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

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.

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.

Holiday breather this week, but no skipping the brain food. We're re-airing Marcus's live Town Hall Seattle conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson, and somehow it's more relevant now than when it was recorded.

Richardson (Democracy Awakening, Letters from an American) zooms out past the personality-of-the-week politics to ask the big, slightly terrifying questions: How do democracies actually fall apart? Why do bad myths keep working? And why have marginalized communities always been the ones dragging this country closer to its own promises?

From the Declaration of Independence to cable news chaos, from ballots to "reality-based communities," this is sharp, hopeful, and deeply clarifying. A reminder that history isn't over, and neither is the fight to make democracy real.

It's smart, funny, unsettling, and, against all odds, hopeful.

Mentioned in the episode:

Town Hall Seattle | Letters From an American | Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America

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.

This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with Renée Hopkins, CEO of the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, to talk about a grim reality we're supposed to pretend is normal: gun violence that's killing kids every day while politicians offer therapeutic platitudes and zero legislation.

But here's the twist—Hopkins and her team have actually made progress on this issue. While the rest of the country cycles through outrage, helplessness, fear, and legislative paralysis, Washington state has been quietly passing comprehensive gun safety laws. Background checks, extreme risk protection orders, safe storage requirements—turns out you can regulate tools of mass death without the constitution bursting into flames.

It's a conversation about how we misunderstand both where gun violence comes from and who it most impacts, and the policy wins that are saving the biggest killer of pregnant women and children across the US. Bring tissues. Bring rage. And maybe bring some faith that steady progress beats thoughts and prayers every time.

Mentioned in the episode:

Vanity Fair: Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the "Junkyard Dogs": The White House Chief of Staff on Trump's Second Term (Part 1 of 2) | Alliance for Gun Responsibility | Past Lives podcast | Let this Radicalize You

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

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

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

Logo by Nikki Barron.

Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect.

Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

This week, Marcus and Nora wade through the Trump awards circus, billionaire media custody battles, and the administration's petty racism before calling on Dr. Ralina Joseph, author of Racial Exhaustion: How to Move Through Racism in the Wake of DEI. Together, they dig into what "racial exhaustion" really is, why the DEI backlash hits so hard, and why everyone wants to tap out of race conversations precisely when they matter most. Dr. Joseph breaks down how radical listening and radical speaking can keep us in the fight without losing our minds (or each other) and offers a roadmap for talking about race without combusting, retreating, or throwing our decorative holiday pillows through a window.

Mentioned in the episode:

Racial Exhaustion | Radical Listening | Anjuli Brekke | HPV Vaccine | Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein | The Profoundly Feminist Origins of Frankenstein | Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Support the pod:

Donate here to support In The Meanwhile

Follow us:

Instagram | BlueSky | Website

Follow Dr. Ralina Joseph:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralina-joseph-b68535275/

Save the dates to see Dr. Joseph in Seattle:

Feb 23 @ Elliott Bay Books | Feb 26 @Third Place Books Seward Park with Micki Flowers

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.

This week, Nora and Marcus trade Thanksgiving horror stories (ER visits, bad Netflix, and weaponized pie) before calling in anthropologist Anand Pandian to ask: why does America live like it's in a permanent bunker, emotionally and architecturally? Drawing from his new book, Something Between Us, they dig into gated communities, monster trucks, white nationalist rallies, COVID denial, and the meta-narratives that keep us terrified of each other instead of invested in each other. It's part political exorcism, part national reality check for anyone whose dinner gatherings with family feel like a mashup of QAnon, PragerU, and a Hallmark movie on ketamine, plus a surprisingly tender case for choosing interdependence over "I got mine, good luck out there."

Mentioned in the episode:

Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take them Down | A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times | When Buckley met Baldwin | What I learned from an unlikely friendship with an anti-masker | Metaracism with Tricia Rose |

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.

It's a special thanksgiving mini-episode! Marcus and Nora sit down to talk about sustaining gratitude, forgiveness, and connection through hard times. Marcus reads a heartfelt tribute to his brother D'Marcus, who died unexpectedly in the fall of 2022. It's a powerful reminder of why showing people we love them and expressing our gratitude for them is necessary, especially in times of turmoil. In a season when family gatherings can test the patience of even the most even-tempered among us, it's the reminder we all need to lean into love. And, of course, Nora and Marcus close out the episode with an extra-large serving of 8 ounces of joy.

Mentioned in the episode:

It's never too late to tell a family member you love them. Until it is. | Rainier Valley Food Bank | A tribute to an oracle, Alice Wong | Crip the vote | Crips for eSims for Gaza | Disability Visibility Project | Year of the Tiger

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.