YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Perriello

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2018-04-26
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2018-04-26
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  1. “Within that group, they then gave two responses. One response didn't talk about race and just talked about fairness and justice. The other specifically talked about racial inequality and justice. This group that was positively impacted by racist dog whistles actually responded positively to the race specific message and negatively to the race neutral message. So I think that's the kind of thing where in talking to people, people have a deep sense of fairness. And as long as we are validating, which the statement did, some of the other unfairnesses in the system, people are more willing to recognize and want to do something about racial injustice and inequality.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Exactly. But now I think we're having a much needed conversation about the racial wealth gap. The racial wealth gap and about how we tell our history. And those are deeper structural issues in many ways. And they're long overdue. But you probably saw this study. The Guardian did a summary of it last year or last week that was really promising. It was talking about this question about whether we should talk about race or not. So they were, I forget who done the study, but they basically took a set of people who white working class people who responded positively to racist dog whistle messaging. So this is specifically like the group that's round zero. Right. They used actual dog whistle messages from Republicans. They didn't make them up.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “But it's the scale of solution we need to be thinking about. I think it, you know, I personally think it's the wrong one, but I'm glad that's setting the baseline. And then something like national job guarantee actually suddenly sounds centrist in the old spectrum, which I don't think is that relevant because it's not UBI. It's actually putting people to work. So that's, I think, where the politics are going. I think the same thing is true when we start to talk about racial justice, criminal justice reform used to be the so far out there. Now it's so mainstream.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Exactly, even with Medicare for all. So to me, bold is where you actually get Booker and Sanders or what I call the Warner and Warren wings of the party to come together is at scale. The spectrum's not ideological anymore. There's some of that. The scale is boldness. And that's where a Mark Warner ends up being more radical than most of the people in the party because he's talking about a new capitalism. Now, whether you agree with the solutions or not, he has been out there for a few years saying that capitalism itself is broken. That's the scale we need to be thinking about. And that's in part because the hedge fund guys in the Silicon Valley guys, almost all guys, are looking at the same thing as they look over a 20-year arc. It doesn't actually work to have no purchasing power in the working of middle class, right? And that's why I tend to be anti-UBI. You know, I've talked about it. It feels more like the matrix. Universal basic income.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So policy results can matter. And so I think that the sorts of things that are happening now, as you see this scaling up of solutions, the national job guarantee that now you have Booker and Sanders coming together on. The reason I think that's interesting is, and again, I think pundits are getting it wrong. They're saying, oh my God, everyone's lurching to the left. The problem with that theory is these ideas are really popular with what they call the middle. They are very mainstream ideas, debt-free community college, criminal justice reform, things that have gone from marginalized within the Democratic Party to net positive with median voters has been incredibly rapid.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “But if you think about the auto bailout there, it wasn't just showing up in the Midwest, it wasn't just going to Michigan. It was having this very concrete thing to be able to talk about, and it helped that Romney had been against it.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “We need to be prepared to deliver results rapidly and at scale, first and foremost, because it's what the country needs in the world needs. Secondarily, because as we've discussed, policy does not want elections, but policy results win re-election. One of the biggest differences in my mind between how Obama did what President Obama did in the Midwest versus Secretary Clinton was the auto bailout. The fact is in 2012, we had a concrete result where we could go out into the Midwest, where we had done something bold that was controversial, that had actually in a meaningful way changed people's lives. The macro effects of the stimulus, particularly once we cut out all of the things that would have put people back to work, or most of it. Not all of it. Not all of it. We prevented a depression. It will go down as a historic thing. Not at all.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “We see this playing out in very scary ways. Trump, you know, we've got to, we need to resist Trump, but we need to focus on the forces that gave rise to Trump. If we get him out of office in a couple of years, maybe sooner, it closes Pandora's box, but it doesn't put all the things back in there, right? Like he is not a leader. He is a rider of trends. He's not a creator of trends. No, he's a symptom. And so, you know, he did that with real estate, with bankruptcy, with reality TV, just, you know, rides these things. So we need, I mean, to me, the year we need to be focused on is 2021 and not 2020.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “So, I do think we need these bold ideas. Now, I think we need it not just because of politics, and you and I have talked about this, and I've been droning on about it for seven years now. But because I think we're actually headed to a world war, I think these disruptions are not just in the United States. They're global. There are at least four major forces driving us to World War. And certainly the scale of economic disruption from this triple shot of globalization, consolidation, and automation is a big one, the weaponization of race and othering. Modernity is not taking the edges off of that. Technology is not taking the edges off of that. Climate and scarcity, particularly around water scarcity, and then the erosion of rule of law overmind makes right. And it's...”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “People look at that and be like, that's not going to change fundamentally my life. But if we went to $28,000 a year minimum wage, which is fight for $15, people can say that's actually something that might start to be meaningful in changing my life. And so, you know, the mistake we make is where we take an idea that has the potential to make a difference in people's lives and think cutting it in half makes it more appealing to people. It's just not true. It makes it less relevant to people. It makes people feel like we're not getting where they're coming from. And I think elites have been slow to catch up to this because most of us are doing pretty well. And so if the logic of the 90s was the last generation that thought their kids were going to be better off than they were, if you think things are going in the right direction, you know, little technocratic tweak politics is a bonus. But if you think we're going in the wrong direction, a little tweak along the way is more like a kick in the ass, excuse me, in the rear. Podcast.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Think that the voters are leading the party, as often happens. And if the politics of the 1990s was about right, left and center with the magnetic pull to the center, voters have rejected that spectrum for what I call bold versus old. And this is changing our politics in ways that explain why we keep getting these wave elections and why the pundits keep not understanding it. The bolder the ideas are now, the more popular they get. And that's because of how broken the system is for people. If you go out with how much it costs to go to college today, if you offered someone a $2,000 tuition tax credit, it doesn't make you sound nice. It makes you sound totally out of touch with the scale of what's going on. Same thing with minimum wage. If you talk about going from $14,000 a year, which is what minimum wages, to $16,000 a year,”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “From a purely tactical standpoint, our first priority should be making sure that our base feels like we have their back. Second, the swing group right now is college-educated white women. So from a purely tactical standpoint, priority one, priority two. I think there are several reasons why we should also continue to reach out in these other areas. Some is tactical, which is you have to, one of the things we did in Virginia was Republicans had to spend a lot of money protecting in those areas. Then that was money they weren't sending to the caucus to spend in other areas. I think we also need to legislate, which I'm sure we'll come back to later. If we aren't starting to get at least some of these folks to come around, if we want to do national childcare or national job guarantee, the closer we are to even getting to 35, 40, 45% in some of those.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “It is though you wouldn't know it from how the Republicans are acting in the legislature. But yeah, and I think it was important. We ran in every district, which we need almost every district. So you don't assign yourself.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Consolidating, and we saw this in Virginia, the Latino, the AAPI community, the Muslim community, both being more political and more democratic than they've ever been. And if the question is Is there such a thing as too racist for white people, at least for a short majority of college educated white women? The answer is yes.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Right, back in the 90s, where you get kind of one good election for Republicans out of playing every, you know, going nuclear on the white identity politics, but”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “But we also have to remember, I mean, I've made this parallel many times before, but I think Trump's election was to the country what Prop 187 was to California, right? You're getting.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I mean, I know it because people were saying it as they spit on me and kicked me during my time in Congress. But again, I think that the extent to which he as an individual and being the most powerful person in the world representing a shattering of that sort of Copernican universe for people. Well, he was a living”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I forget the details, but something like guys like clearly you're not going to get mad at Galileo. And he's like, you know, or Copernicus or whatever it is. He's like, are you kidding? I loved being at the center of the universe. Whoever thought it was a good idea to actually put the Earth outside the center of the universe and get rid of all that. And there is a certain amount of like, you know, within racial and gender hierarchies. It's like if part of progress means changing who's at the center of the universe, you can understand why that's different.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “But I think what you're getting at, which is true, is identity and identity hierarchies give people meaning and they're pretty comfortable if you're on the top of those. And when you're not on the top of those anymore, it is scary. Remembering, this is going to show my populist roots. There's a Tom Stoppard play called Arcadia. And this philosopher is going off on the scientists about how they don't give us meaning and philosophy does.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “We can keep two thoughts in our mind at the same time, which is the extent to which the election was absolutely about white anxiety or white tribal politics. It was the single best indicator of voting patterns along with authoritarian tendencies. But these two things have always gone hand in hand. In the face of economic anxiety, racial identity and racist politics is something you can play on.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And every hand goes up and says computers. Yes. And then I would go to a fundraiser that night in Alexandria, and people would be like, Tom, you sound like a think tank, those people out there are too dumb to have this conversation. I was like, they're having it. They're living this conversation. Now that does not...”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Canary in the coal mine right now is coal itself, which over the last 40 years has seen coal profits go through the roof, coal production go through the roof, and coal employment go through the floor. And the change is automation. Like elites are having this conversation like automation is something coming in the future. Automation has already been a massive driver of the hollowing out of the middle class and the working class over the last 20 years. It's been this triple shot of consolidation or monopoly globalization and automation. And so you can go and Trump voters get this. I mean, I can't tell you how many times on the trail, I would be out in Trump country and I would say, hey, I'm pissed that we lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs. Can anyone tell me where 85% of them?”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So Trump won the district sizably in the primary. We won by considerable margins in most of the places that Trump won. So we were trying an argument simultaneously that was that spoke to our base and put Trump on defense in his areas. And we don't do that by trying to sound Republican-ish or Trumpish. We do it by being bolder. And I would go into coal country. And the fact of the matter is in many ways.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Stop Trump and his gaslighting with live ammo attacks on vulnerable communities, but also look at the roots that gave rise to Trump in the first place from weaponized racism to economic anxiety, knock it into a false choice between the two. So I felt like there was an opportunity in the state that's been my home and that I love to do both of those things.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Well, you know, it's easy to forget where the political debate was at that point. And I got in part because I've seen racial demagogues rise in other countries and you don't let them get a foothold. And it was not actually clear Democratic leadership was not clear how to handle the Trump era. In fact, many people, including the governor, had talked about wanting to work with him on projects. And that's normally not a bad impulse. If you're like, okay, well, let's work across the aisle. But I felt like this was the first chance in the era of Trump to set a tone of what Democratic politics needs to look like in the face of this. And that had to be fierce and absolute principled resistance in addition to a bolder proactive progressive platform than Democrats have offered. In other words, we need to both”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Yeah, no, I think it was, I mean, and Governor Northam's campaign managers talked about this. They felt like it would be fatal to them if we could develop a progressive versus centrist narrative in that primary.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Well, and this, I mean, this was obviously by far the worst, not just politically worse, but personally. I mean, because the church, the Catholic Church was entirely dishonest in how it negotiated that. I mean, the lay staff was just blunt with me that they didn't want to help Democrats. It's the first. Major piece of social justice legislation ever not fully supported by the church that they technically supported at the end. And a lot of that had to do with the technicalities of the issue. But the standard, I went out and made that, I felt like I made that promise to my constituents once that standard had been set. And then I did feel like having promised that at 25 town hall meetings that the bill had to meet that standard”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Well, the weeds were. I didn't actually make that promise to my constituents until the White House made the promise And when the White House made the promise, we're going to protect the High Democrand in the bill. Ivan went and did 25 Town Hall meetings and said, I will not sign a bill that doesn't meet the standard of no federal funding for abortion. So if I may put that one back on you. No, no”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Yeah, well, the choice thing was a little different because I didn't run. On the issue of, I mean, I was pro choice, the issue with that came up actually in the context of the ACA debate. I mean, this is, you know.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “So, I think there were that you do look as a candidate for things that play against type. And I think there was clearly some sense at that point that, you know, there were things that would make it more difficult to put me into a box. So there's the issue itself and how that polls and how that has changed over time.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Then that's a different story. If you're saying universal background checks and bump stocks, anyone who's considering voting for you is going to not be turned off for the most part on that issue. I do think there's a broader point here, which I'll try to take out of the gun context, but then bring back in it, which is, you know, elections are about motive and the motive of the politician. They're about authenticity, conviction, all this sort of stuff. And there's a series of things that feed into a narrative of like what makes this person tick and do they get people like me. And for me running in that district, you know, there were two different ways that first race was going to play out. One was, you know, elite double Yale kid from Charlottesville who hasn't even been in the district and has been flitting around the world doesn't get your problems, thinks he can waltz in and run the race or”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Which is a broader one in our coalition of what about middle ground positions, right? Like what if, and this is one of the things I think the NRA, I think the NRA is probably now one of the greatest threats to the Second Amendment because of the politics that it's done of saying you're either 100% all in and that all in required things about not just background checks but all sorts of ridiculous things out there. As opposed to being able to say, which I do think if I in a rural district, if you said, I want to take everyone's guns away, which obviously is not the position we're asked to take.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Even in the same district, I think if you ran on that position, again, leaving aside the morality of the issue just on the politics alone, I think the number of people for whom that matters who are even remotely considering voting for me has diminished. And the number of people who would vote for me, but not if I am soft on that issue has gone up. So I think, and I think that's been because of movements. I think the Virginia Tech parents in Virginia have changed that. I think Sharon Watts of the world and now, of course, the Parkland youth have changed that. Again, just on the politics alone, I think that the question of”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “You know, 727 vote margin. It's easy to think that that could have made a difference, I suppose. I think that it was less, the argument today, because the politics on this have changed are that it could significantly deflate my own base turnout for the issue. At the time, I think because the party was not moving forward on that issue, it was not something where I had very many supporters who said, I can't support this guy because of this. Today,”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “And that was very clear to me from the first day I ran. And there were lots of people in the Democratic leadership who said, for God's sakes, don't take a position, a bad position on guns. Now, Virginia Tech had happened, and I was meeting with those families, and those were really compelling meetings and, you know, should have been compelling enough, I think, at the time. And this is the thing. You do start to rationalize. You say, hey, I need to be there on the big stuff that's actually going to move, right? Healthcare, climate change looked like it would voted for the Dream Acts stimulus, those sorts of things. And why am I going to take on a political hit for something that's not going to move? And do I think as a principle that's something you have to consider when you're in office? Sure. But I think your gut tells you certain ones that are right and wrong. And, you know, that was one that I knew I was doing something that I could.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Those things, and then the places where I compromise for a variety of reasons, not only have I personally regretted that, but I have paid a political cost as I should, including in this last race for governor. Slightly different issues. The NRA thing was partly a practical decision, which was a combination of the fact that Pelosi, to some extent, outsmarted the NRA, which was they had a policy of endorsing incumbents who didn't vote against them. And so she just didn't let any votes come to the floor. But a pretty strong understanding at the time that whatever position I took, the Democratic Party was unlikely to touch the gun issue, which I think was an accurate read from a practical standpoint.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “So, first of all, I can say the times that I leaned in and went bold on my deepest principles, I have no regrets. Wasn't just for the ACA before a public option. I was pushing until the end to have a Medicare buy-in for 55 and at least 55 and above. On the stimulus wasn't just for it, but actually wanted it to be twice as big in a 10 year new.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “That's right. And, you know, someone like Senator Chris Murphy, who I was in the house with, who's great and has been such a leader on gun reform and gun safety. He can't change the politics of the issue himself. It's these young people that are changing completely the conversation about guns. Now, they also need someone in the Senate or set of people in the Senate who are willing to champion and push those issues.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “And, you know, Georgia Allen was an institution in Virginia politics. He was on a shortlist for possible presidential candidate. I think he was in the high 70% approval rating. And so one of my frustrations at the time was a frequently feeling like, you know, I got to Election Day and voted for the lesser of two evils that it was a Democratic Party that seemed more interested in centrism and technocratic fixes than deeply principled politics. And at some point, my friends, my family were like, well, why don't you shut up and do something about it? And I was someone who from a pretty young age had believed that, you know, movements changed the world and politicians show up to cut the ribbon. And so that real change comes from the outside where people are willing to change the sense of what's possible. I now think it's a partnership. You need movements to change the sense of what's possible and politicians to take an aggressive sense of what is possible.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “But the web race, I think, was really important both because of the idea of someone who got into this with no political background, into a race at the time George Allen was seen as a”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Yeah, he'd also run in a lot of races where people had told him A, that he couldn't win and B, to win, he should run a different way. I mean, Kane has typically been interested in what's the most. Progressive or boldest campaign I could run and get to 50% plus one, not what's the safest way to run from city council to mayor. He's a really interesting figure, and I still remember doing an event with him, I think, and Rick Boucher down in southwest Virginia where he had been I don't know if he was a capital defense lawyer at the time, and I think he had actually been working in a case involving maybe even a police officer that had been killed. And everyone in the courthouse remembered him and loved him despite having obviously gone in to do a job that made him very unpopular 30 years earlier in the community.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Yeah, I mean, so first of all, it's true. Almost anyone who was anyone discouraged me from running in the race, with the exception of Tim Kane, to his credit, who didn't know me from Adam at the time. But for him, it was all about conviction.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “So, you know, I think that was something that you learn in different environments. So, taking away from that, like had we listened to that conventional wisdom that was a very elite-driven conventional wisdom, I don't think Sierra Leone would have broken the cycle.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “But again, looking back at the Latin American examples and otherwise, a willingness to do tough accountability often presents short-term risk, but is essential for reducing risk over time. And again, I think, you know, I saw that in things like the healthcare debate in my district, because I do small business owner meetings and the first voices were always negative. And they were pretty much always older white guys. And then people would pull me aside afterwards and be like, just to be clear, we desperately want the ACA. We really need it. It's crucial for our small business, but I just don't want the crap that's going to come down bureaucracy.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Or, yeah, bring him over for my governor's ace. But, anyway, that is just to say that it is incredibly important whenever you are trying to work in or help a community to make sure you're listening to that community, but also to make sure you're not just listening to the loudest and most powerful voices because most of those elites were deeply connected to the corruption and other things that had driven it. So of course they love to forgiveness strategy”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Brilliant methodology based on bread lines and flour delivery tested against language groups and everything. And sure enough, it came back, among other things, and showed, you know, that people overwhelmingly wanted Taylor and others held accountable. They also showed the three groups that were paralyzing the negotiations. None of them had popular support. And so this was a case for all the other things we did, and some of them were a little riskier physically and otherwise, and some of them were really geeky. And the geeked out polling stuff was actually one of the things that really broke through.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “We did. I did work closely with him. And this goes to the other point I was going to make, which I took away from that and helped me in politics too, which is to go out and listen to people. Because when I got to Sierra Leone, the conventional wisdom was, well, here culturally we don't believe in justice and prosecution. We believe in forgiveness. That's the African tradition. And I kept hearing this from the Sierra Leonean elites, and I kept hearing it repeated by the Westerners who were so scared of being neo-colonialist, but I literally heard it from no other Sierra Leonean. And we went out and started to ask everyone they're like, are you kidding? We want these guys, not just prosecuted. We want them shot. And whether or not you agree with that, there was this question of like, what was actually culturally desired in the place? With my students, we actually designed the first public opinion poll that had ever been run in the country because there was no census. So they had to come up with this.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Were and they helped to create the core, or they were supportive. In fact, it was the first American prosecutor since Nuremberg of an international tribunal, a guy named David Crane, who came out of more Republican circles and did a tremendous job there.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Right, and the way that we that President Bush in the United States chose to respond to 9 11 essentially played right into those hands, whether it was some of the actual facts on the ground, like changing the dynamics in the Middle East or that broader question of whether this progressive project was real. And I don't think we've recovered from that.”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Just tools that we come up with. He doesn't think NGOs and civil society are more legitimate check on democracy. He thinks that they're always”

    2018-04-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 237 - Tom Perriello · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source