Zerlina Maxwell
Appearances
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
I'm all right. I'm hanging in there. Like I say to most people, I am trying to stay sane. That's it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
I'm sane. You know, I'm sane despite all of the reasons why I shouldn't be, I think.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Well, I think he's going to love it until the utility of having Elon Musk there goes away, right? So up until the point where somebody explains to him that this is actually hurting his polling or his popularity, I think he loves it because Elon Musk gets all the smoke. He gets all of the heat.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
from the public and all of the things that the administration is doing, people are going to blame Elon Musk basically at this point. And I think it's a little bit nuts. Like sometimes I have to take a step back and I'm like the George Soros comparison.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
If like a democratic president brought George Soros to a cabinet meeting or like had a, you know, a press avail in the oval office with the left leaning billionaire, uh, You know, how would that be taken by the American public?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
But I don't even think that's actually helpful because I think that what we need to start saying is the richest man in the world is destroying our democracy and cutting programs that benefit regular people so that he can have more money. And he already has more money than everybody on the planet Earth.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
So imagine you have somebody with more money than all of us taking away health insurance, food, actual programs that people need to survive so that he can be even richer. And that's what's happening. I mean, you have him in the cabinet meeting. You had him in the Oval Office. He's been elected and voted on by zero people. He's been confirmed by no Senate. And yet he's basically the co-president.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Like, where's J.D. Vance? I don't know.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Well, I think him wanting more money, taking away resources from people, I think that resonates. Yeah. But I also think you're right. I mean, he wants power. He wants to be a king. He wants to be in charge. I mean, he is in charge, right, of his companies. And so he's used to just dictating orders. I mean, similar.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
They like just barking orders at people and having people do what they say. And I think that one of the things that's really, really hard for people to really conceptualize in their brain is how much a billion dollars actually is and how much money Elon Musk actually has, or at least what he's valued at because of his ownership of Tesla stock. So I think for...
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
folks who rely upon government programs, these government agencies that are providing resources for regular folks, like it's hard for them to understand, I think, because it's happening so quickly, the consequences of what Elon Musk is doing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And I think maybe if, you know, as the strategist, Democrats focused on the impact on people, as opposed to even he wants more money, that would help land the message more effectively.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Well, right after the election, it was almost like therapy because people were crying. And I'm not a therapist. My mother was. But I'm not a therapist, so I was trying— even though I'm also emotional and trying to process and I'm traumatized, I'm trying to create a space for people so that they can just like let it out. And it's really, really helpful.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And I think validating for people to hear from other people all over the country who are also feeling the same exact way. Cause a lot of people are like in their own homes, like I'm losing it. I'm am I going crazy? And then when they hear other people on the radio say exactly the same things they're thinking and feeling, it's,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
It's so reassuring that you're not the only one that it's like, wait, is Elon Musk running the government, right? Like, am I losing my mind? And for other people who are calling in and being like, I feel exactly the same way. Like I am so angry. There's a lot of anger. So I think after the hurt of the election kind of dissipated, people are now pissed.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
In addition, I had a caller last week call in and say she was one of the CDC employees that lost their job. I mean, it's real for people. This isn't I mean, when they talk about federal workers as if they're not taxpaying Americans and working people with bills just like everybody else, it's very strange.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
This is going to have a profound impact on the economy that we don't even foresee because those federal employees are a part of our economy and they go and shop at businesses and go to restaurants and, you know, they are workers just like everybody else.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
So if you fire millions of people because you want to pay for your tax cuts, that's going to have an impact in the economy that they're not thinking that through. Elon Musk doesn't care about that, but Trump should.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Right. So there's the economic ripple effect, but then there's also just the loss of the expertise to other places, right? Like people... I've been reading reports about people who are in public health programs, basically being like my entire job plan out the window. And what am I going to do?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Well, those people are going to go to other parts of the world and they're going to bring their medical expertise and their research to other places that are willing to accept them. In addition, I was reading yesterday, maybe it was a TikTok I saw. It was about a medical conference. It was about people who specifically specialize in like devices for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Right.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And that at this conference, all these people are processing the fact that they're going to lose all of their pathways to employment and research because they're It's diversity in terms of hearing. And because the word diversity was in the language.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Right. Like, it's actually so stupid. So one of the things that is both good and bad is that they are not thinking anything through.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Right. Elon Musk isn't thinking anything through. And he has no idea what most of these people in the federal government do. It's the example that they fired all the people guarding the nukes and they were like, oops, our bad, you know, and. Oh, we fired all the people that do bird flu. That seems bad.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
You know, and so I think that there are going to be unforeseen consequences that are going to make them look foolish. I hope it doesn't hurt too many people before we fix it. But I don't know. I mean, I feel like COVID should have taught us that these people do not think things through. You know, they're going to do the comparative test.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
get rid of the pandemic response unit, and then a pandemic happens. So they're not competent at all.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
So I don't ever like to look at what happened in 2024 and then say like, this is the problem with Democrats messaging because it was such a weird election cycle, right? You had Kamala Harris come in with a hundred days and try to win a whole election, which nobody's ever done. We've never elected a woman and we've only elected one black person. So it was like,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
You have a lot of the odds stacked against you. With that said, though, I think one of the things that Democrats do every single time is take the wrong message from election results. So number one, you lost by 1.5%. So why would you be like, oh my... To a clown.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Listen, I absolutely acknowledge that that is true. However, I think that we have to understand that the people that are willing to vote for a clown... over Kamala Harris are not going to vote for a Democrat. Like there's a lot of people that spend a lot of time trying to win back voters that are never going to vote for a Democrat again. They're not going to vote for a Democrat again.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
I think the focus should be on turning out the people that didn't vote at all. The people, the 50 percent of people that were like, I just just doesn't matter to me. Democracy. I don't I just don't really care about that that much. But my eggs are really expensive and I'm very frustrated. But still, I'm not really convinced that I need to participate at all in elections.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
To save democracy, to do anything like I'm just going to go over here and do what I'm supposed to do in my day. I'm not I don't care about politics. I'm not involved at all. And so I don't think Democrats spend enough time trying to reach those people. They spend so much time trying to win back folks that I don't think they're going to ever win back.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
They are not going to win back people that watch all of Trump's rallies through 2016 or in 2024 and weren't offended by any of that, voted for him despite those things, watched him in power for four years, including during COVID, and then voted for him again. It's too hard to win back those people at the expense of your base.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
So one of the things that Trump does well is that he's always firing up his base. And Democrats are always trying to win the middle as opposed to firing up their own base, which you would be able to capture some of those people who are disengaged because they have the same interests with your base. So I think that it's a matter of
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
what you are prioritizing in your message as opposed to a more strategic thing. And it's been my frustration for like at least 15 years.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
It's not even what it's the mediums they're using to talk to people. So the Democrats are like, we have to fix our message. I'm like your message. There's not really, you could tweak it. Sure. But if you're going on cable news and one o'clock in the afternoon, it doesn't matter what you're saying. Right. I don't understand why that's continuing to be the strategy.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And I think that there was some criticism by those mainstream media outlets that were like, why is Kamala going on Call Her Daddy? Well, that's because people listen to that. People watch that. The base of the party that you need to vote actually consumes that. So you want to do more of that and less of the standard traditional thing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
You're not eliminating that completely, but I think that there is a very slow process Evolution and strategy, media strategy, calm strategy on like how to actually reach people. I think that we saw some of that in Kamala Harris's 107 day campaign where you're figuring out that you actually have to do more podcasts. You have to go on TikTok more. You need to do live streams.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
You need to talk to influencers like that. You're not sitting down with the noon anchor. You're just not doing that. So part of it is the medium they're actually trying to talk to voters through. And also understanding that the media is not your friend, even if they're the most respected, well-meaning journalist. In my opinion, the media is a filter.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
It's always been a filter and it's very much a filter right now. If you go back and watch Kamala Harris's interviews from her short campaign, you know, there were interviews where 14 of the 15 questions were a Republican talking point as the premise. So I don't under, I mean, like, so you can have the best message.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And it frustrates, you know, people like me who are like, you just wasted all of your time trying to appeal. And so to tamp down the criticism of the media, when you didn't reach a single voter that you needed.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Oh yeah. I actually agree with you. I'm not saying that you're, you're not going to try to do it at all, but I think that one of the things they do every cycle is they're like, let's go on a bus tour to get white working class voters. And I'm like, you do this every time. And you don't think that maybe that's maybe not the answer. I don't think it's not the answer, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Like that's not, that's not the answer. And that's not the problem. And also it's all happening. with the backdrop of changing demographics, right? So even when we say something like rural voters or, you know, working class voters, now we have to understand that that does include a large number of black and brown people.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
So that's where the bus tour is not the way. But you do have to figure out, and maybe it's the Medicaid message, I think the social security piece of this is really important because black women in particular, huge recipients of social security benefits. So there are ways and there are messages that work on those constituencies that you absolutely need to be engaged and excited.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
But I think that they keep doing the same thing over and expecting a different result when they needed to evolve with the demographic shift.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And no shade to the folks who have chosen those things.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Drinking and yoga. Is it hot yoga or are you sweating it out?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Depends. I don't know if they told you, but I live in Italy. Now, so I'm doing the second Trump administration very different than the first. The first Trump administration, I was like, all right, I'm the resistance. I'm out here. I'm doing it. I'm up front. I'm consuming it nonstop. I am working all the time. This is like, I live and breathe this.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Well, look, I mean, I can't say that I wasn't inspired by that, but I will say that I came to Italy in 2024. I spent half the year in 2024 in Italy, 90 days, 90 days home, 90 days back, 90 days home. And I have never felt better mentally, physically, all the things. And it's because I have just a little bit of distance from some of the daily onslaught, I mean, it's really different here.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
The way that they are, and I say they sort of generalizing, but the people that I interact with, the way that they approach life and being present and talking to people face-to-face and having those types of interactions, I'm not saying they don't also have some of the same issues that we do, but I think that I have learned a lot about
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Like making joy and happiness on a daily basis and actually living in the present here. And so the second Trump administration, I decided that I was not going to do what I did the first time. Now, also, my mother had massive strokes and passed away at the end of 2022. I'm sorry. And thank you. And I'm not going out like that. So I decided that I was going to do something different.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
And I was going to go where I feel good and where I feel happiness. And I can still do my job and cover what is happening in our country. And I think actually the perspective of being here is unique because it's looking crazy from over here. And also when you talk to people here, They are like, what the hell is wrong with America? And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Like, I agree, but I really don't know what is wrong. They were universally, it wasn't like a debate. They were universally opposed to Trump. Every single person I talked to was like, you guys aren't going to vote for Trump again, are you?
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
When you talk to regular folks, the people that I interacted with, I mean, literally the person, this is a true story, when I went to print my absentee ballad, The man who printed my absentee ballot spoke no English and he handed it to me and he said, no Trump. That's all he said. He didn't speak any English at all, but he handed me my absentee ballot and was like, no Trump.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
No one will know who it is. But I think that here it's like regular ordinary folks are looking at us like, what are you guys doing? And also, I think it's just a different way of life and sort of approaching your everyday life and living in the moment in a little bit of a different way.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
I mean, like my dad came to visit during my first trip and we were walking around and he was like, I understand why you like it here. Because the energy, it's a vibe. I mean, when I go home to the United States, I'm mostly staying in Virginia when I'm there. And it's an energy thing. People are angry. People are anxious. They're just, they're all like pumped up.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Like, and that's when you come here, it's not like that. I mean, I'm in Sicily, so it's very much not like that. Like in Sicily, people are like,
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
chilling like there's a man across the street putting the net out fishing right right now well i don't have that i moved to new orleans which is the closest we can do in america to that there's nobody out there with nets fishing but we are getting into we are in parade season how's your time okay it's improving i'll say that okay i do take lessons and i'm improving
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
So I need to meet a winemaker. Yeah, so you need to meet a winemaker.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
to the mindset yeah i think so for people that are stuck in america do you have any inner inner mind advice for them every single day at the end of my show i tell all of the listeners to do something in their day that sparks joy and i don't mean tidy up like you know marie kondo no shade right i mean actually like be intentional about trying to make your day a good day and don't sit around and scroll through news like what are you doing stop doing that don't do that
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
You're not going to be able to make Trump or Elon Musk do something different just because you rage tweeted today. Like, do not do that. So there is a time and place to engage in activism. And then you also want to live your life because previous generations who had to go through fights like the one we're going through right now.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
I mean, there is a famous picture of Martin Luther King dancing, right? Like you do have to also live and engage. If you take care of your mental health, you are better able to do the things that are necessary activism-wise, right? Like, if you're a complete mess and you're all over the place, you're not going to be effective.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
Don't don't do that. And don't don't sit and just scroll endlessly through the news. Do not do that. I need everybody. I mean, I started watching shows with subtitles specifically because I couldn't stop scrolling. I mean, they built it to be addicting and it is. But like I started watching shows with subtitles and that was the way that I broke my phone addiction.
The Bulwark Podcast
Ruben Gallego and Zerlina Maxwell: Make Them Own It
I'm now addicted to the show Paradise. Okay.