Shake the Dust

We’re sad to announce that KTF Press is closing down, and this will be our last episode of Shake the Dust. But both of us will continue to do work in different places. In this conversation, we cover: - Why KTF is closing - What will happen to our newsletters, articles, podcasts, and books - What we’re both doing next - What the experience of running KTF has been like for us - What we want to leave listeners with - And a benediction Where you can see some of our upcoming work: - Jonathan’s new book that you can preorder now! Beauty and Resistance: Spiritual Rhythms for Formation and Repair [https://www.ivpress.com/beauty-and-resistance] - Jonathan’s new Substack, The Crux [https://thecrux.substack.com/] - Sy’s new website for his freelance work [https://www.syhoekstra.com/] Credits - Follow Jonathan Walton on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008693163422] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jonathanpanwalton], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/jonathanpanwalton]. - Follow Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon [https://tweesecake.social/@SyHoekstra]. - Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/7gX09eJ1Q9wipbRGk7LtwZ]. - Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/resourcefulrobyn]. - Editing by Sy. - Production by Sy and our incredible subscribers The transcript for this episode was autogenerated by Substack and may contain errors This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

On this month’s bonus episode, Jonathan and Sy talk about our political system from a practical and theological view: - What we can accomplish using America’s political system - The limits of what political action can do - Given those powers and limits, how Christians should approach politics - And, in Which Tab Is Still Open, boycotting as a spiritual practice Mentioned on the Episode: - Pastor Erina Kim-Eubanks on boycotting as a Lenten practice [https://erinakimeubanks.substack.com/p/lenten-boycott-2025] - Malcolm Foley’s book The Anti-Greed Gospel [https://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-anti-greed-gospel/419160]: Why the Love of Money Is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward - Aja Barber’s book, Consumed: the Need for Collective Change [https://bookshop.org/p/books/consumed-the-need-for-collective-change-colonialism-climate-change-and-consumerism-aja-barber/17761916] - The Vox podcast episode with Barber [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-if-we-stopped-shopping/id1346207297?i=1000699212352], and its transcript [https://docs.google.com/document/d/13p9Y5IiHos9uFEnuLG_3os9hkdBLIM3w7Q-typPpycY/edit?tab=t.0] Credits - Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com/]. - Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008693163422] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jonathanpanwalton], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/jonathanpanwalton]. - Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon [https://tweesecake.social/@SyHoekstra]. - Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/7gX09eJ1Q9wipbRGk7LtwZ]. - Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/resourcefulrobyn]. - Editing by Sy. - Production by Sy and our incredible subscribers The transcript for this episode was autogenerated by Substack and may contain errors This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

On this month’s bonus episode, Jonathan and Sy discuss: - What exactly the Trump administration does to distract the media and the general population so it can achieve its goals - How it uses the erasure of experiences from outside MAGA world to demean and suppress opposition - What we can do to resist Trump’s agenda in light of these tactics - And, in Which Tab Is Still Open, making sure immigrants know their rights when dealing with ICE, and preparing for those encounters ahead of time Mentioned on the Episode: - Ezra Klein’s op-ed, “Don’t Believe Him [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-trump-column-read.html].” - Professor Austin Kocher’s post about knowing your rights when encountering ICE [https://substack.com/home/post/p-155645399] - “Know your rights” distributable cards [https://drive.google.com/file/d/19VQf3eXtmLvFpWyHXofJzUUguN8WptR-/view] for immigrants in English - The same card [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zlpAgvTWqF0GU3Sl5-JqTxvUcTFBndtP/view] in Spanish - The feelings wheel skill sheet [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xsvJGZSDelbzpPprHJHYHR5BGFCqbu1W2STMY4p_C5w/edit?tab=t.0] to help kids work through hard conversations Credits - Follow KTF Press on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/KTFPress], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/ktfpress/], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/ktfpress]. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com/]. - Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008693163422] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jonathanpanwalton], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/jonathanpanwalton]. - Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon [https://tweesecake.social/@SyHoekstra]. - Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/7gX09eJ1Q9wipbRGk7LtwZ]. - Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/resourcefulrobyn]. - Editing by Sy. - Production by Sy and our incredible subscribers The transcript for this episode was autogenerated by Substack and may contain errors This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

On this month’s bonus episode, Jonathan and Sy are talking political education in this new era of traditional and social media bowing to Trump and the MAGA movement. We get into: - The beliefs about free speech behind the changes at Meta that Mark Zuckerberg recently announced - How our understanding of healthy discourse differs from those beliefs - And tips for staying politically educated in this new environment Credits - Follow KTF Press on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/KTFPress], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/ktfpress/], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/ktfpress]. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com/]. - Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008693163422] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jonathanpanwalton], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/jonathanpanwalton]. - Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon [https://tweesecake.social/@SyHoekstra]. - Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/7gX09eJ1Q9wipbRGk7LtwZ]. - Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/resourcefulrobyn]. - Transcripts by Joyce Ambale [https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~016eba8643f25d1333] and Sy. - Editing by Sy. - Production by Sy and our incredible subscribers Transcript [An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes in a major scale, the first three ascending and the last three descending, with a keyboard pad playing the tonic in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”] Sy Hoekstra: The moderation isn't really a problem, it's sort of the greed behind the companies. Like, the people who have realized, “Oh, I can make a ton of money by making people super angry [laughs]. And I don't care what that does to our public discourse, because it makes me money.” That's the real problem to me. It's not actually the fact that somebody has said, “I will not let people say anti-Semitic things on my platform. “ [The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you’re building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.] Sy Hoekstra: Hello, hello, everybody. This is Sy. Jonathan and I are still recording these monthly bonus episodes on Substack live. Thank you if you were able to join us for the live recording this time around. I'm just here to tell you that the recording cut off the very, very beginning of what I said when we started. So if I just dropped you in, it wouldn't make any sense. What I'm gonna do is seamlessly transition us from this to the live recording. Now ready? Here we go. Welcome to this bonus episode of Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. [transition to live recording] I'm Sy Hoekstra. Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. Welcome again to this bonus episode recorded live on Substack. Thank you to everyone who is joining and watching right now and watching later, and again, thanks for being a subscriber to this podcast. We appreciate you. Sy Hoekstra: We are going to be talking today, as the headline says, about how to be politically educated, how to keep yourself politically educated in this new era of Trump. And not just Trump, but also both legacy and social media platforms, kind of bowing the knee to him and doing his bidding [laughs]. Political education has always been central to what we talk about at KTF Press, and our reasons for doing it and what we’re trying to accomplish haven't changed, but the way that you go about doing it is actually starting to change in significant ways. So we thought we would take some time to talk about kind of the reasons behind the changes that are happening in the media and how that means we need to be paying attention going forward in order to remain people who are informed and who can be helpful and who can serve the kingdom of God in our politics. So we're kind of merging the whole show together. Normally, we have our conversation and then we do separately the Which Tab Is Still Open, which is where we have a segment where we talk about diving deeper into one of the things from our newsletter, one of the highlights that one of us brought out from the news in our newsletter. When we were talking about this conversation, I was like, “I wanna talk about the Meta stuff and Mark Zuckerberg and those announcements that he made.” And as we had the conversation, we sort of realized that's actually the whole episode [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, exactly. Sy Hoekstra: We're doing a whole episode of Which Tab Is Still Open. I will explain those of you who don't know, give a brief summary of what it is that Mark Zuckerberg said exactly last week, and then we will get into the meat of the conversation. And then we'll be talking about how to find trustworthy sources and how to better understand the political and news climate that we are in in this new Trump era. So this is gonna be a really good conversation. I'm sure you’ll all enjoy it. Jonathan, though, before we get started, it's your turn to talk [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Well, if you're listening to this live, please consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting this work so we can do more of it. If you become a paid subscriber, you'll get access to this video, audio and all of our live and bonus episodes from like [laughs] the last four years. You also get access to archives of everything that we've done, our Zoom calls as well. So please, please, do become a paid subscriber. You'll also get the ability to comment and interact with us more, and you'll be supporting everything that we're doing as we push for just political discipleship and education and leave behind the idols of the American church. Welcome to all y'all who just signed on. For everybody, if you do like Shake the Dust, definitely go to Apple, Spotify, give a great review. That helps people discover the show and lets us know that y'all appreciate what we're doing, and we are so excited to jump into this conversation today. Go for it, Sy. Sy Hoekstra: All right, let me get us caught up. And for the people who are live, feel free to comment or question in the chat at any point, and Jonathan will be monitoring that. We will incorporate that into our discussion. And join us live, by the way, if you wanna have that opportunity, if you're listening later. So like I said, what I'm gonna do is explain just the brief bullet points of everything that Mark Zuckerberg said in his reel last week [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And all of the changes that are happening at Meta, which is Facebook and Instagram and Threads. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And then we will get into the conversation about it after I go into that. Like I said, Which Tab Is Still Open right at the top of the show. So here are the announcements that he made, and they're all about content moderation and filtering content and everything on Facebook and Instagram and Threads. So the first thing, he has six announcements. I'll go through them really quickly. One is they are ending their fact checking program [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: They are completely getting rid of all of their mostly third party fact checkers and replacing them with community notes like they have on Twitter, meaning users will be doing the fact checking and trying to post notes to correct disinformation on Facebook, instead of having professional fact checkers doing that. He will be limiting moderation on certain subjects. He specifically mentioned immigration and gender. People who have subsequently reported about the policy changes have said there are also things about race and some other subjects that will not be moderated. And this is like basically saying that censorship on those subjects is out of touch with mainstream discourse now. All of this he made pretty clear, was revolving around Trump's election. They're gonna be focusing their content filters, like their automatic, not the actual people doing the fact checking or the humans doing the moderation, but the robo content filters [laughs] on illegal content and high severity violations, as he described them. So that's stuff like drugs and terrorism and child exploitation, that sort of thing. And then anything that is not on those subjects, in order for the filters to act in any way, people will have to affirmatively report them. The filters won't act preemptively. They're gonna bring back what they call civic content, which is like their political content. They had been, as a lot of you probably know, sort of hiding it. You had to go into your settings and say that you specifically wanted to see it to get it in your feed. So they're taking away that filter, that'll be back in your feed. And then the [laughs], there's two more. One is the safety and content moderation teams. They are moving to Texas, where they're, as Mark Zuckerberg put it, “where there will be less concerns about their biases.” They are currently in California, so that tells you which biases [laughs] he cares about and which he doesn't. Also, by the way, other reporters have said a lot of their content, there's some of their content moderation teams are already in Texas, but… Jonathan Walton: It's true. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: It’s a hand wave, yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Exactly. The rest of them will be moving to Texas. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: And then finally, he said he'll be working with Trump and the US government to push back on governments, he specially named Europe, Latin America and China, who want Facebook to be doing more moderation and content filtering, which he always refers to as censorship, to push back against them, combined with the power of the American federal government. Specifically noting that over the last four years, it has been difficult, because the American government was asking for more censorship. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And all of this he justifies under kind of a heading of giving people a voice and allowing people to share their real experiences and free speech. He mentions the constitution and just our culture of free speech and discourse. Those are kind of the, I don't know, bigger ideological points that he gives behind it. I will just note before we start, this is very similar to the moves that Twitter has made and, important for us, this is similar to what Substack has been the whole time. Substack has been a non-moderation, almost entirely unmoderated platform for a very long time. They only moderate material that is either illegal in some way or pornographic. They have pretty much let everything else be, which has caused some controversy. So we will get into it, Jonathan. As I said, anybody can comment or ask questions as we go. But Jonathan, before we jump into what we think good political education is in the midst of changes, like what's happening at Meta, I wanna talk a little bit about kind of the ideology, the world view behind this, what the politics and economics behind this way of thinking are, because that will inform how we think that you move forward. So tell us what you think about what the world view is, what the ideology is behind these sorts of changes, and how does yours differ from that worldview [laughter]? Because spoilers, it does differ. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, I've got a significant amount of disagreement with all of this. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Lots of dissonance that I feel around it. And there's a meme that someone put out really, there's amazing art happening right now around the different things that are happening in culture, particularly around war, injustice, violence, et cetera. So if you're not following amazing artists on Instagram or, we’ll dive into how to use social media a little bit more later, but find some great art, find some great photos, find some things. And I found one that basically showed Trump sitting on a throne with a stream of visibly cartoonish but totally recognizable CEOs dropping million dollar coins at his feet to signify the reality that there are many, many CEOs right now, basically tithing a million dollars paying tribute to our new leader. And I think that is what we need to hold as the reality, is that all of this is subservient to the reality that these CEOs are trying to make as much money as possible and to protect the empires that they're building, and there is no larger framework of engaging in a social good. The reality is wherever the wind blows that's going to be the most profitable for their company, that is where they're going. And I think this is signified by how Morning Brew Daily, one of the most popular podcasts on the planet, talks about how Elon Musk invested money in the election. That was how they framed it. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: He “invested” $227 million in Trump becoming president. We should not call election manipulation and subversion of democracy an investment. But I think that's exactly how the powers that be see and engage with our current political system downstream of Citizens United in 2010 and all that kind of stuff. So I think we have to remember that we sit on stolen land that’s set up in an exploitative, capitalistic system, and the moves that are being made are to protect the accumulation and the unbridled accumulation of that capital. And I think pretty explicitly now and enshrined into law, like with Citizens United, is this political and economic marrying which has ballooned into just all kinds of campaign finance violations that are no longer violations, and secret organizations and all those kinds of things that I wish were different, but am recognizing, praying and working against so that they actually will be. Sy Hoekstra: It's interesting to me that you mentioned those things in particular, because as we have said with Donald Trump in so many other arenas, he is not particularly unique in… like everybody always donates to presidents’ inaugurations. Companies have always donated money to senatorial campaigns or to whatever. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: That's not new. The idea that your whole goal of your company is to maximize wealth for your shareholders is not new. It's just as usual with everything else. Trump magnifies things and puts them out in the open, not just him, but the whole culture around him, puts them out in the open in a way that they weren't before. And that's the chief thing that surprises people about him a lot is just how brazen he is. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: But, yeah, no, I agree with you. And I think the things, part of what we're maybe uncovering there is the things that change in how you politically educate yourself are not about radically new ideas that are coming down the pike. They're just about things crystallizing and elevating in a new way, and that's why we have to change. But, yeah, you're right. It's a cohesive thing. It makes sense with how we've had 40 years or so of sort of Republican orthodoxy being the purpose of a corporation is primarily to maximize shareholder value, maximize the value for people who own the company, and then that will in turn, be in the best interest of society, which is sort of an article of faith, that those interests will be aligned, that it is useful for people [laughs] who want to make a lot of money to propagate that faith. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, go ahead. Jonathan Walton: No, I was gonna say, how about you? What are some of the things standing out for you as we engage? Sy Hoekstra: Oh, there’s so much, Jonathan. There's too much. Jonathan Walton: [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: I have so many things written down [laughter]. So I will pause and allow you to talk as I go through this. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: So I think you're right in what you're talking about is the motivations behind what CEOs are doing, but more broadly, the reason that things like what Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or other people are saying about their social media platforms, there's ideologies that justify those things in the minds of people who aren't making money off of them [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And one of those values or one of those, I don't know, it's a phrase, it's an idea that a lot of people have, is the marketplace of ideas. So this is a big part of our, quote- unquote, First Amendment or free speech culture in America. It's the idea that if you just put all your ideas out there in the world and all the justifications for them, the best ones will win out. Like products. You have a bunch of companies competing selling similar products. People are gonna buy the products that are the best at the best price, and the other ones will not do as well as whoever manages to provide the best product at the best price. It's the same. It is the marketplace of ideas. You provide the best ideas with the best justifications, you get them out there, they will beat all the other worse ideas, and the good ideas will dominate society. And so I say that that's important because that's kind of the reason that people say so there should be no moderation. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: Nobody should be blocking anybody's content, because actually, the way to defeat ideas is by presenting better ideas, not by destroying them or censoring or moderating them. Now I'm not in favor of censorship [laughter]. I'm not in favor of shutting people down in oppressive, authoritarian regimes. I just think the notion that better ideas, if they're put out there, will just automatically be bad ones is absurd [laughter]. And that bad ideas can be propagated through things like money and advertising and political power and whatever. You can do things short of all out censorship and oppression that are bad for our civic discourse [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: That is a thing that I firmly believe. It is not that there's one bad guy of censorship, and as long as we defeat that, then everything will be, all the conditions will be perfect for beautiful, productive public discourse [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And I think part of the problem is that the idea, doesn't really account for either emotions or power dynamics . Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: So It kind of stems from a belief, kind of like our beliefs that everybody in the free market just makes perfectly rationally, self interested decisions all the time. It just doesn't account for culture and for emotions [laughs] and decisions that people make that are based on unprocessed or suppressed or repressed emotions, whatever. People are just rational beings that only make good, calculated, computer-like decisions. And so that's just kind of like one fact that it has wrong about the world, but the reality of power dynamics is like, makes what Zuckerberg is doing baffling, if you take them seriously. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: Because it's basically the idea is, I'm gonna get out there and be able to say what I want. Because effectively, what he's doing is allowing people to say bigoted things again. That is the primary change he's making to content moderation. He's letting people say transphobic things. He's letting people say discriminatory things about immigrants. He's letting people insult people because of their race again, all those things will not be moderated any longer. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And he says that that is giving people a voice and allowing people to share their experiences. That's one of the weirdest things to me. Like your experience is bigotry [laughter]? “I have to be able to share my experience, which is that I hate this group of people.” It’s wild. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: But it does not take into account the fact that people are going to walk away from the conversation, because this is present. If you just let everybody talk, there's gonna be a bunch of trolls. And if a bunch of those trolls gather in one place, then the people who they're trolling are going to leave that place and you're not gonna have a good discussion anymore. You're gonna have a bunch of trolls. So it’s like… I don't know. I feel like it's something that may be hard to believe when you haven't been on the receiving end of a lot of it, which Zuckerberg has, he faces a lot of anti-Semitism, but he's basically expecting everyone to just be like, their reaction to be, “Oh, Facebook has a bunch of horrifying racist trolls who can say whatever they want,” which on the internet is like truly vile stuff, “And I need to go in there and fight them,” [laughs]! Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: “I'm gonna take my time, my limited time and my limited energy, and I'm gonna go out there and beat them in the marketplace of ideas, and we'll get good information, good ideas out there on Facebook.” Facebook is gonna become like what Twitter has become. It's gonna become overrun by trolls and bots and whatever, and it's gonna be a much less pleasant place to be. It's gonna be a place that people don't want to be. And even when Twitter had a lot more benefit to it than it does now, a lot of people didn't wanna be on there either. People were constantly complaining about [laughs] how miserable it was, how angry and hateful and just like not helpful people were being there. So anyways, all this part of the problem stems from the idea that there's just a big old marketplace of ideas that we can engage in perfectly rationally without any power dynamics [laughs]. Your thoughts before I move on to my many other thoughts [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Well, no, I mean, I think the reality is we live in a world that exists for… man, how do I say this? Sy Hoekstra: The benefit of certain people? Jonathan Walton: I didn't wanna say it so simply, but yes [laughter]. The world that we live in exists for the benefit of some. And again, I mean, I've talked about this many, many times. But if we think about the world that we live in as a large plantation, then things make sense. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: The goal is that a certain group of people gets to decide how things go, and then there's another group of people who gets to implement how those things go so they're not suffering. And then there's the folks that are just experiencing this. And the thing that I think is an exceptional level of hypocrisy, is that if the bottom, quote- unquote, decides to fight, they need to fight in the way that the people at the top have determined that that fight should take place, and so that fight right now is community notes. Whereas like when Elon Musk changed Twitter to X and then literally told ad companies to go F themselves, and with emphasis, that to me looks like someone who has embraced the reality of the power that they've been given and are now going to use it in a way explicitly to name what the person downstream of them cannot change or challenge. Similar to Trump. Trump said when he was on the debate stage with Hillary Clinton years ago, he said, “I gave you money. Nobody wants to talk about that. I gave you money, I gave you money, I gave you money.” He's saying the quiet part out loud. And so he's using the tools of the game and redefining the game, but the people who don't have power cannot change the rules of the game, and when they play, the rules are changed around them. And so I think that height of hypocrisy that is not invisible is the problem, because we… I mean, the system itself is a problem, but the reality that on the one hand I can say, “Hey friend, I'm a CEO and I run a business, and we are struggling, so we can't give you your bonuses this year. We can't pay you a living wage. We can't do that.” And then in the next article, on a different podcast, say, “Friends, we've got record profits.” So this is a problem [laughter]. And you can't say, oh, on the one hand, “We are struggling,” and on the other hand, “I just bought a $300 million yacht.” On the one hand, “We can't pay you living wages,” but on the other hand, “We're gonna do historic buybacks for our stocks and give dividends back to…” I think before, it was harder for us to see, but now in the media environment that we have, the hypocrisy is on display, and now you're saying, “Hey, don't look at the trees, even though these are all sequoias. Don't look at them, though.” And that I think is a is a exceptional struggle in the current moment that we're in. Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan, do you really think there is a yacht out there that costs $300 million? Jonathan Walton: I know that there are. Sy Hoekstra: No, there can't possibly. That's not possible. Jonathan Walton: No. I think Bezos’ yacht was a half a billion dollars. I'm not joking. Sy Hoekstra: That's… what [laughs]? Jonathan Walton: So all of this, when I was a real estate agent, the difference between price and cost. And these are ways that people have chosen to hide their money. Like, “I'm gonna have this investment, I'm gonna have this thing,” and yachts are part of that milieu right now [laughter]. So, yeah. Somebody in the chat can Google it and drop in the chat. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, I was gonna say I’m gonna look this up later. I’m open to the possibility that you're correct, but I currently don't believe you [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. No worries. I remember clicking on those things, but anyway, go for it. We don't have to talk about yachts, it’s kind of… Sy Hoekstra: No, no, no. This is definitely a rabbit trail. Okay, so another thing for me, it's kind of two things that go together that are behind the Zuckerberg announcement. He mentioned a couple times the Constitution and the First Amendment. A thing that I want to tell people as a former lawyer who has actually worked on some First Amendment cases and stuff like that. The actions of Meta and any private company in the world have nothing to do with the First Amendment whatsoever [laughter]. This is something that everybody needs to learn. It's like a basic civics thing that the First Amendment is about what the government does. It is not about what private not about what private companies do. Legally speaking, the Constitution does not enter into this at all. Facebook could decide tomorrow that it is going to ban all Democrats and only Republicans will be allowed on its platform, and nobody would have a First Amendment claim against them [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: Because it doesn't matter, they're not the government. Of course, they have a massive effect on our discourse, and our political conversation in America, but the First Amendment is not concerned with any effect on our political discourse. It's only concerned with the government. That's one thing. Another thing is like the culture... So the more generous way to think about, maybe he said the Constitution as a slip. People sometimes talk about the First Amendment, and what they're actually talking about is our general culture of free speech, our general civic discussion. And the belief that Zuckerberg seems to have is that his censorship of whatever, people being angry about immigration harms that culture, like hurts the general culture of free speech in America. And the sort of ironic thing is, one of the things that the First Amendment actually does also protect is a private company's right to discriminate, meaning their right to decide to only publish things of a certain point of view. The way that you get Fox News or the way that you get MSNBC, with their biases, they're only hiring people who have their same biases, is that they are allowed to specifically by First Amendment law [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: They're allowed to make those discriminatory choices as private entities that the government could not make, and that allows people to have news sources that come from their own perspectives. And we've always had those things, and I don't think that's bad. I think it's fine to have, like you have conversations with the people that you agree with, and you have conversations with the people that you don't and you need to balance those things out. The problem is actually things like Facebook's algorithm [laughs] that create echo chambers and create like heightened, there's always been echo chambers, heightened echo chambers, and make us angered and outraged all the time. So it's not actually the… the moderation isn't really a problem. It's sort of the greed behind the companies. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. Sy Hoekstra: The people who have realized, “Oh, I can make a ton of money by making people super angry.” [laughs] And I don't care what that does to our public discourse, because it makes me money.” That's the problem. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: And I'm not suggesting we nationalize all of our news or whatever. This is just a problem that we have to constantly be pushing against. And obviously, money and business also creates opportunities for there to be great investigatory journalism and stuff that we need and whatever. I apologize for the sirens in my background, I'm in Manhattan. But I'm not saying, stop private companies forever owning whatever. I'm talking about the culture of greed that has sprung up in our economy, and has sprung up specifically in our news that leads people to purchase…Rupert Murdoch has been a big problem [laughs] over the decades. People that are trying to make financial empires off of making as much money as possible from media, from specifically our news media, from the media that affects this culture. That's the real problem to me. It's not actually the fact that somebody has said, “I will not let people say anti-Semitic things on my platform.” You know what I mean? Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Obviously, the way I'm putting it makes that seem obvious, makes any other opinions seem silly. But I'm just saying that's a thought process that I think is also behind Meta’s decisions. How about you, Jonathan? Do you have anything else to say on that? Jonathan Walton: Well, I think I'll get more into that when we talk about how to actually engage in political education. Because the reality is, the amount of money made off of outrage and distraction in entertainment is enormous. And it gets all thrown into the bucket of content, and that is a new thing that I think we need to engage with, as I also confirm that Jeff Bezos’ maiden voyage of his yacht, Koru, that was $500 million set off in April of 2023. Sy Hoekstra: [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: But, yeah. I agree with you that outrage called engagement is an exceptionally profitable business that did not exist 20 years ago. But it's now in fervent, an enormous fervor in our current reality. So, yeah. Sy Hoekstra: I think it existed, but it was a lot harder to do. Jonathan Walton: That’s true. Sy Hoekstra: It was harder to make it as focused and effective as it is now without all the data that you get from being on the internet. Just from having a website or a social media company that allows you [laughs] to more precisely target your outrage [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: It's serious. That's the issue there. I'm gonna say, I think there's also some amount, not a ton, or not as much, but there's some amount of blame to the consumers. Jonathan Walton: Oh yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Those of us who opt into it, I don't wanna put all the blame on us, meaning I don't wanna put all the blame on just like the readers of the news or whatever for falling for the click bait or falling for the outrage machine or the echo chambers, because these massive companies that have a ton of money have studied in enormously fine detail how to manipulate your behavior [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Well, it's… Sy Hoekstra: The thing that you're trying to resist is much bigger than you, but also, there's a culture around how we consume media, and that has also gotten more clickbait-y and angry and all that kind of thing. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I don't know where the line between… I don't know if you can blame oil for going into a funnel. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: I don't know if you can blame the oil, because I do think there's a level of impossibility that exists. And we could apply this to any number of injustices. But if I am an activist in the United States, and I have to buy a phone to communicate, I am participating in an injustice that I want to stop. And that I think is the quote- unquote, the tensions we're always trying to negotiate and quote- unquote consumers, right? That term coming out of post-World War Two, in the Neo Liberalist economics, that now we're all consumers, that I think does two things. One, it frames us as consumers, and literally turns most people, experiences, resources, things around us, into things to be consumed, not stewarded, taken care of, not extended a life of, then you get planned obsolescence and all of those kinds of things. And so I do think there's a level of accountability for us. I just don't know where us being the folks that are literally trying to eat every day and buy things and communicate, I don't know where that line of complicity versus like, man, it's impossible to be a guy that begins and ends in our just saturated, dominated culture. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, it's hard. Sy Hoekstra: Okay, I think that was a good thought to end that part of the discussion. What do you think, should we move on? Okay. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, let's do it. Sy Hoekstra: So let's talk about how we actually stay politically educated, which is more than just like informed. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: And being informed is part of it, but we're actually talking about how you might kind of form yourself as someone who is trying to be a faithful person engaging in politics, even faithful Christian, faithful citizen, whatever. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Faithful neighbor. And to be a little bit broader than Meta, we're also talking about that in the context of the legacy media companies like the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, who are increasingly doing whatever Trump wants. So Jonathan, tips for being well politically educated in this new but also, as we've discussed, connected to the old environment [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I would say there's a few things that I think are consistent, but look different in the context that we're in right now, in our current day. And so I think the first thing is, most of us consume media, and I say consume intentionally. We're not processing it, it's just coming at us. We do it individually. And so the first thing that I would say is please, have conversations with people about what you're watching and reading. Most of us don't recognize that we're in rabbit holes, that we're in echo chambers, that we're in cultural bubbles. We don't usually for the most part, willingly opt in, decide to stay, then amplify and then radicalize. It's not usually a road we're all trying to get on. And so I think we should have conversations with folks about the content we're engaging with, and then up from there, I think we need to start to identify the content that's coming at us, because it's not all the same. Sy Hoekstra: Hey, can I say one thing about the community thing before we move on to another thing? Jonathan Walton: For sure. Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: So the community thing is both to get you out of your echo chamber, and you can have other people, I don't know, fact check you kind of, but it's also that will help you get… not just out of your echo chamber. That will educate you more generally about how people think about things. You know what I mean? Jonathan Walton: Yes. Right, right. Sy Hoekstra: You can read a bunch of things, some people are good at this. You can read a bunch of things from a different perspective of your own, and you can kind of get the general thoughts and patterns behind it. But it's so much easier to do when you're actually interacting with people. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: So I just think that it'll round you out, and you will round other people out in a way that's beneficial for everyone. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, absolutely. Sy Hoekstra: But, please continue. Yeah. Jonathan Walton: No, and we talked about this offline, but me saying, “Hey, Priscilla,” my wife, “This and this, this happened,” and she goes, “Why do you believe that?” Just that little question is helpful for me to be like, “Well, crap. Why do I believe that?” Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: That actually might be a little ridiculous, that I made these 19 connections and now I'm running all around, even if it's just inside my own head, with an idea that could actualize itself into something really unhelpful. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: So up from that, I think we need to slow down and analyze the content that's coming at us, because in your Instagram feed, or in your whatever Meta platform, like I've seen my platform change already with what's on my Instagram feed. Sy Hoekstra: How so? Jonathan Walton: Oh, they're trying to make me angry and engage. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: I can see it. And they're either trying to get me angry or entice me. So there's more women in my feed. I don't wanna make comments on the looks of celebrities, but that's what's coming up. So I have to… I've been clicking not interested, not interested [laughs] trying to get out of that. But that was a discernible change. I love MMA and Muay Thai and things like that, and so I think they're trying to pull me somewhere I'm not interested in going. But all that to say… Sy Hoekstra: You mean they're like, “Oh, this guy likes MMA, so he must also like hot celebrities?” Jonathan Walton: Yeah, because they are in the same photos, like the fights and they're in the background, stuff like that. So I'm like, “Oh, I don't wanna see that.” Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, makes sense. Jonathan Walton: But in that same feed I might see the latest update from a fight, or I might see a video about race that's very educational. Then I have an ad from Temu, then I have political commentary, and it's branded all as content. But the reality is, some of that is news, some of that is entertainment, some of that is analysis. Sy Hoekstra: Some is advertisement. Jonathan Walton: Some of its advertising. And I think we have to slow down and stop swiping so quickly to understand what is coming at us each day, what we're actually looking at. And so one of the things that I try to do is, even in click not interested, is that to turn my social media feed from a dumpster fire to a garden. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Like, how can I tend this in such a way that it helps me grow up into the person I wanna be, not just the person that they're trying to form me into. And so as we're taking media in, please, please, please stop. Please stop watching short form content. It's conditioning. I'm conditioned, my attention span is shorter, and stuff is hard. It's hard to understand capitalism. It's hard to understand political frameworks. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: These are difficult concepts that can’t be explained in a reel. They just can't. And so I think, for all of the things that we're consuming and taking in, I do think the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart is an amazing tool to go back to just recognize, “Oh, all of the things I'm consuming right now are coming at me are not being processed. So the stuff that I'm consuming, oh, it's actually all opinion. I haven't learned what happened. I've only learned what people think about what happens.” So I've seen fires burning in California, but I actually don't know why the fires are burning. I actually don't know the background of water usage and families meeting with representatives to get water to flow to their pistachio and pomegranate farm. I didn't know that. I didn't know water is being rerouted this way. And even Frontline just released a documentary on the Maui fires and how that happened. There's like, Inside Climate News just released a report on climate change and trauma. So there's things that we can engage with that are much longer than a swipe up or down that will help us not to become radicalized, because radicalization in any direction is radically unhelpful. Because when we are radicalized we don't listen, we’re unwilling to grow. And then what happens is everything goes through the filter of our own hard thinking, which I think we just need to get out of. Sy Hoekstra: Wait Jonathan, when you say radicalism or radicalizing, do you mean extremism? Jonathan Walton: Oh, you know what, I do mean extremism. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I was gonna say, I think Jonathan is actually kind of in favor of certain types of radicalism [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I mean, people would call me radical. I think we should love people no matter what, which is a radical thing. Every single person is made in the image of God and worthy of dignity, value and worth, all of that. That's a radical thought. I do believe that. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: So maybe let's replace that with extremism. Sy Hoekstra: I have a couple thoughts on this too, if you don’t mind. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, go for it. Sy Hoekstra: In favor of slowing down and, basically, you're kind of talking about checking your sources a little bit, or checking your facts, or whatever's behind the opinion. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: That's important. And as I've said before, if you take a not very long amount of time [laughter] to go and read some of the actual facts, and ask yourself, what is different between what I'm reading here and what the opinion columnist said or what the person said on social media, you can be very quickly, miles ahead of the average person [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that’s true. Sy Hoekstra: A lot of people just don't know the facts. You learn a few more things and you are going to be able to help a lot of people out of misinformed takes about things. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: And the other thing about slowing down, and here's my plug for the fediverse, for Mastodon [laughs], is that you can dislike things on Instagram while you want, you still have your algorithm. You can make lists on Twitter, Bluesky or whatever, and that'll help, you can only look at the things that you wanna see and not the “for you” tab or whatever. On Mastodon all you ever see is the things that you've affirmatively followed. There's no algorithm, there's no company trying to manipulate you at all [laughs]. It's all nonprofit, it's wonderful. I've been only on Mastodon for a while, like it’s my personal social media, and the past couple weeks I felt very vindicated [laughter] in that decision. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: But go on, before we get to mine, you had a couple more tips here. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, the last thing was, become familiar with the other ways other people are educated. Sy Hoekstra: Right. Jonathan Walton: So just ask, “Hey, what are you reading?” in your friend group, in your family. Say, “Hey, who do you follow on Instagram, or Bluesky or Mastodon? Who do you read on LinkedIn? What documentaries are you watching?” I think just moving politics, money, race, class, gender, status, religion, out of this box of untouchable topics into just a normal communal conversation will help us. I was having a conversation a few days ago with someone about a racist incident I had in my neighborhood. And they looked at me and they said, “What? Like that still happens.” And I was like, “Ah, yeah, racism’s still a thing.” Or we had a conversation, and they were like, “Your daughter would experience that?” I'm like, “Yeah.” He's like, “You believe your daughter will experience racism?” I'm like, “I do, and she does.” But we don't talk regularly, and maybe his friend group doesn't have these conversations or engage in this way. So just having normal conversations where we're bringing up all those topics in a curious way, not a judgmental, not a corrective, but saying like, “Hey, what do you watch? What are you reading?” With a posture of curiosity to connect with someone, not an explicit posture to just correct them so that they're looking at the same things you are. We actually, I think, just have to talk with people about what they're engaging with, what they're reading, and how they're living their lives, and whether it is genuine. Sy Hoekstra: And for a whole lot more detail on that particular tip, you can go to our last podcast episode [laughter]. witch was more or less all about that. Jonathan Walton: Yes. How do you talk to people? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, exactly. How do you have difficult conversations across differences on important subjects? Jonathan Walton: You have more tips, Sy? Go for it. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I do. I do have more. Here's my first one. My first one has to do with the thing that I hear all the time, which is people saying, “I cannot believe how somebody thinks X. I cannot believe how somebody does whatever.” And a lot of times people are saying that they mean something genuine. They're just shocked, or they're just surprised, or whatever. There are reasonable ways to say that. A lot of times, though, when people say that, what they mean is, “I am stunned at what a bad person this is. And I'm also kind of talking about how I'm better than them,” [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. I’m guilty as charged. Sy Hoekstra: Well, I think all of us are probably guilty of that to a certain degree. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: But here's the thing that I want people to cultivate. Which is when you have the thought, “I cannot understand how somebody believes that,” go understand it [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Go find out. Which is, obviously it's related to what Jonathan just said, but what I mean is, assume that the person who is saying those things, in order to be able to understand how other people are being educated, you have to assume that they're a human. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: You have to assume that they have reasons, good or bad, that are similar in, maybe not in content, but they are similar in kind to the reasons that you have for believing the stuff that you do. Jonathan Walton: Right. Exactly. Sy Hoekstra: And if you were in their position, you would probably believe similar things to them. And so that is just a big part of it is. I'm always amazed at how many arguments get dismissed, and then the dismissal itself, an implication of the dismissal is that the other person is basically not human. Is basically just not somebody who has any sort of valid belief, just constantly. And not just on social media, everywhere in our political discourse, in a way that makes me honestly pretty sad, even if I do actually think the thing that the other person was saying is objectively ridiculous [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: So another thing that we talk about all the time is listening to marginalized people. But there's a thing that I wanna add on to that. So the thing that we usually say is, we wanna listen to, the thing that I have said a lot on the show is we wanna listen to marginalized people because they actually understand the systems that marginalize them better than the people who the systems are built for. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan was talking about the systems that we have. They're built for somebody. Part of that, part of making a system for someone is finding ways to hide the fact that the system is being made for that person. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: It's unbelievable to us now, or to a lot of people now, but the system of slavery had a whole bunch of reasons behind it that White people actually believed and thought it was a it was good, it was a good thing. And the good thing that they had all those reasons that function to keep them from ever thinking about the horrors. So I think you have to listen to marginalized people, but you actually, the thing that I wanna add on is you have to understand who those marginalized people are [laughs], which is a factual question. Meaning a lot of opinion polls have told us that more than half of White Republicans believe that, or it's Republicans period, believe that White people are the most oppressed racial group in America. So if you believe that, then who are you going to listen to about issues of race? White people. And what are your going to be concerns? Your concerns are that White people are unfairly accused of racism and that White people are not being pushed out by these unfair affirmative action DEI, whatever, “Most things threaten me, and I'm the vulnerable one, and therefore I need to fight back against that.” Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: So you need to be clear about who's... And I just gave an example that to us and our listeners is like a very clear and straightforward one. But there are gonna be, I don't know. There are times where that's harder, and you need to understand that your difference, the difference between you and someone who's against affirmative action, is probably a question of fact, not a question of ideology. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: You probably both believe that racism is bad [laughs], you just completely disagree on who's the victim of racism. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And that's a thing like, that thing that I just said about, “I can't understand how people think this,” or whatever, it is sometimes, or the thing that somebody said to you about, “Do you really believe your daughter's gonna face racism?” Like that person who I think you, I don't know if you said it or not, but I'm assuming is White. Jonathan Walton: No. This is a person of color. Sy Hoekstra: Oh, fascinating. Jonathan Walton: That's a wrench there, but go ahead [laughter]. Sy Hoekstra: There's a wrench, but it actually doesn't matter. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I know. Sy Hoekstra: I was just making an assumption that was wrong. Jonathan Walton: No worries. Sy Hoekstra: Those beliefs, when you encounter them, it is genuinely hard to believe that they are true, and again, part of assuming that someone is a human might be saying, “Okay, what are the facts that this person has wrong?” [laughs] and not assuming, “Okay, why is this person so ridiculous and absurd? Let me make myself better than them.” Just saying, “What's wrong here?” And how they're being educated is part of that question, too. All these things tie together. The last thing I wanna say, buck the norm in America of being anti-elite and anti-education [laughter]. Don't swing the other way on that pendulum, and don't be an elitist or someone who looks down on people who are uneducated, but you need to basically just don't have the bias. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: Elites and people who are well educated are again humans [laughter]. Like we're all just humans, and they've had different experiences than you've had. They've been educated in something that you haven't, or they've been educated in a lot of things that you haven't. There's lots of people who have tons of expertise that I do not have, and my job is to figure out… There might be some bad ideas floating around in their field, there might be some bad perspectives that they represent, but there's also a whole lot of things they know that I don't. And you need to figure out ways to sort the bad from the good. We just need to treat people like nuanced human beings [laughter] instead of being anti-elitist and anti-… Here's one thing that I have noticed, Jonathan, and you can correct me or add nuance or whatever. I grew up with a lot of anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism being… honestly, just being White in America, but also being White evangelical in particular. That was just the culture around me. That wasn't my parents or my immediate family, but that was the culture around me. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Since getting to know Black Christians [laughs] or just Black people in general, I have found a remarkable lack of anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism, and much more of an attitude of like, “Oh, someone from our community went and got an education. Great, what can we learn from them?” Jonathan Walton: Yeah [laughter]. Sy Hoekstra: And there's just much less, I don't know, there's so much less of that, “What, you think you're better than me?” [laughter] that I grew up with, and so much more of an assumption that, “Oh, good. You got some information, you got some education, you learned about stuff.” And then an assumption that you're gonna come back and use that to help the community. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: And that is just a big… I don't think I've ever said that out loud before, and I appreciate that you're [laughter] just listening to me just talk about your culture. Jonathan Walton: No, I think that… I mean, there are streams of Black folks that don't do that. Sy Hoekstra: For sure… because everybody is a human [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: It's true. But I will say that the fewer resources that you have or are available to you, the more reliant on the community you are by necessity. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: And so this idea that… and you actually said this in, I think two podcasts ago, the idea that at some point you are supposed to be able to just take care of yourself, independent of every single person around you, is unbelievable in a lot of ways. And so Randy Woodley, first episode of our last season, talked about if we look at a culture of a people like that, and you can analyze it by the folk tales that they tell. And he said, Native Americans and First Nations indigenous people would never write a story about how someone left their whole family and then succeeded and created a life for themselves. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: They wouldn't do that. It's not their dream to do that. And so the reality is, for me, it's like, and I think this is most prevalent in immigrant communities. It's like, “You are going to college for all of us. You are going to get this job for all of us.” And that is the antithesis of what we were all talking about with Meta’s, with capitulation. It's like, they're like, “I made a business for me and for mine, I did not make one for everybody.” And then you laid out like, the law exists for this thing to work this way, not for everybody to have X, Y and Z. Like one of the, I feel like a stream throughout this conversation has been, are we going to exist for the benefit of the community, or are we going to exist for the benefit of a few people, or an individual? And helpful to go back to Tim Keller if we wanna talk about trying not to be anti-elite, and trying not to be anti-education, one of the things that I appreciated about Tim Keller, which is why he was vilified by people on the right in conservative Christianity, is because he was unwilling to dehumanize people who made lots of money, and lived in New York City in that way. And when he wrote Generous Justice, like he said, when you go back to the Hebrew Scriptures, the definition of injustice is disadvantaging the community for the advantage of an individual. And the definition of justice is disadvantaging yourself for the advantage of the community. And he said, if you look back and forth, wickedness and justice stand on those two poles. And so everything that you're saying, I think, is about how to… the last points you're making is, can we refuse to dehumanize people and refuse to participate in wickedness so that we might humanize people and humanize ourselves to be able to participate in an ecosystem and not a plantation? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: And so I hope that we're able to do that in a little bit in this... Sy Hoekstra: Absolutely, that's part of why what we said is community is a big part of this. Community is inherently anti-authoritarian. Jonathan Walton: Yes [laughs]. It sounds so simple, but it’s true. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Who knew that loving your neighbor as yourself might be an important commandment [laughter]? Who could have predicted such a thing? I think that's a great note to end on, Jonathan. Look at how well our outline matched our time that we had on Substack live [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: That's awesome. Sy Hoekstra: We did it. Jonathan Walton: [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: We’ve gotten good at podcasting [laughter]. Alright, listen, there's two ways you can follow up with this conversation, is our last bonus episode, and then also the episode from earlier in this season with Matt Lumpkin which had a lot to do with getting… Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Matt Lumpkin’s great. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, it had a lot to do with getting curious and empathizing with people who believe wildly… It was specifically about people with who believe in conspiracy theories, and how people get in and out of them, Christians in particular. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: So that's a very helpful exercise in a lot of the stuff that we're talking about today. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, and if you wanna check out our Anthology, like his essay is in there, along with a guy named Bart Tocci. It's just great essays to engage more deeply in long form reading, friends, not just videos. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Absolutely. Alright, so I think that's it then. I'll wrap us up. Reminder, if you're watching us here, please become a paid subscriber and get access to our bonus episodes, our monthly Zoom calls, commenting on our posts and more. Everybody give us a rate and review on Apple Podcasts. Give us a rating on Spotify. Jonathan Walton: Thanks so much. Sy Hoekstra: Anywhere else you can do a rating, we'd really appreciate it. Our theme song as always is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. Joyce Ambale has done the transcripts, and our paid subscribers are the producers of this show. Thank you all so much for watching and for listening, and we will see you next month. [The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you’re building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com [https://www.ktfpress.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

In this month’s bonus episode, we talk all about why and how to have difficult conversations about important political subjects with people who disagree with you. We get into: - What are goals are in these kinds of conversations - Strategies for regulating our emotions and achieving those goals - The power dynamics to keep in mind when having these conversations - And afterward, our segment Which Tab Is Still Open?, diving into a fascinating conversation with Rev. William Barber about what Democrats could gain if they paid attention to poor voters You can find the video of the portion of this episode that we recorded live at ktfpress.com. Mentioned in the episode - Disarming [https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathan] https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathanLeviathan [https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathan] by Caleb Campbell - The Deeply Formed Life [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623185/the-deeply-formed-life-by-rich-villodas/] by Rich Villodas - Emotionally Healthy Spirituality [https://www.amazon.com/Emotionally-Healthy-Spirituality-Impossible-Spiritually/dp/0310348498] by Pete Scazzero - When Helping Hurts by [https://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-Yourself/dp/0802409989] Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert - Difficult Conversations [https://www.amazon.com/dp/014313759X?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_sms_apin_dp_BZAS3HFEGVVMZ6WH2GA4&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_sms_apin_dp_BZAS3HFEGVVMZ6WH2GA4&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_sms_apin_dp_BZAS3HFEGVVMZ6WH2GA4&peakEvent=5&starsLeft=1&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true] by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Shila Heen - Crucial Conversations [https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/1260474186/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title] by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan - John Blake’s interview with Rev. William Barber [https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/24/us/reverend-william-barber-democrats-cec/index.html] Credits - Follow KTF Press on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/KTFPress], Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/ktfpress/], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/ktfpress] - Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008693163422] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jonathanpanwalton], and Threads [http://www.threads.net/jonathanpanwalton]. - Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon [https://tweesecake.social/@SyHoekstra]. - Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/7gX09eJ1Q9wipbRGk7LtwZ]. - Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/resourcefulrobyn]. - Editing by Sy Hoekstra - Transcripts by Joyce Ambale [https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~016eba8643f25d1333] and Sy Hoekstra. - Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribers Transcript Introduction [An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”] Sy Hoekstra: Hey everyone, it's Sy. Quick note before we start. Stay tuned after this recording of our conversation, which we did on Substack Live because we recorded our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open, separately due to some time constraints we had. Thanks so much for listening, and the episode officially starts now. Jonathan Walton: If your relationship is broken by what you think about trans rights, then I think we need to examine what kind of relationship you had in the first place, because I think our relationships have to be much more than our opinions about the latest political topic of the day. [The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you’re building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.] Jonathan Walton: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking… [long pause] Jesus, confronting injustice. I am Jonathan Walton [laughter], and we’re live on Substack. Sy Hoekstra: Jonathan starts the live by forgetting our tagline [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: It’s true. It’s true. So welcome to Shake the Dust. My name is Jonathan. We are seeking justice, confronting injustice. See, this is live. Live is hard. Go for it, Sy. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Thank you for being here, Sy. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, sure. I'm Sy Hoekstra, that's Jonathan Walton. Jonathan Walton: [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: We're doing this live, if you couldn't tell. This is a live recording of our podcast. We are gonna ease into it, and then we'll be good. Don't worry. Jonathan Walton: [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: We're doing this live as a recording, and then we will be releasing the audio and the video later to our paid subscribers. So if you're listening, welcome. Alright, we are gonna be talking today about a subject that comes to us from a listener that came in as a question on our finale episode, but it came in a couple hours too late, and I missed it before we started recording. But it was such an interesting question that we decided to make a whole episode out of it. So thank you to Ashley, our listener, who sent this in. We will be talking about basically, how to regulate yourself and actually strategies you can employ when having difficult conversations with people you disagree with on important subjects, the power dynamics and everything all around it, and literally just how to do it, which is actually kind of something that a lot of people have been asking us. Ashley comes at it from a really good angle that we'll be talking about too. So we'll get to all that in a moment. We will also be talking, as we usually do in our episodes, doing our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open, diving a little bit deeper into one of the recommendations from our newsletter. And this week, we will be talking about a really great interview with William Barber, the Reverend William Barber, and basically how poor people can but often don't affect elections because of the ways that the Republican and Democratic parties approach poor people. So we will get into all that in a second. I will apologize for my voice still sounding like I have a cold. It sounds like I have a cold because I have a cold, and [laughter] I have the eternal fall-winter, father of a two year old in daycare cold [laughs]. So bear with me, and I appreciate your patience. Before we get into all this, Jonathan Walton, go ahead. Jonathan Walton: Well, if you are listening live, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for tuning in, and I just wanna encourage you to become a paid subscriber of our Substack. If you do that, you get access to video and audio of this conversation afterwards, you also get bonus episodes and our entire archive of bonus episodes as well. Plus, when you become a monthly paid subscriber, you also get access to our monthly Zoom chats, and you'll be able to comment on our posts, communicate with us on a regular basis. And so that would be great. Plus, you'll be supporting everything that we can do to help Christians confront injustice and follow Jesus. And so that's particularly in the areas of political discipleship and education, as we try to leave behind the idols of the American church. And for everybody, if you do listen to this, please go to Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shake-the-dust/id1562906887], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/59gzAlV6CqPm42YXPbItBq], wherever you might listen, and give us a five-star rating. If you wanna give less than that, you can also but you can keep that to yourself. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Thank you so much for your support and encouragement. We really appreciate it. Sy Hoekstra: Four stars and below, give us those ratings inside your head [laughter]. Also, if you have any questions and you are listening live, feel free to put them in the chat. We can answer those as we go. And alright, Jonathan, let's jump right into it. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: We got this question from Ashley. She comes at it from an interesting angle. I wanted to talk about the things that she doesn't wanna do, and then get into her questions. So she said, when she's talking about people that she disagrees with on important political or religious subjects, there's a couple of things that she did growing up. One of which was the only reason that you're engaging in these conversations as a conservative Evangelical, is to change people into you [laughs]. Is to win people over to your point of view and make them the same as you. That's your goal. Then she said she kind of grew up a little bit, went to college, became what she called it, an ungrounded liberal arts major [laughs] and started getting into what she described as the sort of millennial slash Gen Z cusp age that she is. Just it being cool to shut people down and just defeat them, destroy them in an argument. So she’s just like, “I don't wanna be there just to make people into me. I don't wanna be there just to destroy people.” But she said now she finds herself in a position where most of the people around her largely agree with her on important subjects, and she just doesn't spend a lot of time around people who don't. So just kind of wants to know how to get into that, because she thinks it is important. She was saying some political organizers really convinced her that it is important to be doing that. And she just wants to know how you regulate yourself, how you go about it, and all that. What’s the Goal When You’re Having Difficult Disagreements on Important Subjects? Sy Hoekstra: And although that question was really interesting, and we're gonna jump into the actual strategies, I think Jonathan, the place to start is when you're having these conversations with someone, if you're not trying to cut them off, if you're not trying to turn them into you, and you're not trying to shut them down, what are you trying to do? What's the actual goal of what these conversations are? And for those of you who might be listening live or listening to us for the first time, this is Jonathan's wheelhouse [laughter]. This is right in what Jonathan does all the time. So Jonathan, go ahead, tell us what is the actual goal of these conversations? Jonathan Walton: Yes. So I wanna start off by saying that none of this is easy. Sy Hoekstra: For sure. Jonathan Walton: I'm giving you a cookie cutter, boxed up wonderful version of a cake that you don't… Like all the ingredients are in there, all you need to do is add water. And life is not like that. Sy Hoekstra: Yes. The Goal Should Be Connection, not Cutting off or Colonizing Jonathan Walton: But if you're not trying to colonize someone or make them into you, and you're not trying to cut someone off just because they disagree with you, or you're not trying to cancel them, shut them down, hold them accountable in a way that leaves them feeling like a puddle of ignorance in front of you, then what you're actually trying to do is connect with them. And so I think that God made us to be in relationship with other people, and being in relationship with other people means that we're able to sit before them, to see and be seen, without trying to consume or control the other person. It's impossible to connect with someone that you're trying to control. It's impossible to connect with someone, to love someone that you're trying to consume, like to be enmeshed with and turn into yourself. And so I think one of the ways that we, what we're actually trying to do, instead of colonizing someone, instead of consuming someone, instead of controlling someone, is to connect with them. And so the foundational question that we need to ask ourselves when we're in conversations with someone who we disagree with is, “What do we want from the relationship?” So, yeah, we want to connect. And then we ask ourselves the deeper questions, hey, Ashley, [laughter] a deeper question of, “What kind of connection do I want with this person?” So for example, I know a couple. They voted differently in the election. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Than each other, or than you? Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Than each other. Sy Hoekstra: Okay. Jonathan Walton: I don't know if how I voted will even come up, because that wasn't the premise of the conversation. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: But this couple, their actual argument is not about like you voted for Trump and you wanted him not to vote for him. The actual thing is, how do we love each other amidst a disagreement? Because they don't know how to hold the reality that I believe something different from you and we can still remain connected. The only option they have is to consume the other person or calling them out, “You need to think like me.” Or be consumed, “I need to think like you.” Or, “Do we need to get a divorce?” Like, no. It is possible to remain connected to someone while being in disagreement, even vehement disagreement. I think what we actually need to agree on is, how do we wanna be connected? I think that's the foundational question. Connection Versus Conversion Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I like that a lot. It's funny, when we were talking about this, this did not… I don't do emotional health and relationship discipleship and all that kind of thing that Jonathan does all the time. And your answer did not immediately occur to me [laughs]. I was thinking about Ashley's question, and I was like, “Wait a minute, what is the goal? I don't even know.” Anyways, I think the framework of connection is super, super helpful, and I appreciate you laying it out for us. And it's helpful for a couple of reasons. One is, it roots us in actual relationships, meaning your real life circumstances are what's guiding you. Your goals in your relationships is what is guiding you in how you approach the question of how you have these conversations. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: And then it's something that is sort of an antidote to that evangelical tendency to try to convert everyone, like you were talking about. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: Meaning, it's like, if you have a separate goal, then you can leave those other goals behind. But those other goals, if you don't have a new goal, those goals always stick. How you were raised is not going to change or move or be as prominent in your mind if you're not replacing it with something else. Jonathan Walton: Yeah, yeah. Sy Hoekstra: It's something that you can focus on, that you can actually do. Meaning you can make as much of an effort as you can to connect with someone, and they might not work, but you know that you did everything that you could, as opposed to trying to change someone. If your goal is changing people or defeating people, that never works. It very rarely works. And this is a weird thing that a lot of, I've realized growing up in evangelical churches, you couldn't face this directly, the fact that the overwhelming attempts that you made to evangelize someone didn't work [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Right. Sy Hoekstra: That was just a reality that you had to ignore. The vast majority of the people that you tried, they ignored you and walked on their way. And you couldn't just stop and go like, “Maybe the thing that I'm offering them is actually not all that attractive [laughs]. Maybe the church or the community or whatever, is getting in the way of…” That stuff you couldn't face. You had to believe that you had the best way, and you had to change people, or you had to shut them down. You had to shut down your opponents if you were talking about, atheists or whatever. And that stuff, it leads to constant anxiety, because you don't control the outcome, but you want to. You feel like you have to control the outcome, but you do not control the outcome. And when it comes to connection, again, you don't control the outcome, but the goal is that you attempt, you do everything that's in your power to attempt to reach your goal of connection with this person. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And then it also filters out the people that you don't need to have a connection with [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: You don't have to respond to trolls. You know what I'm saying? You don't have to convert everyone. Because you're not trying to do all those things, it takes a lot of pressure off you. But I'm sorry, you were trying to say something. Go ahead. Jonathan Walton: Well, no, I think just to give some other resources, I'm pulling from Disarming [https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathan] https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathanLeviathan [https://www.ivpress.com/disarming-leviathan] by Caleb Campbell. I'm pulling from Deeply [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623185/the-deeply-formed-life-by-rich-villodas/] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623185/the-deeply-formed-life-by-rich-villodas/Formed [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623185/the-deeply-formed-life-by-rich-villodas/] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623185/the-deeply-formed-life-by-rich-villodas/Life [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623185/the-deeply-formed-life-by-rich-villodas/] by Rich Villodas. I'm pulling from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality [https://www.amazon.com/Emotionally-Healthy-Spirituality-Impossible-Spiritually/dp/0310348498] by Pete Scazzero. I'm pulling from Difficult Conversations [https://www.amazon.com/dp/014313759X?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_sms_apin_dp_BZAS3HFEGVVMZ6WH2GA4&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_sms_apin_dp_BZAS3HFEGVVMZ6WH2GA4&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_sms_apin_dp_BZAS3HFEGVVMZ6WH2GA4&peakEvent=5&starsLeft=1&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true]. There's like, Crucial Conversations [https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes/dp/1260474186/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title] and Difficult Conversations and I get them mixed up. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: And also I'm pulling from When Helping Hurts [https://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-Yourself/dp/0802409989]. Because, oftentimes too, When Helping Hurts, I think it's really good, because we can start out with really good intentions, with trying to do something, quote- unquote, good for someone, when I think in reality what Sy was saying is true. We can only control what we desire, how we communicate that desire, and then pursuit of that desire. There is Vulnerability in Pursuing Connection as a Goal Jonathan Walton: And then the other person actually gets to respond to that. And what's difficult about being vulnerable in connecting is that if you're trying to convert someone or control someone or colonize someone, they are rejecting a message or an idea. Or is it whereas if you are trying to connect with someone, you could feel rejected. And I think it's easier to try and persuade someone, or convince someone of an idea, rather than it is to connect with you as a person. I've been rejected by people, not just romantically [laughter]. Sy Hoekstra: That too, though. Jonathan Walton: And it hurts. That as well. It's true. Tears. Sy Hoekstra: Sorry [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: But one of the things is… No, it's cool. It’s alright. Things worked out, praise God. But I think there's a vulnerability in, let's say I'm having a conversation with someone and they say, “Hey, Jonathan, I don't actually believe that police reform should happen. I think it's a few bad apples.” I have a few ways to go in that conversation. I could say, “Hey. Have you seen these statistics from this magazine and these FBI reports?” And go down deep into why Memphis is rejecting federal oversight. I could do that. Or I could say, “Oh, I feel afraid when you say that, because the results of that are, I'm afraid to walk outside my house because there aren't people actively pushing for reforms in the police department that occupies my neighborhood.” And that is vulnerability, because they could then invalidate my fears with their response, or whatever the thing is, but I think that that's the costly work of following Jesus in those moments. You Don’t Need to Have Conversations with People Whose Goals Are Not Connection Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. And just one more note on the goal, because we're starting to get into how these conversations actually work. But I did just wanna say one more thing about the overall goal of connection first before we move into that, just because I think this one is important. Especially for people who do ministry work of some kind, or talk about the kind of things that we talk about publicly, is if your goal is connection and the other person's goal is not connection, that's another reason that you don't have to talk to them [laughs]. Meaning, here's what I'm talking about here. I've seen you, Jonathan, in situations with people who do the kind of classic Christian thing when they disagree with something you're saying in public. They come to you and they say, “Hey, I've heard you talking about, let's say, police brutality. And I have some thoughts, I was wondering if we could just talk about it. Could we set up some time to have a Zoom?” And I've seen you go like, say to this person in not so many words basically, “I don't actually think that your goal is to have a conversation right now. I think you're upset with what I'm saying and you want to try and change me. Is that correct?” Jonathan Walton: Yeah [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: You just said that to them, and not rudely. You put it in kind words, but you're just like, “Am I right in thinking that that's really what you want here?” And if they can't say no, then you will say, “Okay, I'm sorry. I don't really think I have time for this,” [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And move on. Which is something that I don't think a lot of ministers feel the need to do. But if someone is cutting off the possibility of connection from the jump, and all they're saying is, “I want to change you,” or they're refusing to not say that all they want is to change you, [laughs] you don't have to talk to them. You have no responsibility to talk to that person because you don't have a responsibility to get into an argument with anyone. Even as a pastor. Your responsibility is to shepherd people and to lead people, and if our conversation is just going to be an argument, you don't have to talk to them. You may still want to, everything I say is subject to your personal relationships with people and your individual circumstances, but that's an option, and I want more people to know that [laughs], because I think a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to just win arguments when they don't need to be having them. Winning Arguments Is Not What Leads to Repentance Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And also too, I think we've misidentified what the fruit of a won argument is. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: So for example, if I preach a sermon, or I have a conversation with a small group of people and I give a call to faith, and someone decides to follow Jesus, I did not win an argument. They're not saying I have the best ideas, or I presented things in a really compelling way, none of that is happening. What's happening is the Holy Spirit is working within them for them to respond in some way. It's the kindness of God that leads to repentance. The Gospel is the power and transformation. I can't say, “You know what? What I drew on that napkin, or what I put in that card, when the PowerPoint slide opened and everybody went, ooh,” like, no. That was not the power. It is the power of God that draws people nigh into himself. Sy Hoekstra: Nigh unto himself [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yes. KJV baby. KJV [laughter]. How Do We Achieve Connection in Difficult Conversations? Sy Hoekstra: So let's get into then the actual strategies and kind of the meat of the question. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: That's it. Let's get into, how do you regulate yourself and what do you actually do to achieve the goal of connection? We Have to Know Ourselves to Connect with Others Jonathan Walton: Yeah, so I think the first thing is that we can't know other people unless we know ourselves. So for example, if… let's say I was having a conversation over the weekend with someone, and they said to me, “Well, I can't believe they would think that way.” And then I said, “Well, if I were in your situation, I would be pretty angry at that response. Are you upset? Do you feel angry?” I have to know, and be willing to name that I would be angry. I have to know, and be willing to imagine, like how to empathize. Like I'm listening to them, then I wanna empathize with how they're feeling, and then ask them, “Does that resonate with you?” To build some sort of emotional connection so that we stay grounded in them as an individual and not stepping up to the argument. Like “Oh, yeah. Absolutely, what they did was wrong.” I don't wanna participate in condemning other people either. I wanna connect with this person. We could commiserate around what happened, but I think we should prioritize what is happening for the person right in front of me, not just rehashing what happened to them. You know what I mean? Like figure out what's going on. So I think we have to know ourselves to be able to know other people, which includes that emotional awareness and intelligence. And then I think after that, we should affirm what's true about that person. And then, if we've done that, then be able to ask some questions or share our own perspective. Sy Hoekstra: Or what's true about what they're saying. Jonathan Walton: Yes, what's true about what they're saying, yeah. And then be able to lean in there. And if there is an opportunity and the person desires to hear what you think about it, then that's great, but I guarantee you, they will not wanna hear about what you're saying if you don't connect with them first. And so creating or building a foundation of trust that you're not trying to just convert them or consume them or colonize them, but you are trying to connect requires that first part. So slowing down, then knowing how we feel, and then being able to connect around that level is a great place to start. Connect with Whatever Is True in What the Other Person Is Saying Sy Hoekstra: Can you tell us what finding what's true and what someone is saying and then affirming that value, what does that actually sound like? Jonathan Walton: Yes, absolutely. So let's go to a different script. There was a woman that had a conversation with me and was very upset that Black people could vote for Trump. This was a racially assigned White woman saying these things. And she was, I mean, raising her voice very loud, and so I said my goal… I did actually speak over her. I said, “So my goal in this conversation is for us as a group to remain connected and aware of each other and ourselves. What is your goal in what you're saying?” And I think that kind of threw cold water in her face because she didn't know what to do with that. And so she slowed down, then she said, “Well, I don't know. I haven't processed anything,” that was kind of what she blurted out. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I knew that, actually [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And I said, “It's great that like you need… this is a space to process.” I said, “What I would love for you to do is to slow down and tell us what you want, because I don't think you want me to be angry, and that's actually how I'm feeling right now. Was that your goal, was for me to feel angry and disconnected from you?” And she goes, “Well, you shouldn't be mad at me.” I said, “I can own my feelings. I didn't say you made me angry. I said my feeling in what you're saying is anger. Is that your intention? Is that what you're trying to foster? Because I would actually like to have my emotional response match your intent.” And it was not an easy conversation, but she did say after about 15 minutes of this kind of back and forth, she said, “I wanted to just close my computer,” is what she said, “But I didn't.” And then I said, “I'm so glad you chose to stay.” Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: “I’m so glad you chose to remain in our group. And to affirm again, you are valuable here, we desire your contribution and things like that.” Sy Hoekstra: And you were specifically in like a cohort that you were leading. Jonathan Walton: And I think it is hard to move towards someone who… Yeah, I was leading. I was leading. And everybody else was silent. They were not saying anything, but I had follow up conversations with one person after that, who said they were very grateful that I did that, because they were like, “I didn't know that you could be patient like that with someone so animated.” They were like, “I don't understand how you were calm in that situation.” I said, “Well, I was calm because I knew who I was. I was facilitating the conversation. I was leading the dialogue.” And I said, “When I’m with my mom,” not my mom, my mom passed away. “But if I was with my dad or my brothers in that conversation, I would have to do the same thing, but it will require more work because of the emotional history that's there. This history of my family and stuff under the bridge.” So each relationship is gonna bring with it its own porcupine quills, if you will, but that doesn't mean our steps change. I think our goal is to love our neighbor as ourselves. And if we don't know ourselves, we can’t love our neighbors. So in the way that we would want patience and want grace and want respect, I think we need to extend that as best as we possibly can by trying to build a connection. Sy Hoekstra: And if you're talking about, I think that's really good for a discipleship situation. Anybody who disciples people, I hope you just learned something from that story [laughs]. But if you're having, by the way, Jonathan, I've noticed as we're talking, there's a very long delay. So I apologize. Jonathan Walton: No worries. Sy Hoekstra: I just interrupted you with something that was related to something you said like three sentences later, I'm sorry [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: You’re all good [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: So I think when it comes to a political issue, if you're talking to someone who's saying something that you find very hurtful or very upsetting or whatever, which is where I think a lot of these questions come up for people. For a lot of people it's, “How do I talk to a Trump supporter?” That's kind of the question. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: And then, like Jonathan said, it's going to be very hard. It's going to depend on your relationship with that person. And this work can be hard. It's very hard to get people to talk about their emotions, but that's what we need to do when somebody's talking… if they're being very anti-immigrant. You need to find a way into how they're communicating and what they're saying as angry as they are, whatever. An underlying thing might be, “I feel insecure about the economy of our country, I feel insecure about my job. I feel like I'm not gonna be able to provide because somebody's gonna undercut me in wages or whatever.” All that stuff. And the way to connect with that person is to say, “That makes sense, that feeling. And if I felt that that was happening to me, I would also be insecure.” Maybe it is also happening to you, you know what I mean? You have to just find a way into that feeling, and then say, “But the way that I feel secure is X, Y and Z, about…” If you want to talk about solidarity and lifting everyone up actually makes all of us more secure. You can get into the nitty gritty of immigration and economics, if you know that stuff, and say [laughs], “Actually, in general, immigrants really help us economically. And so I actually feel more secure. I know that immigrants commit crime at lower rates than citizens. And I trust the numbers that say that, and that comes from police departments. We can go look at your police department stats. So immigrants coming in actually lowers crime. I know that's a shock, but. So I feel more secure.” All that kind of like, you try and find a way to connect on the emotion and speak in a… What I'm doing right now is summarizing and being slightly glib, but [laughs] I think that's the best you can do. People You Connect with May Not Change, or Take a Long Time to Change Sy Hoekstra: And I know to some people, if you have a really obstinate person that feels hopeless and impossible, and I think what we're saying is you give it your best shot, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And there's nothing you can do about it not working. And it might also be something, by the way, where you talk to them now and that's the beginning of a 10-year process of them changing. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: You don't know. This is why I said that stuff's out of your hands, is what I mean. So that's where we need to find our own internal piece about it. And then, I don't know, there's a number of other thoughts I have about what you have to do to prepare for all that, like the prep work that goes into it. But do you have other thoughts about that, Jonathan? Jonathan Walton: Well, I mean, I think just all of what you said is true, and I just wanna lean into what you said about, you cannot rush the process of that relationship. Because if your relationship is broken by what you think about trans rights, then I think we need to examine what kind of relationship you had in the first place. Because I think our relationships have to be much more than our opinions about the latest political topic of the day. We've got to be able to have conversations with people that are deeper and contain the multitudes that a person holds, as opposed to the latest tweet or share that they had. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: We're talking with people, we're not talking with a minimally viable product that's before us like, “Do I want this or not in my life?” And so I think even in the, let's take the example, like Caleb Campbell did a great example of this immigration. If someone actually believed that they were going to be invaded, I'm making quotes with my fingers, but invaded and they're gonna lose their job and they’re gonna lose their emotional and spiritual and social security, not Social Security like the actual entitlement program, but social security like their feeling of social safety, that is objectively terrifying. If that is the narrative, then we can actually connect with people around why they're afraid. And if we connect with them why they're afraid, not convince them why they shouldn't be scared, then you actually have the opportunity to share with them why they may not need to be afraid. Because, as Sy said, immigrants crime actually goes down. Immigrants actually pay billions of dollars in taxes. Immigrants actually start businesses at a higher rate than our native population. All those things, but we can't get there unless we're connected. We cannot correct people without connecting with them. So, yeah. Getting Good at Connection Takes Practice Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I think this takes a ton of practice. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: You will be bad at it at first, and that's [laughter]… So I think another part of it is you have to know why it's important to you. That's another thing, and that's a personal thing. But you have to understand why connection with someone whose political beliefs or whatever you find kind of abhorrent [laughs] is something that is important to you, that work has to be done on your own and ahead of time. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: You also have to take into account… sorry. You'll just get better at it over time. So meaning it, I'd say it's only like in the last few years that I've really been able to participate in extremely difficult conversations about politics or whatever, and just be okay [laughter], no matter what the consequence of it is. And sometimes that's still not true, depending on the relationship I have with the person, but I don't know. You’ve got to remember that people… actually, at the beginning I remember I told you she talked about, as a young person or as millennials and Gen Z wanting to shut people down. And I actually don't think that's a generational thing. I think that's just a young people thing. I think when I was 22 I thought it was awesome to shut people down [laughs]. And I think all the most recent, this is something I know from justice advocacy work, but all the recent neurology science basically tells us you don't have an adult brain until you're like 25 [laughter]. You don't have your impulse control, you know what I mean? It's just hard. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: And it just takes time to retrain yourself to do something, It can take years. So fear not, is what I'm saying, if you think you're bad at this. Being Aware of How Much You Know about a Subject Sy Hoekstra: And then I think something that's kind of deceptively emotional is the things that don't seem emotional, like knowing your facts and being able to bow out of conversations when you don't know your facts [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: Like if you have a feeling that something's wrong, but somebody's saying something wrong, or bigoted, or whatever, but you don't have the information, A, it's gonna make you much more comfortable if you do have the information, if you've read up on it, if you know the subjects. Because you find as you dig deeper into different political issues and hot button topics, there really are only so many opinions that people have, and they’re usually based on relatively shallow understandings of information. So you can know a lot of the arguments ahead of time. You can know a lot of the important facts ahead of time. You’ve just kind of got to pay attention and that's something that happens over time. And then if you don't know that stuff, and you try and engage anyway just based on instinct, you're gonna have a lot of times where you say stuff that you regret later [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. Sy Hoekstra: You're gonna have a lot of times where you maybe even make up something just because you wanna be right and you wanna win. Jonathan Walton: Yes, you wanna win. Sy Hoekstra: And then bowing out and letting someone believe their terrible thing without you fighting against it, sometimes that can be really hard, but that's an emotional issue, that's something about you being… Jonathan Walton: Right. That's a feeling. Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. It's always gonna be feelings, and that's why you got to have your goals clear, and whenever you can, know your stuff. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Adam just said something, really quick. He said, “I've literally had notification of high heart rate from my Apple watch during such conversations.” Sy Hoekstra: [laughs] Yes. Jonathan Walton: And being able to have conversations without a high heart rate notification is becoming more normal. Sy Hoekstra: Yes. Good. Jonathan Walton: Yes, that has happened to me so many times. And it's true. It's fewer, it's less than what it was before that. Sy Hoekstra: That’s so funny. I don't have a smart watch, so that's never happened to me, but that's so funny. And I'm glad that it's improving for both of you [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And it's a way to track if your spiritual formation’s actually forming you [laughter]. Sy Hoekstra: True. Engaging in Hard Conversations with Connection as a Goal is Exhausting Sy Hoekstra: So one more thing though is, this is exhausting. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: One of the reasons it's exhausting is not just because the whole thing is hard, but the issue is no one's ever gonna come to you, again, I guess, unless you're a pastor, and say, “Hey, next Wednesday at 4:00 pm I wanna talk to you about immigration.” Jonathan Walton: Right [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: They're going to come to you, you're gonna be having a dinner, and there's gonna be a completely random out of nowhere comment that you do not expect coming and your instinct may be in that moment to get angry or to just let it pass because you don't wanna deal with right now or whatever. And all that you have to take that into account. Again, over time it'll get easier to respond to random acts of racist bigotry, whatever. You know what I mean? Jonathan Walton: [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: But it is something that's hard to do for anyone, and so you need to take the exhaustion of constantly being on alert into account when you think about, how do I wanna connect with this person? Because if it's someone where you have to be on alert the whole time and ready to go at any moment [laughs], that's difficult. And that's somebody that you might need to hang out with less or whatever. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. Sy Hoekstra: You have to make those decisions for yourself. And so I'm just saying, be willing to take that into account. Be alert to that way that you can become exhausted. Because, again, if you're really tired and you just have a snap reaction, you can say stuff you regret later. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Yes. Sy Hoekstra: Alright, Jonathan. Do you have… Yeah, you have thoughts. Go ahead and then we’ll get to... Jonathan Walton: No, I was gonna say, off all of that, I think is mitigated by asking myself, “What kind of connection do I want with this person?” Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: And all of us have relationships that are not as healthy as we'd like them to be. And if my goal is not to convert someone or I don't feel this like abnormal, huge weight of this person's salvation, because that's not my responsibility, then I can say, “You know what? I just can't be with that person right now. I just can't do that.” And be able to enter into that in a healthier way, and it'll be a more loving thing. The Power Dynamics of Difficult Conversations Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, absolutely. Let's just get into, I think that's a lot of the meat of it, but let's talk about just some of the power dynamics and other things that are going on during these conversations. Jonathan, I'm happy to start if you want, but you can go ahead if you have some things you wanna flag for people. Jonathan Walton: Well, I think if we're not thinking about power dynamics then we're missing what's actually happening. So when men to women, able-bodied to disable-bodied, rich to poor, educated to uneducated. All of these things are playing all the time. So somebody's like, “Oh, you're playing the race card, or you're being ageist,” that's just the table. It's not a card. That's just the society we live in. We live in a segregated, stratified society. And so to be able to be aware of that, I think respects whether you are in the ecosystem or whether you've been lifted up by the ecosystem because of the hierarchies that we live in. I think that's just something we have to take into account of where we are and where the person that we are engaging with is or is perceived to be, then that can be a gift, just in the conversation. Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: So that’s sort of like keeping in mind whether you're talking to someone who's basically [laughs] above or below you on different hierarchies, which is gonna be important. Like, if you're talking, if I as a White person am talking to a Black person about race, I have to understand the dynamics. For me, at least, what I'm thinking about is I have to be personally familiar with the stuff that Black people hear all the time [laughs], and how it is often heard, and that sort of thing. Not because I need to apply a monolithic understanding of race conversations to any individual, but just to know that that individual is probably going to hear something I say this way, or feel this way about something. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: I'm sorry about the sirens in my background. I live in Manhattan [laughter]. So I think that's one thing. But then the other way is I as a disabled person, if I'm trying to talk to an able-bodied person about disability stuff, I just need to take into account how much more tiring that's going to be, and the work that I may have to do after the conversation to process whatever terribly insulting thing was said to me [laughter]. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And I do that all the time. That's something I have to do when I get home from dropping my daughter off at daycare. It just depends on what happened on the way there, or whatever. Another thing is that the, a person you're talking to can always walk away [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: Nobody needs to be in this conversation, and that you need to be able to accept that. You need to be able to let people go the way that Jesus did when they rejected his teachings. Because if you don't do that and [laughs] you try and force them into conversations with you, again, that's what we're trying to avoid doing, is panicking about the results and trying to make somebody like you because you think the world needs to be the way that you are. That's the colonialist mindset [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: Yes [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: And then I think one other thing for me is how the person… this is back on the hierarchy thing. How what somebody else is saying is affecting other people around you, or the other person that that person has to interact with. Meaning the person that you're trying to connect with might be someone, like not the person you're talking to. It might be somebody who’s sitting next to you, it might be somebody who's not there. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: So that's just the other thing to keep in mind, because you might be trying to show somebody else that they have support, that's a huge thing. That's the person who you have a conversation with after your cohort call that you were talking about earlier. And it might be just like, if I'm talking to another White person and I know, actually doesn't matter if I know them or not, but if I'm talking about connection, if I know people of color who have to talk to this person and they're saying something that I think I can head off or correct in some way, then I should do that. And I should keep in mind my connection with that White person, but I've also top of mind it's gonna be the connection that I have with people of color who interact with that person too. Okay, those are my thoughts on that big question. Jonathan, do we have anything else to say about these conversations before we move to Which Tab Is Still Open? Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Well, I don't have anything more to say about that conversation. I do have two problems that our live audience will get to engage with. Sy Hoekstra: [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: One is that I need to get… it's one o'clock. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: And so I have a time stop. Sy Hoekstra: Right now? Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And my phone is also telling me, yeah, because I was thinking, I didn't know we're gonna talk past one o'clock, but… Sy Hoekstra: [laughter] Well, we started like 12:15 so. Jonathan Walton: We did. We did, we did. And then my phone as we entered into this conversation is on the red. Sy Hoekstra: Is about to die. Alright, cool. So then I think what we'll do, Jonathan, is we'll record the Which Tab Is Still Open separately, and just add that to the bonus episode. Jonathan Walton: Absolutely. Sy Hoekstra: So again, everybody, if you wanna hear the recordings of this afterwards, and now I guess the extended version of this episode, become a paid subscriber at KTFPress.com [http://www.ktfpress.com], or just on, you're on Substack right now if you're listening to us. Become a paid subscriber, that would be amazing. If you wanna get our newsletter that's actually free, you can follow us on the free list and get us that way. Thank you so much for joining us today, we really appreciate it. Give us a five-star review on Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shake-the-dust/id1562906887] or Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/59gzAlV6CqPm42YXPbItBq] and we will see you next month. We do these once a month now that we're in the off season. And our theme song is “Citizens”, by Jon Guerra. Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess. Joyce Ambale does the transcripts. I'm doing the editing right now and the production of this show, along with our paid subscribers. Thank you all so much for joining us, and we will hopefully see you next month or on the paid list. Jonathan Walton: Yep, bye. Sy: Bye. [the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.] Which Tab Is Still Open?: Rev. William Barber and Poor Voters Sy Hoekstra: And now this is the separate recording of Which Tab Is Still Open. We're gonna dive a little bit deeper into one of the articles from the newsletter that Jonathan brought up recently. Jonathan, why don't you tell us about the article, and we'll get into a little discussion about it. Jonathan Walton: Yes. So our good friend, John Blake, award winning journalists and former guest on this podcast [https://www.ktfpress.com/p/proximity-power-and-radical-integration?utm_source=publication-search] interviewed Reverend Dr William Barber on his thoughts after the election [https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/24/us/reverend-william-barber-democrats-cec/index.html]. It was one of the most interesting things I read post-election, because Dr Barber has a perspective most politicians and pundits just don't. He takes a perspective of poor people seriously, like Jesus [laughter]. And so one of the things he argues was that about 30 million poor people who are eligible voters usually don't vote because neither party is addressing the issues that are important to them, like minimum wage, affordable health care, strengthening unions, etc. There was talk about strengthening unions, but not in the ways that communicate about the needs and priorities of low wage and poor workers. Republicans mostly blame poor people for their poverty, that is a consistent thing over the last 60 years. And Democrats ignore them altogether because they see them not as a viable voting block to mobilize, we should get middle class voters, which is not the same as the working poor. Barber has a history of successfully organizing multiracial coalitions of poor working class people in North Carolina to make real difference in elections. So it's not just a theoretical thing, like you can actually win elections by doing what MLK did, which Barber is in the tradition of you can have a multicultural coalition of impoverished or economically impoverished, marginalized people in the United States and actually have and hold power in the country. So even as Kamala Harris lost in November in North Carolina, voters elected a Democratic Governor and Attorney General and got rid of the veto-proof majority in the state legislature, even with all of the nonsensical gerrymandering that exist there. So Sy, what are your thoughts on all this? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. I'm very happy that somebody in the mainstream news is actually talking about this [laughs]. That's one thing. I just haven't heard... This is one of those things where if somebody, if the Democrats got this right, they could win a lot more. I don't know how much more, Reverend Barber is very optimistic about it. I haven't dug into the numbers the way that he has as a political organizer, but he basically says if you swing like 10 percent of the poor vote in any direction in many states, and you could change a whole lot of stuff. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: I mean, you can read the article for his exact arguments. But it is definitely true that we don't address poor voters any real way, like we get stuck on, I've talked about this before, the bias toward, quote- unquote, real America, which sort of amounts to working and middle class White people and really does not address actually impoverished people. And the average, Reverend Barber is very sensitive to this, which I think is why he's effective, is the average welfare recipient in the United States today is still White. That hasn't changed. Welfare recipients are disproportionately Black and Brown. But the demographics of this country are such that you can be disproportionately high as a racial minority, but White people are still gonna be the majority of the welfare recipients. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And the potential interest alignment between those groups has always been intentionally broken up by elites in this country. And the thing that this raises for me is our constant, throughout our whole history, our belief that basically, poor people's opinions don't matter, that poor people's interests don't matter, and maybe poor people shouldn't even be voting in the first place. We had to have a movement in this country for universal White male suffrage [laughs] in the first few decades of this country, that was a fight. And the reason was they did not want you voting originally, if you didn't own property. And the belief behind that was, if you don't have property, then you don't have a stake in society. You don't have a sufficient stake in society to, I don't know, uphold the responsibility of voting. And in a lot of different ways that bias or that bigotry, frankly, has shot through a lot of different ways that we think about economics and politics. And just the idea like, it does not make sense to start with. If anything, the people with the most stake in how the government treats them are the people with the least power, with the with the way that society is run, are going to be the people who suffer the most when society is run poorly [laughs]. And the people who have the most independent wealth and power, meaning they can, regardless of what the government is doing, they're going to be generally alright, because they are wealthy landowners, if we're talking about the beginning of this country. They're actually kind of the least interested in how society runs, and maybe the most interested in maintaining the status quo and not having things change, which I think is what we're actually talking about. I think we're actually talking about not having significant change [laughs] in our economics, when we talk about the people who have the most quote- unquote, responsibility or the most sense of responsibility for how the society goes. And I think all of that bleeds into how both parties think today, because both parties are made up of elites. And I think there was this huge and terrible reaction to the CEO of United Healthcare being assassinated. And I was reading some stuff about it that basically said, if you're talking about healthcare, which is one of the issues that William Barber brought up, I think the reason that a lot of people don't understand the anger and the glee over the fact that this guy was killed online, which there was a ton of, which I don't support. But if you're trying to understand it there's so many elites who are the healthcare CEOs themselves, the politicians who write healthcare policy for whom, the biggest problem that health insurance is ever going to be is maybe a significant amount of paperwork. Maybe you get something declined or not covered, and you have to fight a little bit and then you get it covered again. It's not something that's going to bankrupt you or kill you. But that's a reality for many, many people around the country. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Sy Hoekstra: And if it's not bankrupt or kill, it's long, grinding trauma over a long period of time. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And it's just so easy for us to lose sight of stuff like that and then not understand as a political party, why addressing those problems directly wouldn't matter. And when I say us in that case, I mean people who are economically comfortable and who have educated and are doing okay in this society. And so all this is what Barber's comments bring up for me is, he is trying to pay attention to real needs that real people have, and alert his party, the Democrats, to the fact that if they understood and paid attention to and took those needs seriously, they would have a ton of voters who nobody's counting on right now. Like there's no strategy around them. It's not you would be stealing voters from the Republicans, you would be bringing in a whole bunch of new voters and doing something that no one is expecting, and you'd be able to [laughs] actually make a big difference that way. Jonathan, if you have any thoughts or just your own responses to me, or your own thoughts. Jonathan Walton: Well, I think there's a there's a few things like, yeah, I'm grateful for John Blake and for media personalities that take the time to center the most marginalized people, because that was not the conversation. All the post mortem of the Democratic Party and the celebration of what Trump did, neither one of those things included real solutions for materially impoverished people in the United States. They were not a group of people that were, when you said, counted, it's literally they're not counted. They do not count in that way. There isn't analysis, there isn't engagement. And so that I think is deeply saddening. So I'm grateful for John Blake for highlighting it. I'm grateful for Barber for the work that he does. I think one of the things that highlights for me is the… because you use the word elite, and I think there was an essay a while ago that I read about the word elite and what it means and how we use it. Like Tucker Carlson says the elites, when in reality he is elite. Elite is Hell. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: The money that he makes, the universities that he went to, the position that he holds. Me and you are elite. We both have Ivy League educations, we both have graduate degrees. We are both financially secure, we are both educated and well connected. And the majority of, some of that, that I realize is that if I have those things I am insulated from the suffering that millions of people experience around health insurance. And because our classes in the United States are segregated and our churches are also often segregated, we are not going to have relationships with people that are struggling with these things. It's very difficult, at least for me, to live in Queens, to have conversations and relationships that are cross class. My children participate in activities that cost money. That's a proxy for a class decision. I drive, I do not take the train. That is a class communication. I live in a home and I own it, I do not rent. That's a class. I drive to a supermarket like Costco. You have to pay for a membership to be in Costco. These are all economic decisions, and there are going to be certain groups of people that I do not interact with every single day, because I have more money. And so I think if we stretch that out across the Democratic, Republican independent leadership in our country, the majority of us do not interact with people that are from a different class, higher or lower. And so we have these caricatures of what life looks like, which is why an executive can say it doesn't matter if we deny or defend or depose or delay or all the things that were written on these bullets that came from the person that killed the United Healthcare CEO. The reality is, I think we do not… I don't think, I know this, we do not prioritize the poor in this country. And to what you were saying, it's not that we don't prioritize poor and marginalized people, it's a strategic, intentional exclusion of them. So [laughs] like you said, the reality is, if you were not a wealthy land-owning White person, you were not allowed to vote or hold elected office. And so that's a reality. So each time a tier of people wanted to be included, there was an argument, there was a fight, there was war, there was violence. And so I believe that there is an opportunity that Barber is talking about too. It does not have to be violent to include people who are poor and marginalized. It's really just a decision to and the time and intentionality to do it. And I wish that the church did that. I wish that politicians did that. I wish that we did that as a society. And I recognize in my own life it is even still difficult to do because of how our society has set up invisible and very real fences between economic communities. Sy Hoekstra: And it's remarkable for you to say that in some ways. I mean, it makes sense that you would be the person to notice it, but it is remarkable in some ways for you to say it because you grew up as you've talked about many times, quite poor in the rural south. Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And you are actually directly connected to people who don't have a lot of money, right? Jonathan Walton: Right. Sy Hoekstra: And that’s still your reality that your day to day life does not involve that many poor people. Jonathan Walton: Right. And that is, to be totally transparent, that is one of the hardest things about getting older and having children. When we go home, when I say home I'm thinking Brodnax. Sy Hoekstra: The small farming town in Virginia that you're from. Jonathan Walton: Yes. Where I’m from. It's exceptionally clear to me that the access that I have to resources, the decisions that I'm making each day are infused with the wealth and resources that surround me, just by virtue of the location that I live in. So we have to do really, really, really hard work to include people who are across classes in our lives, so that when we consider what we're going to do with our power, they are included in that decision. And I think Barber did a great job of explaining why that is strategically important as well. Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, so two points. One is, thank you for talking about that. For those of you who don't know, Jonathan and I are good friends. That's why I can say, “Hey Jonathan, let's talk about [laughs] your background as a poor person.” Jonathan Walton: Yeah [laughs]. Sy Hoekstra: We've talked about this a ton on the show before, Jonathan is very open about it in public. And that, I actually think, hearing you talk about the tension and how your hometown is versus your new adopted home, a lot of that is actually part of the answer. Just people being willing to be totally open about their own financial circumstances, and the differences they see between places, because that is something that we hush up and we talk about, we make it shameful to talk about your money. We make it shameful for everyone to talk about their money. You're not supposed to talk about it if you're rich, you're not supposed to talk about it if you're poor [laughs]. You're basically only supposed to talk about it if you're right where the Republicans think real Americans are [laughter]. You know what I mean? Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Sy Hoekstra: And yeah, just being willing to talk about it openly and in a not ashamed way actually goes a long ways to breaking some of the taboos that hold the silence on these issues. That's one thing. The other thing is, you said at the end just now, that William Barber would argue that it is strategic to basically address the needs of the poor voters who are not voting. But earlier you said it is a strategic exclusion, or like a strategic that they’re evading talking about these issues. Jonathan Walton: Oh yeah. So in the Constitution, there is a strategic exclusion of poor, marginalized, non-White-land-owning-educated-well-healed people. There's the intentional strategic exclusion of those people for the maintenance of power and dominance, right? Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Jonathan Walton: And I think there needs to be a strategic, intentional inclusion of those people, and the intentional redistribution, and I know people hate that word, redistribution [laughs] of resources, so that people can be included in our society in a meaningful way. Sy Hoekstra: Well, Jonathan's a communist. You heard it here first. Jonathan Walton: [laughs] It’s not the first time I've been accused of loving the Marx. Sy Hoekstra: Loving the… [laughs]. But I think the other aspect of it is just, the reality is that the donors that support both parties, these are not priorities of theirs. In fact, a lot of times they're opposed to the priorities of theirs. They are the healthcare CEOs. They are the people who have to negotiate against the unions. They are the people who would have to pay up the higher minimum wages. So that's part of the thing that makes it challenging. But Barber’s been able to do the work [laughs] in North Carolina and make a difference there. And it’s not… and he was one of the people, organizing like his is what made North Carolina a swing state in the first place from a traditionally deep red state. So it's worth trying, guys [laughs]. Jonathan Walton: It is. Sy Hoekstra: Take a look, Democrats. Jonathan Walton: Worth trying. Sy Hoekstra: It's worth trying [laughs]. It's not just worth trying for political victories either. It's also worth actually addressing poor people's needs [laughs], to be clear about what I'm saying. Jonathan Walton: Yeah. And I think I was convicted. Like, Shane Claiborne said this and others like Merton has said this, and Howard Thurman said this, and MLK said it, and Jesus