UNLOCKED: Are Progressives to Blame for Urban Disorder? (w/ Hayes Davenport)

A bunch of you requested that we un-paywall this recent bonus episode, which features some highly practical insights for organizers, volunteers, and public servants. So we have! (All the other bonus episodes are good too; please subscribe .) — Right wing movements thrive by cultivating fears of disorder. Conservatives depict blue cities as sites of rampant crime, chaos, and iniquity. And often enough, it is progressives — with their overdeveloped empathy and concern for the poor and criminalized — who take the blame. Recently, a rising chorus of voices on the center-left, including figures like Ezra Klein , have embraced the thesis that perceptions of disorder in cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have contributed to America’s rightward turn. But is that accurate? And can anything be done about it? In this episode, Sam is joined by organizer, writer, and podcaster Hayes Davenport to discuss his experiences fighting against this sort of backlash in Los Angeles. As soon as Hayes had helped his friend Nithya Raman get elected to the LA City Council in 2020 and joined her staff, conservative forces in city government mobilized to thwart her pro-tenant agenda…