Nerd Farmer Podcast

In arguably the most important piece of local journalism of 2021, Will James did a three part story on the displaced residents of the Merkle Hotel in Downtown Tacoma.

The Merkle was the last of its type: a residential hotel that provided no strings attached housing to very low income and disabled Tacomans. The conditions in the hotel were deplorable, a failure of municipal code enforcement, but it was a home with a door that locked. In 2018, a local developer seeking to renovate the Merkle Hotel pushed out the last remaining occupants.

Three years later, Will followed up on the people who were displaced and found nearly half were now dead. We brought him on to talk about this story, what it says about overall housing trends in our region, and his reporting on people experiencing homelessness in Washington.

Cast of Characters

• Will James – Twitter

Going Further

• Will’s 2021 Story for KNKX
• Will’s 2018 reporting on the Merkle 
• The Merkle today – Tacoma Flats
• Donate to KNKX out local NPR station
• Will’s podcast limited series Outsiders

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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Dr. Will Horne is a history professor at Villanova University. He is also the founder and editor of The Activist History Review, an online journal created in 2017 to contextualize US history in light of ongoing threats to our multiracial democracy.

Horn jumped on to talk about recent counter-majoritarian trends in US society and the threat to democracy in the US. I have deep respect for academics who do their thinking in public, rather than in academic journals that no one can access. Will is great and you should read his work.

From the TAHR website:

“The Review is intended to allow us and others like us the opportunity to use our knowledge of the past to help inform our decisions in the present. Our struggle is not optional. Failing to understand the forces that shape our world is a luxury of the powerful.

We launched this online journal on Inauguration Day, 2017, in the United States, a moment poised on the precipice of a forbidding uncertainty. As a nation, the United States cannot chart the way forward without reference to where it has already been. As a people, its citizens cannot make informed decisions without understanding a shared national past and the ways it has shaped the present. The events of the 2016 election remind us that forces often thought lost in the mists of a past best left forgotten are as present and as powerful as ever. The continued existence and success of those forces is the direct result of a pervasive and systemic refusal to come to terms with that past and its connections to this present.”

In other words, the authoritarian turn we are seeing in the US is a regression to the historical mean. Multiracial, pluralist democracy has really only been the norm in the US since 1965. We have to understand this history to navigate the present and build a better future.

Cast of Characters

• Will Horne – Twitter

Going Further

• Activist History Review
• Thread referenced in the conversation

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM

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Our guest this week is Miri Cypers. She is the Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Northwest. The ADL’s is a legacy civil rights organization whose mission is to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

Miri was also a prior guest at 2018’s Adult Civics Happy Hour, a conversation on local white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations operating in the Tacoma area.

This episode is timely. Over the weekend, members of Patriot Front, a fascist organization, held a demonstration in Washington DC. They marched on the National Mall, with an escort from local police. Patriot Front was created in 2017, in the aftermath of the Charlottesville Riots. They are a rebranded version of Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi organization.

Patriot Front have a local branch and are one of the plethora of local purveyors of antisemitism, online and offline.

Cast of Characters

• Miri Cypers – Twitter

Going Further

• Seattle ADL – Website
• ADL Northwest – Twitter
• Couple targeted by accused Washington neo-Nazi leader speaks out – KING TV

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM

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Over on Crossing Division, Evelyn has covered redistricting in Tacoma, in particular the 27th legislative district. In this conversation, we were planning to look at the whole state, including a conversation about the Congressional District maps. At least that’s the conversation we were intending to have. Then, the State Redistricting Commission failed to deliver their proposed maps on time, throwing everything into chaos, and this conversation shifted.

Into this void steps Kamau Chege of the WA Community Alliance to help us sort through the fallout and what the State Supreme Court may do, now that drawing the maps is in their hands. 

This conversation also includes a discussion of State Senator Doug Eriksen’s authoritarian side hustle in El Salvador.

Cast of Characters

• Kamau Chege – Twitter

Going Further

• “Final Maps” for the Redistricting Commission
• Redistricting: Court orders WA panel chair to detail work – AP
• WA Community Alliance

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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From QAnon to Anti-vaxx nonsense, from Stop the Steal to the CRT moral panic, the US is awash in disinformation. It comes to us via Facebook, in barbershops, from group chats, and sermons from the pulpit. It drives acts of violence and fuels political polarization.

This week we were joined by Michael Klein. He works as a Director of Analysis at Alethea Group. We discussed the history of disinformation, vectors for its spread, and how you should respond when people in your circles start going down disinformation rabbit holes. 

Cast of Characters

• Michael Klein – Twitter 

Going Further

• Recommended Reading: True Or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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Victoria Woodards is the incumbent mayor of Tacoma and running for re-election. Her opponent Steve Haverly is a small business owner. He is a newcomer to the political scene and a relative unknown.

Haverly is running on a campaign with the slogan “It’s Time for Unity” and talking about ending division in Tacoma. But among the most divisive issues in Tacoma is the conduct of Tacoma Police, including the murder of Manuel Ellis. One of Haverly’s largest donors is Josh Harris’ Integrity Construction Group. Harris is the contractor who bailed out the Tacoma Police officers charged with murdering Manuel Ellis.

Allison Needles is a reporter for the Trib. She recently did some reporting on the race, the background of both candidates, and the major contributors to their campaigns. We invited her to dump out her reporter’s notebook on mic.

Cast of Characters

• Allison Needles – The News Tribune

Going Further

• Allison on the Candidates
• Allison on the Campaign Finance
• An Audio Voters’ Guide for the 2021 Election

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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Back when Washington State first started voting by mail in the 2010s, I started hosting Bring Your Ballot Parties. These were gatherings where we would discuss  the merits of various candidates and ballot measures in my living room with friends and eventually a larger audience at King’s Books.  They were kind of a proto-Adult Civics Happy Hour.

This episode is that meetup, for all you late voters, but in audio format, featuring Evelyn Lopez, host of Channel 253 show Crossing Division and avid peruser of PDC Reports.

Cast of Characters

• Evelyn Lopez – Twitter

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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Democratic erosion is the process by which democratic states drift, inch by inch, into authoritarianism. On paper, Russia has among the best democratic systems out there. In reality, like in the US, things are a bit more complicated.  On the show, we’ve twice visited the book “How Democracies Die,” a self-explanatory title about eroding democracies, including ours in the US. We wanted to have a conversation about how the democratic system put in place after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s became the Russia of today under Vladimir Putin.

Our guest is Jeff Hawn, a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics. He’s a contributing author at Newslines Institute.

Cast of Characters

• Jeff Hawn – Twitter

Going Further

• Jeff at LSE 
• Russia’s Adaptive Authoritarianism

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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Anne Lutz Fernandez is a former marketer, investment banker, and recently retired English teacher. Her 2015 book Schooled, is a collection of stories from teachers across the US about their experiences and challenges in US classrooms.  

In July, Anne and Nate both appeared on the EdTrust’s podcast and discussed the Critical Race Theory moral panic. In some ways, this episode is a continuation of that conversation.

This episode begins with a brief host commentary about the vacant senate seat in the 27th legislative district and why Nate has withdrawn from consideration for the seat. The conversation with Anne begins at 8min 17sec.

 Cast of Characters

• Anne – Twitter

Going Further 

• • Nate & Anne on EdTrust’s Podcast, EdTrusted
  • Schooled
  • Southlake, Texas, schools restrict classroom libraries after backlash over anti-racist book

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Pacific Luthern University

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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Claudia Rowe is a long-time journalist, currently writing opinion pieces for our friends at Crosscut. She recently published a piece detailing how Seattle Public Schools has shed 2000 students during the pandemic to private schools, homeschooling, and neighboring districts.  As a reminder, schools in Washington are funded annually on a per-pupil basis, so this could have an eventual impact of upwards of $30 million. She joined us to discuss this and her upcoming book about how we completely fail children in foster care.

This conversation was brought to you by our friends at LibroFM (use promo code “TACOMA”).

Cast of Characters

• Claudia – Twitter

Going Further 

• Seattle Public Schools’ delta dysfunction

Claudia’s prior show appearances

• What we owe students in juvenile detention

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS