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I really want to understand and put to words the kind of human capacities of it, right?

That it's not just this great speech or this great event, but that it's, you know,

a lot of building a life on the left is experimentation and bang your head

against the wall and learning how to make it through victory and learning how to how to keep going

after defeat right because we often win we often win when it seems like we lose and we lose a lot

when it seems like we've won and lose a lot when it seems like we've won.

And so those kinds of stories that try to tie a neat bow,

either a happy bow or a sad bow onto that history,

missed that, right?

They miss that experimentation, but most of all, they miss that perseverance, right?

They miss that sense that people are continuing

to ask questions of themselves and ask questions of the world of what is required of us in terms

of trying to change the world. And also in terms of just sort of being okay with politics changing over time.

You know, I think that's the other thing that's often really kind of collapsed or oversimplified is this idea of like you kind of come fully formed into your political beliefs.

No one comes fully formed with political ideology like that.

You know, it's like we're not just sort of like sprung forth from the forehead of like, you know, Zeus or whatever, like with a complete sort of programmatic way to look and think about political life.

And it's important, I think, for folks, especially like right now,

in the context of COVID, where there is this kind of pervasive political depression that I

think results in a kind of dominant narrative of like, oh, you know, maybe like all of the good

activism already happened. And all we have left is these kind of like reformist tweaks or like slight fixes or all that

like political sort of speech is is just speech and it doesn't matter. You know, the it's it's

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