Jonathan Cohn, Progressive Mass: Incremental change vs Tranformative change

You can see a full transcript here.Hi, this is Anna Callahan and you’re listening to Incorruptible Massachusetts.  Our goal is to help people understand state politics: we’re investigating why it’s so broken, imagining what we could have here in MA if we fixed it, and reporting on how you can get involved. Today I’m interviewing Jonathan Cohn from Progressive Massachusetts.Jonathan Cohn is a Boston-based progressive activist and the chair of the Elections Committee and Issues Committee at Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide grassroots advocacy group. He is an editor by profession and is an active campaign volunteer in his free time. Among his claims to fame are having played a major role in defeating Boston's 2024 Summer Olympics bid.Jonathan says something in this episode that was really clarifying for me.  After talking to Act On Mass, I’ve seen how important transparency is.  The fact that we can’t know how our state reps are voting is at the crux of the speaker’s power; it lets state reps do his bidding with no consequences at the ballot box.  But Jonathan reminds us that “Transparency is not a cure-all. Transparency can't do the work of organizing. It can't do the work of fielding candidates. It can't do the work of education, but it's something that can facilitate that work.” I love this quote.  Many people don’t know that our members of congress spend 4 hours a day calling wealthy donors.  This is time they spend listening to, educating, and mobilizing the 1%. We should expect our progressive politicians to spend their time listening to, educating, and mobilizing the rest of us, but especially those who are not involved in the political process.  It’s the only way to build the movement we need for real, transformative change.Without further ado, here is my interview with Jonathan Cohn.