The Battles We Pick
What can we learn about making social and political change from talking to professional change-makers? This work takes a combination of persistence, shrewdness, and luck. On the Battles We Pick podcast, skilled advocates and organizers talk about how they deal with the various challenges they confront.
Theme music by generous permission of recording artist Stephen.
The Battles We Pick
Veteran public interest lawyer Eileen Hershenov on homegrown threats to American democracy
In our conversation, Eileen Hershenov of the Anti-Defamation League kept coming back to the theme of advocacy's broadest challenge: to keep progressing and sustaining change over the long haul. As Eileen explained, the only way to sustain progressive organizing is by getting people involved in the effort. Having activists and leaders who are committed to seeking change is how we build progress upon progress.
Eileen and I trace our career roots back to our first jobs after college, when we were colleagues at New York Public Research Interest Group (NYPIRG). It's remarkable how many of us went on from NYPIRG to long careers as organizers and advocates. For Eileen's part, after law school she had senior positions with Wikipedia, Consumer Reports, George Soros' Open Society Foundation (where she helped Soros found Central European University), and the Anti-Defamation League, where she's been responsible for ADL's democracy initiatives.
Looking back at her time with Consumer Reports, Eileen talked about a fascinating effort to keep patients from picking up infections during their hospital stays. Turns out the answer was checklists and report cards. And because that campaign drew on the personal stories of people who had health problems -- or lost family members -- from hospital-acquired infections, we talked about the power of narrative as a double-edged sword.
The latter part of our conversation focused on the work Eileen has been doing at ADL to counter the homegrown threats to American democracy. She's been working with opinion researchers and scholars specializing in political violence, gaining deeper understanding of the Trump personality cult, Christian nationalism, and racism and antisemitism.
