Ian Silverii: political strategist, Jewish dad, and Senator spouse. Ian is a wisecracking fast-talking political genius who has led the progressive fight in Colorado for 15 years. Ian speaks with clarity, passion, and always humor. In this episode, Ian and Amanda talk about his work to bring the seismic shifts that he made in the political landscape and Colorado to the rest of the country. Ian shares about his own family escape from Nazi Germany- and how the gravity of those stories drive his work.
Check out Ian's podcast "The Get More Smarter Podcast" on all streaming platforms!
people, colorado, progressives, country, political, state, important, world, religion, christian, listening, values, abortion, freedom, marry, kid, started, conservative, grew, ideas
Amanda Henderson
0:03
Welcome to complexified where we dive into the places where religion and politics collide with Real Life. I'm your host Amanda Henderson. In today's episode political strategist, Jewish dad and Senator spouse, Ian Silverii. Ian is a wisecracking fast talking political genius who has led the progressive fight in Colorado for 15 years. Ian speaks with clarity, passion, and always humor. Even his political foes will tell you that while his words are sharp, he's a softy at heart. I invited Ian on to talk about how we can confront the rise in Christian nationalism, because he's one of the smartest and most savvy people I know. And because he is behind the scenes, guiding political strategy and communication to bring the seismic shifts that he made in the political landscape and Colorado to the rest of the country. His family story is one that reminds us, this is the fight that we were made for.
Amanda Henderson
1:26
Also, you may have noticed that this is our first explicit episode. And before I even started talking, he even started talking, while Ian has been in Colorado for 15 years, his East Coast roots taught him that the F word is the most flexible word in the English language. So you know, we're gonna have fun, welcome Ian, I couldn't be happier to have you on.
Ian Silverii
1:53
Well, thank you so much. That is literally the most flattering several sentences any human being has ever said about me. So I'm just gonna clip this part and send it to my mother. And she'll be incredibly proud. Thank you so much. I was actually going to try really hard to keep the swearing down. I can do it because I was on TV for so long. But since you've now raised the bar, I will have to at least drop a few.
Amanda Henderson
2:15
Yeah, I you know, you just we want you to bring your whole self because I'm so grateful for who you are. And we don't want to, you know, tie one hand behind your back with your verbal skills here. So
Ian Silverii
2:29
I'll do my best.
Amanda Henderson
2:30
Yeah, we are in another wild political moment. Honestly, it seems that that's all we've known, especially since you and I have known each other. As I mentioned, you've been leading the progressive political fight in Colorado for 15 years, six of those as the executive director of progress now, Colorado during the Trump years. And so now you are leading your own political firm. What are you working on these days?
Ian Silverii
2:59
So I I really appreciate all that credit. The first thing I'll say is that I'm not leading the progressive movement I never did, I was fortunate enough to have a small niche in communications for six years. To your point, I worked at the state capitol Before that I worked for the state Democratic Party before that, and I've been very blessed and privileged to be part of many big fights. No one should ever follow me. My sense of direction is terrible. But I'm also not like the leader. I'm a good I'm a good middle guy. What are we working on now? My partner, Manny and I, we started a company called the Big Horn company, little bit over almost two years ago. And we're working on projects all over the country, helping progressives learn how to communicate with diverse constituencies helping people in states that folks write off and say, Oh, that's a red state, or we can't win there. And my point is, they said that about Colorado 30 years ago, too. And if you don't start now, then in 10 years, you'll look back and say, Gosh, I really wish we started something a decade ago. So there's no reason not to. So we're working with folks all over the country. That's really exciting.
Amanda Henderson
4:01
We are doing a three part series on Christian nationalism specifically, what are you doing in your work that is coming into contact with this rise in Christian nationalism?
Ian Silverii
4:14
Yeah, it's such a good question. And thank you and it's a hard one to because I think faith is so important. I mean, my personal faith is so important to me. I have plenty of friends who are all over the spectrum when it comes to religious practice, whether that's an actual sort of, you know, traditional religion, if you will, like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Or it's something else entirely if it's spirituality, I have a friend a very good friend named Moses who runs a spiritualist temple up in Longmont, who I talked to all the time about this stuff. And it's very clarifying and interesting and just makes you think of the world in different ways. So to your question, like, I think that there is a a pretty scary sort of militant movement among the far right in this country who wants very badly to Make the country in some kind of image that it was like literally never intended to be right. They wrote it into the First Amendment of the Constitution. There's a lot of documentation through the constitutional conventions about what role religion should play in civic life and government in the United States of America. And it is explicitly separated, right? Like everybody knows the phrase separation of church and state. If you're a dork about it, you know that there's this thing called the establishment clause in the first amendment that says, Congress shall make no religion, essentially, there is not going to be an official religion of the United States of America and freedom to practice, or freedom from having someone else's religious values imposed upon you is a core value of this country. And it's one of the things that I think makes this country so great. There's a lot of talk on the left about what America is and what it's supposed to be and what it was designed for. And what it actually is. I think those are interesting and important conversations. But I think that's one of the central promises is that this is a place where you can practice whatever you want are nothing at all, and no one will prosecute you for it, especially. But they certainly shouldn't be imposing anything else on you. When it comes to Christian nationalism. The thing that's tough is that, while I'm respectful and sympathetic of people who have deeply held religious views, and that they think the world should be a certain way, this is not a country that was designed to or in my very strong opinion, should be beholden to one specific doctrine, right. I mean, Christian nationalism says it right in the title. And the question, I think, for, you know, philosophers and political scientists and voters, is, among other things, in a Christian nationalist country, what happens to the rest of us, right, like, Is there room for a Jewish kid? And in a Christian nationalist country? Is there room for an atheist or an agnostic? Is there room for anybody else? Is there room for like denominations of Christianity that maybe aren't like prevalent in the current conservative movement? Like what happens to Catholics, like the KKK was very anti Catholic to people kind of forget this. So I do think that there, there are a lot of like, pretty scary questions that come up. But I think ultimately, you know, you're seeing the project of, of right wing Christian nationalism succeed in certain parts of this country, and especially on the Supreme Court, in ways that it sort of, it's almost like the dog that caught the car, right? Like it's, it's almost unexpected that it has become so successful in certain ways. And in states, like, you know, Ohio, and Indiana and Texas, where you have these, for instance, draconian abortion bans that lead to I mean, like the one in Texas has like a bounty hunter component, where if you turn in your neighbor for going to get health care, you get a cash reward, like I can't think of anything else Christian, I really can't like, like, to be rewarded for dropping a dime on your neighbor for going to see the doctor seems not totally inside of the constraints of the faith, from what I know. And I guess I should tell your listeners I was a dual religion and philosophy major at Rutgers, I don't have advanced degrees. But I study this stuff, because I care about it. And I think it's a really important way of getting a look under the hood as to what makes human beings tick and think and how and why you and I are so close and why I think this show is so important.
Amanda Henderson
8:04
So back to that. What is it? I mean, obviously, these are things that you've been interested in for a long time. What drew you to go into politics and political strategy and communications work specifically?
Ian Silverii
8:17
So it's like, now that I'm here looking backwards, it's almost like I'm not sure I had a choice. Like there were just there was a lot that contributed, like, my mother tells stories about like putting me in the like carriage and walking me down the like street in Princeton or something. And someone comes up to her and says that young man is going to be the mayor here one day, like there's all of those sort of like wacky stupid mythologies about me being like a mouthy young person. But there's two major actual real reasons that I can kind of trace it to besides like sheer dumb luck and showing up to Colorado at the right time. The first is that my grandparents on my mom's side, both of her parents are Holocaust survivors. So they were they grew up in Lodz Poland. And when they were very young, the ghetto walls went up. And then they were both kidnapped and sent to Bergen Belsen where they were forced to work until many of their siblings dropped dead, or were removed from their, you know, general space and they lost track of them never saw him again. And then they were both sent to Auschwitz when the war was heading toward an end. And fortunately, they survived all the way through and they were liberated, got married in Sweden, moved to Brooklyn, my grandpa started a butcher shop. And here I am, and with a fondness for, you know, all sorts of barbecue and meat, and I make my own pastrami and stuff as like a weird homage to Baroque Rubin or my, my late grandfather. And he was a huge Democrat. He he was like the biggest fan of John Kennedy. He was apparently like some kind of like precinct organizer in Brooklyn. During that presidential race, the details they're a little fuzzy in the family lore, but I know he cared a lot about that he had like, Chrysler stock like certificates. Like because he just believed so much and like the promise of America and like like these American companies and what they could do for individuals and, and families, and you know, gave my mom a really great middle class life, and she met my dad and they got married. And I grew up, I was born in Brooklyn, and then grew up in Jersey. And then I tell you this part of the story, because when I was 13, living in central New Jersey, I was not like what you would refer to as like a generally athletic person, I am like, five, eight. And that's takes you off the board for like, half the sports, and then I'm not very fast. So there's the other ones. But my friends and I were really into like skating and I wasn't like cool enough to be a skateboarder. So I was like a little rollerblader guy, and not ashamed to admit that. Hey, me, too. Me too. It's a lot of fun. But back, back in the day, there was like, like, Aggressive inline skating was kind of the thing. So it's like, you're gonna like grind down a rail or jump off a thing or like do a trick or whatever, without like flipping a board around. So you know, it was easier. Which is why I think I liked it. And we had this little park around the corner of our house, my friends and I used to go to all the time and we would just get like harassed by the local cops or like park rangers, like what are you doing? Stop vandalizing that we know you guys were drinking in the woods or what? I was like, absolutely straight edge until I turned 21. So like, that was not really an incredible accusation. But like,
Ian Silverii
11:18
I was like, Well, why? You know, there's basketball court over here. There's a lacrosse field over here. There's a squash court. There's like a fancy squash court and we had like a, I grew up in like a relatively wealthy town, my parents I think intelligently moved to like the poorest part of the richest town that we could afford to live in, in New Jersey when we left Brooklyn so I can get like a great public education. And that's what happened. But I figured out that my next door neighbor was the city council woman in town, her name is Meryl Acero. She's still around. And her kid actually lives in that house now. And he is the secretary of labor or the great state of New Jersey, Rob Angelo. So funny, weird coincidence, she ended up being a state representative of years after this story. But when I was little kid, my friend Anthony and I figured out who she was once or her and said, Hey, look, you've got all this other amenities for all these other kids, you got swimming pools, and whatnot, for people who want to exercise, this is what we do. This is our sport. This is our activities, our record, this is the thing that's keeping us out of trouble. But it's currently getting us into trouble because your people don't want us to do it. So this town is several miles away that we couldn't drive to because we're 13 has their own skate park, could we build one here? And she's like, Hey, you know, that might work. We have a city council meeting where we're talking about the budget, and a couple months from now it's on this day, be here this time, bring your ideas, and let's talk about it. And I was like, wow, that shouldn't have worked. I should have been told no. And I would have gone away. And that would have been that. But instead, my friend and I went to the leader. Well, Anthony Cinzano, maybe he's listening. And I went down to the library and like, pulled out, like the internet was not quite like what it is today, certainly, but not really there. But we were able to I think like somehow order like PDFs or whatever the equivalent was back then of like skatepark plans from this company called Woodward, which I think has a facility in Colorado now. And they and they gave us like vert ramp plans and like rail yard stuff. And like all these things that we kind of, like brought it to the city council chambers. And I had known enough, I don't know how I figure this out. But like the star Ledger was the newspaper of like Central Jersey back then. And I figured out that you could just like call them and tell them, like, you know, hey, pitch a story, essentially. So I like found a reporter I pitched them a story. I said, my friend, and I want a skate park built in our town, we're gonna go to city council and ask for it. Maybe you think this is interesting? And they said, Yeah, so they showed up. And we made our little presentation and and they have their little, you know, debate or whatever. And the thing got built, they built a skatepark for us. And you know, they did it kind of far afield from where I grew up. And it was, quite frankly, the construction finished after I had already lost interest in the inline skating part of my life. But the lessons stuck with me, which is like if you go to the right rooms with the right people say the right things and like maybe bring a reporter or two, world can change and it can change in a good direction. And that's a dangerous lesson for a Mouthy little kid from Central Jersey, whose mother told him he was the smartest guy in the room all time.
Amanda Henderson
14:14
What a great story, though, of like, the way democracy can work supposed to work this way. It's supposed to work that way. It's working. This is how it works. Right? Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's one of the things that's so scary right now is that our democracy is not functioning the way it did back then. But there's also something that you're saying that if you care about something, and it's important to you that there are processes to be able to bring that to the community to bring that to our collective spaces through the political process. And so, there's this element of, I think one of the complex things about Christian nationalism is that most people understand the idea of going to the public space with the idea that this is how I want the world to look and to feel. And that comes out of our values. So what is the difference between someone who lobbies and engages in politics rooted in their values and what they want for their community, whether it's a skate park, or public housing, compared to the ideas of Christian nationalism, that are moving into the public political sphere and wanting to bring Christian norms, ideas, rules?
Ian Silverii
15:49
That's like the best question I've ever heard in my entire life. And I'm not sure my answer is going to be as good as the question was, but I'll do my best. A couple of things. One, I want to start by saying that like my little story of accessing my neighbor, who happened to be a city council woman, and like, built us to skate park is one of like, extreme privilege. And I like recognize that not everybody would have that knowledge or understanding or ability or inclination, or even trust in a system that was designed not to help them but probably to oppress them. So like, such an important, let's not forget that I was like privileged and lucky and all these things that led me to these beliefs as well. And to your point, I think those systems have gotten less accessible, not more accessible. And I actually think it's part of the reason why you see this rise in movements like Christian nationalism, where it's like, okay, well, the things I was told about the way the world works aren't true, right? And coming from a perspective of, you know, maybe you were taught that it's a free and fair country. And then at some point, you experience unfairness or unfreedom and you go, Wait a second, if that wasn't true, maybe some of the other stuff I was told isn't true, either. So I'm very sympathetic to people who look at government skeptically, or maybe think it should be smaller or different or less involved in people's lives. I think that's, that's fine. To your question. I think it's, it's a, it's a question of freedom from and freedom to. So like, So freedom is a core American value. It's a core Colorado value. It's something I think about and care about a lot. And I think that certain folks want to have it both ways where they want to be free from having to deal with people that make them uncomfortable, or ideas that are outside of their belief system, or values that don't match theirs. But they want the freedom to design the world in front of them to be the way that they think, to be right. So I think that that's dangerous. And I think that that's dangerous, because that clearly in my opinion, leads to oppression when you have your belief system that is that you're convinced is the right one. And abortion is like a perfect issue to talk about here because it is it gets morally hazardous, whether we want to admit it or not. It is not an easy issue. It is a difficult conversation to have. And I think if progressives would at least start by admitting that before we engage in debate would be a lot better off.
Amanda Henderson
18:12
Right? So true. Yes.
Ian Silverii
18:15
So like, so I want the freedom to choose when and how my family is designed and formed and how many members of it we have. And I don't think the government should be involved in that. And God forbid, you know, Britney, or is pregnant, and we want to have a kid and there's some kind of complication with the pregnancy. This is a healthcare decision that needs to be made by healthcare providers and patients and not by politicians and governments. And what's crazy to me is that that message is a very conservative framework, or at least it should be right you're having freedom from the government imposing rules on you and your family that is kind of a core conservative doctrine. And yet, when it comes to this issue specifically, it doesn't, it doesn't hold for some reason. And I understand that, like, perhaps there's a religious doctrine or a set of fundamental beliefs that make that lead people to the conclusion that, you know, from the moment of conception, there is something ethereal and important, and that needs protection and, and deserves it from the law. I'm very sympathetic to that. What I don't get is when you design public policy around that theory, you have to make a couple of hard decisions. The first one is who gets charged with a crime? What crime do they get charged with? And what's the punishment for committing that crime? Once you get from, I think there are morally hazardous questions about abortion to let's design a policy that punishes people for committing it or being a part of it. That's where you get into really dangerous territory really, really fast. So it's a long answer to your question, but But ultimately, I think that it is a question about freedom and it's a question about who has the freedom to impose as their values on the world, and who should be free from having other people's values imposed on them.
Amanda Henderson
20:05
And I think one of the things that's particularly challenging about the Christian nationalist value set is two things. One, this core belief that it's God ordained, which then moves it out of like the world of checks and balances, because you guys, you can debate it. Yeah, you can't have a debate with that this is what God said, This is my you know, that you move out of the realm of relational navigation when you say this is God ordained. And then the other part is that it's exclusive, that this is the group and if you're not a part of this, then you are on the outside and often less than human or less than deserving of full rights and, and so it's like this is a whole different value set than our than what we normally think about with pluralism and being able to live together when we have different ideas, or you like to rollerblade somebody else likes to roller skate, somebody else likes to play basketball, like we can learn how to live together. But it is more difficult. If someone says you all have to rollerblade whether you want to or not. That's a great way to hold us.
Ian Silverii
21:19
There's an old sort of libertarian saying that I think about a lot, which is like your freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose, which is like you can go and should be able to do whatever you want in your space with your body, as long as it doesn't hurt or harm or affect anybody else. But we live in a society that is deeply interconnected. Now more than ever with in the way information technology works especially. And to think that you can swing your fist in an empty room without it hitting someone in the face is actually unlikely now, right? Like, yeah, there, there are very few. Yeah, there are very few disconnected groups of people and like, that leads people to like weird Dominionist ideologies, where it's like, okay, or like separatist ideologies. Like we'll go start our little club over here. And to your point about exclusivity, you're not invited. But so first of all, you can't win an argument. I'm a I feel like I'm a pretty persuasive speaker. I study philosophy. I like arguing with people, I tend to win unless the wife in which case I tend to lose, mostly because she's smarter than me, not because of any kind of like, weird honeymooners, shit, but like, Yeah, I'm good, but not that good. Brittany is better than me. But I can't win an argument with somebody who says God told me so there's just no way to do it. And like, it's not I'm not complaining about it. I'm just saying, if we're gonna have a public policy debate, we have to agree on terms. And if we can, and if one of the terms is that a supernatural being that I believe in, that my opponent doesn't, will automatically make me right. There's no point in continuing the debate of the conversation, because I'm not going to win that I can't. Right. Yeah. And it's not just about winning for the sake of winning, although like, I'm just kind of a competitive person by nature. It's about trying to get to the truth. Right. What is the truth? What is the right policy around abortion? What is the right policy around marriage? Right, who should be in charge of deciding what this is? And what this is? And who gets benefits? And who gets and who doesn't? And what are you trying to accomplish with your policy? Right? Like, it's very clear that like, we should probably keep murder illegal. I have a hard time finding people who would disagree. I'm sure there are some because contrarian is its own religion these days. But I feel like as a society, it would continue to be a good idea if we kept it a crime to kill another person. Is it a deterrent? Maybe, maybe not. Is it just retributivist? Is it just about punishment? Maybe maybe not. But I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people if you asked, Should murder continued to be illegal or continue to be illegal? I would say yes. Okay. We can start there. Now you getting a weird philosophical conversations about personhood, right, essentially, so So when and the other thing, on the first point you made about hard to win arguments or impossible to win arguments with where things are God ordained is, is then you, you get into like, really serious consequentialism really fast, where it's like, okay, let's say like, abortion wasn't illegal. And then it becomes illegal in a state and it's a crime that's punishable in the same way, a felony the same way as murder would be right. What if you admit you had an abortion? Are you admitting to a previous crime that you can now be prosecuted for? Because if because if they you know, if I have a pile of bodies buried in my backyard, and the cops dig it up, and they're 20 years old, and I got a statute of limitations is over, sorry, like, I don't get charged, like I'm still charged with murder, and he should be. I don't understand how that sort of thing works. So it's just the policy implications of attempting to impose religious values on a society I think are so slippery, those voices are important, and we should be listening to people with religious views and values when you are crafting public policy to make sure We're being inclusive and not being exclusionary and maybe thinking about things in ways that secularists wouldn't have thought about otherwise. But I just can't get behind having a society in which one religion that especially not everybody in the country or state or whatever is a part of gets to determine morality, legality, Crime and Punishment and these sticky questions.
Amanda Henderson
25:21
Yeah. Okay, so these questions are very real right now. And
Ian Silverii
25:29
yeah, no, we are not in like debate club
Amanda Henderson
25:31
No, we are not in debate club. So I want to know, how does all of this make you feel personally, Ian Silverii, as a Jewish person? As a political spouse, your wife, Brittany is a state senator in Colorado, she is currently running for House seat nationally. And as a father of, you know, one of the cutest children on Facebook and social media. How does this make you feel?
Ian Silverii
26:02
It's hard. It's hard. It's hard to hear someone like Lauren Gilbert, who I affectionately refer to as the my seven favorite congressperson from Colorado, we only have seven of them, that's the joke. Gets up on stage and says, there's no separation of church and state, the church is supposed to direct the government, the government's not supposed to direct the church. And then like misinterprets, the Federalist Papers. And like I, that, to me is like a pretty flashing red light, or like my grandparents, from a young age taught me like, hey, look out for stuff like this. Because if you see it, it might be time to stand up, or it might be time to get out of there. And they didn't have the access to information to know what the hell was happening to them. When the walls went up in Poland, you know, before they were carted off to a concentration camp. So like, I take that very seriously. And they always framed it as like, it's not an if it's a when kind of thing. Like, this always happens, go back to history, like Jewish people are always scapegoated. There's always an outgroup getting scapegoated everywhere. First of all, in America, it's black people, it's indigenous people, it's brown people, it's queer people, it's everybody who's not a cis Christian, white person, in many cases. And, and that's hard to kind of think about, but also like, we've chosen to raise Davis Jewish, and he doesn't know it yet, because he's two and a half. But he'll figure it out. And for me, it's like, you know, his mom's not Jewish. So like, we're not like, you know, accepted into the orthodoxy per se, because Judaism is a matrilineal religion. So the mom has to be Jewish, but he had a brtz and he'll have a bar mitzvah as long as he by the time he's thirteen, if he still wants one. And, and we intend on raising him Jewish emphasis on the issue, right? Because it's a cultural thing for us. It's a pride thing for us. It's like, hey, we they tried to get rid of us. And not only did it not work, but like, look at this like Multigen-, like several generations later, we're thriving, right? And that that's important to me. But when I think about like living in a country that's trying to impose a specific religious doctrine, one that I don't belong to, even if it were one that I did belong to, I would find that pretty tough to deal with, and especially this country promised very foundationally, that we would be a place where you can come and practice whatever you wanted, or nothing at all, for that to just be warped, distorted, discarded, ignored, in order to do something like obviously counter to what these the Founding Fathers who get so much credit, many of whom are just not great, guys. Lots of checkered pasts there. I think we're in really dangerous territory. I I think it's weird that plenty of like Christian nationalists in this country judge very harshly, like other countries that are sort of dominated by one religion or another, specifically on their side of the world, and then turn around and don't see that they're doing an analogous thing here. And that's actually subject to the same moral hazards as what they're accusing other people of doing. And it's to your point, it's because they think they're right. And it's it's not just like hard to argue, because like, I win with my spirituality, trump card, but also, because if you're really on a mission from God, like if you really believe that, like God is telling you to go and make the country this way, that's another level of force. I'm not sure I can reckon with, right, like, I don't have any greater purpose than trying to make the world a better place for everybody, including my family, right? That's good enough. I don't have a crusade or a higher calling, or anything ethereal, putting gas in the engine. And I'm not sure how to compete with somebody who believes that they're on a holy mission from God to make the world a certain way. I'm not sure how to how to have that argument. Yeah,
Amanda Henderson
29:51
it's a strong motivator. Must be Yeah. So do you ever feel afraid in this political climate
Ian Silverii
30:00
No, I did. There was a time when we first had our our son, and he was just a little baby infant. And it was January 2020. And then three months later, like COVID hit. So that was scary for sure. Back in 2012, when Britney was first elected the year after that the state legislature was a democratic trifecta for the first time in a while, and they executed a really progressive agenda, among other things, bills on gun control. We had the Aurora theater shooting here, the previous December, new town had happened while this conversation was going on, it was clear this country has a problem with guns, and something needs to be done about it. Colorado famously closed the gun show loophole after Columbine via a ballot initiative. It didn't even go through the legislature. And a guy Tom Tancredo, who like these days is like considered to be one of most extreme right wingers in the country, while he was in Congress voted for what is now the universal the federal background checks bill as well as then an assault weapons ban. So wow, yes, an unsung fact of state political history. Now a guy like that would get recalled for even breathing the words gun control without the word no in front of it. So, you know, looking at the way, the way things were Brittany, got a lot of weird stuff in the mail. Back then she was on the Judiciary Committee, it was her first year serving. She's a good looking young woman. So you can imagine the sort of argumentative context that a lot of this was unfortunately delivered in being very generous to those words. And, and that was pretty scary. She also was the sponsor of the red flag bill in 2019, after she was already in the State Senate. That's a bill that allows law enforcement to temporarily remove weapons from people who are deemed by a judge, by the way, like, this isn't just like, I'm calling on my neighbor and saying he usually take his guns away, there's like a very hefty legal process has only been used in real circumstances where someone's a danger to themselves or others. And then when that crisis is over, they get their weapons back, like, good policy, in my opinion. Those two debates ended up with us getting some very scary and hateful things delivered to us. So at those points, I was less than not afraid. It wasn't like living in fear. But I was certainly like head on a swivel high alert. Law enforcement has sat outside our house a couple of times here and there when things get real real. And then when I work for progress now, and things got heavy in 2016. And when I wrote a column for the Denver Post, and appeared on Nine News pretty frequently, I get some hateful stuff and email and, and letters. And I talked to the State Patrol about this once and I don't maybe I'm not supposed to talk about this conversation I had, but they essentially said, Yeah, we're not worried about the ones that send you mail. We're worried about the ones that don't make me feel super great. Yeah, like, Oh, this isn't an indication of how bad it's gonna get. But ultimately, like I, I'm optimistic, here's what I'll say. I think like pluralism and diversity and inclusion will win. At the end of this. I think if you look at the timeline, especially if you zoom out and look long enough, more people have more rights protected now than they ever have before in the history of the country. There are backslides happening all over the country, especially with abortion rights, especially the LGBTQ rights, especially if you're trans or non binary, like you are under attack every single day by very powerful people who would rather you not exist. But I think on on the whole, and for those specific communities, things are and will get better. And they will end on a long enough timeline, we win this one, even if it backslides, for a decade or more, depending on the court composition, and what happens politically in this country and around the world. Like I think that, and there are terrible things happening to people of color every single day in this country. Don't get me wrong, we're not in a super great place. But I think if you look at the historical context of everything, things are better now than they have been on average, and they will continue that upward swing. And I do think we're headed for liberation. I mean, I don't know when I don't know how I don't know by what means. But I do think that people will be more free. And that's what gives me hope. And that's what makes me not scared. And that's what kind of keeps me in the fight.
Amanda Henderson
34:19
Yeah, I wonder if one of the reasons that for you personally, you have the skills and the gifts and the track record of being able to actualize some of this both fight and optimism. And you've shown that in Colorado over the years and the ways that you're able to just stick with it and chip away for the political win. What are you doing and round the rise of Christian nationalism and bringing those strategic and communication gifts to this fight?
Ian Silverii
34:55
So for me, it's number one is persistence. Right? Number two is learning Lessons from losses. And number three is like throwing stuff at the wall and being willing to take risks and be clever and be creative and be interesting. And don't be boring. And don't be scared and you'll be safe. That's not always true. There are certain there are certain political situations in which like, you have the advantage, and you should press it. And you don't need to take risks or be goofy, and you can just sail in and win. And that's great and good for you. There are other situations where you're the underdog because of the electorate or because of resource disadvantages, or because of what kind of political environment it is. And in that case, try stuff, experiment, be willing to fail, see what happens and then pick it up and try again next time. Like, you know, marijuana legalization is a really good example here where like they tried to get it the the other thing, incremental ism gets a really bad name, especially on the left, which I think is a shame, because for the very most part we haven't, like had revolutions in this country and the way people have gotten more rights and access to justice is through incremental policy changes. So look at LGBTQ rights in Colorado, we started with Governor Bill Owens signed a defensive Marriage Act on putting bunny air quotes here into the state law when he was governor. Colorado voters passed amendment to in 1992, which is which was thrown out by the United States Supreme Court for being just completely antithetical to the 14th amendment. Equal Protection Clause, it basically said, if you're gay or bi, you can't have access to state services. So gay people couldn't get like food stamps, it was it was just a nightmare of oppression, goodness, yeah. And it like rightfully got tossed out. This is the state we were called the hate state after in the 90s. And we are in that time, I remember, from then until now, where you can where you can just be married no matter what your sexual orientation or gender identity is in Colorado, that's a huge shift. But it didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen by itself. It happened. Because a large group of very smart people raised a ton of money and spent it really intelligently and strategically over a long period of time to change hearts, and minds, and laws. And I think that if you think about the world as changing, I'm just coming up with this right now. And I kind of like it hearts and minds in laws, right? So you have to kind of do it in that order. If you don't do it in the other order, you get
Amanda Henderson
37:25
back that it's a move. They're kind of move together, like hodl. Now in sync.
Ian Silverii
37:30
So in Colorado, I don't have the order, right. But it was like, we started with like boring administrative shit, like designated beneficiaries, like, Okay, you can't be married. But if you die, you can say who all your stuff goes to. And then you like go to hospital visitation? Like if you're sick in the hospital, can your same sex partner come visit? You? Okay, fine. Let's do that. And then what about to parent adoption, there's lots of gay couples out there who want to adopt kids, there's absolutely no evidence that anything goes wrong. If you have same sex parents, or opposite gender parents or single parents are both parents, like those determinants of health have not been proven in one way or another. But once with the conversation about civil unions happened, gay people in Colorado kinda already had all the same rights. So it was just about labeling at that point. And I think that's a really important story to tell. Because if you go for the big thing, first off every time, if you're successful, you'll probably face a ton of backlash. This is the dog that caught the car on the abortion fight, right. And if you lose, then you could set your movement back by quite a bit, right? If you go too early, when the when the electorate isn't ready for to the country or the state or whatever isn't ready for it. So I think it's a combination of being strategic and thoughtful and patient. But on the other end, I totally get where people who are like, I've been patient enough, I need the world to change right now. Like I get those
Amanda Henderson
38:54
key things. Fight for incrementalism when your life is not on when you're a sis
Ian Silverii
38:58
white dude like me. Yeah, absolutely true. But But again, like on a macro level, if you look at the way policy change impacts people's lives, the incremental approach seems to be the most reliable way to do that for the largest number of people on the largest scale. Does that make sense?
Amanda Henderson
39:17
Yeah, yeah. So much of what you've talked about is the strategy. And so what have progressives been doing wrong? From a communications perspective? And what are you telling people to do instead?
Ian Silverii
39:33
It's such an important question. And I And when when we talk about like, what kind of organizations should exist in states that are like in double democratic super minorities are like, how do you crawl out of the hole? The thing I always talked about as communications is messaging is his narrative is how to talk to people and listen to people is equally important actually. Because if you just get out there, start talking to people, especially if you're like, not from there or you're like trying to go somewhere else. Like you're gonna sound off key no matter what, because you just don't have the same sheet of music as them. Right. So I think listening first is really important. And progressives do a lot of talking and not enough listening. So I think start there. But I do think that listening is absolutely critical and essential and like you can listen in lots of ways, right? Polling is listening, focus groups are listening, journaling activities are listening, reading the news is listening, reading blogs, reading people's social media is listening. And I do a lot of that. I read like a fiend. I read fiction, nonfiction, I read news, like a fiend, I probably spend 50% of the time I'm awake, consuming information in some way, shape, or form. If I
Amanda Henderson
40:37
can't hurt you twice as many hours and your days as most normal people just to just to note, somehow, you managed
Ian Silverii
40:43
to me like the prestige. And we just compare notes at the end of every day. I don't know, I don't sleep. Like I don't, I never had to sleep more than like six hours a night. And if I sleep more than that, I ended up more tired. So I generally am like asleep at midnight and up at six or like five and that gives me a jump on the day when people aren't talking to me where I can kind of just absorb for a
Amanda Henderson
41:04
while I'm with you.
Ian Silverii
41:05
I'm the same yeah, getting after a time of day. Oh, it's so fast. No one else is awake. Can you can just be Yeah, highly recommend early riser. Yes. If you can hack it. And like, God, we're so lucky. Our kid likes to sleep until seven. We're so lucky.
Amanda Henderson
41:20
Man sleeps until noon. Now if he has the chance. So yeah,
Ian Silverii
41:23
that sounds great. Dave is gonna sleep as late as he wants. But so starting there, if you're a progressive in a red state, and you're like, how the hell do we even start? Where the hell do we even start like, and like places like Ohio, Florida, North Carolina are really interesting, too, right? Because they were like, competitive and then like went the wrong way. Right. They like went like into a really conservative direction, like North Carolina I think has is very competitive, especially compared to the other two, we'll see. Tim Ryan seems to put in a big fight in Ohio on the on the US Senate race down there, like Val Demings is perhaps the best candidate you could possibly recruit like anywhere, especially in Florida, against Marco Rubio. So like, good luck, I really hope she wins. That's going to be tough, though. Florida has really, really gone into a conservative direction. But I think you start by listening. And I think you start by messaging. And it's like, I think that the vast majority of people in this country, no matter what state you listen to actually do share progressive values actually do want the world to be better. For more people. That might not mean like the government should be spending more money on certain projects or, or policies or programs or whatever, that's a fine conversation to have. But I do think that the country is progressive in general. And I think that if you ask people about the issues, more of them agree with us on abortion on gay marriage, especially on social issues on gun rights and gun control and, and who should have what kind of weapons and under what circumstances like the vast majority of people are, are progressive when it comes to those policy choices. Economically, the country is in in a bit of a different place, right? Like we're very much a ruggedly individualistic capitalist society, for better or for worse. And like, I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that capitalism has lifted the largest number of people out of poverty in the history of the country, but we haven't really tried very many other economic systems. So we can't say for sure, it's the best one. And I think that there's lots of interesting conversations to have there. But messaging is important, because it is a stand in for values. And it is a stand in for, like, are we on the same side or not, and whether that's a horrible function of like a, you know, bypass or a partisan sort of political environment where there's, you know, us and them and in groups and out groups, that's probably part of it. But what we found is like if like in Colorado, for instance, we talk a lot about values, messaging, and the values that we talk about our freedom, fairness, opportunity and responsibility. And I spent years of my life training progressives how to talk like this. So it's kind of second nature. And if your listeners are like, wait a second freedom, fairness, opportunity, responsibility, that sounds like an RNC bumper sticker, they'd be right. And it's because progressives have let conservatives get away with pretending that those are the values that they share when they demonstrate very regularly that it's quite the opposite. On freedom, progressives want you to be able to make your own medical choices go see a doctor about your reproductive health care and get birth control if you want to conservatives don't we want you to be able to marry whoever you want to as long as they're like of the age of consent and old enough to know what they're doing. And you know, we have certain rules around it like you can only marry one person. I think that's probably okay for now. We can have that conversation another time. But we have those rules and that's the freedom value. Conservatives want to tell you who you can and cannot marry when you can and cannot have health care when you can I cannot decide what your family should look like that's not freedom. That's oppression, right responsibility. Like there's this idea of this like John Wayne, bullshit, rugged individualism, that means you're responsible for yourself and you got to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. If you don't have boots. I don't that's what most people mean. I think most people mean responsibility is like accountability. It's like if You
Amanda Henderson
45:00
have responsibility for one another? Yeah, exactly. If you
Ian Silverii
45:03
do something terrible, you should be held accountable for it. And if you do something wonderful, you should be rewarded for it. Right? Like, that's, that's important to opportunity, I think is like this, it's this funny thing, because we've decided as a country, or at least the narrative, I think, says that, like, Opportunity means, like, no interference from any body at all, ever, no matter what. And that's the most opportunity you can have, when like, quite the opposite is true from that assumes that everybody starts on the same line, which they just don't society is designed to privilege and oppress certain groups of people. And it is very demonstrably true that this is the case. So like, you know, if you have if you're like, Oh, I did a lot by myself, I just wanted a hitchhiking trip and ended up in Colorado and turned into a political operative. That was easy. Everybody can do it horseshit, I had so many advantages, including like a wonderful public education system, from preschool to kindergarten all the way through high school. And then I went to records which is a fucking State University in New Jersey. And it's like, it's it's funny, because record, I describe it as the school that gets better the further away from it you are. So like, out in Colorado, people like oh, you must have records, you must be pretty smart. But back home, they're like, Oh, you went to 13th grade. Congratulations. For you. And then fairness, I just think is a good basic issue of like, if you're an oil company, and you like want to frack in somebody's backyard, like, is that fair to that community? I don't think so. But the other guys want fairness to be some kind of like, you just everybody takes our hands off and does a laissez faire thing. And then whatever happens in the brutal course of nature happens. And I guess that's fairness, no, we're in a society, we're all linked up. We're in this together. So fairness is about floors and ceilings. It's about it's about setting, trying to balance the scales and not to determine outcomes, but just to give people a fighting chance on the starting line, you know. So anyway, I think those are four values that are almost universally shared across the United States of America that progressives have a real strong claim to, but we've decided that if you say freedom, you're talking about like this sort of Stephen Colbert cartoon version of like, a conservative and it's just like, it's preposterous. We should take those terms back as we actually believe them.
Amanda Henderson
47:15
Yeah. Yeah. This deep, like reframing of of our core values and reclaiming rather of our anymore values, simply
Ian Silverii
47:21
not allowing the other guys to have to say, we have it and you don't we stand for don't because we just let that happen.
Amanda Henderson
47:30
Yeah, yeah. All right. The most important question. Your dad? Yeah, your son is two years old. Very cute. We've already covered that. What do you hope for the world that he will grow up in? What do you imagine?
Ian Silverii
47:47
I just don't want him to get our fucking Tech Talk. I mean, like, it's like it's like, but it really is like, that's part of that
Amanda Henderson
47:53
is valid. That is valid. That's a good like,
Ian Silverii
47:56
he can scroll man. I mean, he has like a good here's a good command of raising house. And like every once in a while, he'll like end up in some strange corner of the internet and they'll kind of redirect his activity and then to we have rules like he doesn't you know, if we're like out at a restaurant or something, he can look at the phone for half an hour right? Like that's, that's not going to kill anybody like last night, bringing out a big fundraiser and I couldn't go so she brought him and she sent me this picture of him in one of those little like cozy coops like the little plastic little tykes cars with the phone and I'm like, Oh my God, he's already texting and driving and so terrible.
Amanda Henderson
48:31
You're in trouble. I want
Ian Silverii
48:35
I want the world to be a place where he shows up every day feeling like supported and loved and appreciated and understood. I want the world to be a place where he so just like a small example that may be tokenizing I hope it doesn't come off this way. His favorite fucking movie ever is Maulana he loves mana so much. When I was growing up. The the women who were centered in Disney movies were helpless damsels who were like occasionally rescued by big beefy dudes. And like then they got to marry them as their prize me to me to Mallanna is a badass young woman of color who tells her father to go fuck himself jumps on a boat and like goes exploring to see the world. The world that my kids growing up in is a world where like, general accepted content is that badass young women of color can change the world. I think that's great. I think that's a good place to start. That doesn't solve all or maybe any of our problems. But what it does is from a very young age, it teaches my white, blond, blue eyed male son, that other people can be the center of the story too. And other people can be heroes too. I think that's super fucking cool and really, really important. So I hope that that's the direction culture and society continue to go where we're not tokenized Single or in any way attempting to check boxes when we decide on what kind of stories to tell her what kind of characters to center, and what kind of media, but instead decided together that we're going to tell all the stories, and we're going to send her all the people and we're going to tell stories about people with disabilities, we're going to tell stories about people from non traditional, quote unquote, families, we're going to tell stories about queer people and heterosexual people and everything in between. And for me, it's like, you know, liberty and justice for all those last two words are like really important, right? So just like start there, like, what can we do for everybody? What can be so inclusive, that, that just can bring all the walls down, so I'm scared that he's gonna grow up in a world where he'll have to reckon with his privilege like I did. In my late in my early 30s, someone told me by the way, asshole, you're not just smart and lucky, the world was fucking built for you on purpose. And once I realized that, like, yeah, it was a heavy shot to the ego. But it also made me determined to try and help make it not that way for everybody else. Because racism and privilege hurts everybody. It makes you think that you're responsible for things you're not responsible for on the good side and the bad side, it gives you credit for things you don't deserve credit for, and it blames the wrong people for things that are going wrong. So like, that's another conversation entirely. But I just I want him to grow up in a world where he has friends have every single kind of race and gender and identity and sexuality and background orientation where he is able to be whoever he is free from oppression from the state or culture or society or his school or his principal, or his teacher or or whoever or his coach. You have more kids than I do. What do you want for them was my answer.
Amanda Henderson
51:49
I think the stay off tik toc that that was the biggest wisdom there. And well, thank you. Thank you so much. And you know that I always love talking to you and working with you. And I am taking away from our time that the strategy around fighting Christian nationalism is sure political strategy, communications, yes. And it's also just at the core, valuing our multiple ways of being and all the different kinds of people and ideas and food and culture and sports. And if we can tap into that, and listen, and speak to people as people, and keep going on with that, and with our political strategies with persistence, and optimism, that that is the way that we move through this morass that it feels like we're in. So thank you. Thank you for those nuggets of wisdom and takeaways. And I can't wait to keep this conversation going.
Ian Silverii
53:09
Gosh, that was somewhere so much more eloquent than what I said. Thank you for having me. This was super duper fun. I can't believe it's been as long as it's been already. And I love the show. I can't wait to hear more episodes, and thanks for asking me to come on it. It really was fun. It really means a lot.
Amanda Henderson
53:23
Thank you. Alright, we'll see you soon. That was Ian Silverii, the funniest political wonk I know, listen to his podcast get more smarter. And that was the last of our three episodes set on Christian nationalism. If you didn't catch the first two, go back and listen now. And then tune in next week when we start our series on religion and the Supreme Court. Thanks so much for joining us for resources and ideas you can take home to your community, visit our website in the show notes. And if anything in this conversation inspired you please share it with a friend. That is the very best way to support us. complexified is presented by the Institute for religion, politics and culture at Iliff School of Theology. Lex Dunbar is an invaluable member of our team. Also working hard behind the scenes our engineer Andrew Perrella producer Elaine Appleton grant, Tina Bassir and the rest of the crew at podcast allies. I'm Amanda Henderson.