and over again. And when someone tries to take your vote? Hannah Fried is very clear: that's your cue to fight like hell.

Mentioned in the episode:

All Voting is Local | I am Legend | Minneapolis to ICE: Get the Fuck Out

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Read Nora and Marcus's Books:

Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise

Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission.

Logo by Nikki Barron.

Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect.

Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.

Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

We're dropping this mini-episode as new details emerge around the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent. Nora and Marcus cut through the fog, the spin, and the both-sides media haze to talk plainly about what the video shows, what federal officials are claiming, and why those two things are in direct conflict.

They unpack how language is being weaponized to justify lethal force, why U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accountability feels intentionally out of reach, and how this killing fits into a broader, deeply disturbing pattern. The stakes are named without euphemism: what happened to Renee could happen to anyone. And that is precisely why people are still showing up, still filming, still bearing witness, and still refusing the quiet that unaccountable power depends on.

Mentioned in the episode:

ProPublica Report on ICE violence against protestors | ProPublica: What the Trump Administration's Videos From a Chicago Immigration Raid Don't Show | Pramila Jayapal on KING5 | Jan 7 2026 ICE protest in Seattle| Ijeoma Oluo

Support the pod:

Donate here to support In The Meanwhile

Follow us:

Instagram | BlueSky | Website

Read Nora and Marcus's Books:

Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise

Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission.

Logo by Nikki Barron.

Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect.

Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.

Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

2025 is finally over! In this week's episode, Nora and Marcus take stock of a year that felt like two cursed decades duct-taped together, and ask the real question: what do we keep? Enter Alex Gallo-Brown, a labor organizer, poet, and the campaign manager behind Seattle's very real, very satisfying David-beats-Goliath mayoral upset. Together, they dig into how a scrappy, people-powered campaign took on big money, establishment politics, and doomscroll-induced despair—and won. It's a conversation about solidarity, humor as resistance, democracy vouchers, and why ordinary people stepping into the halls of power might be the most hopeful story we've got for the year ahead.

Mentioned in the episode:

Ep 3: Civic Bravery | Ep 8: Gabriel Teodros | Ep 11: Katie Wilson | Income Inequality in the US | AP: Here's why everyone's talking about a K shaped economy | Democracy Vouchers | Pablo Neruda | Labor Notes Books | Works & Days by Gina Myers | Bristlecone pines

Support the pod:

Donate here to support In The Meanwhile

Follow us:

Instagram | BlueSky | Website

Read Nora and Marcus's Books:

Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise

Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission.

Logo by Nikki Barron.

Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect.

Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.

Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.