(00:02):
In 2017, I was up here lobbying for Medicaid expansion, and I'd show up in an office just like this, and I'd look across to the Republican and I'd say, listen, Medicaid expansion will do wonders for your district. It's good for workforce development. It'll infuse millions of dollars back into your rural economy. And they sat there and said, I don't care. I know, but I'm not going to vote for it because it's a liberal policy.
(00:34):
Welcome to Shout Your Cause with Sally Hendrick, a digital magazine where you can get found, get heard, and get inspired with content that challenges us to be globally minded. Our focus is on raising awareness around social justice issues, cultural differences, and to bring you the people dedicating their lives to tackling challenging topics as their way of giving back. Let us be your advocate to make your voices heard around the world.
(01:04):
Hey everybody, it's Sally Hendrick again for Shout Your Cause, and today I'm very excited to bring Aftyn Behn to the table. Hello, Aftyn.
(01:14):
Hi. I'm super excited to be here.
(01:16):
Yeah, tell us exactly what you do for the Tennessee House. What do you call yourself?
(01:27):
Well, it depends on the day. Sometimes I'm a politician, but mostly I represent the Tennessee House District 51, which for your listeners, comprises of downtown Nashville, Germantown, east Nashville, Inglewood, Donaldson, and Madison. It's about 60,000 voters. And I am a member of the larger body, which is comprised of 99 house members all across the state of Tennessee. And the district's range in terms of amount of voters. And I am one, I believe of 12 women out of 99 people and one of three Democratic women representing the only representative of Nashville, only female representative of Nashville.
(02:17):
There are only three Democratic women.
(02:20):
So representative at Leader Camper is from Memphis. Representative Johnson is from Knoxville, and I'm from Nashville. So at least you have representation in the Tennessee House in terms of gender?
(02:31):
Well, and you happen to be the district that I'm in, so I voted for you, and I didn't know who you were, but I did read about you. I always try to read about what's going on before I go to the polls, and I don't think that a lot of people actually do that, but I do think that it would be really kind of fun to get some education about how the whole House and Senate and everything is set up. And now when you're talking about, you represent District 51 Justin Jones, is he on the same level as you, but represents a different number district?
(03:12):
Correct. 52. And our district, they're almost, I don't know if you can see the map in the back. I know we're on Zoom, but his district is catty. It
(03:20):
Butts up against yours. Yes. Yeah, I know he is in East Nashville. I know that a friend of mine who lives over in that area, he is his representative. That's
(03:33):
Right.
(03:34):
And how many are there in the Senate?
(03:37):
So there are 33 members of the Tennessee State Senate, and they represent much broader and diverse districts across the state. So it's a smaller body. It's a similar parallel to the federal government where the Senate, they feel like the parents of the group and the house are a bunch of the circus and the kids. And so it's a more mature body. You represent more voters, and that's the same for the Tennessee State Senate as well.
(04:07):
Okay. And how long are the terms for each, for the House and for the Senate?
(04:12):
Yeah, so for the House, it's every two years. And I believe for the Senate, that's a great question. I think it's every four years. So yeah, every four years. And what's interesting is, so every single house member in the Tennessee House of Representatives is up every two years. So the terms for the Tennessee State Senate are every four years. And you have half the seats that are up every four years, and then the other half are up in the two years. So a total of 17 seats out of the Senate's 33 will be up for election in 2022. And the Republicans hold about a 27 6 majority, super majority
(04:53):
27 6 oh on the Senate. Okay, got it. So are there term limits on both or
(05:02):
No
(05:03):
Term limits at all?
(05:05):
No, and in fact, I went to Memphis this past weekend to participate in the Joint House, democratic House and Senate caucus retreat. And Larry Miller, representative Larry Miller, who's from Memphis, I asked him how long he's been in the house, and he said almost 30 years. And representative Bo Mitchell, who is sitting next to me said, how old are you, Aftyn? And I said, 34. And we all had a big laugh about it.
(05:32):
Oh yeah, that you were four years old when he started. Yep. And I had just gotten married about that time.
(05:41):
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(06:08):
Now, I'd love to go into the bill that you are talking about, the one you're sponsoring. It's about abolishing the grocery tax. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about that bill and about how much money we're talking about and how that works?
(06:26):
Sure. So every house representative has the ability to draft and file 15 bills. And because of the nature of my district, some of those bills are often liquor licenses, which prior to previous legislation had to be individual bills. And remember, a reminder for your listeners, I represent all of downtown Nashville, including Broadway. So you can imagine I have a lot of liquor licenses, but my Seminole piece of legislation this year is to eliminate the Tennessee grocery tax. So the grocery tax was introduced. I ended up meeting the former minority leader of the Tennessee House and asked him when was it introduced? And he said it was way beyond my year. So we're talking a long time ago. And so it dependent on your county, it could be up to 10% amount of taxes on your grocery bill depending on what county you live in. The Republican super majority passed legislation to enact a respite, a break for the grocery tax two years ago.
(07:30):
And then this year they prolonged it to three months. And my bill suggests that we should eliminate the grocery tax permanently. And the importance of this is inflation is super high. Groceries are something that Tennessee families have to buy out of necessity, and food should not be taxed. It's one of the most regressive taxes in the country. I think we're one of only two or three states that doesn't have an income tax that taxes food. My office, since announcing this, has been hearing all across the state from rural voters, urban voters, young people, folks on SSI disability saying this permanently eliminating the grocery tax would deeply benefit my life. And the way I'm going to pay for it is the Republican super majority. When you file a bill, they want to know, especially if it has a fiscal note and how you're going to pay for it.
(08:22):
Well, my bill has a way to pay for it, which is 60% of the corporations in the state of Tennessee don't pay their fair share in taxes. They don't pay what they owe. So for example, a business owner, a local Nashville business owner who generates 50 million worth of revenue, pays more in taxes than say Amazon or FedEx. And so what my bill does is it closes offshore tax loopholes for these mega national corporations, which is about half of the tax, about four or 500 million. And then the other half is paid for by something that I call the enterprise tax, which is what New Hampshire passed recently, a state that also doesn't have a state income tax, but it's comparable to a corporate minimum tax where companies making over a certain threshold of revenue are tax at that revenue, and that money goes back into the state of Tennessee.
(09:12):
Gotcha. So you have to put up who's going to pay for it, how it's going to be done, because otherwise your bill is just dead in the water immediately.
(09:20):
Well, and to provide more nuance to your listeners, we have Democratic super minorities in both chambers. So when you're talking about what is our role right now in 2023 and 2024, it is not governance. We are not governing because we are not in leadership positions. We barely, we have very little committee leadership positions. And so what we do in a super minority is harm reduction. So my role in this, especially representing a very progressive, highly educated, highly engaged district, is to reduce harm for marginalized communities and eliminating the grocery tax does just that.
(10:01):
Cool. So getting back to the educational part of this episode, how do you go about writing a bill?
(10:11):
I love, I'm so excited to share this with you. I love being in a learning environment, and the best part of being new is I can ask a million questions and no one, I think in a decade if I'm here, they're going to be like, why are you asking that? You should, why
(10:27):
You're asking this question, you should know this.
(10:29):
Yeah, exactly. But I've come in and just, I'm like, why do we do that? Why do we do that? How do we do this? So in terms of writing a bill, so I thought that I'd have to come in and have my whole bill written, I'd have to work with groups that I'd have to do all the research. And there's actually an entity baked into the Tennessee General Assembly called Legal Services, and it's staffed by a bunch of attorneys who have specialties in their fields, proprietary fields like tax policy and healthcare and anti-discrimination, et cetera. And you send it to legal services and you are paired with an attorney who drafts your bill, and then it's a back and forth process before you file it. And in Tennessee, you have to have a Senate sponsor and a house sponsor. So some of the frenetic activity prior to filing a bill is finding a Senate sponsor so that you can actually file it.
(11:22):
And then once it's filed, I haven't reached that process yet. I haven't filed any bill, so I'll have to come back and tell you how that goes. But apparently once it's filed, it's in the system and that's when it makes its way through the committees. And so it'll be assigned a committee by, I believe, the speaker of the house. It goes to that committee, and then either it dies in committee or it moves forward, and then there's various committees that bill is associated with pending its jurisdiction. And then the end game for a bill hopefully is that it hits the house floor and you either vote it down or you vote for it. And then meanwhile, the Senate is doing the same thing. And then I love the Schoolhouse Rock. I'm excited. I want to have my own schoolhouse rock presentation, so this is good practice for me. So as the bill makes its way through the Senate, and then finally if it passes both the Senate Chamber and the House chamber, it goes to the governor to be signed, then he can either veto it or sign it.
(12:20):
Well, I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill, so there you go. I love Schoolhouse Rock, by the way, I saying conjunction Junction yesterday, just randomly in the car with my husband.
(12:34):
I love that.
(12:35):
That's funny. So that's cool. So you go through all of this process and then you get to finally vote, but don't you kind of know how things are going to go before it gets to a vote?
(12:51):
Yeah. So unfortunately, because we have a Republican super majority, the Bill's trajectory is predictable, but in terms of the utility of the bill, and so for your listeners, and this is for any legislator, but you have your North Star bill. So these are bills that you message on that may not have the ability to be passed, but they're deeply important for your political agenda for organizing across the state. And so for me, the elimination of the grocery tax bill is a messaging bill. And so even if it doesn't move forward through committee, there's an organization, Tennessee, for all that's picked it up, and they're going to organize around it across the state, provides an organizing opportunity for a lot of groups that want to push forward their issues and especially do some localized work at home. Then you have your constituent bills, which are bills that, for example, you Sally, you could send me and say, Hey, I dunno what a state issue would be.
(13:54):
I'll give you an example. There's a constituent in Donaldson who has an expertise in child childcare daycare. He's really interested in this. And he sent me an email and said, there's no current state law that enforces a rule when you are on a daycare waiting list and that daycare shuts down, it doesn't notify you that the facility is shutting down, and so therefore you're not notified on the wait list. So he said, is this something that we can make a law? I was like, yeah, of course. So that's an example where it's more technical, and that's a law that I think both parties can get behind for the most part. So you have your messaging bills, you have your technical bills, and then you have your resolutions. And this is the one, I don't want to give it away right now. So the resolutions are to either honor people in the district or say you have a big, for example, I'm trying to think, TSU say they had a hundred year anniversary, which they probably already had, but the legislator can draft a resolution and then it goes to the house floor and it's voted on.
(15:01):
I have a few resolutions that I'm excited. I don't want to debut because I don't want the Republicans to know what I'm doing, but to get them on record for or against something as a resolution. And then the last, well, I'm still finding out more tools that I have in my toolbox, but the really cool one, I wonder if I can go, well, your viewers won't be able to see it, but my favorite part, one of my favorite parts of the job is writing proclamations. And so proclamations are something that I can do as a legislator to honor a restaurant opening or your quinceanera, for example, and I can draft it and it can either be signed by speaker Sexton, the speaker, or I can just draft it in my office. And that's what I did for Small Business Saturday to honor a few small businesses in the district. So those are a few tools that I have in my toolbox as a legislator that I use routinely.
(15:55):
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(16:21):
Well, let's say, what about Twitter or X as it's called now, it's always going to be like Prince, formerly known as Prince. It's going to be formerly known as Twitter because nobody knows what that means when you say X.
(16:37):
I love it. What about it?
(16:38):
Do you use it?
(16:42):
So in 2016, I created an account. I was working at the UN and organized a big youth conference in Switzer. That was my main job at the moment, and I had to have Twitter, and so I was retweeting things and I didn't really know how to use it. Well, then I moved back to Tennessee to get involved in politics. And my job at the time at the Tennessee Justice Center required that I was tweeting at legislators, that I was communicating and using it as a community organizing tool. And so I have used Twitter throughout politics. I think Twitter is where politics reside for a very long time. I think now as we've seen it, it's been taken over by Elon Musk. They've allowed bots, they've removed a lot of the safety parameters and privacy. There's privacy concerns. So I think for me as a legislator, I have to think about the utility of it in this moment and then my value system.
(17:41):
And so I think a lot of progressives, a lot of Democrats in 2024 are thinking, do we want to use X or Twitter in our campaigns in how we're communicating to constituents? I will say particularly for our district that there are a lot of our people on Twitter. It's not the majority of the district, but as I said, we have a highly engaged, highly active district, and a lot of those folks are on Twitter. So I do feel comfortable using it. More of the, I think a lot of rural legislators don't even have Twitter, for example. But I think as we head into 2024, I think it's an existential question about how we engage with the platform and do we end up leaving en mass because of the value system that it holds now?
(18:27):
So what about TikTok? Have you ever dabbled in that?
(18:32):
So I love TikTok. I had to put a limitation. It's like an app that limits your time on TikTok on my phone, because I will just, especially since I have a DHD, it's a bit
(18:47):
Of a one minute, one minute quick, yes,
(18:49):
I'm like a drug for me. But I have seen, so my day job for your listeners, I also am in politics and my day job, I work for a national rural organization that passes federal rural policy or lobbies for progressive federal rural policy and then runs rural programming, political programming in Senate states. And so nationally, TikTok is very used, especially by young folks. And I think more and more it's becoming the interactive Wikipedia of our day. I love that I can go into the search bar and I'm like, for example, how do I clean how's best properly to clean my computer screen? And then there's 1600 videos showing me how to do that, right? So it's just an incredible vast inventory of information. Now, in terms of usage for my campaign, I did not use TikTok, but I do think that that's where a lot of young folks, especially in our district are. And I would love to see more engagement from me on TikTok in terms of updates, like legislative updates for videos, for example.
(19:59):
You got to kind of find your shtick. And I think that anything that you could do to educate people would be tremendous. Because here's the thing that bothers me, it seems like because it's a super majority on the Republican side, is that you rarely get to hear from Democrats. Democrats, you rarely get to hear the whole story, and you're only hearing one side. So if you are educating people on what's happening with current bills, with current votes, with committees, anything that's going on, I think people would be very receptive to that on TikTok, even though you consider it young people, I promise you there's lot of others that are listening to TikTok videos as well, including me.
(20:53):
And I think we've also seen the year of TikTok politicization in terms of the right, trying to dismantle it or outlaw it, because it does provide access to information in a way that has never existed. And so for me, I like to remain culturally relevant as a millennial. It's very important to me, especially for you to not be outdated with young people, but also I do absolutely agree with you. So I think that's something that I want to utilize in the upcoming session is definitely TikTok.
(21:31):
Well, and that would be neat if it was your official account, I guess, to be able
(21:35):
To, I know I just had an idea. I'm like, oh, I should probably create that. So someone doesn't take the name for example.
(21:41):
Nice. Allie Phillips, who obviously she's running for district 75, which is that Montgomery County where Clarksville is. Yes. So she is definitely on TikTok, but she was already an influencer on TikTok before she decided to run. And that's where I met you the last two events that I've been to. That's where I met you and you were at both of them. So I thought that was really great that you guys were supporting each other, that everybody was kind of together. I liked the fact that it was the A team. It was Allie and Afton and what's the other girl's name? Allison or Allison, yeah. And Gloria Johnson was there, and I got to meet her, stick a bug in her ear to answer my email about interviewing.
(22:36):
I will.
(22:37):
I would love to talk to her too. She's been in for a while.
(22:42):
In terms of, and you brought up allie's, TikTok, there is a major generational shift happening in terms of who we recruit to run for office and who is defined as having the pedigree to be a legislator. Allie and I have very different backgrounds period, but I think we're going to see more candidates that come from the digital age and grew up online, have the same stories, have the same catalog of information and videos and narratives that Allie does on her platforms. And I'm really excited to see that because I think she can reach a lot more people. Obviously running a campaign, she will have to engage in the more traditional tactics of campaigning, but I'm excited to see this next generation, especially Gen Z who grew up online. But just to say that the profile of what a traditional candidate looks like is shifting, and I'm really to embrace that because I think we need more people like Ali in the Tennessee State House.
(23:49):
Yeah, I like that. And she brings just a completely different perspective that possibly others just forget about or don't even know about because of their background.
(24:01):
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(24:28):
I'd love to know more about how you even got involved in all of this. Where'd you go to school? What'd you major in? What was your first job? What's your job situation that you've been able to get into this?
(24:42):
Yeah, so I never wanted to be in politics. I think like a lot of Democrats or progressives, we start out by being involved in community service projects, which is exactly what I did in high school. I did go to a private school in Knoxville because I was zoned for a not so great public school and ended up going to school with the governor's kids, governor Haslam. And so for me, it's been really interesting as a left-leaning more of a left populist, if you will, in the seat to have come from a very wealthy white private school. And navigating, I think navigating those systems has enabled me to be a bit more understanding of those systems here in the power center of the state. And then I went to the University of Texas and I thought I wanted to be a psychologist. And so I was heavily involved in academia.
(25:35):
I worked in psychology labs, worked at nonprofits where I was doing mental health type work. And then I decided to go do graduate school for social work. I knew I wanted to get my master's degree. And at the time, I think there was, you couldn't really move positions and a nonprofit if you didn't have a master's degree. So I went back and I think a question that I love when I was asked this at a Vanderbilt panel, Vanderbilt Democrats panel, what was your radicalizing moment? And for me, I was working at a transitional housing center for homeless youth in Austin, because in graduate school for social work, you have to work for a year. You have to intern for a year at a facility so you can build your clinical skills, which I'll come back to. But I had a client named Chris, who was a 20-year-old black man, and he told me in May that right as my term was ending, he said, I probably won't live to see 21.
(26:40):
And I was like, no, we've worked so hard. You've got a plan ahead of you. We've thrown everything at this. I believe in you. You've got the skills necessary to do this. And then three weeks later, my practicum ended and I got a call from my field coach or my field leader and said that Kris had died from gun violence. And that was at the time when Mike Brown was shot. So I showed up at the Texas Capitol and immersed myself in a lot of the Black Lives Matter rallies and protests, and just started spiraling into what does this all mean? What does this mean for our country? How am I involved in this? What does this mean for my privilege and position in this world? And so then in social work, you can choose two tracks. You can either be a clinical social worker, so those are your therapist, or you can choose the policy route.
(27:33):
And that's what I did. So I actually have a background in macro policy is my expertise. So I applied to work at the United Nations for my final internship of my graduate studies was accepted, and I arrived at the apex of the refugee crisis. So do you remember in 2016 when migrants were in boats and they were capsizing on the Mediterranean and those pictures of children washing up on the Mediterranean beaches in Italy. That's when I arrived at the refugee U-N-H-C-R, the refugee agency for the un. And I think this is relevant now as to what's happening, is that my political education was sitting in the cafeteria talking to folks from Yemen, from the Sudan, from Israel, from Palestine, and trying to understand what was happening and how their thoughts and their epistemic privilege in this situation and their positionality and how they thought about it.
(28:33):
And so then I ended up being hired to work in a department there for L-G-B-T-Q-I-A refugees. So they produce a lot of materials to support gay refugees across the world, which as you know, are probably one of the most marginalized, if not the most marginalized group in the entire globe. And then Trump was elected, and I went to bed. I was living in France in a farm and woke up and all of you, I mean, I lost it. I lost it. My parents were asleep. I couldn't call anyone because everyone had fallen asleep. And I thought, oh my God. I go, how did the state that I grew up in vote for Trump? I mean, I could not reconcile it, I really couldn't. So I decided to move back, and I remember taking my parents out to dinner in Knoxville and said, I want to get involved in Tennessee politics. And my mom started crying, sobbing. She's like, you can't
(29:32):
Do this. We've sacrificed so much for you to be at the UN and this is the most prestigious, and now you're going to move back to Appalachia.
(29:40):
What? So it was, yeah. And then the too long don't Reeds version is I got a community organizing job. I was hired as the community organizer for a local nonprofit. And as you know, Trump went after the Affordable Care Act in 2017. And so I spent my entire, the first four years, or mostly Trump's administration organizing across the state. I was the only statewide organizer I've organized in every single congressional district in Tennessee. I have groups in interests and Polk and Hardman counties. And then I decided to get involved and actually figure out how to campaign and run elections. And I want to pause there, and I'm sorry I'm just taking up a lot of space, but No, it's fine. I think it's important for your listeners to hear my radicalization journey because you all, especially these covenant moms and folks that came to the special session.
(30:32):
So in 2017, I was up here lobbying for Medicaid expansion, and I'd show up in an office just like this, and I'd look across to the Republican and I'd say, listen, Medicaid expansion will do wonders for your district. It's good for workforce development. It'll infuse millions of dollars back into your rural economy. And they sat there and said, I don't care. I know, but I'm not going to vote for it because it's a liberal policy. So here I was thinking, okay, if you just show them the facts, right? Democrats love facts. If we just show them the facts, the numbers, they're going to, no. So I thought, okay, if you're not going to pass this, I'm going to get rid of you. So I learned how to run campaigns. I learned how to elect Democrats, and I spent 2018 to 2022 doing that. But as you know, it's very hard to win elections in this state.
(31:24):
And so in 2020, I ran a coordinated effort to flip four State House seats, and we lost every single one of them because the Republicans outspent outspent us three to one. So then, as you know, I decided to run because I had a breaking moment during the Tennessee three protest. I just thought, I have been up here every year since 2016. Nothing has changed. Things are getting worse. And if you won't vote for the policies I want, if I can't get rid of you, then I'm going to go inside and I'm going to be the voice in your ear.
(32:02):
I was going to say the bug in your
(32:03):
Ear every single day. Exactly, exactly. And I think for a lot of you, I mean watching what unfolded the special session, and you're just like, oh my God, these people don't care about anything. No, they don't.
(32:15):
They just want to be in line with the political divide. That really blows my mind because if you're elected, you're supposed to be helping people. You're not supposed to be just following. It's almost like they've got somebody just saying, here, here's what you do. Here's what you do. Which obviously is the case when you talk about the Alec Bills that are passed around. All of the things about women's healthcare and abortion care, all of the latest decisions and things that have been happening, it's been really difficult to watch.
(32:56):
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(33:27):
How in the world do you get anything passed as a Democrat in Tennessee? I mean, are you just here to support other people who are running for the Democratic ticket? What do you do? What does a citizen do?
(33:45):
And to be very clear, and I think this is surprising for a lot of people who I think don't know me, but running for this seat in this moment in time was highly intentional. I have worked to elect Democrats in the Tennessee State House. This is where my lobbying expertise is. And this moment in time, 2024 is a critical year. We may be able to flip maybe two to three house seats. And guess who has the expertise to do that? Me representative Bill Beck was a incredible guy, and I'm so sorry he passed away. But for me, the seat is, the usage of the seat is for us to elect more Democrats across the state. So we can break the Republican super majority and actually fix something. And I think for your listeners, what I'd like to say is, and I saw this, and I'm just saying this because 2018 happened, I supported candidates all across the state.
(34:48):
I tried to elect Phil Bredesen. When you have such a broken system like we have in Tennessee, you cannot put all your eggs what you deem success in the electoral basket. Because if your barometer of success is how many electoral wins we have, you will be forever disappointed. It is very hard to win elections in Tennessee. We don't have the ability to pass popular ballot measures because they removed that. Our seats are incredibly gerrymandered. So my pitch to your listeners and to you all across the district is yes, get out there and support Gloria Johnson. But more importantly, the actual braces that we can win are these house seats. And it's also building power locally. And what are you doing to organize your communities to push back against the far right and what's happening here? Because there's just not a lot. We need more people who are involved and are calling for mass change.
(35:49):
And I think just to put a pin in it, the Vanderbilt poll that that was published this week, that published this week, shows just how out of alignment the Tennessee General Assembly is with the public, with the Tennessee populace. And there's no accountability for these people here. As I said, their only threat is from getting primaried from the right. So unless we have more and more people showing up, more and more people running for local office and more and more people organizing, I think that is the antidote to what we're facing. It's not thinking that every six years we're going to win a Senate race.
(36:28):
Yeah, yeah. There's got to be pressure from elsewhere. And another thing you could be doing on your TikTok as well would be to encourage people to call their representatives or write their representatives or whatever. And you would know which ones need to have their phones ringing, which would be great information for Tennesseans. The last episode that I did was with a woman named Jessica Craven. She's actually a delegate in California.
(36:58):
Does she run the chop wood?
(37:00):
Yes. Chop wood carry water.
(37:02):
I love her newsletter. I'm obsessed with the newsletter.
(37:05):
Well, her TikTok is so educational and action oriented. It's just created 1 0 1.
(37:15):
Oh my gosh. I didn't even know she had a TikTok. Oh yeah.
(37:18):
She's huge on TikTok. She tells people, this is who you call and this is the phone number and this is what you need to say. And she'll sit there and make calls herself, live on the camera and be like, hi, representative. So-and-so this is what I am calling about, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My name is this, that the other. And she just does those calls constantly online and then gives people action steps to take. How
(37:44):
Cool. Oh, oh, I'm so excited. Yeah,
(37:47):
Go watch her TikTok. It'll give you ideas of things that you could do if you decide to get in that world.
(37:56):
Well, I'm going to say my first video will be Sally with Shout Your Cause Podcast said that I should make a TikTok. And here we are. Here
(38:03):
We are. Was there anything else that you would like to share with the audience before we wrap it up?
(38:12):
Yeah, I think I never wanted to be a politician. I think a lot of white men wake up and roll out of bed and think, I'm going to run for office. I'd be a really good politician. Don't think to be a really good politician. Most women, that is not their trajectory and it wasn't mine. And you may not want to run for office, and I posted this last night on my Instagram, but we are at a moment in time in this country when our systems are crumbling and we need people to be engaged and educated on the matter and decide to be radicalized enough to run for office and change it because the next 50 years in this country will be tumultuous, scary. And we need people on the inside to support me and other progressives who are trying to rebuild this country from the bottom up.
(39:15):
And I would just, if you are a woman, you are probably qualified to run for office in the state of Tennessee. But please consider, I know you don't think about running for office, but we need more folks who are stepping up at every level of government to push back against the far right in the state because we've conceded too much ground to them. And unless there are people who are willing to stand up across the state and say, no, this ist appropriate, or We're building something and re-imagining another world together, then I think that's what I would leave your audience with and ask your audience to consider running for office.
(39:55):
Wow. That's a big order I think. But I think if people started going to events and talking to people that it might not be as scary as they think because it is a world of the unknown for most people. There are very few politicians in terms of the population.
(40:18):
And right now, I mean Gen Z will start running for, that's what my political friends and I talk about all the time. In the next few years, we'll see a lot of boomers passing away and a lot of Gen Z deciding to run for office. And they're going to need mentors like me who have been on the inside for then at that point, it'll be hopefully six or eight years, but who are saying, Hey, this is how you write a proclamation, or This is how you filed a bill. Hey, have you thought about this or, so I'm excited to learn all I can this year in the upcoming year so that I can be the best mentor possible for the next generation.
(40:53):
And I see Gloria Johnson is kind of being the mother hen for all of these younger ones coming up. And then you get to step in and say, I've done it. I'm here. I'm on the other side. And now supporting Allie and Allison. What was Allison's last name?
(41:11):
Beal.
(41:12):
Beal. That's what I thought. I didn't want to say it though and be wrong. Alright, well thank you so much. I think this has been great, a great interview. And everybody, please stay tuned and subscribe to Shout Your Cause.
(41:26):
Thank you for listening today. My name is Sally Hendrick. Be sure to visit our website for show notes and more information on how you can inspire others. If you would like to contribute content to our magazine, please apply on our website at shoutyourcause.com.
