Stacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo (Live!)

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“The phrase ‘identity politics’ is a weaponization of the Democrats’ structural advantage in elections from now until eternity,” says Stacey Abrams. In this live interview from 2019’s Code conference, Kara Swisher and I sat down with Abrams and her campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo. Abrams lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, but became a Democratic superstar in the process. She was tapped to give the party’s response to Trump’s State of the Union, and she’s mentioned often as a top-tier vice president pick for 2020, and perhaps a candidate for the presidency herself. This conversation makes it clear why. Abrams says more interesting things in an hour than most politicians do in a year. Her take on identity politics is worth the conversation alone, but she also offers one of the clearest discussions of the role of regulation in an advanced economy I’ve heard. We also talk about her 2020 plans, why she’s not running for Georgia’s Senate seat, why she thinks Democrats aren’t in as much Senate recruiting trouble as the conventional wisdom holds, whether America is still a democracy, and much more. It’s particularly interesting to hear Abrams alongside her longtime friend and campaign manager, Groh-Wargo, who’s now the CEO of Fair Fight Action, the organization they founded to push for free and fair elections. Where Abrams is effortless with narrative, Groh-Wargo is tactical and specific. Listening to them play off each other, you get a much clearer sense of the strategic partnership and electoral theories at the core of Abrams’s 2018 run, and that might power whatever she does next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for the show comes from Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative.
0:08.0	As state legislatures consider more than 500 anti-trans bills, the latest episode of Into the Mix asks how best to support and protect transgender youth.
0:19.0	Like Ali Aske, a young man who, despite growing up in a loving and supportive home, felt the need for friendship with other trans and queer kids.
0:27.0	At just seven years old, he took initiative and built a lasting community.
0:32.0	That story on Into the Mix, subscribe now.
0:57.0	The phrase identity politics is a weaponization of the Democrats' structural advantage in elections from now into eternity.
1:24.0	Republicans recognized that the home ingenuity of their party meant that they were left out of multiple conversations.
1:31.0	Instead of solving their internal trauma of not actually bringing more people into the fold, they instead do what they do extraordinarily well, which is brand this idea and make it a negative.
1:54.0	Hello, welcome to the client show on the Vox Media podcast network.
1:57.0	Today's episode is a special episode, it was recorded live at the Recode Code Conference just a couple days ago.
2:03.0	And it is with some very special guests. So this is a conversation that I did alongside my colleague and Recode Decodes, Cara Swisher.
2:11.0	You should be listening to Recode Decode, of course, if you are not already.
2:15.0	And it is an interview with Stacey Abrams, the former Guppanatrol candidate in Georgia, potentially a 2020 candidate, as you will hear in here, and the founder of Fairfite Action and her former campaign manager, another CEO of Fairfite Action, Lauren Groww Wargo.
2:30.0	I had not interviewed Stacey Abrams before or Lauren Groww Wargo, but they're the real deal.
2:35.0	Like this is a, I thought a really impressive conversation. I think Abrams gives in here both the best definition of identity politics.
2:42.0	I've just about ever heard. And also one of the best risks on regulation I've ever heard really pay attention to this.
2:48.0	Her idea that regulation is not a punishment. It exists for a purpose. I really think this is a more thoughtful nuance to answer on this.
2:55.0	And you really hear from just about anybody. But we talk about 2020. We talk about the campaign in Georgia.
3:00.0	We talk about whether or not America is a democracy. We talk about what they're doing next.
3:05.0	And what Fairfite Action is actually being developed to do. It's a really fun conversation.
3:11.0	After the episode, if you stick around, I'm doing something that I may do a little bit more often.
3:17.0	I'm going to call show notes. I'm not sure if that's a great name for it, but it's what I'm going with for now.
	...

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