How to Be a Purposeful Warrior to Preserve Democracy with Jocelyn Benson

Do we stay silent or do we speak out? To me, being a purposeful warrior means being determined to not stay silent in the face, particularly of injustices or bullies or other abuses of power or authority. Because if we don't speak out, someone will fill that void. But if we speak out, we may not achieve the end result. But as warriors, we can push for a better response and we can inspire others to speak out as well. So standing up to bullies, refusing to stay silent, recognizing that if I speak out, that's going to have an effect on someone. Feeling courage. That's how we become purposeful warriors. That's also how we can take challenging moments in our life and find our warrior ethos and plow through and to create that better place, even in a turbulent time.

I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People podcast. And we have found another remarkable person for you. Her name is Jocelyn Benson, and she's in the state of Michigan. She's currently the Secretary of State of Michigan, and she's basically a really a recognized expert on election law and voting rights. She has been a steadfast defender of democracy. Oh, my God, yes. And lots of awards for doing the work she's done. She is overseeing an election or elections in Michigan, which is one of the most closely watched states in America. She's a Harvard Law graduate and former dean of. I think she was the youngest female dean, or maybe the youngest dean period of a law school. It was Wayne State University Law School. And she's basically dedicated her career to fair access to the ballot. And if all of that wasn't good enough, now she's running for the governorship of Michigan. Yeah. So someday. Or wait, the election is this fall 2026. Yeah.

Yep. 16 months from now.

Oh. So someday we're gonna say we had the governor of Michigan on the Remarkable People podcast. Remember her? Yeah. Alrighty. So thank you very much for being on our podcast. And I read your book, and this is kind of a weird question, but I just need to verify a fact that I couldn't wrap my mind around. So you said that In December of 2020, a violent mob showed up at your house to protest your enforcement of voting rights. Right. Now, the book says that they showed up at 9, 15, and then it further says that the Detroit Police Department showed up at 10. So when I read that, I said, how can the Police Department take 45 minutes to show up at the house of the Secretary of State? Like, what were they doing for 45 minutes? Were they getting donuts or what's the story there?

Yeah. When to sort of walk it back. At 8 o' clock that night, Michigan State Police had called to notify me. That's how the book starts. And then I talked to our Attorney General, Dana Nestle right after that about a Facebook post. It was sort of like we rally tonight outside her home or something like that. And Dana called and told me about this post. The Michigan State Police had alerted her to it and said, who's it going to be? You think it's going to be you or think it's going to be me? So you've gotten narrowed down to two. Dana lives about 20 minutes away from me. So you knew this was going to be happening. And then shortly before 9 o' clock was when we started to hear the sounds and the chants and I called her and I said, it's me, I'm the one. And I was decorating our Christmas tree at the time. I was holding my 4 year old son, I remember, and we were hanging the decorations and you start to hear these horrible things being said outside our home. They actually live streamed it on Facebook. So there's a video of it as it unfolded. And so my first thought as a mom is just to protect my kid. And so I walked him upstairs, tried to run bath water in his bathroom so that it drowned out the noise of the growing crowd. And for a good 45 minutes, despite the fact that we live a mile away from a police station, all that stood between my home and that growing crowd was one neighborhood police officer who stood on our doorstep. And we were just trying to get through it. But in the moment it was really obviously terrifying because of the uncertainty. Was someone going to shoot at our house? Were they going to storm our house? How was this going to end? And so it was a really harrowing evening. And in the midst of it, after my husband was putting my kid to bed and we were calling 911, we were trying to get help. What also became clear to me, you know, I started my career in Selma, Alabama, and I thought about those folks who stood at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge of March of 1965 simply to defend the vote. I thought about the millions of people who had voted in 2022 in Michigan's election. And I realized these folks outside weren't protesting me, they were protesting their voices, the votes of the people of Michigan. And if my job was to defend those voices, I will do it every day of the week and proudly stand there. And so I actually ultimately, though scared, found a sense of boldness in that moment to say, not on my watch. Will you take me off my post? You know? And then 45 minutes later, police showed up. They quickly dispersed as soon as law enforcement arrived. And I thought that would be the end of it. I just didn't ever want to talk about it again. But then media picked up on it, and it was Facebook. It was live streamed on Facebook, so we had to talk about it. And I put out a statement the next day and all the rest and became a defining part of the fight.

But did somebody explain why it took 45 minutes? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

No, I mean, there. There was a lot of speculation as to why the busyness, you know, dragging feet. I mean, there was a lot of speculation, but all I could control is what we did next. We've hired security, and this was not the first or last time when something like this has happened, by the way. We have had bomb threats. We have had swatting multiple times. And so from that incident actually emerged a greater understanding on behalf of local and state law enforcement and private security to collectively organize and be better if we've been in oftentimes in close contact with state and local law enforcement since. But that was also the moment that these types of threats became an unfortunate new norm, escalating in what we saw happen in Minnesota, of course, just a few weeks ago. And I was on that list, right, that that killer had in his car.

You were on that Minnesota guys list?

Yeah. Yeah. So I got a call that morning telling me that the morning that it happened, I didn't even know. I just was told that there were two people who were killed in Minnesota, and I was on this list.

Wow.

So, yeah, my point is, that night in December of 2020 was an inflection point, but it was not the first or last time we have had to deal with threats to my family's life as a result of these lies and misinformation about our elections. Like, you know, we're just. I'm just doing my job, just trying to make sure everyone can vote. And that is an unfortunate reality that we're in right now.

Jocelyn, let me just be clear. You are a lot braver than I am, man.

Wow. It's a muscle. Bravery is a muscle that we all can build in large and small moments. That's what the book's about, right? I start by saying, for me, I was 20, and I was investigating white supremacists undercover, and I was scared. Right. Every moment we choose, courage over fear is a Moment where we build that bravery muscle.

As soon as this recording ends, I'm going to draw in CrossFit for that. Now, I'm beginning to see a pattern here, because earlier in your career, you worked as an undercover freelance journalist investigating the Klux Klan for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Jocelyn, like, tell me about that experience. And. And at the end of that, explain, explanation, Would you just give us your theory about what drives people to form such hate group? What's going on?

My whole master's thesis on what takes someone into that space. And so I will say doing the work was really formative for me. It really formed a foundation of my sense of what it takes to stand up to injustice and to hate. And it means you have to be willing to put your life on the line and be courageous. That's what everyone who've come before us have done. You have to be willing to also tell the story that bravery can just be in shining a light on the injustice itself. And for the moment, for me, that was. That was a pivotal moment, was when I was in Red Roof Inn in Spartanburg, South Carolina, having just spent the day with this guy who had been claiming. Claiming to be the next Hitler and trying to track all of his doings and his members and everything he was saying. And I remember getting to my room and thinking, what happens if he finds out and comes to kill me and being really scared and just trying to, like, sit with that emotion. And I thought, well, I have a choice. I could run away, I could hide, or I could get up and get to work. And I chose the latter. And in that became this sort of initial moment of me knowing that in order to actually affect the change we want and fight injustice, we have to be, or some among us have to be willing to look straight in the eye of that hate and injustice and say, not today, and fight back and shine a light on it and tell the story. And ultimately, my story, my article, exposed this guy and it led to the demise of his organization. And it was the right thing to do, but it was hard. There are times, large and small, when we are all going to be in a moment, a precipice where. Where we can be silent or succumb to fear, or we can choose to not allow the fear to drive us in our action, but instead courage and bravery. And so my entire book is. You know, it started as a book to talk about what it was like standing up to Trump in 2020, but it evolved into this call to action for all of us to choose courage over Fear. In moments like this, when our country and who we are is under attack in a very unique way from within, this is the moment when we all can be warriors for who we are, ourselves, our communities, our loved ones. And that's our way through.

So at any point, Jocelyn, did your mother or father call you up and said, you know, honey, we sent you to Harvard Law School, couldn't you just go work on Wall street and make 2 million a year?

What have we done, WR? Yeah, it also, what I remember most is my parents just wanted me to, like, not leave home. They wanted me to build a home nearby. Right? That's what we want. We want our loved ones to be healthy and happy and safe and nearby. And so it was, I think, just as hard that I wasn't like, buying a house next door to my parents and living there after college as it was for me to be putting myself in harm's way in this very significant way. But it's always been who I was. And part of my path has been that, trying to stand up to even people who love you and who you love and say, this is who I am and this is what I'm here to do. And that's what being a warrior sometimes requires of us.

I can honestly say, Jocelyn, if I lived in Michigan, I would vote for you for governor. And we're only 20 minutes into this interview and, you know, amazingly, this is.

A moment where that's the courage that we need from governors in this. Right? Governors are the only ones when, when Stephen Colbert was fired, and I was so scared about what that meant for so many other truth tellers around our country. And I thought, you know what? He can't fire governors. Governors can be those voices and others can as well. Right? We all can be those voices for truth and for justice in this moment. But yeah, running for governor means not just improving the economic well being and prosperity of our residents and having a vision on how to do that, but also to stand up to the bullies and the billionaires who are trying to rip away who we are and increase income inequality and injustice and all the things that actually don't make us great.

So your book has this concept of a purposeful warrior. So how about you start by explaining the concept of a purposeful warrior?

The purposeful warrior is someone who is determined to be the hero of their own story, determined to not allow anyone else to have the power to define who we are, and finding, even in challenging and uncertain moments, the ability to respond in a way that furthers our vision and for a better world. It's about seeing challenge as an opportunity for growth and to find strength and build resilience and get better. But more than anything, it's about being determined to not give up in furtherance of what we believe in. Whether it's just a better chance for our kids to do better than we did, whether it's fighting to make sure our parents have access to health care, whether it's standing up to a bully in a toxic workplace. Wherever we find ourselves, there are always ways that we can be warriors on behalf of ourselves, those we love, and the communities we call home. So it's about fighting, fighting, but fighting with a purpose and achieving an impact through that fight in a meaningful way. And the whole book is sort of a how to guide through stories of my own life or advice and inspiration I've gleaned from others on what we all can do to be those purpose driven warriors in our lives for those we love, in the communities we call home.

Would you say that Katie Fahey is a purposeful warrior?

Yeah. I mean, gosh, look what she did with one Facebook post, right?

Tell us her story.

Yeah. So Katie Fahey, after the 2016 election, posted on Facebook, I'm really upset. I'm really upset at government corruption. And I don't remember the details of what she said, but from a Facebook post expressing her anger. She found purpose in that rage and used that rage to develop a statewide organization called Voters Not Politicians that then collected signatures to eliminate gerrymandering in our state. And now today, because of that Facebook post, because she reacted, Katie Fahey reacted to that 2016 election feeling that her voice wasn't heard and that politics was corrupt. She reacted not by saying, I'm done, I'm giving up, I'm running away. She reacted by moving forward, digging in, being the hero of that moment that we all needed, and creating a grassroots organization of other warriors all across the state that collected signatures on both sides of the aisle to put citizens in charge of drawing our districts and expand access to the vote in our state in every cycle, in many cycles since particularly, particularly in 2022. The same organization then pushed for greater expansion of voting policies and enshrined reproductive freedom in our constitution. All from one Facebook post. All from one person saying, I've had enough and I want to do something about it. So that, to me is a great lesson of whenever we find ourselves in moments where we feel hopeless and like things are happening to us that are out of control, we always have the power to do something in response and to decide how we will respond and what we will do to further our hopes for a better world.

That is maybe the first positive story we heard about a Facebook post in the history of the Remarkable People podcast. There was also one positive tweet. Olivia Juliana came on our show and talked about that tweet and her battle with Matt Gaetz. And she raised like two and a half million dollars or something, right? Yeah. So I have to say that that is a really fascinating and powerful story. But if we could back up, because many of us hear about gerrymandering and I understand the concept, but just pretend you're writing a book called Gerrymandering for Dummies. Exactly how do you gerrymander? Are you like sitting in this smoke filled room and you got a map and you say, okay, all the black people live here, all the brown people live here, all the white people live here. Let's cut these lines so that, you know, like, how does it actually work?

It's about grouping people into districts and they'll all get together in one district and then out of that district they'll elect a state representative or a member of Congress. And if you think about all the communities and all the different ways you can draw lines around communities to keep some people in that district and some people without, gerrymandering is drawing those districts in a way that will try to predetermine the results of the election in favor for your party. And so it often is done by party leaders in maybe not a smoke filled room anymore, but at least a windowless room with no transparency. And they emerge with a map with no indication as to how that map was drawn or why or what interests were in play. And that map then determines where you vote, what room you're in, when you vote. Right. Like, are you in this room or that room? Think about it. If you had 100 people and they're all people who are Democrats in one room, then you're going to vote for Democrat. But if you're split, maybe 40 are in one room and 30 or another and another 30 or another, you're going to be outvoted by the Republicans who are in those other rooms. And so gerrymandering is about drawing the lines in such a way that it predetermines and helps one party over the other, even if that's not a fair outcome for how just sort of fairly drawn maps, considering other things like, well, everyone wants to be in this room. You guys head there and that's how we'll define it. Or everyone is in a college town. So maybe you guys should all be in the same district, all should be in the same room since you have this one unique interest that you want to vote on together. So instead of using that data driven, good government approach to grouping people in districts, it's about using party politics to group people in districts in a way that can give a party an advantage in the writ large legislature and maintain control over the legislature, even if the voting allegiances, the party allegiance of voters are not represented effectively in that legislature. So as an example, in Michigan under gerrymandering, you had, let's say 100 districts, 70 of which had a majority of Republicans in them and 30 of which had a majority of Democrats in them. That meant in any election 70 Republicans and 30 Democrats would be elected out of those districts. But with fair maps you have almost a 50, 50 split where 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats are elected out of those districts. And also they're competitive districts. So it's not tilted one way or the other, but it enables people from both parties to make their case to the voters and voters to have enough opportunity through building coalitions or crossing part party lines to elect the person they want as opposed to the party that person's has to adhere to.

So is the goal in fair voting to have an equal number of districts that are predominant, one party or the other, or to have each district 50, 50?

I think the goal is to have people, voters draw these districts from the communities themselves, not the politicians who have an inherent conflict of interest in how they're going to draw these districts. So that's really the heart of it. There are so many factors beyond party affiliation that you can bring into a district. Maybe we want to keep a county together, maybe we want to have two districts in the city of Detroit as opposed to just one. So there's lots of different factors that can come. Competitiveness, as you mentioned, can be another factor. So the question is really who's drawing the lines and what's their focus? And the idea of citizen drawn districts means that voters from the communities themselves are saying, you know what, I think we should be in this district, you should be in that. Because we care about the college in our district and you guys care about the farmland in yours, as opposed to just saying, okay, all the Democrats here and all the Republicans here, so we can determine who gets elected out of each.

Maybe you guys have tried this, but it would be a very interesting experiment to put in as many demographic and income and whatever data you have and just tell chat GPT Okay, Draw the districts and see what. That would be interesting.

Yeah. And we could go in that direction. Right. The citizens could say, I want to do that. That's how we're going to do it. That's how we're going to draw the districts. And so this idea that there are many different ways that you can draw fair maps and ways in which. And it'll be interesting to see how AI affects all of that in the future and if politicians allow AI or CHAT GPT or other services to do that. Because again, the critical factor in this process is who is drawing and who's making this decision. I don't know if politicians would be as amenable to turning it over to JAP GBT as citizens might. But it'll be interesting to see how that technology evolves in the years ahead.

If I had to guess right now, Jocelyn, I would say I would probably prefer CHAT GPT drawing up the district lines than people.

But, yeah, yeah. I think fairness is just the bottom line. And maybe ChatGPT, you enter different. Different factors in fair maps, competitive districts and all that. We redraw maps. We convene the citizen commission every 10 years. So it will be interesting to see how that commission perhaps chooses to draw maps and what technology they use in 2030.

Okay, this is my last question about gerrymandering. The state of Texas is talking about gerrymandering, right? And then you see these news stories that Gavin Newsom says, listen, if Texas does it, I'm gonna do this in California. Does that make sense? Like, is that two wrongs making a right? Or like, why would gerrymandering California to counteract Texas? I'm not sure I follow that reasoning.

What.

Can you just give me the insights into that?

I cannot give you the insights into Gavin Newsom's decision making, but I can't offer my own take, which is just, you gotta get give its citizens the job, period. Anytime you have politicians drawing the districts, this is the type of stuff that happens on both sides. And it's gross and it's icky and it's antithetical to what democracy is supposed to be. So I think the answer should be, let's just give citizens the job. In Michigan, that's actually worked quite well to create competitive districts in other states as well. There's lots of successful models on this, in my view, and I can say this on behalf of our state, that does it quite well. We've eliminated gerrymandering as a result, to push for a movement in that direction, you know, the other thing I'll say is there's lots of other examples of how if the voters are engaged and being really thoughtful and critical consumers of information, a lot of times an election will still not turn out the way those drawing maps expect it to. Yeah, yeah, typically it does. But there are plenty of examples of times in which one party drew maps to give a party an advantage. And then they do so poorly in an election because they have no message that they still lose anyway. Way. So there's always that piece, too. It's. It's. My dogma is the power of the people will always be greater than the people in power. And I've seen that happen even in gerrymandered areas. But of course, the goal is to have citizens drawing those districts and fair maps across the board.

Okay, enough about gerrymandering. Let's get back to ferocious warriors. So let's say I love the concept. How do I become a ferocious war warrior?

I think every day we have opportunities to choose who we're going to be. Right? And a lot of this book is about that. There's lots of different ways that you can, in ways big and small, choose to be a warrior in different moments of your life. And it begins with recognizing that there are plenty of things always in our life challenging, uncertain moments outside of our control. But we always have the power to determine how we will respond and what we will do in response to things that happen to us, us that are outside of our control. And that's where that decision to become a warrior lies. When you start to see challenges not as defeats, but as opportunities for growth and building strength and building resiliency, that is one way to take a uncertain moment or a challenging time or something out of our control and use it to grow your power, your strength, your resiliency. In addition to that, there are moments where we see an injustice or we experience an injustice and we're met with a choice. Choice. Do we stay silent or do we speak out? Speaking out is oftentimes a courageous thing. Staying silent is oftentimes succumbing to fear. And perhaps the safest option, safer option. But to me, being a purposeful warrior means being determined to not stay silent in the face, particularly of injustices or bullies or other abuses of power or authority. Because if we don't speak out, someone will fill that void and it will be further out of our control. But if we speak out, we may not achieve the end result. But as warriors, we can push for a better response than we otherwise would have. And we can inspire others to speak out as well. So standing up to bullies, refusing to stay silent, recognizing that everything we do is connected so that if I speak out, that's going to have an effect on someone else. Feeling courage. That's how we become purposeful warriors. And then in addition to that, when we're angry, finding purpose in that rage, doing something about it, as opposed to just stewing in it indefinitely. That's also how we can take challenging moments in our life and find our warrior ethos and plow through and to create that better place even in a turbulent time.

You are one of the few people qualified to answer this question. But it seems to me that in the made for TV movie, the underdog stands up to the bully and the bully backs down. But you have actually done that. So I want to know, you know what happens when you stand up? Do they run away or do they just keep coming at you?

I love that. It's one of my favorite questions I've gotten talking about this book because that's exactly what we need to be thinking about. You cannot predicate your decision to stand up to a bully based solely on the hope that you achieve the end result you desire. Because bullies punch back, others perhaps come to defense of that bully. Sometimes bullies lose elections, but then win them four years later. And so all you can control is what you do and the power that you build from that and the power you help others build from that. That doesn't necessarily mean, if you're calling out and I tell this story, someone who's harassing you in the workplace, that you call that out and they lose their job. That doesn't always mean that because sometimes others are are not going to do the right thing. And so in my view, the decision to stand up to a block fully or to take on even the most powerful person in the United States is a decision you make because it's the right thing to do. And then you work to make sure it is as impactful as it can be, either directly or indirectly. But you can't predicate your decision to speak out based on what you hope will happen as a result. You can plan to get that better reaction if you want, and be strategic about it. That's part of it. But the choice to speak up has to be rooted in your values and a recognition that anytime we see and injustice, it's on us to speak out about it. And that's really just the first step in being a true, purposeful warrior.

Now, while we're on the topic of Powerful bullies. What happens when the President of the United States targets you and says that, you know, Jocelyn mailed out 7.7 million ballots, but what Jocelyn really mailed out was 7.6 million informational packets, not ballots. So just take us into this blender of what happens when the President of the United States targets you.

It's scary, it is surreal, but it makes no difference to me if a bully is a President of the United States or someone next door. Every time someone tries to leverage their power to silence you or to further an injustice, justice, it is up to you to speak out about it and to call them out and hold them accountable, Period. And so I took a beat. I see this thing on Twitter. This happened also with Elon Musk a few years later. He calls me out by name. And in a way, that's meant to scare me, right? The goal of these guys is to scare us, to intimidate us, to silence us. So the most important thing we can do first to push back is to not be silenced and not allow fear to drive our reaction. And that was what I did in that moment. And also a little bit of humor, a little bit of truth. So when for the current president, tweeted about a lie about me and said, the rogue Secretary of state sent out 7.7 million ballots, I said, hi, I'm right here. My name's Jocelyn Benson, and I didn't do that. And in fact, the same thing I did, Republican secretaries of state in West Virginia, in Iowa, in Georgia, Ohio, they did the same thing. So maybe don't call me out on it. And of course, he just doubled down and then threatened to withhold federal funding if I didn't comply with whatever his demands were. And I said, sir, this is a Wendy's. I don't work for you. I work for the people. My job is to make sure they can vote. And so it was. Again, it's surreal for me, as a lowly election administrator, to have to go toe to toe on social media with the President of the United States of America. But at the same time, it doesn't matter. What's right is right. And all I ever want to be in my life is someone who would have stood at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March of 1965 and marched forward into a sea of Alabama state troopers in furtherance of the promise of one person, one vote for all. That's it. And moments like that, and moments exist all throughout our lives, we can decide who we're going to be. And that was that moment for me. And it was more important for me to be me than for me to be afraid and cower and not do anything. And that's what I did. And, and that frankly meant every other time that he or Elon Musk stood up or, you know, tried to, and there were other times where he would try to threaten me. And there will be times when I'm governor and he's still the president and he'll try to muscle his way into affecting our economic policies or hurting our residents. But I've already built that muscle to stand up. And so I'm ready and I know how to do it effectively and all the rest so that it's impactful as well and furthering our North Star, which is protecting people's rights and freedoms and keeping people safe.

Up next on Remarkable people.

And those are the most trusted voices, your friends, your family, that's who actually people listen to more than commercials, more than digital advertising. It's those conversations that make the difference. So it's been really great to hear people and show up in communities around the state and doing that. This is my fourth statewide campaign. That's one of the ways I've been able to consistently outbreak perform the ticket every time I've been on it, by showing up everywhere in every corner of the state and building a true people driven campaign.

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Become a little more remarkable with each episode of Remarkable People. It's found on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows or.

Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.

I have to admit, Jocelyn, that when I hear you talking like this, I say to myself, for Jocelyn Fors, Kara Swisher, for Heather Cox Richardson. In the back of your mind, do you have like no fear that one night the FBI is going to be knocked knocking on your door or DHS is going to come to your house and arrest you and deport you or something? I mean, like you're in a high stakes game at this point, and yet Kara Swisher just lets it rip, and Heather Cox Richardson lets it rip, and you let it rip. Walk me through that. Like, what goes through your brain there?

Because, man, yeah, it's not that. It's not scary, right? It's not that it's not unnerving or surreal. It's about what choice do we have? What do we choose to do in the face of all that. And every person I admire throughout history chose in moments like that, to stand up and to defend who we are in furtherance of the truth in the law and the American experiment that I have vowed and took an oath to protect and defend. There was a speech that Martin Luther King gave on the eve of the Montgomery bus boycott where he says, if we are wrong, then the Constitution is wrong. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. And I think of that speech a lot because at the end of the day, our job as citizens, as warriors, is to stand in furtherance of the truth and the law, regardless of who tries to leverage their power to silence us. And so, again, it's not easy, but it's an honor also to be able to do this work in this moment and to find ways to become even more courageous. Every time you take that step away from fear and towards courage, it just emboldens you and others around you as well to do the same. And that's how I actually conclude the book is, you know, what if we all did that? Power of the people will always be greater than the people in power. When we choose to leverage that power, if they silence us, they win. If we flex our muscles collectively and all become purposeful warriors, there is nothing that can stand in our way. And that is the hope that drives me forward. You know, part of the story that we've seen and is that we are still evolving here in Michigan.

I'm struggling here in real time to come up with a name of a man who's taken such a brave stand.

John Lewis.

Okay, yeah, well, that was way back when.

But, like, they exist. Yeah, I know, I know. And we're all trying. But I do think women, because we as moms and as people who have witnessed or experienced injustice, men and women, I think, have a unique understanding of what not standing up to injustice means, not just for us, but for everyone in our lives. But that's why I do the work I do, because we always have a chance, every day, every single one of us, to take a stand and that's the work that. That is what has always actually made America great. Right. When average, everyday citizens, men and women, have stood up and say, that's not who we are, and marched in furtherance of our ideals and our values, that's what has actually saved democracy time and time again.

I have to tell you a little side story. So we had a guy named Steve Gordon on this show, and Steve Gordon is in charge of the California dmv. And obviously he works for Gavin Newsom. And as I think about it, Gavin Newsom definitely has shown some, shall I say, courage recently. But one of the stories that Steve told us is that when he first came and became the head of the California dmv, he came from private industry. One of the first things he did is he visited every California DMV office. And you did that too, right?

In DMV my first 100 days, I visited every single office. I just like to get eyes on the problem. And then you can't solve what you can't measure. So getting a sense of the data that we needed to collect from these carpets need to be replaced. To this office is understaffed to this computer program's not working. Sometimes the only way we can really get an understanding of the nuts and bolts of the operation we need to reform is to get eyes on every aspect.

Yeah. I would say that if you really think about it, if you ask most people, what do you think of state government, a lot of them would form their opinion based on the dmv, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And what we have been able to show is that if you ask someone in Michigan in is state government working for you? They can point to our office and say, yes, it is. They can point to a lot of other offices and say no. And I hear those stories and I want to address those stories as governor. But I'm really proud that in our moment that people can point to our office and say yes, it does make my life easier. It does work.

I happen to love the California dmv. And I gotta say, there's a logic that says if you can fix the dmv, you can probably fix anything.

Right? Yeah.

All right, so now I want to know in today, 2025, how do you run a campaign to be governor? Is it all social media? Is it all big data? Is it all AI? Are you, like knocking on every door in Michigan? How do you run a campaign in 2025?

There's plenty of data that shows nothing will ever replace the ability for just one on one conversations. Whether it's with me and a voter or supporters of mine and a voter. But showing up to actually see people's struggles and build a plan with them to do something about it, that has always been the essence of governing. There are other elements to it. Social media presence, certainly talking with local news, which is still where a lot of people get their information about voting and elections, is also critical. Showing up in gathering places, union halls, churches and synagogues, and talking to people about what's at stake in your message. But nothing can ever replace just those one on one conversations with people who then tell their family, families and others around them. This is who I saw. And those are the most trusted voices, your friends, your family. That's who actually people listen to. More than commercials, more than digital advertising. It's those conversations that make the difference. And so I just completed a tour across the state, a Thrive in Michigan tour. And it was remarkable to see all of the people who would come out and have conversations, small business owners who'd give me tours of the breweries that they built and a number of other things they created. So it's been really great to, to hear people and show up in communities around the state and doing that. This is my fourth statewide campaign. That's one of the ways I've been able to consistently outperform the ticket every time I've been on it. By showing up everywhere in every corner of the state and building a true people driven campaign.

So in this concept, I am confused about the role that money plays. I mean, you could say that Elon Musk bought the presidency. You could also say he spent 20 million million in Wisconsin and didn't even get a Supreme Court justice. So where, where is, I mean, I don't, doesn't cost 250 million to have a tour of Michigan, meeting everybody so.

Right.

And I gotta tell you Jocelyn, about 20 times a day I get a text message because I used Act Blue if I hate Act Blue. But anyway, so tell us about the, the role of money in this.

I think on one hand, resources, funds help establish your strength as a candidate to be able to run the race that can win. It enables you not just to hire organizers around the state and build a statewide infrastructure to reach every voter, but also to invest in creative ways to reach people in every platform as well as on television, radio and all the places. And it enables you to show up everywhere people are getting information and that's really powerful. What it also does, however, is illustrate, you know, whose voices are important, people's heads. For me, I'm Proud that in raising $3.5 million so far in my race for governor, 27,000 donations have come from people. The average donation is under $100. 95% of our donations are $100 or less. No corporate PAC money. People driven resources versus my opponents, who are the opposite. Right. Like more corporate packs than anything else. What that also tells us is that, yeah, they're building the resources to. To, but they're building it through being beholden to corporations at a time when we need leaders to be able to stand up to corruption and corporate interest. So money can also tell you not just who's strong, but who's actually feeding the campaign and the candidate who's influencing that leader. And gives you a sense also of who they're going to actually stand up for and fight for when they're in office.

And is three and a half million dollars enough to run for the governorship?

No, it's the first step. It's like in the bucket. It's going to be like 10 times that amount ultimately.

So you need about $35 million to run for governor?

Yep. More or less. Probably more. Because. Because of the cost of getting on tv, of reaching voters, of cutting through a noisy environment, because we have a Senate race, we have a congressional races, so there's going to be a lot of noise. And so you also want to invest in ways to break through that noise and help people understand. Understand what's at stake and what you're going to do about it.

Okay, when I get the text message that says, this is Jocelyn Benson and I am running for governor and I stand for all this, I promise you I'll donate to you, but, like, I'm.

Going to send you a text now.

But how does it work? Is ActBlue reaching out to your campaign manager saying, all right, we can send 5 million text messages to these people who donated to Kamala Harris. How does it work for you?

Yeah, ActBlue is just like a. The entity. It's like a credit card processor. That's all it is. It's just like where people can go and give money and then it goes directly to the campaigns. There are other ways where you build email lists, like, for anything. Businesses do this all the time. Right. So when you give through ActBlue, your email or your phone number goes into the campaigns list that they own, and then they, as a campaign, send the information out. Yeah, you can always unsubscribe.

I spend half an hour a day on the unsubscribe.

We have some people who only Give through checks as well. And there's lots of different ways you can be supportive. But I hear you the noise of, of all of that. That outreach really also reflects how challenging is for a lot of candidates to raise the funds they need and how important it is that people, not corporations, are giving to those campaigns.

This is, this is turning into Government for Dummies by Guy Kawasaki. So I can get all these things understood. So this question is, can you explain to us how the National Guard works? Because it seems to me that the adjutant general or whoever runs the Michigan National Guard reports to the governor. But then if the president calls and says do this, they have to listen to the president. So exactly how does that work? Like what happens if the president and the governor are saying opposite things? Like, I would hate to be that person. But how does this work for a governor?

It's tricky because typically in the vast majority of scenarios, a governor is working with a president to ensure that the people in that state are protected and that the rule of law is followed. But you see in this situation, the misuse of that authority at the federal level. And my husband has served in the army. And so I know also what it's like to get those calls of deployment and how it affects an entire family, affects an entire life. I think that the issue of who can call and when is still evolving. But for me, my initial thought when I heard that was just to the people who are going to. They have to leave their homes, go somewhere else. It's of course what you sign up to do when you're an active duty service member. But there are real implications to that, to those types of calls to. To calls that. And abuses of authority that impact people's lives in a significant way.

Okay, this is my last law enforcement question. So now it seems to me that a police force in a state, they are to protect the citizens of the state.

Yeah.

So now these guys who have bought their tactical swap bot looking stuff and all their equipment from Amazon, you know, they have a T shirt that says ICE or whatever, security or whatever. Now they are pulling Michigan residents or Michigan citizens off the street. Is the police supposed to work with them or protect the Michigan citizen? Like, what's the priority here? Do you listen to ICE or do you listen to. To the governor says don't let these illegal arrests happen?

Yeah. A lot of that line and that responsibility, that duty, to me it's. Is what's being worked out in real time right now. But a lot of time it's just we've got to Keep people safe. We've got to keep our law abiding residents safe. And we've got to quell people's fears and follow the law, follow the Constitution. The principles of due process and protections against unwarranted searches and seizures, those are in there for a reason. And I think no matter the person who occupies a particular office in a moment, adhering to the Constitution has got to be a red line and a requirement of everyone in service. That's where I start. And I think that's why you've seen cases brought before courts to enforce the Constitution. It's up to our courts also to uphold the law and adhere by the law. And in many ways, we are seeing play out in real time what happens when you do have people in authority who are unwilling to listen to the law, to the courts, to what the Constitution says. And we've seen this before in 2020 when people were unwilling to adhere to the voting rights of the people of the states that they were trying to challenge. And so this is a moment where I think all leaders need to just stand by the rule of law, stand by our Constitution, and demand law enforcement do the same.

So my last question for you is, what's your prediction for the effect of this big, beautiful bill gonna have on Michigan?

Yeah, it's devastating. It is devastating communities in our state. It's harming our farmers who don't know what's going to happen to their inventory. It's harming our citizens, our small business owners who don't know how they're going to get their inventory. It's been a disaster. I mean, it's going to strip health care from 500,000 Michiganders. It's raising costs at a time we need to be reducing them. It's gutting programs that families rely on, Pell Grant funding for students trying to afford college, eliminated hospitals in rural communities where they're often the largest employers in those communities. Those will close funding that public schools rely on when they're already struggling to meet the needs of their students and educators. That funding is going to be cut. It's going to drive up energy bills, grocery bills, bills. And at the same time, all this is happening just to hand tax breaks to our wealthiest in our economy. It's going to contribute to growing income inequality in our state and elsewhere. And the irony is, the infuriating thing for me is that in Michigan, Michiganders voted for Trump in 2024 because he told them they would lower costs, he would make their life easier. But what they're getting actually through this bill is higher costs, fewer services, less support, and broken promises. You know, this is a moment where governors can uniquely stand up to Trump, as I've done, and I'm going to keep doing it. But we also need to call on our federal lawmakers as well to continue to push for ways to address a lot of these cuts that are going to harm Republican, independent and Democratic voters alike as they strive to ensure that they can simply just afford to pay their energy bills and pay their groceries, put their kids through school, buy a home, or take care of the elders and their family. So all of that is at stake. And, and it's really been devastating, and it's going to continue to be devastating here in Michigan and throughout the Midwest.

I just want to thank you for being, well, being on the podcast, but also for being a purposeful warrior and Madison. And I wish you great success in your race for the governorship. And I can't wait for action to send me the text asking me to donate money to your campaign. And thank you very much. Thank you. And everybody. Check out the book.

Yes, check out the book. It's called A Purposeful Warrior, available at your local bookstore, anywhere books are sold. And please go to jocelynbenson.com if you'd like to learn more about me, my race for governor, and what's at stake in Michigan and our nation in this critical moment.

This is remarkable. People.