Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
Appearances
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
If you can build a political body that is bringing that local lens together, fierce loyalty to the specifics of our community, that is how you build the Venn diagram of what is a useful federal policy. That's, I think, how we break the stranglehold that this duopoly, you know, it's being useful and relevant and building good policy out of the urgent specific realities of our community.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
I think that, you know, like telling a child that what they're interested in isn't interesting or what they're good at isn't good enough is like deeply toxic. I think that there are a lot of forms of intelligence. I mean, there's millions, you know, and exactly one of them is academic intelligence. And to your point, it's like, well, you know, we're going to shut your mill down.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
We're going to stop harvesting timber. But hey, here's a grant that you could apply for if you're nice to me. Maybe I'll give you money. That's not what people want. People want self-determination agency. And I think it presupposes a hierarchy that's pretty offensive to a lot of people I know that you're going to tell me I have a problem and that you're the one that knows how to fix it.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It's this masturbatory interest in policy without a reality of implementation or local localism. You can't be all brain and no muscle. They're equally necessary to have a healthy body. And there is also a false dichotomy, like, you know, not everything worth knowing you can learn in a book. Like, we don't all want to go to college.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Like, don't tell me we need to go to college to be useful and to be self-realized, self-actualization or whatever. Like, we can know things and be in the world in a way that is not strictly capturable by a—or capturable at all by, like, a spreadsheet, right? Yeah.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Things have moved and shrunk. And you've got like 8% hyper-focused on the left and 8% hyper-focused on the right. And it's like they're talking and they have the mic and like it's leading this. But I think to your point, like, yeah, my community... People in my community, their experience in the economy hasn't changed that much.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Like, still can't afford rent or can't get a loan from the bank to get a house. Still working three jobs. Still worried about their truck getting repossessed. Like, people's experience hasn't changed that much. And it's like... It is kind of wild to me to see the same playbook getting picked up again from Trump's first term to today, where it's like reflexive resistance.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And I would argue that the urgency here is... is to have a positive policy agenda that is relevant to more people. If you're somebody that has the ability to go to a protest every day, it is not reflective of the average American experience. And thinking about how do you... How do you build an agenda that is more useful to your neighbors, that is relevant?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
If you want to bring more people, you have to present a policy position that is more popular than the policy positions Trump's proposing. And it's like, I think he has done a good job of amplifying and echoing broad dissatisfaction with the way things are going. And we can't put ourselves in a position of just negating and refuting everything he's said.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It's about presenting an actual policy agenda that will address those concerns and that rage that people are feeling about their loss of agency in the world. Sometimes there are critiques about like, you know, the world's on fire and she's talking about bananas and washing machines and right to repair.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
But like talking to people about the things they care about and fighting for the agenda and priorities of my community, like that is the job of a representative. And you know, it's like I held a lot of round tables with farmers in my community when we were working on the farm bill, and not a damn one of them said antitrust.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
But farmer after farmer was telling me that, yeah, I used to be able to sell my chickens to 12 different buyers, and now I can sell them to two. That matters to people. Having a level playing field for their business, having economic self-determination matters to people.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
We don't know that they're staying is the other thing. And so just being the anti-Trump.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
I think most of us in my community share a lot of those sentiments. When they shut down the paper mills, congratulations, now we're packaging everything in plastic, disposable plastic from Saudi Arabia. And we got wildfires at home because there's no value in the residual, in the slash piles.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
So I would say the policy position can't just be anti, anti, anti, anti, but saying, all right, what is it going to take to build manufacturing? It's going to take permitting reform. It's going to take some antitrust work. It's going to take shop class and junior high. It's going to take the elite reevaluating and acknowledging the nobility of manufacturing
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
People in the trades and the reality of like dirty hands, clean money. So I think it would be a mistake to just be like anti, anti, anti. But instead saying, all right, like if this is the thing they're going to do, like how do we harness it in a way that is productive in the long term for having the things that we actually want?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Well, I mean, a reevaluation that like there's been this like obsession with technology and the next like whatever lobbyist is in your office, like shilling, you know, triple glazed, argon filled windows and a blindness to the actual skilled trades of like, yeah, you know what? You get a shit ton of you put the long side of your house facing south. You put an eve on it.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
If you put a skirt around a mobile home, it's a metal sheet that connects the bottom of the mobile home to the ground, creates an air gap, saves a shit ton of energy. And now those folks, a lot of them on fixed income living in a mobile home, their energy bill just went way down. You don't put a hip and valleys in your roof line. You're going to get a roof that lasts for 50 years.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
We ignored all of the things that we know in the trades are the kind of low hanging fruit of energy efficiency and utility and a progressive tax system. That's one of the things that bothers me is that it's like, you know, the electric vehicle tax credits, the heat pump tax credits, like those were profoundly regressive tax strategies.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
I mean— I've never bought a new car in my life.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah. I mean, I think first there's a priority on being a steward, a good steward of what you already have. Like that manifest environmentalism is getting your rig to make it to 500,000 miles. It is making what you have last longer and wanting less.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
You know, I think that there's been a lack of pragmatism a bit, like a Tesla Plaid with like a 300 mile radius, like uses 10 times as much battery minerals as it would take to have a hybrid on the road. That's one side of it. I think the other side of it is a selection bias, right? My colleagues and I, we fly a shit ton. We're always on the road. We're always seeing consumer transportation.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And so that's what gets echoed. But in reality, if you prioritize stationary electrification first, then you're not moving that heavy battery everywhere with you. You're not wearing roads out. So like port infrastructure being electrified, things like that, like that is, I think, a much better bargain.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
That is where things should look first if you're trying to decrease the carbon footprint of the American basket of goods. It's not just like what feels good or what's like a virtue signaling, but like what is the actual absolute value you can get.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah. So six out of seven counties are highly rural. You have Vancouver is kind of the big city. Vancouver, Washington is the big city in my district. And it's voted for Trump three times in a row. I outperformed Trump and Harris in the last election. And so, yeah, I have a unique coalition. I have a very independent community.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
So I think, like I was saying before, where it's like 8% here and 8% on the other side, but like most of us feel like It's all sound and fury and nobody actually gives a shit about our lives. The kind of unglamorous, deep, bitter erosion of fentanyl addiction and farm consolidation and job loss. I really believe in showing up. I do town halls in all my counties. I've done 15 now.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And I think it's really important that people know that you're available and accountable and present and meeting them where they are. And when I'm talking to people, I kind of in my head, I have these two buckets of like, was this person paid to talk to me or do they have to get a babysitter to come here?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And I weight the input proportional to reflect like how many people in my community are paid to engage in politics.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
like a lobbyist or somebody that's a director, you know, they're paid to be in government relations. They're paid, they're on the clock when they show up in my office. And if somebody had to like take time off work to come talk to me, I take that really seriously. And I try to spend my time going out and talking to them, like going to where they're at to be available.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
That's one of the reasons like I believe in town halls and like at its best, it's a really powerful forum for civic engagement. dialogue. And I think at its worst, it turns into a mob where you have folks who are
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
spending a lot of time reading news articles and they have the income to come out and it's not reflective of most people's experience and it's also a valid experience and it's also a valid opinion that I do take into consideration, but you still have to account for the fullness of your community and whether or not people have time to respond to a survey or make a public comment on some agency's website, their opinion still matters.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
So for a while I was getting a shit ton of letters about Hunter Biden's laptop. And I think it's easy from people who are mad he wasn't being investigated. And I think it's easy to kind of like dismiss that as like silly.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
But I think if you lift the hood up on that, what a lot of those folks are saying is that they feel like there's a legal system that works better for you if you have a different last name or you have the right lawyer.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And so if we offhandedly dismiss these concerns as silly or biased, we miss an opportunity to build a coalition of people who are actually all quite unified in wanting reform of our judicial system. I think that's the intersection of trying to delete the proper nouns out of the argument, figure out how terms are being used differently, what things mean to people.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And what's the path to building an agenda that is more popular than what Trump is offering?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
I guess what's the consequence of me being wrong about that and finding common ground and common cause for things that we all believe are worth having at the end of the day? I think you're probably right for a certain segment, but it's very easy to over-account and say that that's all those people who are pissed about the laptop.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And the truth is, yeah, most people, they're not thinking about it at all. They're handling their lives day to day. But those same people still... You know, they know that some kids at their high school can get out of a Dewey and others can't because their parents can pay for a lawyer, you know, and that's going to set them off in a different track.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right about this sort of fracture. Like, I think I've talked to folks from home who, like, used to be a part of the Democratic Party and left. They're like, yeah, we can never be correct enough for you. And, like, the Republicans are having a kegger.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Well, you're talking to a lady that doesn't give my child toys. I'm a big believer in dirt and string and sticks. But at a broader level, tariffs are a tool. A tool can be used destructively or it can be used productively. And it depends on how it's wielded.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
So, like, you know, I think that it's become quite loud, folks not seeing the reform they want, and this, like, frustration of just, like, saying it louder, you know? And also kind of a decay of social institutions. I was talking to a friend that runs a veterans assistance nonprofit, and they told me that volunteer rates have fallen through the floor since January. Why?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Well, for one, I mean, some folks are like more in politics. You know, some people, well, you know, the cuts to food assistance programs mean that more veterans are coming in for food. And so the volume has gone up. But the availability of people to...
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
do that work is declining i think it's i mean political activism can feel really like glamorous and correct and it's like how could you worry about these small things when the world's on fire but like i'd argue like the way you put the the fire out is by like actually going and building community like i don't think that democracy is something that you
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
buy with a binary vote in one election it is the muscle of community it is your relationships with your neighbor and like knowing the name of your mail carrier and like talking to folks at daycare drop off and having the time to do that and um so there's that acceleration but um i was talking to somebody that's like you know they're going to protest tesla every day
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
A lot of their family are Trump voters, but they don't want to talk to their family. They're like, that's not the forum for that. But man, it feels good to get flicked off by guys driving F-350s. You know, it's that muscle of community and like relationships I think is the kind of the path out of here.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah, I mean, the part of your brain that is angry is not the part of your brain that you think strategically about with. Those are different muscles. And I think it can feel condescending to a lot of people when somebody's like, the world's on fire, everything's going to hell, and I'm the only one who sees it. Like, you guys all need to wake up, you know?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And it's like, I don't think people can hear that, you know? I think that... curiosity and humility and relationships are very powerful tools, profoundly powerful tools. I kind of think that when you have all of your wants and needs met, it's easier to empathize with
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
You know, talking to folks back home who really don't care at all about most politics, you know, they have very sophisticated views on Canadian lumber dumping practice. We've lost seven mills in my area. Last year, I think it's about seven. We want domestic manufacturing. We want self-sufficiency. We want the ability to make things ourselves.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
someone somewhere else or a fuzzy animal than it is to have compassion for your neighbor who's got a fentanyl addiction or your neighbor that's got like rolling coal or that has the wrong lawn sign up you know there's a reason it's like the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah, people are valid in their anger, and it is a fool's errand to try to talk somebody out of their feelings. That is not a good idea. But you can affirm the validity of their feelings, and also... present a productive strategy for resolving some of those drivers of that anger or that fear. You know, on your point about El Salvador, my dad was the pastor of a Spanish-language church growing up.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And you want to meet somebody that really fucking hates gangs. You talk to an immigrant who gave up a profound amount to leave a country that was corrupt and run by gangs. That same person cares passionately about due process. They understand that the only inoculant against a corrupt regime is fidelity to due process.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And if we had had due process in these cases, we would be in a position to evaluate a judge's decision about whether or not that person was involved in human trafficking or whatever the claim is. But the point is that we don't have it. And it's a deep strategic mistake to accept that we have to choose between really hating gangs and really loving due process.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
I think it's a mistake to sort of defend our identity around being just consumers and not producers as well. But these reciprocal trade deals, it's a backroom deal for multinationals. How it's used is what matters.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
When you have experienced truly being afraid of being kidnapped or having your business exploited or human trafficking, you take it quite seriously. That feeling is real and valid, and the productive strategy is due process, fidelity to due process. And I think it's kind of a yes and, like, yes, it makes sense to be scared.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And if you're really believing that we are entering a totalitarian state, is the point here, if you're really worried that we're never going to have elections again, why is the second bullet point on your agenda primarying Democrats? Like, that's not what people do in real scenarios like that.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah. You know, where I live, like, we believe that countries have a right and an obligation to know who and what is coming across a border. I don't think that's crazy. And one of the, I guess, failures or weaknesses is that words mean different things all over the place. Some people talking about immigration, they're talking about drug trafficking.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And whether or not you're mad about that conflation, you do have to hear and try to get at what is the strategy here. the productive strategy to address it and not just like policing the conflation, but saying like, yeah, it fucking sucks to have a family member addicted to fentanyl.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It's been frustrating for me at times, you know, in this new world I'm in is like, it's not hitting, they're insulated. They're not hearing these horrifying stories about industrial accidents and It's not their play date that's getting in a car wreck because daddy's on fentanyl.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It's not their cousins who are robbing grandma because they've got a fentanyl, you know, and treating that with an urgency of like, how do we stop the flow of fentanyl? How do we build resilience against foreign actors that would like to see, you know, the entire middle class being addicted and unproductive?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
A few things. I mean, cartels don't operate under political boundaries. And so I think multi-jurisdictional interdiction, I think that works. Ensuring law enforcement has the tools to be able to, you know, communicate and cooperate. Like I have issues where like some of my departments, they transition to digital radios and some of them are still on radio towers and they can't talk to each other.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
They have to relay through a 911 responder, you know, like there are issues like that. There's, And the geopolitical question of these Chinese produced precursor chemicals. I was talking to my dad and one of his buddies from high school was running a factory in Mexico and figured out they were bringing in fentanyl precursors on the weekends.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
He went to the cops in Mexico and they were like, yeah, we fucking know. You can shut up or you can move to Canada. And so he moved to Canada, you know. It's all of the supply chain going into it. And there are also some, I think the GLP-3s, is that right?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
They have promising studies on reducing fentanyl addiction and helping people break that chain. But it's long work, you know. Yeah. And there's other drugs that are promising where it's like rather than having to go in and getting a dose, like if you're living where I live, like you can't have a job and be in recovery.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
You have to go drive into Vancouver, you know, an hour and a half, whatever, every day to get a treatment, to get the drugs to help you get off. There's another drug that's emergent that's like a 30-day release, things like that. There's the long work of addressing the appetite and why people are vulnerable to these drugs.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It's like interdiction of fentanyl and treatment and better options for people. If you know that you can run your own business, you can buy a log truck, you can do whatever you want with your life, you really do have latitude to make things in life, you're a lot less vulnerable to a cheap high.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
So there's a book my grandpa gave me. The Wheelwright Shop is written in the 1920s by George Stroot, whose family had been building wooden wheels in England for 200 years. And like the specifics of it are just beautiful. Like he's like, you know, you had to know that that grove, the elm grows too rich. It's not good for specific uses.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
To build a wheel that will last and that your name is attached to and that's useful to your community. You have to know how the sap is running that year. You have to know when to quarter and when to split. It's a really beautiful book. There's another one, Experiences in Visual Thinking. It's like kind of a hippie, like, you know, 70s. But it is really brilliant at helping people.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Exercise the other parts of your brain that analyze problems, like drawing and using your fingers. I think it's a necessary part of rebuilding parts of your brain that are not just the rote correct answer, but how to create a caricature out of your idea and then enlarge certain parts, reduce it. It's a really useful, tangible tool.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And then the other thing, you know, I've got a three and a half year old son at home and he's like, we cloned his father. He's like a really smart guy. gifted little mechanic and fun, but he also really loves poetry. So any of the children's poetry anthologies from Jack Preletsky, just that reading and language is fun. It's not academic. It is not for getting a good grade.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It is joy and like the rhythm and the cadence and like moving it from a strictly like absolute, like, wrote ABCs to, like, the pleasure of rhyming things and just, like, having fun. And it is so fun to have a toddler, you running around your house, like, making up silly rhymes. I can't recommend it enough.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Well, I'm pretty focused on my community and what we want and what we believe. And yeah, I think people have pretty nuanced views. I mean, the specifics really matter. One thing that's weird is like watching the Democratic Party suddenly become the defenders of the stock market and like NASDAQ. That's a weird thing to me.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And I think the question is not like what the nominal picture of wealth in these terms are, but how much economic agency and self-determination we have. Do you have the power to stay home and spend time with your family? Or are you working three jobs? Are you able to own a home, to own land, own farmland? Or are you stuck in a cycle of perpetual running that you don't want to be in?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Do you have the right to make your own stuff? Do you have a level playing field to start your own business? Those are the questions. And so that's kind of the lens that I think about these bigger international arguments on trade through. It's like, what is worth having at the end of the day? What do people really want?
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, under NAFTA, there's this argument presented to the American public of like, well, you're not going to have jobs anymore, but you have a bunch of cheap crap. And then when people don't have the cheap stuff and they don't have the jobs, it accelerates into a really profound anger. And I think kind of a righteous anger.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And so, you know, one point is like, we don't just want cheap stuff. We want stuff that will last, right? I mean, I think that was one of the issues with the CHIPS Act is it's like, well, what's driving the chip shortage? Like, do I want a washing machine that can play Tchaikovsky or do I want a washing machine that will last more than three years? My washing machine is from 1997.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
My stove is from 1954. And I think about how many times that has been bought and sold on Craigslist, like how much durable wealth that's created in the middle class. Not just because people were paid a living wage in America to make those things, but because then they held value and created value for the household who owned them. And then they were sold and bought and sold and bought and sold.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And so like the durable wealth is People kind of belittle this argument about washing machines and dishwashers, but it's real. And I think particularly for people who are in the trades, it's like, shit, it's got 0.5% lower energy consumption or whatever, but they put the control panel right underneath the drip line. So of course it's going to blitz.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
You know, the marriage not just of the technical, but of the applied. Like I used to kind of run this bike shop and I will never forget teaching a physics major how to hold a wrench. Be like, move your hand back. You know, this is a full, you know, it is this over-specialization that has sort of deprived the underlying value itself.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
That's one of the things is that we've replaced the idea of freedom as the freedom to consume. And I would argue that we're not just consumers, we're stewards, we are producers. And so it's not just what you can buy, but it's what you can make and how you can make things last. And your values, your inner values manifest in the world around you.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
So like I have a bill that would require manufacturers of household appliances to put on the sticker the average life expectancy of that washing machine along with the annual maintenance cost. So I think like, you know, the persistence of Speed Queen or something like that does show that people will pay more.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
But having a class of buyers who has that information available, I think changes consumption habits.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
They're both. You know, my dad used to say you can talk about your values all day long, but you see somebody's tax returns and you know what they really think. one of the depowering of the environmental movement has been supplanting real environmentalism with a consumption habit. Like, true environmentalism is not just buying, like, a matte package at Target. You know, it's not a consumer good.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
It is a way of being in the world. It's a relationship to the natural world around you. It is the way that you spend your life developing skills and allocating your time to live in relationship to the world around you. Like, One of the things I really love about where I live in rural Skamania is that we don't have trash service. So I have to look at all the trash.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And, you know, of course I'm not going to buy a single serving yogurt cup because I'm going to have to smell that for two or three months before we go to the dump and load up the truck and take everything. Like you have to see it. And I think it enforces the reality that there is nowhere else.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
you can't export emissions the climate is global and like your relationship to the world around you not just as a terrarium but as a dependence and as like something that informs your your life daily like i think that really matters to informing what trade-offs people will make so i take that point but i mean most people want trash pickup right i want trash pickup
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yes, there are economies of scale, but often they can exclude the fuller reality. Like, yes, there is a modern convenience, but is the climate better? Are we happier? Are we healthier? Do we have what we actually want? Or has it been supplanted? And yes, I would like to have trash service, but would I like to have trash service enough to move to a city? No.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Oh, that's great. Like if you want to live in a city like you should live. Yeah. It's also true. Like you could put an apartment building in a rural town and a lot of people would get a lot of utility out of that. But I think one of the things that is missed frequently in this discussion is that like the shift to.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
service economy or a knowledge economy means that now your barber has to move to a city where they're not able to afford housing. When you have domestic manufacturing, if you're a mill in a rural community, you're able to own land. You're able to spend time with your family. I'm not trying to like slight the urban issue, but I think it's that divorce from
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
the farms you rely on, from the water that you drink, from being able to ship your garbage somewhere else and not have to smell it yourself. It changes your relationship to the natural world around you. And if you're not clear about that and those relationships, you're losing something necessary.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
Yeah, my American, like my mom's side of the family, my dad's from Mexico. My mom's family's been in Washington state for five generations, pre-statehood. And the last time that people in my gene pool were Democrats was when they were blue dog Democrats. That still means something to people. when Blue Dogs were a large caucus, because we were holding seats that we have lost and not regained.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
And so it is a clear urgency of having a gavel and having the ability to govern, but it's also the question of on whose behalf and towards what end. I think having loyalty to your soil and to your community and not something that's been focus grouped in D.C. or that came from a think tank, but what matters to people at home. That is what is fun.
The Ezra Klein Show
How a Red-District Democrat Is Navigating Trump
I don't want to be a mouthpiece for any agenda besides my community because it matters to me. This is where I'm trying to die. It's where I got married. It's where I really try to... Give birth. And like that loyalty and the lens that...