What El-Sayed hears voters say about care and AI

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 6:03

   But what forums have you been in where you feel like you're able to to actually connect to people in what they're going through and where they can be revelatory about those issues and and can inform you best? Like as someone who is trying to get to maybe the core of the issues that people are struggling with, where have you found those moments to be most revealing? There are two. One, anytime anybody invites you into their home, that's their space.

2. 6:39

   And just the fact that they invited you in says a lot. And often, you know, there are kids in the home and when they look at you, they're looking at you and then looking at their kid and looking at you. And every time they look at their kid, it's like they're remembering the purpose of the question they ask. And those are the moments that I find the most meaningful. And then in a question and answer at a town hall, right?

3. 7:04

   Because, you know, town halls are as old as democracy and people come, they bring their questions and they ask them in front of their neighbors. and there's a moment where we collectively get to talk about the challenge. I mean, we're still doing town halls. They're a lot bigger than they used to be, but we still take open questions. But like, it takes me back to the beginning of the campaign when the rooms were like 25 and 30 people deep. And we'd have these really intimate moments. And the thing about it is somebody would ask a question. And then as they ask the question, you look into the audience and you see everybody else's head nodding because they just touched on a nerve.

4. 7:38

   And I think great politics is about being able to surface a pain that is collective, but that people thought they were holding on their own, you know, and you see that moment on lock. And if you can speak to the core of the problem and what could be done about it, it's almost like you get to do a certain kind of like civic chiropractic healing. Yeah. It's like, it's like you have a little adjustment, you know, you ever seen one of those videos on Instagram or Tik TOK where like the chiropractor, like does this little thing. And all of a sudden you see this look on this patient's face. They're like, Oh my God, you just unlocked all my pain. Everything feels better. Right. There's a moment where you can do that or broke their neck. I mean, that's, that's the other thing. We don't do that. Like, no,

5. 8:17

   we don't want to do that. I mean, this is not a Trump show. Okay. Like, um, what would have been the issues when you say like somebody expresses a pain in their life and you watch it resonate in the room. Are there certain issues that you have found specifically that you've found those moments in? Is it affordability? Has it been a story about healthcare? Is it cycle of life stuff? You know, I'm trying to take care of my parents. Like where, where have been those moments of, of resonance? It's three things. The first one is anything having to do with care, healthcare, childcare, senior care. You hear it all the time. Somebody says, you know, I had a woman come up to me.

6. 8:55

   She's like, I had an emergency appendectomy and my insurance only covered $395 of it. Wow. And like, whenever those stories get shared at a town hall, everyone's like, yeah, no, that happened to me. Yeah, yeah. Or I'm worried about my parent. They're getting older and they're needing care and I can't offer it. And I'm losing hours at work because I got to stay home with my parent. I don't know what happens next.

7. 9:20

   In fact, the problem is I actually know what happens next and I don't know what I'm going to do about it. And then the third one where this often comes up is just this dread about AI. And it shows up in, they're going to put a data center in my backyard, or my kid's never going to have a job despite the fact that they took $60,000 in debt to go to school to get a degree. And I've told them their whole life, prepared them for this. And they're going to graduate into an economy where there's like no job for them because of AI. Or I heard about this thing called hugging face. I didn't know such a thing called hugging face existed. What does that mean for me?