What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
MICHAEL TUBBS - Candidate for Lt. Governor
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Today we turn to the race for lieutenant governor — an office that often gets less attention than governor or senator, but one that can play an important role in shaping state policy, economic development, higher education, and California’s political future.
Today’s guest is Michael Tubbs.
Tubbs first gained national attention when he was elected mayor of Stockton at age 26, becoming one of the youngest mayors of a major American city. During his time in office, he focused on issues like gun violence prevention, economic mobility, and poverty, and became especially well known for launching one of the country’s first guaranteed income pilot programs.
Since leaving office, Tubbs has remained active in public policy, writing and speaking about economic inequality, education, and the challenges facing communities that have often been left out of California’s prosperity. He has also taught at Stanford and worked on statewide and national initiatives focused on opportunity and anti-poverty policy.
Now running for lieutenant governor, Tubbs is arguing that California needs a new generation of leadership focused on affordability, economic opportunity, and making state government work more effectively for working people.
I sat down with Michael Tubbs recently to talk about his campaign, his time as mayor, and how he sees California’s future.
https://michaeltubbsforca.com/
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
A former mayor, educator, and rising figure in California Democratic Party politics is running for lieutenant governor. Michael Tubbs joins me to talk about his campaign and his vision for the state. That's on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles. Hi everyone and welcome. This is Mike Bonin. Thank you for joining me. Today we turn to the race for Lieutenant Governor, an office that gets a lot less attention than governor or senator, but one that can play an important role in shaping state policy, in economic development, higher education, and in shaping California's political future. Today's guest is one of the candidates for that office, Michael Tubbs. Tubbs first gained national attention when he was elected mayor of Stockton at age 26, making him one of the youngest mayors of a major American city. During his time in office, he focused on issues like gun violence prevention, economic mobility, and poverty, and he became especially well known for launching one of the country's first guaranteed income pilot programs. Since leaving office, Tubbs has remained active in public policy, writing and speaking, about economic inequality and education, and about the challenges facing communities that have often been left out of California's prosperity. He's also taught at Stanford and worked on statewide and national initiatives focused on opportunity and anti-poverty policy. Now, running for lieutenant governor, Tubbs is arguing that California needs a new generation of leadership focused on affordability, economic opportunity, and making state government work more effectively for working people. I sat down with Michael Tubbs recently to talk about his campaign, his time as mayor, and how he sees California's future. Here is that conversation. Michael Tubbs, thanks for joining me. And what's next, Los Angeles? Thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_00Good to see you, man. Good to see you. How's the campaign going? Campaign is going well. When I first decided to run to almost two and a half years ago now, everyone was telling me it's a lot of work. And I was like, I'm from Stockton. I know how to work hard. I'm not scared of work. It is a lot of work. It's a little bit more work than I anticipated because California is such a big state. But being able to go up and down the state from LA where I live now to the Bay Area where I went to school to Stockton and Central Valley where I'm from, it's been actually energizing because there's so much to do in California, so much to improve, and so many people who are hungry for things to get better. So I'm excited.
SPEAKER_02Well, and one of the things you have to do as a candidate run a statewide is you got to introduce yourself to people. Most of the people listening probably don't aren't familiar with you. There's a community of people who know you really well and are big fans. And then there's most voters who have no idea who you are. Yeah, the vast majority. The vast majority.
SPEAKER_00So uh who are you? What's your story? My name is Michael Tubbs. I was the former mayor of Stockton, a former city council member in Stockton, but California. But before that, I was just a poor black kid born on the south side of the city. My mom was a teenager when she had me. My father was still incarcerated. And those early experiences were formative because they gave me a real kind of hard experience and lived experience with many of the issues I then studied in college or governed as city councilperson and mayor or running on now as a candidate for lieutenant governor. I was raised by my mom, my aunt, and grandmother. They're like phenomenal, strong, brilliant folks, but they're not big public speakers. They're not big into politics. They're not, they're very like introverted, nice people in the church community, in their work communities, but aren't like political folks or folks who are really engaged in the political system. But they were always engaged in service. So I tell people all the time there were times when I was hungry while we were serving people at the shelter. Or times we were at clothing giveaways, giving away clothes. Then at the end, I would take some clothes home for me as well, because maybe we needed some. And they taught me a couple of lessons that I think have stuck with me in terms of how I lead and how I navigate. Number one, they taught me that no one was better than me and I was better than no one, that everyone's equal. They taught me that any room I was in, I belonged there. I deserve to be there. And I should take up space. I shouldn't be afraid to ask questions in class. I shouldn't be afraid to protest a grade that felt that was um unfair. They taught me I was worth fighting for. Anytime I had conflict, particularly with a teacher, despite not having because she's salary jobs, they would take time off their hourly jobs, realizing now lose money, lose an hour of pay to go listen to me argue or just defend me to a teacher, make sure my teachers knew there's a family here who supported me. And they also um taught me that the cavalry wasn't coming, that that salvation or things getting better, no one was gonna come save us. That we were gonna save us. If you were gonna say, if you were to make it out of the poverty, you were gonna have to do it yourself. And you can do it. You're smart enough, you work hard enough, and we'll support you, but the cavalry's not coming to save you. So if you want to change something, you have to change it. And those lessons stuck with me. So, longer story short, it's the first one of my family to go to college. I was able to go to Stanford. And at Stanford, I learned a couple lessons that also have kind of shaped or shaped how I think of government. Um, the first lesson, probably the most important, is that I was in school with a lot of smart people for sure, but they all universally weren't smarter than the people I grew up with in Stockton. And that was a shocker to me because I was told I was so lucky to get in. I got in by the by by luck or by chance, there's no way I was qualified to be there, and that everyone there was so much smarter, so much better prepared, so much well resourced. And I got there and I was like, yeah, people are smart here, but people were smart back home. Um I think the only the biggest difference, not the only difference, the biggest difference though, from that I observed was just the resources and opportunities present. That a lot of my classmates at Stanford were set up for success from the first breath to high school. And when they messed up, there was a second chance, and there was a safety net, and there was um expungements and then calling your friend who's a D, and there was all types of things that made sure they were going to be successful. And I recognized that for many of my classmates in Stockton, they were literally set up for failure. Right. They were set up in schools that weren't real resources and neighborhoods with high pollutants. There was no real safety in there or second chance. So that got me interested in like, hey, how do you make things a little bit more equal, at least opportunity? You can't guarantee equal outcomes, but you can do the work of ensuring that opportunity is more um equally distributed. So that was the first lesson. And the second lesson, my junior year, I entered in the White House. My job was working with mayors and councils, and I hated it. But while there, one of my cousins was a victim of a homicide. It was really that murder and the um anger and the nihilism, but also just the confusion because it felt like it didn't matter. Like when my cousin was murdered, no one on the city council, no one that was the mayor at the time, no one said anything during council comments. Like any, like there was no acknowledgement that he mattered and that this happened. And what was more tragic was that that year he was one of 56 deaths.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Uh, murders. The year after, it was 71. So that Stockton per capita had the highest homicide rate in this country. And like no one talked about it, no one cared, at least at the leadership level. And that really bothered me. So I was questioned like, is this the best that we can do? And I decided it wasn't. So then I ran for city council at 21 years old.
SPEAKER_02So I spent let me uh before you do that, I want to ask what made you decide to go back to Stockton instead of going from Stanford and then just seizing some opportunity and going to some other city and never looking back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was really the murder of my cousin. It was really sort of a fork in the mode moment because to be honest, at that point, I had just internet Google, I was at the White House, I had an offer to come back to Google that summer. Yeah, some of the master consulting firms wanted me to work for them over the summer. And I was like, okay, maybe to be successful, I meant to make a lot of money, like a donate to things back home and support good people. But after my cousin was murdered, it was like a almost like a road to Damascus moment. I was like, oh my gosh, like, wait, what am I supposed to be doing? Like, this has to be about something bigger than just me being personally comfortable. Um, so that's why I decided to run for city council, partly because it seemed so crazy. I was like, well, if I lose, I could go do the other things I want to do, but I won't have any guilt. I won't feel like I could have helped and I did it. And then the second thing, I remember explaining the decision to my mom because she was against it. I said, But mom, this would be a great interview question if they asked me, okay, what'd you do your senior year in college? I ran for that. I said, I'll be fine. I could I I'll have a degree, I can still get a job. And so that's what it was. But also, underneath, I was really just driven by the question like, is this the best that we can do? And for me, I'm a very practical person. So once I experience something, okay, this is how this works. So it's like, if the government, if we can't change this, okay, I'll do something else. But if this can be changed, if this can be better, then I think we have a responsibility to make it better. So that's why I just talked about for city council. Again, I was 21 years old. I had never worked on a political campaign before. I was so naive, Mike, that um, and very just again, practical thinker. I was like, okay, to win this race, you have to knock on doors and talk to people. But I didn't know there was like list of folks you're supposed to talk to. I didn't know all that. So literally for the first month before we hired a campaign manager, we knocked on every door in the neighborhood. Wow. Democrat, Republican, voter, not voter. I'm sure a lot of them weren't voters, actually.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_00And I laugh at that now, having run two citywide campaigns, running a statewide campaign now, how primitive our strategy was. But some of the best insights I got from those doors of folks, particularly those who probably weren't voters, and one in particular, I'll never forget him. It's the first door I ever knocked on. His name was Eric. He told me that um the city had just declared bankruptcy, the city had, and the whole conversation was about that. But when I got to his door, he said, the city, like from the bankruptcy, the municipal bankruptcy didn't matter because he's like, my neighbor has been bankrupt for a long time. He pointed to a street light. He was like, This light's been out for three years. He pointed to some cracked streets. Like, he just said, I've experienced the city being bankrupt. That's not a compelling. And I was like, aha. Folks don't care about the bankruptcy in the same way that the political class do, or some of the other folks who support or have an interest in the outcome of this race. So that was a big insight I got from him. And the second one, he talked about how for three months out of the year, he would leave Stockton to go to Alaska to work on like some um crab ships or shrimp, like some seafood ships, and because it paid Wells a job. And I was like, you leave, and his baby girl came out to see who he was talking to. I was like, you leave this baby girl every year for three months because there's no local jobs here. Yeah. He's like, yeah. But it and then he told me about his hopes. He said he was going to support me because he wanted his daughter to be like me. Um I was inspiring for him to see a young person come back. And that was also instructive because at that point, so much of the conventional knowledge was that I should run away from being young. I shouldn't talk, I shouldn't talk about my age. But again, this first door, he was like, No, that's I'm literally only supporting you because you are 21 years old. And you give me hope for what my daughter could be and what the community could be when she grows up. Um, so no, so so spent four years on city council doing hyper-local stuff like that. And and you appreciate just like government seems so big and lofty, but when you're a council person, you're really dealing with like the good and the bad in very local government. But we closed down problem liquor stores. I led the charge with the police union who spent money against me every race, including that person. I know the feeling. But led the charge to put body cameras on our officers in collaboration with them. Right. This is 2014. So we're the first city in South King County to do that. Um, we opened up health clinics that became a saving grace eight years later during COVID. But but and we opened the first bank in that district in 50 years, so got a lot of stuff done. And then I'm 25 years old. I was decided to run for county supervisor because local politics in Stockton. I mean, everyone says this, but Stockton local politics are particularly nasty, particularly cutthroat, particularly like bare-knuckled. Just no, there's no demure, no, no, no, nothing, nothing sweet about it. Um, and I was like, yeah, county supervisors elevated, like the meetings are a little bit earlier, like people don't seem to care that much. And so much of the important work happens there. So I was going to do it. It was like it was the same county district as my um city council district, and Sawa King County had never had a black supervisor before. Oh, wow. Which is ridiculous, and still hasn't had a black supervisor. So that's what I was going to do. And then the police chief, different than the union, the police chief and the Republican head of the business council, the local chamber of commerce, separately, and they weren't that close. I'm not even sure if it's a coordinate. Took me to lunch. And the police chief said, I'm not supposed to do this, I'm not supposed to meddle in politics, but you see how hard I'm working, you see the reforms I'm pushing, I would really appreciate it if you would consider running for mayor. I said, The police chief once the 25-year-old black kid with a dad in jail who's pro-reform to run for mayor. I was like, this is crazy. So then I prayed, I'm like, God, I don't know. This seems like wild. Like, maybe I should do it, but but the race had been it was like two a month before the filing deadline. So the race had been off and running, and there was an incumbent running, and the county supervisor who see I was going to run for, he was running. So it was like real people in the race. And then the head of business council, older, wealthy white woman, Tubbs. You have to, she didn't even actually, you have to run for mayor. I said, What? She said, You're our hope. You have to run. And I was like, if the head police chief and the head of the chamber are chomping at the bit for me to run, I said, because my folks are gonna be with me. I said, Oh my gosh, we we just gonna be a no one's gonna see this coming. So I decided to run for mayor. Long story short, one night election, was elected mayor the same night Donald Trump was elected president. I was the youngest mayor ever of a city of more than 100,000 people. I was 26 years old. And I had three Republicans and three Democrats on my city council. It's just wild. Honestly, I just declared bankruptcy. Does the Stockton mayor vote on the city council? Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's a it's like the I mean, I know LA mayor is uh is difficult, but Stockton mayor, you have to do some of the stuff the LA mayor does, but you also have to chair every council.
SPEAKER_02That's dirty duty.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and so and so you're the one, and there's no like parliamentarian. So you're the one that has to cut off speakers after the three minutes. Oh, yeah. You're the one that has to navigate the it, you're the one that has to call reason. Like you, you're you're just really set up to be a bad person.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and you have to like, and then your colleagues are part-time, you're the one that's full-time. So you have to like sit there with folks who didn't read the agenda and listen to their questions for hours. You're just like, yeah. So anyway, I I was mayor, and again, it was a very interesting time. Trump was president, and part of the reason why I'm running for lieutenant governor now is that experience from being mayor where we actually got things done in a very tough budget time for the city. We had just declared bankruptcy. So when I started, we were bankrupt. When I left, we were the second most fiscally healthy city in the state. I mentioned my cousin being murdered, being why I ran through very difficult work. We created an office of violence prevention. We created a funding stream to institutionalize violence prevention work in the city as a department. We did a focused deterrent strategy called ceasefire and brought in another one called Advanced Peace. And we reduced homicides by 40% so that the two safest years still, this century, are the years 2018 and 2019. That's even more um impressive, in my opinion, because that wasn't at a time when there was a national downward twin. Like our numbers were different than most other cities' numbers. Um we I create a universal scholarship program called Stockton Scholars, where I raised $20 million. So to this day, every single young person who graduates from a Stockton public high school is guaranteed a two-year scholarship, a four-year scholarship. We create a toolbox scholarship for folks who want to go to the trades. Nice call, cosmetology school, coding school. The argument I was making was I don't care what you do after high school, but you have to do something. But you don't just not just me telling you you have to, there's a real resource for you to do it. Because what I experienced from folks was that people were working incredibly hard and still weren't able to do anything after high school because the pathways weren't clear, they weren't given A to G classes because it was just expensive. And the and then there's also all this psychological research about the power of authority figures, particularly in education, and their expectations of students and what that means for how they how they perform. So we said, let's tell every student we expect you to do something after high school, and there's money for you to do it. And voila, many of the students rose to the occasion. So our A through G completion rate rose, our college matriculation rate rose, our two-year school rate rose. And then, even more excitingly, because it started in 2019, now many of those students are graduating back in Stockton. Nice. In fact, I was in Stockton recently for the five-year for the anniversary of the first graduating class of students from college. And the day I'm about to tear up, I'm tear around and think about it. The person who interviewed me was a Stockton scholar. The person writing for the local newspaper was in the first graduating class of that scholarship. And afterwards, she turns to think. She's like, I just want to say thank you. And then it's like I'm getting emotional. So stuff like that. And then, of course, the people, some people may know, we also did the first UBI universal. Yeah, that's what you're known for. That's your national profile, guaranteed basic income. The guaranteed first guaranteed income program in the country as well. Explain a little bit what that is. So essentially, before Andrew Young, and Andrew Young, before Andrew Yang, a good friend, was running for president, I had already announced that in Stockton we were going to do a universal basic income program where we would give $500 a month for two years to families that represented all incomes in the city. So we had folks making 80K in the program, folks making 0K and the median income was like $42,000. And we did that. And I would we also ended the golf course subsidy. So we did a lot of stuff. But I would also say, and you're a great testament to that, is that sometimes in politics, good work, hard work, structural work, data-informed work is not always the most politically popular work. Amen. And I tell folks that because I think in California, part of the issue is that we elect more politicians than we elect leaders. And then we're upset with the outcomes. But to get things done, you need leaders. And part of being leadership is taking some heat, navigating conflict, at times disagreeing with folks in the public who aren't as informed, who don't have the data, who don't have the numbers, who don't understand actually what it's going to take. And that's and I mean, of course, you have to win like being a political leader also requires a level of politics, but uh for folks listening, my leadership style is that I err more on the leadership part and do the politics when necessary, which is great for getting things done. We did a lot of stuff, but can be also difficult sometimes when politics are politics. So um yeah, that's that that's mean and that show um and some of the stuff I did.
SPEAKER_02And then uh a question on the guaranteed basic income, because you you you the getting that done, like people talk about it now, people like the idea now, but at the time, I imagine people from all ends of the spectrum were either skeptical to opposed, right? Because you've got sort of the uh the the the conservatives who don't like the idea giving money away, but then you have people who I identify as liberal who don't trust that you're gonna give money to to poor people.
SPEAKER_00Man, I I I marvel. Only because the amount of push, I marvel how far we've got because the amount of inertia and pushback was ridiculous. When we announced it that same day, Joe Biden was a friend of a co VP, then VP, President Biden, excuse me, was a friend of a coal mine, and they asked him about it. This is 2017. Uh huh. He's like, I don't believe in handouts, I believe in the dignity of work. Um, I think Nancy Speaker Pelosi was asked about it. Same thing. I'm like a 27 year old mayor of Stockton. Yep. And they're asking people these people are saying this. What's your response? And then, of course, on the Republican side, um, they racialized like first black marriage wants to give money to black people. Um, I remember being in Twitter arguments with like Sarah Palin about the topic. But it was funny because in Alaska they have a permanent dividend, which is like a UBI except it's yearly. Yeah. And in fact, the reason why she became vice president was because her popularity rating in Alaska was so high. She's the most popular governor at the time. Yeah. Can you guess why she's the most popular governor? She something about the dividend? She increased the dividend. She gave people more money and they loved her. So we were arguing back and forth. And I was like, it's modeled after Alaska permanent dividend. Have you heard of it? Um, I used to be the best bear at Twitter, too. So so yeah, it was just, and then even people who worked with folks in poverty were upset. Yeah. Like I was like, wow, everyone hates poor people more than we hate poverty. And that was insight. But then also what was interesting to me was that I learned there's a whole class of people, because the middle class is shrinking, it probably really doesn't exist, that aren't wealthy and aren't in poverty who feel like they're in a state of purgatory. Yeah, they don't, they're not rich enough to not need any help, but they're not quite destitute enough to get any help. So they're $10, $1,000, $2,000 above what it takes for a food assistant or for childcare assistant. They're like pissed. And in stock, there's a lot of people in that bucket. But part of the work was to socialize and tell people like, no, this is for you too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is for this is particularly for you. Because you don't have a safety net. Yeah. You don't have anything you need. It's also for folks at the bottom for sure, but it's for you too. So that was that was part of the rub. And then um it also just taught me how so much of what's wrong in our state and what's wrong in our society is because enough people with authority haven't interrogated the status quo. Yeah. And they just if there's any pushback, any critique, anything negative, without looking at data, without trying, it's like, oh no, we can't do that. So no, I'm I'm thankful for for for that, for that experience, because it taught me that. I mean, VP Harris says this so beautifully. She says that um people love it when you break a glass ceiling, but what they don't realize is that glass has to fall somewhere. Yep. And it falls on the person closest to it, who's the person that broke the damn glass glass ceiling. Right. Um, so but so that was a good reminder of that. We took it it is so funny because I joke with so many of my mayor friends, so many of my supervisor friends who are being like lauded and loved and applauded for the Garrett and then co-working. I'm like, y'all, get all this love and none of the hate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Derisk the whole thing. But again, I think for the folks listening, that's why I'm excited about running again. Because I'm um, I mean, love being lauded, it feels great. It's better than glass. But I am not afraid of being the first or or pushing or pushing back, particularly about harmful narratives about poor people, about marginalized people, about immigrant people, about LGBT people. Uh, and just make sure that folks like, no, no, no, I'm not someone that's gonna sit there and let my folks be attacked. Narrative. No, no, no. I'm gonna always speak the truth. I'm always gonna speak about data. Even if it goes against what the dominant narrative is at the time. Like right now, we see a pushback against criminal justice reform. No. No. I don't know. Like, I believe people are their second chances. I don't believe incarceration is an effective tool for safety all the time. I don't believe that um more of our dollars should be spent. I I do believe our dollars should be spent on prevention. So we have to do less intervention. And I'm just unapologetic about being vocal about those things, even when they're not popular.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned the the dominant narratives. Uh you you had this amazing first term, right? You delivered on on the stuff you promised, and then you broke ground on some other stuff like guaranteed basic income. But man, you got hit by some horrible narratives. Oh my gosh. The police union and the 209 times. Oh my gosh. 209 Times it it was Stockton's version of what is now the West Side Current here in Los Angeles or the California Post statewide. Uh, what happened?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, and and I I I love the um the analogs and just give more context. Stockton love my community, love my folks. But of the top 100 cities, we were number 99 for college attainment.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_0083% of our adults did not have a two-year degree or higher. Only 17% did. Um, we were number 102 of the top 105 cities for illiteracy. So my folks are brilliant, but aren't like media literate, aren't trained in fake news and what's real and what's not, haven't don't have the same sort of formal training and critical thinking. Yeah. Um, and are very successful. And we're also a news desert. So I became mayor, our newspaper laid off a third of its staff. Yeah, it was a so it was a real news vacuum. Um, and I came of age, my first run was in 2012. So social media blog, like what? A blogger, like who cares? Like it was TV, newspaper, yeah, op-ed, press conference. I had no, which is funny because I'm so young, but I had no idea about the power of social media. So when I so when I became mayor, I knocked out the incumbent mayor, but I also won and led a slate of a bunch of reform-minded candidates who were all um good government folks, smart folks. And we won like every elect, we won like every seat. And I think we probably needed a little bit more political strategists on our team because we were so focused on governing that no one did the work of thinking about who's gonna be pissed that we won our couple. Yeah, my best friend, school board president with three people. So we had the majority on the school board. We had two supervisors, a colleague of mine who's on city council with me. Like we had like a I think I had a five-two council. Like, we just had so much. Yeah, and even the two that weren't with me on council, it became a six-one council on most votes because we just became wherever we bring them into the floor. Anyway, um, so in that vacuum, there's a couple of disgruntled people who saw a real opportunity. They saw the media ecosystem failing, they saw sort of no kind of narrative gatekeepers in in the city. They saw what Trump had did with Cambridge Analytica and data harvesting. So, and to their credit, much more sophisticated than I thought they were, they sort of created a profile of because I went with 72% of the vote. In my first race, I went with 62% of the vote. But they found a profile of people who maybe had voted for me, but could be turned against me if they fed into some biases. So what they did very in a very sophisticated way was they every day they would write a story that said either I was a crook, I was stealing from the city, um, I was under investigation, or um I was like illegitimate. Like I didn't live in Stockholm. So all these like near anti-black tropes. Right. Yep. And because so much was happening very quickly, all this money was coming in, I was raising a lot of money, all this attention and stuff. I think it became easy for people to believe some of those things, particularly if I'm communicating with you through my little town halls, through traditional media, and you're getting all your stuff down, it's memeable.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what I realize now is we should have had a better job of correcting the lies. But at the time, the prop prop the problem I thought was when they go low, you go high. Yep. And then the mayor, I'm not arguing with a blogger, like my work speaks for itself. Like people should go. Remember so dumb. Yep. Um, so so that's what happened. So it was that, and then I mean, so that was uh an anchor, but then I underestimated sort of how much change people could take, and I probably could have done a better job of change management. I thought like a bankrupt city with the highest homicide rate in the country who elected a 25-year-old black. I'm like, they understand things are about to be different. Yeah, like they gotta be. But particularly when I ended the golf course subsidy, I don't think I didn't manage that. It was the right thing to do. I could have in the span of two months, I ended the golf course subsidy, introduced an alternative to incarceration program to reduce violence, and started the basic income program. That's just a lot. And I was getting married at the same time. So I didn't take the time to, I just assumed a lot of conversations were happening by other people who are supposed to be governing women at work. Um, so that created a whole like the golfers who are like moderate to conservative white folks who had supported me before, but now they had a reason not to like oh, he's corrupt and he wants to sell the golf course and he made a deal with Newsom. So it was that. And then COVID happened. And COVID-19 in Stockton was different than COVID-19 in Los Angeles because in Stockton, my board of supervisors, the county was mostly Republican, which means they weren't trying to shut down, they weren't doing mass mandates. I'm the mayor of the um county seat. Half the county lives in Stockton. Um, and my folks had higher rates of core morbilities, higher rates of asthma, and the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the state. So I felt a moral responsibility to govern and be like, well, look, if the county won't do what I did. So I became like, and our public health officer was getting death threats, and so she was scared. So I became the COVID czar, which is a terrible position to be in. Yeah, particularly when you're in the face of everything. Goodness bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially when you're a young black dude, the doctor telling people you can't go outside. Right. Wear your mask. So I was like, what the hell? Get him out. So it was that. And they and they fed into that as well. And the antidote to that disinformation is community, it's in person, it's tactical. Yes. But it's COVID-19. And you can't do it. So I made a conscious choice with my team. I remember we had the meeting like it was yesterday. And my team was like, Mayor, like I get it. Um, but we gotta start knocking on doors. We gotta start having house parties. I said, you guys, if I start knocking on doors, if I start having house parties, it's gonna undermine everything I'm saying to do. You know how our people are very visual learning. So if they see me knocking on door, it's not that bad. It's not that so I was like, we we can't do it. And so the disinformation kind of fed and seated the narrative. Um and another one of the narratives they fed and seated was that I was too big for Stockton. I forgot about Stockton. I was about my own ambition or illusions or grandeur. And part of the strategy going into 2020 was to do like a house party, like every single day. Right. And we won't do a house party, I'm there. Because I was like, people remind me, they like me, we're gonna be fine. Right. And then again, COVID happened. We can't do any of that. So it was a it was a perfect storm, um, caused us to lose re-election, the police union. I didn't even know they had this much money. They spent $300,000 against me. And wonder why? Because despite the fairly good working relationship I had with them, of course, we're gonna have to, but things have to change and reform. And they were upset because after the murder of George Floyd, I did an interview and I mentioned how the stuff we were already working on. Like we're doing a civilian review board, we led this, we led the state in the decline and officer-involved shootings. My police chief was awesome. We were doing all this stuff. Then someone asked me about qualified immunity, and I said, Well, as a mayor, I don't have any say over that. Like it's not something on my purview, but I think it's very clear we should end qualified immunity, which I still believe is like a very obvious answer. But that was like so that's that's the third rail with them. They were so mad, Mike. They changed the board of the pack, who I had a good relationship with. They're at least going to be neutral. Yeah, they switched the board of the pack, put a whole new board on in the span of three weeks. Wow. Interviewed me again, and then ended up going. Wow. So, um, so so so yeah, but to the your listeners, I I I I I definitely don't like losing, but the levity or the laughter you hear is because up until that point, I had always like one in one big. So this is the first time I had to deal with like losing. Yeah. And what I learned is that A, you can learn a lot from losses, like how to communicate, like change management. Like, hey, I still don't know if I agree with this, but part of me is like, hey, I should have thought in terms of eight years, but I'm like, no, but the fact that we thought in four years, we got so much done. Yeah. If we had thought eight years, I could have, yeah. So I'm still debating that. But also I'm very clear what I'm willing to lose for. Right. And that clarity I think is important for leaders. It's like some things I could compromise on, but when it comes to like ending poverty or the dignity of all people, like I'm so happy to lose on those issues. Because those are like very clear. And I didn't, I I realized I didn't have that have that clarity explicitly. Right. But now I know when I'm making decisions, when I'm in an endorsement interview, when it's time to take a vote or speak out. I know very there's no there's no fear. Yeah, I've already lost and my life got better, actually.
SPEAKER_02So after yeah I I I want to follow up on that because after you lost, I remember, I mean, you you wound up moving to Los Angeles, focusing on your family, you wrote an autobiography. I I remember you, I think it was uh on fresh air with Terry Gross, and she was interviewing you, and it was around the time I was either deciding not to run again or or getting out, and you had such a uh a peace and an equanimity, not just about the loss, but about about where you were in your life then. And I remember you saying that that you're discovering there are so many ways to make a difference. Uh, and that was really inspiring to me personally. Oh, well, thanks for and um uh and and you were doing a lot of work on anti-poverty stuff, working with the governor and and and other mayors and all that. If that's where you were and you're digging it, what made you decide to run again, particularly for lieutenant governor?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um well, I I think being young is a blessing and a curse. Because I think most people, after being a mayor through COVID and Trump's first presidency, would be like, I'm done. But I always understood, just given the amount of time I hoped to live, that that was going to be the floor for whatever I do civically and and and not the ceiling. And after about four years of not being in government and loving it, I'm I'm sound funny, it's like a therapy. I like I'm weirdly motivated by guilt. So when I was doing the guaranteed income work, like going across the country and interviewing guaranteed income recipients, they would always say, You gotta get back in. So what are you talking about? Like you got you're not done yet. You're not done. I was like, Well, you I am so happy already. This is this is not enough. Like I'm helping, I'm not from this community, right? But so that was oh, and then when I started in poverty in California, and we're doing poverty tours or a poverty tour, there was one woman in particular in Fresno. We were having a meeting about evictions. She was pissed because she is she just got eviction of it. So afterwards, she's like, Mijo. I'm like, yes, ma'am. And she's like, um, why are you here? After the I'm like, we spent two hours on this. I said, Well, I'm here because I deeply care. I think there's a lot we can do. I'm gonna take your recommendations to the legislature and the governor. She said, That's not enough. And I was like, Wait, I said, that's all I can do. Right. And then she was like, You're here because you still care and you can help us. So you have to do more. I was like, What do you mean you have to do more? She's like, you have to run for something. And I said, I'm not uh But like stuff like that really like really wears on, not wears on, but it really gets me thinking. And then I think because I had time and space to heal and reflect, I recognize, like, hey, I'm not done with that part of my life yet. Yeah, at least in terms of what in terms of my energy and willingness to to do it. And B, um, and you know this, you have to have like Dr. King called it being creatively maladjusted. I think you have to be like really creatively maladjusted to be in government. And I realized, particularly in some of the private sector work I was doing, yeah, that I just understand how government and government officials and people work. Like there's something I just be like just how you know that. I'm like, well, let's just know it. Yeah. So I was, I was like, and and and also I have a very high tolerance for like the illogical nature of so much of how politics and government works, and I just have a wide span of relationships. So long answer to say was I just I decided to run because I thought to myself, with my three young kids in California, was I optimistic or worried about the California they would grow into over the next several years? And then B, was there anyone I thought could do a better job than me? And I knew I wasn't ready for governor yet. Um, because I was like, I in I enjoying being at home with my wife and my children, yeah, and being able to go to things and not have to respond. Like, because when you're a mayor or an executive, it's like a quartzall-like high every day. Like every day. And you are always on, no matter where you are, no matter what time of day. And every minute, like, and it's like for some of the ADHD like me, it was fun, but it was like it like look at it, it took me three years, like detox from having like every day, do this, dude. It was always high energy, always something new, like stressful situations, crisis, like this happens. Like, so I don't know, I'm not ready for all that yet. But I said there would be a way to serve the state, yeah. Um somebody cared deeply about higher education. Yeah. Um, and also the bully pulpit. So I said, okay, let me um let me think about if if if if I wanted to run, and then just in meetings with people and talking with people, and even during the course of the campaign, I haven't heard like any everyone's saying affordability, yeah, but no one's saying the word poverty. That's true. That's true. Yes, California has to be more affordable, and to do that, we have to have an aggressive anti-poverty agenda and not be afraid to say those words and not be afraid to say folks who are poor are part of my affordable affordability agenda too. Right. The middle class, the lower middle class, and also folks in poverty, particularly when California leaves Louisiana in poverty. So that's what made me run, actually, is that so much of the narrative was about how bad Donald Trump was. And I was like, but yeah, but Donald Trump doesn't govern in California, and there's so many California issues that he's made worse with the big ugly bill and things of that source. But he's not the source of the fact that we don't have enough housing for folks that we have the highest poverty rate. And I just hate virtue signaling. So just being like not in politics, but hearing people talk about like how much they love immigrant communities, yet so many folks who before the horrors of ICE, which should be abolished, were living in like substandard housing. Yeah. Being sexually exploited, having their paychecks taken, like weights that have happening, and like that. We care about immigrants. Those are issues we have to fight, or we think about the LGBT community and and and and we're it's always a big pride partying and stuff, but it's like, okay, the the most people who are young people who are homeless are what? They're LGBTQ. What are we doing about that? The folks who are who are the most likely people to die from violence in our communities? Black trans women. Like, what like what are we doing? There's a set of issues affecting these impacts. So so and I just didn't, and then when Prop 36 happened, and folks could be either way on the issue, like what's done is done. But I was shocked at the lack of pushback or a lot, lack of defense of the benefits of Prop 47. Because there's no policy that's perfect, there's no policy that's gonna get it right all the time. Yeah, but Prop 47 did a lot of good things, changed a lot of lives. We had some of the lowest crime levels we've seen in decades. Now I was like, where's leadership? Yeah. Saying, hey, like I get you're frustrated with smash and grabs. We have to have a solution for that. I get you're frustrated with theft. We have to have a solution for that. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let's talk about the fact that violent crime is down, that shillings are down, that overall even property crimes are down. And yes, copper theft is real. We should aggress that. Yes, smash and grabs are bad. We should definitely address that. But you don't address that by by demonizing entire groups of people, by painting a narrative of Gotham City for the whole state. Yep. And I just think leadership has to be responsible. Long answer, but that's why I decided to run a There's still use for my experiences, the things, my gifts, what I'm good at, to actually move California forward. But I I am eager for the day when things are good enough. I don't feel like I need to run for anything.
SPEAKER_02Uh explain to listeners why they should give a shit about the lieutenant governor's race.
SPEAKER_00It's a great question. Uh it's one question I've asked for the last two years. Uh, you should care about the lieutenant governor's race, A, because California has a four-flower economy in the world. And in the times that we live in, like position matters, but leadership matters more. And with our current governor leaving, California is going to need leaders who could go toe-to-toe against this administration for sure, but also help frame the narrative of the state. Also helped help to get people interested in what's happening and to get us focused on what matters. And the lieutenant governor actually can do that. Number two, if you are an employer or a parent or a citizen of California, you should care because the UC, CSU, and community college system represents some of our largest state investments.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um the UCCSU community college system sits on a lot of land. One out of every 10 of our workers is from the CSU. I think 50% of our teachers come from the CSU system. So many of our nurse, so many of the people who make our state work are educated at CSU LA, at UCLA, like at our CSU, UC, our community college system. And the lieutenant governor sits on those boards and can really help those boards really and force those institutions, A, to focus on the fact that 50% of our students are housing insecure. Yeah. We sit on a lot of land. We need revenue, build more housing, do land use agreements, put the revenue back in the system. It's so but it's going to take someone who's annoying and persistent and like will push on the bureaucracy until it gets done to make it happen. Or else it would have happened already. Right. So that's one. Um number two, the lieutenant governor, and also the fact that the the the UCCHU Community College in their charters were supposed to be these people's universities. Yeah. The place where kids, particularly middle income and poor kids, kids in poverty, will have the chance for economic mobility. And now with tuition rising at 5% every year, that's impossible. Yeah. So part of it is to, not part of it, first thing is to do a tuition freeze. I'm not convinced that expenses are going up 5% every year. And if they are, we have to cut. Right. And cut the things that aren't student-facing. Um, because there should be a tuition freeze. Whatever it is now, it's what it should be. And then we should work down and figure out how to reduce it. Right. Um, so to so it's an affordable for for everyone in California. And then we need to get to a place where it's debt-free or tuition-free college. It's the goal, but we have to start somewhere. Um, number two, the lieutenant governor sits on the state lands commission. So when we think about like our protecting our coastlines, we think about the transition from oil. The state lands commission is the first bulwark and SOP against that. Yep. And has some say over stuff at the Port of Los Angeles. It has to say with the Port of Los Angeles, particularly in LA. LA people, particularly folks who lost their homes and fires, the state lands and the coastal commission will be the folks that will help or hinder you getting your permits. Um, and also the state lands commission is underutilized because a lot of that state land can be utilized for, if not for some, I do believe there's a number between zero and all that can be used for development, but also for renewable energy, for solar farming, for just put the thing to use. We make this energy transition real. Um, and then lastly, the lieutenant governor is the acting governor when the governor is away, or if the governor becomes um vice president or president or whatever. The lieutenant governor automatically becomes governor. So it's really about succession and what the future of California should look like. And then lastly, well, what I started with, the lieutenant governor runs independently of the governor. You have to talk to 40 million people as well. So it's a huge bully pulpit. It's a huge platform to really center and focus the state on issues that matter. And I tell people all the time: if you had judged what I could do as mayor based off the prior mayors of Stockton, you would say that position didn't matter. Right. Because frankly, it really didn't. Like a lot of the mayors were just ribbon cutters. A lot of the mayors were just like, let's go to chicken dinner, happily be here, and let the city manager run this run this show. And I think not every lieutenant governor, but I think a lot of lieutenant governors have approached the office in the same way. So it's you should care about lieutenant governor, not just because of the position, but because not I and Michael Tubbs and the answer, but because who's running for it? And I just have a track record of taking positions that historically have not mattered. Right. Like when has everyone, anyone ever cared about what the mayor of Stockton was doing on any issue? Yeah. Yet everything we did, people started to emulate and talk about, right? And so I think I'll tell it's like in my household, my wife is the handyman. So we have a toolbox, and it's the same tools, but the hammer is different when she has it than when I have it. It's just it's just different. Like the hammer does different things, it's much more effective. It's the job done. When I have the hammer, it's like what so and I think political offices are the same thing. Like they're a tool. And in California, the next lieutenant governor will be a Democrat. Yeah. But the outcome of that election will be different depending on who you elect. And I think if you care about anti-poverty work, if you care about the future, who's thinking about data dividends, who's thinking about um equity stakes and AI companies, who actually has the relationship to talk to these folks and bring them to the table and say, hey, how do we make sure there's a just transition? How do you make sure that workers are accounted for? Like, if you care about those things, if you care about building more housing and not being afraid to have conflict with friends to do so, then you should care about the lieutenant governor's race because I'm the person that has those things and that's the position I'm running for.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and one of the things that's that's cool about lieutenant governor's race is if you're governor, you have to have an opinion on every piece of legislation. You have to be involved in everything. Everything. When you're lieutenant governor, you can pick what you focus on. Uh so uh you you mentioned education, you mentioned poverty, those are gonna be the two things that housing housing.
SPEAKER_00Oh. And also childcare. Yep. I think childcare ties with poverty. Like New Mexico has universal childcare. New Mexico is 10 times smaller than California. Yep. But I don't think the inability to do everything is an excuse to do nothing. So we should at least figure out how do we lower the cost of childcare in California, particularly because it represents an investment in communities and facilities and in the workforce, particularly workforce led by women of color. It's like there's a whole bunch of benefits, and we need someone who's gonna do the hard, boring, messy work just to think about how do we start? Where do we want to go? So those would be my issues. It'll be housing, education, um, anti-poverty, childcare, and of course, like AI and technology. Because I do think you need someone who um has experience with startups, has experience um with technology, who knows some of the folks and in and players who can have a conversation about, hey, you guys, look, we can't let like the idea that three people have everything and everyone has nothing has never ended well for any society. Like every society, that that's like a recipe for bad things to happen. So it's in everyone's best interest to come to this table and figure out what are we going to do to make sure everyone benefits? What are we gonna do to make sure everyone has a stake? We're gonna make sure to make sure that we don't accelerate inequality or we don't perpetuate the same inequality, but we actually use this technological transformation as a way to reduce inequality, which hasn't ever been done really. Right. Uh, which is a lofty goal, but I mean, what's the other alternative? Like, like what's the what's what's our plan? What's the hope? So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh when it comes to AI on a scale of really pessimistic and freaked out on one end and optimistic and hopeful on the other, what what's your attitude about where we are with the technology?
SPEAKER_00Where we are? My I'm a little bit pessimistic, but not because of the technology, but the lack of leadership.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? Like I like I think that um it's glaringly obvious at the least we have to have a universal basic income. But for me, that's like the opening salvo now. That's like let's get that in place to start. Yeah. But $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 in a month, it's not gonna be enough to replace jobs that you used to pay $120,000. Yeah. So let's get that notion, let's just swear it's over that notion. Like, that's just the beginning of the conversation. Like, let's get that in place now so we have some time to do the other things. Um, I think that we have to have serious conversations to start in terms of regulation, to start with how do you mitigate harms as it pertains to children and young people and other vulnerable people? That's a no-brainer. You saw what happened with social media, intended or unintended, whatever, we know there's negative impacts, and we can't let that happen again as leaders. That's just irresponsible. Um, number three, I do believe, I think OpenAI has put a paper saying, saying much of the same that we should have a conversation about either sort of the public having equity stakes in AI companies as a body politic or in or us as individuals. Right. I think we need to own our data first and be able to profit off that. But I also think we should we should have either we should have equity stakes or the government should have equity stakes so that there's um share prosperity. Um, and I also think we have to be committed to it being an iterative conversation. Yeah. Because we're not going to get this right the first time. It's going to be messy. Much like trying to get an answer from AI to make it an iterative conversation. It's going to be so messy and so iterative, and it has to be a conversation, not just with AI people. It can't just be the AI CEOs determining what to do because they know their thing, but there's a reason why we have civil society. Yeah. So you, it's going to take government.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00It's going to take AI companies, it's going to take labor. It's going to take faith leaders. I think we need some faith leaders and some philosophers and emphasis and conversation as well, and some workers to really figure out okay, what's California's plan? What's our commitment to do? And how do we create a table to have these conversations in an ongoing manner? So we don't, because I don't think we make good decisions in times of crisis. Um, and but then I would also say there's so much potential benefit to the technology as well. There's, and I think the the minuses and the pluses, neither are inevitable. They are determined by what we do, by our agency. Yeah. Um, so I think there's ways to accentuate the positive for impacts in education and health, but that's also just not going to happen. It's going to take intentionality, focus, and some regulatory framework and guidance. And that's probably the reason why I want to run for lieutenant governor as well, because I think that's a role to play as a convener, as a provocateur, as someone who's making it, making sure. Like the fact that it hasn't even been a big campaign issue is makes me pessimistic. Because, like you guys, like the CEO of Anthropic, who plays with this stuff every day, he said in five years, 30% of entry-level jobs are going to be gone. And even if he's wrong, if it's 10%, that's still a lot. If it's 5%, that's a hell of a lot of jobs for these kids who are taking out 50k in debt. Yeah. We should probably be talking about that. Yeah. What's the plan?
SPEAKER_02So I want to go back to the the UC and the the the CSUs for a second. Um you were just recently at CSU L A uh for Lieutenant Governor debate. Uh you got a chance to talk to the students. Uh, you know, the questions they all had were you know about tuition, but also about, I mean, the the thing that they talk about is that even if there's a tuition freeze, they're still screwed, right? Because they're they're they're trying to afford a place to live. There's very few students at Cal State LA who don't hold down a job at the same time, juggling all that kind of stuff. And it feels like since the days of Pat Brown when they were, you know, celebrating and lifting up the CSUs, it's it's almost kind of like an afterthought for a lot of state government. And it's just sort of getting hit by cut after cut after cut. You know, uh, if they're not raising tuition, then they're cutting programs, right? Uh Lieutenant Governor has been on these boards for a while, but I've never seen a lieutenant governor who really made this their thing. How in that position do you get the rest of the board and the rest of state government to start caring and investing?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I I think part of it starts with showing up and not just showing up to the meetings, but I'm obsessed with how things work. So just understanding, okay, who on this board of regions has influence? Making sure I'm in constant communication with the chair and the chair of the facilities committee, like in all the different chair of the subcommittees, making sure I have a good relationship with staff. And I'm pre-like, I think that's the first thing. Like, how do you build a relationship? Because what I learned from my time in Stockton, even in institutions that are in crisis or have issues, everything's not broken.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of things that actually are going pretty well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what's missing is leadership kind of uplifting and scaling and amplifying and unleashing people to do their best work. Like the folks at the CSU, they can't go hard at the legislature because they need the legislature. That's where their money comes from. Right. They don't have the same political relationships or capital that I have. Yep. So I've I view my role as being both a um, like my role was in Stockton, being a thorn in the side of folks who don't want to do anything or don't want things to happen, but being the best weapon tool for folks who want to get stuff done and clearing hurdles and getting out the getting things out the way and making it so that if it's a political issue, I'm happy to take it on as me. It doesn't just be your lobbyist. Yeah. The lieutenant governor will testify on every C on every C every I can make this declaration on every bill I agree with that affects the U, CCSU Community College, I will testify and be a sponsor on it. That's like no-brainer. Like sign me up. Like, right? Yeah. And then I think the lieutenant governor also has a role, particularly in this revenue-raising conversation we're having, to ensure that higher education is part of the conversation. Particularly the edge, like it should be my job will be doing my best to have it included in the conversation we're going to have about education and education funding, because the post-12 system is part of our education system. I ideally would love to at least find a way to get a permanent revenue source for the CSU. Yeah. So it's not subject to budget and legislature negotiations all the time. Yeah, so no, I I it's funny you say that because for me, one of the only few real jobs in the role as written by statute, you're the higher education czar. Like your job is to be the person that blocks and tackles and speaks and challenges the system. So that's how I plan on using it. Yeah. Um, so and some people are gonna love it. Yeah, some people are gonna hate it, but they won't say nothing got done. They won't say it didn't matter.
SPEAKER_02Uh we've been talking for almost an hour. I could do this for like eight or nine hours with you, but um uh we should wrap it up. So let me ask a closing question. Uh and I've been asking this of candidates who are running for for all sorts of offices, is we're living in some really dark and scary times, right? Democracy's falling apart, the economy's in the shitter, uh, you know, we have masked agents who've been kidnapping our neighbors off the streets, uh, so many things are moving backwards. I mean, just with with voting rights in the past week as we're recording this. Um where in the middle of all this are you finding faith?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think about so 2010, I was able to go on the freedom rides with some of the original freedom riders. And we went to all the stops on the freedom bus they took. And for many of them was their first time going back. So they were like beaten and almost killed, etc. Yeah. And I appreciate it now as much as then as much as I do now. But not only were these folks incredibly young, they were 21 years old, but they never even had a taste of freedom, a taste of democracy, a taste of Barack. Like they even as imperfect as it's been, they didn't even have that. Yeah. And yet they summoned the faith and the courage to challenge a system that was the only system that had existed in this country. Yeah. They had no playbook to draw from, right? And they got on the bus and they and they rode some of them to their deaths, some of them to prison. Um, so that there'd be a chance for a democracy where folks had rights to vote and to eat and to love who they wanted to love and to not be lynched, and etc. And one guy, his name is Bob Singleton, he's a UCLA um graduate. He and he's professor at LMU. Him and his wife Helen were on the bus and came really close with them. And we were in Anniston, Alabama, and he looked at me and he said, Michael, I was arrested on August 4th, 1961. Why is that day important? And I thought he was fishing for a compliment, honestly. So it's like, it's like, yeah, um, thank you. I'm sorry, you know I appreciate you. Thank you, brother. I know I I'm here because of you. I appreciate you. And then he laughed and he said, No, son, on that same day Barack Obama was born. And then he said he had no idea that the choice he made to believe that his actions mattered, to believe that things could get better, to to believe that the only thing that's true is that if I don't try to change anything, nothing changes, would pave the way so a child born to an illegal marriage would have the chance to be president. Right. Just 50 years later. And then he said, What are you going to do today so that 50 years later um a child has a chance? And that's what gives me faith, really, is that sort of me I mean the co a gay city councilman, a black mayor, impossible. A hundred a hundred years ago. Yeah. Like not even that long ago. Yep. Um like it we are despite you know, not to downplay like the dystopian nature of where we live now, but not only have we been here before as a society, we've been worse. And that's what he keeps saying we're going back, back to what we were. Right. And that's what gives me faith is that the folks who were alive in the back in the again in MAGA summon courage and faith and resilience and vision and hope to get us to where we were. And we're and it's our responsibility to not to take it to where it should be. And it's not gonna come easy. It's gonna be a fight, it's gonna be conflict, it's gonna be messy, but again, if like even just the story of this country, like even we could talk about the negatives in the human trafficking, the land theft, genocide of the um folks who founded this country, but even when they fought against the British, that was very improbable. The British Empire was the most powerful empire in the world. Yeah, colonies everywhere. These were like the worst of the worst of Britain, the outcasts, the religious weirdos, the criminals who who took down this empire. Like throughout history, there's it's our our history has been one of improbable people driven by faith who could see something that hasn't existed yet, fighting against what is and all the power, and not all the times, but oftentimes winning. Yeah. Or winning enough so that the next generation has a fighting chance and a better chance. Um that's what gives me faith is that we're actually in line with the trajectory of this country. And my hope is that this fight will be the one that puts us over the hump. So we'll still have fights, but there won't be fights about like whether black people should have to be allowed to vote, or whether immigrants have due process and shouldn't be kidnapped from their homes, or whether LGBT kids and adults should be able to love, live, work, walk the streets with their babies without impunity, without threat of harm, without you know, like just like very base, like whether women should have the right to bodily autonomy and privacy. Like just like basic things, I think. My hope is that this next fight is so nasty and so big because we'll finally turn the page on that stuff and get to a place where there's no poverty, where there's real opportunity, and that we have a society that's designed not for exploitation, but that so everyone can reach their potential if they want to. So that so that we can actually, I my big dream is I literally want to live in a true meritocracy where uh one's outcomes are a direct result of just their talent and their work ethic. Like, and if and if and there's variations in that, so there should be a robust safety net, but we won't have why widely disparate outcomes based off things that have nothing to do with talent and or intellect like race or sexual orientation or how rich your parents were. Um gives me hope and faith is that I see it so clearly, and we have pockets of it actually. There's like I tell people all the time if we look at the data in this country, the groups who are doing well, we should look at like investments the government has made in them. Yep, the history of this country towards them. You're like, oh yeah, that that makes sense. If you got a whole bunch of land during the Homestead Act, you're pretty good. If you weren't redlined, if you got the GI Bill, you already buy a house in 1940, like I'm sure your grandkids are fine. It's not like rocket scientists, right? So yeah, so we have examples also of things that work, of government investments that change trajectories for generations. Yeah. And it's like, how do we just do that for everybody? That's what's a little time. Like, I'm not complicated. I just want everyone to be treated like a straight white man. Like we literally, no, literally. I'm just like, I really think that's the solution. Like we we've done it for a one group. So let's just scale it. Yeah. Let's scale what works.
SPEAKER_02All right, amen. Michael Tubbs, thanks for joining me.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02And that's it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles. My thanks to Michael Tubbs for joining me. My thanks to Tanya Wecias for editing and producing, and my thanks as always to LA Forward for sponsoring this podcast. And of course, my thanks to the staff at the Pat Brown Institute for their support. Please also tune in to our sister podcast, LA Podcast, where I'm part of a stable of co-hosts who discuss and analyze the latest news about politics, policy, and government here in Los Angeles and in California. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. And stay tuned for more episodes of What's Next Los Angeles as we head into the June election. Until then, thank you for joining me. Peace and take good care.